Friday Prayer

 

Please join me in the spirit of prayer:

God who continues to speak and sing the truth with love that holds and heals us; there are moments when we wonder if the cure is harder than the dis-ease we feel?  Does our desire to return to “normal” (whatever and whenever that was), might be pushing us away from You?  The exhaustion of constant dinging notifications disrupts our souls.  Help us, God, to return to You.  Guide our hearts back to a way that makes space for the lost, lonely, and left behind.  May Your steadfast, and sometimes stubborn, care reshape us to who You long for us to be.  God of prophets who protested, wept, cried out, sang out, inspired a vision for today, and infused people who hope even when the headlines didn’t support such a posture, let that be true for us this day and every day for weeks to come.  Amen.  

Blessing for the Fumbling

 

After this week of difficult and demanding words.  Here is a wonderful blessing from Kate Bowler:

 

a blessing for when things don’t make any sense

God, I’m fumbling around for answers, reasons, meaning.

I can’t find any purpose in this pain.

Why me?  Why them?  Why now?

 

I don’t know when this is going to get better.

Or if I will ever feel relief.

 

Blessed are we who need to be reminded that there are some things we can fix

…and some things we can’t.

 

Blessed are we who can say: my life isn’t always getting better.

 

Right in the midst of the pain and fear and uncertainty,

may we hunt for beauty and meaning and truth… together.

 

Not to erase the pain or solve the pain, (though surely that would be nice),

but to remind us that beauty and sorrow coexist.

And that doesn’t mean we’re broken or have been forgotten.

 

In our hope. In our disappointment. In our joy. In our pain.

God is here and we are never—were never and will be never—alone.  

Prophet-ting with God

 

“The prophet knew that religion could distort what the Lord demanded of man, that priests themselves had committed perjury by bearing false witness, condoning violence, tolerating hatred, calling for ceremonies instead of bursting forth with wrath and indignation at cruelty, deceit, idolatry, and violence.”  Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

 

Today, we remember that as people of faith, we can get caught in cycles of maintaining the status quo that causes hurt and harm.  I want to be careful not to think the prophets are for “those” people, rather than “we” people. 

 

No human organization is perfect.  We will have moments when our brokenness causes us to do things or say things that are not grounded/guided by God.  It is healthy for the church to look to be prayerful, honest, and open, especially about our values.  As a church, we say that at the center and core of our church is worship, welcome, belonging, caring, justice, and faithfulness.  The truth is that there is no finish line with these values.  We will be working on living these values for years to come.  We will never finish “worship”, just like you will never finish the internet or Netflix.  Worship continues to evolve and expand as we bring new experiences each Sunday.  Nor is there ever a “perfect” worship service, especially while I am leading the service.  To be honest and humble that our efforts to delight God do delight God.  God doesn’t have a scorecard to rate and rank the worship; God joins in the holy moment fully with all its goodness and less-than-perfect polish-ness. 

 

Take time today to think about our values alongside our humanness.  May you have moments of grace and love that see the beauty of messiness as we seek to enflesh these words in these days.  Amen.

Prophet-ting with God

 

“(The prophets) had to remind the people that chosenness must not be mistaken as divine favoritism or immunity from chastisement, but, on the contrary, that it meant being more seriously exposed to divine judgment and chastisement.” ― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

 

Heschel today reminds us that chosen-ness is not immunity or impunity from responsibility.  Rather, when God calls us “beloved”, we enter into a relationship that shapes our whole lives.  Last Sunday, we heard Hosea call to sense God’s bands of love to lead us.  One of the beautiful tensions of the prophets is how God’s love can be both unconditional and stir our souls, changing our lives.  To be sure, all relationships make demands upon us.  For example, after twenty-five years of marriage, my wife and I have defined and distinguished our expectations of each other.  We have worked hard to make sure chores are covered (the lawn is mine to mow, the pool is hers to clean).  We have settled into a holy rhythm.  I may forget that these are our unwritten covenant of connection.  This is the case with the people and God.  We forget that unconditional love longs to be let loose in our lives to author how we live.  We forget that grace makes a claim on us and calls us to a particular place and people (especially those who are being hurt and harmed by the status quo of social order).  Prophets are masters of paradox.  Yes, God loves you as is.  And, yes, God’s love will do something to you and through you the more you let it roam around.

 

Humans are not immune to our own brokenness, individually and collectively.  The Prophets call us to be honest, humble, and heartfelt in admitting and accepting this. God is not as angry, but as calling us back to the image of the Holy that hovers within us, longing to be the energy we live from. 

 

As we continue to listen to the prophets, as we continue to rub our toes, they stomp on and our egos they poke at, where are you at?  Which of the words from the last few weeks are stretching you, and where are you resisting the Prophet’s call?  Where would you rather point your fingers at others and stomp your foot that you’ve got it all figured out, thank you very much?!?  When I am reading the prophets, I find denial and deflection are natural reactions.  And as people of faith, we are called to learn from our ancestors who had resistance, but also longed to live deeper into the reflection of God.  May these words continue to sing and stir us in these days.  

May you find moments to reflect on the last time your toes were stepped or stomped upon...whose toes have you stepped or stomped on recently?

Amen.

Prophet-ting with God

 

As we continue to lean in and listen to the prophets this month, we can review where we have been so far.  We swam in Amos in the waters of justice.  Pause, where have you felt refreshed and renewed by God’s realm recently?  Be specific.  We also heard Micah remind us that God isn’t interested in a transaction, but transformation.  The prophets not only pointed out the brokenness, but they also invited people back into their belovedness.  The prophets bravely, boldly, brashly painted a vision of how we treat others and creation is how we treat God.  We named the tension because culture likes the status quo.  The powerful prefer the way things are, which is to say, with them having power.  The rich cling to wealth.  This isn’t just a reflection on 2025, but the past two thousand years of human life.  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book on The Prophets writes this:

 

“The opposite of good, is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference.  There is nothing we forget as eagerly, as quickly, as the wickedness of (humans). The earth holds such a terrifying secret. Ruins are removed, the dead are buried, and the crimes forgotten. Bland complacency, splendid mansions, fortresses of cruel oblivion”.

 

It is easy to feel pulled by the multitude of injustices, inequities, and rights being revoked.  I can feel overwhelmed.  It is easy to shrug our shoulders in defeat, believing there is nothing we can do.  In a world where the media cycle lasts only a few days before they are on to the next outrage that has flooded the zone, we can’t keep up.  The opposite of good is our own waving the white flag as we sit on the couch binge-watching the next recommended video.

 

I can also be prone to cycles of cynicism.  The Prophets remind us of the goodness of God.  Grace is not just some commodity we consume, but how we are consumed by the Divine to live another way.  What would grace sound like today in your meetings?  What would grace feel like in a phone call or conversation?  What would grace compel you and energize you to share with others?  May these questions infuse and inspire our living this day and this week, as Micah said, “to embody/enflesh justice (in your life) to be brave and brash in showing loving kindness, and to remember your humanness/humility”.  May it be so for you and me. Amen.  

Prophet-ting with God

 

Please pray with me:

God of prophets who tasted both the hurt and hope, the sourness of sadness and the sweetness of honey-like unconditional love, be with us today.  God, You continue to invite us to hold our lives lightly.  You call us to be honest that, as people, we can’t fix, solve, and save everything or everyone.  We breathe in the truth that our point of view is a view from a single point (Richard Rohr).  Yet, we keep tossing and throwing our way around, especially online, because everyone is entitled to our opinion, which is obviously correct!  God, help us.  God let your prophetic wisdom loose in our lives in ways that interrupt, intercede on this pathway we are traveling.  God let Your tears for the rips/ruptures in life be held, heard, felt, and sing to our hearts.  God let Your presence continue to call us back to a way of life that is inspired by justice, loving kindness, and human-sized ways we try to live.  In Your justice-leaning, graceful, peaceful, loving, hopeful, joy-filled, and holy names we pray.  Amen.  

Prophet-ting with God

 

If we stay with our rage and resentment too long, we will righteously and unthinkingly pass that on in new directions, and we injure our own souls in ways we will not recognize.  Richard Rohr.

 

Today, I invite you to hold the above quote close to your heart so that it might be as sweet as the honey of the scroll Ezekiel ate.  Where is your rage roaring like a lion?  Write down where your anger causes the cheeks of your face to turn a brilliant, bright shade of red.  Where does that tiny vein in your neck pulsate when you think about an issue or person, or a situation?  Where does your heart quicken in the presence of another?

 

Where do you hold onto grievances and grudges because you believe that is the way of the world?  What hurts do you keep returning to, because you believe that if you forgive, you will forget the pain and might end up repeating the same mistake, even though the scar will always remain from the rupture?  Where do you pick at the scab of the past? This can be done individually or collectively. 

 

Rohr says that when we do this, being a victim consumes our narrative.  We trade our ability to be an agent of our own story because we believe someone else holds the editorial red pen.  To be sure, systems continue to wound, dehumanize, and discriminate.  To be sure, there are laws right now that do not reflect God’s belovedness for humans to thrive and hurt God’s holy creation.  To be sure, God is always authoring another chapter in your soul.  Do we hear what God hears? 

 

Name your rage today.  Invite your resentment over for a cup of tea.  Be honest, these voices can become dominant and take over not only what we see but also how we respond to others.  Sit with this truth that the prophets preached and proclaimed were part of the human condition.  It is when we let this truth rest and reside that we can begin to live another way.  Amen.

Prophet-ting with God

 

We still want to make something or somebody a sacrifice so that the status quo can be maintained.  Richard Rohr

 

Who are we sacrificing today for the sake of the status quo?  This is a difficult, demanding question because it shines a light on an inconvenient truth that we benefit from the ways things are, even as we complain about it.  We can be offended because we don’t want to admit or accept that others hurt, so we can go about our lives.  How do we embody a paradox of saying we want change…we just want everyone else to go first?!?

The prophets ask difficult and demanding questions of our souls.  The prophets are so passionate that they can end up pushing us away with their endless calls to repent ~ which means to go a different direction.  Repentance isn’t about raining guilt, shame, and blame ~ repentance is to accept that we are accepted by God and that eternal affection transforms our lives. 

 

I can sacrifice rest at the altar of looking necessary and needed.

I can sacrifice clinging to savings accounts at the altar of fear that there is not enough.

I can sacrifice helping others at the altar of wanting to be seen as a good person.

I can sacrifice looking put together at the altar of other people’s opinions.

I can sacrifice wanting to say the “right” things at the altar of being considered acceptable.

I can sacrifice pushing myself at the altar of being considered productive.

 

Where are you sacrificing when God is calling you to rest and be in this moment?  May that question churn, challenge, and remind you that you are beloved not for any other reason than God’s claim on your life.  Amen.

 

Prophet-ting with God

 

Yesterday, we explored the idea of prophets being the masters of paradox, ones who hold the hurt and hope; the ones who can hear the heartbreak and taste the sweetness of honey, the ones who both comfort us and challenge us.  Prophets not only point out the brokenness but remind us of God, who repairs the ruptures of our Humpty Dumpty lives. 

 

Richard Rohr writes, “Throughout scripture, prophets emphasize one sin above the rest – idolatry, our habit of making things 'God’ that are not absolute, infinite, or good.” 

 

We tend to chase after that which promises us fame, fortune, followers on social, love, and legacy.  We race after purpose and profits.  Much of our idolatry, or brokenness, or disoriented love or sin, could also be called addiction.  We pour all our attention and affection into what the culture deems and declares worthy of our one wild and precious life.  Addiction is not only confined to alcohol or drugs.  Addiction to work, perfectionism, hurry/hustle, being seen as ‘correct’, our own opinions, making more money, vacations, or anything where you think, “Just one more _____ and I will be happy.”  Anything that keeps promising us fulfillment but leaves us feeling empty in our wallets and souls can be classified and called “addiction”. 

 

Prophets call our “addictions” out ~ individually and collectively.  No wonder most of the prophets failed to convince people to change.  After all, when was the last time you received “constructive feedback” and you thought, “Thank you so much, random person who I didn’t ask to give me advice, I am totally see the errors of my ways and will henceforth correct myself!”?

 

Nope.  I think, “Who appointed you color commentator of my life?”  Or in the words of my grandmother, “Who died and made you King of the World?”  We resist those who want to fix, or save, or advise us. 

 

Prophets not only call out, but they call us back to God.  That is the paradox: we can think we are heading toward the Holy, and the prophet says, “Not really,” and our first reaction and response will be denial and defensiveness, and downright anger at the other.

 

Hold this today as you continue to ponder, “Who is the prophet of life today?”  A prophet is rarely someone you will agree with 100% or who makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.  Prophets will stretch you in directions you did not want to go, and you will resist.  Hold this as we continue to live the countless paradoxes that exist and persist today.  Amen.  

Prophet-ting with God

 

A hand was there, stretching out to me and holding a scroll…on it was written lamentations, weeping, and moaning – I opened my mouth; and ate the scroll it tasted sweet as honey – Ezekiel 2:9-10 and 3:2-3

 

Re-read the above quote from the Prophet Ezekiel, who you might remember is the one called and commissioned to preach to a valley of dried up, gnarly, gross graveyard of bones!  Talk about a tough crowd…and to think I get offended when people don’t laugh at my lame jokes on Sunday!  Before Ezekiel went to the Church of Dried-Up Souls, he had a vision of being given a piece of paper with words of heartbreak, hurt, and soul ache.  In other words, he was given the Boston Globe and the New York Times, and every political pundit out there was trying to capture and keep your attention!  All that cynicism and criticism you consume and consume your soul day after day, written down on a piece of paper.  Ezekiel not only brings this so close to his heart and ears that he can hear the voices of the immigrants and marginalized and the hatred that fuels the hearts of too many, but Ezekiel also eats this piece of paper. 

 

Why? 

 

Good question.  I don’t know.  Why do we keep returning to read the news each day?  Why do we keep our news station of choice in the background all day, blasting and blaring, re-wiring and rewriting our minds and souls?  Why do we think that somehow this informs us?  I know my grandparents drilled into me the importance of being an “informed” citizen, but we are drenched and drowning in information, and I am not sure our souls are breathing anymore.  Don’t hear me say that you can stick your head in the sand or fingers in your ears to sing, “La, la, la, I can’t hear you,” to the world.  Nope.  But neither do I think that hearing “experts” arguing about whatever the topic de jour is helping to make me a better citizen. 

 

Eziekiel hears this hurt and heartbreak and lets it enter his life.  And then, he eats the paper, and did you catch that it is sweet like honey to the tip of his tongue?  Wait, what?  How could hurt be sweet?  Shouldn’t the paper taste like a Carolina Reaper pepper?  Shouldn’t the scroll be sourer than rhubarb mixed with grapefruit? 

 

The prophets were masters of paradox.  A paradox is the ability to hold two conflicting and contradictory thoughts or ways of being at the same time without choosing.  An example of this is laughter at a funeral while you are crying tears of sadness.  An example of this is dropping your child off at school with your heart ready to burst with pride while feeling raw sadness that the summer chapter is ending.  A paradox is holding both the pain and the possibility of a moment.  Think about how we hold Good Friday and Easter Sunday as both being true.  There is a liminal in-betweenness of God who is not finished yet.  Where are there paradoxes in your life right now?  How might those tension points be what author Valarie Kaur describes as darkness as being both a tomb and womb ~ both an ending and beginning. May the paradoxes of this present moment open you to the Holy Movement of God who hovers and still dances on the tips of our tongues with hope sweet as honey.  Amen.

Prophet-ting with God

 

Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion, and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.”  Walter Bruggemann, The Prophetic Imagination.

 

The prophets walked the line between despair and delight.  The prophets held the tension between heartbreak and hope.  The prophets knew that they were in the liminal space of what is and what could be.  The prophets called for God’s dream not in the future, but as a way of life for you and me and we.  Bruggemann is correct that the prophets could both critique society and self, but also cling tightly to redemption and repair.  When we think about prophets, it isn’t only those who shout and scream, “Repent!”  Prophets laugh with joy that is contagious and connective.  We will be continuing with the prophets in the weeks to come.  We will continue to swim in the justice stream of God’s refreshing love.  This coming Sunday, we will listen to Micah call us to do justice, love, and humility.  I believe that justice, love, and humility are the threads that make the bands of God’s love Hosea will describe as well as the vision Habakkuk needs to write so a runner can read it.  Today, who or what or where gives you holy hope that you admit in the corners of your shy soul?  Where does God’s holy hope reside and rest in you?  How does God’s holy hope fuel and feed your life with God’s grace, we need right here and now.  Amen.  

Prophet-ting with God

 

In this way, the prophets introduced a completely novel role into ancient religion: an officially licensed critic, a devil’s advocate who names and exposes their own group’s shadow side! Few cultures, if any, develop such a counterintuitive role. By nature, civilization is intent on success and building, and has little time for self-critique. We disparage the other team and work ceaselessly to prove loyalty to our own.  Richard Rohr

 

I often wonder today if what was once novel, being a prophet, has become so mainstream and is a role we too gladly accept?  I wonder if many people want to be the ones on the cutting edge, declaring “the word of God”, which conveniently aligns with that person’s perspective?   If you look at the prophets, many of them initially refused the role.  Like Moses, who said to God, “Go ask Aaron”.  Isaiah in chapter 6 says, “Um, God, have you read the paper, I would prefer not to do this!”  Jeremiah in chapter 1 says, “God, I am way too young.”  The prophets were always aware of their humanness (or humility).  And, if you look at the prophets, except Jonah, many of them did not convince anyone to change his/her/their minds! 

 

Wait…go back and re-read that last sentence.

 

By the standard of what humans have always called “success”, the prophets failed.  The people didn’t flock back to thank them for showing the error in their ways.  The people, except for Jonah, did not repent.  The people largely ignored the prophets as odd and exceedingly unusual.

 

This makes sense!  The prophets walked around naked (Isaiah); told the people and priests their worship made God sick (Micah); and bought real estate right before the Babylonians conquered and destroyed Jerusalem (Jeremiah). 

 

If some naked person came into our church and told us that what we were doing stunk to high heaven, we’d call the police!  If someone started to tell us that what we were doing was all wrong, which many people do to each of us, we tend to put our shields up and disengage.  Prophets were concerned about the present time and how no one, regardless of how you voted or how much you gave to the church or how many morning meditations you wrote, would win you God’s grace.  We don’t earn or deserve God’s love ~ that is what unconditional means.  And as grace saturates our lives, we can respond.  God initiates the relationship that changes our lives.  The prophets keep asking, What evidence is in your words, actions, and being that show you are connected to the Creator? The prophet is always aware and open to self-critique, which Rohr reminds us, many of us are not.  We want to be on the winning team, not the ones who have our blunders and brokenness pointed out to us. 

 

Prophets grounded in the present, trying to convince and convict the people of the ways we have missed the mark in our relationship with God, and call us back to another way of being, this remains a mission impossible task, insert that theme music here. 

 

Take a moment to ponder who might be calling you back to God right now?  Who speaks into your life with grace and love about your shadow side, and who does that culturally for us?  Who gets under your skin, but in your heart, you know has a point?  May these questions divinely disrupt and interrupt our tidy lives this day.  Amen.

Prophet-ting With God

 

Prophets were in collaboration with creation.  Isaiah and his peaceable kingdom, which tells of lions and lambs living together.  The whale in the tale of Jonah.  Amos splashing and swimming in the sacred river of justice.  Daniel looked into the eyes of a lion, gnashing its terrible teeth.  Ezekiel is out in creation, in a valley with gnarly and gross bones that he preaches to, which makes me wonder if I could do that?  Creation is not a side character in the prophets but a central actor in the redemption and reimagination of what might be.  Creation overflows with God’s wisdom, but we get too caught up in paving over paradise for our creaturely comforts.  We have stopped listening to creation as prophetically teaching and telling us our place in relationship to the Creator.  During our summer with the Psalms, I often invited you to go outside as you read the sentences and syllables so Creation could help the words sink/sing deeper into your imagination.  Reading about lush valleys is easier when the grass is tickling your toes. 

 

That was true not only in the Hebrew Hymnal, but also for the prophets.  Go outside to the trees that have weathered hurricanes, storms, seen election cycles come and go, as well as people so concerned about legacy that they forgot to live a life.  Go outside to the snakes and snails who are not wrapped up in whether their last social media post got enough likes.  Go outside to where the sun rises and sets each day with a rhythm.  Feel the light shining on the rhythm your choices are creating right now ~ liturgy (or the work of the people) is always about the patterns, both on Sunday mornings and in our lives.  The prophets called us out on how we live every day is an act of worship to God.  We are caught in a web of interconnected interdependence and inter-mutuality.  The prophets, with the psalmists, knew that the more we heard the trees and birds and clouds calling their wisdom, the closer we might be to hearing God’s voice once again.  God, who is still speaking but not through politics or preachers or pundits or prognosticators online, but right outside your window.  May God’s blessings go with you as you step into the sacred of creation with open hearts, ears, and lives.  Amen.  

Prophet-ting with God

 

There was a deep need, then and now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and to justice. Someone who would warn them, critique them, and reveal God’s heart to them. We call them prophets, and every religion needs them.  For hundreds of pivotal years—starting around 1300 BCE and continuing through the eras of Israel’s kingdom, exile, and conquest—prophets like Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel performed this utterly important task. Besides being truth tellers, they were radical change agents, messengers of divine revelation, teachers of a moral alternative, and deconstructors of every prevailing order. Both Isaiah 21 and Ezekiel 3 (also Habakkuk 2) describe a prophet as a “sentry” or a “watcher,” whose job is to hold Israel maddeningly honest, and to stop them from relying on arms, money, lies, and power to keep themselves safe and in control.  Richard Rohr

 

Rohr reminds us that the prophets were deeply grounded in the present moment, to speak the truth in love (because if you are going to criticize and be cynical, your voice will be lost amid all the others with platforms, podcasts, and political pundits who do just that right now!).  Prophets call us back not to an idealized past (that probably never existed) or into some future utopia (that as humans we will always struggle to both create and sustain ~ see Genesis 3, the garden!).  Prophets seek to root us in the soil of the sacred.  The prophets point out that the rulers, money-makers, priests, and the powerful want to maintain the status quo.  The prophets say, God has always called us to another way, not just when it is conducive to our calendars, the conditions are correct or when someone else is elected, we are called to live God’s way every day.  This is difficult in good times and can be downright impossible in a time such as this. 

 

Who is helping you imagine what is possible to live as God’s beloved right now?

What gives you the strength to listen for God, rather than all the other voices that clamor for attention and allegiance? 

Given that the prophets were not just predicting the future, how does that open your sacred imagination to hear their words as an invitation for this day of August?

 

I pray you will continue to pay attention to God’s wisdom, not for some future day, but for right here and now to guide our living.  Amen.

Prophet-ting with God

 

“It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

 

Yesterday in church, we began to learn from and listen to the prophets.  We often have the job description of a prophet as a fortune-teller peering into and predicting the future.  However, prophets are more concerned about the present moment.  The prophets were less prognosticators and more pragmatists.  More than just pointing out the brokenness, the prophets sought to call people to reform and repent, to return to a relationship with God.  The prophets are calling us to keep God at the center, which is difficult. The prophets wanted people to stop putting all their trust in kings or fame or fortune (perhaps this sounds eerily familiar in a world where we are still shaped by politics, economics, marketing, and indivisible analytics online that want your attention to keep clicking on another story). 

 

There are four major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel) and twelve minor prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi).  The distinction between major and minor has nothing to do with some earned status, nor is this meant to rate or rank the importance of what each prophet.  The classification and categorization are based on length.  Sorry, I totally spoiled the conspiracy theory or quieted the defense attorney who wanted to have Amos assigned to the major class.  The twelve minor prophets tend to be a few chapters in length and can be read in less than an hour.  The major prophets span several chapters and take longer to read ~ we will see that in September with Jeremiah.

 

What, if anything, do you remember about the prophets?

 

Maybe you think of Isaiah 11, the Peaceable Kingdom, where the wolf and lamb frolic and are friends.  Or hearing Isaiah 9 at Advent in December as foretelling Jesus as the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Or perhaps you remember the flannel board in Sunday School as you heard about Daniel in the lions' den or Jonah swallowed (gulp) by a whale, only to be burped out on the beach of Niveah ~ the place he did not want to be!  Reminding us that God has a wicked sense of humor.

 

What other stories do you remember about the prophets?  Maybe Jeremiah is talking about being a child, unable to preach, or how he goes to the potter’s house as an act of prophetic imagination that God isn’t finished with the clay called “our life” yet.  Maybe you remember Ezekiel and dem dry bones, which you will now be singing all day!  You are welcome.

 

How do those above stories mesh or make sense with a prophet who isn’t only trying to predict but also reform and reframe the present?  God is restoring our broken bones of life, shaping us like clay right now, calling us to connect with people we don’t want to care about (our neighbors or enemies), which can feel like we are in a lion’s den.  How is Christ’s presence giving us a vision of a different way of living ~ not in some future lightyears away, but here in this place and moment?  Ponder with me the prophets’ role as ones who want to awaken our imagination to live in the possible of this less-than-perfect/polished present moment.  Amen. 

Forgiveness Part 5

 

I have noticed in my own life that people I don't like have power over me because I am always thinking about them. They preoccupy me and have control over my thinking. I find myself jealous, resentful, and vengeful. I lose peace. I am holding on to these people as my enemies.

Loving our enemies is the way of becoming free of our enemies. We free ourselves by letting go, by loving them, by caring for them.

One of the most beautiful things is that when we let the enemy go out of our heart by love and forgiveness, we are suddenly free to let that unlimited, all-embracing love of God pour into us. We become a new person every time we forgive an enemy, because we let go of the angry person inside who was holding on to fear.

The core of our faith is to be free people – free from the power we give to our enemies, free to love every human being with the divine love that always forgives, seven times seven and seven again.  ~ Henri Nouwen

 

Forgiving and fiercely trusting God, meet me in the messiness of my life.  I long for forgiveness to be like a pill I take for the aches and pains I carry.  I want the quick fix for all that ails me.  We live in a world of microwaves and instant communication, why does the spiritual path have to be so long, circuitous, and confusing!?!  Every Sunday, God, I pray for forgiveness to take hold of my life in the Lord’s Prayer.  Do I really want that?  Do I really trust forgiveness as a way of life for me and for those around me?  Or do I just mutter and mumble the Lord’s Prayer because that’s what is in the bulletin?  Slow me down, focus my heart on Your holy way of not holding grudges against others.  Help me shred the cultural script I adopted of eye for eye justice to create space to love my enemies.  Guiding, abiding, providing God, let Your presence pervade and persist in my heart, even in those cobwebbed corners of my soul where I am not ready to forgive others or myself yet.  Let Your patient presence be for me a truth I trust as You and I co-author the story of life today.  Amen.  

Forgiveness Part 4

 

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat. Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone, you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.  Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation. Forgiveness does not excuse anything.  You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness......”  ― William P. Young, The Shack

 

You have now read the above quote (or at least skimmed it) four times.  What sentence jumps off the screen/page for you?  Is it because that sentence sings the truth or because it feels like sandpaper to your soul?  Does the sentence confirm your thoughts or contradict what you know to be true?  Does the sentence fascinate or frustrate you?  I love the part of the quote that says forgiveness will not, by itself, create a relationship.  I can forgive, and the other person may never know it.  I can forgive, and it won’t make a difference to the other person.  I can forgive because I need to stop carrying around the weighted backpack of anger, hurt, and harm caused by another person or society’s words and actions.  Forgiveness offers release and relief from the ache in my soul.  Forgiveness for me is never one and done; there is no finish line, just slowly stopping to feed and fuel the hatred that burns in each of us toward others. 

 

Today, hold this quote, for it is, I promise, the last time I will share it.  I pray that the person you began to intentionally and prayerfully forgive on Monday is shifting and taking new shapes in your heart.  I pray you are finding ways to live in the mystery of forgiveness.  You may not be ready to trust that person yet.  Let this process be as unique for you as your fingerprint, because we know God’s forgiveness is offered unconditionally and unceasingly to us, day by day, hour by hour, as wisdom for our lives, individually and collectively.  Amen.  

Forgiveness Part 3

 

"Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat. Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone, you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.  Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation. Forgiveness does not excuse anything.  You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness......”  ― William P. Young, The Shack

 

Ugh, you think, we are still talking about forgiveness?  C’mon, let’s move on to another topic, like chocolate.  Everyone loves talking about chocolate.  We are a society that loves the grudge and keeps track of all wrongs on an invisible mental scoreboard.  And we struggle with trust as people today.  Last year, 22% of citizens in our country said they trust the government to do what is right most of the time.  As a comparison, it was 77% back in 1964.  And it is not just our government.  It is all institutions ~ church, medicine, education, social organizations, and businesses.  Maybe we don’t trust because we know too much, too quickly.  We live in a world where information moves fast, but not always accurately, and once our opinion is formed, we build a wall in our mind to defend and deflect any attempt to change us.  Think about how hard forgiveness is for a person you want to forgive, now try to extend that to people whom you interact with only through social media and have never met face-to-face!  Forgiveness and trust, woven together in the garment of the clothing we are wearing collectively, are tattered and torn…and we keep ripping apart because humans are messy! 

 

Today, I invite you to ponder what it means to trust.  Or maybe you are living by the words of Abbie Hoffman, Jack Weinberg, the Beatles, who all said “Don’t trust anyone over 30” (even though you are now twice that age).  What would trust look like?  Who are you willing to trust?  Who do you struggle to trust both individually and collectively?  Let these questions stir and swirl around your heart and live this day.  Amen.

Forgiveness Part 2

 

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat. Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their minds and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone, you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.  Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation. Forgiveness does not excuse anything.  You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness......”  ― William P. Young, The Shack

 

William Young’s brilliant quote reminds us that forgiveness does not mean forgetting.  Forgiveness is a process day by day.  And forgiveness ultimately is about trust.  Trust is fragile like an egg.  Trust is never static or stationary; it is dynamic ~ reacting and responding to the unforeseen experiences and interactions between you and others.  Yesterday, I invited you to hold a person you want to forgive.  Remember, forgiveness can never be forced.  You know this from your childhood when your mom told you that you had to say you were sorry for something, but you did it through gritted teeth and with your fingers crossed behind your back!!

 

I wonder if anything shifted yesterday?  Doesn’t have to be monumental or major, doesn’t have to be like a dam breaking inside, setting off the water works of tears from your eyes, cue the John Williams musical montage or Sarah McLachlan singing, “In the arms of an angel…”  Forgiveness doesn’t excuse, but it looks for ways to reconnect and reestablish trust when and where that is possible ~ as well as wanted by both parties.

 

I am not sure we talk enough about how much forgiveness and trust are tangled and twisted together.  I do know that trust is difficult and demanding.  I know that trust can be broken emotionally or physically or spiritually.  The friend who promised they would not tell another soul, only to text another friend immediately.  The pastor whom you shared your soul, only to tell you it was your fault.  The society you were told loved freedom and wanted you to thrive/flourish as yourself, only when you did, immediately you were judged with jeers and sneers ~ like the Sneeches on Beaches.  

 

Do you see why forgiveness and trust hold hands? When you work on one, you are touching the wires of the other.  What would it look like to begin to trust a person you want to forgive?  This does not mean you will call them and read the last year of your whole diary of your deepest darkest secrets.  Maybe you start small with something very superficial, like the new kind of granola cereal you are enjoying.  Trust takes time, just like forgiveness ~ the two are the train tracks that all relationships run on.  May you and I find ways to tend trust in meaningful ways this day.  Amen.