Writing Your Faith ~ Prompt 1

 

Over the coming weeks in worship, we will listen to Paul’s greatest hits ~ passages where I think Paul defines and describes a faith that is vital and vibrant and changes our life.  It is my heartfelt prayer in the coming weeks, as you hear Paul’s words each week, you might be inspired and find new insights for living today.  Paul’s letters were written to earliest followers of Jesus, trying to offer his thoughts on to how to live faithful amid the stresses and strains of daily life.  We heard this yesterday in Romans 5 and 6, how God’s grace is where we start, stand, and stay.  Grace is freely given every day, even (or especially) when things go off the rails.

While we live in a different time and place than the First Century Christians in Rome, we still long to let our faith/grace/God’s love have the first, middle, and last word.  We feel this gap between how we want to live and how we really live.  We feel a gap between what we believe about God and how we experience God.  We feel this gap between where we are in faith and where our inner critic says we should be in faith. 

I have an invitation for you this May…to write a letter of faith to your future self.  I sense I just lost some of you.  Wait, come back!  It will be okay.  Remember, Paul didn’t think he was writing scripture.  He didn’t finish the letter to the Galatians and think, “Oh, I hope this one makes it into the New Testament.”  Fingers crossed!  There was no New Testament.  He was sharing a testimony.  He was offering words that he prayed would help others.  He was opening his heart ~ albeit sometimes in less than healthy ways ~ but I think we can all agree that Paul was very human-sized. 

Too often we keep our faith inside us, but faith needs expression and to escape the confines of our minds.  We don’t talk about faith partially to protect ourselves.  We all live with a bit of imposture syndrome, that if people find out we believe that, think that, do that, we will be kicked out of the tribe.  Remember, however, that Paul says to the Romans that, “Nothing separates us from the love of God…and nothing means nothing.”  Or maybe we keep our faith understanding to ourselves because we don’t feel certain.  And isn’t that the pastor’s job to talk about faith, what are we paying him for anyway? 

There is a priesthood, or faithfulness, of all believers.  And this week, I want to encourage and invite you to write down your thoughts on faith.  These are not to be turned in for a grade, but I do hope you will share your thoughts on the prompts with me and others ~ and even better if others share with you.  Rather than responding to Paul’s words, I want to invite you to find the words of faith in you. 

Prompt #1 ~ When was the last time you felt the Holy hovering in your life?  Describe where you were, what you were doing, and how you felt.  Or, you could write about a worship service that was meaningful and why.  Or you could write about an experience when, like Paul, you were going one direction only to turn and go a different direction. 

I am asking you about a time God showed up disguised as your life.  I pray you will spend ten or fifteen minutes today responding to the prompt above and what stirs within you.  I pray even more you will share that with me.  Happy writing.

Friday Prayer

 

God of grace and God of glory, on Your people pour your power.  We need Your wisdom, because we don’t always seem to find You amid the Google results, our newsfeeds, and normal conversations of life today.  We long for all of life to be orderly; too often we cling to our way or no way; we don’t mind change ~ just want everyone else to go first!!  God help us notice and name where our way of being in the world is helpful and places where we cause harm.  God center us in moments of dizzying disorientation when our minds spin, hearts sprint with emotions, and gut swirls like a gymnast doing somersaults.  God, where there is a reorientation, cause us not to judge our former self, but be grateful that You are not finished with us yet.  In the name of the One who was open to You; grounded by You; evolved and expanded sharing Your love; and found ways to live fresh and new ~ which is our prayer this day and every day in the coming weeks.  Amen.    

Thursday Prayer

 

Breathe in God’s presence this morning, which is always as close as our next breath.

Breathe out the ways we cling to control and believe we have to be right all the time. 

Breathe in God’s presence this day, who was there in the beginning amid the chaos.

Breathe out the moments you are in that transition from orientation to disorientation and reorientation isn’t anywhere in sight today.

Breathe in the holy who is comfortable in the less-than-perfectness of life ~ God born in a barn.

Breathe out our human need to look competent and in charge.

I invite you to name orientations of your mind/heart/life ~ where does life make sense at the present moment?  This could be a relationship that causes your soul to soar or a conversation that fills your heart or a book you are reading where you underline every sentence.

I invite you to name the disorientations of your mind/heart/life ~ where does your life seem too broken for repair?  Where does the world look like a bicycle you took apart in the garage and have no idea how the parts/pieces are ever going to be put back together?

I invite you to name the reorientation of your mind/heart/life ~ where a new insight is just beginning to form or a new opportunity has emerged or a new friendship is taking root in the soil of your soul. 

Let the wisdom of this way of being ~ Saul/Paul’s story ~ be your story this day.  Amen.

Meeting Paul...AND Ananias Again

 

 

One of the truths I love about Saul/Paul’s story is that it isn’t just about him.  This wasn’t just about his individual self-actualization or isolated self-development.  In fact, as Saul/Paul is stuck/stymied somewhere in the messy midst of orientation (what he thought he knew) ~ disorientation (God disrupting his five-day carefully planned/plotted life of rounding up Christians) ~ reorientation (a new way of incorporating and including those people he excluded), God is at work in the life of a disciple named Ananias.  Read now these words from: Acts 9:10-18

 

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.”  The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul^[c] and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

 

I wonder if you have ever had an “Ananias” in your life?  This could be a mentor, teacher, someone who helped you recognize and realize a new way of being?  Notice, the narrative above isn’t all warm and fuzzy ~ I think this meeting between Ananias and Saul/Paul was awkward with some unresolved emotions.  I can imagine Ananias knocking softly on the door, secretly hoping Saul/Paul doesn’t answer so he can just walk away saying, “Welp, God, I tried.  Appears he isn’t home.”  I picture the door opening, Ananias head hanging down realizing he must go in and talk to the very person who was persecuting his follow followers of the Way of Jesus.  I wonder if Ananias at first kept his distance?  I wonder what led Ananias to lay his hands on Saul/Paul?  Sometimes having someone hold our hand is the most healing action we can do.  Who has been Ananias there in those moments of orientation to disorientation to reorientation?  Who is an Ananias in your life right now, today?  Let your responses to these questions sing and simmer in your soul this day.  Amen.

Meeting Paul Again

 

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One of the great threads and themes of life is orientation to disorientation to reorientation.  We move from learning/holding/knowing one thing then to questioning or even deconstructing then to a new way of being/living.  One way to see this thread woven in your life is with music.  Yesterday, I professed and confessed my love of 80s hairbands.  Bon Jovi telling me I was, “Livin’ on a prayer”; Poison preaching that, “Every rose has its thorns”; and Van Halen telling me to “Jump”. 

 

That music left a mark on my life ~ and maybe makes you shake your head disappointed that I wasn’t raised on the classics of the Beetles or Aretha Franklin or whatever music moved your soul in your teenage years.  The music I put on mixtapes gave me an orientation ~ a way of making sense of the world.  I think of Bruce Springsteen shining a light on lives of working class or the Temptations velvety smooth invitation that, “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day.”  (You are going to be singing My Girl all day long now ~ you are welcome).  This is true with religion.  In Sunday School you were taught and caught a way of making sense of faith.  In high school you were given a perspective (a point of view ~ which is a view from a point) on history.  In college you paid an institution to learn the process of being a pharmacist or doctor or lawyer.  An orientation often creates a structure and system. 

 

But, we also know that life is evolving and expanding…things don’t stay the same.  80s hairbands turned into 90s gravely grunge music; hip hop ushered in a new way of telling the experience of African Americans.  It isn’t that the Temptations were wrong, but that wasn’t the only truth.  In your career chances are you had to go to continuing education classes to keep your certification or learn new insights or maybe went back for a doctorate.  For me, I sought my doctorate in ministry when I discovered what gives me life and fills my soul is preaching ~ and I wanted to learn more.  This can be a moment of disorientation, because how you have been being a pharmacist or doctor or lawyer or pastor starts to be questioned.  You discover a new piece of the puzzle you didn’t have before or are given some data that dismantles what you were previously taught.  This is a moment of decision making ~ do you try to incorporate and include this new piece or toss it aside?  Disorientation is not fun ~ remember the early days of COVID all the confusion and fear and frustration?  Disorientation makes us feel dizzy, our mind spins, heart sprints, gut squeezes with tension and we want resolution, and we want it now!! 

 

The path between disorientation to reorientation, incorporating and including new information and insights, can be rough and rocky.  I dare say this is where we are as a people in our country and as a church right now!  We are stuck somewhere in the messy midst of what was isn’t coming back and what will be isn’t clear yet. 

 

Saul/Paul found himself in this place.  He thought he knew who the enemy was ~ Christians ~ it was clear.  But then, God, who seems to delight in upsetting our apple carts goes and interrupts Paul’s perfectly planned ways of dealing with those people.  Saul/Paul must stew in his own un-knowing/blindness/less than perfectness/doesn’t have it all figured out yet for three days.  I often wish the path between disorientation and reorientation was only three days ~ because some days it feels like I have been living in that place for years now (perhaps my whole ministry!).  I wish I could shorten and smooth the distance between dizzying disorientation and revealing reorientation…but for me, often it takes more time than I would like.

 

Rewind and review the mixtape of your life ~ the past to the present ~ where have you gone through orientation to disorientation to reorientation?  I think in our church, we have done some of this work around our three covenants or right now we are engaging in this with our core values.  And the deeper truth is that this process is never one and done.  The story of faith is that we rinse and repeat this cycle like washing our hands.  Plus, we can be in orientation around one topic and disorientation around another topic and reorientation on a third topic ~ you can exist in all three spaces simultaneously just for frustrating/flummoxing funzies.  Good lord.  But the good news is that God can be found in all three.  You may even make a chart on a topic where you have gone through this or are in the messy midst of this right now.  Let the wisdom of this sing and simmer in your soul this day. Amen.

Meeting Paul Again

 

I grew up in the magical era of mixtapes.  In a time before you could easily make a digital playlist on your phone with a few touches of a screen, I would sit for hours by the radio listening for the moment when I could record a song, I liked onto a blank cassette tape.  God forbid I got called away by my mother to do a chore or use the restroom and risk missing the very song I was waiting for.  The struggle was real…and yes, my children think that I am a dinosaur when I talk about this.  Part of the power of making a mixtape was carefully curating songs to convey just the right message.  One of the ways to let someone know you like them was to give this as a gift ~ you would let the 80s hairbands of Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, and Warrant serenade your crush with falsetto singing and guitar solos.  Ah, the good ole days. 

 

Inspired by those mixtapes of my youth, in the coming weeks we are going to lean in and listen to some of the Apostle Paul’s greatest hits.  Paul is one of the most prolific writers in scripture, over half of the New Testament are his letters.  He defined and distinguished the faith in many ways that have left lasting, lingering impact.  While not all his writings warm my heart (oh, Paul can frustrate and flummox me), he also has a vision for the church that inspires and infuses me with what might be for our community and world today. 

 

Before we dive and dwell in his letters, I first want center on one part of his story.  Here is the conversion story of Paul (who was first named Saul ~ grew up faithfully Jewish ~ thinking of Christians as, “Those people!”)

Acts 9:1-9  ~~  Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”  The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.  Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

 

I read this story and think, “the more things change, the more they stay the same!”  People today still breathe threats against each other.  Advertisers and politicians know that the quickest way to rile up a crowd is to give them a common enemy and then offer him/herself as the only solution.  You see this on television ~ people who have dry, lifeless hair until the purchased Head & Shoulders shampoo.  Or in stump speeches that if the rival politician gets elected, might as well cue the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  Saul/Paul knew who the enemy was…it was those pesky Christians.  They were the problem, and he was the self-appointed sheriff to bring God’s justice.  Hold that last sentence because those words are still embraced and embodied in our world today.  Saul/Paul thinks he has it all figured out.  Until God knocked Saul/Paul flat on his backside, blinded him physically because Saul/Paul was already blind spiritually and emotionally. 

 

When you look back at your former self…the self of 10 years ago…what did you know then that now (in 2023) seems foolish?  What once was certain and now seems less so?  When you rewind and review the mixtape of your life, what song did you once dance to that now makes you question your taste in music?  As you hold these questions, don’t do this with guilt but with grace ~ God doesn’t smite Saul/Paul!!  As you hold these questions, don’t feel ashamed, but awaken to your unfolding nature of life.  How were you, “once blind but now you see…once lost but now am found”?  May these questions stir and simmer in your soul this day.  Amen.

Easter truth ~ With

 

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20b

 

Breathe in the presence of Christ with you right now, and exhale the voice that says it is all up to you…and you alone. 

Breath in the presence of Christ who embraces your faith and foolishness ~ certainty and doubt, and exhale all the definitions of faith that says you’ve got to be confident and in control.

Breathe in the unknown-ness of life…breathe out our deep desire to have a playbook.

 

God of Easter-ing faith, what are humans that You are mindful of us?  Why in the world does Jesus call us to be partners, did You see what I did/say/thought on Wednesday this week?  I am not sure I can disciple in the world today, with the news and drama and dysfunction…where do I start?  Yet, I know the first disciples didn’t have it all figured out.  They had faith and doubt.  They had moments of brilliance and bone-headedness.  They got it right and bumbled/stumbled/ fell flat/splat/on their face.  And if, You, O God can work with them, maybe You could work through me.  Help me.  Be with me.  Remind me that I am not alone.  The gift of the church, community, is a place to practice discipling with each other.  The gift of the church is a safe place to celebrate and say, “What was I thinking?!?”  The gift of the church is human size people, featherless bipeds, just like me.  Open me to how You still show up in the less-than-perfectness of this group art project called, “Life”.  And may I remember today you are with me wherever I am.  Amen.