Information

 

One of the ideas I have been working with recently is that in life, when we encounter an idea (written or spoken) for the first time, there is a continuum of information to inspiration.  For example, is a sermon trying to give you information or inspiration?  You are welcome to answer, “Yes” to that question ~ because my prayer is that there is both in sermons I offer.  Or maybe you find yourself leaning more toward wanting a sermon to give you just the facts about the setting and structure of the scripture passage.  Or maybe you prefer your soul to be awakened by what is said by the preacher.  The same can be true of reading the Bible, are the words we read on those razor thin pages with tiny print for information or inspiration?  The same can be true of a book or a lecture or a conversation. 

There are certain times in my life when I am looking for information.  A few Sundays ago, I preached about the joy of building IKEA furniture.  When I open the directions with the Ziggi-cartoon-like character staring back at me, I am not looking to be inspired beyond getting the dresser built.  Or when I want to know how many pieces of furniture are sold each year, I am not asking a philosophical question, what really is furniture?  I am simply curious about how many couches were sold in 2022.  Or when I want to know how hot it is going to be or what is happening in the tropics or the score of the latest game, I am searching for information.  There are times I go searching for data, not someone waxing poetically about mighty Casey at bat.  

At some point in our life, our own education becomes self-directed rather than prescribed by others.  What helps us keep growing is to ask the question, where am I curious?

Do I want to know more about medieval moats and what animals thrived in swimming circles around the castle?

Do I want to know more about Ukraine?

Do I want to know more about painting or sculpture?

I am not asking the questions above rhetorically, I pray you would ponder, where are you curious as we begin September?  Where could you use some more information, because the truth is that we never really exhaust all there is to know on any topic.  Just like you will never finish the internet, there is always some new insight or idea to build on the knowledge that exists.

One final question, where are you curious in your faith?  Do you want to know more about prayer, the Bible, worship, service, justice, caring for creation, embracing people who are different?  Please come talk to me.  I am fascinated to hear what is fascinating you.  May each of us continue, as school is now in full swing, to the life-long pursuit of encountering and engaging and exploring this world with all its beauty that can never be fully known.  Amen.

Honoring Labor Day

 

As we honor Labor Day today, I want to offer a prayer for the expansive and elastic definition of the word, labor.  The work of our hands, heads, and hearts may be something for which we are compensated monetarily, or perhaps we have a labor of love in volunteer work, or perhaps we pour out our energy/life in poems or paintings or art, or perhaps the calling that sets your soul stirring is connecting with others in caring ways.  Labor can include all the ways we share and shine our light in the beautiful uniqueness of being created in God’s image.  On this Labor Day, I want to give thanks to all the people who have been working on our sanctuary renovation this summer.  We have been blessed by hard working folks moving pews, breaking tile, preparing the floor, installing new T-Loop wiring, and laying new tile.  Our sanctuary is already blessed by the hands and hearts of those who are renewing the space.  We have also been blessed by hundreds of volunteer hours this summer, church members and friends who have pulled up and painted new baseboard; cleaned doors; removed hymnals; wiped down window ledges with layers of construction dust and countless other ways you have helped to share in sweat equity in this project. 

With gratitude, please pray with me.

Gracious God, we give thanks for the work of hands, heads, hearts, and our whole lives.  We give thanks to those who balance spreadsheets and weed gardens and inspire our living.  For frontline workers who help us check out at stores and deliver packages to our doorsteps.  For firefighters, police officers, social workers, nurses, and medical personnel who take care of those who are hurting.  For chefs who prepare meals we eat and people who make sure our water comes flowing from our facets.  O God, we are surrounded by people whose labor makes our life what it is. 

We give thanks for thousands of volunteer hours in the church, community, and across the country.  We give thanks for those who give generously of volunteer hours in hospitals and care facilities; for those who provide rides and read with students; for those who care for your creation on turtle patrol and give tours at Mote; for all the ways we can share and shine Your light of love in others lives. 

Pause for a moment to give thanks for one moment you shared the work of your head this week ~ words spoken or sung or silence shared or numbers crunched or problems discussed.

Pause for a moment to give thanks for one moment you shared the work of your hands this last week ~ made a meal or held another’s hand or pulled weeds or created a painting.

Pause for a moment to give thanks for a place you encountered and experienced God this last week ~ recall the space ~ the sights, smells, sounds, and sacred hovering.

Pause for a moment to give thanks for a place your heart grew this last week ~ a conversation had, or book read, or concert attended, or relationship where you were seen/loved for who you are.

You are God’s handiwork, the labor of love God is still crafting and creating.  For you, my brothers and sisters, on this Labor Day, I give thanks.  Amen. 

A Final Word from the Psalms

 

Here we are at the end of our time with the psalms as we start the month of September.  There is so much more we could explore and say about the psalms, but for now we will pause. I pray some of what you’ve experienced reading these mediations over the last month has been meaningful.  I do pray you continue to explore, sing, let these ancient hymns provoke and evoke what is roaming around within you.  Remember psalms are poetry.  I just read a quote from Mary Oliver, “I believe poetry is very old and very sacred.  Poetry wishes for community.  And that’s why, when you write a poem, you write it for anybody and everybody.  It is a gift to yourself, but it is a gift to anybody who has a hunger for it.”  Continue to let the poetry of the psalms feed you and nourish you.   A few weeks ago, I preached on the Doxology, which was written almost 350 years ago.  Doxology was meant to be the final word, nothing else to say after.  For now let the Psalms have the final word.  Sing with me the words of Psalm 103:

O my soul, bless God.
    From head to toe, I’ll bless God’s holy name!
O my soul, bless God,
    don’t forget a single blessing!

    God forgives your sins—every one.
    God heals your diseases—every one.
    God redeems you from hell—saves your life!
    God crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
    God wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
    God renews your youth—you’re always young in God’s presence.  Amen.

The New New Orientation

 

Over the last few days, we have returned to the framework of orientation (Psalm 1 or 127 or 131 or 133 or 145) to times when the old order collapsed, and you feel like you cannot determine where you are.  All feels like chaos!  These are psalms of lament like Psalm 22 or 77 or 139-143.  But then, there are psalms of reorientation and new order!  This is not a return to what was, but a new creation of what God is doing now.   One example is the final psalm 150:

 ^1-6 Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy house of worship,
    praise him under the open skies;
Praise him for his acts of power,
    praise him for his magnificent greatness;
Praise with a blast on the trumpet,
    praise by strumming soft strings;
Praise him with castanets and dance,
    praise him with banjo and flute;
Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum,
    praise him with fiddles and mandolin.
Let every living, breathing creature praise God!
    Hallelujah!

Augustine once said, “A Christian should be hallelujah from head to foot!”.  Note also that are not many external reasons given for the reason to let loose with praise to God.  When you read the words above it isn’t a long list of proof or evidence.  We don’t get specifics here!  As scholars say, this is a psalm when we are unfettered and lost in wonder, love and praise.  When was the last time you were lost in God’s grace, goodness, peace, and presence?  What if this doesn’t need to depend on the external scoreboard of life?  What if God’s goodness is always the current of life, but we have become adjusted to human’s way of living?  How do you or I or we get caught in a flow of faith that takes us in new directions we never saw coming?  How can hallelujah be the first word on your lip in the morning, the destination/direction throughout the day, and the last word you say before you close your eyes?  May these questions percolate and propel your life this day and in the days to come.

When Disorientation Interrupts

 

Yesterday we prayerfully pondered where God is at work in renovating your heart and where are you residing in the roominess of God?  We read how God longs to create order and structure, but we know that life isn’t always level or smooth!  Psalms 1 and 127 are both psalms of orientation, trying to give us a foundation on which our faith can stand.  But when the winds start whipping and whirling, we need to borrow words of disorientation.  Pray these words from Psalm 73,

^1-5 No doubt about it! God is good—
    good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
    missed seeing God’s goodness.
I was looking the other way,
    looking up to the people at the top,
    envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
    not a care in the whole wide world.

^6-10 Pretentious with arrogance,
    they wear the latest fashions in violence,
Pampered and overfed,
    decked out in silk bows of silliness.
They jeer, using words to kill;
    they bully their way with words.
They’re full of hot air,
    loudmouths disturbing the peace.
People actually listen to them—can you believe it?
    Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.

^11-14 What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?
    Nobody’s tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
    they have it made, piling up riches.
I’ve been stupid to play by the rules;
    what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that’s what—
    a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.

I love those first few verses; the juxtaposition of God is good all the time and all the time God is good!  But then, we open the paper or emails or have someone say something that hurts or see how good things happen to bad people!  How the rich get richer, those who have still take more resources from those who have little.  (I love that phrase how the “Pampered and overfed (are) decked out in silk bows of silliness…use words to kill us.”  The psalms could have been written yesterday!)

Go back and reread these words pausing where the Spirit guides you to linger on the words and when you sense you need space in God’s wisdom to explore what is being said.  Enter the room of this psalm with curiosity and openness.  Amen.

Which Room?

 

Yesterday, we heard the heartbreaking and soul ache of a people who felt abandoned and strong emotions of life stirring at the circumstances where the people of God were in exile.  This is a place many of us have been in our lives, an address where maybe you have or are receiving mail right now.  Carroll Struhlmueller says that psalms are like different rooms in a home.  A room where you can weep and a room where you can dance and a room where you can rest in comfort and a room where you confront who you are.  This connects to Psalm 127:

 ^1-2 If God doesn’t build the house,
    the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn’t guard the city,
    the night watchman might as well nap.
It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
    and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don’t you know he enjoys
    giving rest to those he loves?

^3-5 Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
    the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows
    are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents,
    with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don’t stand a chance against you;
    you’ll sweep them right off your doorstep.

This is what Walter Brueggemann would call a Psalm of orientation.  The words present a worldview where if you follow the rules and regulations all will be well.  “Your enemies don’t stand a chance!”  What I love about the psalms is that these words can be found just ten chapters before the words we heard yesterday.  Between chapters 127 and 137 the wheels fall off ~ the psalmist moves from orientation in 127 above to weeping by a pool of tears in Psalm 137 from yesterday.  Sometimes that is how quickly things can fall apart!  We think we are walking on sunshine and all is well, until we stumble and fall splat on our face or someone we thought was a our friend betrays our confidence. 

My question is which room of the house is God working on in your heart right now?  Are you in a room of dancing or mourning?  Are you in a room of care or concern?  Do you find yourself residing and remaining in one room more than others?  When and where are you finding rest in the room of God’s love?  Hold these questions as rooms God is working to construct and create ~ we do not labor alone or in vain, but with the One who has a hardhat and tool belt and isn’t afraid of a little dust.  May the psalms continue to help you explore and encounter God’s presence in these days. Amen.

Story of the Psalms ~ Part Two

 

I pray you have found the morning meditation series on the psalms meaningful, offering you some new insights, as well as provoking questions about these ancient hymns/poems/prayers of faith.  I pray you will continue to read the psalms in the days and months to come.  As we wrap up and wind down this exploration of the psalms, there are a few thoughts I’d like to share with you.  Eugene Peterson says that we can tend to think that religion is about the right clothes or polished prayers, and that what we often offer on Sunday is a carefully curated version of our best self.  God wants us to be honest.  In Psalm 137, the poet starts off with a lament:

 Alongside Babylon’s rivers
    we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,
    remembering the good old days in Zion.
Alongside the quaking aspens
    we stacked our unplayed harps;
That’s where our captors demanded songs,
    sarcastic and mocking:
    “Sing us a happy Zion song!”

When/where are you sitting by a pool of your own tears right now?  The setting of the Psalm is exile in Babylon where the people of God had been captured and carted off when a foreign empire had defeated the Israelites and took over Jerusalem.  They have left the Promised Land of their ancestors and are now in a foreign land under the thumb of a leader.  So, of course, they cry!  Eugene Petersons, “Tears are a biological gift from God, a physical and cathartic release of what is uneasy within us”.  Tears don’t show us what is wrong, but what is right and what we value, because at the basic level when we cry there is some unease within us or around us.  Tears show us where we hurt, which can also open us to what healing and wholeness would look like.  For example, I cry when I drop my kids off at college because I value the relationship.  I cry when read the news because I value God’s realm where ALL are received as beloved.  The last line is particularly poignant, the captors mock the people of Israel, treat them like they are playthings for their entertainment.  Where are you feeling pushed down or pushed aside right now?  The psalmist continues,

Oh, how could we ever sing God’s song
    in this wasteland?
If I ever forget you, Jerusalem,
    let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves.
Let my tongue swell and turn black
    if I fail to remember you,
If I fail, O dear Jerusalem,
    to honor you as my greatest.

Sometimes we don’t feel like we can sing or raise a song of praise.  Sometimes the most honest and heartfelt emotion is anger, which we hear in the final verses:

God, remember those Edomites,
    and remember the ruin of Jerusalem,
That day they yelled out,
    “Wreck it, smash it to bits!”
And you, Babylonians—ravagers!
    A reward to whoever gets back at you
    for all you’ve done to us;
Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies
    and smashes their heads on the rocks!

Um, wow, that takes a turn toward violence at the end, doesn’t it?  We pray the anger or hate because it is real and for this real emotion to find release.  In those places where hope seems not just foolish, but so distant and disconnected we can’t just deny or distance ourselves from the energy and emotion of anger that is within us.  Hold the words above close to your heart and let the images help you find your voice about the rivers of tears, the silence of songs, and the hurt that can turn to hate, all of which the Psalms say we can share with the Sacred.