Love and Faithfulness ARE the Path

All the paths of the LORD are love and faithfulness *
to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.  Psalm 25:9

The pathways to the Lord are love and faithfulness, the Psalmist writes. This week I am, like many of you, joining together with family and friends to give thanks to God for all our blessings. It is a particularly poignant Thanksgiving for me because my husband is not here with me this year. 

It is poignant also because of the shape in which the world finds itself. Life (either personally or geopolitically) does not always play out on straight, well marked paths. Often, the paths are poorly marked and full of tree roots that cause us to stumble. 

What God promises us is this: when we set out on a path, whether its well marked or barely there, God will be there. Our task is to look for love and faithfulness wherever we find ourselves, and there we will find God. The path itself may be poorly marked, but love and faithfulness are the signs assure us that we are on the right course. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Christ as King?

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Revelation 1: 5-6

Świebodzin, Poland, 6 November 2010

It is hard for us living in a modern democracy to visualize kingship. Even in our relationships with Jesus, as varied as they are, I suspect most of us are more comfortable relating to Jesus as the man who came, a man born of a woman. He dwelled among us - he was with us - Emmanuel.

Kingship is different, and yet, Jesus' kingship is an integral part of Christian doctrine. Jesus as King of the Universe. Jesus as fully divine. Jesus, the name above all names: Redeemer, Sanctifier, Messiah. Sunday we celebrate Christ as King. As we do, we must consider Jesus as the Christ, Jesus as King. May he become fully integrated as both human and divine and not live as a sort of disembodied man-god in our hearts.

Kingship is hard for us, but His kingship is essential.

For the Beauty of the Psalms

Psalm 16

Keep me safe, my God,
    for in you I take refuge.

2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    apart from you I have no good thing.”
3 I say of the holy people who are in the land,
    “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
    I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
    or take up their names on my lips.

5 Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful[b] one see decay.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

         For the Fullness of the Earth         J.E. Swanson

To be sure, there are more familiar Psalms than Psalm 16, Psalms like the 23rd or Psalm 121, but this little Psalm is a powerhouse. It will sustain us through thick and thin. We make King David's words into our own prayer. 

Why? Just read it. It reminds us of all that is essential:    

Take refuge in God. Apart from God, we have nothing. When we stray and begin to worship other gods, our sorrows will increase. God alone is our portion and our cup; God alone is enough. We can live through our darkest imaginings because God is always at our right hand; always present. God will never give us up to the Pit, and will never forsake us. 

For all of this, I sing praises to the Lord who is my refuge and my strength.  Alleluia!

Sanctuaries?

Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands,a mere copy of the true one... Hebrews 9:24

                              Caring for the Sick     L.M. Horthemels

Jesus had it right. The sanctuaries where we gather for worship are mere copies of the true one. As we come together each week, it is not simply to have a perfunctory visit with God. Coming to worship is far more important than that because it prepares us for the true heaven and is practice for life itself in the Kingdom of God.

The care we take with practicing our anthems, in ironing our linens, with polishing our silver mirrors how God wants us to be with each other: careful, gentle, loving. And, similarly, each liturgical action set in motion during times of public worship, whether it's bowing our heads, bending our knees, or extending our hands for Eucharist is practice for the same. Each movement, each action, each breath prepares us for living and being in God's world.

Thanks be to God.

God Dwells Among Us

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Revelation 21: 3-4

God dwells among us! That's the good news!
Someone recently asked me if I really believed this. Do I really believe this? Of course I do! She said the death of a spouse would destroy most people. I thought a lot about that. Was she inferring that I was not grieving "enough" or that my faith was somehow "better" than the faith of others? I don't know.

But I do know this. On those days when life seems glum, or overwhelming, or simply dull, God usually pokes me in the ribs. Did you see that milkweed pod? Listen; there are sandhill cranes flying overhead! Who called you today? Is that the necklace Jean made for you? Did you see the card Gary sent you last year? It's on his bureau.

And then I remember. The home of God is among us.

All we have to do is pay attention.

Calling

Take heart; get up, he is calling you.

Mark 10:49

                             Sight to the Blind                           Brian Jekel 

When we are on our last legs, when we have all but thrown in the towel, that still, small voice of God whispers: “Take heart; get up, He is calling you.” We’ve all experienced it, even if we didn’t even pay attention to it. God whispers.

Often we think of this as an ecclesial act, a call to “do something” for the church, but the whisper of God, the call of God, can be entirely secular. It can be to a vocation or to a singular action or to change one’s direction. A call from God always shows itself through love and generosity of spirit and will be grounded in offering one’s self to the service of God and God’s creation.

Take heart; get up, he is calling you.

To what is God calling you?

The Difficult Question

 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Mark 10:25

We live in the wealthiest nation on earth. Even if we consider ourselves poor, we as a people are still vastly richer than most people on earth.

So, does this mean Americans will miss out on the Kingdom of Heaven? On Salvation? Do we honestly have to give away all that we own to the poor to be "good" Christians?  Is that the ticket to heaven? I hope not. 

Jesus' words about wealth are difficult ones.                                                                           This week, as we meditate upon the rich young man's question to Jesus: "Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 

consider how might Jesus answer you. 

Being Good

The LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone;                                                                  I will make him a helper as his partner."   Genesis 2:18

                                        Study of Hands                       V. Van Gogh                       

During the creation of the world, God paused at the end of each day to assess what had been created and deemed it “good.”  What a shock, then, to hear God deeming man alone as “not good.”  Forget all the Adam and Eve jokes you’ve heard for a minute and consider this one line, for it epitomizes the wisdom of all biblical teachings.  This one short line in the very beginning of Genesis epitomizes, for me, the essence of the entire Bible. 

It is not good for us to be alone.  We need each other. 

This is far broader than a simple statement about marriage or coupling; it is an instruction for life. Ours is not a faith that is focused on our own spiritual growth; ours is a community that nurtures our growth. We need others – helpers – to accompany and assist us as we grow into the full stature of Christ.  

Two questions:  

Who are your helpers?

Who might be in need of your help? 

Complaining

The Israelites wept again, and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at."   Numbers 11:4-6

                                       Fruit                 Igor Bragin, 2010

The Israelites are at it again. They cried out to God in their misery, and God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They cried out to Yahweh in their hunger, and God sent them manna. And in this week’s passage, they cry out because they are tired of manna, remembering only the lavish produce in Egypt. They had forgotten the beatings and the ridiculous quotas levied upon them by their Egyptian masters.

How is it with us? Is the grass always greener somewhere else? Do we fall into self-pity and forget the provisions God has bequeathed to us? The readings next week tell of a whiny, complaining people. They highlight humanity’s propensity for finding fault, for forgetting the beauty of the present moment.

This week, let us remember to pause. To consider not those things we lack, but all that we do have. To raise a loud shout to God in praise of God’s creation and in thanksgiving for our place in it.

Yes, now. Do it now.  

Gentleness and Mercy

For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.      James 3: 16-17

Most of us strive for peacful lives; we do not aspire to “disorder and wickedness of every kind.” Here, James offers Christians a dire warning against envy and selfish ambition.  

Given our Puritan forbears, the idea of God as “gentle and willing to yield” may surprise us. My grandparents, raised at the end of the Victorian era, preached strict obedience and proper solemnity when it came to life and work and worship.  They were unfeignedly comfortable with the metaphor of God as Rock: immutable, permanent, stalwart. A mighty bulwark.... Right?

James suggests another perspective.  Think of God’s wisdom as poured out among us like streams of living water. It is the antithesis of rigidity.  James calls it “pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”  Think about it: God’s wisdom without a trace of partiality and hypocrisy? Oh, Lord, let it be so!  

How might our relationships with God and with each other change if we cast aside all the “thou shalt nots” and, instead approached life gently, kindly, willing to yield, and without partiality or hypocrisy? Oh Lord, let it be so!

The Mighty Member

So also the tongue is a small member; how great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.                James 3:5, 9-10

                                       The Tongue      Nadia Ayari c.2012

This week, James ruminates on the power of the tongue. He muses over the fact that such a small body part can both bless and curse. We are simultaneously saints and sinners.

    

Think back for a moment. What statements made to you do you remember from years past? Do you remember the hurtful ones or the encouraging ones? I think we tend to remember the former more viscerally. Was it a parent? A teacher? A school yard bully? A sibling? For me it was something an aunt said to me on my wedding day that made me feel “not okay.” The memory of it still stings.

  

We cannot un-ring the bell. We cannot take back words once they slide forth from our mouths.  We can use our speech to impale and to spread lies, or we can use our speech to bless, strengthen and encourage. 

This week, let us initiate a new conversation with God. Let us ask for forgiveness for those times we used our tongues as weapons and ask for the fortitude and discipline to use them now only for the greater good: for the building up of the body of Christ and for the realization of the Kingdom.       

Be Opened!

Jesus said, “Ephphatha! Be opened.”  Mark 7:34

When I was discerning for Holy Orders, I remember hoping God would just give me a sign or something – something to tell me I was walking down the right path. “Please just send me an e-mail,” I often whined. I never expected that I’d have some monumental religious experience like the appearance of a tower of flames and a voice saying, “Liz……? It’s God…….”  I knew better.  But discernment is such an ephemeral thing, and we rarely know specifically what God wants us to do or what paths to pursue. God just isn’t into e-mail yet, I guess.  

In this week’s Gospel, we will encounter the passage about Jesus healing a man who was deaf. “Ephphatha! Be opened,” Jesus says.  And that command got me to thinking.  What if our eyes and ears and hearts were really opened and not distracted by the white noise that surrounds us day after day? What would happen if we were really opened? Opened to differing opinions? Opened to different perspectives? Opened to new neighborhoods and cultures? I think we’d be astonished.                                                                                                                                             

What if your eyes and ears and hearts were really opened – for just one day?                                    
What would change?