Wednesday Wondering - October 16, 2024

Scripture

Mathew 3: 2

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Revelation 21: 1 - 4

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Reflection

I had a conversation the other day with an individual about the concept of heaven. This got me wondering about how we understand this idea of heaven and whether it is what we understand God’s kingdom to be and if it is would it be something that is far removed from us, or is something much different. Jesus spoke a lot about the coming kingdom of God, and in speaking of this he spoke in the immediate future, not as something far removed. We often read the passage above from Matthew as a warning for ourselves that we must make ourselves ‘right’ with God. We often hear the word ‘repent’ and we understand it to mean that we must turn away from our sinful conditions and throw ourselves on the mercy of God. Repentance brings up images of judgment, condemnation, and fear. The wonder if this is what this scripture actually means because Jesus was one of love and acceptance, not fear and control. Our understanding of repentance could be seen as our having to admit before God we are an abomination in the eyes of God and that we if we don’t do better, well we will be in trouble.

Yet the actual ancient Greek word that was translated as repent “metanoia” literally means beyond the mind. It means to look at something, to see something, to understand something in a completely different light. It means to look at something in a way that you have never looked at it before. I wonder if this might just be what we need to do when we think about heaven and the kingdom of God? We often understand the kingdom of God to be some far off, removed place. It is another world and as such it is something that we must strive to achieve. If that were the case then, I suppose, our traditional understanding of ‘repent’ might make sense. In order to get into the kingdom of God, into heaven, we must meet a series of criteria, we must make the grade, we must check off all of the boxes of being that good and faithful person, at least in someone’s eyes. But think about that for a moment, is that what God and Jesus are about? We are told in the bible that we have been fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139: 14). Then we have the line in the prayer that Jesus taught us, “Let your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” I wonder what this can  mean for us in regard to this coming kingdom?

What is this kingdom of God is not some far-off, remote, after we pass away, place in the sky? What is kingdom of God is something else completely? We are told by Jesus that we must see things in a new way, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I wonder if that means that we can actually create the kingdom of heaven ourselves? Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, speaks to this idea in the following way, “What if God is instead watching, listening, and waiting — waiting for our choices, our decision, our agency to make the world and our lives what we want? What if God is not manipulating all the things but yearns for our partnership?” What if we are the ones who are called to see our world in a  new way, a way of justice, peace, joy, compassion, mercy, and love? If we understand Jesus’ statement in Matthew to mean that we are being called, not to confess our sinful nature, not to see ourselves as an abomination, in the eyes of God, but rather to see the whole world in a new way, then we might just see that we play a part in the coming of God’s kingdom to the hear and now. God might just be waiting on us to bring about the kingdom of God, rather than us, as Christians, sitting back and waiting for some far-off kingdom, on some far-off day, in some distance otherworldly future. I believe that to be God’s people in the world is to work towards the coming of God’s kingdom in our world now. So maybe that is the work we must being to do.

Prayer

God of Grace, help us to recognize your deep abiding love for each one of us and how each of us has been wonderfully made, just as we are. Help us to see that you don’t require perfection, but rather you ask for our partnership in the world. Give us the wisdom and courage to see that we truly can transform this world so that your kingdom comes, to the here and now, for everyone, not just a select few. We ask all this in name of the one who came to show us the way, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - October 9, 2024

Scripture

Zephaniah 3: 17 - 18

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,     a mighty saviour, Who will rejoice over you with gladness,     and renew you in his love, Who will sing joyfully because of you,    as on festival days.

Reflection

I have sometimes wondered when is enough, enough. There are days when it seems like I have to ask myself, ‘what else can go wrong,’ or ‘now what is going to happen.’ It can be overwhelming sometimes just to deal with what life throws at us. Dr. Barbara Holmes, president emerita of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, as well as former professor of ethics and African American religious studies and vice president of academic affairs at Memphis Theological Seminary, speaks to this challenge and then to what she understood to be God’s response. In recent years she had been struggling with a number of health issues that came up rather suddenly. These challenges forced a long awaited hip operation to be postponed, until they could get the other health concerns under control, or dealt with. She lamented the fact that without that hip operation she might have faced living in a wheelchair. It was at this low time her life that she says she had an encounter with the divine. She says, “It was at that moment that God asked, “May I have this dance?” 

“Dance?” I was outraged. “What do you mean dance? I can’t even walk.” 

And the answer came back, “Your spirit knows the steps. Breathe, relax, breathe.”  

It was this moment that she was able to let go of all of her fears, all of the ‘what ifs’ that had been swirling around in her mind and to just be in presence of God dancing to music that she, nor God, could hear, but she already knew the steps.

The reading from Zephaniah speaks to this divine dance. Zephaniah is a very short, only 3 chapters long, book in Hebrew scriptures. In the first two chapters of this book, God is complaining against the people because of their worship of idols, deification of sun, moon, and stars, and self-sufficiency so complete that there’s no need to depend on God. This was a very desolate time for the people of God, who seemed to have lost their way. It is at this point, this point of destruction that God comes as that mighty saviour. In this little book God goes from lamenting the destruction of the people to dancing and singing. How can we know that God dances? In Hebrew, the word for joy literally means to become so excited to be dancing like a whirlwind, or dancing with such abandon that the only way to describe it would be as a whirlwind. We don’t usually translate that Hebrew word in that way, it is usually translated as joy. The reality is that it is much more, it is a dance of pure abandon and the scripture from Zephaniah assures us that God is singing and dancing, twirling, excitedly, with pure abandon. I sometimes wonder if it is us who forget to dance?

In midst of all of the trials, stresses, and challenges of life, maybe it is us who forget to dance. Sometimes it I wonder if we get so bogged down with all of the challenges of life, we allow them to overshadow everything in our lives, that we don’t even recognize that God is calling us back to that divine dance of love. Maybe it is because there are times in our lives when we don’t feel worthy of being a part of that dance. Maybe it is because we become so focused on the negative in our lives that to even think of being a part of God’s dance of love is unimaginable at that moment. Maybe we are just so tires of things always going wrong that we don’t realize that in God’s dance we might just be strengthened and renewed in God’s love. There may be so many reasons why we don’t hear God’s call to us to ‘come and dance with me.’ Yet, even when we can’t hear that call, it is there. I remember reading an anonymous quote that was written on a wall in an interment camp; “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I don’t feel it. I believe in God even when he is silent.” I wonder if maybe it is us who cannot hear God in the midst of all of the struggles of life. Yet, we are still called to join in God’s dance, the dance that as Dr. Holmes says is as simple as ‘breathe, relax, breathe.” So let us join in God’s dance for God is calling each of us, in the midst of the pain, sorrow, loss, and struggles of live, God is calling us to come and be in the presence of my love, join my dance and I will be with you always. To join the divine dance of God’s love, even in the midst of the challenges can be difficult but to breathe, relax and breathe again, to be a part of the dance, might just give us the courage, the strength, to continue on and face life again. Let us all join the dance and God’s exuberant love will carry us forward.

Prayer

God of the dance, we ask for the courage to join you in the divine dance, even when we are feeling overwhelmed by life. Open our ears that we might hear your call. Open our hearts that we might remember the steps, breathe, relax, breathe. Open us to your presence now and always. We ask this in the name of the one who came to dance with us, your son, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - October 2, 2204

Scripture

2Corinthians 12: 9

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  

2Corinthians 12: 10

I am glad for weaknesses, constraints, and distress for Christ’s sake, for it is when I am weak that I am strong.  

Reflection

This reflection is adapted from a reflection from Fr. Richard Rohr from October1, 2024.

In his letters to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul, following Jesus, forever reversed the societal understanding of the importance of one’s ego and of one’s accomplishments, and it is this precise reversal of values—and new entrance point—that challenges our understanding of the world today. It is something that I wonder if many of us struggle with in our own lives. To understand that in our weakness we might just find strength. How do we move from our own sense of importance in our lives to understanding that to let go of ego, to live within our weakness might be where we are to find our strength and our God. St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who became the youngest, least educated, and most quickly designated doctor of the Church, also sought this downward path, which she called “a new way” or her “little way.”  

Thérèse—lovingly called the Little Flower by most Catholics—was right, on both counts, since her way of life was indeed very new for most people and very “little” instead of the usual upward-bound Christian agenda, where we work to do more, be more, acquire more. Doing “all the smallest things and doing them through love” was the goal for Thérèse. The common path of most Christianity by her time had become based largely on perfectionism and legalism, making the good news anything but good or inviting for generations of believers. In order to be a true follower of the good news, one had to live this perfect life, no sin, always aware of the rules and regulations of one’s faith. In order to live in our faith we need to see ourselves as one of those perfect Christians.

Thérèse, almost counter to reason, declared: “If you want to bear in peace the trial of not pleasing yourself, you will give me [the Virgin Mary] a sweet home.”  If you look at ourselves, we come to see how difficult it can be for us to recognize and admit our shortcomings, our faults, and our weaknesses, and it is this, looking at ourselves and seeing all of these, that can and does send many of us into those terribly bad moods without even realizing where that mood’s has come from. In other words if we see our flaws, and our faults we will then find ourselves that place where we see ourselves as being small and unimportant. To resolve this common problem, Thérèse taught to let go of the very need to “think well of yourself” to begin with! “That is your ego talking, not God,” she would say.  

Only someone who has surrendered their own sense of self-importance, their own ego, can do this, of course. Psychiatrist and popular writer Scott Peck told Richard Rohr personally that this quote was “sheer religious genius” on her part, because it made the usual posturing of religion, to be the best, to be perfect, to always be better, well-nigh impossible. It mirrors the teachings from St. Francis of Assissi who had said: “Show your love to others by not wishing that they be better Christians.” 

We can patiently accept not being good. What we cannot bear is not being considered good, not appearing good. Until we discover the “little way,” we almost all try to gain moral high ground by obeying laws and thinking we are thus spiritually advanced. Yet Thérèse wrote, “It is sufficient to recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God’s arms.” People who follow this more humble and honest path are invariably more loving, joyful, and compassionate, and have plenty of time for simple gratitude about everything. To understand that it is  not in perfection that we come to God, but rather in weakness, allows us to discard all of those notions of who we are supposed to be and to rather be who we were created to be.

To let go of the expectation of perfection, to let go of the pressure to not sin, allows us to enter into this ‘little way’ where we love deeper as we are loved deeply for who we truly are, not who we think we need to be, or who the world or our faith tells us we must be. It frees us to discard all of the expectations of the world and know that to love and be loved is what  matters, not whether we followed the correct rules, believed the correct things, or prayed the correct way. The freedom to be ourselves, in all of our weakness, in our brokenness.

I have often spoken of being a broken person, but sometimes I wonder what it  means to be broken, to be weak? There are many ways that I think about brokenness and weakness. We have brokenness and weakness of body, which we can tend to. We have brokenness of relationships, and we often see that as a weakness in ourselves, which sometimes takes time, patience, and distance to repair. Then we have the brokenness and weakness that I often speak about and that is the brokenness of self. It is a brokenness and weakness that can seem to permeate through all of one’s life. It is a brokenness that can be difficult to heal, but sometimes even more difficult to accept in one self. It is in letting go of our ego, our need for perfection, that we come to accept the weakness and brokenness in ourselves. I would like to end with this quote which speaks of the ‘little way’ the way that comes when we accept brokenness and weakness, “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness in the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in the darkness for the light that is you.”

Prayer

God of the ‘little way,’ give us the courage and the wisdom to see ourselves as we truly are, to see our weakness and our brokenness, to let go of our ego. Help us to see that you don’t desire perfection, rather you prefer us, all of us, and in bringing all of us to you, we are loved. Give us the knowledge of your love and in coming into your love we love those around us. We ask this in the  name of the one who came to show us the ‘little way,’ your son, Jesus. Amen.