My Fellow Pilgrims

A Prayer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

       

O, God,
Help us to pray and concentrate our thoughts on         you.
    We cannot do this alone.
In us there is darkness,
    but in you there         is light.
We are lonely,
    but you leave us not.
We are feeble in heart,        
    but with you there is peace.
In us there is bitterness,
    but with you         there is patience.
We do not understand your ways,
    but you know the way         for us.
Help us, O God, through Jesus Christ our Savior.
    Amen.

      

      

Lent: "Surely Coming"

Jeremiah 31:31

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a       new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

If I am going to take anybody at their word, it would have to be God.  The thing that gets in the way is often the messenger, being one of those flawed vessels.  I have never heard a booming voice from the heavens, though God has affirmed things for me in other ways.  Certitude of a feeling, serendipities/coincidences depending on your perspective, unsolicited comments coming out of the blue from friends or strangers, scripture, and other ways have made God's inclination beyond clear.  In this prophecy in Jeremiah, God is giving clear inclination towards the future, the way things will be.  We become so fixated on the way things were, the way things are, the way things should/could/would be, but if we are going to bank on anything, I would invest in a clear word on what WILL BE.  God is saying that hear, what was is past.  The past is prologue.  As Isaiah shared, "Behold, I am about to do a new thing, do you not perceive it?"  Where are you facing today; what is your vector?

Lent: "Steadfast Love"

Psalm 107:1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.

This phrase, steadfast love, is one of those intriguing little nuggets of grace which is often lost in the judgment and destruction language tossed around in the Hebrew Scriptures.  I work at a boys' middle school, and I know about words tossed around to make one sound bigger and bolder than one truly is.  Just yesterday, I saw one boy attempting to used words as weapons--his claim defensively-- and it backfired so badly that even those who would claim friendship left him out to dry.  Another just yesterday, a boy had been bragging how above everything he was, so we called him on it, "If you are too big for this, you don't have to do it."  The bravado flew out the window.  He cried and begged.  The decision was final.  There was no turning back.  I often think that a lot of the language of the Hebrew scriptures that we find offensive is cultural one-upsmanship, "Hey, my God is bigger than your God."  Just immature taunts that can often have the opposite effect.  Steadfast love, however, is a different story.

Steadfast love shows the covenant fidelity of God.  I will not break this no matter what you do.  I will stay true to you, no matter your choices, ill or nil, and will be true.  We attempt to be "honest to God," but God is always honest to us.  In God's love and grace, it is unchanging, unflappable, and never-ending.  God's love is steadfast.  Ever-going.  Ever-present.  More than we deserve.  More than we could ever imagine.  That's some good stuff.

Lent: "Stumbling Blocks and Foolishness"

I Corinthians

1:23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

This has always been an interesting verse to me.  It was the foundation to a crucial line in the movie version of The Last Temptation of Christ.  Jesus can be dismissed, ignored, or believed, but he gets in the way no matter what your perspective.  He was a stumbling block to those for whom he did not fulfill their Messianic hopes-- "We still have to deal with the Romans." He appears foolish to deep thinkers-- "There's got to be more to it than that!"  But he is hard to get from.  A student brought me a book showing DaVinci's "Last Supper," and I showed how mathematically and artistically it was near perfect, all pointing to Christ in the center.  Scripture is the same, and I believe reality.  If the Universe's one reality is grace, than we have a whole lot of restructuring and reordering to do, socially, globally, and, I speak for myself, personally.

Lent: "Power, Foolishness, & Wisdom"

I Corinthians 1

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.  22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,  23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

This one is hard for me.  I like to think of myself as smart, and sometimes even wise.  I like when people compliment me on it.  It is my vanity, yes.  Everything is relative, however, and what we see as so wonderful, so huge, so mighty is so base, so insignificant, so pathetic.  Yet, it is all we know.  We do what we can; we know what we can.  It is what we do; it is who we are.  "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."  It all depends on one's perspective.  I know what I do not know, and that may be the beginning of my true wisdom.  I let go of the things that slip by so easily, and cling to the mighty movement before me.  God is at work, or even at play, re-creating.  Will I join in with this call and dance, or will I keep naming the insignificant mighty, beautiful or good?  How wise will I truly be?

Lent: "Foolishness"

I Corinthians

1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are       perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

No one wants to look stupid.  Men drive for miles not asking directions for that reason.  Some might call it pride, but not wanting to appear stupid is probably more up front than the underlying issue of pride.  There is graffiti in ancient Rome of a man on a cross with a donkey's head, mocking Christians whose god must have been an, well, er, donkey, to go and get himself killed.  Even then, what is powerful and saving is foolishness and something to be mocked.  It is the counter-intuitive nature of the Gospel.  In our weakness, God is strong.  Coming back to pride, we also want to say, especially in the USA, that we are self-made people.  We did it for ourselves.  We stepped up to the  plate and knocked it out of the park.  The good news is that we cannot; the good news is that we do not have to.  There are some things too big for even the best of us.  Sounds stupid?  "To us who are being saved it is the power of God."

      

Lent: "Let Me Be Acceptable"

Psalm 19

      

12 But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over       me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O       LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

The prayer of the psalmist is pure and true.  We want to live up to the high calling of God, but yet we find ourselves doing, saying, and pondering things not worthy of that high calling.  Our natural tendencies have not yet been "converted."   We call to God for help, to show us our "hidden faults."

The line of verse 14, "the meditations of my heart," is so true.  What are heart ponders shows our nature.  And no one, but God, knows what is in our heart.  What we chew in our cardiac cud shows our nature.  Others may judge us by the words of our mouth, but God sees and finds acceptable or not the meditations of our heart.  May all of these standards be acceptable to you, oh Lord.  Shine the light of your truth on the shadows of our soul.

Lent: "Reckoned as Righteousness"

Romans 4

20 No distrust made [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.22 Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness."
23 Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

The leap of faith for Abraham was to believe that his old body could be a father after a century, and his wife could be a mom.  Beyond all rational sense, he heard from God a word, a word he chose to believe.

We can do the same thing.  We can believe in this promise-making, hope-giving God for whom "all things are possible." God can bring children to hopeless parents.  God can bring the no-longer-living back to life.  God can do whatever we need.  God is able.

The part we play in this relationship is faith.  As I shared yesterday, it is all we bring to the table.  As Yancey says, there is nothing that we can do to make God love us any more, and there is nothing that we can do that will make God love us any less.  It is not our doing that makes God love us, it is our being.  God loves us because we are God's creations.  God wants the best for us, and wants us to be responsible, mature co-laborers in the kindgdom he created.  This realm of influence that is ever-expanding and ever-beautifying is his hope for us and a goal for our existence, in this world and the one to come.  Our faith is what God approves and affirms, our righteousness, God's "okaying of us."  That is the nature of Grace.

Lent: "Null and Void"

Romans 4

13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to       Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the       promise is void.

After looking at the Genesis passages for the last few days, it is very appropriate to look at St. Paul's take on the story in the letter to the Roman Christians.  After having spent his whole life following the law, this was a radical departure for this man.  He has moved to the understanding that Faith in the Grace of God is what makes the difference--all the difference.  The righteousness--there's a churchy word for you--of faith that Abraham had was what mattered.  That is what we can bring to the table.  Being holier than our neighbor is for naught if we are not faithful.  In fact being holier than our neighbor is a waste of time, effort and energy.  DO NOT hear me saying that being holy is not important, but doing the comparisons and contrasts is a waste.  You can only answer for you, and the One to whom you answer is not worried about how you rank up.  The One is only concerned with how you were at being you.  God does not want our faith to be null and void.  Our petty comparisons and ranks are our constructs.  God wants to "okay" us, give us God's stamp of approval, like God did Abraham.  Our faith is what God desires, that is to God righteousness.  God's okaying of us is part of Christ's great call to faith: "Seek first the kingdom of God and God's righteousness, and all this shall be added unto you."  I had a seminary professor that put it this way: "Strenuously look for the Realm of God's Influence and join in and also God's okaying of you, and everything else will fall into place."  Let that be our goal this, and every day.  Namaste, fellow pilgrims.

Lent: "To a People Yet Unborn"

Psalm 22

30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

After looking back, to all those in the grave, the psalmist looks forward--people not yet born--will be told that "It is finished."  Deliverance is the message.  "Hey, you who got where you are, somebody got you there."  The trip was not easy or free, but we are the recipients of this Grace.   And what, should be our response?

Thankfulness is the appropriate response to a gift.  Sincere thanks is even more appropriate.  Sincere thanks with joy and an appropriate and responsible use of the gift is even more appropriate.  A giver is never more pleased than when a gift is received, appreciated and used.  It warms their hearts.  "Hey, I did that for him.  That's cool."  "I knew she would love it!  I'm glad I got it for her.  It delights me to see her enjoy that so."

This last weekend I got a jumper for my baby daughter.  She loves it.  When we put her in,  she roars with laughter and joy.  She bounces and leaps, twirls and spins.  She looks to us with utter joy, and starts all over again.  What she does not know was where we got it, or how much it cost.  We obtained it from a consignment shop for $12, much less than a new one would have cost.  But that does not matter.  Seeing her joy in it, I would have paid ten times that.  It delights me so to see her happy.  How much more so does it delight God when we are made whole through the price Christ paid?  We are not talking a second-hand salvation here, we got the premium, deluxe edition.  How many of us have not even bothered to open the package?  How many of us have not taken it for a spin and tested all of the features.  This is not a simple gift, but could there be anything better than the Grace of God?  People not yet born will be told of this amazing gift.