And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it he pulled his cloak over his face . . . (1 Kings 19:13).
Time for a reality check. That voice that Elijah heard on Mount Horeb – we’ve got it all wrong.
Our Bible translations don’t help us much here. We are told that on Mount Horeb Elijah heard a “still small voice.” That’s the King James Version, the familiar and time tested phrase that captures the nature of the divine utterance. The “still” and the “small” is described in stark contrast to the bluster of wind and fire and earthquake, all of which were void of God’s voice and presence.
Other translations take the “still small voice” and make it a “gentle whisper” (NIV). One translation says that it was “the sound of sheer silence” (NRSV). The New English Bible says that Elijah heard a “low murmuring sound” while the Jerusalem Bible calls it “the sound of a gentle breeze.”
A still small voice. That sounds nice doesn’t it? Soothing. God’s voice caressing us, lulling us into a peaceful state of mind.
But whatever this voice was – breeze, whisper, sheer silence – it caused Elijah to hide his face. That’s not the behavior of one soothed and lulled. That’s the action of one awed, convicted, fearful.
I recall being outdoors on a work in site in the middle of an Oklahoma August. From time to time a gentle breeze would disturb the shade-less heat. Your response is to lift your face, to catch as much of it as you can for as long as it lasts. That’s not what Elijah did. He covered his face when God spoke. The voice may have indeed been a whispering voice, breeze-like in tone and volume, but it evoked something deep in Elijah. It made him hide his face.
Mark Buchanan rightly states that
There is a dreadfulness about God. This is seldom said. We often cherish a pious delusion about ourselves: that we truly desire God and that all that’s lacking to pursue deepest intimacy with Him is adequate skill, sufficient knowledge, proper motivation. But is this so? Down in our bones, mingled with our blood, silent and potent as instinct, is a dread of God. This is primal fear. The voice of God, the presence of God, holds not comfort but terror. (Your God is Too Safe, 22-23).
Long before whispering to Elijah, God held another mountain top conversation with Moses. When Moses came down from the mountain the Israelites kept their distance from him. They told him, “speak to us yourself and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Exodus 20:18-19). The voice of God would be too much.
So back to the “still small voice.” Two things are required of us: Be careful and be courageous.
Be careful in your listening: This voice is not easily heard and it will not be found in the loud and obvious blustering of our culture or even of our churches. Loud and showy religion is one of Satan’s closest allies in keeping people deaf to God. Be careful in your listening.
And be courageous: When God speaks you may be undone. As the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). The voice of God could change your life. It could change your plans. If you’re trying to hear God speak be sure you’re ready for what that might mean for your life. God’s words are never given to us as a mere lullaby.
What is truly amazing is the God wills to speak to us. The real question, as always, is whether we are willing to listen.
Prayer:
We will not take your voice lightly, O God. Help us to listen carefully, discerning your words and your will in the middle of our busy and noisy lives. And make us bold as we listen for what the Spirit says, ready to be changed and ready to respond in obedience. Amen.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Lightweight Deity
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done . . . Elijah was afraid and ran for his life (1 Kings 19:1-5).
We’re waiting on a growth spurt. Could be any time now. I’ve made use of biblical language in assuring my son that he’ll shoot up any day – “like a thief I the night . . . you do not know the day or the hour.” But it will come.
In the meantime we let him eat just about anything he wants. I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. It sure won’t hasten the “thief in the night” thing, but maybe it’ll get more meat on the bones. Imagine my surprise when my son announced that he needed to abstain from a meal before a wrestling meet. He explained that he was only a half-pound shy of having to move up to the next weight class and he didn’t want to do that.
Weight classes make sense in wrestling. They keep things fair and they keep things safe. That’s obvious I guess, but I’m new to the whole wrestling subculture. Whereas I’m typically encouraging him to bulk up, I wasn’t sure I wanted him in the next weight class. It means bigger opponents. In theory he’s bigger too – but it didn’t look that way to me.
Strength and size are important in wrestling. And they also matter in our walk with God.
We’re waiting on a growth spurt. Could be any time now. I’ve made use of biblical language in assuring my son that he’ll shoot up any day – “like a thief I the night . . . you do not know the day or the hour.” But it will come.
In the meantime we let him eat just about anything he wants. I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. It sure won’t hasten the “thief in the night” thing, but maybe it’ll get more meat on the bones. Imagine my surprise when my son announced that he needed to abstain from a meal before a wrestling meet. He explained that he was only a half-pound shy of having to move up to the next weight class and he didn’t want to do that.
Weight classes make sense in wrestling. They keep things fair and they keep things safe. That’s obvious I guess, but I’m new to the whole wrestling subculture. Whereas I’m typically encouraging him to bulk up, I wasn’t sure I wanted him in the next weight class. It means bigger opponents. In theory he’s bigger too – but it didn’t look that way to me.
Strength and size are important in wrestling. And they also matter in our walk with God.
********
Short version of the story: Baal was pinned in seconds by Elijah’s God. Baal had nothing to offer in response to the loud and frantic prayers of his prophets, more than four hundred of them pleading hour after hour for a show of strength. Their prayers met with Elijah’s taunts and silent skies.
Then Elijah prayed. A short request, simple and clear in it purpose: send fire so that all may know that you, O Lord, are God (1 Kings 18:37-38). And fire fell from heaven.
The shocking thing about this story is its aftermath. Having defeated Baal’s prophets, Elijah is a wanted man, hunted by Queen Jezebel. In the face of her threats, God suddenly became small, a lightweight deity. The pagan Queen became large, a heavyweight ruler. Fear gripped Elijah’s heart and he ran for his life.
********
How is it that God so easily and often becomes small in our eyes?
Elijah’s name means “The Lord is God.” We say we believe it. But the slightest opposition from some pretender to power in our lives can send us into a tailspin of anxiety. Our God is suddenly shrunken and weak – and something else stands large and powerful in our minds and claims lordship over our hearts.
The person making hiring decisions becomes strong and powerful against our lightweight deity. The stock market and drama of Wall Street looms large as God pales in the background, swallowed up in the noise of trading. A supervisor becomes the heavyweight, far too much for our scrawny God. God gets small, even when we know better, even when we’ve lived through something where we’ve seen fire fall from heaven.
In 1961 J. B. Phillps wrote a book titled “Your God is too Small.” If such a thing could be written in 1961, how much more so in 2010? As this year begins, what weight class have you placed God in? And what would it take for God to once again become a heavyweight deity – Powerful, Sovereign, Creator God.
Prayer:
Forgive us for seeing you as small, O God, while other things stand large and formidable in our minds and in our hearts. We would recover our sense of your power today, living with the strength that comes from serving a great and mighty God who is at the same time faithful in caring for us. Grant us courage for all that we face and a vision of your presence with us. Amen.
Elijah’s name means “The Lord is God.” We say we believe it. But the slightest opposition from some pretender to power in our lives can send us into a tailspin of anxiety. Our God is suddenly shrunken and weak – and something else stands large and powerful in our minds and claims lordship over our hearts.
The person making hiring decisions becomes strong and powerful against our lightweight deity. The stock market and drama of Wall Street looms large as God pales in the background, swallowed up in the noise of trading. A supervisor becomes the heavyweight, far too much for our scrawny God. God gets small, even when we know better, even when we’ve lived through something where we’ve seen fire fall from heaven.
In 1961 J. B. Phillps wrote a book titled “Your God is too Small.” If such a thing could be written in 1961, how much more so in 2010? As this year begins, what weight class have you placed God in? And what would it take for God to once again become a heavyweight deity – Powerful, Sovereign, Creator God.
Prayer:
Forgive us for seeing you as small, O God, while other things stand large and formidable in our minds and in our hearts. We would recover our sense of your power today, living with the strength that comes from serving a great and mighty God who is at the same time faithful in caring for us. Grant us courage for all that we face and a vision of your presence with us. Amen.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
For My Wife on Valentine's Day
For the first time in a week I woke up this morning and heard you breathing next to me. There have been other weeks when I woke up to silence, finding emptiness beside me as you traveled, other mornings when I found your place strangely vacant when you didn’t sleep well and the sleeplessness pushed you to get up and get some work done.
But your absence from our home in these recent days has been like nothing we’ve ever lived through. Our house has been empty as you and I kept vigil by our daughter’s hospital bed. There were a few nights when our energies and attention ran in different directions – me here with John trying to create some sense of normalcy; you there with Anna in exile, removed from anything we know as normal and familiar.
In these days we have lived through a strange absence. Often standing in the same room, focused on the same little girl, wanting the same things and managing a common life while distant from what we know as our life together.
And now, as of last night, we are home: under the same roof, sharing the same meals, back in our beds. God’s grace to us has meant a return to home and health. It is not always that way for everyone. We know that now like we didn’t know it a week ago.
And there is something else I know now in a new way.
A marriage grows over time as two people give themselves to the same things. Love is not simply what people ‘have’ or ‘feel’ for each other. Love is something they share as they give themselves to a common life. Ruth’s words to Naomi capture it so well. “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” A shared people, a shared place, a shared faith – these are threads that over time become a cable that we often speak of as “commitment.”
Having been with you in that hospital room, having made the horrific journey there a week ago, having stood with you mute with fear outside the trauma room, having seen you weary by her bed and restless on the chair that could never truly become a bed, I know now that we are bound by a common love.
I love what you love Marnie. I love the same two children. I love the work of raising them, the joys and heartaches and annoyances. I love your people – both the family that made you who you are and the family of faith you serve. I love your vocation, the calling to shepherd the flock of God. Indeed we are bound by a common love: love directed at the same things and life built on the same foundation.
But today is Valentines Day and there is more to say. I do not simply love what you love. I love you. Unadorned. Nothing added. Just you.
Today is also Sunday –a day of worship. As you have done every moment of the past week, you will stay with our little girl as she recovers. I will make my way to place where we worship and serve together. Worship will be sweet today. I am a blessed man. I will give God thanks for his gifts, for the health of our daughter and the home we share; for the gifts of people who have loved us and the good work we have of loving them in return.
And with the gifts we share I will thank God for the gift that is mine alone: The gift of you, my wife, my love, my delight. My Valentine.
But your absence from our home in these recent days has been like nothing we’ve ever lived through. Our house has been empty as you and I kept vigil by our daughter’s hospital bed. There were a few nights when our energies and attention ran in different directions – me here with John trying to create some sense of normalcy; you there with Anna in exile, removed from anything we know as normal and familiar.
In these days we have lived through a strange absence. Often standing in the same room, focused on the same little girl, wanting the same things and managing a common life while distant from what we know as our life together.
And now, as of last night, we are home: under the same roof, sharing the same meals, back in our beds. God’s grace to us has meant a return to home and health. It is not always that way for everyone. We know that now like we didn’t know it a week ago.
And there is something else I know now in a new way.
A marriage grows over time as two people give themselves to the same things. Love is not simply what people ‘have’ or ‘feel’ for each other. Love is something they share as they give themselves to a common life. Ruth’s words to Naomi capture it so well. “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” A shared people, a shared place, a shared faith – these are threads that over time become a cable that we often speak of as “commitment.”
Having been with you in that hospital room, having made the horrific journey there a week ago, having stood with you mute with fear outside the trauma room, having seen you weary by her bed and restless on the chair that could never truly become a bed, I know now that we are bound by a common love.
I love what you love Marnie. I love the same two children. I love the work of raising them, the joys and heartaches and annoyances. I love your people – both the family that made you who you are and the family of faith you serve. I love your vocation, the calling to shepherd the flock of God. Indeed we are bound by a common love: love directed at the same things and life built on the same foundation.
But today is Valentines Day and there is more to say. I do not simply love what you love. I love you. Unadorned. Nothing added. Just you.
Today is also Sunday –a day of worship. As you have done every moment of the past week, you will stay with our little girl as she recovers. I will make my way to place where we worship and serve together. Worship will be sweet today. I am a blessed man. I will give God thanks for his gifts, for the health of our daughter and the home we share; for the gifts of people who have loved us and the good work we have of loving them in return.
And with the gifts we share I will thank God for the gift that is mine alone: The gift of you, my wife, my love, my delight. My Valentine.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Broom Trees
He came to a broom tree, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die (1 Kings 19:4).
I was trying to figure out what to do with my life and I needed some help. I attended church, but I really didn’t know my pastor. Right about that time Mercer University, where I was a student, had brought on a new Pastor to the University and he seemed to be a very thoughtful and trustworthy man. I made an appointment to talk with him.
Looking back, I don’t remember the details of my conversation with Dr. C. Welton Gaddy. What I remember now is the way he listened, his total lack of interest in trying to “recruit” me for the ministry, his comfort with my angst and his counsel that didn’t tell me what to do. And he was no-nonsense: He basically told me that if I thought being a pastor was some kind of ticket to a life of holy bliss I’d be sorely disappointed. Now, twenty-three years after my ordination, I get it.
Not long after that conversation I went to Texas for seminary. I’ve only encountered Dr. Gaddy one time since then, and very briefly at that. It was during my doctoral work that I came across a book he had written. That in itself wasn’t such a big deal. He had authored several books by that time. However the title of this one provoked my curiosity: A Soul Under Siege: Surviving Clergy Depression.
A quick glance at the back cover summarized the story. This man whose counsel I had sought and whom I admired for his wisdom and pastoral sensitivity had hit a wall in his personal and professional life. He had admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital to get help with his depression. The book is confessional and reflective, telling the story of a public persona that didn’t square with some deeper inner realities. After living that way for a long time Gaddy, like Elijah, found himself by a broom tree. That’s when the time in the hospital happened.
Thankfully, he was willing to talk about it. Far too many of us spend our energies avoiding the broom trees or pretending that we’ve never spent time in the shade of one. What we learn from Welton Gaddy, and from Elijah, is that broom trees are we find a peculiar kind of mercy.
********
A death-threat from Queen Jezebel had sent Elijah running for his life. When he stopped running and dropped exhausted beneath the broom tree things weren’t going so well. He was a full day’s journey into the desert and he was alone, having left his servant back in Beersheba. Isolation and fatigue, mixed with fear is a lethal combination for any soul. Under the broom tree you begin to think you’d be better off dead. At least that’s what Elijah prayed for.
A broom tree is the place where myths are exposed. The idea that one experience of a spiritual high means immunity from future spiritual lows is exposed as a myth. And self-sufficiency is exposed as a myth. The broom tree is a place where we are brought to the end of ourselves. Then and only then do we discover the true meaning of grace. Elijah prays a desperate prayer under the broom tree – but God does not answer with rebuke or lecture. The prophet is simply told to get up and eat. This is followed by a long nap, and then another meal.
Broom trees appear in a variety of forms; we find them in different places. The period of unemployment, the month after the funeral when meals no longer arrive at your door, the first day after the divorce is finalized – broom trees all. Our inclination is to minimize our time there, rush off to the next mountain as quickly as we can mange. But God meets us under the broom trees in ways we don’t experience elsewhere. God sustains us there ands gives us what we need, getting us ready for the next leg of the journey. We sleep and eat, and eat and sleep again.
Do not resent the broom tree. Don’t look for detours around that place or try to cover the tracks that led you there. The broom tree is not a sign of your failure and weakness. It is a part of your formation as a person created and called by God.
Where have the broom trees been in your life?
Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for meeting us in places we’d rather not go. We thank you for the way you lead us to those barren places and then give us what we need in order to move on. Thank you for the simple gifts of grace that sustain us from day to day. Meet us in this day and keep us faithful in our journey with you, we pray. Amen.
I was trying to figure out what to do with my life and I needed some help. I attended church, but I really didn’t know my pastor. Right about that time Mercer University, where I was a student, had brought on a new Pastor to the University and he seemed to be a very thoughtful and trustworthy man. I made an appointment to talk with him.
Looking back, I don’t remember the details of my conversation with Dr. C. Welton Gaddy. What I remember now is the way he listened, his total lack of interest in trying to “recruit” me for the ministry, his comfort with my angst and his counsel that didn’t tell me what to do. And he was no-nonsense: He basically told me that if I thought being a pastor was some kind of ticket to a life of holy bliss I’d be sorely disappointed. Now, twenty-three years after my ordination, I get it.
Not long after that conversation I went to Texas for seminary. I’ve only encountered Dr. Gaddy one time since then, and very briefly at that. It was during my doctoral work that I came across a book he had written. That in itself wasn’t such a big deal. He had authored several books by that time. However the title of this one provoked my curiosity: A Soul Under Siege: Surviving Clergy Depression.
A quick glance at the back cover summarized the story. This man whose counsel I had sought and whom I admired for his wisdom and pastoral sensitivity had hit a wall in his personal and professional life. He had admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital to get help with his depression. The book is confessional and reflective, telling the story of a public persona that didn’t square with some deeper inner realities. After living that way for a long time Gaddy, like Elijah, found himself by a broom tree. That’s when the time in the hospital happened.
Thankfully, he was willing to talk about it. Far too many of us spend our energies avoiding the broom trees or pretending that we’ve never spent time in the shade of one. What we learn from Welton Gaddy, and from Elijah, is that broom trees are we find a peculiar kind of mercy.
********
A broom tree is the place where myths are exposed. The idea that one experience of a spiritual high means immunity from future spiritual lows is exposed as a myth. And self-sufficiency is exposed as a myth. The broom tree is a place where we are brought to the end of ourselves. Then and only then do we discover the true meaning of grace. Elijah prays a desperate prayer under the broom tree – but God does not answer with rebuke or lecture. The prophet is simply told to get up and eat. This is followed by a long nap, and then another meal.
Broom trees appear in a variety of forms; we find them in different places. The period of unemployment, the month after the funeral when meals no longer arrive at your door, the first day after the divorce is finalized – broom trees all. Our inclination is to minimize our time there, rush off to the next mountain as quickly as we can mange. But God meets us under the broom trees in ways we don’t experience elsewhere. God sustains us there ands gives us what we need, getting us ready for the next leg of the journey. We sleep and eat, and eat and sleep again.
Do not resent the broom tree. Don’t look for detours around that place or try to cover the tracks that led you there. The broom tree is not a sign of your failure and weakness. It is a part of your formation as a person created and called by God.
Where have the broom trees been in your life?
Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for meeting us in places we’d rather not go. We thank you for the way you lead us to those barren places and then give us what we need in order to move on. Thank you for the simple gifts of grace that sustain us from day to day. Meet us in this day and keep us faithful in our journey with you, we pray. Amen.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Questions and Answers
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9).
In his cave of despair, hiding and afraid and eaten up with doubts, Elijah was questioned by God. Not coddled. Not comforted. Questioned.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
The question is ambiguous. The meaning of the question can be changed by playing with it, putting the emphasis on a different word with each asking.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Was God’s questioning a rebuke: An implied accusation that the prophet had abandoned his calling and lost his nerve? Or was the question an invitation: A chance for Elijah to examine his faith and learn again the meaning of his own name – “The Lord is God.”
Maybe it was both. The truly interesting thing about this question is that God asks it twice. The first time it is asked, Elijah answers with lament and self-pity. God responds to that with the “still small voice” we spoke of yesterday.
And then God asked the question again. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” We might expect that by now Elijah has a different answer. He’s covered his face at the sound of God’s whisper. Now he’s seized with a Holy awe and ready to re-engage the godless Ahab and Jezebel. Now Elijah knows who he is and what he’s called by God to do.
Not so. Elijah gives the same pitiful answer. He’s still complaining, still feeling like God has dealt him a bad hand, still consumed with dark emotions.
And this time God simply says “Go back the way you came.” Get up. Get going. We’ve got work to do. God gives no explanations and offers no apologies or assurances to Elijah. God gives instruction and asks for obedience. So it is in the life of faith.
********
I’m feeling somewhat defensive on God’s behalf today. The images of destruction and suffering coming from Haiti have set me back on my heels a bit. Things like that can do that to me. I wish they didn’t but they do.
I believe the meaning of Elijah’s name. I believe “The Lord is God.” God is ruling all things, changing seasons and counting the hairs of our heads and keeping track of the smallest sparrow that falls from the sky. He never slumbers nor sleeps. He never gets caught off-guard as if he didn’t see something coming, whether earthquakes or bank failures. Our God reigns – unhindered and absolutely sovereign in all things. I believe that.
But I wouldn’t mind some help in making sense of massive suffering. Like Elijah, I’d welcome a word of reassurance, a sentence of explanation, a promise of future good to which all things inevitably lead. Just a word will do, even if it’s whispered and seizes me with a holy terror. I’ll take it anyway. Maybe you would too.
We won’t get it. As best I can tell from Elijah’s experience on Mt. Horeb and from other stories - the suffering Job and the indignation of Jonah – God will not provide footnotes and explanations to his ways in this world. We might feel like we’ve got some questions for God. But it always God who questions us.
What are you doing here?
In the family you belong to, in the company you work for, in the city where you live, in the church you attend . . . what are you doing? The question may carry rebuke: there’s something you should be doing that you aren’t. The question may be invitation: have you discovered what God has for you?
But in the end, as with Elijah, it always calls us back to simple obedience. Get up. Go back. Get to work. As for Haiti, get on your knees and pray. Get out your checkbook and give. If you feel led, get on a plane and go. Leave the cave of despair, let go of the need for explanations, and obey in radical trust and faith.
What are you doing where you are right now and what will obedience look like in your life today?
Prayer:
Almighty God, you call us to lives of obedience and faith. Living this way is sometimes hard for us as questions get in the way – things we can’t understand, things that make faith difficult. Meet us as you met Elijah and call us from the cave of fear and doubt to bold acts of obedience. In places near and far away, “your kingdom come” we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In his cave of despair, hiding and afraid and eaten up with doubts, Elijah was questioned by God. Not coddled. Not comforted. Questioned.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
The question is ambiguous. The meaning of the question can be changed by playing with it, putting the emphasis on a different word with each asking.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Was God’s questioning a rebuke: An implied accusation that the prophet had abandoned his calling and lost his nerve? Or was the question an invitation: A chance for Elijah to examine his faith and learn again the meaning of his own name – “The Lord is God.”
Maybe it was both. The truly interesting thing about this question is that God asks it twice. The first time it is asked, Elijah answers with lament and self-pity. God responds to that with the “still small voice” we spoke of yesterday.
And then God asked the question again. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” We might expect that by now Elijah has a different answer. He’s covered his face at the sound of God’s whisper. Now he’s seized with a Holy awe and ready to re-engage the godless Ahab and Jezebel. Now Elijah knows who he is and what he’s called by God to do.
Not so. Elijah gives the same pitiful answer. He’s still complaining, still feeling like God has dealt him a bad hand, still consumed with dark emotions.
And this time God simply says “Go back the way you came.” Get up. Get going. We’ve got work to do. God gives no explanations and offers no apologies or assurances to Elijah. God gives instruction and asks for obedience. So it is in the life of faith.
********
I’m feeling somewhat defensive on God’s behalf today. The images of destruction and suffering coming from Haiti have set me back on my heels a bit. Things like that can do that to me. I wish they didn’t but they do.
I believe the meaning of Elijah’s name. I believe “The Lord is God.” God is ruling all things, changing seasons and counting the hairs of our heads and keeping track of the smallest sparrow that falls from the sky. He never slumbers nor sleeps. He never gets caught off-guard as if he didn’t see something coming, whether earthquakes or bank failures. Our God reigns – unhindered and absolutely sovereign in all things. I believe that.
But I wouldn’t mind some help in making sense of massive suffering. Like Elijah, I’d welcome a word of reassurance, a sentence of explanation, a promise of future good to which all things inevitably lead. Just a word will do, even if it’s whispered and seizes me with a holy terror. I’ll take it anyway. Maybe you would too.
We won’t get it. As best I can tell from Elijah’s experience on Mt. Horeb and from other stories - the suffering Job and the indignation of Jonah – God will not provide footnotes and explanations to his ways in this world. We might feel like we’ve got some questions for God. But it always God who questions us.
What are you doing here?
In the family you belong to, in the company you work for, in the city where you live, in the church you attend . . . what are you doing? The question may carry rebuke: there’s something you should be doing that you aren’t. The question may be invitation: have you discovered what God has for you?
But in the end, as with Elijah, it always calls us back to simple obedience. Get up. Go back. Get to work. As for Haiti, get on your knees and pray. Get out your checkbook and give. If you feel led, get on a plane and go. Leave the cave of despair, let go of the need for explanations, and obey in radical trust and faith.
What are you doing where you are right now and what will obedience look like in your life today?
Prayer:
Almighty God, you call us to lives of obedience and faith. Living this way is sometimes hard for us as questions get in the way – things we can’t understand, things that make faith difficult. Meet us as you met Elijah and call us from the cave of fear and doubt to bold acts of obedience. In places near and far away, “your kingdom come” we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Tested in Blessing
For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry . . . (1 Kings 17:16)
Once his water supply was exhausted he knew he would have to go somewhere else. Elijah had hidden by the brook because that’s where God told him to go. It was not a place of his own choosing. Hiding by the brook was an act of obedience. And now the brook was dry.
Is this how God rewards obedience?
The providence of God is strange to us. We would like to think that obedience leads to reward. What we see in Elijah is that obedience simply prepares us for the next act of obedience. God used the dry brook to send the prophet to Zarephath in the pagan region of Sidon – again, not a popular destination for a Hebrew prophet.
Whereas Elijah had been fed by ravens by the Kerith Ravine, a widow would feed him in Zarephath. As promised, Elijah met a widow at the gates of the town. When he asked her for a piece of bread she made it clear to Elijah that she had enough for one meal, and that meal would be for her and her son. After that they would likely die soon. The prophet was on his own.
But God spoke through the prophet, inviting an act of trust on the part of this widow. She used her meager supply of flour and oil and fed Elijah first. Seeing a miracle sometimes means taking a risk. Having used what she had to feed Elijah this widow discovered a fresh supply of oil and flour every day.
********
Some of the best known stories in the pages of the Bible are bread stories
As Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness, God provided bread from heaven every morning. The people were to gather what they needed for that day. Trying to stockpile bread for tomorrow ended in rot and decay (Exodus 16:4).
Jesus replicated God’s gift of wilderness manna when he fed a multitude with a few loaves of bread and some fish. Gathered in a desolate place, thousands had more than they could eat (John 6:11-12). Later Jesus would say that he himself was the bread of life, the bread that comes from heaven and gives life to all people ( John 6:35).
And then there’s Elijah and the widow discovering the daily deposit of oil and flour.
The wilderness manna, the oil and flour, the multitudes fed with fishes and loaves: we naturally regard these things as gifts from God, great blessings that speak of God’s love and grace. But in Deuteronomy 8 we learn that often God uses blessings to test us.
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Deut. 8:2-3).
God does not test us solely in trouble an affliction. Testing does not come in the form of loss and grief, in illness and death, in physical pain and mental distress. Such things test us, to be sure – but just as often God tests us in blessing. The blessings and gifts reveal the posture of hearts as much as the suffering does.
When we wake up every morning and find fresh oil and flour, the test is this: will we love the oil and flour? Will we depend on bread? Or will we love the God who meet us daily with more grace and sustains us in wilderness places?
How have you been blessed today – and what does the blessing show you about the affections of your heart and the object of your hope?
Prayer:
“Break thou the bread of life, Dear Lord, to me; As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea; Beyond the sacred page I seek the Lord; My Spirit pants for thee, O Living Word” (Break Thou the Bread of Life, The Hymnbook, p. 219)
Once his water supply was exhausted he knew he would have to go somewhere else. Elijah had hidden by the brook because that’s where God told him to go. It was not a place of his own choosing. Hiding by the brook was an act of obedience. And now the brook was dry.
Is this how God rewards obedience?
The providence of God is strange to us. We would like to think that obedience leads to reward. What we see in Elijah is that obedience simply prepares us for the next act of obedience. God used the dry brook to send the prophet to Zarephath in the pagan region of Sidon – again, not a popular destination for a Hebrew prophet.
Whereas Elijah had been fed by ravens by the Kerith Ravine, a widow would feed him in Zarephath. As promised, Elijah met a widow at the gates of the town. When he asked her for a piece of bread she made it clear to Elijah that she had enough for one meal, and that meal would be for her and her son. After that they would likely die soon. The prophet was on his own.
But God spoke through the prophet, inviting an act of trust on the part of this widow. She used her meager supply of flour and oil and fed Elijah first. Seeing a miracle sometimes means taking a risk. Having used what she had to feed Elijah this widow discovered a fresh supply of oil and flour every day.
********
As Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness, God provided bread from heaven every morning. The people were to gather what they needed for that day. Trying to stockpile bread for tomorrow ended in rot and decay (Exodus 16:4).
Jesus replicated God’s gift of wilderness manna when he fed a multitude with a few loaves of bread and some fish. Gathered in a desolate place, thousands had more than they could eat (John 6:11-12). Later Jesus would say that he himself was the bread of life, the bread that comes from heaven and gives life to all people ( John 6:35).
And then there’s Elijah and the widow discovering the daily deposit of oil and flour.
The wilderness manna, the oil and flour, the multitudes fed with fishes and loaves: we naturally regard these things as gifts from God, great blessings that speak of God’s love and grace. But in Deuteronomy 8 we learn that often God uses blessings to test us.
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Deut. 8:2-3).
God does not test us solely in trouble an affliction. Testing does not come in the form of loss and grief, in illness and death, in physical pain and mental distress. Such things test us, to be sure – but just as often God tests us in blessing. The blessings and gifts reveal the posture of hearts as much as the suffering does.
When we wake up every morning and find fresh oil and flour, the test is this: will we love the oil and flour? Will we depend on bread? Or will we love the God who meet us daily with more grace and sustains us in wilderness places?
How have you been blessed today – and what does the blessing show you about the affections of your heart and the object of your hope?
Prayer:
“Break thou the bread of life, Dear Lord, to me; As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea; Beyond the sacred page I seek the Lord; My Spirit pants for thee, O Living Word” (Break Thou the Bread of Life, The Hymnbook, p. 219)
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Forecasting
After a while the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land (1 Kings 17:7).
I can’t wait for next week. I’m feeling more anticipation for January 13 or 14 than I did for December 25th. By the middle of next week our daytime highs will reach the 40s and overnight lows will only be in the 30s. At least that’s what my favorite meteorologist reported last night before I fell asleep.
People who live in the North, or who live down here and grew up in the North, think we’re a joke when it comes to winter weather. Sure, we tend to overreact at times. The slightest mention of winter precipitation sends us in a panic to Home Depot for a generator, followed by a stop at Kroger for bread and milk, lest our children perish. Go ahead all you transplanted Yankees. Laugh all you want.
But understand our context here in the Sunbelt. Winter means slipping on a windbreaker when you jog at 6:00 a.m. Once we live through a few spells of nighttime lows below 20 and a possible ice or snow event, we’ve paid our dues to old man winter. He’s like an annoying relative who makes an obligatory annual visit and then goes home, not a moment too soon.
So next week. Bring it on. I’m not asking for balmy. I just want bearable.
********
Most of us can endure almost anything if we have a sense that eventually things will change. We can tolerate the intolerable for a while. We can put up with the unbearable if we see daylight at the end of the tunnel, something that assures us that the unpleasant present will inevitably give way to future blessing.
In matters far more serious than a wave of cold weather, we are willing to suffer and believe that God is at work in our affliction. What erodes faith isn’t the suffering, but the sense that the suffering won’t stop: The absence of a finish line, the lack of a horizon on which we see a shelter, a refuge, relief.
When Elijah told King Ahab that there would be “neither dew nor rain” the declaration was open-ended. No long range forecast was given to indicate how long the drought would last. The Elijah stories in 1 Kings 17 and 18 don’t give clear indications as to the length of the drought. The book of James in the New Testament says it lasted three and a half years (James 5:17). As best we can tell, not even Elijah knew when it would end. He just lived through it and in it until God gave rain.
One of the greatest challenges to a life of faith is living in the midst of a barren place and barren conditions without the slightest sense that things will ever change. Such conditions have a way of exposing us and the deepest affection of our hearts. They reveal the substance of our faith.
A life of faith doesn’t merely endure the present drought. Faith embraces it.
The tendency, shared by all of us, is to place our hope in a forecast. This has a subtle way of replacing our hope in God. We want to know when: when will I get better, when will the economy rebound, when will I find my soul-mate, when will the company recognize my talents and skills? A good forecast makes faith unnecessary.
But God doesn’t give us forecasts, at least not often and where it most matters. God invites a daily walk in the conditions we have right in front of us. That’s where God’s glory gets revealed. Fire falls from heaven; a small cloud promises a downpour (18:45). And a demonstration of God’s glory beats a forecast any day.
Prayer:
I will embrace the conditions of this day, O God, not as a test of endurance but as an invitation to faith. Give me eyes to see your glory and recognize your work – especially in the unlikely and unwanted details of this day. Amen.
I can’t wait for next week. I’m feeling more anticipation for January 13 or 14 than I did for December 25th. By the middle of next week our daytime highs will reach the 40s and overnight lows will only be in the 30s. At least that’s what my favorite meteorologist reported last night before I fell asleep.
People who live in the North, or who live down here and grew up in the North, think we’re a joke when it comes to winter weather. Sure, we tend to overreact at times. The slightest mention of winter precipitation sends us in a panic to Home Depot for a generator, followed by a stop at Kroger for bread and milk, lest our children perish. Go ahead all you transplanted Yankees. Laugh all you want.
But understand our context here in the Sunbelt. Winter means slipping on a windbreaker when you jog at 6:00 a.m. Once we live through a few spells of nighttime lows below 20 and a possible ice or snow event, we’ve paid our dues to old man winter. He’s like an annoying relative who makes an obligatory annual visit and then goes home, not a moment too soon.
So next week. Bring it on. I’m not asking for balmy. I just want bearable.
********
In matters far more serious than a wave of cold weather, we are willing to suffer and believe that God is at work in our affliction. What erodes faith isn’t the suffering, but the sense that the suffering won’t stop: The absence of a finish line, the lack of a horizon on which we see a shelter, a refuge, relief.
When Elijah told King Ahab that there would be “neither dew nor rain” the declaration was open-ended. No long range forecast was given to indicate how long the drought would last. The Elijah stories in 1 Kings 17 and 18 don’t give clear indications as to the length of the drought. The book of James in the New Testament says it lasted three and a half years (James 5:17). As best we can tell, not even Elijah knew when it would end. He just lived through it and in it until God gave rain.
One of the greatest challenges to a life of faith is living in the midst of a barren place and barren conditions without the slightest sense that things will ever change. Such conditions have a way of exposing us and the deepest affection of our hearts. They reveal the substance of our faith.
A life of faith doesn’t merely endure the present drought. Faith embraces it.
The tendency, shared by all of us, is to place our hope in a forecast. This has a subtle way of replacing our hope in God. We want to know when: when will I get better, when will the economy rebound, when will I find my soul-mate, when will the company recognize my talents and skills? A good forecast makes faith unnecessary.
But God doesn’t give us forecasts, at least not often and where it most matters. God invites a daily walk in the conditions we have right in front of us. That’s where God’s glory gets revealed. Fire falls from heaven; a small cloud promises a downpour (18:45). And a demonstration of God’s glory beats a forecast any day.
Prayer:
I will embrace the conditions of this day, O God, not as a test of endurance but as an invitation to faith. Give me eyes to see your glory and recognize your work – especially in the unlikely and unwanted details of this day. Amen.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Claiming Exemptions
“As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1 ESV).
Running from a fight had never been his style. Hiding was never his preferred strategy for dealing with trouble. Hesitation and reticence were alien to him. Once given a word to speak for God, Elijah itched to speak it like a thoroughbred being held back at the start-line of a race.
Thus his terse message to Ahab: “it will not rain until I say so.” The moment was confrontational. Elijah was going head to head with Israel’s faithless King and that King’s false god. Few Kings will tolerate that kind of thing; they will not lose face when treated with shameless disrespect.
So God told Elijah to hide in a ravine on the east side of the Jordan River. Elijah was to stay there, out of the way, removed from the action. He had said what needed to be said. God would take it from here until further notice. In the meantime, the prophet would survive by drinking water from the brook and being fed daily by ravens.
For a while the water in the Kerith ravine ran freely and wide. Elijah drank at will, quenching his thirst and washing down the food that came by ravens every morning and evening. But soon the flow of water narrowed. As God kept his word and confirmed Elijah’s message, the daily supply of water diminished to a trickle. One day, even that had stopped.
The brook dried up.
Running from a fight had never been his style. Hiding was never his preferred strategy for dealing with trouble. Hesitation and reticence were alien to him. Once given a word to speak for God, Elijah itched to speak it like a thoroughbred being held back at the start-line of a race.
Thus his terse message to Ahab: “it will not rain until I say so.” The moment was confrontational. Elijah was going head to head with Israel’s faithless King and that King’s false god. Few Kings will tolerate that kind of thing; they will not lose face when treated with shameless disrespect.
So God told Elijah to hide in a ravine on the east side of the Jordan River. Elijah was to stay there, out of the way, removed from the action. He had said what needed to be said. God would take it from here until further notice. In the meantime, the prophet would survive by drinking water from the brook and being fed daily by ravens.
For a while the water in the Kerith ravine ran freely and wide. Elijah drank at will, quenching his thirst and washing down the food that came by ravens every morning and evening. But soon the flow of water narrowed. As God kept his word and confirmed Elijah’s message, the daily supply of water diminished to a trickle. One day, even that had stopped.
The brook dried up.
********
We assume that if we will be obedient to what God commands and seek to live life in a way that pleases God, we will somehow dodge the varied troubles that are visited upon the disobedient and the self-indulgent.
We claim exemptions: We will seek to know God’s will and live in it, and the cancer will not find us or those we love. The accident will miss us. The lay-offs will not impact us. We may not be exactly where we want to be. Life won’t be picture perfect. But, like Elijah, we will be fed daily and drink freely from the brook.
Sometimes, however, the brook dries up. Even for bold prophets and ordinary faithful people, the stream narrows to a sliver and then stops altogether.
As we keep company with Elijah in the coming weeks we’ll see that the promise of God for a new year does not include exemptions. This doesn’t mean we should expect the illness or the lay-off or the accident. We can live the coming days knowing hat God wills our good.
The story of Elijah reminds us that God accomplishes that good in the midst of circumstances we would choose to avoid. God is purposefully at work by the diminishing brook. God uses deprivation in one place to move the prophet to a new place where grace is discovered anew. God still works that way.
As we seek to discover what it means to live well in this New Year Elijah will be our guide. We begin not by claiming exemptions but by recognizing our need for grace. Brooks and creeks diminish. God’s faithfulness doesn’t.
Prayer:
Too often, Lord God, our faith grows small as we see the brook running dry. We feel cheated or deceived. Teach us through the prophet Elijah to look to you rather than flowing streams, whether of water or money, good fortune or good health. In the coming days of this year accomplish your purposes for us, reminding us that you work for our good in all things. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Advent Reflections on the Magi: A Perfectly Good Waste of Time
After Jesus was born . . . Magi from the east came to Jerusalem (Matt. 2:1).
On the way into work this morning I was honked at twice. The first time I deserved it. I’ll not go into details, but the honker was within their honking rights. The second time was unnecessary. I was a little slow moving at a green light. The person behind me quickly concluded that I needed some encouragement. That one bothered me.
In addition to being honked at twice I’m very much aware of the fact that I nearly honked at other less competent drivers at least twice on my commute this morning - maybe three times. Again, details aren’t important. I’m also aware that the persons at whom my honks would have been directed were doing what I apparently did to someone else. They were impeding my progress, slowing me down, getting in the way.
I was reminded this morning that we’re all in such a hurry. To be deterred in the least is a terrible injustice in Atlanta. We’ve got to keep moving. I saw it in others around me. And most importantly I saw it in myself.
********
Yesterday a friend told me that she and her husband would be reading the scripture and lighting the advent candle in their church worship service this weekend. She shared this with obvious delight and just a touch of disbelief.
A few years ago she went to church here and there but her husband rarely went at all. About two years ago they tried a church that I had told her about not far from their home. Her husband started going with her. A few months ago he was baptized. And this Sunday they’ll play a role in leading worship.
“That’s called conversion,” I said when she told me what they were doing. She agreed with me that it didn’t happen quickly. What she and her husband will do this weekend was years in the making.
For all our hurrying, there are some things that simply will not be rushed. The journey to Jesus is one of those things.
********
The story of the Magi is in many ways a mirror of what happens every Christmas. The details have changed. Gone are the camels that we assume bore the three kings and their gifts. We know what gold is, but frankincense and myrrh rarely show up under our trees or in our celebrations.
The piece of the story that gets played out over and over is that somewhere, somehow people are slowly making their way toward Jesus. Even in a place like Atlanta, this is a journey that can’t be rushed.
Some have been en route for years. Others take a first step by reluctantly showing up at church. Whatever the journey looks like, the Spirit of God is working. Powerful Herod could not derail the Magi. He couldn’t lay claim to their trip and use it for his own advancement. The long journey to Jesus would not be stopped or hindered or thwarted.
Maybe you know someone who is making their way toward Jesus this Christmas. Maybe that someone is you. Take your time. This is God’s work, and God works in ways that we may not understand. Ask your questions – just as the Magi did. But keep following the star that prompted you to begin moving in the first place.
This is sometimes a long slow journey. But what seems so slow to us is the Spirit’s way of leading to Jesus – and that’s a perfectly good waste of time.
Prayer:
Draw us to yourself this Christmas, O Christ. Keep us moving, even if slowly. Guard us from being impatient with you and your Spirit. Forgive our tendency to set your schedule and dictate plans. Cause us to become humble followers, we pray. Amen.
On the way into work this morning I was honked at twice. The first time I deserved it. I’ll not go into details, but the honker was within their honking rights. The second time was unnecessary. I was a little slow moving at a green light. The person behind me quickly concluded that I needed some encouragement. That one bothered me.
In addition to being honked at twice I’m very much aware of the fact that I nearly honked at other less competent drivers at least twice on my commute this morning - maybe three times. Again, details aren’t important. I’m also aware that the persons at whom my honks would have been directed were doing what I apparently did to someone else. They were impeding my progress, slowing me down, getting in the way.
I was reminded this morning that we’re all in such a hurry. To be deterred in the least is a terrible injustice in Atlanta. We’ve got to keep moving. I saw it in others around me. And most importantly I saw it in myself.
********
A few years ago she went to church here and there but her husband rarely went at all. About two years ago they tried a church that I had told her about not far from their home. Her husband started going with her. A few months ago he was baptized. And this Sunday they’ll play a role in leading worship.
“That’s called conversion,” I said when she told me what they were doing. She agreed with me that it didn’t happen quickly. What she and her husband will do this weekend was years in the making.
For all our hurrying, there are some things that simply will not be rushed. The journey to Jesus is one of those things.
********
The story of the Magi is in many ways a mirror of what happens every Christmas. The details have changed. Gone are the camels that we assume bore the three kings and their gifts. We know what gold is, but frankincense and myrrh rarely show up under our trees or in our celebrations.
The piece of the story that gets played out over and over is that somewhere, somehow people are slowly making their way toward Jesus. Even in a place like Atlanta, this is a journey that can’t be rushed.
Some have been en route for years. Others take a first step by reluctantly showing up at church. Whatever the journey looks like, the Spirit of God is working. Powerful Herod could not derail the Magi. He couldn’t lay claim to their trip and use it for his own advancement. The long journey to Jesus would not be stopped or hindered or thwarted.
Maybe you know someone who is making their way toward Jesus this Christmas. Maybe that someone is you. Take your time. This is God’s work, and God works in ways that we may not understand. Ask your questions – just as the Magi did. But keep following the star that prompted you to begin moving in the first place.
This is sometimes a long slow journey. But what seems so slow to us is the Spirit’s way of leading to Jesus – and that’s a perfectly good waste of time.
Prayer:
Draw us to yourself this Christmas, O Christ. Keep us moving, even if slowly. Guard us from being impatient with you and your Spirit. Forgive our tendency to set your schedule and dictate plans. Cause us to become humble followers, we pray. Amen.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Advent Reflections on the Magi: It Takes a While to Get There
Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1-2).
Wise men came from the east.
That’s vague. The same could be said of three professors who show up at Peachtree church from UGA, making their way from Athens to Buckhead. What is east? Who are these visitors to Bethlehem and where have they come from?
Few scholars have examined those questions as thoroughly as Raymond Brown in his monumental work The Birth of the Messiah. Hint: Don’t take this one to the beach. Brown explores possible answers to these questions and the most reasonable arguments for each. A quick summary might be as follows: Matthew’s Greek word “magoi” can mean “magician” or “astrologer” Given the prominence of a star in Matthew’s story “astrologer” seems like the best answer.
“The east” can be Persia, Babylon, or Arabia. Again, the best option is Persia. To know why, consult Brown.
Wherever these star-gazing scholars came from, this much is clear. Getting from where they were to where they wanted to be was a very long journey. By the time they arrived in Judea the infant Jesus is no longer an infant. Our manger scenes, featuring a post-partum Mary surrounded by the shepherds and magi from the east isn’t quite right. The magi were late to the party. Late but not left out.
Eventually they made it. They came to the place where Jesus was, they fell before the child and worshiped him and presented gifts. What they sought, they found – it just took a while to get there.
********
Once the dishes have been put away after the Thanksgiving meal, most of us set a course for Christmas. Some waste no time getting the journey started. Thanksgiving weekend is the time to buy the tree and decorate the house. Perhaps for love of the seasonal d̩cor Рor perhaps because December's merciless schedule will not allow a time to do that kind of thing.
Others of us need a little more warm-up time. Having resisted the siren call of retailers to get ready for Christmas in mid-October, we find we can’t quite work up the momentum we need to embrace December and all that comes with it.
At some point, however, we start the pilgrimage toward the Christ child. We take our first weary steps toward the little town of Bethlehem, fully intending to take our place ‘round yon virgin.
And maybe at some point we realize that the distance to that place of worship and adoration is much further than we thought. The calendar threatens us. December 25 is fast approaching and there’s nothing you can do to slow it down. It approaches at what feels like lightning speed.
But you’re just not there. Your mind is distracted; your heart is crowded with other matters; your body is tired; your schedule is relentless. We all want to arrive at the place where we kneel in glad and humble worship before this child, this King. It just takes a while to get there.
Take encouragement from three visitors from the east who would not be deterred. Stay on this journey. Go hard after God until you find your kneeling place. It’s really about the worship, not the calendar. And it’s never too late for that. You can reach the place of worship – even if it takes a little while to get there.
Prayer:
We would seek you, O God, with determined hearts this Christmas season. Lead us with your light to the place of true worship. Sustain us through detours of busy-ness and the burdens that stretch us thin these days. Grant us joy in this journey, we pray. Amen.
Wise men came from the east.
That’s vague. The same could be said of three professors who show up at Peachtree church from UGA, making their way from Athens to Buckhead. What is east? Who are these visitors to Bethlehem and where have they come from?
Few scholars have examined those questions as thoroughly as Raymond Brown in his monumental work The Birth of the Messiah. Hint: Don’t take this one to the beach. Brown explores possible answers to these questions and the most reasonable arguments for each. A quick summary might be as follows: Matthew’s Greek word “magoi” can mean “magician” or “astrologer” Given the prominence of a star in Matthew’s story “astrologer” seems like the best answer.
“The east” can be Persia, Babylon, or Arabia. Again, the best option is Persia. To know why, consult Brown.
Wherever these star-gazing scholars came from, this much is clear. Getting from where they were to where they wanted to be was a very long journey. By the time they arrived in Judea the infant Jesus is no longer an infant. Our manger scenes, featuring a post-partum Mary surrounded by the shepherds and magi from the east isn’t quite right. The magi were late to the party. Late but not left out.
Eventually they made it. They came to the place where Jesus was, they fell before the child and worshiped him and presented gifts. What they sought, they found – it just took a while to get there.
********
Others of us need a little more warm-up time. Having resisted the siren call of retailers to get ready for Christmas in mid-October, we find we can’t quite work up the momentum we need to embrace December and all that comes with it.
At some point, however, we start the pilgrimage toward the Christ child. We take our first weary steps toward the little town of Bethlehem, fully intending to take our place ‘round yon virgin.
And maybe at some point we realize that the distance to that place of worship and adoration is much further than we thought. The calendar threatens us. December 25 is fast approaching and there’s nothing you can do to slow it down. It approaches at what feels like lightning speed.
But you’re just not there. Your mind is distracted; your heart is crowded with other matters; your body is tired; your schedule is relentless. We all want to arrive at the place where we kneel in glad and humble worship before this child, this King. It just takes a while to get there.
Take encouragement from three visitors from the east who would not be deterred. Stay on this journey. Go hard after God until you find your kneeling place. It’s really about the worship, not the calendar. And it’s never too late for that. You can reach the place of worship – even if it takes a little while to get there.
Prayer:
We would seek you, O God, with determined hearts this Christmas season. Lead us with your light to the place of true worship. Sustain us through detours of busy-ness and the burdens that stretch us thin these days. Grant us joy in this journey, we pray. Amen.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Advent Reflections on Joseph: The Power of "With"
The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23).
Whether in story or song, we yearn for resolution. We don’t always get it. Some musical composers seem to delight in the discordant, regarding the unfinished sound as artistry. Some writers leave us wondering and guessing, regarding the jagged edges of the tale as closer to reality. They may be right.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the ear and the mind instinctively seek resolution. We want the chords to progress in such a way that we hear and feel the conclusion of the piece. We like for the varied plot-lines of the story to come together in such way that the fragments form a unified whole. “They lived happily ever after” is what we like to hear.
Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth lacks resolution. As we typically read it and hear it read, the story ends nicely enough with Joseph taking Mary as his wife. But while this ending is simple, it isn’t neat. Much is left untold.
The fall-out from the marriage remains untold. Craig Keener writes that “Joseph’s obedience to God cost him the right to value his own reputation.” And then there’s the little detail about “having no union with her” until the birth of Jesus. They’re married, but not fully married. This isn’t quite happily ever after. Resolution eludes us at the end of Matthew’s story.
There is one line however that helps us make sense of what Joseph did and how he did it. When the Angel spoke the words that the prophet Isaiah had spoken long ago, the child is identified as Immanuel – “God with us.”
********
“God with us.” That truth is at the core of the Christmas story, and in some way it is at the core of our own stories as well - especially the messy stories, the stories that lack resolution and leave us groping about for what’s next.
The power of “with” changes everything, precisely because it is truly “with.” God present in the varied realities of this day: God with us in all places and all circumstances. God with us in offices and malls, in gyms and courtrooms, on airplanes and tennis courts. God with us in illnesses and in our sleep, in heartache and in love.
The power of “with” tells us that God is not simply “above”: Aloof, distant, watching to see how we’ll manage and whether we’ll screw up. And it also tells us that God is not “against.” The messy story you’re living right now is not punishment or revenge.
We tend to think that when God is with us, the story will always resolve. We sometimes doubt “God with us” because if it were true, life would surely look differently than it does today. Joseph wouldn’t be stuck in a celibate marriage with a pregnant wife, and we’d be getting something other than we’ve got as well.
But “God with us” means that God enters fully into the life you have right now. And if God embraces your life, maybe you can embrace it too. You can do the hard thing and accept the difficult reality – just as Joseph did. And you can do it with deep peace and bold confidence, knowing that ultimately in all things God is working for your good. All things will one day resolve, and until then we live in faith obedience. That’s the power of “with.”
Prayer:
I will claim the Angel’s words to Joseph as your promise to me, O God. You are with us. In Jesus you entered fully into the experience of life and embraced it all. Because you are with us we can do the same. Grant us the gift of your Spirit that we might live fully in you presence today. Amen.
Whether in story or song, we yearn for resolution. We don’t always get it. Some musical composers seem to delight in the discordant, regarding the unfinished sound as artistry. Some writers leave us wondering and guessing, regarding the jagged edges of the tale as closer to reality. They may be right.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the ear and the mind instinctively seek resolution. We want the chords to progress in such a way that we hear and feel the conclusion of the piece. We like for the varied plot-lines of the story to come together in such way that the fragments form a unified whole. “They lived happily ever after” is what we like to hear.
Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth lacks resolution. As we typically read it and hear it read, the story ends nicely enough with Joseph taking Mary as his wife. But while this ending is simple, it isn’t neat. Much is left untold.
The fall-out from the marriage remains untold. Craig Keener writes that “Joseph’s obedience to God cost him the right to value his own reputation.” And then there’s the little detail about “having no union with her” until the birth of Jesus. They’re married, but not fully married. This isn’t quite happily ever after. Resolution eludes us at the end of Matthew’s story.
There is one line however that helps us make sense of what Joseph did and how he did it. When the Angel spoke the words that the prophet Isaiah had spoken long ago, the child is identified as Immanuel – “God with us.”
********
“God with us.” That truth is at the core of the Christmas story, and in some way it is at the core of our own stories as well - especially the messy stories, the stories that lack resolution and leave us groping about for what’s next.
The power of “with” changes everything, precisely because it is truly “with.” God present in the varied realities of this day: God with us in all places and all circumstances. God with us in offices and malls, in gyms and courtrooms, on airplanes and tennis courts. God with us in illnesses and in our sleep, in heartache and in love.
The power of “with” tells us that God is not simply “above”: Aloof, distant, watching to see how we’ll manage and whether we’ll screw up. And it also tells us that God is not “against.” The messy story you’re living right now is not punishment or revenge.
We tend to think that when God is with us, the story will always resolve. We sometimes doubt “God with us” because if it were true, life would surely look differently than it does today. Joseph wouldn’t be stuck in a celibate marriage with a pregnant wife, and we’d be getting something other than we’ve got as well.
But “God with us” means that God enters fully into the life you have right now. And if God embraces your life, maybe you can embrace it too. You can do the hard thing and accept the difficult reality – just as Joseph did. And you can do it with deep peace and bold confidence, knowing that ultimately in all things God is working for your good. All things will one day resolve, and until then we live in faith obedience. That’s the power of “with.”
Prayer:
I will claim the Angel’s words to Joseph as your promise to me, O God. You are with us. In Jesus you entered fully into the experience of life and embraced it all. Because you are with us we can do the same. Grant us the gift of your Spirit that we might live fully in you presence today. Amen.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Advent Reflections on Joseph: Plans
Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph . . . (Matt. 1:18).
It was a simple plan, well tested and widely practiced. Everyone knew how it went. It was life-changing but it wasn’t complicated. Joseph and Mary would become husband and wife. The plan had been in place for a while, blessed by both families. The process was clear and the anticipation was high. It was a good plan. This is what a young man and a young woman were supposed to do.
This plan had a way of creating momentum for other plans. The wedding would one day be followed by children. The children would require Joseph to invest himself in his trade and create a flourishing business. So many plans and all of them good.
And then, at the height of anticipation, the plan unraveled. As one plan caved, a chain reaction was unleashed in Joseph’s soul and he saw all of his plans shredded, every dream disintegrating like a lump of sugar in hot tea.
The undreamed of and the unimaginable shoved aside the imagined future. An unplanned pregnancy and all that comes with it: questions and speculation, shame and scorn.
And so Joseph devised another plan: a quiet divorce. Damage control. It was the best he could do. He would do what God’s law required while guarding Mary’s reputation as much as he could.
But while Joseph was grieving the death of his dreams and scurrying for an alternative plan, trying to make the best out of what couldn’t have been any worse, he was told that the whole mess was actually part of a much larger plan. This pregnancy was of the Holy Spirit, and through it God was working to save his people from their sin.
Joseph’s life wasn’t being lived according to his own plan; his life was part of a plan that he never dreamed of. The plan at the center of his life was God’s plan – and God’s plan was being worked out while Joseph’s plans were falling apart.
********
On the day that Mary and Joseph met, Jesus was already planned and the work of salvation through him was fully formed in God’s mind.
Go back further. On the day Joseph and Mary’s grandparents met, Jesus was already planned. The story Matthew tells us goes back as far as the prophet Isaiah to show us that Jesus was a well formed plan in God’s salvation story.
There is truth in this familiar Christmas story that serves to anchor us when our plans are falling apart – and at Christmas plans are especially vulnerable to falling apart. The big meal didn’t turn out right, the family gathering was awkward, the gifts didn’t fit or missed the mark in some other way, the flight was delayed or the trip was canceled altogether.
We picture the perfect Christmas, but rarely get it. And we picture the dream life but don’t see the dream become reality. Joseph’s story is our story, and it is retold day after day.
But the anchor is this: there is a plan bigger than the one you placed on your calendar. There’s a dream larger than the one you direct while also playing the starring role. God has a plan and this plan will not unravel. It is a plan to reclaim and restore a broken, messed up world. God is always carrying out his plans and purposes – and you are invited to be a part of that story.
God’s plans are being worked out, even when your plans are falling apart. What have you got planned for today? What might God have planned for you?
Prayer:
Gracious God, we wake up and enter every day with plans, both large and small. We dream of our future and schedule meetings. We interview for jobs and book flights. We spend our days planning. And when our plans fall apart the true source of our faith and hope is revealed. Help us to trust you with this day’s plans, and with all that we dream about for our lives. Include us in your story, we pray, and work out your plan for us in all that we do. Amen.
It was a simple plan, well tested and widely practiced. Everyone knew how it went. It was life-changing but it wasn’t complicated. Joseph and Mary would become husband and wife. The plan had been in place for a while, blessed by both families. The process was clear and the anticipation was high. It was a good plan. This is what a young man and a young woman were supposed to do.
This plan had a way of creating momentum for other plans. The wedding would one day be followed by children. The children would require Joseph to invest himself in his trade and create a flourishing business. So many plans and all of them good.
And then, at the height of anticipation, the plan unraveled. As one plan caved, a chain reaction was unleashed in Joseph’s soul and he saw all of his plans shredded, every dream disintegrating like a lump of sugar in hot tea.
The undreamed of and the unimaginable shoved aside the imagined future. An unplanned pregnancy and all that comes with it: questions and speculation, shame and scorn.
And so Joseph devised another plan: a quiet divorce. Damage control. It was the best he could do. He would do what God’s law required while guarding Mary’s reputation as much as he could.
But while Joseph was grieving the death of his dreams and scurrying for an alternative plan, trying to make the best out of what couldn’t have been any worse, he was told that the whole mess was actually part of a much larger plan. This pregnancy was of the Holy Spirit, and through it God was working to save his people from their sin.
Joseph’s life wasn’t being lived according to his own plan; his life was part of a plan that he never dreamed of. The plan at the center of his life was God’s plan – and God’s plan was being worked out while Joseph’s plans were falling apart.
********
On the day that Mary and Joseph met, Jesus was already planned and the work of salvation through him was fully formed in God’s mind.
Go back further. On the day Joseph and Mary’s grandparents met, Jesus was already planned. The story Matthew tells us goes back as far as the prophet Isaiah to show us that Jesus was a well formed plan in God’s salvation story.
There is truth in this familiar Christmas story that serves to anchor us when our plans are falling apart – and at Christmas plans are especially vulnerable to falling apart. The big meal didn’t turn out right, the family gathering was awkward, the gifts didn’t fit or missed the mark in some other way, the flight was delayed or the trip was canceled altogether.
We picture the perfect Christmas, but rarely get it. And we picture the dream life but don’t see the dream become reality. Joseph’s story is our story, and it is retold day after day.
But the anchor is this: there is a plan bigger than the one you placed on your calendar. There’s a dream larger than the one you direct while also playing the starring role. God has a plan and this plan will not unravel. It is a plan to reclaim and restore a broken, messed up world. God is always carrying out his plans and purposes – and you are invited to be a part of that story.
God’s plans are being worked out, even when your plans are falling apart. What have you got planned for today? What might God have planned for you?
Prayer:
Gracious God, we wake up and enter every day with plans, both large and small. We dream of our future and schedule meetings. We interview for jobs and book flights. We spend our days planning. And when our plans fall apart the true source of our faith and hope is revealed. Help us to trust you with this day’s plans, and with all that we dream about for our lives. Include us in your story, we pray, and work out your plan for us in all that we do. Amen.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Advent Reflections on Joseph: Waiting and Wrestling
Because Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly (Matt. 1:19).
Until I received the email from my son’s wrestling coach last week, I had no idea what I was in for. The world of middle school wrestling is uncharted territory for me. The email did us the favor of not sugar-coating what Saturday’s tournament would be like. “This will be the longest day of our season.”
I had to have my son on the team bus by 6:00 a.m. and myself in McDonough by 9:00 a.m. But the email couldn’t really prepare me for what I experienced this past Saturday. The place was loud and raucous and I knew immediately that I had been a fool for bringing a book along with me, although I wasn’t the only one (and I did see one dad with his laptop).
The tournament was double-elimination. The main gym at Union Grove High School in McDonough had six mats with matches happening simultaneously all day long; another area had two more mats for more advanced wrestlers.
My son lost his first match. At least one more to go. His next match was placed on the schedule and we had about an hour long wait. He won that time. The next match was placed on the schedule. More waiting. Then he won again. His next match was placed on the schedule followed by still more waiting. And then he won yet again. After more waiting he had his fifth match of the day – and that’s when it ended for him. But by that time it was almost 5:00 pm.
I learned plenty about wrestling on Saturday. I learned that a wrestling match can be over in a hurry. This is nothing like watching your kid play baseball. Even a match that lasts a good while is over in a matter of minutes. And I also learned that there are long stretches of waiting.
In a wrestling tournament, good wrestling and long waiting are a package deal.
The story of Joseph’s discovery of Mary’s pregnancy is a wrestling story. Matthew gives it to us in spare language. Mary is pledged to Joseph, the marital commitment in place without the full benefits and living arrangements of the marital relationship. This is when Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant. And this is when the wrestling begins, unseen and yet strenuous. Joseph grappling with God, grappling with his own heart and mind.
Again, Matthew shows us none of this except to say that Joseph “considered” how he could divorce Mary quietly and thus protect her from public disgrace. But can such “considering” be anything less than anguish and pain? How long did he “consider?” How many sleepless nights, how many bitter questions hurled at heaven? How many tense conversations with his beloved? How many fake smiles at neighbors as if all was well?
And even once the Angel has appeared and Joseph has taken Mary as is wife, the difficulties are hardly over. Craig Keener notes that Joseph’s decision to go ahead with his marriage was a decision to sacrifice his own reputation. The wrestling surely didn’t stop. Wrestling mingled with waiting until the birth in the Bethlehem stable.
Many of us come to Advent wrestling and waiting; life has us in a head-lock and we’re trying desperately to find the right move that will loosen its grip. With the Psalmist we ask “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?” (Ps. 13:2). Christmas doesn’t change the fact that we’re wrestling with decisions that need to be made, decisions we wish could make over again, afflicted bodies, conflicted relationships and competing expectations. We wrestle through one challenge only to face another.
But in the midst of the wrestling, Joseph’s and ours, there is this assurance: the Holy Spirit is at work. To see it may require waiting, long waiting and still more wrestling. But God is active in your wrestling story.
What opponent will you wrestle today?
Prayer:
Grant to us, O God, the patience to trust you in all things and the strength to wrestle long until we see your hand at work: show your hand in the difficult situations, the perplexing questions, the stubborn circumstances that refuse to budge. Be present with us in the struggles of this day, making us confident as we wrestle and wait in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Until I received the email from my son’s wrestling coach last week, I had no idea what I was in for. The world of middle school wrestling is uncharted territory for me. The email did us the favor of not sugar-coating what Saturday’s tournament would be like. “This will be the longest day of our season.”
I had to have my son on the team bus by 6:00 a.m. and myself in McDonough by 9:00 a.m. But the email couldn’t really prepare me for what I experienced this past Saturday. The place was loud and raucous and I knew immediately that I had been a fool for bringing a book along with me, although I wasn’t the only one (and I did see one dad with his laptop).
The tournament was double-elimination. The main gym at Union Grove High School in McDonough had six mats with matches happening simultaneously all day long; another area had two more mats for more advanced wrestlers.
My son lost his first match. At least one more to go. His next match was placed on the schedule and we had about an hour long wait. He won that time. The next match was placed on the schedule. More waiting. Then he won again. His next match was placed on the schedule followed by still more waiting. And then he won yet again. After more waiting he had his fifth match of the day – and that’s when it ended for him. But by that time it was almost 5:00 pm.
I learned plenty about wrestling on Saturday. I learned that a wrestling match can be over in a hurry. This is nothing like watching your kid play baseball. Even a match that lasts a good while is over in a matter of minutes. And I also learned that there are long stretches of waiting.
In a wrestling tournament, good wrestling and long waiting are a package deal.
********
The story of Joseph’s discovery of Mary’s pregnancy is a wrestling story. Matthew gives it to us in spare language. Mary is pledged to Joseph, the marital commitment in place without the full benefits and living arrangements of the marital relationship. This is when Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant. And this is when the wrestling begins, unseen and yet strenuous. Joseph grappling with God, grappling with his own heart and mind.
Again, Matthew shows us none of this except to say that Joseph “considered” how he could divorce Mary quietly and thus protect her from public disgrace. But can such “considering” be anything less than anguish and pain? How long did he “consider?” How many sleepless nights, how many bitter questions hurled at heaven? How many tense conversations with his beloved? How many fake smiles at neighbors as if all was well?
And even once the Angel has appeared and Joseph has taken Mary as is wife, the difficulties are hardly over. Craig Keener notes that Joseph’s decision to go ahead with his marriage was a decision to sacrifice his own reputation. The wrestling surely didn’t stop. Wrestling mingled with waiting until the birth in the Bethlehem stable.
Many of us come to Advent wrestling and waiting; life has us in a head-lock and we’re trying desperately to find the right move that will loosen its grip. With the Psalmist we ask “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?” (Ps. 13:2). Christmas doesn’t change the fact that we’re wrestling with decisions that need to be made, decisions we wish could make over again, afflicted bodies, conflicted relationships and competing expectations. We wrestle through one challenge only to face another.
But in the midst of the wrestling, Joseph’s and ours, there is this assurance: the Holy Spirit is at work. To see it may require waiting, long waiting and still more wrestling. But God is active in your wrestling story.
What opponent will you wrestle today?
Prayer:
Grant to us, O God, the patience to trust you in all things and the strength to wrestle long until we see your hand at work: show your hand in the difficult situations, the perplexing questions, the stubborn circumstances that refuse to budge. Be present with us in the struggles of this day, making us confident as we wrestle and wait in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Advent Reflections on Simeon: Cradling Salvation
Simeon took him in his arms and praised God . . . (Luke 2:28)
In the churches that introduced me to Jesus and nurtured my faith, Baptism was a sloppy affair. You had to change your clothes, put on a white robe, hold your nose and allow the pastor to lower you backwards all the way under, at least until the water completely covered your face. That kind of baptism demonstrated real faith – not only in Jesus as Lord and Savior, but in the person who held you and lowered you into the “watery grave.”
I love immersion baptism – the kind where the water doesn’t go on you; you go in the water. When I met with the Presbytery’s committee on ministry in order to become a card-carrying Presby Pastor, they questioned me about some of my reservations about leaving the tradition that had shaped my faith and educated me for ministry. I only had one: “You people don’t use enough water,” I said. They laughed. “How much does it take,” one of them replied.
Let me hasten to add that I love infant baptism too. I’ll confess that I’m probably not able to articulate the most cogent and compelling argument for why we baptize babies. Focus on the word “baptism” in infant baptism and you can end up mired in some thorny theological and biblical questions.
What draws me to infant baptism isn’t the word “baptism.” Rather, it’s the word “infant.” Sure, the act or “sacrament” of infant baptism says something profound about the nature of God’s grace. But on a far more practical level, there’s something very special about holding someone else’s baby and speaking blessing over that child.
Some babies don’t like to be held by the pastor. Some parents bring young ones for baptism who are well beyond infancy and can actually run from you (I’ve had that happen). But some sleep in your arms and still others look at you like they understand clearly every word you’re saying as you name Father, Son and Holy Spirit over them.
It is a great privilege, a sacred moment, when parents place their child in your arms for a word of blessing.
The story of Simeon is always told at or near the Christmas season. It is numbered among the biblical texts that we associate with the birth of Jesus. But among these nativity stories, Simeon is the only one who actually takes the infant into his arms. His song gives thanks to God that “my eyes have seen your salvation.” But Simeon doesn’t merely see salvation. He cradles it, holds it close, pulls it to himself in an intimate act of worship.
The Shepherds rushed to the stable to “see this thing that has happened.” As best we can tell, their encounter with Jesus was one of seeing and beholding. The magi also journeyed to find the child. Their worship was expressed in the bringing of gifts. There are angels who sing and animals who witness the event. Even in the temple that day the elderly Anna gave thanks to God and spoke of the child (the first woman preacher). But Simeon takes the baby into his arms.
In these days of Advent Simeon’s example invites us to ponder our own response to the birth of Jesus and the salvation accomplished through him. Specifically, we are invited to be more than spectators and observers. We are challenged to do more than give gifts. We are reminded that Christmas can mean more than speaking about Jesus’ birth.
God’s saving work through Jesus is meant to be embraced. As Simeon’s words make clear, this salvation is being prepared in the sight of all people – but many people at Christmas are simply too busy too embrace it. Some find it too familiar. They talk about it, they watch the story from their pew, but have yet to take the Christ into their arms and cradle the God’s work of salvation as their own.
How will you encounter the Christ child this year? Have you embraced God’s saving work as your own?
Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for your saving work in Jesus Christ. We marvel that this work is for all nations, prepared in the sight of all people. Knowing that we cannot share what we do not possess ourselves, we will embrace this salvation and hold it close. Change us and save us – and empower us to share the good news of salvation with the world. Amen.
In the churches that introduced me to Jesus and nurtured my faith, Baptism was a sloppy affair. You had to change your clothes, put on a white robe, hold your nose and allow the pastor to lower you backwards all the way under, at least until the water completely covered your face. That kind of baptism demonstrated real faith – not only in Jesus as Lord and Savior, but in the person who held you and lowered you into the “watery grave.”
I love immersion baptism – the kind where the water doesn’t go on you; you go in the water. When I met with the Presbytery’s committee on ministry in order to become a card-carrying Presby Pastor, they questioned me about some of my reservations about leaving the tradition that had shaped my faith and educated me for ministry. I only had one: “You people don’t use enough water,” I said. They laughed. “How much does it take,” one of them replied.
Let me hasten to add that I love infant baptism too. I’ll confess that I’m probably not able to articulate the most cogent and compelling argument for why we baptize babies. Focus on the word “baptism” in infant baptism and you can end up mired in some thorny theological and biblical questions.
What draws me to infant baptism isn’t the word “baptism.” Rather, it’s the word “infant.” Sure, the act or “sacrament” of infant baptism says something profound about the nature of God’s grace. But on a far more practical level, there’s something very special about holding someone else’s baby and speaking blessing over that child.
Some babies don’t like to be held by the pastor. Some parents bring young ones for baptism who are well beyond infancy and can actually run from you (I’ve had that happen). But some sleep in your arms and still others look at you like they understand clearly every word you’re saying as you name Father, Son and Holy Spirit over them.
It is a great privilege, a sacred moment, when parents place their child in your arms for a word of blessing.
********
This is the moment of the Simeon story that holds my attention today. Luke narrates the scene in a terse sentence or two. Mary and Joseph arrive at the Temple to present their son, and the next thing we know Simeon has the child in his arms, praising God with prayerful song.The story of Simeon is always told at or near the Christmas season. It is numbered among the biblical texts that we associate with the birth of Jesus. But among these nativity stories, Simeon is the only one who actually takes the infant into his arms. His song gives thanks to God that “my eyes have seen your salvation.” But Simeon doesn’t merely see salvation. He cradles it, holds it close, pulls it to himself in an intimate act of worship.
The Shepherds rushed to the stable to “see this thing that has happened.” As best we can tell, their encounter with Jesus was one of seeing and beholding. The magi also journeyed to find the child. Their worship was expressed in the bringing of gifts. There are angels who sing and animals who witness the event. Even in the temple that day the elderly Anna gave thanks to God and spoke of the child (the first woman preacher). But Simeon takes the baby into his arms.
In these days of Advent Simeon’s example invites us to ponder our own response to the birth of Jesus and the salvation accomplished through him. Specifically, we are invited to be more than spectators and observers. We are challenged to do more than give gifts. We are reminded that Christmas can mean more than speaking about Jesus’ birth.
God’s saving work through Jesus is meant to be embraced. As Simeon’s words make clear, this salvation is being prepared in the sight of all people – but many people at Christmas are simply too busy too embrace it. Some find it too familiar. They talk about it, they watch the story from their pew, but have yet to take the Christ into their arms and cradle the God’s work of salvation as their own.
How will you encounter the Christ child this year? Have you embraced God’s saving work as your own?
Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for your saving work in Jesus Christ. We marvel that this work is for all nations, prepared in the sight of all people. Knowing that we cannot share what we do not possess ourselves, we will embrace this salvation and hold it close. Change us and save us – and empower us to share the good news of salvation with the world. Amen.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Advent Reflections on Simeon: The Spirit of Obedience
Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to he Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every first born male is to be consecrated to the Lord.”). (Luke 2:22-23).
She was wide awake long before she needed to be. She hadn’t slept much and what sleep she managed was light, easily interrupted by every sound that came from her baby boy. Even when the baby slept soundly she would lie awake and listen to his breathing. Sometimes she stared into the dark just waiting for the arrival of morning’s first light and the moment when she could nudge Joseph and tell him it was time to get ready. She had been waiting for this day for weeks.
Today they would take their month old son and present him at the temple.
Since the day of his birth they had known they would make this trip to Jerusalem. They knew this because the practice was established by God in the days of Moses. For centuries this is what the faithful had done in keeping with God’s law.
The presentation of their baby at the temple wasn’t their idea. It wasn’t something they discussed as a nice opportunity to make a family memory. It was never regarded as something they chose to do. They were commanded to do it. Even the timing of the trip was set forth in the Law. The time for Mary’s purification following childbirth had to be completed (Lev. 12:1-5). So it now was, and so they would go.
The temple presentation was an act of obedience.
********
As Mary and Joseph made their way to the temple that day another man was doing the same thing. This man was not presenting a child. Those days were long gone for him. He was, like the young couple, a man who cared about the Law of God. He was righteous and devout. He knew what God had said and he lived his life according to what God had spoken.
But the defining characteristic of Simeon’s life was his intimate fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit. Yes, Simeon knew the Law, but he was one upon whom the Spirit of God rested. The Spirit had conveyed to Simeon a very significant promise. And when Simeon made his way to the temple that day he did so led by the Spirit.
Simeon arrived at the temple because he knew within himself that the Spirit was prompting him to go there.
********
And so they met. An encounter orchestrated by God, a confluence of obedience to the Law and sensitive response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. An obedient life and a Spirit-led life came together around the person of Jesus. So it is even now, this day. So it is for you.
Responsiveness to the leading of the Spirit and obedience to the written word of God are never two separate ways of living the life of faith. Think long and hard about any kind of spiritual talk that speaks of “fresh winds” of the Spirit that blow in a direction counter to the plainly written words of God in scripture. When Jesus is held at the center of a life of faith, obedience to the law of God and sensitivity to the Spirit of God will meet, congruent and inseparable.
This has implications for how we live our days. Obedience is never mere obedience, gritting our teeth with determined resolve to do what’s right even if we hate it and even if it kills us. And sensitivity to the Spirit is never vague impulse or a wave of sincere feeling. True God-honoring obedience is made possible by the Spirit, and sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading is shaped by the word.
Following the Spirit, obeying the Law: which of these comes easiest to you? Answer this truthfully, and then pray earnestly for the other.
Prayer:
Lead me this day, O God, in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary: Attentive and obedient to what your word says. Lead me also in the footsteps of Simeon: Sensitive and responsive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Help me to live this day in the Spirit of obedience, to the glory of your name. Amen.
She was wide awake long before she needed to be. She hadn’t slept much and what sleep she managed was light, easily interrupted by every sound that came from her baby boy. Even when the baby slept soundly she would lie awake and listen to his breathing. Sometimes she stared into the dark just waiting for the arrival of morning’s first light and the moment when she could nudge Joseph and tell him it was time to get ready. She had been waiting for this day for weeks.
Today they would take their month old son and present him at the temple.
Since the day of his birth they had known they would make this trip to Jerusalem. They knew this because the practice was established by God in the days of Moses. For centuries this is what the faithful had done in keeping with God’s law.
The presentation of their baby at the temple wasn’t their idea. It wasn’t something they discussed as a nice opportunity to make a family memory. It was never regarded as something they chose to do. They were commanded to do it. Even the timing of the trip was set forth in the Law. The time for Mary’s purification following childbirth had to be completed (Lev. 12:1-5). So it now was, and so they would go.
The temple presentation was an act of obedience.
********
But the defining characteristic of Simeon’s life was his intimate fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit. Yes, Simeon knew the Law, but he was one upon whom the Spirit of God rested. The Spirit had conveyed to Simeon a very significant promise. And when Simeon made his way to the temple that day he did so led by the Spirit.
Simeon arrived at the temple because he knew within himself that the Spirit was prompting him to go there.
********
Responsiveness to the leading of the Spirit and obedience to the written word of God are never two separate ways of living the life of faith. Think long and hard about any kind of spiritual talk that speaks of “fresh winds” of the Spirit that blow in a direction counter to the plainly written words of God in scripture. When Jesus is held at the center of a life of faith, obedience to the law of God and sensitivity to the Spirit of God will meet, congruent and inseparable.
This has implications for how we live our days. Obedience is never mere obedience, gritting our teeth with determined resolve to do what’s right even if we hate it and even if it kills us. And sensitivity to the Spirit is never vague impulse or a wave of sincere feeling. True God-honoring obedience is made possible by the Spirit, and sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading is shaped by the word.
Following the Spirit, obeying the Law: which of these comes easiest to you? Answer this truthfully, and then pray earnestly for the other.
Prayer:
Lead me this day, O God, in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary: Attentive and obedient to what your word says. Lead me also in the footsteps of Simeon: Sensitive and responsive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Help me to live this day in the Spirit of obedience, to the glory of your name. Amen.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Advent Reflections on Simeon: Moment of Recognition
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ . . . (Luke 2:27-28).
How did he know? How did he know that they were the ones? How did he know that this was the child?
All he had been given was a promise. At some point in his life, at a time unknown to us, Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He had been told this would happen, but didn’t have clue as to when it would happen or who he was looking for. No details, no dates, no descriptions. Just a promise.
At first there was an excitement to all of this, an eager readiness to see what the Spirit had said he would see. Every day felt like the day. Every morning brimmed with possibility. Every occasion of temple worship was charged with the presence of the Holy. Something of enormous significance was about to happen. God was going to do a work which generations of faithful men and women had yearned to see. And Simeon would see it.
But years passed. The mornings became increasingly difficult for Simeon. He didn’t charge into the day with the same energy he once had. It took a while to get moving, and when he moved he moved slowly. The brimming possibility of each day had gradually become a wistful perhaps. He still went to the temple. He still said his prayers. After all, he was a righteous and devout man.
The years brought questions. There were moments when he wondered if he had misunderstood what the Spirit had conveyed to him years ago, but the nagging doubts never lingered long. With the passing of time Simeon had lost some energy, he had lost his wife. He had even lost most of his hair. But he never lost his conviction that God would one day bring salvation to Israel – and to the nations of the world as well. Simeon had been given a promise.
And the promise was enough. It was enough to get him out of bed each day, enough to strengthen his soul when his body was weak and tired, enough to comfort his heart when he felt alone, enough to keep him alert and attentive.
********
What we imagine to be true of Simeon’s life we know to be true for a fact of our own. Most of us know all too well how the life of faith soars and slumps. We live some of our days in eager pursuit of what God has for us, even if we’re not exactly sure what that is. God is at work in the world and we’re involved. And then there are days when we live as if by muscle memory, saying the right things, doing the right things, but we do so because that’s what we’ve always done.
The enemy of our faith rarely attacks us at the point of our deepest held beliefs. That is heavily defended territory for most of us, and Satan is smart enough to know it. Rather than a frontal attack on our beliefs, the enemy of our faith simply lulls us into inattention. We stop noticing the divine presence. We stop looking for God’s activity in our world. Today will be like yesterday, this year like last year. Our expectations flat-line.
What Simeon never stopped doing was paying attention. That’s how he knew. That’s how he spotted that particular couple and sensed something different about their baby. The long awaited moment of recognition came to a man who held fast to a promise and lived his days believing. That’s not easy to do.
This day is another opportunity to rub the crust from the eyes of your soul and pay attention. Advent is a deep yearning to see God at work in the world. The baby Simeon blessed in the temple that day would one day explain that the Spirit moves like wind. You can’t see where it comes from or where it is going, but you can notice where it is moving (John 3:8). And the moment of recognition belongs to those who pay attention.
Prayer:
Gracious God, I want to live my days like Simeon – grounded in the conviction that you are at work in this world. I confess that there are days when it’s hard to believe this, hard to see what you’re doing. Your absence seems obvious, your presence illusory. Help me to pay attention today and keep me alert for signs of your grace. I will hold to your promises confident that you are holding me as I wait and watch. Amen.
How did he know? How did he know that they were the ones? How did he know that this was the child?
All he had been given was a promise. At some point in his life, at a time unknown to us, Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He had been told this would happen, but didn’t have clue as to when it would happen or who he was looking for. No details, no dates, no descriptions. Just a promise.
At first there was an excitement to all of this, an eager readiness to see what the Spirit had said he would see. Every day felt like the day. Every morning brimmed with possibility. Every occasion of temple worship was charged with the presence of the Holy. Something of enormous significance was about to happen. God was going to do a work which generations of faithful men and women had yearned to see. And Simeon would see it.
But years passed. The mornings became increasingly difficult for Simeon. He didn’t charge into the day with the same energy he once had. It took a while to get moving, and when he moved he moved slowly. The brimming possibility of each day had gradually become a wistful perhaps. He still went to the temple. He still said his prayers. After all, he was a righteous and devout man.
The years brought questions. There were moments when he wondered if he had misunderstood what the Spirit had conveyed to him years ago, but the nagging doubts never lingered long. With the passing of time Simeon had lost some energy, he had lost his wife. He had even lost most of his hair. But he never lost his conviction that God would one day bring salvation to Israel – and to the nations of the world as well. Simeon had been given a promise.
And the promise was enough. It was enough to get him out of bed each day, enough to strengthen his soul when his body was weak and tired, enough to comfort his heart when he felt alone, enough to keep him alert and attentive.
********
The enemy of our faith rarely attacks us at the point of our deepest held beliefs. That is heavily defended territory for most of us, and Satan is smart enough to know it. Rather than a frontal attack on our beliefs, the enemy of our faith simply lulls us into inattention. We stop noticing the divine presence. We stop looking for God’s activity in our world. Today will be like yesterday, this year like last year. Our expectations flat-line.
What Simeon never stopped doing was paying attention. That’s how he knew. That’s how he spotted that particular couple and sensed something different about their baby. The long awaited moment of recognition came to a man who held fast to a promise and lived his days believing. That’s not easy to do.
This day is another opportunity to rub the crust from the eyes of your soul and pay attention. Advent is a deep yearning to see God at work in the world. The baby Simeon blessed in the temple that day would one day explain that the Spirit moves like wind. You can’t see where it comes from or where it is going, but you can notice where it is moving (John 3:8). And the moment of recognition belongs to those who pay attention.
Prayer:
Gracious God, I want to live my days like Simeon – grounded in the conviction that you are at work in this world. I confess that there are days when it’s hard to believe this, hard to see what you’re doing. Your absence seems obvious, your presence illusory. Help me to pay attention today and keep me alert for signs of your grace. I will hold to your promises confident that you are holding me as I wait and watch. Amen.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Advent Reflections on Simeon: The Work of Waiting
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon . . . He was waiting for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25).
Love is patient . . . (1 Corinthians 13:4).
It’s been snowing at my house.
Lightly, off and on. A sustained breeze will always bring a flurry and cover the grass with a fresh dusting – not of crystal flakes of frozen precipitation, but brown and brittle flakes from the large branches that canopy my yard. Sometimes the leaves fall and swirl with the intensity of a blizzard. They pile up ankle deep in some places. Unlike a real Georgia snow that often melts as soon as it hits the ground, these flakes must eventually be picked up. My son and I have had the joy of doing that.
My next door neighbor was digging out from under her own blizzard last week. I shouted across her driveway, “Feels like a waste of time doesn’t it?” “It never stops,” she answered.
She’s right. The leaves on the ground are one thing, but it’s the leaves that have yet to fall that mock me. Thousands of them are still clinging to branches. I imagine them hanging there, laughing at my labor, waiting for the very moment when the grass can be seen again and then letting go, floating slowly down like paratroopers on a mission, forcing me to wage war yet again armed with blower, leaf-vac and rake.
There’s a school of thought that says “don’t even bother.” Until every leaf is down it’s futile to pick them up. Maybe so. The truth is we’re all waiting: Waiting for this season to run its course. Waiting for the dead leaves to let go and be gone until spring brings new ones.
There’s a kind of waiting that atrophies into neglect. And then there’s a waiting that works. The work won’t hurry things along. It doesn’t exercise control or set the schedule. But it makes ready. The work is preparation for what will be. This kind of waiting is vigilant against inattention that slides toward forgetfulness and lands in despair.
Advent summons us to the work of waiting.
*********
Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. And he wasn’t the only one. Countless others were waiting or the same thing. Generations had waited and gone to their graves without ever having seen what they were waiting for. The expectation was that someday God would enter history and act on behalf of his people, setting the world right. In other words, God would bring salvation. That’s what Simeon was waiting for. That’s what his ancestors had longed to see.
But his waiting wasn’t passive. It was grounded in familiar acts of attention practiced in a familiar setting. This is a man who loved God and loved God’s law. That love was expressed in ordinary ways. What little we know of him suggests a life of faithful worship, regularly visiting the temple. Such practices constitute the work of waiting.
In one way or another it seems we spend our lives waiting: waiting for leaves to fall and market to go up, waiting for something or someone to change, for the big break or the breakthrough. Waiting is hard and the dangers for us lie in two directions: We get tired of waiting and decide to take charge and make something happen – or we get tired of waiting and stop caring, allowing our waiting to become neglect.
Perhaps the work of waiting is simply doing what you’ve been given to do today. Bring your life before God. Be obedient in familiar and simple things. Love your neighbor, pay attention to your family, tell the truth, do good work, bless others with your words, give thanks for good health and good food, for trees and sky and all kinds of weather.
Tend to that plot of ground that is your life; go ahead and rake the leaves. You’re not wasting time. You’re getting ready.
Prayer:
“Come, Thou long expected Jesus, Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in Thee. Israel’s Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.” (Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Charles Wesley, 1745).
Love is patient . . . (1 Corinthians 13:4).
It’s been snowing at my house.
Lightly, off and on. A sustained breeze will always bring a flurry and cover the grass with a fresh dusting – not of crystal flakes of frozen precipitation, but brown and brittle flakes from the large branches that canopy my yard. Sometimes the leaves fall and swirl with the intensity of a blizzard. They pile up ankle deep in some places. Unlike a real Georgia snow that often melts as soon as it hits the ground, these flakes must eventually be picked up. My son and I have had the joy of doing that.
My next door neighbor was digging out from under her own blizzard last week. I shouted across her driveway, “Feels like a waste of time doesn’t it?” “It never stops,” she answered.
She’s right. The leaves on the ground are one thing, but it’s the leaves that have yet to fall that mock me. Thousands of them are still clinging to branches. I imagine them hanging there, laughing at my labor, waiting for the very moment when the grass can be seen again and then letting go, floating slowly down like paratroopers on a mission, forcing me to wage war yet again armed with blower, leaf-vac and rake.
There’s a school of thought that says “don’t even bother.” Until every leaf is down it’s futile to pick them up. Maybe so. The truth is we’re all waiting: Waiting for this season to run its course. Waiting for the dead leaves to let go and be gone until spring brings new ones.
There’s a kind of waiting that atrophies into neglect. And then there’s a waiting that works. The work won’t hurry things along. It doesn’t exercise control or set the schedule. But it makes ready. The work is preparation for what will be. This kind of waiting is vigilant against inattention that slides toward forgetfulness and lands in despair.
Advent summons us to the work of waiting.
*********
But his waiting wasn’t passive. It was grounded in familiar acts of attention practiced in a familiar setting. This is a man who loved God and loved God’s law. That love was expressed in ordinary ways. What little we know of him suggests a life of faithful worship, regularly visiting the temple. Such practices constitute the work of waiting.
In one way or another it seems we spend our lives waiting: waiting for leaves to fall and market to go up, waiting for something or someone to change, for the big break or the breakthrough. Waiting is hard and the dangers for us lie in two directions: We get tired of waiting and decide to take charge and make something happen – or we get tired of waiting and stop caring, allowing our waiting to become neglect.
Perhaps the work of waiting is simply doing what you’ve been given to do today. Bring your life before God. Be obedient in familiar and simple things. Love your neighbor, pay attention to your family, tell the truth, do good work, bless others with your words, give thanks for good health and good food, for trees and sky and all kinds of weather.
Tend to that plot of ground that is your life; go ahead and rake the leaves. You’re not wasting time. You’re getting ready.
Prayer:
“Come, Thou long expected Jesus, Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in Thee. Israel’s Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.” (Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Charles Wesley, 1745).
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Finish Lines
Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever (1 Cor. 9:25).
Last week my wife was out of town. My kids were out of school. Those factors alone would have made for an interesting Monday. Add to that the torrential rains that fell for most of that day, and my parental creativity was stretched to the limits.
So I opted not to be creative. We went to a Chick-fil-a and a movie, bringing along a couple of their friends so as to minimize the potential for sibling bickering that rainy days inevitably bring about.
The cheap-seat dollar theater was playing one of my favorite films from this past summer, the animated feature UP. I had seen the movie back in June, but I loved it then and knew it would easily be worth the $1.50 ticket price. And as for exactly why the “dollar theater” charges $1.50 for tickets, I have no idea. It’s still a deal.
UP tells the story of a man’s life and a dream that stands at the center of his life. The drama begins with his boyhood fascination with adventure and his love for a tom-boyish girl who becomes his wife and shares his love for adventure. They have a dream that is captured by a painting she places over their fireplace – a picture of their house at the top of Paradise Falls.
The years go by. Life happens. Paradise Falls never does. Until one day, elderly and alone, this man – Mr. Fredrickson – eludes those who wish to place him in a retirement home by taking his house aloft with thousands of balloons. He drifts to South America to pursue a dream that he and his dear Ellie never had a chance to pursue together.
Eventually he manages to place his floating house at the top of the Falls, just like Ellie painted many years earlier. As for how that comes about, you’ll have to turn lose of $1.50 and go see for yourself. It’s a great story – but the real drama isn’t in getting the house to the Falls.
Once there, Mr. Fredrickson realizes that the picture he had over his fireplace, the one he had held in his mind and heart for all those years really wasn’t the dream after all. The real dream was simply his life – all the small moments that had made up his life. That was the adventure.
Or to use Paul’s language, that was the real race.
Most of us live with a finish line somewhere in our heads. We have an idea, a picture of where w will be and what we will be doing and what life will look like when we know we’ve “won.” The finish line can be about what we achieve professionally or what we attain materially or how many candles we manage to gather on top of the birthday cake. For some the finish line is a large crowd of children and grandchildren who come back home for holiday meals at a long family table. And of course, many of us live with all of those finish lines in front of us.
While Paul speaks of the crown we receive when the race is won, many commentators understand Paul’s focus to be on the race itself – the running, the discipline. Paul is not telling the Corinthians, or us, to simply finish the race, but to run it well.
The grace is in the running. Sometimes our preoccupation with the finish line keeps us from truly enjoying the race and embracing all that it means to run hard and run well. Paul seems to suggest that when we run hard and run well, the finish line will take care of itself.
What finish lines do you hold in your mind today? Are you enjoying the run and living the adventure?
Prayer:
Gracious God, every day is a chance to train for the race. And every day, in very ordinary ways, we run the race to which you have called us. Grant us the grace to both train well and run well. Show us the joy that you have for us on the course, and not simply at the finish. Amen.
Last week my wife was out of town. My kids were out of school. Those factors alone would have made for an interesting Monday. Add to that the torrential rains that fell for most of that day, and my parental creativity was stretched to the limits.
So I opted not to be creative. We went to a Chick-fil-a and a movie, bringing along a couple of their friends so as to minimize the potential for sibling bickering that rainy days inevitably bring about.
The cheap-seat dollar theater was playing one of my favorite films from this past summer, the animated feature UP. I had seen the movie back in June, but I loved it then and knew it would easily be worth the $1.50 ticket price. And as for exactly why the “dollar theater” charges $1.50 for tickets, I have no idea. It’s still a deal.
UP tells the story of a man’s life and a dream that stands at the center of his life. The drama begins with his boyhood fascination with adventure and his love for a tom-boyish girl who becomes his wife and shares his love for adventure. They have a dream that is captured by a painting she places over their fireplace – a picture of their house at the top of Paradise Falls.
The years go by. Life happens. Paradise Falls never does. Until one day, elderly and alone, this man – Mr. Fredrickson – eludes those who wish to place him in a retirement home by taking his house aloft with thousands of balloons. He drifts to South America to pursue a dream that he and his dear Ellie never had a chance to pursue together.
Eventually he manages to place his floating house at the top of the Falls, just like Ellie painted many years earlier. As for how that comes about, you’ll have to turn lose of $1.50 and go see for yourself. It’s a great story – but the real drama isn’t in getting the house to the Falls.
Once there, Mr. Fredrickson realizes that the picture he had over his fireplace, the one he had held in his mind and heart for all those years really wasn’t the dream after all. The real dream was simply his life – all the small moments that had made up his life. That was the adventure.
Or to use Paul’s language, that was the real race.
Most of us live with a finish line somewhere in our heads. We have an idea, a picture of where w will be and what we will be doing and what life will look like when we know we’ve “won.” The finish line can be about what we achieve professionally or what we attain materially or how many candles we manage to gather on top of the birthday cake. For some the finish line is a large crowd of children and grandchildren who come back home for holiday meals at a long family table. And of course, many of us live with all of those finish lines in front of us.
While Paul speaks of the crown we receive when the race is won, many commentators understand Paul’s focus to be on the race itself – the running, the discipline. Paul is not telling the Corinthians, or us, to simply finish the race, but to run it well.
The grace is in the running. Sometimes our preoccupation with the finish line keeps us from truly enjoying the race and embracing all that it means to run hard and run well. Paul seems to suggest that when we run hard and run well, the finish line will take care of itself.
What finish lines do you hold in your mind today? Are you enjoying the run and living the adventure?
Prayer:
Gracious God, every day is a chance to train for the race. And every day, in very ordinary ways, we run the race to which you have called us. Grant us the grace to both train well and run well. Show us the joy that you have for us on the course, and not simply at the finish. Amen.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Race
Run in such a way as to get the prize (1 Cor. 9:24).
This past weekend was homecoming at Wake Forest University.
I didn’t attend Wake Forest. I was there this weekend by virtue of marriage. I’m an alum-in-law, if there can be such a thing. I walked the campus with my wife and kids, met some people she hadn’t seen in a long time, listened to things she remembered about how the place was back in her day and how this or that has been changed or renovated or removed altogether.
As we walked the campus I also listened to my son talk about what he would be doing when he goes there (my daughter is holding out for UNC). That won’t be until the fall of 2016 but the very prospect of it is enough to wake me screaming in the night.
The memories there were not mine. I didn’t know anyone we saw on campus – but I have a sense of connection to that place that’s hard to define.
My Dad is a graduate of Wake Forest. He attended the school when it was actually located in the town of Wake Forest. The campus re-located to Winston-Salem and my Dad did his senior year at the new location. In the meantime the “old” campus became a Baptist seminary, so after graduating from WFU in Winston-Salem my dad went back to his college campus to attend seminary.
Walking the campus this weekend, I felt like the story of my life is somehow connected to that place. I never took a single credit hour there, but the institution played a role in shaping me. The school was established in 1834 to train preachers for Baptist churches in North Carolina. One of the Baptist preachers they ended up training was my father.
********
The New Testament is fond of athletic metaphors for the Christian life. Among them, “the race” enjoys favored status.
Paul uses the image one of his letters to Timothy and in his letter to the Galatians. The metaphor is used as Paul addresses the elders in Ephesus in the book of Acts, and the writer to the Hebrews makes use of it also.
To live life as a follower of Jesus is to run a race – and Paul told the Corinthians to run hard, to “run in such a way as to get the prize.” But how do we do that? How do we win this race?
One answer surely has to do with receiving the eternal “well done” when this life is finished. We live faithfully and do what we’re given to do here to the best of our ability. We use our gifts in the service of the God who gave them to us – and then when we cross the finish line of earthly life we are rewarded with the Master’s commendation and eternity in the Master’s presence.
But maybe there’s more to the race than that. Perhaps the race is much bigger than my own little piece of the course. I may be reading things into Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9, but I’m certain this has to be true.
Our task is to run well while we’re here – and make sure that when we’ve finished the course set out for us there are others behind us with fresh strength to keep running. I think that’s what I sensed on the campus of a college I never attended. I felt my feet walking a piece of the course that wasn’t mine to run, but which nevertheless belongs to a race that I’m competing in. Together, we make up an enormous relay team.
I want to run well – so that someday in 2016, if and when my son walks the campus of WFU, he won’t simply be going to college. He’ll be running a race that his Mom and his grandfather ran on that very course. And hopefully he’ll sense me running with him too.
Prayer:
Give us strength to run our course well today, O God. And make us aware that there are others yet to run behind us. Use our lives now to shape the race that they will run then, to the glory of your name and the building up of your rule among us. Amen.
This past weekend was homecoming at Wake Forest University.
I didn’t attend Wake Forest. I was there this weekend by virtue of marriage. I’m an alum-in-law, if there can be such a thing. I walked the campus with my wife and kids, met some people she hadn’t seen in a long time, listened to things she remembered about how the place was back in her day and how this or that has been changed or renovated or removed altogether.
As we walked the campus I also listened to my son talk about what he would be doing when he goes there (my daughter is holding out for UNC). That won’t be until the fall of 2016 but the very prospect of it is enough to wake me screaming in the night.
The memories there were not mine. I didn’t know anyone we saw on campus – but I have a sense of connection to that place that’s hard to define.
My Dad is a graduate of Wake Forest. He attended the school when it was actually located in the town of Wake Forest. The campus re-located to Winston-Salem and my Dad did his senior year at the new location. In the meantime the “old” campus became a Baptist seminary, so after graduating from WFU in Winston-Salem my dad went back to his college campus to attend seminary.
Walking the campus this weekend, I felt like the story of my life is somehow connected to that place. I never took a single credit hour there, but the institution played a role in shaping me. The school was established in 1834 to train preachers for Baptist churches in North Carolina. One of the Baptist preachers they ended up training was my father.
********
Paul uses the image one of his letters to Timothy and in his letter to the Galatians. The metaphor is used as Paul addresses the elders in Ephesus in the book of Acts, and the writer to the Hebrews makes use of it also.
To live life as a follower of Jesus is to run a race – and Paul told the Corinthians to run hard, to “run in such a way as to get the prize.” But how do we do that? How do we win this race?
One answer surely has to do with receiving the eternal “well done” when this life is finished. We live faithfully and do what we’re given to do here to the best of our ability. We use our gifts in the service of the God who gave them to us – and then when we cross the finish line of earthly life we are rewarded with the Master’s commendation and eternity in the Master’s presence.
But maybe there’s more to the race than that. Perhaps the race is much bigger than my own little piece of the course. I may be reading things into Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9, but I’m certain this has to be true.
Our task is to run well while we’re here – and make sure that when we’ve finished the course set out for us there are others behind us with fresh strength to keep running. I think that’s what I sensed on the campus of a college I never attended. I felt my feet walking a piece of the course that wasn’t mine to run, but which nevertheless belongs to a race that I’m competing in. Together, we make up an enormous relay team.
I want to run well – so that someday in 2016, if and when my son walks the campus of WFU, he won’t simply be going to college. He’ll be running a race that his Mom and his grandfather ran on that very course. And hopefully he’ll sense me running with him too.
Prayer:
Give us strength to run our course well today, O God. And make us aware that there are others yet to run behind us. Use our lives now to shape the race that they will run then, to the glory of your name and the building up of your rule among us. Amen.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
When Wisdom Says "Let Go"
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight (1 Cor. 3:19).
“Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” (Genesis 22:12)
There are things we cherish in this life. Good things. Our hearts knit to these things so that we cannot imagine life without them.
We can’t imagine life without our family, the children that wear us out or the spouse that continues to surprise us or the parents we once rebelled against. We can’t imagine life without meaningful work and the challenges and rewards that come with it. We can’t imagine life without the capacity to see the sky or walk on our own legs or swallow prime rib.
But sometimes we are asked to live without those things. We pay lip service to these things as “gifts’ or “blessings.” But when asked to give them up we feel angry and cheated, deprived of what was rightfully ours. We clutch at the gift and resent the giver.
Sometimes, however, wisdom asks us to let go.
********
The story is simple and yet almost impossible to understand. After much waiting and a few messes along the way, Abraham and Sarah had received the child promised to them. Sarah had laughed at the idea that such a thing would ever happen. But it did. The boy was born and named Isaac, meaning “laughter.” This boy was the long awaited fulfillment of a promise that had exceeded their capacity to believe.
And then we get a divine bait and switch. After all the waiting and messes, God appears ready to scrub the whole plan. God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Go up on a mountain, place the boy on an altar, raise the knife, and give back what you waited so long to receive. Here’s the reward for your patient faith: sacrifice your child.
We’re stunned and even angry about this. Amazingly Abraham goes. It has been noted that the only time Abraham speaks in this story is to present himself obediently to God. ”Here I am,” he says. That’s it. “Here I am.” He listens and obeys, walking up a hill with his son, his only son (a significant phrase in the story) planning all the while to do what we could never dream of doing.
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Abraham’s story has the kind of ending we always hope for. The tragedy is averted. Abraham raises the blade above his son but his hand is stayed, Isaac is spared, and God provides a ram for the sacrifice. They all go home together happy and relieved. But there’s nothing in this story that says our willingness to let go means that we will eventually be allowed to keep what we so deeply cherish.
Too many parents have wept over the grave of a child. Too many competent and capable people have been told they no longer have a job. Too many strong and able-bodied people have been incapacitated. Sometimes we let go and we are left empty handed.
This is foolishness to us. Maybe that’s why Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13 in his discussion about God’s wisdom and how it runs counter to our wisdom. “Who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?”
Sometimes wisdom asks us to stand before God with open hands and say what Abraham said. “Here I am.” This means we hold every gift as just that, a gift: Our health, our work, our loved ones. All of it comes to us by grace. The world’s wisdom says that we have a right to these things. God’s wisdom asks us to offer them up – always careful never to worship the gift above the giver.
What are you being asked to let go of today?
Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for every gift you place in our life. Make us mindful today of what we cherish, and help us to cherish it rightly – ever thankful, humble before you, never allowing your gift to become a god that rivals your place in our heart. We would live every day with this simple prayer: “Here I am.” Amen.
“Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” (Genesis 22:12)
There are things we cherish in this life. Good things. Our hearts knit to these things so that we cannot imagine life without them.
We can’t imagine life without our family, the children that wear us out or the spouse that continues to surprise us or the parents we once rebelled against. We can’t imagine life without meaningful work and the challenges and rewards that come with it. We can’t imagine life without the capacity to see the sky or walk on our own legs or swallow prime rib.
But sometimes we are asked to live without those things. We pay lip service to these things as “gifts’ or “blessings.” But when asked to give them up we feel angry and cheated, deprived of what was rightfully ours. We clutch at the gift and resent the giver.
Sometimes, however, wisdom asks us to let go.
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The story is simple and yet almost impossible to understand. After much waiting and a few messes along the way, Abraham and Sarah had received the child promised to them. Sarah had laughed at the idea that such a thing would ever happen. But it did. The boy was born and named Isaac, meaning “laughter.” This boy was the long awaited fulfillment of a promise that had exceeded their capacity to believe.
And then we get a divine bait and switch. After all the waiting and messes, God appears ready to scrub the whole plan. God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Go up on a mountain, place the boy on an altar, raise the knife, and give back what you waited so long to receive. Here’s the reward for your patient faith: sacrifice your child.
We’re stunned and even angry about this. Amazingly Abraham goes. It has been noted that the only time Abraham speaks in this story is to present himself obediently to God. ”Here I am,” he says. That’s it. “Here I am.” He listens and obeys, walking up a hill with his son, his only son (a significant phrase in the story) planning all the while to do what we could never dream of doing.
********
Abraham’s story has the kind of ending we always hope for. The tragedy is averted. Abraham raises the blade above his son but his hand is stayed, Isaac is spared, and God provides a ram for the sacrifice. They all go home together happy and relieved. But there’s nothing in this story that says our willingness to let go means that we will eventually be allowed to keep what we so deeply cherish.
Too many parents have wept over the grave of a child. Too many competent and capable people have been told they no longer have a job. Too many strong and able-bodied people have been incapacitated. Sometimes we let go and we are left empty handed.
This is foolishness to us. Maybe that’s why Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13 in his discussion about God’s wisdom and how it runs counter to our wisdom. “Who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?”
Sometimes wisdom asks us to stand before God with open hands and say what Abraham said. “Here I am.” This means we hold every gift as just that, a gift: Our health, our work, our loved ones. All of it comes to us by grace. The world’s wisdom says that we have a right to these things. God’s wisdom asks us to offer them up – always careful never to worship the gift above the giver.
What are you being asked to let go of today?
Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for every gift you place in our life. Make us mindful today of what we cherish, and help us to cherish it rightly – ever thankful, humble before you, never allowing your gift to become a god that rivals your place in our heart. We would live every day with this simple prayer: “Here I am.” Amen.
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