The Costumes of Life

 

Happy Halloween everyone!  I pray today you find a Spirit of fun and joy as you greet trick or treaters or head to a gathering of others. 

I wonder do you have a costume for tonight?

Of course, we all wear masks in our life.  Some of our masks are of our own choosing, some are forced upon us by family or society or peer pressure.  Some of our costumes are tight and confining to the point of suffocating.  Some of our costumes are new and don’t feel comfortable at all.  For example, my wife and I are living in this transitional time of being, “empty nesters”.  This is not a costume that fits right.  It feels some days like shoes that are two sizes too small, pushing in on my pinkie toe and causing my sole (or soul) to ache.  But, we are trying to find faithful ways to live into this new role, to write this new chapter in our lives, even when it seems like I have a severe case of writer’s block on how I am going to begin this chapter!

What costumes do you wear?  Or as Paul says in Ephesians, what armor are you wearing?  We are given armor by our church.  Some are given armor that deflects and defends.  Some have armor that wants to overthrow and be made the new queen/king.  Some have so many suits of armor because the narrative of their life is, “I consume, therefore, I am”.  Some are given an armor that has so many holes in it, it doesn’t even begin to protect or provide.  Some creatively make another set of clothing, set aside the armor of the world, for the way of God’s openness, care, and love.  God’s vulnerability and accessibility and endless blessings that flow to and from our lives. 

How might we put on this kind of “armor” today, on this last day of the month?  May this clothing find its way not only to your wardrobe, but in your very presence.  With God’s grace that reminds us that we are dust and breath.  Amen. 

What are we wearing?!?

 

Therefore put on the full armor (clothing) of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able withstand, and after you have done everything, to stand. Ephesians 6:13

Growing up, I was often very aware that I didn’t have the “right” clothing.  Air Jordans were too much to pay for tennis shoes my mom said…even when I tried to convince her they were so much more than tennis shoes.  I mean, how did she expect me to make it in the NBA without those cool shoes that clearly would improve my game the moment I laced them up?  I didn’t have the “right” kind of jeans or shirts that the popular, in-crowd, was wearing.  I still hear my mom saying, “You go to school to learn, not for a fashion show.”  So, I am fascinated with Paul’s invitation to put on the clothing of God.  I know when I read this passage, I think of Sir Lancelot, weighed down with metal armor that glistens and glimmers in the sun as he rides a noble stead to save the day.  I think of putting on some kind of protection against all the words that are heard and hurled around carelessly in the world today.  After all, the rhyme that goes, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” is not true at all.  Each of us carries the comments we collect from others in the luggage and baggage of life.  We collect these words that come out to visit at 2 a.m. in the morning for a conversation. 

But the more I live with this passage and the gospels and the words of Jesus, I wonder if the armor of God isn’t anything we would picture the knights of the roundtable wearing, not made of metal or graphene or anything that remotely resembles a material that is seen/deemed as strong.  No, the clothing God put on was coming to us in the flesh of Jesus Christ.  God came to us human size.  God entered the human condition fully, without any kind of protection from or barrier between the realities of life.  Not only that, God’s “armor” was on full display on the cross where God faced suffering and struggled and death. 

This reality reframes this passage, God’s “armor” doesn’t look like what we’d expect.  We prefer “armor” to be a barrier and blockade against all that threatens us.  But God’s “armor” is open, vulnerable, and willing to embrace all the brokenness of the world.  God doesn’t deflect or defend the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles” (thank you Shakespeare).  No, God’s “armor” opens God’s whole self to all the hope and harshness of life.  I encourage you to hold the tension.  In what ways are we still seeking faith or reassurance or a salvation plan that would shelter us from the storms of life?  In what ways would we prefer protection against the hurt and harm of the world?  In what ways would God’s coming to us in the “armor” of a vulnerable infant, living a human life of being misunderstood, betrayed, deserted, facing death, and showing us a way to life give us a different set of clothing to put on?  I am not sure God’s wayless way is any more fashionable than the Hush Puppy shoes I wore to school, but perhaps it is a way we might “put on” especially today.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

Gracious, generous, generative God, take my life and let me be;

Wrapped up in Your unending grace that continually sets me free.

 

Take this moment and this day, guide me as I set sail on the sea;

And in those times of storm, stress, swirling winds, striking debris;

Cause Your presence to calm my soul with Your peace, I pray to thee.

 

Take my whole life from the top of my head to my soles and toes;

Open my ears to hear the holy hymn You continue to compose.

And keep my sacred imagination open to the ways You invite me to grow.

 

So this day, this moment, this second all are Yours.

As I go about the tasks before, fling open the doors.

That I would wrap my full self in You, whom I adore.

 

Amen and Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

This week, in addition to Ephesians, we have been praying the hymn, “Take My Life”.  This hymn was written in 1874 by Frances Havergal.  She was a PK (preacher’s kid) who wrote over fifty hymns in her life.  She said the moment she committed her soul to God, “earth and heaven seemed brighter from that moment.”  When we, morning-by-morning, proclaim, this is the day God has made, new mercies/love/grace we notice, this was the way Frances Havergal lived her life.  Ms. Havergal learned Greek and Hebrew and sweetly sang the love of God.  Slow pray all the verse of Take My Life as a way we long to live this day:

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in endless praise, let them flow in endless praise.

Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee, swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee, filled with messages from thee.

Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose, every power as thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne, it shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for thee, ever, only, all for thee.

Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

This week we have been listening to the wisdom of Paul in the book of Ephesians.  I wonder what thoughts are roaming around your mind and stirring in your soul?  Does God’s unconditional love and unceasing grace sound too good to be true?  Is the gospel of the world where struggle and stress are just “normal” trying to object to God’s love?  Is the gospel of our ego saying, “Wait, what do you mean I can just rest in God’s grace rather than trying to earn and achieve and strive for more?” 

What would it mean to live in the goodness of God’s love, not just intellectually but physically, emotionally and spiritual?  I am asking this more than rhetorically.  What would that mean for you?  How would you live physically if God’s love had the first and last word?  What would it mean that God’s first word to you in the morning is, “Beloved” and the last word at night before you lay your head down to sleep is, “Beloved”?  What would this mean to you emotionally, could such a truth cause your inner critic to be silent for just a moment or stumble over its constant commentary on your brokenness?  What would it mean that we don’t earn or deserve or believe our way to God, God is love. 

What would that really mean if what we say about God is how we live with God?  Take this question, seek to live this question, and pray with me the fifth verse of Take My Life.

Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne,
it shall be thy royal throne.

 

Morning Meditation

 

This week we are turning and tuning into the words from the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Yesterday, we considered that we are a poem of God’s hand, we are a hymn sung from God’s heart.  To live the fullness of that truth, we will need to let go of our grasp and let God take hold of us.  The difficulty, as Paul points out is that we feel “buried under mountains of brokenness and separation and alienation.”  Your Bible translation might say, “sin”.

Sin is one of those words that carries more baggage than a family of four going on vacation for four weeks.  Sin evokes and provokes shame and guilt and feeling bad.  I recently heard a different definition of sin.  Sin distorts our view of how God sees us.  That is, sin convinces us that God is a ruthless judge who convicts us no matter what.  Sin convinces us God is a disproving disciplinarian who we can never please and seems to always want us to do more and try harder.  Sin distorts our view of God, messes with our theology.  No longer are we beloved but broken.  No longer are we rooted in grace, but told we are unworthy worms.  To be sure, the church for too long has relied on blame and shame in talking about sin. 

God is goodness and love from the top of God’s being to the ground of God’s presence.  God is a circle of love that continues to expand and embrace all in new ways. 

But…our minds interject and object…there is no such thing as a free lunch.  God must want something?!?  And you know what they say about things that sound too good to be true, that a fool and his money are soon parted…and other cliches you heard grown up inserted here.

Notice how this is the gospel of the world and economics and power preaching.  Notice how this gospel wants to keep you striving and running around.  Notice how this gospel makes a demand of, “Try harder and do more”.  Paul says, we receive God’s grace not by our own plan or our effort.  It is not about us, this is about God being God. 

How might we rest in God’s presence in ways that give us life and love?  Please pray with me the third verse of Take My Life

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from thee,
filled with messages from thee.

Which Gospel??

 

⁴ But God, with the unfathomable richness of love and mercy focused on us, ⁵ united us with the Anointed One and infused our lifeless souls with life—even though we were buried under mountains of brokenness and separation and alienation. ^8-9 For it’s by God’s grace that you have been saved. You receive it through faith. It was not our plan or our effort. It is God’s gift, pure and simple. You didn’t earn it, not one of us did, so don’t go around bragging that you must have done something amazing. ¹⁰ For we are the product of God’s hand, heaven’s poetry etched on lives. (The Voice Translation).

You are a poem of God’s presence in the world, Paul says to the church in Ephesus.  You are holy hymn in the hymnal of Heaven.  And while this all sounds great, there are some days we feel the brokenness of life in ways that words don’t reach, can’t describe, or define.  Where is the poem in the face of heartbreak and soul ache?  Where is the magical musical moment when we are worn out or weary? 

Go back and re-read this passage slowly, letting each word sink and settle into your soul.

We begin with God and God’s indescribable, uncontainable, uncontrollable love and mercy.  There is a part of that previous sentence that is BOTH good news and bad news.  The good news is that there is a grace and love from God that abounds if I am willing to open my life to, a truth that is bigger and bolder and braver than any fifteen minutes of fame ~ a story that is bigger and bolder and braver than the stories I tell myself.  The bad news?  That means that I have to let go of thinking I have it all figured out, that I can just Google the answer, and that the world will be better when “those” people (who are 100 percent human, just like me) are gone and I am in charge.  There are two competing gospels here: is God’s good news is grace upon heaping helping of grace full of meaning and beauty the story you are living OR is it that the world is broken and battered beyond repair, so why bother?  Each gospel has a plan it sells us.  If the world is God-filled and soaked, we participate with God in the holy work of tending the garden of grace.  If the world is broken, might as well get what we can while the getting is good. 

Pay attention today to the words you hear, the thoughts you think, the feelings you feel ~ be curious and ask why?  Why did that person say that thing?  Why did you react or respond that way?  The more we open our sacred imaginations to explore the Eternal Internal, the more we find a poem, prayer, and hymn of praise that is waiting in each of us to spring forth. 

Prayer with me the first verse of Take My Life,

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.

Friday Prayer

 

Please pray with me,

 

Guiding, grace-overflowing, love-pouring out, ever present God, thank you for this day.

Thank you for this peculiar time with challenges and blessings.

Let my words today be a blessing, coming forth from the place where You and I are one.

Let my presence today be infused with Your light.

Let me be open to Your shaping wisdom rather than the gospels that I encounter in the headlines and deadlines and agenda of other featherless bipeds.

Help me be human size, for that is the whole size You crafted me to be.

You don’t ask me to be perfect.

You don’t expect me to ace every conversation or always know the exact next right step or have perfectly white teeth.

You ask me to be me.

As I seek to navigate this world, the rollercoaster of life, You promise to be with me and You promise to show up disguised in this ordinary life.  So awaken me God to You.  Let my antenna be tuned toward Your symphony and let my life be caught up in praise and prayer and participating with myself.

On this day, may my life be infused and inspired, guided and growing and grounded in this ongoing wayless way You travel along me and all that breathes.

Blessing and love to You, O God, I sing and pray I will share in this day.  Amen.  

God's Other Name

 

Blessed be God, the Creator of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, who grants us every spiritual blessing in these heavenly realms where we live in the Anointed—not because of anything we have done, but because of what God has done for us. Ephesians 1:3

This week we have explored showing up fully and authentically, contributing what we can, where we can, how we can.  We can bless God in this moment – not because of a Divine demand but because doing this is a delight.  One of the many reasons why I love this passage it that these words affirm us showing up in our God-clothed/soaked/created self ~ but that we don’t do this to earn a reward.

Wait…this is counter cultural.  You don’t earn God’s grace.  For grace to be grace it is given from God’s heart like the Jello salad and cool whip from Tuesday’s morning devotion.  For God’s love to be unconditional ~ it doesn’t depend on us blessing God or saying the right thing or volunteering endlessly or showing up at that rally. 

 

Wait…you may think, what about all we have explored this week with blessing God and living the blessings of God and sharing with others?  We don’t do this for a reward, we do this because the love God fills our lives with fuels us to be a presence in the world God so loves.  God loves us, this sets in motion a way of living.  God love us, not because of who we are but because of who God is.  This love is circuitous and circular, or an ever deepening spiral that the more we dive and dwell in God’s love, the more God’s love dwells in us shaping us.  Too often religion gives us a surface level of faith.  Or tells us that God’s love depends on a pledge and you serving on a church committee and you helping to grow the church.  God’s love is.  God’s love enfolds and holds us and will never let you go.  God’s love empowers and equips too.  I know that this can be frustrating for those who want the ten-steps to being faithful, but we make the way by walking into the unknowable-ness of this day.  We make the way by walking with God, others, and our created in God’s image self with our full self.  We do this not to earn our way or prove our worth or to change others, but because there is a love that is guiding us.  This love is named, “God”.  Amen.

Blessing God by Being You Part 2

 

Blessed be God, the Creator of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, who grants us every spiritual blessing in these heavenly realms where we live in the Anointed—not because of anything we have done, but because of what God has done for us. Ephesians 1:3

Pause with me to celebrate a moment yesterday when you let your line shine.  Perhaps at the meeting you attended…or to the grocery store clerk or the receptionist at the doctor’s office…or to your neighbor.  I know it is tempting to think about where we stumbled or fell short of letting our light shine, but we live in the less-than-perfect place called, “here” and “now”, which is also exactly where God is at. 

Pause with me to celebrate the ways you are intentionally and prayerfully blessing God.  Not necessarily with perfectly polished prayers that glimmer and glisten in the light.  Not with angelic-like ways that cause you to levitate through life, but in beautiful, ordinary, even messy, human size ways.

Paul didn’t say to the Ephesians, “Blessed are you because you are practically perfect in every way.”

Paul didn’t say to the Ephesians, “Blessed are you because you give selflessly and take your pastor out to lunch.”

Paul didn’t say to the Ephesians, “Blessed are you because you always know the exact right thing to do or say.”

Paul says we bless God by letting loose our lives in less than perfect ways where we live.  And where we live is in the presence of the Anointed One ~ Jesus the Christ.  One of the wonderful mysteries of faith is that we live in Christ and Christ lives in us.  Both are true.  We never fully cross the finish line of faith; it is a race we run/jog/crawl/sit on the sidelines resting sometimes daily. 

One of the ways we can explore and express blessing God is through centering ourselves in Christ in this moment.  One practice I try to observe is to remind myself that Christ is already there in any room before I walk through the door.  Christ is there in the hospital room.  Christ is there in the care facility.  Christ is there at the hybrid meeting.  Christ is there in the sanctuary.  When I wake up to Christ hovering in our midst, it moves me in different directions.  It isn’t about me getting my way, it is about getting caught up in a movement that began long before I was around and the invitation I have to contribute to the symphony God is composing in this time right here and now. 

Blessed are you right now as each of us awakens to Christ right here in the less than perfect place called, “here” and time called, “now”.  Amen.

Blessing God by Being You

 

Blessed be God, the Creator of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, who grants us every spiritual blessing in these heavenly realms where we live in the Anointed—not because of anything we have done, but because of what God has done for us. Ephesians 1:3

Yesterday, we explored how our life can be a blessing to God.  We do this not because God demands or decrees or threatens to smite us if we don’t.  Rather, we love God who first loved us.  You and I and all Creation is formed and fashioned in the goodness and grace of God.  We are mirrors of the Divine to one another.  One of the ways Paul suggests that we bless God is that we live out the gifts (spiritual blessings) that are uniquely yours. 

Growing up in the Midwest, I fed a steady diet of humble pie.  You didn’t think yourself better than others or get too big for your britches ~ which is a fantastic phrase.  In some ways the hymnal I sang from had the melody of a humble mumble, that if complimented or thanked the appropriate response was, “Aw shucks, it was nothing.”  In other ways, this devalues both the gift and giver.  If I stopped by with a Jello salad for you, with tiny pieces of pineapple suspended weightlessly and a tub of Cool Whip (just showing you that I am a true Midwesterner!) and then you thank me, I wished I would have been taught to say, “You are welcome” or “I love you” rather than to be programmed to say, “It was nothing.”  It is not nothing, it is a very delicious Jello salad.  To be sure, said Jello salad is not going to right every wrong in the world, end discrimination, and bring about world peace ~ it is just Jello.  But there is a lot of room to roam between nothing and everything, which is really where most of us live our life.

I tell you all of this to invite you to consider the spiritual gifting God has imprinted on you.  Like the example above, you might stop yourself from singing from the humble mumble hymnal.  “Oh me, I am nothing special.”  But please, consider that YOU are continually crafted and created day-by-day in God’s image with gifts for God’s realm.  This Tuesday in October calls all of us to show up as a God created being for the good of God’s whole world that God loves.  What might you bring to the potluck pitch-in dinner of life today?  How might that be a blessing to God, others, and yourself?  To show up authentically and fully as one image bearer of God with others, that I believe would be music to God’s hears.  May you and I sing aloud this holy song of sharing our lives with all creation today. Amen.

Blessing God

 

 Blessed be God, the Creator of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, who grants us every spiritual blessing in these heavenly realms where we live in the Anointed—not because of anything we have done, but because of what God has done for us. Ephesians 1:3 (the Voice Translation)

I don’t remember ever being asked to memorize a Bible verse in Sunday School.  I was never quizzed on the books of the Bible.  I don’t recall being taught the Lord’s Prayer or the 23^rd Psalm, I think I just caught both by osmosis being in church over the years.  In some ways, the carefree life of coloring pictures of a smiling Jesus whilst eating animal crackers and sipping Hawaiian punch was pretty good.  But on the other side, it means that I missed learning some foundation and formational passages of Scripture.  For me, the above passage is worth memorizing OR writing down on a post-it note OR cross stitching into a pillow.  There is a beauty to these words that Paul wrote.  First, I love the idea of blessing God.  To be clear I don’t think God is waiting around with some check list looking at the clock mumbling and muttering, “Why hasn’t Wes blessed me yet, that ungrateful fool!”  Yet, in any relationship, including the one we have with the Divine, there is a reciprocity, our actions and words and ways of being matter and make a difference to God.  Just as other’s actions and words and ways impact you ~ because I know I can stew on someone’s words with the best of them ~ so too what I do or don’t do matters to God.  I don’t say this to heap on a huge helping of blame or shame.  God isn’t judging you like a figure skater at the Olympics.  Yet, you and I as humans can make choices that can bless God, others, and ourselves (all three matter).  How might you bless God today through prayer, through listening for God, through honoring God’s creation, others, and taking care of yourself?  Name and notice this.

Blessing God doesn’t give us turn-by-turn navigation, it is part of the way-less way, a direction to which we orientate our lives this day.  May these three words guide and ground you this day and week.  Amen.

Trust Part Five

 

One final thought today on trust is that it has a sibling named, “Truth”.  These two twins are often connected.  That is, we can trust someone when we sense that person is telling us the truth.  We trust someone when she says and does things that ring true.  We rebuild trust when someone tells us he is sorry and actively changes.  Trust is not static or stationary, but always flowing like a river.  Finally, trust has an intimacy to it.  Trust thrives in face-to-face moments.  This is why it is difficult to trust people who are distant or disconnected from us.  This is why we struggle to trust people who stretch the truth.  Trust collaborates and conspires with hope, love, truth, justice, peace, joy, compassion, care, and showing up.  Trust cannot be isolated on an island; it will starve like I would if stranded there on that island.  Trust needs to be practiced or the muscle will atrophy.  We practice trust with others, knowing full well that trust is not made of steel, but of atoms that make life meaningful and mystical beyond our full control.  Celebrate the ways trust grows in your life.  Name and notice who you are trusting today, how you are trusting, and what that means in your relationship with God.  Grieve places where trust is shattered.  And know that God’s love is always seeking to sweep our lives, whole lives, into an embrace that will not let us go and remind us we are not alone.  May this trust grow, support, and change us every day.  Amen. 

Trust Part Four

 

One more Hebrew word to explore is yachal, which is often translated to wait expectantly.  You may think is waiting really trust?  Waiting feels like we are standing on sidelines.  Waiting can feel passive or like we are no longer in control.  Yet, the key word is “expectantly” or with “anticipation”.  When we wait this way there is an activeness and anticipation to trust. The tactile, tangible example here is that when I travel and my wife says she will pick me up at the airport, I trust as I am standing there waiting.  I trust, as I am waiting, that the line in the grocery store will move ~ slowly ~ but eventually.  I trust, as I am waiting, for a package in the mail, all the various workers hands who will get that package to me.  I pray you are starting to realize that even though trust seems in short supply, much of our lives really is built on trust.  And we know our faith is built on trusting God to be with us in all times and places. 

Trust is dynamic, changing, never assumed, or given, but always following a flow of life. 

Pause, where is your trust gas gauge today?  Do you feel like it is full or running on empty?  Are you waiting expectantly for a call when you can finally breathe a sigh of relief?  Are you waiting for a resolution of a situation that has been heavy on your shoulders?  Often, while we are waiting, our minds love to create and come up with thousands of fictional “what if” scenarios.  The flight, freeze, fight, flock part of our brain loves to point out all the possible worse case possibilities, then ruminate on each of them.  To wait expectantly drives its tent peg into the firm foundation of God, who nourishes us and invites us to lean on God, especially when we are weak and worn.  May you and I celebrate all the ways trust can show up in our lives on this day.  Amen.

Trust Part Three

 

So far this week we have talked about trust physically when we lean on someone and trust when we cling to that which nourishes and nurtures our lives.  When you pause and ponder, there are thousands of ways we trust every day.  I trust that the water will flow from my faucet, that the traffic lights are functioning properly, and that laws of gravity will keep me grounded.  I trust that if I ask Gina for help, she will come.  Church is built on trust that like a garden needs to be curated and cultivated.  Trust is active.  Another Hebrew word for trust is, aman, which is to stand firm.  The image here is that when you go to drive your tent peg into the ground, you select a section of “firm” soil.  The word can also be “sure”.

Ten bonus points if you thought to yourself, aman, looks like the English word, “Amen”, which means, “May it be so” or to point ourselves with trust in a direction we just prayed.  Prayers are deep desires, destinations, for ourselves, others, and this world God so love.  Praying is an act of trust. 

Where are you pitching your tent of trust in these days?  To be sure, there are so many winds that toss us to and fro, clamoring chaotically for our attention and allegiance (including the church), we can feel like we are building on the shifting sands of a beach! 

Micah 7:5 speaks of broken trust when he preaches and proclaims, “Put no trust in a friend; have no confidence in a loved one.”  You can hear in those words the heartbreak of a human who has been hurt by someone the person trusted.  When you read the prophets, it is not only God getting angry with us, it is often the prophet speaking truth to the ways humans have broken trust with God.  Our actions hurt each other and the Eternal who crafted and created this world for love and goodness, not bittering and backstabbing and brokenness.  God blessed the stars, soil, snails, sharks, sparrows, and all that lives to be fruitful.  The web of life our seamstress God is weaving and sewing is with threads of trust.  Yet, we keep pitching our tent on the shifting sand of human ways, our agendas, and meeting our own needs. 

Where are you pitching your tent of trust in these days?  What voices surround you on the news or the internet (realizing that when you click on a news story, you are setting in motion an algorithm designed to keep you clicking – the only way to stop the bad news cycle is to shut down your computer sometimes and step outside into the truth only creation and God’s still small voice can teach us). 

May we be awake and aware to the camps where we are circling the wagons of life and how this impacts/influences our own trust in these days.  Aman…and Amen.

Trust part 2

 

Yesterday we explored one Hebrew word for trust, chasah, which was a physical support, like when you lean on a person for support.  You trust that person because you can feel her physical presence helping you.  When have you felt that kind of support?  Another word for trust in Hebrew is, betach.  This kind of trust is one of clinging to ~ like a melon clings to the vine.  Wait, you might think, how is this different from yesterday’s word for trust?

I am so glad you asked.

When you think of a fruit clinging to a vine ~ the vine is small (frail even) and the melon or bunch of grapes is large.  Also, the vine does more than offer support or strength, this is a kind of trust that nourishes us.  Yesterday, chasah was a trust in time of need, to get us through a moment.  Betach is a kind of trust that supports the slow ripening of our lives. 

Prayerfully ponder as we begin the second week of October, where you have grown this past year?  Don’t wait until December 31^st to investigate and reflect in the rearview mirror of life.  Begin to listen to your life and learn the curriculum of the last nine months ~ don’t worry there is no test.  As you look back, what is growing in you?  The invitation of trust is to keep growing and going toward what God is awakening in you.  The Psalmist says it this way, In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. (Ps 56:4)

Note those first two words, “In God,” that is where we are grounded and guided.  “In God” is what stirs our souls.  This is a kind of trust that moves us in a particular direction and purpose.  Elijah had this kind of trust when he moved his tent from the stream to a foreign land.  The widow of Zarephath had this kind of trust when she rolled up her sleeves and started mixing the last bit of meal and oil.  I wonder if she immediately saw that though she thought she had used all the flour, when she set down the jar there was more?  Did she empty it into the bowl, set it on the counter, look over to see that suddenly the amount of meal had not decreased? Trust is not abstract, our Hebrew brothers and sisters teach and tell us, there are traces of God’s grace around us.  But as the Psalmist says, there are plenty of voices telling us to fear, especially that person over there.  We have never quite outgrown our five-year-old self who thinks there are monsters under our bed and there are so many voices committed to fanning those flames of fear today.  To trust, betach, is to cling, like a bunch of grapes to the vine, to God’s generous and generative love that feeds us in real ways these days.  Amen.

Trust

 

Over the last few weeks in church, we have listened to and leaned into the narrative of Elijah.  How he trusted God to pitch his tent by the stream and let an unclean/forbidden bird of the raven bring him a trampled turtle for breakfast.  How he crossed over barriers and boundaries into a foreign place when God told him to go to Zarephath.  And there he talked to a widow who taught Elijah about trust, because God had also appeared to her.  The thread and theme of trust is woven throughout scripture.  According to one scholar the word "trust" appears 134 times in the King James Version of the Bible.  Trust is one of those words that sounds great but can be hard to practice.  We all have a story of our adolescent self who told a friend that we liked someone, only to have that person spread gossip behind our back.  We all have a story of our working self who trusted a colleague, only to have that person tell our boss.  Trust, like its cousin “love”, can be fragile.  Trust when broken shatters into a thousand sharp shards that can leave us broken or bitter.  One of the beautiful parts of the Hebrew language is that there are several different words for trust.  And each of these words has a connection to something that is tactile and tangible.  For example, there is the Hebrew word, chasah ~ the image here is leaning on someone.  Insert Bill Withers singing, “Lean on me when you're not strong and I'll be your friend I'll help you carry on”. 

That is going to be stuck in your head all day long now…you are welcome. 

But the Hebrew word, chasah, is to physically lean on someone.  If you twist an ankle, you lean on someone for support and help with balance.  Or the kind of trust you feel in an embrace that aligns your emotional and physical self.  Trust is not abstract or obtuse here, trust is an experience in our life.  Listen to the ways the Psalmist describes and defines this kind of trust, “The LORD [is] my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” (Ps 18:2).  The great thing here is that invisible trust is made visible in a rock we can touch or a fortress where we can weather the storms of life or the strength of an arm to support.

When have you experienced and encountered this physical, tactile, touch of trust? 

How does that human moment point us to a way to live trusting God?

May our prayerful pondering today awaken us to God’s presence that supports us both literally and metaphorically ~ God who shows up physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally this day.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

Finally, today, I share a poem and prayer by Wendell Berry, How to Be a Poet ~ but the wonderful truth hidden in plain sight of this poem ~ is that it is an instruction manual for writing poetry but for living. Berry is telling and teaching us how to be in the wayless way in a world that we cannot control, where the facts of life are that we cannot change everything, and it is difficult to change anyone ~ especially ourselves.  Where we practice hospitality ~ welcoming the stranger to our door of life, even when the stranger is unexpected and unwanted.  That we do not know where we are going and find it difficult to be here/now, but we long to live our one wild and precious life with grace and love.  Please pray these words with me:

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

 

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

 

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

I pray we will live these words each day.  Amen and Amen. 

Morning Meditation

 

Today, I share a wonderful poem by the poet and theologian Padraig O Tuama entitled The Facts of Life

That you were born
and you will die.

That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

That you will lie
if only to yourself.

That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.

That you will live
that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes even better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constricting.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.