REST

 

Exodus 20:8–11

Let’s take a moment to try something. Think about the last 24 hours of your life. And make a list of three people who were a part of it – in big or small ways. They might even be strangers, whose names you don’t know. Then list three things that you engaged with – things you made, washed, ate, threw away, something you did something with.

Now list three choices that you said yes or no to. Can you see how in each of these things, people, actions you listed you were entering into God’s creative field? How does it feel to think of yourself and your daily life in this way?

The creative process that we have been talking about these past six weeks is really just the natural flow of our lives. When you analyze it, you could break it down into six stages. But we do better to imagine them as waves in a cycle, a cycle that continually plays out – the cycle of God’s creativity.

We began with the dream. Every creation begins with a dream – before the work begins we have to dream up what we want to create. The dream of some possibility that doesn’t already exist. Our ability to dream is essential for us to be able to envision God’s kingdom and then begin the work of bringing it to fruition.

Next is the hovering. God hovered over the waters at the very beginning, and each day God brought some more order to the universe. We too must practice hovering, which I think closely aligns with the incubation stage of creativity. The process of creating is a combination of making something happen and letting something happen, so sometimes we step out of the way and let it happen.

And then, at the right time, we step forward and take a risk, we try something new, not knowing how it will turn out. But if we don’t try it we will never find out.

Then we step back again. We listen. We watch. We pay attention to what happens with the new thing we put into the world. We pay attention to what might be the next step, the next right thing to do.

And then we re-integrate. Everything new must find its place in the world. The old must make way for the new. Every time something changes everything changes. This world is in a constant state of creation.

Constant! And it could be thoroughly exhausting – if we did not include rest.

Rest was an essential part of God’s creation of the world. On the seventh day God rested from all the work that God had done. God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, according to the story of creation in Genesis. And so from this we derive the laws regarding the sabbath day.

We have this text from Exodus, which clearly states that the seventh day, the sabbath day, is for rest, not work. And the law then proceeds to delineate everything that cannot be done on the sabbath day, everything that counts as work.

It can seem to verge on extreme. I thought so when I was in college and shared a dorm suite with a Jewish student. She asked me to leave the bathroom light on from Friday evening through Saturday evening because she was not permitted to turn a light switch. This was considered operating machinery, work, which is forbidden. If I forgot and turned the switch off, she explained to me, she would have to use the bathroom in the dark. To be helpful, she would leave a little note on the switch each week, in case I forgot.

It seemed a little bit silly to me. Although I have come to understand since then that the sabbath restrictions are a way of articulating a rhythm, the rhythm of God’s creation which includes rest. I have grown to appreciate the rhythms of daily life under the law for Jews who live lives of observance.

Still, I think it might feel suffocating at times. Because I think that Jesus felt that. Mark’s gospel tells a story of a time Jesus and his disciples were walking through fields of grain, and as they walked they plucked off some heads of grain. It was the sabbath day. The Pharisees watching them charged them with breaking the law. Plucking grain was forbidden because it was work. But Jesus turns to them and reinterprets the law. He says, “The sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath.” In other words, God does not intend for us to be slaves to the sabbath.

Jesus did all kinds of unlawful things on the sabbath day, like healing people of their afflictions. As he did with so many aspects of the law, Jesus challenged the traditional understanding of it.

Not to say that Jesus was opposed to rest, however. For he also said, “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

Eugene Peterson, in his translation of the scriptures called The Message, says it this way: Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Jesus moves our understanding of sabbath away from a rigid form we force ourselves into, toward a delicate, gentle, rhythm of finding grace.

Perhaps I am treading into a minefield when I say this, but I wonder if we let church become a form we force ourselves into, rather than allowing it to be a gentle rhythm of God’s grace.

I say this out of love for the church and concern for the church’s life. Because too many people have walked away from the church because it felt like this to them – rigid, joyless, something that just didn’t fit. Something lacking that gentle rhythm of grace.

If we allow the church to become just work, we have lost our place in the rhythm of God’s creativity. To the extent that we shut out dreaming, we lose our rhythm. To the extent we shut out play, to the extent we shut out rest, we lose our rhythm – the unforced rhythm of God’s grace.

We give it up for the sake of the artificial rhythms of religion.

We need the holy, creative, playful, loving Spirit now more than ever.

Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash

Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash

RE-INTEGRATE

1 Corinthians 12:12-19

Some years ago my sister gave me a gift of a beautiful hand-made clay pot. It has gingko leaves decorating the surface of it. I loved it immediately. But I didn’t know, immediately, what to do with it. So I set it on the kitchen counter. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I looked at it many times every day. I moved it around as needed while I worked. I wrote my sister a note to thank her for the gift. In the note I told her I was waiting for it to show me how it wants to be used.

And eventually it did. It makes a wonderful napkin holder. To this day it remains in the kitchen (having lived in several kitchens by now), on a shelf, holding the napkins. It is beautiful. I get to look at it every day. And it has a purpose.

What more could you ask for?

The book that I have been reading, called Drawn In, says that everything is created with a purpose. Nothing is created simply for itself. Now this doesn’t mean that everything must be utilitarian, that nothing can be valued just for its beauty. Because, of course, beauty is in itself a purpose. We admire beauty, and find joy from being in its midst. But even beauty wants to be useful, engaged with – that is how beauty becomes a part of our lives. 

When we talk about these things – how a creation is used, how it is valued, it is a question of economy. That might seem like an odd word to use, but economy is essentially about how we manage our stuff. And there are many ways of doing that.

I read something interesting about Native American economy. Before the Europeans came to America, the Native American tribes practiced a kind of gift economy. They gifted pipes to one another. The pipes served as a symbol of how they had interacted with one another, of the generosity they had experienced from one another. For example, the Lakota tribe would give a pipe to the Cherokee tribe. Later when the Apaches met the Cherokees the pipe would be passed to them, and they would give one of their pipes to the Cherokees.

When the Europeans arrived and began to establish friendships with the Native American tribes, the tribes gave them pipes too. But the Europeans were not familiar with this form of gift economy. They would accept the pipe and put it in a trophy case, because it was so cool. They would see the pipe as an acquisition. Much to the dismay of the Natives, their pipes were taken out of circulation. The tribesmen learned in this way that the European men did not see the world and all that is in it the same way they did. 

This idea of gifting and sharing freely the stuff of creation has somehow managed to come up in multiple ways for me recently. Last week several of us got together to have a conversation about the first of our Summer Reads – The Girl Who Smiled Beads. It is a true story about a girl, Clementine, who escaped the Rwandan genocide when she was six years old. She and her older sister then made their way through one refugee camp after another for about six years. Eventually they came to the United States.

Clementine shares a saying that she first learned from her mother, which was repeated by her older sister: Nothing is yours; everything is yours. This is the notion that everything in this world is created by God, created for the use of all God’s people. Everything is yours. But nothing is yours. It is a gift from God and is meant for sharing.

Nothing is yours; everything is yours. This, of course, runs up hard against some sayings we have in our country: like, to the victor goes the spoils. Or, he who dies with the most toys wins.

The morning after our book discussion, I was listening to a podcast that was titled, Why Do We Work So Much? A few decades ago, economists believed that by the time we reached the 21st century, Americans would only need to work about 15 hours a week to meet our needs, that we would be full to overflowing with free time. But what they didn’t anticipate is that our “needs” would continually outrun our ever-increasing abundance. We have more than we have ever had before. But we “need” more than we ever have before.

On this podcast I listened to an anthropologist describe his experience living amongst a tribe in southern Africa, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer societies. He explains some of the systems this tribe has worked out to prevent any member from acquiring too much more than others – too much stuff, too much success, too much admiration. They understand that the survival of their society depends on being able to maintain a basic equality.

And so if one man has a good combination of skill and luck and manages to hunt down a giraffe, when he brings it home to the tribe, this is what he gets: he is mocked; he is criticized. And he puts up with it. You see, he knows that he has done a great thing, and he knows that the others are aware of it. But he also knows that he doesn’t survive solely by his own skills. He is a part of a society in which they are all dependent on one another for survival. He is willing to tolerate the ribbing for the sake of the whole body.

To know that the whole body is vital – this is key.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. These are the words Paul writes to the Corinthian church, words they evidently needed to hear for the sake of their own survival. 

The church in Corinth was suffering from an inequality problem. Some of the members of the new church brought some old values in with them and these old values were threatening to destroy the church that had been created. Some of the people were wealthy. And others were poor. Some lived lives of leisure and others were slaves. They brought this hierarchical way of being and seeing into the church.

For example, it seems that there was a great inequality when it came to food. The church would gather for a meal. And the upper-class members, those who didn’t work, came early to the feast. They helped themselves to all they wanted. But the members who were slaves couldn’t get there early. They were late to arrive, and when they got there they might find that the food was already gone. Outrageous. What kind of a system was this, where the ones with the most would have first pick of the bounty? And the ones who had the least would be the last? 

What kind of system was this? It may have been the norm in the Roman Empire. And it may be the norm in the United States of America. But it is not the norm in the kingdom of God. For we know what Jesus said – that the last shall be first and the first shall go to the back of the line. In God’s realm, there is enough for everyone. Everything is yours; nothing is yours.

Paul is concerned about getting this Corinthian church back on track with the gospel, and he begins to teach them with this useful metaphor: that the church is a body – the body of Christ – and every member of the body has value. Every member has a purpose. No member of the body can go it alone. 

The members of the southern African tribe have a way of recognizing this truth and putting it to work. When the hunter comes home with the giraffe, and after he is duly mocked, it comes time to distribute the meat. But who gets to do that? Is it the privilege of the hunter to give out the meat? In fact, no. The tribe has determined that whoever made the arrow that killed the giraffe is the owner of the meat. Whoever made the arrow has the privilege and responsibility of giving out the meat. And there is a very important reason why.

It takes a great deal of physical fitness to be a successful hunter. But arrow-making is different, someone who is old can make an arrow. Someone who is lame or sickly or slow can make an arrow. In fact, they might make the best arrows.

This is what it is to live in community. The first shall be last and the last shall be first, Jesus said. The members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members that we think are less honorable we clothe with greater honor, Paul said.

Everything God created has a purpose, has a place. Do we really think we know better? Can we not accept the value God places on everything and everyone God creates?

When we fulfill our role as co-creators with God, we will have to face the questions about what purpose the new thing has, where does the new thing go? How does it fit into the existing creation? And to do this we must be able to see things in a new way – whether it is a new pot or a new relationship or a new recognition of value where we did not recognize value before. We must be able to let go of the things of the past that block the way now, while holding onto the things from the past that will carry us into the future. Always sorting. Always discerning, always adapting.

We cannot insist that the old way is the right way and the new way is wrong. Neither can we insist that the new way is always right and what is old is wrong. Neither of these is true. What is true is this: God has made us for one another. We are co-creators in this work of community. We are the body of Christ stumbling around on this path toward making God’s dream a reality. 

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/BELycSEckCc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

LISTEN

 

Acts 16:6-15      

There is a picture, some abstract shapes all in black and white, with four tiny dots in the middle. And if you focus on the four dots for 30 seconds and then close your eyes, you will see Jesus. That’s what the instructions said, so I did it. And, sure enough, that is what happened. When I closed my eyes an image that I recognized as Jesus appeared before me.

It’s an optical illusion. These are fun things to play around with. There are some that have two different images in them – like the one with an old witch and a young woman, or the one with the musician and the girl’s face. Usually you see one of them to start with, but to see the other image it is like your brain has to switch tracks to get a different perspective. I find that I need to relax my eyes, soften my focus, to allow that to happen. Seeing involves more than just the eye.

Listening is that way too. Even when you hear the words someone speaks, are you really hearing what they’re saying to you? Remember back in the 90’s we had books like You Just Don’t Understand and Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus? These books tried to explain to us that when a man says something it doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as when I woman says it. And that men and women may need interpreters to communicate with each other.

How we perceive things – seeing and hearing – is more complicated than just seeing and hearing, because of the nature of our human brains. We know there is a context for everything. There is a story.

The story that our author, Luke, is telling in the book of Acts is about God’s design for us. It is a story that says God – by the power of the Holy Spirit – is in control.

The Apostle Paul and his companions are forbidden by the Spirit to speak in Asia. The Spirit does not allow them to pass into Bithinya. They keep going, farther and farther westward, until they are in the port city of Troas, on the Aegean Sea. If we follow their travels on a map of the region, we see that they are being gently pushed in a particular direction – toward Macedonia.

“Come over to Macedonia and help us,” Paul hears in a dream, and so they go.

Luke and Paul and the others traveling with him all understood that the Spirit of God was with them, guiding them, empowering them. And sometimes disempowering them. What does it mean to say that the Spirit did not allow them to speak in Asia? Are we to imagine them being gagged by an invisible hand? What does it mean to say that the Spirit did not allow them to enter Bithinya? Are we to imagine that they ran into a gigantic force field as they approached the city gates? Certainly not.

What we should understand here is that the way they understand the world and themselves in it is through the lens of a purposeful and active and creative God at work in it.

It may not have always been that way for them. We know some of Paul’s story – that he was educated in the law of Moses. That he was a Pharisee, a teacher of the law in Israel. That he was an active member of the group opposed to Jesus and his followers. We know that he made it his job to seek out and destroy the church because he was convinced that this movement was an offense to the law of God. That is, until the Spirit knocked him to the ground on the road between Jerusalem and Damascus. He was struck blind, and he heard a voice.

It was all very dramatic – no subtlety here. The Spirit of God would have to take away his vision, so he could learn to see in a new way, and be able to hear what he couldn’t hear before. Only then would Paul be able to follow God’s calling for him. We don’t know about Luke or his traveling companions, whether they had similar stories. But one thing I know is that God has more ways of opening ears and eyes and hearts and minds than we can imagine. And another thing I know is that God desires to open our ears and eyes and hearts and minds so we may enter into God’s joy as well as God’s purpose.

God had a purpose in sending Paul to Macedonia.

Macedonia was a Roman province in the northern region of the Greek peninsula. Thessalonika was the capital city, and Philippi was also in this region. We know these cities from the letters Paul wrote to them, Thessalonians and Philippians. When they crossed into Macedonia, Paul and his team went straight to Philippi. On the Jewish sabbath day they went out looking for the place of prayer, as was their custom. Evidently, the Jewish community in Philippi was not large enough for a synagogue, but there was a spot near the river where believers would congregate. Here we meet Lydia.

Lydia was an interesting woman. She was a dealer in purple cloth, which was a luxury item because of the difficulty in making purple dye. So Lydia is probably a woman of some consequence. She is also, apparently, unmarried and the head of her own household. She is an unusual woman. She invites the missionaries to stay at her house and they accept her invitation. Thus we have the first Christian congregation in Europe.

It wasn’t Paul’s intention to go there, but the Spirit gently pushed him in that direction.

The story about Paul’s journey to Macedonia is a story that says something more than just the historical facts. The story tells us that there is a choice Paul faced, and that each of us faces. Paul had a plan and he could have persisted in his plan, even as he encountered so many obstructions. He could have tried again and again and again to do the thing he wanted to do even while he was failing at it. Or, he could do what he did – switch paths, follow the lead of the Spirit, which took him to Macedonia.

I don’t know if it was frustrating or hard for Paul to do, letting go of his plans. But I have to believe that it was. After all, he was only human.

We find it hard, for a lot of reasons. We are taught at a young age, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Persistence is a worthy discipline. But as we grow older we also have to learn another discipline, that is, don’t beat your head against a stone wall. That stone wall might be the Spirit advising you to go another way.

Holding on to our plans, our dreams, loosely can be a very hard – even painful – thing to do. To be able to let go of what we imagine as being our destiny, for the sake of something that hasn’t even been revealed to us yet, is something that takes humility and grace. And we have seen too many people fail to do that – such as politicians who refuse to acknowledge that they have reached the end of the path. But it’s not only politicians; all kinds of people do it, because power and control is a heady thing – even if it’s only power over your own life.

But if we don’t acknowledge one ending to await the next beginning, we will never know the joy and purpose God has in mind for us.

The only thing to do is to listen. To watch. The Spirit will show us the next step.

Photo Credit: marekpiwnicki.pictorem.com

RISK

Matthew 25:14-30      

There is an argument in the church that is probably as old as the church. It is an argument about grace and works.

We say that we are saved by the grace of God. And we say that faith in this grace is all we need. We don’t have to do anything to deserve God’s love and God’s saving grace. But, on the other hand, we have a lot of rules, a lot of expectations about how we should live and be in the world.

We say that when we are living a life of faith we will receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and we will begin to see the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. We say that God’s grace enables us to live such lives and bear such fruit.  To become the kind of person about whom the master might say, “Well done, good and trustworthy servant. Come, enter into the joy of your master.”

The problem is that we tend to get confused about it all. We become very concerned about whether or not we are worthy of God’s grace. And once that has happened, once we have put the proverbial cart before the horse, we have really forgotten all about God’s grace.

And the big problem there is that when we have forgotten about God’s grace, there is absolutely no joy of the master to even consider entering into. That’s a problem. And that was the problem of the one-talent slave.

When summoned, this man came forward and said, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid.” There was no joy there for this slave.

This parable comes in the middle of a set of three parables in which Jesus is painting a picture for his disciples of what the kingdom of God is like.

In this set of three parables, he is saying that somehow, someway, some people will see the kingdom and others won’t see the kingdom.

He says in the first parable, it is like ten bridesmaids, waiting for the groom. Five of them are wise, but the other five are foolish and they miss their opportunity to enter the wedding banquet. Then in this parable, he says it is like a master who is preparing to go on a long journey and he summons his slaves to him. He has decided to entrust the management of his property to these slaves, so he distributes his funds among them, to each according to his ability.

The master apparently thought the first slave had great ability. He gave him five talents. The second slave fell short of great, and he gave him only two talents. And the third slave, who is just so-so, received a paltry one talent.

But hold on – let’s consider the kind of money we are talking about here. A talent was a unit of currency, the equivalent of 6,000 denarii. A single denarius was the usual daily wage for a laborer. So get out your calculator and see that one talent is the equivalent of about 16.5 years of labor – that is, if you worked seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

The low guy on this totem pole received what might possibly be a lifetime’s worth of wages. The next guy got two of those and the best guy got five. Literally, he was handed five times as much money as he could expect to earn over his adult life.

Granted, this wasn’t a gift. The master handed over these sums to his slaves as a trust. The master was expecting his slaves to steward these funds – that is to say, make good use of them, manage them responsibly, while the master was gone.

The first slave went to work and turned five talents into ten talents, by trading wisely. The second slave did just as well with the amount he was given, doubling his money. When the master returned, they proudly handed over these very impressive gains.

But the third slave was different. He took that single talent and he buried it in the ground. He thought that was the safe thing to do. His master said that was wicked. It was also driven by fear.

His fear prevented him from seeing the possible.

When the church has this argument about grace and good works, when we get confused about which comes first – the grace or the works – we have this phrase: works righteousness, the idea that we gain our righteousness by our good works. And it is easy to think this parable of the talents is all about works righteousness. But it’s not about that. what it’s really about is Christian living, which involves taking risks.

The master handed over an unimaginable sum of money to his slaves, and this slave who received one talent – a whole talent – sees it only as a burden. We might see the giving of these talents as an act of divine grace. But this one-talent slave missed that completely. He sees no grace; no possibility, no hope, no joy at all. And why would he take a risk in those circumstances?

It is tragic that he missed out on the wonderful opportunity that the first two slaves seized – the opportunity to take what they were given, take the risk required to make something amazing from it, and ultimately to enter into the joy of their master.

But to get there, the risk was absolutely necessary. Let’s take a moment to talk about why.

So many things in this world are viewed through the framework of transaction – like, you be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you in return. Transactional thinking is so deeply ingrained in us that we have a very hard time imagining God’s grace. Because grace is the opposite of a transaction – it is a gift.

So why, then, you might ask, is something expected of us in return? Whether you call it works righteousness or Christian living, you’re saying I have to give something back, right?

The answer to that is that the relationship we enter into with God is something altogether different.

Imagine this: the grace of God is poured out on the world like a river that flows all around. This river and all its rills and gullies and streams are all around us and we have the option – the invitation – to jump right into it, to flow along in it, to become a part of it. God’s river of grace.

We might read the grand story of the scriptures as something just like this. From beginning to end, it is a story about God – God’s creative acts and God’s amazing grace. Throughout the story we see different characters enter in, becoming a part of the story. It is as if they jump into the river of God’s grace and flow along for a while, doing the work of God for a period of time, then making way for others.

But in that same grand story we also see examples of characters who are at odds with God. Those who seem to resist the river of grace, never jumping in. Never becoming a part of it.

It’s as though some people can’t see the river. They might see only a dry wadi, with nothing of life in it. Certainly not something you would jump into.

Here is the nub: You won’t take a risk if you see no possible gain, no joy. You won’t take a risk if you haven’t already felt the grace penetrate your skin like drops of healing water.

But if you have felt that, then you know that the best life is there waiting for you, all the joy, on the other side of risk.

Come in; the water is fine.

Photo Credit: Efe Kurnaz (@efekurnaz) | Unsplash Photo Community

HOVER

Luke 4:1-13       

So … what was going on right before Jesus began his public ministry? roaming through the countryside visiting the synagogues and proclaiming that he was the fulfillment of the good news? He was forty days in the wilderness, fasting. With the devil breathing down his neck.

But why, though?

He went into the wilderness directly after his baptism in the Jordan River – you remember, that moment when the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. And, then, full of the Spirit, he was led into the wilderness. Alone.

It is a surprising turn of events, really, because after he was baptized, and the Holy Spirit appeared and the voice from heaven spoke, you would expect some kind of action. Clearly, he was well-equipped to do something magnificent. The people who witnessed his baptism might have waited with expectation for what would happen next. He would surely do some extraordinary thing. But, instead, he walked away, led by the Spirit, into the wilderness.

Also known as the desert. The wilderness in that part of the world is a dry and barren place, a deadly place. This story should put us in mind of the story from Exodus, in which the Israelites were led out of bondage and into the wilderness. A place of emptiness, nothingness, death. The wilderness is, as one person described it, a place of un-creation. A place that seems to resist creation.

Jesus stayed in this place of un-creation for forty days. And at the end of these forty days in which he ate nothing, he was famished.

At that point, there were three specific temptations the devil presented to Jesus: to turn stones into bread, to worship the devil for the sake of power, and to test God’s love for him. All of these would have been hard to resist, especially the one about turning stones to bread.

But what might have been the nature of the devil’s temptations during the course of those forty days? The scriptures say that during Jesus’ forty days of isolation the devil tempted him but doesn’t say how. Maybe the temptation was just to do something, anything. And maybe Jesus resisted by doing nothing.

I realize I am taking a leap here, making assumptions based on nothing in particular, but do me the favor of considering it. What if the hardest thing for Jesus to do at that time was to simply do nothing?

And what if doing nothing was the most important – the most necessary – thing for Jesus to do at that time? It would be a hard sell for most of us, who believe that life is all about doing stuff.

We measure our value by what we have done, how much we have produced, what we have created. But the truth, which we often forget, is that an integral part of being creative is to be still and do nothing.

The story at the beginning of Genesis tells us how that played a role in God’s creation of the world. In the beginning, the earth was a void, nothing. It was, according to the author of this story, formless, the way water is formless. Most translations say that God’s Spirit moved over the waters – the word in the text is something like fluttered, or perhaps hovered. The Spirit of God hovered over the waters the way a hummingbird hovers over a flower.

The poetry of this first chapter of Genesis shows beautifully how God works in the world. God doesn’t storm in and do everything at once. God watches, hovers, waits, and creates. The process of creating requires a period of hovering.

Those who study the creative process have identified certain stages you go through to create something. It begins with some kind of preparation, like making a nest for the project. In this stage maybe you have an idea of what you want to create. You might have some parameters, some expectations and hopes. But surprisingly, this preparation is not followed by action – the next stage is incubation. Just as a mother bird, after making her nest, covers her egg and waits. A period of incubation is necessary, where the bird is doing nothing.

You might have some familiarity with this stage in the creative process. The times when you have begun your work and wracked your brain and torn out your hair in frustration, before you realized that you need to step away from it. Take a break. Do something different, or nothing at all.

Then, suddenly being struck with a creative brainstorm, out of nowhere! At that moment, you know what you need to do.

Imagine God having that brainstorm each of the six days of creation. Hovering, fluttering, waiting for the next move to present itself. And, as we are created in God’s image, we need to sometimes wait for the next move to present itself. Hovering.

It is a part of the rhythm of life – the pause. The act of hovering to discern the next move. It is a part of our process in everything we do, in fact. It’s just what we are equipped for. If we can only be mindful enough to do it.

At the university where I worked years ago, there was a program for first-generation college students, designed to provide them with resources that would help them succeed. One of the resources was mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness is a very simple kind of meditation. You don’t need any particular pose or mantra or breathing technique. You simply practice being completely present in the moment, attentive to the here and now, available to the Spirit of God.

As simple as it is, it’s really hard to do. Our minds are like flies buzzing around, landing on one thing, then another and another. Making your mind sit still feels next to impossible. The students took classes to learn it. And it wasn’t optional – all the students in the program were required to learn the art of being still.

I had my doubts about whether it was really worthwhile. So I asked one of the students what she thought about it. She told me a story. One weekend she went home for a visit. It was homecoming weekend at her high school and she went to the football stadium along with a lot of other alumni. Behind the bleachers she ran into an old boyfriend and some of his friends. He began taunting her. He said things that he knew from past experience would get a rise out of her – he had learned how to push her buttons.

She told me that when she heard him saying these things, she recognized the routine. He would say this, she would say that, he would reply and things would escalate. But instead of slipping into the old routine, she paused. She hovered in the moment until the next right step revealed itself.

That boy didn’t know what to do. Game over.

In the pause, in the hovering, she changed a destructive pattern, which made way for something new. In this practice of waiting and looking within, she was able to find the direction the Spirit was leading her. You and I can do that too.

 “Practice the pause.”

“When in doubt, pause. When angry, pause. When tired or stressed, pause.

“And when you pause, pray.”

Even Jesus had to practice the pause. Before he could begin his world-changing ministry, he needed to take forty days in the wilderness, the anti-creation, to do nothing but hover and wait. And we know from the gospels that he would go back to the pause, many times during the course of his ministry. To take himself away from it all, to pause and pray.

This pause in the process – hovering – is sacred time. Let hovering be a part of all that you do. To get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit come in, drawing you in to the creative life of God.

 Photo Credit: Tim Zänkert (@znkrt) | Unsplash Photo Community

 

  

DREAM

Luke 4:13-21

Note: This is part 1 of a six-week series using the movements of creativity from Troy Bronsink’s book Drawn In: A Creative Process for Artists, Activists, and Jesus Followers.

In some Bibles, the words that Jesus said are printed in red to set them apart, to make them stand out. I don’t have a Bible like that. But, this past week, on a whim, I highlighted the words in quotation marks and changed them to red. Because what he said here was pretty huge.

Of course, he didn’t make it up. He was reading from the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 61:

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.

These are the words the prophet Isaiah said, and Jesus read. But then he ad-libbed. He put aside the scroll and he said to the gathering, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.” Which is a huge thing to say. Incredible, actually.

And those who were listening to Jesus, they only had to look around them to doubt that. To know those words did not describe their current reality. They only had to think about what they had left behind at home that morning when they walked to the synagogue: the conversations with their wives over breakfast about the household finances, about this child’s health problems or that neighbor’s crop failure. They only had to remember the tension they felt in their bodies when they walked past the Roman guards. They thought about blind Bartimaeus, whom they passed by this morning, and knew for a fact that he was still blind. The Roman crosses still stood out on the hill nearby. No, the world just didn’t seem as though this scripture had been fulfilled. 

So if the people seemed in any way resistant to Jesus’ words, they had good reason.

We stand in the same place. Listen to his words again and wonder how well they reflect our reality. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And today this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.

Has the scripture been fulfilled? We know too much of war and random acts of violence, unfettered hate and corruption for us to believe that the kingdom of God has arrived. And yet –

We read these words that Jesus said. We print them in red letters, which means they are true. We want them to be true. But can they be true?

Let’s see where we are at. 

Jesus, baptized by the Holy Spirit, was led into the wilderness where he was tempted and tormented by the devil for 40 days. Filled with the power of this same Spirit, he swept through the countryside and villages, speaking in the synagogues. And on this day, he stood up and chose these words from the prophet Isaiah, making the prophet’s words his own. He has been anointed to proclaim good news. 

The good news that there is a different way, a better way of seeing the world and living in the world; that there is a different direction in which we may move the world. Jesus is showing the people of Galilee – and us – an alternative way of seeing – 

where those who were previously invisible become visible. Those who were unimportant, beneath notice – like the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned – are now being lifted up. And while this is not the way the world sees, Jesus says this is the way God sees. 

The scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing – right here, right now.

Even though we cannot yet see it, it is being fulfilled in your hearing. Within you and within me. 

The Spirit of God, which filled Jesus as he swept out of the wilderness and through the villages and countryside, poured out of him when he spoke. The Spirit of God within him placed this vision in him and on him. And as he proclaimed it, he made it grow by sharing the vision with others.

You see, the kingdom of God comes within us, as the tiniest seed, by the power of the Spirit working in us and through us, long before it ever comes into view. By the power of the Spirit, we may envision God’s kingdom, dream God’s kingdom, before we ever see God’s kingdom. But it will never come into view if we don’t first dream it.

God created the world by such an act of imagination. God conceived it and then spoke it into existence. Let there be light. Let the waters and the earth bring forth creatures of every kind. And let us make humankind in our image – the image of God.

And so we are co-creators of this world, with God. It is our birthright – to imagine and create. The red-letter words of scripture urge us to imagine the same possibilities that Jesus imagines. Imagine a world where the poor are cherished and lifted up, where the prisoners are released, the oppressed are freed, and all who are blind can see.

This is not merely an idle daydream. Why should it be? When we read these red-letter words in scripture we may hear them giving us permission to dream along with him and to take our dreams seriously. 

To dream and create. That is what God made us for.

You may not think of yourself as being creative, but of course you have that capacity in you. Our ability to imagine something different than what we see? That distinguishes us as human beings. This creative capacity is the image of God, and letting it flourish is how we live into our humanity.

We too often think that dreaming, imagining, and creating is for children. When we were young we loved to draw pictures, and build imaginary buildings and towns with our blocks. We created imaginary worlds with our dollhouses or molded new creatures into existence with our Play-Doh. 

But then we grew up and put away our crayons and clay and blocks, we moved on to more serious pursuits. Important things – as though the work of imagination is not important.

I suggest to you that not only is it important, it is essential. Because if we forget how to imagine, we forget our true identity. When we allow ourselves to create, we are drawn in to our creator – God.

Now this doesn’t mean that every one of us has a world-class painter or novelist inside waiting to bust out. Creativity can take many, many forms. In fact, your creativity can be any kind of thing you want it to be. Anything that stirs your soul.

We may have to do a little dreaming to uncover that. Go ahead. Try it.

Let your imagination roam over what you love to make – it can be something tangible, like a cake or a vase you put on a shelf. Or it could be something intangible, like laughter or comfort. What do you make in the world?

What moves your soul, what brings you deep joy? What is it for you? Whatever you do with that, whatever you make out of that thing that brings you joy, is your gift to the world. However that passion moves you, this is the way you become a part of God’s creative team.

You might already know what it is. You might not. You might have one or two things you like to do, but still wonder if there are other, as yet undiscovered, creative outlets for you.

All that discovery, it is here for you, waiting for you. The next six weeks will offer opportunities and invitations to try new things. 

To imagine, to dream, to create is to dwell in God’s love. It is where you are being called. Jesus is standing at the threshold of this new possibility, beckoning us forward. Come, let us be drawn in.

Photo Credit: Laura Ockel (lauraockel.com)

Holy Three-In-One!

 

John 3:1-17        

I read someone this week who called Trinity Sunday “Non Sequitur” Sunday. I never thought of it that way, but I kind of like it.

A non sequitur is a statement that doesn’t logically follow from the previous statement. So if you say, “It’s supposed to rain today,” and I respond with, “I like cheese on my macaroni,” that’s a non sequitur.

Kind of like saying God is three; God is one. God is three in one. Because, as Pete said to Everett when Everett told him he him was justified in stealing from Pete’s kin who was fixing to betray them, even though Everett didn’t know that at the time: “That don’t make no sense.”

And if you didn’t follow that, don’t worry. It’s a non sequitur.

Today the lectionary gives us the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, the only conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus skulks over to Jesus in the dark of night, probably to avoid being seen by his pharisaic colleagues. He has some questions stirring his soul, questions that he can only ask Jesus.

Nicodemus knows that the consensus among the Pharisees is that Jesus is a sinner, but Nicodemus sees something different in him. Nicodemus sees that he has something of God in him. No one could do what Jesus does apart from the presence of God. To Nicodemus this is a logical and compelling truth. But it’s not enough, because Jesus is saying and doing so much that conflicts with all that is taught and practiced by the Pharisees. He doesn’t seem to be right with the law of God, but he clearly seems to be of God. And, like Pete said, that don’t make no sense.

Nicodemus goes to Jesus at night in search of something – the key to understanding all of this. But understanding eludes him. We sometimes treat Nicodemus as if he is dull-witted, stuck in the concrete operational stage of cognitive development. We think he is too literal minded, too obtuse. But tell me: what do you think you would say?

Nicodemus says, “I know you came from God.” And Jesus replies, “You need to be born from above.”

Nicodemus says, “How can I do that?” and Jesus says, “The wind blows where it will.”

Nicodemus says, “How can these things be?” and Jesus says, well, he says a whole lot of stuff that don’t make no sense. Ascending and descending from heaven. A serpent in the wilderness. And that God just loved the world sooo much that God gave his only Son to die for it.

It’s like Jesus was speaking in code. And no one gave Nicodemus the decoder manual. Somewhere in the course of Jesus’ soliloquy Nicodemus wanders off, more lost than when he arrived.

And this is Trinity Sunday.

The story of Jesus and Nicodemus says nothing directly about the Trinity. Actually, nowhere in the scriptures do we find anything written directly about the Trinity. But the story of this nighttime visit shows us something about the triune nature of God: That Jesus is from God, is of God. That he is the Son of God, sent to save the world on God’s behalf. And that the essential work of saving the world essentially involves the Holy Spirit.

No one can enter God’s realm without being born of water and Spirit, Jesus says to Nicodemus. In the church, we live out these words in the sacrament of baptism. Whenever we pour the waters of baptism, invoking the names of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are bearing witness to our belief that God is here with us; that God is, somehow, three persons who are, in essence, One.

Many brilliant minds have tried to unpack and explain the Holy Trinity – with limited success. We are forever reaching for metaphors to help us understand what is essentially a metaphor itself. A metaphor for something that is beyond our human comprehension; something that, as Pete said, just don’t make no sense.

But there is a certain way to describe the Trinity which says God is the Father and the Son in relationship and the Spirit is the love that flows between them. This love that flows between them is so bountiful that it overflows, and it creates, sustains, and enlivens the world and all who are in it.

The Holy Spirit is how we are drawn in to that relationship; how we are washed in that love.

Yeah, I know, it still don’t make no sense. But, as Everett said in response to Pete, “It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.” Eventually, we all need to move out of our heads, at least for a moment, and dwell in the heart, bask in the love that flows without bounds.

We might wonder if poor Nicodemus ever got out of his head, ever overcame his profound confusion from this series of non sequiturs. From this story, it’s impossible to know. But you should know that this is not the last we hear from Nicodemus.

A few chapters later, Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem and begins teaching, saying some very provocative things. The Pharisees watching are ready to have him arrested. But Nicodemus, who is among them, speaks up. We have not heard him speak since he said, “How can this be,” but now he speaks to the gathered Pharisees, urging restraint. Nothing bad happened that day, and perhaps it was because of Nicodemus.

Again, Nicodemus disappears. We hear nothing more about him – until after Jesus is crucified. A man named Joseph asks permission to take his body down from the cross. He arranges to have it taken to a tomb. And Nicodemus, the man who first came to Jesus under cover of darkness, brings a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to give his body a proper burial.

Did that cloud of confusion ever lift from Nicodemus? Did he manage to get out of his head just enough to trust what he was beginning to know in his heart? Perhaps. The wind blows where it will, as Jesus said, and some of it might have blown over Nicodemus.

May you feel the wind blow gently upon you. May you listen with your heart as well as your head. May you be sustained and enlivened by the overflowing love of God.