Jeremiah 31:31-34
I have been known to utter the often misunderstood (even by myself) words, "It's all good." As in when someone shows me sympathy after some tragedy or failure. "It's all good!" Or when some conundrum confounds us as we survey the vast diversity of Christianity and humankind. "It's all good." There is an aspect of "Who cares?!" in those three words. There is also a happy hopefulness that somehow all things beyond our control and comprehension will be taken care of and come together in the end, kind of like how the disparate threads of a good story seem to go on in opposing directions, yet somehow the author tied everything together in a way that makes perfect sense (i.e. Harry Potter).
God has made it clear from very early on that all the crazy plot twists and turns in the tale of our lives and the history of existence WILL come together in the end in a way that is fulfilling to every development and chapter along the path. We are living this grand story of mythic proportions, in which God is both author and main character. His message to and through the prophet Jeremiah is one of good news. God will make things work out. We can't predict how because we are living in the middle chapters. Pick a good book or movie and find what's happening in the middle. It won't be good. The darkest times happen in the middle, though certainly by that point the goal is somewhat visible, if foreseeably impossible to reach.
God tells us there will be a time when we will not have to teach anyone about God because we will all know God... now that's cool! Then, It ALL will be good (and I can be justified in my use of the phrase)! Imagine: everyone knowing God... so much we won't be in need to spread this word! The world is divided right now (in Christianity and among Christians too) between the house of Israel and the house of Judah, whatever those symbolize for us (it matters not in the end). God will make his new covenant with both houses and they will become one again. All of us believers will be reunited and understand one another as we should. No more will we distort each other's intentions by claiming to know what we do not. God will forgive our pride and our weakness and embrace us into his large family.
It takes a tremendous level of faith to believe that all people will be united in God and that the distances that divide all of us and God will be crossed, but our stories speak to it. Human creations hail the truth of the divine story just as the Bible perfectly does so. The question that remains is how we will live out our part of the tale. Will we be a dark spot in the story that future generations will want to skip over, or will we with Christ live out his salvation in every way, a foretaste of what is to come...?
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
New Story, Same Pattern
Isaiah 43:14-21
I am so grateful to God for meeting me and forming this new discipline. As I met with God to discover this text and worship in prayer, he inspired me to all kinds of fantastic wisdom and joys through meditation, frankness, peace, and power.
Its amazing that this new turn of events in my personal devotional time coincided with the lectionary's emphasis on new beginnings. Isaiah reminds us of the fact that God is doing something NEW. In fact, God is eternal and infinite, so he is ALWAYS doing something NEW. Every moment is both old and new to God, who is outside time and yet created it and acts through it. His manner of redemption, constantly saving his people from dark powers (sin, death, evil, slavery, injustice) and bringing them to a Promised Land of joyful life (salvation, wholeness, liberation, freedom, deliverance), repeats itself endlessly in the lives of his followers. How is God doing something new in our lives? How is he creating the space for redemption and deliverance?
Its important to remember that while those who love God will be saved, others will choose other options, leading to destruction. In this passage, the Babylonians and the Egyptians are symbols for the fall of those who do not live out of love for God and enslave and persecute their neighbors.
Also significant is that it is those who live in the desert and are not usually the most pleasant of characters who honor God for his gifts of life. How often we expect these carrion-eaters and rough-looking individuals to be those God punishes, rather than those God lifts up.
It is a time for new things! Seek him and let go of the past. He will make a path through the wilderness to the living streams.
Do we accept the invitation to begin anew, or do we want to remain as we are?
I am so grateful to God for meeting me and forming this new discipline. As I met with God to discover this text and worship in prayer, he inspired me to all kinds of fantastic wisdom and joys through meditation, frankness, peace, and power.
Its amazing that this new turn of events in my personal devotional time coincided with the lectionary's emphasis on new beginnings. Isaiah reminds us of the fact that God is doing something NEW. In fact, God is eternal and infinite, so he is ALWAYS doing something NEW. Every moment is both old and new to God, who is outside time and yet created it and acts through it. His manner of redemption, constantly saving his people from dark powers (sin, death, evil, slavery, injustice) and bringing them to a Promised Land of joyful life (salvation, wholeness, liberation, freedom, deliverance), repeats itself endlessly in the lives of his followers. How is God doing something new in our lives? How is he creating the space for redemption and deliverance?
Its important to remember that while those who love God will be saved, others will choose other options, leading to destruction. In this passage, the Babylonians and the Egyptians are symbols for the fall of those who do not live out of love for God and enslave and persecute their neighbors.
Also significant is that it is those who live in the desert and are not usually the most pleasant of characters who honor God for his gifts of life. How often we expect these carrion-eaters and rough-looking individuals to be those God punishes, rather than those God lifts up.
It is a time for new things! Seek him and let go of the past. He will make a path through the wilderness to the living streams.
Do we accept the invitation to begin anew, or do we want to remain as we are?
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The One Who Showed Mercy
Luke 10:25-37
Once again, I am reevaluating my patterns of spiritual discipline. It hurts. I want to trust so much in the pattern I had set, but then that pattern loses its Spirit. We have to constantly re-evaluate our spiritual life, and one thing that frequently may need altering is discipline. I have been adding various things to my daily prayer time and it has become tedious and tiring. Starting tomorrow, which happens to be "A Special Time for New Beginnings" in the yearly lectionary, I will cut back my daily reading to ONE scripture in an attempt to internalize it and use it to speak with God through prayer, study, blogging, and copying. Additional readings may be used, but are not necessary. I hope that God will condescend to this new pattern and give life, rather than the system restrict me with its guidelines. This is good. This is not a failure. Its natural. All I need is Jesus...
In other news!... The Good Samaritan... what a story!
Its a great account of Jesus clarifying the Law and calling out through parable someone trying to find loopholes. Some guy tries to get around "Love your neighbor as yourself" by asking "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responds through a story of a guy traveling who gets beat up, ignored by those who are supposed to be good role models looking out for the people, and finally saved by a despised Samaritan and cared for without any repayment. "Who was the neighbor to the man beaten up?" asks Jesus. "The one who showed mercy," replies the sneaky man. Interesting that the man doesn't say, "The Samaritan." Does he not want to admit that one's enemy could also be one's neighbor and worthy of such care and concern? Nonetheless, Jesus builds on that statement with, "Go and do likewise." Go and show mercy like the Samaritan did. We are called to show mercy to people we don't know, people we despise or who despise us, people we may not be able to repay us, people who may cause us to have setbacks and discomfort (or worse). Yet, how often we fail to stop our plans and address the one in need.
In a sense, we were all once the beaten man. We have all been attacked and left for dead in one way or another. Maybe we are there right now. We need someone to show mercy. We need someone to show us grace and love. God serves as our Good Samaritan so often... He comes across us practically destroyed and puts us back together again and more, often for nothing we have done, but just because its who God is: love. And yet, we despise God, we ignore him, we pretend our very existence is not owed to his unconditional love.
Because God first loved and had mercy on us, we ought to love and show mercy to our neighbors. Who is our neighbor?
...
Stop. Look around. That's your neighbor. Catch yourself throughout your day, your week, your life and ask yourself "Who is my neighbor?" Then stop, look around and remember... "These are my neighbors."
Once again, I am reevaluating my patterns of spiritual discipline. It hurts. I want to trust so much in the pattern I had set, but then that pattern loses its Spirit. We have to constantly re-evaluate our spiritual life, and one thing that frequently may need altering is discipline. I have been adding various things to my daily prayer time and it has become tedious and tiring. Starting tomorrow, which happens to be "A Special Time for New Beginnings" in the yearly lectionary, I will cut back my daily reading to ONE scripture in an attempt to internalize it and use it to speak with God through prayer, study, blogging, and copying. Additional readings may be used, but are not necessary. I hope that God will condescend to this new pattern and give life, rather than the system restrict me with its guidelines. This is good. This is not a failure. Its natural. All I need is Jesus...
In other news!... The Good Samaritan... what a story!
Its a great account of Jesus clarifying the Law and calling out through parable someone trying to find loopholes. Some guy tries to get around "Love your neighbor as yourself" by asking "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responds through a story of a guy traveling who gets beat up, ignored by those who are supposed to be good role models looking out for the people, and finally saved by a despised Samaritan and cared for without any repayment. "Who was the neighbor to the man beaten up?" asks Jesus. "The one who showed mercy," replies the sneaky man. Interesting that the man doesn't say, "The Samaritan." Does he not want to admit that one's enemy could also be one's neighbor and worthy of such care and concern? Nonetheless, Jesus builds on that statement with, "Go and do likewise." Go and show mercy like the Samaritan did. We are called to show mercy to people we don't know, people we despise or who despise us, people we may not be able to repay us, people who may cause us to have setbacks and discomfort (or worse). Yet, how often we fail to stop our plans and address the one in need.
In a sense, we were all once the beaten man. We have all been attacked and left for dead in one way or another. Maybe we are there right now. We need someone to show mercy. We need someone to show us grace and love. God serves as our Good Samaritan so often... He comes across us practically destroyed and puts us back together again and more, often for nothing we have done, but just because its who God is: love. And yet, we despise God, we ignore him, we pretend our very existence is not owed to his unconditional love.
Because God first loved and had mercy on us, we ought to love and show mercy to our neighbors. Who is our neighbor?
...
Stop. Look around. That's your neighbor. Catch yourself throughout your day, your week, your life and ask yourself "Who is my neighbor?" Then stop, look around and remember... "These are my neighbors."
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Salvation and Wholeness
John 1:10-13, 4:39-42
Salvation. For me, the word has a nice ring to it. It's has finality, eternity, power.
Wholeness. I like it, but its more vague. It has freedom, inclusivity, comfort.
Among the many words debated in churches and seminaries, salvation and wholeness are often interchangeable, at least in their common usage. Salvation hearkens back to biblical texts of victory over an oppressing force. One who has salvation has been saved. Specifically this could refer to any incident of being rescued from something, or to the center point of the Christian life, Jesus saving us from sin and death. Redefining our lives in light of this is to be Christian.
Wholeness hearkens back to "Shalom," a Hebrew word with a variety of meanings in English, principal among them "peace" in a more all-encompassing way: peace in our souls, peace in our relationships, peace between nations, and peace with God. Wholeness tends to focus on those times when we do not feel all together, the way we were meant to be, like we lost something along the way. We need to get back to that Image of God we were created in the likeness of.
Salvation is including in my understanding of wholeness, which is God's plan, but wholeness should ever be a blanket term to downplay the salvific work of Jesus Christ. Certainly these terms, like any terms can be used in a variety of ways and my experience with them determines my opinions of them. I like salvation because it is the language of tradition, of the Bible, and is therefore trustworthy to a great degree, though what it means to be saved is not always spelled out and that is a sad thing. Words like "salvation" come to have no meaning because they are thrown about so much without a meaningful context. I like wholeness because it brings the goodness and light of God into every area of existence. God's will is not confined to the saving forgiveness of individuals that turn to God's grace, but radiates from that centerfold event into all life. Unfortunately, wholeness can also be used to focus of the self, rather than God. For me, to be saved is to have a savior: it is God-centered. Jesus is the focus. For me, to be made whole is to move from feeling inadequate to feeling fulfilled: it is self-centered. My feeling of incompleteness is the focus. Both are important. Both should be about Jesus.
Thank God for his many gifts: of salvation from sin and death, of wholeness in being the people God made us to be, and the relationship we have with Jesus, whose words are much better than ours, and whose love is holy, just, and never-ending.
Salvation. For me, the word has a nice ring to it. It's has finality, eternity, power.
Wholeness. I like it, but its more vague. It has freedom, inclusivity, comfort.
Among the many words debated in churches and seminaries, salvation and wholeness are often interchangeable, at least in their common usage. Salvation hearkens back to biblical texts of victory over an oppressing force. One who has salvation has been saved. Specifically this could refer to any incident of being rescued from something, or to the center point of the Christian life, Jesus saving us from sin and death. Redefining our lives in light of this is to be Christian.
Wholeness hearkens back to "Shalom," a Hebrew word with a variety of meanings in English, principal among them "peace" in a more all-encompassing way: peace in our souls, peace in our relationships, peace between nations, and peace with God. Wholeness tends to focus on those times when we do not feel all together, the way we were meant to be, like we lost something along the way. We need to get back to that Image of God we were created in the likeness of.
Salvation is including in my understanding of wholeness, which is God's plan, but wholeness should ever be a blanket term to downplay the salvific work of Jesus Christ. Certainly these terms, like any terms can be used in a variety of ways and my experience with them determines my opinions of them. I like salvation because it is the language of tradition, of the Bible, and is therefore trustworthy to a great degree, though what it means to be saved is not always spelled out and that is a sad thing. Words like "salvation" come to have no meaning because they are thrown about so much without a meaningful context. I like wholeness because it brings the goodness and light of God into every area of existence. God's will is not confined to the saving forgiveness of individuals that turn to God's grace, but radiates from that centerfold event into all life. Unfortunately, wholeness can also be used to focus of the self, rather than God. For me, to be saved is to have a savior: it is God-centered. Jesus is the focus. For me, to be made whole is to move from feeling inadequate to feeling fulfilled: it is self-centered. My feeling of incompleteness is the focus. Both are important. Both should be about Jesus.
Thank God for his many gifts: of salvation from sin and death, of wholeness in being the people God made us to be, and the relationship we have with Jesus, whose words are much better than ours, and whose love is holy, just, and never-ending.
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