Tag Archives: Separation from God

Heart Cleaning

Lent

March 17, 2021

Scripture Reading: Psalm 51:1-12

You desire truth in the inward being;
   therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
   wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
   and blot out all my iniquities. —Psalm 51:6-9

State basketball playoffs just finished in Oklahoma. One of our mixed-race girls’ teams apparently chose throughout the season to kneel in solidarity during the National Anthem’s playing as their response to racism. The play-caller for the game, not realizing his mike was live, made some crude and racists comments about their kneeling, which resounded through the gymnasium. The man blamed his off-colored inappropriate commits on his Type 1 diabetes. If sentiment were not already planted in our hearts, it could not be released from our lips or behavior. The girls went on to win the state championship in their class that evening.

God desires truth in our inward being, in our hearts. Lent is a good time for spring heart cleaning. Only we know what we harbor in our hearts. Hoarding ugly ways of thinking that are contrary to God’s practices may hurt others, but it definitely hurts us. It separates us from God. None of us are immune from racism or other isms. We cannot take for granted that our behaviors are appropriate. We must be intentional in searching our innermost being and be intentional about clearing out the debris that separates us from being the person God created us to be and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Prayer: Create in me a clean heart, O God,
   and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
   and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
   and sustain in me a willing spirit. –Psalm 51:10-12 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.

Decay from Within

Kingdom Building

September 30, 2019

Scripture Reading: Lamentations 1:1-6, 3:19-26

Judah has gone into exile with suffering
   and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations,
   and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her
   in the midst of her distress.

The roads to Zion mourn,
   for no one comes to the festivals;
all her gates are desolate,
   her priests groan;
her young girls grieve,
   and her lot is bitter. Lamentations 1:3-4

Everyone should have the opportunity to visit the decimated cities of antiquity. These once majestic places, with their tall pillars and ornate carvings and statutes of their gods and leaders they viewed as gods, are now lying in ruin, now bus stops for the tourist industry. A few years ago, as I walked through the ruins of Ephesus, I could almost feel Paul’s presence. I gained a greater respect for the massive mission he undertook to make disciples of all the world one place at a time. Paul traveled there in the mid first century. I wonder if anyone in that grand city had any idea that it would be destroyed in about two hundred years (262 AD) after his visit.

The history of the world is replete with stories of great and mighty empires being destroyed, often from decay from within exposing them to being overthrown by other empires. We do not learn from history. I guess we think we will be different. We do not accept that power corrupts and when unleashed greed multiplies exponentially destroying everything in its wake.

The lamentation above addresses the hardship of Judah when it was overtaken, and its citizens captured. History slices and dices what might have been, but the prophets mince no words as they squarely declare that we must face the consequences of our own actions, particularly those that separate us from God, a lesson that remains valid today.

Prayer: Almighty God, forgive us when we turn from your love and your wisdom and seek the lesser gods of the world. Help us to see you more clearly and let your light shine on the evil in the world that is so enticing to us. Grant us the courage to differentiate your love and power above that which temps us. 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.

Winnow/Filter

Jesus’ Ministry 
January 12, 2019

Scripture Reading: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ –Luke 3:15-17

I need a good winnower. Raised on a farm, I have seen the wheat shafts being separated from the kernels. It is the kernels from which we and other animals draw nutrition and strength.

Our lives need routine winnowing. I call it filtering as more people understand that process today than winnowing. We change our heat and air filters and are astounded by how much yuck they capture. Our cities filter the water we drink to take out harmful elements. We change air filters and oil filters and I do not know what else to maintain our cars in peak operating order. Christ cleanses us of those things that separates us from God.  In like manner we, I think, are called to winnow the world removing those things that are unjust in God’s eyes.

One of the most stubborn things that separates us from God are those prejudicial ideas that clog our thinking when we fail to love our neighbors as we love ourselves because we do not see our neighbors as being like ourselves. God put no limitations on who we are to love, and neither should we because all people are God’s children and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Prayer: Lord keep my filter clean so that I can love unconditionally 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 Me See Again

What do you needLiving in the Spirit
October 25, 2015

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:46-52

Many sternly ordered [the blind man] to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. –Mark 10:48-52

If we trace the events in the gospels that describe Jesus’ interactions with individuals he often asks the question, or some form of it, in our scripture today: What do you want me to do for you? It is the question he is always asking each of us. For most of us it is a really hard question to answer. The blind man already had the answer before the question came. He wanted to see again. What he most likely really wanted was to be self-sufficient again and to be whole but to attain such independence he had to see.

Jesus was a very practical mystic, I think. He understood the desires and dreams of the people. He did not condemn and he did not itemize sins. Most likely he knows what is separating us from God, but until we see the divisive parts of our lives we cannot turn away from them. Even when we face the truth about ourselves, it is very hard to change the habits of our hearts. God can enable us to change. I like to think of us as changing back to the person we were created to be in the first place before we allowed the world to reshape and remold us.

When I first read this scripture in preparation to write about it, I thought it included something about the man being blind from birth but that is in another gospel. Perhaps it was a different blind man in the other recounting, perhaps the authors just remembered it differently, or wanted to stress a different part of the story. We often run the four very distinct gospels together. I do believe it is important for us to also see that we are not called to discern what is separating another from God. The gospels’ variety of perceptions of Jesus are important to us today as we celebrate the beauty of God’s diverse world within the wideness of God’s love for all.

Prayer: Lord, I really don’t want to see my faults but I do long to be whole. Grant me the courage to see what I need to see to make wholeness a reality and make me a better conduit of your love for others. 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.

Communing with God and Others

YouMeGodLiving in the Spirit
September 6, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Matthew 18:15-20

 ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.

What does it mean to “sin” against another human being. Sin can be defined as missing the mark. I also think that sin is the state of being separated from God. So does that mean that when sin is used in conjunction with another human being it denotes times when we have missed the mark or times when we are separated from the other persons? What is the mark we are trying to attain between and among people and what does it mean to be separated from others?

 

In its simplest form missing the mark with another persons could indicate that some action or lack of action we have done involving another person was not life affirming and was perhaps even life negating. Ever have a three your old run up to you with a picture they have colored and say, “Look at my picture!” We smile a big smile and say, “What a beautiful bird!” Only to see the most dejected look cross his or her face as the child says, “It’s a horse.” We have missed the mark. Of course life among adults is more complex than that. Some need more encouragement than others, some wish we would just leave them alone. And how do we determine what might be a sin to me, but is not to my fellow Christian? I hear people declare things in the name of Christ that are totally alien to my faith. Is not being pressed from the same cookie cutter a sin?

 

I get what it means to be separated from God. But what might it mean to be separated from a fellow Christian. For me separation with God is not being in synch with God’s will. It seems to me that being separated from another person within the Body of Christ must also, of necessity, include some sense of separation from God.

 

Communion in the broadest sense of its term is what I believe Jesus is getting at in our scripture today. We need to talk with each other and we need to talk together with God. Probably a lot of the problem with being separated from another is that the other and we, ourselves, are projecting our will back to God and our human wills are markedly different, even at cross purposes, from each other’s wills and perhaps from God’s will.

Our goal is not to actually walk away from either God or the other. Indeed, our goal is to get in synch with God and then with each other. Remember Jesus socialized with both gentiles and tax collectors.

 

Prayer: Commune with me, O Lord, commune among us, O Lord, help us together commune with you. Make us whole, make us one. 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.