When we pray, what should we say?
What are the proper words?
What are the appropriate topics?
Let me suggest that one way to think about praying is to think of it like you were writing in a journal. Like a journal, prayer is something that no one will ever hear or see, and you can talk about just whatever is on your mind, without regard for grammar, punctuation, or even making sense.
Let me suggest that a second way to think about praying is to be silent. Imagine that prayer is a conversation in which you talk only part of the time, and spend the other parts listening. Like a conversation between people who are close, there may even be times when neither you or God is speaking, times when you are both just glad to be in each other’s presence.
Let me suggest that a third way to think about praying is to find prayer in the words you read or in music you make or hear. God may be speaking through these as much as in silence. Some of the words I listen to are those of the poet Mary Oliver, who wrote this about “praying” in her book titled Thirst.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Windows, and multi-tasking
I’m beginning to curse the windows on my computer. Who invented windows, and why did we think it was such a great idea? If you look at my computer, you will often see multiple windows with many tasks open: email, news, research, a letter, class plan, youth newsletter, and the column you are now reading. Of course, I’m not using all of those windows at the same time. We can only ever do one thing at time. When we have many things going at once (how busy is your computer screen?), we call it multi-tasking. But what we are really doing is single-tasking for shorter and shorter bits of time, switching from one task to the next rapidly.
For instance, after I finished writing the above paragraph, I stopped typing while I thought about how I would begin this second paragraph. But while I began to think about it, I also had the thought that I would, you know, just quickly check to see if I had heard back from someone by email, and then went back to a class plan I’m working on to add a few details. I actually think that I can do those things at the same time as I’m contemplating what to write next about multi-tasking. (Okay, that’s not true. I’m much to self-conscious to jump around while I’m writing about how I jump around too often. However, if I had been writing about something else, that is exactly what I would have done.)
I believe that the way in which technology functions encourages us to shift our focused attention too quickly from one thing to the next. Have you ever jumped from a face-to-face conversation to respond to a phone call, text, or email, and then jumped back (or tried to do both at the same time)? Have you ever followed two television programs at once, flipping back and forth when one or the other went to commercial? If so, at least you were watching one at a time. Now we have news networks that make us believe that we can pay attention to both the show and the breaking news headlines that scroll at the bottom of the screen (we can’t).
I believe that one of the much needed gifts the church can offer is the practice of focusing our attention on one thing at a time. This is what worship is about. No one can momentarily change the channel when a part of the sermon seems less relevant (much as you may wish you could). There’s no way to check something online if you happen to think of it during a prayer. Worship teaches us and reminds us of the value of stillness. To focus your attention on one thing is spiritual practice, and it also happens to be the best gift that we can give to each other.
For instance, after I finished writing the above paragraph, I stopped typing while I thought about how I would begin this second paragraph. But while I began to think about it, I also had the thought that I would, you know, just quickly check to see if I had heard back from someone by email, and then went back to a class plan I’m working on to add a few details. I actually think that I can do those things at the same time as I’m contemplating what to write next about multi-tasking. (Okay, that’s not true. I’m much to self-conscious to jump around while I’m writing about how I jump around too often. However, if I had been writing about something else, that is exactly what I would have done.)
I believe that the way in which technology functions encourages us to shift our focused attention too quickly from one thing to the next. Have you ever jumped from a face-to-face conversation to respond to a phone call, text, or email, and then jumped back (or tried to do both at the same time)? Have you ever followed two television programs at once, flipping back and forth when one or the other went to commercial? If so, at least you were watching one at a time. Now we have news networks that make us believe that we can pay attention to both the show and the breaking news headlines that scroll at the bottom of the screen (we can’t).
I believe that one of the much needed gifts the church can offer is the practice of focusing our attention on one thing at a time. This is what worship is about. No one can momentarily change the channel when a part of the sermon seems less relevant (much as you may wish you could). There’s no way to check something online if you happen to think of it during a prayer. Worship teaches us and reminds us of the value of stillness. To focus your attention on one thing is spiritual practice, and it also happens to be the best gift that we can give to each other.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Great Commissions
At the end of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (28:19-20). This has come to be known as the great commission, and it is cited by parts of the church who believe our purpose is primarily to gain converts to Christianity. However, the scriptures are multifaceted and hardly ever summarized so easily. What we call the great commission is not the only commission Jesus gave.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus sent the disciples out by twos, saying to them, “as you go, proclaim the good news ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast our demons” (10:7-8). This commission seems to focus less on getting other people to convert to Christ and more on bringing the love of Christ to others. This is a commission to heal, to restore those who are unclean and outcast to community, and to set the soul at ease. This is a mission of telling good news.
Sometimes the commission from the end of Matthew sounds to me like it’s all about telling people what they need to do and to believe in order to get right with God. At least, that’s how it has sounded in many hands in the history of the church. But when we see it in relationship to the earlier commission, which was focused more on bringing good news to people, we get a deeper understanding. God doesn’t commission us to tell other people how they need to be different. God commissions us to make their lives different through kindness, generosity, and healing. Instead of telling them what they need to do in order to enter the kingdom, we get to tell them that the kingdom has already come near. What would it be like for us to say to our relatives or our neighbors, when we see them playing and laughing in the yard, or comforting one who is ill, “I’m thankful for you, because right now I see the kingdom of Heaven.” Then we would be fulfilling the commission of Jesus to proclaim the good news that the kingdom has come near.
In the gospel of John, there’s yet another idea for the church. The risen Jesus meets with his disciples and says to them “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (20:22-23). And later, speaking to Peter, Jesus said “feed my sheep” (21:17). Our commission can never be understood narrowly as winning converts. The commission of Jesus started with caring for people, feeding, healing, and showing mercy. When you’ve done that, the good news kind of proclaims itself.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus sent the disciples out by twos, saying to them, “as you go, proclaim the good news ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast our demons” (10:7-8). This commission seems to focus less on getting other people to convert to Christ and more on bringing the love of Christ to others. This is a commission to heal, to restore those who are unclean and outcast to community, and to set the soul at ease. This is a mission of telling good news.
Sometimes the commission from the end of Matthew sounds to me like it’s all about telling people what they need to do and to believe in order to get right with God. At least, that’s how it has sounded in many hands in the history of the church. But when we see it in relationship to the earlier commission, which was focused more on bringing good news to people, we get a deeper understanding. God doesn’t commission us to tell other people how they need to be different. God commissions us to make their lives different through kindness, generosity, and healing. Instead of telling them what they need to do in order to enter the kingdom, we get to tell them that the kingdom has already come near. What would it be like for us to say to our relatives or our neighbors, when we see them playing and laughing in the yard, or comforting one who is ill, “I’m thankful for you, because right now I see the kingdom of Heaven.” Then we would be fulfilling the commission of Jesus to proclaim the good news that the kingdom has come near.
In the gospel of John, there’s yet another idea for the church. The risen Jesus meets with his disciples and says to them “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (20:22-23). And later, speaking to Peter, Jesus said “feed my sheep” (21:17). Our commission can never be understood narrowly as winning converts. The commission of Jesus started with caring for people, feeding, healing, and showing mercy. When you’ve done that, the good news kind of proclaims itself.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sermon - Seeing With New Eyes
Preached on April 26, 2009 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
Luke 24:30-48
I want you to think about that moment, which is a very particular kind of moment, near the end of a good mystery novel or a suspenseful movie, which is the moment when you finally learn what you have been trying to figure out the entire time. It may be the identity of the murderer, or of the spy working inside the agency. Or it may be a moment of revelation that you didn’t see coming, only because you didn’t know what to look for. Whatever the revelation, it is a moment that changes the way you understand everything that came before. As you think back on each scene and every part of the plot, you see everything differently.
This is the moment that is described twice in the Luke’s gospel on the evening of Easter. It happened the first time for the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and invited him to eat with them, and it happened a second time for the rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem when the risen Christ visits them. Both times, the disciples have trouble recognizing Jesus or believing that it’s him. The larger group in Jerusalem are described in this strange way: “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” What an interesting way to describe their mix of emotions: they disbelieved in joy and amazement. Both groups have trouble, and both times, Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures, going back to Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. He goes back to the scriptures to make the point that they should have expected resurrection. Even in that dark weekend, when their teacher had been killed and they feared arrest themselves, they should have trusted that God’s word of life, of love and grace, is the last word, always. They should have trusted, because that has always been the story told of God, from Moses, to the psalms, to the prophets, who wrote of hope even when they were in exile, and their home and Temple in ruins. The disciples were met by the risen Christ, and that was the moment that changed the way they understood all of history that had come before. It changed the way they understood life itself.
These stories from the gospel make me wonder how we understand life. What is our basic operating understanding of how life works? There is, on the one hand, the answer that we see in the person of Jesus Christ. But there is also a basic understanding that many of us live with, which says that most, if not all, of life is left to chance, luck, and forces beyond our control. See if this resonates with you. Life is an attempt to build and protect our experience of happiness, security, peace, and health. We plan for our future and build a good life in a struggle against a hostile world. First, there is the threat of economic crisis, in which our retirement plans are rewritten and our jobs threatened, all because of the actions of executives and/or elected politicians who did things (or didn’t) in ways that we can’t even understand. We try to protect ourselves from violence at home or abroad, except that we don’t really understand where that comes from either or how to prevent it. And we try to keep our health, but how do you protect yourself from diseases that are unpredictable in where and when they begin, and whether or not they will be treatable?
So much is out of our control. But, we are Americans, so we are optimistic that we can hold economic hardship, violence, and disease at bay for while if we just work hard enough, make the right choices, and get a little bit of luck. Maybe God will even help us out a bit on the part that’s left to chance. Notice how, in this view, the emphasis is on what we can do for ourselves.
But is this what life is about, carving out a bit of peace and happiness against a hard and challenging world? And what happens if that doesn’t work? What happens if we do all the right things and still meet hardship? Will we be left feeling like Macbeth after all his efforts to secure his throne, when his tragedy closes in, who says:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth Act V, Scene V)
There are times when life feels that way, and that’s probably how it felt to the disciples that Sunday long ago. They had followed Jesus, trusting that they would make a difference, but in the end the powers of the empire, and the priests and politicians of privilege who thrived under the status quo had been too strong for a rabbi and a small band of disciples who healed illnesses one at a time, proclaimed good news for the poor, fed the hungry, and proclaimed a new order by sharing table hospitality with mixed classes and characters. It seemed like they had lost, that life was a tale told by an idiot. It seemed like that so much that they didn’t even recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and didn’t really believe it when they saw him back in Jerusalem. Not at first, anyway. But then came that one luminous moment. Then came that moment that changed the way they understood all that had happened, and life itself.
Those first two disciples finally recognized Jesus when they had stopped for a meal and invited him to join them at the table. When they saw him break the bread and share it with them, in that moment they knew that it was Jesus, and even when he mysteriously disappeared from that place, they said to each other, “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” In a moment, they understood everything differently.
The moment is less dramatic in the room back in Jerusalem. But notice the chain of events that Luke tells so carefully. At first, the disciples are terrified, thinking that he is a ghost. Jesus tells them not to be afraid, but to see his wounds. Next comes that great line about how “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” And then Jesus asks for something to eat, and they have fish, and over this meal he opens to them the scriptures, to show how God has always been present in this world. If they had viewed the world from this perspective, they would have expected the resurrection.
Eating bread and eating fish. Those were the moments that changed the way the disciples understood the world. I think there’s a clue here, because in the life of Jesus, the table had always been a central symbol of the kingdom of God. He fed bread and fish to the crowds when he taught them, that we might understand that the teaching of Christ is food for our souls. Jesus was criticized for eating with sinners, and in response he told the parable of the prodigal son, to show us how great God’s love is for every single child. He broke bread at the last supper and said it was his body, to show how completely God reaches out to us in mercy, to show that not even life itself is too great a cost for God’s love.
I bet that all those memories came back to them as they shared those meals with the risen Jesus. In a moment, they realized that these gifts were what life is really about. Life is not a treacherous battle against threats to carve out some happiness. Rather, life is a wonderful, beautiful gift. Life is full of chances to share what we are blessed with around tables with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. And where there is suffering, where there are challenges, these are places where the love that we celebrate is put to best use, where it matters most. Notice how this view begins with the gracious gifts of God, not dependent on our achievement.
The thing about the resurrection moment is that it doesn’t change the circumstances of our lives. It doesn’t do away with pain and suffering, and it doesn’t add to our pantries or bank accounts. But it does affect the way that we see and understand our circumstances. Our faith does not deny that suffering and injustice are still present, for now. But we also proclaim that the kingdom of God is not put on hold until we die and enter heaven. When life is understood as a gift of love, then we discover what Jesus said, that the kingdom of God is among us. William Sloan Coffin, minister at Riverside church in New York, described the difference between viewing life as a threatening and viewing it as a gift, and tells us what is needed to make the shift.
“As I see it,” he said, “the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight....You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts--either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."
Instead of viewing life as a series of threats against which we strive for happiness, we suddenly understand that life is a blessing of grace that helps us to meet the times of tragedy. I believe that there are moments that come to each of us, which have the power to reveal life as it really is, and to affect they way we live in every other moment. These moments are sacred. They fill us with love, and from then on, everything looks different. I’ve heard it said that maybe heaven isn’t a different place, it’s just a new set of lenses to see the place where we are. There’s some truth to that. So may God give us a new way of seeing everything that has come before, and everything that is yet to be, and most of all this sacred, present moment.
Luke 24:30-48
I want you to think about that moment, which is a very particular kind of moment, near the end of a good mystery novel or a suspenseful movie, which is the moment when you finally learn what you have been trying to figure out the entire time. It may be the identity of the murderer, or of the spy working inside the agency. Or it may be a moment of revelation that you didn’t see coming, only because you didn’t know what to look for. Whatever the revelation, it is a moment that changes the way you understand everything that came before. As you think back on each scene and every part of the plot, you see everything differently.
This is the moment that is described twice in the Luke’s gospel on the evening of Easter. It happened the first time for the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and invited him to eat with them, and it happened a second time for the rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem when the risen Christ visits them. Both times, the disciples have trouble recognizing Jesus or believing that it’s him. The larger group in Jerusalem are described in this strange way: “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” What an interesting way to describe their mix of emotions: they disbelieved in joy and amazement. Both groups have trouble, and both times, Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures, going back to Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. He goes back to the scriptures to make the point that they should have expected resurrection. Even in that dark weekend, when their teacher had been killed and they feared arrest themselves, they should have trusted that God’s word of life, of love and grace, is the last word, always. They should have trusted, because that has always been the story told of God, from Moses, to the psalms, to the prophets, who wrote of hope even when they were in exile, and their home and Temple in ruins. The disciples were met by the risen Christ, and that was the moment that changed the way they understood all of history that had come before. It changed the way they understood life itself.
These stories from the gospel make me wonder how we understand life. What is our basic operating understanding of how life works? There is, on the one hand, the answer that we see in the person of Jesus Christ. But there is also a basic understanding that many of us live with, which says that most, if not all, of life is left to chance, luck, and forces beyond our control. See if this resonates with you. Life is an attempt to build and protect our experience of happiness, security, peace, and health. We plan for our future and build a good life in a struggle against a hostile world. First, there is the threat of economic crisis, in which our retirement plans are rewritten and our jobs threatened, all because of the actions of executives and/or elected politicians who did things (or didn’t) in ways that we can’t even understand. We try to protect ourselves from violence at home or abroad, except that we don’t really understand where that comes from either or how to prevent it. And we try to keep our health, but how do you protect yourself from diseases that are unpredictable in where and when they begin, and whether or not they will be treatable?
So much is out of our control. But, we are Americans, so we are optimistic that we can hold economic hardship, violence, and disease at bay for while if we just work hard enough, make the right choices, and get a little bit of luck. Maybe God will even help us out a bit on the part that’s left to chance. Notice how, in this view, the emphasis is on what we can do for ourselves.
But is this what life is about, carving out a bit of peace and happiness against a hard and challenging world? And what happens if that doesn’t work? What happens if we do all the right things and still meet hardship? Will we be left feeling like Macbeth after all his efforts to secure his throne, when his tragedy closes in, who says:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth Act V, Scene V)
There are times when life feels that way, and that’s probably how it felt to the disciples that Sunday long ago. They had followed Jesus, trusting that they would make a difference, but in the end the powers of the empire, and the priests and politicians of privilege who thrived under the status quo had been too strong for a rabbi and a small band of disciples who healed illnesses one at a time, proclaimed good news for the poor, fed the hungry, and proclaimed a new order by sharing table hospitality with mixed classes and characters. It seemed like they had lost, that life was a tale told by an idiot. It seemed like that so much that they didn’t even recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and didn’t really believe it when they saw him back in Jerusalem. Not at first, anyway. But then came that one luminous moment. Then came that moment that changed the way they understood all that had happened, and life itself.
Those first two disciples finally recognized Jesus when they had stopped for a meal and invited him to join them at the table. When they saw him break the bread and share it with them, in that moment they knew that it was Jesus, and even when he mysteriously disappeared from that place, they said to each other, “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” In a moment, they understood everything differently.
The moment is less dramatic in the room back in Jerusalem. But notice the chain of events that Luke tells so carefully. At first, the disciples are terrified, thinking that he is a ghost. Jesus tells them not to be afraid, but to see his wounds. Next comes that great line about how “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” And then Jesus asks for something to eat, and they have fish, and over this meal he opens to them the scriptures, to show how God has always been present in this world. If they had viewed the world from this perspective, they would have expected the resurrection.
Eating bread and eating fish. Those were the moments that changed the way the disciples understood the world. I think there’s a clue here, because in the life of Jesus, the table had always been a central symbol of the kingdom of God. He fed bread and fish to the crowds when he taught them, that we might understand that the teaching of Christ is food for our souls. Jesus was criticized for eating with sinners, and in response he told the parable of the prodigal son, to show us how great God’s love is for every single child. He broke bread at the last supper and said it was his body, to show how completely God reaches out to us in mercy, to show that not even life itself is too great a cost for God’s love.
I bet that all those memories came back to them as they shared those meals with the risen Jesus. In a moment, they realized that these gifts were what life is really about. Life is not a treacherous battle against threats to carve out some happiness. Rather, life is a wonderful, beautiful gift. Life is full of chances to share what we are blessed with around tables with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. And where there is suffering, where there are challenges, these are places where the love that we celebrate is put to best use, where it matters most. Notice how this view begins with the gracious gifts of God, not dependent on our achievement.
The thing about the resurrection moment is that it doesn’t change the circumstances of our lives. It doesn’t do away with pain and suffering, and it doesn’t add to our pantries or bank accounts. But it does affect the way that we see and understand our circumstances. Our faith does not deny that suffering and injustice are still present, for now. But we also proclaim that the kingdom of God is not put on hold until we die and enter heaven. When life is understood as a gift of love, then we discover what Jesus said, that the kingdom of God is among us. William Sloan Coffin, minister at Riverside church in New York, described the difference between viewing life as a threatening and viewing it as a gift, and tells us what is needed to make the shift.
“As I see it,” he said, “the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight....You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts--either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."
Instead of viewing life as a series of threats against which we strive for happiness, we suddenly understand that life is a blessing of grace that helps us to meet the times of tragedy. I believe that there are moments that come to each of us, which have the power to reveal life as it really is, and to affect they way we live in every other moment. These moments are sacred. They fill us with love, and from then on, everything looks different. I’ve heard it said that maybe heaven isn’t a different place, it’s just a new set of lenses to see the place where we are. There’s some truth to that. So may God give us a new way of seeing everything that has come before, and everything that is yet to be, and most of all this sacred, present moment.
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