Luke 2:1 - 14
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
It doesn't take a lot of room for Christ to be born. I suspect that his birth in the Bethlehem stable is just one example of how he continually squeezes into tight places, or shows up in out-of-the-way settings, or is found among that which is lowly and ill-esteemed rather than what seems significant and worthwhile.
Early witnesses seem to confirm that people were drawn to Christianity in the early centuries not because it was trendy to do so -- it was not -- and not because they wanted to be seen in the church -- most who were seen in the church were ostracized and belittled -- and not because they thought they could get ahead by hanging out with other Christians -- rather than get ahead, they often were beheaded! Persons were drawn to Christianity because Jesus came as a poor child of lowly means among parents of common stock.
He was not a royal king, lording over his subjects with command and self-assurance.
He was not a wealthy landowner with cattle and scores of servants at his beckoning.
He was not a successful entrepreneur who navigated the nuances of business strategies and workplace politics.
Early Christians noted that he was a person's person, a human's human. He filled out completely in his flesh what it meant to live a fully human life. He lived completely into the shape of his life as it was given to him by the Father.
I read a Henri Nouwen vignette years ago in which he wrote about presiding over a Christmas Mass in Central America. After the Mass, an old man approached Nouwen to express appreciation for the Mass. Nouwen deflected the praise and said something about the Christ who was at the center of the Mass. The old man's reply was something like, "Ah yes, the baby Jesus. He was poor and little . . . like us."
That seems to be the message I'm hearing more than any other this Christmas. The baby Jesus, he's poor and little like us. We may think that we're not poor and little. We can convince others and even ourselves that the clothes really do make the man (or the woman) . . . that we're as good as our reputation . . . that we can wear some kind of mask in order to convince others that we're really all together. . . .
But each of us in some way are little and poor. All of us have some kind of lack, some deficiency, some point of need. We cannot give ourselves the very things we most need for full and abundant life. We each live with an inner poverty, a God-sized vacuum that can be filled by nothing and no one else. It is an emptiness that is Christ-sized, a hole that waits and waits for the birthing of Christ within us.
The acknowledgment of that inner poverty is the beginning point to the filling of that emptiness. To acknowledge our real selves, to say with honesty that we are little, poor and in need leads to the richest, most florescent life.
Christ comes small. Humbly. He doesn't need much room to be born. Just a sliver. A crack. A small stable. An open heart. A willing spirit. Someone who believes beyond the nearly seen world.
If you are reading a meditation like this on Christmas Day, I suspect you might be this kind of person. You likely have the kind of heart-space into which Jesus continues to be born. You may be a kind of midwife, helping Jesus be birthed into our world in the lives of other people.
So I pray that on this most holy day, you would create just enough space within the stable of your own heart and spirit for Christ to be born. If enough of us clear a corner of the stable today . . .
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Christmas Eve -- December 24, 2010
2 Samuel 7:1 - 18
After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”
Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”
But that night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying:
“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
“‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”
Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.
Then King David went in and sat before the LORD.
I'm convinced that most of us totally don't get grace. We have virtually no point of reference for it in our world, in our relationships or in our social structures. We are much more skilled in merit, that is, in earning or losing, achieving or failing. Grace is so completely radical that we cannot imagine work or school settings that are not predicated on achieving and earning. We cannot imagine governmental systems built on generosity and grace rather than what people "deserve." Even within the Church, where the language of grace is frequently overheard, there is little real understanding of a life without conditions, merit and comparison.
Because we don't get grace, we spend a great deal of energy trying to be a certain kind of person and do certain kinds of things. Our hope is heaven, or to avoid hell, or to please God, or to get some kind of divine favor as reward for our faithfulness. . . . the list is endless. We each have our own motivation for being connected to God or for living a certain kind of life.
There are two sets of texts for Christmas Eve in the Church. The texts for late Christmas Eve, called vigils, include Isaiah 62:1 - 5 and Matthew 1:18 - 25. They are not surprising texts for Christmas Eve.
The morning texts for the day, however, are more surprising. They stretch us a bit and force us to stay open. They keep us from locking in on the easy formulations and trite expressions that come out of dealing with the same nativity story for 20 centuries. The morning readings are in 2 Samuel 7 (above) and Luke 1:67 - 79.
Work with me in 2 Samuel 7 for a moment. King David had come to a pause in his reign. He was a man given to God with a heart tightly bound to God. That didn't mean he was morally perfect or that he didn't make some really stupid and self-interested decisions. None of his imperfections disqualified him, though, from loving God, being committed to God, and knowing God's deep love and blessing for him. [For that reason alone, I'm so very glad his flawed life and story are in the Scriptures!]
For whatever reason, David decided he wanted to do something grand for God. As the king it was within his power to do something weighty and meaningful that would impact his kingdom. He thought that God had lived long enough in a portable worship space (the tabernacle). God deserved a permanent residence, David thought, so he determined to build a permanenttemple to God, a house that would be God's dwelling place.
David consulted his spiritual advisor, Nathan, about the plan. Nathan gave him the go-ahead, but then had a vision in which God corrected Nathan's initial intuition. God gave Nathan a message to take back to David that basically said, "I don't want you to build a house for me. Instead, I'm going to build a house in you and with you!"
It's a radical concept . . . God saying to the most powerful man in the nation, "I don't want you to do this thing for me. I do, however, want you to be so open, willing and receptive that I can do something in you!"
Of course, one level of meaning is that the house God wanted to build in David and through David was a succession of kings and leaders in the nation who would be descended from David. This passage is the assigned text for Christmas Eve because Jesus is descended from this very Davidic line (as Matthew 1:1 - 17 makes clear).
For this meaning to come from the text, David had to be open to changing his plans. David had to say, "Yes," to this alteration of his program of leadership.
Which brings me to the deeper meaning in the text, the meaning which really is most significant. For God to build this "house" through David, first of all David had to allow God to build a different kind of "house" inside David. David had to open his life to God in such a way that would allow God to re-form David's inner landscape, shaping David in such a way that this "outer house" could come to be.
This inner work always precedes the outer work. David's lineage doesn't mean a thing if David doesn't first open his heart and his mind and his hands to the deeper inner shaping that God wants to mold within him.
The same is true with us. The inner work precedes the outer. Life, full and abundant life moves from inside to outside.
I mentioned that this text is important because the "house" God builds through David ends up extending to Jesus. I think it is important for another reason. God is always trying to be born in us. God is continually coming to us. As God came into the stable, into the manger, into the world, so God is coming constantly within us and around us. In a sense, the birthing of Jesus within our hearts is the foundation of the "house" God is building inside us.
This birthing is offered to us without condition. We did nothing to deserve it. We cannot manage it in order to make it happen. That God would give Jesus to the world, that God would build this "house" within us, is entirely an act of generosity and grace.
Seven centuries ago Meister Eckart said, "What good is it if Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, but he is not born in my heart?"
Psalm 132 is a poetic imagining of the David story from 2 Samuel 7. When I tried to put this psalm in my own words, I thought about David wanting to build a house for God and the surprise of hearing that God wanted to build a house in him! I called it The Great Reversal. It is both a graced reversal and a great reversal. Here are the lines I came up with in that psalm.
I remember, God, Your servant David,
and the vow he made in the midst of grief and shattering loss,
A pledge that he would build a home for You in the Holy City.
He loved You so deeply, was so thoroughly committed to You,
that even when his own life was falling apart . . .
rebellious children, death threats, kingdom crumbling . . .
he wanted to build a house of worship for You,
a place where his people could offer their devotion to You.
It was the least he could do – so he thought –
replacing what had become a portable shrine with a permanent residence for God,
a place for Your rest and worship, a true Home.
But that’s not how it turned out.
For all of David’s good intentions, for all his desire to sacrifice for You,
that was not what You desired.
And my life . . . like David I ask:
“What can I do for You?”
“What sacrifices do You want me to make?”
“How can I build a structure or a program or a ministry or a relationship that will glorify God?”
“Are there ascetic penances that should represent my surrender to You?”
“How much money shall I give?”
“How much time shall I spend?”
“How much energy shall I invest?”
For all my grand intentions, this is not ultimately what You have desired.
Then comes this Great Reversal:
I’ve lumbered through life with this illusion
that the center of life is about what I do for You,
that I need to find great and small things to do for You;
When all along, You’ve wanted to do something in me!
You’ve desired to build a life of meaning in me,
a life animated by Your Spirit and lived from the soul, inside-out!
David had it backwards; he didn’t need to build a house for You.
You wanted to build a house inside him!
Others through the years misunderstood as David did . . .
Peter at Mount Transfiguration,
St. Francis at San Damiano,
and Jerry in the contemporary world.
You are renovating my interior, remaking me from the inside-out.
My concern for doing – even good and holy things – in the outside world,
Distracts me from the first work You have initiated within me, in my soul’s interior.
This is my own Great Reversal:
The shift in consciousness to which I open myself daily,
as You build a life of meaning within me;
A house where You dwell, that becomes a home of peace for the world.
To this reversal, I open myself.
(Fingerprints on Every Moment, Day Fifteen, Psalm 132)
After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”
Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”
But that night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying:
“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
“‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”
Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.
Then King David went in and sat before the LORD.
I'm convinced that most of us totally don't get grace. We have virtually no point of reference for it in our world, in our relationships or in our social structures. We are much more skilled in merit, that is, in earning or losing, achieving or failing. Grace is so completely radical that we cannot imagine work or school settings that are not predicated on achieving and earning. We cannot imagine governmental systems built on generosity and grace rather than what people "deserve." Even within the Church, where the language of grace is frequently overheard, there is little real understanding of a life without conditions, merit and comparison.
Because we don't get grace, we spend a great deal of energy trying to be a certain kind of person and do certain kinds of things. Our hope is heaven, or to avoid hell, or to please God, or to get some kind of divine favor as reward for our faithfulness. . . . the list is endless. We each have our own motivation for being connected to God or for living a certain kind of life.
There are two sets of texts for Christmas Eve in the Church. The texts for late Christmas Eve, called vigils, include Isaiah 62:1 - 5 and Matthew 1:18 - 25. They are not surprising texts for Christmas Eve.
The morning texts for the day, however, are more surprising. They stretch us a bit and force us to stay open. They keep us from locking in on the easy formulations and trite expressions that come out of dealing with the same nativity story for 20 centuries. The morning readings are in 2 Samuel 7 (above) and Luke 1:67 - 79.
Work with me in 2 Samuel 7 for a moment. King David had come to a pause in his reign. He was a man given to God with a heart tightly bound to God. That didn't mean he was morally perfect or that he didn't make some really stupid and self-interested decisions. None of his imperfections disqualified him, though, from loving God, being committed to God, and knowing God's deep love and blessing for him. [For that reason alone, I'm so very glad his flawed life and story are in the Scriptures!]
For whatever reason, David decided he wanted to do something grand for God. As the king it was within his power to do something weighty and meaningful that would impact his kingdom. He thought that God had lived long enough in a portable worship space (the tabernacle). God deserved a permanent residence, David thought, so he determined to build a permanenttemple to God, a house that would be God's dwelling place.
David consulted his spiritual advisor, Nathan, about the plan. Nathan gave him the go-ahead, but then had a vision in which God corrected Nathan's initial intuition. God gave Nathan a message to take back to David that basically said, "I don't want you to build a house for me. Instead, I'm going to build a house in you and with you!"
It's a radical concept . . . God saying to the most powerful man in the nation, "I don't want you to do this thing for me. I do, however, want you to be so open, willing and receptive that I can do something in you!"
Of course, one level of meaning is that the house God wanted to build in David and through David was a succession of kings and leaders in the nation who would be descended from David. This passage is the assigned text for Christmas Eve because Jesus is descended from this very Davidic line (as Matthew 1:1 - 17 makes clear).
For this meaning to come from the text, David had to be open to changing his plans. David had to say, "Yes," to this alteration of his program of leadership.
Which brings me to the deeper meaning in the text, the meaning which really is most significant. For God to build this "house" through David, first of all David had to allow God to build a different kind of "house" inside David. David had to open his life to God in such a way that would allow God to re-form David's inner landscape, shaping David in such a way that this "outer house" could come to be.
This inner work always precedes the outer work. David's lineage doesn't mean a thing if David doesn't first open his heart and his mind and his hands to the deeper inner shaping that God wants to mold within him.
The same is true with us. The inner work precedes the outer. Life, full and abundant life moves from inside to outside.
I mentioned that this text is important because the "house" God builds through David ends up extending to Jesus. I think it is important for another reason. God is always trying to be born in us. God is continually coming to us. As God came into the stable, into the manger, into the world, so God is coming constantly within us and around us. In a sense, the birthing of Jesus within our hearts is the foundation of the "house" God is building inside us.
This birthing is offered to us without condition. We did nothing to deserve it. We cannot manage it in order to make it happen. That God would give Jesus to the world, that God would build this "house" within us, is entirely an act of generosity and grace.
Seven centuries ago Meister Eckart said, "What good is it if Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, but he is not born in my heart?"
Psalm 132 is a poetic imagining of the David story from 2 Samuel 7. When I tried to put this psalm in my own words, I thought about David wanting to build a house for God and the surprise of hearing that God wanted to build a house in him! I called it The Great Reversal. It is both a graced reversal and a great reversal. Here are the lines I came up with in that psalm.
I remember, God, Your servant David,
and the vow he made in the midst of grief and shattering loss,
A pledge that he would build a home for You in the Holy City.
He loved You so deeply, was so thoroughly committed to You,
that even when his own life was falling apart . . .
rebellious children, death threats, kingdom crumbling . . .
he wanted to build a house of worship for You,
a place where his people could offer their devotion to You.
It was the least he could do – so he thought –
replacing what had become a portable shrine with a permanent residence for God,
a place for Your rest and worship, a true Home.
But that’s not how it turned out.
For all of David’s good intentions, for all his desire to sacrifice for You,
that was not what You desired.
And my life . . . like David I ask:
“What can I do for You?”
“What sacrifices do You want me to make?”
“How can I build a structure or a program or a ministry or a relationship that will glorify God?”
“Are there ascetic penances that should represent my surrender to You?”
“How much money shall I give?”
“How much time shall I spend?”
“How much energy shall I invest?”
For all my grand intentions, this is not ultimately what You have desired.
Then comes this Great Reversal:
I’ve lumbered through life with this illusion
that the center of life is about what I do for You,
that I need to find great and small things to do for You;
When all along, You’ve wanted to do something in me!
You’ve desired to build a life of meaning in me,
a life animated by Your Spirit and lived from the soul, inside-out!
David had it backwards; he didn’t need to build a house for You.
You wanted to build a house inside him!
Others through the years misunderstood as David did . . .
Peter at Mount Transfiguration,
St. Francis at San Damiano,
and Jerry in the contemporary world.
You are renovating my interior, remaking me from the inside-out.
My concern for doing – even good and holy things – in the outside world,
Distracts me from the first work You have initiated within me, in my soul’s interior.
This is my own Great Reversal:
The shift in consciousness to which I open myself daily,
as You build a life of meaning within me;
A house where You dwell, that becomes a home of peace for the world.
To this reversal, I open myself.
(Fingerprints on Every Moment, Day Fifteen, Psalm 132)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The Fourth Thursday of Advent -- December 23, 2010
Malachi 3:1 - 4; 4:5 - 6
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
Reading this text from Malachi, I feel like breaking out my bass part for a line or two from Handel's "Messiah." No, I won't subject you to that . . . though in my uninitiated observation, that has to be one of the toughest solos around.
In our canon of Scripture, Malachi's words are important because they are among the final words of the Hebrew Scriptures before the New Testament begins. As is the case very often with prophets, the words sound a warning. You can find little that is gentle and consoling in Malachi's words.
I'm grinning to myself as I write . . . so often the Hebrew prophets act like that drill sergeant-turned-therapist in the car insurance commercial. When the fellow on the couch sheepishly says something about "yellow makes me sad," the therapist with the burr haircut yells back, "MAYBE WE OUGHT TO TRUCK ON OVER TO MAMBY-PAMBYLAND WHERE MAYBE WE CAN FIND SOME SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR YOU, YOU JACK-WAGON!!!" Granted, it's not very pastoral, but I find it funny.
So I wince when I hear Malachi's words. But I understand that prophets intend to shock. They mean to shake us from our stupor. They speak with blunt and direct images. They want to move us out of our complacency and comfort. In the end, they want us to consider God again after we have been busy closing too many God-doors. Like other Old Testament prophets, Malachi overstates his case in order to get our attention, in order to elicit from us a reaction. Prophets tend to call for us to get in or get out. They don't leave many middle options.
The biblical prophets did not foretell the future. Dr. Dan Kent, my mentor in all things Old Testament, used to say that prophets were not fore-tellers, they were forth-tellers. In other words, they didn't predict the future; rather, they spoke forth the truth of what they saw at the moment, which often had long-range consequences into the future.
I might say it a little differently. Prophets were truth-tellers, at least to the extent they could see and had experienced truth. It is not easy to see the truth about ourselves, God, others and the world, much less speak it out. Truth-seeing is one of the difficult exercises of our lives. We all see life with tinted glasses, with foggy glasses which make it difficult for us to see what is real. To see life stripped of pretense, stripped of illusion, stripped of our own ego-centeredness is extremely difficult.
There is a sense, then, in which we are all called to be prophets. We are all called to the vocation of living more and more into the truth . . . the truth of God . . . the truth about ourselves . . . the truth of who we are in relation to others and the world. Old Testament prophets spoke of this in a way that was stark and sometimes abrasive. But you don't have to be abrasive to see and speak the truth.
In fact, the spiritual posture most required may be humility. Authentic prophets don't speak the truth because they enjoy seeing people plunged into the refiner's fire, but rather because they so deeply desire to see people healed and be made whole. True prophets don't delight in the misery of others. They do, however, celebrate the wholeness and healing others experience.
Malachi, echoing other prophets, says that when the day of the Lord comes, the day we see most fully God's intention for us and the day we hear most clearly God's invitation to step into the life for which God created us . . . that day will be "great and dreadful."
It will be great in that it will open up before us all the possibilities of who we can be, living into the purpose for which God made us and placed us on the planet.
But it will also be dreadful because for us to step into this invitation means laying aside our ego-driven agendas in order to take up a Divine agenda for live. And that letting go is always painful. None of us do it well. We dread being asked to change. Even more, we dread being forced to change. So the "day of the Lord" is great, but it is also dreadful.
That's the picture Malachi paints as we inch closer to Christmas. We're each invited into truthful and authentic living. To accept that invitation leads us to step into our prophetic vocation. But to do so means life-change, the shifting of frameworks and the reordering of alliances and allegiances. It is great work, but also work we dread.
The child born on Saturday, the Christ whose birth we celebrate, bears Good News in his life and in his very being. The angels announce as much to the shepherds . . . good news which shall be for everyone, everywhere.
But this Good News is also bad news for us and for the part of us which wants to hold onto life as we know it -- and perhaps life as we want it! That is the life we must slowly release, so that we may take into ourselves his life.
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
Reading this text from Malachi, I feel like breaking out my bass part for a line or two from Handel's "Messiah." No, I won't subject you to that . . . though in my uninitiated observation, that has to be one of the toughest solos around.
In our canon of Scripture, Malachi's words are important because they are among the final words of the Hebrew Scriptures before the New Testament begins. As is the case very often with prophets, the words sound a warning. You can find little that is gentle and consoling in Malachi's words.
I'm grinning to myself as I write . . . so often the Hebrew prophets act like that drill sergeant-turned-therapist in the car insurance commercial. When the fellow on the couch sheepishly says something about "yellow makes me sad," the therapist with the burr haircut yells back, "MAYBE WE OUGHT TO TRUCK ON OVER TO MAMBY-PAMBYLAND WHERE MAYBE WE CAN FIND SOME SELF-CONFIDENCE FOR YOU, YOU JACK-WAGON!!!" Granted, it's not very pastoral, but I find it funny.
So I wince when I hear Malachi's words. But I understand that prophets intend to shock. They mean to shake us from our stupor. They speak with blunt and direct images. They want to move us out of our complacency and comfort. In the end, they want us to consider God again after we have been busy closing too many God-doors. Like other Old Testament prophets, Malachi overstates his case in order to get our attention, in order to elicit from us a reaction. Prophets tend to call for us to get in or get out. They don't leave many middle options.
The biblical prophets did not foretell the future. Dr. Dan Kent, my mentor in all things Old Testament, used to say that prophets were not fore-tellers, they were forth-tellers. In other words, they didn't predict the future; rather, they spoke forth the truth of what they saw at the moment, which often had long-range consequences into the future.
I might say it a little differently. Prophets were truth-tellers, at least to the extent they could see and had experienced truth. It is not easy to see the truth about ourselves, God, others and the world, much less speak it out. Truth-seeing is one of the difficult exercises of our lives. We all see life with tinted glasses, with foggy glasses which make it difficult for us to see what is real. To see life stripped of pretense, stripped of illusion, stripped of our own ego-centeredness is extremely difficult.
There is a sense, then, in which we are all called to be prophets. We are all called to the vocation of living more and more into the truth . . . the truth of God . . . the truth about ourselves . . . the truth of who we are in relation to others and the world. Old Testament prophets spoke of this in a way that was stark and sometimes abrasive. But you don't have to be abrasive to see and speak the truth.
In fact, the spiritual posture most required may be humility. Authentic prophets don't speak the truth because they enjoy seeing people plunged into the refiner's fire, but rather because they so deeply desire to see people healed and be made whole. True prophets don't delight in the misery of others. They do, however, celebrate the wholeness and healing others experience.
Malachi, echoing other prophets, says that when the day of the Lord comes, the day we see most fully God's intention for us and the day we hear most clearly God's invitation to step into the life for which God created us . . . that day will be "great and dreadful."
It will be great in that it will open up before us all the possibilities of who we can be, living into the purpose for which God made us and placed us on the planet.
But it will also be dreadful because for us to step into this invitation means laying aside our ego-driven agendas in order to take up a Divine agenda for live. And that letting go is always painful. None of us do it well. We dread being asked to change. Even more, we dread being forced to change. So the "day of the Lord" is great, but it is also dreadful.
That's the picture Malachi paints as we inch closer to Christmas. We're each invited into truthful and authentic living. To accept that invitation leads us to step into our prophetic vocation. But to do so means life-change, the shifting of frameworks and the reordering of alliances and allegiances. It is great work, but also work we dread.
The child born on Saturday, the Christ whose birth we celebrate, bears Good News in his life and in his very being. The angels announce as much to the shepherds . . . good news which shall be for everyone, everywhere.
But this Good News is also bad news for us and for the part of us which wants to hold onto life as we know it -- and perhaps life as we want it! That is the life we must slowly release, so that we may take into ourselves his life.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Fourth Wednesday of Advent -- December 22, 2010
Luke 1:46 - 56
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
Much Christian Scripture arises out of a predominantly male-dominated culture. For centuries scholars have assumed male authorship even for anonymously-written books of the Bible. There is little doubt that in both Old Testament and New Testament narratives males play a primary role.
Some people hinge an entire theology of gender on the Apostle Paul and some of his letters to the early Churches. With a surface reading of Paul's letters, many feel that Paul elevates men over women and encourages a kind of "chain of command" in which men legitimately stand over women. It's not an uncommon view within the Church.
I've also met a number of people through the years who carry an extreme dislike for Paul because of his supposed male bias. They hate Paul because they think he hated women.
If you know that the culture of the biblical narratives was biased toward men, it becomes even more significant when you run into passages where women are featured, where females stand center stage.
The Old Testament reading for today is from I Samuel 1 - 2 and tells the story of Hannah, who in her barrenness cried out to God for a child. Hannah stood front and center as the major character in the story that brought Samuel onto the scene. Samuel ended up being a central figure in Old Testament religion.
The Gospel reading is Mary's Magnificat, her glorifying or magnifying God for what God was doing in her life and in the world. She sings this song that celebrates God's action among all people, bringing God's light to shine upon all people.
We need to read Mary's words. They speak to God raising up the little and bringing down the big. They report on God's feeding the hungry and sending the satisfied away empty. Throughout the Magnificat there is a huge leveling. God is making even, bringing life to equilibrium. In fact, what Mary sings in this song is a microcosm of what God did in her life. She is merely singing her personal experience of God.
I'm a white male. For the most part, throughout my lifetime people have listened to me . . . because of the positions I've held, the roles I've been in, the jobs in which I've been employed.
I notice, though, that when people don't listen to me or give heed to my words and ideas, I get rather impatient. It frustrates me. I'm not used to being ignored. In recent years, when that happens, I've connected my experience to the experience of billions of people on the planet who, like Mary, for the most part are not listened to. They have little voice. What I experience occasionally, they experience all the time.
Occasionally I'm asked to speak in settings that challenge my voice because the audience is filled with persons (females, African-Americans, Latino-Americans, or others) who have a voice but have never had the opportunity to speak their own truth. When that happens -- I was in that kind of setting last Saturday -- as a white male I always feel that I need to sit down and shut up so I can hear the voices of those who have not been given opportunity to let their voice be heard.
It occurred to me Saturday as I talked about the birth of Christ, for instance, that the females in the audience, and those of African descent, and those of Latino descent, would hear the story of the nativity very differently than I do. They would see things and hear things that I would surely miss. Why can't I sit down and listen to those "Mary's," and let them teach me?
When you read the Magnificat, don't read it as a document of privilege. Read it as a song of freedom, a song sung from the underside. Mary was not in the place of the male, one-up. She was one-down, underneath, yet still finding and expressing her voice.
Perhaps her song will give you cause to hear the songs of others in your world who are in her position this Christmas, without much voice in our world, yet with something vitally important to say.
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
Much Christian Scripture arises out of a predominantly male-dominated culture. For centuries scholars have assumed male authorship even for anonymously-written books of the Bible. There is little doubt that in both Old Testament and New Testament narratives males play a primary role.
Some people hinge an entire theology of gender on the Apostle Paul and some of his letters to the early Churches. With a surface reading of Paul's letters, many feel that Paul elevates men over women and encourages a kind of "chain of command" in which men legitimately stand over women. It's not an uncommon view within the Church.
I've also met a number of people through the years who carry an extreme dislike for Paul because of his supposed male bias. They hate Paul because they think he hated women.
If you know that the culture of the biblical narratives was biased toward men, it becomes even more significant when you run into passages where women are featured, where females stand center stage.
The Old Testament reading for today is from I Samuel 1 - 2 and tells the story of Hannah, who in her barrenness cried out to God for a child. Hannah stood front and center as the major character in the story that brought Samuel onto the scene. Samuel ended up being a central figure in Old Testament religion.
The Gospel reading is Mary's Magnificat, her glorifying or magnifying God for what God was doing in her life and in the world. She sings this song that celebrates God's action among all people, bringing God's light to shine upon all people.
We need to read Mary's words. They speak to God raising up the little and bringing down the big. They report on God's feeding the hungry and sending the satisfied away empty. Throughout the Magnificat there is a huge leveling. God is making even, bringing life to equilibrium. In fact, what Mary sings in this song is a microcosm of what God did in her life. She is merely singing her personal experience of God.
I'm a white male. For the most part, throughout my lifetime people have listened to me . . . because of the positions I've held, the roles I've been in, the jobs in which I've been employed.
I notice, though, that when people don't listen to me or give heed to my words and ideas, I get rather impatient. It frustrates me. I'm not used to being ignored. In recent years, when that happens, I've connected my experience to the experience of billions of people on the planet who, like Mary, for the most part are not listened to. They have little voice. What I experience occasionally, they experience all the time.
Occasionally I'm asked to speak in settings that challenge my voice because the audience is filled with persons (females, African-Americans, Latino-Americans, or others) who have a voice but have never had the opportunity to speak their own truth. When that happens -- I was in that kind of setting last Saturday -- as a white male I always feel that I need to sit down and shut up so I can hear the voices of those who have not been given opportunity to let their voice be heard.
It occurred to me Saturday as I talked about the birth of Christ, for instance, that the females in the audience, and those of African descent, and those of Latino descent, would hear the story of the nativity very differently than I do. They would see things and hear things that I would surely miss. Why can't I sit down and listen to those "Mary's," and let them teach me?
When you read the Magnificat, don't read it as a document of privilege. Read it as a song of freedom, a song sung from the underside. Mary was not in the place of the male, one-up. She was one-down, underneath, yet still finding and expressing her voice.
Perhaps her song will give you cause to hear the songs of others in your world who are in her position this Christmas, without much voice in our world, yet with something vitally important to say.
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Fourth Tuesday of Advent -- December 21, 2010
Luke 1:39 - 45
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Most of us get totally out of rhythm during the season leading up to Christmas. We live at a pace that is almost unmanageable, then talk as if we don't have a choice in the matter. "I have to go here . . ." and "I need to do this . . ." and "They'll be expecting me. . . ." Our language becomes full of obligation and expectation, the "shoulds" and "musts" of a life that is out of control.
So every year I hear people talk about the need to slow down, to be simpler, to savor the sights and sounds of Christmas throughout Advent. I hear a lot of talk, but see very little of it. We get caught by the pace of the season, almost as if in a river's current that we cannot resist.
We have some options. First, we can curse the busy-ness. We can talk about it as a blight upon the season. We can talk about "putting Christ back in Christmas" and all those sorts of things. But that doesn't necessarily change how we step through Advent toward Christmas. It is entirely possible -- and perhaps probable -- that even in our resistance of the busy-ness, we'll find ourselves scattered, frayed, and pulled apart in hundreds of different directions. We'll still lament how short the time is, how difficult it is to meet all the demands and obligations that we carry like heavy sacks of duty.
Second, we can try to create some rhythm through Advent that prepare us for Christmas. I find this option more fruitful than the first. It means that we intentionally create some space so that we live with more balance through Advent and Christmas. If we take this option, we may find ourselves still cursing the busyness; however, we counter the busy-ness with spaciousness.
We take a day for retreat.
We spend a few more minutes in the morning in prayer.
We spend a few moments at the end of the day reflecting on our experience of the day . . . what has given me life and what has drained life from me.
We settle into regular worship and enjoy the pauses as sacred interludes in which silence is savored.
The third option I'll mention is perhaps the most difficult of all, yet may be the most helpful for us in the end. It entails taking a different stance into the busy-ness. It invites us to have different eyes in the settings to which we scurry in haste. It involves seeing Christ embodied in the real-life settings in which I find myself.
In short, it doesn't lament the pace of the season, nor does it try to reform everyone else's pace. It does not try to withdraw from the artificial Christmas world in order to seek a more spotless and pure experience of Christmas. Rather, it attends to the pace at which I live, the places I go, and seeks to bring the light of Christ even into the often-frantic Advent season.
Actually, this is the major challenge of spirituality. How do I live a spiritual life in the world in which I live? How do I live a life that is energized and empowered by a core life-connection to God in the specific context of my life? . . . my family, relationships, work, leisure, church, and so on?
Yes, I probably need to stop lamenting the artificial expectations of the season. And yes, I need to live more fully into a rhythm that helps me stay focused. But most of all, I need to be fully present in those places in which I live, move and having my being. I need to be in those places in transforming ways . . . not grudgingly and grumbling.
Last year it became clear to me -- for reasons I won't go into now -- that part of the gift I have to offer people during Advent and Christmas is my time and energy. The time and energy I offer is poured into planning services for worship and prayer, leading classes for listening to God's stirring, providing quiet space in retreats, and more . . . counseling, speaking, listening, writing, meeting and delivering.
For me, I suppose it has been like this for 30 years, but I resisted for a long time, lamenting the busy-ness. It has become clear to me that I need to find a rhythm for Advent and let God use that rhythm to carry me through the season. Further, I need not lament the pace, but lean into it in a different way, with eyes to see what is really around me . . . the people, the voices, the sights. I need to do what I do, but to do so in a redeeming and transforming way, if that makes any sense.
So that's what I have on my mind for these last few days of Advent.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Most of us get totally out of rhythm during the season leading up to Christmas. We live at a pace that is almost unmanageable, then talk as if we don't have a choice in the matter. "I have to go here . . ." and "I need to do this . . ." and "They'll be expecting me. . . ." Our language becomes full of obligation and expectation, the "shoulds" and "musts" of a life that is out of control.
So every year I hear people talk about the need to slow down, to be simpler, to savor the sights and sounds of Christmas throughout Advent. I hear a lot of talk, but see very little of it. We get caught by the pace of the season, almost as if in a river's current that we cannot resist.
We have some options. First, we can curse the busy-ness. We can talk about it as a blight upon the season. We can talk about "putting Christ back in Christmas" and all those sorts of things. But that doesn't necessarily change how we step through Advent toward Christmas. It is entirely possible -- and perhaps probable -- that even in our resistance of the busy-ness, we'll find ourselves scattered, frayed, and pulled apart in hundreds of different directions. We'll still lament how short the time is, how difficult it is to meet all the demands and obligations that we carry like heavy sacks of duty.
Second, we can try to create some rhythm through Advent that prepare us for Christmas. I find this option more fruitful than the first. It means that we intentionally create some space so that we live with more balance through Advent and Christmas. If we take this option, we may find ourselves still cursing the busyness; however, we counter the busy-ness with spaciousness.
We take a day for retreat.
We spend a few more minutes in the morning in prayer.
We spend a few moments at the end of the day reflecting on our experience of the day . . . what has given me life and what has drained life from me.
We settle into regular worship and enjoy the pauses as sacred interludes in which silence is savored.
The third option I'll mention is perhaps the most difficult of all, yet may be the most helpful for us in the end. It entails taking a different stance into the busy-ness. It invites us to have different eyes in the settings to which we scurry in haste. It involves seeing Christ embodied in the real-life settings in which I find myself.
In short, it doesn't lament the pace of the season, nor does it try to reform everyone else's pace. It does not try to withdraw from the artificial Christmas world in order to seek a more spotless and pure experience of Christmas. Rather, it attends to the pace at which I live, the places I go, and seeks to bring the light of Christ even into the often-frantic Advent season.
Actually, this is the major challenge of spirituality. How do I live a spiritual life in the world in which I live? How do I live a life that is energized and empowered by a core life-connection to God in the specific context of my life? . . . my family, relationships, work, leisure, church, and so on?
Yes, I probably need to stop lamenting the artificial expectations of the season. And yes, I need to live more fully into a rhythm that helps me stay focused. But most of all, I need to be fully present in those places in which I live, move and having my being. I need to be in those places in transforming ways . . . not grudgingly and grumbling.
Last year it became clear to me -- for reasons I won't go into now -- that part of the gift I have to offer people during Advent and Christmas is my time and energy. The time and energy I offer is poured into planning services for worship and prayer, leading classes for listening to God's stirring, providing quiet space in retreats, and more . . . counseling, speaking, listening, writing, meeting and delivering.
For me, I suppose it has been like this for 30 years, but I resisted for a long time, lamenting the busy-ness. It has become clear to me that I need to find a rhythm for Advent and let God use that rhythm to carry me through the season. Further, I need not lament the pace, but lean into it in a different way, with eyes to see what is really around me . . . the people, the voices, the sights. I need to do what I do, but to do so in a redeeming and transforming way, if that makes any sense.
So that's what I have on my mind for these last few days of Advent.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
The Fourth Monday of Advent -- December 20, 2010
Luke 1:26 - 38
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.
Angels appear frequently in the biblical story. They play a prominent role in the Nativity of Jesus, inviting Mary to participate in the birth of Jesus, assuring Joseph of the human-divine confluence of this pregnancy, and announcing the birth to shepherds and the ordinary people of the day.
Angels literally are messengers of God. They carry a message from God, speaking for God to the created order. As messengers, I believe they can take several forms. They may take the form of beings from another dimension, similar to what we envision when the word "angel" is mentioned.
They may have a very human form, and in fact, I believe humans could fulfill the function of an angelic messenger, carrying God's message to persons.
I also suspect that the created world served an angelic purpose, with animals and plant life carrying the message of God to people who pay attention to God's voice with a more attentive hearing. For some folks -- artists, poets and mystics, perhaps -- the created world is full of angelic messages from God.
The consistent thread in angelic appearances is that angels always carry a message from God. They represent God. They speak God's word. They announce what God is doing in the world. They open doors to a deeper understanding, a more grounded existence. They invite participation in this work of God.
In the moments when we wake up, when we see more clearly, in moments of illumination, we can believe that we have experienced some kind of angel presence.
Most always when angels arrive on the scene, the first words they speak are, "Don't be afraid." "Fear not." Why is that the common angelic greeting?
1. It could be the way angels looked. Some ancient art depicts angels as fearsome beings. Sometimes they carried flaming swords. They typically were not the cute, plump little cherubs we see on greeting cards. They were not fairy tale-type beings, but rather were strong, mighty and inspired awe. Their physical presence may have been terribly frightening.
2. Perhaps the angel presence stirred fear in humans because they represented the unseen dimension of existence, the realm that is typically kept behind the curtain, but then suddenly revealed to humans. As humans we live governed by our five senses. We are given to what we call the "real," almost blinded to whatever might be real that lies beyond our sight. I personally believe that we are surrounded by these angel presences, that they are around us all the time, but we are not practiced in noticing them. When we finally see them, we wet our pants, so to speak. We are unaccustomed to these visitations from this spiritual dimension. So we need to hear this message: "Fear not."
3. I believe there is a third, and most compelling, reason for angels to warn, "Don't be afraid," when they appear. The message brought by angels most always calls us to a shift in our thinking, a shift in how we see people, things, God and even ourselves. This shift is most often painful because it means that we must give up the old ways we have seen people, things, God and self. It means we must grow new ways of being in the world.
This shift from the old to the new can be terrible slow, messy and often painful. The angel voices are not soft and soothing, singing in the night. They are terrifying because they invite us to a different kind of living. They invite us to adjust our lives. They invite us to a different relationship with reality, a different relationship with God, others, the created world and our self.
Today I invite you to consider messages you have heard lately. Are there particular themes that have arisen in your work or school, through a song or a conversation, in reading a book or in an email from a friend? See if one or two messages come to the surface of your awareness right now.
What most excites you about that message?
What do you fear most about the message?
To what might God be inviting you through this particular message?
If you came up with some messages that you are hearing through these Advent days, I'll suggest that you have heard angel voices. You have heard from God. In a vast number of ways, God speaks through messengers. You and I are a part of that vast network, both as message-givers and message-receivers.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.
Angels appear frequently in the biblical story. They play a prominent role in the Nativity of Jesus, inviting Mary to participate in the birth of Jesus, assuring Joseph of the human-divine confluence of this pregnancy, and announcing the birth to shepherds and the ordinary people of the day.
Angels literally are messengers of God. They carry a message from God, speaking for God to the created order. As messengers, I believe they can take several forms. They may take the form of beings from another dimension, similar to what we envision when the word "angel" is mentioned.
They may have a very human form, and in fact, I believe humans could fulfill the function of an angelic messenger, carrying God's message to persons.
I also suspect that the created world served an angelic purpose, with animals and plant life carrying the message of God to people who pay attention to God's voice with a more attentive hearing. For some folks -- artists, poets and mystics, perhaps -- the created world is full of angelic messages from God.
The consistent thread in angelic appearances is that angels always carry a message from God. They represent God. They speak God's word. They announce what God is doing in the world. They open doors to a deeper understanding, a more grounded existence. They invite participation in this work of God.
In the moments when we wake up, when we see more clearly, in moments of illumination, we can believe that we have experienced some kind of angel presence.
Most always when angels arrive on the scene, the first words they speak are, "Don't be afraid." "Fear not." Why is that the common angelic greeting?
1. It could be the way angels looked. Some ancient art depicts angels as fearsome beings. Sometimes they carried flaming swords. They typically were not the cute, plump little cherubs we see on greeting cards. They were not fairy tale-type beings, but rather were strong, mighty and inspired awe. Their physical presence may have been terribly frightening.
2. Perhaps the angel presence stirred fear in humans because they represented the unseen dimension of existence, the realm that is typically kept behind the curtain, but then suddenly revealed to humans. As humans we live governed by our five senses. We are given to what we call the "real," almost blinded to whatever might be real that lies beyond our sight. I personally believe that we are surrounded by these angel presences, that they are around us all the time, but we are not practiced in noticing them. When we finally see them, we wet our pants, so to speak. We are unaccustomed to these visitations from this spiritual dimension. So we need to hear this message: "Fear not."
3. I believe there is a third, and most compelling, reason for angels to warn, "Don't be afraid," when they appear. The message brought by angels most always calls us to a shift in our thinking, a shift in how we see people, things, God and even ourselves. This shift is most often painful because it means that we must give up the old ways we have seen people, things, God and self. It means we must grow new ways of being in the world.
This shift from the old to the new can be terrible slow, messy and often painful. The angel voices are not soft and soothing, singing in the night. They are terrifying because they invite us to a different kind of living. They invite us to adjust our lives. They invite us to a different relationship with reality, a different relationship with God, others, the created world and our self.
Today I invite you to consider messages you have heard lately. Are there particular themes that have arisen in your work or school, through a song or a conversation, in reading a book or in an email from a friend? See if one or two messages come to the surface of your awareness right now.
What most excites you about that message?
What do you fear most about the message?
To what might God be inviting you through this particular message?
If you came up with some messages that you are hearing through these Advent days, I'll suggest that you have heard angel voices. You have heard from God. In a vast number of ways, God speaks through messengers. You and I are a part of that vast network, both as message-givers and message-receivers.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
The Fourth Sunday of Advent -- December 19, 2010
Isaiah 7:10 - 14
Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz: “Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want—as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead.”
But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I will not test the Lord like that.”
Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).
The Old Testament lesson for the day comes from the prophet Isaiah. At a tenuous time in Israel's history, King Ahaz tried to make alliances with the king of Assyria, a neighboring nation. Politically, the alliance may have made sense. It may have provided military protection for Israel. By selling themselves to Assyria, Israel would ransom themselves in order not to be overrun. Historically, the deal seemed wise.
But to create such an alliance meant that Israel was trusting in a foreign king for life and well-being rather than trusting in Yahweh. So Isaiah would not support the deal. Isaiah adamantly insisted that Ahaz not trust in other humans, the kings of nations, but Ahaz was bent toward the protection he could arrange from human powers.
It was a prototypical bind in which the person squeezed trusts in the evil he/she sees and knows more than the life and deliverance that cannot yet be seen. The seen and known seems more reliable, even when it exacts a tremendous price, than the unknown.
So Isaiah told Ahaz that God's intervention and presence would be manifested through a sign that would come outside the natural order of things. He told the king that a virgin would conceive and give birth to a child, and that the child would be a sign and an embodiment of God's presence with the people . . . "Immanuel, God-with-us."
In Matthew 1:22 - 23, Matthew connected the birth of Jesus to this Isaiah passage. The birth of Jesus, announced by angelic message through dreams to Joseph, came outside the natural order. For Matthew, Jesus embodied Immanuel. Jesus was God-with-us. The rest of the Gospel account witnesses to that embodiment.
Years ago I heard Thomas Keating use a phrase for our contemporary lives that struck me as true. He said that as we live open to God, lives that are increasingly growing in depth and meaning, we ourselves becoming a living experience of Jesus. I've held onto that phrase for many, many years now. I think it's a wonderful way of thinking about our contemporary lives.
Let me put it another way. As Jesus embodied God's character and nature, taking Divinity into his own flesh, so you and I are invited to embody the Spirit of Jesus in our time. We are not so much invited to mimic his life -- as many want to suggest -- as we are invited to live fully the lives we've been given by God, and thereby to live the essence of Jesus' life in our contemporary existence. In effect, we are energized to live our full humanity as a sign of God's presence in us and in our world.
To have a lived experience of Jesus means that my life embodies the Christ who was born among us and who was resurrected to new life. Jesus now lives through you and me. Our real experience is an experience of Christ.
How do we live this experience of Jesus? Contemplative prayer and practice train us in the art of letting go of that which is counter to our humanity, counter to our ongoing connection with God. Prayer and spiritual practice are the places I suggest we begin for this lived experience of Jesus.
Prayer and spiritual practice help us live life from the inside-out. The essence of who we are flavors our living more and more. Our being shapes our doing. We live with meaning, a depth of purpose. We receive what life gives us, and find God somewhere in all of it. We find that we don't have to manage and control other people or our circumstances. We are held steady inwardly, free from compulsions. We find life in that which draws us, not in what drives us.
In these ways and others, Christ continues to be born into our world, and specifically, into the real lives you and I live.
In this way, Immanuel, God-with-us, comes to this very day.
Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz: “Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want—as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead.”
But the king refused. “No,” he said, “I will not test the Lord like that.”
Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).
The Old Testament lesson for the day comes from the prophet Isaiah. At a tenuous time in Israel's history, King Ahaz tried to make alliances with the king of Assyria, a neighboring nation. Politically, the alliance may have made sense. It may have provided military protection for Israel. By selling themselves to Assyria, Israel would ransom themselves in order not to be overrun. Historically, the deal seemed wise.
But to create such an alliance meant that Israel was trusting in a foreign king for life and well-being rather than trusting in Yahweh. So Isaiah would not support the deal. Isaiah adamantly insisted that Ahaz not trust in other humans, the kings of nations, but Ahaz was bent toward the protection he could arrange from human powers.
It was a prototypical bind in which the person squeezed trusts in the evil he/she sees and knows more than the life and deliverance that cannot yet be seen. The seen and known seems more reliable, even when it exacts a tremendous price, than the unknown.
So Isaiah told Ahaz that God's intervention and presence would be manifested through a sign that would come outside the natural order of things. He told the king that a virgin would conceive and give birth to a child, and that the child would be a sign and an embodiment of God's presence with the people . . . "Immanuel, God-with-us."
In Matthew 1:22 - 23, Matthew connected the birth of Jesus to this Isaiah passage. The birth of Jesus, announced by angelic message through dreams to Joseph, came outside the natural order. For Matthew, Jesus embodied Immanuel. Jesus was God-with-us. The rest of the Gospel account witnesses to that embodiment.
Years ago I heard Thomas Keating use a phrase for our contemporary lives that struck me as true. He said that as we live open to God, lives that are increasingly growing in depth and meaning, we ourselves becoming a living experience of Jesus. I've held onto that phrase for many, many years now. I think it's a wonderful way of thinking about our contemporary lives.
Let me put it another way. As Jesus embodied God's character and nature, taking Divinity into his own flesh, so you and I are invited to embody the Spirit of Jesus in our time. We are not so much invited to mimic his life -- as many want to suggest -- as we are invited to live fully the lives we've been given by God, and thereby to live the essence of Jesus' life in our contemporary existence. In effect, we are energized to live our full humanity as a sign of God's presence in us and in our world.
To have a lived experience of Jesus means that my life embodies the Christ who was born among us and who was resurrected to new life. Jesus now lives through you and me. Our real experience is an experience of Christ.
How do we live this experience of Jesus? Contemplative prayer and practice train us in the art of letting go of that which is counter to our humanity, counter to our ongoing connection with God. Prayer and spiritual practice are the places I suggest we begin for this lived experience of Jesus.
Prayer and spiritual practice help us live life from the inside-out. The essence of who we are flavors our living more and more. Our being shapes our doing. We live with meaning, a depth of purpose. We receive what life gives us, and find God somewhere in all of it. We find that we don't have to manage and control other people or our circumstances. We are held steady inwardly, free from compulsions. We find life in that which draws us, not in what drives us.
In these ways and others, Christ continues to be born into our world, and specifically, into the real lives you and I live.
In this way, Immanuel, God-with-us, comes to this very day.
Friday, December 17, 2010
The Third Saturday of Advent -- December 18, 2010
Matthew 1:18 - 25
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
The Natural is one of my top 5 movies. Robert Redford . . . baseball themes . . . heroic, underdog finish . . . out-of-sight musical score. The movie wins at several levels for me.
The movie -- and the novel from which it is taken -- are riffs on an old Arthurian theme which delineates then blurs the lines between light and darkness, good and evil. The Redford character, Roy Hobbs, had positive influences in his past, but also took several missteps into adulthood. His missteps sidetracked him for a long time. In fact, Roy's relationship to his own past becomes a major theme in the movie.
When people ask him, "Where are you from?" he typically answers, "No where in particular."
When the darker forces threaten to expose his checkered history to the public, Roy brushes it off. Outwardly anyway, he's not all that concerned with his past.
By the end of the movie, Roy moves forward only when he acknowledges his past and reclaims the part of his history that can root him for the unknown future.
We all have a history. "Where are you from?" is not merely a question about geography. It asks about the people, places and events that shape our growing and becoming.
So Matthew began his Gospel with a listing of those persons who formed the pattern for Jesus' living. Adulterous kings and scandalous women were among those listed, as well as common and unknown persons who nonetheless reside in the bloodline of Jesus the Messiah. This was where Jesus came from. Matthew wanted us to know Jesus' human origins. These persons in his history tell us something about who he will be and how he will go about living into his life-purpose.
But Matthew also was concerned that we know that Jesus was not merely of human origins. To know his human history is to know something about Jesus, but it is not to know everything, or even to know the most important things.
So after this incredible genealogical beginning, Matthew offered an even more incredible account of Jesus' beginnings. Yes, he had human origins, but to really know Jesus you have to know his divine origins. While he had human mothers and fathers in his line, he had a spiritual lineage that cannot be traced by naming his human ancestors.
I chuckle a bit when I read Matthew 1:18: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. . . ." If Matthew followed his pattern from 1:1 - 17, you would flinch and brace yourself for a lesson in human reproduction. If Jesus was only the son of Mary and Joseph, then a lesson in the birds and the bees might have come next.
Matthew, though, wanted us to know that this was not merely a story of biology or genealogy. The birth of Jesus is an intensely spiritual story, and we cannot plumb its depths unless we join it as a spiritual story.
Mary was expecting a child "through the Holy Spirit" (1:18).
Dreams became visions with spiritual power to shape behavior and future events.
Angels showed up with messages. The angel told Joseph that the child conceived in Mary was "from the Holy Spirit" (1:20).
Matthew wanted us to know without a doubt that you cannot get Jesus merely by getting his human family and bloodline. If Jesus isn't approached, known and responded to in the spiritual dimension, the knowing and responding is incomplete.
It is Matthew's way of reminding us that all of life is more than flesh and blood. Life is more than what you can see, more than what you can record in a family tree. If you only live in the dimension of the seen and the obvious, you will miss a large part of life. In fact, you may miss what is most crucial in life.
Yes, there are physical dimensions to life, and biological dimensions, and relational/social dimensions, and mental dimensions, and emotional dimensions . . . but to miss the spiritual dimension of life is to miss what holds up and gives meaning to all the rest. Every other dimension is hollow if there is no spiritual frame. No other dimension, in the end, can bear the weight of life.
Many will miss Advent and Christmas this year. They will have decorated trees in the living room . . . they will exchange gifts on Christmas morning . . . they will be with family or friends at various times over the next week. But if the birth of Jesus is merely of human origins, a commemoration of his birth that indulges us in the social or relational or emotional niceties of life, we have missed the primary essence of the Advent/Christmas season.
The birth of Christ invites us to enter into it with spiritual eyes, with the eyes of our hearts wide open, looking beneath packages and altruism for what lies in the heart. This is an event instigated and inhabited by the very Spirit of God . . . an event you and I are invited to enter.
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
The Natural is one of my top 5 movies. Robert Redford . . . baseball themes . . . heroic, underdog finish . . . out-of-sight musical score. The movie wins at several levels for me.
The movie -- and the novel from which it is taken -- are riffs on an old Arthurian theme which delineates then blurs the lines between light and darkness, good and evil. The Redford character, Roy Hobbs, had positive influences in his past, but also took several missteps into adulthood. His missteps sidetracked him for a long time. In fact, Roy's relationship to his own past becomes a major theme in the movie.
When people ask him, "Where are you from?" he typically answers, "No where in particular."
When the darker forces threaten to expose his checkered history to the public, Roy brushes it off. Outwardly anyway, he's not all that concerned with his past.
By the end of the movie, Roy moves forward only when he acknowledges his past and reclaims the part of his history that can root him for the unknown future.
We all have a history. "Where are you from?" is not merely a question about geography. It asks about the people, places and events that shape our growing and becoming.
So Matthew began his Gospel with a listing of those persons who formed the pattern for Jesus' living. Adulterous kings and scandalous women were among those listed, as well as common and unknown persons who nonetheless reside in the bloodline of Jesus the Messiah. This was where Jesus came from. Matthew wanted us to know Jesus' human origins. These persons in his history tell us something about who he will be and how he will go about living into his life-purpose.
But Matthew also was concerned that we know that Jesus was not merely of human origins. To know his human history is to know something about Jesus, but it is not to know everything, or even to know the most important things.
So after this incredible genealogical beginning, Matthew offered an even more incredible account of Jesus' beginnings. Yes, he had human origins, but to really know Jesus you have to know his divine origins. While he had human mothers and fathers in his line, he had a spiritual lineage that cannot be traced by naming his human ancestors.
I chuckle a bit when I read Matthew 1:18: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. . . ." If Matthew followed his pattern from 1:1 - 17, you would flinch and brace yourself for a lesson in human reproduction. If Jesus was only the son of Mary and Joseph, then a lesson in the birds and the bees might have come next.
Matthew, though, wanted us to know that this was not merely a story of biology or genealogy. The birth of Jesus is an intensely spiritual story, and we cannot plumb its depths unless we join it as a spiritual story.
Mary was expecting a child "through the Holy Spirit" (1:18).
Dreams became visions with spiritual power to shape behavior and future events.
Angels showed up with messages. The angel told Joseph that the child conceived in Mary was "from the Holy Spirit" (1:20).
Matthew wanted us to know without a doubt that you cannot get Jesus merely by getting his human family and bloodline. If Jesus isn't approached, known and responded to in the spiritual dimension, the knowing and responding is incomplete.
It is Matthew's way of reminding us that all of life is more than flesh and blood. Life is more than what you can see, more than what you can record in a family tree. If you only live in the dimension of the seen and the obvious, you will miss a large part of life. In fact, you may miss what is most crucial in life.
Yes, there are physical dimensions to life, and biological dimensions, and relational/social dimensions, and mental dimensions, and emotional dimensions . . . but to miss the spiritual dimension of life is to miss what holds up and gives meaning to all the rest. Every other dimension is hollow if there is no spiritual frame. No other dimension, in the end, can bear the weight of life.
Many will miss Advent and Christmas this year. They will have decorated trees in the living room . . . they will exchange gifts on Christmas morning . . . they will be with family or friends at various times over the next week. But if the birth of Jesus is merely of human origins, a commemoration of his birth that indulges us in the social or relational or emotional niceties of life, we have missed the primary essence of the Advent/Christmas season.
The birth of Christ invites us to enter into it with spiritual eyes, with the eyes of our hearts wide open, looking beneath packages and altruism for what lies in the heart. This is an event instigated and inhabited by the very Spirit of God . . . an event you and I are invited to enter.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Third Friday of Advent -- December 17, 2010
Matthew 1:1 - 17
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Okay, be honest. When you saw that the December 17 text for today was a genealogy, raise your hand if you read all the way through it. I thought so . . . I'm not seeing many hands. Count me with you, too.
I'm not a big genealogy reader. I'll scan them for familiar names, but I find it difficult to get too interested in ancient -- or modern -- genealogies.
I'll also confess that I've never gone back into the Hebrew Scriptures to check on the names and generations listed by Matthew as Jesus' heritage. I've never done the intensive, extensive study of Jesus' line to check it for accuracy. And I've read commentaries on Matthew that come out in many different places regarding this genealogy in Matthew 1:1 - 17 . . . including some who say there is no way this is an accurate record . . . and some who say this is the exact bloodline of Jesus. I'm not here to argue either extreme today.
A couple of things do strike me as important in Matthew's genealogy. First, this record echoes the history of ancient Israel. It begins with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then turns toward David and Solomon. It marks the period of Exile, when the Israelites were captives in Babylon, before running toward Joseph. Within the list there are kings in decline and persons more ordinary than significant. Many of those mentioned are not famous and are, in fact, completely unknown to us.
So the family of Jesus includes sinners, common folks and some who faltered very publicly. His human roots foreshadow the human family that will gather around him later as he heals, teaches and extends mercy to persons in everyday life.
Second, the genealogy is notable for the women who show up in the listing. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and "Uriah's wife" (Bathsheba) are mentioned in Jesus' origins. It is scandalous that their names are given . . . they are foreign, non-Jewish women who show up in a Israel-centric and male-dominated genealogy.
Perhaps more, the four Old Testament women were each involved in some kind of scandal. In fact, sexual scandal was the common thread in each of their stories.
These scandalous females are so prominent in the list that by the end of the genealogy, Joseph is not introduced on his own merits, but in relationship to Mary. He is the "husband of Mary," though not actually the "husband" of Mary. Joseph's identity is tied to Mary. Mary -- and by association Joseph -- will be involved in sexual scandal as well, as the next section of Matthew will detail.
It seems important to recognize not only that Jesus' life began in scandal (Mary, Joseph, and rumors of illegitimacy), but that his "origins" throughout his lineage were filled with the sexually scandalous.
I want to push the PAUSE button right now. The next part of Jesus' origins come up tomorrow in the text for December 18. For now, I'll say that Matthew makes it clear that Jesus' human origins are important. They give us some idea of who he is and where he is going. When we give attention to his origins, we understand why he was who he was . . . why he attracted to himself those who came to him.
Our own origins are important in spirituality. In a healthy spirituality, we come to see God, ourselves, others, and the world in new ways. As a part of this deeper knowing of our own inner landscape, we become aware of our beginnings, the voices and influences that have shaped our becoming.
For the wounds that have come from some of those origins we need healing. And for the gift that has come in those origins we need to give thanks.
Tune in tomorrow for the next movement . . . I'll offer another perspective on Jesus' -- and our -- origins from Matthew 1:18 - 25.
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Okay, be honest. When you saw that the December 17 text for today was a genealogy, raise your hand if you read all the way through it. I thought so . . . I'm not seeing many hands. Count me with you, too.
I'm not a big genealogy reader. I'll scan them for familiar names, but I find it difficult to get too interested in ancient -- or modern -- genealogies.
I'll also confess that I've never gone back into the Hebrew Scriptures to check on the names and generations listed by Matthew as Jesus' heritage. I've never done the intensive, extensive study of Jesus' line to check it for accuracy. And I've read commentaries on Matthew that come out in many different places regarding this genealogy in Matthew 1:1 - 17 . . . including some who say there is no way this is an accurate record . . . and some who say this is the exact bloodline of Jesus. I'm not here to argue either extreme today.
A couple of things do strike me as important in Matthew's genealogy. First, this record echoes the history of ancient Israel. It begins with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then turns toward David and Solomon. It marks the period of Exile, when the Israelites were captives in Babylon, before running toward Joseph. Within the list there are kings in decline and persons more ordinary than significant. Many of those mentioned are not famous and are, in fact, completely unknown to us.
So the family of Jesus includes sinners, common folks and some who faltered very publicly. His human roots foreshadow the human family that will gather around him later as he heals, teaches and extends mercy to persons in everyday life.
Second, the genealogy is notable for the women who show up in the listing. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and "Uriah's wife" (Bathsheba) are mentioned in Jesus' origins. It is scandalous that their names are given . . . they are foreign, non-Jewish women who show up in a Israel-centric and male-dominated genealogy.
Perhaps more, the four Old Testament women were each involved in some kind of scandal. In fact, sexual scandal was the common thread in each of their stories.
These scandalous females are so prominent in the list that by the end of the genealogy, Joseph is not introduced on his own merits, but in relationship to Mary. He is the "husband of Mary," though not actually the "husband" of Mary. Joseph's identity is tied to Mary. Mary -- and by association Joseph -- will be involved in sexual scandal as well, as the next section of Matthew will detail.
It seems important to recognize not only that Jesus' life began in scandal (Mary, Joseph, and rumors of illegitimacy), but that his "origins" throughout his lineage were filled with the sexually scandalous.
I want to push the PAUSE button right now. The next part of Jesus' origins come up tomorrow in the text for December 18. For now, I'll say that Matthew makes it clear that Jesus' human origins are important. They give us some idea of who he is and where he is going. When we give attention to his origins, we understand why he was who he was . . . why he attracted to himself those who came to him.
Our own origins are important in spirituality. In a healthy spirituality, we come to see God, ourselves, others, and the world in new ways. As a part of this deeper knowing of our own inner landscape, we become aware of our beginnings, the voices and influences that have shaped our becoming.
For the wounds that have come from some of those origins we need healing. And for the gift that has come in those origins we need to give thanks.
Tune in tomorrow for the next movement . . . I'll offer another perspective on Jesus' -- and our -- origins from Matthew 1:18 - 25.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Third Thursday of Advent -- December 16, 2010
Psalm 30
I will exalt you, LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
LORD my God, I called to you for help,
and you healed me.
You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.
Sing the praises of the LORD, you his faithful people;
praise his holy name.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
When I felt secure, I said,
“I will never be shaken.”
LORD, when you favored me,
you made my royal mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
To you, LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
“What is gained if I am silenced,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me;
LORD, be my help.”
You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
LORD my God, I will praise you forever.
I've prayed the Old Testament Psalms for a long time now. I pray them in groups and I pray them when I'm alone. I pray all of them, all 150 Psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures.
As you could probably predict when anyone has upheld the same practice over a long period of time, I am different now than I was when I first began. My relationship with God is different. My image of God has changed through the years. Some of that came from these very psalms, and some evolved in other ways.
At some point on the road I began asking some questions about the psalms I prayed. In the beginning I prayed them blindly, with a kind of rote obedience, accepting their language and attitudes at face value. Somewhere along the path I started asking questions about them. In particular, I asked questions about the view of God that underlies many of the Psalms in the Bible.
I won't go into all the questions right here. One concern, however, was the frequency with which the pray-er in the psalms offers to God what I would call "conditional praise."
"Conditional praise" sounds something like this:
"I will exalt you, Lord,
for you lifted me out of the depths . . ." (Ps. 30:1)
Do you see the "condition" in that prayer? "I will praise you, Lord, because you did something for me." Human praise in the Hebrew Psalms often is offered as a response to the rescue or deliverance of God. Humans exalt God because God has done something good in their lives.
It sounds somewhat like a deal the human person works out with God: "God, if you'll do this good thing for me, then I'll praise you." Perhaps it's holy-hostage-taking!
"God, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Frankly, it sounds pretty petty to me, like a very immature stage of spiritual development.
Over time as I prayed psalms, I became convinced that God is worthy of my praise whether I ever experience God's goodness and rescue in my life or not. I'm not doing God any favors by offering my praise. Praising God, on the other hand, is something I need to do in order to become fully human. I came to understand that at least in my own experience, my praise was not to be contingent on what God did or did not do in my life.
This struggle was part of the impetus for putting the psalms in my own words several years ago. Taking nothing away from the persons who wrote out the original psalms, who prayed with their best understanding of God, I asked myself how I could pray these ideas in my own words. Given my understanding of God and relationship with God, how might I try to say some of the same things? That led to my devotional practice of offering the psalms in my own voice.
So given the original words from Psalm 30 -- one of the texts suggested for today -- how would I pray this prayer? I've given it a go below.
PSALM 30 Psalm-Prayer
A psalm for times that stretch me beyond myself
You are worthy of my praise, God;
Indeed, Your name I will praise,
whether You pull me from this bind or not.
I don’t want my praise, God,
offered in contingency,
tossed at You with stipulations.
In truth, You have not
abandoned me to my own devices
nor left me as food for
the swirling vultures who cannot
wait for my collapse.
You have awakened my soul from slumber, Lord,
You have infused my real experience with Your Spirit-life.
I love You, Lord.
I chant my love-prayer.
I raise my hands in love-thanks.
I offer my life as a love-offering.
When You’ve allowed me to walk in the valley,
darkness my closest companion,
with no vision to see the next step,
I’ve felt the sharp edge of Your love,
giving shape to my life in that moment
as You move me
toward the God-dream for which I was created.
Often I cry out for a season,
the pain stretching me to the edge
as I try to stand under the weight of the moment,
desperate for relief and yearning to see
Your Potter’s hand in the midst of the blackness.
But when You pull the curtain back on the larger picture,
when I see a piece of Your grander design for me and our world,
I’m brought to peace and joy,
a profound thankfulness that You have invited me
to be a part of Your God-project.
Of course, I don’t always see so clearly.
In times when life feels well-ordered
I tend to think it will always be so,
that nothing can shake my well-being.
I forget the power of adversity to shape me into Your heart.
Then, something happens in my outer world
to shatter all my illusions of well-being;
The things and people to which I attach myself get shaken.
They break.
Moths eat.
Rust consumes.
Thieves break in and steal.
Parents get old and die.
Cancer grows.
I hide and weep and carry on as if I were the only one
ever to face adversity!
“How can this happen, God?
How can You stand idly by?
Can’t You do something?”
Of course You could,
but that’s not the point, is it?
You listen.
You extend Presence.
You embody compassion.
You give an inner strength more resilient
than any quick remedy.
You give me a song to sing in the night,
a dance to dance under the moon.
You transform my mourning
and give me peace.
Awake my soul, awake.
Sing psalms to God,
For unto You, my God, is everlasting thanks.
Amen.
I will exalt you, LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
LORD my God, I called to you for help,
and you healed me.
You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.
Sing the praises of the LORD, you his faithful people;
praise his holy name.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
When I felt secure, I said,
“I will never be shaken.”
LORD, when you favored me,
you made my royal mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
To you, LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
“What is gained if I am silenced,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me;
LORD, be my help.”
You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
LORD my God, I will praise you forever.
I've prayed the Old Testament Psalms for a long time now. I pray them in groups and I pray them when I'm alone. I pray all of them, all 150 Psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures.
As you could probably predict when anyone has upheld the same practice over a long period of time, I am different now than I was when I first began. My relationship with God is different. My image of God has changed through the years. Some of that came from these very psalms, and some evolved in other ways.
At some point on the road I began asking some questions about the psalms I prayed. In the beginning I prayed them blindly, with a kind of rote obedience, accepting their language and attitudes at face value. Somewhere along the path I started asking questions about them. In particular, I asked questions about the view of God that underlies many of the Psalms in the Bible.
I won't go into all the questions right here. One concern, however, was the frequency with which the pray-er in the psalms offers to God what I would call "conditional praise."
"Conditional praise" sounds something like this:
"I will exalt you, Lord,
for you lifted me out of the depths . . ." (Ps. 30:1)
Do you see the "condition" in that prayer? "I will praise you, Lord, because you did something for me." Human praise in the Hebrew Psalms often is offered as a response to the rescue or deliverance of God. Humans exalt God because God has done something good in their lives.
It sounds somewhat like a deal the human person works out with God: "God, if you'll do this good thing for me, then I'll praise you." Perhaps it's holy-hostage-taking!
"God, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Frankly, it sounds pretty petty to me, like a very immature stage of spiritual development.
Over time as I prayed psalms, I became convinced that God is worthy of my praise whether I ever experience God's goodness and rescue in my life or not. I'm not doing God any favors by offering my praise. Praising God, on the other hand, is something I need to do in order to become fully human. I came to understand that at least in my own experience, my praise was not to be contingent on what God did or did not do in my life.
This struggle was part of the impetus for putting the psalms in my own words several years ago. Taking nothing away from the persons who wrote out the original psalms, who prayed with their best understanding of God, I asked myself how I could pray these ideas in my own words. Given my understanding of God and relationship with God, how might I try to say some of the same things? That led to my devotional practice of offering the psalms in my own voice.
So given the original words from Psalm 30 -- one of the texts suggested for today -- how would I pray this prayer? I've given it a go below.
PSALM 30 Psalm-Prayer
A psalm for times that stretch me beyond myself
You are worthy of my praise, God;
Indeed, Your name I will praise,
whether You pull me from this bind or not.
I don’t want my praise, God,
offered in contingency,
tossed at You with stipulations.
In truth, You have not
abandoned me to my own devices
nor left me as food for
the swirling vultures who cannot
wait for my collapse.
You have awakened my soul from slumber, Lord,
You have infused my real experience with Your Spirit-life.
I love You, Lord.
I chant my love-prayer.
I raise my hands in love-thanks.
I offer my life as a love-offering.
When You’ve allowed me to walk in the valley,
darkness my closest companion,
with no vision to see the next step,
I’ve felt the sharp edge of Your love,
giving shape to my life in that moment
as You move me
toward the God-dream for which I was created.
Often I cry out for a season,
the pain stretching me to the edge
as I try to stand under the weight of the moment,
desperate for relief and yearning to see
Your Potter’s hand in the midst of the blackness.
But when You pull the curtain back on the larger picture,
when I see a piece of Your grander design for me and our world,
I’m brought to peace and joy,
a profound thankfulness that You have invited me
to be a part of Your God-project.
Of course, I don’t always see so clearly.
In times when life feels well-ordered
I tend to think it will always be so,
that nothing can shake my well-being.
I forget the power of adversity to shape me into Your heart.
Then, something happens in my outer world
to shatter all my illusions of well-being;
The things and people to which I attach myself get shaken.
They break.
Moths eat.
Rust consumes.
Thieves break in and steal.
Parents get old and die.
Cancer grows.
I hide and weep and carry on as if I were the only one
ever to face adversity!
“How can this happen, God?
How can You stand idly by?
Can’t You do something?”
Of course You could,
but that’s not the point, is it?
You listen.
You extend Presence.
You embody compassion.
You give an inner strength more resilient
than any quick remedy.
You give me a song to sing in the night,
a dance to dance under the moon.
You transform my mourning
and give me peace.
Awake my soul, awake.
Sing psalms to God,
For unto You, my God, is everlasting thanks.
Amen.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The Third Wednesday of Advent -- December 15, 2010
Isaiah 45:1 - 8
“This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
I will go before you
and will level the mountains[a];
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.
Isaiah 45 is a most unusual chapter. It was written during the time Israelites were in Babylonian exile. The people were captives in a foreign land. Some had given up hope in God's rescue and resigned themselves to life in Babylon. A few, though, held out hope that God would return the people to their home.
[Intermission: In many ways, living in Babylon represents being away from home, away from the place of our deepest belonging, away from where we are most ourselves. Babylon is certainly a geographical description, but it also carries a spiritual meaning for being separated or apart from life and meaning.]
Isaiah 45 is likely the assigned Scripture for today because of the strong emphasis on God coming to rescue the people. God does not idly look on while people are oppressed. God fulfills God's promises, coming into dark and painful life-situations with deliverance and healing. This "coming" is the basic message of Advent.
What is most unusual about this text, though, is that the entire chapter was addressed to Cyrus the Persian. The prophetic words were God's speech intended for a foreign king. Cyrus loomed on the horizon, gathering power and building a strong army just beyond Babylon. In the prophetic consciousness, Cyrus was God's hope for freeing the Israelites and allowing them to go home. In fact, eventually Cyrus would overthrow Babylon and free the Israelites.
The real kicker in the text is that Cyrus did not know God. He did not acknowledge Yahweh. It's not simply that he was a foreigner or an outsider to Israel. He was a foreigner, an outsider who did not know or acknowledge God.
"You do not acknowledge me," (45:4).
"You have not acknowledged me," (45:5).
The text flies in the face of the spiritual sensibilities that are ingrained within us. We assume that God blesses those who worship, pray and live pious lives. We believe God's favor is shown to those who acknowledge God.
Many of us have come to Christian faith because we believed we would get good things for our faithfulness . . . goodies for faith. In fact, sometimes when I ask people in a group or class if they would be a God-follower even if they received nothing in return for their faithfulness, most look at me like I'm crazy. We can't imagine a scenario where goodness isn't rewarded and badness isn't punished.
Yet, with God there is no such thing as a worthiness contest. Notions of worthiness and merit are human frameworks developed to make sense of the world. Ultimately, even they break down. If grace is at the root of everything -- as Scripture claims is the case -- there is nothing we earn, nothing we receive because we're good and someone else is bad.
Read the passage above. Read the rest of Isaiah 45 in your own translation of the Bible. God was extended toward Cyrus in ways that were remarkable.
God called Cyrus the "anointed" one, (45:1).
God opened doors and leveled the path for Cyrus, (45:1, 2).
God gave Cyrus stored-up treasures and riches, (45:3).
God specifically called Cyrus by name, (45:3, 4).
God strengthened Cyrus for the task at hand, (45:5).
Cyrus made no bow of the knee or turn of his heart toward God. He didn't earn or deserve God's favor. In grace and generosity, God extended God's Self toward Cyrus. The dividing line between "sacred" and "profane" became increasingly blurred. It's much more difficult to know who is in and who is out.
As I think about it, Cyrus is a pretty good symbol for you and me this Advent. God comes, and comes in the most outrageous and scandalous ways.
“This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
I will go before you
and will level the mountains[a];
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.
“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.
Isaiah 45 is a most unusual chapter. It was written during the time Israelites were in Babylonian exile. The people were captives in a foreign land. Some had given up hope in God's rescue and resigned themselves to life in Babylon. A few, though, held out hope that God would return the people to their home.
[Intermission: In many ways, living in Babylon represents being away from home, away from the place of our deepest belonging, away from where we are most ourselves. Babylon is certainly a geographical description, but it also carries a spiritual meaning for being separated or apart from life and meaning.]
Isaiah 45 is likely the assigned Scripture for today because of the strong emphasis on God coming to rescue the people. God does not idly look on while people are oppressed. God fulfills God's promises, coming into dark and painful life-situations with deliverance and healing. This "coming" is the basic message of Advent.
What is most unusual about this text, though, is that the entire chapter was addressed to Cyrus the Persian. The prophetic words were God's speech intended for a foreign king. Cyrus loomed on the horizon, gathering power and building a strong army just beyond Babylon. In the prophetic consciousness, Cyrus was God's hope for freeing the Israelites and allowing them to go home. In fact, eventually Cyrus would overthrow Babylon and free the Israelites.
The real kicker in the text is that Cyrus did not know God. He did not acknowledge Yahweh. It's not simply that he was a foreigner or an outsider to Israel. He was a foreigner, an outsider who did not know or acknowledge God.
"You do not acknowledge me," (45:4).
"You have not acknowledged me," (45:5).
The text flies in the face of the spiritual sensibilities that are ingrained within us. We assume that God blesses those who worship, pray and live pious lives. We believe God's favor is shown to those who acknowledge God.
Many of us have come to Christian faith because we believed we would get good things for our faithfulness . . . goodies for faith. In fact, sometimes when I ask people in a group or class if they would be a God-follower even if they received nothing in return for their faithfulness, most look at me like I'm crazy. We can't imagine a scenario where goodness isn't rewarded and badness isn't punished.
Yet, with God there is no such thing as a worthiness contest. Notions of worthiness and merit are human frameworks developed to make sense of the world. Ultimately, even they break down. If grace is at the root of everything -- as Scripture claims is the case -- there is nothing we earn, nothing we receive because we're good and someone else is bad.
Read the passage above. Read the rest of Isaiah 45 in your own translation of the Bible. God was extended toward Cyrus in ways that were remarkable.
God called Cyrus the "anointed" one, (45:1).
God opened doors and leveled the path for Cyrus, (45:1, 2).
God gave Cyrus stored-up treasures and riches, (45:3).
God specifically called Cyrus by name, (45:3, 4).
God strengthened Cyrus for the task at hand, (45:5).
Cyrus made no bow of the knee or turn of his heart toward God. He didn't earn or deserve God's favor. In grace and generosity, God extended God's Self toward Cyrus. The dividing line between "sacred" and "profane" became increasingly blurred. It's much more difficult to know who is in and who is out.
As I think about it, Cyrus is a pretty good symbol for you and me this Advent. God comes, and comes in the most outrageous and scandalous ways.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Third Tuesday of Advent -- December 14, 2010
Matthew 21:28 - 32
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him."
When Jesus told this story about the two sons, I envision that everyone who heard the words thought someone else was the butt of the short tale. The scribes and Pharisees thought those immoral tax collectors and harlots were the one's who didn't respond to God's invitation.
And likely, the tax gatherers and prostitutes thought those self-righteous scribes and Pharisees were the subject of Jesus' talk.
That's how it goes for most of us. We hear or read the stories, and we think they are about someone else.
How many times, after hearing a sermon that stirred you, have you thought, "I wish _____ could hear this message! They could really use it!" Or you read a paragraph in a book and immediately thought of the person (friend, enemy or spouse) whose life would be straightened out if only they could read what you just read. (Hey, it's Christmas, and a great time to get that very book for them!!! Oops, I'm sorry . . . it's not the time for sarcasm, is it???)
It's our human nature to resist change, all the while noticing ways the people around us should change. Most persons live under the misguided thinking that their own life would be better if the people around them would change. Or they believe life would be grand if their own circumstances were different. We do life very externally that way. Too much of our happiness depends on what the situation around us looks like. We are so concerned with our external circumstances that we give little attention to our internal state.
In truth, Jesus' little parable is about all of us.
It's not an either-or story . . . either you say you're going to the field but you don't go . . . or you say you're not going to work, but you do go.
No, those are the extremes, the edges, but both sons described by Jesus live within each of us. We're not all good or all bad. We're not totally well-intentioned nor totally weak of will. Each of us are some strange and interesting mix of both edges. We are somewhere in between.
There is a part of me that says of both constructive and destructive things, "No, I'm not going to do that." But then I do them.
And there is a part of me that says of healthy and unhealthy things, "I think I'll partake of that," but then I don't.
Within any given decision, choice or life-direction, I can experience the push and pull both to and away from these extremes. They all reside within me. I'm no hero. And I'm no villain. This strange mix of motives and actions and promises lives within me.
And they also live within you.
This is the kind of authenticity we have been reticent to show in our faith communities. We've subtly and not-so-subtly communicated through the centuries that God causes some people to be morally superior by virtue of the words they say or the vows they take. We haven't admitted to the real that lives within us.
I come out of a faith tradition that is big on vows and professions of faith. The words you say and the belief system to which you give your assent are important in that system. But that doesn't mean there is no hatred among those in that camp. There is bigotry, jealousy, self-centeredness . . . you name it, and it's there . . . just as those things are present throughout the human family.
The stance, then, is not to deny they exist within us, but to name what truly lives inside us . . . to name it, and then have the courage to open up our lives for healing. Once we name the tax collector, harlot, scribe and Pharisee within ourselves, we've taken a giant step toward healing. It's a step that begins with honesty.
This seems to be the healing work God wants to do in you and me . . . and among the whole human family. I suspect it's why Jesus came to live among us.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him."
When Jesus told this story about the two sons, I envision that everyone who heard the words thought someone else was the butt of the short tale. The scribes and Pharisees thought those immoral tax collectors and harlots were the one's who didn't respond to God's invitation.
And likely, the tax gatherers and prostitutes thought those self-righteous scribes and Pharisees were the subject of Jesus' talk.
That's how it goes for most of us. We hear or read the stories, and we think they are about someone else.
How many times, after hearing a sermon that stirred you, have you thought, "I wish _____ could hear this message! They could really use it!" Or you read a paragraph in a book and immediately thought of the person (friend, enemy or spouse) whose life would be straightened out if only they could read what you just read. (Hey, it's Christmas, and a great time to get that very book for them!!! Oops, I'm sorry . . . it's not the time for sarcasm, is it???)
It's our human nature to resist change, all the while noticing ways the people around us should change. Most persons live under the misguided thinking that their own life would be better if the people around them would change. Or they believe life would be grand if their own circumstances were different. We do life very externally that way. Too much of our happiness depends on what the situation around us looks like. We are so concerned with our external circumstances that we give little attention to our internal state.
In truth, Jesus' little parable is about all of us.
It's not an either-or story . . . either you say you're going to the field but you don't go . . . or you say you're not going to work, but you do go.
No, those are the extremes, the edges, but both sons described by Jesus live within each of us. We're not all good or all bad. We're not totally well-intentioned nor totally weak of will. Each of us are some strange and interesting mix of both edges. We are somewhere in between.
There is a part of me that says of both constructive and destructive things, "No, I'm not going to do that." But then I do them.
And there is a part of me that says of healthy and unhealthy things, "I think I'll partake of that," but then I don't.
Within any given decision, choice or life-direction, I can experience the push and pull both to and away from these extremes. They all reside within me. I'm no hero. And I'm no villain. This strange mix of motives and actions and promises lives within me.
And they also live within you.
This is the kind of authenticity we have been reticent to show in our faith communities. We've subtly and not-so-subtly communicated through the centuries that God causes some people to be morally superior by virtue of the words they say or the vows they take. We haven't admitted to the real that lives within us.
I come out of a faith tradition that is big on vows and professions of faith. The words you say and the belief system to which you give your assent are important in that system. But that doesn't mean there is no hatred among those in that camp. There is bigotry, jealousy, self-centeredness . . . you name it, and it's there . . . just as those things are present throughout the human family.
The stance, then, is not to deny they exist within us, but to name what truly lives inside us . . . to name it, and then have the courage to open up our lives for healing. Once we name the tax collector, harlot, scribe and Pharisee within ourselves, we've taken a giant step toward healing. It's a step that begins with honesty.
This seems to be the healing work God wants to do in you and me . . . and among the whole human family. I suspect it's why Jesus came to live among us.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Third Monday of Advent -- December 13, 2010
Matthew 21:23 - 27
Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."
During the World Cup matches this summer, I listened to the debates -- mostly among persons from the United States -- about international futball (what we would call soccer). One of the great frustrations many expressed about futball is that the international sport allows the two teams or clubs to play to a draw. In most sporting events in the United States, a game or match tied after regulation would lead to overtime, perhaps to "sudden death." The goal is to have a winner and a loser in every match; therefore, Americans are completely frustrated by the thought that the two clubs could play an entire match and end in a draw.
We don't like ties. We want winners and losers. Our culture is soaked in this "either-or" mentality.
We want things to be decisive, clearly one way or the other. We moderns don't do well with paradox and tension. The word "nebulous" is not a positive, inviting term for us. Ambiguity is frowned upon. Things need to be one way or the other. We must make a choice. In or out. Right or wrong. Good or bad. All or nothing.
This is the world in which we live. We sometimes call it, "Taking a stand," or, "Making a commitment."
This kind of "either-or" thinking is characteristic of human life and judgments. It tends to divide and separate. It traffics in comparison and contrast. We identify ourselves in terms of who someone else is or is not: "I am like them," or "I am not like them."
I suspect we would even prefer to say, "I am a winner" or "I am a loser" before saying, "I am a tie-er!"
Persons, especially religious persons, continually tried to draw Jesus into taking a stand or committing himself one way or another. They tried to pin him down with questions which usually had an "either-or" feel about them. And most always, Jesus refused to answer the questions on "either-or" terms.
In contemporary interpretations of these exchanges, writers generally have caricatured the persons as testing Jesus or trying to entrap him. Perhaps they were. But I suspect they also were working out of the only framework they knew. In that sense, we are no different than they were.
We operate out of dualistic, one way or another frameworks. It is the basic mental structure we inherited early on. It was ingrained in us through our educational system. When this system gets pulled out from under us, we are left feeling very ungrounded. In fact, for many Christians, there is little more unsettling than "fuzzy thinking" or ambiguity. For that group, Christianity means being always more certain, more assured -- and even more right! So Jesus' teachings and doings are turned into "either-or" proclamations, used to support a particular mindset.
It is, though, also possible to read most of Jesus teaching, healing and miracle-working from the standpoint of the non-dual mind. In that case, they are not justifications for either-or, all-or-nothing thinking. They do not divide and separate. Rather, they bring together. They unite. They promote union with God, others, the world and with one's own most authentic self.
We make Jesus into a religious answer-giver, into someone who "takes a stand." But Richard Rohr says, "Jesus creates problems for us more than resolves them, problems that very often cannot be resolved by all-or-nothing thinking but only by love and forgiveness."
Jesus embodied the Divine Presence, a holding of this tension. That is what Advent anticipates, the coming of one in human flesh who was also the revealing of God. Not either-or, all-or-nothing. Jesus held humanity and divinity in one flesh.
Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."
During the World Cup matches this summer, I listened to the debates -- mostly among persons from the United States -- about international futball (what we would call soccer). One of the great frustrations many expressed about futball is that the international sport allows the two teams or clubs to play to a draw. In most sporting events in the United States, a game or match tied after regulation would lead to overtime, perhaps to "sudden death." The goal is to have a winner and a loser in every match; therefore, Americans are completely frustrated by the thought that the two clubs could play an entire match and end in a draw.
We don't like ties. We want winners and losers. Our culture is soaked in this "either-or" mentality.
We want things to be decisive, clearly one way or the other. We moderns don't do well with paradox and tension. The word "nebulous" is not a positive, inviting term for us. Ambiguity is frowned upon. Things need to be one way or the other. We must make a choice. In or out. Right or wrong. Good or bad. All or nothing.
This is the world in which we live. We sometimes call it, "Taking a stand," or, "Making a commitment."
This kind of "either-or" thinking is characteristic of human life and judgments. It tends to divide and separate. It traffics in comparison and contrast. We identify ourselves in terms of who someone else is or is not: "I am like them," or "I am not like them."
I suspect we would even prefer to say, "I am a winner" or "I am a loser" before saying, "I am a tie-er!"
Persons, especially religious persons, continually tried to draw Jesus into taking a stand or committing himself one way or another. They tried to pin him down with questions which usually had an "either-or" feel about them. And most always, Jesus refused to answer the questions on "either-or" terms.
In contemporary interpretations of these exchanges, writers generally have caricatured the persons as testing Jesus or trying to entrap him. Perhaps they were. But I suspect they also were working out of the only framework they knew. In that sense, we are no different than they were.
We operate out of dualistic, one way or another frameworks. It is the basic mental structure we inherited early on. It was ingrained in us through our educational system. When this system gets pulled out from under us, we are left feeling very ungrounded. In fact, for many Christians, there is little more unsettling than "fuzzy thinking" or ambiguity. For that group, Christianity means being always more certain, more assured -- and even more right! So Jesus' teachings and doings are turned into "either-or" proclamations, used to support a particular mindset.
It is, though, also possible to read most of Jesus teaching, healing and miracle-working from the standpoint of the non-dual mind. In that case, they are not justifications for either-or, all-or-nothing thinking. They do not divide and separate. Rather, they bring together. They unite. They promote union with God, others, the world and with one's own most authentic self.
We make Jesus into a religious answer-giver, into someone who "takes a stand." But Richard Rohr says, "Jesus creates problems for us more than resolves them, problems that very often cannot be resolved by all-or-nothing thinking but only by love and forgiveness."
Jesus embodied the Divine Presence, a holding of this tension. That is what Advent anticipates, the coming of one in human flesh who was also the revealing of God. Not either-or, all-or-nothing. Jesus held humanity and divinity in one flesh.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Third Sunday of Advent -- December 12, 2010
Matthew 11:2 - 11
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
In the Church's tradition, this Sunday is Gaudate Sunday. It marks a transition in Advent, a movement from judgment and darkness into rejoicing and even exaltation. The peace and justice anticipated in the Isaiah readings to this point in Advent draw nearer and nearer. Hard hearts soften. Injustices are righted. The light dawns.
After lighting purple candles the first two weeks of Advent, on the Third Sunday of Advent we light a pink candle to mark the transition toward joy.
At first reading, the Matthew 11:2 - 11 text seems out of place for Gaudate Sunday. John the Baptizer was in prison. The connection to "joy" is not easily apparent.
In an earlier Advent text, John announced the coming of the Messiah. His idea was that the Messiah was a "wrath to come" (Matt. 3:7), that "already the ax was laid at the root of the trees" (Matt. 3:10). That is, John believed that the Messiah would come to chop down every tree (person) who did not make a moral turn of life away from "sin" and toward God.
Further, he said the Messiah would bring "fire," that is, he cut down and burn up all that was unseemly or immoral (Matt. 3:10, 11).
John believed the Christ would fulfill the Baptist's message of judgment and separation. It seems that John held the common view of the Messiah held by much of Israel that the Christ would come in power to politically overthrow the enemies of God.
So at one level, John was justifiably confused. He sat in prison a captive of Herod with the expectation that Jesus would create an uprising against the Roman government, but that revolt didn't seem imminent. So his question was understandable. "Are you really the Messiah?" he asked. "You're not doing what I expected the Messiah to do."
I can't speak for you, but I've had my share of moments when I've asked God, "Is this really you?" Or, "Are you really leading me this way?" I can't tell you how many times I felt like I was over the edge, or out a bit too far on the limb. Many times I've felt like I was there alone . . . then I would read someone from history who had an experience similar to mine . . . or I would read a contemporary author write honestly about the spiritual life. I received just enough encouragement to know that I may have been "different," but was not completely crazy.
I read John's question and Jesus' response at another level, too. When John's followers asked, "Are you the one?" Jesus didn't answer directly. He said, "Tell John what you see: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. People are coming to authentic life."
I believe John was confused, expecting the ax of judgment and the fire of separation. Instead Jesus brought spiritual sight and hearing, healing and wholeness, life and meaning. Jesus' actions fell outside John's expectations, outside his ideas of who and what the Messiah would be.
Frankly, I think we have to be honest and say that John got it wrong. Some of his ideas about the coming Christ led away from, not toward, Jesus.
Jesus, on the other hand, did not castigate John. He did not badger John to change his ideas or his Messiah-framework. Jesus simply said, "Tell John what you see and experience of me. Tell him what I'm doing, how I'm spending my life. If this is what John believes the Messiah is sent to do, then I'm the one. But if he doesn't believe God would send this kind of Messiah, he'd better look somewhere else."
The same admonition could be given to any of us at Advent. Read the Gospels. Notice what Jesus did. What Jesus did, Jesus continues to do. He embodies mercy. He extends himself to persons in compassion. He forgives. He makes persons whole of spirit and mind until they are at peace within themselves. Then he animates those persons to bring peace to the world. He shapes persons, groups and structures for justice.
Is this the kind of Messiah you are looking for? Or are you looking for a judge, someone who divides and separates and sets people against one another and against God? (I'm not offering a caricature . . . there are plenty of people in our world who believe Jesus brings this kind of dividing, separating, nationalistic God-presence.)
So who are you looking for at Advent. Is the one who embodies mercy, compassion and peace who you will see birthed on Christmas Day? If you are looking for some other kind of Messiah, then you'll likely miss the birth of the Savior on Christmas Day.
But if you are open to a Messiah who brings sight to our blindness, hearing to our deafness, and life to our deadness, then Jesus is the one you have waited for.
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
In the Church's tradition, this Sunday is Gaudate Sunday. It marks a transition in Advent, a movement from judgment and darkness into rejoicing and even exaltation. The peace and justice anticipated in the Isaiah readings to this point in Advent draw nearer and nearer. Hard hearts soften. Injustices are righted. The light dawns.
After lighting purple candles the first two weeks of Advent, on the Third Sunday of Advent we light a pink candle to mark the transition toward joy.
At first reading, the Matthew 11:2 - 11 text seems out of place for Gaudate Sunday. John the Baptizer was in prison. The connection to "joy" is not easily apparent.
In an earlier Advent text, John announced the coming of the Messiah. His idea was that the Messiah was a "wrath to come" (Matt. 3:7), that "already the ax was laid at the root of the trees" (Matt. 3:10). That is, John believed that the Messiah would come to chop down every tree (person) who did not make a moral turn of life away from "sin" and toward God.
Further, he said the Messiah would bring "fire," that is, he cut down and burn up all that was unseemly or immoral (Matt. 3:10, 11).
John believed the Christ would fulfill the Baptist's message of judgment and separation. It seems that John held the common view of the Messiah held by much of Israel that the Christ would come in power to politically overthrow the enemies of God.
So at one level, John was justifiably confused. He sat in prison a captive of Herod with the expectation that Jesus would create an uprising against the Roman government, but that revolt didn't seem imminent. So his question was understandable. "Are you really the Messiah?" he asked. "You're not doing what I expected the Messiah to do."
I can't speak for you, but I've had my share of moments when I've asked God, "Is this really you?" Or, "Are you really leading me this way?" I can't tell you how many times I felt like I was over the edge, or out a bit too far on the limb. Many times I've felt like I was there alone . . . then I would read someone from history who had an experience similar to mine . . . or I would read a contemporary author write honestly about the spiritual life. I received just enough encouragement to know that I may have been "different," but was not completely crazy.
I read John's question and Jesus' response at another level, too. When John's followers asked, "Are you the one?" Jesus didn't answer directly. He said, "Tell John what you see: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. People are coming to authentic life."
I believe John was confused, expecting the ax of judgment and the fire of separation. Instead Jesus brought spiritual sight and hearing, healing and wholeness, life and meaning. Jesus' actions fell outside John's expectations, outside his ideas of who and what the Messiah would be.
Frankly, I think we have to be honest and say that John got it wrong. Some of his ideas about the coming Christ led away from, not toward, Jesus.
Jesus, on the other hand, did not castigate John. He did not badger John to change his ideas or his Messiah-framework. Jesus simply said, "Tell John what you see and experience of me. Tell him what I'm doing, how I'm spending my life. If this is what John believes the Messiah is sent to do, then I'm the one. But if he doesn't believe God would send this kind of Messiah, he'd better look somewhere else."
The same admonition could be given to any of us at Advent. Read the Gospels. Notice what Jesus did. What Jesus did, Jesus continues to do. He embodies mercy. He extends himself to persons in compassion. He forgives. He makes persons whole of spirit and mind until they are at peace within themselves. Then he animates those persons to bring peace to the world. He shapes persons, groups and structures for justice.
Is this the kind of Messiah you are looking for? Or are you looking for a judge, someone who divides and separates and sets people against one another and against God? (I'm not offering a caricature . . . there are plenty of people in our world who believe Jesus brings this kind of dividing, separating, nationalistic God-presence.)
So who are you looking for at Advent. Is the one who embodies mercy, compassion and peace who you will see birthed on Christmas Day? If you are looking for some other kind of Messiah, then you'll likely miss the birth of the Savior on Christmas Day.
But if you are open to a Messiah who brings sight to our blindness, hearing to our deafness, and life to our deadness, then Jesus is the one you have waited for.
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Second Saturday of Advent -- December 11, 2010
Matthew 17:10 - 13
The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
I wonder sometimes if the positive-thinking Gospel-people are reading the same Bible I read. The Old Testament prophets were marginalized as radicals. Job lost everything he had. John the Baptist was killed for his prophetic life with God. Jesus was ostracized and ultimately crucified. Paul listed difficulties that included shipwreck, wild animals and trouble from the churches he served. That list only begins to describe the difficulties of those in Scripture. Suffering is a consistent theme in the biblical narrative.
That story doesn't change if you look at the lives of persons who have followed God through the ages. Benedict of Nursia, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, Alphonsus Rodriguez and Gerard Manley Hopkins are just a few persons who lived significant lives for God through deep personal suffering.
The thread is consistent from the biblical witness then down through the years. It is surprising we miss it so grandly. Among some, modern Christianity has been proposed as a tonic for all that ails you, as a sort of magical elixir that will take all your troubles away. Jesus is imaged as a kind of Medicine Man who will take away all your troubles if you have enough faith.
Large numbers of persons have chosen to be a part of the Church only because they believe religious faith and practice will safeguard them from the difficulties and tragedies of life.
Yet, the truth of our faith is that one path into transformation and meaning comes through suffering, not in the avoidance of suffering. Suffering is not the only path, but it is one path that frequently leads to radical life-change. In suffering, life becomes less theoretical and more real. Sometimes the life-structures that we have believed in and clung to no longer make sense. We begin to experience the instability of the ground on which we've built life.
In suffering we often must begin to leave a life built on sand in order to find a life that is held up by rock.
Suffering doesn't allow us to hide behind pious cliches and holy-sounding God-talk. Suffering is raw and messy. And in that raw messiness we may get our first actual taste of the God who is resilient and relentless in holding us up.
Job, after being swept away by calamity, finally had to confess that for years and years he had heard about God. He had trusted in God's reputation, until finally he experienced God firsthand and found God to be very different from what he had imagined.
In talking about the dark night of the soul -- a phrase that comes from the 16th century Spanish mystic John of the Cross -- James Finley said something like, "In the dark night of the soul God takes from us what we hold as gods, what we would not give up otherwise."
I'm not wishing suffering on anyone! Absolutely not! But no life is immune from suffering. Even an ordinary life will be touched by suffering and difficulty. I've said before that you don't have to look for suffering and tragedy. Simply by virtue of living and breathing, life will find you!
The question is not, "Will I suffer or not?", but, "What will I do when it comes?" Within that latter question are the seeds God will use for transformation . . . your own and the world's.
The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
I wonder sometimes if the positive-thinking Gospel-people are reading the same Bible I read. The Old Testament prophets were marginalized as radicals. Job lost everything he had. John the Baptist was killed for his prophetic life with God. Jesus was ostracized and ultimately crucified. Paul listed difficulties that included shipwreck, wild animals and trouble from the churches he served. That list only begins to describe the difficulties of those in Scripture. Suffering is a consistent theme in the biblical narrative.
That story doesn't change if you look at the lives of persons who have followed God through the ages. Benedict of Nursia, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, Alphonsus Rodriguez and Gerard Manley Hopkins are just a few persons who lived significant lives for God through deep personal suffering.
The thread is consistent from the biblical witness then down through the years. It is surprising we miss it so grandly. Among some, modern Christianity has been proposed as a tonic for all that ails you, as a sort of magical elixir that will take all your troubles away. Jesus is imaged as a kind of Medicine Man who will take away all your troubles if you have enough faith.
Large numbers of persons have chosen to be a part of the Church only because they believe religious faith and practice will safeguard them from the difficulties and tragedies of life.
Yet, the truth of our faith is that one path into transformation and meaning comes through suffering, not in the avoidance of suffering. Suffering is not the only path, but it is one path that frequently leads to radical life-change. In suffering, life becomes less theoretical and more real. Sometimes the life-structures that we have believed in and clung to no longer make sense. We begin to experience the instability of the ground on which we've built life.
In suffering we often must begin to leave a life built on sand in order to find a life that is held up by rock.
Suffering doesn't allow us to hide behind pious cliches and holy-sounding God-talk. Suffering is raw and messy. And in that raw messiness we may get our first actual taste of the God who is resilient and relentless in holding us up.
Job, after being swept away by calamity, finally had to confess that for years and years he had heard about God. He had trusted in God's reputation, until finally he experienced God firsthand and found God to be very different from what he had imagined.
In talking about the dark night of the soul -- a phrase that comes from the 16th century Spanish mystic John of the Cross -- James Finley said something like, "In the dark night of the soul God takes from us what we hold as gods, what we would not give up otherwise."
I'm not wishing suffering on anyone! Absolutely not! But no life is immune from suffering. Even an ordinary life will be touched by suffering and difficulty. I've said before that you don't have to look for suffering and tragedy. Simply by virtue of living and breathing, life will find you!
The question is not, "Will I suffer or not?", but, "What will I do when it comes?" Within that latter question are the seeds God will use for transformation . . . your own and the world's.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Second Friday of Advent -- December 10, 2010
Matthew 11:16 - 19
“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”
I talked to a group of public school teachers and administrators today about prayer. They meet weekly to support each other and to share the spiritual journey. They were interested in the method of prayer I offered in Fingerprints on Every Moment.
At the end of our time together, they said, "We want to use your book as an Advent resource. What would you suggest we do through Advent?"
Good question. I suggested a couple of things for the movement toward the birth of Christ. This is some of what I said to them.
First, I suggest using some Advent resource regularly that encourages prayer and reflection. Whether you use Fingerprints on Every Moment or some other resource, find a regular time to spend praying with the resource. The combination of the consistent resource and the consistent time will serve as a regular marker. This daily time will root you and give a structured pattern to your day. You'll find yourself looking forward to the time, which may come early in the morning, during a break at work, or at the end of the day before bed.
In using a resource this way, you are actually establishing a rhythm for life that includes intentional times for prayer and reflection. Over time you'll find that your prayer and reflection -- when you are making conscious contact with God -- spills over into the rest of your life. Those mile-markers signify where you are and hold you steady for the in-between times.
If you use Fingerprints on Every Moment or some other Scripture resource, I suggest an exercise for putting the words of the Bible in your own words. When you feel drawn to a particular phrase or verse, write it out across the top of the page, then try to find as many ways as possible to put the verse in your own words. Notice your own words and images that make it to the page. Pay attention to what you've listed. You'll notice that some of your inner wisdom will emerge, what I would call your soul. You may be surprised at what you see. I suspect that you'll find that you know more than you know.
I also encourage carrying a particular prayer through the season. I'm carrying a breath prayer from Fingerprints on Every Moment through Advent, taken from Psalm 24. My breath prayer is:
Open up, you door of my heart;
Swing wide, you long-closed gates.
It is the prayer I keep on my heart all through the day, reminding me to stay open to God's coming and God's appearing. It reminds me to be aware of things that lie outside my normal field of vision, the "all-things-are-possible" of God.
You don't need to take up my breath prayer. Choose your own. Notice a phrase in the Psalms or from the prophet Isaiah and pull it out for use as a prayer to carry in your awareness through the day.
In a similar way, I suggest taking up a gesture that symbolizes openness to God and awareness of God's presence. The gesture may be something as simple as opening your hands palms-up, touching your heart, or making the sign of the cross. The gesture expresses our intention to be open to God and keeps us mindful that we are continually present to God. The gesture itself does not keep our spirit open to God, but serves as an active reminder of our desire to be open.
One final thing I said to the teachers. . . . There are times when we each lose the peace or the awareness or the conscious sense of God's presence that comes from prayer or meditation or a corporate worship experience. In a moment of chaos at work or home we lose touch with the breath prayer or the gesture that represents our desire for God. What do we do then?
My best suggestion is, "Don't judge it." That is, don't beat yourself up for having lost the immediate sense of God's presence, or for losing your cool, or for the hastily spoken words. You and I are human, not yet complete. We will stumble. The important movement is not to be perfect and never stumble, but to stop judging ourselves as failures or successes.
We are making our way with God through this holy season as best we can.
“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”
I talked to a group of public school teachers and administrators today about prayer. They meet weekly to support each other and to share the spiritual journey. They were interested in the method of prayer I offered in Fingerprints on Every Moment.
At the end of our time together, they said, "We want to use your book as an Advent resource. What would you suggest we do through Advent?"
Good question. I suggested a couple of things for the movement toward the birth of Christ. This is some of what I said to them.
First, I suggest using some Advent resource regularly that encourages prayer and reflection. Whether you use Fingerprints on Every Moment or some other resource, find a regular time to spend praying with the resource. The combination of the consistent resource and the consistent time will serve as a regular marker. This daily time will root you and give a structured pattern to your day. You'll find yourself looking forward to the time, which may come early in the morning, during a break at work, or at the end of the day before bed.
In using a resource this way, you are actually establishing a rhythm for life that includes intentional times for prayer and reflection. Over time you'll find that your prayer and reflection -- when you are making conscious contact with God -- spills over into the rest of your life. Those mile-markers signify where you are and hold you steady for the in-between times.
If you use Fingerprints on Every Moment or some other Scripture resource, I suggest an exercise for putting the words of the Bible in your own words. When you feel drawn to a particular phrase or verse, write it out across the top of the page, then try to find as many ways as possible to put the verse in your own words. Notice your own words and images that make it to the page. Pay attention to what you've listed. You'll notice that some of your inner wisdom will emerge, what I would call your soul. You may be surprised at what you see. I suspect that you'll find that you know more than you know.
I also encourage carrying a particular prayer through the season. I'm carrying a breath prayer from Fingerprints on Every Moment through Advent, taken from Psalm 24. My breath prayer is:
Open up, you door of my heart;
Swing wide, you long-closed gates.
It is the prayer I keep on my heart all through the day, reminding me to stay open to God's coming and God's appearing. It reminds me to be aware of things that lie outside my normal field of vision, the "all-things-are-possible" of God.
You don't need to take up my breath prayer. Choose your own. Notice a phrase in the Psalms or from the prophet Isaiah and pull it out for use as a prayer to carry in your awareness through the day.
In a similar way, I suggest taking up a gesture that symbolizes openness to God and awareness of God's presence. The gesture may be something as simple as opening your hands palms-up, touching your heart, or making the sign of the cross. The gesture expresses our intention to be open to God and keeps us mindful that we are continually present to God. The gesture itself does not keep our spirit open to God, but serves as an active reminder of our desire to be open.
One final thing I said to the teachers. . . . There are times when we each lose the peace or the awareness or the conscious sense of God's presence that comes from prayer or meditation or a corporate worship experience. In a moment of chaos at work or home we lose touch with the breath prayer or the gesture that represents our desire for God. What do we do then?
My best suggestion is, "Don't judge it." That is, don't beat yourself up for having lost the immediate sense of God's presence, or for losing your cool, or for the hastily spoken words. You and I are human, not yet complete. We will stumble. The important movement is not to be perfect and never stumble, but to stop judging ourselves as failures or successes.
We are making our way with God through this holy season as best we can.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Second Thursday of Advent -- December 9, 2010
Isaiah 41:13 - 20
For I am the LORD your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.
Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
little Israel, do not fear,
for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
“See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,
new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and reduce the hills to chaff.
You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,
and a gale will blow them away.
But you will rejoice in the LORD
and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
“The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the LORD will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
In the Bible, messengers of God usually introduce change with the words, "Fear not" or, "Don't be afraid." They arrive with the understanding that humans resist change. In fact, humans are so seduced by the familiar and the comfortable that they are likely to stay in a dangerous, unhealthy situation that is known rather than move into something life-giving that is unknown.
"Fear not" is a threshold phrase. Thresholds are transitions from one room to another, from an old framework to a new framework. Thresholds signal change and movement. As a human person, if you are open to growth, maturity and fullness of life, you will hear, "Do not be afraid" often in your life.
During Advent we ramble eloquently about the coming of Christ. We repeat the biblical birth narratives. We imagine the difference his light makes in a dark world. We sing the birth songs and Christmas carols passed down to us through the centuries. We become misty-eyed romantics for a few weeks before Christmas.
Really though, the birth of Christ signifies the upset of the way we live life on our own terms. God-in-the-flesh, if taken seriously, suggests that life in the world must be lived differently, that a radical reordering of mind and heart is necessary to fully participate in a meaningful life. The birth of Christ turns our world on its ear. Jesus' coming indicates that the prestige of the wealthy and the power of the achievers are illusions that do not represent the kingdom of God.
There is plenty of reason to be told, "Fear not." Fear is the human response that leads to holding onto life as it is and resists change.
Spiritual growth is not always safe. It means crossing thresholds, greeting change, opening ourselves to that which we may be scared to fully embrace. Sure, there is plenty to fear.
In one of the best exchanges in the C. S. Lewis classic, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are trying to describe Aslan, the Christ-figure, to the human children.
The children ask, "Is he safe?"
"No, he's not safe!" the beavers answer. "He's the King of Beasts, I tell you. But he's good."
That tends to be how it goes with God.
For I am the LORD your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.
Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
little Israel, do not fear,
for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
“See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,
new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and reduce the hills to chaff.
You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,
and a gale will blow them away.
But you will rejoice in the LORD
and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
“The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the LORD will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
In the Bible, messengers of God usually introduce change with the words, "Fear not" or, "Don't be afraid." They arrive with the understanding that humans resist change. In fact, humans are so seduced by the familiar and the comfortable that they are likely to stay in a dangerous, unhealthy situation that is known rather than move into something life-giving that is unknown.
"Fear not" is a threshold phrase. Thresholds are transitions from one room to another, from an old framework to a new framework. Thresholds signal change and movement. As a human person, if you are open to growth, maturity and fullness of life, you will hear, "Do not be afraid" often in your life.
During Advent we ramble eloquently about the coming of Christ. We repeat the biblical birth narratives. We imagine the difference his light makes in a dark world. We sing the birth songs and Christmas carols passed down to us through the centuries. We become misty-eyed romantics for a few weeks before Christmas.
Really though, the birth of Christ signifies the upset of the way we live life on our own terms. God-in-the-flesh, if taken seriously, suggests that life in the world must be lived differently, that a radical reordering of mind and heart is necessary to fully participate in a meaningful life. The birth of Christ turns our world on its ear. Jesus' coming indicates that the prestige of the wealthy and the power of the achievers are illusions that do not represent the kingdom of God.
There is plenty of reason to be told, "Fear not." Fear is the human response that leads to holding onto life as it is and resists change.
Spiritual growth is not always safe. It means crossing thresholds, greeting change, opening ourselves to that which we may be scared to fully embrace. Sure, there is plenty to fear.
In one of the best exchanges in the C. S. Lewis classic, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are trying to describe Aslan, the Christ-figure, to the human children.
The children ask, "Is he safe?"
"No, he's not safe!" the beavers answer. "He's the King of Beasts, I tell you. But he's good."
That tends to be how it goes with God.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Second Wednesday of Advent -- December 8, 2010
Matthew 11:28 - 30
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
When I first started fasting years ago as a spiritual practice, I found it strange that I so often became irritable when I went without food for a period of time. I was at a beginning place in my own spiritual awareness, and assumed that a spiritual discipline would yield results that looked pious. I thought fasting would give me a holy aura, that the road to such holiness would be filled with bliss.
What I found instead was that being hungry for long periods of time really ticked me off. Junk hidden deep within me would rise to the surface. Little things would set me off.
I soon noticed that not only did my disposition and behavior change when I was hungry, but the same dispositions and behaviors rose up within me when I was overly angry, and when I was lonely, and when I was tired. In the early 1990's I was telling a friend about this self-discovery, about what I'd seen in my growing self-awareness. He had been involved in a 12-step program for a few years, and immediately said, "Yeah, that's H.A.L.T.: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Those are the times when you're most vulnerable."
I know now that addicts -- all of us, in other words -- are most vulnerable in those four states of being.
As I get older, it seems like I experience "Tired" more than the other three. In my younger years, I found sleep to be a waste of time, a bad use of the short span of time we have to live on the planet. Now that I'm older, naps are precious, and days given to sleeping a little later in the morning are absolute gifts from God!
I experience "Tired" in different ways. There are times when my body is worn out from being physical taxed. When possible, those times call for a nap, or for a late morning of sleep.
There are times when I'm emotionally and physically weary from medical procedures and treatments. I rest when I can and try to come into some equilibrium.
In some life-situations I simply run out of energy. There are times when I've dealt with some situation all I can, when I've given a person, a relationship or a task all the energy I can muster. I simply get tired underneath it.
The most consistently wearying times for me, though, come when I'm running so fast or at such a pace, that I have nothing left in my tank. The hours and days when I lunge from event to event, when I'm in a mode of constantly preparing for the "next big thing," I feel like I have little inner reservoir from which to draw. My resources are low. When I'm spiritually, emotionally and physically depleted, I'm vulnerable.
The rest Jesus promised is "rest for your souls." It may or may not include physical rest (most often it does . . . we are whole persons, not fragmented into various pieces).
This rest comes from being rooted in the Source of all life. Rest also comes when we live into different life-patterns or rhythms. Weariness comes when we get jerked around by the oughts and shoulds that find us in the external world. We lose our center. We capitulate to expectation and demand without a sense of who we truly are and why God created us.
Personally, I believe a lot of our running about in madness is the result of our not knowing our true name, the name that most deeply connects us to God and gives us our truest identity.
But different rhythms mean that we move easily between silence, solitude and engagement. It means that we simplify our lives. It means that we are clear with ourselves about the difference between what we need and what we want. We find both the inner freedom to say, "Yes," and the inner freedom to say, "No."
During Advent, both John the Baptist and the Prophet Isaiah have encouraged us to level valleys and mountains, to make curved paths straight. In other words, they've encouraged us to balance, to the middle, to the path that is steady and reliable.
It is the path that we walk when we live from the inside-out. The person consistently on the move, running from task to obligation, will have little sense of Jesus' words.
"Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
When I first started fasting years ago as a spiritual practice, I found it strange that I so often became irritable when I went without food for a period of time. I was at a beginning place in my own spiritual awareness, and assumed that a spiritual discipline would yield results that looked pious. I thought fasting would give me a holy aura, that the road to such holiness would be filled with bliss.
What I found instead was that being hungry for long periods of time really ticked me off. Junk hidden deep within me would rise to the surface. Little things would set me off.
I soon noticed that not only did my disposition and behavior change when I was hungry, but the same dispositions and behaviors rose up within me when I was overly angry, and when I was lonely, and when I was tired. In the early 1990's I was telling a friend about this self-discovery, about what I'd seen in my growing self-awareness. He had been involved in a 12-step program for a few years, and immediately said, "Yeah, that's H.A.L.T.: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Those are the times when you're most vulnerable."
I know now that addicts -- all of us, in other words -- are most vulnerable in those four states of being.
As I get older, it seems like I experience "Tired" more than the other three. In my younger years, I found sleep to be a waste of time, a bad use of the short span of time we have to live on the planet. Now that I'm older, naps are precious, and days given to sleeping a little later in the morning are absolute gifts from God!
I experience "Tired" in different ways. There are times when my body is worn out from being physical taxed. When possible, those times call for a nap, or for a late morning of sleep.
There are times when I'm emotionally and physically weary from medical procedures and treatments. I rest when I can and try to come into some equilibrium.
In some life-situations I simply run out of energy. There are times when I've dealt with some situation all I can, when I've given a person, a relationship or a task all the energy I can muster. I simply get tired underneath it.
The most consistently wearying times for me, though, come when I'm running so fast or at such a pace, that I have nothing left in my tank. The hours and days when I lunge from event to event, when I'm in a mode of constantly preparing for the "next big thing," I feel like I have little inner reservoir from which to draw. My resources are low. When I'm spiritually, emotionally and physically depleted, I'm vulnerable.
The rest Jesus promised is "rest for your souls." It may or may not include physical rest (most often it does . . . we are whole persons, not fragmented into various pieces).
This rest comes from being rooted in the Source of all life. Rest also comes when we live into different life-patterns or rhythms. Weariness comes when we get jerked around by the oughts and shoulds that find us in the external world. We lose our center. We capitulate to expectation and demand without a sense of who we truly are and why God created us.
Personally, I believe a lot of our running about in madness is the result of our not knowing our true name, the name that most deeply connects us to God and gives us our truest identity.
But different rhythms mean that we move easily between silence, solitude and engagement. It means that we simplify our lives. It means that we are clear with ourselves about the difference between what we need and what we want. We find both the inner freedom to say, "Yes," and the inner freedom to say, "No."
During Advent, both John the Baptist and the Prophet Isaiah have encouraged us to level valleys and mountains, to make curved paths straight. In other words, they've encouraged us to balance, to the middle, to the path that is steady and reliable.
It is the path that we walk when we live from the inside-out. The person consistently on the move, running from task to obligation, will have little sense of Jesus' words.
"Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
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