Sunday, April 20
Easter
Here's breaking news: I love Easter. What's not to love, you might ask, and you would be right, but still I feel like it needs saying…Easter is a great day. It's a joy to see the extended family who join church folks for Easter worship. Singing "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" in the same place where around 36 hours earlier you were extinguishing the final candle in the Tenebrae service is absolutely jubilant. The foundational piece of reading the Easter gospel - I'm usually in John's gospel for Easter, but this morning it was Luke 24:1-12. Having the opportunity to preach on Easter Sunday is a treasure. Actually, preaching is always a treasure, but it's very much front of mind what a gift it is on Easter.
Then there is the Easter Egg hunt after worship. I've stopped being surprised how often the weather is lovely on Easter Sunday and we are able to spill out of the sanctuary onto the church grounds for the Easter Egg hunt and celebrate the chemistry of the company. We always wonder if we'll have enough eggs and if there will be children. Again today there was a great group of children and an abundance of eggs. That's a little lesson for us church folks, the concern for scarcity, the generosity that provides more than enough. The comfortable visiting on a glorious Sunday afternoon, families taking pictures, adult parents of small children guiding their kids around the grounds where some of them were once the kids doing the hunting.
We have this impossible true story. This report that the women brought back from the tomb which the disciples, deep in grief, dismiss as an idle tale. Until Peter's curiosity beats back the part of Peter's mind that is saying this is nonsense and compels him to run, not walk, to the tomb and see what has happened. What's happened is Jesus is alive and has moved on from that place. The journey didn't end at the cross, and it didn't end at the tomb. It looked entirely like it was going to and then it didn't. It did not end. It continues. The journey continues.
And what else can we do but celebrate? What else but gather, and sing, and read the story, and revel in the good news, and hunt eggs, and take pictures, and rejoice. There's the moment when the gospel is read and we hear the part about the disciples hearing the women's account and deciding that "to them these words seemed an idle tale." We smile because we know that the women knew what they knew and that the disciples will come around and learn to believe all of it and that we'll be on the front lawn of our church two thousand years later because the idle tale was true.
A happy and blessed Easter to you.
Saturday, April 19
Holy Saturday
When Easter is waiting to show up at midnight, it is a challenge to imagine the view from the original Holy Saturday. Good Friday is visceral and painful. Easter is at the first, a clear moving on from whatever had come before, and by the time it gets to us, triumphant and joyful. But that first Holy Saturday…it had to feel like that's all they had in front of them. Life would be a parade of Holy Saturdays as the epic event that was the earthly life and ministry of Jesus was over and what seemed to be in the future was more days of it being over. A forever of it being over.
For us it's a pause before we get to celebrate. "One Holy Saturday later…" as the narrator on SpongeBob might put it, things will pick back-up and be better than we could have imagined. It's worth stopping for a moment and really considering what that particular Sabbath day was like. As bad as Friday had been is it possible that this Sabbath was harder? The events of Friday had happened, and now there was a void on this day and every future day for those people who had invested everything in Jesus.
When you think about the impact of yesterday and today on the disciples, it's not hard to imagine why they don't sound enthralled with the report of the women who went to the tomb. As reported in Luke 24:11 the story the women told struck them as "nonsense." or more poetically in some translations as "and idle tale." Again, for us it's a day of preparation for the greatest morning in the greatest story ever told. For them it's just the worst possible day ever, and more just like them are on the way.
Except they aren't.
The possible takeaway for us could be that if in some way we feel stuck in a loop that is all we never wanted, God has shown a propensity to work in that environment. I'm not here to promise the answer to all the very hard things in life are only a day away. I don't think that's true now, and, honestly, I don't think it was true then. What is true is that with God, there are always possibilities on the table that have not yet entered our minds. When it feels like any sort of way forward feels like a Holy Saturday pipe dream that should be dismissed as nonsense, it could be the time to imitate Peter and go have a look at the tomb anyway.
Friday, April 18
Good Friday
Our community Holy Week services finished out the week today with our Good Friday service. The sanctuary was prepared to emphasize the solemnity of the day, complete with a full size cross to the side of the pulpit. On it was draped a black cloth. At the top was a square sign with the word "Tetelestai" printed on it. It was explained that this is the Greek word for "It is finished." The service included several folks sharing their musical gifts and today was my day to preach. The text was Luke's account of the crucifixion and the message did not stray far from the setting of the grief, sorrow, and stunning love of the day.
I was seated at the front of the sanctuary, so I'd be nearby when it came time for the sermon. As we stood and sang the opening hymn, I noticed a flash of color out of the corner of my eye. Turning for a better look, there was a small brown basket at the end of the pew towards the middle of the sanctuary. In the basket, an assortment of easter eggs, some solids, some with patterns, all of them in bright spring pastels. They were not placed there intentionally. Someone had put them down, likely meaning to do something with them and left them behind.
They were perfect.
There they sat throughout our entire Good Friday service, stealth agents of hope, hinting of joyful things to come. I imagine them eyeing that "It Is Finished" sign on the cross, and one of them defiantly responding, "Have your moment. It may be finished, but it's not over." It was a thumbnail version of a life of faith right there in the short distance between that cross and those eggs. No matter the amount of hardship, grief, and death that dominate the landscape of life at any moment, somewhere there are Easter eggs refusing to blend in and surrender.
I shared today in the message, with permission, a story of a deep, painful loss experienced by Mike, a good friend. It came with little warning. It was and is devastating. Life can bring us these things that are simply nothing but impossible. One of the things he shared though was the way the grief he was living with had caused him to hear the story of the passion of Christ in a deeply personal way, a story full of the grief that must have filled the beings of Jesus' followers and friends. Further, it brought a new dimension, an increased depth to his conversations with Jesus.
Good Friday is a profoundly challenging day. The transcendent beauty of faith is the truth that the Easter eggs don't wait for the clouds to lift and for the day of unmuted joy and celebration. Instead, they slip in, find a spot on the front pew, and bear witness to a hope that may feel unlikely, but which, by the grace of God, is true.
Thursday, April 17
Maundy Thursday
We get a lot of things Jesus asked us to do wrong. There is a plenty that happens in Jesus’ name that I’m pretty sure Jesus would not recognize as anything he suggested. And there are some fairly straightforward asks in terms of how we are to love and care for one another with which we also struggle. There’s a reason we need that prayer of confession in worship each week. It occurred to me today, though, that it feels like we got communion right. I’m not saying we have it perfect or there is some ideal way of doing it, but I am saying that it feels like we are doing what Jesus asked of us - “Do this remembering me.”
Today is Maundy Thursday, a day which, as a child, I thought, and I was not alone in this, was called Monday Thursday. But Maundy it is. Maundy, from a Latin word, maundatum, which means command. It references Jesus who, as he washed his follower’s feet, is reported to have said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34) - which, by the way, we can count as another thing at which we don’t always excel. That foot washing occurred during Jesus' passover observance with his friends on the night prior to his crucifixion. It was that evening that he took the bread and the cup and offered it to them, suggesting that they make this a practice and use it as a means of remembering him. That we do.
At Hebron we did it this evening and what a powerful thing to consider that all around our city, state, and world, people were doing this and remembering, as Jesus asked. Remembering that he offered us this meal. Remembering that when it was over he and his disciples ventured out into the night, across the Kidron Valley and to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Remembering that while there he prayed and then was arrested and then endured a horrific night that led into a terrible Friday that we remember by the name Good.
There is much for us to work on if our goal is to follow the teaching and direction of Jesus. It is a very good thing that Jesus set this table for us, and a blessing that we have, in this instance, followed his direction and continue to come and share in the feast that he has prepared.
Wednesday, April 16
The Worship In Front Of Us
"We can never underestimate our need to soak in and savor, to marinate in divine mercy." -Isaac Slater
I agree with Isaac Slater. When I first read these words I thought of how glad I was I was reading them in the context of Holy Week. I think they would have resonated with me anyway, but I immediately heard them as descriptions of two of the most meaningful worship services on the Christian calendar, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Every worship service is an opportunity to be awash in the reality of divine mercy, but in these two services, it's everything.
Maundy Thursday, the remembrance of Jesus' last supper with his friends. It's a roomful of friends having a meal and it's still happening. We were told to do it to remember Jesus and we managed to get something right - we continue to do it and we remember. We eat the bread and drink the cup and have a worshipful, sensory experience of God's divine mercy. One of our church folks, Becky, texted me this afternoon to let me know she had just baked the bread and after it cooled it would be on its way to church. Take and eat, those are the words that will be spoken, and we will do it because Jesus wanted us to keep ever before us the depth of God's love.
Good Friday will be a Tenebrae service, a service of light to darkness remembering the crucifixion. We will begin with seven candles in a well lit room and we will wind up with the candles and the lights all extinguished. The experience of God's divine mercy will not be extinguished in that experience however. It will grow and expand. As the candle light grows dim, the awareness of being surrounded by God's love will increase. We will leave on Friday in darkness and silence, but we will also leave overwhelmed by God's divine mercy.
No one will confuse either of these services with Easter Sunday. Easter is the soaring emotion of the empty tomb and the victory of life over death. There is a very appropriate heaviness to these next several days and to these two worship services. But while they may be heavy, they are drenched in the love of God, the love of God embodied in the person Jesus.
Soak in, savor, marinate in divine mercy.
Tuesday, April 15
Today, While We Were Going Somewhere Else, Life Was Happening
Like most of the days that make up our lives, today, the Tuesday of Holy Week, is another day on the way somewhere. Chronologies of the events of Holy Week suggest that Jesus likely spent the day traversing the Mount of Olives and heading into Jerusalem to the Temple to teach and, in the process, to have another round of back and forth with the religious leadership, By the end of the day it was back out of the city and back across the Mount of Olives for another night's rest.
I was thinking this morning of what needs attention in the next few days. Easter is close. Good Friday is closer. If today is Tuesday, Maundy Thursday is only two days away. All of which means there are things that need to be completed in short order, but also means, there's still a bit of time.
These thoughts were taking place as I was making a hospital visit. A hospital is a place where there are many people who are giving at least a passing thought to wanting to not be where they happen to be at present. They want the healing to take place, the surgery to be completed, whatever brought them to this moment to be behind them so that they can continue with what they were doing before the hospital interrupted them.
It's a heightened, more intense version of most all of our days. Whether it's the Tuesday of Holy Week, an interruption to the life we are trying to do of a hospital stay, or, again, the majority of the days of our lives, the day that matters is up ahead. The danger of that way of thinking is that we can lose sight of the truth that all of the days are days of consequence. None of the days are unimportant. Wherever we are going, everyday has its own destinations.
I was at a soccer game this evening. Before the game, the players, having completed their warm-ups, were making their way back to the locker rooms, for a last bit of preparation before taking the field to play the game. This requires the players to travel a path between the field and the locker rooms which includes passing through fans in the stadium concourse. This night there was a little boy, he looked to be eight maybe, standing right at the cord keeping fans from the space where the team would pass. He was holding out his hand, hoping to greet his heroes as they passed. He was not disappointed.
Each player who walked by noticed the boy, even those walking in groups talking with each other, and made the detour to the right to give the boy five before continuing on to finish preparing to do the important thing they were actually there to do tonight - play the game. Once they had all gone by the boy stood for a moment and then turned to his father with the largest possible of smiles. The players had taken the slightest of moments on their way to somewhere else to notice the boy. The boy has many somewhere elses in his future, but in that moment, none of them were on his mind; for him, that moment was a most memorable destination.
That's the view from this Tuesday of Holy Week. Even when we are on our way to somewhere else, important, never to be repeated moments of life are happening right now. All the days, all the moments are gifts. Today may be a building block for something that will reach its destination tomorrow. But it's also the only Tuesday, April 15, 2025 we are going to get.
Monday, April 14, 2025
A Holy Week Tradition
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. -I Corinthians 12:27
Every day this week folks will gather from a number of area churches for our community Holy Week services. One of the highlights each day has been a kind of roll call of how many churches are represented in each day's congregation. Often the number reaches double figures, as folks from churches large, small, and in-between gather for worship at noon and fellowship over lunch afterwards.
It's an encouraging thing to share the journey to the cross and towards the empty tomb with the larger body of Christ. It is hopeful to look to the things that we hold in common, the things that connect us as followers of Jesus. One primary example is the offering that is received each day, which goes to a community ministry in our county. The Fellowship of Concern is a long-time helping organization that exists to provide tangible, physical support to people in need. Supporting their work is the church being the church in a practical and needed way in our community.
Each of the churches represented has their own particular identity, a uniqueness to the way they worship, different ways of being the body of Christ in the place where they exist. Gathering together for Holy Week reminds us of the unifying nature of the love of Christ and of the power of the story of that love to create relationships and bridge and embrace differences. Paul, on more than one occasion, reminded the church of our identity. He did not write that we are the bodies of Christ, but the body of Christ. All part of the same body, following the same Jesus.
Our gathering during Holy Week brings us together in worship and around tables. The view from today is a larger and momentarily more complete picture. It reminds us that none of us individually is the totality of Christ, that it is together, in the midst of our uniqueness and diversity, that we become and are the body.
Sunday, April 13, 2025
Where Is This Parade Headed?
It's Palm Sunday and the view from today is a tricky one. For those of us utilizing the liturgical calendar there is a choice - Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. Churches I've attended growing up and served as a pastor have always had Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services which has led them to observe the Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week as Palm Sunday. I like Palm Sunday a lot.
The Palm Sunday texts are rich with meaning. The catch is the decision for Palm Sunday rather than Passion Sunday means that it's possible to go from the triumphant entry to Jerusalem to the empty tomb without ever considering why exactly this story has a tomb. So I hope you will make Maundy Thursday or Good Friday or both of them a part of your experience of Holy Week.
Palm Sunday requires close attention. It's easy to see it as a wonderful moment after which things really go off the rails. In that interpretation the week begins on a high note, but one bad turn leads to another and by Good Friday it has all gone as horribly wrong as it could and we are left to question what happened. That approach overlooks a lot of storm clouds in the air even as Jesus is riding that colt down the Mount of Olives. As we consider the view from Palm Sunday it's important to truly ask ourselves what we see.
An honest look at what is happening reveals a parade that reaches a tragic, but completely understandable destination. That is to say, it's not that anything went wrong after Palm Sunday, it's that things were in the process of heading for the cross well before Palm Sunday. This is not a brief step into an alternative reality where things end up great, but one more step leading to Golgotha.
What becomes important for us to see is that this day is Jesus being clear, once again, about what sort of king he is. Then, having seen the parade, taking the time to struggle with if what we are seeing is truly what Jesus is showing us, or if we are settling for an airbrushed mostly happy occasion. Is there joy in the children greeting Jesus? Yes, absolutely. But this is not Jesus momentarily taking on the persona of the conquering warrior king; this is the one who was announced at his birth as prince of peace being true to that title. This is the king that prince has grown into, about to be greeted by the machinery of earthly power. Are we seeing the choices that Jesus is showing us? How would this parade be received today?
Saturday, April 12, 2025
Moon Over The Mount Of Olives
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
-Zechariah 6:9
The moon is sensational tonight. I don't understand a bit about how the moon gets around the night sky. Tonight it seems very high and very visible. It demands attention and appreciation. The day itself was beautiful, on the cool side, but with ample sunshine. It was supposed to be the day of a huge pre-Derby event, Thunder Over Louisville, but that was called off probably a week ago now due to flooding. A wise decision, given that the Ohio River is still spilling over its banks in places, but made all the more disappointing because of the glorious weather today.
I wonder what the moon was like the evening before the events we remember on Palm Sunday. The pilgrims gathering into Jerusalem for the Passover festival and Jesus preparing to ride a colt down the Mount Of Olives towards the gates of the city. Was it high in the sky and did he take a moment to look upward and meditate on the beauty of the holy city at night. How was he feeling? Was he nervous, filled with trepidation, or maybe at peace with what was about to be set in motion? Perhaps some combination of all of that and more.
Thursday night will come, with Jesus' visit to the garden of Gethsemane. It's a huge part of the story, one I've thought about a lot. But I don't believe I've ever thought much about the night before Palm Sunday. Could Jesus have stood on the Mount of Olives, under that moon and thought about the words of the prophet Zechariah and the events that would unfold the next day? It's not so difficult to look back and pick out the events, the days of importance after the fact. Sometimes, beforehand though, it's just you and your thoughts, waiting for tomorrow under the ever watchful, luminous moon.
Friday, April 11, 2025
It's Friday
When I was little, growing up in Ohio, we would sometimes go to Florida to visit my grandparents. That was a long drive. We weren't going to get there quickly. I really don't remember many of the specifics of it - okay I remember wanting to stop at Stuckey's in hopes of a pecan log - but it was a long time ago. What I do remember is that it was more than enough time in the car. Time to read a book, watch billboards for Rock City and Ruby Falls, play the license plate game, and wonder if we were going to be in Georgia forever. It was a long trip.
Lent is a long trip. It allows time to settle in and watch the mile markers go by. We begin with the ashes on a Wednesday and then meander through five Sundays before finally on the sixth, this coming Sunday, we arrive in Jerusalem. That's five weeks of being on a journey, with plenty of time in the car to contemplate what the journey is about, why we are on the road, and what will happen when we get there. Like with many journeys we get to the point where we believe we are ready for it to reach its destination. We are ready to be there.
On this Friday, it's a good opportunity to catch our breath, reflect on where we've been and where we are about to be. It's important because once we hit Jerusalem, everything accelerates. What have we seen along the way? What have we noticed? All the views from all the days have been shaping us for what we are about to experience. The view from this day is expectation, anticipation, and because we know why we we've made the trip, a sense of foreboding. It's Friday. Take a look around. The world can change in a week.
Thursday, April 10
Searching For Jesus
Jesus is endlessly interesting. I am reading a new book by Elaine Pagels, Miracles And Wonders: The Historical Mystery of Jesus which is exactly as it sounds, one more scholar exploring the historical Jesus. The series “The Chosen” has released its fifth season, as three separate theatrical releases, all out in this Lenten season, following Jesus around the time of Holy Week. An animated movie has also just been released, “King of Kings”, based on a story by Charles Dickens wherein he relates the story of the life of Jesus to his son. Authors and filmmakers may be intrigued by the subject matter of the life of Jesus, but their work becomes widely distributed because a large portion of the population remains interested in Jesus. Someone (I’m doing my part) has to buy all these books and somebody has to go to the movies in order for them to keep being published and produced. And we do.
We are drawn to Jesus. Even many folks who are disinterested in the religious traditions that claim Jesus, find Jesus compelling. I find this hopeful. Jesus prioritized love. He taught love, preached love, acted out of love, encouraged love, and ultimately gave himself completely for love. So many things point us towards making a priority of ourselves, that Jesus constant giving of himself and pointing beyond himself because of love is mesmerizing.
Holy Week will begin on Sunday with Palm Sunday. We’ll watch closely as Jesus day after day acts in ways that live out his priority of love. The story will vividly depict all the ways that we can get confused in life, all the ways that we can become consumed with self-preservation, all the ways that we can miss what is true, and beautiful, and good right in front of us.
The books and films keep coming. We keep reading, watching, seeking, and searching. Jesus keeps loving. The good news, I believe, is that however much we lose our way and often live in ways that are in complete opposition to what Jesus lived and taught, we still can’t shake the feeling that we should be paying attention to him. And so, thankfully, however imperfectly, we do.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Sump Pumps and Repentance
With all of the rain, I have been in a lot of conversations lately that feature sump pumps. Many people, including the two of us here at our house, have been listening for the sound of the sump pump. If it seems like too much time has gone by without noticing its familiar noise, a trip to the basement is required. Just to make sure. The familiar rhythm of the sump pump at work is a relief. "Go ahead and go to sleep," it seems to be saying, "I've got this." And when you do go to check on it and can hear the steady stream of water that the pump is dealing with on your behalf, using the word relief in relation to its work is not an overstatement.
Like so many things mechanical, I have no idea how it works. I'm glad it works. I'm also glad that its working is in no way dependent on my ability to explain it. I know what happens, I'm completely lost on how. Having given so much thought recently to both sump pumps and Lent it was inevitable that they wind up tied up together somehow in my mind.
It has occurred to me that the discipline of repentance during the season of Lent acts as a sort of spiritual sump pump. Failure to make ourselves vulnerable before God and to not acknowledge our need of forgiveness is to risk rising levels of that which will do us no good. Repentance is an intentional expression of regret to God. A seeking out of God's mercy, trusting that God is inviting this interaction and that God's mercy never fails. Repentance becomes the means by which we honestly assess the thoughts and actions that are distorting our relationship with God. It allows us to accept God's gift of forgiveness, which pumps the overflow of sin and brokenness out of our lives.
Tuesday, April 8
In Times Of Short Sight Lines
Looking out the window I see night. If anything, because the light is on in this room, what I mostly see in the window is a reflection. The tree, which is usually the view out the window is still there, but right now if I were relying on my eyes for that information, I wouldn't know it. There have been a number of pictures of flooding around our area being shared these past few days. The waters have risen up and obscure what is normally in plain sight. There are familiar places under the water in many of these pictures, but the truth is the water so obscures the points of reference that it takes work to identify the locations even when they are familiar.
Sometimes it is hard to see very far down the road. Sometimes even what we thought we knew well, seems full of the unknown. The story of Holy Week is a story of rapidly shifting perspectives and of short sight lines. It will tell a story that finds it's way to a very long night, beginning in a garden on Thursday with Jesus' arrest, and then continuing in what must have felt like the longest of nights in ways jarring and awful on what was once, for Jesus and his friends, the familiar terrain of Jerusalem.
The view from today may not be a long view. There are times when we wish we could see what is going to happen a year from now, or a month, a week, times when even an hour might be helpful. But the waters have come up and covered the world over; the night has fallen and all we can see looking out, is the light of the room in the window. The dawn will arrive, the flood waters will recede, the Holy Week story will find it's way to Easter. A story of hope and a promise of future vistas. When it is hard to see in the present and the view from today is short, it's a story that can make all the difference.
Monday, April 7
Praying On The Front Foot
I was walking this morning and it occurred to me how much there is for which to pray. The people who didn't have a fender bender, but almost did. The woman going to check her mailbox. Two young people out for a morning run. The story I heard on the news, just before I left the house. The people who shared concerns with me at church yesterday. The brisk spring day along with the sunshine. The people currently struggling with flood waters. Hungry people. Justice, peace, compassion, and kindness, particularly in places where these things are lacking. That is hardly even a start on the list.
There is a term that I learned watching soccer. Sometimes teams will begin a game with aggression. They will look to make things happen, not waiting for opportunities, but looking to push forward and create opportunities. In those windows of effort they are said to be on the front foot. A team on the front foot has decided not to wait for the game to come to them, but to actively engage the game.
What might it be like to take a front foot approach to prayer? Perhaps to pick a window of time, maybe while on a walk or while you are driving, when your first thought when encountering a person or situation will be how can I be praying for that person or for that circumstance? If something is in your field of vision, how might you bring it up in your conversation with God? Such a practice could have the beneficial effect of opening our eyes to the world around us and nurturing a habit of curiosity, concern, and care for people and events in our path. And gratitude, as we notice all the blessings along the way that inspire our hearts to be thankful.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
The Future We Are Creating
Betty spoke in church today and shared a story that challenged us to consider all of the things that had to happen in order for us to be here now. It was a story from her family's past, well before Betty was born. There was an accident and her mother's life was in danger. She shared that another family member was there in that critical moment to save her mom. We sometimes may take the present moment for granted, but when we examine the past we can find many places where history could have taken a different turn. The present of that alternative history could look much different than the present we inhabit.
This is a powerful exercise, when looking into the past. It is equally powerful as we consider what is happening right now because of choices we make and actions we take. We can also turn that around to give thought to things we decide against and actions on which we pass. The future is being created. Fifty years from now someone may be challenged to look into their past for decisive moments and their eyes may come to rest on you. What you are doing now will prove decisive to tomorrow.
Betty's sharing was in the context of exploring the lyrics of a communion hymn. The first two lines of the hymn look back to decisive moments where Jesus acted in ways that shaped history, moments such as sharing the last supper with his friends. The final two lines served to prepare us to take communion and to appreciate how Jesus continues to act on our behalf and meet us at the table to guide our lives today. The view from today was one of a table set for us, and a story from the past that challenged us to consider how, as we are fed and nurtured by Christ, we are invited to live in ways that are impactful in working towards God's good future.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Tulips and Rocks
The tulips are appearing along the sidewalk at church. I've been watching for them, because Rick has been looking for them. He put them there. They are starting to show up and they brighten up the yard. This afternoon, while running the bulletin, I heard a voice from the hallway - "It's me!" Me was Judy. She was there to arrange some rocks in the sanctuary to enhance the idea of being in the desert during Lent. Believe me, my description is terrible - it looks great. That's a couple of examples of many people who invest their time and energy in the life of our congregation.
Sometimes when I am at church I catch a sense of the people who have experienced God at the corner of Hebron Lane and Old Preston Highway. It's been happening here since 1858. There are these holy moments when all the saints feel present. All the people who have been stopping by on a weekday to practice something, or clean something, or fix something; doing all the things to care for the space and to make ready for worship and whatever else might be happening along the way. All the people who have come on Sundays to worship, Wednesdays to study, Tuesdays to pray, Fridays and Saturdays to Yard Sale…and really any time to eat.
The view from this Saturday is a long view of gratitude for this small and mighty place. It points beyond itself. It points us beyond ourselves. Its presence is the testimony of so many folks who it has led to experience God and in so doing be called to something that is larger because it is shared. We'll worship tomorrow and there will be tulips outside and rocks inside to greet us. Thanks be to God.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Good, Beautiful, And True
Just completed an excellent three part story in Actions Comics (#1067-1069) by the very talented writer Gail Simone. The story revolves around Superman being forced into a cosmic battle as the champion of the earth. There are a lot of details, but boil all that away and it's a story about what makes Superman tick, and why, even in an instance where Supes has been weakened and may not be the strongest entrant in the battle, it's never a good idea to pick against him.
The story wraps up with these words: "It was destiny for him to emerge victorious really. After all. He had so much to fight for." The summary drives home the point - what makes Superman powerful is his desire to do good, his drive to help people. He doesn't fight simply because he's strong and likely to do well in a fight. He doesn't act as a power grab to somehow elevate himself. He steps into the fray because he believes he can impact the world for the better. It's the naive beauty of the character.
One of the reasons I'm drawn to comic books, and many things Star Wars, and the movie Silverado is that sometimes it is helpful to be reminded that good is possible. These are stories that pit good against evil, and good prevails. There is so much ambiguity and complexity in life that it can become challenging to discern what is good, and beautiful, and true. The three transcendentals can be elusive and eventually we wind up finding Pilate's question of Jesus - "What is truth?" - both logical and understandable.
The story of Jesus as it moves towards Holy Week is a story with plenty of machinations that seek to blur the beauty of what is happening. This story is going to lead to Calvary and a cross, a desperate move aimed at obscuring, by way of violent death, what Christ is offering. Into that moment drops this story (John 12:1-8) of Jesus having dinner at the home of friends and one of those friends, Mary, anointing him with expensive perfume. It's a move that is questioned and criticized and for many one that likely gets lost in all of the ugliness that will come. But it's a moment of true beauty, which Jesus acknowledges and welcomes.
Search for something beautiful today. When you find it, take a moment with it, let it wash over you, give thanks for it. Give thanks by saying thank you. Give thanks by sharing it. Give thanks by letting it inspire you towards creation of and participation in goodness, beauty, and truth.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
On April 3, 1974, It Rained
I don't have to be convinced that the experiences of our childhood shape us. Because I was ten in Xenia, Ohio on April 3, 1974, high winds are always going to make me nervous. Also, because I was ten in Xenia, Ohio on April 3, 1974, I'm always going to be comforted by rain. Even though the comfort is based on a false premise that is demonstrably untrue.
After the Xenia tornado I was among many shocked people walking around our neighborhood, looking at the devastation. People were terrified by what had happened and of what might happen. There was a strong murmur making the rounds that there would be a second tornado. I kept hearing people say that. Finally I heard someone say it and receive the following response. "There will not be a second tornado. It's raining. There can't be a tornado when it's raining." Let me be clear, as a group we were first of all stunned, and second, very limited in any actual knowledge of the workings of tornadoes. I have in subsequent years learned that there can absolutely be tornadoes in the rain. But what I heard when I was ten, for that particular day, turned out to be true. There was no second tornado.
No amount of meteorological enlightenment since that day has taken away my affinity for rain. It is clear that the natural disaster that shaped me was a tornado and not a flood. I have lived in areas that have experienced horrible flooding and, objectively, have come to believe that floods may be the most difficult of disasters, because they come and then can stay and stay and stay. I can know all that, but it will always be the wind that scares me.
As a companion thought, I have loved rain all my life. Give me a gray day. Give me rain, mild showers, thunderstorms, I'm here for it. It was years though before I put it all together and realized how that overheard conversation when I was ten was singularly responsible for what I had thought was just a natural appreciation for a wet, gloomy day. On this day, the fifty-first anniversary of the Xenia tornado, the weather has been pretty active overnight, and, right now, it is raining.
Prayers on this anniversary for all my fellow Xenians, who experienced that day and who continue to live with the results. Prayers for those who experienced their own weather related devastation as recently as last night in regions of the country. And thanksgiving for words that turn out to be true, even when they have no reason to be, with gratitude for the rain of the evening of April 3, 1974.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
The Beauty Of High Mileage Faith
"Yes, the Lord has done great things for us, and we are overjoyed." -Psalm 126:2
Psalm 126 is one of the scriptures for this coming Sunday and it's a great passage for the fifth Sunday in Lent. Here the psalmist asks for dry streams in the desert waste to be changed for the better, for tears to become joyful shouts, and folks who go out with seeds to come home with bales of grain. The psalmist doesn't shy away from the reality of hard stuff, and completely trusts in God to be at work in all of it.
Part of that confidence comes from past experience. A remembering that the Lord has done great things for the people in the past. This truth that the psalmist points to is one of the most compelling elements of faith. Time after time I have seen people go through a challenging circumstance, a truly painful moment in their life, experience the presence of God in the midst of it and emerge from it with faith and the capacity to trust intact. And then these folks become living ambassadors of the concept the psalmist is describing here. They go and find people in the place where they have been and they bear witness to what they have lived through. Having experienced despair and lived through it, they carry hope to those feeling hopeless. They do not deny the reality of the despair, but they do in their very being bear hope of life after despair.
When the passage says "let those who plant with tears, reap the harvest with joyful shouts," it is not denying the reality of the tears. It would be rare, probably impossible to live a tear free life. There will be tears. Some will be a light rain and some will be a torrential storm, but there will be tears. At its most meaningful, lived faith, faith with mileage on it, remembers the hurt, but points to a future of joy. Faith is not the means to keep suffering at bay. Faith is the trust that suffering does not get the last word.
April 1, 2025
The Gift Of Groups
One fine gift in life is being fortunate enough to find oneself in a group of good people. I was reflecting on this earlier today after spending time with just such a group. I've been in an online cohort with folks from around the US and also several international participants since the fall of 2023. We are coming to the conclusion of our time together in a few weeks. The content of the gatherings - spiritual direction and social transformation - has been excellent and I am grateful for all that I have learned. My focus today though was on the group. It has been a joy to get to know all of them and it is bittersweet to arrive at the conclusion of our program. The good news is that there is already a plan to convene the group going forward, for which I am thankful.
Prior to that Zoom gathering it was our weekly Tuesday Prayer Group, another good group of folks. The line-up changes from week to week, but there is a steady group of participants and there are always open chairs for new folks to jump in. It is good to be together, to share in conversation, to offer prayer concerns and follow up on what has happened in situations which we have prayed about in previous weeks.
Being with a group of people over time can be deeply rewarding. When reflecting on groups, I am reminded how much the doctrine of the Trinity has come to mean to me over time. Within God's self, God is about relationship. God created us for relationship; with God and with each other. Whether it's Sunday morning worship, Tuesday prayer group, or a regular gathering via zoom call it's good to get to know people in a way that only the give and take of relationship while sharing space over time makes possible. Some people know this immediately. Some introverts, like myself, come to this awareness eventually, but slowly. My view from today is one of gratitude for groups of individuals who come together and learn to enjoy life better by navigating it together.
Monday, March 31, 2025
A Famine Took Place
We had some weather here last night. Some rain, some wind, accompanying watches and warnings. Around 11:00 p.m. the tornado sirens started going off and the weather team from WAVE 3 seconded the motion and we were off to the basement for a while. When morning came there were a few branches down, but in our immediate vicinity things seemed to be mostly okay. I talked with a church member this morning on the phone and the weather came up and she mentioned that there was more on the way in a couple of days. There are many good reasons to pay attention to the weather, but one particular for me on Wednesday is that we are having the second of three Lenten Dinners and bad weather with the right kind of timing could be a problem.
Which brings up another layer of the good samaritan story and the whole discussion yesterday of choices. Yes, we make choices. Yes, the choices can have consequences. But that is only a portion of the story. There are many things happening that we do not choose and those things have consequences as well. So the younger son has made his choice to request his inheritance and he goes somewhere away from his home and gets rid of it in short order. We are told he "squandered his wealth in dissolute living." (Luke 15:13) Then there is this interesting fact in the very next verse: "When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need." (15:14) A famine took place. Not only is the young man in the wilderness, there's a whole region of people experiencing a famine who are in the wilderness together.
The young man got some things wrong, but he made no choices that directly led to a regional famine. Those of us in the Louisville area didn't order up rain, high winds, and tornado warnings for last night. So there are times when whatever is going on in our lives, good or not so good, there will be layers we don't have any choice in that are going to further complicate the circumstances.
Doing what we can to align ourselves with God's will for our lives is always going to be a good idea. One of the reasons for that is that famines and storms and their many friends are going to come along, sometimes in package deals. No amount of good choices is going to insulate us from challenges that are a part of life and the sometimes devastating things that can happen. What those good choices that emphasize closeness and attentiveness to God can do is tune us in to that key relationship, which can strengthen and sustain us in all the multi-layered days of our lives.
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Choices, Consequences, And A Party
The parable of the prodigal son is full of people making choices and living with the consequences. The younger son takes his inheritance (note: his father is just fine, so this is a little out of sequence) and heads off for the good life. That choice doesn't end well. The older son makes the choice to tend to and nurture his rage at his younger brother, with a commitment to hold on to it come what may. That choice results in stewing bitterness when the younger brother returns and receives a grand reception. The father makes the choice to allow both of them to make their choices, while without fail living in alignment with his choice, no matter how challenging they make it, to love them both at all times,
The father also makes the choice to party when the opportunity presents itself. The younger son is offering up the repentance he's rehearsed and probably before he's even completed speaking, dad is calling out instructions for the welcome home party. I make my share of poor choices, and I love the example of celebrating a good choice whenever possible. And I love the idea that God is looking down the road for us expecting we can in fact make good choices,
This is a parable, a set piece; we don't get to know what happens next. But this father is an accomplished practitioner of parental love. As a result, while I know the older brother seems to sulk off into the shadowy sadness of history, I want to believe - and don't think it's far fetched, given what he pulled off with the younger son, - that the father will just keep loving the older son till one day his bitterness melts away and he gets his own hootenanny.
God's relentless, limitless, boundless love is a choice, I believe, to which God is committed. That's the very good news found in the view from today.
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Tech. It's Not All Awful.
I mentioned yesterday that I had a Zoom conversation yesterday morning. I don't have a lot of Zoom meetings, but enough to be glad the technology exists. This morning I've been getting several things together for today and for tomorrow and for the weeks ahead, all of which has involved sending and receiving text messages. In some instances, calling is the way to go, but in many I like texting because I hope it conveys the idea that this is here when you get to it, not drop everything and pay attention right now. But at the same time communicating that I have a question.
Sermon preparation typically involves interaction with the Bible Gateway website. Sometimes to cut and paste the scripture to the place I'm working on the sermon for the purpose of quick reference. Sometimes to compare several translations of the same passage, something that Bible Gateway makes easy to do. Alexa will help out with that process often as well as I can ask her things like how many days is it till Easter and how large are the stones in the Jerusalem temple, and what time do the Cincinnati Reds play today (which, okay, is not a sermon preparation question), and she kicks out the answers without blinking.
One way our congregation shares information is through a kind of electronic newsletter called The Weekly Check-In. That gets posted to our website (hebronpc.net) and to our Facebook page (search Hebron Presbyterian and then make sure you have the one in Shepherdsville, Kentucky - that's us). To go a little further into the weeds, the way things get posted to our website - things like worship services, Wednesday Evening Prayer videos, Weekly Check-Ins - almost always includes text messages back and forth between myself and the patient and kind person who actually understands how the website works.
The view from this morning is screens and social media. They are easy targets a lot of the time. We can blame them for society's ills, for that which divides us, for showing us too many ads and, creepily, showing us pickleball equipment moments after we mentioned we might want to give the game a try. That all is true. There is a good bit of which to be wary. But my view today says I'm also thankful for the possibilities that all this various technology affords me. Am I critical at times, absolutely. But I am also grateful for the ways that God makes use of all this stuff, to help us do everything from communicating about upcoming Yard Sales to sharing our worship services with folks who aren't able to get to worship in person.
I am far from the most tech savvy person. I hear and resonate with a lot of the problems, but I'm indeed thankful for many things this stuff makes possible. My goal is not to convince you of anything, but simply to say that with tech, like with anything, while we may have to look for the good, I think there is some to be found.
Friday, March 28, 2025
Let Us Pray
The Presbytery, where my church is located, has a program where members of one of its committees are assigned pastors within the Presbytery as prayer partners. The idea is that the folks from the committee will be in touch with pastors to pray for them, encourage them, and be aware of what is going on in their lives. Every pastor has someone who is praying for them. I'm one of those clergy and the person whose list I'm on contacted me last week to set up a time for us to visit which wound up being on a Zoom call this morning. It was a welcome and pleasant visit. We chatted, and at the last, she said a prayer that included what we had talked about. The visit lasted around thirty minutes, which was just right.
It was a great way to begin the day, because today was a day of visits in a variety of settings. My visits were with people in challenging circumstances and in some instances with family who were present with them. In each instance there was an opportunity to share a prayer. I value prayer and don't need to be convinced of the difference prayer makes. And yet, the prayer that my prayer partner shared this morning increased my appreciation of the power of prayer and refreshed my understanding of the transformative power of prayer. It is a blessing when someone prays for you. And it is a blessing to be able to share peoples heartfelt concerns in prayer with them.
A thing I would point out is that the folks on that Presbytery committee (turns out I'm on that committee as well) are a mixture of pastors and lay people. The takeaway there being the encouragement that all people of faith are able to share the gift of prayer with others. Whoever we are, God is inviting us to pray. When the view before us is someone with a joy or a concern, something to celebrate or something troubling, any one of us can be the person who asks if we could offer a prayer. There are no special words needed for prayer; be authentic, speak what you have heard, lift up your hearts to God.
After praying with one individual, who I thought may have been sleeping, I said, "Amen." Immediately, they echoed me. "Amen." When we pray, it's not about how well we say it, it's about how well God hears us. And, beloved children of God, God hears us very well.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Opening Day
Two years ago Julie and I went to Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds. After a lifetime of following the Reds as closely and as faithfully as I have followed any sports team it was as good as I hoped it would be. Last years' fell on Maundy Thursday, but this year, today, we were back for Opening Day 2025. Once again, a pretty perfect day. How perfect? So perfect, that the Reds have lost both of the opener's we've been to and they still felt perfect anyway.
Baseball always has something to teach, something to show us about life. Given that it was a Reds game it's a better than average chance that the learning will involve the bullpen and the lesson will have something to do with perseverance through hard times. The Reds were up 3-2, the bullpen had performed well in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. The ninth started off rocky and got worse. After giving up the tying run, the pitcher gave up a three run home run. The Reds wound up losing the game 6-4.
People absorbed that better than you would imagine. There was still a good feeling in the air. It's Opening Day and a gut punch of a loss could not overcome it. Baseball plays 162 games. It's long enough that no one is ever going to go undefeated. You are trying to win as much as possible and part of winning as much as possible is not being consumed with a loss when they happen. You just know they will happen, so you take your loss and move on. The Reds and Giants will be back at it on Saturday. The uniforms will all be clean and crisp, the field pristine, a fresh group of fans will be present to watch the titanic struggle and someone will win and someone will lose. Maybe it will be a laugher with a foregone conclusion or another down to the ninth inning, excruciating for one side, and bliss for the other finish.
Either way, they'll collect themselves, and do it again on Sunday.
In the midst of the sermon on the mount Jesus talks about letting the day's troubles be enough for the day. "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own." (Matthew 6:34) Jesus knew our inclination to be consumed with not only tomorrow, but with today, and with how today may impact tomorrow and how the whole thing can feel like it's running entirely off the rails. Over the course of 162 games some days are going to end with disappointment. Some days are going to end with joy. Then, in most instances, you are back at it the next day. Life works like that. Whatever today brings, a win or a loss, tomorrow is going to show up with another opportunity.
And if today includes the Findlay Market parade, lunch at Skyline, blue skies, Marlana Van Hoose singing the national anthem, and a chorus of more than 43,000 voices joined in Take Me Out To The Ballgame…can you really call that a loss?
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Portals
I generally find graveyards to be comforting places. I've never experienced them as being off-putting. I think I have plenty of company in this - I know many people who make regular visits to the cemetery to visit with loved ones and others who simply find them to be pleasant places for a contemplative walk.
I have participated in many graveside services. Usually, in my experience, the graveside service follows a fuller service of witness to the resurrection at the funeral home or in a church sanctuary. From there a typically somewhat smaller group makes their way to the place where the person will be buried. I have always experienced this as very solemn and deeply meaningful, but a new meaning was unfolded for me by James C. Howell in his book Everywhere Is Jerusalem. We have been doing this book as a study and the view from today is a thought which brought all this talk of graveyards to mind. Howell writes this about early Christians: "A tomb, for them, was like a portal through which one travelled to the direct presence of God. To touch a tomb was to touch the door where God and the saints were just on the other side. Death became a friend, not a dreaded foe. Mortality was the truth about reality and need not be feared or denied."
A tomb, a gravestone, as a portal, a thin place between here and a vastly different experience of God. This description seems powerfully true to me. It explains, as much as possible, the company I feel when I walk past the graves in Hebron Cemetery, across Old Preston Highway from the church I serve. I have been here long enough that I have spent a good bit of time on this side of the portal with many of the folks whose names I see on those stones.
The song goes, "everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die," which, in a humorous way, expresses the deep unease with death that troubles many of us. Counterintuitively perhaps, a visit every now and then to visit the cemetery may help calm some of that unrest and even experience a bit of peace, as we brush up against the thin place of the portals between this world and the next.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Doing (Or Not) What You Love
I'm a runner. I have been a runner for close to fifty years. I love it. It's a wonderful way to do something that is healthy and makes a little space for creativity, thought, and quite often conversation with God. Also in that close to fifty years I have regularly been a lapsed runner. Not a lapped runner (though I have done that as well), a lapsed runner. I also love not running. I love not having to get ready and not having to take the time to get put back together afterwards. I love not having to wonder why my achilles is not cooperating. I'm a fan of not getting off the couch.
As a means of encouraging myself, I have this poster on the door of my home office. I got it when I was in a really committed to running phase. It says, "You don't stop running when you get old. You get old when you stop running."
At the time I put it up I thought it was clever. For the past few months it has just seemed true. So yesterday, it was pleasant outside, and I decided it was time to begin again. Time to get the running shoes out and start building. Immediately I was reminded of the ways this gets tripped up. My watch, of course, was dead. And if my Garmin doesn't register the run, did it even happen? No. So I had to charge the watch, which led to getting involved in something else that moved time more quickly than I was anticipating and then it's later than I wanted to be doing this and, friends, the excuses and reasons to wait another day were bountiful.
But I didn't. I headed out the door into the sunshine and slowly jogged a mile. And felt great afterwards. Everyone in my head who got me out the door was cheering - high fives all around. I was reminded again that sometimes there are choices that can result in either more wilderness or less wilderness. For me the decision to do a thing I completely enjoy is a decision for less wilderness. That should seem so obvious, but I've been learning and unlearning that for a very long time.
So, what do you love? What have you loved for a long time? What do you love that it is totally within the scope of possibility for you to do right now? Today? Are you doing it?
I completely believe that much of what we love begins with building blocks of who we are that were placed there by God. Not so that we would ignore them, or admire what they once were, but so that we could fully experience life the way in which God intended.
Monday, March 24, 2025
How Not To Celebrate A Win
You are a kid. Overnight there is a new park next to your house. It has optimal playground equipment. Somehow it's never raining at the playground. It's sunny and comfortably warm. You can play there for hours. Your friends are there. Not only are they there, but they conveniently group themselves into bands of friends who like different things you like in various parts of the playground. It's a pretty amazing place.
Over time a little shine comes off the playground. Odd things start happening. One day you are swinging and thinking to yourself how spectacular it all is and how you are possibly swinging to heights no one has ever reached. Then you hear an audible voice suggesting that maybe it's high, but pretty much only if you take into account how unathletic and lacking in motivation you are. You look around and there is no one there, but you heard that voice for sure and there begin to be more. The playground isn't so magical anymore.
Social media is well past the days when there was any sort of magical playground quality to it. It's a cliche to say "don't read the comments." But once again, last night, I did. I was thinking it would be fun to go to the part of the playground composed of folks who are fans of the same college basketball team I am and just revel in what I was sure would be everyone's happiness at our victory. Ha.
Instead, I found comments suggesting one player must have been placing bets on the point spread, and another player who didn't even play in the game is terrible and doesn't belong on the team. There was plenty more, but it's depressing and you get the idea. These were supposed fans of our team, talking about our team. After a win. A really good win.
Being nice in the comment section isn't going to transform the internet into a problem free zone. I can't really explain algorithms, but I know they are out to get me. Still, being nice in the comment section is better than not being nice in the comment section. Because what we can do won't make everything we would like to see happen in the world come to pass doesn't mean we should not do what we can do.
This is not a social media specific skill.
You can't do everything, but you can do something.
So do something.
If possible, something nice.
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Patience and a Willingness to Work
“If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.” -Luke 13:9
Jesus tells this parable about a fig tree that isn’t producing fruit. For three years - nothing. The man who owns the vineyard wants to cut it down. The man who actually works in the vineyard has a different idea. He wants to work with it a bit longer, another year. See what happens. If it bears fruit, then you’ve got a useful fig tree, if not then cut it down.
There are plenty of interpreters of this parable who want to make it bottom line about judgment. Get fruitful or get axed. In that version, God has an ax and is aching to use it. This reading of it may come from our tendency to imagine God as a more vast and powerful version of ourselves. Taking an ax to a non-producing tree makes good sense to us, so it must make good sense to God.
Let’s try moving the focal point away from the ax. The man who works in the vineyard, a guy who sounds a lot like Jesus, suggests the answer is more time. Not infinitely more time, another year. Take good care of the tree for a year and then see what happens. Patience and a willingness to work at a solution are the gardeners tools.
What if it turns out to be us that is wanting to chop down the tree? What if we are the one wanting to give up? And what if the gardener is Jesus asking us why we are in such a hurry? It’s possible that there are times in our lives when we have to make difficult choices and cut out activities, or practices, or relationships, that are keeping us from bearing good fruit. But it’s also possible that we can be so quick to start cutting that we wind up taking down a potentially productive tree. I don’t think Jesus is opposed to pruning and cutting back when necessary, but I think he’s more willing to lean towards, nurture, grace, and compassion with an optimistic eye towards what might be just about ready to grow.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Narrowing Or Expanding
I was reading someone's account of how well their bracket was doing through the first round of the men's NCAA basketball tournament. They were in second place in their pool, only a point out of first. They posted a picture of their pool. They have three brackets in the pool, which I think would temper the celebration about being at the top. Predicting the future is hard, but the odds get a little better if you have multiple cracks at it.
Visualize a tournament bracket for a moment. It begins with all of those possibilities, sixty-four teams, once we move past play-in games, competing in thirty-two games. It's wide open, anything can happen. And then it constricts, round-by-round. The bracket narrows. The possibilities give way to the realities and eventually we are left with four, then two, then one.
Our lives can feel like those brackets and how we experience where we are in the journey can depend a lot on where we see ourselves in those brackets. Are we early on with the possibilities still wide-open and playing out in front of us? Are we in the middle rounds, still with options. Have we reached a narrow point where we see limited possibilities and not much room for creativity and new direction?
The good news, I believe, is that as long as we are here, as long as life is bringing us new days, there are possibilities always before us. Rather than imagine the bracket of our choices narrowing, what if we imagined them broadening out, with each choice introducing two new possibilities.
Tomorrow's scripture is Luke 13:1-9. In verses 6-9 Jesus is teaching about this fig tree that isn't producing fruit. It's a story about fruitfulness, which is another way of expressing hope for a future where the possibilities for God's good and our participation in it are ever expanding. The aim is not to put a happy face on difficult situations, but to dig into how we can be fruitful and experience an abundant life whatever the day may bring.
Friday, March 21, 2025
The Not So Big Finish
One of the things that is great about some TV shows and movies is also one of the things that is sometimes challenging about real life. Some TV shows and movies are built to look like real life, but are, simultaneously, structured for clean and satisfying resolution. Things may look bleak along the way, but eventually someone will learn a valuable lesson, some couple will realize they were meant for each other, some villain will get what's coming to them, and some decent person will have things come out okay. Not every production follows the path of easy resolution, but many do and, honestly, one of the reasons we regularly encounter these formulaic endings is we enjoy them. It can be nice to imagine that somewhere the bumpy stuff gets smooth, the discord recedes, and conflict resolves.
The choir has been practicing a song for the third Sunday of Lent called "When We Are Tested." Many songs will wind up nicely for you. You make your way through the words and music and typically arrive at an ending that is clearly meant to put a bow on things. A great ending with a lovely resolution can be the most memorable thing about a song. That is not "When We Are Tested." "When We Are Tested" is an ideal Lenten journey song, because it doesn't so much end as run out of verses. The music feels like it still has somewhere to go. It is a song with meaningful words, and some pretty parts, but it leaves you at the end with a musical reminder that there is more to do.
"When We Are Tested" is more like real life than the movies and TV shows I was describing at the beginning. Our lives usually have more than one story arc going on at the same time. Some feel better than others. Some are trying. And even when something does end beautifully, rather than a curtain call and flowers, there is usually something else demanding immediate attention that moderates our celebration. When more things than not feel fraught with anxiety and nothing seems to be resolving it can be a time when the value of a faith community is abundantly clear. If you have one I hope the experience does help to lift and buoy you in challenging times. If you don't have one, maybe have a look around and consider giving something in your area a try. If you are near to us at Hebron we'd love to see you and have you walk with us and if you drop in this Sunday you can check out "When We Are Tested" and decide for yourself about how it finds its way to a conclusion.
(Quick note: If you go to YouTube and search for this hymn you will find a number of versions set to the same tune as "Be Thou My Vision." The one we are singing has the same words, but the hymn tune is Angels Of Healing.)
Thursday, March 20, 2025
The World Happiness Report
Congratulations to Finland. They were the number one country in the world in terms of happiness last year and they are back on top again in this year's World Happiness report. The United States was twenty-third last year and fell back a spot to twenty-fourth. Gone are the heady days of two years ago when we clocked in at fifteenth. The report made its first appearance in 2012. The U.S. experienced our highest ever showing that year, eleventh place.
I'm not exactly interested in turning happiness into a competitive sport. Unlike the NCAA tournament, I'm not watching our happiness rank closely in hopes of improving our happiness seed in the happiness tournament. I am, though, intrigued by measuring happiness. The folks who came up with the rankings based it on surveys of 100,000 people in 140 countries.
So what are they measuring? Kindness appears to be one of the main indicators, including the positive impact of benevolence and social connection. One detail that showed up in several articles on the report points to a finding that in the United States, one in four of folks interviewed reported eating all of their meals alone the previous day. We are also reported to be "much too pessimistic about the benevolence of others." As an example it seems that lost wallets are returned at a much higher rate than we expect.
The view from today is one of assessment. What is happiness? What does it look like in your imagination? In your lived experience? Can you measure it? As a pastor I'm very interested in the emphasis on social interaction. The COVID experience highlighted the importance of the social dimension of our faith communities - if there was any question about it. We are better when one of the things we are able to be is together. We are also blessed by technologies which allow us to be together with folks who are unable to make it to an in person gathering.
Finally, we'll be having a potluck at Hebron next Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. Come out and join us. Maybe someone will call you on Thursday and ask if you ate with anyone yesterday. You will be able to say yes. You'll have had a good meal and maybe pushed that happiness marker up just a bit.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Jesus Sends a Message
"He said to them, 'Go and tell that fox for me….'" -Luke 13:32
Still thinking of last Sunday's scripture (Luke 13:31-35) which told the story of some Pharisees coming to warn Jesus of Herod's bad intentions. Jesus' response is to send a message back to Herod by way of the Pharisees and it's worth a pause to look at how Jesus starts that message off, at least in part because anything that pushes us to meditate on the three-dimensional humanity of Jesus is a helpful thing.
I could be wrong about this, but I think we tend to view things as happening to Jesus. Jesus responding to things around him. Someone comes to Jesus in need of healing. Someone or some group comes to Jesus with a challenging question. Of course there are times where Jesus is in the position of responding to what is happening around him, but what I'm getting at is that Jesus also is adept at creating circumstances to which others must respond. The gospels are not the story of gentle Jesus, meek and mild, traveling the countryside doing good who is ultimately blindsided by opposition no one could have anticipated. Jesus public ministry begins with his temptation in the wilderness, which was clearly a preparation for a time that was going to be consistently dangerous as he moved forward.
Our liturgist on Sunday, Helen, did a nice job of reading Jesus words - "Go and tell that fox for me" - with a sense of defiance. I don't think Jesus was upset about receiving the warning, but he wants this message delivered in response; he will not be backing down and he will be continuing to go about his work, regardless of the threats. As people of faith we want to take note of Jesus' attitude and commitment at this moment. There are times when justice is more than us responding to what is going on around us. There are times when our commitment to God's justice, compassion and mercy will ask us to be clear through actions and words about the convictions we hold as people of faith. What scripture and history make clear is that living an ethic of love, compassion, and commitment to folks on the margins is not without risk. Risk or not, however, it is what Jesus modeled for us and what our faith asks of us.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
What Is That?
I saw a bird I did not know today. That's not really that huge a thing. I've been at this back yard birding thing for a healthy group of years now, but I'm nobody's expert. I recognize my regulars and most of my irregulars, but possess no kind of encyclopedic knowledge of birds. I saw this bird at the bird feeder behind my father-in-law's condo this morning. Paul was right there so I had him take a look at it. He wasn't sure either. Now that's a big deal. Normally, if I see one at the house that I don't know, I'll go to my various books and if I can't find it there the next step is to call Paul and describe it to him. So he looked at this bird and did what I would have done, went to his book and started looking. We did not figure it out. It had some starling, some red wing black bird, some grackle. Paul said he hoped it would come back. I said I also hoped it did - wearing a name tag.
Moments like this keep it ever in front of us that surprise - good surprise - can happen. Looking through the binoculars out the window to the bird feeder in the back yard is invariably a joyful thing to do. Who is going to come today? Almost always the cardinals and the doves and the house finches will put in an appearance, but some days can feature upwards of ten different kinds of birds. Their delightful presence more than balances the cost of keeping them in bird seed.
And some days you look out and there is a "What is that?!?" Most days there is a solution for that question. I recall my first eastern towhee - what is that? - finding it in the book and confirming it with Paul. Same with my first Cooper's hawk. Also kind of cool, but having seen it, wanted it to leave as my bird feeder was not intended to be its salad bar. But there are a few, like today's visitor that won't easily be identified. Even by someone who knows what they are doing. And that is exhilarating fun.
Keep making your way through the world with your eyes open. There amongst the familiar, the already seen, waits a surprise - a good surprise - that can both delight you and expand your ideas about what is possible.
Monday, May 17, 2025
Kind People Who Didn't Have To Be
Kindness. That's what I'm seeing this Monday. This morning was an errand running, small task accomplishing morning. It was mostly successful. But what I noticed as it was unfolding was that people were nicer to me than they needed to be. From doing more than they needed to do, to making cheerful, pleasant conversation. There was nothing in it for them. They could have reasonably done what they needed to do in a more perfunctory, less generous manner, and could have easily skipped the pleasantries. But they did not. And this Monday afternoon is better, because of each of them.
One way it is better is the kindness folks got me moving in a better direction. I had a list of things I needed to do and my goal was to get them done. They reminded me to broaden my goal. Get the stuff done and be a decent human being in the process. My original goal is still intact, but with an addendum to be present for interactions and give a thought to what the kind way to get the next thing done might look like.
Individuals like the mechanic or the counter person at the dry cleaner are going an extra step when they go beyond transactional to kind. What I hope I do, beyond being appreciative, is learn from them. If I'm all about the "To Do List," checking off the boxes, knocking out the tasks, I may well be missing something - my own opportunities to interact in a way that holds the possibilities of lifting someone's spirits. It's simplistic, naive, and overly optimistic, but I think it's possible this is how we can most immediately impact the world in a positive way. Someone changes our view from today for the better and we get inspired to go and do likewise.
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Helpful Pharisees
"At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." -Luke 13:31
The scripture for worship today was Luke 13:31-35 so I've been living with this passage for a while. The more time I spent with it the more this opening verse began to demand attention. The Pharisees, this particular group of Pharisees, want to help Jesus. They see what's unfolding, they have a sense of how Herod wants to solve the problem and that leads them to come to Jesus with this concern for his safety. Jesus goes on to send Herod a defiant message and continues his journey to Jerusalem, to Holy Week, and to the cross. But let's take a moment with the Pharisees.
This verse is consistent with a kinder view of the Pharisees than I think often emerges from many of the gospel stories and I think the kinder view is likely the fairer and more accurate view. Jesus is clearly around the Pharisees on a regular basis. While the may have their disagreements it's entirely possible that one of the reasons they are around each other so regularly is that they enjoy the company. Disagreement does not have to mean dislike. It's true. As was mentioned in the sermon this morning Jesus seems to eat a lot of meals with the Pharisees. How often do you repeatedly break bread with people you want nothing to do with?
I guess there is some way to interpret Luke 13:31 as something sinister, but it reads to me like concern. The Pharisees are aware of what Herod's intentions are and they are trying to warn Jesus of what they know. They may not know what to make of Jesus, but they don't wish for him what they believe Herod has in mind.
So this is not the central point of this passage, but it's a probing one. What if the people who are supposed to be the opposition turn out in moments of importance to have our best interest at heart? Is the view from today a peek at what it looks like to disagree and maintain a civil and maybe even friendly relationship? If so, wouldn't that be a highly practical and immensely useful practice for today? What good might we accomplish if we can discover ways to value each other and continue to be in conversation even if we struggle to find points of agreement?
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Time Travel Via Coffee Mug
The view from most good days for me begins with my Keurig, coffee, and picking out a mug. Most of the mugs in the cabinet tell a story, remind of a story, connect me to a place. There are Disney mugs, sports team mugs, Star Wars mugs, and mugs that bring to mind places like Chicago, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. There are mugs that take me to monasteries, retreat centers, concerts, and national parks.
This morning the mug of choice is a pottery mug purchased at Junaluska Gifts and Grounds on a visit to Lake Junaluska. It's a simple, sturdy mug, not too large, not too small. The little card that was in it when I bought it explained that the potter was a local artist to the area and that silt from Lake Junaluska is baked into the mug. I don't know precisely what that means, but in my mind it meant someone collected tiny bits of earthy magic from the Lake and stirred them into the ingredients that compose the mug. When I pull it off the shelf, I imagine standing next to the lake on a misty North Carolina morning, the surrounding mountains shrouded in fog, and then walking around the lake and ultimately winding up in Gifts and Grounds for coffee. So I get my morning joe now, and I get a brief trip to the Lake in my mind. That's a win-win.
I find these little field trips with the mugs at the start of the day to be welcome. God can work with all manner of raw materials - why not a shelf full of mugs? It's good to be reminded, even as the day is coming into focus that there has been joy in the past, and to hold tangible evidence of that joy as I venture forth to whatever the present day holds. Recalling past joy primes the heart for future joy. It's happened before. It can happen again.
How do you, regardless of your present circumstance, remind yourself of the joy you have experienced in life? What are the little anchors to past joy that grace your present and carry you forward with the promise that whatever the challenges, there can be joy ahead in the journey?
Friday, March 14, 2025
March Madness
There is a fair amount of happiness in Kentucky this morning. Kentucky played past midnight last night in their SEC tournament match-up with Oklahoma. We looked like we were going to win comfortably. Then, after falling behind by one point with about six seconds left it appeared we might have to deal with an excruciating collapse. Finally, we were reminded why it's called March madness, as our improbable (but because it's a basketball game in March entirely probable) last second, bring the ball the length of the floor and shoot a layup at an angle from which one really can't shoot a layup, shot went in.
I didn't see Louisville's ACC tournament game, but for the Kentucky folks who preferred, they had their own buzzer beater yesterday to post a win over Stanford. For a few hours, until both teams must take to the hardwood again, it's a pretty joyful place and we have new stories to repeat to each other about where we were and what we thought was going to happen and how we were either convinced we were going to blow it or were resolute in our faith that we would pull it out.
I mention this because, first, I was resolute in my faith that we would pull it out. (Okay, resolute may be a bit strong.) Second, nothing about this had anything to do with Lent, or Lenten disciplines, or personal introspection. They were basketball games.
And yet. It may be that there is something to notice in the view from a 1:00 a.m. experience of basketball euphoria. The observance of March madness pretty much always coincides with the observance of Lent. In short bursts our teams bring us great joy or deep sadness. They entertain us. There is a lot going on in life and even while sojourning in the Lenten wilderness one can find a happy diversion that means nothing and everything.
I am reminded of a tableau of da Vinci's Last Supper that I participated in while serving as Associate Pastor in Missouri. My, at the time, long hair and beard, landed me the position of Jesus. Obviously this is a serious moment in a serious story. But in our rehearsals, there were a few disciples who couldn't help cutting up, picking at their fellow disciples, poking and prodding and causing general mayhem. There was one man in particular, Joe, who was a committed instigator and had an excellent sense of humor. I was caught in the middle of it literally and had to continuously be settling the disciples down. We laughed a lot. And it made me think about Jesus and those twelve disciples and the amount of time they spent together, and how things got obviously very challenging and serious at times, but also how there almost certainly was also laughter and probably a good bit of it. There had to be at least one Joe in the group and all it takes is one Joe and suddenly you have a roomful of them.
We keep on with our practices and our challenges and our wilderness and the honestly difficult stuff that is part of our experience of life. But look for a Joe who makes you smile. Look for a team that brings you joy. Find some March madness and maybe some improbable fun will reveal itself.
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Choir Practice
I look forward to choir practice at Hebron. Simply, it's fun. Yesterday we were working on the song for this coming Sunday. It's a piece that is in no way familiar to us. We can hear that it will be pretty, but it's a work in progress. We sang it through a few times. Tried it with just the melody. Then with the accompaniment. Then the most problematic parts. I'm losing track of the order, but maybe then we went back to melody again. It was feeling a little like the hill wasn't getting any less steep.
We flipped over to the piece we are singing a week from Sunday. It is also unfamiliar, but maybe a little less complicated. We sang it through two or three times. Then we went back to the song for this Sunday. As we sang something became clear. In the time away from singing it, it felt like we had come to know the song better. Then difficult spots began to smooth over and we were more sure of ourselves. It's not the first time this has happened. It is a repeatable phenomenon. We sing something, we struggle a bit, we leave it for a few minutes, we come back and there is less struggle. I have no idea what's actually happening, but I've wondered if our minds split up duties in that little window of time and part goes and practices the other song and part stays behind and keeps working through the glitches.
Contemplating the journey and the view from today I'm wondering if the principle works in other aspects of life. Is it possible to become so fixated on a particular problem in life that the more we focus the more implacable the difficulty becomes? Perhaps the answer at times to a challenge is to walk away from it and focus on a different challenge. Maybe the net result won't be two impossible challenges, but one that feels more doable when we return to it.
Lent provides the invitation to do some honest examination in our lives and consider where we are struggling and where we can seek God's mercy, compassion, forgiveness and guidance. A quality of the Lenten journey is that it also provides space. In these early days, our destination is still off in the distance. Maybe there is some particular thing you've chosen to focus on during this season; a behavior you are trying to change, a relationship you are praying to repair. Possibly, the more you consider and search for a new direction, the more of a trap it seems to be, the greater the brokenness. In that moment that begins to feel like the challenge may be too great, possibly singing a different song - meeting a different challenge - can be the answer. Accept the gift of space and time. When you come back, it's likely there will still be something to work on, but maybe the climb will be a little less steep and the task more hopeful.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Five Years Ago, Yesterday
Five years and one day ago, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 was a pandemic. We learned with breathtaking speed what it was to have a lot of things that we take for granted removed as menu options of everyday life. A very dangerous virus was on the loose and there was an immediate change to…everything. Schools closed. Churches stopped gathering in person. Many people started working from home. Learning how to assemble virtually was a growing edge for a lot of people. Hospitals reached and went beyond capacity. It was a scary time and we were right to be scared and it was unclear how long it would go on. There was no new normal. Normal just ceased being a thing for a while.
I did not remember this five year anniversary until I heard it mentioned yesterday by a voice on the radio. It seemed farther away than five years. The pandemic taught us a lot of things that we don't want to do ever again. It put people through experiences of loss and disruption that no one wants to repeat.
What we remember of it is that we don't want to remember it. And yet, if we don't remember, we risk losing some lessons that are of great value.
In a conversation yesterday I was talking with someone about complicated family relationships. Family relationships can be all kinds of challenging and they do require work to stay healthy. At the same time, remember having to talk to someone through a window or from the front porch to the driveway and how much we wanted to hug people when we couldn't hug them?
There was division in our country before, during and after the pandemic and we are excelling at keeping that tradition alive. For a moment though, in the midst of COVID, it's possible that there was a greater percentage of people who valued being together more than they valued being right about something.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Recently, in several places, I've seen the idea proposed that somehow empathy is an undesirable quality. During COVID I saw empathy blossom in a lot of places and it was uniformly a beautiful quality. My view from today is that five years ago we were entering a storm of which we had no idea regarding the size and magnitude. Caring not only about our individual destinies, but our collective future helped us arrive at today. Maybe hug someone today if the situation presents itself. Think about the gift of being in the same space with other people, even other people with whom you don't agree on everything. Or anything. Be generous in your exercise of kindness, caring, and empathy. We don't know what will change in five more years, or for that matter in five more days, but we can consider who and how we aspire to be whatever they may bring.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Sometimes There's Lunch!
Our Tuesday morning prayer group at Hebron met for the first time at Hebron on December 1, 2009. After trying a few different things we arrived at the format that we continue to use on November 29, 2011. We've met in the church, at the home of a church member, and in our Activities Building. For a bit during COVID we met outside under a tree in front of the church. It's not a complicated gathering. We read from a devotional resource called These Days. We respond to what we are reading. Then we share our prayer concerns and celebrations and pray. Today is Tuesday and it's a special one as we'll be at Betty's house and after prayer, we'll share a meal that she has prepared for us. It will be great, it always is.
The view from this morning is the dependable, reassuring presence of this gathering of faithful folks. When I came to Hebron I shared that two things I wanted us to absolutely be about was reading scripture and prayer. Not exactly a cutting edge declaration to make in the context of participating in the leadership of a faith community, but I wanted to be explicit. And repetitious. I said it a lot early on and continue to say it with a certain amount of regularity twenty years into our time together.
The Tuesday morning prayer group is an example of something that has worked out to be more than we ever anticipated at the beginning. It ties together the practice of prayer with the relationships that build the context out of which the prayers emerge. It is, of course, not the only time we gather at Hebron, but it is a meaningful, more relaxed and conversational complement to worship that comes around about as often as we have Tuesdays.
Where does prayer fit into your daily life? Personally and in a group context. Who are the people you are praying with and praying for whatever the day brings. If focusing in this area of your relationship with God and others feels like it could be something you are called to, look for opportunities and maybe even gather your own group together.
If it's Tuesday and you are nearby you are always welcome to come and join us. On some very good days, there is even lunch.
Monday, March 10, 2025
Diving In
"It's a dinglehopper." -Scuttle, while holding up a fork
Following up on yesterday's suggestion that reading the Bible can make a positive difference in our lives, I wanted to offer another reason why reading it for yourself is a good idea. And why this is true especially, if you are inclined to grant it some level of authority.
Imagine someone has told you a new word, one you've never used before. They explain to you what the word means and encourage you to take steps to make it an active part of your vocabulary. You are not certain what the word means and raise the question of if they are sure about the definition and usage of this word. "Yes," they assure you, "I read it in the dictionary." They cite the dictionary because they are aware you know the purpose of a dictionary. At that point you have a choice, trust that they are properly representing the dictionary to you, or go have a look at it yourself.
I don't have a lot of experience of people trying to misrepresent the dictionary. I am far too aware of folks who set out to do just that with scripture.
Scripture is not a weapon. But it has been used in that way. It becomes possible because many people do accord it a level of authority. A number of those who grant it authority have also, for a variety of reasons, read it little or not at all. The effect of that combination is a susceptibility to someone who says with authority, "This is what the Bible says."
I read the Bible a good bit. On most Sunday mornings I get up in front of people and talk about what it says. I hope that folks will give consideration to what I am saying. I also hope they will not take my word for it simply because I say this is what the Bible says. Ask questions. Read it for yourself. Read the Gospels. Read the Psalms. Read it beginning to end. Read it with a commentary nearby. Read it with a group of people and discuss it.
Don't be intimidated by it. Don't imagine that there are things in it that only the very confident person asking you to believe what they say the Bible says understands in a way you cannot. You can totally do this. You don't have to do it by yourself. It's fine to ask questions and at times to find it confusing and difficult. If you do grant it a level of authority in your life though, it's really not the best plan to leave discerning the content entirely to someone else.
Dive in!
Sunday, March 9, First Sunday of Lent
Springing Forward Into The Wilderness
"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness..." -Luke 4:1
The time changed last night. We sprang forward. I'm very much a fall back person. I'm here for a twenty-five hour day. Springing forward is hard for me. The twenty-three hour day is a struggle. But, here's a secret if you won't tell anyone: I like both of them. Yes, I've spent years complaining about losing an hour and singing the praises of gaining an hour, but the truth is I like 'em both. The reason is simple, it's a relatively painless way of changing things up. It's a novelty, a curiosity - it's fun to hear how people navigate this kind of unnecessary complication.
As a pastor, the time change is a front of mind thing. In the fall, not really a problem, I enjoy the extra hour of sleep and people usually have time to figure out what is happening and don't come to church an hour early. Spring is more of a challenge. I usually wake up trying to determine with certainty that I am following clocks that are telling me the truth, and for whatever reason that takes more effort than one might think. What other day am I going to be that concerned with the question, "But what time does the microwave say it is?" If someone is going to show up late for church, and I've seen that happen, I really would like to not be that person.
This morning our leap forward landed us in the wilderness on the first Sunday of Lent with Jesus being tempted by the devil in Luke 4:1-13. The choir sang a Lent themed hymn that was truly a pretty piece of music, but both the words and the music sounded very much like you would expect a Lent themed hymn to sound, which is to say it had to be practiced because it went directions that were not to be predicted.
That's how it goes at times. Things happen that are not to be predicted.
Backing up to that Jesus in the wilderness story - I'd argue that's one of the points of that story. Jesus is led into the wilderness between his baptism and the beginning of his public ministry. It gives him a space and a time to come face to face with the adversary before he gets started proclaiming the coming of God's reign. It's a lesson that life can be unpredictable in ways that are highly unwelcome. And it gives him the opportunity to practice (and by way of this story to teach us) a strategy for navigating the unpredictable, unwelcome wilderness moments of life. In this story each time he is tempted he declines, citing a scripture passage to back up his position.
It works well in this passage for Jesus, and it's there for us to watch and learn. Reading the Bible is not magic, but it can be a very real help when we are tempted to act in ways that get us out of alignment in our relationship with God. Everything unpredictable in life is not problematic - we'll get through yet another shifting of the clock. Life does come with real challenges though, the sort we may not see coming, and may feel like the wilderness has surrounded us out of nowhere. In such times (actually in all times) a good working relationship with scripture can make a very positive difference.
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Venture
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." -Matthew 16:13-16
It is easy to ask someone how they are doing, but to ask in such a way that implies an expectation of a short and uncomplicated answer. It is equally easy, if asked how we are doing, to meet that expectation and to answer the question with brevity in a way that stays close to the surface and really doesn't give much of an indication as to how we are actually doing.
This is like asking someone to tell you what their view is from today, but to please not really tell you what their view is from today.
We want to give a nod to seeming interested, but aren't really sure if we want to wade to far into those waters, either as askers or as answerers. It's not that we mean to falsely represent our interest/concern. It's just that if we honestly ask that question and honestly answer it…we could be here awhile and we might find ourselves venturing into the deep end of things.
So venture.
Make a goal for yourself to spend a day or two being the best possible listener you can be. Ask people how they are and listen for the answer. Listen to the answer. Pause and think about the answer and ask a follow-up question. If we seem to be believably and genuinely interested in someone else's view from today, we can often quickly see how appreciative our conversation partner is to be heard. Having someone actually listen is often experienced as a great gift.
For your part, if someone asks you how you are, consider taking them at their word and give it a moment of thought and share something of how you are experiencing your view from today - the joy of it, the challenge of it, the hurt of it.
Jesus, in the gospels, is great at this asking questions and listening in a way that draws out thoughtful answers. As I watch Jesus ask these kinds of questions - think of him asking "Who do you say that I am?" to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi - it's not so much that he's aiming to learn things he doesn't know as it is he's creating space for everyone in the conversation to learn something new, arrive at some fresh awareness, together.
Keep asking. Keep listening. Keep answering. Keep risking.
Keep venturing.
Friday, March 7, 2025
What Are You Noticing?
For a long time I would hear folks in sermons or in conversation make reference to something their spiritual director said or suggested. For much of that time I thought spiritual direction sounded like a very good idea and had no idea how one went about finding one. And then several years ago, somewhat haphazardly, as is my wont, I read a series of devotionals that I found really helpful, read the bio of the author, discovered he was a spiritual director and through the magic of the internet made contact. Since then I've met regularly with my spiritual director.
My original idea of a spiritual director was a person with the visage of Gandalf or maybe the Dowager Countess who you had to climb a mountain, perform some tasks and eventually be invited to sit at their feet. The actuality of it, for me, has been a person approximately my age, and, happily, a bit less intimidating than either of the figures I mentioned. Also instead of the tests and the mountain, there is clicking on a link for a Zoom meeting.
If I was to point to one primary difference between my pre and post spiritual director experience of life it would be the invitation to notice. One of the questions that comes up regularly is "What are you noticing?" It's the kind of question that grows on you. It's not really meant to get you somewhere. It's intended to help you really be here in this moment right now. It's expansive. We often notice what's immediately in front of us or what is most demanding of our attention, but those things can so fully engage us that we miss a lot of what is happening on the periphery, many of the things that turn out to be important, but for a variety of reasons seem less demanding.
All of which is to arrive at the point of inviting you this day to consider the question for yourself. What are you noticing? What is waving red flags and can't be missed? What is off to the side, but upon further review turns out to be fascinating? What is happening, not just in the few feet in front of you, but all around you? Exploring these questions and your response to what you find is the beginning of learning your view from today.
Thursday, March 6, 2025
The View From Today
Preachers regularly ask folks to do things like pray, listen for God in scripture, and find ways to be kind, generous and compassionate with others. I know because I’m a preacher and I’ve done it. I did it last night at our Ash Wednesday Service. What I sometimes have to remind myself to do is to be specific. Those things are good practices, but it’s kind of like the doctor saying drink more water - it sounds like a good idea, but just telling me to drink more water isn’t as helpful as giving me a rationale and a plan for drinking more water. There are lots of things that I know are good for me, that I don’t do nearly as much as I should. So adding a suggested list of religious practices may be a start, but a bit more explanation might be helpful.
A phrase I’ll be using a lot over the next seven Sundays is “the view from today.” As in “what’s the view from today.” As we interact with scripture in worship during this Lenten season that will be a central question we will be bringing to the text. What’s the view in terms of what is happening in the scripture passage? What’s the view in the passage geographically? What’s the view through the eyes of the participants in the story? Beyond the text, what’s the view in your life on the day we are reading. What are you looking around and seeing in your day to day life that interacts with what you are encountering in scripture? We’ll be exploring these questions in the context of our journey to Holy Week, but their application is definitely broader than the next seven Sundays.
What’s the view from today may also be an excellent tool when we are thinking about personal practices of prayer, scripture reading, and how we interact with others. What am I seeing right in front of me? How can I pray about what I am seeing? How is what I’m seeing helping me know who to be praying for and perhaps may be the best place to begin thinking about how I can very practically be kind, caring, and compassionate? When I read scripture in the morning how is it speaking to the schedule that is facing me this day?
The view from today can be everything from positive and filled with hope to stressful, anxious, conflicted, and challenging. These aren’t things to set aside from our spiritual practices, they are things to bring to the table. Take a look around, check out the view from today in its richness and complexity, and share it with God.
Ash Wednesday - March 5, 2025
The Suffering Of Today
"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." -Psalm 51:10
A Star Wars novel I just finished reading (The Living Force by John Jackson Miller), concludes with a member of the Jedi Council engaged in conversation with a citizen of the planet the Jedi have just saved. The citizen, Morna, is making the case that while the Jedi did prevail, they will now be on to the rest of their interesting lives in far off places and the people of Kwenn, a planet on the Outer Rim of the galaxy, will be left facing many of the problems they have always had to worry with and unpredictable new concerns waiting to come into view.
Jedi Master Yaddle responds, "My colleagues and I worry that we are not doing enough to make the future more secure. But I think the first step in all of that has to be making the present more secure. Tomorrow's suffering- it doesn't exist, not yet. Today's suffering does."
Ash Wednesday is here to help us arrive at pretty much that realization - let's deal with today's suffering.
Today we confess our brokenness, our frailty, our need to repent and receive God's forgiveness. We are headed for Holy Week, for Good Friday, and eventually for Easter, but to make that journey, this is the best possible start. Not worrying about what we might do wrong or where things might get complicated down the road, but by honestly assessing where we are right now. What has God asked of us? How faithful have we been in response? This is not a practice of miserably wallowing in our failures. It is being as clear-eyed as possible about the gap between where we are and God's desire and dream for us.
Many folks will say "You are dust and to dust you shall return" at the imposition of the ashes. It's a bracing reminder of our mortality. I tend to prefer "Create in your child a clean heart and put a new and right spirit within them" - pretty nearly the words of Psalm 51:10. I like those words because they achieve the purpose of acknowledging our need of forgiveness and they also ask for what we most need to live the next moment with hope. We need these things to address the real suffering of now and to give us a first faithful step to that future - whatever it holds - that does not yet exist.