turn and remember

The lessons from the Hebrews scriptures for the Sundays in Lent all focus on the covenants God has made with people throughout history.  A covenant with Noah, never to flood the earth again.  A covenant with Abraham and Sarah, for a baby in their old age.  A covenant with a community of people in the wilderness, for the flourishing of life based on trust, respect, and honesty. A covenant with whiners and grumblers, for healing. A covenant for the future, that God will write the law on the hearts of people.

Lent is a time for remembering that God makes covenants: one-sided contracts, one-sided deals, one-sided gifts requiring nothing from the other side.  God sets a bow in the clouds as a reminder to God that a promise has been made. Scripture tells us that when God sees it, God remembers the covenant made long ago, never to devastate the earth with flood waters again, and exercises restraint.

Lent is a time, not only for remembering that God makes covenants, but also for remembering that we are blessed by those covenants. 

We can also see the bow God set in the clouds. We can see it and remember some things about God. We might do well to remember that God, instead of destroying us, remembers us, sees us, and graces us.

We are seen by the One who sees all. Our cries are heard by the one who hears all. We who are small are beloved by the One who is grand.

We might also notice that God’s covenants are for us, in our specific need. The one who has just been through a devastating flood is promised safety from floodwaters.  The ones who have known a barren adulthood and old age are given fertility.  Those who are reckless are given order.  Those with chaos and carousing are given healing.

Lent is a time to turn to God, with our specific need, and remember.

the things god has minted

When the Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap Jesus into saying something damaging, they asked him about paying taxes to the emperor. "Is that right or not?"  "Should we or shouldn't we?"

Jesus responded by asking to see a coin.  Turning it over in his hand, he asked one question and then another.  "Whose image imprinted here?"  "And whose title is this?"

"The emperor's."

"Then give it to the emperor.  And give to God what belongs to God."

Jesus asked them, "Who minted this coin?  Who made this money?"

God isn't much interested in the things that are made by emperors, and surely not impressed with their money -- or any money for that matter.  See, money is nothing more than an agreement amongst people about the value of copper disks and pieces of paper.  Those coins and bills represent agreements that facilitate our bartering, trading, and commerical activity. And, while helpful, they tend to spawn heightened greed and hoarding.  Desire for money misdirects the hearts, minds, and vocations of many.

Jesus says, "Give it all to the one who made it.....And give to God the things God made."

Which should give us pause.  If the emperor mints money, what does God mint? What does God make? What belongs to God?

When I try to answer that question, I come up with interesting answers.  God invented joy.  And shalom.  And understanding, wisdom, might, compassion.  God minted generosity.  And faithfulness. Family, creativity, hope. And love.  God minted mercy.

If I attempt to give back to God the things God has minted, I find myself in a whole-body, whole-mind, whole-spirit, whole-belonging, whole-wealth endeavor. A ten-percent tithe is not what God desires.  God desires that my EVERY action, EVERY expenditure, EVERY thought contribute to the kind of peaceable reign God has minted for all of us.  No wonder the Pharisees and Herodians walked away in amazement. Want more? Click here to read Matthew 22:15-22.

who do you say I am?

It’s interesting that Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do people say I am?”

Is he really interested in the local gossip? Is he taking the political temperature? Does he want to know if his messages are clear enough?

I’ll never know his reasoning, but it does make me think about how I do the same thing.

I wonder what people are saying about me when I’m not around, and whether it’s flattering or not.  I wonder what people take away from my conversation. I wonder if people hear in my sermons what I mean for them to hear.

I wonder what people think of me; whether I’m a good pastor, wife, mother, sister, daughter, aunt, daughter-in-law, friend. Sometimes I ask them, too. Then when they tell me, I wonder, "Are they telling me the truth?"

There’s nothing unusual in that. Perhaps we all wonder.

The danger comes in using that wondering and feedback as a determination for my own self-worth, or worse yet, my identity.  Dangerous because my sense of myself becomes dependent upon what others think or say about me, or even what I think about myself. If people say positive things I’m up, and if they say negative things, I’m down. If I’m having a “bad day,” I feel worthless.

I don’t know why Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?,” but I do know that he didn’t use that feedback to build himself up or to tear himself down.  He didn’t talk to himself with the same kind of self-doubt I’m prone to. Rather, he went away to quiet places to pray and reconnect himself with the God of the vast universe.  He listened to the still, small voice that spoke his identity at his baptism, “You are my son, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Scripture tells us that’s our identity, too.  We’ve been grafted onto the tree of life and given the genealogy of the beloved son.  Does it matter what others say about you? Not so much. Draw your strength from the rock from which you were hewn. 
Want more? Click here to read Isaiah 51.

laying it down

This human life is an interesting adventure.  We are born helpless and ignorant, knowing little more than how to cry to get what we want. If the people around us are fortunate, by the end of our lives, we’ve turned that scenario completely around, having learned to focus on the needs of others more than ourselves.

That’s what my uncle Mike did. 

Ever charming, witty, brilliant, and caring, he gave himself away. Not just to his family and friends, but to everyone. He gave himself away to people he’d known all his life, and people he’d just met. He was a philanthropist, but not just of money. He gave away his connections and his time and his expertise. He gave his very self. He made friends everywhere. He laid his life down because he understood his life wasn’t about him, but about them. The world was graced because he lived.

And in the end, he taught us how to die.  He was in tremendous pain, but he didn’t complain or become a recluse. He stayed as connected as he could, right to the end. And he was upbeat; he said he didn’t want to make anyone cry.  Life was worth living, and he wanted to live every moment of it.

That’s also what Jesus taught.  Love one another; lay your life down; bear fruit that will last.

I speculate there were 500 people at my uncle Mike’s funeral. After the service, one woman said to me, “I have tools to give myself away, too. I’m going to make a start.”  Someone else said, “I don’t lay my life down for my friends, but I can change that.” And how many more? Who knows?

That’s fruit that will last.

Thanks for your life, your love, and your legacy, Michael Ward. It is indeed a great day to be alive. Want more? Click here to read John 15:12-17.

the emmaus 10k

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus spent a lot of time with Jesus. Yet post-resurrection, even as Jesus talks with them and opens the scripture to them, they don’t recognize him. They meander on the road, headed away from Jerusalem and toward their home in the dusk of the day. They invite him to stay, evidently concerned for anyone who must travel the roads at night.

All of the walking, talking, scripture, and even very presence of Jesus himself doesn’t produce recognition in them.

I take a lot of comfort from that. If Jesus himself doesn’t spark recognition in them, how can I expect doctrine, worship, creeds, prayers, or scripture to produce anything in me, let alone faith in the one who remains unseen? I can be in worship every Sunday, attending every Bible study, devout and chaste, even leading the congregation, and still be without faith, even unfaithful.

Yet, if we stick with the story, we see Jesus stick with them. He stays in the encounter and breaks bread. Suddenly they recognize him and find themselves altered by the entire encounter, from beginning to end. Jesus vanishes, but it’s no matter to them.  They sprint the distance back to Jerusalem to tell everyone they’ve seen the Lord.  They run a 10K in the dark. Nothing matters but spreading the word, “He’s alive!”

Our scripture reading, study, worship, creeds, and prayers serve as our own walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus.  We ponder what these things mean as they build in us the potential for recognizing the risen one.  When he encounters us, we too are thrilled at the discovery that Jesus is not a flat, dead character on the page of some ancient book, but the risen Lord, alive and real. We recognize him on our own road, in the breaking of our own bread, and we too are never the same.

We find ourselves running the Emmaus 10K without counting the cost. Want more? Click here to read Luke 24:13-35.

raising the dead

Mary and Martha both say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Really?

People now (as people then) seem to be dying all around. So the sisters’ statement begs a question: “If people don’t die when Jesus is around, is Jesus with us…or not?”

As it turns out, Jesus doesn’t keep people from dying.  None of us get out of this adventure alive. In fact, Jesus doesn’t raise Lazarus to comfort the grieving sisters. He admits that he is raising Lazarus from the dead for the sake of the crowd, so they might believe God sent him. Jesus isn’t interested in prolonging mortal life so much as he is interested in creating trust in God and dispelling fear.

(btw, I would love to have heard Lazarus’ first words when he emerged from the tomb and they unwrapped his head.  My friend Tracy mimics him really well:  “What were you thinking?!”)

Jesus doesn’t raise Lazarus for Mary and Martha’s sakes, or even for Lazarus himself; he raises Lazarus to prove that he can. He raises Lazarus to prove that he has power over everything that terrorizes us to the core, including death. Jesus raises Lazarus so that we might begin to trust him with everything, including our own lives.

Lazarus was raised from the dead only to die again, at an undisclosed time.  As I imagine his second life, I imagine him pretty fearless. After all, he’d died once and seen the other side. What could life do to him? What can it do to us? Jesus raised Lazarus so that our only lives might be fearless, too. Want more? Click here to read John 11:1-45.

places to stay

In Matthew’s gospel, whenever Jesus goes up a mountain it’s either to pray or to teach.  So, when I see him leading Peter, James, and John up a high mountain by themselves, I figure they’re either in for an all-night pray-a-thon, or the lecture of a lifetime.

But there’s no prayer and no lecture on this trip. Instead, they witness Jesus transform: his face shines like the sun and his clothes glow whiter than Clorox ever dreamed of making them.  Then they see Moses and Elijah – the great leader who delivered the law and the greatest prophet of all time – appear from thin air. 

Peter is apparently no dummy in this story; he knows a good thing when he sees it and stunned as he is, he offers to build three places to stay: one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. 

That would be sweet, wouldn’t it? 

I mean, it would be a great thing if we could build a home for God, a home for the best leader ever known, and a home for the be-all-and-end-all of the prophets, and have all three stay put. Then, we’d know where to find them.  We’d know where to go for advice, healing, rulings, comfort, lessons – you name it.  It would be something like a one-stop-shopping spiritual strip mall.

But Jesus has other things in mind. He’s got too much to do to stay in one place, particularly on some hard to reach mountain top set apart from the people.  He’s got work to do. 

See, at the bottom of the mountain is an epileptic boy that no one has been able to heal.  He comes down the mountain for him. He comes down the mountain to welcome children and to cure the blind and the lame.

He comes down for everyone who is oppressed, belittled, injured, suffering, alone.  He comes down for you and for me.

While it would be sweet if God, Moses, and Elijah would stay put, it’s far better that they don’t.  I’d much rather have them all on the loose…them and their grace, which come for us all, wherever we happen to be. Want more? Click here to read Matthew 17:1-21.

i wish i’d make up my mind

They say that nobody is perfect.

Then they tell you practice makes perfect.

I wish they’d make up their minds.

Winston Churchill

In Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus does an awful lot of telling us what to do. Then, in the middle of it, he throws in a doozy: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

That would be OK, if I could actually do it.  Mostly, the Sermon on the Mount ends up having me feel like I’ll never be good enough and I’ll never get it right.  In fact, whenever I start to feel the least bit pompous, I can turn right to Matthew 5:43-48, and I’m immediately knocked down a peg.

“Be perfect.”  What does that mean?

It turns out that the English translation is not really my friend.  The Greek word telios gets translated as perfect, but it actually means something closer to mature, complete, whole, or with integrity.

When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he’s really telling us to have integrity and be mature.  Now, that makes me think… “How many of my enemies are really my enemies?”

The only answer that makes any sense to me is one: the one between my ears. 

What I think about other people dictates what I do.  If I don’t think clearly, well…garbage drives my behavior.

For example, how many times have I interpreted someone else’s actions as deliberately mean? Too many to count.  And I know that I treat “mean people” differently than “nice people.” 

But are people mean, or do I just think that?  Maybe they’re just having a bad day…or maybe I am.  After all, I’m the one with the mean thinking!

I’ve come to believe that every sin and every bad behavior is based on a lie – something I believe about someone else that’s simply not true. Something like: “She’s mean.”  “He’s a jerk.”  “What a hypocrite!”   My behavior is based on what I believe.  I only do what I believe.

Jesus says, “Be mature as your heavenly Father is mature.” 

In other words, “Laura, wake up and smell the coffee.  Be responsible for what you think…and get to work on the lies you believe. A mind that’s made up to think badly about someone else is not your friend.”

Why not think something different, like “Everybody’s doing the best they can.”  Then see what happens. Want more? Click here to read Matthew 5:43-48.

are you the one?

The gospel text for this Sunday strikes me as strange.

Jesus has been healing the blind, deaf, sick, and paralyzed. He has cured leprosy. He has cast out demons. He has been preaching good news to the poor, teaching, and collecting followers. He has raised a girl from death.

Aside from that weirdness, here’s what I find even stranger:

While in prison, John the Baptist hears rumors all of this activity, so he asks his disciples to go to Jesus and conduct a little interview: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

What?!

The Gospel of Matthew featured John in chapter 3, preaching his heart out in the wilderness of Judea. He had been proclaiming with confidence that the kingdom of heaven had drawn near. He was baptizing people in the Jordan and pointing to a more powerful one who would come and baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. He himself had baptized Jesus.

I find it strange that John didn’t know if Jesus was “the one” or not! I’d like to think that the prophet who did all that bold proclaiming, prophesying, and baptizing in the middle of nowhere knew what he was talking about…but apparently not. Apparently, when Jesus appeared on the scene and started doing what he was doing, John was just as surprised as everybody else.

In other words, he had been paving the way for one he didn’t recognize.

I find it strange….and exciting. 

Each Advent, we prepare for one whom we do not know. We prepare for one who is peace, might, justice, and love, but when that one comes, we find ourselves surprised by the majesty and magnitude of God’s grace. We discover love more compassionate than we thought, peace more profound, might gentler, and justice less violent.

Each Advent, we prepare to receive one bigger than our imagination, more merciful than our wildest dream, more benevolent than our hope. We prepare to receive one who draws near yet remains shrouded in mystery. We attempt the impossible: to prepare for awe.

If John the Baptist wasn’t prepared, how will we ever be? Want more? Click here to read Matthew 11:2-11. 

what comes in and what goes out

Even after years of coaching, training, scripture reading, teaching, leading, parenting, partnering, and practice, I’m still betrayed by my mouth.

I still drop little slip-ups, slurs, and an occasional foul word from time to time. I often stay silent, neglecting to say the right thing, even when I know it will make a difference. Sometimes I find myself babbling on and on. I’ll listen to myself and think, “What are you talking about?!”

I say I’m for peace, then I yell at my kids. I declare myself to be a gossip-free zone, then find myself talking about the latest thing that didn’t go my way, careful to assess blame in the “proper place.” And let’s just say I don’t always speak well of the people with whom I share the road.

I’m ashamed; I should know better. Sometimes I apologize, but mostly I hope no one notices. But I notice.

And I notice that I’m betrayed not only but what comes out of my mouth, but also by what goes in.

My taste buds seem to operate with a force and desire completely uncontrollable. I know what to eat and what not to eat; what promotes good health and what doesn’t. And I start off each day with determination to eat and drink the “right things.” But usually by 3 or 4 in the afternoon, my determination is worn down and my taste buds win. I find myself eating something unhealthy as if my hands and mouth belong to an alien that’s taken over.

I don’t think I’m alone.

James writes that the tongue (I’ll say the mouth) is the most powerful force in the human body. With it we can build up or tear down. We can promote health, or hasten disease. We can strengthen community or destroy it.

But the mouth is not really the problem. Strength and weakness are attributes of the heart, mind, and soul; the mouth is just a portal to what lies within.

If there is a fresh spring welling up inside of me, my mouth will be a fount of life.

If I am depressed, my mouth will reveal it in its speaking and eating.

In other words, healthy speaking, eating, and living are symptoms of a personal will aligned with the will of God.

That’s why James also says, “The prayers of one right with God are a powerful thing to be reckoned with.”  Those prayers heal, give life, and build up because they spring from God’s own desire. And for the one right with God, the body itself is a hollow temple housing God’s very spirit. For the one right with God, the mouth is no problem.

I think my speech and my eating habits are indicators of the relative strength/weakness of my interior life. They point me back to relationship with God and neighbor, like warning signals alerting me that something needs attention.

And I find that a heart right with God is far more powerful than any diet.  Want more? Click here to read James 3.