God's Gifts to A Freed People

The Text: 

Then the Lord God spoke these words: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and up out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods but me.                                                                                                                                                  Exodus 20:1

Israel, 2012

The Whispering: 

Greetings from sunny Florida where I am at a working conference with other Interim ministers. My take-away is that CHN is a very healthy place!

You may or may not agree with the Ten Commandments taking up space on the walls of  public buildings, but there they are. And while we  may have  memorized all of them and think they are a good idea (or not), I wonder if we ever really consider this first verse.

These are words of a people freed!!  

The  Commandments are God's gift to a newly liberated people!

They could have been called, "Ways to Live a Life."

Two questions to ponder this week:

     1.  What and where are your "Egypts?"

     2.  How has God liberated you??

                                                              

Transfiguration

The Text:

Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; 
let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."             
He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.                Mark 9:5-6

The Transfiguration of Jesus    Macha Chmakoff

The Whispering: 

This is one of my favorite parts of the otherwise heady narrative on the Transfiguration of Jesus. Here Peter has come face to face with two of the greatest icons of the Jewish faith: Moses and Elijah, the meeting of a lifetime, and all he could do was blather on about building huts for them. Really?

I think we all can relate. We've all caught ourselves blurting out something and known instantly that we are making a mess out of what we are trying to say. Often we speak too soon, as Peter did, and sometimes we just talk too much. 

What might happen if we resisted the temptation to respond, and instead focused on listening more intently and more thoughtfully?

Grace

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.            Isaiah 40: 28-29

Grace       by Agostino Arrivabene

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

This passage always makes me wonder.First, how often do we forget that God is always there loving us, waiting for us, being there for us.  Do we hear that? Believe it? And second, this passage inevitably makes me ruminate on God's grace. How often do we notice God’s grace? And how often do we miss it entirely?

Garrison Keillor reflected on this last fall when he recalled a time when, speeding down a dark, gravel road having been drinking one night many years ago, he almost hit three boys walking down that country road.  Keillor said, “What should have happened did not. Had I hit them, this would have been a deep shadow over the rest of my life. It would have destroyed my life. But it did not, because it didn't happen. What should have happened did not happen.”

How has God’s grace changed your life?

With Authority

Set the Captives Free  by Laura Gentry

The Text:

Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. Mark 1:25-26


The Whispering:

On Sunday, we will hear a passage from Mark’s Gospel that recounts Jesus’ teaching and healings at the temple in Capernaum. It is early on in Jesus’ ministry, and yet, the text tells us, all who were present were amazed at his “authority.” That word struck me.

While we could focus on the mechanics of teaching and driving out demons, perhaps we should consider instead what Jesus’ ministry really entailed. It is clear that Jesus expected his disciples to both preach and drive out demons as the way of bringing about the Kingdom of God. Did he expect as much out of us, his 21st century disciples?

In what ways are we using our authority as children of God and as disciples of Jesus to bring about the Kingdom of God? And do we even have to worry about demons anymore?

Oh, God, that is why I fled at the beginning; for I knew you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. - Jonah 4:2

Is there a better book in the whole Bible than the Book of Jonah? Children love it; the idea of being swallowed up into a whale's belly frightens and delights every young child's imagination. What's it like in there? Is it pink or is it dark? Is it slippery or is it slimy?

But as adults, we realize Jonah's story is our story. It's a story about being called by God, and our reluctance to step out in faith and just do it. Jonah only found himself in that whale's belly because he was running away from God.

This week, we are offered a glimpse into God's grace. God called Jonah, and Jonah ran away. God retrieved Jonah, and sent him out again. God gave Jonah a second chance to be obedient. And God's will was accomplished. Jonah pouted, and Jonah was angry with God, but God's will was accomplished.

Have you run from God?
What second chances has God offered you?

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
- 1 Samuel 3:9

"Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

One of my favorite stories is the calling of Samuel. I think what I most enjoy about it is the simplicity of young Samuel's answer. It is without limits and without guile. He honestly wants to hear what God has to say. I wonder whether we're as open to simply listening as Samuel was.

We are so busy.
We are so overwhelmed by input: 24 hour media, computer and phone accessibility. There is an incessant barrage of information being leveled at us; and yet, Elijah described God as having a "still, small voice." How do we hear it? And how do we listen for God's voice or discern God's call to us in the midst of the complexities of our lives?

How? This week, just sit with that question.
How do you hear God's voice?

And a voice came from heaven,
"You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."




Maybe every baptism is like that; a voice comes from heaven and says, "YOU! You are my beloved and with you I am well pleased!" And maybe every time we renew our Baptismal Covenant (as we will do this Sunday) God is whispering that same sentiment into our hearts and souls.

And yet, in those nights of self-doubt and suffering, do we still believe ourselves beloved? Because we are. All of us have times of doubt and forgetfulness, but we are God's beloved children. When someone among us forgets that, or stops believing that, it is then when we, the Church, spring into action: encouraging all those who have forgotten their own beloved-ness. It is why we are here: to encourage each other in the faith, to lift up the broken-hearted, to sustain those whose faith has been shaken.

This week, ask yourself who near you may have forgotten their own beloved-ness. Who needs a note or a call? Who needs a prayer?
Who needs a smile or a word of encouragement?
They are waiting for us.

This is our calling as people of the Way.

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.