Faith, Hope, Love

I really like the connections that are created in the blogosphere. I'm part of a community of faith where most of the folks aren't all that into this stuff, and originally I started this blog with the idea those that were would check it out. To date that hasn't happened.

But I will blog here nonetheless. I'm so full of hope for the future after the inauguration. How about you? Will the naysayers and fearmongers be able to overcome, or will hope and optimism win out? My children have asked me during bleak times "Are we gonna be ok, Mom?" Sometimes this is a personal question, encompassing only their small corner of the world; other times it is a concern for the entire planet, for all creation. It's the latter that gives me hope, because if they are concerned about something outside themselves, as are others, there is a reason to believe that faith can win over fear.

In the response to the closing of American detention centers in Guantanamo and the secret centers elsewhere, fear tells us that we might be opening Pandora's box as we relocate and release these detainees. Fear tells us that we can breach our values of justice for all for the sake of our security. Yet without the upholding of justice there is no security, because we will eventually turn into the very people we are afraid of. Total security can only be had at the expense of liberty. I pray that we are never so afraid that we succumb to the illusion that we can have both.

Inauguration reflections

Wow! What a day! I stayed home and from my living room prayed and cried and laughed! President Barack Obama. I like the way that sounds. Hope is rekindled and challenges abound.
My prayer is for unity, that those who are skeptical can find reasons to be hopeful of great, positive changes. Some folks are genuinely scared. (Now they know how I felt 8 years ago.) I pray that this new President and his cabinet will prove to be worthy of the trust that we are putting in their hands for the future. I pray that everyone will find some positive way to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors. I pray that we will all "brave those icy currents" to make our way to the beach where all are free and all are fed, where no one is at war and everyone is at peace.

Glory to God!

Expecting

I've been pregnant 4 times, and given birth an equal number. A couple of those times the news was, to be polite, a BIG surprise. Once early in my life, once much later, I learned that I was to become a mother in days when babies weren't part of my plans. But they quickly became just that. As my mother said of her seven children "I practiced planned parenthood. As soon as I knew I was pregnant I planned to have a baby."

This weekend I'll be using Mary's Magnificat as the text. As I read the text, she too was the recipient of a BIG surprise. Her recorded reaction was 100% different than mine. "Let it be done according to God's will." And then her poem, song of praise -- the Magificat. Praising God for getting her in a family way before she had even lived with Joseph? Even though she was promised to become the mother of the Chosen One, I think its remarkable that she could start singing a happy song, without stopping to think about the stuff that was going to happen to her that wasn't going to be so exciting.

Yet she did. Her reaction is that of someone whose faith is unshakable and whose being is entirely infused with the desire to please God. Mary's reaction to this pregnancy is an example of someone who assumes God knows best first and then, perhaps, looks at the wider ramifications. I haven't reached that ability yet. I'd like to get even 1/2 way there before I die. I'm certain that the world would be a much better place if we could all leap to this particular conclusion first: no matter what happens, God can shape it for the good of all concerned.

That world would be truly magnificent, wouldn't it!

The Quality of Waiting

Regardless of what the retail industry is telling us, Christmas isn't here yet! I admit it; I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to keeping Advent. I believe in the tension of waiting. I believe that it is a spiritual exercise that we too often deny ourselves. We rush from task to task, from obligation to obligation, and if we have to wait between these things, we simmer, we fume, we boil. Or at least that's what most of us do.

But if we were to recognize waiting as a time of grace, of a time for reflection on what's been good in our lives, would we be in such a hurry? The text for this week is Isaiah 64:1-9. This isn't a happy, feel-good text, but one that highlights God faithfulness to us as we wait. For me it has highlighted the idea that waiting in productive time, not a waste as we all too often think of it. It's an invitation to see God at work behind the scenes.

Let's accept God's invitation to wait for the celebration of the birth of the Christ child. Let's chill out and accept the gift of waiting!

Getting what we didn't ask for

Exodus is a great story. Before we read it, though, most Americans need to erase the vision of Charleton Heston in Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments from our minds eye. There are some similarities -- but there are many differences too.

For instance, do you remember that God told Moses to ask for a 3 day leave of absence? The familiar refrain is "Let my people go!" But the end of that phrase is "...so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness. (Ex 5:1) God had said to Moses. "...go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wildrenesss to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.'" (Ex. 3:18) The reason for a three-day journey was so that they could get far enough away from the Egyptians' settlements so that their sacrifices wouldn't stink up the city. The people, when they left, thought they were going on a road trip -- a vacation -- not a life-long journey!

How many times has this happened; you think you're going to live a simple, well-planned life, and then something happens: illness, accident, death of a loved one -- these circumstances can take us on a life-long journey that we never intended to embark upon.

God protects those who get where they're going in the time that they think they are going there, as well as those who travel down detours, whether they are of their own making or whether they are forced upon them. The challenge is for those who get to finish their trip according to plan to realize that those who don't get to their destination often didn't veer off the road because they wanted to -- it's just the way it turned out.

Power to Continue

"The Power of God and gods of Power" series has been challenging, but enlightening. It is difficult to translate what it means to rely on the power of the living God, particularly when I feel like I'm personally running out of steam. But the fact that I am continuing to put in a full day's work means that the power is coming from somewhere, and I choose to believe it is from being tapped into the living power of God.

This week we're going to explore 2 of the biggest theological topics there are: Why does God permit suffering, and how do we discuss and understand the Trinity. These are big questions -- and the answers only partly satisfy. This is where faith is necessary -- that certainty of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. We can't always explain everything to our ultimate human satisfaction, just as human activity would never be fully explanable to an ant. We don't have the capacity to fully understand the ultimate Mystery. This frustrates some and confounds many. Yet to throw up our hands and say "forget it all" isn't an option either, because the longing to be connected with this power doesn't go away.

Some answer this longing outside "organized" religion (only those on the outside think we're really organized -- we know the truth!). They try to connect with the "universal life force" or talk about karma. No matter what we call it, we're still looking for completeness. Even the atheists that rail against the existence of God and claim that the evils of society can be laid at the doorsteps of those of us who believe in God's existence "doth protest too much." (Besides, if we're responsible for all of those evils, you have to acknowledge all of the things that we've done right as well, because there have been many.)

I think the power to continue to explore Mystery is given to us by that Mystery --- because God loves us so much God is always looking for us to come and dance!

The Power of God -- can it be defined?

Daniel Migliore's book The Power of God and the gods of Power is the basis for the current sermon series. The premise is that we must be aware of the gods that often take the place for the real, living God in our lives. Reading it has been challenging -- preaching about false gods is even more so, because they are pervasive and often invisible to the naked eye. We all must uncover those gods to clear our way to living for the real God.

What are the gods that dominate our lives? How is our distorted view of the living God affecting how we live? As we continue to study this, I'm reminded that what we call power and what God considers power are all too often completely disparate things.