A nurse, teaching our class of military medics how the human heart sounds, said something like this, “You’ve heard your heartbeat inside your ear, as you’re falling asleep, lying on your side.” Until that point I’m not certain I had heard my heartbeat in that fashion. Since then, that bit of information has caused mean awful lot of tossing and turning.
A student once asked, in writing, that I evaluate his required ‘ten page, double-spaced, typewritten paper,’ which he’d penned in three paragraphs on the single sheet he’d turned in that I, “Grade this with your (my) heart, not your (my) head. I penned in return, “My heart is moved. My head is unconvinced. F!”
Both the nurse and the student were on to something. There can be an amazing hypnotic effect on the mind’s voice when we focus on the steady lub-dub rhythm of our heart’s present, future leaning movement. There can be insightful perceptions, beyond the mere mental, when we focus on the heart’s lilting melody; hearing hymnody to the tempo beating, “Now, now, now, still now, now, now…”
Tuning into the heart’s voice requires stilling, not disconnecting, the mind. Becoming attuned to our heart’s poetic knowing requires both stilling and practice. We practice ways to grow quiet. We rehearse ways to absorb and to relish new awareness of our self, as self – a knowing self, a known self, a loving self, a loved self.
When ipods and cell phones, MySpace and YouTube give way to more subtle, interior intrusions real knowing can well up. From such knowing true prayer can arise:
• 5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;…(Jeremiah 1)
• 9Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast. 10On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. (Psalm 22)
• 13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. (Psalm 139).
Of such prayer conversion (turning away from X and turning toward Y) beckons: Be still, and know that I am God! (Psalm 46)
When we know that God is God we also know that we are not God. There is relief in knowing that we are cared for. There is resilience in trusting that we are lifted up and carried over – in slumber, in labor, in fretting, and in freedom. Now, now, and now, still now.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Sucking Wind, Breathing Prayer
My wife gave me a desk calendar for Christmas. Its theme is, “Our Sacred Community." It features artwork from a variety of cultures, as well as pithy saying by person from races and ethnicities other than my own. It’s published by a religious order of Catholic sisters who make the arts their primary ministry. You can check out all their cool stuff at www.ministryofthearts.org.
One of the planner’s coolest features is a brief message / suggestion for daily meditation or action which follows a monthly focus. January’s focus takes its lead from a word by Chief Seattle; The air is precious to us, for all things share the same breath – the beast, the tree the human… Last Friday’s action / reflection suggestion was, “Breathe consciously.” Today’s nearly took my breath away.
The calendar’s action / reflection suggestion for Friday, January 19th says, “Pray for our President." There you go. I was first struck by the bold face idea of it. Pray for Bush? About what? I should ask God to _____! For him?
Lord knows the man needs prayer. Jesus is his Lord and Savior, but he won’t talk to his enemies – presumably folk “his Jesus” died to save. He issues ultimatums, you’re for us, or you’re against us – presumably folk God might suggest are our brothers and sisters to keep.
Wait. There’s more. The suggestion says, Pray for our President. It implies I have a stake in this man’s holding this office at this time, in this place. How hard I’ve tried to disown myself from his social policies, and to disavow myself from his faith posture.
When I caught my breath I was reminded of another saying of Jesus recorded in Luke’s 7th chapter: “Remove the log from your own eye, so you might see the speck in your neighbor’s more clearly, before you try to remove it.”
To the extent that people of faith choose to live in the world, not of the world; inside Our Sacred Community to which God is still committed to create, to save, and to bless, then we who claim to be alert to the in-breaking of the Kingdom (Rule) of God must hail the heavenly powers to lead, guide and direct all our leaders.
To the extent that people of faith choose to live, as Luther suggests, in a reality where we are all, simultaneously, saints and sinners, then we all have some optical tending to do. I spent some time with Psalm 131:
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.
Wind-Making, Breath-Sharing God, give all of us, myself and my brother, George Bush, who claim a relationship in Christ by baptism, making our water-connection to one another thicker than our blood-connection to our own mother’s, the vision to see our relatedness, rootedness, kinship and belonging is the surest roadmap to true peace, with every breath we take, as each one is yet and still another gift from You. Amen
One of the planner’s coolest features is a brief message / suggestion for daily meditation or action which follows a monthly focus. January’s focus takes its lead from a word by Chief Seattle; The air is precious to us, for all things share the same breath – the beast, the tree the human… Last Friday’s action / reflection suggestion was, “Breathe consciously.” Today’s nearly took my breath away.
The calendar’s action / reflection suggestion for Friday, January 19th says, “Pray for our President." There you go. I was first struck by the bold face idea of it. Pray for Bush? About what? I should ask God to _____! For him?
Lord knows the man needs prayer. Jesus is his Lord and Savior, but he won’t talk to his enemies – presumably folk “his Jesus” died to save. He issues ultimatums, you’re for us, or you’re against us – presumably folk God might suggest are our brothers and sisters to keep.
Wait. There’s more. The suggestion says, Pray for our President. It implies I have a stake in this man’s holding this office at this time, in this place. How hard I’ve tried to disown myself from his social policies, and to disavow myself from his faith posture.
When I caught my breath I was reminded of another saying of Jesus recorded in Luke’s 7th chapter: “Remove the log from your own eye, so you might see the speck in your neighbor’s more clearly, before you try to remove it.”
To the extent that people of faith choose to live in the world, not of the world; inside Our Sacred Community to which God is still committed to create, to save, and to bless, then we who claim to be alert to the in-breaking of the Kingdom (Rule) of God must hail the heavenly powers to lead, guide and direct all our leaders.
To the extent that people of faith choose to live, as Luther suggests, in a reality where we are all, simultaneously, saints and sinners, then we all have some optical tending to do. I spent some time with Psalm 131:
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.
Wind-Making, Breath-Sharing God, give all of us, myself and my brother, George Bush, who claim a relationship in Christ by baptism, making our water-connection to one another thicker than our blood-connection to our own mother’s, the vision to see our relatedness, rootedness, kinship and belonging is the surest roadmap to true peace, with every breath we take, as each one is yet and still another gift from You. Amen
Monday, January 15, 2007
Dr. King Was ALL WET!
For the next day or so we’ll all be very much reminded of both the achievements and the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He’s been gone long enough that, among the many lofty remembrances, we're likely to hear more about his clay feet.
We’ll be told that he was:
• reluctant to lead the Montgomery bus boycott
• hesitant about becoming president of the SCLC
• worried his opposing the Viet Nam war would dilute his message at home
• cautious with militant leaders like those in SNCC and the Black Panthers
• uneasy about supporting the sanitation workers in Memphis.
Of course, we may also be reminded of his darker side, as revealed by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance apparatus.
What’s most often left out of the larger-than-life King story, or the diss and trash King tales as well, is a central feature of his personal character. Martin Luther King, Jr., was baptized a Christian. He was ALL wet! His identity, his becoming, his personhood, was shaped by that claim.
I’m not talking about the claim King made, that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior. I’m talking about the claim God made on Dr. King. When the waters rushed over him and King’s pastor spoke the words of that ancient formula, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” that church community claimed with and for the boy King the promise God holds and makes for all of us. Namely, “You are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
From that moment on what propelled Dr. King, despite his very human ambitions, aspirations, goals, doubts, fears, jealousies, worries, hopes, dreams, and sinfulness, was his understanding that before he was anything else, he was a beloved child of God. As such, Dr. King, like us, struggled to lean into the promise that God would never abandon him, and attempted to lean onto the promise that God would always find a way to lead and feed him.
See, God’s leading and God’s feeding called Dr. King, and calls each of us, to grow and to become the person God sees when God looks at us through the baptized Messiah Jesus, on whom the Spirit of God came to rest near the Jordan. I know we don’t usually talk this way about Jesus, about baptism, and about the Holy Spirit. That’s too bad.
See, most of us have been taught to think that what sets Christians, i.e., the baptized, apart from those who are not disciples of Jesus are the doctrines we say we believe. We reinforce that silly notion when we act as though being a Christian is mostly about remembering long ago persons, places, events and details that sound, frankly, rather absurd.
We seem more interested in demonstrating to the world that we can pass a quiz that asks:
• did the sky really open
• was the Spirit appearing as a buzzard, eagle, or dove
• how many were crucified on Golgotha with Jesus
• who found the empty tomb
• is Jesus’ really raised from the dead
• what does it mean to say Jesus is in the bread and wine?
Not only that, we seem to say that our passing the quiz is what God is most interested in. More than that, in our smugness, we encourage the world to think that because we can pass the quiz God will reward us by taking us to heaven when we die.
We don’t live in the time or place of Jesus. We live here and now. This time is after the walking Jesus, alive, dead and raised, is long gone. We live in the time that the Gospel of John tells us Jesus talked about when he said the things he did right before he died:
• I will not leave you orphans
• In a little while you will see me no longer
• Where I am going you cannot follow
• If I do not go the Advocate (Spirit) will not come.
We remember that it was God who sent the Spirit on Jesus, not to make him God, but to equip Jesus for his life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making mission and ministry. Jesus’ baptism was the occasion and the encounter for his turning away from his own interests and turning toward God’s otherwise vision for the whole cosmos. So it was for Dr. King. So it is for us.
Baptism is still the way God makes God’s claim on us – enabling us to be ALL wet. Baptism is still the occasion and the encounter by which God invites us to turn away from our own interests and join God’s otherwise vision for the cosmos – to leave WET footprints in our wake. Baptism is still the way God’s Spirit comes to us and equips us to join God’s saving work, begun in Jesus – empowering us to be ALL wet.
Like as not we’ll walk our discipleship, as Dr. King did, with very human ambitions, aspirations, goals, doubts, fears, jealousies, worries, hopes, dreams, and sinfulness. We also come to our Baptism, like Dr. King and like Jesus, as those whom God chooses to love and accept even before we do anything.
Do you see that? Before Jesus:
• has completely left his old ways
• fights Satan’s temptations in the desert
• preaches, teaches, or works miracles
• dies on the cross
• is raised from the dead
God calls this Spirit-filled Jesus, my beloved; in whom I am well pleased.
Author Ann Lamott says, “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay this way.” Baptism is our immersion into the amniotic fluids, those birth waters, by which God loves us out of staying inside our old ways and loves us into life in, with, and under God’s otherwise ways.
Living this way means we abide with Jesus as a branch abides (lives and brings forth fruit) in the vine. Living this way means we love one another as Jesus loves us (enough to lay down our life for the well being of another). Living this way means the world may not approve of our beliefs, nor applaud what we do because of what we believe If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world — therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18-19).
Jesus is no longer walking tall, and Dr. King is no longer walking at all. The only beloved ones on scene to live the abundant life Jesus came to make available, the only beloved ones still here to do even greater works than Jesus did, and the only ones left to walk ALL WET are us!
The clear and honest record of Dr. King’s and Jesus’ histories tells us that having walked in the Spirit throughout their lives, they each beheld a vision the night before they died. What lifted each of them up and carried them through the horror of the next day’s afternoon was their complete trust in the very talking God who spoke these words to Isaiah:
But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:1-3).
This God, whose voice spoke in ways that the quietly praying Isaiah, Dr. King and Jesus heard, still speaks to us on whom the Spirit of God rests. In the quiet of our own hearts we know what waters God would have us pass through. In the quiet of our souls, gathered together here, we know what fire God needs us to walk through.
We know we’re neither movement leaders like Dr. King nor messiahs like Jesus. Still, Spirit led and Spirit fed, God has laid a claim on the smallness of our beings to grow into the grandeur and the greatness that belongs to all those whose walking ALL WET, by grace through faith, keep on Sharin’ Plenty Good News to all God’s last, lost, least, and little whom God sent Jesus and his disciples to set the captives free!
We’ll be told that he was:
• reluctant to lead the Montgomery bus boycott
• hesitant about becoming president of the SCLC
• worried his opposing the Viet Nam war would dilute his message at home
• cautious with militant leaders like those in SNCC and the Black Panthers
• uneasy about supporting the sanitation workers in Memphis.
Of course, we may also be reminded of his darker side, as revealed by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance apparatus.
What’s most often left out of the larger-than-life King story, or the diss and trash King tales as well, is a central feature of his personal character. Martin Luther King, Jr., was baptized a Christian. He was ALL wet! His identity, his becoming, his personhood, was shaped by that claim.
I’m not talking about the claim King made, that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior. I’m talking about the claim God made on Dr. King. When the waters rushed over him and King’s pastor spoke the words of that ancient formula, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” that church community claimed with and for the boy King the promise God holds and makes for all of us. Namely, “You are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
From that moment on what propelled Dr. King, despite his very human ambitions, aspirations, goals, doubts, fears, jealousies, worries, hopes, dreams, and sinfulness, was his understanding that before he was anything else, he was a beloved child of God. As such, Dr. King, like us, struggled to lean into the promise that God would never abandon him, and attempted to lean onto the promise that God would always find a way to lead and feed him.
See, God’s leading and God’s feeding called Dr. King, and calls each of us, to grow and to become the person God sees when God looks at us through the baptized Messiah Jesus, on whom the Spirit of God came to rest near the Jordan. I know we don’t usually talk this way about Jesus, about baptism, and about the Holy Spirit. That’s too bad.
See, most of us have been taught to think that what sets Christians, i.e., the baptized, apart from those who are not disciples of Jesus are the doctrines we say we believe. We reinforce that silly notion when we act as though being a Christian is mostly about remembering long ago persons, places, events and details that sound, frankly, rather absurd.
We seem more interested in demonstrating to the world that we can pass a quiz that asks:
• did the sky really open
• was the Spirit appearing as a buzzard, eagle, or dove
• how many were crucified on Golgotha with Jesus
• who found the empty tomb
• is Jesus’ really raised from the dead
• what does it mean to say Jesus is in the bread and wine?
Not only that, we seem to say that our passing the quiz is what God is most interested in. More than that, in our smugness, we encourage the world to think that because we can pass the quiz God will reward us by taking us to heaven when we die.
We don’t live in the time or place of Jesus. We live here and now. This time is after the walking Jesus, alive, dead and raised, is long gone. We live in the time that the Gospel of John tells us Jesus talked about when he said the things he did right before he died:
• I will not leave you orphans
• In a little while you will see me no longer
• Where I am going you cannot follow
• If I do not go the Advocate (Spirit) will not come.
We remember that it was God who sent the Spirit on Jesus, not to make him God, but to equip Jesus for his life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making mission and ministry. Jesus’ baptism was the occasion and the encounter for his turning away from his own interests and turning toward God’s otherwise vision for the whole cosmos. So it was for Dr. King. So it is for us.
Baptism is still the way God makes God’s claim on us – enabling us to be ALL wet. Baptism is still the occasion and the encounter by which God invites us to turn away from our own interests and join God’s otherwise vision for the cosmos – to leave WET footprints in our wake. Baptism is still the way God’s Spirit comes to us and equips us to join God’s saving work, begun in Jesus – empowering us to be ALL wet.
Like as not we’ll walk our discipleship, as Dr. King did, with very human ambitions, aspirations, goals, doubts, fears, jealousies, worries, hopes, dreams, and sinfulness. We also come to our Baptism, like Dr. King and like Jesus, as those whom God chooses to love and accept even before we do anything.
Do you see that? Before Jesus:
• has completely left his old ways
• fights Satan’s temptations in the desert
• preaches, teaches, or works miracles
• dies on the cross
• is raised from the dead
God calls this Spirit-filled Jesus, my beloved; in whom I am well pleased.
Author Ann Lamott says, “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay this way.” Baptism is our immersion into the amniotic fluids, those birth waters, by which God loves us out of staying inside our old ways and loves us into life in, with, and under God’s otherwise ways.
Living this way means we abide with Jesus as a branch abides (lives and brings forth fruit) in the vine. Living this way means we love one another as Jesus loves us (enough to lay down our life for the well being of another). Living this way means the world may not approve of our beliefs, nor applaud what we do because of what we believe If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world — therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18-19).
Jesus is no longer walking tall, and Dr. King is no longer walking at all. The only beloved ones on scene to live the abundant life Jesus came to make available, the only beloved ones still here to do even greater works than Jesus did, and the only ones left to walk ALL WET are us!
The clear and honest record of Dr. King’s and Jesus’ histories tells us that having walked in the Spirit throughout their lives, they each beheld a vision the night before they died. What lifted each of them up and carried them through the horror of the next day’s afternoon was their complete trust in the very talking God who spoke these words to Isaiah:
But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:1-3).
This God, whose voice spoke in ways that the quietly praying Isaiah, Dr. King and Jesus heard, still speaks to us on whom the Spirit of God rests. In the quiet of our own hearts we know what waters God would have us pass through. In the quiet of our souls, gathered together here, we know what fire God needs us to walk through.
We know we’re neither movement leaders like Dr. King nor messiahs like Jesus. Still, Spirit led and Spirit fed, God has laid a claim on the smallness of our beings to grow into the grandeur and the greatness that belongs to all those whose walking ALL WET, by grace through faith, keep on Sharin’ Plenty Good News to all God’s last, lost, least, and little whom God sent Jesus and his disciples to set the captives free!
Friday, January 12, 2007
God's Clearest Signs Point to Another Way
When God sends you a sign it will make sense to you. Now the Magi understood stars. Magi looked for and understood signs in the sky; a special star, or a super-nova, or a comet, made sense to them.
Matthew's second chapter tells us they came from the East and that they saw the star in the East (or at its rising). The sign came to them where they were. God got their attention in a way that they could understand and in the place they were at. The difference between these strange, gift-giving visitors and those folks in the palace - King Herod, the priests and scribes -wasn't so much the difference between believers and non-believers. The difference was in the attitudes and actions of Herod and his religious courtiers.
The complacent elites distrusted God's interest in doing anything new. So their murderous actions, and inaction, hindered God's work and strengthened the oppressive powers Jesus preached against. The Magi, on the other hand, these strangers to Israel's faith, are mobile. That is, they're not afraid to move out of their settled ways. So God's new creation expands through these folks who - with neither power, nor knowledge of all that God has done with Israel up to this point (see Micah 5:2; 2 Sam 5:2) - witness the dawning of God's new age.
That's what Matthew's been saying from the opening verses of his Gospel. To powerless women like Mary and marginal men like Joseph; now to Gentile star-chasers, God sends messengers, messages, dreams, and visions. And as these folks living on society's margins embrace God's purposes, God is able to do astounding things.
After their visit, and warned in a dream, the wise men "left for their own country by another road" (Matt 2:12). The Greek word hodos is often translated as, road. That's its primary meaning. But its secondary meaning is, course of conduct, or a way of thinking, feeling, deciding. It’s that secondary meaning is clearer in the King James Version which translates this verse, "they left for their own country by another way" (KJV).
Like as not Matthew is trying to convey a double-meaning here. It does mean that the Magi went home by another route and avoided seeing Herod again. But I also think Matthew wants us to understand that the Magi went home "another way." In the Book of Acts, Luke records that Jesus' earliest followers were called people of the Way (9:2; 18:23, 26; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14). After being with baby Jesus, the Magi were changed. They no longer acted the “way” they had before. They went home "another way."
Part of the new way they discovered is how God would be King, not through their previous understandings or assumptions - which had taken them to the palace in Jerusalem. They discovered the new King through God's revelations to them - both through the star and through scriptures (as proclaimed by the religious leaders loyal to Herod).
See, knowing the scripture isn’t enough. Those settled folks in the palace could, without doubt, beat anybody in town, especially these foreigners, at Bible Trivial Pursuit. But, as Matthew tells the story, it's only these foreign unbelievers who take the scripture to heart. And it changes their heart, gives them a new heart – repentant / turning hearts. They turn away from their old ways, embrace the new thing God is doing - travel home "another way."
What about you? Each week First Trinity becomes a Bethlehem - a House of Bread. That's what the Hebrew word Bethlehem means. Each week, in Holy Communion, we take in the very body and blood of the newborn King. We commune because Christ commanded as much. And we trust communing strengthens us to change the way we go home.
We hope communing will make us more mobile in our thinking, acting and deciding. It's a sign of God's love we understand because we taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
No, God doesn't need us to commune. We need it! We need frequent signs from God that speak of nourishment, growth, and providence - like the manna in the desert. Just as that everyday food freed Israel to go a new way, we already see and feel ourselves traveling by God's other way. There's plenty of God’s journey food to go around. Are you ready for "another way?" We'd love to share it with you, too!
Matthew's second chapter tells us they came from the East and that they saw the star in the East (or at its rising). The sign came to them where they were. God got their attention in a way that they could understand and in the place they were at. The difference between these strange, gift-giving visitors and those folks in the palace - King Herod, the priests and scribes -wasn't so much the difference between believers and non-believers. The difference was in the attitudes and actions of Herod and his religious courtiers.
The complacent elites distrusted God's interest in doing anything new. So their murderous actions, and inaction, hindered God's work and strengthened the oppressive powers Jesus preached against. The Magi, on the other hand, these strangers to Israel's faith, are mobile. That is, they're not afraid to move out of their settled ways. So God's new creation expands through these folks who - with neither power, nor knowledge of all that God has done with Israel up to this point (see Micah 5:2; 2 Sam 5:2) - witness the dawning of God's new age.
That's what Matthew's been saying from the opening verses of his Gospel. To powerless women like Mary and marginal men like Joseph; now to Gentile star-chasers, God sends messengers, messages, dreams, and visions. And as these folks living on society's margins embrace God's purposes, God is able to do astounding things.
After their visit, and warned in a dream, the wise men "left for their own country by another road" (Matt 2:12). The Greek word hodos is often translated as, road. That's its primary meaning. But its secondary meaning is, course of conduct, or a way of thinking, feeling, deciding. It’s that secondary meaning is clearer in the King James Version which translates this verse, "they left for their own country by another way" (KJV).
Like as not Matthew is trying to convey a double-meaning here. It does mean that the Magi went home by another route and avoided seeing Herod again. But I also think Matthew wants us to understand that the Magi went home "another way." In the Book of Acts, Luke records that Jesus' earliest followers were called people of the Way (9:2; 18:23, 26; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14). After being with baby Jesus, the Magi were changed. They no longer acted the “way” they had before. They went home "another way."
Part of the new way they discovered is how God would be King, not through their previous understandings or assumptions - which had taken them to the palace in Jerusalem. They discovered the new King through God's revelations to them - both through the star and through scriptures (as proclaimed by the religious leaders loyal to Herod).
See, knowing the scripture isn’t enough. Those settled folks in the palace could, without doubt, beat anybody in town, especially these foreigners, at Bible Trivial Pursuit. But, as Matthew tells the story, it's only these foreign unbelievers who take the scripture to heart. And it changes their heart, gives them a new heart – repentant / turning hearts. They turn away from their old ways, embrace the new thing God is doing - travel home "another way."
What about you? Each week First Trinity becomes a Bethlehem - a House of Bread. That's what the Hebrew word Bethlehem means. Each week, in Holy Communion, we take in the very body and blood of the newborn King. We commune because Christ commanded as much. And we trust communing strengthens us to change the way we go home.
We hope communing will make us more mobile in our thinking, acting and deciding. It's a sign of God's love we understand because we taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
No, God doesn't need us to commune. We need it! We need frequent signs from God that speak of nourishment, growth, and providence - like the manna in the desert. Just as that everyday food freed Israel to go a new way, we already see and feel ourselves traveling by God's other way. There's plenty of God’s journey food to go around. Are you ready for "another way?" We'd love to share it with you, too!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Having and Making a Happy New Year
Hollywood, along with Madison Avenue advertisers, intends to go to the bank in the New Year based on a single belief - consumers are creatures of habit. More than a dozen "new" movies set for release in 2007 are sequels. We're expected to pony up big dollars to watch the 23rd adventure of James Bond. Look, too, for more Shrek, Sponge Bob and Spiderman. While a few newly minted products will come available, most will be knock-off's, like fruity soft drinks, and "new and improved" versions of old stand-bys.
Is there a way your New Year could be less of the same? How might the year 2007 be more than a single, new digit we note on bank drafts?
Epiphany's Wise Men offer a process. These folks didn't bump into the manger scene. They were led there. And they were able to be led because they were seeking, expecting and watching for something new. They were certainly grounded in their own time and place, but they weren't stuck there. Their minds were open; their eyes were on the horizon and beyond; and, their hearts were longing for adventure.
They followed, as I see it, a four-step process. First, they wanted something different and stated it clearly. Second, they knew exactly what they were willing to "give up" in order to get what they wanted. Third, they had a sense of timing, that is, they knew it was "now or never." Fourth, from the beginning, they held onto a vision for how they would recognize when they got what they were after.
It's a process we might employ - as persons and as a faith community - to ensure that 2007 is more than a sequel, better than a new label on an old product.
What do you want to be different: at home, in prayer, where you work, in the congregation, among your neighbors, as you stand before God, the ways you spend free time, within the confines of your neighborhood, and in your relationships?
What are you willing to "give up," "put in," or, "do differently" to live in the vision?
Why is NOW a good time, not necessarily the best time, to move toward this new reality? How will you know when you've got what you're after? That is, how will you, your relationships, and your world look when you've "arrived?"
Notice, please, that there were THREE wise ones. They didn't travel independently. They found trusted others to walk with. No doubt they offered one another encouragement, support, and held one another accountable for staying on course. Seeing, walking, and traveling together is a big part of how we, by grace through faith, keep on Sharin' Plenty God News!
If you haven't looked, lately, to see the star God is shining on you and for you, you run the risk of spending the New Year the way Bill Murray spent Ground Hog's Day. It's much more grace-filled, godly, and joyful to celebrate than it is to hibernate!
Have, and MAKE, a Happy New Year.
Is there a way your New Year could be less of the same? How might the year 2007 be more than a single, new digit we note on bank drafts?
Epiphany's Wise Men offer a process. These folks didn't bump into the manger scene. They were led there. And they were able to be led because they were seeking, expecting and watching for something new. They were certainly grounded in their own time and place, but they weren't stuck there. Their minds were open; their eyes were on the horizon and beyond; and, their hearts were longing for adventure.
They followed, as I see it, a four-step process. First, they wanted something different and stated it clearly. Second, they knew exactly what they were willing to "give up" in order to get what they wanted. Third, they had a sense of timing, that is, they knew it was "now or never." Fourth, from the beginning, they held onto a vision for how they would recognize when they got what they were after.
It's a process we might employ - as persons and as a faith community - to ensure that 2007 is more than a sequel, better than a new label on an old product.
What do you want to be different: at home, in prayer, where you work, in the congregation, among your neighbors, as you stand before God, the ways you spend free time, within the confines of your neighborhood, and in your relationships?
What are you willing to "give up," "put in," or, "do differently" to live in the vision?
Why is NOW a good time, not necessarily the best time, to move toward this new reality? How will you know when you've got what you're after? That is, how will you, your relationships, and your world look when you've "arrived?"
Notice, please, that there were THREE wise ones. They didn't travel independently. They found trusted others to walk with. No doubt they offered one another encouragement, support, and held one another accountable for staying on course. Seeing, walking, and traveling together is a big part of how we, by grace through faith, keep on Sharin' Plenty God News!
If you haven't looked, lately, to see the star God is shining on you and for you, you run the risk of spending the New Year the way Bill Murray spent Ground Hog's Day. It's much more grace-filled, godly, and joyful to celebrate than it is to hibernate!
Have, and MAKE, a Happy New Year.
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