I think this idea has been lodged in my brain since last Thursday. That’s the day I went to the fair so I could see all the hard work our youth had been doing. I was proud as a peacock. Everything from zucchini pickles to a photo essay about farm life, cereal bars and biscuits to hogs, chickens, and goats. 4-H is a marvelous endeavor, helping all sorts of youth learn to love and tend creation. These youth can feed themselves and others, and they can work hard with gardens and livestock.

What stuck in my mind particularly was the care for animals. This is something God calls us to, in ways that might surprise us. In Leviticus 25, in a parallel to the commandment to work for six days and on the seventh to remember the Sabbath, rest, and keep it holy, God says the following:

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food. (Leviticus 25:1-7)

God calls us to a balance in life, a balance of hard work and rest. This balance is important for all creation, land and animals included. Whatever the land yields – without any planting or cultivation – that’s what is to be eaten by everyone and everything, even wild animals.

The Sabbath is a strange thing because it is both a command and a gift. In the New Testament Jesus tells us that Sabbath was made for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath. In other words, the command is a gift, something tricky for us to understand. But consider this: if God came to you and knocked on your door, called you by name and said “My beloved one, it is time for you to take some rest,” how would that feel? Imagine the presence of God over every farm, every person, every city, calling out the same command and gift: “rest, my beloved ones.” Soil would rest, horses pulling carriages would rest, soldiers would rest, people struggling with burdens of all sorts in their lives and hearts would rest, oxen pulling plows would rest, children would rest.

God honors and delights in the labor of our youth and the labor of their animals. God also calls us all to a Sabbath of rest in which we are gracious enough to accept God’s provision for us.

It is my prayer for you that you will turn to God and accept the rest that God offers, knowing that it is what God desires for you. For God loves you.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

Yesterday in church we prayed for all those at General Assembly (GA). Commissioners come from all over the place, small towns and large cities, as we know, since one of our own is our presbytery’s YAAD (Young Adult Advisory Delegate). We prayed for them to have discernment of the leading of the Holy Spirit as they make decisions together as a body. That kind of endeavor with so many thousands of people together is hard work. They will have to listen to one another and be open to one another so that they might understand what is the mind of Christ in any given situation.

In reality, this is no different than our own discernment in every day life. We have to listen all the time. We listen to our bodies to know when they need rest or refreshment, we listen to our tasks and responsibilities to understand what kind of work we need to do, we listen to our relationships in order to learn what we can do to help each other and love each other better. We do all this listening while we are also listening to God’s call in our own lives. Day by day we seek to follow Jesus Christ, and we know we can do so only by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Some days are harder than other days. We may not even be confident that we are following God. It is with joy, then, that we can remember that the gift of the Holy Spirit is with us always, with GA this week, and with us in our lives in the coming days. Whether we are confident or wavering, we can still seek God’s wisdom. Thomas Merton, our brother in Christ, shared his own prayer for guidance:

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me

Nor do I really know myself,

And the fact that I think I am following your will

Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

Does in fact please you.

And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this,

You will lead me by the right road

Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

And you will never leave me to face my struggles alone.

Amen.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I don’t feel creative at all. I have energy to do things – like walk the dog, cook, and so forth – but my mind isn’t full of energy. I have to be patient with myself during those times, because in the end, that spark of creative energy for my daily tasks will show up. Sometimes in an hour, sometimes several hours, sometimes a day or two or even longer.

It is a lot easier to be patient with ourselves when we remember that before we were ever in need, before we ever existed, God was – and is! – patient with us:

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

We wake up every day with God’s graciousness around us, compassion from God pouring all over us and around us. Not only that, but the love of God for us is steadfast. It stays with us because God stays with us, steadfastly, faithfully, enduring with us through our leaps of faith and stumbles in growth.

If the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, good to all, and covering all God has made with compassion, shall we not be kind and patient with ourselves? This wonderful nugget from Psalm 145 alerts us to the fact that the love of God that has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Romans 5:5) is the same love that is steadfast, compassionate, gracious, merciful, and good to us.

We are free, we have been reading in Galatians. Free in the grace of Christ. We can go about our days freely, remembering to be patient with ourselves and with others, since God is patient with us. Perhaps we are being critical of ourselves or the ones we love, hard on ourselves for whatever ways we think we fall short. This is not how God loves us. Once again, it’s time to take a deep breath and remember that we walk in the love of God.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

You have heard me quote Colossians 1:20 in sermons quite a bit. This is the verse in which Paul proclaims that in Jesus Christ God has reconciled all things to Godself, all things in heaven and on earth.

I have quoted that verse time and again because it testifies to so much of what we read throughout scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. Scripture is full of images of God, stories about God, and gospel accounts and letters that point to a God who is complex, but who, from the moment Adam and Eve are sent from the garden of Eden, seems bent on reconciliation.

To “reconcile” is “to become on friendly terms with again.” We were created in fellowship with God, and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Yet God keeps coming after us, to reconcile with us, and to help us be reconciled with God and with each other. In fact, in this section of Colossians, because all things are in Christ, we are not only reconciled to God, but to all things in heaven and on earth. In Christ we have been reconciled with each other.

The word used for “reconcile” refers to personal relations. This is not just a reconciliation that means rights have been wronged. It means, actually, that we and God are dwelling in peace together because of the death of Jesus Christ. Spouses, friends, family members, co-workers, creation, animals, people in other countries, everything in heaven and on earth, in Christ, is on friendly terms with each other again.

And so we are encouraged to live into this reconciliation. In the books of the prophets, God calls the people to live on friendly personal terms with one another, caring for widows and orphans, the poor and the immigrants. In the gospel of Matthew we are called to not merely say “Lord, Lord” but to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and visit those who are sick or in prison. In Philippians we are exhorted to put the interests of others before our own.

To be reconciled, “to be on friendly terms with again,” means that we have experienced distance, difficulty, indifference, or betrayal in our relationships. Perhaps we have been wronged, or perhaps someone has wronged us. What we can trust is that we have been reconciled to God in Christ. We might not feel friendly with God sometimes, But God is on friendly terms with us, and with all others.

This gives us some hope for our week that we begin today. There may be all sorts of things we need to be on friendly terms with again: losses, the people we live with, dreams that aren’t panning out, fears. All of this has been reconciled in Jesus Christ already. What we can do is take a deep breath, know that the peace of Christ is the truth of the matter, let go of having to fix it ourselves, and live as though we are on friendly terms with what is going on. Because, in fact, we are. Through Christ.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

“Tumult” generally refers to confusion and noise, and so if we use the word, we’re usually referring to things like a crazy thunderstorm or a chaotic crowd. But waking up this morning there was a tumult in my head. All sorts of thoughts were running around, bumping into each other. Details of what is on my schedule for the day and week, relationships that need tending, work, caring for the household, and a few other odds and ends kept crowding forward fighting for my attention.

I know I’m not the only one who wakes up this way sometimes. Many of us do: we’ll have work we need to get done, or we’re sorting through problems, or we’re worried about relationships or responsibilities. It’s tumultuous in our heads sometimes. Often, this is not necessarily a bad thing, since it’s a reflection of a full life. On the other hand, it can be an experience that makes us fret, because all these details and the way they can sometimes crowd our minds of a morning makes us anxious.

The psalmist keeps us company in these times of crowded and tumultuous thoughts. The tumult, the details, the tasks, the relationships are all like the Ohio River: sometimes it flows quietly, but often with currents that cross each other, and sometimes with whitecaps. We can sit on the side of the river, though, on a bench, quietly, and remember that the river is separate from us. It is part of our life, for sure – in our area the vast majority of us have to at least cross it from time to time – but it doesn’t suck us in. Like Elijah in the cave amid the fierce winds that swirled around, we listen for the still, small voice that is the voice of God. The psalmist sings out in Psalm 62: “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.”

Our souls wait for God in silence, exactly in the middle of the tumult. In fact, it is the way we have of stepping back from the edge of the water to watch it calmly. Because God is our refuge and our rock, we can look at all the things in our life as just that – things. Not our hope, not our salvation. These may be wonderful things. they may be things that are, in fact, gifts from God that help us to live full of hope and joy. But they are from God. Our hope is from God. Without that still and quiet place of resting in God, we cannot gain perspective on the tumult of our lives and minds.

Prayer, then, is a gift. We might call it meditation. In any case, it is the capacity God gives us to wait for God alone in quiet, to rest in the shelter of God’s arms. It does not take us away from our life, for God calls to us wherever we are. But it means we understand that our life is surrounded by God, who is greater and quieter than the demands of our days. God gives us the gift of work, for sure, but also the gift of rest. For our hope is in God.

As you find moments of quiet in your mind and in your day, blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

One little phrase of Psalm 5:4 caught my attention and I can’t let it go. Speaking of God, the psalmist says:

“evil will not sojourn with you.”

A sojourn is a temporary stay, like taking a road trip and camping out on a friend’s couch for a few days until you move on further west. Evil will not sojourn with God. No welcoming couch, no open arms, no table set for evil itself.

Or, perhaps, there is a welcoming couch, open arms and a set table, but evil can’t sojourn because if it rested in God, evil itself would become saved and no longer be evil. Evil can’t visit with God because evil is the opposite of good (and in scripture we read that only God is good). In one of my favorite books, A Wind in the Door, written for teenagers by Madeline L’engle, Meg has learned that she is a Namer. It is up to her to save her younger brother’s life. He is dying, infected by Ecthroi. Meg is desperate, not understanding her calling to Name things, until the moment when all she has left to fight the evil Ecthroi is to Name them. To Name means to affirm them, to acknowledge existence, to call them into their fullest being. In other words, to Name is to love. In a moving passage she does just this: she calls them Ecthroi, addresses them by name, calls them into being.

And they disappear. So in this story, when evil beings are loved, they become nothing. If evil is against all that is good and true and beautiful, then to be good and true and beautiful means evil disappears and no longer exists.

So evil will not sojourn with God.

I used to try and make people comfortable around me when they found out that I was a pastor and they got all nervous. Some folks immediately apologize for language, especially. My habit was always to say “oh, no problem at all,” and truthfully it wasn’t and isn’t. But I have come to realize over the past years that being a pastor marks off a certain space where some things – good things, we hope – have a safe space and other things don’t. This is why corrupt religious leaders are a blight: they have allowed evil to sojourn with them. Evil is on a road trip and stops by for a few days or for quite a few years.

My point here is not to play the blame game, or to accuse others as though I myself am blameless and evil has not sojourned with me, for like everyone else, I too have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But there is a sense in which to be the people of God means that by the help of God we become people that evil passes by. As congregations I suppose we never reach perfection on this. But here I sit, realizing that this particular congregation has shown me how to live in such a way that certain evils don’t sojourn. In the body of Christ we help each other become better people because we are growing into the body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Evil will not sojourn with God. If we sojourn with one another and God – that is, if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves – then evil doesn’t have a home. In 1 John we read that perfect love casts out fear. We can be like Meg this week, perhaps: casting out the fears in our lives, the evils that might try to sojourn with us, by returning always and again to love.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Books, Literature, and Poetry, Monday Morning Meditation

Every once in a while you have heard me talk about St. Benedict. He wrote a Rule – The Rule of St. Benedict is a way for monks to live together in community. That way of life has been kept alive for centuries in the Catholic Church, especially in convents and monasteries where nuns and monks live in accordance with the Rule.

But we have to free ourselves from strict notions of a what a rule is in order to understand the Rule. We tend to think of rules as things that can’t be broken. Rules are strict and govern very specific things. Some of us are raised to respect rules, so much so that when we even think we just might be breaking one, we get a little anxious.

But for the Rule of St. Benedict, “rule” means something much more like a guide, or a guardrail. On roads, guardrails help us to see the edges of the road, especially when to go off the shoulder would be dangerous, like on a curve or next to a ravine. Guardrails help us keep on the road, so we don’t go off to the left or the right, but stay on the road, moving along toward our destination.

For Christians, this distinction between rules as strict orders and a rule as a guard for our way is vital. Because as Christians we are walking with and following God, not rules. Indeed, sometimes we can be idolatrous, making the rules or the commandments more important than God. John Calvin and Martin Luther (and the apostle Paul!) understood that in a very important way God’s law keeps us on a path towards fellowship with God and God’s people. But if we substitute the law for God, instead of following God who gives the law as a gift for our life, we are actually turning our back on God.

In Joshua 1, we hear God speaking to Joshua after Moses has died:

…”7Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. 8This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. 9I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Our way will be prosperous and we will be successful if we stay on the road, if we meditate on the law, God’s gift for our journey of fellowship. As we all know, prosperous and successful might not mean money or prestige, but it certainly means being ever more deeply rooted in our God who loves us, following God with more vigor the longer we follow even if we become more physically weak and tired. No wonder we are called to be strong and courageous: we will face things that frighten and dismay us, for sure, and the vast majority of us have faced such trials. But the Lord our God is with us wherever we go. So we watch the guardrails on the left and the right and do not depart from God’s law.

All the law and prophets hang on two commandments, Jesus said: to love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves. If we attend to this rule, this guard, and if we get back up on the road when we slip, we are following God.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation
Tags: Benedictine life

Take a deep breath. A deep, slow breath.

Psalm 46 is a gift to us, written for us before we or our parents were ever stepping foot on this earth. Our lives are full of joys, delights, good times shared with friends and family. And our lives are busy, crammed with work and responsibilities, sometimes to the point where we can’t slow down, and worry is with us all the time. But the very first verse of Psalm 46 reminds us that God is a very present help in times of trouble.

Very present.

What does it mean to be very present? It would seem that either we are present or we’re not: we’re either present or absent. But in this verse we read that God is very present. Not just present – very present. Present to us an our trouble, with us and attentive, our refuge and our help. God is in the very midst of our life, according to this psalm. God is not just around, in the general area, but facing us, side by side with us.

And then towards the end of the psalm, we who are in the midst of troubles – of busyness, fear, worry, sadness, confusion – are told to be still. Be still and “know that I am God.” Take a very deep, slow breath and still yourself. “Know that I am God,” very present to you, right here and right now, your refuge and your strength.

For God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5). God is in the midst of us, and to take that deep breath in, let it settle into our lungs, and then let it out slowly is to slow ourselves down for a moment in wordless prayer. In that prayer we can be still and know that God is God, very present in the midst of our troubles, whatever they may be today or this week or ever.

Blessings to you all,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation

I came across this article yesterday in the New York Times, an article that points to the corruption than can do terrible damage to human beings as well as to the institution of the church. But wisely, the author makes us well aware that the church is much more than its leaders. Krugman is referring to the Roman Catholic Church. But what he says is true about any organized church.

We Christians are sinners, sure enough. When power collides with sin one of the effects is corruption and abuse. This has always been the case, and it is always offensive and it is always unjust. Krugman does not mince any words about this. But he says that the true breadth and depth of the church is not in its official leaders. It is in the average, everyday people who are about the work of Jesus in everyday life, sometimes in dangerous circumstances. These everyday people, with no glamour or glory, have the power of ministering in Jesus’ name in deed, perhaps more than in words. If you click on the article link you will read about nuns and priests that are living in the middle of the Sudan, trying to help the people there gain a foothold on life in the midst of their suffering.

There are stories about all sorts of Christians doing this kind of work, in all sorts of countries, in all sorts of places, right here in the United States, in Kentucky and Indiana. It’s just that we don’t know most of these stories because they are without glamour or glory. They are folks who are salt and light.

In Matthew 5 we read:

13“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Salt adds a taste that is pleasing, and it enhances the flavor of so many foods. This is one thing Jesus tells us we are: we make things taste good. Of course, I can easily make a reference to our church pitch-ins, and all the labor that goes into those wonderful dishes is salt itself. The commitment and time receive no glamour or glory, but they do make life taste better when people can gather together and share in a fellowship and a feast. We make life taste better for others when we demonstrate Christ’s love anywhere we go: sports events, school, work, visiting family and friends, running errands.

Light hangs in the air. It seems to have no substance, but it makes all the difference in a house that is dark. When the light is turned on, we can find our way, see each other, read, or tend to tasks. We don’t light a lamp and then hide it: we light the lamp so that the light finds its way into every dark corner.

If we are salt and light like these nuns and priests, like Christians of every time and place, then we too are about the work of bringing flavor and light to those around us. We might not be noticed for what we do. But then, it seems that Jesus isn’t so concerned that we get attention. Jesus seems more concerned that the world God loves is a world where the good news is made concrete for everyone, a place where everyone gets a taste and a glimpse of Christ’s love for them.

Blessings to you all, who are salt and light,

Michelle

Posted in Monday Morning Meditation, Spirituality, Faith, and Ethics