Thursday, March 17, 2011

I know God speaks to all of us.  For me, it can come through an experience with another person, listening to a sermon, or sometimes it’s through my efforts to write a devotion.  Take today, for example.  I looked up the readings for today online.  I read them all and then decided to write about the word “fear” which resonated with me when I saw in the Deuteronomy reading.   

Or so I thought. Because when I returned to read it, it wasn’t there…and I was quite confused.    

Then I realized that there was another reading from Deuteronomy for tomorrow, and lo and behold, when I (re)read THAT one, I found the passage with the word I sought.  Deuteronomy 10:12 “So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you?  Only to fear the Lord your God…”.  Hmm, so now I had the passage but the wrong day?  Here’s where I could have sworn I heard God saying “Write about fear anyway.”

Recently a visit to see friends had me in a kitchen with people from many faiths, and I had a fascinating conversation with two friends, one Catholic, the other of mixed religion with a Muslim father and a Hindu mother.  We also had another friend in the room of mixed religion with a Jewish father and Catholic mother.  Our conversation centered around the differences and more so the similarities among our many religions.  I was struck by the notion that while we were having an open conversation, this is such a struggle in our world today.  There is such a culture of fear in religious communities worldwide…fear of the unknown, fear of others and their beliefs…fear whose unspoken purpose seems to be to protect and build up the organization.  But fear and faith cannot coexist, so does the opposite happen?  Seems to me fear leads to erosion of faith.   

Consensus at the table that day was sadness at the divisions in our world, and a yearning for community…in the broadest sense…interdenominational community which encourages faith and trust and hope and love.

I find the Gospel reading for today a complicated one.  John 3:16 reads “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”  I can tell you that as I sat with my friends and wondered about this very thing with them, it isn’t easy to reconcile Christian beliefs that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus, not when sitting face to face with others who believe just as strongly in their faith and their God.  OUR God.  Somehow this part always leaves me wondering.

Welcome Lent, giving us the opportunity to simply sit with the questions….

(LC)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

JOHN 3:3 EXCEPT A MAN BE BORN AGAIN HE CANNOT SEE THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

“Born Again” – a phrase recognized by Episcopalians in the language of Christianity, but not really familiar in the sense of feeling recognizable as experience. We’re inclined to associate “born again” with religiosity rather than religion.

Yet there it is – spoken by Jesus (and of old printed in red in the gospel of John ). How can we understand something that even he didn’t explain. Maybe it is less a problem to be solved than it is a reality to be recognized. Maybe we overlook our being born gain because we stop there. Maybe it’s that we are born again and again and yet again.

Once when I was returning from a conference I was able to recognize being born again while it was happening. I had for some time been down in the dumps and at a loss as to how I could keep going. At the time I was driving and my colleague/friend/passenger was going on about how exciting he felt the conference had been. Suddenly all seemed silent and I heard a voice – a young male voice. The voice said, “Ted, you are practicing dying and I love you.” (sic)

How can I explain what I no more understood than you might. Yet explaining misses the point. I knew (recognized) than I was being born – being born again. Somehow I realized that what was happening had happened before – and it would happen again – and again. Pray God I will recognize it when it happens.

(Ted Harris)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

“So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables…” John 2:15

“Go ahead Jesus, blow your top!”

I really struggled with the readings of today.  They’re not easy.  Perhaps it’s the common thread of anger weaved throughout them.  Discerning for quite some time over them, it’s this one sentence that seemed to resonate within me.  Here’s what I’ve to offer…

We’ve heard this story time and again about how Jesus was angered with the improprieties of the activities taking place within the temple.  He was REALLY pissed.  This was disrespectful.  All this buying and swindling going on infuriated Him.  Hadn’t ANYONE been listening to Him???!!!  Well, there’s much to share on that but it’s not the reasoning for the outburst that tugged at me within, it’s His anger, in and of itself, that impresses me.

I feel confident in sharing that we’ve all experienced a time when we’ve just not felt heard.  Perhaps, like me, there are some of you that have found a particular situation (or two or three or ten-plus) so frustrating that you’ve gone ahead and blown your top, which may not have been a pretty sight!  Probably the most disturbing times I can recall is when my behavior has taken the better of me and I’d tossed all sense of self control to the wind.  We’ve thrown our hissy-fit, purged our frustrations and when all is said and done, there’s a time of quiet reflection.  And during this quiet time, I don’t know about you, but I feel like crap for having had lost control.  I struggle with how weak I am and question what is wrong with me and humbly ask for help.  Now what do I do after making such a spectacle of myself?  There IS a feeling of release though; we can physically and emotionally feel it.  And we’ve spoken so loudly that whatever it was that so frustrated us, what we desperately needed others to hear, could not have helped but been heard!

But with this, I can humbly seek comfort in knowing that Jesus, too, felt those same feelings of human frustration that we can come into battle with from time to time.  And maybe while not condoning the release of feelings in such a way, it is comforting to know that God truly and humanly understands us as we experience them.  And because He truly understands us, He is there to help us stand again and provide for us the strength to do the work He has given us to do in the first place.  Perhaps with a sense of clearer insight and a better suggestion of expression of what it is that we truly do need to share with others.

Thanks be to God for humanity, His never ceasing love, and His perpetual understanding.

 

May you feel God's peace be with you today.

(Mary Lindfors)

Monday, March 14, 2011

Monday, March 14, 2011  First Week of Lent

Deuteronomy 8:11-20; Hebrews 2:11-18; John 2:1-12

“Take care that you do not forget…your God…obey the voice… of your God.” 

Obey God’s voice, Moses says. The presumption in Scripture is that God speaks to us: in creation, in events, through people, in the Revealed Word of Scripture itself, and in the Word made human in Jesus.

If God does indeed speak to us, then probably a goodly amount of our spiritual work is learning how to be good at listening. 

When two of my nieces were young, their mother took a course on parenting at a local church.  The parents were encouraged to refrain from immediately exploding at some of the outrageous, hurtful and angry things their children might say and instead take the time to listen to what might be behind the words being said, especially the sometimes thorny and hurtful words.  My sister told me that one day her elder child yelled out that she hated her sister.  My sister took a deep breath, let go of what she was going to say, then simply repeated her daughter’s words in a question – “You hate your sister?”  My niece, startled, went on to explain that, no, she didn’t really hate her, but she did think that her sister was smarter and prettier than she was.  A good conversation then followed between parent and child.  

I wonder if God was at work in my sister’s having listened to the words of the course instructor, in my niece’s listening to her mother’s question, in the listening in the conversation that followed.  Could be.

Periodically I turn to the Marriage Service in The Book of Common Prayer to listen again to the words that I heard read  by the rector of our parish in Ohio when my husband and I were married on a beautiful spring evening. I reflect on how I might make those words more alive in my relationship with my husband.  

One day I decided to work on listening more attentively to him when he reenters the house after being on an errand or returning from seeing someone.  I turn aside from whatever I am doing, turn toward him to listen to what he has to say as he reenters our home.  I give myself over to listening to him, not speaking myself until he is finished, with no other purposes than to be present to him and to reconnect to him – to let him feel how wonderful it is to have someone listen.

  

(Rev. Janice Schuyler)

      

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Meditation for Sunday, March 13, 2011

Psalm 63:1-8(9-11), 98; Psalm 103; Deut. 8:1-10; 1 Cor. 1:17-31; Mark 2:18-22

Eat, drink, and exercise! Okay, that’s unorthodox advice, especially a few days into this special season of Lent. But that’s exactly what I feel the readings are calling me to do. There’s talk of new wine in Mark and all kinds of yumminess – honey, bread, olives, pomegranates, and more – in Deuteronomy.  The Psalmist says, “My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast.”

There’s also exercise, if you count the many years of walking the Israelites did.  That may sound flip, but I’m serious!  In “An Altar in the World,” Barbara Brown Taylor describes the spiritual practice of walking. It’s not only good for your body, it’s good for your soul.

Indeed, the Israelites are called to remember all those years of walking – and their utter dependence on God – when they are about to enter the land filled with those delicious foods (which, no doubt, tasted extra good after many years of manna).

This is all good advice. Nourish yourself with good food and exercise. And do so in memory of Jesus, who calls us also to take care of those who don’t have food to eat or their own shoes to walk in. 

(Cynthia M)

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Meditation for Saturday, March 12, 2011

Readings for the Day:

AM Psalm 30, 32; PM Psalm 42, 43;  
Deut. 7:17-26; Titus 3:1-15; John 1:43-51 

Come and See

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’

Much has been written about the mysterious Nathanael of this passage. What was he doing under the fig tree in the first place, and why did Jesus notice him? But I wonder about Philip just as much. I imagine him as an enthusiastic person who has a natural awareness of the people around him, and a practical talent when it comes to helping them.  In what appears to be about a half of a minute after meeting Jesus, Philip is out asking others to join Jesus. Nathanael’s snippy reply to his invitation, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” doesn’t seem to bother Philip at all. He doesn’t launch into a long monologue about Jesus.  He doesn’t argue with Nathanael. Philip simply invites Nathanael to “come and see”.

This passage reminded me of Howard Gardner’s latest book, Five Minds For the Future. In the book, Gardner sets out the personal abilities that everyone will need to thrive in the complex and globalized future. The respectful mind is the fourth mindset that Gardner discusses:

 “Recognizing that nowadays one can no longer remain within one’s shell or on one’s home territory, the respectful mind notes and welcomes differences between human individuals and between human groups, tries to understand ‘others,’ and seeks to work effectively with them. In a world where we are all linked, intolerance or disrespect is no longer a viable option.”

As I read today’s scripture, it is easy to see myself conversing in the manner of Nathanael, coming up with a flippant, prejudiced answer before considering the question carefully. As I begin this season of Lent, I’m pondering Philip’s more respectful conversational style.

I think there is great wisdom in Philip’s invitation, so I am inviting myself to hold off on snap judgments during these weeks of Lent, and simply come and see.

Julie Mankowsky

Friday, March 11, 2011

Psalm 95, John 1: 39

Read Psalm 95 again.  Read it one more time focusing on what it asks of us.  “Come!” the psalmist invites, “Come and sing, come and thank, come and worship.”  We’ll receive this invitation almost every Friday in Lent and even more often if you are praying the Daily Office.  The first seven verses of Psalm 95 make up the invitatory prayer called the Venite, part of the liturgy of Morning Prayer.  

Deuteronomy and Titus give us plenty of rules to attend to with strong reminders of the consequences of disobedience.  It’s easy to view Lent through that lens and see it only as a time of self-discipline and denial.  But Lent is mostly about accepting the invitation and showing up; exercising the self-discipline we need to come into God’s presence and denying ourselves those things that keep us from doing so.

“Come,” the psalmist will invite us each day in Psalm 95.  “Come and see,” Jesus invites us today in John 1:39.  Venite!

(Robin Carlo)