Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much…power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. (Frederick Buechner)
…Listening In…
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. (Galatians 5:13; context)
…Filling Up…
The old guitar case has fourteen verses of scripture taped to it. The one at the top of the case is Galatians 5:13. The words that grabbed me at the time I pasted it to the case were, “You were called to freedom.” And these words still grab me today.
What does this mean, to be “called to freedom?” Well, if we are called to freedom, it means there are points in our lives when we are not free. Things that are not God, but which we mistake for God, can enthrall and enslave us. We sacrifice our freedom when we mistake a created thing for the Creator, when we devote ourselves to something unworthy of devotion. This might be wealth or the need for dominance or the seductive power of a video game or alcohol or drugs.
When we choose these things over God, we put ourselves into voluntary confinement. But God calls to us in this prison. God speaks the words of freedom to us, and reminds us that when we serve God, we are truly free. That is why this verse seems paradoxical. We are called to freedom and called to serve others. True freedom, therefore, happens when we choose to serve each other out of love. When we make this choice, we access a portion of the love of God that is given freely to all, and thus we find freedom.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you grant me free will so that I can choose freely to follow you. Help me make that choice each day of my life, that I may discover how you are calling me to serve others. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, with your words on my lips and your joy in my heart, ready to share both with all I meet.
Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much…power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. (Frederick Buechner)
…Listening In…
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, by the breath of his mouth all the heavenly hosts. (Psalm 33:6; context)
…Filling Up…
I got my first guitar around Christmas of my senior year of high school. For the life of me, I can’t remember if it was a Christmas present or if I bought it with Christmas money. Either way, it was pretty cheap, and because it was pretty cheap, I felt comfortable storing it in a “gig bag.” Gig bags provide enough cushion against the odd bump or jostle, but they won’t protect an instrument from being squashed or simply dropped.
So when I got my second guitar a little over a year later, I splurged on a hard case. I knew I was in this guitar playing thing for the long haul, so a hard case seemed like a good investment. Also, the second guitar was much nicer than the first. (That, of course, didn’t make it great because the first one was really cheap.)
Just like when you start seeing the make of your new car all over the road, I began seeing hard guitar cases all over my college campus. Most of them were plastered with decals from bands and bumper stickers with clever puns on them. Each case said something about the owner: the constellations of stickers were collages of personal expression. I began thinking about the decals I wanted to stick to my new case, but I just couldn’t come up with any.
Then I got an idea. I bought some black construction paper, duct tape, and a silver Sharpie. And over the course of the next few years, I taped to my guitar case all of the verses from the Bible that grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. I rarely use that guitar anymore, having been given a beautiful Taylor for my ordination to the priesthood (what a gift!!). But the old case still sits in my office, and everyone once in a while I go back and read those verses that meant something to me all those years ago.
I’d like to share them with you over the next couple of weeks. There are fourteen verses, so we’ll be done with the case at the end of this month. I invite you over the course of the month to make a collage of verses that grab you, whether from those taped to my guitar or those you read or hear during your week.
…Praying For…
Dear God, your word continues to speak life into my being. Help me to listen to your voice speaking to me through the words of scripture. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, with your words on my lips and your joy in my heart, ready to share both with all I meet.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go? (Shel Silverstein, “Forgotten Language”)
…Listening In…
Some people brought children to Jesus so that he would place his hands on them and pray. But the disciples scolded them. “Allow the children to come to me,” Jesus said. “Don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children.” Then he blessed the children and went away from there. (Matthew 19:13-15; context)
…Filling Up…
The natural physical manifestation of imagination and wonder is our final thing to access from our early childhoods. This is called Play. Play happens when we engage both our imaginations and our bodies. We dance to unheard music, we build castles with pillows and sheets, we sculpt mountain ranges with our mashed potatoes, we hum the language of mosquitoes.
For our early years, play is the most common manner in which we encounter and learn about the world. There is very little separation between play and the rest of life. There’s no such thing as “playtime” because all time is playtime. Play leads to better manual dexterity, better spatial relations, and more active imagination. But at some point during childhood, play becomes segregated from the more serious side of life. Parents tell children to “stop playing with your food.” The message is now: “Dinner is serious business.”
But this segregation between “play” and “the rest of life” can be damaging to our walks with God. The more pure the play of small children, the more they are able to access the unfettered creativity that God used when creating the Universe. In a sense, God was playing during creation: what other explanation could there possibly be for the duck-billed platypus!
So go ahead and play with your food. Make a mashed potato mountain range, and maybe you will find yourself in a deeper connection with the One who made the real mountains.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you filled your Creation with wonders for us to see and learn about. Help me to find the curiosity and the inhibition to be truly playful again, that I might let go of the bounds I have put around you. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, joyful that I have been in your presence for my whole existence, whether I remember or not.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go? (Shel Silverstein, “Forgotten Language”)
…Listening In…
Your way, O God, is holy; who is so great a god as our God? You are the God who works wonders and have declared your power among the peoples. (Psalm 77:13-14; context)
…Filling Up…
Closely linked to Imagination is the expansive concept of Wonder. Wonder comes in two forms, and young children exhibit both. First, wonder happens when you are in awe of something. Wonder is the state of being of those engrossed in something bigger than themselves that they cannot explain. Neither do they desire to explain it. Rather, they stand in wonder, open to realities that exist on a larger scale than any one person, but also personally connected to the greater reality. In small children, this kind of wonder happens for all sorts of things – things that grown-ups consider mundane. The rain pattering a window, the dog’s fur, and the fireplace’s crackle each have the capacity to instill wonder in the young child who has never experienced these things before.
Second, wonder happens when the desire to explain creeps in, but the ability to explain does not exist. At this point, wonderers have a choice. They can ignore the inability to explain and begin to question anyway. These will always be unsatisfied by insufficient answers. Or they can continue wondering, they can offer imaginative suggestions that do not seek to answer, but rather seek to tunnel deeper into the object of the wonder.
Adults look for answers. Young children are happy exploring without needing such a goal at the end. Of course, each child comes to the age where the questioning begins and each question leads to the next. Accessing the time before that change can bring us closer to God, the source of all wonder.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you are the greatest reality in the universe. Help me to turn narrow questions into expansive statements of wonder and fill me with the expectation to be surprised. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, joyful that I have been in your presence for my whole existence, whether I remember or not.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go? (Shel Silverstein, “Forgotten Language”)
…Listening In…
Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us; glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21; context)
…Filling Up…
As we grow up, we lose access to many faculties we had in early childhood. One of these is Imagination. Now, of course, we do not lose this faculty fully; the ability to imagine can stick around for a lifetime. But the imagination of early childhood is special. There are no bounds associated with it because the child doesn’t know what a boundary is. There are no inhibitions that halt the display of such imagination. Whereas an older child or an adult might feel foolish chatting to imaginary people, the small child sees it as the most natural thing in the world.
There need be no prompting or stimulus. The imagination carries the child into new worlds that seem just as real as the real world because the real world hasn’t been explored yet. Exploration of the real and imagined worlds happens simultaneously, much to the bewilderment of parents, who see their children fascinated by the most ordinary things. Of course, to the child, the feather duster isn’t a feather duster – it’s a rare bird migrating home to Antarctica.
Because the imagination of early childhood is so untamed, it is much better at communing with the source of imagination. We are made in the image and likeness of God. Because we are made in God’s image, we have the ability to imagine. Just as God imagined and then spoke creation into being, our imaginations help us see and celebrate all the amazing links between our world and our world’s Creator. By accessing the imagination of early childhood, we can unleash ourselves from the oppression of words like “impossibility.” We can imagine ourselves into God’s presence and discover that we were there all the while.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you created me in your image and likeness. Help me to create in response to your great creation, and help me to love in response to your great love. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, joyful that I have been in your presence for my whole existence, whether I remember or not.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go? (Shel Silverstein, “Forgotten Language”)
…Listening In…
Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8; context)
…Filling Up…
For the first several months of a human existence, our species is woefully incapable of taking care of itself. We just lie there on our backs looking up at this new world that’s full of blurry shapes and is neither as warm nor as comfortable as the womb we so recently exited. We rely on our parents, or, in the case of certain Disney characters, either wolves or fairies, for everything. We can’t cook our own food. We can’t change our own diapers. And we can’t even come up with the manual dexterity to turn on the TV.
In the animal kingdom, buffet type animals – that is, animals that, sooner or later, become prey for carnivores – tend to be born ready to take on the world. They can stand after a few hours (minutes, in some cases) and can run soon after. If they were as helpless as we, not a one would survive to adulthood.
But there is something precious and special about our utter dependence on another. We are born into this world in the state that each follower of Jesus is striving for – dependence on God. At some point in our early years, we lose this utter dependence and we spend our lives trying to find it again. The good news is that it’s much easier to recover something lost than it is to invent something new. At one point in each of our lives, we lived with the kind of dependence that a right relationship with God exhibits, the radical reliance on the Lord in all things. And we can get it back, with God’s help.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you are the source of all life and all life depends on you; help me to regain my desire to rely on you in all things. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, joyful that I have been in your presence for my whole existence, whether I remember or not.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers…
How did it go?
How did it go? (Shel Silverstein, “Forgotten Language”)
…Listening In…
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things. (1 Corinthians 13:11; context)
…Filling Up…
My very first nephew was born last week, and his coming into the world has gotten me thinking about childhood, especially those early years that he has to look forward to. Sooner or later, each of us makes the switch from childhood to adulthood. For my nephew’s sake, I hope he waits a good long time. When we make the switch, we lose the easy access to so many things that for children come second nature.
Now whether or not you are still a minor, I’m sure you’ve had the experience of ceasing an activity you once did when you were younger. When I was a kid, I played with LEGO blocks twenty-four hours a day. Then I hit about age 14, and I entered what the LEGO company actually calls “the Dark Ages.” I quit playing with LEGO for some reason or another — I guess something internal told me that I was too old for that particular toy.
As in the case of ceasing our childhood activities, no matter how hard we might try, we all lose things that we once knew but forgot over time. I’m convinced that children know God in a way that adults cannot access. This week, we are going to look at accessing some of these things we might once have known.
…Praying For…
Dear God, you formed me in my mother’s womb and have guided my growth for my entire life. Help me to recover some of the things you taught me when I was young so that I can have a more complete picture of my life with you. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, joyful that I have been in your presence for my whole existence, whether I remember or not.
(Sermon for Sunday, May 5, 2013 || Easter 6C || John 5:1-19)
I have some really exciting news that I’ve just been bursting to tell you. Last Monday, I became an uncle. I wasn’t an uncle, and then my sister-in-law had her baby boy, and now I’m an uncle! But since I played absolutely no part in the whole “becoming an uncle thing,” let me talk a little more about the actual players in this little slice of joy, my nephew Connor and his parents, Bethany and Steve.
Bethany labored to birth Connor on Sunday and Monday, and he entered the world Monday afternoon, just under eight pounds of radiant, new life: squishy elbows and beating heart and astonishingly alert eyes. I’m sure there were moments during delivery when Bethany was certain she couldn’t do it, that one more push was out of the question, that one more contraction would send her over the edge. But then she did do it, and her son was placed in her welcoming arms.
I’m sure that in the weeks and months to come, Bethany and Steve will spend many a night awake trying to sooth the baby who will seem to be crying for no apparent reason, considering they will have sated all his immediate needs. They will be strung out, exhausted, ready to fall asleep in the next morning’s bowl of cereal. They will wonder if they can function on 45 minutes of sleep and then they will do it all again the next night. And the one after that.
I’m sure that at some point in his childhood, Connor will break his arm climbing a tree or get an infection that will send him and his distraught parents to the Emergency Room. That kind of thing happens to everyone, but in the moment, Bethany and Steve will be frantic and all kinds of worst-case scenarios will run through their minds. But then Connor’s fever will break or he’ll emerge with a cast ready for signatures, and his parents will breathe a prayer of silent relief for having come through the ordeal.
Notice a pattern here. On the day of Connor’s delivery, Bethany went to the point of no return. And then she returned with a babe in her arms. In the future eventualities of sleepless nights and hospital visits, Bethany and Steve will be at the ends of their ropes, and yet they will keep climbing and they will find more rope. How can I be so sure that they will find more rope? Because I believe God called them to the sacred ministry of parenthood. And when God calls one of us to serve, God always provides us with the gifts that we need to fulfill our callings.
In the delivery room Bethany discovered God’s gift of perseverance and more determination than she ever thought she possessed. God called her to motherhood and then gave her the gifts she needed to make the calling hers. As she grows in this ministry, she will continue to discover new gifts as she faces new challenges as a mother. The same thing happens to us when we accept God’s call in our lives. The call and the gifts to achieve the call go hand in hand. To use a political metaphor, God doesn’t believe in the unfunded mandate.
If you need more convincing, check out this morning’s reading from the Gospel according to John. Jesus arrives at the pool of Beth-Zatha and finds there a man who is waiting his turn to go down into the pool. The popular belief was that when the water was stirred up, from some underground source presumably, the first person to enter the pool would be healed of any affliction. The man had been paralyzed for 38 years; can you image – 38 years of coming to this pool only to be stymied by people who could beat him to the water, 38 years of dashed hopes and unfulfilled dreams, all drained into a morass of hardened isolation. 38 years of paralysis; just think, if this encounter were happening today, the man would have become paralyzed while Gerald Ford was president and I wouldn’t be a twinkle in my mother’s eye for quite some time.
To this downtrodden, lonely soul, Jesus comes, and Jesus asks him a question: “Do you want to be made well?” The answer seems obvious. “YES” is what you’d expect. But this man seems to have a well-worn speech ready for whenever anyone approaches him, no matter what they say. “I have no one to put me in the water and when I’m trying to get over there, someone always gets ahead of me,” he says.
Jesus takes this response as a “yes.” And then Jesus just skips all the preliminaries. He doesn’t tell the man his faith has made him well. He doesn’t touch him. He doesn’t pray. Jesus simply commands the paralyzed man to stand up, take his mat, and walk. Jesus calls this man to do something he is absolutely and without a doubt unable to do.
I imagine the man gives Jesus an incredulous look, perhaps a raised eyebrow. A hollow chuckle. Who does this guy think he is, the man wonders? But Jesus’ words ring in the air, strong and solid and shimmering. The man looks up and sees Jesus staring down at him, and he realizes that Jesus is serious. What if? What if I don’t need the pool? What if this is my chance?
He pokes his leg with his finger. No sensation. He tries to wiggle his toes. Nothing. But Jesus’ call to stand up is still ringing in the air, and now the words fall to earth, fall into the heart of the paralyzed man. No more poking. No more wiggling. He reaches up and grasps Jesus’ arm and pulls himself up. He can stand. He can walk.
Somewhere between Jesus’ call and the man’s standing, Jesus gives him the gift of the ability to heed the call. The healing happens in order that the man can obey Jesus’ command. Like I said, God doesn’t believe in unfunded mandates. Jesus tells the man to stand up. But he hasn’t stood in 38 years. And then he does because the call carried with it the gift to accomplish it. He realized Jesus had blessed him with the gift when he used it to stand up.
God called Bethany and Steve to be new parents. And I believe God will give them all the gifts they need to raise Connor to be the child God calls him to be. Jesus called the paralyzed man to stand and gave him the gift to do so. I wonder what God is calling you to do? I wonder what God is calling you to be? How many of us hear God’s call but then shy away from it because we assume we aren’t good enough to accomplish it or we don’t have the necessary gifts to do it?
This story of the man by the pool teaches us that God never issues a call without dispersing the gifts that accompany it. In fact, God calls us to certain things specifically so we can discover our giftedness.
So the next time you pray, I invite you to ask God what God is calling you to do or be. For the duration of the prayer, ignore both the seeming impossibility of the call and your utter inadequacy to accomplish it. Just sit in silence with God, listening to the call ringing in the air, strong and solid and shimmering. And then, like the paralyzed man, stand up, take your mat, and walk. Say “yes” to God. And discover all of the gifts that God has been bursting to shower upon you.
Come, then, Lord my God, come and instruct my heart where and how to search for you, where and how to find you. Where shall I look for you, Lord? (St. Anselm)
…Listening In…
Lord, you have examined me. You know me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up. Even from far away, you comprehend my plans. You study my traveling and resting. You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways. There isn’t a word on my tongue, Lord, that you don’t already know completely. You surround me—front and back. You put your hand on me. (Psalm 139:1-5; context)
…Filling Up…
God as Cosmic Creator, who “stretches out the heavens like a curtain,” did not need a reason to speak creation into being. I might need a reason to build a bookcase or compose a letter, but God doesn’t need to share my motivations. If God did not need a reason to create, why would that same creator need a reason to care about us insignificant grasshoppers? God’s very greatness subsumes the “Why” question into God’s eternal being and renders it irrelevant. With the “Why” expunged, the gut-twinging question becomes a glorious statement of faith: “You care about me, Lord.”
You care about me, Lord. When I finally realize this, I notice that God as Intimate Companion has been whispering these words in my ear the whole time. Then I realize that God’s care for me (another word for which is grace) enables and enthuses me to care for others. The penchant for betrayal and disregard for others’ welfare, once unfairly plastered onto God’s being, now fall away as God continues to make me in God’s own image.
Our world is vast and full of questions. We are insignificant. We are messy. We are little things. But God’s vastness stretches into eternity. In staggering showers of grace-filled generosity, God both answers and removes the need to question. In those same showers falls the gift of sanctifying love, which removes our insignificance and scrubs us cleans. As we discern the Cosmic Creator and Intimate Companion in the same loving face of God, more words from the prophet Isaiah resound: “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
…Praying For…
Dear God, thank you for not abandoning me to questions that I will never fully comprehend. Thank you for answering me with the simple reassurance of your presence. Thank you for caring about me. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, comforted by the faith that your foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and hopeful that I might let your foolishness educate me.
Come, then, Lord my God, come and instruct my heart where and how to search for you, where and how to find you. Where shall I look for you, Lord? (St. Anselm)
…Listening In…
God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them. (Genesis 1:27; context)
…Filling Up…
This misguided transfer of shabbiness from myself to God is difficult to suspend. Human nature dictates that we narcissistically use ourselves as the measuring sticks by which other things are evaluated. Our ability to reason, manufacture tools, and put our thoughts into speech elevates us above other animals. We then use these factors to order other species by “intelligence.” Chimpanzees eat using rudimentary utensils. Dolphins communicate with their cackling code. Therefore, based on the anthropomorphic scale, these creatures are closer to our presumed preeminence.
But the scale works the other way, as well. Our penchants for betrayal, mistrust, indifference and our well-rehearsed disregard for the welfare of others knock a bleaker set of notches into the measuring stick. When the gut-twinging question surfaces – “Why do you care about me, Lord? – these regrettable attributes emigrate from our world and narcissistically modify our understanding of God.
Having thus remade God in my own lamentable image, the collision in my gut worsens. The Cosmic Creator looks down and sees a bunch of tiny grasshoppers, so why should that God be bothered? The Intimate Companion is probably just as apathetic and self-centered as I am, so why should that God care?
Do you see the twisted, oxymoronic reasoning that leads to these conclusions? The gut-twinging question appears when I notice my own laughable insignificance. At the same time, I use myself as the measuring stick for which to assess God’s motivation to care about me. This logic definitely deserves the red FOOLISHNESS stamp.
You see, when the prophet Isaiah expounds on God’s greatness and ineffability, he is not extolling God’s distance and isolation. Instead, he is warning people not to engage in the foolish business of looking for God in the mirror. The Holy One says, “To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?” The answer is quite obviously a resounding “NO ONE!” When you escape the twisted logic that seeks to anthropomorphize God, you are one step closer to resolving the gut-twinging question – “Why do you care about me, Lord?”
(We have reached the turn. Stay tuned for the good news! To be concluded tomorrow…)
…Praying For…
Dear God, you made me in your image, not the other way around. Help me return to you from the self-centeredness that can dominate my life. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
…Sending Out…
I leave this moment with you, God, comforted by the faith that your foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and hopeful that I might let your foolishness educate me.
…Opening To…
Bethany labored to birth Connor on Sunday and Monday, and he entered the world Monday afternoon, just under eight pounds of radiant, new life: squishy elbows and beating heart and astonishingly alert eyes. I’m sure there were moments during delivery when Bethany was certain she couldn’t do it, that one more push was out of the question, that one more contraction would send her over the edge. But then she did do it, and her son was placed in her welcoming arms.
Where the Wind... 