The Annunciation

While studying this week, I read something by someone who was trying to make the point that an unmarried pregnant girl would not have been such a scandal in Jesus' time. The writer posited that "an empty womb in a healthy young woman" would have been considered a tragic waste of that young woman's real estate. The writer lost me there. Mary. The Annunciation. An unmarried woman. An empty womb.

An empty womb. What if the empty womb, Mary's empty womb or any empty space in our souls, craves fullness?
The 17th century mathematician Blase Pascal wrote of this in his work Pensees when he mused:

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing,
but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. - Blase Pascal

The empty womb.
Mary set aside all social conventions and correctness when she said, "Yes."
What would Joseph say? What would her own parents think? What about the other townspeople?
Often, it is those empty places inside each of us that God longs to fill with goodness and mercy.
Dare we allow God to enter in?
It's a risk.

Holy Hospitality Revisited

`Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'    
Matthew 25: 37-39

The Judgement of the Sheep and the Goats  - Fra Angelico

Notice that those who did feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, and clothes the naked did not recognize Christ either. It is a good reminder for us as well. We are called to be Christ's hands and feet in the world, and if we do it for the right reasons, we will not even realize that we are doing something out of obligation. It is those who serve because they feel their salvation depends upon it that will be judged the more harshly. We serve because it feeds us; an unseen hand guides us into service with love, care and concern, not because it is an obligation or a ticket into heaven.

Enter into the Joy of Your Master

The Parable of the Talents is a problematic one from the get go. A landowner goes away, entrusting his three slaves with his money. Two of the three slaves double the master's money and are well praised for doing so, but the third, the cautious servant, is cast into outer darkness when he merely returns his master's money. He says he was fearful of losing it, so he buried it. He says he was afraid of his master's reputation as a harsh man, so he played it safe. Surely the moral of the story is not: "For all those who have, more will be given, and for all those have the least, they will be cast into outer darkness." No, that doesn't sound like Jesus' methodology at all.

Upon reading the text again this week, I found this small line that almost seemed inconsequential, but then I noticed the same lie appears twice in the text. The line reads, "Enter into the Joy of your master." And perhaps this was it. Perhaps this was Jesus' message to us all. Perhaps the point is to claim our blessedness; to claim our belovedness as children of God. God has bestowed each of us with an abundance of gifts, gifts that God would have us use; gifts that God would have us claim. The point is to enter into God's joy: to enter into the process of life.

The cautious servant did not claim his gift and work to multiply it for the sake of the Master. He buried it. He lived in fear. Fear is a problem because fear paralyzes us; renders us unable to live life as citizens of the Kingdom. God has no use for those who will not enter into God's joy. To enter into the purview of God, we must allow ourselves to enter into God's joy. For without it, we cannot do what God' has given us to do.

Choose This Day Who You Will Serve

 "Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel." Joshua 24:23

Household gods             The Israel Museum - Jerusalem

I remember with utter fascination the passage in Genesis 31 about Rachael stealing Laban's "household gods" and Jacob's warning her about keeping them.  The idea fascinated me: household gods?  And many years later, while on a visit to the Holy Land, I encountered actual archaeological remains of these "teraphim" at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. I stood by their case, mesmerized. Why would any of the ancients believe that these little terracotta statuettes would hold any power over them? They seem pretty benign.

In the readings for this Sunday. we discover Joshua warning the people of God's wrath if they would not give up worshiping the gods of their ancestors. So what is it about worshiping other gods?  What's the risk? Well, for starters, God made it clear in the first of Ten Commandments: You shall have no other gods but me.  So we know it is so. And yet, like our ancestors before us, we in the 21st century have plenty of other gods who threaten to draw us away from putting God first. 

Money and power come to mind, but what if we have little of either?  There are still things that seep into our daily existence that may crowd out God.  Innocuous activities like television, the Internet, and going to the gym, while not injurious to the soul, may prove to be lethal to our spiritual souls. 

This week, schedule a time to be alone with God each day; a time for prayer, scriptural reading, and listening. Pay attention to those activities that try to encroach upon your time with God. What are they? 

"Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel." Joshua 24:23

The Feast of All Saints

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion in the mystical body of your Son Jesus Christ:  Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.....

                                                              The Book of Common Prayer, p. 245

The Collect for All Saints' Sunday reminds us of the mystery of life and death in a profound way.  First it describes all those who have gone on before us as being somehow knit together.  Think about that for a minute: your great grandmother and my great grandmother. And all those who died in the Holocaust and all the children who have died in childbirth or in utero: all knit together into one holy and mystical body called the Communion of Saints. Wow!

 And in this prayer, we ask God for the grace to follow them; we ask God to bring us in death into a place where the joys are "ineffable."  I had to look it up. Ineffable means "incapable of being expressed in words," so what we are asking God to do is to bring us into a place so filled with joy that words cannot describe it. 

 In a world where death is often associated with despair, disease, anger, or tragedy, God promises something different. God promises us a place where the joys areineffable; a place where the sting of death is transformed into                                                                               something of indescribable joy.

All Saints' Sunday, then, becomes a time where we are offered a glimpse into that mystery, a glimpse through the thin veil into the ineffable joys that God has promised us. As we remember those we love who have gone on before us, we remember, too, that God has a place for us in that Kingdom. 

  

Holy Hospitality

We are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves 
because you have become very dear to us.                   1 Thessalonians 2:8

The Hospitality of Abraham

In this letter, we can sense Paul's affection for the people at Thessalonica.  

This fondness stems from two things: their receptiveness to the gospel and the warmth of the welcome they extended to Paul. 

Which makes me wonder:  how welcoming are we of the stranger? 

And what if the strangers started proclaiming the Gospel in ways that were not our norm? 

Would we shy away from those visitors? Ignore them? 

This Sunday, we will be reminded of the greatest of the two greatest commandments; 

the two on which hang all the law and the prophets: Love God and Love our Neighbors. 

Even those who do things differently. 

The Gospels demand Holy Hospitality. 

How are we doing? 

On the Pernicious Problem of Evil

God's works will never be finished;

and from him health spreads over all the earth.  

                                              Ecclesiasticus 38:8

Exodus - Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall’s painting haunts me because of the sheer masses of people approaching the figure of our Lord. Chagall intentionally used very dark tones to symbolize the ever-present notion of pain and darkness in the world.

This week I am thinking about ISIS. 

Where is God in the torture and in those beheadings?   Where is God when villagers are lined up and shot?   

Can this force of Evil be stopped?

                                             

The scripture from Ecclesiasticus seems to suggest that God’s work will never be done, and perhaps that is the good news we seek. That God is eternal, and that God will never stop working to overcome evil and darkness in                                                                   the world.

Our faith tells us that God will prevail. Therein lies our hope. 

Fickleness and Faithfulness

Your people have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it….  Exodus 32:8

All through the books of Genesis and Exodus, we see God as provisioning his people, offering them sustenance and structure, safety and salvation. We would expect they would be grateful and loyal in return, right? 

Yet, while Moses is up on the mountain with God, the people get impatient.  They second guess the promises God has made to them, and they rebel against God.  They build a golden calf as an idol and worship it – forsaking the God of Abraham. 

How quickly do we forget God's promises to us?  What are the “golden calf” things in our lives that cause us to stray from walking as true disciples of Jesus Christ?  What prevents us from developing relationships with our neighbors, from feeding the hungry, or lifting up the oppressed?

Lord, help us set aside those idols that cause us to forget. Amen.

Dare We Take The Hand That's Offered?

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, 
and to give more than we either desire or deserve….       The Book of Common Prayer, p. 234.

The first line of Sunday’s Collect begins, “God, you are always more ready to hear than we are to pray,” and that’s got me thinking. 

God is always ready to hear us; always listening and available to us. 

Do we do our part to nurture that relationship – or do we relegate God to the shelf except during times of distress or on Sunday mornings?

God’s ongoing desire for us is for us to be in relationship. Rodin’s sculpture called “The Cathedral” (pictured) encapsulates this idea. God has offered the hand. Do we take it? Because to be drawn into what we call “life in Christ” is to take that offered hand and to allow its grip to take hold of our hearts and minds and spirits.

Dare we take hold of it?

Pouring Ourselves Out

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.                                                                                                                                                                      Philippians 2:5-7

I am struck by this passage from Philippians:  That Christ Jesus, being “in the form of God” came to us not as God, but in the form of a human – and in “the form of a slave.”  

What kind of an entrance is that?  Wouldn’t he have had better luck if he had arrived in a golden chariot?  But he didn’t. He came to us as a defenseless baby, and emptied himself; emptied all the godliness out of himself and took the form of a slave. 

Paul exhorts us to be of the same mind as Christ Jesus; to drop our quests for power and success and “stuff” and, instead, to move about in the world like Jesus did, as servants.  

I wonder what we’d look like if we allowed the same mind be in us as was in Christ Jesus?               

What does emptying ourselves entail?        

                How does it feel to pour oneself out?

And why, do you think, did Jesus do it?

     A chariot might have been easier.                                              

Murmurers

The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."   Exodus 16:2

Murmuring ---

Are we murmurers?  Grumblers? Complainers?

On Sunday, we will hear the story of the Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and toward the Promised Land. We will hear them complaining to Moses and Aaron about their plight.                                                                                                 

      “Oh, if only we had died in Egypt as slaves. At least there we had bread to eat.”  

Had they utterly forgotten the daily whippings? The ridiculous quotas of bricks Pharaoh demanded of them each day? Had they forgotten the armed chariots chasing after them as they entered the Red Sea?   Mankind, it seems, has a short memory.

“Oh, if we’d only died in Egypt.”  Seriously? 

What a bunch of complainers! Did they think they could not call out to God?              

Of course, it’s easy to criticize others, isn’t it?                                                            

So, that’s what I’m thinking about as we head into Sunday.

See you in church!

Liz+

Stop Counting

Peter came and said to Jesus,when a member of the church sins against me,  

how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?"

Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.     Matthew 18:21  

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Jesus isn't asking us to forgive our brothers 490 times, or 70 times, or 77 times.  He's telling us we should always forgive those who have sinned against us.  He's telling Peter to stop counting! Simply forgive and move on. Always! 

God has forgiven all of us for all of humanity's sins through Jesus’ crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension.                    

How stingy of us to hold onto grudges in human matters when God has so lavishly forgiven all of us.                           

Why would Jesus want us to so generously forgive those who have wronged us?And if forgiveness is an essential practice for us as Christian people, why is it so hard?

These are the things I am wondering about this week as I head toward Sunday.

Forgiveness

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

                                                                                                Matthew 18:20

Holy moments.

Sitting on the porch on a hot summer afternoon with a trusted friend, (s)he confided to me a dark secret.  My first response was shock. I almost blurted out, “No way! How could you?” At that moment, a soft breeze brushed across my brow, a breeze so soft that I barely felt it, but so noticeable, somehow. The presence of the Spirit danced in that still, soft air. My judgment was suspended, my larynx rendered useless.

“I need to ask for forgiveness,” my friend said, disturbing the suspended wind in the room.   

And the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit redeemed that moment. 

Sadness, confusion, guilt, disappointment, and resignation; and then tears of forgiveness sanctified my friend’s cheeks. 

Holy moments.

What holy moments have most touched you this week?

The Mystery of Grace

Grace conferred on my head by a bishop and eight priests 
as I knelt there praying for the courage to accept God's plans for me.  
I wondered if I'd feel anything at all; anything different. 
And one friend, who had said she could not be there, was among them. 
Not vested. I hadn't seen her arrive. 
But there she was, smiling at my surprise.
And suddenly, I glimpsed................. grace. 

Grace was everywhere that sunny day in June, 
but that one friend who came and surprised me?  
That defined it. 
That ephemeral mystery of God's grace. 
An extended hand, calling on the Holy Spirit to make me into something
impossible for me to do alone; something God asked me to do. 
Grace. 

It does not leave us where it found us. 

The Donkey

No one thinks much about the donkey that took center stage on Palm Sunday so many years ago, yet Scripture is replete with these "sideliners" who we know were present, yet are pretty much ignored. 

• I think about the innkeeper in Bethlehem that chilly night so long ago. Did he ever return to the manger? Did he see the multitude of the heavenly host? Or the baby wrapped in swaddling cloths?
• And I wonder about those guys who circled Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well with stones in their fists. We know that not one threw a rock, but were they changed? Where did they slink off to when they left the scene, one by one? 
• And did the bride at the wedding at Cana ever find out that Jesus saved the day when her father ran low on wine? Did she ever thank Jesus? Or ask him how he did it? 

What became of these essential figurines in our faith who don't receive but a passing mention?
And what do they have to tell us about our own humanity? Poet Mary Oliver pointed me to their simple existence with her obscure poem called "The Poet Thinks about the Donkey."   Oliver drew my attention to not just the donkey, but all the others. What wisdom do these sideliners have to impart to us? She made me wonder about my own "donkey-ness" as I seek to deepen my relationships with the Lord and with others. 

What wisdom can the donkey impart to us? Here's the poem: 

                                            The Poet Thinks about the Donkey

                                                                                                                          

                               On the outskirts of Jerusalem

                               the donkey waited.

                               Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,

                               he stood and waited.

                               How horses, turned out in the meadow,

                                    leap with delight!

                              How doves, released from their cages,

                                    clatter away, splashed with sunlight!

                           But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.

                           Then he let himself be led away.

                              Then he let the stranger mount.

                              Never had he seen such crowds!

                              And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.

                              Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

                              I hope, finally, he felt brave.

                              I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,

                              as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

-                                                                                                                                    

-                                              - Mary Oliver

                                                   

To Sister Barbara -- Wherever you are . . . .

A long time ago, I took a class, called The Art of Spiritual Direction. It was the first class I took when I returned to graduate school, and I was scared. What if I failed? What if grad school was really for academics, and not for regular everyday sorts of people like me? 
Who did I think I was? 

Classes were wonderful.  Invigorating. Mind bending -- in the best sense of that word. Often, I was paired up with Sister Barbara, a nun from Cincinnati who had spent her adult life ministering in Guatemala.She was back in the US on a 6-month sabbatical, and came to Loyola to take classes. Again I felt those nagging questions. Who was I, to aspire to learning the craft of spiritual direction in the company of one such as this? 

We became friends. Before class and during class breaks, we'd sit and talk and she'd idly sketch.  She sketched the most clear and pristine drawings of the most ordinary objects: the blackboard erasers, someone's notebook, the chipped window sill in that ancient classroom. I marveled at our friendship. Where had her experiences as a celibate Roman Catholic nun living in Central America intersected with mine, an Episcopal suburbanite? She was so pure, so holy, so grace-filled, and here I was: a flappable, distracted American mom picking finger-paint out from under my fingernails during class.  

One image (spiritual direction classes pay very close attention to imagery!) that rested upon my shoulders that semester was an image of myself as a chipped and cracked clay pot holding a bunch of dark gooey stuff inside. One night, after I had shared the image with my classmates in a reflection, we were on a break, and Barb was sketching, and I asked her to sketch my clay pot as I had described it to the class that evening. She asked me more about my clay pot image. What shape was it? How big was it? And, soon, class resumed. 



Two weeks later, I came rushing into class, flapped, late, and muttering about the traffic.  Barb smiled and set a wrapped package on my desk.
It was perfect. 
Too perfect. 

"For you," she said.
"But where are the cracks and the chips and the brown, gooey ooze of my sins?" I protested. 
"This is how God sees you," she replied. 

That picture still hangs in my office, a testament to peace and grace, and quiet calm. 

Thank you Sister Barbara, wherever you are.  

I Am Coming to You

"I am coming to you."  John 14:18

                                                                                     - August Swanson

In the Gospel, Jesus promises his disciples that even though he is going away for a while, He will not leave them orphaned.  

He promises that He will return to them.

Isn't this all we need?

If we can't trust Jesus, who can we trust?

"I am coming to you." 

We have God's word on it. 

How does God come to you?  

For me, its when I hold a brand new baby, and when the shy smile of a stranger acknowledges that we have shared a common understanding, and when a dew drop on a blade of grass in the early morning catches my eye. Jesus comes to me in the Holy Eucharist, when beautiful music deepens my grasp of life, or when an adult child calls, "just to check in."  In other words, Jesus comes to me in the everyday course of life. And still I am surprised. 

How does He come to you?

Trust

The Scripture

Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

                       John 14:1

The Whispering

Jesus has spelled it all out. He is going away. He has admonished his friends not to worry, but Thomas shouts out, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

Anxiety seems to be a part of our human condition, yet time and again throughout scripture, angels, prophets and Jesus himself exhort us not to be afraid. How might our lives change if we struck anxiety out of our daily life? What if we simply believed that there is indeed a way into the unknown future and that we will be able to find it? 

What if?

Jerusalem: 4000 Years in 5 Minutes