Reflection for Monday, November 19, 2007

For the full set of verses and prayers for today, visit the Mission of St. Clare.

Psalm 89:5-6 (The Message)

God! Let the cosmos praise your wonderful ways,
the choir of holy angels sing anthems to your faithful ways!
Search high and low, scan skies and land,
you'll find nothing and no one quite like God.

Back in college, I went through many episodes of doubt and struggle in my faith- mostly triggered by my fears of accepting God's vocational call on my life. During one particularly dark and self-destructive period, I found myself on a mission trip to Mexico which I desperately tried to get out of. (Praise the LORD for women of prayer and vision- a very dear saint of God simply refused to let me drop out of the team in spite of- or perhaps because of- my turmoil.)

The first night of the trip, we got off the plan in Cancun very late in the night. Before heading out of the tourist area for the poor colonias and outlying areas, we stopped on the beach just to take it all in. There were stood on this pristine field of sand staring out over the Caribbean. The moon was full and it seemed so bright and near- almost as if you could reach out and touch it. I don't know that I have ever beheld anything in nature more hauntingly beautiful. In that moment, I became overwhelmed at the elegance of the cosmos- and even more overwhelmed by a sense of the presence and majesty of God. It didn't take long before I found myself silently weeping- and the for the first time in months- praying a quiet prayer of praise and confession.

That night I learned that indeed the whole of the universe moves in the rhythm of praise- a vast and unspeakably beautiful and overwhelming place, a living monument- which resonates the glory of God in every chemical reaction, in the collision of every particle, and in the constant display of light and power. There is more beauty and wonder in the world and universe around us than we can ever possibly experience- and all of it speaking to the wonder of God. May we have enough sense to stop and soak it all in.

Reflection for Friday, Novermber 16, 2007

The prayers and full readings for today can be found at the Mission of St. Clare.

My habit, when I get around to blogging, is to take part of the scripture readings and write a little devotional for it; nothing fancy, just an off-the-cuff reaction to what I've read.

Today, though, I was taken by part of the liturgy- the confession, which is the longest and most thorough prayer of confession I think I've ever come across. So for those who don't follow the links when you stumble past these posts, I'd like to share it straight of the St. Clare sight. I'm 99% certain they got it from the Book of Common Prayer.

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,

We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;

Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,

That we may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,

Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen.

Reflection for Thursday, November 15, 2007

Visit the Mission of St. Claire for the liturgy and all the readings for the morning.

Matthew 16:1-4 NRSV

The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.' And in the morning, 'It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah." Then he left them and went away.

What are the signs of the times?

For me, I often find myself going through the motions on this task or that waiting for the moment when the will of God and the power of God will suddenly be made manifest to me. Like the Pharisees and Suduceess of old, I want validation from above, I want guidance, I want encouragement.

I want to see a vision from God, but I don't want to use my own eyes.

Jesus stood in the presence of the very religious leaders who should have recognized Him and embraced His work. Instead the busied themselves with propping up systems and institutions which had long ago lost their connection to the power of God. They were so wrapped up in the human way of doing things, they missed a visit of the Divine- even a visit wrapped in our mortal human flesh.

I'm tired of looking for signs in the sky when the very presence of God is in front of me.

Jesus has ascended, but He told us that when we see the poor and the sick and the hurting and the prisoner, we have a chance to see Him. We encounter Him in others at the point of their need. And if we want a sign of renewal, it won't come shooting across the sky. It won't come by some new program or legislative item at General Conference or by copying the structure of some new and successful megachurch.

The sign of Jesus is already before our eyes in other people. And if we fail to see the sign of Our Lord and His compassion for the least and the lost, we shall indeed find the sign of Jonah- finding ourselves in the dimmest and darkest of places, smelling of rot and dripping wet.

May we open our eyes and see what the reality already before us. To those who are wise enough to understand Jesus' words and humble enough to follow His example, we will find in the needs of others a far more spectacular sign than any cosmic event could ever deliver.

Crazy couple of weeks... sorry for the lack of posts.

No post for the last two weeks... I've just been unbelievably busy.

On the up side, I am pleased and relieved to report that I've met w/ the DCOM this past week, and they have passed me on to the Conference Board of Ministry. Now if I can just get my act together and finish all this paperwork I might have a chance of making some real progress towards ordination this year.

Thank to all those who've been praying for me through this! I sure do need it!

For the lectionary blogging readers, I really will try to have something up sometime on Tuesday for the following Sunday.

Lectionary Blogging for Sunday, August 19, 2007

Luke 12:49-53 (NIV)

"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

Last month, I finally caught up on some movie watching. Laurie and I got the kids to bed and put Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby into the DVD player and had ourselves a good laugh.

In one of the most memorable scenes, Ricky and his family are sitting down to dinner and Ricky offers up a table grace for the ages- thanking God for the laundry list of race team sponsors and the fast food they provide, for his sons Walker and Texas-Ranger, and even for his wife's rather wonderful physical attributes.

But it wasn't what Will Ferrel's character prays that caught my ear, it is who he prayed to- to "little, tiny, baby Jesus."

If you don't know the scene, trust me, you want to google it.

I think Ricky's vision of Jesus hits a core desire in our culture- a desire for a safe and tame Jesus. The religious right wants a conservative Jesus who will cheer on the newest pro-life political savior. The religious left wants a Jesus who looks decided more like a flower child from the 60s than a carpenter from Galilee in antiquity. The irreligious would like all sorts of Jesus'- from a cynical but fun loving con artist to a Buddy Christ action doll to something akin to Monty Python's Brian. We want a Jesus we can understand, a Jesus we can trust, a Jesus we can control, and a Jesus who can unify the world in what ever our own individual agenda might be.

Trouble is, of course, Jesus just won't cooperate with us. He's too big, too grand, too radical, to majestic to be tamed and domesticated like a beast of burden. He has too much integrity to be bought and sold like a lobbyist or a celebrity. He is too wise and powerful to become the intellectual property of the Christian book industry or the misunderstood poster-child for secular do-gooders.

He isn't interested in making us happy or furthering our agenda. He hasn't come to settle the culture war between the Dems and the GOP.

In short, it is not our job to put Jesus to the question, making Him choose between us and our enemies.

No, beloved, He comes to put you and I to the question, to make us choose between Him and all else we hold dear. He has not come to fix our little fiefdoms for us. He has come to break them into pieces to make room for His Kingdom. Are we willing to be broken so that He might build anew within us?

No lectionary post this week.

This summer, I've been off the lectionary because I'm preaching a series on the book of Acts. So the lectionary blogging has been extra effort when time allows. This week, time hasn't allowed. Next week I hope to be back in the swing of things. And in a few weeks, I'm back on the lectionary anyway.

Thanks for checking in and I'll be back next week.

Apologetics and Atrocity

I came upon a website the other day written by an Atheist who actually offers, among other anti-Christian arguments, a verse by verse refutation of the Bible. In other words, this person has put a great deal of time and effort into their rejection of our faith.

Among his arguments was the assertion that Hitler was a Christian and the Holocaust was proof of the evil nature of the Christian faith.

Never mind the obvious error of the claim: certainly Hitler used Christian imagery in his propaganda, but his personal occult beliefs practices are very well documented.

The reality is that atrocities have marred the history of the Church. And any skeptic is right to raise questions about the Crusades and the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials and so on. Since so many horrible things have been done supposedly in the name of the Christian faith, it is up to the Christian to explain why those horrible events were departures from and not true reflections of the teachings of Jesus. And honestly, that task isn't nearly as difficult as the skeptic would like to think. The words of Jesus clearly teach us to love our enemies an avoid the temptation of violence and a means of promoting our faith. Those instances in our history in which organized groups of Christians committed acts of violence in the name of Jesus were clearly acting outside the teachings of Jesus- and therefor their acts, though atrocious in nature, are not true reflections of who we are.

But the Hitler reference in particular, in light of all the atrocities of the 20th Century, struck me as an odd offering from an Atheist.

Even if Hitler were a Christian, Hitler's body count lags well behind Stalin's, who was an Atheist. And then there was Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the gang still running North Korea. If a history of violence is an indictment of a world view, then certainly the 20th Century would prove the utter depravity of Atheism.

Now I'm not prepared to make such an assertion because I know that for every Stalin there have been scores of peaceful Atheists. And you cannot condemn a thought system simply because evil people use that system as an excuse for violent and despotic behavior. Any ideal or virtue or concept can be used to serve necked ambition and the lust for power.

When Christians engage in debate with practitioners of other ways of thought, we would do well to avoid the sort of "gotcha" attacks such as raising the specter of Hitler or Stalin. I would only reference such a thing as a means of rebutal when such an attack is used against us.

Instead, let our presentation of the Gospel focus on the one thing which disarms all such tactics- the act of selfless love Jesus displayed on the cross. Sure, the skeptic will dismiss the cross as foolishness, but the Bible itself tells us this will be so. Yet it also tells us that for those who will accept it, the cross points the way to God's love.

And in a world as absurd as ours, it makes since that God is wise enough to reach the foolish hearts of human beings through an act which might appear equally foolish to those settle for a surface level examination of the unfathomably deep love of God.

Or as a better preacher than I once quipped, "I am a fool for Christ. Who's fool are you?"