"Who do you say that I am?" Reflections Sept 16, 2012

Reflections  September 16, 2012

Lectionary Readings:

Proverbs 1:20-33 or Isaiah 50:4-9

Psalm 19 or Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-8:1 or Psalm 116:1-9

James 3:1-12

Mark 8:27-38

"Who do you say that I am?"

The focus of my reflection today is  the Gospel reading, and the one simple question that Jesus asks …..“But who do you say that I am?”

Peter’s answer immediate answer"You are the Messiah" is full of meaning and full of misunderstanding. It would be well worth unpacking and discussing sometime.  

But today I’m noticing that Jesus is asking this question not only of Peter, but of all of the followers.  I wonder what voices Peter’s quick answer has caused to silence? I wonder if Jesus later took time with the slower, quieter folks in the circle, to “listen them into speaking”.

And I wonder what my answer is.  From deep in my soul and from deep in my personal history the first answer, and probably the truest, comes in a song …“the Lord of Love has come to me.”  When I was 17 and well on my way to being a “self-made man” out to change the world, through intellectual prowess, faith in human progress, and a set of excellent self-help books.  Then, just as that way was imploding, God moved very powerfully in the deepest part of my soul, plowing and planting a new seed…Jesus, the author of unconditional love. 

And 36 years later I’m hearing Jesus’ question again “But who do you say that I am?” and my answer is still… love.  It strikes me that this question is about the very nature, essence, and being of Jesus the Christ.  Could it be that the very Author of the Universe (or universes?) has come to us in Jesus, to such a microscopic place and time? Could it be that this God is a God of love who offers to be in and through us? Who as we celebrate communion, says “Eat me up, drink me down, that is how close I want to be to you and you to me.  That is how intimately I want you to invite me into your lives, to transform your very essence.  Yes, Jesus, that is who you are.

Reflections for June 24, 2012

Reflections on the Season                June 24, 2012

From today’s readings ….

1 Samuel 18

…the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

 

Psalm 133

 

¹How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!

²It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.

³It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

Mark 4:40

…“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

I’m going to try to put these readings together and find their connections, to see what we can learn from this seemingly odd amalgam.

Soul friends

On the retreat two weeks ago, we briefly touched on the Celtic Christian practice of anamchara.  Anam in Gaelic means soul and chara (pronounced “kara”) means friend.  An anamchara, then, was a soul friend, one who acted as a spiritual guide, with whom one could discuss all personal matters, ones calling and path, without fear.  In the early Celtic church, all serious followers of Christ were expected to have an anamchara, and the relationship was often one of mutuality.  I think it has great value and I see some glimpses of this being realized in our community life today. But this aspect of Celtic culture is very counter to our culture, I don’t think we need to beat ourselves up and feel bad because we don’t have anything like this kind of a soul friendship. 

Reading the passage from 1 Samuel, I wonder if the relationship being described between Jonathan and David was one of soul-friendship, akin to Celtic anamchara.  I am also struck by how rare this kind of friendship is in our culture today, especially between men.  I’m sure this has a lot to do with the fear of being perceived to be in a homosexual relationship. And men are very busy, and we really don’t put the same high value on this kind of a relationship.  Instead, we tend to have the romantic partner or spouse as the anamchara. 

In any case, Psalm 133 celebrates the fruits of this kind of true deep friendship. “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity”  I read in some more literal translations “when life is lived together like brothers”.  I take it to mean that this  “brother” is like an anamchara. In Living Hope Fellowship, there has been a weekly meeting of women, sharing deeply as friends, for years.  The men have just now started a monthly meeting, and I just learned of another small group of men starting a similar circle of friendship, both very courageous and positive signs.

Jesus as soul friend

The Gospel reading thrown into this discussion at first seems out of place.  Jesus in a boat calming the storm-raged lake?  Yet after we go through the usual questions about miracles and the physics of wind and waves, I think we are invited to move into the deeper questions of why we are afraid, who this Peacemaker really is to us.  I am immediately reminded of a complementary verse: “There is no fear in love.  Perfect love drives out fear”. 1 John 4:18.  As your love for God and inner focus on the living Christ becomes perfected in this life, you will experience ever greater freedom from fear, and have fewer fear-based reactions, and more love-based reactions.  When we are enveloped in that love, makes it much easier to be soul friends to each other.  Maybe even between….men!

Blessings,

John+

I love grapes! Easter 5

Reflections   Easter 5

Acts 8:26-40,  Psalm 22:25-31,  1 John 4:7-21,

 John 15:1-8

”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Grapes may be my favorite fruit.  They can be sweet or tart, easy to eat a handful or just one or two.   Their variety is legendary.  Both the grapes and the wine made from them seem to yield a kaleidoscope of flavors.    

My commentary on the Gospel is the following personal allegory.  About five years ago we planted three vine stocks under a trellis, with the plan to have table grapes in a few years.  We knew it would take at least two seasons before the stumps would grow a central vine and the vine produce fruiting branches.  We had a general idea that the vines would need to be tended, trained up the trellis, and pruned, but that would be much later.  That same year we planted three dwarf fruit trees, lilacs and a lot of ornamentals around the yard.  Then three years went by.  In the summer, we noticed the mass of gangly vines that had found their way up the trellis and over on to the plum tree and across the garden gate so that we could hardly open it!  The few grape bunches that were produced were inedible. They were small and did not ripen well, and molded.  But it was summer, and we were afraid to cut anything until the vines were dormant in the winter.  Then busy winters came and went and we were not outside noticing the vine at that time.  Finally, this year, in January, we put a day for pruning on our calendars, found instructions for pruning, and did it.  We filled up our wheel barrow, leaving only six branches per central vine.  We’ll see what the vine and branches produce this summer.

What strikes me about today’s Gospel reading is how much God wants to love us, for us to be engrafted in the life and purposes of God.  And to produce good quality fruit.   In the letter to the Galatian church we read that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (5:22).  The monastic movements through the ages, including the one we are involved in, are defined by a certain singularity, allowing God to prune away that which is secondary, to allow what is primary to be fed and grow -- to be more fully alive and fruitful in God’s vine. 

Knowing and Believing, Easter 2 April 15, 2012

Believing and Knowing

 

Today's readings include  this passage at the very end of  the Gospel of John, when the risen Christ Jesus appears to the disciples:

 

²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” ³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.   John 22:29-31

 

This connects directly with what I have been thinking about all week - believing and knowing.  How to we, who have not seen "come to believe", and what does that mean?  Is there a difference between knowing and believing?  These questions have been bouncing around in my head like beebees in a boxcar.  Help me think this through.

 

"Believing" and "knowing" is a strong theme in the Gospel of John. The Greek word we translate as "believe" occurs 10 times in Matthew and Mark, 9 times in Luke, but 99 times in John!  Translation from one language and culture to another is always tricky, and translation across millenia is trickiness with stilts on.  The word seems to have several colors of meaning, just as "believe" can have in English.  From what I read in the on-line lexicons and my Vine's dictionary, it is often used to mean to be persuaded of, confident in or entrusting oneself to an ideal or a person.  It is more than mere intellectual agreement.  There is a deeper personal entrusting involved.  At this moment, my son Lucas is struggling to write an 8th grade essay, and I just said "Look, I really believe in you".  He understood immediately that I had made a strong, emphatic statement that I had confidence in his abilities.  Believing, in its most common English useage at least, can have a tentative ring to it. In a continuoum toward certainty, I wonder, then postulate, believe, am nearly certain, am certain.  Not sure if it does or not in the Greek of John's gospel (1).  Believing also has an act of will associated with it.  You often choose to believe something or someone (2).

 

It seems that "kinowing" is related to believing, but has several distintives that set it apart.  Knowing involves an experience, as in knowing a place or a person's face.  It often involves a relationship, and the communication that goes with it. Knowing is not nearly as much an act of will as is believing.  I had very little choice, if any, in most of the things and people I know best:  my family I of origin or my hometown.  My best friends really just appeared on the scene.  In the case of my spouse, when we were courting there was a palpable sense that we were being carried along by something (Someone) much bigger than both of us.  Yes, we chose to have children, but these particular young souls that I love so and am getting to know were beyond my choosing.

 

Earlier in John's gospel, some disciples who have been walking with Jesus exclaim  "for we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God"  John 6:69

I love this passage because it puts believing and knowing together.  I love it too for the "we" in there - this does not need to be a solo flight.  

 

In that verse there appears to be a movement from believing to knowing.  The way I "came to believe", to know Jesus as the Holy One, entrusted  with the whole of my life, happened in almost the reverse direction.  I was singing in a youth chorus, as I had done many times, singing "the Lord of love has come to me", as I had done before, kind of mouthing the words, but really believing much of it. That is when I had a all-encompassing experience of the loving presence of God.  While I was not sure what had happened or what it meant, that experience was a kind of knowing and being known that spurred me on to learn more, experience more, and gradually to come to believe, by which I mean an ongoing entrusting of myself to God, to God's purpose and path.  It is much more than an intellectual agreement, it is a relationship, and experience that "I know that I know that I know".

 

Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, our little house church Living Hope Fellowship me at our place and we asked "What difference has the resurrected Christ made in your life?".  Several folks shared their personal stories. Some were of deeply moving and dramatic Presence, others of the love of God known during dreams.  Others,  like Tolstoy's cobbler, had experienced the living Christ in other people.  There was truly a variety of experience (3), and a variety of ways of knowing (4).

  

It has been said that the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all (5).  I think this means that in this age the old paradigms of knowing as "children of the church", or by mere systems of belief and arguments, will no longer be sufficient to support a living faith.  Mystical experiences of the presence of the living Christ, which feed us at the level of heart and soul will be critical to life as Christian (6) (7).  I am sensitive to those whose ways of believing and knowing are different than the "mysical" and who may see that these mystical  sxperiences exclude them.  I wonder if this was precisely what the Gospel of John was getting at with" Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe".  Blessed are those that have not had  dramatic, emotional experiences or gut-level unmistakeable encounters with the Holy, and yet have come to entrust their lives to the risen Christ.  It is my conviction that there is room for both, and more, in the house.

 

Blessed also are those that read long posts from those that hardly know of what they write. If you have made it this far, I'd love for this post to generate discussion, disagreement, lively sharing of stories etc.  What say you?

 

Have a good night,

 

John

 

 

 

Notes:

(1) OK, by way of full disclosure, if any were necessary, when it comes to N.T. Greek, or much else N.T. I am a total hack.  Its almost as bad as, say, letting an engineer do theology..er, um..oops.

 

(2) In writing this, I came accross a foundational essay by William James, "The Will to Believe", in the category of the ethics of belief. Worth a read.

 

(3) another nod to William James: "The Varieties of Religious Experience"

 

(4) I came to know a little bit about ways of knowing through the Lindisfarne School of Theology.  We touched on the Harvard study of Women's Ways of Knowing. 

 

(5) Karl Rahner

 

(6)  I came across a nice blog that moves the discussion into the value of the spiritual disciplines:  http://www.ethicsdaily.com/why-future-christians-will-be-mystics-cms-19254-printer

 

(7) I wonder if theorder of knowing and believing is akin to the human emotional response in general, like "William James' bear" (Google it) (another nod to that guy..what is going on...is it his birthday or something?...seems to be hanging around here a lot, maybe even in the spiritual sense : )

Reflections March 18, 2012

Reflections on the Season                                       Lent 4  March 18, 2012

Today’s readings are

Numbers 21:4-9, Psalm 107, Ephesians 2:1-10, and John 3:14-21

Today’s readings are all about healing and grace, but also raise some deep questions. There are many aspects to these readings that could be studied, like the historical roots of the bronze snake having antidotal power against the real snake’s poison (Numbers).  We could also discuss the notion where the notion of hell came from, and especially how those ideas of hell contrast with the Gospel and life of Jesus Christ.  Those discussions certainly have their time and place, and I’m sure could bear good fruit.  But this morning I want to respond to the Gospel on a very personal level.  I am asking God to help me put those great intellectual questions to the side for a few moments, and quiet my thoughts. You’re invited too. I am picturing a day like yesterday, when I sat outside with friends and we laughed as the incredibly warm sunlight bathed us and made us giddy.  I can almost feel the heat of the sun on my back now.  Like being immersed in that warm light and feeling it to the core, I want to sense with all of my being God’s grace.  That God knows, accepts and loves me, just as I am, without my needing to work for that love, or think the right thoughts for it, or say the right words.  Grace.  To be bathed in that awesome love so that I know that love to my very core. And to know that God’s desire, like the sunlight, is not just for me, but for all, the whole world.

And that is all.

John+

Reflections Feb 26, 2012 Creation Care

Reflections on the Season                                       Lent 1   February 26, 2012

Today’s readings are

Genesis 9:8-17, Psalm 25:1-10, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15

Imagine you’re college student and have signed up for a course called “ecology of snakes and amphibians in western Florida”.    I said “imagine”.   Then you find out that the “lab” in this course will consist of several weekend field trips.  You will be experiencing the tangled vine and mangrove wetlands and their inhabitants first-hand...in the water…mostly at night.  Hold that image for just a minute while we look at the readings for this week. 

The readings start with the legend of the great flood, Noah’s ark, and God’s blessing of every creature:  "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."

The Gospel reading is another water story:  In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild animals; and the angels waited on him.

The Epistle connects the two stories in a reading that may have been part of an early church baptism ritual:  “And baptism, which this (the ark) prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…”

Now back to the swamps of Florida.  My daughter called from college last week in exactly this situation.  Her concern, however, was how to pay for the wetsuit and headlamp.  She couldn’t wait to get off campus and into the water.  Her passion is for saving as much precious wetland habitat as possible, and protecting the lives of each native species in them.  Her passion is shared by a large and rapidly growing number of young people around the globe.  There is an ark-like quality to the nature preserves and marine set-asides and humans-in-habitat projects multiplying around the globe.  It is interesting that the sciences of ecology and psychology now understand what the ancient story of the Ark is saying:  the human species really can’t live without the rest of Creation.  We can read the Gospel story “against the grain” of the usual interpretation of the wilderness as a fearful testing place.  Of course it is fearful for those of us who are separate from it and don’t know it.  But the Spirit moved Jesus right into that holy place of wild creatures, the undomesticated and free.    For growing number of Christians,  re-reading the Ark story, knowing an undomesticated Jesus  and experiencing the fullness of baptism means taking on God’s care of creation as a central tenant of faith.   

All I want to know is, are cottonmouth snakes nocturnal?

John+

Notes:

 Interfaith Power and Light, Green Cross, and Creation Care are just three examples of networks of Christians living to put this faith into action. 

Reflections on the Season, Feb 5, 2012

Reflections on the Season                                       Epiphany 5    February 5, 2012

Today’s readings are

Isaiah 40:21-31, Psalm 147:1-11, 20c, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23,  Mark 1:29-39

Isaiah says

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?  The One who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because God is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

And the Psalm  says

¹Praise you God! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for God is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.

²God builds up Jerusalem; and gathers the outcasts of Israel.

³God heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.

⁴God determines the number of the stars; and gives to all of them their names.

My son, Lucas, got us into astronomy.  We gave him a telescope a few years ago, and have  identified the various “seas” on the surface of the moon and viewed the row of tiny lights lined up either side of a brighter dot …the moons of Jupiter!    Every time I slow down to really see, it is truly awe-inspiring.  It makes me yearn to praise God, and not just myself, together as a community, to worship in awe and wonder -- “There’s a song that’s inside of my soul; it’s the one that I’ve tried to write over and over again”.¹

But I have trouble praising God freely, wildly, openly, publicly, deeply, and truly.  And from the tenor of many worship services and gatherings I’ve been part of over the last ten years or so, I wonder if many of us are somehow impeded from praising God.  There are a number of issues here 1) First off, we’re busy with important must-do tasks, and praising and worshiping God just does not get much done. Part of a psalm or a couple of songs are ok, but more would really be a “royal waste of time”².   2) I think enthusiastic praise and deep worship are somehow (in the U.S. at least) associated with right-wing political, moral majority evangelical fundamentalism, and we in no way want to look like or be otherwise associated with that kind of thing.  3) Losing ourselves in praise takes and certain kind of humility and letting go of self-sufficiency, and that’s never easy 4) Wait, is there really a God who names stars, anyway? Seems like a quaint anachronism to many (more on that in a later blog).  5) Then there is also the problem of how to do communal worship when we have so many various styles of worship.  It is risky to lead worship where one person’s great experience is another’s fingernails on the chalkboard.

My point is that it is no wonder our worship may be lacking in depth and length, zest and vigor.  It takes courage to be in praise and worship these days.  But as Matthew Fox points out “Courage is the first sign of the Spirit. It is the root of all the other virtues.”

Well, I am not often very courageous. But I do have this question:  if a few of us were to en-courage each other, could we water the seeds of the Spirit to expand and deepen our worship together? God invites us to respond to God’s love with extravagant praise.  I would value a conversation about what you make of my reflections today.  How  can we overcome the impediments and find a way?  What are you finding as positive group worship practices? 

John+

Notes:

¹ Song “Only Hope”  by Switchfoot

²A Royal “Waste” of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World.   Marva J. Dawn.   Eerdmans Press, 1999.