Monthly Archives: February 2016

Redeemed

CircumcismLent
March 1, 2016

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day. –Joshua 5:9

The scripture preceding this pronouncement describes that while in slavery in Egypt, the Israelites continued the practice of circumcision. During the forty years wandering in the wilderness the practice had been stopped. It does not say why. Perhaps it was deemed a health risks under such difficult situations or the Israelites had grown disillusioned with the sacred. Caring for an infant was, I am sure, a great challenge under such circumstances. Not performing the ritual act might have saved the extra efforts of care required.

Crossing into the promise land, finally reaching their destination and winning their right to claim it, Joshua reinstituted the rite. The response from God was powerful, God erased the disgrace of living in slavery.

Slavery has reared its evil head in recent years in our own country with sex trafficking. Young people are stolen and sold to wealthy buyers for their personal amusement. As a result, programs have been developed to help those being recovered to begin their lives over again. We have experienced once again the challenge of returning slave victims to wholeness. They too want to leave behind their shame from living a life for which they were not responsible.

As we work for justice for the victims of sex trafficking, we would do well to remember this proclamation of God to the Israelites for those who have been forced into slavery now are in great need of this same loving mercy that only God can provide.

Prayer: Lord, we place before you today those whose lives have been forever altered by forced slavery. We asked you to bless them and to renew their souls through your love. Bless us all in our work to put an end to this terrible practice. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

From Dependence to Self-Sufficiency

Today I ChooseLent
February 29, 2016

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year. –Joshua 1-12

It is a momentous event to witness a person, family, or whole segment of society move from dependence to self-sufficiency. It usually does not come easily and often accompanies a wide array of emotions including regrets from the past and hopes for the future. We experience a small taste of it when we celebrate a family’s acceptance of the keys to their new Habitat House.

Many years ago when I worked as a social worker with persons receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children, I walked the long journey with one mother who had become a mother too soon. When I met her she had three stair-step children all under the age of five and a long-gone husband. She had not completed high school and had no work experience. She was very intelligent, passed the GED test without any pre-study. She also wanted the best for her children but had never experienced that kind of love herself. She was fearful she would do something or everything wrong. We call it low self-esteem. I think I was the first person who had ever told her she was smart as that was not an important asset in her upbringing. She got a job at a new factory being opened in her home town, started at the bottom and quickly earned her self-sufficiency badge. I closed her case but a few months later she called me in a panic. She had been rushed to the hospital with appendicitis. She thought she was going to lose everything she had gained. I visited her the next day at the hospital where I was greeted with a joy-filled, tearful smile. Next to her bed was a bright bouquet of flowers from her co-workers. The births of all three of her children had been paid for through the Medicaid program. She had become use to the least treatment possible. She was amazed at the different way she was treated because of the wonders of her work related insurance and that bouquet of flowers.

We do need to help people in need to have the basics of life and more than anything else we need to enable them to become self-sufficient like those Israelites in our scripture today who cooked their first meal out of their own crops and no longer needed the manna from heaven.

Prayer: Lord, help us create a world where everyone has enough and no one has low self-esteem. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Our Journey with God

Perfect in WeaknessLent
February 27, 2016

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:1-9

Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”’ –Luke 13:6-9

Most young fig trees do not produce fruit for four or five years. Yet once they begin to bear they will bring forth fruit for many, many years depending on the weather. Is this scripture a discourse on patience? Is it a suggestion that it is wise to listen to one with more experience? Does it serve to discourage us from jumping to soon to judgment? All seem plausible.

It is interestingly set between a parable that in my study bible is headed “Repent or Perish” and one headed “Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman”. Are these stories included with it meaningful, or does it just capture random parables of Jesus to save them for posterity? I suppose both are possible.

It may be a bit fanciful on my part, but I tried to think what message having the three together delivered. The best I could do was this: If we know what we are doing is wrong, we should stop doing it, although that is easier said than done. We need to be patient with ourselves and rely on our “gardener” the Holy Spirit to nurture us and bring us to fruition. And even if we totally mess up and end up with a crippled soul God can and will, if we let God, heal our souls.

Prayer: God of Might and Miracles, bless us this day to living our lives to your glory, forgive us when we fail, nourish us on our journey, and accept our imperfect love until it is made perfect through you. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Restorative Justice

prison5Lent
February 27, 2016

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’ –Luke 13-5

Funny how we humans relate to the woes of others. The evening news is a mirror image of our societies quest to judge. We are told truly sad story of a “proper” family including a request for help, and people usually respond with great compassion, and that is good. Yet when told of a family member, of whom we all are, who has done some horrible crime, or not so horrible crime, we are quick to wish that person the worse possible outcome even though he or she is no less a child of God and may actually be in more need of our compassion than most.

Bad things do happen to good people and love can heal the most hardened criminal. Prisons have started programs where persons, with life without parole sentences, have been taught to train service dogs. The combination of the unconditional love of the dogs with which they work and the knowledge that once the dog leaves their training it will help someone in great need has an amazingly restorative impact on the prisoners involved. I wonder what impact the unconditional love of another human would have?

Prayer: Lord, you commanded us to visit the prisoner show us the way to bring restorative justice to every court room, jail, and prison in our land. Make us conduits of your love and justice to those caught up in the criminal system and make us strong advocates for those whom the justice system has failed. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Reaping God’s Crops

sowingseedLent
February 26, 2016

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. –1 Corinthians 10:12-13

As you sow, so shall you reap is an old proverb of unknown origin but perhaps based on Galatians 6:7 for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap in the King James Version. It is essentially what Paul says in our scripture today as he outlines incidents of folly people have brought on themselves. We do a lot of that.

How do we avoid sowing sorrow in our lives? So much of what we do that concludes with bad outcomes are misplaced anger or fear or other emotions. Somethings the anger or fear is merited but our reaction to it is not appropriate. Other times our emotions are based in investing ourselves in the lesser things of life, knowing full well that there is a better way. When we drink too much and drive is a good example. When we love our spouse and do not want that relationship to end but indulge in an extramarital affair because it just presented itself and seemed like a good thing to do at the time is another.

Curbing the beasts within us should be handled readily by applying a little common sense, a little self-restraint and yet we do not. When we let other things become our gods we invest the trust in them that is only real when invested in the one true God. Working out our relationship with God is the best way to order our whole lives.

Prayer: Lord forgive me when I let the lesser gods of the world entice me away from you. Hang in there with me, O God. Hold tight when I am tempted to fall. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Changing

darkness-miserable-songsLent
February 25, 2016

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-23

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. –1Corinthians 10:1-5

John tells us that Christ was with God at creation. Paul tells us here that Christ was the rock from which our ancestors in the faith drank in the wilderness. God has loved us ever since he created us. God loves us still and will forevermore. We seem to be the ones who take flights of fancy into wildernesses from which we cannot get out. And God even follows us into those dark places of the soul.

It is really, really hard to change. I remember a foster child whose mother was seriously mentally ill. Until he was about ten years old, he thought her behavior was the way all mothers acted. Chaos at home was his norm. As children they hid from attackers that were not present and dodged airplanes in their house that they could neither see nor hear. He had to relearn how to love. He did love his mother and I never questioned that she loved him and the other children. It was not the way they would experience love in the rest of the world and they had to live in the rest of the world and still love their mother as the person that she was. Tough challenge for a child. Tough challenge for anyone.

This child had no control over his world those first ten or so years. Most of us do have the option of making different choices than the ones we make. We can choose to wander around in a wilderness and whine about our situation or we can trust God to walk with us out of the darkness and into God’s light. It is not easy because as bad as our situation might be it is where we have established a level of comfort. Walking away from comfort is never easy. Paul is telling the Corinthians and he is telling us to step out into the light. God is always with us.

Prayer: Lord, we live in times that are viewed as dark and fearful. Reignite us as children of your light and let us show those stuck in darkness your way, your truth, and your life. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Being a Psalmists

psa-51-12Lent
February 24, 2016

Scripture Reading: Psalm 63:1-8

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
   my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
   as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
   beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
   my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
   I will lift up my hands and call on your name. –Psalm 63:1-4

This is my Psalm. I don’t really remember when I stumbled onto it at a time when it was exactly what I needed. Funny, I am sure it was a desperate time for me, but the desperation of the event has slipped into the annuals of not so significant. Yet, I have been blest by this Psalm ever since. I memorized it in the NIV version and thus it is awkward for me to read it aloud in any other version like this NRSV. I keep wanted to insert other words. I am also apt to do that with the verses I learned as a child from the King James. I still prefer the King James 23rd Psalm and John 3:16 flows readily from by tongue in its seventeenth century words.

While translation versions change, God does not change standing always ready to feed our thirsting souls. I, however, have changed in my willingness to seek God, now to trust without verification more often than not for I have beheld God’s glory. I saw it in the joy of the homeless woman testifying that she had found a home, a place to live; I have seen it in the trusting eyes of the children at my own church as they experience God; I hear it most often in music which speaks a language words cannot express; and I know it in the silence of deep meditation. Do you have a Psalm?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the gifts of the Psalmists whose words have stretched through the eons to open our hearts and minds to your love. Help us to be psalmists for others transferring to each person whose lives we touch the joy of your salvation. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

The Higher Way

original-2Lent
February 23, 2016

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts. –Isaiah 55:6-9

Love is a better way. It is the way of the Lord. So why are we constantly challenged to not be challenged to follow this better way? Why is it so easy to slip into lazy patterns of distrust, selfishness, greed, even hate? Why are we so disposed to judge people and rank people in our hierarchies of worth by color, economic status, gender, or sexual preference? Why do we have patterns of discerning beauty that excludes some traits and includes others?

I know that by faithfully doing my stretching exercises every day, I will experience less pain and be more agile than forty years of arthritis usually allows. That does not always translate in my doing the exercises. Indeed, there are times when life happens and I am truly needed elsewhere. I depend on my routine faithful stretching to carry me through those times. I also know that by faithfully practicing the presence of God in my life through doing the basic spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, worship, and service, I am fortified for those times in life when I must depend on the spirit to pray for me.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I turn to lesser gods for the nurture that I need. Sustain me in taking your higher way. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

What Satisfies?

SatisfactionLent
February 22, 2016

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
   and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
   listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
   my steadfast, sure love for David. –Isaiah 55:2-3

Good question: Why do we spend our money on things that do not satisfy? I do it all the time but not usually on things that other people disapprove, like smoking. I often hear criticism of poor people for wasting money on cigarettes. Some legislators routinely introduce bills to check welfare clients for drug use as an eligibility criterion even though studies show only a small fraction of persons on public assistance have ever tested positive for drug use. Besides the drug tests are very expensive. I recently replaced a broken indoor grill with one that was too small and was hard to clean. I got it very cheaply but did not think twice about buying the right size grill with removable fixtures that can readily be cleaned. I will donate the little grill to a good cause. Truth be told I probably did not need an indoor grill at all.

Grills and cigarettes are not the issue. The issue is searching for nurture and joy in things that cannot provide either. Eating is a necessity of life, and I enjoy good food as well as anyone, but in most instances the nurture from the food we eat comes as much from the love of people with whom we share it as it does from the vitamins and minerals in the food. I am sure the same could be said for sharing a drink or a cigarette.

Life satisfaction lies in our relationship with God and with sharing our love of God with one another. The rest is just the props that set the stage for our interaction. Keeping our priorities in order will help us lessen our dependence on that which does not satisfy.

Prayer:
Fill my cup, Lord;
I lift it up Lord;
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.
Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole*. Amen.

*Chorus from Hymn Fill My Cup words by Richard Blanchard see at https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/ns/340

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Caring Hearts

CaringHeartsLogoa-180x160Lent
February 21, 2016

Scripture Reading: Luke 9:28-43

On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, ‘Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.’ Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.’ While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

As disciples of Christ, what are we called to do or be? I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. I do not like to fail and I do not like to be assigned impossible tasks. Casting out a demon, healing a sick person, I consider to be beyond my grade level. I have cared for the sick, really enjoyed being a nurse’s aid in high school and college. I have worked with abused and neglected children and adults, and the mentally ill. I remember once being called to the local hospital where a 15 year-old had been brought by his parents. He had attempted to commit suicide and was at one moment saying he was possessed by the devil and the next saying that he was Jesus Christ. I sat with him through the night primarily to alert others that he might try to hurt himself again. I cannot tell you a time I have prayed more for insight or courage or whatever it would take to help him, including praying for intercession for him. Because of experiences like that, I do not believe Luke is describing Jesus requiring us to do the impossible in this scripture, I think Jesus is calling us to care.

This week as Pope Francis was touring Mexico he was greeting people along the way, specifically greeting and, I think, trying to bless a young man in a wheel chair when arms reached over the young man’s head grasping at the pontiff pulling him toward the crowd. I understand from the TV report that he said in Spanish “Do not be so selfish”.

It is amazing the miracles that have occurred over time in our society because enough people cared and enough people sought answers to the problems that perplexes our world. I was one of the test children when the first polio vaccine was administered. I got the saline solution so when the vaccine proved to be effective, I had to get all those shots again. That was hard to explain to a six-year-old. Selfishness, greed, hunger for power are epidemic today. God is still calling us, to care for one another.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for our selfish ways, infuse us with caring hearts. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.