Prayer

Is any of you sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing. - James 5:13

This is my prayer.

Gracious and loving God, in whom all things are possible and whose love knows no bounds, I give thanks for this day.  I give thanks for the opportunity to be apart of your amazing creation through which each day I am witness to your loving presence.  I give thanks to be able to be in a place where with each passing day I am growing closer to you through studying your word which is in turn deepening of my love for you through Christ.  I give thanks for my family who always been by my side, loved me, cared for me, and helped mold me into the person I am today.  I give thanks for my friends who also have supported me in my journey.  I give thanks for Lauren and the love and joy that has entered my life as we continue to grow closer together.  I ask that you continue to fill me with strength and love as I continue my studies so far from my family.  Be with my mother as she continues to be the rock of our family.  Be with my brothers as they continue to walk their paths and that they may come to know your love.  Be with my friends as they too experience the ups and downs of life and fill them with strength to always be moving forward.  Be with Lauren.  Give her strength and fill her with the Spirit.  Remind her that she is loved by you and by so many others.  I also ask that you be those who suffer, are alone, or are going hungry this day and night.  With them with your love so that they may know that they are equal members of the body of Christ.  All this I ask through your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Patience

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, - Ephesians 4:1-2

The word I offer up to you today is patience.  It came to mind as I was listening to a song.  The singer offered up a message of patience as it pertained to one of his failed relationships.  The lyrics coupled with the slow melodic music felt kind of like hitting the brakes.  It is as if the singer wanted us to slow down a minute, examine the situation, and move forward in a way to wait and see what happens.  While it looks like the end of his relationship, there is a glimmer of hope that remains.  I think that this is a message that we can all take with us.  This season of Lent provides us with a time where through self-reflection we can slow down, examine parts of our lives and adjust accordingly.  It is a time of patience.  Our time in God's creation is not a sprint but a journey.  If we do not slow down we may miss something or even worse, look back on our lives and become aware of all the time that has flown by and with it our unrealized hopes and dreams.

In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he is encouraging the church to live out its faith.  To be humble and gentle.  To show mercy and forgiveness through love.  And of course to be patience.  We live in a culture that is always on the move.  Our lives are planned out and structured from childhood all the way through adolescence and straight into adulthood.  We live in an age of instant gratification.  If we desire something all we have to do is long on to Amazon and with my student prime membership I can have just about anything I want at my door in two days.  That is why we become impatient when we do not get what we want or something doesn't go our way.  I find myself losing patience with people in some of the most mundane situations.  It is only when I catch myself doing it that I take a step back and look at the situation again and ask myself why I was being impatient.  As we walk our journeys we must keep in mind the words of Paul and walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called.  To walk with humility and gentleness.  To forgive others through love.  To walk with patience.      

Home

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." - John 14:23

There are many definitions of home, if we look beyond the dictionary and see what this word really means.  Its meaning differs from person to person.  For some people it carries a positive connotation, while for others home was unpleasant or even hurtful.  Home is often associated with family.  Home is where the heart is.  My personal favorite is from a song entitled "Home."  The refrain repeats the line, "...home is wherever I'm with you."

One of the most difficult subjects for people to speak openly and honestly is their home life.  For most of us we have been brought up with the idea that we have separate spheres of our lives which should not overlap.  For example our work lives and our home lives.  While my coworkers were generally interested in what was going on in my life outside of work, I would venture to say that they are not genuinely interested.  There are of course many examples of when bringing home the struggles and frustrations of work can be detrimental to the family dynamic.  I that by asking genuine questions about some one's home life we are asking people to be vulnerable and let us into a part of their life who only a few may have full access.  I know that for myself I will offer more detailed answers to questions depending upon how comfortable I am with that person.  Home is personal, intimate, and something that can totally different from what we would expect from the front that people put up to protect themselves and their families.

Home can also be something warm, inviting, and a haven from the madness of our world.  It is a place where the cares of the day can be set aside and we can immerse ourselves in our families.  While I am not yet married and nor do I have children, my view is perhaps a little idealistic, but really home is what we make it to be.  While I was working I was intentional to keep my different spheres separate.  When I left work, I left those feelings and concerns behind to return to the next morning.  When I left home, I set aside those feelings and concerns so that I could devote my attention to my work.  It took time but it has allowed me to strengthen those spheres without creating more drama by them overlapping.

Then of course home can be a physical place, a house or an apartment.  It is the structure and what is contained therein that is most important to us.  It is where children are raised, families nurtured, and it is not without its own drama.  For me home is where ever I am with the people I love and those who love and support me.  I have a home in Waltham, the place I grew up, where my mother and younger brother and my close friends live.  I have a home in Phoenix because that is where my fiance lives.  I have a home in Berkeley where my friends and classmates are who support me when I am far from my other homes.  Home can be a special place and I think that is what Jesus is talking about in the verse above.  By following the teachings of Christ and having a love of God then God will dwell in us and make a home with us.  These are comforting words where the love of God will dwell in us.  If we are able to take this love and share it with other, then we too will be making a difference in this world where love for yourself, for others and above all God and his Son Jesus will conquer all.

Joy

“What I am anxious to see in Christian believers is a beautiful paradox. I want to see in them the joy of finding God while at the same time they are blessedly pursuing Him. I want to see in them the great joy of having God yet always wanting Him.” ~ A. W. Tozer

I was searching for texts about joy in the Bible and there are many, but none really jumped out at me.  So I opted for an interesting quotation from a prolific religious writer and pastor, A. W. Tozer.  Now I will admit that I had no idea who he was or what he did...until I looked him up on, of all things, Wikipedia.  While not formally a member of any mainline Christian denomination he was instead a pastor of an evangelical church.  During his lifetime he wrote many books and articles on faith and theology.  What I like about this quotation is that, for Tozer joy is something that is felt individually and visible to others.  This joy is derived from engaging in a relationship with God and that this relationship is never final.  Along our journey we can find him, but will never catch him.  We can hold him in our hearts, but yet always desiring to remain and grow closer to God.  It is a paradox that adequately describes the nature of our relationship with God and joy is the byproduct of living our lives in such a manner.

Reflecting upon this quotation has me thinking about the times when I have seen God and how that experience has driven me to seek God in other places.  I remember traveling to Honduras as part of a mission trip.  We had the opportunity to spend most of our time in a village about nine kilometers outside of the center of the capital, Tegucigalpa.  On our first day we walked through the main road of the village down towards the church that we would spend the week building, painting, and cleaning up.  As we walked down the street I could not help but notice the extreme poverty in which these people lived.  Houses, if you even want to call them houses, were made flattened cans.  The floors were bare ground and often only one room where everything happened from cooking to sleeping.  Kids were throwing the household trash out the back door into valleys filled with trash.  Most of the men were employed to farm the banana plantation that fueled any sort of economy in the area.  I was struck by this poverty.  My heart ached.  Feelings of guilt for having so much and not realizing how lucky I was to live in my context.  I had a strong desire to do something, fix something, to improve the quality of life.  But it was overwhelming because no matter how much I wanted to do it would never change things on a systematic level.  We did do great things there that impacted the lives of the villagers, and for that I find joy, but as a whole this poverty will continue no matter how much we did.  Now this should not deter us from continuing to do such work but the problem will not be solved.  Jesus said the poor will always be with us and that as Christians we are to take care of them.

Just as I thought this situation was hopeless, as we met with families and were invited into their homes I saw something that I did not expect to see.  I saw joy.  The people did not see themselves as poor but thankful to be alive, to survive, and to have their families.  They had no attachment to material goods.  They did not adhere to a strict time schedule, things happened when they happened.  They celebrated their faith with joy and it was made manifest in their lives and they way they interacted and lived in community.  Joy can be found in the most unexpected places.  It is found when we seek to serve other in Christ and in deepening our own personal relationship with God.  Where do you find joy in your life?  How can you find joy in a deeper relationship with God?  It is there.  It is possible.  Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.

Forgiveness

Forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us - Matthew 6:12

This verse should be quite familiar.  For most of us this line spoken every Sunday or other Eucharistic services as part of the Lord's Prayer.  This verse is in the midst of the prayer that Jesus teaches to the disciples.  One of them asked Jesus how should they pray, and this was his response.  The passage was read this morning at our Tuesday Eucharist service.  At first I did not give it much thought but then the preacher approached the lectern and proceeded to give her understanding of this passage.  I was surprised that she focused on this verse and how it is applicable in our lives.

She spoke of the shooting that occurred a few years back in Nickel Mines, PA.  It was the tragic story of an Amish community that was forced to live through its own worst nightmare.  A man walked into a one-room schoolhouse and proceeded to open fire, killing five of the ten girls he held hostage before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life.  It is any parent's worst nightmare.  The safety, sanctity, and trust in sending kids to school was shattered.  Instead of just preaching on the nightmare the preacher focused on the response.  Forgiveness.

Most of America did not understand the community's response to not only the shooter but the shooter's family.  For most of us forgiving the perpetrator of such a crime is unfathomable, especially a crime of this nature.  If we look at the central tenets of the Amish faith, and Anabaptists in general from which the Amish are a part, we will see that they take this line of scripture very seriously.  To them it is simple, if you do no forgive those who sin against you then your sins will not be forgiven by God.  It is straightforward and there is no way around it for them.  Their faith dictated that they forgive and this community genuinely forgave the shooter.  They reached out to the family of the shooter and offered forgiveness.  This selfless act, imparted upon those and by those hurt by such monstrous actions, was given freely, in faith, and the hatred and pain was let go and offered up to God.

The preacher noted that what often gets in the way of our own ability to forgive those who have hurt us is our own guilt, our own feeling of responsibility in the actions against us.  For those who lost someone in the attacks 9/11 they struggled with their own guilt of allowing their spouse to go to work that day or any other number of what ifs that would have allowed their loved one to not be in those towers.  Studies have shown that once the family members deal with their own guilt they can then move towards forgiveness of the perpetrators of the crime.  I think the preacher is right in that it is harder to forgive myself than it is to forgive others.

Not everyone will experience a tragedy to the same level as the Amish community in Nickel Mines, or Newtown, CT, or even those involved in 9/11.  However, we all experience some sort of pain that is inflicted upon us by others.  My challenge to you is to reflect upon the hurt that you are holding on to, let go of it, offer it up to God.  Relieve yourself of the burden that is only weighing you down.  Then you will find yourself in a place where forgiveness can happen, reconciliation can happen, healing can happen.  You will never forget, and I am not saying that you should, but there is freedom in letting go.  What are you holding on to?

Light

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it - John 1:5

One of the most powerful images in Christian tradition is that of light.  Light has always played a role in humanity's understanding of the divine.  Ancient civilizations like the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all had gods that were associated with light, more specifically the sun.  It was worshiped and prayed for as an important cycle of life.  Conversely darkness has a place in our understanding of the divine.  Darkness brings with it connotations of nothingness, empty, devoid of the divine.  From this passage from the prologue of the Gospel of John points to the way in which we view Christ, the Word as existing before creation and through the Incarnation the Word was made flesh in Jesus.  With the incarnation came the divine light that was revealed to us in Christ and through the Spirit.  In this case light brings us strength, sustenance, and hope.

Have you ever been in a room that was completely dark, devoid of light?  How did you feel?  Did you know where things were?  I was in a dark room once.  While it was a room in a physical sense but the darkness of my mind.  In it I could not see where I was going.  I couldn't see any purpose to my life.  In it was only pain, pain that I was desperately seeking to end.  But before long I could see a light.  At first it was just a flicker, like a flashlight with loose batteries.  Over time it grew and grew until one day I was no longer in the darkness, but in the light.  Some theologians will say that hell, or damnation, is not some fiery pit filled with eternal tortuous punishment, what we associate with Dante's Inferno.  Instead they say that hell is spending eternity in the absence of the love and light of God, never to be in his presence.  When I was in the darkness of my mind, that was when I felt furthest away from the light and love of God.  Instead of living into the darkness, giving into the pain, I followed the light, because the darkness cannot overcome the light.

During this time of Lent reflect on those moments when you felt distant from God, when you felt like he didn't hear you or care.  Think about what brought you back.  How did the light overcome your darkness?

Forever

...And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever - Psalm 23:6

Forever is a long time.  For me there is a duality that is inherent in this idea of forever.  First, it is daunting, scary, and uncertain as forever is a point in time that cannot ever be reached.  In fact it is not even one single point in time, but purely a theoretical understanding of time.  Secondly, it is calming, warming, and welcoming as the forever that is referenced in the verse above from Psalm 23, is a time when all the things of this life pass away and we find ourselves in the presence of God in his heavenly Kingdom.  It is reassuring to know that what will last forever is not the pain and suffering of this world, but the unconditional love of God.

While so far I have discussed how this idea applies to our common human condition, there is another way to look at forever.  What in this world needs to carry on, forever?  What in this world needs to stop, forever? These are deep powerful questions whose answer will vary from person to person.  From their answers we will discover some of that person's passions, what they value, what they care about.  As we begin the second week of a season that seems to last forever, think about what needs to change in our society.  Pray for the strength to continue the work towards what ever goal or dream is in your heart.