What Else is Going On - May 3

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 56, 57, [58]; PM Psalm 64, 65; Wisdom 9:1, 7-18; Col. (3:18-4:1)2-18; Luke 7:36-50

I am married to a life-long educator, which also means there is no escaping learning at every opportunity. Before we moved to Virginia for me to go to seminary, Anne was the Middle School Division Director for an Independent School in our hometown.  It was a role that blended her love and cares for students with helping to create an environment that impacted teachers as well, all while listening to the concerns and hopes of parents. 

One of the lessons that she has worked to impart on me over and over is to always ask the question, “What else is going on?”  When a student was acting out in class, causing trouble for teachers or classmates, Anne’s first question was always, “what else is going on in their life?”  If she could gain an understanding of what was going on at home or with their family, it would often change the way she would understand what was taking place in the classroom.  If she could begin to grasp the weight of what was impacting the student, she could better address care, support, and discipline.  And 9 out of 10 times, there was always more to the story. 

It helps to have a bigger picture to understand each other, and why we have arrived to be the people we are today, and in most cases how we act and respond to each other.  We humans are complex, with experiences, feelings, and even traumas that have shaped us into who we are.  And we far too often dismiss each other when we fail to dig a little deeper and ask, “What else is going on?” 

Paul lets us know in today’s reading that more is going on.  It’s an odd statement that stands out: “Remember my chains.”  He uses it as he concludes his letter to the Colossians.  It’s as if he implies, “don’t just remember me and my love for you, but what I am experiencing today and how it is impacting me!”  “Remember my chains.”  There is more to the story!  

We would do well to remember what we all have been through that has shaped us too to be the people we are today, but that’s difficult to do.  Maybe it’s a little easier just to ask, “What else is going on?”  It probably helps us to get to the same place and I have to believe that’s a good start.

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  What are some instances where your opinion of someone has changed when you found out what they had been through?

Daily Challenge:  Today, when you find yourself frustrated with the position or beliefs of a person, try to suspend judgment, and instead seek to understand how they have arrived at their position.

How deep are you willing to go? – May 1

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 55; PM Psalm 138, 139:1-17; Wisdom 7:1-14; Col. 3:12-17; Luke 7:18-28, 31-35

Give ear to my prayer, O God;
   do not hide yourself from my supplication.
Attend to me, and answer me;
   I am troubled in my complaint.
I am distraught by the noise of the enemy,
   because of the clamor of the wicked.
For they bring trouble upon me,
   and in anger they cherish enmity against me.  (Psalm 55:1-3)

When I think of the psalms to read in a morning, as the sun is rising and the birds are chirping to welcome the new day, I think of words of encouragement, like from Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the hills…”or from Psalm 23, “The Lord is My Shepherd”…or from Psalm 100, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the lands…”. Easy. Light. Moving on.

When going deeper and actually reading the psalm appointed for this morning, I find Psalm 55 greeting me with stirring emotions and stormy seas from the early verses. The psalmist pleads with the Lord and puts demands on God, who has been hidden in the midst of turmoil and attack, not answering prayers. It feels like I have walked in on an intense conversation, and I am not sure where to go for a graceful exit. Yet, allowing myself to sink into this space of real emotion and dis-ease can be a way of facing some of the big questions that well up from time to time.

I saw a bumper sticker this week that feels germane at this point:

HOW AM I DRIVING?

HOW DOES AN ENGINE EVEN WORK?

HOW CAN A LOVING GOD CAUSE SUCH AGONY?

Rereading those questions is amusing in their progression of intensity for a bumper sticker, while also compelling as I reflect on the passion of Psalm 55 this morning. Drawing closer and closer to the back of the car, one is faced with deeper and more complicated questions – that surely cannot be resolved during 5 o’clock traffic or an endless red light on Summit Boulevard. If a driver dare get so close, perhaps that smallest, biggest question, “How can a loving God cause so much agony?” would be reason enough for someone to keep their distance, for sure.

Do you ever meet someone who dives deeply into intense conversation quickly, leaving surface-level niceties behind? Perhaps a friend of yours does this at parties (do you remember parties?), and that is why you love her. Maybe it makes you squirm, as he will pull you into a space of honesty that you are not ready to dwell in or explore. Or, you are that person, and you yearn for someone to go into the depths of anguish with you, so that the “terrors of death” written about in Psalm 55 would not seem so overwhelming knowing that you are not alone in the strife.

Here’s what I am wondering for you and for me: do our prayers with God ever get this intense and passionate? Do we open our mouths and let all of the pain of judgement and iniquity fall out in supplications to the Lord? Do we share these deepest pains with a confidante?

While at the next family gathering or neighborhood picnic it might make some folks feel uncomfortable to go so deeply into the agony upon our hearts, we can let Psalm 55 (and the brutally deep bumper sticker) be an invitation to entrust the pain on our hearts to God and share it with someone we can trust, too. We may not get all the answers we want in the moment. What we will receive is consolation that we can trust in God through all manners of tumult.

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

What does prayer look like for you on a hard day?

When did you last trust a friend or family member with a deep conversation or hard though you've been wrestling with?

Daily Challenge 

Pray through Psalm 55. Listen for where you are moved to be honest with God about a disappointment. Then, call a friend. Invite them to share in this space of deep conversation.

When Wisdom Meets Us on the Path - April 30

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 40, 54; PM Psalm 51; Wisdom 6:12-23; Col 3:1-11; Luke 7:1-17

Today’s Reflection

Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her,
and is found by those who seek her.
She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.
One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,
for she will be found sitting at the gate.
To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding,
and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care,
because she goes about seeking those worthy of her,
and she graciously appears to them in their paths,
and meets them in every thought. —Wisdom 6: 12-16

October 22, 1939. The Second World War had just begun with the invasion of Poland by Germany that September. Across the English Channel, C.S. Lewis was asked to preach at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Oxford. In his sermon, which Lewis titled “No Other Gods: Culture in War Time,” he aimed to dismantle doubts that some Christians may have about whether pursuing the life of the mind—Wisdom in all its sacred beauty—is acceptable to God, especially in a time of cultural crisis.

In his sermon, Lewis addressed a specific audience in a specific situation: university students and faculty during war time. However, his ideas are instructive for any of us who are experiencing situations—whether personal, communal, or global—that have reached a crisis point. People facing troubled times tend to believe, in that moment, that things have never been worse than they are. What Lewis wanted his Oxford audience to gain in 1939, and what we can learn from this sermon in 2021, is a sense of perspective: “The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it.” In our own context, we might well insert “the pandemic” in place of “the war” (acknowledging, of course, that multiple wars are ongoing around the world at any given moment).

Lewis’ perspective echoes the author of Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Wars, famines, plagues, storms, fires, social injustice, personal discord, and all manner of disease and destruction have always existed—though this does not make these crises any less heartbreaking and damaging each time we experience them. Certain parts of our own sacred Scriptures can read like a litany of crisis situations—and we find them portrayed in the arts, literature, and scholarly treatises dating back to ancient civilizations. As Lewis observed, “Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun.”

As the author of the Wisdom of Solomon reflects, Wisdom “hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding.” Seeking after and finding wisdom in all things beautiful, complex, compelling, and sacred will not necessarily solve the problems we face (though it sometimes does). But when we seek after Wisdom, we gain a deeper sense of understanding when she “graciously appears in our paths” and “meets us in every thought.”

Even in the face of all manner of troubled times, we persist in writing songs and making music, creating drawings and paintings and sculptures, composing poems and plays and stories, writing theological and philosophical treatises, delivering speeches and preaching sermons, and engaging in intellectual discussions. Life in the crucible inspires intellectual, creative, and spiritual reflection. Though we look around and see so many things that are not as they should be, we should not feel guilty about continuing to seek out Wisdom as we ponder and create and converse.

Listening, learning, thinking, discussing, and creating in the face of—or even because of— our busy and chaotic world may not bring about immediate change. It may not make the most sense at the time, when we see that so much important work is left to do—whether that’s our to-do list at work, our chore list at home, or all the ways we want to take action to improve our world. But if we believe, with Lewis, that “Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice,” then we will see that life on the edge invites our reflection, including intellectual, creative, and spiritual responses to this life on the edge. Wisdom is calling out to us, if only we will listen for her voice.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

In what ways do you search out and listen for wisdom and beauty in the rhythms of your daily life, in the places you inhabit, and in the conversations that you share?

Daily Challenge

Read what scholars have to say on why wisdom is personified as a woman the Hebrew scriptures, both in the book of Proverbs and in the book of Job.

So Much Vanishes and Passes - April 29

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 50; PM Psalm [59, 60] or 114, 115; Wisdom 5:9-23; Col. 2:8-23; Luke 6:39-49

Yesterday, the family and I rolled up to the boat dock at 8:30 a.m. for a few hours of a guided fishing trip on our vacation.  Captain Joe helped each of us down onto the boat and then he looked at me and asked a question he already knew the answer to.  “Do you all want to go BIG or small?”  I mean there is only one answer to that question!  How do we ignore those beautiful large and golden 20 pound plus Redfish that have returned to spawn?

My children are nine and seven-years-old, so this was to mean all hands on deck.  A few minutes after getting set, the reel was humming, and Jack was grabbing and screaming with the excitement of Christmas.  Of course, this meant, that dad had to firmly plant himself behind him, holding the rod while he gave it his all to reel that fish in.  The same methodology applied to my daughter as well.  

 Anne asked me later, “don’t you want to catch a fish?” 

“I wouldn’t trade it for the world for those few minutes of chaos and joy!” 

I’ve been thinking about those moments that memories are built upon.  They pass too quickly.  What is left in its place is a bond, hopefully, a deeper love and joy, but we cannot hold onto the experience forever.  It comes and goes.  Inevitably, we often chase it, but it cannot replace what we have experienced.  But the true joy is what is left in its place, a sort of satisfaction and wonder that is birthed from a shared experience.  It comes from the love that is shared in that moment.

We hear today a beautiful passage from the Book of Wisdom that reminds us that so much vanishes and passes.  Things done and left undone will be no more.  They will be “like a ship that sails through the billowy water, and when it has passed no trace can be found, no track of its keel in the waves; or as, when a bird flies through the air, no evidence of its passage is found; the light air, lashed by the beat of its pinions and pierced by the force of its rushing flight, is traversed by the movement of its wings, and afterward no sign of its coming is found there.”  The Scripture is referring to the actions and words of an unrighteous person, but could that not apply to the temporal nature of our existence?

It’s a beautiful passage because it reminds us not to get wrapped up in the mistakes we have made, the errors, the ill, the things done and left undone.  Instead, let’s go out and share love in a way that will last with us forever.  “But the righteous for ever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them.”  Go love someone, be kind, help a stranger, lift up a person in need, help a child reel in a fish, and find the joy in the eternal nature of our ability to love each other.

Faithfully,

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  Where have you experienced love and joy?  Who are the people there in that moment?  How did that love change you today?

Daily Challenge:  Pick one thing you can do for someone else today that will bring you joy.  Do it!  Here are 25 ways if you need a start in brainstorming.

“The love you take is equal to the love you make” – April 28

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 119:49-72; PM Psalm 49, [53]; Wisdom 4:16-5:8; Col. 1:24-2:7; Luke 6:27-38

In 1993, Paul McCartney was on the NBC comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live. Chris Farley, one of the cast members at the time, appeared in a scene with McCartney, interviewing him for “The Chris Farley Show”. The stage is set so that the interviewer – Farley – and the guest – rock and roll legend McCartney – are sitting right next to one another, with little breathing space. Chris is bumbling, nervous, and breathless as he poorly navigates a conversation with one of the Fab Four. Boyishly smiling, his first question to Paul is, “You remember when you were with the Beatles?” McCartney’s response is, “Sure.” All that the star-struck Chris Farley can manage as a response is, “That was awesome.” Awkward silence ensues, with laughter from the audience.

The interview does not get better, and McCartney does little to save the conversation. When another dead-end question is offered, Farley gets exasperated, calls himself an idiot, and pulls at his hair in frustration. He turns to questions about Paul’s music with the Beatles, which could be an avenue of engagement, but as the comedy sketch unfolds, it is another dead-end with no connection between host and guest.

There is time for a final question. “Um, remember when you were in the Beatles, and you did that album Abbey Road, and at the very end of the song, the song goes, ‘…and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.’ You remember that? Is that true?” McCartney responds, “Well, Chris, I find, the more you give, the more you get.” Farley enthusiastically mouths, “Awesome!” while gesturing with breathless exuberance. He beams with joy for a moment and then continues to bumble his way to the end of the interview.

As I reflect on Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, that final verse from today’s lectionary stands out to me: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” And as I have tried to explore other avenues for today’s reflection, this is the one that keeps coming back to me: a Chris Farley/Paul McCartney skit from SNL. There is such honesty and vulnerability in Chris’ presence, though it is painful to watch him struggle. (If I were to interview someone who I greatly esteemed, I imagine I would be similarly disastrous.)

The truth of the message is not diminished: the more we give, the more we get. In order to do that, we get to be open and vulnerable and awkward – which can feel risky. So, take courage from the late Chris Farley and receive this wisdom from Jesus: Give generously of yourself, and of your belongings. Love lavishly, even those who are hard to love. Expect nothing in return. (And, I remind you: take time to laugh.)

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

To whom are you most generous? To whom is it a struggle to give greatly?

Do you find yourself giving more of yourself emotionally, spiritually, or in tangible ways?

Daily Challenge

Take time to laugh and watch this quick skit with Chris Farley and Paul McCartney. Then, reflect on how you can be more vulnerable and generous today.

Meet Me in the Middle - April 27

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 45; PM Psalm 47, 48; Wisdom 3:1-9; Col 1:15-23; Luke 6:12-26

Today’s Reflection

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.” –Luke 6: 20-23

In today’s Gospel, Luke sets the scene for Jesus preaching a sermon that begins with a series of blessings that we now know as the Beatitudes. Just before this, Jesus had spent the night away from others, up on a mountain, praying to God all night. When day broke, he called together his disciples and chose the twelve who he would name apostles (Luke 6: 12-16). Then all of them came down from the mountain, and Jesus “stood on a level place” to speak to a “great multitude … who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.”

Jesus, rather than standing up above the crowd, has chosen to speak to them from their level. He who is divine and lifted up is choosing to come down to the crowd’s level, to speak from among them, which seems like an apt analogy for the message he has for them in this series of four blessings and four woes. One of the main, recurring themes in the Gospel of Luke, according to scholars, is something called “the great reversal.” This is what we hear Jesus preaching in this sermon. As one commentator explains, when Luke highlights Jesus’ message “in which the last are becoming first, the proud are being brought low and the humble are being exalted, Luke places great emphasis on God’s love for the poor, tax collectors, outcasts, sinners, women, Samaritans, and Gentiles.  … many of the episodes that appear only in Luke’s Gospel feature the welcome of the outcast” (ESV Study Bible, Introduction to Luke).

This past Sunday evening, my daughter turned on the Academy Awards, the Oscars, hoping she might see the musician Jon Batiste win an award for the soundtrack to Soul—which he did, and we shared in his infectious joy as he thanked God for all the blessings in his life, “a series of miracles.” As I was coming and going from the room, trying to gather laundry and do a few other chores after a long Sunday at church, I stopped in my tracks when I heard the voice of Tyler Perry, whom I admire, in the midst of accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for the ways in which, through his position of influence in the entertainment industry, he has shared his gifts for the good of others.

Perry is a prolific screenwriter, producer, director, and writer for both television and film. Though at one point he was homeless and lived out of his car for a time before he began to realize success as a writer and actor, Perry now owns a massive film and television studio in Atlanta and is one of the most influential people in the entertainment industry. He began his acceptance speech by telling the story of how, 17 years ago, he encountered a woman on the street outside a building where they were filming, and as she approached, he expected her to ask him for money. And even Tyler Perry, who understands well the struggles of having nothing, found himself judging her.

I reach in my pocket and I’m about to give her the money and she says: ‘Excuse me sir do you have any shoes?’

It stopped me cold because I remember being homeless and having one pair of shoes and they were bent over at the heel. So, I took her into the studio. …So, as we’re standing there [in] wardrobe and we find her these shoes and I help her put them on and I’m waiting for her to look up and all this time she’s looking down. She finally looks up and she’s got tears in her eyes. She says: ‘Thank you Jesus. My feet are off the ground.’

In that moment I recall her saying to me ‘I thought you would hate me for asking’ but how could I hate you when I used to be you?

Perry used this story as a way into reflecting, with all of us listening to him on Sunday evening, on growing up in the South by a mother who had grown up in the Jim Crow, segregated South, and had taught him to love, not hate: “My mother taught me to refuse hate. She taught me to refuse blanket judgment.” He then called on all listening to be people who love rather than hate, then closed his acceptance speech with this rousing call to be people of the middle ground.

I want to take this Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and dedicate it to anyone who wants to stand in the middle, no matter what’s around the walls, stand in the middle because that’s where healing happens. That’s where conversation happens. That’s where change happens. It happens in the middle. So, anyone who wants to meet me in the middle, to refuse hate, to refuse blanket judgment and to help lift someone’s feet off the ground, this one is for you, too.

Perry’s message reminds me of what Jesus was preaching when he came down from the mountain and preached the Beatitudes, this series of great reversals, in which the low are lifted up, and the high are brought low. Jesus, too, is calling us to be the people in the middle.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

Recall a moment when you, like Tyler Perry, judged someone wrongly, when you jumped to a conclusion about their life situation or intentions. How do the Beatitudes inspire you to live free of judgment and hate?

Daily Challenge

You can watch and listen to Tyler Perry’s full acceptance speech here.

Praying without Ceasing - April 26

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 41, 52; PM Psalm 44; Wisdom 1:16-2:11,21-24; Col. 1:1-14; Luke 6:1-11

This past Sunday morning, there were eight of us sitting around a table at Camp McDowell to share in the sacrament of Holy Communion.  I joined one of our Cursillo reunion groups for fellowship this past weekend, a chance to resume some of what we all have missed and value in our lives.  All of us had received our vaccines and were hungry for fellowship and connection.  We sat around a table breaking bread and extending each other the body and blood of Christ. In lieu of a sermon, we each shared the challenges and gifts of this past year, each person with a strikingly different outlook on the past year.

I shared how my prayer life has changed, and largely as a response to technology.  Each day, as prayers come across our computer and phone screens as we pray the Daily Office, on Sundays as we offer prayer out loud for the prayers that people offer up, we all say names and the concerns of our community.  Thanks to worshiping on Facebook and YouTube, I pray by name a lot more for the people in our midst, and I think all of the people who have joined in, especially in our virtual services, have too.  The result is, it’s impossible not to hold our congregation in prayer when you have learned so much about the concerns of our community.  I feel more in tune with our congregation, and for those who have been participating in this way, I hope you are finding this to be true as well.   

A few weeks ago, I received a prayer request from some former parishioners from the congregation I served after seminary.  I think they have worshiped some with us online.  We prayed together, and as I was driving home from Camp McDowell, I received a phone call from a number that was not stored in my phone.  I answered, and it was my old friends asking for me to pray once again over the phone, this time the service we call Last Rites from the prayerbook as they were saying goodbye to their beloved mom and wife from a long battle with COVID-19.  The concluding prayer of the service is especially beautiful: “Deliver your servant, N., O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil, and set her free from every bond; that she may rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”  

I’ve been reflecting on how important it has been for us to be praying together.  I know the journey will continue to be difficult and painful for my friends, but I have all the confidence that God’s love shines through by our prayers and love for each other, and the hope that God has promised.  I love this Epistle that we begin reading today, specifically how Paul offers a vision for praying without ceasing.  It is as if he carries his love for his beloved friends in Colossae with him at all times.  Through prayer, he hopes that his friends will “share in the inheritance of the saints in the light… and be rescued from power of darkness and transferred [them] into the kingdom of his beloved Son.”  This prayer isn’t for health, prosperity, and good fortune, but for the eternal life that God has promised us.  His friends come to know this truth through Paul’s prayer.

I’ve learned a lot about prayer these past thirteen months.  I hope you have too, and I invite you into a posture of keeping the concerns of our community, our loved ones, our friends, and ourselves, perpetually on our hearts and minds.  Paul thinks it possible, and I’m inclined to agree.   And through this, we too can be rescued and find the life of love and hope that God invites us into.  

Faithfully,

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  How has your prayer life changed over the last year? Are there other changes you would like to make? 

Daily Challenge:  Each week Saint Stephen’s publishes a public prayer list.  It can be found on the Saturday email.  Prayer for each person on our list today.  You can read last week’s here.

Brushes with the Divine – April 24

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 30, 32; PM Psalm 42, 43; Dan. 6:16-28; 3 John 1-15; Luke 5:27-39

Have you heard someone’s story of a brush with the Divine and gotten chills? Maybe those little goosebumps ascended on your skin as you felt a sense of awe and wonder. A neighbor was sharing a special story about her own family that was filled with uncanny coincidences that were more like “God-winks”, holy whispers in the crashing waves of the ocean, and changed lives because of God’s healing presence through prayer.

Many years ago, God laid on Britney’s heart this wisp of a thought that she would adopt a child with Down’s Syndrome. At the time, she was a special education teacher and single mom with two young kids. She kept praying about this, though it seemed impossible on all counts. As time went on, Britney started dating someone and she shared her inkling of where God was calling her to serve. She and Gary got married and had a blended family with elementary school aged kids. While at the beach on vacation several years into their marriage, an email went out from their church with an urgent request: a child with Down’s Syndrome was in need of a family, as both of his parents had died; he would be going to an orphanage later that week if no home was found for him.

Gary shared the email with Britney, and they were stunned. Was this the fulfillment of that wisp of a holy call that she had heard years before? They went through a wave of emotions and conversations: How could we afford it? How could this work? Surely this isn’t meant for us?

Early the next morning during their quiet times, Gary was reflecting on the balcony of the condo and Britney was on the beach. As she sat, she heard with each crash of the waves upon the sand, “He is yours. He is yours. He is yours.” With a tear-stained face, she went back up to the beach rental and Gary met her at the door. He said, “I know – he is ours.”

Some amazing next steps fell into place. They packed up and left the beach and rushed back home. They attended the hearing for the 10 year old boy’s placement. They were able to speak with the judge. The Darren never had to go to the orphanage. He found his forever home with Britney and Gary. God called them to be his second parents…and to continue loving him as his first parents did – and as God does.

The attorney appointed to protect Darren listened to Britney’s story, which was quite remarkable. She responded, “I’m not a person of faith, and after hearing you, I need to know this God of yours.”

I need to know this God of yours.

I think of the words of King Darius from Daniel 6, after he found Daniel unscathed in the lions’ den: “‘May you have abundant prosperity! I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel:
For he is the living God,
   enduring for ever.
His kingdom shall never be destroyed,
   and his dominion has no end.
He delivers and rescues,
   he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth;
for he has saved Daniel
   from the power of the lions.” (v. 25b-27)

I also hear the words of the psalmist in Psalm 30 as I reflect on my neighbor’s story:

Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me;
O Lord, be my helper."

You have turned my wailing into dancing;
you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.

Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing;
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever. (v. 11-13)

When our prayers of faithfulness are answered in clear ways – when we reflect and see God working in our lives – we are filled with wonder. Today’s psalm reminds us to sing to God without ceasing and give thanks to God for ever. Maybe you and I do not have our own personal stories of divine revelation...sometimes we are gifted the stories that others tell about their powerful brushes with the Divine, and we are drawn to know God, too.

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

When have you felt God rescuing you? From what do you pray for rescue or deliverance today?

Who in your life needs prayers for deliverance or healing today?

Daily Challenge

Tell someone about your prayer life, and how you are honestly faring with your faith. Invite them to share something meaningful with you about their own walk with God.

Drop Everything and Pray - April 23

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 105:1-22; PM Psalm 105:23-45; Dan. 6:1-15; 2 John 1-13; Luke 5:12-26

Today’s Reflection

Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open towards Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously. The conspirators came and found Daniel praying and seeking mercy before his God. Then they approached the king and said concerning the interdict, ‘O king! Did you not sign an interdict, that anyone who prays to anyone, divine or human, within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions?’ The king answered, ‘The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.’ Then they responded to the king, ‘Daniel, one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the interdict you have signed, but he is saying his prayers three times a day.’  —Daniel 6: 10-13

Growing up, I remember hearing the story of Daniel and the lions’ den, seeing the vivid illustrations of how artists imagine Daniel must have looked as he was surrounded by these fierce, powerful creatures as he prayed for God to deliver him. (You’ll read more about that tomorrow when Daniel’s story continues in our lectionary readings.) But what I had forgotten about until I re-read the passage appointed for today is just why Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den in the first place. You see, Daniel was sentenced to fend for himself amidst the lions because he persisted in a life devoted to God through prayer.

Though the powers-that-be in his society had ruled it illegal to pray to anyone besides the king of the Persian Empire (at the time, Darius), Daniel decided he needed to be true to his God, YHWH, and keep up his practice of praying to him at three different times of the day—likely at morning, noon, and night. And so that he could pray facing the holy city of Jerusalem, he continued to pray upstairs in front of an open window—which also meant that anyone passing by or in an adjacent building could easily see that Daniel was praying. So, Daniel not only stayed true to God and his practice of praying three times a day, but he did so in a very public way—and in so doing, risked facing the authorities who would make him answer for these choices to persist in praying to the LORD instead of to the king.

Over this past year of living in a global pandemic, many people around the Episcopal Church have re-embraced this ancient practice of praying to God at different times throughout the day, every day. Centuries ago, the monastic orders, most notably the Benedictines, developed a devotional practice known as “praying the hours” or “the liturgy of the hours.” The monks would stop what they were doing at set times of the day and night to gather for prayer. The other activities of their day and night had to fit around this pre-existing structure of prayer—rather than prayer being wedged in amidst existing activities. Prayer was scheduled first—and then all else. It makes me wonder how did the church universal get away from this beautiful devotional practice that prioritizes the life of prayer? (My theory is that it has to do, at least in part, with the move from an agricultural economy to our current, more industrial and information-based economy, not to mention the increasing encroachment of communication technology that has made it harder and harder to unplug from work and life and plug into God through prayer.)

Before the pandemic came around, a number of authors called for a revival of such practices in our contemporary context, chief among them Phyllis Tickle, who has published several different editions of The Divine Hours, a modern reworking of the Benedictine liturgy of the hours. But something about this pandemic, suddenly being cloistered in our homes to protect ourselves and those we love from the grip of COVID-19, drove us as quick as a flash to the largely ignored Daily Offices section of the Book of Common Prayer. Mainly used in seminaries or by individuals as a personal practice in recent decades (post-liturgical renewal and post-1979 Book of Common Prayer), suddenly people throughout the Episcopal Church were on Facebook and other social media leading Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline to stay connected with one another when circumstances were keeping us physically distant and unable to gather as usual for Sunday worship in person.

No ruler had forbidden us to pray three times a day, as was the case with Daniel. We never faced the threat of being thrown into a lions’ den. But somehow, over the decades and the centuries, our church lost touch with this beautiful tradition of dropping what we were doing to gather for prayer throughout the day and throughout the week. Maybe no law forbids us from doing it, but the priorities of the mainstream American culture certainly do not encourage people to stop their work—to stop being productive—and spend time worshipping God and praying for the needs of others. But what have found—here at Saint Stephen’s and around the Episcopal Church—is that, truly, what could be more important and productive, in the grand scheme of things, than dropping everything to pray?

This is the silver lining of the pandemic for us in the church—when we were forced to stay home and stay apart, we collectively pressed “reset” (or maybe control-alt-delete?) on our commitment to joining together to read Scripture and to pray. When we prioritize these spiritual practices in our day, and then build everything else into the day around them, we begin to see that we are finally getting our priorities straight. All the other things will happen. Everything else will fall into its proper place. But first, we pray.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

In what ways have you experienced that dropping everything to read scripture and pray helps you to press “reset” and get a fresh start for the rest of the day? How does your day feel different when you do this than on a day when you do not?

Daily Challenge

Learn more about the Liturgy of the Hours by reading about how it is observed at one Trappist monastery, Genesee Abbey in New York. You can also read more about how the Daily Offices in our Episcopal Book of Common Prayer continue this tradition.

CONTROL + ALT + DELETE - April 22

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 37:1-18; PM Psalm 37:19-42 ; Dan. 5:13-30; 1 John 5:13-20(21); Luke 5:1-11

In a few weeks, I hope you will open your mail to read a beautiful story written by one of our parishioners on the interesting ways we have adapted to worship during the Pandemic.  When Charles was observing the production of our livestreamed service, he found great humor in how we handle one of the issues that can happen with our streaming software.  Sometimes the computer mouse will lock up.  Part of our ongoing training is to teach our volunteers behind the booth what to do.  Answer: You hit CONTROL + ALT + DELETE and then CANCEL. 

This past week, before our 11:15 a.m. livestreamed service, one of the cameras wouldn’t cast an image on the screen.  We restarted the computer a few times and reloaded the cameras, but on Sunday morning, we were unable to figure out a solution.  This led to the entire service being streamed from the side camera. 

As I was fearing we were going to have to take the fancy new camera off the wall and send it somewhere far off to be repaired, all with a wedding in a few days and more church services in the queue, a phone call with tech support came through big time.  On Monday, we learned that on the floor of the sound both, there are special boxes that are powered and send that power over ethernet cables to the cameras.  Get this: the solution was as simple as unplugging the power to the camera for 30 seconds and then reconnecting.  While we had turned off the computer, we had not unplugged the cameras! 

Anne Lamott famously wrote, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” Sometimes we just need a break, to catch a breath, to decompress.  We need a vacation, or lunch with a friend or a late start to work morning.  The key is, we must actually unplug.  But then we get to try again. And again. And again. And maybe the results are much better when we have had that time away. 

In today’s Scripture, Simon Peter has been out fishing all night.  He hasn’t had any luck.  After spending some time with Jesus on the boat, Jesus instructs Simon to cast his net again.  I love Simon Peter’s answer, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”  It is hard to tell if Simon Peter either has lost hope, or he recognizes the power of spending time with Jesus.  I’ll take the latter for today’s reflection.  He follows instructions and is blown away by the haul.  “When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.”

It’s an almost equally impressive miracle that Simon Peter actually tries again.  It is far too easy to give up and be defeated by the lack of results.  It’s not hard for us to imagine Simon Peter’s angst.  The story reminds me of the many people who work tirelessly striving for justice and peace in our communities and feeling like they are getting nowhere, and yet they persevere. They try again, and again. 

Maybe they know how to trust Jesus and soak up that good rest we need.  Maybe they know about unplugging.  It’s ok sometimes to start over.  It’s ok to hit CONTROL + ALT + DELETE.  Only remember, in doing so it’s starting fresh again. 

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  In what areas of your life are feeling burnt out?  How do you restart or recharge? Do you have a plan for self-care? 

Daily Challenge:  Find thirty minutes today to power off your cell phone. 

Lead with love - April 21

Lead with love – April 21

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 38; PM Psalm 119:25-48; Dan. 5:1-12; 1 John 5:1-12; Luke 4:38-44

As I was wrapping up to go home yesterday, I opened up my web browser to check the news of the day – to see what was happening outside of the walls of Saint Stephen’s. I saw the headlines that the Minneapolis jury had reached a verdict in Derek Chauvin’s trial after 10 hours of deliberation. The verdict had not been announced, and so I tuned in to a news radio station to listen. One of the reporters in the field recounted a conversation she had, just moments before. She was speaking to a pastor and his wife who served in a church near the site where George Floyd died. When told that the jury had wrapped deliberation and were returning to the court room to deliver their verdict, the minister gasped. He shared that his prayer, regardless of the jury’s decision, was that all people would “lead with love” in their reactions. Those words echoed peacefully and slowly in my ears – lead with love. I wrote them in my notebook that holds reminders, reflections, and grocery lists. Lead with love.

When the judge read the verdict “guilty” for all three charges against the former police officer, I felt a mixture of relief and sadness. I felt for the family of George Floyd. I felt for the family of Derek Chauvin. There were no winners, for one man’s life was extinguished on May 25, 2020, and another’s life is forever changed because of his forceful actions. And, to me, the pastor’s plea to lead with love felt like the truth to be proclaimed widely in all the headlines.

In the first letter of John, we hear today this rousing proclamation to lead with love because of our belief in Jesus as the Messiah:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:1-5)

We love the children of God when we obey God’s law. By obeying the divine commandments to love God, ourselves, and one another, our faith will bring us to completion and victory – not in a winning that is of this world, but a success that is for the life of the world. That success – albeit countercultural – is in the life and ministry of Jesus.

I leave you with this parting thought, as this is the day in the Church when we remember Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). Of the many bits of wisdom and theology he penned in his life, A Song of Christ’s Goodness is a lovely prayer of healing and a way to lead with love. When it is sung as a canticle, the antiphon repeated through the piece is “Lord Jesus, in your mercy heal us: in your love and tenderness remake us.” May Jesus bring us peace and healing, reminding us to live in love and tenderness each day.

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

What does leading with love look like in your life? What is an obstacle? What makes this easier?

Daily Challenge 

Sit with this prayer from St. Anselm, A Song of Christ’s Goodness. Read it below, or listen to a children’s choral recording from Wakefield Cathedral in the United Kingdom. Reflect on how it moves you. Share it with a friend.

A Song of Christ’s Goodness 

 Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you: 
  you are gentle with us as a mother with her children; 
 Often you weep over our sins and our pride: 
  tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgement. 
 You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds: 
  in sickness you nurse us, 
  and with pure milk you feed us. 
 Jesus, by your dying we are born to new life: 
  by your anguish and labor we come forth in joy. 
 Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness: 
  through your gentleness we find comfort in fear. 
 Your warmth gives life to the dead: 
  your touch makes sinners righteous. 
 Lord Jesus, in your mercy heal us: 
  in your love and tenderness remake us. 
 In your compassion bring grace and forgiveness: 
  for the beauty of heaven may your love prepare us. 

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear - April 20

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 26, 28; PM Psalm 36, 39; Dan. 4:28-37; 1 John 4:7-21; Luke 4:31-37 

Today’s Reflection

In one of our outreach committee meetings earlier this spring, someone mentioned the different reading groups we had on Bishop Curry’s book as a window into racial reconciliation. We started talking about other good books people had read on the topic and more than one person highly recommended local Birmingham columnist John Archibald and his just-released book, Shaking the Gates of Hell. That’s quite a title, I thought, but of course I ended up buying a copy of my own.

Archibald was born here in Birmingham in 1963, at just the same time as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was thrown into the city jail and was writing his Letter from Birmingham Jail. Archibald’s family didn’t stay in Birmingham for long after his birth, as his father was a Methodist minister, and if you are familiar with the ways of the Methodist church, many times, especially early in their vocations, their ministers move frequently—a tradition with its roots in Methodism’s founder John Wesley and his days as a circuit-riding preacher. They ended up living in Decatur and Huntsville and, eventually, returned to Birmingham in Archibald’s teens.

The dramatic title, Shaking the Gates of Hell, comes from the words of John Wesley, who once said, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God; … such alone will shake the gates of hell.” The subtitle of the book, A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution, captures well the stories that Archibald so deftly weaves together—in such vivid detail so that you might well picture the scenes of family and church life he is describing as he looks back on his childhood and coming of age alongside his father’s role as a well-respected minister in the Methodist church here in Alabama.

One of the chapters in the book is titled “Camp,” which as you might expect includes some heartwarming stories of days Archibald and his family spent together at Methodist camps. One of the camps he reminisces about in this chapter is Camp Sumatanga, the North Alabama Methodist Conference Camp. He recalls how, “Dad, like the rest of us, was never happier than at camp. He saw the wonder in the stars and the plants and the birds. … He stopped, on walks, to simply stare. At mountain laurel or jack-in-the-pulpit at birds only he saw.” The camp was not only a place that the Archibalds enjoyed spending time together, but it was also part of the elder Archibald’s job at one point, as head of the conference youth council, to be responsible for the operations of Camp Sumatanga and for its staff. Archibald tells the story of the conference youth director, Nina Reeves, who had worked at the camp since the 1950s and had become a well-loved and well-respected figure. As he researched his book, Archibald visited Reeves, then 93 years old, to learn more about her memories of his father and his ministry.

Reeves told him a story of something that happened at Camp Sumatanga in 1954, the year the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education—a ruling which was meant to integrate public schools (and other public institutions) across the United States. She invited a friend, Dr. Julius Scott, to speak to come visit the camp that summer and speak to the youth camping there that week. As Archibald describes, “He was a scholar and a preacher… He was fun and funny and smart. And he was a friend. Oh, and he was Black. In Alabama. In 1954.” Reeves ran it all by Robert Archibald, who said he was OK with bringing Scott to camp, but they should run it by the Board of Christian Education. Turns out that they were OK with it, too—but only under certain conditions. Scott would have to sleep in the infirmary. He would eat at a table by himself in the camp cafeteria, instead of being able to share meals and conversations with others. As Archibald reflects back on the story, the conditions set give one the sense that the board believed that “Jesus loves the little children… As long as the know their place.” As Scott himself, now in his 90s, recalled to Archibald, “There were some vicious racists in Alabama, and they weren’t all Baptist.”

For all the conditions they set, what the board couldn’t control for is that the young campers were drawn to Scott and they ended up crowding around his table to share meals; they and wanted to get to know him after hearing his talks in chapel each day. One of the campers, the daughter of one of the board members, ended up wanting to continue the conversation with Scott while walking down a path at the camp—and, of course, somebody called those responsible for the camp’s operations to put a stop to it. They wanted Nina Reeves fired—but Robert Archibald stood up for her, and she kept her job. Reeves wanted the younger Archibald to know that his father had stood up for her. But the board found other ways to rectify the situation, to prevent such interactions between blacks and whites from happening again at their camp: The board “decided no more Black people should come to Camp Sumatanga. In fact, no more black people should be there at all. So, they let Reeves stay. And they fired all the Black cooks. Camp had always given me hope, and peace. But I was stunned now. Shocked. Shaken.”

When I read the passage from 1 John appointed for today, it reminded me of this story—and others—from Archibald’s book. In 1 John 4:18-21, we hear of how, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

When we reflect on this story, it’s hard not to wonder: Where was the love? And why was there so much fear? And it points us to look around at our world today and wonder the same things: Where is the love? And why do we still have so much fear?

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

Why does it seem to be human nature to fear people who seem different than ourselves? How can this be overcome?

Daily Challenge

Watch this recent conversation with John Archibald at Highlands Methodist Church. Consider reading his book as a way of continuing to reflect on the long struggle to overcome this fear of difference, especially as regards race.

Lifting our Arms to God - April 19

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 25; PM Psalm 9, 15; Dan.4:19-27; 1 John 3:19-4:6; Luke 4:14-30

At the church where I grew up, we were quite good at the game of Episcopal Aerobics.  Kneeling was second nature to most and we knelt more than we sat.  Standing wasn’t as popular of an action, except during Easter.  I was grateful for the movement.  As a young kid, it kept me from falling asleep, or maybe becoming too bored.

When I was in high school, I noticed that two people, James and Patty, would stand during the Eucharistic prayer.  For several years, they were the only ones, and I am pretty sure, they ruffled a few feathers.   Although, that was nothing when Doris showed up.  She not only stood, but she arched her back and lifted her arms to the sky, rocking and swaying to her heart’s delight.  Doris loved praising Jesus during church, and actually said his name, which is enough to drive most good Episcopalians to complain to the Rector.  Oh, she would lift those arms far and wide, and you couldn’t help but pay more attention to her than the priest or choir. 

One youth group or Confirmation retreat, we were discussing prayer, the different postures to have, and how to be a good Episcopalian.  Someone brought up just how uncomfortable Doris made them feel with her swaying, standing, and amen shouting faithful self.  I think all of us at that moment were in agreement with just how radical her position was.  Someone might have suggested she go and worship somewhere else, where her behavior is more appropriate. 

And then, like every good church retreat, we were all hit with a ton of bricks.  “Have you ever seen a child run lovingly to their parents?  They always approach with their arms wide open, looking up!”  Sound advice from the Associate priest.  And we all realized how much we had truly missed the boat. 

I love how the author of 1 John understands something about children.  He refers to the community of beloved as little children.  In Matthew (not read for today), Jesus tells the disciples, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

My theological beliefs are pretty simple: God is Love and we are to embody that love with every human being we meet.  If God and faith is really that simple, maybe children have something to offer us.  They embody love, they run to people they love with open arms, and they trust in the power of that love with every fiber of their being. 

How can we not only have faith like a child but embody love like a child too? With open arms, faced up standing up and swaying to the one who beckons us to his love?  I’m not really sure her worship style is for me, but I do think we all have a lot more to learn from the Doris’s in our lives than those who knew her realized.

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  What is your posture in worship?  Does it change?  Why?  Have you worshiped in ways that made you uncomfortable?

Daily Challenge: If you are the praying type, I invite you to try lifting your arms up to pray today, even if it is in the privacy of your own home.  Have fun. Be silly. And if you are really bold, don’t shut the blinds.

God's love moves us to truth and action - April 17

  – April 17

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 20, 21:1-7(8-14); PM Psalm 110:1-5(6-7), 116, 117
Dan. 3:19-30; 1 John 3:11-18; Luke 4:1-13  

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another…Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. (1 John 3:16, 18)

Jesus taught us love through his actions of inclusion and self-sacrifice: “he laid down his life for us”. As a teacher leading by example, the writer of 1 John wrote to his readers that “we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” That sacrifice is a lived example of embodied truth in response to God’s great love…faith in action.

My friend Nadine is a person who exhibits a faith that jumps off a page and into action. She was a nurse for 45 years in Texas and retired. She was active in her church community. With her five children grown, her prayer life with God led her to a call to go deeper into ministry. Then her husband got sick. Really sick. His health was declining and there was no way she could commute to seminary, commit to schoolwork, and care for her dying spouse. After prayer, the signs were clear: her plans to start seminary were bumped down the road; God and her husband needed Nadine’s gifts elsewhere for a while. Fast-forward about seven years, on my first day of this big leap and life change, I met Nadine – who was also stepping (yet again) into this calling from God, with her heart brimming with love and loss.

Nadine lived out her love for Jesus and care for her classmates through her warmth and hospitality, hosting our class at her home in the greater Austin area on multiple occasions. She lived into God’s love as she drove to campus most weekdays for three years, with nearly a two-hour roundtrip commute. Nadine was committed to God’s call to minister to and inspire young women to live into Jesus’ love, achieving the goal of wholeness of spirit before getting distracted by the “golden statues” of temptation and idolatry that we hear about in Daniel 3. After completing a Master of Divinity degree, Nadine joined the ministry team at her Baptist church and continued helping educate young people, proclaiming God’s love and truth. Nadine has not stopped there. Three weeks ago, she earned a Doctor of Ministry degree, with a concentration on Biblical interpretation.

She will continue to proclaim the love of Jesus through lived example and encouraging spirit, attending to the needs of those who are vulnerable. A gift Nadine offers is her direct and honest insights, giving comfort and assurance to her audience. In a meditation booklet a few years ago, she wrote this:

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your heart quiet and at rest if you trust in Christ Jesus.

“Merciful God, as we wait for your answers to our prayers, let us continue to sing hymns and give you praise. Amen.”

I give thanks for God’s love in the world – and in the hearts of people like Nadine, who loves wholly, not just in word, but through truth and action.

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

When have you seen faith in action? How often do you see people loving through action, standing up for someone in need? When have you done this?

How might you take a stand to live into a more active faith life this week?

Daily Challenge

Think of someone you know who is hard to love. Think of someone you only know of who is hard to like or imagine loving. Sit in silence for three minutes, and breathe in slowly, imagining God’s love filling you. Pray about actions of God’s love and your compassion that these hard-to-love people might really need to experience this week. How is God calling you to respond?

Bringing Chaos into Divine Order - April 16

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 16, 17; PM Psalm 134, 135; Dan 3:1-18; 1 John 3:1-10; Luke 3:15-22 

Today’s Reflection

The Gospel reading appointed for today (Luke 3: 15-22) tells of how Jesus traveled to the River Jordan to be baptized by John, who had been baptizing people to purify them from sin, calling them to repentance and a holier life. Why would Jesus, the pure and sinless Son of God, the one whose sandals John said he was not worthy to carry, need to be baptized? And yet, Jesus said he must be baptized by John “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).

So, why did Jesus need to be baptized? One reason is that, in the moment of Jesus’ baptism, we are given the clearest picture of how Jesus is truly the Son of God, and how he fits into the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The moment of Jesus’ baptism is when we both see and hear evidence that this seeming human being is in fact God’s own Son: “and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3: 21-22). In Jesus’ baptism, God the Father makes God’s threefold nature known to all gathered there at the Jordan—and to all who would hear about it later by word of mouth and in Scripture.

Jesus needed to be baptized so that the world would know more clearly who he was. In being baptized, Jesus was clearly marked as the Beloved Son of God. Likewise, when each one of us is baptized, we are “sealed by the Holy Spirit… and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” When Jesus was baptized, he was marked as God’s own Son. When we are baptized, we are marked as “Christ’s own,” God’s dearly beloved children, forever received “into the household of God” (BCP 308).

Baptism is our rite of entry into the life of God. Of all the sacraments, only Eucharist and Baptism were modeled for us by Jesus himself. In the life of Christ, his baptism by John in the River Jordan marked the beginning of his public ministry, so it served as an initiation rite in that way for Jesus as well. Not only that, but Jesus often used words that mean immersion or baptism to discuss his ultimate sacrifice: “the suffering and death that lies ahead of him as a ‘baptism’ he is going to endure… as if going towards suffering and death were a kind of immersion in something, being drowned or swamped in something” (Williams). In our own baptisms, Rowan Williams observes, “We are, so to speak, ‘dropped’ into that mysterious event which Christians commemorate on Good Friday, and, more regularly, in the breaking of bread at Holy Communion.”

The baptism proper involves being immersed or having water poured upon the baptized. The immersion in water carries the meaning of first being dead to sin, then being raised to new life in Christ. In the creation, God ordered the chaos when he divided the waters from the land and the sky. From this perspective, water is associated with the primordial chaos. As Williams reflects, “At the very beginning of creation . . . there was watery chaos. And over that watery chaos there was, depending on how you read the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit hovering or a great wind blowing. First there is chaos, and then there is the wind of God’s spirit; and out of the watery chaos comes the world. And God says this is good.”

When we are baptized, we are baptized into Jesus, who brings our inherent human chaos into divine order. And with this, God is well pleased.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

What do you know of your own baptism? Is it a moment you have been told about or seen pictures of? Or were you old enough at the time of your baptism that you can remember it for yourself? How does reflecting on the moment of Jesus’ own baptism change how you see the spiritual meaning inherent in your own moment of baptism?

Daily Challenge

Each time you encounter water today—be it washing your hands (or dishes or clothes) in it, drinking a glass of it, or enjoying the sight of it outdoors—reflect on how you have been washed and renewed in your baptism, and all that this means in your life as someone who has been marked as Christ’s own for ever.

An Easter Repentance

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 18:1-20; PM Psalm 18:21-50 ; Dan. 2:31-49; 1 John 2:18-29; Luke 3:1-14

When I was probably eight or nine years old, my mom, my sister, and I stopped at a convenience store on the way home one night.  The store was filled with candy, food, and lots of fishing equipment. If my memory serves me right, I think we were in West Memphis on the other side of the Mississippi River, and a good way away from home. For some reason, I thought I needed a strike indicator, one of those red and white balls that you can push the little hook up and down that connects to the fishing line.  I took one.

At some time later, probably just a few minutes after we arrived at home, I was playing with the newly procured strike indicator, and my sister, who was always just a few steps behind, spotted my new treasure.  “Mom! Dad!  John has a new toy!  I think he stole it!”

She was right of course.  And my mom threw me in the back of the car, and we speed off to head back to the store where we had visited earlier.  “John, you are going in there and YOU are going to tell the man exactly what you did.”  I can still remember the dread.  What if I have to go to jail?  Will they keep me there?  How much trouble could I possibly be in?   

We drove twenty-five minutes or so back to the convenience store which was plenty enough time for me to run every possible scenario through my head.  We walked in, my mom sort of pushing me forward, nudging me, “John, you have to do this.”  We kept walking forward. 

I walked up to the counter and I looked at the man who was working there and opened my right hand. “Sir, I took this from the store earlier and I have come back to return it.”  He looked at me for a while and then responded,

“I guess there is a lot we can do now, but I’m betting it was pretty hard to tell me the truth of what you had done.  Why don’t we let that be your punishment?”    

For many years that conversation has replayed in my mind.  Having to face my fears and be held accountable for my actions has made me a better person.  I have broken plenty of rules throughout my life, and from time to time, done far worse things, but stealing has never again been a part of who I am.  There was also a profound hope in owning up to what I had done. 

When I was reading today’s lessons, I was surprised to find them so early in the season of Easter.  Why are we reading about John’s command to repent and hearing stories of John calling people a brood of vipers in the season of proclaiming God’s victory?  What does bearing fruit worthy of repentance have to with Easter and resurrection? 

I think too often we think that that goodness of God is some kind of act that is done on us or for us by God, something that just sort of happens.  Maybe there is a kernel of truth to the randomness and unconditionality of God’s grace, but we also experience grace when we face the truth of what we have done and left undone.  This is the whole point of confession in the pattern of worship (although we often skip the confession in Easter).

There is a lot of work to be done in the Kingdom these days.  There always has been.  I wonder how different our conversations would be if we started with ourselves?  Maybe that’s where we would find new depth and meaning into the hope and life of God’s resurrection.  What have we done and left undone? And to know that God’s grace can allow us to be honest and still be redeemed.

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  Are there times when you have owned what you have done where it has born new life?  How so?  Have you shared about these moments before?

Daily Challenge:  Pick three of the most important issues to you in the world today.  Now consider your own role in those issues, the things done and left undone, specifically ways you have contributed to the problem?  Does considering your own role, give you a new or refined solution or way of resolving those issues?

Praying for unity - April 14

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 119:1-24; PM Psalm 12, 13, 14; Dan. 2:17-30; 1 John 2:12-17; John 17:20-26 

Last night, our kids did not want to go to bed. One had taken a long nap (known as the death knell to an easy weeknight bedtime). The other wanted to play another round of Jenga and was not finished processing hurt feelings from fourth-grade dynamics. And yet, it was time. Sam and I were tired. We needed to go to bed. Robinson went through a game of turning off all the lights and closing the door, with giggles galore. In the dark, we implored and cajoled him to calm down. Josephine snuggled up with Sam on the floor. One of the dogs joined their mix of cuddles. And then, our 5-year-old turned on his moon-shaped nightlight that brightened up the dark room. He motioned to me, “Mom, let’s come pray by the light of the moon.” We knelt on the carpet, surrounded by stuffed animals and racecars, and prayed. We prayed to God for friends and family, a big kid who is having a hard time, people who make racecars, and wrapped it up with an “Amen.” The room was more peaceful, and the rowdy children were ready to lie down.

As I sit here watching the sun rise gently on this Wednesday morning, I am moved by the stillness that can come from prayer. The words of our prayers don’t have to be perfect or flowery. They don’t have to be long and complex. As we come to God in prayer, what we do is present ourselves and enter the stillness and peace that God can bring – even if we are not feeling very still or peaceful.

There are times in my life when I struggled to pray. I did not know what to pray, or prayer to God simply did not come to mind. Scared and trying to keep up a face of “everything is going to be fine,” my heart and mind were otherwise engaged in survival. Maybe you have felt this way. Empty. Lost. In times of tumult and chaos, we often struggle to find the words for prayer. That is when our community comes to our aid – praying for us, encouraging us, lifting our intercessions to God. Those prayers bring stillness to us and bind us together with those who are entering into the love of Jesus in these moments of need and uncertainty. As names cross our lips, I imagine these silvery, whisp-like threads swirling toward God and moving toward those for whom we ask prayers…shimmering threads of healing, comfort, protection, wisdom, and stillness.

In John 17, we hear the closing of Jesus’ prayer to God on behalf of his friends and followers. He has just told his disciples that they will scatter but that he is not alone, because the Father is with him…and he said this so that they can have peace and be courageous. Jesus prays for God’s power to be revealed and for divine protection to surround his friends “so that they may be one, as we are one.” (v. 11) That prayer for unity and oneness continues in what we read today – for followers during Jesus’ time and those who will come to know the Messiah, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” Jesus prays that we will kneel together by the light of a candle, or at the rising of the sun, being moved by the witness of the disciples and feeling that unity as one body. Jesus names that the symbol of oneness can be a twofold sign to the world, that “you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” 

Unity is an indicator of God’s present promise and perpetual love – and it is that togetherness that Jesus prays we will live into. It is a oneness with a purpose – so that we are filled with the love that God has made known in the world, made manifest in Jesus.

Jesus’ prayer is a powerful one. If you do not have the words to pray today, let yourself believe that this prayer from John 17 includes you. Ask a friend to pray for you. Ask a friend how you can pray for them. Pray for those who feel alone. Let us all be one in the love and prayer of Jesus.

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

What do Jesus’ words “so that they all may be one” mean to you? What does it look like for the world to know God? In whom and where do you see God’s love in the world?

Daily Challenge

Prayer can be unifying, bringing healing when all else feels lost. Pray today for those who feel that they are beyond help. It may be someone you know. It may be for a person, cause or condition that you know of, but have no direct link. Revisit the words of Jesus’ prayer (John 17:1-26) as you sit in prayer.

Live in the Light - April 13

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 5, 6; PM Psalm 10, 11; Dan. 2:1-16; 1 John 2:1-11; John 17:12-19

Today’s Reflection

Oftentimes, we make things more complicated than they need to be. This applies to many things, but especially in matters of faith. Complicated theologies abound, with equally complex sounding names and vocabularies. I’m going to be honest with you, learning all the ins and outs of theological concepts is not my thing. But if we break down the word “theology,” it just means the study of God—who God is and, related to that, what we believe about God.

I like the vision of what it means to believe in God, and how we are to act on that belief in God, that we are presented in today’s passage from 1 John 2: “Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’, while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.” This is an elegantly simple explanation of what it means to believe in God and live in a way that is consistent with who God is and who God calls us to be: Love one another and you are living in the light of God. Hate one another and you are living in the darkness that is separation from God.

As the writer of 1 John tells us, this is nothing new—this is what God has expected of us, his children, from the very beginning of time. All of the ins and outs of what it means to be a follower of Christ come down to this: Love one another, for love is from God (as we hear a little later in 1 John 4). Each new day, as we go about our daily routines, we are presented with moments when we can choose to love or to hate—though these may not seem like momentous decisions at the time. In my experience, many of these opportunities we are given to choose love or hate, light or darkness, are small ones. Am I choosing to treat someone with dignity and respect, or to give in to my own gut reaction of anger, annoyance, or frustration? Am I choosing to see the best in someone else, or just focus on a perceived shortcoming in them? Am I choosing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, or to jump to a conclusion? Am I choosing to linger and give someone the gift of my time, or am I choosing to rush on to the next thing? Am I choosing to take time to listen with an open heart?

The theologian, Miroslav Volf, once said that “Theology is not only about understanding the world, it is about mending the world.” Living into our Christian theology is about leaning into the light, and away from the darkness, in these seemingly small choices we make each day. The more often we make a choice more in the direction of the light of God, then maybe we have made one more stitch in mending our sense of interconnectedness with one another—and, in so doing, in mending the world.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

In your experience, what does it mean to “live in the light” of God? Whose life do you look to as an example of what it means to “live in the light” of God?

Daily Challenge

You can hear more of Miroslav Volf’s thoughts on being people of faith in a world of conflict between dark and light in this On Being interview with Krista Tippet.

The Eternal Nature of Knowing God - April 12

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 1, 2, 3; PM Psalm 4, 7; Dan. 1:1-21; 1 John 1:1-10; John 17:1-11

Yesterday, I had the wonderful opportunity to witness one of our young people receive the rank of Eagle Scout.  During the court of honor, one of the traditions is for the Eagle Scout to place a pin on their parents as a sign of the accomplishment and an awareness that more than likely, the parents have helped support the scout in their endeavors.   It’s a reminder that most of our accomplishments are shared with the people who support and love us. 

As I watched Walden place the pin on her mother and father, a flood of memories came rushing back.  For the first time in probably twenty-five years, I sat thinking about the moment my grandmother showed up at my own Eagle court of honor with the three pins placed on her by her own sons which included my father.  It is one of the last memories of my grandmother and remembering that moment filled me with the presence of her love.  Remembering my grandmother, and her act of love, allowed me to physically feel her sense of love, even after her being gone for so many years.

One of the greatest questions of our faith is to wrestle with eternity and eternal life.  The Gospel of John addresses this in a number of ways.  “I have come so that you may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  And in today’s Gospel, we hear an interesting take on eternal life when John writes, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). John seems to suggest that eternity is simply knowing God.  And if God is love, then knowing God is about experiencing God’s love. 

Yesterday, for just a moment, I was washed over with the love of my grandmother, even twenty-five years after my grandparents traveled a few hundred miles to see me place a pin on my own parents.  Remembering her acts of love, or more importantly, knowing her acts of love, helped me to once again feel and experience her love. For just a moment, I got a taste of the eternal quality of love.

How much more has our Lord done, who created the heavens and the earth, and who gave his life so that we have life done for each of us?  Maybe, what John offers us is to experience God’s gift of eternal life, is to know something about the love that God has for each of us, to let it perpetually wash over us, filling us with redemption, hope, and renewal.  Maybe, to experience eternal life is to let God’s love be our animating force. 

This still doesn’t answer the questions about life after death, heaven, or eternity, but it does suggest that at the root of eternity is knowing God and knowing God’s love, and I can live with that.

John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  What memories of love are the most profound for you?  How have people shown or modeled love for you in your life?

Daily Challenge:  Spend some time with a few old pictures or items that remind you of the people that have loved you.  Share a story with a friend or family member about someone in your life who has had a profound impact on who you are today. 

Living into the Kingdom of Heaven - April 10

Today’s Readings: Psalm 145; Isa. 25:1-9; Acts 4:13-31; John 16:16-33 

“The gospel is less about how to get into the Kingdom of Heaven after you die, and more about how to live in the Kingdom of Heaven before you die.” – Dallas Willard

A Facebook group called Mindful Christianity posted a quote attributed to the late Dallas Willard: “The gospel is less about how to get into the Kingdom of Heaven after you die, and more about how to live in the Kingdom of Heaven before you die.” Willard was a philosophy professor at University of Southern California from 1965 until his death in 2013, and he wrote much on Christian spiritual formation, including The Divine Conspiracy. As I scrolled through reactions to this mindful meme, there were varied comments, from “Truth!” to “So what percentage of human souls will make it into heaven? Rough guess.” to “We don’t live in the kingdom of heaven on earth. That is unbiblical and an oxymoron.”

I was struck by how Dallas Willard’s deep thought resonated alongside the readings of Acts 4 and John 16 today. In the early days of Christianity with Peter and John, the healing of the lame man turned heads and people began speaking about God’s power. The Temple leadership was threatened and told the apostles to stop talking about the miracles of God’s love they had witnessed. Peter and John responded, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20) Jesus’ followers were living in the now – proclaiming the Good News. They did as Jesus taught them: pray, profess, heal, love. Returning to their friends after the encounter, they said, “And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:29-30) And, being filled with the Holy Spirit, this group of early Christians spoke the word of God with boldness.

In John’s gospel, Jesus tells his friends, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” The disciples begin talking among themselves about what Jesus means by this elusive statement. Jesus unpacks it a bit for them: “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy…So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:20, 22) Their teacher knows there will be hard times ahead, and he calls his friends to the assurance and grounding in God’s love. No one can take away the joy of Jesus imbued in their hearts. He advises them to pray to God in the name of Jesus. He says these things so that in Jesus, they can have peace. In Jesus, they can live into a space of love and healing and wholeness. In Jesus, the disciples can take courage, for he has conquered the world – and the disciples are charged with telling others about their believe, spreading the Good News.

Friends, God has delivered us from the dominion of sin and death, and has brought about the reign of Jesus. Let’s share this message of hope far and wide – not in the fear of death, but in the joy of renewed life in Jesus. Happy Easter!

-- Katherine+

Questions for Reflection

What are your thoughts about Heaven? How is your Christian life influenced by the promise of Heaven?

The apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak stories of God with boldness. When you share stories of your faith, do you feel bold? Peaceful?

Daily Challenge

Sit in a comfortable place today and pray today’s collect. Reflect on how Jesus is recalling you to new life in this Easter season. Name the losses you mourn; pray to Jesus for inspiration to see the joy of renewal today, in the hope of the eternal joys to come.

Saturday in Easter Week (BCP 224)

We thank you, heavenly Father, that you have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death and brought us into the kingdom of your Son; and we pray that, as by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joys; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.