The Watches of the Night

The first day I spent with my mom a little over a week ago turned out to be the best day.  Not what I’d call a good day, but the best I got in those too few days I was able to make the trip down.  (And thank you to Aldersgate for letting me know that was ok and to the staff that had to fill in while I was gone.)  Not terribly responsive, she at least seemed to allow my presence with her.  She let me feed her lunch and sit with her for a while that day.  I asked if she wanted me to read to her, and I think she said yes.  I read anyway, and she seemed to listen, somewhat.  I read through three chapters of The Harvester, by Gene Stratton-Porter.  I grabbed the well worn copy sitting in the table in her room and read that story she once knew by heart.  We slipped into another world, my mother and I, a simpler one, a quieter one, rural Indiana, a century ago, things were simpler, gentler.  I liked it there, I have to confess.  I kept asking the other days if I could read, but she wouldn’t let me.

I kept reading, that first and only time, even though there was too much activity going on outside her room.  I wanted to close the door, but also didn’t want to interrupt the cadence of my voice which seemed to be soothing.  So I kept reading as nurses and aides and curious other residents of the memory care ward wandered in and out of the room across the hall.  I kept reading about a world of love and loss and hope and despair, as two strangers disappeared into that room and closed the door.  I kept reading about a world insulated from the heartache of today, yet full of its own tragedy, as the door across the hall opened and the two strangers wheeled a Gurney with the all too familiar zippered bag discretely covered with a sheet down the hall and out the locked door.  When mom fell asleep and I asked that she be put to bed for a nap, before I left to check on Dad back at the house, I stepped into the room.  It was Winnie, or Miss Winnie as she was there in Tennessee.  I stood in the room now emptied of her presence and prayed for her and her family and for all the other residents who most likely wouldn’t know what happened.

It was daytime, mid afternoon as I prayed in that room, yet it felt like night.  When the questions come and doubts rise up, the night when our failures seem too heavy to bear and our losses like wounds in our soul.  I hadn’t eaten all day worried about mom, but the hunger in my heart was for more than food.

Psalm 63:1-8  O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. 5 My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips 6 when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63 carries the superscription “A psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah.”  Given that David spent a lot of time in the wilderness, we can’t really know what time is being referred to.  We don’t know what was going on.  But we do know of a couple of time when David fled to the wilderness of Judah in particular.  The first was when he was young and somehow fell into and out of favor in the palace.  He sang soothing songs to calm King Saul’s moods, but then had to run for his life from that King who wanted him dead.  He was in the wilderness running for his life.  Later, as King, David fled into the wilderness when his son Absalom attempted an insurrection, wanting to be king in his father’s place.  David fled for protection while his generals sorted out this battle.  Then he wept for his son who wanted him dead.  It was not a happy place, the wilderness, not for David, not for kings, not for fathers and sons.

And yet.  Look again.  Yes, there is hunger and there is thirst.  There is a longing for the presence that is as real as the longing for food and water.  In the wilderness, you’d think the first thing on the list would be physical sustenance.  But no, the deeper hunger, the more powerful thirst is for God.  He is fainting for God’s presence,  driven to see not his own safety, not his own revival, but the very face of God.  O God, you are my God, I seek you.

And underneath, this is the amazing part, underneath the need, underneath the hunger and thirst, underneath the wandering in the wilderness, there is this confidence.  A certainty.  I have looked upon in you in the sanctuary.  I have, not I will, or I want to, or please let me, but I have.  You have been my help.  There is a memory here that is sustaining.  That’s what he is doing in the watches of the night.  Not despairing, not doubting and fearing.  Not letting the wilderness swallow him up, the emptiness of the room across the hall echo in his soul.  No, he is remembering.  I will meditate on you in the watches of the night.

How do you meditate?  Isn’t that some Eastern mysticism?  Some foreign practice not a part of our religious tradition?  Doesn’t that involve nonsense words and uncomfortable positions and chanting monotones and smoke?  Lots and lots of smoke?  By no means, as St Paul would say.

I will meditate on you in the watches of the night.  I means finding a memory.  A word, a verse from the Bible.  Or even better a moment.  A moment of joy and hope.  A moment of encounter, of intimacy and healing.  A moment of shared love and closeness.  And holding it like a jewel in your mind.  Looking at it, remembering it from every angle, letting the light of understanding shine through it, sparkling with presence and with comfort.  I will meditate on you in the watches of the night.  I will remember the moments when you felt close.  When we were one, and now in the darkness of this wilderness time, I will let that moment fill me with love and with hope and with joy.  Because that moment defines me more than this moment.  That togetherness, that union, that is where I reside, even though right now I am alone in the dark.  I will meditate on you in the watches of the night.

And suddenly the darkness is not the absence of God, but is the shadow of the healing wings.  Suddenly the darkness is not a place for whispers and for tears, but for singing and for joy.  Not a place of hunger, but of feasting.  My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast.  Because I remember.  I was meditating on a moment, on a word that meant something at one time.  A word that spoke to me.  A word perhaps from another important to me.  A word that survives the wilderness.  

Some of you who know me, who have to listen to me more than you probably want to, are wondering how I am going to take this obviously individual psalm and turn it into something corporate.  That’s our Lenten theme remember, the Beloved Community.  We are meditating on the prayer for the church in Ephesians 3:14-21.  Specifically the phrase in verse 17, “as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”  The “you” there is plural (all y’all), but the I in Psalm 63 is obviously singular.  Isn’t this something I have to do?  This meditating, this remembering, as well as this feasting and this rejoicing?  I am the one who needs to cling to God.  Right?

Right.  But.  But, my experience of God is always plural.  Always.  We are Trinitarian.  We experience God as community, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer - or Father, Son and Spirit in the traditional language.  God is always plural.  There is always community.  But, even more so, my experience of God is always shaped by the community in which I live.  In which I grew.  I know God because of you.  Because I love you and you love me, I can have an inkling of what it is to be loved by God.  Because of the experiences I have had with you, and those who came before you, I can remember God in the watches of the night.  Part of what I remember is not just God, but the God in you.  The God I know in you.  Your love, your support, your care, your correction, you.  You.

And her.  She is part of my you.  It was not a good day, but it was the best day we had this time.  The other days were more distant, more agitated, more lost.  But this day there was a glimpse.  Fleeting to be sure, but a glimpse.  I was wheeling her by someone in the common room and she reached out and said “How are you doing?” and sounded like my mom again.  Caring for another, loving and welcoming another.  It wasn’t me she was speaking to, but it was her for a moment.  A moment.  We got to her place at the table and I wheeled her around to her tray, put the napkin around her neck and sat beside her with a fork to feed her.  And she looked at me and said “Do I know you?”  

Yes, Mom.  You do.  I’ll remember for you.  I’ll remember us.  And together we will live in the memory of God, and in the watches of the night we will sing for joy.  For what was and what is and what will be.  

Shalom, 

Derek

Seeking Faces

“Lookit mama!  Lookit daddy!”  There was a study that came out recently, wish I could remember from where-sorry, that was assessing the effect of engagement with social media on parenting and or child development.  To grossly reduce a whole lot of findings down to the point I’m after here, the study implied that a parent who was engaged with his/her phone or tablet while “watching” a child was not as effective as a parent.  No, duh.  I know, but before you go and complain about research that just proves something anyone with the sense God gave geese could figure out, there is something significant here.  Something we may know but not really see as so significant.  It’s about your face.  

Actually, I’m not sure my kids ever said “lookit.”  “Watch me,” I heard that one a lot.  “Are you watching daddy?  Do you see me?”  If you aren’t looking, if you aren’t seeing, you aren’t engaged.  It’s like you aren’t even there.  Children look at your face.  They look at your face to see if you are present with them.  But they also look at your face to see if what you are saying is true.  If you say happy things to a baby with a scowling face they will cry.  On the other hand, you can say sad and mean things to a baby with a smiling, happy face and the baby will smile and coo right with you.  It’s about your face.

I tell the preachers I teach to pay attention to their face when they preach.  First of all about making eye contact, whether you preach from a full manuscript or no notes at all or something in between, the preacher has to figure out how to be able to look at the congregation when preaching, at least part of the time.  Most of the time?  And then, and this is harder for some folks than you’d think, I tell them to make sure to let their face in on the gospel message.  I don’t care how dynamic the sermon you’ve written is, if you looked bored, the hearers will be bored too.  If you speak of joy with a frown, or contentment with a look of worry, and grace with a countenance of unforgiving judgement, the message isn’t going to get through.

I know, I don’t do it all that well myself.  At least I’m aware of it.  We let all kinds of things show up on our faces, don’t we?  All kinds of subtext, all kinds of unspoken wounds or worries, all kinds of suspicions and doubts, not to mention the weariness of living in such a complicated world, and the overwhelming sense of failure that dogs our every step.  All of that shows up on your face.  It’s hard to hide and we’d just as soon people not look too deeply.  

And guess what?  I’m going to make it worse.  It’s not only your face that you are showing to the world around you.  It is the face of God.

Psalm 27  The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh-- my adversaries and foes-- they shall stumble and fall. 3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident. 4 One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. 5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. 6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! 8 "Come," my heart says, "seek his face!" Your face, LORD, do I seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation! 10 If my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me up. 11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. 12 Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence. 13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

There is a division in the psalm that has caused some debate in biblical scholarship.  Some argue that this was really two different psalms that somehow got mashed together.  Look at the tone, they say, in the first six verses and then look at the change in the last eight.  It’s like they are two different people, at two different times.  One is celebrating, one is afraid.  One can see God, but the other has lost their glimpse of the face of God.  So, naturally it must be two different people with two different purposes at two different times.  Naturally.  Further evidence that biblical scholars aren’t real people.  Is it really so hard to believe that a moment of confidence gets swept away by doubt?  Is it such a stretch to see that even David - since he is the traditional author of this psalm - could have his certainty shaken by something and send him running back into the arms of the One on whom he pours out his life?  

Well, of course.  We are fickle beings, we humans.  Strong as anything one moment, quivering lumps of humanity the next.  Sometimes within one conversation.  I wonder if this psalm, or something like it came to David on that day when he was dancing before the ark of the covenant when it rolled into Jerusalem.  The back story to that one is pretty amazing itself.  But skip over the struggle to get this symbol of the very presence of God back home to the city dedicated to the worship of God, and jump ahead to those last few steps of the parade.  King David was celebrating the joy of being in God’s presence.  David was worshiping.  Catch that?  David was worshiping.  Not by sitting in a pew and reading some lines and dozing through an explication of some obscure passage of scripture.  No, David was worshiping by stripping down to his tighty whiteys and dancing.  Throwing himself into the experience, tasting the love of God in the sweat that rolled down his face, feeling the touch of God in the clouds of dust kicked up by his dancing feet.  “Now my head is lifted up,” he sang, “I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy” he yodeled.  “I will sing, and make melody to the Lord!”  So, he did.  With his whole being, he sang, with his feet and his hands, with his body he made melody to the Lord.  David knew how to worship.

But then, he caught a glimpse of his wife, glaring down at him from the palace window.  She didn’t see worship, she saw embarrassment, she saw an unseemly display of royal flesh in front of ... well, God and everybody.  And maybe, just speculating here, maybe when he caught sight of that face, all the joy drained out of him.  All the confidence ran down into the dust at his feet and now he wasn’t sure.  Because he saw that face, of disgust, of disappointment, of disapproval, he lost his grip on worship.

I don’t know that that’s what happened.  But I know the experience.  Of moving from certainty to doubt, of moving from certainty to being lost in the dark.  All because of a face.  A face that throws you off the track.  Could be a stranger’s face, someone passing by who unsettles you.  But more often it is someone you know, and trust and even love.  And that face can knock you down, send you scurrying into the darkness of despair.  That face, which isn’t the face of God, you know that, but yet somehow they have been that before.  They have let God’s light shine on you before and you’ve known God’s pleasure through them.  So it only makes sense that you could sense judgement and disappointment from them too and think it is God.  

But wait, you think, Psalm 27 isn’t about our faces, it is about God’s face.  Right, caught me.  It’s about God’s face and not our faces.  Except ... just how do we seek the face of God?  Come, my heart says, seek his face.  Your face, O Lord, do I seek.  It’s built into us, this desire to seek the face of God.  It comes from within.  We long for the face of approval and the face of acceptance, we long to look into the face that loves us more than we can even imagine.  So, how do we seek that face?

By worshiping.  That’s what David says.  Come to worship.  But not reluctantly or under compulsion.  Come with eyes open seeking the face of God.  Come ready to look and see, ready to hear and understand, come expecting ... expecting, mind you, to encounter the face of God.  You might see that face in an ecstatic experience, a vision or dream.  You might.  But more likely you will see it in the faces of those around you.  Those who love you unconditionally.  Those who want only the best for you.  Those who are waiting for you to see them.  Those for whom you are the face of God.  Yeah, there are those for whom the face of God looks like the face you see in the mirror every morning.  All they hope for is that you’ll pay attention, that you’ll forgive, that you’ll invite, that you’ll love them.  Lookit.  Please, oh please, just lookit.

Shalom, 

Derek 

Abiding in the Shadow

Happy Valentine’s Day.  Or it will be on Sunday.  And that’s an odd thing, isn’t it?  We have to go to church on the day dedicated to human love, romantic love.  Isn’t it?  I mean, yeah sure we talk about love all the time in church.  But everyone knows that there is love and there is ... love.  Right?  I mean I learned way back in seminary that there are different words for love in Greek, and that we’d better pay attention to which one is being used in order to understand the context.  There is the love called “philos” which means the love of a friend, and the love called “agape” which is the love with which Christ loved us, the love that took him to the cross.  And there is “storge” which is love of a parent for a child, family love, and there is eros which is romantic love, love of a man and a woman.  And it would be helpful if we could keep all these ideas separate in our heads so we don’t get confused when we are asked to love our neighbor as ourselves, or to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.  It’s good to keep those things straight.

Except that later biblical scholars have noted that the gospel writers didn’t always keep it straight.  And that it seemed like the words are often used interchangeably.  Huh.  Kinda like English, which is so sloppy it only has the one word.  Love.  Like somehow they all run together.  Like they interweave and that we can’t make the kind of divisions we want to make.  Such as when we say, “Jesus said I have to love you, but He didn’t say I had to like you!”  How do you do that exactly?  How you dislike someone, but love them like Jesus wants us to?  Is that even possible?  Or that other one, I love you but I hate what you do.  Except what if for them what they do is who they are?  A slippery slope, I know, that could send us crashing down into the ridiculous (“I’m a murder, it is what I am, not what I do, you have to accept what I am!”) Which is of course nonsense.  But where is the line?  How do we determine what is worthy of loving, no, sorry, who is worthy of loving and who isn’t?

And what does all this have to do with Lent, for heaven’s sake?  Lent is a somber, reflective, internal season designed to make us feel sorry for our sinfulness.  It is about our journey with Christ, our wandering in the wilderness for these forty days, as he wandered in the wilderness for forty days.  (Although, it is leap year, as was pointed out to me.  Which means there is a free pass hidden away in the season, a day when you don’t have to reflect, don’t have to repent, don’t have to feel bad.  There’s an extra feast day, to go along with all the other Sundays of the season.  A get out of jail free card, a golden ticket to the chocolate factory!)  But what does all this somberness, all this being sorry, all this repenting, all this introspection have to do with loving?  Everything.  Just ... everything.

Psalm 91 You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,  2 will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust." 3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; 4 he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. 5 You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, 6 or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only look with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. 9 Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place,

 10 no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. 11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. 12 On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. 14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. 15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. 16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

Because we live in love.  That is the secret of our existence.  We are surrounded by a love that is almost indescribable.  We’re wandering in the wilderness, remember?  Our Lenten journey.  Like His.  But remember wilderness for Jesus isn’t the wilderness we think of.  We think of green, of trees so thick you can’t see through, of grass and weeds and undergrowth that catches our feet, making it hard to walk.  We think of dark and secluded, damp and mossy, bugs that carry us off they’re so big.  We think of creeping things and slithering things, things with teeth and claw.  Swamps and rotting vegetation, our wilderness, peopled with creatures of our imagination and film history, is different than His.  His wilderness was desert.  Was rocks and sand, was sun beating down, sapping strength and life, it was dry, parched, sere.  Exposed and vulnerable.  So, Psalm 91 was a blessing.  You who live in the shelter, who abide in the shadow.  It was not hiding, it was relief.  Relief from the blazing sun.  

You who abide in shadow.  Ahh, can you feel it?  The cloud that covers the sun for a moment, and suddenly you can stand straighter, can run a little further, can open your eyes again and see what surrounds you.  Relief.  God’s love is a relief.  Relief from the dry feeling of isolation and abandonment.  Relief from the hearts parched from a lack of love that they can sense or receive.  Residing in the cool shadow of acceptance and security.  Standing up straighter instead of bent over from the weight of emptiness.  My refuge and my fortress; my God in whom I trust.

For what?  Trust God for what?  There is a thread in this psalm that feels ... dangerous.  Angels will bear you up so you won’t dash your foot on a stone?  Treading on lions and snakes?  No scourge will come near your tent?  Dangerous, and conditional: Those who love me I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.  What about those who don’t know, because they haven’t been told or haven’t been told in a way that makes sense to them?  What about those who don’t know how to love You yet?  Are they, are we just on our own if we find ourselves in that category, temporarily or permanently?  

And if we do know, if we do love as best we can, then what do we get?  A bubble suit?  A tireless guardian angel, pulling us back from busy curbs, protecting us from airborne diseases, shielding us from flying projectiles hurled by accident or intent?  Are we impervious to hurt?  If that is the promise then why do we hurt?  Because You aren’t paying attention or because we didn’t love rightly?  We didn’t know enough?  

We know better.  In our heads anyway.  Sometimes our guts wonder.  We feel abandoned at times.  At other times we feel inadequate, like we disappointed God. But we know better.  We know that God’s love is constant and unconditional.  And Psalm 91 simply says there is nothing that can happen to us to take it away.  The last two verses explain the promises.

“When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.”  Verse fifteen says God promises to answer whenever we call.  We don’t always hear the answer because we’ve moved out of hearing distance, or because we haven’t learned the language of God well enough, or because we’ve set up a hoop for God to jump through and God hates hoops.  But the promise is God will always answer.  

The second promise from this verse is that God will be with us.  “I will be with them in trouble.”  We’d prefer God keep us from trouble, but since a lot of the trouble we’re in is our own fault and God gives us the freedom to wander away, we should celebrate the good news that even our stubbornness, even our bad choices, even our attempting to take God’s place doesn’t keep God from being with us.  

But wait, that verse does say rescue!  “I will rescue them, and honor them.”  So, there you go!  Our get out of jail free card!!  Except, it doesn’t seem to work that way.  God will honor us?  By allowing us to make our own choices and then to live with the consequences.  That’s honoring us.  But we do have that card, in the end.  We are rescued.  Verse sixteen says “with long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.”  What could be longer than eternity?  That’s the promise.  That’s the rescue.  We want something more temporal, usually, but God thinks big picture.  And tries to show it to us.  Invites us to live it now.  Another way of thinking about this protection is to say let’s live like God wants us to and see if our lives aren’t better, more full, more alive.  Let’s love like God encourages us to, and see if we aren’t better lovers all around.  Let’s see.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

Shalom, 

Derek

While He Was Praying

“Dear Lord, Help me to relax about insignificant details, beginning tomorrow at 7:41:23 a.m. EST. ... Help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them are hypersensitive. ... Help me to take responsibility for the consequences of my actions, even though they're usually not my fault. ...  Help me to not try to run everything - but, if you need some help, please feel free to ask me. ...  Help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it exactly right. ... Help me to take things more seriously, especially laughter, parties, and dancing. ...  Give me patience, and I mean right now! ...  Help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?) ... Help me to finish everything I sta ... Help me to keep my mind on one thing ... oh, look, a bird ... at a time. ... Help me to do only what I can, and trust you for the rest. And would you mind putting that in writing? ... Keep me open to others' ideas, misguided though they may be. ... Help me follow established procedures. Hey, wait ... this is wrong ... Help me slow down andnotrushthroughwhatido. ... Thank you, Lord.  Amen.”

 Admit it, your prayer life isn’t all that it ought to be, is it?  Maybe it isn’t quite the farce outlined above, but it is haphazard, or dependent on mood or circumstance or time.  It’s not so much that we behave as though prayer changes things, it is more that things change prayer.  Right?  Maybe it is because we don’t always know what is supposed to be happening when we pray.  Maybe it is because we were taught the prayers about asking for something to happen and that’s all we know.  I mean, we’ve heard about thanksgiving prayers, and prayers of praise, but maybe we don’t really know what those are.  

It seems like the only measurable prayer is the petition.  Ask for something and if we get it, then we know the prayer was answered.  We know something happened because we prayed.  And if we don’t get it then we can either keep praying, or accept it as a “no” or “not now” kind of response.  And, frankly, there isn’t anything wrong with that.  It is pretty clear, sometimes.  But it seems kind of limiting.  Like it short changes all that prayer can do for us and in us.  The prayer of petition is really only entry level praying.  And Jesus invites us to move deeper, move higher.  At least it seems like Peter, John and James were getting a lesson in prayer on that mountain on the occasion of the Transfiguration.

Luke 9:28-43 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.  29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"-- not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. 

37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. 39 Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. 40 I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not." 41 Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here." 42 While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astounded at the greatness of God. 

While he was praying.  Something was going on for Jesus.  Something more than simply give me this, or help me with that.  There was something profound going on and most of the time we miss it.  Even when it happens to us.

Wait.  You aren’t suggesting that the goal of prayer is to glow, are you?  A glow goal?  That seems just a little bit ... odd.  Not to mention kinda wasteful.  I mean, what’s the point?  Sorry, gotta glow!  Doesn’t seem like a good reason to go to prayer. To go to church.  To climb a mountain.  What was this whole thing all about anyway?

Good question.  One the church has been wrestling with for centuries.  What does the Transfiguration mean?  No one really has a satisfactory answer.  They all seem to come down into two camps.  Well, with the a third camp being the “mystery” camp, or the we don’t/can’t know camp.  I kinda like that one, to be honest.  There are things about Jesus, things about God that our brains are just too ... simple, human, earthly, supply your own word here, to comprehend.  I’m ok with that.  Some aren’t, I know, they want to have answers.  I like knowing that God is bigger than my imagination.

The other two camps divide along the lines of who is this event for?  For whom is this event - sorry grammarians.  Some argue that it is for Jesus.  Only Jesus gets what is going on, the disciples are clueless.  So clueless that even we don’t know what is wrong with Peter’s response.  But Luke tells us it is wrong.  (He did didn’t know what he was saying, that goofy Peter).  So, it has to be about Jesus.  And the visitors came not to talk to the disciples, and how did they know who they were anyway?  Name tags in heaven (Lord, help us)?  They came to talk to Jesus.  It was a private conversation in a private and very personal moment.  They were there to shore up Jesus for the journey ahead.  Peter butting in to share the moment was just rude.

Others say, no, this was not about Jesus.  Or rather it was about Jesus, but it was for the disciples.  That’s why they were dragged along on this wilderness hike.  As usual they almost missed it, dozing off when it came to the prayer time.  As usual they were scared to death by the message that came their way.  But the words from the cloud indicate it was all about the disciples: “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”  And as usual they messed up by not talking about it when they were supposed to talk about it.  Jesus expects them to be further along in their training, which is why he gets exasperated with them when they can’t perform a simple exorcism.  “How much longer do I have to put up with you!”  OMG.

Well, maybe.  Actually, I think both of those things could be true.  This event could be a moment for Jesus to receive a divine boost to the mission he was about to perform.  And the disciples could have been given a boost that would come back to them later - as did most things that Jesus gave them.  Jesus used the metaphor of planting seeds often, because he knew that the disciples weren’t going to get what he was doing at the time, but later, when it had time to grow in them, they’d remember these moments and these teachings.

But I also think there is something deeper going on here.  Jesus is showing us what prayer is about.  And what it about is being transformed.  Notice Luke says while he was praying, not while they were praying.  That’s why they didn’t get it, they weren’t where he was.  And where he was was in the Presence of God.  And in that Presence, amazing things can happen.  You can become something more, something bright, something that speaks of God at work in you.  

Back up a verse.  The last thing Jesus says before this event was “But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.” Lk. 9:27 Many folks say either we don’t understand this or Jesus got it wrong.  He thought it was going to happen sooner than it did, this in-breaking of the Kingdom.  Or maybe he was saying, the Kingdom is a lot more visible than we realize.  It was there on the top of the mountain.  It looked like a light show.  But it was really someone in the Presence of God.  

Prayer is less about what we can get from God and more how we move closer.  Closer to God, closer to a constant awareness of that Presence, closer to a life of confidence that all things work together for good for those who love God, who live in that presence. Prayer is less about changing things or circumstances, and more about changing us.  Are you ready for a change? 

Shalom, 

Derek 

He Went On His Way

It was all too easy.  I should have seen it coming.  I need to learn to wait a little longer, to not assume everything is going well.  After all it has happened before.  We launch something new and it goes so well.  I think everyone is on board, everyone is with the program, everyone sees the benefit and is supporting the new thing, the new think.  Only to be surprised when I discover that isn’t true.  When the opposition rises up, when the negativity comes out from the shadows where it has hidden, and I’m caught by surprise.

It’s my fault.  I’m content to let sleeping dogs lie.  I learned that at home.  The crazy dogs are their most accepting and approachable when they’re sleeping.  Good dogs, I whisper, careful not to wake them up and set them to barking at threats real and imagined - mostly imagined.  No one is complaining, no one is coming and demanding change or a different opinion, no one is speaking of their fears and their doubts, so all must be well.  Right?  

Wrong.  A couple of months into the new Sunday morning schedule and I’m feeling good, like we made this change and everyone is on board, then it happens.  Feelings are hurt, charges of neglect and favoritism, folks unsettled by the change can’t keep it in any longer and it comes to a boil.  It was a mess. And I didn’t see it coming.  In the fourth week of a new teaching series on Christianity and Islam, trying to get us all to understand these neighbors who have come to live among us, to appreciate their faith, to be aware of the many similarities and not just the differences.  And I think we’re getting it, we’re on board, learning to live in a new world, live as neighbors, the kind Jesus called us to be when he told us to love even those unlike us, to love them like he loved them, like he loved us.  And I think we’ve got it, we’re on board, we’re ready to follow Jesus into a new world.  Then I’m handed a printed email forward telling us to be suspicious of our Muslim neighbors, that they are a plague on our culture and that our President is secretly advancing their agenda and squeezing us out, be ware.  And then I got an email from someone not even attending the class, with a link to a 139 page document warning all us good Americans that there is a conspiracy to take over our nation and run it according to the most fundamentalist laws of Islamic faith, and our President is behind it.  Sigh.  Never mind that the “proof” was compiled by a “think tank” that everyone from the BBC to Slate Magazine considers a less than reputable source.  

Us verses Them.  It is one of the fundamental fears of any human community.  Who are the enemies, who should we fear?  What makes it difficult is that there are those out there who want to hurt us, simply because we are who we are.  We do have enemies.  We need to take care, to pay attention, to stay strong.  There are responsibilities of a nation to protect its people.  No one can deny that.  But we can also go crazy if we choose to live in fear.  If we choose to see anyone who is different as a threat.  La Donna reminds me that the crazy dogs had a hard life, we suspect they were abused and neglected for years before they came to live with us.  No wonder they bark at shadows, no wonder they growl at ghosts.  But what’s our excuse?

Luke 4:21-30  21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" 23 He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" 24 And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Everything was going so well.  Jesus makes his proclamation, preaches his nine word sermon and the applause rains down.  I know, that isn’t the way you remember the story.  Wasn’t he rejected, didn’t they say he was just a hometown boy getting too big for his britches?  Well, not exactly.  Not at first.  Look again.  “All spoke well of him.”  They thought, wow!  A hometown boy made good.  He’s one of us!  He’s ours.  Aren’t we special?  Aren’t we cool?  That little phrase at the end of verse 22 wasn’t disparaging, it was pride.  He’s like us.

If Jesus has stopped there, it would have been a glorious homecoming.  They would have slapped him on the back and invited him to dinner and talked about the good old days when he was a boy and things were so much better back in the Nazareth that used to be once upon a time.  Jesus would have been a minor celebrity and they’s all wave to him in the Walgreen’s parking lot, and want to sit by him in the bleachers of the high school basketball games.  He could have done well back there in the little town.  

But he didn’t stop talking.  He had a bigger vision than one small town in the hill country of Galilee.  So he says, I know you want me to settle down here, because here is where all the people that matter are.  I know you don’t understand why anyone would want to leave Nazareth and go on to other towns and other countries.  But you don’t need me here.  You won’t hear me here.

Wait, he said that?  “No prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.”  Different translations have us remember those words in different ways.  But what does it mean?  Why did he say it?  Because he knew what was underneath their approval.  And he knew they didn’t want to hear what he came to say.  He came to say they were important - that much they heard.  God is going to get the kingdom going right here, in Nazareth.  That’ll show the folks down the road, in the next county, in the next country.  God’s kicking things off right here!  Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.  Yee haw.  He came to say that they were important.  But that they weren’t the only important ones in the world.  He came to say that God thinks even the stranger, even the foreigner, even the enemy is important.  Important enough to save.  Important enough to love.

This has been God’s plan from the beginning, Jesus says.  You remember Elijah?  You remember that story of the widow?  God thought she was important, saved her, blessed her, loved her.  She wasn’t one of us.  You remember Elisha?  You remember that guy, that foreign general guy, with the skin problem?  That guy was an enemy, a conqueror of people like you.  God healed him.  God blessed him.  God loved him.  Get this, he was Syrian.

Syrian?  Wait a minute here Jesus.  A refugee from Syria?  He might be wanting to hurt us.  He might be hating us.  He might tell us he’s running for his life, but maybe it is just a plot.  To catch us with our guard down.  Maybe he isn’t really sick.  Maybe they aren’t really refugees.  Maybe they haven’t lived their whole lives in fear of their lives, surrounded by war and killing and living in an unjust system that doesn’t value them as human beings but rather sees them as pawns in a terrible game of power.  Maybe we should protect ourselves first, think of ourselves first.

How dare you Jesus tell us to love even those who are different from us.  Heck, we struggle to love the others in our pew, don’t go asking us to love across the boundaries that are there to keep us safe.  No wonder they got angry.  No wonder they turned into a mob.  You can’t blame them really.  Jesus was inconveniencing them something awful.  Asking them to make accommodations, to change ingrained habits, to think differently about who and what a neighbor really is.  That’s crazy talk.  So, they barked and barked and barked, drove him out of town, wanted to toss him off a cliff.  But he just left.  He had places to go, a Word to proclaim, a world to save.  He went on His way.

Perhaps the saddest verse in the whole bible.  Evidence that God doesn’t force us to change, to grow, to love like He loves.  Doesn’t demand that we become something more, something riskier, something with the potential to change the world for the better.  To be more like it was supposed to be in the beginning.  When God created the heavens and the earth and said it was good!  It was good.  We don’t have to be a part of the making good.  But Jesus isn’t hanging around.  He says follow me.  And goes on His way.

Shalom,

Derek

In Your Hearing

The international terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport was nothing to write home about.  At least back then, twenty years ago.  More like a barn or a bus station than the fancy airport with the amenities we have come to expect these days.  A way station, an in between space really, despite the word used to describe it - terminal.  A place not of ending, but of changing.  From this to that.  From what was to what will be.  From a life that was to a life of something different and as yet unknown.  Not a terminal so much as a bridge.  And we walked that bridge that day, three of us crossed one way and four came back the other.  And life was ... different from that moment on.

I was reminded of that this week.  Because I stood in another airport to surrender the same bundle that came to us in Detroit twenty years ago.  Surrender temporarily to be sure, but still ... We stood in a terminal, hoping it wasn’t.  Trusting it wasn’t.  Just another curve, another bend in the road that we had been traveling for twenty years together.  Another adventure in an adventurous life together.

Maddie had been excited and nervous for a days, sometimes more one than the other.  But the trip to the Columbus airport in Ohio was a quiet one.  Mostly because she was sleeping, but also because we had said all we knew to say and couldn’t find words to calm the fears and ease the concerns any further than we had done.  When we arrived and were in the parking garage, even before the terminal itself, Maddie found one of her friends who was also making the trip and she began to unfold, like a bud that had found some sun at last.  By the time we got through the baggage check and were waiting for the trek to the security station, she was all smiles and ready to head off on her adventure - four months in Germany with students from her school in Ohio.  Witt in Wittenberg it’s called.  Wittenberg University goes back to Wittenberg Germany to stand in the footprints of Martin Luther.

She’s having a great time.  Modern technology keeps us in touch these days.  And yet, there was that feeling as she walked away from us to go behind barriers and through metal detectors, past guards with badges and guns, is this what I signed up for?  This surrender, this helplessness?  If I had known what all was involved in this parenting thing, in this family sharing of life and love and hopes and fears of all the years, if I had known would I have still said yes?

Luke.4:14-21  Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.  16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Everyone says that this scripture is about Jesus.  That this is the declaration of the kind of ministry he was going to pursue.  The time in the wilderness, there at the beginning of Chapter four, was about deciding, wrestling, if you will, with the possibilities in front of him.  Give the people what they want, that was within his power.  Turn this stone into bread, feed them, get to them through their bellies, through their hungers.  Feed them and they’ll follow you anywhere.  No, he says, there is more to it than that.  I want to feed the hungers they forgot they had.  OK, then, show them strength.  Flex your muscles, play the power card, the authority card.  People are drawn to power, like bees and honey.  Be strong and they’ll fall at your feet.  No, he says, power is not of this world.  Power belongs to God, we live in humility, we live vulnerable because that’s what living is, risking, letting go, surrendering.  Hmm.  Ok then, go for the sensation, it was whispered in his ear, the miracles, death-defying acts of derring-do.  Folks go for that, give them a show, you’ll have to fight them off with a stick.  No, he says, shaking off these thoughts as he was shaking off his raging hunger there in the wilderness.  No, you can’t live by miracles, you can’t sustain a faith based on miracles.  No, that won’t work.

What’s left?  How will he run this traveling salvation show?  I know what I’ll do, he thought.  And he came back from the mountains, got a drink of water and slim jim and wandered into the synagogues and town centers.  Word spread, Luke says, and the early reports were positive.  Everyone spoke well of him.  He taught something different, something new but old at the same time.  He taught ancient truths in a new language, as one with authority.  He spoke plainly, but told the stories, he offered a simple truth, but drew it in pictures that seemed familiar to everyone. 

But what was that truth?  What did he teach?  It wasn’t until he strolled home that Luke tells us the essence of his message.  He ambles into the synagogue where he sat as a boy in Sabbath school, reciting lines and repeating answers to old questions, and maybe asking an impertinent question now and again.  They had gotten the news, his reputation preceded him.  So he was invited to teach.  Called to the front, he was handed the scroll, Isaiah, the biggest one, heaviest one.  Was told to read.  Luke says he looked for the bit he wanted.  This wasn’t an accident, just happened to come in when the lectionary had the right text.  No, he searched for it.  He found the place, after an uncomfortable silence filled the room, and he began to read.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.  Well, of course it was.  Luke told us that in verse fourteen!  He was throwing off Spirit sparks wherever he walked.  It surrounded him like a cloud, preceded him like headlights on bright.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach.  

Yeah, well, that Isaiah, he was quite a guy.  He had quite a message, didn’t he.  Jesus read it through.  And they all sighed contentedly.  Yeah, those were the days, they thought.  When old Isaiah stood there declaring the Word of the Lord.  People took notice, you better believe it.  God was closer then.  When people like Isaiah were around.  Proclaiming.  Setting free.  Opening eyes.  Saying God is close, real close, pay attention and see.  Those were the days.

Jesus let the scroll roll up in his hand like a window blind and then handed it to the dazed attendant, and then he sat down.  Not because he was done.  That’s what it sounds like to us.  But no, rabbis taught sitting down.  You stand to read, out of respect for the Word.  But then you sit to explain and expound and apply.  You sat down and we had the word for lunch, we chewed it over and approached it from every perspective we could think of.  The historical, what did he mean and what was going on at the time?  The literary, what devices was he using to help them hear and see?  Is this poetry or prose?  The contextual, who were the listeners at the time, how did they hear these words.  The theological, how does this tell us more about God according to thinkers over the years?  They expected a lecture on the text when Jesus sat down.  

Instead they got a nine word sermon.  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  That’s it.  Can’t imagine they were thrilled by that.  Of course this passage is about Jesus.  He declared his ministry priorities, his core values.  He trotted out his mission statement, laid it out for all to see and hear.  In your hearing, he said.  Which means that, yes, this is about Jesus, but it is also about you.  It’s about me.  We have signed up for something bigger than we knew.  When we decided to be within hearing distance of Jesus we have entered into a whole new world.  A whole new understanding of our own lives and the mission to which we have signed on.  It’s about us as much as it is about Him.  Because we claim to hear, we claim to follow.  We may be afraid of the call, afraid we aren’t up to it, afraid it is more than we knew.  But it is about us.  It is about loving as he loved, loving enough to make a difference in the world.  Not just in us, but in the world.  

In your hearing, he says, meaning that we are now a part of it.  A part of the kingdom breaking in, breaking down the walls that divide us, lifting up the broken among us, even when it breaks our hearts.  This is taking place in our hearing.  And becomes our speaking.  And our living.  And our hoping.  And our loving.

I would like to believe I would have still said yes, even if I knew how difficult parenting is sometimes.  How tenuous our hold on them really is.  I still would have said yes, even if I knew it would tax me beyond my capabilities sometimes.  Because the love is worth it.   Maddie is half a world away, Rhys is finishing up his college career and will graduate in a few months, going on to who knows what.  But I still would have said yes.  You heard it from me.

Shalom, 

Derek

Why Are You Afraid?

Well, that was interesting.  Not how I planned to spend most of my Saturday.  Last night when I went to bed, there was a tightness in my throat.  I thought, “Uh oh, I can’t be getting sick.  It’s Saturday, for heaven’s sake!”  But, sure enough, I woke up with chills and achy all over, the tightness had become a full fledged sore throat, I was dizzy when I got up, and just felt lousy.  Great, I thought, I’ve got too much to do, it is still Saturday!  

I realize that you have to be a pastor/preacher to understand the level of panic in that statement.  It’s Saturday!  I can’t be sick!!  Could be worse, I suppose, it could have been Sunday morning.  Except that if it was Sunday, I would have forced myself to get up and go.  Since it was Saturday, I could panic.  So I did.  Well, long enough to stagger back to bed, where I slept all morning long.  Finally staggering out around 1:30 or so.  Feeling a lot better.

OK, as storms go, it was a minor one.  A sudden squall that caused a little course correction and a reorienting of my plans for the day.  But nothing like as devastating as many face on an all too regular basis.  We are in the midst of a storm.  Or storms, personal and individual storms, corporate and national storms, storms of all sorts.  It is sometimes hard to see the sun shining through given the thickness of the cloud cover.  It is sometimes hard to see the hope in the midst of the despair.  And yet, hope is what we are needing, what we are longing for.  Hope that comes not from the end of the storm, but from the presence in the midst of it.

Mark 4:35-41  On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."  36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.  37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"  39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.  40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"  41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" 

If you back up a couple of verses you see a context that just might change our experience of this story.  Jesus had been teaching, and leaving many a furrowed brow behind him, as he seems keen to do.  And then verses 33 and 34 say that he was always teaching in parables.  Even when they didn’t understand.  And he only explained things to his disciples in private.  And you think well, that isn’t fair.  The disciples get an explanation, the people get confusion.  Until you get to this story and you realize that understanding makes demands on us.  But more on that next week!  For now we are caught up in our storms.  And begin see what is required of us as followers.

First of all, Jesus says, rather simply it seems, “Let’s go across to the other side.”  And off they go.  But we need to pause for a moment and consider what is on the other side, and it is the other side of.  On the basic level it is the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  Not a large body of water in world terms, but significant enough to give pause to the fishermen and boaters of that day.  Most fishing was done close to the shore.  It is possible, indeed likely, that the four fishermen had made a substantial career on that lake and had never gone across it.  That crossing represented a foray into the unknown.  Scripture is full of images of the sea as the representative of chaos, or that where God is not.  When Jonah was running away from God he went to sea.  In some ancient coastal cultures, whenever fishermen were heading out to deeper waters there was a ritual performed before they left that was essentially a funeral - a chance to say goodbye for what would very possibly be the last time.  And when, or if, they returned there was a celebration that had little to do with the catch, it was more like resurrection.  So, when Jesus said follow me a couple of chapters ago, what he really meant was put your life at risk.

And he didn’t say, sail out a way to get away from everyone.  He said go across to the other side.  He had a destination in mind.  But on the other side was “them.”  Jesus was heading to non-Jews.  He was leaving the land of people like him and venturing off among strangers.  Go to the other side is almost a threatening kind of statement to them and to us.  We don’t like going to the other side - whether it is the other side of town or the other side of the tracks, or - for politicians - the other side of the aisle.  The other side is where foreigners dwell, the ones we don’t know and don’t like if we were to admit it.  The other side is where the habits are strange and the behaviors are worse.  The other side is where the folks we stare at, and shake our heads and tsk under our breath.  Let’s go across to the other side.  And off they go.

OK?  One verse down!  Then it says they gathered up and took off.  But that Jesus went “just as he was.”  What does that mean?  To be honest, I don’t know.  But Mark who is so sparing with words wouldn’t include something just as a throwaway.  So, there is something here, some clue, some foreshadowing.  Jesus is always showing us how to live, how to be.  That was his main purpose in spending time among us.  He got frustrated when we focused all our attention on the spectacular, the miracles and the healings.  He wanted us to see something else, something deeper, more significant.  And perhaps his statements at the end of the passage - to jump ahead for a moment - came about for the same reason.  He was upset that those closest to him were missing something vital, some clue about life.  And maybe that clue is revealed in the statement that Jesus went “just as he was.”  

Maybe the invitation is to live within ourselves.  To be centered in who and what we are and to be satisfied with that.  Maybe our security in the end comes not from something or someone or some condition outside, but maybe it comes from within.  Maybe his rebuke to them was not that they were afraid to die, but that their fear was translated as “Don’t you care that we are about to die?”  It was their misunderstanding about the gift of faith that bothered him.  Don’t you care?  Because if you cared you would do what we want when we want it.  

Here’s my point - since the end of the page is looming and Maddie says I write too much anyway - storms follow us wherever.  The promise of the Christian life is not for constant sunny skies and clear forecasts.  Storms will come, you can count on it.  The question is what will you do in the midst of the storm.  When you live your life, fulfill your obligations, make something of yourself, even when you set out to retreat and be built up for the tasks ahead, storms will come.  Faith is not a ticket out of the storm.  Sometimes it feels as though we live from one storm to the next.  But the question remains, what will you do in the midst of the storm?  Or maybe better, who will you be in the midst of the storm?

Commentators will tell you that Mark’s proclamation here is a reminder that Jesus is stronger than the storms.  And if Paul is right, that it is “no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me” then there is no storm that can make me less than I am in Christ.  Which means that in spite of the fear and the sometimes panicked activity in the midst of the storm, I can find a place of calm.  I can be, like Christ, just as I am.  Even in the storm.

So, our prayer is not that there will be a miracle and the storms will suddenly cease.  Or actually, we do pray for that, and nothing wrong with that.  But whether the storm passes or not does not determine the strength of our faith.  Does not need to govern our fear.  Fear not, for I am with you.  Even in the storm.

Shalom, 

Derek