Tag: John

…Opening To…

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer… I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me… Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. (Frank Herbert, Dune)

…Listening In…

When the wind had driven them out for about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He was approaching the boat and they were afraid. He said to them, “I Am.Don’t be afraid.” (John 6:19-20; context)

…Filling Up…

Many years ago in a dusty volume, I read an old Bene Gesserit litany against fear, and this prayer has stuck with me every since. “I must not fear,” says the litany. “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Now that dusty volume was Frank Herbert’s Dune, the best selling science-fiction novel of all time, but the words of the litany ring true nonetheless. “I must not fear… Fear is the little-death… I will face my fear.”

From the time we are young children, our parents echo these words and tell us to face our fears. Perhaps you were afraid of the dark. So you mother let you sleep with the lights on for a while. Then she turned the lights off and left the bedside lamp on. A few days later, she turned off the bedside lamp and plugged a nightlight into the wall near the door. Pretty soon, you didn’t even need the nightlight. Your mother helped you face your fear of the dark, and you overcame it.

This week we are going to talk about fear. We’ve done this a lot this semester, but perhaps it’s because fear is so pervasive in our lives and in our society that we need to discuss. Or at least, I find that I do. We’ll start with our childhood fears and see where they lead us.

…Praying For…

Dear God, when I am afraid you are there to calm my fears. Help me to remember your presence. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you God, ready to face my fears with the knowledge that you are with me.

…Opening To…

You know what the first rule of flyin’ is? …Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens. Makes her a home. (Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity)

…Listening In…

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being.  (John 1:1-3; context)

…Filling Up…

So this loving relationship between parent and child existed before anything else, including the concept of “before.” Nothing existed that could substitute for or diminish the relationship. The love was pure, perfect, unsullied by deficiencies such as lust or anger or apathy or dominance. In fact, the perfection of the relationship meant that, while there was a Trinity of persons, a Unity of being was the ultimate reality. This Unity of being was the home in which the three persons dwelt: the Parent, the Child, and the Love between them.

Now, I’ve been speaking in the past tense for the last few Devos. Of course, because all this happened before there was a “before,” there was no such thing as the “past” or the “future.” There was only the eternal present in which the perfect Love between Parent and Child manifested in the perfect Unity of being. Before the beginning was this ultimate reality of God, of love, of home.

Then came “In the beginning,” and suddenly there was a time known as “before.” God breathed the wind of God’s Holy Spirit over the face of the deep. God spoke the Word of God, through which all creation came into being. The Trinity, still loving itself into eternally perfect relationship, created the heavens and the earth, thus generating an “other” to bring into that loving relationship, that home that is God. This Creation is not God because God made it, just as God made Wisdom in the verse we read yesterday.

The number one sin of all time has been people worshiping and loving the creation instead of the creator. God lets us to do this because God loves us enough to allow us to make our own choices, but whenever we choose not to participate in the perfect relationship of the Trinity, I think God’s heart breaks just a little bit.

…Praying For…

Dear God, your love was complete in itself, and yet out of that love, you created all that is. Help me to have love be the driving force behind everything I do and everything I create. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, thankful that in you I find perfect love and a perfect home.

…Opening To…

We are as sure to be in trouble as the sparks fly upward, but we will also be “in Christ,” as [Paul] puts it. Ultimately, not even sorrow, loss, death can get at us there. (Frederick Buechner)

…Listening In…

When the wind had driven them out for about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He was approaching the boat and they were afraid. He said to them, “I Am.Don’t be afraid.” (John 6:19-20; context)

…Filling Up…

Yesterday, we talked about anxiety, and I must admit, I gave it a bad rap. Anxiety, in and of itself, is a rather neutral emotion. It can lead to positives and negatives, depending on how we respond to it. I gave it a bad rap yesterday because I was thinking ahead to today – to the kind of anxiety that finds its most common expression in fear.

If, as I said yesterday, anxiety happens when you realize you don’t control the future but have yet to stop trying, then fear comes into the conversation as humanity’s default setting when discussing the future. Some people are afraid of the dark; others are afraid of the monster under the bed or the dwindling savings in their retirement accounts. But the number one thing people fear is the unknown.

This primal fear has its evolutionary uses, to be sure – the guy who didn’t walk up to the exciting new animal with the really big teeth and hungry glint in its eye passed his “fear of the unknown” gene on to the next generation. (The other guy got eaten.) But fear of the unknown has done more than its share of damage, as well. After all, it’s the same fear that keeps us from getting to know people who look and think differently than we do.

Since the future is the most unknown thing around, fear of it is pervasive. And since we’ve already brought up humanity’s default position once today, another serving can’t hurt: When humans fear, they try to control. We think (erroneously) that if we can control (and thereby understand and dismantle), then we won’t fear any longer. The trouble with the future is that we can never control it no matter how much we try to rig the system in our favor (just look at the financial collapse of, well, the world, for evidence there).

This fear feeds our anxiety because we can’t control the unknown future. But that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Okay, I promised that only the first two days of this week would be downers. Stick with me tomorrow and I’ll fulfill the promise.

…Praying For…

Dear God, my anxiety stems from my fears which I too often let loose in my life. Help me to give those fears to you, that I may learn to trust in your perfect love, which drives out all fear. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, thankful that you are always and forever inviting me to walk the paths of trust and hope.

…Opening To…

I am a flower quickly fading (here today and gone tomorrow)
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling; Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am: I am yours. (Casting Crowns)

…Listening In…

The woman put down her water jar and went into the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who has told me everything I’ve done! Could this man be the Christ?” They left the city and were on their way to see Jesus. (John 4:28-30; context)

…Filling Up…

The first “I am” statement comes at the end of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. Remember us talking about that conversation way back on Monday? Yes? Good! So, in the chapter right before the one featuring the Samaritan woman, we find the most famous verse in the whole Bible. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life” (3:16). God gave us Jesus. Therefore, Jesus is the gift God has given to the world.

So when Jesus says, “I Am—the one who speaks to you,” Jesus gives the woman the gift of his identity, his divine identity. She drops her bucket, races back to town, and tells the people: “Come and see a man who has told me everything I’ve done!” At first glance, this seems a vast exaggeration, since the only thing Jesus told her she had done was marry five different guys. Some scholars attribute this statement to mere excited exaggeration. However, I think those scholars miss one consequence of Jesus’ “I Am” statement.

It is in Jesus’ revelation of his own identity (when he says “I Am”) that the woman discovers her own identity. She now knows Jesus, who is the gift of God. And in knowing Jesus, she knows herself. Saying that he told her everything she had ever done is her way of saying that she is known, finally known. Jesus knows her and now she knows Jesus, so she can know herself.

When Jesus reveals his divine identity, he reveals my identity, for my true identity rests in him. Indeed, I am because he is.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you are the source of light and life; you have made me in your image and put within me the spark of your creativity. Help me display your image and likeness. Knit my identity into yours and give me the strength to show that identity to everyone I meet. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all creation. I exist because you have spoken and loved me into existence.

…Opening To…

I am a flower quickly fading (here today and gone tomorrow)
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling; Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am: I am yours. (Casting Crowns)

…Listening In…

Judas brought a company of soldiers and some guards from the chief priests and Pharisees. They came there carrying lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus knew everything that was to happen to him, so he went out and asked, “Who are you looking for?” They answered, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I Am.” (Judas, his betrayer, was standing with them.) When he said, “I Am,” they shrank back and fell to the ground. (John 18:3-6; context)

…Filling Up…

It is amazing to me that non-native speakers can grasp the English language when the most common verb in English has half a dozen forms that follow absolutely no pattern when the verb is conjugated. The verb, of course, is “to be.” The confusion commences immediately when no one besides Hamlet ever actually says “to be” in a sentence. We say “she is,” or “you are” or “I was” or “y’all were.” And in the first person singular, present, active, indicative, we say, “I am.”

Simply stating “I am” with no predicate nominative or adjective is a peculiar way of responding to someone. The normal conversation goes like this: How are you? I am cold/tired/happy/depressed/distracted/delirious/desperate/alliterative. But how would it sound if I were to delete the predicate?

How are you? I am.

At first glance, this doesn’t make much sense because we are so used to hearing a modifier (like “tired” or “hungry”). But this response reaches to a deep, fundamental level of meaning that is never expected when the question is asked. How are you? In other words, How are you here? How do you exist? Now the response makes a bit more sense. “I am”: that is, I have be-ing. I do not quite know how I exist, but I know that I do. I am a human being (be-ing). The –ing in the word shows that my “be” is continuous. When I respond, “I am,” I affirm that I continue, persist, abide – though I do not quite understand how I do these things. God knows how I exist, and that seems good enough to allow my existence to happen.

And that’s good enough for me.

…Praying For…

Dear God, in the beginning you spoke creation into existence and you continue to breath life into the universe. Thank you for giving me – a tiny piece of that creation – the being that comes from your eternal Being. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all creation. I exist because you have spoken and loved me into existence.

…Opening To…

I am a flower quickly fading (here today and gone tomorrow)
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling; Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am: I am yours. (Casting Crowns)

…Listening In…

The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.” Jesus said to her, “I Am–the one who speaks with you.” (John 4:25-26; context)

…Filling Up…

Jesus is exhausted. He is worn out from his travels, so he sends the disciples into town to get some lunch. Then he sits down, props his back up against the warm bricks of a well, and takes a nap. Soon a woman comes to draw water, and Jesus asks her for a drink. This is strange for two reasons. First, in his society, unacquainted men and women didn’t converse with one another in public. Second, Jesus wasn’t in his own land, and this woman was from a people – the Samaritans – that Jesus’ people didn’t deal with.

Of course, Jesus doesn’t usually hold to social conventions. So, he asks her for a drink, and they get to talking about all sorts of stuff – the water in the well, a special kind of life-giving water that Jesus will give her, the woman’s marital status, the proper places to pray. The woman is impressed with Jesus, but perhaps a bit scared of him, of what he knows about her. Jesus continues talking about prayer and the right way to worship, and the woman seems to lose track of his train of thought. But then she surprises him by saying: “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will teach everything to us.”

I imagine Jesus, who has probably entered “preaching mode,” stopping in mid-sentence. This woman knows more than she lets on. Of this Messiah, he says, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.” Except that he doesn’t say, “I am he.” He says simply, “I Am.” In these two words, Jesus opens up to this woman and to us that fact that his identity is divine. This week, we are looking at these two words – at what they mean for Jesus and at what they mean for us.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you teach me new things everyday. You teach me about myself, about your world, and about you. Thank you for giving me the ability to learn and grow into the identity you have chosen for me; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all creation. I exist because you have spoken and loved me into existence.

…Opening To…

The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)

…Listening In…

Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted.When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten. (John 6:11-13; context)

…Filling Up…

Whenever we feel fully alive, God’s presence is not far away. In fact, it is so near us that we might have trouble recognizing it for what it is, like when you see a super magnified picture of a button or a bit of Velcro, but can’t readily identify either. (One of the question types in the game Cranium is about that, I think.)

If we believe that God is the foundation for all fullness of life, then it just makes sense to start looking for God whenever we feel fully alive. If you feel fully alive after the hike up the mountain, then, when you’ve paused at the peak to look at the patchwork valley, remember to give thanks to God for the opportunity to hike and the breathtaking view. If you feel fully alive after holding the newborn baby, give thanks to God for each piggy little toe and for the indescribable scent of the top of the infant’s head – the scent of new life.

Notice that the best way to invite God into the fullness that God created in the first place is to give thanks for it. When we offer our thanksgiving to God, we not only show our appreciation for these full moments of life, we also put ourselves in proper relationship with God. The act of thanksgiving reminds us that we didn’t create the fullness. We merely participated in it. We are on the field playing the game, but God created the field, invented the equipment, and made up the game, as well.

When Jesus feeds the five thousand people, he give thanks before breaking the meager offering of bread. This act of giving thanks is the key to the story. By giving thanks, Jesus acknowledged God’s presence in that gathering. Then Jesus proceeds to give the bread and give it some more and give it even more until everyone there was full. Thanksgiving opens our eyes to God moving when we feel fully alive.

And this trains us to notice God when we don’t. More on that tomorrow.

…Praying For…

Dear God, source of all life, you instill in me the desire to thank you for every gift you have given to me, including all the moments when I feel your fullness. Help me always to offer those moments back to you with gratitude. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!” (John 20:26-27; context)

…Filling Up…

On Monday, I mentioned that belief is a tricky concept. It’s tricky for several reasons. Here’s one. Yesterday, I used the image of jumping into a parent’s arms on your first visit to the pool. You jumped because you believed what your parent said. He or she would catch you, no matter what. Equating this belief with belief in God is where everything gets tricky. Here’s the problem.

There is a chance, however slim, that your parent would fail to catch you.

No matter how earnestly we believed in a parent’s infallibility or a coach’s perfection or a teacher’s omniscience, those people turned out to be…well, people. They were all stricken with the gene for human failure. Of course, not being perfect didn’t make them bad people. It just made them people. When we equate our belief in humans with our belief in God, we often make the mistake of hedging our bets were God is concerned. We apply to God the expectations we have when we believe in other people, thus unwittingly reducing God’s power and glory to the levels that fit comfortably in a human body.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not telling you to cut off all human contact because those fallible humans are not to be trusted. Human beings are fundamentally good. We usually do the right thing. We usually live up to the trust others have in us. What I am saying is this: there is no “usually” with God. God always does the right thing. God always lives up to the trust we place in God. So when you speak of belief, remember that God is the One in whom you can always rest your weight.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you are present in my life and you are constantly breathing creation into being: help me to believe in you so that I may see your movement in my life and help others to see your movement in theirs; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:1-2; context)

…Filling Up…

This week, we are working to reclaim the natural habitat of the word “believe.” I think that the habitat finds its place in God alone. Saying “I believe” about anything else waters down the word. The best way to talk about the word “believe” is to tell a story. Here’s a version of one that I heard a priest friend of mine tell a while back (and he heard it from someone, too, so there’s no telling to whom this story belongs).

A Bible scholar trekked deep into the heart of the Amazon River basin, and there he found an indigenous tribe that had barely had any contact with the outside world. Like any decent Bible scholar would do, he set about learning the language of the people in order to translate the Good Book into the local tongue. While staying in the village, he lived with a farmer and his wife. For months, the scholar worked and worked: he listened to the people talking, made notes, slowly built a lexicon, and then set to the task of translation. He spread his papers out over the rough wooden table in the kitchen of the hut and put pen to paper.

But soon he stopped. He was stuck. In all his study, he had never heard the villagers use a word that seemed to him synonymous with “belief,” which was, after all, an important word in the Bible. He put his pen down and sat there, just thinking and feeling sorry for himself. Just then, the farmer came in from the fields all hot and sticky from a hard day’s labor. He sat down in the chair opposite the scholar, leaned back on two legs, propped his feet on the table, and let out a grateful sigh. In halting words, the scholar asked the farmer what his word for “believe” was. The farmer didn’t understand. The scholar tried to explain using other words, and comprehension dawned on the farmer. “Do you see me sitting here,” he said in his own language. “I am leaning back in this chair after a hard day’s work. My feet are up. I am resting all of my weight on these two legs.”

And the scholar found his word.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you are the source of my belief and the foundation upon which I rest all of my weight. Thank you for being a sure and steady foundation; in Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

…Opening To…

Look upon me, O Lord, and let all the darkness of my soul vanish before the beams of your brightness. (Saint Augustine of Hippo)

…Listening In…

This is the basis for judgment: The light came into the world, and people loved darkness more than the light, for their actions are evil. All who do wicked things hate the light and don’t come to the light for fear that their actions will be exposed to the light.Whoever does the truth comes to the light so that it can be seen that their actions were done in God. (John 3:19-21; context)

…Filling Up…

As we continue to think about light, I keep coming back to the same place: we humans have a tendency to speak of things from a human point of view. This is only natural, of course. But what we rarely take the time to notice is the fact that the human point of view is completely wrong sometimes. Here’s what I mean. You are standing out on your porch after dinner and watching the sun go down. The sky is on fire with yellows and reds deepening into purples and blues. You stand there transfixed until the last ray of light drops below the horizon.

That’s the human point of view. What really happened is this: You are standing out on your porch watching the effects as your little patch of the earth rotates away from the sun. The sky is on fire with yellows and reds deepening into purples and blues. You stand there transfixed until you spin fully away from the sun’s light.

So, in the end, there’s no such thing as a sunset. There’s only our perception of the sun dipping to the horizon. Like the sun, the light of the world (that’s Jesus for those of you keeping score) never goes down, never sets. The light of the world shines on us and into us and out from us all the time. We have the opportunity to walk in that everlasting light by living lives that reflect the truth, beauty, and grace of God. We also have the choice to turn our backs on the light and live lives of convenience, consumption, and degradation. The good news is this: the light of the world shines on us no matter which way we are turned. And the light warms our backs when we are turned away, beckoning us to turn around and walk in the light.

…Praying For…

Dear God, thank you for being the light that never goes out. Please shine on me and help me to reflect your light on all those I meet; in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are a light that never goes out. You are always shining on the path that takes me home.