What Lasts

Isaiah 65:17-25  

Luke 21:5-19     

We have all known hardship and sorrow and loss, I am sure. Although we might not have known it the way Israel did.

The Old Testament book of Isaiah tells us of the trials that Israel endured during the 6^th century BCE when they were invaded by a powerful enemy – the Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem was protected by strong walls, but the Babylonian army was big enough, powerful enough to wear them down.

They laid siege to the city, surrounded it, trapping the Israelites inside. No one could go in or out. The enemy waited. The people inside the walls went through all their food stores, and the Babylonians waited. They waited until the people inside were starving, and then they waited a little more.

Finally, they attacked. They trampled, they killed, they set fires. They destroyed the holy temple. The temple that Israel had built with the idea that it would last forever. But now it was no more. It did not last.

The Babylonians took the Israelites as prisoners and marched them off to Babylon.

Which is where they stayed for around 50 years. And the painful memory of that time can still be seen in some of the scriptures that came out of that period.

But empires do not last forever; they come and go, and eventually the Babylonian empire was weakened and destroyed by a more powerful ruler. This ruler had a different plan for dealing with its captive Israel.

The plan was to let them go back home. To make them rebuild what had been torn down. And so they did, some of them, 50 years after they have been forced out, return to Israel. They are sent back to rebuild Jerusalem.

The work of rebuilding is arduous, more difficult than anyone could have imagined. Conditions were harsh in every way. The people were still not free of oppression – it was just a different kind of oppression.

Some decades passed, very little progress was made, and the people’s resolve was waning. They fought amongst themselves, and they turned away from God. The rebuilding they had accomplished seemed so much less than what they remembered from the glory days of Jerusalem, before the Babylonian invasion. What they had now was a mere shadow of its former self.

And in the midst of this the prophet offers them hope. Isaiah speaks to them of how God will set to right all things, and it will happen imminently. The deliverance of Israel and judgment on their oppressors. Things so glorious they…well, some might say the prophet went a bit too far, because these things he speaks of, they defy credibility.

He is speaking to them about things that last. And after all they have been through, that might have been hard to imagine. But he gave them hope – hope enough to carry on.

The temple was rebuilt. The religious life of Israel was restored.

Several hundred years later, there is another new oppressor – the Roman Empire now. This oppressor had taken an interest in the temple – they saw it as a fixer-upper. King Herod was keen on rebuilding and refurbishing the temple for his own glory, rather than for the glory of God. But it was indeed beautiful, and the people of Israel appreciated it. Worship, study, sacrifices of all kinds still took place there; it was still the center of religious life for the people of Israel.

But they clearly had a sense now of how things could fall apart. And so they handled their relationship with Rome delicately – treading carefully with the oppressor, so that they might not interfere with their rituals and traditions. The priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees went to tremendous pains to maintain a peaceable relationship with the Romans. If they manage it right, they thought, this accommodation, this truce, it might just last forever.

And then Jesus steps up and tells them it will not. This temple, it will not last forever either. The day will come when not one stone will be left upon another. Once again, it will be left in ruins. All thrown down.

But a people who have lost so much, so many times, are alarmed when they hear this. No, they think. This cannot be. “When?” they ask him, “How? What will be the sign?” Can they prepare for it? Can they possibly avoid the calamity this time?

When Luke was writing, these things had already happened. Those things that Jesus described – the destruction of the temple – were already in the past. This beautiful temple, like the ones before it, did not last.

As many times as we build glorious monuments and as many times as we see them go down – in flames or in dust – we persist in imagining that they should last forever.  But they don’t. I have seen churches die – not from enemy attacks, though. What happens now is that people drift away. Members grow older and eventually die. New people don’t join. And one day there are two or three people left, and they begin to wonder if this is the end.

We may find it unbearable, the idea that a church could die, because we believe in eternal things. But sometimes we confuse our forms with God’s everlasting promises.

Nothing made by human hands lasts, no matter how good it is. Temples are destroyed, our church buildings might be emptied, sold, and even torn down to make room for something else.

Nothing of human creation lasts forever. Our steeples and bells, our stained-glass windows. Our pews. Someday they will be gone.

None of our human ideas or preferences last forever. Our orders of worship, our musical styles, the things about which we say “we have always done it that way” – even these things will fade.

The church of Jesus Christ is not immune to loss and hardship. Jesus warned his disciples that it would not be easy, and if anyone tried to tell them otherwise, they had better run away. They best not be led astray by anyone who comes along with false promises.  But do not be terrified, he says to us. All things on earth will come to an end, but this will not be the end because God’s promises are everlasting.

Not a hair on your head will perish, he says. By your endurance you will gain your souls, he says. For God is making a new heaven and a new earth, and it will be filled with things of life and light and joy, with good things to eat and drink, with peace, with love.

We see things end…we sometimes are called upon to rebuild, to make something new, like Israel did after their Babylonian exile. Like Jesus’ disciples did after his crucifixion and the empty tomb. Things come and they go, and the Presbyterian Church USA will not last forever, either, I assure you. But that is alright, because God’s promises are everlasting.

Our church year is about to end. A new Advent is about to dawn, with all its anticipation and hope. The vision of the prophet, the promises of Jesus, these are our hope for all eternity.

Love…peace…joy…hope. These are the things that last. Do not be terrified, because no matter what happens to all our stuff, all our ways of doing things – we know: God’s promises are the things that last.

Forever and ever. Amen.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash 

 

All the Saints

 

Ephesians1:11-23      

It is what we all dread, although we know it is inevitable. No one on earth lives forever, and the end will come for each one of us, even though we don’t know when.

But one day the moment arrives. A loved one dies. It may come so much sooner than was expected that we feel like death has cheated. Or it may come after a long full life – perhaps even as a mercy. In any case, we grieve – for ourselves mostly. We are the ones who will carry the sorrow of the loss.

But yet there is a will to be read. A last will and testament that our beloved has left behind. We are called to the reading and so we go. We sit down in front of the attorney’s desk – or counselor, we might call them – and wait to hear what has been written.

The counselor smiles, looks at us and says, “I am so happy to be able to share this with you today. You are going to inherit something so wonderful, there are no words to adequately describe it.”

And we are thinking: what could that possibly be? a million dollars? Have they left me all their property? What could be so indescribably wonderful?

The counselor proceeds to open the will and begins reading:

In Christ we have obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

And as we listen to this we begin to think, I guess the counselor is right to say that there are no words to adequately describe it. Because I don’t really have a clue what this inheritance is. Is it really so great?

The counselor can tell by our expressions that we are skeptical, and speaks again: “Your love for all the saints is well-known,” the counselor begins.

But we say, “Wait – I don’t know what you’re even talking about. Saints? I don’t know any saints. Please, look around. Do you see anyone who is perfect? Anyone who is not broken; hurting and sometimes even hurting other people? Do you see anyone in this crazy world who is really getting it right?

“Counselor, my heart is breaking for this world and all the people living in it, because everywhere I see chaos. I see angry people – angry at one another, angry at their circumstances, angry at the world. They are angry about their lost fortunes, their lost dreams, lost hopes. They divide themselves into opposing camps – mistrusting one another completely. They have about given up on everything, counselor. And I am afraid I am just the same.

“People have lost faith. They worship idols of all kinds, they care only about amusing themselves, distracting themselves from their pain. I see people who are addicted to anger and people who are just depressed. People who are always fighting and people who only want to escape, to disappear. And you talk about saints? There are no saints anymore.”

The counselor looks at us for a moment, then begins to speak again: “It is true, you cannot see it now. At best, we can only get a fleeting glimpse of this wonderful inheritance, but that does not make it any less real. It is a matter of vision. Perspective. That is, are you seeing through your eyes alone, or are you seeing with your heart?

“If you see with the eyes of your heart, you will still see the pain, the anger, the sorrow in this world – I cannot take that away. You are right – it is all around us. But if you see with the eyes of your heart, you will see so much more.”

But we interrupt again: “Just stop. That sounds like so much new age hooey, Counselor!”

“There is nothing new age about it,” the Counselor replies, “it’s as ancient as the words of the scriptures. With the eyes of your heart you will see the hope to which you have been called. The hope we have in Jesus Christ. Dear ones, this is not some feeble, frilly hope, like we mean when we say, ‘I hope there is cake for dessert!’ This hope we have as our inheritance in Christ Jesus is the most durable and powerful gift possible. It is the promise that God’s love is greater than any hardships we may experience in this world, the promise that we are never without that love.”

The counselor goes on: “Dear ones, with the eyes of your heart you will see how rich is this glorious inheritance! Do you know what it is? It is freedom – by which you may soar above the brokenness of this world, never fully removed from it but always knowing that it is not the last word. This inheritance is peace – the knowledge of God’s all-forgiving nature, the grace that gives us newness of life.

“With the eyes of your heart you will see the immeasurable greatness of God’s power, and you will see how that power may be at work through you. How, you ask? God’s power works through us when we decide to live not only for the moment, but for the hope to which God has called us. God’s power works through us when we decide to live not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors – all of them.”

The counselor paused, but had more to say. “As for the notion that there are no saints? Open your eyes, dear ones. They are all around you. They do small things to make a small impact in the hope that these acts will be drops of merciful rain in a great ocean of other small things. They feed people, sometimes with food and other times with comfort, encouragement, words of wisdom. They try to make things a little better in this world. They try, they fail, they try again.

“They sometimes lose their patience and get snippy. They have days when they don’t feel like being generous, they just want to go through the McDonald’s drive-through, sit in front of the TV and eat junk. They have real flaws, weaknesses, as we all do. They might at times inflict real harm on people - and when I say "real" harm I mean real harm. Like King David did, the one the Bible describes as ‘a man after God’s own heart.’ Yes, he had plenty to repent of. So do most of us.

“Those of us who try and fail and try again to live for the praise of Christ’s glory, as Paul writes in the letter to the Ephesians. Those of us who get angry, get bummed out about everything, but who nonetheless persevere by the power of the Holy Spirit. These are the saints. You are the saints, dear ones.”

Dearly Beloved. Saints of God: Open your hands. Open your eyes. Open your hearts. Receive your inheritance.

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Saved by Grace

Luke 18:9-14     

I am in the habit of beginning my prayers with thanksgiving, you might have noticed this if you have prayed with me. Offering thanks to God for whatever is at the top of my mind in the moment. I have noticed this about myself, wondered about it a little, but haven’t seriously thought that it was a problem of any kind. I mean, what could be wrong with saying thank you?

Nothing at all, I thought, until I really dug into this little parable. The Pharisee at prayer begins with thanks. “I thank you, God, that I am not like other people…the thieves, the rogues, the adulterers, or this tax collector right here beside me. Thank you, God, for making me better.”

There it is. Our thankfulness can actually be kind of smug, as we count all the ways our lives are great…enviable. We risk the humble-brag – you know, where you say things like, “God is so good to have blessed me with intelligence, beauty, charm, and athletic skill.”

There is a certain pride that may prevent us from getting on our knees – literally or figuratively – and asking for God’s help with the many things in which we truly need help. Our pride prevents us from admitting those things. “It’s all good,” we want to say. “God is good. I’m good.”

And then there is this tax collector, who bows his head, beats his breast, and says, “Have mercy on me, God, for I am a sinner.”

This man makes me feel uncomfortable, because he is so clearly uncomfortable. I instinctively want to move away from the tax collector, lest I catch his angst, his agony. Who wants to feel like that? Nobody.

Really, it is no wonder the Pharisee prays as he does, thanking God for making him unlike the tax collector. He is grateful to not be burdened by so much trouble. He lives his life well, according to the standards he has set for himself.

And when you think about it, you realize that is not hard to do: to live well by the standards you set for yourself.

This time of year the church thinks a little more about these things: about thankfulness, as we approach the season of thanksgiving. And about mercy, forgiveness and grace, as we approach the anniversary of the Reformation.

Next Sunday is Reformation Sunday – the day we mark every year when we remember the man called Martin Luther, who nailed his 95 theses to the church door and set off a revolution. He didn’t quite mean to set off a revolution. He just had a nagging sense that all was not right with his world, and this would not let him settle into complacency.

It all came of a moment of personal crisis for Luther. He was caught between the tax collector and the Pharisee.  He was focused on trying to do all the right things, just like the Pharisee did.  And while another priest might have prayed how thankful he was to be so good, to be so blessed, to have this unsurpassed peace, Luther could never shake that nagging feeling that he was really not so good. That feeling of being a sinner in need of God’s mercy, just like the tax collector, was something he could not brush off. 

Then, in a moment of divine providence, Luther recognized grace.  He knew that there would never be anything he could do to justify himself; but God’s grace was free for the taking. The realization gave him the peace he had been seeking.  We in the Protestant Church have been seeking the consolation of that peace ever since.

I was brought up in the Lutheran Church, and that sense of God’s grace washed over me like Ivory soap. It was just the way it was. It was always there. I never thought too deeply or critically about it – until one conversation with my father-in-law.

Peter was a Baptist minister, in the Reformed tradition, so his beliefs were not that different from Presbyterian. When they would come to visit us early in our marriage, they would attend worship with us at our Lutheran Church. I could tell it was a little uncomfortable for them, because it was different. But one day I learned a bit more about where that discomfort stemmed from.

Peter told me that when he was in worship with the Lutherans he felt that we relied much too much on God’s grace – and grace alone. He wasn’t wrong about that. But I wondered: was that actually a problem?

Is it wrong to say that we are saved by grace, and grace alone? That there is nothing we can do to pull ourselves up from the muck of sin, that only the grace of God has the power to do that? I think not. But these many years later I realize that there is a real danger of misinterpreting God’s grace, or even misusing it. That, I think, was his concern.

In the old movie Love Story there was a line that said, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” which is pure rubbish. In the church, there is another equally absurd belief, and that is: Grace means never having to do anything different. That is just false. For if we say we are saved by grace and then never even try to live up to that grace in any way, we are squandering it – even profaning it. Truly, it is an offense to God to claim that grace without, at the very least, taking an honest look at your sinfulness.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, about what he called cheap grace. He wrote, “Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.”

“Cheap grace,” he wrote, “is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Cheap grace enters our world in many ways. When we lack the moral strength to look at our own trespasses honestly, when our frail hearts won’t let us look at the faults of our loved ones, cheap grace comes into our personal lives.

When we are afraid to offend one another in church, we might let cheap grace stand, unchallenged, on a Sunday morning. Because talking about sin and repentance is a downer and  people are looking for uplifting experiences. We surely can’t risk pushing them away.

Cheap grace enters our civic lives, when faith becomes a tool of a political candidate, or party. Then words like “I’ve been saved by grace,” can by tossed about to cover a multitude of sins. When we hear them, we look no further because these are the magic words: “saved by grace.” I might be living my life in a way that offends God and the people around me in so many ways, but don’t look at that, because I’ve been saved by grace! We react to these words the way we have been trained to – cheering and rejoicing. We are blinded by the magnificence of this notion of grace. Blinded, perhaps, to the truth.

Because when it is only words, it is nothing but a hollow panacea. It is the candy that gets tossed from a parade float to the children lining the streets. Cheap grace is, at the least, a distraction from what we really need to attend to; it is, at the worst, detrimental to your very soul.

Costly grace, Bonhoeffer says, is the grace of Jesus Christ. It is “the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.  It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.  Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.  Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.”

Saved by grace, these are words of incalculable value. It is only through the grace of God at work in Jesus Christ that we receive new life – in all its fullness. It is only by this grace that we find the peace that passes understanding. It is only by this grace that we have the most durable kind of hope you can imagine.

This grace, Christ’s grace, is a matter of tremendous value and great, great cost. Let us not be fooled into thinking otherwise, ever. 

Photo by Ray Shrewsberry on Unsplash

Measuring Faith

Luke 17:5-10

There’s a story about a woman who goes into a coffee shop for a little afternoon break.  She goes to the counter and gets her coffee and a package of cookies, then looks for a place to sit.  The shop is crowded, so she is forced to take a chair at a small table already occupied by a man reading a newspaper.  She’s not looking for company, but she sits down with her coffee and package of cookies, gives him a quick smile and nod, then buries herself in her book.  

She notices out of the corner of her eye that the man reaches out and takes a cookie from the package on the table.  Rude, she thinks, but tries to ignore it.  She reaches out and takes a cookie for herself.  Pretty soon she sees his hand sliding across the table and taking another cookie out of the package.  This time she looks up at him, really giving him a look.  He just smiles at her.  She takes another cookie out of the package and goes back to her book, but by now she is quite distracted by this man’s behavior.

This goes on, he takes a cookie, she takes a cookie.  She is beside herself with rage, but too polite to say anything to him.  Finally, with two cookies left, he takes one and pushes the package toward her, inviting her to take the last one.  She gives him a hard glare and takes the last cookie. 

When she leaves the shop, she opens her purse – there lies the package of cookies she bought, unopened.

Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, and sometimes we bring them upon ourselves, don’t we?  I often find myself praying that God will make me a better person; or, increase my faith.  

I don’t know what to think about this “faith the size of a mustard seed” comment.  A mustard seed is very tiny.  And so the contrast between something so very small having the power to uproot and replant trees, in the sea, no less – this is huge.  And if faith that small can do things that are virtually impossible, then what does my faith look like?  Too small to even be visible.  

And then I begin to wonder what faith the size of a pumpkin seed could do.  That’s a lot larger than a mustard seed, so it would seem that it could do even more astounding things.  But I have no idea what those things could be, because he has already taken me beyond the realm of comprehension with the mustard seed analogy.  

Clearly, I am in way above my head.  How does one measure faith?

Before I went into ministry I had a career in educational testing, and I know how to measure all kinds of things, but I still wonder how to measure faith.  Can we measure it by outputs, as Jesus’ words here suggest?  So maybe I can’t move mountains or mulberry trees, but can my faith move something smaller, like dandelions, perhaps?  

It’s easier to measure material things, but it might be more realistic to consider the impact of our faith on nonmaterial things, like whether my faith can move someone to be more loving.  But still, I don’t know.

Perhaps our faith, all together, can move something.  Maybe our combined faith can move our community toward greater peace or wellness.  Do you think our faith could do that?  Still, it’s a tricky thing to measure.

Honestly, I don’t know if faith is something that can be measured.  I am not sure that was really the point Jesus wanted to make.  Because when we start measuring our faith it becomes all about us.  And when we start measuring our faith, we begin comparing ourselves to others to see if we are greater or lesser than they are.

He follows that strange comment about faith with a strange parable about masters and servants.  And again, he uses the old “which one of you” technique.  Which one of you would say to your servant coming in from working in the field, “Come and sit at the table with me”?  which one of you would thank the servant for merely doing what he was told to do?

It seems cold, doesn’t it?  It strikes us as entirely undemocratic – which, of course, it is.  Jesus did not live in a democracy.  But there is another aspect of the story that you might not notice right away: the disciples, or apostles as they are called here, were not wealthy men.  They did not have servants to order about – especially now, that they have walked away from everything to follow him.  How strange to ask them to think this way.  They might more readily identify with the servant than the master. 

And at the next moment he has switched perspectives, and he does ask them to see themselves as the servant.  “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”  And, of course, they know that this is the way things work.  Servants do their duty and their reward is a job well done.

I imagine this parable is a lot harder for us to deal with than it was for the disciples at his side, because it reflected the world in which they lived.  And while we might still protest that such an oppressive and hierarchical social system is not a good system, that democracy is far superior, it may help us to take a step back – remembering that it is a parable – and reflect on what he is trying to teach.  We might reflect on what it says about our relationship with God.  Because, sure, equality among all people is good – even godly.  But when we begin to assume we are in any way on an equal footing with God, we are in trouble.

Well, hold that thought for a moment.  Let’s get back to the question of faith.  How do you measure faith? Or, do you measure faith?

Perhaps you don’t measure faith after all.  Perhaps faith is something you either have or don’t have – the size of it is immaterial, hence, faith the size of a mustard seed is plenty.  And the way you have faith is by being open to receiving it.  Faith begins with God’s actions toward us, and then our openness to receiving it.

We can only receive what is offered.  Any attempts to demand something different will only get in the way.  Our master offers us good gifts – indeed, all that we have is a gift from the master!  Opening our hearts and our hands to God, there is no need that cannot be answered.  

When we assume God owes us something, this will keep us impoverished.  We will be as pitiful as the woman who mistakenly assumed those were her cookies sitting on the table.  The blessings are more than abundant when we are simply open to receiving what is so graciously offered.  

Getting our relationship with God ordered rightly is the key to the riches of faith.

Photo by Nana Lapushkina: https://www.pexels.com/photo/food-wood-coffee-dark-10479058/

RE:think Happiness

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Here is the question: What is something that makes you happy? Don’t overthink it. There are no wrong answers, this is not a test. What comes into your mind when you think of something that makes you happy? It might not be the thing that brings you the most happiness of all, but it is something. 

Did you think of something? I hope you did; I hope you thought of many things that make you happy. Everyone should have happiness. Who ever said, “There is too much happiness in the world?” No one. Ever. Except maybe Scrooge.

And the good thing is happiness is, at least to an extent, under our control. If watching a “Die Hard” movie makes you happy, great. If it doesn’t make you happy, don’t watch it. If sitting on the beach getting all sandy and sweaty doesn’t make you happy, then don’t do it. If eating ice cream doesn’t make you happy, then don’t eat ice cream – but, seriously, if eating ice cream doesn’t make you happy then I just don’t know.

The point is, it serves us well to know what brings us happiness and what doesn’t because knowing can help us increase our happiness. Maybe.

And maybe not. Because sometimes happiness seems elusive. Just out of our grasp. 

In our scripture today we are eavesdropping on a conversation between two friends. Paul, the older apostle, and Timothy, the young man, apostle in training. And we don’t necessarily know why they are having this particular conversation. We don’t know who they might be talking about – perhaps there are other preachers in Ephesus whom Paul does not hold in high esteem.  We can only make inferences from the fragments we have – but what I think we are hearing in these words gives us something about the secret to happiness. 

During this whole month we have been working on a reboot, as we examine certain aspects of life that we all share in common and, with the help of the epistles, wonder how we might approach them differently. We took a look at the question of reconciliation. And, if we have been in the habit of walking away from old relationships that have gone bad, is God perhaps calling us to seek reconciliation?

We took a look at the matter of regrets. It doesn’t really serve us well to say we have no regrets if we have not ever examined our failures in any honest way. But once we have been honest with ourselves and God about our particular failures and shortcomings, and we have followed God’s urgings to make amends in some way, then we might truly be able to say we have no regrets. Until the next time, anyway.

We looked at the practice of prayer in our lives and wondered what the purpose of prayer is for us. We often approach prayer as a means to change our circumstances or change other people. But how often do we see prayer as a way to be transformed ourselves?

And honestly, transformation is what this whole reboot has been about. When I reboot my computer I want to it go back to being perfect. Which it probably won’t, I know. I also know that we won’t either – become perfect. Perfection won’t be found on this side of the mirror. But with a reboot, perhaps that mirror will become a little less dark, our vision a little less dim.

And if we find that our vision grows clearer, the light grows a bit brighter, might we then discover a growing sense of happiness? 

Or, contentment, as Paul puts it in this letter to Timothy. Contentment – which is kind of like happiness that sticks around.

So, how do we get this happiness that sticks around? Is there a secret to it?

I took a family psychology class once and we were presented with some research on happiness. The researchers asked people at random times of the day to rate how happy they were. And they found in this study that parents of young children were significantly less happy than other people. Based on their own responses, in real time.

I was the working mother of a young child at that time. So the results didn’t surprise me at all. I knew that if someone stopped me at any random time of the day or night and asked me, “Are you happy right now?” I might not respond with a smiley face. I knew this was true. But I knew that wasn’t all there was to it.

My sense of happiness in the moment, in the daily grind of parenting and working, was in no way a reflection of the deep happiness inside of me that came from the love I experienced in this life I was living.

This was a secret that I was just beginning to know, but about which I had a whole lot left to learn. It is possible no one else in my class knew it even a little bit, yet, because they were all young single people who were free to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. People who, after hearing these research findings probably began to develop a bit of healthy fear about the prospect of becoming a parent. As one should. In any case, what I was beginning to suspect was this: The secret to happiness might be that it is hidden underneath unlikely things. And this happiness that sticks around might be found in surprising ways. Just listen to this story Eric Law tells about his own family life.

Eric grew up in a family of Chinese immigrants, people who were not at all rich in material things. Each night at the dinner table, the family would sit down to dinner – and there were usually guests at the table: relatives, friends, people who worked with them.  They weren’t rich, but they made it go around.  The dishes were passed, and everyone filled their plates. Of course, no one would want to take the last piece – we all know how that is.  So inevitably, at the end of the meal there would be one piece of something left – meat if they were lucky – sitting on the platter in the center of the table.  After some silence, while they all looked at the food, one person would speak.

“Grandma, why don’t you take that last piece?  You’re the oldest; you should have it.”  And Grandma would say, “Oh no, I don’t need it.  I’ve been eating that stuff all my life.  The children should have it because they’re growing.”  And Grandma would look at the youngest child and say, “Why don’t you take it?”

And the youngest child, having been taught well, would say something like my stomach is too small, and turn to an older sibling and say, “You have an exam tomorrow, you should take it.”  Then this older child would play his part in the ritual and offer it to someone else who was more deserving.  This went on until everyone had offered it to someone else; everyone had affirmed another’s worthiness in the family.  And the last piece of food would still be sitting on the platter.  It would be put away to be made into something wonderful the next day.  It was a ritual that made this family appreciate the abundance they shared.

Paul said in another of his letters, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have…I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” (Philippians 4:11-12). Could it be that the secret to finding happiness is to finally stop seeking your own happiness?

When we use our wealth to serve ourselves, it will always seem like not enough. But when we let the riches God bestows on us become a means to serve others, then we will feel really rich.

When we live for ourselves, our lives will be very small, but when we live for someone else, we find, in Paul’s words, the life that really is life. 

RE:frame Prayer

1 Timothy 2:1-7

I have been asked recently to think about prayer. Our presbytery is beginning a program called Vital Congregations, and in preparation, I was asked to contribute my thoughts on prayer resources, practices, and such. But one of the questions in particular has kept me thinking for days. That is, how has my thinking about prayer changed over time?

The assumption, of course, is that it has changed. This is true. No longer are my prayers as they were in childhood. When I was young, I was taught, as so many of us were, to recite short little rhyming prayers – at the dinner table, at bedtime. We might learn to make up our own prayers within certain frameworks – like thank you, God, for lemonade and hula hoops; and God bless mama, daddy, and Tatters the dog.

But with maturity comes more freedom and responsibility in all things – including prayer. Not only who and what we pray for but how we pray. How is the hardest part of it, because when we turn to prayer we almost always have our own agenda.

So much of the time, spontaneous prayer begins with something like, Dear God, please…

Please make the cancer go away.

Please let him be safe.

Please let me get this job.

Please, God, help me out.

Please, God, make the problem go away.

A very distraught woman called me in tears to tell me her desperate situation. There were practical and concrete steps that could be taken – and would be taken. But in that moment, I suggested that she pray. She said to me, “I already tried that, and it didn’t work.”

When we turn to prayer, we almost always have our own agenda.

When it seems as though our prayers have not been answered, we find ourselves in a difficult place, unsure where to turn or what to think. What is prayer for, if not to help us through the turbulent waters of life? What are we doing other than asking for divine strength to carry us through the rough spots?

Praying for oneself is something almost everyone does, even nonbelievers. Prayer is something that seems to spontaneously arise from our center when we know we are in need. And for people of faith, praying for others comes almost as naturally. We keep lists of individuals, groups, nations, that are somehow in need of prayer. And very often we feel we know exactly how to pray for them. For comfort, for strength, for peace, for safety.

When it seems as though God hasn’t answered our prayers for others, in the way we wanted or expected, what then? We might throw up our hands because there seems to be nothing more we can do. We might even be angry that we fell for what was presumably a trick of some kind.

One Sunday when I offered a prayer for peace in the Middle East, someone stepped up to me after the service and said, “Boy, you are a dreamer, aren’t you?” As if to say, Grow up! Get real.

Yet, we are told, we are assured, that we can make our prayers for anything. We pray for what we need, and God welcomes our prayers. And the truth is that these prayers are good prayers. We may always pray for what we feel we need.

But the truth is, also, that these prayers are not enough in themselves. When we pray according to our own agenda, we are accepting a very limited view of God. God invites us to pray in other ways that involve entering more deeply into the mystery of God.

Hence, Paul urges Timothy to pray for those who hold high power. This is essential, Paul writes, because God desires for everyone to be saved. Everyone. God’s spirit is magnanimous.

And while this might sound like a really nice idea, generally speaking, we have certain objections when it zooms on the particular. God wants our enemies to be saved. God wants people in the other political party to be saved. God wants the people who cheat and get away with it to be saved. God wants the people we love to be saved, but also the people we don’t love. The people who, we know, don’t deserve it.

And this is so hard for us, that God’s spirit is much more generous than ours.

In the Episcopal Church book of common prayer there is included a prayer for elected leaders – for the president of the United States and the Governor of our state. For Congress and the State legislators. If you are in church when these prayers are being made, you may very well hear these individuals prayed for by their given names. For our Governor, Larry. For our President, Joseph. It makes the prayer feel very personal.

But it can be challenging, even for those congregations who make of regular practice of this. If a leader is elected who is very polarizing, if members of the congregation have a strong emotional reaction to the very thought of him or her, there might well be strong resistance to continuing these prayers.

I have seen some of that resistance in Presbyterian congregations. The idea of praying for a high official whom you resent in certain ways can seem a very tall order. We might even reject the notion altogether, thinking, “Let other people pray for him or her. Leave that to the people who voted for them and who actually want them to succeed, not me.”

Still, in this letter, Paul tells Timothy that it is essential to pray for kings and others who are in high positions. This is for the sake of our own godliness and dignity. But it is also for the sake of the ones for whom we pray, because, Paul says, it is God’s desire for everyone to be saved.

When we pray according to our own agenda, we will eventually hit a wall. When we ask God to assist us in our own plans for our lives or other people’s lives, we will at some point be disappointed. But what if we respond to this disappointment by asking God, “What then, Lord, would you have of me?”

Eventually on our walk of faith, we might discover that prayer is much more than making our requests of God. That God is so much more than a divine butler or a genie in a bottle, ready to serve our desires and needs. God is waiting, always, for us to be ready to listen. God is inviting us to change.

Scripture uses the image of a potter fashioning a vessel out of clay to say that we are malleable in the hands of our Creator. Our God desires to mold us into a form that is more holy, and the way this is done is through prayer. When we set aside our agenda and we invite God to show us something new, then we might learn to think the way God thinks.

God’s intention for us in prayer is to draw us closer. We know that when a mother holds her children tightly in her arms, they are not only close to her, but they are close to one another. In this way, we know, God draws us nearer to all of God’s creation. God’s desire for us in prayer is to show us how connected we are to everyone and everything else in all creation because God is our parent who loves us. God wants to open our hearts and our minds.

And so God asks us to pray for everyone – our leaders, those who are in positions of power, whether we like them or not. They, too, are God’s beloved.

God asks us to pray for the neighbor who annoys the heck out of us. They, too, are God’s beloved.

God asks us to pray for the young man who walks into a school or a church or a supermarket with a gun, intent on doing damage. Because he, too, is God’s beloved.

God asks us to pray for the ones who need it. And that is everyone.

God asks us to pray, because God knows that prayer is the way to transformation. Prayer will change our hearts and form us more fully into the image of the one who made us and loves us.

In your prayer life, where are you feeling resistance? Perhaps this is precisely where Christ is leading you.

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

RE:imagine Regret

1 Timothy 1:12-17

What do you say when someone asks you if you have any regrets? Some people will say no. I regret nothing, as Edith Piaf famously sang. But is it really true?

When someone asks you if you have any regrets, it feels like they are asking, “Will you tell us about your failures?” But I don’t really want to talk about my failures, do you?

Really, though, don’t you have some regrets?

If pressed for an answer, you may be tempted to turn it around and make it about someone else, such as, I regret that my kids haven’t turned out the way I wanted them to. Or I regret that the people I have tried to help have not been willing to accept that help. Making it all about someone else’s failures. Not helpful.

There is an organization called Failure Lab, which describes itself as being all about taking a deep dive into failure. Sound fun? They do a lot of different things now, but this is how they started. They would invite someone to get on stage before an audience and simply describe something they did that went wrong, some way they failed. They have to do it without any embellishments, without laying blame anywhere else, without telling the audience that it really turned out okay, and that they learned something valuable from the experience. They just have to lay the failure out there in all its fail-ish-ness. 

It is uncomfortable for the speaker. It is perhaps even more uncomfortable for the audience. But people participate in it because it is surprisingly helpful. Acknowledging the failure in this way is surprisingly freeing. 

We can see that the Apostle Paul knows that sense of freedom. He doesn’t even wait for someone to ask him about his regrets. He freely, even joyfully confesses his sins, his failures. He writes it down in these letters, he sends them out to all the churches he knows, he wants them to hear it: I was a total screw-up. An epic failure. And I write to you now as the foremost example of the Lord’s mercy and grace, patience and love. Not as someone who has surmounted his difficulties, but as a beneficiary of the grace of God.

Do you have any regrets? Could any one of us honestly say we have none? But how do you begin to confront them?

There are different ways. In our worship we confess our sin every week. When we do this, we are confessing on behalf of the church as a whole as well as ourselves personally. Sometimes it feels peculiar. People ask me sometimes why they should have to confess to something they didn’t ever do, and I say that we are confessing as the Church for the sins of the Church. But other times it feels extremely personal, and at those times you know it’s about you, intimately.

Yet some will say that the act of corporate confession, which is what we do, is not really enough, because each one of us needs to own up to our personal failures, by telling them to another person. 

Don Miller wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz about his experience of being a Christian at a very secular university. It was a place that felt rather inhospitable to organized religion. An odd place to find a community of Christians, but he did. And this little group began to help one another grow in their faith, holding one another accountable, giving one another space to explore faith and doubts.

From their vantage point, they could see clearly many of the ways the church had failed. And so they decided to do something weird. They set up a confessional booth.

During the college’s annual festival, which was one big bacchanalian party, they decided they would set up a confessional booth. But it would be like this: they would not hear confessions, they would offer confessions. They would speak to the church’s failures to care for the hungry and the poor and the downtrodden, they would confess the church’s failure to be loving in the ways Jesus was loving; they would apologize for the crusades and for televangelists that take people’s money. They would confess to not representing Jesus well. They would make it personal. 

Don describes what happened. A party-goer stumbled into the booth, in very high spirits, we might say. He sat down and grinned at Don, said his name is Jake. Jake says, “So what’s the deal, man? I’m supposed to confess to you all the juicy stuff I’ve been up to here?” 

Don said, “Well, not exactly. Actually – our group – we want to confess to you. We were thinking about all the ways Christians have wronged people over time. You, know, the Crusades and stuff.”

Jake said, “Well, I doubt you were personally involved in any of that.” And Don said, “Right. But it’s just that, as followers of Jesus, we know we haven’t done a really good job of representing him and the things he stood for. We’ve failed at that.” 

As Don was saying these things, Jake suddenly saw this was no game. It was serious to Don. Jake said, “You don’t have to do this.” Don said, “Yes, I do. Actually, in this moment I feel very strongly that I need to tell you how sorry I am for everything.”

And so he began. Confessing that he hadn’t done much to help the poor; that he had not loved his enemies, really, at all; that he had let his own personal agenda influence how he lived his faith. And when he finished, Jake had tears in his eyes and he said, “I forgive you.”

And so it went for the next couple of hours. One by one, party-goers would stumble into the booth not really knowing what to expect. And Don sat across from them and began again to confess the ways he had fallen short. And they listened. Many people wanted to hug him. They were all gracious and grateful.

As much as he had dreaded this beforehand, by the time it was done Don was a changed man. And he felt the ones who heard his confession were changed as well. 

For the many young people who stepped into the booth, people who had perhaps been hurt by the church, who only saw the failures of the church, it was a healing experience. And for Don and the others who confessed truths that had previously been easy to ignore, they were, to their own surprise, changed by it.

For anyone who ever thought they had to get their life together first and then go to church, 

For anyone who ever felt too embarrassed or ashamed to admit their failures, their regrets,

For anyone who ever believed they had to hide the crises of their family and personal life from the people who are supposed to love them most – their brothers and sisters in Christ,

Which is most of us,

Please hear this: 

We are all broken. We are all failures in various ways. We are all full of regrets, every day if we are honest, and in need of love and care and support. We all need to be able to share our stories, as they are, unpolished and unfinished, with someone else who, we know, will still love us.

I said to you last week that anytime there is a barrier between you and a brother or sister in Christ there is a barrier between you and Christ. The same is true of our regrets. When we hold them inside, trying to hide them from the world, we are distancing ourselves from the community of Christ in the way we most need it.

If you are not inclined to confess your regrets to a bunch of total strangers – which I am most certainly not inclined to do – there is another option. 

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, believed that Christians all need a small group of fellow disciples, with whom they can feel trust and love, and with whom they can ask and answer: How is it with your soul?

If you take the step, find a group, learn to give and receive trust, perhaps you will find the value, the hope, in sharing your stories, as they are happening, to know the grace and mercy of God when you most need it.

We all know we are a work in progress. I don’t think any of us would say that we have reached perfection. We yearn to be better, in a word, in our secret hearts, but we will always have difficulty with that if we are not able to share our stories truthfully. 

There is a reason this Christian life is set in community. Each of us is incomplete on our own; it is our communion with each other and Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that makes us complete.

Let this be your invitation for the week: is there someone you trust, someone who loves you? Perhaps this is someone to whom you can confess something that weighs on your spirit. Some way that you, personally, have fallen short. This is a good place to start.

And if you are ready for the next step, perhaps you would consider making a partnership, with someone, or a few, who can ask you, “How is it with your soul?” Someone to whom you would tell the truth. 

When we bury our regrets deep inside, we remain trapped in our past. When we are honest about our condition, we will become free. And when we share it with others, fellow travelers on this journey of life, we might soar.

Photo by Kindel Media: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-crying-woman-8172862/