Pastor - Saint Andrew Presbyterian Purcellville VA

Holy Saturday Devotion

2009-04-10T16:04:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Saturday, April 11, 2009

Psalm 63; Job 19:21-27a; Hebrews 4:1-16; Romans 8:1-11

Meditation: The lectionary has no Gospel reading for today. I don’t believe that I have ever read the daily lectionary on Holy Saturday, to have noticed that before. The Hebrews passage gives the clue to why this is so. It’s because on the Sabbath day, when Jesus’ body lay still within the grave, God entered into that long-mandated and chosen rest. God rested on the seventh day – so watch out on the eighth day because God will come back full of life!

Easter Sunday has been called the eighth day of the week, by some. An anonymous donor has an order in for a new baptismal font for St. Andrew at present. It’s to be an eight sided font. Easter Sunday is the new day, starting a new creation with Jesus’ resurrection. When we are baptized into Christ, we rise with him as those who are children of a new day. But today, it’s the Sabbath day. In the tomb, Jesus is asleep. In the heavens, God is at rest. In the future, we are promised to set aside our labors and enter into a wholeness of life with God.

Eugene Peterson speaks of the Saturday before Easter as akin to Jonah in the belly of the whale (okay, the big fish!). He names the term for this retreat, if you will, as askesis. Askesis is a Greek word for training. Peterson suggests that Jonah is in training for spiritual renewal in the belly of the whale (okay, okay, then, a really huge bass!). The training is in very tight quarters where his own resourcefulness and strength is constrained to such an extent he can do nothing else but pray. He’s buried in the fish. He’s unable to move arm or leg, his scream can register only silent muffled noises. But he can pray. So, what’s left is that he can pray.

Today is the last day of Lent. As I end these daily devotions, I want to thank Jessica McClure Archer for sharing the duty of writing these devotions through these forty days. Thanks also to Rynzelle for sending them out for us. More than that, I am most thankful for our readers. We are glad that you took this Lenten journey with us and hope that it gave you some opportunity for askesis, for some attention to God’s presence in your lives and for how our daily lives can be affected by the revelation of God in scripture.

Keep your Sabbath rest today. God rested on the seventh day. Jesus, in the tomb, stayed still on that Holy Saturday long ago. An enduring Sabbath rest awaits us all as God’s good pleasure for us. The Gospel lesson will be back tomorrow. Rest now so that you can rejoice in it and go forward proclaiming and living by it.

Prayer: We bless you for this time of askesis, dear God – a training in finding your presence in the world so that we can respond to your activity in the love we share with one another. Bless our day of rest today. Bless it with the holy presence of Jesus Christ. He is the King of glory. Ready us to be renewed in him on Easter morning and in the days that follow towards eternal life. Amen.

Good Friday Devotion

2009-04-10T16:03:00.000-04:00

Good Friday Meditation – April 11, 2009

John 19:25b-27

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdelene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Meditation: For me, the one redeeming moment of Mel Gibson’s overly brutal and bloody, The Passion of the Christ, came in the Pietà moment in the film. It was that moment two hours later than the scene we just heard about in the reading from John about the exchange between Jesus, his mother and the beloved disciple – “Woman, here is your son.” “Disciple, here is your mother.” Michelangelo has so beautifully captured that love between mother and son in his Pietà, where Mary cradles the dead body of Jesus as he is lowered from the cross. The good Catholic, Gibson, didn’t dare miss the opportunity of replicating the moment in his film. And to be honest, I was glad of it. I appreciated the tenderness and poignant grief that was left bare. It ennobled the human drama in the crucifixion, not only with regard to Mary, but most especially in the mother-child relationship with regard to Jesus.

I see such moments when I am with Bonnie as she says goodbye to our children on their visits home. Her motherly love overwhelms her (and usually affects me so deeply, I get emotional as well). While I keep hoping for the day when we can not embarrass ourselves in saying our goodbyes, yet at the same time, I find it deeply moving to know how much this mother loves her children. When I see Jesus on the cross reaching out in similar appreciation to his mother (and to one who he selects as her caregiver), I can’t help but playing over scenes at airports and driveways that I have witnessed up close and personal. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is always putting things on a spiritual plane. Yet, as this moment also says: the spiritual is not divorced from everyday life. Quite the opposite is true. When the Word of God takes on human form, God moves into the neighborhood. The realm of the spirit is among us and evident most compellingly in the love we are to share with one another.

The French mystic Simone Weil makes a most helpful observation about love. She speaks of it as having two qualities: distinctiveness and the bond. We recognize these two qualities at perhaps contrary moments. Sometimes it is the moment when we are apart from the one we love (from our friend) that we best understand the strength of the bonds we may feel with one another. Turned around, it is in the moment when we are with our beloved, with our great friend, that we often revel in the uniqueness of the other. The dignity of Jesus’ mother and the trust given to the beloved disciple in this second last word of Jesus speak to us of where the Spirit of God is in our own midst. It is in the bonds we feel when, in our human experience, that separation cannot take away from us. It is in the uniqueness and worthiness of each person with whom we are present.

Let us take a moment to extend the peace of Christ to one another, remembering that Jesus cared about our relationships with one another in the way he commended his mother and his follower to one another as one of his chief duties on the cross.

Maundy Thursday Devotion, April 9

2009-04-09T11:55:00.001-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Thursday, April 9, 2009

Psalms 23, 79; Jeremiah 20:7-18; 1 Corinthians 10:14-17, 11:27-32; John 17:1-11

Meditation: Today is Maundy Thursday. I used to think it odd that we would have a Thursday conflated with another day of the week – “What’s the deal with Monday-Thursday?” Either at seminary or one probably at a church I learned differently, that Maundy means “Commandment.” We call this Maundy Thursday because it was at the Last Supper that Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment: “Love one another” (John 13:34).

It is fitting that this new commandment is given at the table, Jesus with his twelve disciples for the last supper. Christians have carried this commandment forward at tables ever since. Two undying characteristics carry through history in churches. One, we sing. Two, whenever we gather we bring food! In other words, history records that table is a metaphor for the love and fellowship which marks Jesus’ continuing presence with us.

Our readings from 1 Corinthians have this in the background. Yes, there’s a hullabaloo going on there at First Church of Corinth. Paul seems almost threatening in how he writes about it. “You have not discerned the body of Christ, so some of you have become sick or are even dying!” If we were magically minded we would say that some of the Corinthians weren’t pious enough about receiving the Lord’s Supper. Magical mindedness about the elements of bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ lead to a misunderstanding of the issue. If we go back to the meaning of “Maundy” (Commandment) Thursday, we better understand Paul’s point. In other words, we need to be clear on Paul’s precise point about not “discerning the body of Christ.” He means that they are not living up to the commandment to love one another in the body of Christ. He’s saying: “You’re not taking care of one another well enough – so some have become sick and even died.”

The early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper in a setting not unlike how we will share it tonight for our Maundy Thursday dinner. We will come bringing our appetites and some will bring food and drink. In the early church, congregations met for worship at potluck suppers. They were called “Agape Feasts.” “Agape” means “love.” In the Corinthian church, some were bringing special and ample foods and drink to these love feasts, but exclusively for themselves and their own. They were not sharing what they brought with other church members. Can you imagine the gall? How would that be a fulfillment of the commandment to love one another? It wasn’t.

Here’s what we are invited to see, then. If the Corinthians embodied a negative example of Maundy Thursday, we are invited to embody a positive example of it. Imagine our tables as a gathering anticipating the great banquet when all God’s people will sit down to eat and drink together in a fellowship of love and joy. This is the great banquet that is hoped for. We taste this hope even now at our own fellowship gatherings. Come join in on the festival of love. Make this a way that the whole church gathers together to eat and drink lovingly with one another.

Prayer: God of hope, you give us the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper at a table. We are invited to come with thanksgiving (eucharist), not only for the elements on the table which renew the message of Christ’s loving self-offering in us, but also with a thanksgiving for our fellowship, with marks of love that we exchange with one another. May the whole world find a way to this great banquet, that all may be discerned as a body, as Christ’s body, broken and yet risen to be shared with those who hunger and thirst. Bless you, Lord. Amen.

Devotion for Wednesday, April 8

2009-04-08T11:23:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Psalms 58, 138; Jeremiah 17:5-10, 14-17; Philippians 4:1-13; John 12:27-36

Meditation: Today’s scriptures oscillate between something akin to the psychologist’s “total positive regard” and “wrath-of-God-hell-fire-and-damnation.” Whew! Hard to get a handle on these polar opposites!

That’s not to say that everyday life is full of similar kinds of oscillation. We can be righteously indignant about taxes, the intolerant attitudes, prices at the grocery store, or our boss’s latest tirade. Yet, the next moment, we find ourselves touched by concern for another, or finding solemnity in prayer or in nature so that butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths. David Tracy once wrote a theology book called Blessed Rage for Order. Maybe it is resolution we crave (either good or bad) that gets us swerving so from side to side. The resolution could be full of mercy and kindness, or maybe it’s about wiping the slate clean and starting over.

Paul’s letter to the Philippian church is all over this subject. If I was to put my finger on a theme, I’d say that it was: “Have this mind among you that was in Christ Jesus.” In chapter 2, Paul spells this out by singing a hymn current in his day which spoke of Jesus emptying himself of heavenly glory so that he could embrace our human condition and bridge the ugly ditch left between us and God. Indeed, the words to this great story need to be in a hymn because they are too lofty only to be spoken. They deserve to be sung.

Yet, Paul is also careful to bring such language down to earth. As enthusiastic and lofty as may be his famous words, “Rejoice always (and again I say, Rejoice)” and about “the peace which passeth understanding,” he also takes time to encourage a reconciliation between Euodia and Syntyche, two women in the Philippian church. He understands that having hope from the Gospel doesn’t always sit well with those who are missing the point of it. So, he turns to salve the wounds of those who have been fighting the good battle. He asks another church member to bring the two Christian sisters together back into their common purpose, into having “the same mind among them that was in Christ Jesus” who “emptied himself” and “took on” our condition. Perhaps what he is really saying is that if we can work things out with one another here on earth, we are embodying what Christ has brought us from heaven. Wouldn’t that be a fine resolution of it all? Our hope calls us to this daily action.

Prayer: Reconciling God, do you jerk from wrath to graciousness like we do? Do you get upset with us so that you’re like a parent at the end of a rope, a judge who has seen a defendant one too many times, a teacher who sees one bad answer copied wrongly by too many students from one another? Are you always full of that peace that passes our understanding, a benevolence that is more awesome than the view from the rim of the Grand Canyon? Did you get it all worked out through the coming of Jesus Christ? Help us to consider the things that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing and what is commendable this day. Perhaps we can take some small step toward having the same mind that was in Christ Jesus in us. Hear our prayer, O Lord. Amen.

Devotion for Tuesday, April 7

2009-04-07T09:52:00.001-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Psalms 34, 146; Jeremiah 15:10-25; Philippians 3:15-21; John 12:20-26

Meditation: Psalm 34 is a magnificent psalm. Starting with streams of blessing to God flowing from the Psalmist’s lips, the lyricist continues with a song that tells of how God answers prayer and rewards faithful covenant living. It’s the latter of these that are my focus for today.

This faithful covenant living, as I call it, is embodied in the heart of the psalm (v. 11-14).

There the psalmist becomes a teacher of proverbs:

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good?

Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

More than just good advice, these words have a context in the Jewish Torah, or teachings of Moses. In other words, while the words might well fit as something one might find in a “Dear Abby” column in the newspaper, it would be better to picture them as coming from the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses came back from his trip up the mountain with two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

I get that picture when I read: “I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s not about God being wrathful or scary. It’s about God’s presence being awesome or mysterious in ways that leave one with a sense of wonder and an energy for doing good. Sinai is about loving God and loving one’s neighbor. Jesus summarized the commandments in this way, inviting people into a relationship with God and to a commitment to others in community.

As another psalmist said: “the times they are a changin’.” The change in our time is one which some have called a change from modernism to post-modernism. This is why Psalm 34 is so important, I believe. The modern age was one in which people trusted that a universal law or code of conduct could be discovered and followed. Morality was just another scientific discovery to be found, and finding it the only remaining question that remained was how to get everyone on board.

The covenant faithfulness about which Moses spoke, has a different feel than modernism. God’s covenant and promise with the people of Israel asked them to be different than the rest. They were to be a peculiar people. They were blessed to be the chosen ones. Not that they were to misuse that blessing for selfish ends. Their covenant relationship with God was to exemplify what good life others could have with God, as well. Bottom line, they were to keep their covenant not because it was good advice, but because the newness and blessing of life with God at the center defined who they to be.

Rejoicing in our call to covenant faithfulness, go out and love your neighbor, today.

Prayer: Our time of daily prayer leads us to find our feet planted on the firm foundation of your calling, O God. So we bless you for your gracious acts of creation and of covenant. We lift up our troubles to you asking your forgiveness and renewal. We pray for those who are in need today. Especially we pray for our youth on their mission trip. We ask that you might lead us to make our lives an offering of self to you and to the other who is also the recipient of your never failing love. Amen.

Devotion for Saturday, April 4

2009-04-03T15:24:00.001-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Saturday, April 4, 2009

Psalms 111, 124; Jeremiah 31:27-34; Romans 11:25-36; John 11:28-44

Meditation: My Facebook friends invited me to take a survey to find out which Reformed theologian I most like. I ended up with the renowned twentieth century theologian Karl Barth – and it’s all because of today’s lesson from Romans 11. Barth’s most famous writing is called Church Dogmatics. Some day when I’m retired, and have a couple of years or so, I’m planning to read it. It’s in four parts but includes fourteen rather large, volumes. I’ve actually read Part 1 which is on the authority of the Scriptures. But it’s Part IV that I want to read. It’s entitled Reconciliation.

Romans 11 is all over “reconciliation.” When we speak of reconciliation, we talk about making up with a loved one we may have hurt or vice versa. Reconciliation is a wonderful intimate offering of forgiveness and love, often accompanied by tenderness and energy for a new beginning. These personal images of reconciliation are important to have in mind when reading Romans 11. All of the forgiveness, tenderness and energy should stay with us as we read about God’s care for both Jews and Christians. Keeping it personal in this way, we should be ready to see Paul writing about such things about peoples, cultures and societies. Karl Barth sees God’s heart open in an amazing and large way.

Paul is often misunderstood as a divider instead of being seen as a reconciler. That’s because he saw the love of God expanding beyond the people of Israel into the larger world. This expansion isn’t just about who should be included. It also contains a plea for people who once had little regard for one another, to now embrace one another as brothers and sisters.

But what if not everyone receives the message of Jesus? The Jews are a special case for Paul. They are beloved because of God’s promises to this people given as a blessing to Abraham and Sarah, as well as through Moses and the people who escaped oppression in Egypt. Paul, a Jew, wishes that his people could believe in Jesus as he does, but he also knows how to turn lemons into lemonade. If they didn’t believe, this gave God the opportunity to take the traveling Gospel show out on the road where others could hear the message and come to faith.

For many that leaves a mess. Who’s in? Who’s out? Paul goes right to the verge of answering this sharp-edged question. All have messed up. All are in need of the offered mercy to God. But just when one expects a definitive answer, Paul goes from rational argument to doxology. Doxology means “a study in praise to God.” Paul shifts to this because he knows when his place is that of a witness to something wonderful rather than a lecturer who over does it.

God’s love has the character of the tenderness of the reconciliations we know in our personal lives. For God, this personal tenderness is extended to all. As we become those who are “a study in praise of God,” may Paul’s witness lead us to find ways of living out such reconciliation as well. May our witness speak in as many volumes as Karl Barth.

Prayer: God lead us in reconciliation. Where we have animosity towards others, let us set these things aside and seek a better way. Jesus came to show how you give us such a calling. May we find his spirit in us this day. Amen.

Devotion for Thursday, April 2

2009-04-02T09:57:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Thursday, April 2, 2009

Psalm 94; Jeremiah 26:1-16; Romans 11:1-12; John 10:19-42

Meditation: Every once and a while, I have had the courage to step into some breech. Witnessing someone being excluded or treated poorly because of some prejudice or stereotype, my conscience has told me that I need to speak up. So I’ve asked waiters in Denny’s restaurants if there was some reason why they were treating an African American family poorly. I’ve spoken up on behalf of Bonnie in a situation where the pitch of her voice seemed to give license to a bureaucrat to dismiss her concerns. I’ve been with youth who were insulted at restaurants because they weren’t the kind of tipping customers who seemed to require or justify the management’s respect.

Child psychologist, Robert Coles, spent a lot of time observing the interpersonal dynamics which accompanied school integration in the 1960s. One of his very special stories is about Ruby Bridges who was a little second grader who integrated a school in New Orleans. He wonderfully told of how she would walk a gauntlet of foul-mouthed adults into her school building. She was escorted by armed Federal agents. Upon reaching the doorway of the school, she would turn and mouth some words. Coles asked her what she was saying. She told him that she was praying for the gathered folks there, as her church had taught her to do as a follower of Jesus.

In addition to this smaller story, Coles told the bigger picture of things. He wrote about how much easier integration went in Atlanta compared to New Orleans. The major reason was the courage displayed by the editors of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who spoken out in favor of the justice of integration. Their words diffused the situation in Atlanta and set in motion an appropriate change.

The prophet Jeremiah is the voice of one speaking for justice in our reading today. His words get him into deep trouble with the priests and prophets of Jerusalem who wish to put him to death for his corrective words in their city. He doesn’t turn from his words, even though he is willing to become a martyr for speaking them.

Jeremiah is in many ways a forerunner of Jesus. For the sake of what is required by God’s commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jeremiah was willing to offer up his life. He dared to speak against the crowd.

It’s helpful to read about Jeremiah so that we better understand Jesus. Jesus isn’t seeking a martyr’s death when we read a similar story about him. His purpose is to speak to what is true about the gift of God’s love offered to the world. He has the courage to speak. He is willing to value that love above the opposition he engenders.

As we prepare for Holy Week and its message of Jesus’ Passion, cross and resurrection, let us reflect on when being Jesus’ followers may also ask us to speak with our own courage.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, help us to match the goodness which you exhibited in doing deeds such as welcoming children, touching those who were shunned by society, eating meals with unclean “sinners,” embracing those condemned as unworthy of the love of God, as your way of telling the good news of how great is God’s love. Give us courage to speak gently your truth in our daily lives as a way of continuing that witness in our day and place. Amen.

Devotion for Tuesday, March 31

2009-03-31T14:53:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Psalm 10; Jeremiah 25:8-17; Romans 10:1-13; John 9:18-41

Meditation: Faith is such an amazing gift and so full of energy and possibility! It is the centerpiece of our daily reading from Romans today and worth giving some time to in this devotion.

Frederick Buechner writes four little novels about a shyster named, Leo Bebb (they’re all in a collection called: The Book of Bebb). Bebb has made a career of hustling people through one deception after another. But a strange thing happens when he seeks to make his take on the persona of a minister as latest hustle. When he takes on the role, he actually becomes the person – The Rev. Leo Bebb.

It all happens when he visits a town where he plans to pull off his latest scheme. Assuming the character, he writes in his name on the register at the motel where he will stay – and when he puts the Reverend in front of his name. This sparks something in him suddenly making him into a genuine holy man. Yes, he’s still the shyster, he always was, but he also finds himself using his so-called talents for those who down and out. What has changed is that he suddenly began to operate on faith – and it fit.

Paul invites us into a similar faith. He speaks of the burden of the Jews – always having to find a way to live out the Law of Moses, the covenant with God. It’s all good, to be sure. The promises of God are there, the right ways to live with neighbors and to honor and worship God. But there is always the insecurity, as well. “Have I really done what is required? Am I a nominalist, that is, one who is only concerned with meeting the letter of the law? Have I understood what is required spiritually and achieved what is above and beyond the call of duty? Or if I’ve messed up, what will happen then?”

Paul says that faith operates differently. It doesn’t require one to scale the heights of heaven in order to justify oneself with God, nor does it find you condemned if you have done something wrong. The word of faith is as easy as saying out loud: “Jesus is Lord, Jesus is good, Jesus rose from the dead and is alive to broadcast God’s love.” The word of faith is as easy as believing this in the hopes of one’s heart.

I hear counselors and youth group organizers and social workers ask people to pay for their sessions, their trips, or for the help they receive because if folks don’t pay even a little, they will also depreciate the value of what they receive. These people are certainly justified in this as experience proves. What is given freely is valued less because it did not cost anything. Nevertheless, when it comes to God, this principle does not apply. God give to us freely all of the time – i.e. your next breath of air! Faith is the attitude that recognizes this and receives it. It’s all that is asked: Believe. It’s all the Rev. Leo Bebb did, to be honest. He made a faith statement and it changed him.

Prayer: Gracious God, you give us more than just the air. You gave Jesus to us freely. Let us be energized by receiving him as a gift. Protect us from remaking him in our image, our self-justification denying your generosity and love. Amen.

Devotion for Saturday, March 28

2009-03-28T12:58:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Saturday, March 28, 2009

Psalm 29, 126; Jeremiah 23:9-15; Romans 9:1-18; John 6:60-71

Meditation: Vera White was our speaker yesterday at a stewardship seminar put on by the presbytery. She was wonderfully personable and related her own story about giving that I found quite compelling. What made it enjoyable was that while she was talking about money, she put it in terms that we quite uncalculated.

Vera is an associate executive presbyter in Pittsburgh Presbytery, employed to help with new church development, mission and stewardship. She said that when she first came into the job, she felt quite at home with the new church and mission parts of the job description, but not the stewardship part. In order to take steps toward the end of leading in stewardship efforts, she and her husband made a decision about their own stewardship. They would tithe. They would give 10% of their income to the ministry of their local church. As they did, something of a new perspective came over her. She began to feel rich.

She explained that her newfound well-to-do-ness came from the fact that she saw a list of the monetary gifts given to the church. Before, she and her husband had been in the middle somewhere. Now with their 10% giving, they suddenly rose right up to the top of the chart. She and her husband were now “major donors,” a category she had earlier reserved for those who had large financial resources. What this meant in terms of her monthly budget was that she had to hold onto her beaten-up, well-driven Geo Metro, instead of getting a new car. But like in the Cinderella story, the pumpkin became a chariot because driving the Geo meant that now she was a “philanthropist.” She and her husband gave a tithe.

I laughed about all of this, relating to her tithing story and glad of it. She said that the real richness in tithing was that her giving became a whole lot less about calculation – what budget numbers need to be met, what cuts could be made – and much more about the joy of being generous as a way of acknowledging how generous God is. Just think of the blessings of God’s generosity which are all around: Beauty; Love; Kindness; Hope; Justice; the compelling stories about Jesus! One doesn’t calculate the value of a night’s rainfall on the roof. Instead, we wait for its effects: grass turning green, flowers blooming in garden and on tree. Vera White’s commitment of generosity suddenly had her enjoying a new standard of wealth, much of it so very freely given.

Our texts from Romans and the Gospel, as well as our two Psalms invite us to some sense of this kind of generosity, I’d say. They try to lead us out of calculations and the language of requirement, law, entitlement. The kernel of the Gospel is in Peter’s words to Jesus. When others found his words too difficult and left, Peter in staying said: “Where else would we go to find the words of life?” Abundance, grace, joy, mercy are the foundational words of our Christian faith. On this weekend day, give some thought how you are rich in them.

Prayer: Generous God, thank you for the beauty of a new spring. Thank you for the fellowship of believers and for the joy of sharing life with neighbors and friends in our community. Thank you for our family members we love, and also for those you call beloved who may live on the other side of the world from us, or maybe just on the wrong side of the tracks. Let us grasp your holiness in the grace you lay before us, which is also meant to define us as your children. Amen.

Devotion for Thursday, March 26

2009-03-26T18:05:00.001-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Thursday, March 26, 2009

Psalm 78:1-39; Jeremiah 22:13-23; Romans 8:12-27; John 6:41-51

Meditation: The lessons from the Psalms, Romans and John have much to them today. They are core texts dealing with central biblical issues: the exodus, God’s redemption of creation, the Holy Spirit in us praying with sighs too deep for words, and communion (aka Jesus is the bread of life). Having read the three of them and appreciated them, nevertheless, it was the Jeremiah reading that hit me like it was today’s headline.

Did you catch it? “Woe to him who builds . . . his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages.” It sounded just like the Wall Street Journal article a church member gave to me two days ago. The article was on “Why Foreign Aid is Hurting Africa.” And in the article, it spoke of how great cash gifts from the likes of the World Bank unfortunately lead to corruption, to war and to poverty. For the corrupt have built “upper rooms for their homes,” the writer said in essence, stealing from aid money. In doing this, the African economies were brought to a standstill through the systemization of such corruption. As a result, the one with all the cash became the new target of rebel leaders who gathered armies of the impoverished and disenfranchised, because it was clear where the capital was kept. Over and over, this cycle repeated in downwardly spiraling tragedy. Jeremiah’s words are freshly news.

Jeremiah mimics this kind of corruption, saying in their voice: “I will build myself a spacious house with large upper rooms.” He speaks of how the unjust official sizes up windows for the upstairs, rooms paneled with cedar and painted with vermilion. But then he points out the end of it all by reminding them what good had been lost. He asks “Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well.” In other words, when justice was done, when there was equity among neighbors, everyone ate and drank, too. It was well. But when greed took over, it toppled the whole society.

My trip to Africa brought me to Liberia. They have a new and different kind of President there, I think. Her name is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She’s the first popularly elected woman President in Africa. Following twenty plus years of civil war, she is trying to be a president who serves her people. She has a big task ahead of her, and is making a bit of progress. She’s cleaned up the trash that was knee deep throughout the capital city. The new peace seems to be encouraging some entrepreneurial efforts among the people. She’s trying to get infrastructure rebuilt, but it is going to take a lot of time and a continued trust by many because the new day also asks people to make changes. Her efforts may produce fruit if the people of the country remember that they are neighbors to one another – just like the Bible asks us to be. If neighborliness and justice are not crowded out by big upper rooms with fine windows, cedar and vermilion paint, then it can be well with them. In our American news, it seems the same story can also be told.

Prayer: Covenanting God, you ask us to keep our sister and brother, to care for others’ well being. By doing this, we will also find our own well-being. Let us love our neighbors as ourselves as a way of loving you, God. Amen.

Devotion for Tuesday, March 24

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Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Psalms 98, 135; Jeremiah 17:19-27; Romans 7:13-25; John 6:16-27

Meditation: Back in my high school days we used to bum a little money off one another in the lunch line from time to time. In our California surfer slang, we’d say: “Hey man, do have any bread you can give me?” It all sounded quite idealistic. We’d avoid saying anything about money so that it sounded like we were above it all – asking instead for “bread.” Yet, in truth, we’d buy anything but bread with it, maybe some junk food or worse. But by asking for bread we tried to dress up our mooching as something communal, even spiritual.

If you’re already read through the passage in the Gospel of John for today, you’ve already seen where I’m going with this. One on side of the lake, Jesus performs a miracle turning a disciple’s collection of a few loaves and fishes into a feast. When Jesus disappears in the middle of the night (walking on the water to the other side of the lake), the crowd hurries after him. Their pursuit of him is presented in a guise. They say that they are after something ideal, something spiritual, but Jesus discerns that they have come for much more mundane reasons. They liked that he could feed them.

It’s right and good that Jesus combines the physical feeding of the multitude with the spiritual truth where he says to us: “I am the bread of life.” I find that it is often good to be a “both/and” kind of person than an “either/or.” Jesus is that way. If he denied the value of material loaves of bread he wouldn’t have fed the folks. Yet, he does not neglect the larger point that what feeds the body also points to a greater hunger.

A daily time of reading and prayer is one way to pay attention to that greater hunger – to God in our lives. At times it’s hard to set aside the time for this. You may have noticed that today’s meditation didn’t arrive first thing in the morning, nor did one come at all yesterday. Ooops! As Paul says, the spirit may be willing but the body can be weak. In college I sought to read through the entire Bible in a year’s time. I was going to do this by reading three chapters per day. I found that if I kept the daily reading for eight consecutive days, the reading had now become a good habit. If I fell off my reading for only three days, a bad habit was formed. To get back to it, I would remember that I am a forgiven child of God. I’d confess the need for renewal and start reading, awaiting an eighth day in which my good habit could return. And it did. I finished the Bible with a few weeks to spare.

Today, let us keep our spirit even as we have moments where our physical and mental resourcefulness fail us. Let us know that Jesus offers himself as the bread of life, which sometimes means that he also gives us that material bread that is also a staple.

Prayer: Lord, we bless you for Sabbath rest. When we read scripture and pray we enter into a daily rest. We receive daily nourishment in our prayers and reading which helps us find you in the midst of life. Forgive us for our failings. Keep us encouraged in our faithfulness and in our relationship with you and others. Give us our daily bread and give us, Jesus, the bread of life. Amen.

Devotion for Saturday, March 21

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Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Saturday, March 21, 2009

Psalms 60, 148; Jeremiah 13:1-11; Romans 6:12-23; John 8:47-59

Meditation: Recently, a little questionnaire has circulated among pastors on Facebook. If you fill it out, it will tell you which well-known theologian you are most like. Mine turned out to be Karl Barth, but I was half-hoping that it would have come up, John Calvin.

Calvin, quite deservingly, has a very stern reputation. And sometimes his theology can get a bit stark. Mostly, his bark is a lot worse than his bite, and if one scratches the surface one finds a great deal quite likeable and wise about his theology. 2009 is the 500^th anniversary of his birth, so he is in the Presbyterian news this year. Our heritage goes back to his writings, The Christian Institutes being his most important contribution to the church.

Some of Calvin’s wisdom from the Institutes comes to mind today in connection with our reading from Romans, today. The passage talks about “sanctification,” which is that journey we take to mature and grow in the ways of Christ through our lifetimes. For Calvin, sanctification fit under the category of “the third use of the law.”

Calvin was adamant that we must see our relationship with God defined by God’s grace. God is the initiator of the good relationship. When we fall back on making ourselves good enough for God to love us, then we both miss out on the great love of God and we start to make distinctions which will set us up for false pride and the arrogance of comparing ourselves over and against other “children of God.”

But this leads to the question which Paul asks in Romans: “Shall we sin more so that grace could abound?” Here’s where Calvin’s third use of the law comes in. The first use of the law is to set a level of expectation of how we might live. By the second use of the law we are shown to fall short of the divine standards. (I’m talking about God’s law here, not our society’s.) Because we fall short we are shown to be in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. But when the grace is given, when we are found to be children of God not by our merits, but according to God’s love for us, what comes next? For Calvin, the answer is that we keep the law of God as well we can. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Honor God in your life and speech. Don’t abuse others by violence, through infidelity, gossip, theft, or oppression. Care for the creation, which has liberty as its divine birth rite, while we have a call to be stewards of the earth.” Grow in the way that you pursue these standards, but not so that you forget the grace and mercy as fundamental underneath.

I hope you are having a great weekend. I’m fasting with our youth in the 30 Hours of Famine. Fasting is like that, a third use of the law. It doesn’t make me more acceptable to God. It’s just a way to think about God and others by the intentionality in the practice.

Prayer: You go easy on us, God. When we fail you, you extend mercy. Accepted by your grace, let us live in thanksgiving to you, imitating Jesus, who shows your love. Amen.

Devotion for Thursday, March 19

2009-03-19T13:18:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Thursday, March 19, 2009

Psalms 108; Jeremiah 10:11-24; Romans 5:12-21; John 8:21-32

Meditation: There are lots of memories from childhood that we lose in our lifetimes. So, it’s always intriguing to think about what memories one retains. One of those early memories for me comes from a family vacation to the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” It was there that I saw the huge statue of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.

In those early years I also remember Sunday morning programs like the biblical show on “Davey and Goliath” (Goliath was Davey’s faithful dog), as well as a show on Davy Crockett. (If you’ve detected a theme, I won’t deny a certain affinity with those who shared my name!) All of those characters seemed large to me, making a lifelong impression as larger than life figures. I’d say they held mythic proportions – the grand, outdoor statue of Paul Bunyan in the wild woods of Minnesota holding the largest of spaces in my imagination.

As I write this, I’d ask what person or character holds that kind of place from your childhood imagination? How were they larger than life? What lifelong impression did they make? For me, Paul Bunyan embodied strength and hard work. He was the silent type (big statues don’t usually have much to say!), but was honest, constructive and enjoyed himself in the outdoors. He lived well in his natural surroundings, respecting nature, but using what he needed, he provided life for himself and his community. Wow! That’s a lot more stuff in my mind about Paul Bunyan than I would have thought was there! But it also shows what values such memories bring to a person throughout a lifetime.

These are the measure of the images which are in today’s readings from Romans, today. There, Paul about Adam and about Jesus Christ. They are more than just particular persons. They carry a mythic quality with them, as well. Adam is the figure who lets sin into the world. It was actually St. Augustine and John Milton who took Paul to mean that Adam’s sin was spread almost genetically from parent to child. Paul does not force the carrying of Adam’s sin through biology. Yet, what ever the means, the effect of that loss of relationship with God and with God’s good purposes is ubiquitous. Adam is a larger than life figure whose influence has tainted us all.

Yet what’s more remarkable is how Jesus comes to reverse the influence of Adam and his sin. The Adam myth, the effect of sin is countered in Jesus Christ. An opportunity for newness has reversed what had always been. History’s course has a new possibility of good, of grace, of life.

The influence of Jesus ought to work that way. As we welcome his presence into our imaginations, it frees us to follow what we see in his way of life. He was gracious, inviting little ones to know they are loved. He was clear that he had a relationship with God that was vital and gave him a mission for his daily interaction with others. He even endured the hostility of others, serving a redemptive purpose. Today, give Jesus some room in your imaginative world, seeing what grace and redemption might live through you.

Prayer: God, don’t let us take those blind alleys where we close down our imaginations believing that you want only obedience and not relationship. Instead, let Christ be one who opens up the possibilities of new grace and goodness to work its way through us and into the way we live out our lives. We give thanks for Jesus, the new person who transforms the world. Amen.

Devotion for Tuesday, March 17

2009-03-17T09:41:00.000-04:00

Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Psalms 42, 84; Jeremiah 7:21-34; Romans 4:13-25; John 7:37-52

Meditation: Former Princeton Seminary President, James I. McCord, will always be someone I hold fondly in my heart. I remember him from a distance from when I first arrived on campus back in 1981. I would see him walking to his car, to a class or perhaps to the chapel, from the Administrative offices of the school. Stocky, he had a large head – I’m sure to hold all of his smarts. I would make sure to slow my step so that I didn’t cross his paths. He had an intimidating presence.

I had gone to Princeton in order to get into the Ph.D. program in Church History. I already had a Master’s degree in Theology from Wheaton College, but not the requisite third-year of master’s work that PTS required. Alas, the latest attempt at a high score on the Graduate Records Exam wasn’t quite high enough, so at the end of this first year at Princeton I decided to return to California to begin working in the church. In my mind, even if I didn’t have the Master of Divinity degree nor had been under the care of a presbytery, I had three years of theological education and was ready for church ministry. But in order to end one’s seminary tenure, I first had to have an exit interview with President McCord.

He must have had three exterior offices, which only added to my nervousness. Another student called his office, “the holy of holies!” I remember him telling me that he liked it in New Jersey because there were four seasons, like he was wanting me to stay. I was laying out a Chamber of Commerce brochure about how wonderful the weather was in San Diego – one day out of a hundred was bad. All in all, the interview was painless, non-eventful. I exited Princeton having had a good time, but moving on – until a year later, when I found that ordination gave one a much better way of working in the church.

So, I wrote to Dr. McCord, asking if I could return to the Seminary. I thought, “He’ll pass along my letter to one of those people in the exterior offices, push me back to Admissions or the Registrar, or it will never even get to him. Instead, I received a personal letter from him, which said that he had been waiting for me to write. I didn’t think that he knew who I was, but found out that he actually cared about me quite a bit.

Our readings from Romans and the Gospel of John today, both speak of how God regards outsiders. The say that God knows the outsider, the stranger, the overlooked, and has written a special letter to them: “Welcome home.” Jesus from Galilee is God’s welcome home letter to those who thought they were strangers to God’s people. Abraham is the Father of not only those who keep the law, but those who receive the good news of Jesus by faith. Each of us is welcome by God. Let’s give thanks for that and use that welcome as a reason to welcome someone else, as well.

Prayer: God, you invite us into fellowship. You give us the Spirit like a refreshing drink. Thank you. Your love and care are good. You are full of righteousness and goodness to make us so welcome. Help us to do likewise, having received your fellowship. Bless you, Lord. Amen.

Devotion for Monday, March 16

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Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Monday, March 16, 2009

Psalms 43,140; Jeremiah 7:1-15; Romans 4:1-12; John 7:14-36

Meditation: Yesterday’s Gospel lesson told the story of Jesus’ outburst at the Jerusalem Temple. Overturning the moneychangers’ tables and driving out the animals to be sacrificed, it catches one’s attention. So who could skip over the Jeremiah passage today with that on one’s mind?

“The Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord” – Jeremiah mocks the Israelites of his day because they segment their lives while expecting integrated results. “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal and go after other gods . . . and then come and stand before God in this house, saying ‘We are safe!’ – only to go on doing all these abominations?” Jeremiah makes it sound like Jerusalem was a wild, unlawful city. I’m guessing, however, that murder and divorce rates were rather tame compared to some of our statistics and that there wasn’t nearly the religious pluralism that we could see if we looked around a bit. I imagine their daily reality mirrored the complications of life we know which pull against a spiritual “center.”

Jeremiah’s Jerusalem would come to disaster when the Babylonians sacked it in 587 BC. Under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews there would be marched to Babylon in a forced exile while the city was razed, the central Temple building demolished stone by stone. In the annals of World History, this would be because Israel was on the land bridge between Babylon and Egypt and the Emperor from the East did not want the Pharaoh from the West to get testy and aggressive on his Palestine flank. But for Jeremiah the issues were much more about a society whose strength was in its wholeness, in the bonds of an ethical community and in the promise of the liberating God who it honored. When the people were given to distractions – theses showing up on evening TV news reports of the breaking of the societies’ 10 Commandments – Jeremiah saw his people’s fragility. He saw that the fractures in his community could not be compensated by fleeing to the Temple for refuge. In a word, the center was gone.

I find these morning devotions to bring an opportunity for centering. I hope that they are not mere flights to the Temple for refuge. Daily Prayer grounds one in a nurtured spiritual life. It’s where one can go with a venting to God about what went wrong the day before. It’s where we can remind ourselves of what is faithful. It’s where we can reinvigorate ourselves before a God who is merciful, gracious and asks us to respond to such mercy and goodness by faith. God isn’t out to get us. God doesn’t stand at the ready hoping to condemn for our sins and failures. But God does invite us to a center, which gains us a way to stand with wholeness, even bring that wholeness to our day.

Prayer: Here we are God, in the quiet of this moment, present only before you. No one is standing looking over our shoulders to check off that we have done the religious thing. But we do have the privilege of taking a moment to open ourselves to your ways through this prayer. Give us a ground to stand on that is firm and centered by this. String out the day before us as a way to live out your grace in the world. So we bless you Lord, from the house of the Lord, where Jesus came and brought his zeal. Amen.

Devotion for Saturday, March 14

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Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Saturday, March 14, 2009

Psalms 39, 64; Jeremiah 5:20-31; Romans 3:19-31; John 7:1-13

Meditation: Bonnie and I have been reading Anne Lamott’s book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, as a kind of devotional. We laugh as we read her stories of starting a Sunday school at her little St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in California (“It turned out that I did not like children, or at any rate, they made me extremely nervous, and I had almost nothing to share with them, except that Jesus loved them, and I did, too, even when I was in a bad mood”). We appreciate that her humanity shows through (“Things are not perfect, because life is not TV and we are real people with scarred, worried hearts. But it’s amazing a lot of the time”). Perhaps most, we marvel at how she can turn a phrase. For instance, at one point she’s writing about the spring desert rains and how they cause tiny shrimp to be suddenly alive in sandy puddles. She calls them “God’s commas.” In two words she has both brought us a vivid vision of the shrimp’s shapes, and also has us pausing to notice them, God halting us in mid-sentence to see this miracle of nature.

Scripture turns a phrase or two every now and then, as well. From the “Lord is my shepherd” in Psalm 23 to Jesus’ great uses of metaphor: “I am the bread of life,” and his way of turning an attack back on an accuser (“should we pay taxes?”, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God what belongs to God”). There is one in the psalm for today. In Psalm 39:11, the psalmist is meditating on the justice of God and writes: “You chastise mortals in punishment for sin, consuming like a moth what is dear to them; surely everyone is a breath.”

A different novelist named Ann – Annie Dillard – writes about an evening at a camp out, where she is finding re-creation for her spiritual being, prayerfully taking in the night sky with a candle as her only illumination. The candle attracts a moth, whose flight had been too quick to the flame. It isn’t able to turn away as it comes into the fire’s heat. In fact, it somehow sticks to the wick and is burned away, so that its carcass becomes a new wick. Dillard’s prayer similarly becomes an offering of her self to the God whose hand makes our beautiful and wild world, and to whom we must trust ourselves.

Look for that invitation to trust in our readings today. In our strengths, in our weaknesses, in our untrue boasts and humble confessions, God is always still God, and calls to us.

Prayer: Give us rest on this Sabbath day, O God. Make us mindful that you promise your people a day of rest so that we can know that your purpose for us is one of dignity and freedom. Let us find fellowship with you in that purpose. Six days you created, and then you rested, first. Grace is the gift you give us through faith. As we receive your offering, may we respond by offering ourselves to you as a blaze of glory. Amen.