From Tears to Triumph

On Friday mornings, at CPE, I have a Bible study with the residents of one of the memory support areas of a retirement community. Today was the best ever. I had such a sense of God's presence with us. People that normally are not engaged in the singing were singing their hearts out. There was even joy in their eyes.

The lesson was from Psalm 30 in The Message translation.

Psalm 30

¹ I give you all the credit, God— you got me out of that mess,
you didn't let my foes gloat.

^2-3 God, my God, I yelled for help
and you put me together.
God, you pulled me out of the grave,
gave me another chance at life
when I was down-and-out.

^4-5 All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God!
Thank him to his face!
He gets angry once in a while, but across
a lifetime there is only love.
The nights of crying your eyes out
give way to days of laughter.

^6-7 When things were going great
I crowed, "I've got it made.
I'm God's favorite.
He made me king of the mountain."
Then you looked the other way
and I fell to pieces.

^8-10 I called out to you, God;
I laid my case before you:
"Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead?
auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?
When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs
and stories of you won't sell.
So listen! and be kind!
Help me out of this!"

^11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament
into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers.
I'm about to burst with song;
I can't keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
I can't thank you enough.

Here are a few observations I shared both on Wed. for devotions and today in Bible study:

The Psalmist passionately expresses his experiences of crisis, prayer, and deliverance.

· Maybe the crisis was sickness and he felt near death?

o Have any of us ever been in such a crisis?

o Perhaps that’s our situation now.

· The psalmist prayed for God’s help

o Do we cry out for God’s help... or do we think our crisis isn’t important enough to bother God?

· God delivered the psalmist from his problems.

o Do we believe God will hear and answer our prayers?

In the last verses, the psalmist renews the promise of thanksgiving

· He has a new perspective of gratitude

o What is our perspective?

o Are we as anxious as the psalmist to tell of God’s mighty deeds?

o Or is our faith just a private matter?

· Listen once more to the vibrant imagery of these last verses.

o ^11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament
into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers.
I'm about to burst with song;
I can't keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
I can't thank you enough.

Let us pray:

O God, our Guardian and Guide, we trust in You daily for life and strength to serve You with faith, hope, and love. We will praise You in the morning and throughout the day. We will praise You in the evening, and trust in You day and night. We depend on Your Word and precious promises as we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, “Our Father. . .”

Prayer from http://psalmsandprayers.com/psalm30.htm

To illustrate the lesson from Psalm 30, I made up a little Power Point of pictures and showed it to each resident individually. This was very effective. It is that slide show that is below.

Tears to Triumph

God's Garden

This is the message I preached at Bethany Village yesterday. I preached it 4 times in slightly different ways. This was the last one I preached at evening vespers.

7:00 Vespers Sermon

How do you imagine God to be? What do you see when you pray? We all have different images of God we see in prayer, which are especially meaningful to us. I used to live in the Holy Land. From my window, I could watch a young shepherd with his sheep and goats. He loved and cared for them. He even played soccer with one of the goats. For me, the image of the Lord as my shepherd in Psalm 23 or Jesus’ declaration in John 10, “I am the good shepherd,” are very rich and meaningful.

Perhaps when you’re lonely or fearful, it is God almighty, the creator God who is your comfort, your protector. Our hymns and songs are full of pictures of God. God walks and talks with us IN THE GARDEN or maybe you see Jesus as the Lover of your soul. Someone living by the sea will have different images that are meaningful to them than someone living in a city or someone on a farm.

Is it maybe the all seeing, all knowing God you most closely identify with? In preparation for this service tonight, I heard for the very first time the words of “Hymn of Promise” which we will be singing later. Do you have an appreciation for the paradoxes this hymn speaks of? There are some things that only God can know; only God can do.

The scriptures portray God in many ways, one of which is a gardener. Did you know that God likes to garden too? Through the prophet Ezekiel God speaks:

Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. ²³ On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. ²⁴ All the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the LORD have spoken; I will accomplish it.

To do justice to our text, we need to learn a bit about its biblical and historical context. Ezekiel was written while the people of Israel were living in exile in the far off land of Babylon because of their sins against God. Running throughout the book like threads, are the messages of judgment balanced by the messages of hope. The primary theme of the book is knowing God. The phrase, “They/you shall know that I am the Sovereign Lord” is used around 70 times in this book.

Did you hear all the pronouns in this passage? I is used 5 times. Twice it’s coupled with the word myself for emphasis. So what is God, the I doing? Listen to the verbs: breaks off, plants, brings low, makes high, dries up, makes. God is not distant, but involved and busy in God’s garden. God is getting down and dirty in it. Why does God go to all this effort? It’s so the trees will produce boughs, fruit, and shade. The ultimate aim however, is so all the trees will know God is the Lord.

So what does all this talk of planting, gardening, and trees mean? This was a symbolic message of hope and restoration for the people of Israel after they had been living in exile for so long. Trees flourishing in a desert area is inspiring, miraculous. What is happening is something the tree itself did not initiate, create, or sustain by itself. The growth is something only God could accomplish.

We are not trees, however. The trees are symbolic of nations, of people. It’s like a parable. When a tree is planted, does it argue with the gardener saying it doesn’t want to go there, but here? When it is fertilized, does it complain that the fertilizer is smelly? How about when it’s pruned? Does a tree whine saying, “Be careful! That hurts!?” God’s gardening in us may be hard and painful at times so we can be more like Jesus, so our lives produce and bear the fruit of the Spirit to serve God and our neighbor.

But it seems so impossible, so unattainable. That’s the good news. We are incapable of doing this. We are nowhere near perfect, so much so that Martin Luther said we are at the same time saints and sinners. So how can God expect of us something we are incapable of doing? Is God just setting us up to fail? Hear again God’s promise, “I the LORD have spoken; I will accomplish it.” The trees don’t have to DO anything to grow!!! They just have to be trees. We just have to let the master gardener work in our lives to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Trees grow and produce when they are cultivated. We just need to allow God to do so in us. Let God do the gardening. God is not finished with any of us.

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Dignity

I am now in week 2 of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) in a retirement community that ranges from independent living to skilled nursing. there is an area called Memory Support. These dear people have dementia or Alzheimer's. With these children of God, it is about being with them in the moment. A Bible study for independent retirees looks very different than one for memory support and yet even in an incapacitated state, connections are being made. From their past, they can connect with scripture, old hymns, and the Lord's Prayer.

In pondering about the various experiences I am having, I thought of a song we've sung a few times that calls us to self-sacrificing service for God and God's people. Here are the words:

The Summons

1. Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

2. Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

3. Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

4. Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

5. Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

http://www.godtouches.org/cathhymns.html

Here's a You Tube of it.







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CPE Day 2: morning devotions

Yesterday was my first day of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Bethany Village. This is an experience I have been looking forward to. I have heard wonderful things about this place and its CPE program and supervisor. It was an exhausting first day however.

Daily devotions and announcements are part of the morning routine at Bethany and this morning it's my turn to do the devotional part. This is what I'll be sharing with Bethany's residents this morning.

Praying According to God’s Will

It can be hard and frustrating to know how to pray for yourself or someone else. We know we should pray, we may want to pray, but find ourselves at a loss for words. We cannot pray correctly.

As crazy as this may sound, our inability to pray according to God’s will is good news. Hear these words from Scripture:

²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Rom 8:26-27)

This is our situation according to these verses:

· We are weak.

· We don’t know how to pray as we should. It’s one thing to pray, but it’s quite something else to pray as we should. In my own life, if God had answered my prayers the way I wanted them answered, I probably wouldn’t be in seminary or here with you today. How are we to pray when friends or family are sick or in trouble or are hurting? What about our own problems? How do we know what God has in mind?

This is God’s remedy. The Holy Spirit:

· Helps us in our weakness.

· Intercedes for us with “sighs too deep for words.”

· Searches the heart.

· Intercedes for us according to God’s will.

I find it interesting that the list of what we can’t do is half as long as the list of what God does. What a relief! Twice in this passage, we are told that God the Sprit intercedes for us. Do you know what that means? God prays for us! God does what we cannot do for ourselves. We should…we can’t…the Holy Spirit does.

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Bidden or Not Bidden...

My son and his fiancée were determined to have a secular wedding ceremony in Las Vegas. The phrase that kept going through my mind was, "Bidden or not bidden, God is present." God is with us whether we realize it or not. And of course we kept praying for them.

They are a wonderful couple who are very good for each other. We are thrilled to have Marisa in our family.

The setting was beautiful: an outdoor patio area with plants around. It was evening and there was a nice breeze.

The groom's father and best man told us that when they met with the minister (yes, minister, not justice of the peace) they found out he's a Lutheran minister. Hmm, isn't that interesting?

The ceremony used the traditional vows. The minister spoke seriously to Christian and Marisa, charging them that they were in this for the long haul...as long as they lived. He did not use the word God, but certainly gave them godly counsel in the ceremony.

God was there...bidden or not bidden. God was there through several believers God's people and by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is God and we are not. We give thanks for that.

Who is the Holy Spirit?

Given the following scenario, what would your answer be? Is this a valid question?

One of the members of your church comes into your office one afternoon with a question about the Holy Spirit. She attended church with a friend on Sunday, and there was lots of talk about the Spirit, and lots of energy in the worship. “Pastor,” she said, “I never hear about the Holy Spirit in the Lutheran Church—it seems like we spend all of our time talking about God the Father and Jesus. What does the Holy Spirit do, anyway?” Explain the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church and life of a Christian.

Guilty as charged! Migliore writes that often the church has been suspicious of movements that have stressed the power of the Holy Spirit. I even experienced some of that from a member of my candidacy committee because of past involvement with the charismatic movement. As mentioned in a recent lecture, the Holy Spirit is the “least understood”[1] person of the Trinity. By the very fact that Christians routinely refer to the Holy Spirit as “it” shows the depth of our non-acquaintance with this person of the godhead. The Holy Spirit’s presence in our Lutheran churches sometimes seems completely unnoticed. Such presence is more subtle than in Pentecostal or charismatic churches. H. Richard Niebuhr suggested that churches tend to be more oriented toward one member of the Trinity or another, but not all three equally.[2] Anthony Robinson maintains that mainline churches generally focus on the Father, evangelicals on Jesus as Redeemer, and Pentecostals on the Holy Spirit.

Our weekly confession of the Creed belies our tendency to ignore God the Holy Spirit. We state, “I believe in the Holy Spirit…”, but do we know what this means? Luther gave a prominent role to the Holy Spirit in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed. The Holy Spirit is active in calling us to faith in Christ, “enlighten[ing] us with his gifts,”[3] making us holy, keeping us in the faith and has done so and continues to do so for all God’s people past, present, and future. The Holy Spirit forgives sins and will raise us up on the last day, giving us the fullness of eternal life that we only now know in part. It is through this same Holy Spirit that we experience the communion of saints.

In the New Testament alone, we have 89 occurrences of the name Holy Spirit. If we include “God’s Spirit,” “Spirit of Jesus,” or “Spirit,” there would be many more. John the Baptist said of Jesus that he would baptize with the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:11). Jesus told his disciples that the Father would send the Spirit as an advocate or counselor who would lead them into all truth (John 14:26). There are many other functions of this same Spirit, which are too many too numerous to include. With such prominence, how is it that we know so little of God’s Spirit?

Migliore believes that our neglect, which he considers routine and suspicion of the Spirit has had “…damaging effects on both Christian life and Christian theology.”[4] Our understanding of God, Scripture, and other facets of church and the Christian faith and life may become distorted. God becomes distant and seemingly uninvolved in our lives. One of the most basic works of the Holy Spirit is to make Christ known. The Spirit draws us, helps us to experience and participate in the reality of salvation—personally and corporately as the church.

God gives gifts by the Holy Spirit to us for the benefit of the church and the world (Rom 12; 1 Cor 12-14; Eph 5). The Holy Spirit gives us assurance and hope which sustains us. It is through the Holy Spirit that God speaks to us (whether God uses the written Word, the community of faith, or whatever).When we sense that a particular hymn or sermon was just for us, that is the Spirit at work. God’s Spirit at work in believers is the “first fruits” (Rom 8:23) or “guarantee” (2 Cor 1:22) of God’s complete redemption of all of creation.

The Holy Spirit may be understood as, “the uniting and consummating love of the Trinity, the energy of the life of communion, the gift of mutual love and friendship.”[5] We are invited into this love, this life by God through the Holy Spirit. God makes God’s presence known in and through us to the world by the Holy Spirit.

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[1] Largen

[2] Anthony B. Robinson, What’s Theology got to do with it? Convictions, Vitality, and the Church (Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2006), 66.

[3] Martin Luther, “The Small Catechism,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Second Edition, ed. Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 323.

[4] Migliore,224.

[5] Migliore, 231.

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Religious Pluralism

Whether we like it or not, whether we are ready or not, religious pluralism is part of our world, of our country. Here is my response to the following scenario.

Sarah, one of the high school youth in your congregation comes up to you after service on Sunday and says she needs to talk. She has a good friend who is Muslim who invited her to worship with her last Friday. Sarah went, and really enjoyed the service, but when she came home and told her parents that she had participated fully in the service, they told her she had committed idolatry, and forbade her from going back. Sarah was really upset, because the service had been very meaningful for her, and she really felt drawn to go back and learn more about Islam—was that a bad thing? Could she do that and still be a Christian? How would you answer her?

I would express my understanding of Sarah’s feelings. Islam is an impressive faith when someone is a pious, good Muslim. Particularly if one’s own faith is lukewarm or lacking, Islam is very appealing. When I lived and worked with Muslims in Palestine, I was challenged by their piety. It is natural that she should be drawn to it, especially through a friend.

Islam is definitely not idolatrous. No images of God are permitted. Christians may be viewed as idolatrous by Muslims because of pictures in stained glass windows and elsewhere in churches. We may also be viewed as polytheistic because of the doctrine of the trinity. Muslims believe in the same God we do, the God of Abraham. We all believe in the one true God.

When Muslims bow down toward Mecca, they are not worshipping idols but are simply facing east. Similar prayer positions are found throughout the Old and New Testaments with meanings such as “worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully”[1] There is certainly nothing wrong in this approach to God almighty. The Islamic view of God is very high, one of reverence.

Christians often think that Allah, the Arabic word for God, is a false god, different from the God we serve. In the Arabic Old and New Testaments, this is the word used for God the Father. Arab Christians use this word in prayer and Scripture reading. Allah is none other than the same God we know and serve.This misunderstanding of who Allah is may be why Sarah’s mother thinks she has committed idolatry. Reassuring Sarah is no problem, but it is important that there be significant dialogue with her mother as well. I certainly do not want to put a wedge between Sarah and her mother. In talking with Sarah, I would want to have some one on one time with her mother regarding her concerns.

This is not to downplay real differences between the two faiths. The centrality of the meaning of the cross is a huge difference. There is also the issue of Jesus’ divinity, his death, burial, resurrection etc. This is not what should be focused upon however. The Quran says things about Jesus with which we disagree, but there are also teachings from which bridges of understanding may be built.

As Christians however, we need to realize that we are called to relate to those beyond our circle of church friends, beyond other Christians, knowing that God by the Holy Spirit is already at work whether we recongize God’s presence or not. Our desire in relating with those of other faiths should be to break down those barriers that divide us, to see the “other” as one made in the image of God, to understand that not all Muslims are right wing, fanatical terrorists, any more than all Christians are out to support Israel and destroy Islam and Arab peoples.

Sarah could certainly learn about Islam and remain a devout Christian. The Quran has much to say about Jesus. In exploration of what it says, it would be helpful to compare the Quran and the New Testament concerning Jesus—to see similarities and differences. Working from the commonalities, we can discuss the differences frankly. Sarah and her friend could perhaps work on this exercise together. Her friend could bring to the conversation what the Quran teaches of Jesus and Sarah, what the Scriptures teach.This way they can both learn from and teach each other.

In my previous experience with Muslims in Palestine, what made dialogue and understanding viable between Christians and Muslims was mutual respect of each other as persons. Friendship and trust was the basis of religious discussion. Involvement in such relatioships did/does not mean we set aside our own beliefs for the sake of pluralism.

David Teeter, head of Project Redemption wrote concerning such interfaith relationships, “They came to respect Jesus as they saw him in our lives, and we came to respect their devotion to God as they understood him in their faith [Islam].”[2] When we see each other’s humanity, the dividing lines that erect enormous barriers between us blur. When I first moved to Bethlehem, the Islamic call to prayer from the nearby mosque was at the very least an annoyance, something that at the time even seemed demonic. By the time I left, it was a welcome reminder of the devotions of my friends to God as well as a challenge to me to be as faithful as they were in prayer. Sarah, as I did, could certainly learn more about Islam and still be a Christian. Ignorance and Christianity are not synonomous terms.

How would you respond?

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[1] Gingrich, BibleWorks 8.

[2] David Teeter. Following Jesus in a Muslim Community. Online: http://davidteeter.org/following.aspx [3 May 2009].

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