Tag Archives: Oneness

Becoming One

God's childrenAdvent
December 14, 2015

Scripture Reading: Micah 5:2-5a

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
   who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
   one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
   from ancient days.

Therefore he shall give them up until the time
   when she who is in labor has brought forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall return
   to the people of Israel.
And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
   in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
   to the ends of the earth;
and he shall be the one of peace.

 If I counted right, I have 42 first cousins on my father’s side of the family some of them around my father’s age. I have two first cousins on my mother’s side. Therein, lies the difference in a larger clan and a smaller clan. Funny, because I was raised nearer to my father’s family, I know that massive flock of 42 better than the two from another state. They lived about three times the same distance from where my family lived as Nazareth is from Bethlehem. We, of course drove, rather than walked or road on a donkey, to visit. We made the trip a couple of times each year, often at Christmas. My Dad’s clan rented one of the buildings at the fair ground for its family reunion. My Mom’s family fit nicely in my grandmother’s house. Bethlehem was the ancestral home of King David and it is surprising that it was a small clan. How many wives did Solomon have?

Micah is taking us back to the roots of Israel scattered throughout the known world described as lost tribes. Micah foresees the children of God reunited as one again and led by one coming from a very small clan, one without a natural force of relatives from which to form a mighty army. Micah understands the breadth of God’s peace and nurture as the strength of God’s people. We should also.

Prayer: Lord, help us invest our lives in being a part of your peace and your nurture as we welcome all of your children to your reunion. 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 Power of Love

Power of loveAdvent
December 5, 2015

Scripture Reading: Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, –Luke 3:1-3

Luke apparently felt it was important to establish the exact timing of John’s entrance onto the stage of the coming of Jesus based on Luke’s assessment of those who were thought to hold power at the time. A Roman Emperor, a territorial Roman governor, a Jewish ruler, and influential religious leaders all made the list. John, the Baptist, apparently did not put much stock in such leaders. His call was for the people to repent to turn around, to receive forgiveness for the world was about to change before their very eyes.

I cannot remember a time in my life when it has been more important for common people to take up the message of turning around, receiving forgiveness, and taking up the task of changing the world through the power of love not war or any violence or power or wealth. Those of us who live in the USA actually already have the avenues in place to make such a move. The real question may be whether we truly believe love is stronger than fear and more powerful than violence. I would challenge us today to wonder if we truly want the very best for everyone in the world or if we want to reserve just a little more for ourselves than some others. This challenge comes because the answer to the first question about love is answered in our response to the challenge.

The sad truth is that as long as any of us wants to be better than others of us, all of us will be worth-less.

Prayer: God whose image is imprinted in every heart of every person on this earth, teach us to love each other. 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.

Running and Seeking

run for GodAdvent
December 3, 2015

Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:3-11

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. –Philippians 1:9-11

Learning on the run is what most of us have been doing all our lives. We see it in the face of infants when the Aha! moment strikes and their brains record, “so that is how I do that.” And then they often try it over and over again to make sure it stays in their brains, I suppose. We don’t think about it much as we get older but we still learn or, I hope, I am still learning.

The challenge is to actually learn and keep on running. Our call from Christ is an engaged and active call. Yet here we sit in the midst of Advent waiting. What is engaged and active waiting? Pregnancy certainly is. The future mom supported by the future dad exercises, eats right, reads everything they can find on nurturing children, and counts down the days until the birth. We follow that same course as we tread the path with Mary and Joseph pondering the miracle of birth, wondering exactly who this expected child is and will become.

Mary and Joseph’s child came and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. He told us that we were to be actively engaged in preparation for the full fruition of God’s Kingdom. We are still required to learn on the run to grow in God’s truth and to manifest God’s love to the ends of the earth. We may stumble occasionally, even fall, but we never run alone and Christ is always their right beside us teaching through his love.

Prayer: Lord, instill in each of us the desire and ability to seek your truth in all of our running to serve 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.

Cleaning Filters

strong-and-weak-judgment-filtersAdvent
November 27, 2015

Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. –1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

I have this thing about the filters we all have in our brains that shape our perspectives based on our culture, our life experiences, our gender, and many other factors. Sometimes we hold on to filters we no longer need. Sometimes our filters get cluttered with trash. I routinely pray for God to help keep my filters clean because some of those things may be getting in the way of my loving others. I also occasionally need to pray to let dead filters go. I think these are most appropriate prayers and will continue to lift them to God, most likely for the rest of my life.

It struck me recently that such influences are very complicated. I am called to love others whose filters may be full of lent and debris or out of date also. What is my role in interacting with them? How do I love past the barriers that divide us and love into wholeness and oneness? How do we abound in love for one another?

We cannot overflow with love unless we are well connected to the source of love itself: God. For God models through Jesus Christ the ways of love that exceed all bounds and can enable us to live such love when we maintain our own relationship with God.

Prayer: Lord, help me to see past cluttered filters in others and see the potential that lies behind them. Help me to keep the same clutter from my own filters. 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 Shifts in Life

Arch_of_Titus_MenorahLiving in the Spirit
November 14, 2015

Scripture Reading: Mark 13:1-8

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’ –Mark 13:1-2

Scholars believe that the book of Mark was written about the time of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem between 66 CE and 74 CE during the first disastrous Jewish-Roman War. The war itself, but particularly the loss of the temple, was a paradigm shift of great proportion. Think the American Revolution. The temple loss marked the beginning of the end of Christ followers being a sect of Judaism, and the end of temple worship. Survival was a driving force. As we see refugees pouring out of the middle east today, we get a glimpse of life in the last quarter of the first century during the establishment of the faith of Christians. Christianity did not only continue to exist it thrived.

Jesus’ warning about the transitory nature of the institutions we build still speaks to us today. I traveled through Turkey last year and was entranced by the various archeological sites I visited. As I walked through them I tried to imagine what life must have been like in such places. Recently as I was preparing a travelogue about my trip, I was struck by the fact that I could not tell one set of ruin pictures from another. Thankful that my camera’s memory had filed them in order of the dates they were taken, I was able to piece my presentation together by matching the trips itinerary to the dates of the picture files.

While our lives are tied in fond memories related to our church buildings, favorite holiday services, even the orders of worship, our life with Christ is not to be institutionalized. We do serve a living Savior, one who moves through the various shifts in our lives, major and small, and is with us through it all. What a wonderful Savior he is.

Prayer: Lord, our world is in such a mess it seems and in our day and our time we know instantly when terror and tragedy strike. Your love is the one constant that feeds our ability to respond as you taught us to love others. Keep our love fresh and alive as we journey toward your kingdom. 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.

Provoked to Love

LOve worksLiving in the Spirit
November 13, 2015

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 10:19-25

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds. This sentence struck me as rather odd. It would have made more sense to me to simply say “let us provoke one another.” The act of considering makes me envision the vultures setting in the tree in the cartoon movie Jungle Book shrugging their wings and one saying “What do you want to do tonight?” with another replying “I don’t know what do you want to do?” over and over again until “tonight” is lost. Church meetings operate like that at times. Calling a meeting to consider how to provoke ourselves seems a bit overkill, but we do it very well. We probably would identify a laundry lists of ideas and then rank order them from the ones that seem most plausible to the least. Our work would be recorded in the minutes but we probably would never get around to actually provoking anybody although the planners might try to love and do a few good deeds themselves. How many meetings have you attended over the past couple of decades designed to find ways to increase attendance? Is your attendance up?

The truth is none of us like to be provoked. The Greek word translated provoked is paroxusmos* and means a provocation which literally jabs (cuts) someone so they “must” respond. I think the author of Hebrews is recognizing that human nature prefers not to have its equilibrium disturbed. As followers of Christ when we fall into a steady state that does not include love we must enable each other to love as Christ loved and trust in his promise that his love will conquer the world.

Prayer: O Love that Will not let me Go, prick my conscience when I stray from loving as you love, forgive me, and set me back on the path toward your kingdom. Amen.

*http://biblehub.com/greek/3948.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.

Making Enemies Footstools

the-real-enemyLiving in the Spirit
November 11, 2015

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 10:11-14

And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’, and since then has been waiting ‘until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.’ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

This is a curious scripture, exactly who is Jesus expecting to make his enemies a footstool for his feet? Jesus came to earth God incarnate, demonstrated the way of God, taught those who chose to follow his way how to show others the way, and in so doing sacrificed his own live to make God’s kingdom a reality. So, who were those enemies that were getting in the way blocking it from being followed by all?

Some of the religious leaders of the day were so caught up in their own self-importance that they were identified by Jesus as stumbling blocks for others. Some like the rich young ruler wanted the benefits of the way but did not what to make the investment of himself necessary to attain them. Some, within the disciples, jostled for roles of importance rather than being servants to all. Sounds a lot like today doesn’t it.

Loving God and loving one another is a lot harder than it sounds. It takes our getting out of the way of other people’s progress toward God. It takes the investment of our whole being: body, mind, and soul. It takes humility and hunger for righteousness. Jesus left us with all the tools all the resources we need to bring about the Kingdom of God including his abiding presence and guidance but it will only happen when it is the most important thing in our collective lives.

Prayer: Lord remold and make us not your enemies but your disciples, guide the work of our hands and the love of our hearts toward the fulfillment of your Kingdom. 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 Other

family-treeLiving in the Spirit
November 3, 2015

Scripture Reading: Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.’ Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David. –Ruth 4:13-17

You just never know what you might find while researching your family tree. I think that is what makes it so much fun. I must admit, I come from a pretty vanilla family on all sides throughout the generations. I think I have one horse thief but I come from several long lines of hard working, church going, family-centered pioneers. No King David’s yet.

Besides being King David’s great grandmother, Ruth is one of four women listed in Jesus’ family tree according to Matthew 1. One of the more frustrating realities of doing genealogy is the loss of the identities of women among some ancestor groups. I have found it almost impossible to identify some of the maiden names of my female ancestors who were born before the 1850 census when all people in families, including the children, began to be listed. Why do you suppose it was important to the writer of Matthew to list just these four women? Two of them were foreign including Ruth. All of them dealt with trouble in their lives. The writer apparently wanted us to at least know this much.

How do we ostracize people today? How do we by our customs and traditions make people less than not equal to? And how do we overcome identifying the other as the other?

Prayer: Lord, it takes years and generations to form us into the people we become. Ideas of what is right and what is wrong are passed on to our descendants based on what seemed real at one time but may no longer speak the truth today. Help us discern wisely what we carry forth in our lives that is true and just and shed ourselves of those ways of being that are not. 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.

Turning Ideals into Reality

pay-it-forward-2Living in the Spirit
November 1, 2015

Scripture Reading: Mark 12:28-34

Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbor as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question. –Mark 32-34

One of the hardest things, I think, in being a follower of Christ is to accept fully and completely that God loves us no matter what. Particularly for those of us who live in the United States where we thrive on competition, we think, if we just could figure out what to do and do it better than anybody else, we will be worthy of God’s love. In all honesty, it is true, but it is also true that if we did not set ourselves apart from others, God will still love us. And it is equally true that God loves all those people who we think we have excelled.

Apparently the scribe as told in Mark understood what Jesus was saying. Burnt-offerings and sacrifices were the center of the Jewish faith from its beginning. Confessing that loving one’s neighbor was more important even then this was saying a lot. Jesus’ follow-up said even more. He said that when we have all achieved this ideal of loving our neighbors as we love ourselves the kingdom of God will be the norm across all the earth.

Love is contagious and life changing. It spreads from one person to another and perhaps infects a few who realize its presence in that process. It can start when we begin to treat all people as equal. We declare it in our governmental documents, but even the earliest ones really did not mean equal to include the slaves or the indigenous peoples of this land. Today there remain outlier people in practice, even though the documents have largely been updated to mean everyone. The people of God are called to turn ideals into realization.

Prayer: Lord, make us lovers of all souls and the earth and all that is in it. Teach us what it means to love you in the process. 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.

Dead Works

purposeLiving in the Spirit
October 30, 2015

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 9:11-14

For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! –Hebrews 9:11-14

How do we identify dead works? Are they the routines we do through life whether they are accomplishing their purpose or not? Did they actually ever have a purpose? Are they something we inherited from our families or work or school that we do without thinking? Are they perfectly good activities that are not gaining the results desired?

I have been through a lot of management classes as a government employee trying to make government operate more like private business. The people who press these issues are missing one important ingredient: whether it is in private business’s mission statement or not its sole purpose is to make a profit. That singularity of purpose makes it easy, for example to walk away from a store, fire all the employees, and open another store somewhere else or drop the production of a product because it did not sell well but might have been of high quality even better than anything else like it.

The sole purpose of government is to provide for the common good. In a recession, while the economy takes a nose dive, public assistance programs increase, sometimes markedly, while their income source, tax collections, goes down. Government does not have the luxury of just walking away and saying we will see you when the economy turns around. I think we also would agree as tax payers that we want the best bridges for the long-trim rather than a trendy one that will have to be replaced sooner than later and hopefully before it collapses beneath our car’s weight.

Our purpose as children of God is to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Anything that separates us from that purpose is dead works. The challenge is to understand what it really means to love and then do it.

Prayer: Lord, you set examples of your love on page after page of our Bibles. Help us discern how your examples work in our world and then help us do it. 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.