Do Not Be Afraid

"When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.  Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.  Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.  She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.' All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:  "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means "God is with us."'  When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home." (Matthew 1:18-24)

It has been said that the most frequent exhortation in the scriptures is, "Do not be afraid."  At the very least, it is the common introduction to all of the angelic messages delivered in our Advent Gospel stories -- the announcements to Mary, Joseph, Zechariah, and the shepherds.

What is our experience of Emmanuel, God-with-us?  What if we trusted that the voice we heard, the feeling in our hearts or guts was really the presence of a messenger of God?  Might we not find ourselves at least a little afraid?

These Advent stories, like our own meetings with angels, may strike us as both familiar and strange.  We may get lost in the familiarity of these scriptures, no longer able to hear the message because we know the words so well.  Conversely, we can get lost in their foreignness.  Can my experience of God in prayer be anything like Joseph's or Mary's encounter with an angel?  Should I be afraid?

One way to renew our sense of awe at the particularity of how God's angel (a word which in Greek means messanger) speaks to us in prayer is by reading the scriptures according to the ancient practice of lectio divina or "sacred reading."  Lectio divina is not Bible study or even devotional reading.  It is a contemplative practice that invites the Spirit to speak through the scripture into my life as it is, as I am, right now.

Fr. Luke Dysinger, O.S.B. has written a beautifully detailed article on lectio divina including instruction for doing lectio with a group, but here is the basic form of the practice:  Lectio proceeds through four phases.  I like to think of them as movements, like in a musical composition or a dance.  The dance metaphor is perhaps more apt, because, while they are always presented in order, my own experience is of sometimes moving back and forth among them as I pray.

The first of the four movements is called lectio, or reading.  This is where we first encounter the passage.  Note that this practice of prayer can be applied not only to scripture, but to any reading that inspires the heart.  What's more, I have found that these movements, this way of thinking, applies as well to things I might see or experience, an encounter with nature, a conversation with a loved one, an image that strikes me.  So, while we call the first movement, "reading," it is really about becoming aware of the details of the object of our prayer.

If we are dealing with a text, lectio is the time where we read for understanding.  What is happening in the text?  What are the meanings of the words?  If we are reflecting on an image or an experience, this is the time for noticing all the sensory details.  Just get to know the object of our meditation.

For how long should we remain in this phase?  Until we feel our hearts drawn more deeply into our reflection.  We then pass quite naturally into meditatio, mediation, the second movement.  In the Benedictine tradition, from which this practice comes, meditatio is also called rumination, literally, chewing on, as a cow chews her cud.

During the process of meditatio we allow the text or the image or experience to speak to us in this moment.  What do we notice?  Is there a word or a phrase that seems to stick with us?  Does an image come up?  What do we see or hear?  I experience meditatio as the heart of the experience.  If I trust the Word to speak, I almost always notice something arise that wants my attention.

Once I recognize the something that is speaking to me, I just attend to it.  I let it unpack itself in me.  Why that? I might wonder.  I listen for the thing in me that feels resonance with the word or phrase or image or idea that has come up.  Where is this awareness leading me?  What is it pointing to in my life?  What does it have to teach me?  Of what is it reminding me?

As I recognize how this text or image or experience is speaking particularly to me in this moment, I am led to the next movement of the prayer, oratio.  Oratio means prayer.  Here I reach out to God who is reaching out to me through the Word.  What response does the awareness that has arisen in meditatio call forth from me?  Does it remind me of my need or the needs of others?  Does it lead me to thanksgiving?  Does it call forth praise or awe?  Whatever it is I express it to God.

As God has now spoken to me through the Word and I have responded to God, there is nothing left to say.  At this point we are invited into the final movement of the dance, contemplatio, or contemplation.  In contemplatio we simply rest in the presence of God.  There is nothing to do, only to be.

As we abide in God and allow the message we have received to rest in us, we begin to experience the peace on which the angel's exhortation rests:  Do not be afraid.

Practice:

Using either the passage from Matthew above, last Sunday's Gospel, or any devotional reading or passage that comes to you, try the practice of lectio divina.  Give yourself twenty minutes of quiet.  Don't worry about doing it right.  Slow down and let the passage you have selected open itself up to you.  As a wise Benedictine sister said as she introduced us to lectio, "You may have heard this scripture passage a hundred times, but you haven't heard it today."

If you want more information about the process, you can refer to the article cited above or try this one, which is brief and direct.

If you want to go deeper into learning about the practice, try here or here.

After you have experienced this form of prayer, notice how it felt to you.  What was the experience like?  Are you willing to try it again?  What did you like about it?  Did anything trouble you?

Consider using a different sort of text or an experience from your own life.  There is nothing that comes to us in which we cannot discover sacredness.

Next week:  "Let It Be Done to Me"

Martha, Martha

As the continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.  She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.  Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?  Tell her to help me."  The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." - Luke 10:  38-42

Poor Martha.  Someone needs to set the table, don't they?  Someone needs to fix the food and wash the dishes and make up the beds.

I get tired of the bad rap Martha gets.  How many times have I heard faithful Christian sisters say, in dismay or despair, "I'm such a Martha.  I need to be more of a Mary."

I imagine Martha as a woman like me, always wanting to help, always trying so hard.  Maybe too hard.  I hear in her resentment my own resentment.  "Why am I the only one who cares about..."  A tidy house?  Getting dinner on the table?  Taking care of things and people?  Why is it always me?  Surely I've cried out with Martha, "Lord, do you not care that my sister/husband/children/friends have left me by myself to do the serving?  Tell them to help me!"

I see so much selfishness around me. ("That Mary, just sitting there!  How selfish!") I can't bear it.  I am not going to be the selfish one, that's for sure.

And yet, Luke says that Martha is "burdened."  And Jesus says, elsewhere (Matthew 11:30), "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

"There is need of only one thing," says Jesus.  I don't really understand what that "one thing" is.  I know, I know, sitting at the feet of Jesus.  But that doesn't seem quite right.  We know we really can't all sit at the feet of Jesus all the time, in the way that Mary does.  Dinner does need to get to the table.  What can this "one thing" be?

And while we're pondering, take a look at that next line, the one that used to make me really mad: "Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her."  Ouch!  For years and years, those words sounded to me like a sharp slap in Martha's face.  And mine.  And all of those self-identified "Marthas" out there.

Then, about a year ago, after reading this text a thousand times, I heard Jesus say something I had never heard before.  Maybe he meant this:  "Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her.  Martha, you could choose it too, and it will not be taken from you."

Could that possibly be true?  I can sit at the feet of Jesus?  But who will set the table?  Who will cook the meal and wipe the dishes and sweep the floors?  If I don't, won't that make me selfish?

And Jesus says to me, "You don't have to be anxious and worried about that."

Really?  The better part can be mine too?  I can give up the anxious worry and have that sort of freedom?  But what will happen?  Who will set the table?

I guess I'll have to sit at Jesus' feet if I want to find out.

Lenten Journey: Dying Before We Die

Brothers and sisters:  I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  

Philippians 3:8-11

For Reflection...

She was as good as dead.  She stood before the mercy seat awaiting the just judgment, which she knew was death by stoning.  But then she didn't die.  Or did she?

In a powerful talk entitled The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered (as well as in many other places in his body of work) Richard Rohr reflects a central message of the New Testament:  The journey into Christ passes through death.  Jesus himself talks about the grain of wheat (John 12:24) and the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-40).  Paul says it in Philippians 3:10-11.  Until we descend into the earth, unless we are swallowed whole and end up in the belly of the whale, we cannot become the bearers of life and God's word of mercy.

Isn't this the case for the woman caught in adultery?  From her ordinary, admittedly sinful, life she is dragged forth into the harsh light of judgment.  From her complacency, she finds herself suddenly in the throes of suffering.  She is in the belly of the whale.

It is a baptism by fire this suffering of hers, of ours.  While she escapes physical death, her suffering is a death nonetheless.  When Jesus tells her to go and sin no more (John 8:11), he is acknowledging that her life cannot be, is not, what it was.  Something has changed.  Some part of her has died.  He is inviting her to recognize it.  She has lost something that was once of value to her -- her lover or her sense of safety, perhaps -- but what she has gained, Christ, is so much more.

For Entering In...

- Enter into the presence of God as the woman caught in adultery.  Can you use your imagination to see the face of Jesus, the face of Mercy, before you?

- Reflect on these questions:

• Have you experienced a crisis after which your life could not be the same?  Maybe it was something big -- a death of a loved one or some other significant loss.  Maybe it was more subtle.  Maybe it was a series of experiences over time.  Remember your life before.  Remember the dawning awareness that nothing could be the same after.

• The Christian view of the spiritual life has the death and resurrection of Jesus at its center.  It is the model for all of reality.  (If you doubt the truth of this pattern, look at the cycles of the natural world.)  Take that in:  Death and resurrection is the pattern of our lives.  What does that mean to you?

• While God does not ordain that bad things happen -- that is a by-product of good creation broken by sin -- God wastes nothing, but uses suffering as the fodder for redemption.  Consider an experience of suffering with which you are familiar, yours or someone else's.  Can you see a way in which God used that experience for good (cf. Romans 8:28)?

• Using your imagination, consider the woman caught in adultery.  How might her life be different going forward?  Put yourself in her place.  Take your time.  Imagine having been on the brink of just condemnation and death and having come through alive.  How might your life be different?

• Every new day is a day we don't deserve; it is always a gift of life from God.  How can you live today in awareness of that fact?  Where can you experience gratitude?  How would you live today if it was the only day you will ever have?  

- Spend several minutes allowing your body and mind to be at rest.  If thoughts come, let them go by.  What if the only thing that mattered was your being, not your thinking or feeling or doing?

Lenten Journey: A Future and a Hope

John 8:1-11

For Reflection...

Now they stand face to face, the Woman and the Judge.  He has established the terms:  "'Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her'" (v. 7).  What will he do now?

We've heard the story before.  Even if we haven't, we don't expect the Jesus we've come to know to pick up a stone.  But he could.

He is in a position to condemn.  He is right with God himself, without sin.  The law provides for this particular circumstance.  He has said that he has come not to abolish but to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17).

Here's the fulfillment:  "'Neither do I condemn you.  Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more'" (v. 11).  Not a stoning but instead a release and an invitation.

What can it mean?  Adulterers merit stoning.  But Jesus does not see an adulterer; he sees a woman with a face and a name, a history -- and a future.  He knows that she can be more, is already more, than her sin.  His hope for her transcends the limits of the law.

In Romans 7, Paul explains,

...if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin....I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.  For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. (vv 7b, 9-11)

In Jesus, we do not bypass the good law (Romans 7:7), but, rather, we move through the death that comes to us in the law into new life (cf. Isaiah 43:19ff).  In spite of our guilt, we are given a future and a new hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

For Entering In...

- As you become aware of being in the presence of God, notice -- does God feel close or far?  Do you feel connected or disconnected to God?  To your own heart?  Don't judge, just allow yourself to be wherever you are today.

- Reflect on these questions:

• What laws do you feel bound to live under?  Secular laws?  Religious laws?  Which of those laws to you feel you have upheld?  Which have you violated?

• When have you expected -- or felt you deserved -- condemnation for some wrong you have done?  What happened?  Did you receive what you expected?  Or did you receive unexpected mercy?  Either way, how did that feel?

• Have you been in a position to judge someone else?  What would it mean for your hope to transcend the limits of the just law?  Do you feel that would be fair or unfair?  Why?

• How has the law been death to you?  Where have you experienced some form of spiritual death in relation to the dictates of law and your success or failure in meeting them?

• What is it that you want Jesus to hope for in you?  What is the future that he sees for you?  Can you imagine a future more filled with abundance and life than you've dared to dream of?

- Spend several minutes allowing your body and mind to be at rest.  If thoughts come, let them go by.  What if the only thing that mattered was your being, not your thinking or feeling or doing?

Lenten Journey: The Inheritance

Then he said, "A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.' So the father divided the property between them.

- Luke 15:11-12

For Reflection...

What was the father thinking?  It was as if he were dead, only he wasn't.  If he had been, if the inheritance had come to his sons in the standard way, he wouldn't have been present to witness the consequences.  Instead, in an act of fearless generosity, or reckless abandon, he gives them everything and stands by to watch the drama unfold.

What does he see?  He sees his older son continue unwaveringly on the well-worn path.  He doesn't spend his inheritance.  Maybe he buries it (Matthew 25:18).  All is safe and sound.  No reward, no risk.  The father sees him day by day, sees the groove he walks become a rut.

The father also sees his younger son.  He sees him pack his things.  He sees him walk down the road to God-knows-where.  Will he ever lay eyes on him again?  Where is he going?  Away.  To a far distant country.

The father can't be surprised.  He knows his sons, knew this might happen.  One son, stolid but tethered, the other, untethered but wanton.  The father might even have dreaded seeing it, but he has allowed it.

This is a portion of the inheritance -- the freedom to stand still and the freedom to walk away and keep on walking.

The inheritance comes with no strings attached.  Both sons are free to do with the inheritance what they will.  And they do.

Meanwhile, the father watches.  We know he is watching.  Maybe he looks out at the road as he looks  across the fields, seeing one son at his labors, waiting to see the other coming back across the horizon.

For Entering In...

- Wherever you are right now, God is present too.  Look around you.  Are your surroundings familiar or new to you?  What do you notice?  Can you recognize that God is here, now?

- Reflect on these questions:

• How do you understand the father's decision to say, yes, to giving the inheritance to his sons?  Do you see it as generous?  Foolish?  Or something else?  

• What do you think of as your "inheritance"?  From your parents or other family?  From God?  How are you spending it?  Or have you buried it to keep it safe?

• Have you ever given something of yourself away freely only to see it abused?  Maybe money?  Your friendship?  Your heart?  What happened?  How did -- or does -- that feel?

• Have you created a rut for yourself?  What is that like?  Or do you keep moving, never finding a comfortable groove?

• How do you understand freedom?  Are you free to live as you choose?  What does that mean?  What are the potential consequences when you choose to exercise your freedom?  The good?  The not-so-good?

- Remember your prayer word?  Return to it, if you have forgotten to do so these past few days.  Breathe into that word.  Where does it reside in your body?  Notice how it feels.

Lenten Journey: The Older Son

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

For Reflection...

"A man had two sons..."  That's how the parable begins.  The next part, the part we know the best, is about the younger son who takes his share of the estate, skips town, parties 'til he's broke, then comes crying home.

The older son doesn't come in until near the end.  That figures, says the older son in me.

It is the older son with whom I most often identify.  He's the one who stays at home.  He's the one working away in the fields.  He does the right thing.  He helps his father.  He doesn't cause any trouble.  He doesn't ask for anything, not so much as a goat.

I'll bet he's a good Jew.  Always says his prayers.  Follows God's Law to the letter.  Except for the part where we're called to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:9).  I know, because the Father practically begs this older son to come in to the party, and the son won't come.  "Taste and see that the Lord is good," the Father seems to say, but his older son cannot.

Neither can I sometimes.  Like the older son, I get tired, sick and tired.  The party started while I was still out in the field (v. 25).  As a matter of fact, my Father's other son (no brother of mine) has been partying all his life while I've been shoveling the manure.  I'm in no mood to celebrate and rejoice (v. 32).

But the party will go on, with or without the older son, with our without me.  The parable ends with the question implied:  Will he go in, or won't he?


For Entering In...

- Take a deep breath.  Close your eyes and feel the surface you're sitting on, notice your body in space.  Think about where you believe your soul resides and breathe into that space, knowing God dwells there too.

- Reflect on these questions:

• In what ways have you, like the older son, tried to do the right thing with your inheritance?  When have you chosen to remain at home in spite of the lure of the distant country?  What are the fields you've labored in?

• The older son is resentful because he believes that his sacrifice has gone unrecognized (v. 29), not unlike the lament of Cain in Genesis (4:5ff).  Consider sacrifices you feel you've made.  Is there something you've expect in return?  Accolades?  Thanks?  Acknowledgement?  Be honest.  How does has it felt to you if those expectations have not been met?

• Can you think of a time when you've seen someone get something you don't believe they deserve?  Maybe an advancement at work?  Money or other material wealth?  Some other sort of success?  Or, like the younger son in the parable, excessive pardon for wrongs committed?  How has that made you feel?

• Jesus repeatedly uses images of celebration to describe what it's like to enter the Kingdom of God (see Matthew 22 and Luke 14).  Do you ever feel reluctant to enter into the party?  If so, what is that like for you?  What is keeping you out?

- Breathe deeply again and notice the air as it fills your body.  Every breath is a gift, a dimension of the Father's bounty that belongs to us (Luke 15:31).  Carry that awareness back into your day.

Lenten Journey: Setting Up Camp

As [Moses and Elijah] were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."  But he did not know what he was saying.  

- Luke 9:33

For Reflection...

Perhaps, had we been there with Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, once we shook ourselves fully awake to bear witness to God's glory, we would likewise have been tempted to set up camp.  It's hard not to love the mountaintop.

When I go to the mountaintop, I feel my doubts melt away.  I feel the presence of God so tangibly.  I know in my bones that God is good and that, however much worldly woes might seek to dissuade me, all shall be well.  All I want to do when I'm there is set up a tent and move in.

The Jewish Feast of Booths or Sukkot -- to which Peter's tent building likely refers -- is a commemoration of the provision of God for the people of Israel as they wandered forty years in the desert.  It is also a harvest festival, a celebration of the time for reaping what had been sown.

Maybe Peter believed that they had arrived at the harvest, here, on this mountain.  Jesus talks about the harvest (e.g., especially, John 4) as a way of pointing to the appointed time for God's fulfillment of God's plan.  Peter sees the radiance of God's glory in Jesus transfigured and believes that they are home at last.

It is not insignificant that a few verses early in the ninth chapter of Luke Peter has affirmed his understanding of Jesus as Messiah.  In Matthew's gospel (chapter 16), immediately following Peter's declaration, that same Peter roundly rejects the idea that the Messiah "must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised" (v. 21).  Although Jesus rebukes him in the strongest terms ("Get behind me, Satan!" v. 23), perhaps Peter is still determined that the fulfillment can happen on the mountaintop.

That's what I want too.  When I'm riding high up on the mountaintop, I want to stay.  I want to believe that, at last, all of my problems will be solved, that I can be forever peaceful and carefree.

But I, like Peter, do not know what I'm saying.  There is only one road to ultimate freedom, and it leads through death.  I don't want to hear it.  I don't want to think about it.  Like Peter, I want to say to the Master, "God forbid it, Lord.  This must never happen to you!" (Matthew 16:22), by which I also mean, this must never happen to me.


For Entering In...

- Spend a few moments becoming present to yourself.  If your mind is preoccupied, allow the thoughts to come and to go.  Notice what you feel in your body, in your heart.

- Invite God to be present with you.

- Reflect on these questions:

• Have you had a mountaintop experience where you wanted to remain?  Close your eyes, take your time, and really remember what that felt like.

• Have there been times in your life when you have been faced with a truth ("[The] Messiah must...undergo great suffering...") that you didn't want to confront?  What was that like for you?

• Have you experienced a significant death or deaths in your life?  Are you ever willing to pause and consider your own mortality?

• This season of Lent can be a time of reckoning with our own mortality.  The Christian creeds include the confession that death is not the end of our existence.  What are your beliefs about death and mortality or immortality?

• In "The Weight of Glory", C.S. Lewis says something about immortality that is worth quoting at length:

"It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship [like Jesus in his transfigured state], or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.  All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations...There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal...[It] is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

What does this passage say to you about immortality -- yours and others'? 

- As you finish this quiet time, take a moment to connect with your soul and with the God who dwells there.  Rejoice in God's intention for you to be reborn as an everlasting splendor.

Lenten Journey: Reflecting God's Glory

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray.  While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.  And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.   Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.  As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."  But he did not know what he was saying.  While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.  Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my chosen Son; listen to him."  After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.  They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.

- Luke 9:28b-36 

For Reflection...

"Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying..."

Do we notice that this story which we refer to as the transfiguration of Jesus takes place while Jesus was praying?  We've spent some time already this Lent reflecting on prayer and even more time practicing  prayer.  We have talked together about prayer as the act of becoming present to the God who, even now, is waiting for us to notice that God is always present to us.  We have considered the throat-parched cry of the desert prayer; we'll be there, in the desert with Jesus again, before Easter arrives.

But this week we are on the mountaintop.  We, with Peter and James and John, are invited to watch and learn from Jesus who has climbed to the heights to pray.

It is in the midst of this mountaintop prayer that Jesus, like Moses (Exodus 34:29ff), radiates the light of God's presence.  Like Moses in the tent of meeting (Exodus 33:11), Jesus approaches God face to face (cf. Hebrews 9:24), and Jesus invites his disciples -- us -- to do the same.

There is something about being in the presence of God that shows in my face.  I look different, even if the difference fades.  There is a glory in me that, when it encounters the glory of God, shines out of me like a light.  I become like a lamp in the darkness, a city on a hill (Matthew 5:14).

The dark world needs my light.  When I am shining, I become a sign to the nations, promised in Isaiah (49:6).  I become a part of the solution that God always intended to insure through Israel's Messiah.  I am equipped as part of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12) to participate in the work of reconciling the broken world -- healing, loving, forgiving.

It is no accident that Jesus transfigured appears clothed in "dazzling white," and we, at our baptism, are likewise adorned.  We put on the promise of transfiguration.  As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18:

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

We are the mirror image of the glorious face of God.  We are called with Christ to be the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).  Do we believe it?  Do we believe that when the light shines from our faces, it is God that people see?

For Entering In...

- Spend a few moments becoming present to yourself.  If your mind is preoccupied, allow the thoughts to come and to go.  Notice what you feel in your body, in your heart.

- Invite God to be present with you.

- Reflect on these questions:

• What have been mountaintop experiences in your life?  What are the times when you have glowed with joy or wonder or peace or delight?

• Choose one or more of your mountaintop experiences.  Ask yourself, when you were there, on the mountaintop, where was God?

• Sometimes it can be difficult for me to see my own light.  Can you think of a time when you saw someone else's face aglow with the glory of God?  Who was it?  What were the circumstances?  How did it make you feel?

• How have others been touched by your light?  Has there been a time when you knew you were shining God's light into the world?  What was that experience like for you?  Was there something about that experience and your role in it that stands out for you?

• Make a list of the ways in which God has gifted you.  What are the talents that you bring to the world?  Can you give humble thanks to God for inviting you into God's healing work?

- As you finish this quiet time, take a moment to connect with your soul and enjoy the goodness that God has created in you.

Lenten Journey: Prayer - Deep Calling Unto Deep

"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.  Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

- Matthew 6:5-6 

For reflection...

It always strikes me as ironic that the passage from Matthew above is read as we begin the Lenten season on Ash Wednesday.  We're warned not to be exhibitionists in prayer even as we all gather, sometimes in the company of the local news crew, and depart with big black smudges of ash on our foreheads, declaring to the unsuspecting world, "I was just praying."  Have we already received our reward?  And what sort of reward or repayment for praying might we expect anyway?

We're better off, says Matthew's Jesus, praying in secret, in our inner room.  I wonder what that could mean in a culture where people lived in houses with a single room where everyone ate and slept.  Good luck finding a secret, inner room.

There are contemplative teachers who believe that the "inner room" of which Jesus speaks is the inner room of the pray-er's heart.  That might be true.  I don't know.  What I do know is that Jesus is trying to tell us that what we receive when we pray is somehow hidden, mysterious to the pray-er herself.

We reflected on secrecy yesterday, the secret, hidden from our own awareness, of how God uses us in our brokenness to bless others.  I wonder if prayer isn't a way that this same hiddenness blesses us.

We need to take a step back and consider, What is prayer anyway?  Talking about prayer can immediately conjure a sense of confusion.  How am I supposed to pray?  The prayers of childhood might seem pointless, the heaping up of empty phrases of Matthew 6:7.  Articles, books, classes, and blog posts abound, all claiming to lead us in how to pray.  There are methods and types of prayer -- contemplation, meditation, devotional reading, lectio divina, intercession, and praise, to name but a few.

Then there is the guilt.  I ought to pray.  Or, I ought to pray more, more often, with more attention, more regularly.

Here's the truth:  No one knows how you ought to pray.  And the only time to pray is now.

I think we make prayer too complicated.  Not that there isn't room enough for guidance; there are indeed ways to deepen or expand our experience of prayer, especially if we need motivation or encouragement in dry times.  But at its most fundamental level, prayer is nothing more or less than noticing that God is present, here, now.

When I've prayed with my young children and have heard them hurrying into some rote words, I've asked them to pause and notice to whom they are speaking.  Do I do that?  Do I rattle off some words, whether from my memory, the scriptures, or off the top of my head, without pausing to consider to whom I'm addressing those words?

That is a big question.  Who is this God?  What do I know about Him or Her?  Is this god the God of my childhood?  What does this God want or expect of me?  I read once about a bishop who was also a college professor, who routinely asked his students who professed belief in God, "Which god is it that you believe in?"  It is a fair question for us.  If we are going to explore prayer, before we bother with how, we need to wonder about who -- who am I praying to, and who am I, who am praying?

Prayer is the point, the foundation of all that I hope we can explore and experience together this Lent:   Prayer as quiet pause in the midst of the bustle of life.  Prayer as an awareness of my own heart.  Prayer as relationship with Someone.  Prayer as the depth of my Self calling out and hearing a deeper Depth answering back and knowing that what I hear is more than the echo of my own voice.

I believe that the gift that is offered to us when we enter into this hidden space where prayer happens -- not so much because of as in spite of us -- is a connection with that Someone who is, in fact, closer to me than I am to myself.  In knowing that Someone, I start to know something more about who I am, what I most long for, and where my life is going.

For entering in...

- Find a quiet place to be.  Spend a few moments becoming present to yourself.  Notice how it feels to be in your body, in this place, at this time.

- Even if you're not sure there's anyone listening, invite God to be present with you.

- It's time to start going deeper.  Reflect on these questions:

• Get out your journal or a piece of paper.  Yesterday I invited you to reflect on the kind of love you want from God.  Today we're going to look more deeply at what you believe -- or don't believe -- about who God is.  If you've made it this far, I suspect it's because, even if you're not sure, you're hoping that there is a God who loves you.
• If you believed in a god earlier in your life, as a child or a young adult, what was that god like?  What did that god expect or want from you?  What did that god offer you?
• Is that still how you see God?  How would you describe God as you understand God today?
• Does the God of your understanding work for you?  How would you describe a god who would?

• What has been your experience of prayer?  How did you pray as a child, if you did?  Do you pray now?  How and how often?  What is the relationship, if any, between your practice of prayer and your day-to-day life?  Have you ever felt rewarded in some way as a result of praying?

• Have you tried the suggestion to quiet yourself and become present to the Someone who is always waiting for you?  What has that felt like?  Can you see that as the beginning of prayer?  What do you notice about yourself in these times?  What is happening in your heart?

• Are you willing to consider practicing that attention to Presence once or twice (or more often) every day?

• As you look ahead, what do you hope to be able to say about your life of prayer 40 days from now?

- When you have answered these questions in your thoughts or in writing, pause and again become present to yourself and to God.  What do you notice?  Has what you notice changed since Wednesday?

Lenten Journey: Alms - Keeping Secrets from Ourselves

"When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others.  Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will repay you." - Matthew 6:2-3

"Any material favor done to assist the needy, and prompted by charity, is almsgiving." (quoted from the Catholic Encyclopedia)

For reflection...

Alms is such a funny word, isn't it?  I don't think I've ever used it in a sentence.  When I hear it, I think of giving money.  I might use language like giving to charity or making a donation or even tithing, but I would never say I'm giving alms.  Even writing it makes me feel like I've stepped into a Charles Dickens story.

But if I'm to believe the definition I found, it's about more than money.  What does it mean, I wonder, as I unpack "material help" for "the needy," prompted by charity"?

Material help seems easy enough.  That includes money, right?  And stuff.  Canned goods or new socks or toothpaste.  For the needy.

Here I have to pause.  Needy.  I'm needy sometimes, and I have plenty of food and clothing and toiletries. So what else might it mean to be needy?  For me, I think of myself as needy when I'm over-stressed and over-planned and overwhelmed and I feel under-equipped, under-prepared, and misunderstood.  I say feel because, what I know from my less needy moments, is that I do have everything I need, if...

If what?  If I remember.  If I ask.  If I stop and breathe and pray and breathe some more.  But I forget, and I don't ask and I hold my breath and try to do it on my own and the next thing you know I feel like I'm suffocating.

The problem is, I am a lot more comfortable being the almsgiver than being the needy.

Which brings us to charity.  "Prompted by charity," says our definition.  Charity is another one of those words, like alms.  It's positively Dickensian, until you look at its roots.

Charity started out as an old Latin word, caritas, which was used in the Latin Bible to translate the Greek word that John and Paul and the other New Testament authors used:  agape.  We're probably familiar with it  in 1 Corinthians 13 and in John 3:16, but what does it mean?

C.S. Lewis wrote a whole book on the different ways the Greeks had of expressing the concept of love.  The nutshell of agape love is that it is what we might call unconditional or sacrificial love, that is, the sort of love that God has for us.

Which is the long way round, but brings us back to what it means for us to be "prompted by charity," or agape.  I have to know my own neediness before I can really meet you in yours with agape.  If I start anywhere else, I'm doing you a favor, because I can.  Because I have more.  Because I see myself in some sense as richer or more privileged or better.  And that's not love.

Love is mutual.  It requires that you and I meet in our shared need.  We come together in a common recognition of our brokenness and helplessness apart from something that is outside of us both -- that is, God.

If I'm going to give someone else a handout or a hand up, I have to start with my hands empty.  It's a mystery, even to me, how I can give from my own nothingness.  It's not mine to give, because I don't have it to give.  It can only be given through me, through my awareness of my own want.

My right hand, doing the giving, can only keep the secret from her partner, the left, when the right doesn't know herself how she's doing it.

For entering in...

- Find a quiet place to be.  Spend a few moments becoming present to yourself.  Notice how it feels to be in your body, in this place, at this time.

- Even if you're not sure there's anyone listening, invite God to be present with you.

- Reflect on these questions:

• Do you give to charity?  Do you tithe?  Why do you do it?  How have these practices figured into your spiritual life, if at all?

• Have you ever been in want for material goods?  Under what circumstances?  Were you able to receive help from others?  How did that feel?

• Do you ever feel emotionally or spiritually needy?  When or under what circumstances?  How do you react?  What do you feel like you need in those moments?

• Write your own definition of love.  In particular, how would you describe the sort of love you think God has for you?  Is this what you want from God?  If not, rewrite your description to reflect the sort of love you want from God.  Include as much detail as you can.  

• Look back on what you wrote about the ideal love you wish for from God.  Can you believe that God is offering you that sort of love, right now?  What if it were true?  How would your life be different?  How could you allow that love to pass through you and into the world?

- When you have answered these questions in your thoughts or in writing, pause and again become present to yourself and to God.  What do you notice?

Lenten Journey: Fasting - The String Around My Finger

“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.  They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting.  Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden.  And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.” - Matthew 6:16-18

For reflection...

"Mom," said my nine year old, "what if I gave up something for Lent that I don't like anyway?"

We have to grapple with the purpose of fasting.  What exactly is the point of giving something up, whether it's food or video games -- which my son is choosing instead of, say, coffee -- or sweets or Facebook?

Fasting from food, as many do on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday is, of course, an ancient spiritual practice in many traditions.  It clears the body and, some say, the mind.  Perhaps it helps us to identify with the poor. For me, it saves time -- no meals to cook and clean up after.  There are risks -- I'm sometimes cranky when I'm hungry -- but it does make me more mindful.

When I give up something I'm used to having, I have to pay attention.  I can't just reach for a piece of chocolate or a hamburger or the remote control.  I have to think about it.  It creates a pause in my day that would otherwise be lacking.

And what do I think in the pause?  Sometimes it's, "Oh.  I made a commitment, and I need to keep it."  Other times it's more like, "Wow.  I want that.  This stinks."  Then, especially then, I have to consider why I made the commitment in the first place.

I fast because I'm generally undisciplined.  Most of the time, I do what I want, when I want, and don't look back.  I have everything I could ever want or need, and yet, often enough, I still want more.  I don't notice what I have, only what I don't.  So when I say a voluntary, no, to having something, I notice it.

I notice other things too.  I notice that my stomach doesn't feel so uncomfortably full, and I don't feel that sugar rush-and-crash, or the caffeine buzz-and-dive.  I notice that I have more time to clean the house or walk the dog.  Maybe you notice that you've only been socializing with the other smokers in the office, because you always take your break outside with them.  That it's hard to be intimate with your spouse without that second beer or glass of wine.  That you sleep better at night when your head's not buzzing with the latest episode of Modern Family.

It's not that all those things we might fast from are so very bad.  It's that they cease to be a choice for us.  They are what we do, almost unconsciously.  I live a life that bumps along without anyone in the driver's seat, not even me.

Fasting is like a string tied around my finger.  In and of itself, it may be useless, but it points me to something else.  It reminds me to pay attention to my own life.

For entering in...

- Find a quiet place to be.  Spend a few moments becoming present to yourself.  Notice how it feels to be in your body, in this place, at this time.

- Even if you're not sure there's anyone listening, invite God to be present with you.

- Reflect on these questions:

• Have you ever fasted?  From what?  Why did you do so?  Because it was part of your faith tradition or spiritual practice, or for some other reason?

• What was it like for you, if you have practiced fasting?  What, if anything, was difficult?  Easy?

• If you've never fasted, are you willing to experiment?  What do you see as the risks?  The potential rewards?

• Become quiet, and ask yourself, "What might I be called to fast from today?  What do I do that has become so automatic I don't even know I'm doing it?"

• If you choose to fast, be ready for the pause when you come up against your voluntary no.  How does it feel to be in that space?

- When you have answered these questions in your thoughts or in writing, pause and again become present to yourself and to God.  What do you notice?

A A A

Yesterday we talked about change, about its coming, bidden or unbidden, from the inside or the outside, and about how we are left to respond with resistance or welcome.

The sort of change that arises from within might better be called transformation -- that is, a crossing (trans-) from one way of being to something new.  It's a truism in the world of personal growth that whatever pain within us is not transformed, we are bound to transmit.  We'll leave it behind in the world when we die, in our children or our other loved ones.  In God-language, it is the wood and the straw that eventually will be burned away, rather than becoming the fine and refined precious metal God uses to build his kingdom (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

It's one thing to say that I am willing to be transformed, but what do I do?  Here's what I know from experience:  I can't wish it so.  I can do all the wanting and hoping -- and praying -- in the world, and I often keep on being the same old me, living in and transmitting the same old pain.  I might wish away the judgments that rattle on in my head or the behaviors that keep me stuck, but I find myself still listening, still doing what I say I don't want to do (see Romans 7:15).

What's more, my first reaction, I just need to try harder, is another way of keeping me stuck.  Here's how I think it works, by way of a metaphor:  At our science museum, there is a spot where you can pretend to cross a raging river on a little bridge.  The trick is in not looking down.  My temptation is to look at the bridge and watch where my feet are treading, but then I see the water below -- and I fall.

You probably know another version of this story.  It's about a Jewish fisherman on a wild sea at night, trying to follow his rabbi by walking on the water.  You know when Peter falters?  When he notices the wind (Matthew 14:28ff).

Here's what it means:   My eyes lead my whole body.  It's a scientific truth, like the experiment at the museum, and it's a spiritual truth too.  Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6, vv 22-23:

The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

I've got to look to the light to be filled with the light.

When I'm trying harder, I'm looking at the darkness, so I can fix it.  But I can't see.  It's dark.

So the first thing is to let the light in, but how?  A wise friend of mine recently reminded me of the three A's, which are, in my experience, the singular path to allowing my own transformation.  They are:

1. Awareness - Now that the light has come in, what do I see?  I don't have to do anything about it, just see if for what it is -- see me, you, my situation, the world, as it is, not as I wish it were.
2. Acceptance - I may not like what I see, but can I acknowledge that it is what it is?  I can ask myself, what if this were as good as it's ever going to get?  Then what?
3. Action - Only now, that the light is shining and my eyes are seeing, am I equipped to do anything at all.    And there's still a question:  Not only, what action might I take, but should I take any action at all?

The rest is up to God.  

Water into Wine

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. - John 2:1-11

When the mother of Jesus tells the servants at the wedding feast,  "Do whatever he tells you," I wonder what she expected Jesus would do.  I wonder what she hoped he would do.

We can understand this story literally, as a party with a problem.  It seems like there's always a problem at a wedding.  There are so many details that can go awry.  At my wedding the air conditioner in the reception hall was on the fritz and it was 100 degrees.  At my sister's wedding, the pillars on the wedding cake slid, making the otherwise beautiful confection look a bit like the leaning tower of Pisa.  This ancient wedding in Cana would have gone on for several days, during which time the wine would have kept flowing to entertain the guests.  No wine?  Problem.

We can understand the story like that -- Jesus saved the party! -- but I don't think we're meant to.  I cannot imagine that the mother of Jesus, under any circumstances, was coming to her son to say, "Since you are the incarnate Son of God, please perform your first miracle by turning water into wine."

The problem, as John hints, is not one of ancient hospitality, but of prophetic expectation and fulfillment.

The Christian church, since the earliest days has seen the Messiah (Christ) as the bridegroom and the church as his bride (cf. especially Revelations 19:5 and 21:2).  Jesus himself uses the metaphor in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1-13).  Wedding feasts are one of those biblical motifs that should cause us to prick up our ears and wonder:  Is something more going on here?

Another hint is those big jars which Jesus orders to be filled with water.  They're not just jars.  They are, John tells us, "for the Jewish rites of purification."  They were filled with water to be used for ritual washing, washing prescribed  by God's law, which made someone who was ritually unclean, clean again.  That's the sort of water Jesus is turning into wine.

Finally, there is this clue that something more than a failed party is at stake:  "My hour has not yet come," says Jesus, at first.  What does his "hour" portend?  Here we need to look backward, from later in John's gospel.  In John 17:1, Jesus declares, before his arrest, "‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you..'"

Although Jesus' hour has not yet come, his prophetic action at Cana points ahead toward the Son's glorification of the Father, the saving act of Jesus death and resurrection that fulfills the law (cf. Matthew 5:17).  His turning the water of purification into wine for the wedding feast is a prophetic sign of fulfillment.  We no longer need the ritual purification (and sacrifice) prescribed by the law.  The fulfillment anticipated by the law has come.  It's time for the wedding.

The mother of Jesus in John is not the personal "Mary" of Luke, but, perhaps, the symbol of all of Israel and its fervent expectation of salvation from exile with the coming of God as king.  See this excerpt from Isaiah 62 which is paired with today's gospel:

² The nations shall see your vindication,   and all the kings your glory;and you shall be called by a new name   that the mouth of the Lord will give. ³ You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,   and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. ⁴ You shall no more be termed Forsaken,   and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,   and your land Married;for the Lord delights in you,   and your land shall be married. ⁵ For as a young man marries a young woman,   so shall your builder marry you,and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,   so shall your God rejoice over you.

Israel is the bride whose restoration and redemption are likened to being joined to the bridegroom in a great wedding feast.

When the mother of Jesus calls upon her son to act and tells the stewards to "Do whatever he tells you," is she not anticipating this restoration that is symbolized by the wedding feast?  She is pointing to Jesus -- which is what prophets do, point to what God is doing or about to do.

"Do whatever he tells you."  It doesn't matter what it might be.  Whatever it is, he will cause the wine to flow.  Then we can join in the feast.

I Can No Longer Afford My Ego

For the past several years I have increasingly become an Environmentally Conscious Consumer.  I joined a CSA.  I looked for the "Certified Organic" label at the supermarket.  I bought eggs from happy chickens and beef from cows who ate nothing but grass.

As you know if you are following the continuing saga of how my budget stubbornly refuses to balance and my various rich girl problems, our new financial planner is demanding we adopt an austerity program -- by which I mean he has invited us to add up our income and our expenses and has suggested that we might want the former to exceed the latter.  The nerve.

We've always aspired to live by our values.  We've always fallen short.  But in this small way, I felt like we were making progress.  My husband has always had strong feelings about protecting the environment.  I worry about the human costs of industrialized food production.  So together we could say, "Damn the pesticides!  Protect the farm worker!  Support the small family farm and the local economy!  Eat closer to the earth!"

Problem is, it's expensive.  Organic milk costs twice as much as the cheap stuff, eggs from pastured chickens three times as much.  CSA (community supported agriculture) shares come with more kale and kohlrabi than my family is willing to eat, so there's waste.  We eat a lot of vegetarian meals, but I'm not willing to endure the domestic revolt I'd face if I cut out meat altogether.

I believe there's a lot of good to buying local and organic, and I will continue to do so as much as I possibly can, but, to be honest there's more that's bothering me than loading up my shopping cart with hormone-laden dairy.  I was starting to see myself as the Organic Shopper.

It's remarkable how many ways my ego can find to inflate itself with an Identity.  Organic Shopper.  Home Schooler.  Mother of Three.  Wife of Almost Twenty Years.  Good Citizen.  Anything that allows me to feel Important or, let's be honest, Better Than Somebody Else.

That's not who I want to be.  In my more grounded and grace-filled moments I can notice that the identity that matters is my identity in Christ:  I'm a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), a child of the light and the day (1 Thessalonians 5:5), a branch of the vine (John 15:5), and an heir of God (Romans 8:17).

When I get attached my image, whether I maintain it by what I can buy or what I wear or do or my relationships, I am building on sand (Matthew 7:26ff).  All of that is going to pass away.

And what will be left of me?  Not my money, that's for sure.  It's good to want to protect farm workers or care for the environment.  We may need to find some new ways to do that, to put our time or talent where our treasure may not reach in this season.  Money's been able to buy me a sense of self-satisfaction, but the cost is too high.

I Hate It When You're Mad at Me

Once, when I was about twelve, I went to a birthday party.  The birthday girl got a scarf.  It was knitted, red, with tassels on each end.  For some reason the other girls had gone into another room.  Alone, I sat down on the couch, on the scarf.  Somehow, in the act of sitting, I pulled off one of the tassels.  I was mortified.  What should I do?  I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.  Later in the evening, when the damaged scarf was discovered, the girl scolded the dog.  I was saved from confessing.  I felt guilty, but I  said nothing, even as the dog got an undeserved rap on the nose.

I place a pretty high value on telling the truth.  I like to think of myself as an honest person. But something much greater than the truth was at stake for me.  Someone might get mad at me.

In case you've never tried it, I'm here to attest that trying to please all the people all of the time is a fool's errand.  It can't be done.

That hasn't stopped me from trying.

The first step is to read everybody's mind.  Don't laugh.  I'm better at it than you might think.  What a useful tool!  I know what you want before you know it yourself.  And I'm going to prove I love you by giving it to you.  Except when I can't.

But by then you've come to expect it, because that's how I trained you.  Now you're disappointed.  And maybe angry.

So you know what I do?  I get angry back.  Or first.  I'm angry at you for being angry with me for promising to give you what you want, even when I have no way of doing that, because I'm afraid you'll be angry with me if I don't.  I was just trying to be helpful.

What I'm learning about helpfulness is that it often isn't all that helpful.  I'm not just selling what you might not want to buy.  I'm giving it away!  I'm insisting you take it.

But what if you don't want it?  What if my "help" is interfering with what you really need or want?  What if what I intuit you want is what you want, on the surface, but not what you really want, underneath.

On the surface, we all want the same thing, I think, most of the time.  We, I, want things to be easy.  I want to feel happy and not sad or angry or afraid.  I want peace and not conflict.  As I've attested, I'm willing to do almost anything to get that result.  That's why the dog got rapped with the newspaper.

It's bad enough I do it myself, but it's what I'm doing to you too, when I'm being so very helpful.  I'm encouraging us both to cut corners to keep the peace.

It's a lie and a cheat.

The hard path is not always the path of peace.  When Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 to turn the other cheek or give your cloak when asked for your tunic or walk the extra mile, we often hear that as a form of non-violent protest.  In fact, those acts were ways of stirring the pot.  (Wikipedia offers a nice summary of why.)

Sometimes keeping the peace is not the righteous thing to do.  We don't celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.  because he kept the peace.  While he didn't repay violence with violence, he wasn't afraid to stir the pot.  He made people mad -- mad enough to kill him.

No one is threatening my life, only my feelings or my ego.  When I tell the truth and allow people to feel their feelings, I lose control.  You might get mad at me for ruining the scarf or not telling you what I know you want to hear.  Then I might feel sad or scared or angry, and I have to live with that.

The truth might force us into the wilderness, where we don't control the journey and we don't know where the road might lead.  The music rises unpredictably, and we're not sure whether -- or if -- the resolution will ever come.  Maybe it won't.  And then what?

Just Say No

Some time ago Bob Newhart did a sketch on a program called Mad TV which eventually made it's way, via the internet, to my consciousness.  In the bit, Newhart plays a psycho-therapist both like and unlike the character he played on his first eponymous weekly television show.  A woman (played by Mo Collins, in case anyone is interested) comes into the office.  Immediately Newhart, as the therapist, explains his billing policy -- "Five dollars for the first five minutes and nothing after that" -- after which he assures her that the session would likely not last even that long.  The woman explains various troubles -- phobias, disordered eating, and the like.  To each of the woman's revelations Newhart responds with just two words:  "Stop it!"

What if it worked that way?  Can you imagine?  It would be the best $5 we'd ever spent.

"Doctor, I keep smoking, even though my physician says it's going to kill me."

"Stop it!"

"Every time my mother calls, I hang up feeling guilty."

"Stop it!"

"I think about going for a run, but watch re-runs instead...I spend more money than I make...I eat Doritos instead of broccoli...I'm tempted to cheat on my taxes."

"Stop it!"

If I called that imaginary therapist today, here's what I'd say:  "I feel sad and powerless when I can't do everything someone else wants me to do for them."

"Stop it!"

Here are some things I'd stop doing:  Saving Christmas cards that I'm never going to answer. Worrying about the committees I'm not serving on.  Wondering if I should sponsor a child or give more to the Red Cross.  Thinking I ought to be writing to my congressional representative.

The list could go on and on, but here's the one that gets to me the most:  Feeling guilty when I say, no, to my children.  Sometimes it's when they ask for more stuff, even when I know they don't need it.  Even worse is when they ask me to save them from their own mistakes.  

The truth is, I want to say, yes.  It would be so much easier to say, yes, even if it would be wrong for them or for me.  Whenever it happens, when I say, no, whatever the reason, I tend to feel guilty.  I fret.  "Is my no valid?" I wonder.

Jesus says, "Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one" (Matthew 5:37).  

The "more," for me, is the worrying and wondering and thinking and fretting.  Maybe my yes and my no are not enough.  Maybe my yes should be no or my no yes.  Maybe I don't have enough; I ought to have more to give.  

Maybe it is not just what I have but who I am that is not enough.  

That's not what God says.  In the gospel we heard on Sunday, the story of the baptism of Jesus, "a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased'" (Luke 3:22b).  As a wise friend pointed out to me, Jesus had not yet done anything.  His public ministry was only just on the verge of beginning.  The Father's affirmation was not for the Son's doing, but for his being.  He is loved and the Father is well pleased because of who he is.

And so it is with us.  I think I spend so much time worrying and wondering and the like because I believe that I am lovable for what I do, for my yeses.  If I can give you what you want, you will be pleased with me.  It stands to reason then, if I say no you will not love me.

To what do we, you and I, say, yes, when, perhaps, we ought to say, need to say, no?  

O Come Let Us Adore Him

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” - Matthew 2:2

Last Epiphany, I recall, I was curious about the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Today I am struck by the idea of paying homage, in particular, paying homage to a newborn babe.

It's hard for me to identify with a culture where kings were born and not made.  Nowadays we're all so much more sophisticated, aren't we?  We might enjoy watching royal weddings and getting caught up in the glamour of kings and queens and princes and princesses, but we don't take them seriously.  Especially for us Americans, royalty is a quaint relic of a bygone age.  Real power lies elsewhere.

Not so with our forebears.  Power was seen as so essentially vested in those born to the throne, that the idea of paying obeisance before a cradle was unexceptional.  The office held the power, and it was transferred unquestionably to the legitimate office holder.

In Matthew's telling of the story, the sign of the star and the prophetic words about Bethlehem were enough to confer legitimacy on the magi's claim to be seeking the "king of the Jews."  Herod doesn't doubt that some strange Bethlehem babe might be the king -- he fears.

We could talk about Herod, and how he was violent and paranoid; history verifies that he killed his father-in-law, several wives, and two sons, among many others, all in reaction to real or imagined threats to his life and power.  Matthew even has him killing all the infants in and around Bethlehem, just in case.

What could this wealthy and powerful man have to fear from a baby?  If that baby is the legitimate heir to the throne of Israel, it reinforces what Herod knows already:  He is illegitimate.  Herod was not ethnically a Jew; his father had found favor with the Roman Powers-That-Be.

What does it do to me when I get a whiff of my own illegitimacy?

I want something or want to hold onto something I already have, and I feel like there is something threatening that hold.  I want to control my kids even though they are growing up and need to make more and more of their own mistakes.  I want to live like I'm rich even when the numbers say that means living beyond my means.  I want people to say what I want them to say and do what I want them to do and believe what I want them to believe.  What's more, I want to keep my house and my car, my kids and my husband, my friends and my various involvements.  I don't want any of it to change.  I don't want to lose anything or anyone.

Not one of those things legitimately belongs to me.

I heard a story today at church about a family who just experienced a terrible and unexpected loss.  Far from home, the dad died where he stood.  He was 44.

We all know that three weeks ago 26 innocent people were gunned down in a school.

I want power over all of it.  I don't want dads or kids or moms or daughters or sons to die like that.  I want to be the lord of life and death.  I want to be the king.

But I'm not.  My illegitimate claim smells like fear, smells like anger.  Herod's did too.

I have the same choices Herod did.  When I'm faced with the limits of my power and authority, with the temptation to claim what I want to be mine and isn't, I can succumb to anger and fear.  I can lash out and "kill" those around me -- with my sharp tongue or my icy silence, with my self-centered obsessions and my emotional outbursts and withdrawals.

Or I can go and pay homage.

The newborn king doesn't, in himself, demand worship, only milk and warmth and dry pants and love.  His legitimacy comes from elsewhere, from God.  God tells us, shows us, that reverence is due to the babe, because he is the one whom God has chosen and anointed (in other words, the king or messiah).  God's Spirit doesn't require the tools of death to claim God's power.  Quite the contrary.

It is in smallness and vulnerability, in the cradle, on the cross, that God shows us what true power looks like. There is nothing to be angry about, nothing to fear.  We need only bring our gifts, our gold, frankincense, and myrrh, our talents and failures and wishes and dreams.  Warm blankets and a ham.

My Budget Stubbornly Refuses to Balance

We've been meeting with a financial planner.  He is a very nice man.  It's not his fault that my proposed budget doesn't balance, so I am trying to stop secretly projecting my anxiety onto him, as if it's his fault.  His affable apologies suggest I'm not the first of his clients to want to blame him for telling me the truth.

The thing is, I thought I didn't worry about money.  One of my parents was a very careful saver and spender,  the other a spender who has chosen to live for the moment.  I tend by my nature in the direction of the latter. Thankfully, I married the former.

In the early years of our marriage, like many people, we scarcely had two nickels to rub together (as they say).  He was a volunteer right after college, just before we got married.  Then he worked for peanuts while I did a little more school.  Then we both worked for peanuts, me only part-time.  Then we had a baby, and I stopped working altogether.  We didn't have much extra cash in those days.

I wasn't a good sport about it.

During the few years of young adulthood I'd already put behind me, I was practicing "living in the moment" -- by which I mean, doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, even if I couldn't afford it.  I had accrued a little debt, but before we got married I came to my senses and paid it off.

What I couldn't put behind me so easily were some bad habits.  I liked (still like -- let's be honest) to eat out.  To go places.  Do things.  I didn't like (don't like -- more honesty) to be told, No.  We ended up in this vicious cycle where I would whine and feel sorry for myself, in classic-child-mode, and he, having to Dad-up, would end up feeling like the bad guy.

Over time things improved.  I decided to grow up.  He could then loosen up.  But we still operated for years on a budget plan that could be summed up as Don't Spend Money.

Of course, we spend money, and over the years, we've steadily spent more.  Some of it is about having kids.      Some is about putting our money where our (ahem) mouths are and buying organic.  Some of it is just spending-creep.

We've stayed out of debt.  While we owned a business, we squirreled away a tidy sum.  We live in a modest home and have modest stuff -- cars, one (27") T.V., clothes from Goodwill and Target.  I thought we were doing great.

I was wrong.  At least according to my financial planner.  And my budget, which still doesn't balance.

I like to think that I trust the God who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:25-34).  My recent panicked consideration of the Craig's List job board suggests otherwise.

Jesus does not mince words on the subject:  "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (v. 33).

I brought my calculator with me to Costco today, because facts are facts.  But I'm trying to remember that time spent striving for the kingdom of God will reap a lasting reward that worrying over last year's receipts cannot supply.

And if you're looking for a financial planner, I know a very nice, honest guy.

What do you have to say for yourself?

"So they asked him,'What are you then? Are you Elijah?' And he said, 'I am not.'' Are you the Prophet?' He answered, 'No.' So they said to him,'Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?' He said:  'I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, "Make straight the way of the Lord.  Make straight the way of the Lord," as Isaiah the prophet said.' Some Pharisees were also sent. They asked him,'Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?' John answered them,'I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.'" - John 1:21-27

On New Year's Eve we wondered together about who we are, and more pointedly, who Jesus says we are.  Isn't that what the scribes and the Levites and the Pharisees are asking John?  Who are you anyway?

Other people want to tell us who we are.  Our parents.  Our friends.  Spouses.  Children.  We do it to them too.  It feels somehow easier if we can fit everyone into a category, give them a label.  Who are you? they ask John.  Messiah?  Elijah?  Prophet?  They want to get a handle on him, to know what they're dealing with.  

We've got our standard ways of engaging once we can fit someone into one of our comfortable boxes.  Maybe we know just how we will think about and react to a messiah or a prophet.

But John won't give.  He won't be squeezed into anyone's tidy little category.  Not Messiah.  Not Elijah (appearances to the contrary).  Not the Prophet.

John's interlocutors are not so easily dissuaded.  They try to pin John to what he does.  Who else but a messiah or prophet would be out here baptizing?

Is that how we identify others or ourselves?  Do we feel stuck with labels that define us from the outside in?  What happens to us when we identify who we are with what we do?  

I think we make ourselves too small.  Those labels -- occupation or role or ability or disability or race or status or education or income level -- box us in.  We allow ourselves to be stereotyped.  We caricature ourselves.

I wonder if this is why Jesus admonished his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah (e.g. Matthew 16:20).  People of Jesus' day had ideas about what that meant.  They had a Messiah-shaped box full of expectations, but Jesus knew that the real version that he was here to embody wouldn't fit in that box.

John knows it too, and notice what he finally does to answer his interrogators.  He defines himself in terms of the one whose way he is making straight.  In the end, John says, as John always says (see John 3:30), It's not about me.

The scribes and Levites and Pharisees are asking the wrong question.  If they want to understand who John is and what he is doing and why, they need to look beyond John to the One to whom John's actions point.  Only then can they understand who John is.

It's the same for us.  Where are our lives pointing?  Are we making a straight path for the Lord?  The path is not only for us to follow; we lay it for others to walk.  If someone traces the path of my life, or yours, where will it lead them?

When the king would come in ancient days, he would tread the path laid by others and all the faithful subjects could follow behind.  How are we laying that path today?  And how are we following the King as he comes?