People on the Move Part Three

Forty years of moving...
Wandering in the wilderness
Is a long time in the sandbox.

Sure makes my eight moves seem rather insignificant.

Its hard to imagine every day packing the tent,
Brushing off the sand.
Loading the bags.
Setting off to walk the road-less way,
Making your own path, with your footprint being the first in that space.

But its hard to imagine the journey we take every day.
Bustling out the door trying not to spill the coffee.
Loading the car with lunch bags, kids backpacks, and a day crammed with countless events.
Setting off to go down the roads that tell us where to go.
Still trying to find a path, a way that we can claim as our own.

Everyday we set out.
Like the People of God, we do mutter and mumble.
Like the People of God, we do taste manna to sustain.
Like the People of God, we are drenched in moments by God's love poured forth even from rocks.
We stumble on rejoicing.
We strive to find a way that is authentic, life-giving, whole and holy.

There are no maps or GPS,
Just a soul that in a soft whisper says, "Go this way."
And sometimes I even listen.

Blessings

People on the Move Part Two

Half-emptied, creased boxes are scattered around.
Half-emptied of energy creases my soul.

The newness wears off as the past settles into the present.

God's people on the move, crossed over the Red Seas
Sipped from water once bitter now sweet.
Feasted on manhu, manna, the sap from an fruit bit by an insect.
Moving to new places and spaces,
Yet the old place and space still rumbles around the half-emptied box.

When you are on the move,
Leaving one place behind,
Not settled in the new place yet...
Half-emptied describes not only the boxes
But also our very souls.
Our lives as we try to find
New communities of connections
New doctors
New dentists
New places where we might not feel so out on a limb.

In that new place,
The old place looks different.
"Why did you bring us out of Egypt to starve us?" The Israelities cried!
How did I end up here? We still cry today.

Being on the move to new places brings all sorts of sensations swirling within us.

But then that moment when we refer to the places as "Home".
And it feels right and true.
I wonder when the wilderness wandering felt like "Home"?
Maybe when the people of God realized it wasn't about the mailing address.
Or the tent.
Or the manna or water or surroundings.

Home was our half-emptied self placed fully in God's embrace.

Blessings

On the Move, Part One

Boxes...bubble wrap...tape
The tools of the trade when moving.
Excitement and nervousness stir, swirl together.
Sadness of leaving what is known behind.
New possibilities sit beckoning before you.

Packing items from familiar places.
Dust awakens and arises.
Past touches your fingerprints transporting you back.
Every item saturated with memories of words and laughter and tears.
All are there.

Carefully place the past in the box,
Not wanting to disrupt the hum you felt as you held the item.
Hoping that perhaps it might still be there when you unpack weeks later.

God's people on the move.
From Egypt to wilderness long.
Yet, even when we leave the past, the past takes time to leave us.
Even when you try to flee,
Somehow those words still fall into the boxes,
Scatter across the brand new canvass of the life you want to create.

God's people on the move.
From a narrow place to a wide open space.
From that which confined to that which was confusing.
From normal routine to new rhythms.
Moving.
Motion.
Not always external...sometimes it is internal.
Ideas move in new directions.
Thoughts.
Emotions.
Relationships.
Ways you want to exist int he world.
Which direction are you moving?
That questions awakens me the moment my feet touch the carpet each morning.

Let the motion and moving of my life, O God,
Get caught up in your divine direction.
Let the motion and moving of my life, O God,
Unpacking my life in the new place that is this day.

Blessings

Egyptian State of Mind

In Scripture Egypt means a narrow space...
Between a rock and hard place...
Where it is difficult to breathe because,
You have six hundred Egyptian guards breathing down the back of your neck behind you...
And a churning, crashing Red Sea stirring chaotically in front of you...kind of space.

Ever been there?

Ever been there where you keep turning in circles and there are no exit strategies?

Ever been there where you look and nothing seems to be going right?

Where you around bound up by problems plaguing you from all directions?

That is Egypt.

That is where we cry out to God.

God hears...
God sees...
God knows.

Knows not only intellectually, but intimately knows the way I know "that" look from my wife.
The way I know when my daughter wants me to do something.
The way I know when my son is trying to be sarcastic.
The way we know those who know us best.

Egypt...the place that oppresses is also the place where liberation begins.

Out of struggle there is the dawn of promise.
Out of pain there is the hope of healing.
Out of darkness there is dawn.

It isn't either/or
Rather
It is both/and.

May the fullness of Egypt...the problems and possibilities be for you a place where the traces of God's grace still hear...see...and know you this day.

Amen.

What is Plaguing YOU

Alright...I fully realize this topic sounds about as uplifting as a trip to the dentist AFTER you have had your flu shot.  We live in a world with so many negative forces.  Currently, we are still dealing with violence in communities between African-Americans and police.  We are in the midst of a political climate that feels like there is blood in the water.  There is a fragile peace in Syria and Israel/Palestine...but emphasis is on fragile right now rather than peace.  Not to mention the things in our own individual life.  The stresses and strains emotionally, physically, spiritual and mentally.  I am sure you are saying, "Thanks for bringing up the Biblical Plagues, Wes, but I think I will pass."

But part of the point of the plagues is shining a light on the problems that impact our communal life together.  Part of the point of the plagues is the inter-connectivity of the luminous web of creation.  Awhile ago scientists put out a theory about the plagues saying that there was a burgundy blood algae that poisoned the Nile River and turned it blood red (Exodus 7:14-24).  That in turn caused the frogs (Exodus 7:25-8:15) to leave the water and seek safety on land...which in turn caused the frogs to die not having access to clean water...which in turn caused lice and flies (Exodus 8:16-32) to increase because of the lack of frogs to control the population...the increase of flies affected livestock (Exodus 9:1-7) causing disease....and those who still ate the livestock had illness such as boils (Exodus 9:8-12).  During this time, Egypt was prone to volcanic eruptions which would impact the atmosphere causing violent thunderstorms and fire (Exodus 9:13-35).  Locust were also common in those days.  1 ton horde of locust can eat as much as 2500 humans do daily...which puts my son's teenage appetite into perspective.  There were sand storms that could spring up worse than London fog (Exodus 10:21-29).  Finally, given all this destruction around them, death of humans...particularly the youngest and most vulnerable...did happen (Exodus 11).

Whew...let me catch my breath.

So, that is one way to look at things.  But you can also read the plagues Biblical.  Terence Fretheim wrote about how Exodus echoes Genesis.  In his interpretation, the plagues represent a reversal of creation.  Whereas in Genesis 1, you start off with chaos, darkness, and no life...in the plagues that is where it all ends.  So the plagues slowly reverse creation.  Whereas God separated waters...now the water is blood.  Whereas God said to the animals to be fruitful and multiply, sometimes too much multiplying impedes our fruitfulness.  Whereas God wanted light, at the end of the plagues there is darkness and death.  Creation reversed as the people of God endure the pain and suffering of Egyptian oppression.

Another way to look at this is societal, when one group of people fails to thrive, the whole system is broke.  We see this racially in our country today.  We continue to segregate and oppress people, pushing them to the fringes.  Yet, such a response only further exasperates the issue.  We cannot, as Moses tried to do after hiding the Egyptian guard in the sand, act as though the past brokenness of racism no longer exist.  The ways we have treated those forcefully brought to our country and than legally dehumanized and treated as "less than" continue to have ramification and consequences that plague us.  Only when the problems that cause the most hurt and harm are brought out in the open, only when a wound is exposed to the healing...albeit painful...elements of air and light can healing happen...but also risks of continued infection.  We are a body together, interconnected as Paul said in 1 Corinthians, yet we so often still have our mouth saying to the foot, "I have no need of you.... until I say something less than brilliant."

There are problems we still need to deal with as the people of God.  There are still plagues that hurt and harm people today.  There are still people crying out to God for liberation.  There are still beloved children of God enslaved through sex trafficking and other manipulation.  There are still people who work three jobs and never see their children and still told to "pull themselves up".  There are still people pushed to the side and sneered at because of who they love.  There is still much that plagues us...and the church is called by God, as God called to Moses, to be part of the liberation of God's own people.

May there be more than a trace of God's grace and guidance as we seek to respond to God's own people and our very neighbors this day.

Amen.

What's the Idol with You?

Click here to read Isaiah 44

Click here to read Isaiah 45

Click here to read Isaiah 46

The next three chapters have the theme of idols, making idols, the work of our human hands, and what happens when other gods take center stage in our lives.  Ever since the Ten Commandments, God was clear that no good can come from trying to craft idols for ourselves.  And the People of God found that incredibly meaningful...for about twelve chapters in Exodus.  Then, along comes the whole Golden Calf incident.  Moses was up on the mountain chatting with God...AGAIN.  And this time he was taking forever.  And there was no way the governing body of the church approved that much time off.  And so anxiety increased.  And Pastor Aaron, wanting to be helpful, said, "Let's make an idol."  Now to be fair, Aaron really thought he was making an idol to honor God.  It was not as though he was trying to start a new religion.  Rather, he just wanted to calm the people down.

That's the lure of idols in the world.  Here, buy this new ipad it will make you happy.  Here, buy this new television and impress your friends.  Here, buy this new outfit and wow everyone.  Andrew Root makes a compelling argument that so much of our identity today comes from what we buy and consume.  Years ago...my grandparent's generation...it was the family.  You lived closed to your parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.  Family defined...and confined....your identity.  Around the 1950s, we became much more mobile and even nomadic...work and our profession began to provide our identity.  Watch Mad Men sometime to see how central work and who does the work is to the person's understanding of self.  But increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s, work ceased to provide that meaning.  So, people turned to what we can consume.  You don't like who you are or your identity?  It is just a swipe of a credit card away.  Family...work...stuff...all can be idols.

To be completely fair...family, work, and stuff can also connect us to God.  But there are limitations and we need to be careful.  I sense God when I laugh with my family.  I sense God when I talk with someone in my church.  I sense God on a spring day driving my car with the sunroof open.  It is not that these things are inherently bad or evil.  The problem with idols is not necessarily that it is a material thing.  It is just that at some point the idol will fail to point toward the deeper meaning and hence stop pointing to God.  All of the sudden, my kids do something that upsets me...or the church doesn't do what I think it should...or my car breaks down.  See what happens with idols?

In Exodus 32, the Calf incident...it was not so much that they made a calf or what the calf represented.  Rather, the calf could never fully reflect the mystery and unfolding nature of God.  Those three letters: G-O-D have so much depth and breath, and when we try to reduce that to something we can see, touch, or taste, we reduce the image of God.  And here is the real truth about idols: we also like to control them.  There is a reason why you have to vote on American Idol for your favorite and you want to control what they do.  I think one of the qualities of God that we don't talk about is that God is beyond our control...and yet God is intimately intertwined in our lives.  That is the tension!  That is the contradiction.  Idols reduce that tension and the creativity that comes from it.  Idols reduce the contradiction and can make us complacent.

We all craft and collect idols.  The point is not to eradicate them from our lives or to condemn others.  The point is to see an idol for what it is, not God...perhaps a way that can at times through the mystery and serendipity of God connect us to God, but that is not a guarantee.  This Lent, be aware of the idols in your life.  Name them for what they are.  And may you sense a trace of God's grace that can never be contained in anything other than the moving Spirit of God in our lives.

Blessings and peace!

Do We See Ourselves?

Click here to read Isaiah 19

So we know Egypt and Israel have a history that is...let's just say is complicated.  I mean there is the whole indentured servitude in the book of Exodus.  Where Moses has to come in and lead the people across the Red Sea and into wandering in the wilderness for forty years.  During which people complained and wanted to go back to Egypt...you know where they were in servitude.  There is more that needs to be said about that some time when dwelling in the book of Exodus.

But Isaiah offers a prophecy against Egypt.  What really gets me about this chapter is verse 2, where brother rises against brother, neighbor against neighbor, and city against city.  I hear those words and make a connection to today in our world.  In our contentious political environment, family member is against family member, neighbor against neighbor, and a red state sits next to a blue state.  We feel that division and divisiveness in ways that seems to eat away at our very soul as a country.

So, what to do?  Let's face it, there is not much positive advice to be found in this chapter of Isaiah.  Basically he says to Egypt, "You are doomed!"  Which I can understand, it is often the way I feel after watching the news.  So, where is the hope?  Hope may not come in books we can buy or missions we create or really anything we do.  When we light the candle of "Hope" on the first Sunday of Advent, it can feel the same way.  One candle against the increasing darkness and dwindling daylight, what is the point?  What sense does that make?  We light the candle, call it "hope," and then wait.  Wait four weeks before we gather at a manger to welcome God incarnate in Jesus. That does take hope, to wait.  It can feel like we are waiting today to see if we can stop letting the differences divide and start seeing who we are connected.  Will it happen or we will end up like say the Egyptians in our passage today.

There is no neat and tidy ending here.  Hope does not come in prepacked ways.  Hope bubbles up in unexpected, even serendipitous ways.  Which if that sounds familiar, it is because it is similar to what I said about discipleship.  Maybe there is a connection between discipleship and hope that starts there and here.

May the traces of God's grace help to keep the spark of hope alive in your life today.

Blessings and peace!

Fully Formed

Recently I have found myself frustrated by the choices I've made. I have said some things in retrospect I wish I had not said...done some things in retrospect I wish I had not done. To be sure this is not a new situation for a human to find himself or herself in. I think Paul said it best in Romans chapter 7:15

Yes. I'm full of myself - after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. The Message

Most of us prefer the language of mistake to sin. Most of us try really hard to cover up our mistakes rather than publicly tout them. Most of us find it hard to look at the reflect staring back at us in the mirror and see that we are: fully formed, unconditionally loved, and surrounded with unceasing grace.

We see the mistakes...or sins.

We see those moments our mouth gets ahead of our brain...a problem I have. We see those moments we laugh at the expense of another...or always make myself out to the bumbling butt of every joke. We see the shortcomings. That is important to be honest. We are not perfect.

What makes the good news so GOOD is that God sees our worst, our warts, AND our gifts, the time we get it right. God sees the moments I lose my temper AND when the moments when my energy is so low but by God's grace I sit down and play a game with my kids rather than zone out watching TV. God sees us as fully formed, because that is the promise of the beginning. We are created in the image of God. Not just a small part of us commonly called a 'soul'. All of us. To be fully formed is the promise we celebrate at baptism. This small child with drips of water running down her forehead is fully claimed, loved and formed to living into God's presence around her and within all of her. Our hands, hearts, heads, feet, voice, our laugh, our off-key, rhythmic challenged way I sway to hymns...all of that God sees as fully formed.

Often what happens for me is I get out of sync and in those moments I am not living into, living out the whole identity God formed and calls me to be. When I start stressing too much about tomorrow rather than trusting that manna (Exodus 16) will be there. When I start over planning for five years down the road rather than noticing God's presence and promise right here and right now. When I start seeing the glass half empty and thinking ONLY I can get it filled again. I am not living into that fully formed promise of God.

I don't think the goal of life is that I get it right all the time. But maybe I can notice when I am relying too much on myself and not enough on the traces of God's grace in my life. Maybe I can help people see the water level in that proverbial glass for what is: not as full as it could be, but full of God's presence and life and love nevertheless. Maybe by leaning into life, I won't stop all my mistakes but see them as part of the profound truth that I am fully formed.

May the truth and promise that you are fully formed lead you to lean into life and notice the graces traces this day.

Blessings

When Words Become Stories

One of the problems people of faith face is how to convey what faith is. While scientists have a whole method or mathematicians have lots of formulas, the grounding of faith is words. Or more specific, the Word or scripture. Over time pastors have spilled lots of ink into sermons and newsletter articles and now blogs to try to capture and cultivate faith. Here is the problem. Words are intellectual by their nature. You are reading these words on your computer screen and it engages the part of your brain that likes to think. You begin to think about whether what you are reading makes sense, where I am being unclear, or where my words fall short or even fail.

For many, many years (beginning with the Enlightenment) pastors thought if we could just come up with the right combination of words it would unlock the right synapse in people's brains and everyone would believe. In short, for far too long, pastors tried to prove faith.
As my son likes to say...there is one small problem with that.

You can't prove faith.

You can experience a sensation in your gut that says there is something going on here that is bigger or deeper than what you can explain.

You can experience goose bumps on your arms or the tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

You can experience the hug of a fellow disciple on the Way that reassures you.

To be honest, that doesn't really prove faith. It does not prove that God exists. It does not prove anything...other than you had a meaningful, life giving, life changing experience.

In the end, that is what faith is...a meaningful, life giving and life changing experience. It is something that happens to you that forever, profoundly shapes how you understand and tell your story about who you are.

Here is my invitation. For one week listen to how people tell stories. In the stories you hear from your co-work, is he always the hero who swoops in at the last second like Mighty Mouse ("Here I come to save the day!")? How about that person you volunteer beside. Is she always the one who makes the mistake?

Then, if you really want a challenge, listen to how you tell stories about yourself.

I am prone to always be the bumbling person...even though in truth I work very, very hard to NOT make mistakes. What does that say that the stories I tell about myself tend to be self-effacing?

But what, the logical part of your brain interrupts, does all this have to do with faith? GREAT question. I think that at the most basic level faith is experienced and shared and conveyed through story. In a few weeks, we are going to be studying the book of Exodus, which is the quintessential story. It has everything. Drama, love, death, grumbling, wandering, miracles. No wonder The Ten Commandments made a great movie.

When we stop trying to play by the world's rules that things have to be logical and rational and always make sense, I think we open the door for the church to be the church. Life is not logical and rational and doesn't always make sense. Life is sometimes joyful like ice cream on a summer evening. Life is sometimes difficult like when you lose your job. or a person you love dies And the way we live life is through stories. So, listen this week to the stories you hear. Not just on the news or in novels, but from those who brush up against in your life.

And you may just notice traces of grace in the stories you hear and share.

Blessings and peace