Tag Archives: Change

Dealing with Change

Living in the Spirit
July 16, 2018

Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
–2 Samuel 7:5-9

Children’s hospital was in the midst of major construction when I first went to work there. The social work section was moved from place to place because moving us only disrupted staff. Patient care always came first.  We understood this and became rather skilled at making do in crowded small places. The building plans made provisions for a nice space eventually where every social worker had a small but private office. We delighted in the day we were moved from one of those tiny spaces to our new offices. As the supervisor of this staff, I got a slightly larger office and soon discovered that all my staff was often in my office when they were not working with patients. We were all having difficulty accepting our newly found privacy. We had a good laugh about the challenges of change, even good change, and gradually staff grew to love their own offices finding ways to use them to provide better services while maintaining esprit de corps.

Our whole beings must adapt to change. That is also true when our calling as God’s servant shifts to new avenues of service. David’s call to shepherd the people of Israel had not changed. He was very successful in leading them from wars to “green pastures.” What do servants of God do in green pastures? The focus changes. Rather than resting on their laurels so to speak David and the Israelites needed to take the time to discern their new purpose within God’s plan.  Nathan sagely carried this message to David.

Jesus told a parable about a very successful farmer whose crops exceeded his storage. He thus set out to build bigger and grander barns. But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’ (Luke 12:16-21) The story of Joseph, son of Jacob, looking forward to a likely famine in Egypt stored grain for later use. Motives matter. Being righteous and just in our behavior matters. Maintaining a constant connectedness with God through regular practices of spiritual disciplines are essential.

God’s work will never be done until a world ruled by love exists in full fruition for all God’s people.

Prayer: God, as we attain one goal, help us to see our next steps in developing a world ruled by love. 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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Cleaning our Spiritual Filters

Living in the Spirit
June 15, 2018

Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  –2 Corinthians 5:11-17

I call it cleaning our mental (spiritual?) filters. We take in information, cultural norms, and beliefs recording them in our minds as shortcuts to our ways of being. They are helpful when we do not have to stop and think of each step in every process before we complete it. A good example is when a courtesy such as  “Thank you” comes out of our mouths automatically on cue.  We may not remember the repeated reminders our parents used to instill such a reaction in our bank of automatic responses.

Occasionally we need to clean those filters. We need to consider two possibilities that would call us to clean our filters. First our original inputs may need to be updated with new understandings, and second, we may have cluttered our filters with ways of the world that are inconsistent with the ways of Christ.

In the first half of the 19th century, some of my ancestors were taught Manifest Destiny* which held that the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. Spreading democracy and capitalism does not in and of itself sound like a bad thing. Doing it at the expense of nations of indigenous people was alien to the recognition that all people are created in the image of God and we are called to love, want the very best for, all our neighbors.

Dust of what was common five generations ago about how we treated persons of other colors remain in our memory banks having been passed down from parent to child. While we most likely would feel uncomfortable if we were suddenly swept back in time to share in a discussion with our relatives in 1845 about their attitudes toward persons of color, we may still carry some residuals from their influence. Finding those particles of prejudice and clearing them from our filters is necessary in our successfully fulfilling our call to be the Body of Christ in the world today.

Prayer: Lord, gift us with the intentionality we need with your help to clean our spiritual filters. Amen.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Change

Living in the Spirit
May 26, 2018

Scripture Reading: John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? –John 3:1-10

Are humans capable of changing their perspectives? Are we hardwired to do the things we do and believe the things we believe, or are we shaped by our environment? Social scientist, theologians, and others have been debated these questions for years. The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. The problem in discerning how we got to be who we are is that the social environmental seeds are planted early in our lives. I call myself a cradle Christian and I can trace that faith heritage back generations. At some point in my life, I had to choose intentionally to become a Christ follower for that relationship to be meaningful. Unlike with Paul who had a remarkable experience encountering Christ, mine occurred over time wrestling with what I gleaned from my family and intersecting it with what I learned from study and life experiences.

Intentionality, I believe is the key to changing beliefs and behaviors that are no longer valid interpretation of how God’s love manifests itself in our world. For example, I do not perceive any substantiation for racism in any of Jesus’ teachings or behaviors. Yet, racism has threads that trace back to faith communities. Reweaving our human tapestry to be inclusion takes a lot of hard work in prayer and intentionality. C. S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves tells the story of having a pesky neighbor who was a thorn in his flesh. Yet, he knew God expected him to love her. He decided the best he could do was to pretend to love her, to be intentional about caring for her in a loving way, until one day after an encounter with her he realized he had learned to love her.

None of us like to admit we are blind to how our behaviors may be perceived by others. We may have been carefully taught that some are not equal to us. Until we see ourselves in the light of Christ we cannot change the behaviors and beliefs that overwhelm our ability to love like Jesus.

Prayer: God of Love, create in us clean hearts and give us the courage of intentionally overcoming that which holds us back from loving like Jesus. 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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Let Clean Hearts and Minds Prevail

Lent
March 6, 2018

 Scripture Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’ Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

 Having grown up on a farm, I learned to respect snakes from an early age. Rattlesnakes were the most common poisonous snakes in my area, but we also had water moccasins, copperheads, and cottonmouths. I also learned that all snakes were not poisonous and that snakes were an important part of our ecosystem. My guess is the Israelites were well acquainted with Egyptian snakes but had to learn about the snakes of the Arabian Desert as they escaped from slavery. Dealing with the unfamiliar is challenging. I am not sure what to make of Moses’ solution to the problem. I do know that when our world changes we often must find new solutions to old issues.

Jesus asks the following question to his listeners:

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

I thought about what Jesus said when I heard the youth, who survived the Parkland, Florida School shooting, speak so eloquently about the need to find a new solution to gun violence. Perhaps the verse popped into my mind because the lectionary reading dealt with snakes. Though I never think such thoughts are mere coincidences. God is calling all of us to search deeply into our souls and do what is right, not politically correct, not what will get someone more financial support for the next election, and not because we think our personal rights are paramount to the detriment of others. I do not have the answer, and it is a complex issue, but before we take on the task of figuring it out we must get our hearts and minds aligned with God and then carve out a right and just solution.

Prayer:  Lord, create in us clean hearts and minds to see issues from your viewpoint and to reshape our society to follow your ways ruled first and foremost by love. 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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Family of God

One in ChristLiving in the Spirit
October 2, 2015

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,
‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
   in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’ –Hebrews 2:10-13

The quote in our scripture today is taken from Psalm 22:22. We are probably more familiar with the first verse of this Psalm for it was the words Jesus quoted from the cross: My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Apparently the early church saw Jesus in all of this Psalm, which ultimately ends in oneness and justice for all God’s people whom Jesus viewed as his brothers and sisters, the family of God.

Yet it seems we as God’s avowed followers, are further apart than ever. We clump together in silos of our own making defining God in terms that fit our needs, fill our hungers, and in the short term quiet our fears. We need to let God out of those tubes. It is time for a rebirth in and through God toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of which Jesus taught. We want more and more and are never satisfied, are over-sated and still empty, and are letting our fears of change drive us to long for things we thought once existed but never did.

If ever we needed a savior, it is now. Praise be to God we have one. We must get to know him for who he was, is, and is to come. We may be surprised at how very much we will find Jesus Christ is exactly what we needed all along.

Prayer: Lord, forgive me for defining you in my image. Remold me and make me like thee divine* so that I may be a part of the solutions to our separateness not a cause. Amen.

*From the hymn Are you Able by Earl Marlatt  See at Http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/r/aryeable.htm

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.

 

Dealing with Change

BluetoothEastertide
May 11, 2015

Scripture Reading: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

So one of the men who have accompanied us throughout the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.’ So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. –Acts 1:21-26

It is that time of year when my church, which is congregationally governed, elects new officers and elders, deacons, and deaconesses. Just a few years ago we went through a process of reorganizing our governance system primarily to reduce the number of meetings people were having to attend but also to shift the time commitment of our membership from governance to ministry.

It is hard to give up familiar ways, and any changes that are made in any organization must be accompanied with transparent and consistent communications. One of the greatest challenges facing the church and other organizations is the many varied ways we now communicate that may cause age isolation, if we fail to cover all the basis. I just spent time connecting my cell phone via Bluetooth to my new home phone system. I have stubbornly attempted to allocate my cell phone to my personal safety and communications needs, but have discovered that the rest of the world does not recognize my designated use. Once the number escaped my control, it morphed into everyone else’s designations. It took missing many calls and text messages causing me to hurt feelings and miss important meetings for me finally to give up trying to control it. I, however, do not want to constantly be checking several devices thus when my old home system bit the dust, I invested in one that could keep all my messaging together that is until the world changes again.

The disciples in our scripture today, recognized the need to reorder their organization to make it fit the new life situations in which they found themselves, and to continue the ministry Jesus has set before them. We have the same calling today. We must make decision together that always work to support that calling and that may require adjusting our lives in ways we never imagined to fulfill the trust Christ placed in us.

Prayer: Lord, you gifted me with the ability to be steadfast, guard me from taking the next step into stubbornness when it may imperil my service to you. And thank you so much for whoever writes those step by step instructions: push menu, press the down arrow, and select Bluetooth when I do not have a clue what Bluetooth is. 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.

 

God’s Perspective

Information OverloadEpiphany
Celebration of God
Manifested in the World
February 2, 2015

 Scripture Reading: Isaiah 40:21-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
   Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
   and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
   and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.  — Isaiah 40:21-23

Isaiah is challenging God’s people to have perspective. The people he was addressing were seeing the trees and not the forest. Problems grow insurmountable when they are all that we can see. Isaiah gives us a glimpse of God’s view. This is truth for today just as it was truth those many centuries ago.

The peoples of the earth seem to me to be running scared. Part of this is cause by the contagion of fear that happens when bits and pieces of news travel like electricity from one group to another. Our reaction in the United States to the recent Ebola case diagnosed on our shores was part wise learning from previous error as most medical facilities reviewed their protocols for dealing with contagious diseases, but it was part hysteria. Living in a world of instant information and a growing need for instant gratification contributes to both unjustifiable overreaction and the sense of not being able to do anything about everything so we do nothing at all.

The good news is that God created all beings to adapt to new environments. Just as the printing press changed the transmission of information some 700 years ago and the world changed because the masses gained greater access to knowledge, so too will we adapt to all that is changing about us. The thing we need to hold on to is that God is the one sure constant in our lives and that is all that really matters.

Prayer: Lord, give us glimpses of your perspective when we are blinded by the issues that beset us. Help us grow in spirit and in truth so that we might be sources of strength too. Amen.

The Rock

ChangeLiving in the Spirit
October 29, 2014

Scripture Reading: Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37

Some wandered in desert wastes,
   finding no way to an inhabited town;
  hungry and thirsty,
  their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
  and he delivered them from their distress;
  he led them by a straight way,
  until they reached an inhabited town. — 107:4-7

Have you ever driven into an unfamiliar area and, become hungry while watching the gas needle edge ever so much closer to that big “E” and begun to wonder if you will ever find a restaurant or service station? The first time I drove from Oklahoma to the east coast down I-40, I had never encountered so many trees blocking the view beyond the road. Oklahoma has a lot of wide open spaces in its landscape. The trees were beautiful but I could not tell where there were places to get gas or food. It was the first time that I had seen highway signs that gave some indication that there were actually places to eat, get gas, or spend the night up ahead. They were needed because I sure could not tell just from scanning the horizon. Now I think I might be lost if I forget my cell phone and do not have access to GPS coordinates that will guide me quickly to exactly what I need, most of the time.

Is that how Moses felt while wondering in the wilderness; how it feels to totally trust in God’s guidance? While we today may think we have the earth well mapped with locational directions a few clicks away, entering the territories of cultures and religions, differing systems of government and economies, and differing socio-economic neighborhoods can be just as daunting as being lost in the wilderness. All kinds of fears crop up: Fears of inadequacy to meet the challenges, fears for safety, fears for loss of self-esteem, and fears of change. We are living in a time of change that is probably more pronounced than the reformation or the industrial revolution. Technology and communications has advanced so quickly that we now can get a nightly report of how many new Ebola cases have occurred in what area of Africa since yesterday.

I am reminded of an old hymn, In Times Like These by Ruth Caye Jones
In times like these, we need a Savior
  In times like these, we need an anchor
  Be very sure, be very sure
 Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock

The Good News is that we have just such a Savior.

Prayer: We trust in you, O Lord, help our lack of trust. 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.