Month: December 2017

The Joy of Possibility

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Readings: Psalms 24; 150, 1 Samuel 2:1b-10, Titus 2:1-10, Luke 1:26-38

“For nothing is impossible with God.”

So concludes the angel Gabriel when he tells Mary she will be the mother of the long-awaited messiah, and that her cousin Elizabeth, thought to be barren, will give birth also.

Do we believe Gabriel’s claim?

It’s easy to doubt. We don’t always get what we pray for, even when those prayers are frequent and fervent. We are witnesses to terrible tragedy. People we love get sick and die. Addictions destroy lives. Anger destroys families.

And yet…

People forgive loved ones for doing terrible things. Submission to a higher power restores sobriety to the hopeless. Terminal diagnoses are defied. Survivors of terrible tragedies make peace with their enemies, rebuild their lives, and inspire others. Each of these things at some point seems like an impossibility, but they all happen. Certainly not every time, or even as often as we would like, but they do happen. And only through God’s grace.

Advent reminds us that in the darkest times, our God creates possibilities. Jerusalem had been under Roman occupation for over 60 years at the time of Christ’s birth. Several self-proclaimed messiahs had already died trying to win the freedom of the Jewish people. Then an angel appeared to a young girl of no significance, and announced the impossible. Even if we aren’t sure about the whole angel-virgin-manger story, the truth of a Messiah who upends expectations and continues to free us until this very moment seems impossible.

The impossible is not just the highly improbable. The impossible is something our minds and spirits can’t even conceive. A messiah who conquers his enemies by being crucified? Not on the radar. A kingdom where the last are first and the first are last? Not something we’d plan for.

Our God is a God of inconceivable possibility. He is with us in the midst of our suffering, which itself is a seeming impossibility. Mary did not wait to rejoice until God’s promise was fulfilled – she began when the possibility was revealed to her. Surely this joy was not without its own terrors for a young girl whose pregnancy would raise questions and even hostility. Even in the face of fear and suffering, let us rejoice because God is creating possibilities beyond our imaginations.

Comfort: Nothing is impossible with God.

Challenge: Watching the news and hearing about world events can be very disheartening. Try to spend as much time looking for news about possibilities as being fed news about tragedy.

Prayer: Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit. From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see the right. (Psalm 17:1-2)

Discussion: Have you ever experienced something you would have thought impossible?

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Peace as Perspective

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Readings: Psalms 90; 149, Zephaniah 3:14-20, Titus 1:1-16, Luke 1:1-25

Pondering the universe generally elicits two responses: awe at its grandeur, and a sense of insignificance. In Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wind in the Door, when human characters learn to let go of limited concepts of time and space they can converse with stars. In the scale of the infinite universe – and an infinite God – size and distance are irrelevant so humans and stars are equally important. If that’s not mind-bending enough, they meet within a mitochondrion, thousands of which can exist inside a single human cell, to formulate a plan to save the world. The novel teaches that none of us are insignificant, but none of us are solely responsible for history.

When an angel told Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, that his elderly wife would conceive a child who would herald the messiah, Zechariah did not believe. As a result, he became mute until after John’s birth. Zechariah teaches us that insisting on our own limited view of things makes us powerless in the face of the future. Fortunately John believed in God’s long term plan, and trusted in something greater than himself until his death.

God plays a very long game. Martin Luther King Jr. may have said it best: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Our efforts may seem to make little difference, but from an infinite perspective, a small kindness and a great accomplishment are not very different. It is the accumulation and interaction of these kindnesses and accomplishments that matters. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, we add our own light to the sum of all light. On a small scale light moves quickly, but across the galaxy it travels for many thousands of years and the star that generated it may have burned out before we ever see it. So it is with our contributions to the world: they may not be fully understood until long after we have burned out, but our light goes on.

Today’s struggles do not define us. Like mitochondria each of us is a tiny part adding life to the eternal body of Christ. Such perspective adds to the sum of our peace.

Comfort: To an eternal God, stars and humans and grains of sand are equally significant.

Challenge: Read Psalm 90, noting the eternal perspective of the psalmist.

Prayer: Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands. (Psalm 90:16-17)

Discussion: Have you ever been involved in a long-term project, perhaps one that continues long after you stopped (or will stop) being part of it? What did that feel like?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!

Peace as Mourning

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Readings: Psalms 102; 148, Genesis 3:8-15, Revelation 12:1-10, Reading John 3:16-21

Jewish mourning rituals are structured and lengthy. For up to a year later, depending on who has died, life is conducted differently. Loved ones help create space for the grieving process by being quietly present for it, rather than trying to make things better.  Anyone who has been in the receiving line at a funeral can tell you most words meant as comfort are anything but. Yet most modern Christian mourners get a funeral and a few days off work, after which our culture tells us to push through it as quickly as possible. We don’t grieve well.

Mourning is not simply being sad. It is not depression. It is the processing of our emotions. When we put on a brave face, the effects of grief will be miserably prolonged. If we choose suppression over healthy mourning, grief remains trapped below the surface only to emerge unexpectedly in endless drips or powerful gushers we are rarely equipped to handle. Mourning permits us to experience the full depth of our loss so we may eventually be at peace with it. The end of a Jewish mourning period signals a new beginning, a reconciliation with our changed reality.

Death is not the only loss we need to mourn. A sense of identity shredded when we lose a job; disillusionment in institutions we once respected; relationships broken beyond repair; a sense of security crushed by world events; younger, healthier bodies; hopes and dreams beyond our ability to realize: mourning helps us let go of these things. The weight of carrying them slows us down until we lag far behind the peace and joy in the life still available to us.

When the psalmist says:

My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my skin. (Psalm 102:4-5)

he knows he must fully engage with his grief or be forever burdened with it. Advent is a time for recognizing how God mourns a lost humanity, and anticipating the new beginning he sends us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Comfort: Mourning is the mill that grinds grief into peace.

Challenge: Whatever you currently need to mourn, give yourself space to feel your grief while you read Psalm 102.

Prayer: As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God. (Psalm 40:7)

Discussion: When you experience grief, do you allow it to wash over you or do you put up defenses against it? Why?

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Peace as Action

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Readings: Psalms 24; 150, Amos 9:11-15, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 13-17, John 5:30-47

In the musical Rent the character of Mark sings: “The opposite of war isn’t peace; it’s creation.” The narrow definition of peace as merely the absence of destruction is turned on its head in a story about art and artists, but it has more universal application.  True peace is not something we passively experience; it is something we do.

After World War II, the United States initiated the Marshall Plan to help a devastated Europe recover economically. This aid included former enemies Italy and Germany, as well as neutral countries like Iceland. At the same time the U.S. oversaw the reconstruction of Japan, including a security arrangement that still exists today. These decisions were not altruistic on the part of the U.S. Leaders understood simple withdrawal from conflict was not the same as peace, which requires an ongoing effort. They understood peace as doing justice.

If we want to have peace – personal, interpersonal, or international – in our own lives, we can’t rely on outside forces to retreat from conflict and leave us alone to our apathy. Acts of creation and generosity can transform enemies into allies, battlefields into sources of shared harvest. To have peace, we must do peace.

For all his message of doom, the prophet Amos does paint a picture of what the peaceful Kingdom will look like:

they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. (Amos 9:14)

It is not that these activities are possible because we live in some conflict-free vacuum we label peace, but that these activities are peace and create the conditions for its survival.

We all have conflicts. What cities of friendship have we left in ruin? What vineyards of opportunity have we trampled? What refugees of family have we driven away? We can choose to simply retreat from these battles, but let’s not mistake indifference for peace. Rather, let’s regroup and prayerfully consider how we might do peace. When we do peace rather than wait for it, the harvest will be abundant.

Comfort: We are not helpless in the face of conflict. We can rely on God to show us how to live peace.

Challenge: Explore organizations in your local community which work toward peace. Look for ways you might contribute.

Prayer: Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. (Psalm 25:17-18)

Discussion: Where have you settled for indifference instead of peace? What can you do about it?

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Love Dangerously

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Readings: Psalms 90; 149, Haggai 2:1-9, Revelation 3:1-6, Matthew 24:1-14

Love hurts.

More than a pop song cliche, it’s a truth which is unpleasant and unavoidable – unless we opt out of love altogether. Whether we cause the pain or feel it, every relationship is eventually tested. Marriages struggle. Children leave home. Children fail to leave home. Friends let us down. The songs are usually about romantic love, but it’s true even of the agape love practiced by followers of Christ.

How many times heard someone say (or said ourselves), “I just don’t want to be hurt … again?”  Maybe they were cheated on. Maybe they were taken advantage of. The reasons for hurt are endless but here’s the thing: we already hurt, because we are already broken people in a broken world. There is no “again;” there is only “still.”

The pain of love is different from the pain of brokenness. The pain of love is like a bone being set, a wound being drained, or the pain of pouring out our secrets to a therapist. It is a productive pain and if we choose to avoid it, healing eludes us.

When Christ asks us to love God and to love one another, he promises us a spiritual comfort but does not promise us a life free of pain or danger. To the contrary, he warns us our choice to follow him into a life of agape love will cause many to scorn us and possibly put us in harm’s way. That harm isn’t always physical. Sometimes it is an injury to the spirit that occurs precisely because we have chosen to help others. Loving leaves us vulnerable.

Like our bodies, our spirits have an instinct to recoil from that which hurts us. As the Great Physician, Jesus tells us the remedy often means taking a greater risk and putting ourselves in danger of more pain – not to become victims or masochists, but to improve our spiritual health. Eventually love mends the breaks and wounds in our spirit, but we must take risks.

Love hurts. Not loving hurts more, because improperly set spiritual bones leave us as hobbled as physical ones.

Comfort: It may take a long time, but loving others heals our own brokenness.

Challenge: For an example of love that valued risk over comfort, read this perspective on Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Prayer: Loving God, give me the courage to love, even when doing so is dangerous. Amen.

Discussion: Different people have different methods of expressing love and recognizing when they are loved. What are yours? (If you’re not sure, maybe take a look at the The 5 Love Languages site of Dr. Gary Chapman).

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!

Love Anyway

/ JJS / 4 Comments

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Readings: Psalms 102; 148, Haggai 1:1-15, Revelation 2:18-29, Matthew 23:27-39

Jesus told the Pharisees: “I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town” (Matt 23:34). A little later he added: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (v 37). Through his frustration, the underlying message is: love keeps trying until there is nothing left to do.

This is not so different from the frustration we feel when a child’s battle with substance abuse leads to repeated betrayal. When a friend’s mental illness seems determined to isolate her from others. When a sibling refuses to forgive family disputes.

To a lesser degree we may feel it when we do volunteer work and recipients seem less than grateful. Or when they seem to take advantage of our generosity. Or when sincere but fumbling attempts to support a disadvantaged group are met with suspicion or criticism.

One natural response to perceived rejections is to give up on loving, perhaps telling ourselves to save our love for where it is appreciated. Another response, one much more difficult and requiring sincere humility, is to examine whether we could try to love them differently. God extended all possible chances despite knowing the outcome. Should we do less?

We can’t cure another person’s addiction or illness. We can’t force people to express gratitude in a manner acceptable to us. We can keep reaching out in love to a person drowning in suffering, until he either accepts our hand or is pulled beneath the waves. God knew the Jewish people would not heed his cries until it was too late, but love compelled him to keep trying. If we love someone thinking we can save them, we will inevitably be disappointed. If we love someone with an agenda that serves our ego more than their need, we will burn out. When we love someone without expectation, we become a steady light in the darkness.

Comfort: We are not responsible for how others respond to our love; only to love them anyway.

Challenge: When you feel your love is rejected, consider doing something differently.

Prayer: I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (Psalm 16:8)

Discussion: When you feel your love is rejected, redirect it.

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Love Generously

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Readings: Psalms 18:1-20; 147:12-20, Amos 9:1-10, Revelation 2:8-17, Matthew 23:13-26

Have you ever wondered why gold is such a valuable currency? It boils down to a few reasons: it doesn’t corrode or react easily with other substances; it’s rare but not too rare; it melts at a high enough temperature to be stable but not so high as to be unworkable; and it is an easily identifiable color. Most importantly, it is valuable because we agree it is.

When Jesus chastises the temple officials by calling them “blind guides” because they teach the faith without comprehending it, he says they value oaths made on the gold in the temple more than oaths made on the temple itself. He asks: “[W]hich is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred?” (Matt 23:17). Knowingly or not, these leaders had agreed on what they valued most, and they chose poorly.

Our time and energy are our most precious currency, each minute a coin we choose to spend in some way. What have we agreed deserves our investment? The treasures we gather up in life are only valuable if they are made sacred by the love and faith surrounding them. If our money doesn’t go toward helping those in need, if our home is not open to those seeking shelter, if our larders are locked away from the hungry … of what value are they? If their only value is in the having, then we are like dragons afraid to leave our cave because the world might sneak in and steal our hoard. Gold is nothing but a heavy, beautiful shackle until we bring our treasure to the temple where it can be converted to the limitless currency of love. We must spend it to make more.

True agape love does not corrode and is not eroded by circumstance. It is rare, but not so rare we can’t mine it within ourselves. It is malleable enough to suit many needs, but stable enough to be reliable. People know it when they see it. Perhaps the whole world does not agree on its value, but within the temple of Christ’s body,  it ransoms the world.

Comfort: Our treasure is not measured by what we keep, but by what we give away.

Challenge: If you don’t already do so, consider pledging a small monthly amount to a charity of your choice (other than or in addition to your church).

Prayer: Loving God, I commit my treasures to your service. Amen.

Discussion: What types of investment do you consider to be wise ones?

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Love Selfishly

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Readings: Psalms 50; 147:1-11, Amos 8:1-14, Revelation 1:17-2:7, Matthew 23:1-12

In the midst of adversity, we may find it difficult, almost impossible even, to practice love. Imagine being a widow or beggar during the time of Amos, when the religious leaders were “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat*” (Amos 8:6). Consider what it must have been like for the faithful of Israel when their leaders put heavy burdens on the people while never inconveniencing themselves (Matt 23:4). Why would the common people bother loving their enemies when their own leaders preached righteousness and practiced hypocrisy? Can we imagine? Or do we call that “the evening news?”

Yet in both eras (and may we assume today as well?) through his prophets and the messiah God cried for redemption through justice, mercy, and charity – the practices of agape love.

One stumbling block to practicing this type of love is the notion that the recipient should deserve it. We may understand on an intellectual level that all people are deserving because they are children of God, but part of us chafes at the idea that not only have some people not earned it, but they have squandered any right to it. Vindictive ex spouses. Violent criminals. Hate mongering racists. Duplicitous politicians. In human terms, none of these people may merit mercy, but the divine demands it.

It can seem so very unfair. But is it?

What if the command to love our enemies – foreign, domestic, and familial – isn’t just about the dignity of our enemies? What if it is also about the state of our own souls? In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche said “be careful when you fight monsters lest you become one.” Fred was no friend of Christianity, but he wasn’t wrong. When we allow feelings of fear or anger to override the convictions of our faith, and when we sacrifice those convictions of peace and love to protect our money, our homes, or even our lives, we have lost what God values most in us.

We love our enemies not only for their sake, but for our own.

* When the harvest was taken, the scraps were supposed to be left in the field to be gathered – or “gleaned” – by the poor and alien in the land.

Comfort: We are not burdened with determining who deserves our love.

Challenge: For an entire day, when you wish to complain about an enemy, instead say a silent prayer for them.

Prayer: O Lord, teach me to rely not on my limited capacity to love, but upon your unlimited promise of love. Amen.

Discussion: Do you pray for your enemies? If so, how? If not, why not?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!

 

Love Obediently

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Readings: Psalms 33; 146,  Amos 7:10-17,  Revelation 1:9-16,  Matthew 22:34-46

When a Pharisee lawyer asks Jesus which is the greatest commandment, he replies:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. and a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

– Matthew 23:37-39

This famous passage is one of the most direct answers Jesus provides. These two commandments are simple, yet they lack specificity. Exactly how are we supposed to love our God and our neighbors? Or for that matter, ourselves? Is God commanding us to feel a certain way, and if so … is that even something we can control?

We like to say that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37), but we can also be assured God does not ask us to do the impossible. In the case of these commandments, “love” is not expressed in feelings; rather it is demonstrated in attitudes and an actions. Loving a creator we can’t see or hear may be challenging, but we can maintain attitudes of praise, gratitude, and a healthy kind of fear.

Regarding neighbors, we can love someone in a Christian sense without feeling any affection for them at all. We demonstrate it by respecting all persons as beloved creatures of God, offering charity when needed in a manner that respects the dignity of the recipient, and doing the hard work of forgiving offense. Some people will say being nice to someone we don’t like – maybe the opinionated brother-in-law who sucks all the air out of the room on Christmas Eve – is a form of hypocrisy, but that’s only true if we speak of or do ill to them when they aren’t around. The agape love Jesus calls us to is indifferent to our actual feelings. Otherwise, it’s not sacrificial at all. We’re allowed not to like someone. We are called to love them anyway.

And the “ourselves” part? It is perfectly fine to have boundaries and expectations that we will also be respected. Sacrificial love is about the betterment of others, not the abasement of ourselves. Sometimes we suffer because we love, but we don’t love because we suffer. To love is to approach the world and its inhabitants as though God has entrusted their care personally to us … because God has.

Comfort: Our loving actions can heal our unloving hearts.

Challenge: Pay attention to whether your emotions are dictating your actions, or vice versa.

Prayer: Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you. (Psalm 33:22)

Discussion: Do you feel you can love someone without liking them?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!

Love Equally

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Readings: Psalms 122; 145, Amos 7:1-9,  Revelation 1:1-8, Matthew 22:23-33

Mosaic law contained rules about marriage which we consider unusual today. If a man died childless, his brother had to marry his widow. The intent behind this law was to protect the widow from poverty and disgrace as she would have no means of support. In a modern society, where women hold jobs and own property equally with men, this is an outdated and rarely practiced idea.

The Sadducees were a Jewish sect who did not believe in the resurrection as Jesus taught. Fearing his influence on the people, they tried to trip him up to diminish public opinion of him. They thought the following scenario would do the trick.

A man with six brothers died childless. Per the law, his brother married his wife. The second brother also died childless, and she married the third brother, and so on until eventually she had married  all seven brothers. Who, the Sadducees asked, would be her husband in the resurrection?

Jesus told them they were asking the wrong questions, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

That must have been a showstopper. Until very recently most people did not marry for love, but there have been rules about fidelity and ownership for a long time. The concept of women who did not need to rely on men was almost unthinkable. Jesus was saying, “I know the rules, but the current social structures are not the equality God ultimately has in mind for you.” While not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment, it sent the message that once the world was made anew, women would be independent.

Today in the western world, the equality shared legally (if not practically) by men and women makes love-based marriage the norm. Viewing others as equals – as fully human beings – makes other types of love possible as well. Empathy requires us to identify with another person, and if we don’t think of them as equal, that empathy is stunted. The church has traditionally promoted the values of faith, hope, and love as described in 1 Corinthians, but the Greek word (agape) for the type of sacrificial “love” intended can just as legitimately be translated as “charity.” English doesn’t really have an equivalent word. Maybe that’s why we struggle with understanding current social structures as anything other than vertical, with the “haves” obliged to show charity to the “have nots.”  When we realize we are no different, giving and receiving charity are no longer sources of obligation or shame, but acts of sharing between children of God as any loving family might perform.

Empathy and equality release us from the slavery of convention into the freedom of love.

Comfort: God loves you equally to kings and paupers, friends and enemies.

Challenge: What groups of people do you have trouble empathizing with? Make an effort to get to know them.

Prayer: The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. (Psalm 145:9)

Discussion: What prejudices do you struggle with?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!