Who is Listening?

Every two weeks, a small group of us who are older seminarians (second career or third, fourth whatever) get together for lunch on Friday at one of the local restaurants (that has good food cheap). We did this yesterday, much to my husband's delight since the refectory was serving fish and chips for lunch and Ray is not a fish aficionado.

We had been there a while eating and talking. Each of us was quite relaxed because although there was lots to be done this weekend for teaching parish and classes, we were finished with classes for the week and could let our hair down. Friday after classes is sacrosanct for this group. We do not do schoolwork on Fridays after class. That's what Saturday is for! After a while, a gentleman approached us and asked if he had heard correctly that we are involved with church and faith. We responded in the affirmative. He proceeded to ask prayer for someone he knew of that just had a baby and was in critical condition. We assured him she would be added to the prayer list and we would pray. Then he left and returned to the group he was with at his table.

We never know who is watching or listening to us, even in what we consider our time off or down time. In connection with this, I've been preparing to preach on Palm/Passion Sunday from Isaiah.

We need to be available to listen to God. But the flip side of the coin is we do not always know who or where someone may be listening to us. It might be in the most unexpected places. You never know where God may be at work.

flickr picture

Commemoration of Patrick, Bishop and Missionary to Ireland

Being Irish, yesterday was a special day for me. We had a wonderful chapel service led by a second year student. Being St. Patrick's Day, we commemorated St. Patrick. I have never before sung or heard one of the hymns we sang, I Bind unto Myself Today, Some parts were a bit difficult for me musically, but the words are phenomenal. You'll find them in the link to the hymn.

Also on our bulletin was the following from the Confession of Patrick:

I give unceasing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing. Today I can offer him sacrifice with confidence, giving myself as a living victim to Christ, who kept me safe through all my trials. I can say now, Who am I, Lord, and what is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power? You did all this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify your name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and adversity. You did it so that, whatever happened to me, I might accept good and evil equally, always giving thanks to God. God showed me how to have faith in him forever, as one who is never to be doubted. He answered my prayer in such way that in the last days, ignorant though I am, I might be bold enough to take up so holy and so wonderful a task, and imitate some degree those whom the Lord had so long ago foretold as heralds of his Gospel, bearing witness to all nations.

Gracious God, thank you for your servant Patrick. May we be challenged by the example of his faith. Lord, by your grace, may this be our testimony as well. Amen.

flickr picture

The Black Hole

I was afraid that if I joined Facebook, it would take away lots of time because it would be difficult for me to restrain myself. So, I've been dragged in kicking and screaming. I do like it however. I've connected with people I haven't heard from in years. But as one classmate wrote, "Welcome to the black hole." So, we'll see how restrained I can be...so far not very, especially since we had reading days earlier in the week and I didn't feel much pressure to get work done.

Friday Five: Mid-Lent Check-In

Sophia wrote:

The pastor of my grad school parish once gave a fascinating reflection, at about this mid-point in the season, called "How to Survive the Mid-Lent Crisis"! As I recall, his main point was that by halfway through the season we have often found it very challenging to live up to our original plans....But, he suggested--on the analogy of the healing and reframing of our life plans that can happen during a mid-*life* crisis--that that can be even more fruitful.

So here's an invitation to check in on the state of your spirit midway through "this joyful season where we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed" (Roman Missal). Hopefully there's a good deal of grace, and not too much crisis, in your mid-Lenten experience!

1. Did you give up, or take on, anything special for Lent this year?
I took on something, increased attentiveness to hear God's voice, to quiet myself to listen, especially through lectio divina. A group of us gather 3 mornings a week for that and God's presence has been almost tangible in our time together.

2. Have you been able to stay with your original plans, or has life gotten in the way?
Not 100%, but pretty much I've been able to stay with my original plan.

3. Has God had any surprising blessings for you during this Lent?
Absolutely, there have been 2 in particular. I have not been as wound up and obsessed inside about my school work and have been able to enjoy being in the moment with family and friends. The second is that wonderful sense of God's nearness and presence.

4. What is on your inner and/or outer agenda for the remainder of Lent and Holy Week?
For my inner agenda, I just want to be open to God and the multiple surprises in this journey of faith. Part of my outer agenda will be the stations of the cross, which I have never participated in.

5. Where do you most long to see resurrection, in your life and/or in the world, this Easter?
In my life I long to see resurrection in remembering why I'm at seminary and God's baptismal call in each of our lives. For the world, I long to see it impacted by the reign of God through God's people sharing God's love.

Bonus: Share a favorite scripture, prayer, poem, artwork, or musical selection that speaks Lenten spring to your heart.
What Wondrous Love is This.

flickr picture

Cross Shaped Living

Here is the sermon I'm preaching this morning at Rural Lutheran on the gospel text Mark 8:31-38.

+++

In the book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning describes a common myth that flourishes today. It goes something like this: “Once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons. Discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness.” This myth has done great harm because it misrepresents the way Christian life is really live

The problem is, our daily experiences fly in the face of this idea. Some say it’s simply because we don’t have enough faith. If we only said and did the right things, we could have, as one televangelist suggests, our “Best Life Now.”

In today’s gospel, we find ourselves arriving seemingly in the midst of an already unfolding drama. Today we are at the turning point of Mark’s gospel between Jesus’ Galilean ministry and Jesus’ road to Jerusalem and the cross; right after Peter has confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. Here Jesus makes the first of 3 predictions about his coming death and resurrection. He is telling them he will suffer, be rejected, killed, and will rise again. Jesus speaks plainly about this. He’s not talking in parables or riddles. Do we find it difficult to understand what Jesus is saying about his death and resurrection?

Jesus’ words may not shock us from our side of the cross and resurrection. However, Peter knew Jesus was the Messiah. For the Jews, the messiah would lead them to triumphant victory over their oppressors, who at this time were the Romans. It was inconceivable that he should suffer in any way. Peter may have thought:

I said the most natural thing there was to say.

Well, my feelings were so hurt by Jesus words. Be killed? Was this the gloomy thing he’d been thinking about all the time?

I grabbed his wrist and shouted, “No!” …”No, God won’t allow it!” I cried.

…I blustered on. Surely he knew that I was arguing out of love for him! “O Lord,” I said, “this can never happen to you!” (Wangerin, The Book of God).

Those things happen to losers, not winners, especially not messiahs! Will the last 3 years be for nothing?

Why was Peter so wrong??? Wasn’t Jesus overreacting a bit? Peter was “setting [his] mind not on divine things but on human things” (v. 33). It’s not just that Peter wasn’t considering or thinking about God’s ways. It’s much more serious than that. The Greek emphasizes an underlying disposition or attitude and could be rephrased, “…you are setting your mind on, being intent on not divine things but on human things.” It’s a matter of focus. What are we concentrating on, focusing on, setting our minds on?

We are called to choose between 2 options: allow the Cross to shape our lives and our way of thinking, or continue to rationalize that God’s greatest desire for all His children is that they be free from all suffering. As Luther described it, we either choose a theology of the Cross or a theology of glory.

The… [Christian] life called for is not a reflection of, let alone the …blessing of [our] egocentric culture, but its polar opposite. Self-denial is not part of our culture’s image of the ‘good life’…Just as [our] call to discipleship is not a joining in the cultural infatuation with self-esteem, neither is it the opposite… Just giving up things will not make one Christian [even if it is Lent!]; it will only make one empty. What is difficult for our culture to understand, indeed what it cannot understand … is an orientation to…life that is not focused on self at all…” (New Interpreters Bible, p. 352).

Jesus calls us to, a way of life that turns everything upside down: denial of self (a good Lenten theme), taking up our crosses, and following Jesus. Denying one’s self concerns the will, that one’s own will should not be the controlling factor in one’s life. “Let them” deny themselves—could indicate permission. However, this phrase is much stronger and could be translated, “he must deny himself...”

The cross was an instrument of torture that led to a painful death. It was also a sign of ridicule as the criminal was forced to carry it through the town while people laughed and hurled insults at the condemned. It was a public display of guilt.

The cross life is a strange and foreign place. This part of the passage is full of opposites: if we SAVE our lives, we LOSE them, if we LOSE our lives, we SAVE them, if we GAIN the world, we FORFEIT our lives, and ultimately SHAME versus GLORY. There’s no resurrection without the cross. Allowing the reign of God to break into our lives and world, even in the small things is countercultural and hard.

Obedience in walking this way though isn’t simply a matter of our own efforts. God does in us what we cannot do in ourselves. In today’s lesson from Romans, I am struck by the passage, “…the God in whom [Abraham] believed who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom 4:17). In us, there doesn’t exist the kind of love for God or neighbor, the kind of obedience we need to faithfully follow and please God, but God almighty calls it into existence in our lives. The work is his and so the glory is his.

As we are made God’s in baptism and nourished at the table, LET US PRAY:

O God, in your love you have given the people of this land gifts of
abundance beyond what our forebears knew or could imagine. Mercifully grant that we may not be so occupied with material things that we forget spiritual gifts, and thus, even though we have gained the whole world, lose our souls; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

flickr picture

A Reading from Genesis

This morning in lectio divina, we read and prayed with this Sunday's first reading, Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16. Above is what the text looks like when run through Wordle Word clouds are generated from text pasted into Wordle. The larger the words, the more times they appear in a given text.

A number of things came to mind while going over the text: God is God almighty, covenant promises, name change and its significance. God names us, calls us God's own, and enters into relationship with us. God is God and does the impossible.

After all our sharing, we fell into silence--a prolonged silence. The presence of God was almost tangible. As much as we may know God is with us, it is still wonderful when we sense that nearness. In that quiet time I could only worship and pray that God would move in our lives and in the lives of each of us on this campus--that there would be a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on each and every one. Gracious God, hear our prayer.

Now I Get It (at least for the moment)...

Week after week the workload in seminary seems undo able. I haven't posted anything lately because I, like others, have hardly come up for air from the piles on our desks of books and papers. Week after week I am stressed about whether or not I will get everything done that must be done. I'm not always sure (well, yeah I am) how everything gets done, but it does. This time I even tried to work ahead to no avail in preparation for guests.

My daughter and granddaughter visited this weekend from Rochester, NY. There was tons to be done, but I was determined to be as present and in the moment with them as possible. I did have to do some work for teaching parish, but most of my time was spent with them. And it's a good thing because they arrived sick and needing lots of TLC. Sunday they were totally out of it, so Ray stayed home and gave them lots of love while I went to Rural Lutheran.

They had perked up a bit while I was gone, but were still pretty out of it. I am so grateful for Ray's time with them. Knowing they needed extra time and attention would have normally sent me into a frenzy regarding stuff that had to be done and turned in by Sun. afternoon. Somehow, by God's grace, I was able to flow with the moment and everything that got done that needed to get done.

They left yesterday morning and arrived back home safe and sound. Besides already missing them desperately, my concern is that I remember this lesson--not to put off my schoolwork or avoid doing my best, to be present in the moment so that I can give the necessary attention to people--whether church, family, or members of our campus community. I must not use the amount of work be the excuse to avoid self-care or care of others.

Today was the type of day that allowed everything to come together as it should. I have been preparing to preach this coming Sunday on the gospel text. It is so rich and has so many ways one can develop it. So, this morning I made sure I went to lectio divina, knowing full well that this Sunday's gospel would be the passage we would be praying over, reading, meditating on. Some thoughts had come to me last night and I wanted to see what came up during this time. It was the same thing that surfaced for those of us gathered. The key to unlocking this passage seems to be Jesus' rebuke to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (verse 33). What are we setting our minds on? If we look at the world we live in today, the mess of our economic reality or whatever and just concentrate on that to the exclusion of "divine things" are we truly following Jesus?

Following Jesus flies in the face of convention. The passage is full of opposites: saving/losing life, gaining world/losing soul--basically there's no resurrection without the cross. Allowing the reign of God to break into our lives and world, even in the small things is countercultural and hard. It means following Jesus to the cross, the way of death.

The morning continued with a wonderful sense of God's presence as I went to The Church's Worship. A guest speaker taught about the Book of Common Prayer. Because of my interest and practice of the liturgy of the hours, I'm familiar with some of the prayerbook. I didn't know that much about it history however or the role it plays in Anglican and Episcopal. churches. Prayer shapes everything: Lex orandi lex credendi—how we pray shapes how we believe. The prayer is common not because it's ordinary, but because it's common to all of our life. When one is praying at any time, somewhere else in the world someone else is praying the same prayers. There is the sense of entering more fully into fellowship with the communion of saints. So, the learning and discussion in that class just helped to affirm what my and our priorities should be as we go through our days.

In the next class, we had a panel discussion with several area pastors concerning questions our class had generated. The time was spent entirely on eschatology (the study of last things) and death. Pastors spend a lot of time with the dying and their grieving families. Believe it or not, it was a lively, spirited discussion. The comments from the chaplain of Carroll Lutheran Village really got our attention. He said that at the Village, they tithe 10% annually. It took us a while to realize what he meant. 10% of their residents die annually. In his time there, he has buried the equivalent of two churches! He certainly has a wealth of experience in this field, as did the other pastors. More to put on the back burner for the future.

Chapel with Eucharist came next and seemed to suitably cap off everything. But then it got even better around our lunch table in the refectory. The second year students have received their internship assignments for next year. For some it brings a sense of relief and excitement having gotten one of their top choices. Others are wondering how to manage for a year with/without their family and commuting weekends to have time together. The conversation was rich and reflective. I put still more on the back burner for when it's our turn next year.

Tonight I feel like this is how it's supposed to be. Now I realize one can do all the right things and still have horrible days. There are still physical issues I'm dealing with, but since the time right before Sarah and Grace arrived for the weekend, I've had a sense of God's presence and grace to release concerns into God's loving care. That doesn't mean I'll remember that till even tomorrow, but hopefully I have truly learned a lesson. I'll keep you posted on the way the sermon goes. Please pray that I will be a faithful proclaimer and the congregation will have ears to hear God's Word. "Take Up Your Cross, the Savior Said"(ELW 667) says it all.

flickr picture