The Breath of God

Source of Grace, Love, Forgiveness and Life

Our lives are gifts from God and are filled with many things: family and friends, jobs and professions, successes and failures, heart songs and heartache, sin and forgiveness, life and death. During the season of Lent leading up to Easter we have to opportunity, perhaps even the necessity to reflect on these many emotions and experiences. The following prayer helps me and many others put all things into perspective.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer p. 219)

As we examine our lives with the help of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, we see that God cares about our joys and our sorrows, our sins and successes, our life, death and new life (resurrection).  I share a portion of Ezekiel 37:1-14, the Valley of the Dry Bones, and of John 11:1-45, the Raising of Lazarus, to shine a light on God’s care and love for us as we journey from life to death to resurrection with all that entails for us and for our families.

“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. . . Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord. . . and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. . .” (Ezekiel 37:1-14) The Holy Spirit, the Breath of God surrounds God’s people through life and death and back to life again. We now go with Jesus to Bethany.

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. . .and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. . . then Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go! (John 11:1-45)

“Lazarus, come out!” “Unbind him and let him go!” Jesus’ words to Lazarus, Jesus’ words to Lazarus’ friends and family are Jesus’ words to us as well. He calls us out from death: from death to our fears, our sins, our disappointments and our failures as well as our physical deaths. We are surrounded by and filled with the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, our chains are broken and we are set free to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.” (Book of Common Prayer p.305)

Jesus’ Temptations, The Coronavirus and What’s Important

Jesus’ Temptations, The Coronavirus and What’s Important

Possessions, Power, Praise

Or

Family, Friends, Creator, Community

Most of us have known for a long time how fragile life can be, not only for individuals, but for our community, the nation, the nations of the World and the Planet itself. Natural disasters like hurricanes, fires and floods have shut down economies, and destroyed lives and property around the world. Wars and terrorism have done the same in parts of our world. Many of us are also concerned about Climate Change and its effect on the global food supply and the continued and sufficient supply of clean water. We think about these events and possibilities and pray for those affected and for the wisdom to help each other recover from these disasters, make necessary changes to our life style and for the grace to love one another so that wars may cease.

But, I have to admit that I naively never considered that a virus originating on a continent thousands of miles away would infect and kill people around the world, stretch our health care system and food supply chain to the breaking points, shut down the global economy putting people out of work around the world, cause financial markets to tumble and increase the political divisions within our own country.

Having said all this, I want to look at Jesus’ Temptations in the wilderness as a window through which we may find the strength to weather the crisis, remember what is important to us and all the peoples of the earth, all of God’s Children, and find the silver lining behind this very, very dark cloud.

The story begins in Luke 3:21-22 when Jesus is baptized by John and the Holy Spirit descends upon him and a voice from heaven declares, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus is then “lead by the Spirit in the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil.” I believe Jesus’ time in the wilderness was used by the Holy Spirit to allow Jesus to focus, meditate and pray about why God had sent him into the world, what was important in life, what his mission was to be and whether he would accept it (remember he was fully human as well as fully God). The three temptations were his “final exam” before “graduation” and beginning his new job, his mission and ministry.

The story continues in Luke 4:1-13 with these temptations: turn the stones to bread; receive the glory and authority and the possession of all kingdoms simply by worshiping the world the flesh and the devil; jump from the pinnacle of the temple, proving God’s power in him: temptations to possessions, power and praise. These are not unlike the temptations we face as we search, struggle and strive to find what is important in our lives. We too are tempted by “the world, the flesh and the devil.”

I see in this time of Pandemic, a wilderness, not unlike the wilderness Jesus found himself in. I see a physical wilderness and a spiritual wilderness. I see anxiety and fear, disappointment, frustration and physical loss including loss of life. I see the loss of jobs, incomes, loss of investment value for some and worries of not being able to pay the mortgage or rent or feed one’s family for others. I also see partisan politics and anger toward those who have more than we do and fear of those who have less. I believe we are all asking the questions: will we make it through this? How long will it last? How long will it take to recover? What will the world be like when this is over?

Let’s begin as Jesus did, by reflecting, mediating, praying and asking ourselves: what is important to me now?  Are possessions, power, praise my focus and goal, or are family, friends, Creator and community more important. As the Caterpillar Tractor Company advertised years ago, “There are no simple solutions, just difficult decisions.” This was true for Jesus and it is true for us as well. We all, obviously, need a place to live and food to eat and a decent job to pay for this things. We also need a health care system that is prepared, provisioned and well supplied to care for all of us. Like Jesus we also need a vision of who God created us to be, how God created us to live, and a vision of the interconnectedness of the World.  As we said in the 1960’s, “we are all passengers on Space Ship Earth.” Yes there is the International Space Station, but for most of the Seven Billion of us there is no place else to go.

Since we are bound together, whether we wish to be are not, perhaps this Crisis will give us that wilderness experience that will help us learn to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” even those neighbors with whom we disagree about history and politics, economic systems or anything else under the sun. Can we use this time to help those in need, to maintain connections with family, friends, our communities, even if we have to do it for awhile by phone, or Skype or Zoom or standing six feet apart at the Grocery Store. Can we use this time to see the world as a community, a very small community in which one can travel from the United States to Europe to Asia in a matter of hours? Can we use this time as an opportunity to learn that those with whom we disagree about global politics love their country and the world just as much as we do?

I leave you with a poem by Wendell Berry shared on Facebook this morning by my friend Lisa Hodgens.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

May we all be free and may we all be connected. “May the peace of God that passes all understanding be with you now and forever. Amen.

Come and See

Come and See

In the first chapter of the Gospel of John we hear the powerful “Christmas Story” of the presence of Christ with God the Creator in the beginning as all things were created. We hear that this Christ came as the Light into a world of darkness and that the darkness did not overcome it because the Light was stronger than any darkness. “and that Light, that “Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:18)

This is a wonderful story of assurance of God’s presence in the world, of God’s presence with us: but, now what? As John’s Gospel continues, we see and hear the beginning of the answer to our question:

“John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! . . .’ The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. . . . One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ He brought Simon to Jesus. . .” (John 1:29-42)

The story does not stop with the Messiah’s presence in our world. It continues as human beings began to experience this presence as John the Baptist and his disciples experience the Light, the Lamb of God, in the fully human and fully divine Jesus, the anointed: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The answer to Now What? Continues as John’s disciples leave him and follow Jesus. The two become Jesus’ first disciples as they ask the bumbling question, ‘where are you staying?’ After all, what does one ask the Messiah when we meet him on the Road? Jesus’ answer to them is the key to life and the key to our calling and our place in God’s kingdom.

Jesus answers them, “Come and see.” Come and see where I am staying, come and see what God sent me to do in the world, come and see what God through me calls you to do.’ As we read, “one of the two was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, who immediately finds Peter and proclaims, ‘We have found the Messiah,’” and brings him to Jesus. My guess is Peter had questions of his own: are you sure? Where is he staying, what must I do? My bet is that Andrew answered, “Come and see!”

And that, I believe, is our calling, our mission from God: to go as Andrew did to our brothers and sisters, family and friends, and those whom God puts into our paths and proclaim “we have found the Messiah, the Anointed,” and take them to him, proclaiming to them not only by our words but by our actions, “Come and See!”

The Word became Flesh and Lived among Us

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-18)

“In the beginning. . .the Word was God!” What a great Message for Christmas, God in Jesus present for the creation, a part of all that was, is and is to come. Also a wonderful message for the beginning of a new year, that God became one of us and lives among us, that God moved into our neighborhood and is with us always, even to the “end of the age.”

Our world and our lives are filled with light and darkness, and in times of darkness it is easy to forget that there once was light. Jesus Christ brings that light into the world and reminds us that even in the darkest hours, that light can never be extinguished, that it is always with us.

Times of endings and beginnings allow, perhaps even force, us to reflect on the past, to learn from our experiences both positive and negative; to remember those we have loved and lost and to give thanks for them and their lives as gifts of God to us. These times allow and encourage us to look forward, to realize that “graduation” is also “commencement,” a new beginning, a time to nurture old relationships and to build new ones, a time to discard those things that way us down, and to open ourselves to the possibilities that the Light of Christ brings to us as we begin our next journey around the sun, including living abundantly and fully in the present moment.

In the year just ended, I retired (for the second time), nursed my wife back to health after major Thoracic surgery, was blessed to spend time with my 96 year old mother, including being with her when she died and passed on into the nearer presence of our Lord. I had good times with family and friends and hiked and paddled a lot, enjoying the beauty of God’s Creation. I ended the year with a long hike and the 100^th birthday party for one of my mother’s friends from the nursing home. Throughout the year, through good times and tough times, I lived in the light of Christ which has overcome the darkness.

As we begin a New Year, I invite you all to join me in remembering and celebrating the past year, grateful for God’s presence and Grace, and in looking forward to a New Year, open to God’s Spirit and surrounded by God’s Grace and Truth.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth. (John 1:18)

And So It Begins (at the End)

My favorite Sunday of the year, last Sunday, the First Sunday in Advent! Yes, Christmas, Holy Week and Easter are the foundation of our faith in God through Jesus, but: this Sunday, the beginning of the Christian Year, gives us a different lens through which to see God. The year begins at the end, the Second Coming, looking at the mystery of God before and after the baby, before the birth of the one who is completely God and completely human. “Come thou long expected Jesus. . . .”  We look to the “Second Coming,” the realization of the dream of God and we are encouraged “to watch, to wait, to be ready, to stay awake!”

In Matthew 24:36-44 Jesus said to the disciples, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. . . . if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Jesus’ message and the Christian New Year beginning in late November or early December are reminders of how “out of step,” we Christians are with the rest of the world. This being out of step helps remind us that if “Jesus is Lord,” then “Caesar,” by whatever name Caesar is called today, “is not Lord.”

In what would be a prequel in today’s world, the eighth century BC Prophet, Isaiah son of Amoz proclaimed: “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.(Isaiah 2:1-5)

Again, as we move into the presence and mystery of God, we begin to see, perhaps darkly at first, the mystery of God’s dream of distributive Justice, and peace for all of God’s people.

“Come, Thou long expected Jesus Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in Thee. Israel's strength and consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart. Born Thy people to deliver, Born a child and yet a King, Born to reign in us forever, Now Thy gracious kingdom bring. By Thine own eternal Spirit Rule in all our hearts alone; By Thine all sufficient merit, Raise us to Thy glorious throne.” (Charles Wesley)

One Communion and Fellowship

“Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living. . .” (Book of Common Prayer, p.380)

The above is the Opening Prayer for the Celebration of “All Saints Day,” celebrated on November 1 or the Sunday after. The Feast is a sacred time to recognize and celebrate the eternal thread connecting God’s people to God and one another from the appearance of the first humans until “the end of the age.”(Matthew 28:20b)

And what does “all virtuous and Godly living” look like? Jesus’ explanation is recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus shows us not only what it looks like, but also what it does not look like. He  shows us how to live and how not to live if we are to follow the saints, the people of God, who have gone before us, and if we are to provide a path to those saints who will follow us.

“Jesus looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”(6:20-26)

Luke’s version of the Beatitudes from what is commonly called the “Sermon on the Plain,” differs from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount,” (Mt. 5:1-12) in that the spiritual hunger and poverty and mourning have become earthly, physical hunger, poverty and mourning. Jesus also adds the “woe” statements to remind his followers of the results of not “following the Saints in “all virtuous and Godly living.”

Jesus continues: “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”(Luke 6:27-31)

I suspect that Jesus’ final challenge to his listeners, ending with “The Golden Rule,” turned their world upside down and caused them to question their desire to follow Jesus. I believe today that if we take this challenge as Jesus’ charge to us, that it will cause us to question our commitment to Jesus and to God’s people as well. I also believe we can draw our strength o follow Jesus from that “Great Cloud of Witnesses,” those Saints of God, who have come before us, who now surround us, and who will follow us.

What a blessing to be in such good company on our earthly journey.

“Seek the Welfare of the City where I have Sent You”

Former New York Yankees Catcher and Manager, Yogi Berra once quipped, “Wherever you go, there you are.” There is a lot of truth as well as humor in that statement. As human beings we can only physically be in one place at a time. We arrive in those places in many different ways, some out of choice and others through no choice of our own. Regardless of how we arrive: birth, a move by parents, a move for employment, fleeing poverty or danger, moving closer to family or being conquered and transported by an oppressor, as the people of Judah were in 598 B.C. when conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar and carried off to Babylon (now Iraq). (See Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7)

Once there, wherever there is, we have a choice to make about how to live. Will we seek to live the abundant life Jesus promises us, or will we complain, withdraw within ourselves and wait until life gets better all on its own, something that rarely happens without action on our part.

Reading the prophet Jeremiah’s letter to the “elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile,” it appears that many had chosen to put off living until they returned to Jerusalem, when and if that ever happened. The Lord of Hosts had other plans for them, and speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, proclaimed, “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7)

Whatever the circumstances that brought us to this area I believe God has a similar message for us today: “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you. . . and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”(Jeremiah 29:7)

We all have gifts and talents which will improve life in our community for many people and for the community as a whole, As St. Paul reminds us, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. Just as the body has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1Corinthians 12:1-13)

“Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works. Amen.”