Faith, Grace, and Hope

Many years ago, I spent a few nights in a hostel on the outer edge of Edinburgh, Scotland. I was there alone, but had a great time exploring the city by day and then resting in my little cubby in a shared room at night. On my third or fourth night, an alarm went off in the building. I got up, grabbed my purse, put on shoes, and immediately went out the nearest exit, heading down to the bank of the small river behind the building. I waited at the far end of the lawn, alone for several minutes before the alarm stopped sounding. No one else came out at all. When I walked around the front of the building and was let back inside, I asked what happened. “Oh, the alarm does that sometimes,” I was told. “It’s no big deal.” I was confused, “But what would have happened if there had been a problem?” I was assured that everything would have been fine. There was nothing to worry about. Just go back to sleep.  While this probably seemed like nothing to them, it was a big deal to me. I was only ...

There is a lot of current conversation using the words patriotism and nationalism as though they were interchangeable phrases or concepts. Historically, they have not been interchangeable and I would argue they’re not today either.  Patriotism and nationalism differ in the areas of unity vs. uniformity, reflection, and expectation around improvement. They both reflect a love of country and a pride in home and aspects of history. One is more willing to embrace truth-telling than the other.  With regard to unity vs. uniformity, nationalism seeks the latter. Most nationalist movements have a concept of the “ideal” citizen in terms of race, religion, and/or political ideology. In the beginning of most nationalist movements, this is the “quiet” part. Leaders of the movement don’t necessarily specify these preferred expressions because they need everyone to be “all in” in order to achieve power. Eventually, though, the truth will out. Look to who speaks for the group most often and ...

A Sermon for Holy Cross Day  ( Numbers 21;4b-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 3:13-17) Look up! Moses says to the snake bitten children of God.  Look up and live!  You are being poisoned by a false memory. The scars of the lashes of slavery are still with you, yet you want to remember the grimaces and call them smiles.  Look up, cries Moses, look up at the truth.  The truth of God’s provision, the truth of walking in freedom, the truth of hope – these truths are indeed a new landscape, but your eyes can adjust. Your body can adjust. Your breath can adjust.  But for these truths to do their healing work, you must look up.  Lift your eyes to the one who heals you, past the medicine in its curious form. Look to the One whose power is over you, whose love is around you, whose Divine desire is for your healing.  Tell them to look up, says the Lord to Moses, to look up from their pain, to turn away from lies, to want healing as much as I, the Lord, want t...

  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.   - Hebrews 13:8 In every conversation about societal change, people who seek wisdom from the Bible turn to this phrase. Maybe not every person, but these words show up in each argument.  Once this phrase appears, the person using it has shut down. They’re no longer open to holy imagination, reason, or even (eyeroll) the devil’s advocate. They’re done.  Bear in mind, please, that people used these words to justify the chattel slave trade, the subjugation of women, the forcible removal and attempted extermination of Native peoples, the right to “subdue” the land without thought for renewal or regeneration.  The sameness of Christ has been invoked to support antisemitism, racism, LGBTQ+ shaming and harm, marginalization of those with mental illness, harm to neurodivergent folks, people who are divorced, people with physical illnesses, and the list goes on and on.  There is no one reading this who has...

Luke 10:25-40 Over the course of my life, I have watched the focus of today’s gospel story shift. As a child, I received the most common interpretation- that the goal of our life as followers of Jesus was to be like the merciful Samaritan. We are called and equipped to stop and help. How could we do any less, given that our Savior stopped and helped us?   Good Samaritan laws and a variety of organizations are named after this interpretation. Looked at from this view, the story draws us all toward opportunities of mercy and generosity. Those are certainly two things the world could use more of- mercy and generosity. They can come from unexpected sources but should certainly come from people who claim to be following Jesus.    Then came the reflections on why the priest and the Levite did not stop. I have read and listened to countless explanations of why these two people rushed past a man in need. Sometimes the reasons seem to make sense; sometimes they are difficult to un...

 Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-3   Goodbye well-crafted words based on the Galatians text of the day. Reflections on unity in the early church, of social sacrifice, and mutual care across social and racial lines will have to wait for another day. Another time, God willing, we will return to Paul’s words regarding the disciplined Divine love in the law and the matching compassionate grace to be found in Christ, the inheritance of the descendants of Abraham, the children of God.   Farewell to thoughts on Isaiah- musings on people who sought power in the wrong ways and worshipped their own understanding, rather than the mystery and awesomeness of God. Delete, delete, delete over sentences regarding what it might mean for a people to follow their own certainties to such an extent that they miss the providence and guidance of God right before them. The prophet speaks of God’s impatience, but the people do not see it and we will not spend time...

A few weeks ago ,  I was using voice-to-text to compose some prayers. After I was finished speaking the whole list, I was proof-reading the document and   realized that everywhere I said “Amen”, the voice-to-text wrote “I’m in”. “Amen” essentially means  “may it be so”,  but what would it look like to end our prayers with “I’m in”. What would change if we rose from our knees, left our prayer closets, closed our devotionals, and moved with purpose toward the goals for which we had just prayed.  Lord, in your mercy:  Grant justice to the oppressed and disenfranchised (I’m in) Cast down the mighty from their thrones (I’m in)  Console the grieving and welcome the prodigal (I’m in)  Welcome strangers and attend to the marginalized (I’m in)  Grant the space for the silenced to speak… and listen (I’m in)  Fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty (I’m in)  Forgive others as I am forgiven (I’m in) Be merciful as God in h...

Readings: Job 1:1-22; Job 38:1-11; Luke 8: 22-25 10. Job contradicts Proverbs.   The writer of Proverbs offers the hope and consolation that people who live wisely and faithfully, according to the will of God, will flourish and prosper. The very first chapter of Job says: it ain’t necessarily so. You may well live righteously and with great integrity and, still, terrible things may happen. A faithful life is not an automatic buffer to calamity. Due to this contradiction between the books, both of which are categorized as wisdom literature, we are reminded of all those who have gone before us who tried to make the Bible speak with one voice. It doesn’t. The Bible has many voices, some of which are quite dissonant together, but they sing one song about the presence and providence of God.  9. Job is an old story, but a young book, relatively speaking. Since Job doesn’t mention Abraham or Moses or the laws or the Temple, some interpreters have considered it the oldest story ...

I recently read a book that contained this line, “God can only be drilled out of us, not into us. I can see that now, from a distance.” God can only be drilled out of us, not into us. The author was discussing the griefs and losses of her life, but also her awareness of the larger scope of the movement and power that carries us all, even in the difficult seasons. You do not survive these seasons by thinking there is no God unless the idea of a God who cares, who is slow to anger, who is abounding in steadfast love has been drilled out of you.   How does the idea of God get “drilled out of a person”? In today’s scripture passages, we have an example of people who have held on to the majesty and mystery of God, even in times of trouble. Then we also have a person whose awareness of the Divine has been drilled out by a desire to retain power and worldly influence.  The magi or wise men were probably Persian astrologers or maybe Zoroastrian priests from the same region, modern-day...