Water into Wine..........

It's one of those expressions that American English speakers use (don't know about the British).....turning water into wine.  It's a wild example of an outrageous impossibility or a miraculous occurrence.  I've often wondered how many folk know its origin.....right there in the gospel of John, and a wedding at Cana.

It's the wedding story to top all others.  No wine in sight, a fact which will cause some serious embarrassment for the hosts.  12 jars ready for the purification rights.  A command from Jesus, 'Fill them with water.  Now draw out some and give it to the steward' (master of ceremonies). What do you know?  It has turned into wine.  Not any old wine, but a fine pinot noir from a good year.  In other words, a very fine wine indeed.

Since the writer of John uses this miracle to start off Jesus' public ministry it clearly has an important role in John's telling of the story, but I want to know what role this water into wine story has in your faith story, in your ministry, in your spiritual growth and in your faith life.

None of us are out there trying to turn water into wine, right?  ....except perhaps those who work daily with addicts, walking with them, confronting them, comforting them and occasionally seeing their transformation into recovery.

Or perhaps those devoted caregivers - often spouses and children - who repeat the same information again and again to their beloved ones who can no longer hold onto any memories.  "No Mom, I am Carol. Your daughter."  If you look closely you will see how the frustrating repetition of the mundane is now the fine wine of deep and abiding love.

Or the teacher searching for something (anything) which will open the pathways for the young minds in front of him....or the father who has no idea how to parent but takes his son fishing and his daughter to dance class and tucks each into bed at night with a prayer....or the clerk at the DMV (they always get a bad rap) who sorts out your confusion and puts you on the right path....or the medical technician who makes small talk while you nervously undergo yet again another test that has you frightened to your toes.

Or a thousand other possible examples of those who have been baptized into Jesus Christ stepping out into this world with mercy and grace and forgiveness and compassion and invitation and, in so doing, they turn the mundane that threatens to drown us into the wine of fellowship and belonging and being treated with dignity....and love.

What if Jesus was simply giving us a short lesson in faith walking?  It isn't about pulling some parlor trick or even accomplishing a true blue miracle.  What if this story is about a guy who shows up at a wedding with his mother, who steps into this' behind the scenes' dilemma and transforms that which would embarrass into that which brings enjoyment and sustains the fellowship?  What if we are supposed to do something similar?  Just step in and do what we can to ease the way.

Would you be able to see the miracle in that?  Would recognize God at work through you?  Would you be willing to name that moment (if only to yourself) as the kingdom of God breaking into our world?

I would.

You are invited.........

Remember how wonderful it felt to receive that invitation in the mail?  You are invited.
You are wanted.  We want YOU to be there with us.  You belong.  What a powerful message, even when the invitation is only to a 3rd grade birthday party.


An amazing number of people who consider faith at the center of their lives have never invited someone else to come and see what God might have in store for them.  Although many value the grace of knowing they belong to a community of faith, they hesitate to invite someone else to discover the joy of belonging to this earthly community and divine Creator.  Even though they find worship to be fulfilling and centering, they don't consider inviting another to come and experience the Spirit at work.

Can you imagine waiting outside the door, wanting to learn more about this God and hoping someone, anyone, would invite you inside to be a part of the community?  Can you imagine making that move into foreign territory on your own?  If you think I exaggerate how difficult it is, consider your hesitancy as you approach the door of a mosque so you can learn more about Islam.  Will you be welcome?  Will you offend someone inadvertently? Are you dressed appropriately?

Invite:  this is a tool of faith formation.  Invite him to the men's breakfast on the first Friday of the month.  Invite her to Wednesday night service, shorter, more casual, more intimate.  Invite the new children to participate in the CROP Walk with your kids.  Invite the new member to partner with you on the Samaritan Center meal prep.  Invite, invite, invite.

You will be opening a door for the other while at the same time, you will find all the reasons your life is enriched by your relationship with Jesus.

Remember how wonderful it felt to receive that invitation in the mail?  You are invited.
Invite someone today.

Sort of like 'jumbo shrimp'.............

Do you know what an oxymoron is?  It is a phrase that is inherently contradictory....like 'jumbo shrimp' or 'make haste slowly' or 'a cruel kindness.'

Serving others leads to just this kind of oxymoron for it is in 'giving that we receive', it is 'in serving that we are served'.

This applies to any and all serving, not just that done in Jesus' name.  Funny things happen when you open yourself to 'the other,' or provide for a stranger, for when you respond to a human need you begin to stand with this one who is in need.  You begin to erase the distance between yourself and him.  You begin to see yourself as a part of a much larger human race.


Of course, we have to fight through our own self-satisfaction and pride to reap these benefits and not everyone works hard at cracking their own shell of self protection.  For many of us, our first real experience of serving results in us feeling a whole lot better about ourselves.  It takes a while for us to get to the place where serving humbles us and opens our compassion for others.

Jesus is a model for this kind of serving.  He told his disciples, "I came not to be served but to serve."  God's love for us in Jesus began when Jesus stepped into this messy world, eliminating the distance between the divine and the mortal and standing shoulder to shoulder with us.  This God who knows us at our worst and loves us into new life has come to us to serve....and in so doing, reveals the path to truly loving others.  We need to eliminate the distance between us and them, getting close enough to see our similarities and the opportunities for bringing light into their lives.

I would think by now it is fairly easy to see how serving others helps to bring folks to faith in this one who loves and who gives.  When we give, we model Jesus' powerful giving to us.  Whenever our faith begins to falter, serving others brings it all back into focus again and we are strengthened for tomorrow.

Aren't sure about 'believing'?  Come and help out at Samaritan Center.  Come and work at 10 Tons of Love.  Come and lead worship at a nursing home.  You will find Jesus waiting for you....and you will find yourself as well.

"Hold hands when crossing the street."

"Hold hands when crossing the street."
This is advice for all ages even though we all learned it in kindergarten according to Robert Fulghum in his book, Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Hold hands when facing danger or stepping into uncharted waters. Have someone with you when finding your way in a new city or receiving a diagnosis.  A trusted friend; a spouse; even your pastor.  Don't go in there alone.

For humans were not meant to be alone.  God recognized this.  In Genesis 1 God makes male and female at the same time.  In Genesis 2, the second story of creation, God realizes that animals are not exactly what the lone human creature needs, and so a second is made, and we have male and female, two parts of one whole.

Perhaps that is why relationship and companionship are critical to our well-being; when we are alone too often, we feel like that missing sock......a little lost in the world.  So we reach out and hold the hand of the other, if but for a short time.

Once we recognize our own need for the other, encouraging others becomes a calling.  "Well done."  "Enjoy your day."  "Thanks for your help."  "You did that so well."  These are the most basic of the tools of relationship and the more folks pick them up and use them, the kinder this world becomes.

Are you surprised that our faith benefits from encouragement as well?  No matter what our age, it makes us stronger to have someone nearby who has been through this particular storm, who has been overwhelmed with doubt, who has lost their ability to pray and found it again.

Faith communities are especially fertile for encouragement.  Our relationships are founded in Jesus and his love of others, forgiveness of others, and desire to bring healing to others.  So, parents find encouragement from other parents as they raise their children in the faith and learn how to be gracious and forgiving.  Aging couples look to others like them to navigate the spiritual rapids that are both new and dangerous. We pray for one another.  We help carry the other's burdens if only for a little while.

Encouraging others can be a particular gift of the Spirit and if you have been blessed, you have known someone who simply believes in you and your faith more than you do.  However, the everyday version of encouraging one another is a tool for building and strengthening our faith, a tool each of us can pick up and use often.

More than just confetti

I have a good friend who would always open his prayers when leading a group by saying, "Let's talk to God."

Prayer is a conversation with God, like conversation with that kind of old friend, that even if you haven't seen or spoken for years, you can pick up exactly where you left off.  That's prayer.  You know about each other and at some time you have made some kind of commitment to each other.

Prayer is about relationship.  We turn to another expecting that they will listen, care about what we are saying, and, even if unable to make anything change, stand with us.  We expect that of our friends.  We can expect it even more of God.

Not just at special times of the day, or special times in our lives.  No, we can pray as we drive or try to remain patient with children or bosses.  We can pray when we are frightened or joyous or lonely or thankful.  We can use ancient words that we have memorized or we can simply breathe out a thought.  We can doodle a design while we engage with God, or use beads on a bracelet or sit in absolute quiet.

Most of us start out with simple, egocentric prayers:  Please help me with this math test.  Lord, keep me out of the ditch (a good prayer for snowy roads).  Help me find a job.

But over time we find a deeper power to prayer: the power to ease our anxiety, change our attitudes and open new perspectives.  We find the power of praying for others; focusing on their needs and hurts and joys....sometimes even folks we don't know.

One thing prayer is not is confetti; just thrown into the air with hopes that someone gets pleasure from it.  It is a powerful tool to strengthen our faith, and a comfort in times of doubt or sorrow.  Pretty soon you are talking to God quite regularly and it won't seem strange at all.

Faith formation tool number two.

Strong in the Faith

How did we get here?
How do we stay here?

Yesterday 4 of our young people took on the grace and responsibility of living as a person of faith.  They did not arrive at this destination on their own.  They were called by the Holy Spirit into baptism and nurtured by people of faith around them: parents, grandparents, sponsors, adult friends, members of the community at Luther Memorial and other influences we will probably never know about.  In fact, many of us are not completely sure how we ourselves have held onto our faith through the years.

How does faith come about?  How does it grow? Here are six tools.  These are the tools that parents use to help form their children's faith life;  they are the ones we all use to maintain a solid, healthy relationship with the God whom we believe has blessed us.

Worship.  Sunday mornings much of the time; occasionally Wednesdays; plus once a year we gather throughout Holy Week.  We worship.  We come to worship.  How is it a tool to our faith formation?

When you walk through the doors on Sunday morning for worship, you know you are entering a sanctuary - a holy place where your burdens can be laid down.  You know that this space has been set apart for connecting with the God whose love for you is neither blind nor naive.  Here you find the Divine Voice which tells you, "I know all about you.  Every nook and cranny.  Everything you want to remain hidden from sight forever.  I know you."

Once we have admitted the truth of all that is known, then we can breathe in the power of this God's second statement, "I love you.  The you who I know, I love. I created you, gave you breath and now I want you to experience life separate from the brokenness of this world."

Each person who walks through the door gives up a hour and a half of time to be with the Lord who knows and loves them, surrounded by others who are there for the very same reason.  We use ancient words, and occasionally ancient songs to repeat the good news of this delivering, loving God.  We share some bread and some wine and we are made whole by the outpouring of God's love for us.  A gift of life.  For each one of us, no matter what we dragged through the front door before we got started.

It is the source of all else that flows.  It is the lens through which we see the world.  It is our foundation and shows us the fullness of what can be.

We worship.  Tool one.

Faith: taking the leap

One of my favorite advice columnists, Carolyn Hax, is often called on to find a way for people to get good results without taking risks.  Her expertise is in relationships.  How can I know that he loves me without me taking the risk of being hurt?  How can I get my mother-in -law to stop dropping by without hurting her feelings?  How can I accept a promotion and still not change the dynamics in my marriage?

There are a thousand variations to the question but the short answer Carolyn generally gives is "You can't".  Relationships and risk go hand in hand.  Sometimes the risks are small (I really don't like football, do you mind if I don't watch with you?) and sometimes the risks are big (I think living next door to your parents would be a nightmare.)  But there is always risk.  Who knows?  Not liking football could, indeed, be a deal breaker.

So it is no surprise that a life of faith....which is by definition, a life of trusting in Divine Power....is a life lived by trust.  And trust is always risky.  You know that.  I know that.

Furthermore, we tend to call on our faith in our personal lives when things are at their riskiest.  After a bad diagnosis or before a scary operation.  After a bad break-up or before applying for a new job.  We tend to call on our faith when we realize that the world is tilted off balance, injustice is real, evil is real, power is abused at the highest levels.

Each time we rely on our faith in God to unravel a dilemma, right a wrong, or make us feel better, we risk learning something new about ourselves and something new about God.  Let me say that again.  Each time we turn to God seeking a response for our lives, we risk learning something new about ourselves and God.

When our vision of God is rigid and our definition of God is precisely bounded, God's response is too often not only a surprise but a disappointment as well.  That is all well and good.  What we do next is important.

Do we then reject God for being something other than what we expected....or do we stop and listen and wonder and explore this new revealing of God in our lives?  Do we become one of the folks who got to know God in second grade and haven't upgraded our relationship since then even as our world and our lives became more complicated and confusing?  Have we allowed God to grow as a real presence in creation and in this life that we know, or has God remained a reassuring teddy bear on a shelf, reminding us of a good time long ago?

When God doesn't live up to our expectations, do we change.....or do we reject the God now revealed? To call God 'God' is to recognize that most of the time we will have just a small understanding of the universal picture....and to trust that holding the hand of this God is way better than walking alone.

Faith: origins

If faith is a relationship, then faith is about trust.  That in which you put your trust is the God in which you have faith, so says Martin Luther.  This applies to lower case 'gods' as well.  Some of the stuff we trust is nothing more than the ephemeral trappings of life, status and money.

So where does this trust come from?

If we talk in human terms, we learn about trust from our first relationships, generally with our parents.  We cry; we are comforted.  We are hungry; we are fed.  They are bigger than we are; we look to them for safety and protection.

That is the most basic of trusting relationships and it is forged right out of the womb.  But it grows.  Don't worry, this won't hurt.....and it doesn't.  Come on, jump!  I'll catch you....and they do.  I wouldn't tell you something if it wasn't true....and well, most of the time that one works out as well.

As we grow, and our relationship with parents and friends and strangers grows, we learn about the depth and limits of trust.  Humans are not all powerful; they are not perfect.  Not all humans are to be trusted.  Into every life comes some disappointment, hurt, loss, anger.

Our relationship with God begins in a different way.  God is reflected to us - we watch our parents' interaction with this unknown 'God'.  We listen to the stories about how God has acted throughout history (Bible) and how God is active in the lives of folks around us (testimony or witness, generally over coffee). We participate in faith rituals (worship, sacraments, service projects, funerals) where the rituals help shape us and our understandings.

We begin to ask questions. The questions grow as we do.   Is God bigger than the tallest tree?  How does God know when I am praying?  Where is God when I am hurt - physically or emotionally?  Lord, why do you feel so far away?

We begin to listen for answers.  Not just the answers that others around us offer, but we begin to listen for God's voice in our life - leading, correcting, assuring...even weeping with us.  We begin to understand that the answers are not always easy.

The witness of others is critical to our growing relationship with God, a relationship that has all the usual ups and downs.  Without the witness of the saints, we wander and wonder looking for a framework for our decisions and our lives. Some find that framework in the NFL, some in fashion, some in industry, etc.  For Christians, Christ crucified is the frame by which we lead our lives.

Luther teaches that it is the Holy Spirit who calls us to faith.....through the witness of faithful saints all around us.  We become the reflection of God to others, their guide to this God we have found....or should I say, who has found us.

I'd love to hear the story of how God found you.  Stop by for a chat....and some coffee.

For Luther references, check out the Small Catechism, Apostle's Creed, article 3 and the Large Catechism, Ten Commandments, Commandment #1.

Faith: witness

Have you ever been a witness in a courtroom?  The closest I've come was testimony before a Grand Jury.  It was a bit intimidating.  I knew that there would be consequences to my testimony; not only a trial but a jail sentence was a real possibility.

So what we say when we give testimony....what kind of witness we bring to the proceedings is very important.  We must be clear about what we know and clear about what we do not know.  We can't say Yes just because we want it to be that way.  We must stick to the truth and trust the system to work it all out.

Our witness to our faith is equally important.  Each person of faith is a reflection of the God s/he calls on.  We witness with both our words and our deeds.  Let's start with words.

Tell your story.  Tell us how God found you.  Tell us about all the questions you have had, all the situations when you turned towards God and insisted on a better explanation.  Tell us about the Aha! moments and those moments when your breath was taken away.  Witness to what you know, what you have experienced with this God of creation.

Stick with your story with God and leave out all the grander explanations and churchy sounding pronouncements.  Resist the temptation to pontificate on matters.  Try not to speak for God unless you are using God's own words, and even then, a great deal of humility is called for since we have amazing skills at twisting what God is saying to our own ends.

No two of us experience God exactly the same way - and yet your experience will help me find my experience.  I understand the power of a sunset; the relief of being healed; the fear of losing a loved one.  I understand the terror of the night and the arrows that fly by day.  I understand that sometimes the pain is so great that I will not be able to hear or see God, and God will wait alongside of me until I am able.

Find a passage of scripture that helps explain what you have experienced.  The Psalms are the perfect locale, but many of the stories of the Bible are equally powerful.  Hannah, childless and yet faithful, cried out to God for the gift of a son.....and her prayer was answered, and her answer was to dedicate that child to the Lord's work.  (1 Samuel)  Moses was in trouble with the law and couldn't speak effectively in front of others....and yet God called him to head his people out of slavery and into relationship with this God. (Exodus)  Dorcas was so dedicated to serving others through the beautiful garments she made that when she died, her companions held up those same beautiful garments as examples of God's love flowing through her.  (Acts 5)

Tell your story.  God is at work through your story; through you others see and come to know God.

Now that God has found you, let everyone else in on the story.

Faith not doctrine

For years any discussion about faith was in truth a discussion about doctrine.  We wanted to talk about what we believe.  The content.  The logic.  The implications.  These discussions often ended in "Well, I can't believe that!"

What if we talked about faith as a verb?
   What if we talked about faith as a process?
       What if we talked about faith as a surprise?
       

Think about it.  When you talk about the weather, do you debate whether the barometric pressure is 113 millibars or 85?  Or do you complain about shoveling snow, or your air conditioning bills?  You mention how many days it has rained or your hope for a sunny day for your daughter's wedding?  We discuss the weather in terms of our lives, our hopes, our dreams, even our finances!  (The heating bills up north this year will be an issue.)

Let's talk about children's soccer leagues.  The parents whose discussions are all about strategy and discipline and winning are not welcome in the groups who are laughing at their children's antics, wondering if young David will ever stop running away from the ball, or simply cheering from the sidelines.  For these parents, soccer is about social skills, physical development, group activities and most of all, having fun!

Or cars.  I was once in a discussion about what car we would own if money was no object.  You can imagine there were a few sports cars and luxury cars in the mix.  "A red Maserati"  "A silver BMW" and on and on.  One participant said he'd purchase a Volvo.  "What color?"  "Oh, the color doesn't matter, I like their safety ratings."  Now that was a perfectly legitimate reason for purchasing a Volvo, but this group wanted a little poetry and to them color was critical.  Our Volvo guy didn't realize this wasn't a discussion about reality but about status, and self-image!

Faith is about a relationship with the Divine.  Christians call the Divine God, and we see God manifest in a man called Jesus who lived and died.....and yes, we believe he was raised from the dead.....a long time ago. That is at the center of our belief system.

But our faith is about relationship.  Can I trust this one called God?  What are the intentions of this God towards me?  When I am in a pinch, can I call on this God and expect an answer?  Is this God all smiles one day and all lightening bolts the next?   When this God looks at me, what does God see?  Those are the basic questions that faith asks.

or, perhaps, this  "Can I be safe with this God?"

Let's begin our faith discussions with the questions that we are really asking ourselves; the questions which have answers which interest us.  These are the truly hard questions because these are the questions that we live day after day.  Most of us can manage a long time without a definition of predestination.
 Let's answer the important questions first.