the long darkness.....

That point where the light one has always known 

and the skills one has spent a lifetime perfecting 

and the faith whose previous challenges had been but whispers of the unseen future is where hope is found. 

In that place, no logic prevails; no meaning echoes from the depths. You stand deep in a tunnel of darkness without plans or schemes or even wild magical thinking; only your breath remains. 

 Quietly in, quietly out.

Hope is tucked in the secret chambers of our hearts, overlaid with fear or sorrow, buffeted by longing and loss. It is the flicker of ‘maybe’ the faint glow of ‘perhaps’. Under all the knowing we have gathered through the years, a child’s voice forms the words, ‘Please don’t forget me’. Faint promises of love are all that is left. 

 except for the waiting.

In the long darkness, hope stands solitary guard. Fragile. Precious. In the dark, hope carries us just as much as we cling to hope in order to move forward. 

So we remember the others.  Jesus’ mother ponders in her heart. Martha’s sister kneels, pouring out her love in fragrant anointing. Four men carry their paralyzed friend through a roof to get to the feet of Jesus. A dying thief seeks whatever Jesus can bring.

Hope. Trust. Faith.

We wait and we watch......in hope.

A blessed Advent to all.

"I do myself"

Every parent has experienced the 'I do myself' stage of toddler development.  It is that period when their will exceeds their skill and a parent's job is to hover very near by to avoid total disasters.  (And of course, to be able to discern what are totally beyond reasonable jobs for the little one to 'do myself').


Thomas, the famous Doubter, needs to see for himself.  Does he doubt the sanity of the other disciples?  Were they prone to punking one another?  Is he a skeptic in all things, including this so called 'sighting' of the risen Jesus?  Is he hungry, tired or so weighed down with grief he has no room for new knowledge or nuanced emotions?

Or, is Thomas just like every one else.  Until he 'sees', he cannot believe.  Until he encounters Jesus, he cannot believe.  Until the God who raised Jesus from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit is somehow experienced, by him, in person, he cannot believe.  It's not that he doesn't want to believe.  He needs an encounter to move from his disappointment, heartbreak, maybe even despair, to hope.  He needs to see for himself.

So Jesus comes and makes himself known.  Not in judgment, not in sadness, not to mock Thomas or anyone else.  Jesus comes to bring Thomas the peace he needs, a peace that passes all understanding, the very peace which was made possible in the person of Jesus.

Faith is born from an encounter with God.  Faith in the risen one is born in that space between two people when forgiveness happens, or mercy is given, or love is expressed, or life slides into death, or, at the last, peace calms all things.

Where is your faith taking you......day 2

"Let us go to the other side"  Jesus is full of big plans.  He is taking his message to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, even though that is really, really foreign territory.....possibly hostile.

So the disciples push the boat out of the shallow water and start to row.  These are experienced seamen.  Several of the disciples were fishermen by trade.  They knew this sea; they knew how to handle a boat.

They also knew how nasty the Sea of Galilee could get when a storm blew in; deadly even.  So it would prove to be.  While Jesus calmly slept with his head on a pillow (such an interesting detail that Mark throws in) the wind picked up, the waves picked up, the boat started rocking, the rowing got harder.  Soon the waves were crashing over the sides; the boat was being swamped and in light of the disciples' shouted distress, I would imagine that the danger was real.

They were frightened.  Right down to their toes.  It is not unusual in such a situation to look to your left and to your right to be assured that everyone was working as hard as they could for the sake of all.  No slackers allowed when all their lives were on the edge.  So, you take the darkness, the middle of the sea, the roaring wind, the crashing waves, and the very real danger of dying, and it shouldn't surprise any of us that they turned to a sleeping Jesus and shouted.......

"Do you not care that we are perishing?"  they might have just as easily have said, "Why aren't you scared?"  or " Get up and help!"  or many other things but this is what is recorded.

We watch in our mind's eye as Jesus throws off his sleep, opening his eyes, becoming aware of the storm.  He stands and talks directly to the danger that surrounds them - he commands the wind to quiet and the water to be at peace.

He asks, 'Do you not trust me?'  'Have you so little faith?'

At this moment we forget all about the original mission of the mustard seed, to be a part of the growing of the Kingdom of God.  At this moment, we forget about the need to get to the other side where the other people live and where people are waiting for the liberation that Jesus brings.  We turn this entire story into a discussion of faith:  How much do you have?  How can you get stronger? You might even talk about a terribly frightening time in your life when your faith was tested.

All well and good, but that makes the story about you in your personal life, and not a story about being a disciple who is called to bring Jesus to people in scary places.  It becomes a story about you and not a story about all of the other people Jesus loves and who need to know the power of his presence.

Of course they were scared.  Anyone would be.  Yet they traveled with the Lord of Sea and Sky and the kingdom awaited.

Fragile faith

A prayer to start your day from Ted Loder


O God, I am so fragile;
     my dreams get broken,
     my relationships get broken,
     my heart gets broken,
     my body gets broken.

What can I believe,
     except that you will not despise a broken heart,
     that old and broken people shall yet
           dream dreams,
     and that the lame shall leap for joy,
        the blind see,
           the deaf hear.

What can I believe,
     except what Jesus taught;
     that only what is first broken, like bread,
        can be shared;
     that only what is broken
        is open to your entry;
     that old wineskins must be ripped open and replaced
        if the wine of new life is to expand.

an excerpt from the prayer What can I Believe ,  Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, Loder.

It sort of creeps up on you

No, I'm not talking about zombies or that nasty weed that I simply can't get out of my garden, I'm talking about faith.  And, I am talking about my experience of it which may be 180 degrees from your experience of it. I will try to describe the certainty that has grown over the years from that first encounter with something /someone beyond myself.

I grew up in a church family; we worshipped every Sunday and worked on the wider work of the church. We said grace before meals and prayers at bedtime.  I learned the Bible stories, most of the catechism (no, not by memory).  Over the years I reflected on many of the paradoxes of the faith and the life of faith.  I always had a serious question to ask and rarely accepted shallow answers to those questions.

There are good reasons for that.  My next younger sister was afflicted with polio at 3 months; it made the 16 years she was granted challenging and often painful.  There was an iron lung, orthopedic braces, operations, hospital stays and a funeral before she reached her 17th birthday.  In our house, suffering was never an abstract.  Strangers who rejected my sister because of her disabilities before they knew her, strrangers who refused to serve us meals; strangers who made rude comments aloud; strangers who called the health department because she was a health risk.....we knew all of these.  She was the first handicapped child allowed to attend 'regular' school in our school district.  She was neither an object of charity or pity, but a funny, courageous, bright and normal girl in a deformed body.

Her health determined our family's agenda: if and where we might vacation, how we as a family traveled from place to place, how much money was available for spending.  We all learned how to cook and do laundry and take care of ourselves because my parents were often full out caring for her.  
Her life shaped my life, and it shaped my faith.  But not in one fell swoop, but slowly, over time, after questions answered and truths challenged. Witnessing the thoughtlessness and sometimes, bigotry, of strangers, I became sensitive to injustice towards others.  Watching her struggle and suffer with little or no hope of living a long life, I find glib answers to life's deepest losses intolerable.

Throughout it all, God was at the center of our family life and our family routine.  I found God and I found myself through the rhythm of worship. Over the years, the presence of God and the certainty of Jesus' love for me and those around me simply grew.  I searched for deeper truths; I refused to accept 'pie in the sky' explanations.  The promise of heaven could never take away the reality of life in this world.  

I was immersed in an ethos of faith and God slowly crept up on me, becoming as natural as breathing and ordinary as doing laundry and as miraculous as a sunrise.

How did it happen for you?


 

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith."

I am in the midst of preparing for a funeral for one of our oldest members.  We will be listening to this passage from Paul's second letter to his disciple Timothy who was a pastor to community of faith.  Paul was in prison and the only way he was leaving was to travel to the executioner.  Thus he writes.....

"I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day....."  2 Timothy 4.6-8

I often recommend this passage. It reflects the truth for many: those who have battled long and hard against an unseen enemy and those who have lived very long lives. "I have founght the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith...."

When folks have faced the pain and loss and exhaustion of fighting against forces which are robbing one of health or happiness this passage can be a moment of release - a blessing on the deep truth that it is a gift that the end has come.  Loved ones have been 'poured out' as a libation (which is an offering to God), drained of strength and often they have lost their very sense of self.

For those who have lived a long life, it speaks to the endurance needed to cling to God over long distances and through multiple obstacles.  They are ready to rest in the arms of their Savior, to be received into the heavenly places in ways only God can know.

"I have kept the faith......"  These are the words that capture my attention.  I'm in the faith business and sometimes it is a challenge for me to keep the faith.  The ethereal business of faith is practiced in the rough and tumble world of sin; the demands of discipleship are layered over the demands of making a living and keeping afloat.  When one recognizes that being a person of faith means bringing the teaching of Jesus out of the clouds and into the present, the work gets harder.  Sin is not an abstract concept; we run into it everyday and it often makes our days more than difficult.

Faith in Jesus is a relationship, and a relationship with Jesus will transform.  With each authentic encounter with the truth of God's love for the world in Jesus, we are opened to newer vistas: new ways of thinking, new ways of being, and new content for our confessional conversations with God.  Authentic relationship with Jesus brings peace, while at the same time, it brings every part of our lives into a bright light/

Trusting that God is in charge, that Jesus reigns, that tomorrow can and will be different than today because it is all in God's hands - the God who through the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead - to trust that promise is no small feat.  To trust in that God while experiencing chemo or watching a loved one disappear to dementia, or commending our 21 year old grandson into God's hands.....that is hard work.  Allowing God to push and pull us into a deeper faith life, allowing ourselves to be open to the Spirit's call to both action and repentance, listening for God today when you are in your 90th year of todays is also hard work.

What can we do?  How can we be strengthened for this difficult journey?  We can come to the table to encounter the risen Jesus.  We can study and listen to God's Word in the old stories of faith in the modern examples of it.  We can travel among the lost and lonely so to be God's hands at work in this world.

I need to do this again and again and again.  Otherwise I will lose sight of the Jesus who has claimed me for life.  Otherwise, I would become one of the lost ones.

What about you?

and if that wasn't enough...

One of the challenges of the Resurrection Story is the task of living out a new way of being.  How do we take the information of the resurrection and allow it to shift to an actual life of resurrection we can live today?  How does/can the Resurrection of Jesus transform our lives on Monday morning?

Although all of us need the deep assurance and comfort of God's abiding love through Jesus - an image so perfectly depicted in the 23rd psalm, in this fourth Sunday of Easter, we still need to wrap our heads around the impact of God's amazing resurrection of the Son, Jesus.  We need a picture to help us understand the power of the phrase 'I am doing a new thing' and the concept of 'bringing life out of the heart of death'.

A perfect image for this is the story of the raising of Lazarus, good friend to Jesus.  In fact, the Lazarus story bookends the assigned text for Good Shepherd Sunday, appearing in chapter 11 of the gospel of John.

Who is not moved when Jesus weeps outside the closed tomb of his friend?  We have done this, no?  We have had to say final goodbyes to people we love deeply and whose very existence we will miss.  We have had to confront the possibility of living out our lives without this beloved person.  For those of us who are widowed, we have had to figure out who we are now that we are not one half of a couple.  We have to learn how to be single again, but in a new way.

Lazarus gives us all this.  "Lazarus, come out!" Jesus cries.  Humans have rolled the stone away from the front of Lazarus' tomb, but Lazarus himself must respond to the command of the Son of God, the command to walk from death to life, the command to live yet again. He must hear the Lord's voice and follow.

Deep in the damp darkness of death, Lazarus hears the Savior's call and steps from beyond the veil back into the bright sunlight of his old life.  Yet, it will never truly be life as he once knew it, for he has tasted death and come again into the world of the living.  Lazarus has stepped out.

Jesus then commands, "Unbind him, and set him free".  Of course Jesus is talking about the burial cloths that are wrapped around the corpse, the bindings of this world which will forever keep him among the dead and restrict his ability to walk and live and move and jump in this new /old life of his.

"Unbind him and set him free!"  Leave behind all that is death to you - shuck it off and step out into a new life, a new being, a new power, a new relationship with this God who has given you life yet again.  Whether it is addiction or anger or deep wounds or resentment or any other prison of death that holds you captive, step out of your tomb and throw off all that binds you to death.  Live.

Now Lazarus is not a resurrection story in that Lazarus is resuscitated rather than resurrected.  Lazarus will, in fact, die again another day.

But we get it, don't we?  We understand that image of being closed in a tomb from which we see no escape.  We long for a time when all that binds us is pulled away and we can live a life we could never have imagined before.  Lazarus teaches us the possibility of living a transformed life as a transformed person.

Between the healing of the man born blind and the calling out of the dead Lazarus, we get the good shepherd.  Perhaps after these two extra stories of resurrection we are now ready to figure out who it is who is calling us out, what life with him will look like and whether, in the end, we can trust him at all.

It's not all about us......really

We all call him Doubting Thomas, although if you check Thomas out through the entire gospel of John you might change that to Impetuous Thomas.

But, as usual, we are focusing our attention on the wrong character in the story.  It's not Thomas' fear or doubt or unbelief that is at the center.  It is Jesus. Coming. Twice. Not detoured by a wavering Thomas.

Here, look, touch.  I am right here with you.

It's not about our wavering (In the gospel of Matthew, at the ascension some worshipped and some doubted).

 It is Jesus' faithfulness.

Really folks, it's not all about us.  We truly aren't the center of the universe.
The one who created it is.

It's all theory until you stand at death's door.............

How many times have you heard that faith is a journey?  Well, we've journeyed through the gospel of John this Lent and watched as faith morphs from early possibilities to astonishing miracles.  

                Nicodemus came in the middle of the night because he had some questions.  

                Jesus travels into enemy territory to invite a Samaritan woman to taste living water and

                                    she starts proclaiming the good news.

                A man blind from birth has the most incredible gift imaginable dropped into his lap and

                                    knows he has encountered God.

We too have journeyed in our faith life from times of questioning, to taking a risk speaking with a stranger about Christ, to recognizing the astounding gifts that God has given to us in this life.  Thought of this way, we can see faith unfold and this faith will take you quite a distance.  Right up to the door of the tomb as a matter of fact.  Because it all changes at the threshold of death.  

Once you cross the threshold of death everything changes.  The one who has died moves into a world we do not understand.  We don't know what it looks like nor what it feels like and that frightens us in many ways.  Those who are left behind come to experience the extreme alone - ness of death; now they truly understand that we come into this world alone, and alone we will leave it.  

Martha and Mary struggle, they question, they grieve.  Their neighbors grieve with them.  Even Jesus weeps before the starkness of death.  So we learn that even when we walk with Jesus we cannot leap over death, we cannot ignore the reality of it all. We all stand before the door of death.

For years we have been able to share the good news of God's love for everyone and all of creation.  For years it has been so easy to talk about God's great invitation to all to have a seat at the table, to become one of the insiders.  For years we have depended on the gift of forgiveness, that mending of the broken places and healing of the wounded soul. 

Right up to that stone door, we have reflected the compassion of God in our lives by feeding the poor and clothing the naked.  We have shared our abundance with others and told anyone who would listen that God has changed our life and filled it with Spirit.  Right up to that stone door.

Where theory is no longer enough, and the question becomes DO YOU BELIEVE?

We watch as Lazarus exits his own tomb.  Why?  Why when Lazarus was going to die again?  Why when he was already in the hands of a merciful God?  Was it to give comfort and assurance to those left behind?

No, Lazarus was not raised so we could be assured that heaven was real

Lazarus was raised so we would know that Jesus is real.   

That's the faith that sustains us until the resurrection.  Amen.

Thirst and fear.....a bad combination

Do you remember when Hurricane Katrina hit and thousands of people were housed in the local football stadium....and they ran out of water?  Folks were desperate.   Those of us looking on from afar couldn't imagine how the government didn't plan for this eventuality.

Thirst can kill you......and a whole lot quicker than starvation.  So it is no wonder that the Israelites are an anxious group when they arrive at Rephidim and can't see any water anywhere.  This is not the kind of problem you can allow to simmer for a couple of days.  A couple of days without water is torturous.  Exodus 17.

So they turn to Moses.....in fear.  Fear for their own lives; fear for the lives of their children.  I can imagine them looking at one another and, like we did with the federal government, wonder what Moses was thinking when he took this route.  It is easy for us to suppose they should have trusted in God to provide, for God had provided before.  But a lack of water is something you need to be on top of.

They were afraid, and fear will erode faith faster than doubt any day....and at its core is death.  It is death we fear more than anything else.  Little deaths, big deaths.  Financial setbacks make us fearful; a dying relationship makes us fearful; a trip to the doctor makes us fearful.  Add to the list.  Each fear points to the death of some part of our self-image, our self-sufficiency, our hope for tomorrow.  Each fear has the potential to pull us away from God.  You don't have to stop breathing to experience death.

What do we do with our fear? (because we will continue to fear; it's human)  Two things:  talk to God and talk with a trusted person of faith.

Talk to God:  we are a resurrection people.  Not just the BIG RESURRECTION on Easter with lilies and trumpets, but a thousand small resurrections every day.  Every time fear creeps into our lives and we can see the shadow of death in the wings, we are ripe for a little resurrection.  We turn to God, confess our fear and watch for God's abiding presence as we walk through this place of darkness.

Then we talk with a trusted person of faith.  Someone who can remind us of the stories of faith, of Israel's fear in the desert, of Peter's fear during Holy Week, of their cousin George's fear when cancer was diagnosed and then witness to God's constancy.  We ask someone to surround us with the stories of faith so our fear does not drag us down into a tomb but rather, we are strengthened for the journey.

What fear handicaps your trust in God?  Take a moment and name it to yourself and then talk to God about it....the same God who raised Jesus from the dead.  There is a resurrection waiting for you.