Who We are Becoming

 

The Bible is an adult book written for adults, so said C.S. Lewis.  Eugene Peterson said that telling someone to go read the Bible alone was like giving a ten-year-old keys to your luxury car.  The Bible doesn’t hold back on the issues of brokenness, becoming, and belonging.  In chapter 4, we hear how Cain kills Abel.  The story is confounding, complex, and contradictory.  First, you have God apparently more pleased with Abel’s offering than Cain’s.  This can touch a nerve because I can be lured and led into thinking that God likes other pastors’ sermons better than mine.  God gives an “A” to the preacher down the street while saying, “Needs LOTS of improvement!!” in red ink on my sermon.  We all rate and rank each other; often we end up with the short end of the stick.  After Cain murders Abel, God confronts Cain about the violence.  Cain denies and defends himself.  Cain doesn’t honestly say to God, “It was because You liked him better, God!”  How often do we act out because we believe God is blessing someone else more?  Notice that God doesn’t give in to violence or revenge.  God marks Cain to protect him.  Wait, what?  Is God going to let this murderer off the hook?  How is that just?  How is that holy?  I don’t know.  I am troubled by this story and continue to be heartbroken that we repeat it today.  We dismiss and deny our human siblings who are immigrants, returning citizens from prison, LGBTQIA+, beloved whose shade of skin is not white or whose accent is not Midwestern. 

 

Who are we becoming is a vital question.  And the twin question this week is to look at the groups that you belong to.  Let’s be specific: how has our church shaped you this year?  Please be honest about the good and bad parts.  Humans are not perfect, and this especially applies to me as a pastor.  I will do boneheaded things that I regret; I will say things I want to pull from the air and shove back in my mouth!

 

Keep exploring the ways you’re belonging and becoming.  You are both unique, and you have a deep desire to connect in ways so twisted and tangled, like the Christmas lights you will soon be pulling out of storage.  May you sense the Sacred stirring, supporting, and sustaining such prayerful reflection.  Amen.

A Holy Woundedness

 

God took one of Earthling’s ribs and closed up its place with flesh. (Genesis 2:21)

 

Relationships are not all chocolate rivers and pony rides.  If you have spent any time around other featherless bipeds, you know this to be true.  Other people can be amazing.  Other people can be annoying.  Other people can be hurtful or helpful or ambivalent.  In Genesis 2, after crafting the first earthling (that is what adam means – a dust/earth being), God recognizes and realizes this being needs a companion, helper, friend, and someone to share life with.  Initially, God makes all the animals as potential friends.  God makes the giraffe, but this animal is too tall for face-to-face conversation.  God makes the porcupine, but the hugs are too painful.  God makes a dog, and everything is perfect, and they live happily ever after.  Even the dog couldn’t quite meet all the humans’ emotional/relational/spiritual/intellectual needs.  So, the first human falls asleep, God performs surgery, removing a rib, creating a wound.  I don’t need to know if this actually happened to know it is true.  Our words wound one another.  Our actions hurt worse than sticks and stones.  We dehumanize one another and turn to violence as the only means too often. 

 

Is there a wound from this last year you are carrying?  Is there a pain that is left unprocessed?  Yesterday, I mentioned open memories.  These are the ones that, when I tell the story of being embarrassed at calling someone the wrong name ten years ago, I still feel my face flood with warmth hot enough to roast a marshmallow.   For you, it could be encountering a situation that is far more traumatic, such as discrimination, violence, hate, or abuse.  Those open memories remind us there are unholy ghosts that haunt us even as Halloween passed last week.  Please note that open memories can still cause us joy too.  Ever tell a story to someone that you cannot finish because you are still laughing so hard your stomach aches?  Both can be true.

 

Today, I invite us to think about an open memory that still hurts ~ could cause your mind to spin so fast you get dizzy, or your heart to race, sounding like the horses at the Kentucky Derby, or making your stomach a bit nauseous.  If you are starting to feel that pain, I want to invite you to place one hand on your heart and another on your belly.  Now take a deep breath and slowly exhale.  Breathe in the breath of God whose love never lets you go and exhale the pain.  Breathe in the promise that you are safe right now and exhale the thoughts that this memory doesn’t need to have the last word.  Ruptures in relationships happen (that is Genesis 3).  Systems are built often on the backs of those we refuse to see: immigrants and those clinging to the last rung of the socio-economic ladder with their fingernails.  Breathe and be.  Trusting that God hears/knows the pain.  This is the truth of Exodus 2:24: God heard their groaning, and God remembered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The word “heard” is not distant or disconnected, but God felt the pain deep in God’s very being.  It is good to point out that God’s plan to resolve this groaning was to send Moses, a wanted criminal who had killed an Egyptian guard in chapter 1 who was beating up/bullying a fellow Israelite.  Because violence begets violence, Moses kills the guard, buries the body in the sand, and tries to cover his tracks, but Pharaoh hears about it and puts up “Wanted for murder” posters on the pyramids. 

 

We all have wounds; some just cover them better.  Today, ponder gently one moment from this year that has not been resolved or reconciled; share that with God.  If you want to talk more about this, reach out to me.  May God’s healing love wrap around you this day.  Amen.  

Becoming and Belonging

 

Most of us long to belong, but we settle for fitting in.  We want community, but struggle to balance our uniqueness with the group’s need for unity.  Plus, community is made up of people, and have you been around people recently?  Martin Luther in the 16^th Century said that humans are both beloved and broken, saint and sinner, marvelous and messy, exhilarating and exhausting.  Community can both shape our soul with help/healing and hurt.  When has this been true for you?  When do you feel a twinge in a meeting, or your stomach/soul somersault when talking to family/friends?  Groups have personality, energy, and influence that shape us.  We are hardwired to seek community and connection.  Genesis 2 is about the first human longing for a companion.  God said, “It is not good that the human should be alone; I will make the earthling a helper and partner.”  (Genesis 2:18).  Pause with me: who is a helper and partner for you right now? 

 

As Dr. Curt Thomason says, our becoming and belonging are intertwined.  Who we become is impacted and influenced by who we are connected to.  Your mom was right: be careful who your friends are.  People shape us positively and negatively.  People can bless us or bring the sharp shards of their brokenness into our lives.  Unfortunately, the software in our brains tends to ruminate on the negative.  Pain sticks to us like Velcro, while joy can roll off us like Teflon.  We can tend to recall the wounds or losses easily, but forget the love or severely discount it.  Scientists say we developed the trait of flight, fight, freeze, flock, and fawn because it is what protected us out in the wilderness.  Our ancestors needed to know if that rustling in the nearby bushes was a lion licking its lips at you as lunch or if it was a harmless squirrel trying to find its next meal.  That reality persists and pervades our lives today.  Research suggests that when we see negative news, our brains convince us that the event can/even will happen to us, so you better keep your guard up.  Your body has a collection of bruises.  You also have open memories; when you recall that experience, you still feel the heartbreak and soul ache.  Of course, open memories can be good and still cause us to laugh at an awkward experience from decades ago.  Again, we tend to cling to the brokenness rather than the blessedness.  As we wrap up and wind down 2026, it is holy to look back, look around, and look forward.  This week, I encourage you to write down moments that gave you energy and ones that drained your energy.   This is going to take some time.  There is no due date for this assignment/invitation/prayer practice.  You could be well into 2027 before the fog around something you are carrying clears.  Yet, to set aside time to be with God in this is holy.  Please feel free to reach out to me to talk more about such holy reflections.  I pray this week that the saints who hover and hum continue to infuse and inspire your life.  We are part of a great cloud of witnesses, and you are part of someone else’s cloud as well.  May God’s love, peace, presence, and possibility hold and enfold you each day.  Amen.

Prayer

 

Holy One, thank you for the life-giving and soul-shaping ways we collect each day of encounters with You.  Thank you for moments that fascinate us, like a cloud sailing overhead or sinking our teeth into our favorite candy for Halloween.  Thank you, even, for moments that frustrate us, because You invite us to explore the why of pain, struggle, stress, and suffering too.  Why did that word hurt?  Why did that action offend?  Is there another way to hold, understand (or stand under) that moment?  And how can we release that wound from living rent-free in our minds for the rest of our lives?  Help us, O God, as our life continues to write a theological essay on who You are, who we are, and who we are together with others.  We know this invitation is never complete, but part of the calling to let Your love take hold of the story we tell ourselves and the story we live from.  Inspiriting, editing, revising, re-storying, God, restore us to Your light and love that we need as we turn the calendar to November on Sunday.  Amen.  

Here I Stand ~ Statements of Faith

 

One more set of questions today as you consider your theology and how you have witnessed the with-ness of God in your life:

 

What are my strengths?

Who are the role models and mentors who inspire me?

What practices and exercises will I employ in my everyday life?

What communities can I participate in and accompany?

What do I want to give back to the world?

 

The above questions invite you to explore the mystery of your one wild and precious life.  Please remember, you don’t have to answer every question.  There is no turning this in as an assignment.  Of course, if you want to talk about these questions, I welcome conversation and connection with you.  I also encourage you to give thought to any resistance or reluctance you have to these questions.  Sometimes the very questions we want to take a hard pass, refuse, refute, or call “silly” are the very questions where we discover the Divine in a new way.  God is not just some Genie in a bottle here to grant your every wish and make your dreams come true.  God stretches us in sacred ways and into sacred shapes.  To be clear, not every experience I have had is saturated in the holy.  Some experiences are drenched in humanness that drain me.  Yet God can be there even in brokenness and in moments I wish had never happened.  This is what makes faith endlessly fascinating and (honestly) frustrating.  Faith is not math to be solved, but a poem, a prayer, a praise to enter fully with our whole lives.   This week, we have paused to look at our lives.  Who is God, who is the other, and who am I?  Jot down thoughts today on this, and then, maybe at the end of December, make a cup of hot cocoa and review these questions and your thoughts.  In a few weeks, go back and notice what is shifting and what is stable, persisting.  May you and I continue to let loose your inner theologian, for the world needs to hear how God is at work in your heart/life ~ and we need to hear from each other.  Amen.  

Here I Stand ~ Statements of Faith

 

As we play with our theological toybox, we are discovering what we believe about God, Jesus, ourselves, and others.  I remember when I went through my toy box as a child; I would sometimes find, at the very bottom, a toy I forgot I had.  I would find a Matchbox car I thought was lost forever.  When we delve and dive into theology, the same is true.  You may discover in your theological toybox an idea about God hidden in the cobwebbed corner of your soul that you thought you gave away, let go of, lost years ago.  I know several people, for example, for whom referring to God as only/exclusively male can be hurtful and pick at the scab of a wound that has never healed.  This could be because their own father was abusive or abandoned them.  This could be because referring to God only as “Father” feels like your soul is cramped and confined.  This could be for a thousand reasons unique to each person’s experience and encounters.  Perhaps this week, one of the questions I’ve asked surfaced, stirred up the sand in the ocean of your soul, causing you to recall God as an old white man with a beard on a throne.  There are ideas in each of our theological toyboxes that we are called to ponder prayerfully.  I know this: God creates us in God’s image, and too often, in turn, we create God in our image.  What we say about God says more about us than the Holy Other of the Divine.  Remember all theology is autobiographical ~ talking about God is talking about ourselves.

 

While the last two mornings have been about you and God/Jesus/Spirit/Church ~ there is a whole world where you are not the main character of the play.  Ponder these questions:

 

What are my responsibilities to my neighbor?

What are my responsibilities to the poor and disenfranchised?

What do I want to give to the world?

What are the elements of a well-lived life? 

As you rummage and roam around your theological toy box with these questions, look for threads and themes that connect your response to each.  For example, is there a connection and consistency between your neighbor and the poor/marginalized?  For example, how is my love for my literal neighbor like my love for my siblings who are unhoused?  How might my love be different/distinctive for different people?  Is there a connection to how I view a life well-lived?  Perhaps all of this grows from thinking about my responsibilities to others in my life.  We live in a culture that worships at the altar of the individual.  We demand and decree that things be done our way, on our timetable, and to our liking, thank you very much.  Yet, the life of faith calls into question whether our life is ever isolated from others.  Faith challenges the myth of the “self-made” individual ~ which is biologically impossible and theologically irrational.  You are a collection of fingerprints, DNA, smudges and smears of others ~ some chosen and some you’d rather not have experienced.  Let these questions open you to the mystery that your life has never been lived on an island, but in community.  The price of community can be annoyance and ache and joy upon heaping helping of joy.  Let these questions move us beyond thinking to ways we embody and experience life in this beautifully broken/bruised world.  Amen.

Here I Stand ~ Your Statement of Faith

 

Yesterday, you let loose your inner theologian by talking about God, Jesus, the Spirit, humanity, church, and blessedness/brokenness.  Remember, this is not some assignment to turn in and forget; it is the work of our entire lives.  It is good to look both at our responses to questions and the very questions themselves.  Here is another set of prompts to help you think about how you think about God:

 

What do I believe about God/a higher power? 

What was your earliest image of God?  Compare that to images of God today.

What does it mean to me to be successful as a human being?

What comes into my mind/heart/stir in my soul when I hear the phrase, “a good life”?

 

Perhaps this set of questions awakens new thoughts about God.  I, especially, find the last two questions meaningful, if we are willing to be earnest, honest, and vulnerable.  Because you are reading this Morning Meditation, written by a pastor, your inner Sunday School student may want to say, “A successful human serves God with joy.”  Or maybe you studied Westminster Catechism (which is a set of questions about faith and answers to those questions) as a teenager.  The first question in that book is, “What is the chief end of (hu)man beings?”  The response is, “To glorify God and enjoy (him/her/them).”  Wait.  Linger with me on this.  How does that question and response land in you?  Maybe you are frustrated and flummoxed by the language of the question.  I get that.  Maybe you even think it is the wrong question.  I get that.  Maybe you want to raise your hand and ask, “How do I glorify God?  What are the benchmarks or key performance indicators that will be evaluated by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven?”  I don’t know.  When we grow up in a church where every question has an answer in a Catechism book, it can do two things.  First, it can teach us that if we disagree with the answer, we have no room in the church.  This breaks my heart.  Second, it can teach us that every question in faith must have an answer, which it does not.  There is mystery in our lives.  Part of the mystery is coming back to questions of faith, setting in dialogue our lives and our beliefs that were handed/shaped by the past and need to continually be updated to the future.  Your faith, like an Apple/Samsung phone, is continually getting software updates.  This week, we are seeing what the latest version of software for our minds/hearts/souls and lives is needed for this time and place.  I pray you are finding moments of joy in exploring your faith and being a theologian this week.  Amen.