Tag Archives: Lesser gods

Satisfied

Lent
March 18, 2019

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
   come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price.
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. –Isaiah 55:1-2

Water is necessary to sustain life. So how do we buy water when we have no money? Bread equals food also important for life.  Why do we spend our money for things that do not satisfy us?

I have a love hate relationship with food. A skinny, sickly child, I loved to eat all the wonderful food that is readily available on a farm but inherited a digestive system that did not always cooperate. Fast forward to adulthood and I suddenly found myself grossly overweight resulting in the need to totally revamp my eating habits. I find at times I hunger for something I cannot identify but searching in all the wrong places for that just right food does not satisfy and can hurt.

I do not think Isaiah is talking about food or water or even meeting the needs of those who cannot afford either. He is challenging us to rise above searching for a God substitute when God loves us as deeply as we can possibly be loved If we welcome God into our lives, God can and will satisfy the deepest hungers of our souls. There is no price for God’s love but our willingness to share our love with him.

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when I opt for lesser gods instead of responding to your wondrous 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.

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.

Soul Food

Living in the SpiritOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
November 21, 2015

Scripture Reading: John 18:33-37

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ –John 18:33-36

What does Jesus mean when he says my kingdom is not from this world? William Wordsworth addresses this very question in his poem The World is too Much with Us; Late and Soon*

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus** rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

We prefer money over trust in God with whom we are out of tune. We prefer to put our faith in ancient Pagan deities because they do not challenge us to be a part of the solution passing our responsibilities to others and forsaking the one true God even though that leaves us hapless and helplessly forlorn.

Prayer: Lord, touch our hearts with your love so that the hunger of our souls is nurtured with the food of Your table and not the comfort food of the world that is full of calories containing no nutrients. Amen.

*http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174833

**A Greek sea God that can tell the future but will change his shape to avoid having to. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus

*** Triton’s special attribute was a twisted conch shell, on which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. Its sound was such a cacophony, that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(mythology)

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 One with God

BUTTERFLYLiving in the Spirit
September 18, 2015

Scripture Reading: James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures….

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. –James 4:1-3, 7-8

Just stop doing the bad things that are harmful to you is easier said than done. Truly dealing with what drives us to do the bad things that are harmful for us is even more complicated. We pray for God to forgive us for whatever our laundry list of perceived sins are in the morning. We then go through our day doing those things over and over again. In the evening we pray again for God to forgive us. We repeat this endless cycle because we are holding on tightly to whatever is driving our behavior. We are serving lesser gods.

I use to think the prophets of the Hebrew Bible rather overdid the whole idol thing. It is one of their constants. I rationalized, however, these were ancient cultures who worshipped actual effigies and our monotheistic ancestors in the faith had a real challenge to introduce these people to the God of love. I have decided those prophets were as right for today as they were back then. We are wrong in not seeing how lives are misdirected by their constant desire for things that do not satisfy. Though they may not be made of stone, the things we crave are our idols.

God desires wholeness for each of us. The theological term for this is Atonement defined as a theological doctrine concerning the reconciliation of God and humanity and the means by which such reconciliation is achieved.* Seeking God and being truthful with God and with ourselves are the first two steps to getting our lives back from our own destructive ways.

Living for Jesus a life that is true,
Striving to please Him in all that I do;
Yielding allegiance, glad-hearted and free,
This is the pathway of blessing for me.** 

Prayer:
O Jesus, Lord and Savior,
I give myself to Thee,
For Thou, in Thy atonement.
Didst give Thyself for me;
I own no other Master,
My heart shall be Thy throne,
My life I give, henceforth to live,
O Christ, for Thee alone.** Amen.

* http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Atonement

**First verse of Living for Jesus by Thomas O. Chisholm. The prayer is the chorus of this song. See at http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Living_for_Jesus_Chisholm/

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.