Look and Live

Good Monday, my friends. As we step into this week, what are you hoping for? Is your view of the world coming into focus through the lens of God’s kingdom?

In one of our ancient faith stories (we read this bit of it yesterday in our worship service), God’s people have a snake problem. God has literally freed these folks from slavery and oppression. God gave them food to eat, a community (although mobile, a community none the less) in which to live, and asked them to follow, that God would lead them. And they still complained.

Perhaps their idea of freedom was to live in the palaces of the very people who had oppressed them. Perhaps their idea of freedom involved holding power over others as it had been held over them, using other people for their own gain. Whatever it was, the life God had given them wasn’t enough for them and so they convinced themselves that “going back to normal” was preferable to following God.

By their own poor vision, they put themselves in danger. And so they cried out and asked God to take away the danger and what I find so interesting is that God didn’t remove the danger. God didn’t take the snakes away but God did give them the cure: to face their own egos that convinced them that “God isn’t enough.”

You see, the dangers in this life are the results and consequences of our own doing. Like the ancient Israelites, we look for our life’s purpose as anything other than following God. We see following God as a means to an end, rather than life itself. And then we cry out to God when things go wrong. We complain to God when things aren’t going as we think they should. And God hears us and says, “follow me, my beloved.”

That’s the good news! God remains faithful to us even when we aren’t faithful to God. Jesus says when we follow God we are living and that when we choose our own way that is death. When we are willing to look at those bits of our ego that cause us to think God isn’t enough, God heals us and restores us to the everlasting life we are created for.

I pray this isn’t too much for a Monday morning and that your day is filled with the awareness of the presence of God with you always. I pray for all of us as we continue to have our vision fine tuned by God’s Love. Let me know how you are doing and how specifically I can pray for you.

Life and Love

The readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent: http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent4_RCL.htmlhttp://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent4_RCL.html

I love it when in the Lectionary the appointed New Testament reading is Paul preaching for me! Not so much because it makes my job easy but because it reminds me that this struggle of what it means to be God’s beloved and follow Jesus isn’t new. Everyone who has come before – even those who witnessed Jesus’ ministry directly – had the same struggles. The struggle is real.

It seems so simple to say God loves us and Jesus shows us how to reveal that love to everyone! Living it isn’t so easy. Our egos telling us either we aren’t good enough or that we can do better than God’s plan are formidable obstacles to walking in God’s love. We are inundated with thousands of messages a day that tell us if we just bought the right car, wear the right closes, use the right gym or the right wrinkle cream, had new furniture and the latest gadget, we’d be living. We intentionally keep ourselves over-busy because we want to show we are successful. We live as if we had something to prove.

And with all this noise, noise, noise, noise we can’t hear God saying “that’s not the life I created you to live. You don’t have to try so hard to live. You are my accomplishment. Let go of the struggling. Live the life of love I created you for and you will do good things so that others see me in you. Let it be enough. It is enough. You are enough as you are.”

God loves us all so very much, beyond measure, without measure, and came to us as Jesus to show us the abundance of life we are made for, to show us that this thing we call death isn’t something we should live in fear of because it isn’t the main point of the story. Jesus came to show us that love is the most powerful force in God’s creation. Love, as God loves, is the only thing that can change the world. This love is the source of life, the bread of life that Jesus gives us. This love is what we are created from and for.

God loves. No caveats, no conditions, no exceptions. And when this good news grabs hold of our hearts we live for no other reason than to reveal that love to others. The cars and clothes and gadgets and wrinkle creams are put in their rightful place as things we enjoy because we know they aren’t the source of life. We stop needing to prove ourselves because we know that we are God’s beloved. We learn to recognize the struggle and can step away from it.

God loves. It is a simple message. We are the ones who complicate it. Humans have been complicating it since the beginning of creation. Let God love you as you are, where you are. Imagine you received the letter from Paul in the mail and let it speak directly to you.

God loves. Live.

Bigger than Ourselves

Yesterday we talked about the purpose of our faith practices is to enable us to remember, to be reminded of who God is and who we are as God’s beloved children. To remember is to be re-membered, re-connected with who and what has come before us so that we never forget that we are a part of something so much bigger than ourselves.

In the faith tradition I journey in, we talk about scripture, tradition, and reason as the tools necessary for us to both remember and discover in our ongoing journey of following Jesus in God’s kingdom.

The Holy Scriptures are the writings that have been handed down to us in the form that we refer to as the Bible, inspired by God and penned and compiled by godly people to instruct and inform others in their relationship with God as they’ve directly witnessed God’s revelation on earth.

By Tradition we mean the history of God’s beloved children as each generation through time (including our own) has sought to love God, their neighbors, and themselves in the circumstances in which they found themselves and have recorded their experiences and wisdom for our edification.

Reason is our God-given ability to work out, in conjunction with our Holy Scriptures and the Traditions of our faith, what it is to follow Jesus, loving God and our neighbor in our day and time.

The stories of our faith ancestors aren’t intended to confine us or restrict us to “the way we’ve always done it” but are gifts we use to expand our thinking and our vision as we grow into who God created us to be. When we settle into the idea that we’ve got things all figured out, we’ve lost our way.

As we continue our Lenten journey toward Holy Week, let’s talk more about how we see the world around us as we seek to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves in our time and place.

And, on this lovely Saturday morning, I pray that you are able to witness God’s glory and express your gratefulness in community worship this weekend either in-person if it is safe to do so or through the wonderful technologies that keep us together while we are apart. God’s peace be with you, my friends.

Asking Why

I love to tell the story of the young father who was teaching his kids how to prepare Great Grandma’s Famous Family Pot Roast. He proudly and with great ceremony retrieved the roasting pan from the cupboard and the roast from the fridge. Using the largest knife, he carefully cut a slice from the end of the roast, wrapped it and returned it the the fridge. “Why did you do that?” his middle son asks. With the most puzzled of looks, the dad responds, “I don’t know, I guess because that’s how I was taught to do it.” The oldest daughter picks up the phone and calls her grandmother whose own response is the same, “I don’t know, it’s what my mother always did.” Undeterred, the girl thanks her grandmother and dials again, “GG, why do we cut the end off the roast before cooking it?” After a moment of silence, GG says, “I don’t know why you do it but your great grandpa always bought a roast bigger than we needed so there’d be extra for his famous beef tips and mashed potatoes the next day. They all look at each other in disbelief as she politely thanked GG and said good bye. Finally, the youngest says, “Daddy, can we have beef tips tonight and roast tomorrow?”

So many of our routines and habits are often just on autopilot. And while this may serve us well in some instances (I mean who really needs to think about brushing their teeth or washing dishes), at other times it can cause us to miss out on something really good.

In the stories of our most ancient faith ancestors, God instructs them to conduct festivals and feasts so that they and their children and their children’s children will remember certain things: remember who God is, remember who they are, remember all that God has done for them. When Jesus instructs the disciples during the last meal he eats with them, he says to do what he’s shown them in order to remember.

Remembering isn’t being stuck in the past, but letting what has come before inform and shape us as we continuously grow. As we acknowledge and celebrate the feasts and festivals of our faith, we let ourselves be reminded of who God is and who we are in relationship with God.

What faith practices are you less than intentional with? When was the last time you asked with curiosity and courage “Why do we do that?”

Contained

Before we get into today’s reflection, let’s just check in for a bit: How are you doing on this Lenten journey? How are these reflections speaking into the circumstances in which you find yourself?

Do you recall this post from last week about the cross displayed in a box? As I continued to ponder why someone would leave a holding cross neatly contained in the original gift box, I was reminded of another containment scene I came across in a church lobby (or narthex or foyer depending on your tradition – you know that space you enter before entering the main worship space where you are greeted and handed a worship bulletin). On the wall, beside the big double doors to the worship space hung a small clear acrylic box containing a heavily tarnished silver plate and chalice. There is no sign or placard or information of any kind to inform what these items are, where they came from, or their significance to explain why they’d been encased and hung up.

I supposed when I saw them that they were the items used in Holy Communion at some point in the history of this particular worship community and I’m sure someone in the community knew the story but I wondered what visitors who didn’t know any history of this place or the Church in general thought when they noticed the display.

In the Post Communion Prayer – what we pray together as a worshiping community after we have all received Communion together – from the Book of Common Prayer, we ask God to send us, nourished with the spiritual food of the sacrament, “into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart.” All that we do in our form of worship is to equip us to be God’s people and reveal God’s love to the world.

In what ways do you experience the benefits of the sacrament in the ordinary moments of your day?

Do you ever find yourself feeling like you left the benefits of the sacrament contained in a box at the church door?

Toward Normal

Why do we say “back to normal”? Can’t normal be in front of us?

Over the past year as just about everything I thought I knew about anything changed, I’ve been training myself to use typical or regular instead of normal. The word normal seems stuck in time, immoveable, riveted in place. Perhaps it is the phrase ‘back to normal’ that has brought about this static connotation.

Or perhaps it’s that so many of us believe that normal is actually something that can be defined and achieved and that anything outside of our defined and carefully crafted normal is defined as bad or wrong (don’t we only use the word abnormal to mean bad rather than just atypical?). If normal never changed, we’d all still be living as our original ancestors did. If normal never changed we wouldn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing or clean water or cars or planes or the internet.

I think what most folks mean when they say “back to normal” is “back to my comfort zone”. This past year has disrupted everything and we are desperately seeking comfort. We remember what being comforted feels like so we think it must be somewhere in our past.

For Jesus’ Followers I do think that normal is always in front of us. Life isn’t static. The life Jesus calls us to is one of continued growth and formation. Normal in God’s kingdom is following Jesus as we learn each day how to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves on earth as it is in heaven.

In his letter to the church in the city of Philippi, Paul says “I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”

Do you hear God’s voice beckoning you to find comfort and peace and hope in following Jesus?

Off Balance

Once upon a time in my younger years, I injured a disc in my lower back. My doc recommended me to a physical therapist who had helped other patients avoid back surgery with exercise. Even though I’ve never described myself as athletic and in general ‘exercise’ is not my activity of choice (I only exercise if it’s disguised as something else, like taking the dog for a walk, or having a conversation with someone while walking, or walking with the goal of actually getting somewhere, or doing my daily treadmill time so that I can listen to my favorite podcasts uninterrupted), I decided avoiding surgery was worth it. So I showed up at the PT place three days a week to learn to exercise for the benefit of my back. The majority of my time there was spent walking backwards on the treadmill. It’s not near as easy as it sounds, either physically or mentally. We can all take a few steps backwards at a time but generally when we do so we are preparing to turn around and face forward as we continue our locomotion.

It took a lot of concentration to make my muscles and joints work in an unusual way for a sustained period of time. It upset my sense of balance and I had to hold on the handrails the entire time. And although over time it did become slightly easier it was never easy or natural like walking forward.

Through our conversations about following Jesus I often say that ours is a faith of movement and going forward. AND, our journey involves times of stillness and times of rest. AND, our journey requires that we are aware of what’s behind us without being inhibited by it. It’s a balance thing.

Time/Life/Seasons/God’s Kingdom continuously moves forward whether we are facing forward or not. Every step, every moment of our journey impacts and influences the next one. We can’t deny what’s come before AND we can only effectively move forward by looking forward. Attempting to walk backwards for sustained periods of time makes us prone to being knocked off balance.

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Book of Common Prayer, page 100

Jesus offers us the invitation “follow me” not to ignore or deny our past but to show us The Way of life in which we are enabled to continuously live and move and have our being in God.

What behind you is knocking you off balance or distracting you from moving forward?

The Rhythm of Today

Here it is we find ourselves on a Monday morning again, the cycle of God’s creation always moving from one day to the next, one week, month, season, and year. Even with the cooler temperatures of early March, I’m noticing the longer days as we move closer toward the Spring equinox.

Did you know that Easter, the day each year we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, is calculated by the Spring? Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox (see page 15 of the Book of Common Prayer). That’s why it’s on a different day each year. The first time I shared this with someone, they laughed and said I was sounding quite pagan. Sometimes our fancy printed and electronic calendars cause us to lose sight of God’s intended rhythms and cycles.

The cycles and seasons of life, in creation and on our calendars, aren’t intended to keep us in an endless video loop or perpetual Groundhog Day but to ground us in God’s design. Nights with rest prepare us for dawn, the quiet and stillness of dawn enable us to hear God’s voice, the regular work of our days continuously builds God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. The rest and worship of Sunday prepare and equip us for the days of the week to come. Winter prepares creation for the renewal of spring, spring brings rebirth and new growth as we journey through the growing season of Summer into the harvest of Fall.

This year, especially because so many of our own rhythms and cycles and seasons have been disrupted, focusing on the God designed rhythms around us will enable us to remain grounded in God’s Kingdom. As we move into Spring and toward Easter, let’s continue to ask God and ourselves what it is we need to stop looking behind us for.

Jesus once told someone who was contemplating following him, “No procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.1” Following Jesus, coffee in hand and a growing awareness of God’s presence with us in all that we do, let’s continue to journey on earth as it is in heaven.

Together with God, let’s look toward what is to come: a new day, this day, today in God’s Kingdom, full of hope and love.

1I highly recommend Os Guinness’s book Carpe Diem Redeemed: Seizing the Day, Discerning the Times.

A Prayer for Today

For the Third Sunday in Lent. http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html

For those who may not know, the prayer that I post every week comes from the Book of Common Prayer and there is a specific prayer for each Sunday of the year (and other special days). I started posting the Sunday prayers on Facebook years ago for the season of Lent.

One of the things I love about our Episcopal liturgy (fancy church word for the pattern of our worship services) is that through it we are tied to every other Episcopal church as well as all churches within the Anglican Communion worldwide. It is a way of remembering that we are part of something so much bigger than ourselves.

And although I do think that these prayers always speak into our lives, sometimes it’s just so painfully obvious with specific current events, it feels like these long used words were crafted for just this moment in time. Like today, for instance.

“Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

We are still in the throws of a worldwide pandemic. While, yes, the number of people who are positive for COVID19 each week is far less than in December and January, they are on the rise again. The good news is that more and more folks are being vaccinated (please, for the sake of all of us, get your vaccine as soon as you are able). But, the health experts and scientists across the country are saying we are not out of the woods yet, and that the reason the overall numbers are down since December and January is that we’ve been wearing masks, avoiding crowded places, physical distancing, and washing our hands. These things are working to get the virus under control and we need to keep doing them.

And, yet, officially, the governor our state of Texas is lifting the mask mandate and allowing all businesses to open at full capacity this next week. In his announcement he was far more animated about reopening and unmasking than he was about his caution to continue to wear a mask and keep distant. This recommendation was lost in the exuberance of the first part of the announcement that Texas is open again.

In the telling of the good news story today, our friend John tells the tale of Jesus encountering people profiting from other’s desire to serve God. These supposedly religious people had imposed their own economy on God’s house. The folks who wanted to serve God had just become another commodity in their transactional worldview, a worldview that brings both physical adversity and spiritual assaults and hurt.

As we follow Jesus both already in and always moving toward God’s Kingdom, Jesus show us that the economy of the kingdom is grounded in loving action and built of relationships. I think so much of the time we forget that without each other and our neighbors, we wouldn’t have businesses to open and manage. People have become just another commodity in the transactional worldview. We use people to get the things we love rather than loving people and using things. We’ve forgotten we are part of something so much bigger than ourselves and in our forgetting we harm our bodies and souls.

And, so, I get to my point about today’s prayer hitting home. This virus is definitely an adversity to our bodies. The debates and arguments about what we as individuals should do assault our souls. Unless I, with God’s help, see this situation through the lens of compassion, I’ll focus on my anger at the governor and I’ll catch myself passing judgement on folks who stop wearing masks and avoiding crowds. And my anger and judgement assaults and hurts all of our souls and so I must decide to let go of the anger and see with compassion the bigger picture because I am part of something so much bigger – I am a beloved child of God living in God’s Kingdom. You are., too. We all are.

People need to get their businesses fully open. We all need more social, in-person interaction than what we currently have. Children and students of all ages benefit from in-person learning. And, as Jesus’ followers, we need to worship together, serve our community side-by-side, and reveal God’s love and compassion in all that we are and do and say and be the visible Body of Christ. AND we need to continue to keep everyone as safe as possible. We need to continue to live in this pandemic with a Kingdom worldview that heals and strengthens.

So, as the official restrictions around us lessen, we come to the question, how can we best show God’s love and compassion? How can we help our community business owners get back on their financial feet and still keep people safe from the virus? As Jesus following business owners and employers, how can we serve our employees, customers, and community and keep everyone safe? How do we do this thing called life with a Kingdom worldview?

Whether we are in a pandemic or not, our guiding question is always, “am I, with God’s help, loving God, my neighbor, and myself to the best of my ability on this situation?” Amen.

Life as God gives it

Yesterday we looked at a story told by the good news story writer Luke that begins with the question “what must I do to gain eternal life”, and provides us with the proper perspective on being a good neighbor and living eternal life here and now grounded in Love.

Today, let’s look at a similar story told by three of the writers of the good news story, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, of a rich man coming to Jesus with this same question, “what must I do to gain eternal life?” For this particular individual, Jesus tells him to sell all he owns, give the money to the poor and “follow me.”

Jesus knew that this man had turned God’s law into a checklist for his own benefit rather than a way of life of loving God and neighbor.

When our faith ancestors told the story of creation, they said that God breathed life into us. It wasn’t anything external to us – not the sun, moon, or stars, nor the plants or animals or fish or birds – that brought us to life but the very breath of God. Life comes from the God image within all of us.

But it didn’t take long for we humans to decide that we preferred to look upon the external things to define life: All the things, if we just got them, we’d be livin’ the life, for sure … until we get them and then we need the next thing because we still don’t feel like we’re living (because we are looking for life in all the wrong places). It’s not that we don’t need external things – food, water, shelter, clothes, etc., and these external things do sustain the life God has given us, but we can’t find life as God gives it in material things and fortunes.

Jesus knew the man who asked how to get eternal life defined life by what he had rather than who God created him to be and so Jesus asked him to give up what had gotten in the way.

Are you starting to become aware of things (or thoughts or ideologies or habits) that have gotten in the way of living life as God intends it? Be gentle on yourself, we all have them and recognizing them and keeping them out of the way is ongoing work, which is why we pray God keep us in eternal life because we need God’s help to do it.