Whatever You Do

What a day.  I’m in between things at the moment.  Waiting for the next thing.  But not waiting, filling the time.  Using the time.  We had men’s group this morning - way, way too early, frankly.  But these guys like it.  A small group of men who gather to share and listen and know each other a little bit more.  To have the sense that they are not alone in the universe.  I guess early morning is a good time for that.  

Then I have a funeral this afternoon.  A special woman, a part of the life of the church, fought cancer for a while, finally won.  Yeah, I said won.  By holding fast to her faith into eternity, I think she has won what most of us long for and pray for.  I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, wrote St. Paul.  So, a celebration this afternoon, sad to be sure, sad for us who remain, who still run, who still fight, but a celebration nonetheless.

Then a few hours later, I turn back a few pages in the United Methodist Ritual book and perform a wedding.  It has always fascinated me that the wedding and the funeral services sit side by side in my little book. Something theological about that.  But I won’t go into it now.  Maybe someday.  Certainly Emily and Marco wouldn’t want a reflection on mortality this afternoon.  They are thinking about eternity.  They are thinking about love as an act of will, of life together, of hope and joy and facing the future hand in hand, which is the only way any of us can face the future.  Holding on.  To someone, to everyone, to the One who made us and the One who saves us and the One who sustains us.  It is always better to go forward holding on, and not only to God.  There are those around us who sustain us, who save us.  There is a community, there are covenants made that make us who we are.  So we go into the unknown confident in love, confident in hope, even when the way is clouded, even when the hands by which we hold on are numb and uncertain.  We go on because of those who sustain us even when we don’t know it, or forget it, or take it for granted, or even try to deny it.  But they are there, sustaining, praying, loving us.  So we go on.

Woven into this busy day is a marker that startles me.  My son, Rhys, who I sometimes still see as the sleepy eyed but curious tiny little bundle I received into my arms at Chicago O”Hare Airport, turns 21 today.  Twenty-one!  How in the world did that happen?  Must be one of those time warp things we read about in the science fiction novels.  That’s the only explanation.  Otherwise it would mean admitting that I’m ... well, old.

In between all these things is my usual preparation for Sunday morning.  Which is always both a physical and a spiritual process.  Reading and writing, planning and organizing.  But also praying and meditating, listening and wanting.  Being present in this moment, in preparation for another moment, a worship moment the next day.  Alive to the Spirit as much as I can be.  Alive to the world in which the Spirit works and the community the Spirit shapes.  

So...what a day!  

Actually, its not a day, it’s a week.  It’s a month.  It’s a life, might as well admit it.  It’s not just today, it’s every day.  It’s not just me it’s you as well.  We are all of us engaged in days like this; overwhelming days, head-spinning days, troubling days, exciting days.  There are days we want to hold on to forever and days we want to see the back of as soon as possible, days we hope we never forget and days we don’t want to remember.  Our lives are made up of days that make us wish for the boring, mundane, make no demand, just kind of drift along days that seem too few and far between.

So, what does our faith say we should do on those days?  What does Jesus require of us on such days?  What actions and what choices?  What demons do we exorcize and what angels do we heed?  

Actually, I’m beginning to suspect that maybe it isn’t so much the what, but the how that really matters.  Don’t shoot me. I don’t mean, as some do, that there is no such thing as sin.  Yes, there are always right things and wrong things to do.  But I think when walking through this life, the wake we leave has less to do with the specific actions and more to do with the attitude we bring to those actions.  The how seems to make more of an impact than the what.  At least that’s what it seems to me Paul is saying in our text for this week.

Colossians 3:12-17   12 As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.  16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.  17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

Clothe yourselves, writes Paul.  Wrap yourselves in these things.  Put on.  He writes a lot about the discipline of making sure you are properly attired as a follower of Christ. You could argue, I suppose, that the list that he provides for us here is about doing, about actions.  But I would argue that it is more about attitude.  Take look at the words - compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.  And then once he states them, lays them out for us, he then describes them again.  Bear with one another, forgive one another, get over stuff, let it go.

Then comes the outer garment.  Clothe yourself with love.  No wait, “above all, clothe yourself with love.”  Above all.  The crown, the cap, the overcoat, the fur wrap, the orange jumpsuit, the helmet that you lead with, the walker that you ambulate with, the steel toed boots you work with, above all lead with love.  A new commandment I give to you, love one another as I have loved you.  He said that, Jesus.  On his way out the door.  Before climbing the hill and hoisting himself on the cross.  Love one another.  As I have loved.  Above all.

So, whatever you do.  Love is an act, certainly, but more than that it is an approach.  It is an attitude.  It is a way of being in the world.  It is a uniform that we wear.  See how those Christians love one another.  That’s what folks are supposed to say about us.  Not see how judgmental, not see how closed minded, not see how hard-hearted.  But see how they love.

Whatever you do.  Whatever.  Not just the big stuff.  Not just the planned and organized and mission and outreach stuff.  But whatever you do.  Not just the happy or sad ritual stuff, the weddings and funerals, the small group gatherings and the monumental birthday celebrations.  But whatever.

Great word “whatever.”  It can have all sorts of attitude if you want it to.  My daughter Maddie can whatever with the best of them.  Rhys does it with a sigh, La Donna with a raise eyebrow.  Whatever.  But when Paul says it here in Colossians it feels different.  It doesn’t feel like a dismissal or a reprimand.  No, it feels like an invitation.  Like an opportunity.  The door has been flung wide open.  You don’t have to wonder if this little thing would matter all that much in the greater scheme of things.  “Whatever” gives you permission to do it in love.  You don’t have to feel as though your little moment won’t amount to anything in the face of a difficult moment.  “Whatever” says that your love is just as transforming as anyone’s.  It’s an invitation.  To love.  Or, as Paul says, to sing.  Join in the song of loving.  The song of praising.  The song of thanksgiving.  Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God, because of the love in your heart.  

And whatever you do ... do it with love like His.  Whatever.

Shalom, 

Derek

You that Are Weary

Bishop Robert H. Spain, retired from his office as Bishop of the Louisville Episcopal Area and now is chaplain with the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville.  He has been a teacher and speaker for clergy workshops and continuing education events.  He was known to quote the baseball manager Casey Stengel who supposedly said “there are two kinds of baseball managers: those who have been fired and those who will be fired.”  Bishop Spain then went on to address the clergy (and sometimes laity) in his care and say that there are two kinds of Christians: those who have lost their passion for the Lord and those who will.  “We all,” the Bishop would pronounce, “suffer some periods of spiritual dryness.”

Surely not, we think.  We can sustain this, can’t we?  It isn’t that hard.  Just love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  It can’t be that hard, surely.  Just believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved.  A piece of cake.  I mean even when we understand that to believe is not to hold  intellectual assent to a concept somewhat detached from where we live and breathe, but that the belief that saves us is investing our whole self in living the life that Jesus invites us to live - even then, it can’t be that hard, can it?  Just, as James reminded us just last week, let the Word become implanted in us because it has the power to save us.  A walk in the park, wouldn’t you say?  Except that the ground in which that Word is planted is our souls which have a tendency to be overgrown with busyness, and responsibilities, and plans and strategies, not to mention will swings of mood and intent and then it is all overseen by a will that is shaking in its boots on a regular basis. 

Two kinds of Christians: those who have lost their passion for the Lord, and those who will.  Sometimes the walk of faith is a autumnal stroll through the beauty of the leaves and the crispness of the air, it just makes us glad to be alive.  Sometimes it is a slog through a soaking drizzle that chills to the bone and seems an uphill incline that wears on muscles we hadn’t stretched enough before we began.  Sometimes carrying the gifts and responsibilities is a joy  that fills our heart, sometimes it is a burden we dread with every passing moment.  Sometimes we feel surrounded by a Presence that lifts us with every step of our journey, sometimes it is an aloneness that consumes us until we feel hollow inside, empty, drained.  Sometimes we know our redeemer lives, other times death seems to be final word.  Sometimes ...  Two kinds of Christians.  Have lost, will lose.  Which are you?

Matthew 11:28-30  "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  29 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.  30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 

Just three verses that try to combat the two kinds of Christians scenario.  All you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens.  What surprises me is how often we won’t admit our weariness, we won’t confess to our burdens.  Some of it is because we know too much.  We know someone who has it worse.  We know someone who is struggling more than we are struggling, dealing with more life and death issues, facing insurmountable odds, carrying monumental burdens.  So, we feel that there is something wrong with us if we struggle with something that seems relatively simpler, or easier than what we see in others.  We are embarrassed that we feel like the minor thing, the self-doubts, the rejection, the emptiness is worth calling suffering when there are those around us dying, literally dying from disease or war or terrorism or violence of various kinds.  We don’t even think we are able to claim weariness, because we haven’t suffered like others have suffered.  We aren’t ready to claim we carry a burden when others seem weighed down by unimaginable suffering.

And yet, our pain is our pain.  Our burdens are real, our suffering is real.  And we are weary.  It might not be the struggle to survive, like it is for some in this world.  But it is real and it is our hurt, denial won’t make it any better, won’t wash away the tiredness, won’t lighten the burden.  We, like others - whose circumstances might be worse - need to admit we need a savior.

That’s what’s behind this passage. An admission, that the burdens we carry can’t be carried alone.  That the weariness that seeps into our bones won’t go away because we try a little harder or have another cup of coffee.  We can’t do this, we can’t save ourselves, despite what our culture tells us.  We need a savior, one who will save us even from ourselves.

If you go back in the chapter and read what leads Jesus to make this invitation, you’ll see that the burden he refers to is the burden of the law.  The burden of pharisee-ism.  The burden of a religion that has lost its heart and continues to strain under the detail of rules and traditions.  Jesus wants to set us free from that.  From heartless religion.  To bring us into a living, sustain, strengthening faith.

He wants to give us rest.  But not rest as in taking a nap. (Though Maddie home from college would testify that a god nap can be a wonderful thing.)  This is the kind of rest that comes from being where you belong.  It comes from fitting in, being in the right place, doing what you were created to do, fulfilling the dreams you didn’t even know you had.  This rest is an active rest, a moving rest, a rest because you are following the one who knows you better than you know yourself.  Not a lethargic, drowsy, let the world go away kind of rest.  But a building, serving, peacemaking rest.  Because your heart is settled, your identity is known to you and to those around you, you are at rest because you are.  In God you are.  In relationship you are.  Internally, in your own heart and soul you are.

No, that wasn’t Yoda talking backwards.  That was an affirmation of identity. You are.  But wait, you say, this rest how do we get it, what do we do?  Take the yoke.

Slow down there, Sparky.  Take a yoke?  I know we aren’t in the same agricultural environment as the folks in Jesus’ day, but we know what a yoke is.  It is work, back-breaking, sweat-producing, dawn to dusk kind of work.  That doesn’t sound like rest.  It sounds like the opposite of rest.  Yeah, ok, Jesus is nice about it, with that I am gentle and humble of heart.  Which means, I guess, he won’t use the whip on us.  He won’t use the goad.  He’ll be nice and friendly while he straps us in to this instrument of hard labor.

My yoke is easy.  Compared to what?  Easy means, in this context, that it is made for us.  There were two kinds of yokes available in those days.  There was the off the rack yoke that you’d pick up a Wal-mart or the first century middle Eastern equivalent.  It was an uneasy yoke, it would sometimes rub in the wrong places, it wounded the animal even as it enabled them to work.  It chafed, it bruised, it was like walking miles in shoes that don’t fit.  The skin would be rubbed raw by a yoke that was uneasy. 

An easy yoke, by contrast, as custom made.  It was made for a specific animal with specific measurement.  It fit right. It enabled the beast to do the job it was called to do, and even more by enhancing the natural strength.  My yoke is easy, Jesus says, meaning it fits us.  It is the work we were made to do.  It was the job of service that our heart desires.  The burden is light, because it doesn’t feel like a burden.  When we labor out of love it doesn’t feel like labor.  When we serve with joy it doesn’t feel like service, it feels like giving and receiving a gift.  We are doing what we were created to do.  We are fulfilling our heart’s desire, even when we didn’t know anything about it.

We are weary, Jesus says, because we are doing the wrong things.  Or working with wrong assumptions.  Or trying to justify or identify or to prove ourselves.  When our self is already proved by his love.  We can rest, secure in that love.  Secure in our identity as a child of God.  We can find rest, even as we become more active than we have ever been.  More productive than we thought we could be.  Because we are yoked to Christ, and want nothing more than to serve Him in love.  Rest in that.  Rest in Him.  Rest.  A third kind of Christian, one who is at rest in Christ.

Shalom, 

Derek

Looking in the Mirror

Came home to a quiet house.  Well, as quiet as it can be with the crazy dogs and the senile cat.  But once the yelling was satisfied with another dish of food and the wagging and barking and jumping was satisfied with a little attention and a quick walk to the mailbox, it got quiet.

Quiet can be good.  I like quiet.  There are days when I long for quiet and days when I go and seek quiet.  Be still and know that I am God is one of my favorite verses.  (Psalm 46:10 for those who have to go look it up!)  La Donna is off at the UMW Annual meeting.  The kids are off in school.  I just came back from a rather intense retreat that I was leading.  You’d think I wanted quiet.  You’d think quiet would be first on the agenda.  But it wasn’t.

I had a quiet drive home.  Quieter than I wanted.  And came home to a quiet house.  And I felt a little lost.  Yeah, there was no one to tell me what to do.  No one to make me perform a task I didn’t want to perform, No one demanding anything from me.  No one.  Just me.  No one to boss me.  No one to greet me.  No one to ask me questions I didn’t want to answer.  No one to hear the stories I wanted to tell.

Like I said, sometimes I love that.  Sometimes the quiet is just perfect for me.  So, don’t feel sorry for me.  That isn’t the point of this reflection.  Besides there are those out there, some reading this letter for whom that is their daily existence.  And I’m sure there are days they are glad of that, but there are also days when the quiet weighs heavy upon them.  

Reflecting is one of those things that happens in the quiet.  Reflecting is also one of those good things, most of the time.  Sometimes all that is reflected is the emptiness.  Sometimes all that is reflected is the lack of answers, the lack of direction, the lack of hope.  Sometimes reflection doesn’t help.  Because it doesn’t stick.

At least that’s what James thinks.  That’s what it seems like he is saying, at least in part.  Reflections only bounce back what is in front of them.  And they don’t stick.  They don’t provide enough just in themselves.  Not enough direction and hope.  Not enough Presence.  

James 1:19-27  You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;  20 for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.  21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.  22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.  23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror;  24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.  25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act-- they will be blessed in their doing.  26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.  27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. 

Like those who look in a mirror.  James is an odd duck, don’t you think?  Well, Martin Luther sure did.  He thought James was dangerous stuff.  He thought that James was an “epistle of straw” because of all this hearing and doing stuff.  See, Luther was afraid that we would read the Letter of James and come away with the feeling that it was all about doing.  That our faith consisted of acts like caring for widows and orphans in their distress.  That our calling was to keep ourselves unstained from the world, meaning that we lived purely, that we kept our promises, that we respected one another, that we learned to live in community, that we guarded our emotions and that we turned away from that which would deceive us.  Luther thought that was bad.

  

Well, no, to be honest Luther didn’t think that was bad.  Forgive me those who might have strains of Lutheran history in their bloodstream.  Of course I know that Luther was all for any and all those acts of faith.  Did them himself on a regular basis.  No, it wasn’t the acts that worried Luther, it was the belief that those acts were what saved you.

Which, frankly, made me wonder if he read the Letter in the first place.  I mean, this is just chapter one and here we have it in black and white: The implanted word that has the power to save your souls.  The implanted Word?  What in the world?  Or beyond the world?  

James, tradition has it, was the brother of Jesus.  There is some considerable doubt as to whether that James ever sat down and wrote this letter, but in the book of Acts we see James stepping up to be a leader - some say The Leader - of the fledgling church.  So, I like to imagine that this letter is the result of being the brother of Jesus.  Of listening to all that he was saying who whole life, not just the three years of ministry the Gospels tell us about.  His whole life, well, James’ whole life anyway, since he was the younger brother.  For James whole life he lived in that shadow.  Maybe there was a time when James idolized his big brother Jesus, as is the habit of younger brothers.  Maybe there was a time when James began to resent Jesus and the special treatment he received from his mother who treated him as though he was a special gift from God, from his father who seemed strangely in awe of his eldest son.  Maybe James grumbled about the things Jesus would say, and how his sisters and all the neighborhood kids would flock to listen to every word he said, as though he was some prophet or teacher, for heaven’s sake!  There was that scene in three of the gospels where it says Jesus mother and his brothers came to “see him.”  You know James was leading the pack.  Telling them that Jesus had gone crazy and they needed to go get him help, take him someplace where he wouldn’t be an embarrassment to the whole family. 

James was a doer.  James was faithful.  In Jesus’ story, James got to be the elder brother, but he didn’t come off very well (see Lk 15).  Now it had all changed.  James took a look in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw.  So when the resurrected Jesus showed up and said “I need you, bud,” James the doer stepped up.  If you asked him he probably couldn’t have told you why.  He just did.  He just did what he always did.  He was the helpful one, the calm one, the good one, the pure one.  But now there was something else inside of him.  Something took root, some word that made sense, some Word that made life.  And he was still a doer.  But now he was a doer because.  He was still a servant, but now he was a servant because.  He was still pure and good and faithful, but now he was pure and good and faithful because.

Because?  Because of the Word that took root in him.  He looked into the mirror and didn’t like what he saw.  Because what he saw was emptiness.  What he saw was the duty of faithfulness, the burden of purity, the task of service.  What he saw was a void where his motivation, where is soul ought to be.  But when he looked into those eyes, the eyes he knew from his own birth, the eyes that managed to love him even when he didn’t want them to, those eyes that seemed to call for more and now seemed to give more.  When he looked into those eyes it was as if something took root in him, something was planted.  A reason, a purpose, a new beginning, a new soul.  And all that he did he did because of that implanted Word, that hope revived, that soul restored.  It has the power to save your soul.  That’s what he wrote.  Not the works, Luther, the Word implanted.  The works grew out of the salvation, they didn’t earn it.  He needed that Word implanted.

He didn’t earn it, but he had to welcome it.  Welcome it with meekness, with gentleness.  The eighth fruit of the Spirit.  The very essence of God.  Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  Welcome the Word with gentleness, not because of our weakness but because of His strength.  

Sometimes quietness is healing and restoring.  Sometimes it is troubling, reflecting the emptiness of a soul.  Sometimes it is a waiting for a Word, needing a hope and a reminder.  Come, Lord Jesus.

Shalom, 

Derek 

Thunder and Smoke

First of all, thank you to those who responded last week to my contemplation about continuing this particular vehicle week by week.  What I especially appreciated were the many comments - on and offline - from those saying that I need to do what is best for me.  That kind of care and support is rare, even in the church where often it is more about making sure I get what I need than what might be best for the community or for others even when it conflicts with what I would prefer.  

This week is an off week for me anyway.  My associate, Chris is preaching this World Communion Sunday, so my inclination is to not be too wordy so as to have time to do other things this lovely, but chilly and quite windy, weekend. But thought a few words of reflection might be useful here.  

First of all, this is a new day.  We are launching a new path and pattern for worship at Aldersgate, reaching back for ancient tradition even while forging new experiences in our Heartbeat service at nine am.  If you are a part of the Aldersgate community and wanting to worship at nine, you are in for a treat.  Trust me on this.  Chris is designing a subtly different experience that you will enjoy.

Secondly, there are still questions about modes of communication that we are trying to address.  What will have the most impact, what will be the most helpful, what will touch the most people?  All these considerations and many others are being examined.  So, I ask for both your input and your patience as we seek to be the community we are longing to be.  I’m hoping very soon to have a means by which you can help shape the future of the Aldersgate Community.  October is long range planning month for us here.  The staff will be on retreat at Epworth Forest on October 20 and 21, then I’m hoping to meet with some interested parties in the remainder of that week to ask some pointed questions and hear some hopes and concerns.  And then from October 26 through the 31st, I will be on my annual planning retreat.  I hope to come back with an outline for 2015.

But why, some might wonder?  Why all the planning, all the questions?  Can’t we just take it as it goes?  Just go with the flow?  Week by week figure it out along the way?  Well, we could, and in some ways, we have, the church has for many years.  And it isn’t working any more.  Plus, it seems to me something more is needed for in the very nature of who we are, or who we are called to be.

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20  Then God spoke all these words:  2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;  3 you shall have no other gods before me.  4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ... You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.  8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.  9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ...  Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.  13 You shall not murder.  14 You shall not commit adultery.  15 You shall not steal.  16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.  18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance,  19 and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die."  20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin." 

That’s the text for this World Communion Sunday.  I can’t wait to hear what Chris will do with it.  But I can’t read these verses without hearing my Hebrew professor from seminary tell us that we have mistranslated this text all along the way.  OK, she admitted, the words work, but it doesn’t really fit the flow.  It doesn’t really fit the spirit of the Exodus event, she argued.

Looking at our confused faces, she sighed in a bit of exasperation.  Look at the first verses she told us.  We looked at the scratchings that the Hebrew language made on our page and puzzled out the words.  God spoke these words, it said, I’m the one who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery.  The “commandments” begin with an act of redemption.  The law begins with grace.  So why, she asked us, would we assume these are heavy burdens laid on us with wagging fingers and furrowed brows?  God isn’t commanding obedience, God is inviting us into a new way of being with these verses.  We shouldn’t read them as commandments as much as descriptions.

God says I brought you out of slavery, out of bondage so that you can be the people with no other God.  Not the gods of the people around you, not the gods of your own making.  The one who rescued you is the one you can worship.  The one who loved you into freedom is the one you can love.  

So that you can be the people who celebrate that name, who know that name won’t ever let them down.  Because the name is the Presence and the Presence will never leave you.  And because I know that you will need help with these concepts, you can have a rhythm, you can have a pattern and worship and rest will be woven into that pattern.  The pattern will be there to help you be who you were created to be.  The pattern will keep you close to the Presence who is with you always.

And because you live in this Presence and follow this pattern, you honor those who give you life and who lead you.  And you treasure all of life, knowing that it isn’t to be thrown away for any reason.  You honor the covenants that you make between you, covenants of love, covenants of property, covenants of honesty, covenants of communion and community.  Because of the Presence and the pattern you live in peace with your neighbor, you give respect and honor.  That is just who you are.  That is who you were created to be.

This isn’t a law handed down to be slavishly obeyed under threat of punishment or exile.  This is a description of how to fulfill the longings of our hearts.  This is the freedom to be what is within us to be.  This is a gift given to us by the one who loves us more than we can even imagine.  This is us, these ten words.  This defines us, this shapes us, this claims us, this Presence and this pattern.

This is who we are always becoming.  That’s they reason for the vision, the reason for the planning.  How can we better grow to fit the picture that God draws for us here in the book of Exodus?  That’s why we continually ask, how are we doing embracing the Presence and living into the pattern?  And because we struggled and we struggle with both, God send the Son, God put on flesh and dwelt among us, the be the Presence in our midst and the pattern of living.  

How can we embrace the Presence and follow the pattern for our own lives and in our own community.  But also, how can we be the Presence for those who don’t know whose they are yet?  How can we live outwardly the pattern so that others are caught up in the hope of being made new?  Those are the questions we ask on this World Communion Sunday.  There is a world out there, and world that God so loved that he sent ... us.  We need the trumpets and the smoke.  Or do we?  Maybe we just need the Presence and the pattern.  Maybe we just need to live into the picture God draws in Exodus chapter twenty.  Maybe we need to be more like Jesus.  Maybe.

Too wordy?  Yeah, that happens to me all the time.  Sorry.  Trumpets and smoke.  But behind it is a sincere desire to be the church of the Presence in a lonely world, to live the pattern in a lost world.  God spoke all these words.  Let’s live them.

Shalom, 

Derek

Length of Days

Not enough hours in the day.  Ever said that?  Sure you have.  And maybe you were faced with an impossible task that you weren’t sure how you were going to get done.  There just aren’t, you argued with yourself or your boss or your co-workers or the elements of the universe, enough hours in the day!  And you were right.  There weren’t enough.  You didn’t get done, or you got it done and weren’t satisfied with it, or you got an extension, or you just bailed.  There aren’t enough hours in the day.  Frustratingly true.

Or maybe you were in a moment of sheer bliss, of joy unknown, maybe you were enjoying yourself to such an extent that you almost forgot that there was a deadline, there was an end point, a gotta run other places to be and other people to see kind of moment and you didn’t want it to interrupt the beautiful moment you were enjoying.  There aren’t enough hours in the day, you sigh, as you head off in different directions.

That’s just kind of our lot, isn’t it?  Not enough hours, not enough days, not enough life.  That is just the way it is, and we make do as best we can.  Right?  La Donna went off for family weekend with Maddie at Wittenberg today.  I wanted to go too, but I’ve got a wedding.  So we do a divide and conquer kind of thing.  She goes with Maddie this year and I get to go to DePauw next weekend for Rhys’ family weekend.  Except I can’t stay because I’ve got to come back for some big shindig here at Aldersgate on Sunday the 28th (can’t think of what it is at the moment).  (Just kidding Marlane!)  Plus, Maddie texted La Donna to say that she shouldn’t come before 11am since she has stuff to do and then she will have to leave by noon tomorrow because the sorority recruitment days are starting and Maddie is on the team or something. Whew.  Not enough hours in the day.

So, do we have a remedy for this?  Does our text for the week fix all our time problems and allow us to just relax into the lives we’d really like to be able to live?  Are we handing our Harry Potter “Time Turners” in church on Sunday that will allow us to fiddle with the time and space continuum?  Uh.  No.  Sorry.  But maybe there is something here we should pay attention to.  Take a look.

Proverbs 3:1-6   My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments;  2 for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you.  3 Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.  4 So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and of people.  5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

“For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you.”  That’s that one that caught me.  For length of days.  Is this a promise of longevity?  That if we ... what?  Not forget the teaching?  Keep the commandments then we will have longer days?  That would be great.  Wouldn’t it?  Longer days and many years.  Now, this is a message that would sell really well out there in the world.

Except we know it isn’t true.  Or isn’t true in the way we might first think it is true.  I’ve performed too many funerals for keepers of God’s commandments to state that it is a prescription for longer lives.  I’ve sat with families as days slipped away in the care of their loved one and known that their days aren’t any longer than mine or anybody else’s for that matter; including those who wouldn’t know a commandment if it wore kilt and played the pipes in front of them.  (Yeah, that was my nod to the failed attempt at independence for my beloved Scotland - course I don’t know which way I would have voted anyway.  There weren’t enough hours in the day to debate it.)

So, what does it mean, then?  If it isn’t about giving you more hours in a day or more years in your life, then what is it promising?  Most of the commentaries say it is promising eternity.  It’s about heaven, they argue.  It’s about the Kingdom of God and the invitation to dwell there forever.

And who can argue with that?  Or better yet, who wants to?  That is a promise that has sustained God’s followers for centuries.  The idea that eternity in heaven, however we want to depict that realm, is on offer to those who keep the commandments has invited folks to live godly lives throughout history.

Proverbs is about wisdom, divine or holy wisdom that shift the focus from the dog eat dog, just getting by, only in it for myself kind of wisdom to something higher, something broader, something deeper than what we sometimes settle for in this world.  The ability to surrender to a higher presence, to set self aside and seek the good of all or at least some more, is indeed keeping the commandments of God.  And the motivation of heaven is and has been a powerful one.

Yet, I’m not sure that Proverbs chapter three is talking about heaven.  It seems much more about this life, this world, this walk than it does about some someday yet to come.  The result of following this wisdom, of keeping these commandments is that we will become people of good repute.  That’s not a heavenly quality.  That’s a now kind of thing.  We want to find favor with God and people.  We want to be known by God and people We do.

The other promise is that we will find straight paths.  God will make straight our paths.  Which doesn’t, I don’t think, mean that God will run interference for us, keeping the bad things out of our way, smoothing out the potential bumps in the road, keeping the corners, the intersections to a minimum.  No, that isn’t the promise.  Rather that when we choose to walk in the wisdom of God instead of our own wisdom, we will find contentment.  We will find joy, even on the bumpy parts, even as we stand at the intersections agonizing over which direction would honor God more.  The joy is in the attempt to honor.  The joy is in the desire to be where God is, to walk in God’s way, to be filled up with the fullness of God.

Which, not to make a circular argument, is how it all starts anyway.  By filling ourselves up with the fullness of God.  Proverbs tells us to wrap ourselves in loyalty and faithfulness.  To mark ourselves as those who love like God loves.  Loyalty is the translation of hesed which is sometimes translated as steadfast love.  It is an attribute of God.  Faithfulness is also a God quality.  So, we wrap them around our necks like a woolen scarf on a frigid day.  We write them on the tablets of our hearts - whether android or apple.  Windows tablets anyone?  Windows might be better because through these attributes we see God, and we see God in what we do or say, how we life each day, each hour of the day.

There aren’t enough hours.  Unless each one is filled with the Presence of God, the awareness of God.  Unless each one is an opportunity to acknowledge God and God’s claim on our lives, God’s praise on our lips, God’s joy in our hearts.  So maybe the promise is not for more hours in the day to fill, but more fullness for the hours we have, for the days we have.  Maybe the promise isn’t an endless number of years in this life, but a life full of years of endless presence and joy.  The abundant welfare promised in Proverbs 3:2 isn’t about safety or security or ease or comfort, but about the sustaining presence of God in all our doing, all our living, all our being.  Our souls are cared for because we live in love, we live in presence.  We live in joy.

Oh, look at the time.  I’ve got to run. ... But at least I don’t run alone.

Shalom,
Derek

New Every Morning

Bertha is no more.  She is an ex-Bertha.  She’s joined the choir ethereal.  She pushing up the daisies. Bertha has ceased to be.  Sorry, had to channel Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch for a moment there.  But it was in a good cause.  We are celebrating the demise of Bertha the boot.  La Donna had her appointment with our orthopedic doctor (thanks Dr. Almdale) and he managed to follow the script and say she can get rid of the boot.  So, Bertha is no more.  (Actually, we’ve just put her away since the record of this family and injuries is not all that good, might as well save her for a resurrection day when we’ll need her support again.)

Whew, glad that’s over.  Of course I’m not nearly as glad as La Donna is.  She is the one who had to wear the boot.  She is the one who had the broken foot in the first place.  She is the one who suffered, so release is all that much more sweet for her, I am quite sure.

But then we all suffered, had to pick up extra jobs, had to pitch in and help out (not that we hadn’t before, just had to do more), the crazy dogs were deprived of their beloved mom’s company on their early morning walks (early, early morning walks - just sayin’), we all occasionally got stepped on or kicked.  Yeah, we all suffered.  And now we’re good.  

Except, she still limps a bit.  I’m still walking the crazy dogs.  There is some swelling.  And we are still puzzling over Dr Almdale’s quote “there is a difference between clinical healing and radiographic healing.”  Um, what?  Well, the x-ray still shows a break.  A break that might or might not be there.  It doesn’t hurt, clinical healing - but it still looks broken radiographic healing.  “If I was just going by the x-ray, you’d be back in that boot.”  What?

There’s healing and there’s healing, apparently.  Just like there is suffering and there is suffering.  Some suffering never really ends, and some healing isn’t as complete or definitive as we would like it to be.  Sometimes when we are healed we still limp.  Sometimes when we suffer we can still sing praise.

Lamentations 3:21-26  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;  23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."  25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.  26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. 

Lamentations.  Not big on anyone’s bible hit parade, I suspect.  In fact I kinda cheated here and dug around and found just about the only positive verses in the whole book to focus on for this Sunday.  Not really fair of me, I admit.  And, frankly, it kinda dulls the meaning of the verses when you take them out of the context they are in.  Don’t get me wrong, these are great verses and we love them.  Even get to sing them.  I quoted the chorus to “Great is Thy Faithfulness” in last week’s late night bible study.  The steadfast love of the lord never ceases.  I mean, who could argue with that?  Who would want to?  God’s mercies never come to an end.  They are new every morning.  And then Jeremiah, or whoever it was that wrote the book of Lamentations (I know, those biblical scholars have to question everything, fo heaven’s sake) says I’m sticking with God!  No matter what!!  OK, he said it better: The Lord is my portion (my inheritance, my choice, my will, my choosing, my peeps, my homie - never mind), therefore I will hope in him.  I’ve cast my lot in with God, I’m not bailing now, he says.

Good stuff, right?  Of course it is good stuff.  But out of context it is just good stuff.  Just nice to know, thanks for that word, gotta run and get back to my life stuff.  Out of context it is comforting, assuring, nice ... yeah nice.  But since when have you ever known a prophet to be going for nice?

Back up a few verses.  Verse 1: I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.  Verse 4: He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones.  Verse 11:  he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate.  Verse 17: my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.

All right, all right, we get the point!  Most of us reading this today don’t know suffering.  Lamentations was written to express the deep despair and pain from the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE (Before Common Era), which was then followed by the fifty year Babylonian captivity.  The brokenness of the people is hard for us to fathom.  The suffering endured seems almost incomprehensible for us.  

And yet not really.  Not if we open our eyes.  Not if we look deep within our own soul.  We have felt abandoned by God.  We have felt punished, cast out, broken by choices or circumstance.  And we have walked alongside those who’s suffering makes us weep in empathy and despair.  The young widow who’s husband went on a mission of rescue and never returned.  The family whose child was killed by a drunk driver.  The widow whose husband succumbed to an agonizing bout with a cancer that ate him away to nothing.  The marriages wrapped in abuse.  The children who never measure up to a parental ideal.  The young mother who can’t seem to get over the strain of giving birth.  The lonely widower who is afraid of an empty house.  The family stressed to breaking points by caring for a parent who has become someone unrecognizable to themselves let alone anyone else.  Need we go on?  Have we touched on your story?  Your pain?  And don’t demur saying mine is nothing compared to all these.  Pain is pain, suffering is suffering.  Your wounds are unique to you, even as we are all wounded.  The question is do those wounds define you?

But this I call to mind.  Jeremiah, who had wounds aplenty, reminds us that to get beyond our lament requires an effort of mind and will.  It takes a step of faith, first and foremost.  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.  Is this the same Lord that shoots all the arrows of the divine quiver into your vitals (v.13)?  And is it really God who is directing all this pain, breaking all these bones, tearing us to pieces, walling us in?  Or is that just our experience, someone to blame, kind of thing.  Or is it that if God isn’t causing all this bad to happen to us then who is in charge anyway?  Are we alone in the universe?  Are we on our own?  Is there no one on our side after all; it’s us against the elements and the elements have the upper hand most of the time?

But this I call to mind.  It takes an act of will to turn from the kind of thinking that breaks us down.  It takes a coming to worship and letting the faith of the community wash over us.  It is surrendering of solutions, and simply choosing to put one foot in front of another.  It is saying, I don’t have all the answers, heck, I don’t think I have any of the answers.  But I choose to live in faithfulness anyway.  It is the admission that crawling into a hole and pulling it in after us sounds like a real option many days.  But instead we go on.  Baby steps, perhaps.  Limping perhaps. But we go on.  And we go on believing that God’s mercy never ends.  And that we have made our choice and so we will live that choice even when it doesn’t seem to make any sense or get us anywhere.  We will make that choice, again and again.

How often?  Every morning.  Every morning, we renew our faith.  Every morning we grab hold of God’s mercy.  Every morning we climb up into God’s lap and we weep and laugh and catch our breath to go on.  Every morning we go on, because we believe that one day we find our way home.  God isn’t new every morning, we are.  Our faith is.  God’s mercies are newly caught, newly felt, newly embraced.  Every morning.

I’m glad she’s better.  Glad she’s boot free and walking - limping.  But will also continue to serve and love and help and heal.  And walk the dang dogs as long as I need to.  For her.  Faithfully.  With joy.  Sort of.  Not really.  But definitely faithfully.  Count on it.  Every morning.

Shalom, 

Derek 

Once More With Feeling

La Donna is feeling well enough to notice the mess I’ve left the house in.  So, we know that is a good thing.  Right?  Of course it is a good thing.  It means she feels better and has gotten to work tackling the cleaning jobs that she and Bertha can handle together, without too much trouble.  Bertha?  Yeah, that’s the name she gave her boot.  

In case you missed it, my wife La Donna fell and broke her foot a few weeks ago on her way down the hill to walk the dogs one dewy morning and has been reluctantly obedient to her orthopedic surgeon on how best to heal from this mishap.  But she hasn’t been happy.  Obedient, but frustrated.  Following instructions but counting the days.  Taking it easy but - now anyway - noticing all that she ought to be doing.  And the envelop is being pushed.  Just sayin’.

No, I give her credit she has been very good. Much better than the kids and I expected.  Both of whom, I should mention, kids I mean, abandoned her in her hour of need.  Though they did step up and help out while they were here.  But Maddie was heard to mutter the night before I drove her back to school something to the effect of “I’m glad to go back to college, this housewife stuff is hard!”

There were a couple of moment where we all longed for how it used to be.  When there was a mom to take care of us.  When we didn’t have to worry about whether anyone was going to find the lost sock or prepare a table to fill hungry bellies or have the solution to any of a number of those pesky domestic disputes and conundrums.  We just wanted it to go back to the way it was before the fall.

Psalm 85:1-13  LORD, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.  2 You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. Selah  3 You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.  4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us.  5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?  6 Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?  7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.  8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.  9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.  10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.  11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.  12 The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.  13 Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps. 

The superscription to this Psalm is interesting.  It is one of those that doesn’t say “Of David.”  Most scholars don’t believe that David wrote all the Psalms that say “of David” on them anyway.  And that it really came to mean in the style of David, or kinda like the ones David used to write, or they were done by the King David Tribute band or something.  But Psalm 85 says something different.  It has three different statements: To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.  You’d think that “A Psalm” would be a bit unnecessary, but then I guess some folks need to be reminded.  To the leader might mean that this Psalm was a commissioned work, that it was dedicated to a leader, who had served well.  Or who exemplified the kind of faithfulness that Psalm 85 calls for.  Truth is we don’t know.

But it is the middle one that is the most interesting: Of the Korahites.  We could spend a lot of time tracing the biblical history of this family, but it wouldn’t really serve the purpose of helping us wrap our arms around Psalm 85.  Suffice it to say that the Korahites have a checkered history in the Old Testament.  Korah was from the line of Levites, servants of the priests and of the holy, but who was among those who decided they could do better.  He was a part of those who rebelled against Moses and his leadership.  

Yet, somehow his children survived, escaping the punishment that came to Korah.  And they became known as warriors, fighting alongside David when he was swept to power as Israel’s greatest king.  These Korahites or Sons of Korah as they became known were not remembered because of their skill with sword or bow, however.  They were like David in another way, not just able fighting men.  They were also musicians of the highest caliber.  David appointed them as leaders of worship for the people of God.  They were singers and instrumentalists and truth tellers.  A Psalm, you see.  Not just music, not just words, but a Psalm, an act of praise but also a declaration of faith.  A claim to the traditions of the people.  But also a pointer into the future, a word of hope in dark times. 

Which maybe means that the first superscription - To the leader - might not mean that it was a dedication to the leader, but that it is an instruction to the singers, to the congregation.  Maybe it means “look to the leaders!”  Look to those who go before, look to those who’s history might not be perfect, who had to climb out of some difficult times.  Look to those who might have known the anger of the Lord they served.  Who might have known what it was like to feel abandoned.  Look to those who know what it is to be revived.  Look to those who lead the singing.

That’s our story, isn’t it?  That’s the song we sine.  Of being restored and then losing it, of being revived and full of life and then being drained and dead on our feet.  That’s our pattern too, not just the people of the Old Testament, but us, right here, right now.  Don’t we cry out for restoration again and again?  Don’t we bump up against the walls of our own making, the walls of our own doubting, our own wandering, don’t we get lost in the maze of trying to walk each day and satisfy all the hungers within us? 

So, how do we climb out of those pits?  How do we turn around from the wrong paths?  From the desperation of the everyday?  By remembering.  That’s why we follow the leader, that’s why we sing the songs of faith.  Morning by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.  We sing those songs because they were true.  And because they were true, and because they will be true.  And the great joy of Psalm 85 is that because they were true and because they will be true, they are true.

Compare English translations of Psalm 85.  You’ll find that while my favorite translation says “will”  – He will speak peace ... Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet ... righteousness and peace will kiss each other ... Faithfulness will spring up from the ground ...  righteousness will look down from the sky ... The LORD will give  ... our land will yield ... Righteousness will go before ... and will make a path.  It is a hope, a promise, a not yet in a world of striving and often failing, a world of conflict and brokenness, a world of division and hatred.  Kissing seems out of the question.  Singing seems out of the question.

And yet, I’ve been kissed before.  I have sung the songs of faith.  You have too.  There is connection already.  Other translations make it present tense.  Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  11 Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. From the NIV.  Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.  From the New King James.  Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed!  From the New Living Translation.  

Why the confusion?  Because we can’t always tell. Because even while it seems absent, this righteousness and faithfulness of God, it also seems really present.  It is in the air around us, coming up from the ground beneath us.  If we look.  If we pay attention.  If we live in hope and confidence.  If we attempt to be as faithful as the one who shows us faithfulness every single day, every morning., then we will be restored, then we will be alive.  Even as we walk in darkness.  Even when we feel like we have failed the one who loves us more than we can imagine.  The very essence of God - steadfast love and faithfulness, righteousness and peace - will seep into our bones and become the aspects of love that can define us.  Will become a song on our lips and in our heart.  Look to the leaders, the singers of songs and be revived, be restored.

And we who are broken can get up and walk along the path of righteousness.  And maybe, soon, walk the crazy dogs too!  We live for the day.  Sing it again.  Once more with feeling.

Shalom, 

Derek