Lent Day 33: Turn, Turn, Turn

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die...
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Two people died last week: the mother of a dear friend, and a dear friend. Both were women, deeply loved by family and community alike. One death was anticipated through diagnoses; to the best of my understanding, the other was not. One lived a long and full life; the other lived a full but abbreviated one, barely making middle age. 

Lent is very much about death, in the sense that it is about being human, and death is one of the very few things that all human beings can expect to experience, sooner or later. On Ash Wednesday many Christians receive a roughly cross-shaped smudge of ashes on their heads (the ashes of palm branches, usually those with which Palm Sunday was celebrated the year before). When the ashes are being administered, these words are often said: Remember, [Name], that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. It is a lovely but heavy moment for both the person administering the ashes and the person receiving them, each of us contemplating our own span of life, Only once in my years as a pastor have I experienced the death of someone to whom I had just administered ashes the previous Ash Wednesday. He died on Good Friday, completely unexpectedly.

Lent is also about death in the sense that it is a season of preparation for an annual commemoration of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ--and also the resurrection. During Lent we ponder our shared humanity with Christ. We seek to understand it better, and we seek to live it better. The observance of Holy Week is a journey to the cross. 

Here's the thing, though. We are alive until we are dead. I've been thinking about anticipatory grief, and I have been wondering whether Jesus might have experienced that. The gospels show him driving out money-changers and teaching in the temple, getting into some disagreements with other religious leaders, and sitting down (or, really, reclining) to a meal with his closest friends. However Jesus' spirit was as he anticipated his own suffering and ending, it seems as though he succeeded in living until he died. Apparently, he did not let the shadow at the end of the week diminish his witness to love, justice, and peace along the way.

I imagine we would all hope for the ability to live and love until we died. I also imagine we would all hope that we had said everything we wanted to say, and shown our love and care well and clearly to those we love in advance of their departures. The problem is, we think we have time, and hard experience has told me that we do not. 

I am deeply grateful for the lives of the people I have mentioned here. They have all impacted my life in significant ways, have been friends, or congregants, or both. One gave birth to one of my favorite people. One gave me one of my most cherished pieces of wisdom and buoyed me up when I lacked confidence. One had the ability to make me laugh and laugh, and we shared experiences that I treasure. All are in God's hands now.

I live with gratitude for each life and with regret that I haven't told the people I love, that I love them. Not nearly enough.

Death is a bittersweet reminder to tell them, and tell them now. 

Turn, turn, turn.

Lent Day 31: A New Thing!

Scripture  Isaiah 43:16-21 (NRSVUE)

Thus says the Lord,

    who makes a way in the sea,

    a path in the mighty waters,

who brings out chariot and horse,

    army and warrior;

they lie down; they cannot rise;

    they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

Do not remember the former things

    or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;

    now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

    and rivers in the desert.

The wild animals will honor me,

    the jackals and the ostriches,

for I give water in the wilderness,

    rivers in the desert,

to give drink to my chosen people,

   the people whom I formed for myself

so that they might declare my praise.

An ostrich from the Phoenix Zoo. 

Meditation

This evening’s passage from the prophet Isaiah starts with a reminder: 

What God has done. 

In these words, directed at the Babylonian exiles, God reminds them of an earlier moment when God showed up, and God took care, and God carried God’s own people out of danger. I’m betting that you could recognize the scene that is described as the passage opens. 

“Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters” (Isaiah 43:16). When did God make a passage through the waters? Yes, absolutely—during the great exodus of God’s people from enslavement in Egypt. The people were able to cross on dry earth with the waters held back. But what happened next? The pharaoh’s soldiers followed in chariots pulled by horses, and then…

chariot and horse,

    army and warrior;

they lie down; they cannot rise;

    they are extinguished, quenched like a wick. ~Isaiah 43:17

God releases the waters, and the pursuing soldiers are drowned by the very seas that stood still so that God’s people could escape. 

Our passage opens with a reminder of the remarkable: What God has done.

But then the Lord says a strange thing—but don’t think about things that happened before, kiss today goodbye, and point me toward tomorrow. Now we are going to hear: 

What God will do.

God says, I will do a new thing. Here it comes… can you see it? And then God tells of a different kind of rescue: Instead of leading God’s people through water, God will lead God’s people through wilderness, a desert, complete with ostriches and jackals.

I have to say, the ostriches and jackals caught all our attention Tuesday night at our Music Team meeting. So, here are some things you might not have known about them.

Ostriches are the largest living bird, standing between 6 and 8 feet tall, and between 200-300 lbs. Ostrich eggs are so large they can feed a small family. Unlike most other birds, ostriches do not fly—unless you count their running. They are the fastest running bird on the planet, with speeds up to 43 miles per hour. They do that running with just two toes, which are also claws. Naturally, their legs are incredibly strong, and their main means of self-defense. An ostrich can kill a lion with one kick. The ostrich’s native habitat is flexible: they can be found in the savannah, grasslands, woodlands, and deserts. And their large eyes—unusually large—enable them to see for miles and miles.

The word for ostrich in Hebrew means “greedy.” Greedy bird. This is probably connected to the ostrich’s omnivorous diet, which includes greens, gourds, fruit, invertebrates, bugs and lizards—not to mention small stones and sand, which they need for grinding up food in the gizzard.

Jackals, on the other hand, are the smaller cousins of wolves, dogs, and coyotes, with a average weight of about 13 lbs. They are natural predators of the ostrich, and their small size is an advantage against the large bird. Unlike ostriches, who mate as they are able with all and sundry and are known to be less than stellar parents, jackals are monogamous types, mating for life and raising their pups together. They’re known as opportunistic omnivores—they’ll eat a vegetarian or carnivorous diet as available, and they’re not too proud to scavenge the leftovers of larger predators, like lions. In fact, the Hebrew word for jackal indicates that it is a scavenger.

Why, we have to wonder, are the ostrich and the jackal named here, where Isaiah offers the words of the Lord saying, 

I am about to do a new thing;

    now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

    and rivers in the desert.

The wild animals will honor me,

    the jackals and the ostriches,

for I give water in the wilderness,

    rivers in the desert,

to give drink to my chosen people,

   the people whom I formed for myself

so that they might declare my praise. ~Isaiah 43:19-21

Why name the ostrich and the jackal, who, in the animal kingdom, are not exactly A-listers? For one thing, God is speaking of how all creation will honor the almighty, for all God’s good provision and help—for how God will continue to care for them. But if we look more closely, don’t the ostrich and the jackal have just a little bit in common with the people who are in exile? Their similarities fall under the category of “making do.”

The ostrich and the jackal can adapt to any environment—as the exiles had to adapt to the loss of their homes, and being involuntarily transplanted in Babylon.

The ostrich and the jackal can make do with most any food—as the exiles had to learn what the local fare was, and what was available at Babylonian markets, and to figure out a whole new way of eating.

The ostrich and the jackal have radically different behavior around what we might delicately call family life—and the exiles have been doing something they might never have anticipated. They are intermarrying with gentiles, those who are not part of God’s covenant people, those who don’t yet know the wonders of the Lord their God. 

The ostrich and the jackal are scrappy, innovative survivors, much like the Israelites who were taken from their homes and forced to relocate for a full seventy years. During that time they had to adapt, they had to learn new ways, they had to make do. 

And God is casting no blame on them for any of that. Instead, God is reminding them, if these beasts can be part of the creation that will understand and give thanks for the goodness of God, surely the Israelites can, too.

And now, God is doing a new thing—can they not perceive it? And there is no need for fear. God was with them the last time, and the time before that. God will be with them through this next transition, whatever that may be.

We know what it’s like to live in unsettled times. Most of us know what it’s like to live through something so painful we’re not sure how we’ll ever get through. But we also know what it’s like to get through. And whether we were aware of it or not, God was there, as God is here, now, with us.

God is doing a new thing, and God will be with us, every step of the way.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lent Day 30: All Knowledge

 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge.

OR

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you have all knowledge.

~1 John 2:20

A blurry bud opening on a lilac tree.

In the middle of a rant on the coming of antichrists (note the s: there will not be one, but many), the first letter of John has this little jewel of a verse. You have been anointed by God, and you all have knowledge. Or, you have been anointed by God, and you have all knowledge. It's one of those tricky moments in translation when two different things are perfectly reasonable translations of a Greek sentence.  

But look closer, and you can see that the writer is encouraging a group of people-- this letter is not to a solitary person, but to a community. They lovingly address this community as "little children." We don't have to choose a translation; both are true. 

  But you [all] have been anointed by the Holy One, and [together] you have [all] knowledge.

In a fearful time, a community of faith may struggle to know what is the next best step to take, the next right thing to do. There are always competing priorities, with very good rationales behind them. What does it mean that we have "all knowledge" when it can be so frustrating and overwhelming to come to consensus, let along making a decision that excites and energizes us as a community?

Sometimes things take their own time.

Years ago I was trying to come to a decision about a huge change--leaving one denomination and joining another. It was torturous. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure. I didn't want to do it for the wrong reasons. I wanted to be sure I was being called by God. But I couldn't tell. 

In frustration I went to a friend's house and said, Help! I'm trying to make this decision, but I just can't. I don't know what to do.

I went on like that for a while, essentially saying the same thing in a lot of different ways. Finally I was silent. And my friend was silent.

It was an icy winter night. My friend's house was warm. I sat in the silence with her for a bit. 

Finally, my friend said, Maybe you need to accept that this is a time of not knowing. And then there will come a time of knowing. 

This bit of wisdom resonated with me. In fact, it was a huge relief--the idea of saying, I don't know, but practicing being ok with that, with trusting that the decision, the knowledge, would reveal itself in time. It was a gift. It was a revelation.

So I entered a period of not knowing. And, in this case, it didn't take long. Several weeks later it was as clear to me as a blue sky in spring. 

Sometimes things take their own time. Things are gestating--even in our souls. They are growing, and developing, and coming to maturity, and we have to allow them the time they need to do that.

Because, it is true. By virtue of our baptism, God has anointed us and we have a knowing that can't be undone. In community, we can share our ideas, discern together, pray together, and trust that, yes, there may be times of not knowing. We can learn to abide in the not knowing, but with trust. Eventually, we will know--when the time is right. 

Lent Day 29: Love!

Hello friends. Alas, I have been unable to stick to my commitment of daily posts here. I am sorry for that. At the same time, this has been a rich season for me. The devotional we are using at church is a daily encouragement and solace. The other activities I've been involved in have been deeply satisfying. Union Presbyterian Church, the congregation I serve has, as ever, been warm and loving, with hearts for service. My family is well and each, in their own way, thriving, even in the midst of the national (and now global) chaos set off by the administration.

Today I give you, again, my sermon from Sunday. I hope you are having a good Lent, and I'm sorry, again, for falling down on this commitment. I'll be seeking to do better these last two weeks.

Mary of Bethany (or Mary Magdalene)
From Art in the Christian Tradition, Vanderbilt University Divinity Library

Scripture          John 12:1-8

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” 

Sermon              

It is night. A crowd is gathered in rooms illuminated by candles and oil lamps. Shadows flicker on the walls. Jesus’ disciples are there, and perhaps some of their wives. Jesus’ mother is probably there… after all, this is a celebration of her son. The host family are there, of course—the siblings Mary, and Martha, and recently raised-from-the-dead Lazarus. And Jesus—the guest of honor. Just days before this celebration the host family was in mourning—diminished by one beloved brother, wearing torn clothing as a sign of their sorrow, sitting at home with those who came to witness and participate in their grief. Lazarus was in the tomb—had been for four days. But all that changed when Jesus arrived. The one who was lost, was found. The one who was dead, is now alive.

This is a celebration! A thanksgiving dinner. The sisters of Lazarus and the man himself are filled with gratitude for his return to the land of the living. This is also the celebration of the end of the Sabbath, the sweetest day of the week, for tomorrow—the day following this dinner—Jesus will go to Jerusalem for the beginning of the Passover festival. There is every reason to celebrate this night.

Still. Many at this gathering are on edge. The mood is subdued. This is because the threats are out there, and they are getting louder and louder. For at least two years of Jesus’ ministry, there has been talk of killing him. Everyone who follows Jesus, everyone who knows him, everyone who loves him, knows that he has a target on his back. They know that there are people who will be all too willing to turn him over to the authorities.

The Romans are furious with Jesus for the whispers that he is king—whispers that began when Jesus’ preaching was brand new, and have only grown louder in the three years since. For Jesus to be king—even to be dreamed as king—is a threat to Rome. 

The religious authorities gathered together after this last miracle, this last sign of Jesus raising Lazarus. What are we going to do? If he continues like this, soon everyone will believe in him—and then, all bets are off. The Romans will come and decimate our people and destroy our Temple. Wouldn’t it be better if one man died than a whole nation, a whole way of life? And so they decided to kill him. They put out word that anyone who saw Jesus should let them know, so they could go and arrest him. 

All the fear around Jesus comes back to the struggle for power, in the political realm and in the religious realm. Jesus is too powerful. Dangerously powerful.

Jesus is all too aware of this. After he raised Lazarus, he and his disciples went to a village called Ephraim, out of the way, bordering on the Judean wilderness. It was a place where he could lay low. 

But now he has traveled the fifteen or so miles to Bethany, to be with his friends, to be celebrated. But he knows what is coming.

Imagine the murmurs of the people, reclining on comfortable pillows around the long, low tables. The sound of clay goblets clinking, wine being poured. 

Then, everyone stops. A silence falls as Mary, one of Lazarus’ grateful sisters, approaches Jesus carrying a vessel filled with a pound of the purest, most expensive and exotically fragrant oil known, spikenard. The aroma of it precedes her, but it is nothing compared to the strength of the fragrance when she pours it out, emptying the vessel, on Jesus’ feet. Imagine Jesus, sitting up, perhaps, to watch as the woman bathes his feet. Touches them, gently. And then, because there is so much, bends down and soaks up the excess with her hair.

This is a stunning act of love and devotion. It is a shockingly intimate act between an unrelated woman and man. The murmuring begins again. Maybe a few soft, nervous laughs. But everyone sees this moment for what it is: a loving gift, given in gratitude, in thanks for an unimaginable blessing upon her family. 

But Jesus knows it is even more than that. In just a few days, Jesus will take this act and transform it into his own act of love and devotion: following the last meal he will ever share with his disciples, he will wash their feet. And then he will give them a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Because everything Jesus has done, and everything he will do—for his disciples and for the many strangers he encountered, and fed, and spoke with, and healed—has been a pouring out of the love of God for the world. 

And acts of love, and acts of beauty, as this one is, are also acts of resistance. In a dangerous world, where not everyone is safe and the desire for power is an enticement to recklessness and destruction, acts of love and beauty take courage. Acts of love and beauty require steadfastness. Acts of love and beauty say, “I will not live in the fear you are trying to drown me with. I will not forsake those with targets on their backs. I will stand alongside them, and walk their path of suffering with them, and do everything in my power to tell the world that they are worthy of dignity, they are worthy of love. Acts of love and acts of beauty are a form of resistance.

Judas breaks the moment. He crashes into it with his anger. He rages that Mary should have taken that ointment and sold it. It was valued at a year’s wages for a day laborer. Think of the good that could have been done with that money—they could have used it to feed the poor. Judas, who is said to have kept track of the money box for the disciples, is doing the math: should all this ointment have been spent on one man, or on many who needed it more than he?

Loving people, showing them love, costs us. Sometimes it costs us our time. Sometimes it costs us our money. Sometimes it costs us our reputation. Sometimes it costs us our lives. But the thing is, love returns to us—not in a tit for tat way, so that we’re all even-steven. But in the sense that love is contagious. Kindness is contagious. Love isn’t love until you do give it away, invest in it, show what it is worth to you. And when you do that, it spreads like a beautiful fragrance, until love is the language that is spoken.

When I was young, I was obsessed with Saint Therese of Lisieux, who is often called “the little flower.” She became a nun at age 15 and died of TB at age 24, but the writings she left, especially her Story of a Soul, are filled with the kind of wisdom you would expect from someone with decades and decades of life experience, not a young and sheltered girl. Her spiritual practice was to do small things with great love. On the cost of love, one of her lesser-known quotes is this: “God knows all the sciences, but there’s one science God does not know, God does not know mathematics.”

Judas is doing the math, but it is a kind of math that is nonsensical to Jesus, and to God. Jesus sternly tells Judas to leave Mary alone. He says, you will always have opportunities to help the poor, and well you should. My time here is short. She has anointed me for my burial. 

The narrative of the celebration meal breaks off at this point. Soon crowds of people know that Jesus is in Bethany, and they come seeking him out. The religious authorities decide that they had better kill Lazarus, too.

But the love that was poured out in that dim, candle-lit room is still there, moving through the souls of those who witnessed it, moving in Jesus, as he plans for the last supper he will have with his friends. Acts of love and beauty are not frozen in time. They live. They breathe. They move.

You know this. This congregation, the people of this congregation, engage in acts of love daily. Last night’s One Great Hour of Sharing Trivia night was a great, rollicking act of love, in the end. An act of generosity and kindness—and a little competitiveness, but the love undergirded it all. Every kind thing you do—giving someone a ride, calling someone you’ve been thinking about, holding up a sign in a crowd expressing your care for the most vulnerable among us—is an act of love. Every act of beauty and joy in the face of fearful days and fearful events is an act of love, and an act of resistance. 

So we, in this brightly lit room, with our own candles flickering, are called to acts of love, and beauty, and joy, every day. Go, and know that these acts will not be frozen in time. They live. They breathe. They move. And they go out into the world… 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lent Day 25: Forgiveness!

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,

    whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity

    and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silent, my body wasted away

    through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,

    and I did not hide my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”

    and you forgave the guilt of my sin. 

Therefore let all who are faithful

    offer prayer to you;

at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters

    shall not reach them.

You are a hiding place for me;

    you preserve me from trouble;

    you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. 

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;

    I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

    whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,

    else it will not stay near you.

Many are the torments of the wicked,

    but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,

    and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

~Psalm 32

Meditation

In college I took a philosophy class that was based entirely on The Grand Inquisitor, which was a single chapter in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov. The professor was a kind and soft-spoken man, but also anxious. He had a heavy eastern European accent, and he didn’t look particularly well—he was very pale, sort of grey in complexion. During one class, in discussing ethics, he gave an example of someone who really, really needed a pack of cigarettes, but who didn’t have any money, so, wasn’t it, really, ok that he stole a pack of cigarettes from the Star Market? Sort of a modern-day Jean Valjean, I guess. In a later class, he said, “You know, once I really, really needed a pack of cigarettes, but I didn’t have any money. So I stole a pack from the Star Market.”

He ended up taking a medical leave halfway through the course. I don’t know entirely what was going on with my professor, but I believe at least one thing that was going on was a persistent, unshakeable sense of guilt, or maybe shame. He had unfinished business of some kind.

In the Christian tradition, Psalm 32 is one of the seven penitential psalms. Usually, these are psalms in which the writer is asking God for forgiveness for something specific. Psalm 51, the psalm we pray on Ash Wednesday, is an excellent example. Psalm 32 is an odd duck among these psalms, though, because the psalmist is not asking God for anything, but, rather, telling the listener how amazingly wonderful it feels to be forgiven.

And isn’t that true? The feeling of seeing a person who was angry with you, or disappointed by you, and knowing that all is forgiven. It’s… heaven. 

For most human beings, feelings of guilt and shame when we have trespassed some ethical boundary are normal. Feelings are simply messages from our bodies. This was wonderful, that was terrible, this is scary… When we’ve done something, even something as seemingly minor as stealing a pack of cigarettes from Star Market, we generally have some lingering feelings, maybe at first, of anxiety. But eventually, it can turn into guilt. Or even, shame, which is guilt’s awful twin, and far more complicated to deal with. Guilt is about an action. Guilt says, I did something bad. Shame is about ourselves. Shame says, I am bad. I hope all of us exist in shame-free zones, because shame is never the answer. 

Psalm 32 begins with verses telling how happy, how blessed we are when we’re forgiven. But then it moves into what the experience of what guilt can feel like. It speaks of wasting away. It speaks of groaning in agony, and feelings of weakness, even faintness. It speaks of the heavy hand of God resting upon them.

Then, suddenly, we discover that the psalmist is, in fact praying to God. But then I told you, they say, and you forgave me. May all who feel as I felt pray to God, open their hearts, and be forgiven! 

Then, God speaks: I will instruct you, and teach you the way you should go—don’t be like a stubborn animal, who needs to be tied up and restrained, in order to stay near its master. By implication—stay near me because you want to stay near me, a truly beautiful invitation from God, hidden under a homely simile. And then, the joy of forgiveness ends this psalm—which may, really, be a teaching psalm. Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. 

A simple message: tell God what’s ailing you, and God will heal you, will heal the sin-sick soul. But what about other complications when we are seeking forgiveness?

With only a few exceptions, most stories of guilt and forgiveness in the Hebrew scriptures are about sins against God and human guilt over disobedience, faithlessness, breaking the commandments. But Jesus adds a more consistent focus on the harm we can do one another, on the importance of forgiving one another as we have been forgiven by God. Reconciliation really is at the heart of our faith.

But what happens when it’s too late to reconcile? When the one we have harmed is no longer on this earth? I believe that when we do harm, we should make amends. To me, that means: telling the person that we understand the harm we did, and that we are sincerely sorry. And then, asking the person how we can make amends… how can we make it better, how can we restore the relationship between us?

This is far more complex when the person we have wronged has died. What can we possibly do? We can pray. Speak to God about it and see whether our heart can be eased in that way. But there may be other ways. We can take time to reflect on what the person in question really cared about—what they loved. And then we can connect with that, in some way, as a way of connecting with them. Suppose the person you hurt loved animals… maybe volunteer at an animal shelter. Say they loved music…perhaps encourage young people with musical gifts or attend a concert. Recycle, or contribute to Greenpeace if they were concerned about climate change. 

Anything that this person cared about can become a vehicle for remembering your relationship at its best. Beautiful memories can be like a prayer. They can also be the balm your soul needs around the fractures in the relationship. They can increase your trust that, in the end, the good in your relationship outweighed the bad.

God is love, and wants us to live in joy, in hope, and in peace. Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. Trusting in that steadfast love can make all the difference when the complications of life leave us with unfinished business. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lent Day 23: The Boy Who Ran Away! A Monologue Sermon on the Prodigal Son

From time to time I preach a monologue sermon, from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. Yesterday I preached from the point of view of the prodigal son. 

Years ago, even before I was ordained, I wrote a sermon from the point of view of the elder brother--the one who, in the end, is angry at the forgiveness shown his younger brother. If you're interested, you can find that sermon here.

If you prefer, you can watch this sermon on our YouTube video. It begins at 30:15. 

Scripture                   Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32 (NRSVUE)

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable:

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ” 

Sermon            

I’m standing in the doorway of the house, looking out at my father and my brother. They are standing at the edge of the field—my brother covered in sweat, because he’s just come in from working all day, alongside the paid laborers. I can see that my father is pleading with him, leaning in towards him, reaching out his hands to gently touch him. But my brother pulls away. He is standing, stiff as a cut board. Every so often he glances over at the house. He glances over at me. His face is a map of misery. 

But here I stand, a purple linen robe over my torn and tattered tunic; my father’s own heavy silver ring on my right hand, a red stone shining in the torchlight; soft calfskin slippers on my dirty feet; and a goblet of wine in my hand. It is, as yet, untouched. 

My brother is flashing with anger. I am not surprised. In fact, this is the first thing that has not surprised me in the hour since I trudged up the hill to our house. My brother. I am home, and he is not pleased.

I can hardly blame him. A year ago I did the most shameful thing a son could do. At the age of seventeen I approached my father and told him, I wanted to go. I had to go. And I needed my inheritance, so that I had something to live on.

This is not done. Even as I spoke to my father, his eyes shining with tears that never spilled onto his face, I could feel my own face flush with the shame of it. I knew it was akin to saying to my father, “You are worth more to me dead than alive. But since you’re alive, give me this, please.” 

My father didn’t say a word. He turned and went into the back of the house, where he kept important documents. He brought out a small scroll which he opened, and I could see that it was a rough map of his vineyard. He looked at it for a long while. Finally, he took a reed, dipped it in ink. And drew a line across the map at the far end of the property. I could see that it was slightly larger than one-third of the vineyard. He looked up at me. “This is your portion of the inheritance. I’ve made it larger than a third, since the house will go to your brother. As the law requires, he will inherit a double portion.”

He turned away from me, but I could hear his voice shaking. “Go to town. Take the map. Sell the land that I’ve marked off. You can give the map to the new owner as their deed.”

And so I did. I went to town, and met a neighbor—someone who lived just down the hill from us. He was eager to take the property, and paid me with a heavy bag of denarii. I took it home and began to pack. 

A few days later, the property was his, and I was carrying my heavy pack down the road. My father and brother stood at the entryway of the house, watching me go. I know this, because I looked back, just once. But no more after that.

I don’t know how to explain why I did it. I could talk about how close my father and brother were—and they were. They understood one another perfectly. Agreed on everything. I was always the shrill voice at the table, telling them why they were wrong—about my friends, about the tax-collector up the hill, about the weather. In the evening, they would end their day together talking in front of a fire about the next crop, the workers, the price of wine. I had nothing to add, so I sat there in silence, or retreated to my room, or walked outside to look at the stars. 

I could talk about how hard it was after my mother died. She was the one who listened to me, who nodded at my stories instead of rolling her eyes, who held me close before sending me to bed. After she died, and the baby she had tried to bring into the world died with her, I cried for days. I cried until my brother said, “That’s enough.” And my father said nothing. And I thought, “That’s enough? I will never stop crying. I will never not miss her. Who is for me now?” And my brother and father continued to talk about the crops and the workers and prices, as if a vast abyss had not just opened up and swallowed our family. 

But if I’m really honest, none of those things made me run. My father and brother were ordinary men, who lived an ordinary life where I didn’t quite fit in. But that’s no tragedy. My mother died, but many mothers die in childbirth, and life goes on without them.  

I left because there was a burning anger inside me that I didn’t understand, and I couldn’t put out. I left because I if I stayed, I thought I would go mad or commit murder. I left because, at 17, I didn’t even know who I was, and I certainly didn’t think the grapevines were going to teach me. 

So I ran away. Through my father’s vineyard, out of Galilee and north-west to the sea, the sea town of Sidon in Phoenicia. I went to the harbor and saw the barrier island, and ships curving around it, to come to port. I saw the workers unloading the goods from lands I didn’t even know existed—their spices and silks, barrels of wines and ales. I befriended some sailors by buying them food and wine, and I thought maybe I would go to sea with the next ship that left, bearing fine Lebanon cedar for sale. But then, I was enjoying the wine, which the sailors encouraged me to drink until I was senseless, so that they too could drink until they were senseless. I was enjoying the women, though… I could not tell you one of their names or describe one face or remember one thing they said to me. And I was enjoying the games—rolling dice for money, always seeming to lose more than I won. 

My money ran out just as the city seemed to run out of people. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough food anywhere, and even people who helped beggars—as I had become—couldn’t help us any more, because they had their families to feed. I looked around for work, but the only person who would hire me raised pigs. He sent me out to give them their slop. By then I was so weak from hunger, the slop looked good to me. I dipped my hand into the pail and held it up to my nose—the jumbled remains of day old grains and greens, wilted, souring. My stomach—as hungry as it was—heaved in warning, and I dropped the handful back into the pigsty. 

As night fell, I rested against a stone wall that divided the pig farm from its neighbor’s property. I had finished gnawing on the hard bread that was my dinner. A lone star rose in the sky, and the sight of it pierced my heart. Suddenly the sound of my father’s and brother’s voices wafting out to me as I looked up at the stars came to me. I’d always considered it boring, annoying noise. Now even the memory of it sounded like sweet music.

What am I doing here? I thought. And then, a greater knife to my heart: What have I done? I put my head in my hands and wept. I wept until I had no more tears, and then I slept.  

The sound of a rooster awakened me and I lay there, very still. I have to go, I thought. I jumped to my feet and ran to find the owner, who gave me my pay and some bread for the journey. I thanked him, and I ran. 

The whole way home—a two-day journey—I rehearsed and refined what I would say. I imagined my father’s stony face, and knew the only thing I could do was to admit it. Admit it all. To tell him that I’d done the worst, and I knew there was no forgiveness to be found. But maybe there was work. And maybe, over time, there could even be trust. But that wasn’t up to me. 

I trudged up the hill as night fell, and I walked through the fragrant grapevines. The harvest was starting soon… it looked like a good crop this year. I looked up to see the house, expecting to see the firelight through the window. To my surprise I saw what, at first, looked like a pile of cloth by the door. Then I realized… it was a man… it was my father. And as I drew near, he scrambled to his feet and… began to run. To run toward me, not away. I was… astonished doesn’t cover it. I was amazed. This was not possible. But even as I was thinking how impossible it was, my father was falling on my neck and embracing me, and weeping. We were both weeping. I started to say my piece, but he interrupted me, calling a servant—the robe, the slippers, the ring. Family heirlooms. And then, the party. A party unlike any I’d known. 

I will never forget the look in my father’s eyes. I had not known. I had not understood the depths of his love. I had not understood the size of his beautiful, beating heart. I had not known that such forgiveness—forgiveness for the shameful, the cruel, the unforgiveable—that it could exist. But it does. I learned that just about an hour ago. 

And now I’m standing in the doorway of the house. And my brother is still out there. He’s looking at my father with a face of stone, and my father is still speaking, still whispering words of reassurance, words of encouragement. But he is not having it.  

I know what I must do. I put down the goblet of wine. I take off the ring and the shoes, and place them with the wine. I take off the beautiful robe, and carefully fold it and hand it to a servant. 

I step outside, and begin to walk toward him. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lent Day 21: Go Ahead. Say it Out Loud

 While I kept silent, my body wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 
~Psalm 32:3-4

Psalm 32 is one of the penitential psalms. Unlike the others, though, it isn't a present tense, God-forgive-me-for-this-now type of psalm. Instead, it's a narrative about the joys of being forgiven. 

In the lines I've shared above, the psalmist is recounting a memory of a time when they were trying to hide themselves from God--when they were oppressed by the guilt they felt, and felt the pressure of that building up inside.The guilt sapped their strength. It felt like a weight, the heavy hand of God upon them.

Then the psalmist describes how incredible it felt to let it out--to say to God, yes, I acknowledge it: I sinned. I did. And God forgave, which seems to be the very nature of God. 

I don't believe we are able to hide ourselves from God. (There's another psalm, pointing that out. You can find it here.) I tend to assume God knows everything I do, the good, the bad, and the ugly. My experience isn't of trying to build up the courage to confess to God what I've done (or left undone). But I do sometimes have to ask God for help in dealing with the aftermath of what I've done. 

A while back a friend told me we were no longer friends. I was stunned. The ex-friend made the case that I hadn't been available to them; that our friendship seemed only about my needs, and not theirs. I recognize now that I had stopped putting in the effort to connect with this friend by picking up or answering the phone, by texts or emails, or any number of things I could have done to bridge the physical distance between us. (My ex-friend used to be local, but now they live at a distance).They were hurt, and they are not able to forgive me. 

This continues to weigh heavily on me. I pray for this friend, not in the hopes of resuming the friendship, but just because they were such a good friend to me. They were there for me at one of the most fraught, intense times in my life. I want them to have a happy life, abundant life, always. It's between God and me now, to stitch back together the pieces of my torn up heart, and God is good at that. Healing the brokenhearted and binding up their wounds is a specialty. 

But I have learned my lesson. When I love someone, I say it out loud and I do my best to live it. I reach out. I make myself available. I try not to let too much time go by. I try to be the friend I should have been to my ex-friend. I try to be better. And God can help me with that.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Lent Day 20: Check-in: How's your Lent going?

He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

~Luke 13:18-21

Homemade bread in my kitchen.

It's the twentieth day of Lent (we don't count the Sundays--they are always the feast of the resurrection), and it seems like a good time to check in. How are you doing? Specifically, how is  your Lent going? 

I confess that I am a little overcommitted right now, but I am still finding this a beautiful and encouraging time of the church year. I love the season, and the ways it focuses us and helps us to remember who we are and whose we are. 

I love that we have Wednesday evening supper and worship at our church (you can watch last night's service--just shy of a half hour--here). In fact, today I was fantasizing about doing it all year long. (Don't worry UPC soup-makers. I know that's too much for our resources. Like I said, fantasy.)

I love the devotional we are using this year, from the marvelous Kate Bowler. It's called "The Hardest Part: Hurt We Carry, Hope We Find," and it's very, very real. Talks about fear, and illness, and frustration, and the WORLD NOT BEING THE WAY IT SHOULD BE (all caps mine). And it is not a downer, simply honest and lovely, and you can get it here. (Hey, half a Lent is better than none. And you could read one devotion in the morning and one at night.)

And I love the people. The people who are traveling together this Lent--my congregation, my family, my colleagues, my friends, in real live and virtual life. Their curiosity, their gratitude, their absolute honesty. It's such a privilege to walk together.

I want to say it's a Lenten world, right now, but I like Lent too much to attribute bad things to it. But every day we read horrifying news--looks like the social security administration is close to collapse, I see. And people are afraid, very understandably. 

I believe it is community that will save us. Church community, retirement community, communities of colleagues, communities of friends, communities of the resistance, all these communities and more. We need one another. 

I read the best thing in our devotional this morning, again, the brilliant Kate Bowler, who is a professor of Church History, her specialty being, the American church. She writes,

The cultural narrative we are told is that we should be able to handle it all on our own or “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.” But let this historian tell you what this really means. 

*Sounds of a historian rolling up her sleeves.* 

In the early 19th century, bootstrapping originally meant trying to do something ridiculous, like lifting yourself up by your own hair. It’s impossible. So maybe we should simmer down imagining that our individual selves can carry the world on our shoulders. It takes a village to raise a child, and a community of faith to sustain being human.

We can't do it all on our own. Nor should we try to. Asking for help is human, and vulnerable, and absolutely required. Go ahead and ask. Ask your pastor. Ask your church. Ask your friends. Ask the Office on Aging. Ask your congressperson or senator, or state representative or senator. Ask your doctor. Ask.

Asking is like that little seed Jesus talks about. It's a small thing that grows and grows, because it grows community. And I truly believe that in community is where we all need to be, right now.

Tell me about your Lent. Tell me how you are doing. Tell me if you need help finding community, and I'll do everything I can to help.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Lent Day 18: On Time and Wisdom

 Lord, let me know my end
    and what is the measure of my days;
    let me know how fleeting my life is.

~Psalm 39:4

A Statue of Buddha from Bacalhôa Buddha Eden, Lisbon, Portugal
Courtesy of Atlas Obscura

In my living room there is a small plak with a black sky above and a tentative sunrise or sunset over a black silhouette of mountains at the bottom. On it are the words:

The problem is, you think you have time. ~Buddha

This is not actually a quote from "the awakened one," the wandering sage who lived something like 2500 years ago. It is a quote from one of his contemporary students, Jack Kornfield, who wrote "Buddha's Little Instruction Book" (1994), his distillation of the master's teachings for modern readers. This particular quote does represent a theme that can be found more than once in the Buddha's teachings. It may be a summary of this one: 

Those who have come to be,

those who will be:

All

will go,

leaving the body behind.

The skillful person,

realizing the loss of all,

should live the holy life

ardently.

Time. Time is a central concern of the wise, and of those who are advising others to find wisdom. We find the same theme in the Psalm appointed for the first half of this week. Psalm 39 begins with three verses of the psalmist trying not to speak--they don't want to sin with their tongue! But by the end of the third verse, they are positively burning from the effort of keeping silent, so finally, they come out with it, the prayer that has set their heart on fire: they want to know how long they will live.

Why does the psalmist want to know how long they've got? Maybe it has to do with something they want to do, something specfic--such as becoming a wise person. Maybe they want to know how much time they have left to spend with those they love. Maybe they fear an overly extended life--a long, slow descent into feebleness or dementia. Or, maybe they fear an untimely, early demise, with much left undone.

(True confession. This whole conversation makes me think of my attic. *shudders*)

In any or all of these cases, the Psalmist in search of wisdom feels that knowing the span of their days will help them. 

Perhaps they will not put off until tomorrow what they must do today.

Perhaps they will learn wisdom with a greater urgency, and fill their heart with, not just knowledge, but the ability to use that knowledge for good, for others as well as themselves. 

Perhaps they will spend the hours, days, or years they have before them in doing mercy, living justly, and walking humbly with their God. 

But there is also a risk that knowing the number of their days will bring them to a standstill, a kind of spiritual paralysis, in which they are filled with anxiety or fear of that unknown last journey. 

This prayer of the psalmist is a puzzle. There are, of course, times in our lives when we may know with some degree certainty how short our time will be. But even then, God surprises us. We outlive the prognosis, we beat the medically determined odds. 

I think the psalmist doesn't actually want a text from God with "one week" or "five hundred-twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes" on it. I think the psalmist wants to live their days in wisdom, but also in peace. I think the psalmist wants the tiniest taste of God's wisdom so that their days--however many there may be--are lived in precisely the way God wants them to be lived, whatever that may mean. 

God, let us know, not the measure of our days, but how you want us to live.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Breath prayer:  Living.... with You.

Lent Day 17: Imagine!

Hear, everyone who thirsts;

    come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread

    and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,

    and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

    listen, so that you may live.

I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

   my steadfast, sure love for David.

See, I made him a witness to the peoples,

    a leader and commander for the peoples.

Now you shall call nations that you do not know,

    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,

because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,

    for he has glorified you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;

    call upon him while he is near;

let the wicked forsake their way

    and the unrighteous their thoughts;

let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

~Isaiah 55:1-9 (NRSVUE)

Girl Drinking Water in Rwanda (from Partners in Health Initiative)
Courtesy of Art in the Christian Tradition, Vanderbilt University Divinity Library

Sermon

Yesterday I read this invitation to reflect. As I read it to you now, I invite you to listen and reflect on the questions it asks.

Imagine yourself when you were 6 years old. Do you remember what you were going through when you turned 10? Remember how you felt at 16? Do you remember your dreams at 21? All those versions of who you used to be are still inside of you. Your 7-year-old self still gets excited when you remember the joy of that day. Your 35-year-old self still wants to cry when remembering the pain of that year. Like a nesting doll, every version of you has been a part of you becoming who you are today. Some versions of you went through some terrible and painful experiences and some felt great joy. But all versions of you were held by God. [1]

I did yesterday what I just invited you to do now. Some of my memories were quite vivid. Other years had so many associations with them it was hard to find a single, real connection. For age 6, I remembered a long-forgotten bulky blue cardigan that someone had knitted for me, and also my sudden fierce need for pierced ears. Also Davy Jones. He was part of the picture somehow. 

The most striking thing here, though, is the truth that each of is still all these people—the 6-year-old in the blue sweater, the 10-year-old who has changed schools, the 16-year-old playing Grandma Tzeitel in “Fiddler on the Roof.” They are all the same person who gave birth at ages 26 and 31, who graduated from seminary at 42, and who stands in front of you now at… the age I am now. Each of those moments informed the person I was to become in small ways and large, and each of you can say the same of your 6-year-old and 10-year-old and your every-age selves. 

And so it goes with communities. We are in the portion of the prophet Isaiah when the matter at hand is the Babylonian exile. In chapters 40 through 55, the prophet is comforting the afflicted: speaking to those who have been taken into exile and who have suffered the loss of their leadership and religious practices. Their King Zedekiah, who had tried to resist Babylon by forming an alliance with two other nations, was eventually arrested along with his family. His sons were executed as Zedekiah looked on, after which Zedekiah himself was blinded.

Portions of the Lamentations of Jeremiah describe the horrors of exile vividly: 

The tongue of the infant sticks
  to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,
    but there is nothing for them.
Those who feasted on delicacies
   perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple
   cling to ash heaps.
~ Lamentations 4:4-5

There are much worse verses than these.

At the same time, the Judeans who were carried away and were living lives of deprivation and desperation still had memories of home. They remembered the magnificent Temple built by Solomon with the same kind of love Jesus had for it. They remembered the many festivals they had celebrated there with their own kin. Their lives, too, carried layer upon layer of memory—the joys of home layered with the trauma, grief, and loss of exile. And even when the exile came to an end about seventy years after it began people carried their own, their parents’ and their grandparents’ memories—joy layered with trauma, grief, and loss.

How do we find the people still in exile, but suddenly facing the prospect of returning home? Most likely we find them with a mixture of emotions. Hope? Doubt? Fear? Isaiah calls to them, You who are thirsty—come to the waters! He knows they are thirsty for fresh, clear water. In Babylon they had to purchase all their water and carry it home. And they are spiritually empty. They are thirsty for God. Is their thirst mingled with their own or their parents’ memories of drinking fresh, clear water when they were children? Are they imagining what the water at home in Judea is like now? Isaiah is inviting them to remember and to imagine. 

Come, the prophet says. Buy milk and wine and bread without money. Your God will supply your needs. Why buy the things that don’t satisfy? Remember the land of milk and honey? It awaits you.

As their time in exile comes to an end, the prophet asks the weary, disheartened people to imagine this wonderful homecoming. A homecoming that restores them to the abundance they’ve longed for—both materially and spiritually. It’s not just water: it’s the living water God promises, which will quench their thirst forever. It’s not just groceries, it’s an abundance of the heart, the steadfast love of God. Eat and drink what is good; delight in it. It is free! It will satisfy for the long term. Imagine!

God offers to remake God’s covenant with David; now the covenant will be with the people. They can trust God to be their protector, the one who will supply them with all they need. No intermediary is necessary—not even a king. But there’s one catch: it has to do with the people’s relationship with God. Seek the Lord, Isaiah urges them, who is still to be found. Call upon God, who is yet at hand. Isaiah is talking about repentance. 

For the exiles returning home, a huge issue is the question of why they are there to begin with. You could point to different mistakes different kings made along the way, or their leaders’ unfaithfulness. You could point to the people losing their connection with God even before they were carried away physically. Do the people need to repent these things? Sure. But repentance here might not mean what we tend to think it means.

Repentance is not about: You were evil, now you’re planning to be good. It’s not about God throwing you into the “lost” or “broken” bin, and you needing to figure out how to climb out of the thing. That’s not it. Repentance is not a bootstraps project. 

The word we translate “repentance” simply means turning around. It’s about changing your view, your point of view. Looking at things in a new way. 

Father Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest in Los Angeles who founded “Homeboy Industries,” the largest gang member rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. Father Greg describes it this way: “We imagine a world without prisons, and then we try to create that world.”  In a Lenten reflection a couple of years ago, Father Greg shared a story about a young man he worked with. He wrote, 

A gang member, Louie, sat in my office at Homeboy Industries and was sobbing. “How come everyone here loves me?” The crying intensifies. “I mean…everyday…I take myself to court…and everyday…I find myself guilty.” He thinks a bit. “I signed on the dotted line…to everything I’ve done. If you knew who I really am…it would dissuade you…from loving me.”

Repent. 

It means “to move beyond the mind you have.” It doesn’t mean “do good and avoid evil.” It is about seeing things differently. There is an invitation in it to embrace the mystical view; to see as God does. Louie needs to recognize his own unshakeable goodness. No need to become someone he is not. The gentle urging of our tender God is for Louie to recognize what has been there all along. He needs to move beyond the mind he has, so he can see it. [2]

Repentance is simply seeing yourself the way God sees you. For the exiles, that meant seeing their own unshakeable goodness, seeing themselves as beloved children of God, despite what had happened to them, despite their sense of responsibility or guilt. It meant their understanding that through all they had experienced—the memories of long ago as well as the trauma of exile—God was holding them. God never let them go.

Repentance for us is the same. You, too, are unshakably good. You are God’s beloved. God loves you with an everlasting love. God has called you by name, and you belong to God. No need to take yourself to court everyday and find yourself guilty. That’s not the mindset God wants for you. That’s not the life God wants for you. 

Do you have a hard time seeing yourself this way? I think most of us do. How about this: Imagine it. Imagine yourself—that 6-year-old you, that 21-year-old you, that your-age-today you, and imagine that you are God’s beloved, and you always have been. Imagine your own unshakeable goodness. Imagine that, just as God is offering the exiles a warm welcome home, God has that welcome ready for you, every minute, every day. You have been at home with God all along. God has always been holding you. God never let you go.

In a chaotic world, this love of God can be our still point, our north star, the rock on which we stand.  When we wake up and the news that blinks up at us from our phone horrifies us, God is there. When we wonder when the fighting will cease, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, God is there. When we wonder what our role might be in this strange and unsettling time, God is there. God is holding us. God never let us go. 

Imagine that.

Thanks be to God. Amen. [3]

[1] Brenda Thompson, MDiv, Angela Taylor, MDiv, Hailie Durrett, and Karen Bowler, PhD, “The Hardest Part: Pain We Carry, Joy We Find,” Sermon Guide, The Everything Happens Project, KateBowler.com, 2025.

[2] Fr. Gregory Boyle, S. J., “First Sunday of Lent: Seeing Things Differently,” February 21, 2021, Ignatian Solidarity Blog, https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2021/02/21/seeing-things-differently/. 

[3] "Imagine!" Concept and resources thanks to [1]

Lent Day 15: God Our Helper

 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
    my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
    I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods,
    and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I remember you upon my bed
    and think of you in the night watches,
for you have been my helper,
   and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you;
    your right hand holds me fast.
~Psalm 63:5-8

Today's portion of Psalm 63 begins with David--still, on the run in the Judean wilderness--declaring that God's steadfast love is better than living, better than life itself. This is a remarkable sentiment coming from someone who is running for his life, and running from one to whom he gave life. We have to imagine that David is having a reckoning with himself, and with God, as to the reason(s) he is where he is in the first place. (See yesterday's post, here.) In such a hostile natural environment, at such a dire hour, David is starting to assemble a sense of what is good, a hierarchy of spiritual needs, let's say. I don't think it's going too far to say, he seems to have concluded that living is not at the top of that hierarchy. That, on some level, he accepts that he may die, and only wants to affirm--or have God affirm--that, in the end, he has God's steadfast love, which is all that matters.

David compares this knowledge to a feast, a feast for the soul, akin to a feast for the body filled with rich foods. The Hebrew words (as found in the King James/ Authorized Version) translate to "marrow and fatness," certainly useful foods on the run, with protein that would provide lasting satiation and energy. (I've never consumed marrow, but had a father who was a butcher from a family of butchers, and he appreciated marrow very much. Likewise, some in our congregation's Bible Study!)

David will praise God, therefore, lifting up his hands, singing out his praises with that mouth that is remembering such deliciousness... even on his bed. Remember, he is roughing it, so the is certainly not sleeping in a royal bed.  Still, his memories of meditating on God there flood him. David speaks of remembering God, meditating on God in the watches of the night. The very image the psalm conjures is one of safety, repose, and delight at contemplating God in all her wonders.

Ultimately, David connects all this--the satisfaction of a great feast for the soul, the place of repose and delight--to a God who has been his helper. Under the shadow of your wings--another image that fits in with the time of rest and meditation--I sing for joy. 

Let's look more closely at this image of God as "helper." The root Hebrew word for helper is EZER, and we find a version of it used here. The word appears 21 times in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Seventeen of those times (including the usage here), the "helper" is God. In her article on "Helper," indigenous scholar Kat Armas points out that the Hebrew usage of "helper" is very different from our contemporary assumptions about it. We tend to think of a helper is someone who is subservient, under the supervision of a more important person. But in Hebrew usage, a helper is one with power to help. In the Hebrew Scriptures there are only four other appearances of the word: three refer to military aides, and one occurrence refers to the woman whom God creates in Genesis 2, to be a companion to the man in the Garden of Eden.*

This means that the word "helper" when applied to the woman in scripture does not and cannot mean that she is inferior to the man. Cultural and conservative assumptions about that word have driven an entire theology of the relations between men and women, and they are in error. Women and men have equal dignity in the sight of God, and neither is inferior to the other. Only the woman is given the descriptor that is primarily used for God. God is helper. So is the woman.

Our portion of the psalm--again, harkening back to the earlier metaphors around sleep and lying down--closes with a statement of David acknowledging that he turns to  God, completely. "My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast." The "right hand" of God refers to God's power. David believes himself--awake and asleep--held in the powerful love of God, who, even in this terrible moment of fear and uncertainty, will never leave him.

I  mentioned yesterday that this psalm is one I often sing to myself in bed, and now you probably have a clearer understanding of why that is. I find the psalm incredibly comforting, and something that reminds me, as well, of the steadfast love of God, that helps me, too, to notice that deep satisfaction in my soul. God has been my helper, countless times throughout my life, and this week alone, because there is no way I could do, well, anything without God's help. 

My whole being clings to God; her right hand holds me fast.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

* Kat Armas, What Does "Helper" Really Mean? July 25, 2018,  https://katarmas.com/blog/2018/8/3/what-does-helper-really-mean#:~:text=So%20if%20woman%20has%20been,to%20describe%20a%20military%20aide. katarmas.com.

Lent Day 14: Longing for God

 O God, you are my God; I seek you;
    my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
~Psalm 63:1

Image courtesy of Todd Bolen

Here's the God's honest truth (which, I hope I am sharing on a regular basis, and not only when I make an announcement about it): I didn't post yesterday for a number of reasons. In no particular order: I had an unexpectedly extra busy day; I was experiencing a lot of physical fatigue (new work-out-swimming routine, which, along with Daylight Savings Time, is kicking my butt); and--probably the biggest reason: I couldn't connect with any of the lectionary passages for yesterday. Well, not until late enough that I knew my brain would be useless if I tried to write something coherent. 

And then, today, voila, God and the daily lectionary present me with my favorite psalm, one that I have mostly memorized because I pray it so often. Actually, I sing it. I sing it when I am using my PCUSA Daily Prayer Book for morning prayers, and I sing ig in my head when I am lying in bed at night, especially when I am struggling with sleep. 

The psalm has a title: A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness in Judah. 

I love the stories of David, a flawed human who nevertheless captures our imaginations at every turn. I know a bit about David, but I had to Google "when was David in the wilderness of Judah"? And the answer was: He was in the wilderness of Judah twice; once when he was fleeing from King Saul, and once when he was fleeing from his son, Absalom. 

Reading that was a like a punch in the gut. 

Scholars believe the more likely context was the latter. David was fleeing his son.

David was fleeing Absalom because... the sins of the father are visited on the children, as scripture reminds us. In other words, the family system was broken, and it went all the way back to David's taking and raping the married woman Bathsheba, followed by David's arranging for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, to be killed, in order to cover up her pregnancy by David. The prophet Nathan told David God's response to all this: "Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."  Or, as Eugene Peterson elaborated on it in The Message,

"And now, because you treated God with such contempt and took Uriah the Hittite’s wife as your wife, killing and murder will continually plague your family." ~2 Samuel 22:10

The enmity between David and Absolom emerged because David never punished his other son, Amnon, who had raped his half-sister, Tamar. Absolom was avenging his sister and trying to take the throne from his father, who he deemed unworthy of it.

Knowing the background of this psalm--that it wasn't simply written in the context of one of his many wars or battles, but most likely in the context of his flight from his own son, which he had brought about by many actions and inactions over many years--has shaken me. But also it makes me love the psalm even more.

David is in more than one kind of wilderness. He is in the wilderness of Judah which, truly, is an inhospitable environment for life. But he is also in the wilderness of his soul. He is using his physical hunger and thirst to connect to that deeper and more devastating wilderness, where he isn't sure God is still listening. He is longing for the old, familiar connection, in which God and he were on easy terms, David freely speaking and singing his praise and devotion to God, and God, in turn, continually inspiring him to more and more beautiful songs of praise.

For me, this psalm is a psalm of deep comfort. I call out and I trust that God hears. I understand that this may not be everyone's experience, and I remember times when it might not have been mine. But today, I am grateful for the beauty of this psalm, and for the reminder that God is listening. And today, I grieve once again the texts of terror* that are about both Bathsheba and Tamar, and remember: one of the things that makes scripture so important, and so holy, is its willingness to tell us the truth, even about our heroes. 

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

* Coined by scripture Scholar, Phyllis Trible, author of Texts of Terror: Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives.