More journey than event

When I write about forgiveness I am constrained to consider my own relationship with it.  That is, how am I following my own understandings?  Am I preaching to others while failing to follow myself?  Although this is often an uncomfortable internal conversation, it almost always proves to be a valuable one.

My most recent reflection on the subject led to this:  forgiveness is more journey than it is event.

I believe that it is rare that true or pure forgiveness occurs - complete and full blown - in a particular moment.  It is rare that one can confess and ask for forgiveness while the other receives the confession and offers complete forgiveness all in one moment.  It is rare that you can put a time and a place on a forgiveness event.

Rather, what we thought was forgiveness in the beginning doesn't really mature until time has passed and we have tested out our supposed forgiveness in many different situations.  As we journey down this road called forgiveness we recognize those by-ways where we get stuck, where old attitudes rise up and we re-act rather than respond to the other.  When we think back, we can remember the time and place of the original hurt, and it still hurts; it still matters and we realize that our forgiveness is still a work in progress.

Furthermore, the wounds that we cause one another are not interchangeable.  Some hurt more.  Some have longer term consequences.  Some hurts are inflicted on those we love rather than directly on us.  I might forgive you crashing my car a lot more quickly than if you had an affair with my husband.  I might forgive you undermining me at work more quickly than I would intentional lies to a potential employer which costs me a job.  I might forgive your demands for greater alimony much more easily than I will forgive the abandonment of our child.

Some stuff is REALLY hard to forgive because it was REALLY hurtful and the hurt is too big to swallow, and in truth, will never be forgotten.  So instead, we begin the journey of forgiveness.  We take just one step forward, perhaps we simply commit to eliminating negative comments about the other.  One step.  When we have mastered that one step, we try the next.  Then the next.  Then the next.

Don't fool yourself.  The steps count.  They move you towards a place which is more healthy for you and your soul; it is more healthy for the community around you, and in time, it will prove more healthy for the (not completely) forgiven other party.  When anger and resentment and jealousy are removed from the equation, however slowly, the world is a better place.

Forgiveness increases the grace quotient in the world, and that, my friends, is never a bad thing.

Somewhere...

What  was it  like to be gathered with folk  who risked their lives  in order to be baptized?  People who knew that the life being offered by Jesus was  far more valuable than the one they now knew?  People who hungered and thirsted after a relationship with God? And who weren't  interested in 'guilt' but in joy?

What would it take to gather folks who wanted to push the boundaries of their spiritual life? To go deeper? To ask the hard questions?  To put their time and money  and talents (whatever  that might be) towards serving the neighbor? To be willing to give up what they think they believe in order to discover God more fully?

What would  it be like to belong  to a group where you knew there would always be a space for  you at the table no  matter how big a jackass you (regularly) tended to make of yourself?

What would it be  like to know forgiveness....from your neighbor?

Does this describe  a community you  know?  Does it describe a community you  want to build?

Jesus calls  us into just such a community.  Jesus calls us to be just  such a community. Let's  talk.

Something's a little fishy here..........

The liturgical season of Lent means fish to a lot of people.....and not always in a good way.  What is Lent?  You know, when Catholics have to eat fish.  In the circles I frequent, this wondrous insight is usually followed with, 'I'm glad I'm a Lutheran.  We don't have to eat fish.'

That's it?  That's Lent?  Fish?

However, you are right.  We Lutherans don't have to eat fish.  We don't have to pray or give food to the hungry.  We don't have to attend to acts of charity or read the Bible or even attend worship more frequently.  We aren't required to think about anyone but ourselves nor are we required to do anything but what we have been doing all the other days of the year.

For some all of that spells freedom.  Freedom from the oppression of the church.  Freedom from ancient and 'meaningless' traditions.  Freedom to worship God as we want.

Which is all well and good if 'worshiping God' is what you are doing and not simply avoiding the discomfort which comes with knowing that God is too often forgotten and the world too often in charge.

No, you don't have to eat fish.  It is only a strategy to remind us that God is the provider of all., and we give thanks. It reminds us that some of your neighbors will not be eating at all this evening, and so we give something extra to the food pantry.  It helps us think about God's creation and to consider how well we are caring for it and how we might change.  It gives us a specific time to give attention to our prayers for someone we know really needs God's help.

It's not about the fish.  But I guess you already figured that out.

Be blessed by this time of Lenten observation.  Use it to exercise your spirit and re-connect with God and neighbor.

A quiet yearning for peace

"World Peace" has become the punch line in too many jokes, especially comedies about beauty pageants.  You and I know that world peace is no laughing matter, even as it seems an impossible goal, a wild and crazy dream, even an oxymoron.  As the picture tells us, world peace will mark the dawning of a new age.

Cosmic peace has been both the image and goal of God's creation from the very beginning.  The prophet Isaiah speaks about this cosmic cessation of violence, retribution, competition, and imperialism.
                    Isaiah 2.4 "they shall beat their swords into plowshares"
                    Isaish11.6 "the wolf shall live with the lamb"
                    Isaiah 25.8 "'the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces."

Here in Syracuse I hear too many reports of violence and violent death.  There are too many families torn apart by domestic violence.  Workplace violence has become too common for anyone's health.

It is no wonder that in this Advent season, so many of us are quietly yearning for peace. But Isaiah's picture of cosmic harmony must wait for God.  Until then, if you want peace, do justice.  That is what we are called to do.

Prayer: when only dancing will do.

King David couldn't help himself.  Micah, his wife, couldn't forgive him for it.  David danced in the sight of the whole nation wearing just a linen ephod and from Micah's point of view, looking like a fool.

It all starts with the Ark of the Covenant, a gilded 'box' in which rested the original tablets of the Ten Commandments.*  More than just Israel's most precious artifact, the Ark had a particular relationship with the LORD.  On its top was the Mercy Seat, where it was believed the LORD dwelt.  It was so holy that touching it could prove fatal.

The Ark had a long history, but at this moment, David was bringing it into the city of Jerusalem to give it a proper home.  It was a joyous time.  Thirty thousand people lined the streets to watch as the ark was carefully carried to its new home.

And David just couldn't help himself.  He stripped down to his linen ephod and with 'all the house of Israel' danced before the LORD with all his might, with songs, lyres, harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.   He offered up burnt offerings along the way until he finally enters the city with shouting and the sound of the trumpet.  2 Samuel 6.5,14-16.

It's not completely clear if Micah was more disturbed by David's virtual nakedness or his wild behavior.  However, David gives the rest of us leave to dance and sing and perhaps in what looks like great foolishness express our thanks to God, our awe at being counted among God's children, or our sheer delight at being asked to be God's servant.

Take your pick.  They are all good reasons to break out in song, to pray with voice and body and movement.  Although if you choose the naked part of the story, please do this in the confines of your own home.

*Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fictionalized movie about this very box.

Prayer when words fail us

There are specific names for different kinds of prayers.  I knew them all once but not anymore.
It doesn't really matter because we can figure out the different kinds of prayers ourselves, and give them our own labels if we want to.

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."  Romans8.26

This is the kind of prayer that begins and ends in the heart because we cannot give shape or name or voice to our experience.  We moan with deep sorrow, overwhelming joy, unutterable fear or love that fills our very being.  These are the prayers of the extremes; they go beyond our feeble vocabulary or require an energy we no longer possess.  Sometimes the situation is so dire, so impossible, we have no idea what could or should be asked of our Lord.  So the Spirit prays for us.

Soon after my husband's death, when the stress and grief were overwhelming, I took a walk along the tree lined roads of the Gettysburg battlefield.  I walked there often but on this day I made it clear to God that I simply could not go on, it was all too much for me, I couldn't even pray.  God said to me (yes, I know how odd that sentence is, but the message was a clear as a voice speaking aloud) "Fear not.  Even the trees are praying for you."  And they must have been for I was comforted and strengthened.

"And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."  Romans 8.27

There is powerful comfort in those words.

Growing spiritually: worship and devotion

She's the woman who anoints Jesus, to prepare him for his burial.

She purchases an alabaster jar of expensive perfumed ointment, and pours it onto Jesus, filling the room with the fragrance of her gift.

The men in the room become angry; perhaps because she embarrasses them with this intimate act played out in public. Perhaps because they were all wishing that they had thought of it first.

They all have a solution to this 'waste of good money'....and their reaction tells us they cannot see what this woman is doing as an act of worship and devotion.  Jesus commends her and promises that wherever this story is told it will be done in remembrance of her.  

 She never says anything.       We never learn her name.

We will need to put aside our notion of worship as a 'service' that we attend and embrace, instead, a notion of worship as action in order to see the potential for spiritual growth in this story.  Without words, and in a hostile environment (this was an all men's dinner) she simply acted: extravagantly, generously, with nothing held back.  Focused on the service she could do for her Lord, she acted and then she slips away from the story forever.

I've always wondered if Jesus could still smell the wonder of that ointment in the days ahead....when they arrested him and crucified him.  Could the fragrance that filled that room have given him the assurance (as slight as it may have been) of this one woman's devotion?  Did it help him remember the one who loved him when the whole world was busy crushing him?

How do we grow to be the one who knows how to honor her God and does so without regard for the hostile glares around her and the emptying of her purse?  How does emptying out that alabaster jar fill her with God?

The preaching life...a spiritual journey

Now, this may be of absolutely no interest to you, but if we are going to be talking about spiritual growth then perhaps it has some pertinence.  Many folks will ask, "How do you do what you do?"  and generally they mean 'stand in front of a lot of people and talk.'

But the larger, and to me more important question, is how to tap into the Spirit's guiding, how to find a message in ancient stories about the faith and help folks see the connection to the conundrums of present day faith. And that gets at the spiritual life of the preacher.


A recent quote posted on facebook got me to thinking about this when contemplating the parable of the Tax Collector and Pharisee (Luke 18). The Pharisee was arrogant, self-serving and self-congratulating when presenting himself before God.  The tax collector couldn't even look up to the heavens and begged "Lord have mercy on me, a poor sinner."  We all know that the Tax Collector gets it and the Pharisee doesn't.  We know there is a tendency among people of faith to ground our relationship with God in 'right behavior' instead of in God's mercy and grace.  The preacher's job is to re-align folks and to do that, the preacher must put away her own self-serving and self-dependent ways first.  Some thoughts..........

It is called the parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee.  It’s at the very least a parable about prayer, but of course, there is much more at stake here than prayer.  It’s one of those scenarios where the words spoken reveal so much more than was intended.

Jesus sets it up for us with a point by point polarization between these two men, standing their ground in the temple. In the end it is the humble outcast tax collector who is standing in the light of God, for he went home justified.  My fear is that I am the Pharisee.  How do I become the tax collector?

How do I strip away my alb, stole and collar….my fancy prayers and professional liturgy and advanced education…How do I strip away my place at center stage and an office of my own so I can get all the way down to my underwear…and stand in humility before God?

Because humility is not the place I regularly inhabit.  It seems so easy to get lost, to lose track of the radicalness of following Jesus – the emptying and filling that comes by God’s hand.  I am not overwhelmed with my need for reconciliation with God....and I’m not talking about the large betrayals that are truth in my life, but those hidden moments of quiet despair: when I must face the fact that my skills, and gifts and experience are not enough for the task before me…..and they will never be enough. 

Not enough to serve as I’d hoped to serve – both the people of God and the good news of Jesus Christ. Or perhaps more truthfully, not enough to perform the way I had hoped to perform.  And with that I fall into the great chasm of right behavior and religious sensibilities, losing hold on the kingdom of the cross…. and I am no good to myself or God’s people.

Joel Green in his commentary says that the Pharisee is a man who depends on himself, stands before God without need of God’s mercy and who uses his holiness to exclude others who he disdains.  This is a man whose life is set in opposition to the Kingdom of God. I do not want to be that man.

Yet I know that somehow I want to be the one who in humility receives compassion and restoration from God while retaining all the prerogatives of station and office. So I know that these are the very things that need to be stripped away – these are the things that stand in my way, that keep me from the God I seek to serve. 

To have any kind of integrity, this is the truth I must carry into the pulpit and into the world….along with these words

“Lord, I am not worthy to receive, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

And for a moment, I can step into the pulpit, to pass on – as one broken person to another - the words of grace I have first received, and the healing I have found in the one called Jesus.

For this and all mercies you grant us O Lord, we give thanks.  Amen

Are you growing spiritually?

The media has made a great deal about recent polls where folks define themselves as 'spiritual' rather than 'religious'.  Which for me raises the question, What do they mean by spiritual?  [and of course, it's twin, what do they mean by 'religious'?]

As people who look to the Holy Spirit as a comforter, encourager, prayer partner and source of power, I would expect that believing Christians are spiritual.  By that I mean, are open to the Spirit's movement in this world, in their lives and in themselves.  There is some expectation that this movement of the Spirit would  challenge us to move in unexpected directions.  It would push us towards generosity ....and compassion....and righteous indignation over injustice.  All of these are characteristics of our Lord Jesus, and so the Spirit works to transform us into the person God has always known we can be.

But what do you think?