Here ends our Reading

Read any portion of Jesus' journey in Jerusalem from chapter 19 onward. Chapters 22 +23 depict his Passion.

Well, friends: we have reached our destination: Jerusalem. And I have some thoughts to share on the Lenten journey we've been taking here online and at Hope as well.

1) As for the blog...this was a fascinating project. In the last few days, I have not been posting ahead of schedule as I did in the beginning. But in the weeks when I was on the ball, it was an amazing thing to be writing about the lectionary, planning for worship and midweek services, preparing sermons, and encountering our parishioners. Writing that much on the Word shaped how I interpreted my experience as one of your leaders and it gave me space to have insights I could then carry into church. I will continue to write something on-line or otherwise in the weeks ahead to stay sharp and in tune with the Holy Spirit.

2) I read a lovely essay by a scholar who I now cannot recall (maybe Melinda Quivik on workingpreacher.org) who cast the Lenten readings this year as stories about the collision of different kinds of power. And it was these conflicts that brought Jesus to the cross. She named Jesus vs. the Devil, Herod's oppressive rule vs. the sacrificial grace of the mother hen, Mary' discipleship vs. Judas' betrayal. Which side do we come down on? Jesus went to the cross freely to guarantee the answer to that question.

3) Today I read over my evaluations from Lenten participants who gave me feedback on the series. I encountered something wildly surprising. The one commonality among nearly every evaluation was the appreciation of silence. How amazing is that? I never would have suspected that would be the experience people responded to the most. That tells me that the congregation is hungry for the presence of God and that is a beautiful thing. I've also noticed recently that our members are hungry for the Word. I've encountered real craving for more unmediated encounters with scripture and questions of scripture in recent days. That too tells me there is hunger. And as I said a couple sermons ago, there is nothing Jesus loves better than a hungry human being.

4) I wish you a blessed and peaceful Holy Week. I look forward to our coming declaration of new life. Thank you for your participation and insights. If you want to tell me how this devotional format worked for you and how you used the postings, email me at internpastor@yahoo.com.

Your Sister in Christ,

I. Pastor Amy

Let us pray: God of mystery, we give thanks for the space you have made in us to greet you again and again in our lives. Strengthen and enliven us in the coming days that we might worthily magnify your Holy Name. Amen

Resisting One's Own Power

Read again Philippians 2:5-11.

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited..." (verse 5).

This whole hymn is one of those pieces of scripture that has been formative for me. I had a small obsession with the Christians mystics ten or so years ago which was fueled by this very notion of self-emptying. The trouble though was that I found it impossible to achieve the kind of self-emptied state of being my mystical tutors seemed to reach. I think having a child and rock climbing when it involves sheer terror were the closest I ever got to releasing my self-awareness.

Now though, what catches me, what I wish I could model well is this idea of resisting the drive to exploit other people. In every aspect of my life, I am aware of my power to abuse my authority in an effort to get what I want, even if it's the best thing for the other person. It's easy to exploit my size and role over my daughter. It's easy to exploit the power a loved one gives me to manipulate my way to a desired end. And I'm ever mindful that although I am an intern, I've been given power. How do I use it? It's unpopular for Lutherans to look at living Christ-like lives. More than unpopular, it's discouraged as inconsistent with some of our beliefs. But there's something to be said for looking to God for some guidelines in loving other people, knowing full well we will fail sometimes. Christian life is wildly counter-cultural and goes against so many of our expectations. What would it look like if we all gave up our power?

Reflection

• How do you resist exploiting your power over your circles of influence?
• Are there aspects of Christ Jesus you make a conscious effort to incorporate into your daily living?

Prayer

God, we pray for strength and wisdom, especially in the days ahead. Help us to receive the gift of your death and new life, to know you more fully. Amen

Humility and Understanding

Read Philippians 2:5-11.

"And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross." (verse 7b-8).

A relative of mine just returned from a truth and reconciliation mission in a section of war-ravaged Africa. He is young and has seen things and heard stories that many of us may not be able to fathom. As you might imagine for a young guy with ideals and a generally positive attitude regarding human nature, he was pretty challenged overseas. He came home deeply cynical and is at a loss with how to frame this experience he has had.

I went through something similar in my early twenties. I preached about it a little last fall when I talked about the hope of apocalyptic literature, its bend toward justice, and how that meant something to me working in a huge urban high school where the forgotten were taught and harnessed from the streets. Lucky for me I had Kathleen Norris and Thomas Merton to put into theological terms human suffering. I remember reading a story about a murdered girl in Central America who died a horrible death, a martyr's death, and with the name of Jesus on her lips. Kathleen Norris speaks about her in her book The Cloister Walk. This episode was my insight into the point of the cross. IT'S STILL HAPPENING!! Jesus is crucified all the time. So if that's true, God takes every meaningless death and places it within a bigger story of the powerless and resurrection. My relative has no notion of saint and sinner or the redemption made possible by Jesus Christ, or even the idea of incarnate love which burned inside of him in Africa. I trust he's going to find a way though. I am thankful that when I seemed to need it, the self-emptying and humbling love of God made itself clear.

Reflection

• When have you found yourself living out a Bible passage or story?
• How do you make sense of seemingly meaningless loss of life?

Prayer

God of wonders who humbled yourself for us, how we need you and your ways with us to order our world. Be with us in our moments of doubt and temptation. Draw us to you when we find ourselves lost. This we ask in your Holy Name, Amen

The Word on Jesus' Mouth

Read Psalm 31:9-16.

"Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love" (verse 16)

Now go back and read the first nine verses. Do any of those words sound familiar? (I wonder why the lectionary selects out the first eight verses?) For a long time, I didn't realize that in scripture, when a short verse is quoted like Jesus quoting a line from a psalm, it is taken to mean he recited the whole psalm. So what does it mean that Jesus spoke all these words from the cross? Many things maybe. One - the psalms were Jesus' prayerbook, the words instilled in him in his Jewish upbringing, words to call upon in times of deep distress. Scripture was in his bones and blood. Two -- Jesus knows what it means to suffer as a human being, to spiral down in despair, to approach death, to feel the abandonment of others. And three -- maybe we are meant to hear Jesus' faith in God even as he depicts his crucifixion in such humiliating and horrifying terms. What does it mean to affirm life when surrounded by terror and alienation?

The language of the psalms is sometimes shocking. I sometimes find myself wondering if I experience things as deeply as these psalms portray human emotion. I'm kind of a head person anyway, so I would ask myself that. They are unsettling and I remind myself often that even if I myself cannot identify in full with such stark and sad words, someone somewhere can.

Reflection

• How does it change the psalm for you to imagine Jesus breathing these last words on the cross?
• In times of struggle and suffering, how has your faith been challenged or affirmed or both?

Prayer

Gracious God, give us the wisdom and the courage to declare life in our moments of isolation and death. We give thanks for your Word, the Word that nourishes us and connects us to you when You seem the most far away. We pray in the name of your precious Son, Jesus. Amen

Making sense of the Servant Songs

Read Isaiah 50:4-9a again.

"I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard..." (verse 6)

I have always had trouble with the Servant Songs. In part because I don't like to think that such suffering is a requirement of the Christian life. That's because too often in history, people who suffer needlessly (like abused women) have made sense of their situations by framing it as their call. Sometimes the call is to get out of the suffering. A professor reminded me once that Jesus is the only one called to suffer. Sometimes we as human beings suffer as a result of this broken world, but it was not God's intention for us.

I also have trouble with the Servant Songs in Isaiah because the debate is open on whether or not they refer to Jesus Christ; there is an ongoing scholarly debate as to the identity of the Servant. Was it a prediction of Jesus or not? We'll never know. I tend to subscribe to the notion that it was not because I went to a Jewish university and was trained on these texts by Rabbis rather than Christian scholars. BUT, this is the thing...I see these songs as the soil out of which the seed of our Messiah grew up. This poetry of the Old Testament is the nutrients with which we understand Christ. So whether or not these Isaiah passages actually predict the coming of Christ, I'm not sure it even matters because even if it were NOT specific to Jesus, what it says is truthful when it comes to the overall picture of how God works. God takes suffering and turns it into vindication. God calls us to places where we are likely to struggle. The call of discipleship often comes at a great personal cost. God takes what is weak and uses it in unexpected and amazing ways. And this song is one aspect of earthen soil from which our Messiah as seed, sprouted and grew. This is just my take and there a good many who would disagree. What do you make of these songs?

Reflection

• Scriptural poetry like this deals in humiliation. What unsettles you or strengthens you in these lines?
• Who is called to suffer?

Prayer

God who suffered willingly for us, we give our unending thanks for your walk before us so that in our own days of trial and pain, we know you went first. In the name of your Son, Amen.

Thinking About the Poor Again.

Read Isaiah 50:4-9a.

"The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher..." (verse 4)

So as a teacher, I am always rethinking things, playing things over to see how I can improve something. I'm not going to talk about Isaiah for the moment because I've been thinking about Jesus' statement on the poor I wrote about Saturday. I couldn't shake that line even though I didn't preach on it. I read a short and cogent discussion of this line in Sundays and Seasons and the argument went like this: Jesus says the poor will always be with the disciples because that is where Christians are called to be. This idea just blew my mind, not because it is complex and "deep" but because it is so obvious once you read it that way. And it puts me in touch with the place inside of me that wonders what the point of my life is...in a good way. Am I with the poor, not the spiritualized poor, but the real poor?

Reflection

• Where does your call take you?
• Is there somewhere you long to be in communion with the poor but find your circumstances constrain you?

Prayer

Gracious God, we give thanks for your honesty, for reminders of our special reality as Christians. Help us to fulfill our call to the poor. Give us strength through your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Strange Final Words

Read again John 12:1-8.

"You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." (v. 8)

What a strange and sobering remark. How are we meant to take this statement from Jesus? I read the story to my husband whose lack of churchedness makes him a fabulous person to ask for first impressions. Before I could ask him what he thought, he said, "Huh," as in, that's interesting. I asked him to elaborate on the "huh," and he noted the oddity of the last remark by Jesus. "What do you hear him saying?" My husband responded, "I think he said that it's okay I want to get a porche and have a little self-indulgence once in awhile." I can't say I was convinced.

We spoke more about it and what really struck him as the central point was the depravity of Judas. Judas does what plenty of people do: he uses the poor for his own ends. But just what does that final remark mean; how are we to understand this statement? As a diminishment of the poor -- not likely even though it can read that way. As a reminder of reality to open our eyes to the invisible who accompany us? I don't really know. Maybe you do. I will say this however: this is not self-indulgence on Mary's part. It's hardly retail therapy or a mid-life crisis purchase. There is something else going on here around love of God and suffering and in the next few chapters, about footwashing as well.

Reflection

• What do you hear in this story? What do you make of this last line?
• What parts of you are like Judas? What parts are like Mary?

Prayer

Gracious God, receive our mourning and our outpouring of love. Know that we accompany you just as you do us through these trials. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen

The Big Story

Read John 12:1-8.

"Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. " (v. 3)

Here's what I notice this week...

1) I recommend reading this passage within the context of the whole Lazarus cycle and continuing to the gates of Jerusalem. The full force of Mary's act as well as the emotional tenor comes across in the wider context.

2) A pound of nard is an unbelievable amount of perfume. Think about the size of your pocket lip balm and imagine a pound of scented ointment. From the first miracle John describes when Jesus turned water into more wine imaginable for a wedding, this story reminds us of God's abundant gifts. Even on the eve of Jesus' ill-fated passage into Jerusalem, God's presence is marked by the experience of the overflowing, the more-than-enough, the filled.

3) This is the last meal before Jesus enters Jerusalem. It holds the foreshadow of death as well as the promise of resurrection. This is the delicate balance we carry into our own Holy Week travels.

4) The story reminds me of my first confirmation student. Many moon ago, I was a mentor to a student who didn't want to be confirmed in the church because already at fourteen years of age, she was highly suspect of institutional power. She was particularly wise to the ways of the church against women over the many centuries. Nonetheless, she agreed to go through with the program despite her skepticism. Funnily enough, she was one of the best proclaimers of the good news I have ever known. In the spring of her junior year, not long after Easter, her grandmother fell ill. On one of the family visits, her mother spent an afternoon washing her grandmother, tending to her infirmities, and beautifying the room where she was recovering. My student was there, helping her mother care for her grandmother. On the way home later that day, they received a phone call to say that her grandmother had passed. Her mother kept saying over and over again in her grief, "I can't believe I was just there, I just bathed her and brushed her hair an hour ago." My student remarked quietly from the back seat of the car, "Mom, you were anointing her." It was only a few weeks since we had heard this story of Mary and Jesus in church. With a few gentle words, she placed her mother's suffering in the big story. Her mother told me about it later, and how she suddenly saw so much beauty and a divine hand in the events of that sad and terrible day. She was at once stricken and utterly amazed.

Reflection

• When have you experienced the big story like my student did?
• Is there a Bible story you have found yourself playing out at one time or another?

Prayer

God of life and death, keeper of mysteries, you bless us in our passages. And you send us the Word sometimes from likely prophets, at other times, from unlikely proclaimers. We give thanks for the shape you give our lives. Amen

Patterns of New Life

Read Philippians 4b-11.

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings..." (v. 11)

Each week when I sit down with the appointed lectionary readings, my favorite bit of analysis is trying to imagine why the four readings (1st, psalm, 2nd, and gospel) are lumped together: what's the relationship between them? Sometimes it is obvious; other times, not so obvious. On our final Sunday before Palm Sunday when we reenact Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem to meet his death, we hear not just of his friend, Mary's tears and anointing, but of the resurrection. We heard of it first in Isaiah as God watered the deserts, then again as the tears of sorrow turned to joy as the harvest comes home. Again, we greet it in Philippians as St. Paul discerns between the old ways of empowering oneself to righteousness and the way of living in righteousness by belief in the resurrection. (Notice the willingness with which he accepts sufferings as a path to new life.) On Sunday we will hear of Jesus' death as he sits down to a meal beside Lazarus whom he raised from the dead. Amidst Mary's tears, on the eve of his arrest, the stories buoy us with the hope of resurrection.

Reflection

• What patterns do you discern between these readings? Do you listen for these kinds of inter-textual themes ever?
• How do you make sense out of verse 9?

Prayer

O Lord, hear our prayer: help us to keep our hearts hopeful through the final days of our travels and your passion. Keep us ever confident in the power of resurrection. These things we ask in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen

Openings

Read Psalm 126.

As I come to scripture this week, it seems there can be no better words for us at Hope Lutheran. Our farewell worship on Sunday morning lived the thrust of this psalm: our tears of good-bye and loss might be turned into a harvest of joy as it is so named in my Harper Collins Study Bible. Our worship held this complexity of emotion. As in Isaiah, with this Psalm, we are steeped in the lush imagery of watercourses and desert growth. What will Hope harvest in the years to come? I hope it is a faithful people.

In Pastor Carl's absence, I have taken over the duties of teaching confirmation. I will stray from the specifics of Psalm 126 now, but not from the issue of learning how to listen to the Bible. When I sit down to think about my objectives for a particular teaching session, I always think in terms in of my agenda. And there are two kinds of teaching agendas: an obvious agenda, like learning the definition of church and exploring one's gifts, and a not-so-apparent latent agenda. In the case of confirmation (and everything I teach in church), my agenda is to teach how to listen to scripture, not just what is in scripture. So on Sunday night, I read 1 Corinthians 12 to the students and I invited them to notice words and phrases that stuck in them just like I've directed adults to listen for Wednesday night Lenten services. This was the funny thing -- before I read, I would say, "Okay, focus because I'm beginning right now..." And in that silent pause before I would begin, I could hear my own heartbeat for all the waiting for God's word. It was amazing. Maybe it seemed profound because it was a room of junior highers. Regardless, that was holy listening. May we bring that kind of spirit to all our devotions and receive the Word of life.

Reflection

• How do you read the Bible?
• What helps you to read scripture and really hear it?

Prayer

God of our consolation, thank you for the words of life that stir our souls brining life to what is stagnant, movement to what is stuck, joy to what is sorrowful, and peace to what is conflicted. Amen

The Here and Now

Reread Isaiah 43:16-21.

For such simple and beautiful exhortations, this passage is full of moments to dwell on. Today

I notice two more things among others.

1) Building on St. Paul's claim that in Christ there is a new creation, this week, we are again told that God is doing a new thing. As we approach Holy Week and Easter, our lectionary readings move from recounting ancestral promises to claims of new life. We are closer all the time to our destination in God. So close we can say the promises are being fulfilled here and now.

2) The prophet exhorts his exiled people to release their memory. Do not remember former things, he urges, for remembering the old can limit our perception of the new thing rising up in our midst. How do our memories and former ways of being stop us from becoming new? What can't we detect because we are caught up in the past? This was the point of Moses dieing before entering the promised land: no one with any bodily memory of bondage would enter Canaan for how quickly the oppressed can become revolutionary agents of slavery. From the most personal of relationships to the largest of worldly institutions, this is the rub: how to honor and learn from our history without it cutting off the shoots of new growth. Isaiah reminds us that God will use the living water to extinguish our memory of the Egyptian chariots and armies that pursue us out of the past and haunt our present.

If we simply move through the events of Holy Week as a remembrance, we will miss the new thing. If Good Friday is little more than a commemoration of the past, we will miss the new thing. Jesus' death is our permission and encouragement to allow ourselves to die and Easter is our rising. How might we live the events of Holy Week in the present?

Reflection

• How will you observe Holy Week this year? What will you bring to the Last Supper and to the Cross?
• What new thing do you perceive in your midst? What new thing do you pray for?

Prayer

God of living water, as ever, we offer up our deepest thanks for the newness your create. You release us from the troubles of the past. We pray for the ability to perceive or freedom. This we ask in your Holy Name, Amen

Disengagement

Read Isaiah 43:16-21.

Well if I was thirsty before I read this passage, I certainly am no longer. Just as Lenten lectionary readings are loaded with images of food to feed us in our fast, so also we receive the living waters of God in our desert sojourn. We are overwhelmed with historical images of seas and awash in the new watercourses that refresh the whole of creation including us, God's chosen people.

As I sit with these bold words, I am wondering what it means to be dry. We talk about that in faith-speak sometimes. There are desert times and there are times of lush growth. There are mountain peaks, valleys, and level plains. What does the dry, level plain look like for me?

When I look back on my life, I would have to say it's NOT been those times of tragedy or struggle or loss. Those times have been fruitful despite their challenges. When I've faced the suffering of other people, I again would say those times are awash in God's presence. That is after all the point of the Incarnation -- Christ in the suffering flesh. And there have been too obvious times of new life. I guess I would have to say then that to be dry is to be disengaged. I find myself thirsty when I am isolated from real life, the real life that is moving or hurting, or honest and charged. When daily living starts to look all the same, when I no longer really know people, when I think no new thoughts or miss the extraordinary details of each day, life is dry. And that's kind of inevitable. If it weren't, we wouldn't need Isaiah.

I know Lent is suppose to be a desert time full of fasting and discipline and simplicity and forgiveness. Desert is may be, but dry? I'm not so sure.

Reflection

• When do you feel spiritually dry?
• What helps to refresh you?

Prayer

Holy One, you renew us with fresh streams in the wilderness. You provide for our wandering souls and set the track toward our home, you Son, our God, Amen

Looking for the New in an Old Story

Read Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32.

This is a rich story for most people even with mild Bible literacy. It's just so utterly close to human experience. The idea of the son traveling to a far off land rings of fairy tale speak, but very quickly the story hits us close as we hear of this lost and foundness of our prodigal friend and the challenging emotions of each family member. The struggle for me as I read is to hear something surprising or fresh -- here is what struck me this week.

1) Jesus eats with sinners as a sign of reconciliation. We've been talking about that in church since Advent when we began looking at Luke's special eye toward food and forgiveness. We looked at it earlier this week in Joshua. The first Passover feast in the land marked the promise kept to the people Israel. We've been talking about it on Wednesday nights during Lent. So it is with the Prodigal Son. A banquet celebrates return and belonging. (Dennis Tucker points this out too on workingpreacher.org)

2) For the first time, I noticed the Prodigal Son never even has the chance to speak his words of regret to his father before forgiveness is granted -- before the son is able to influence the gift with his own words. I find this a relief, in part because this indicates a kind of true gift of reconciliation. It's not dependent upon the diplomacy of the son. There are no conditions. I'm also relieved because coming home out of bodily hunger is a little less desirable in my opinion, than coming home because you love and miss your family. It grates me a little to hear the son speak of the bounty of his home when he is need of food so I'm relieved he doesn't speak again before the father finds him. But maybe that's the point of being found. Maybe he didn't know just how lost he was until he arrived home.

Reflection

• There is so much to imagine in this story, so much to supply with the stories of own lives. How has this story touched you?
• In reading it again, is there something you see that is brand new?

Prayer

We thank you, Holy One, for the gift of story, the stories of the Bible, the stories of our lives, and the big story of which we are all a part: life, death, and new life through your Son, Jesus. Amen

A Day in the Life of...

Read 2 Corinthians 5:16-21.

I'm going to offer up a personal reflection on this short passage from St. Paul. It's been an emotional twenty-four hours for me. Last night I participated in a thoroughly engaging discussion with Pastor Russ and Pastor Carl on the Feeding of the 5,000 for our Lenten series. I was worried all day that we would come across sounding like Bible geeks and say very little of relevance to your every day lives. But much to my delight, everyone was right into the story with us. It confirmed this feeling I have lately that instead of being a parish sponge, absorbing the workings and ongoing life of Hope Lutheran, I am now spending more time giving to that life with my fledgling pastoral skills. As I face life at our church without Pastor Carl, I can rejoice in Paul's words that everything is becoming new including my very own self. Which brings me to Pastor Carl...

After Lenten worship, I was whisked into our council meeting where Pastor Carl offered his exit interview. It was reflective and emotional particularly for our founding members and full of promise for the future. Everyone felt the bittersweet nature of his departure. Jerrie, our council president was so right when she said, things are happening at Hope Lutheran. I've noticed too: financial giving is up, attendance is changing, there is a new kind of energy that has been brewing for some time and now seems to be bubbling to the surface. Everything is becoming new.

After council, I drove home dwelling on the evening. Upon arrival, I finished my daily blog with minutes to spare, rose this morning and headed to San Luis for our conference gathering of pastors. Pastor Carl was there and we began with a laying on of hands by all the pastors who have supported him and been his partners in the wider church. Most everyone prayed spontaneously. Not me though. I was busy getting teary because I was keenly aware of the Holy at work in the hands sending him off. I don't think I was sad though because of the loss even though I will miss my friend and colleague. I was simply overwhelmed with the reality that all things are becoming new: Pastor Carl, the me that wouldn't be the same had he not been in my life, and our church. In Christ, there is a new creation. Hour by hour, nothing seems so true as this.

Reflection

• How are you experiencing God's doing of a new thing here at our church?
• How is God reconciling you personally to Christ in this transition?

Prayer

Gracious God, through your Son you make all things new, from the hearts of our unique selves to the wider heart of our church. We give thanks for your encouraging Word among us in the midst of our uncertainty. Your Word, Your Son, Amen.

After a Flood

Reread Psalm 32.

This is such a powerful psalm. It contains the essential thrust of Lent: repentance and forgiveness. Return, return, return. From Joshua to the Prodigal Son, we are thoroughly immersed in the realm of reconciliation as we prepare for the remembrance of our ultimate transgression against God: the crucifixion of Jesus. Are these words meant to fortify us for the coming trial?

Transgression is one of my favorite theological words in translation. I used it once when a friend and I were trying to assess the damage we had done one another in an argument. The word transgression (v.1) seems in meaning to go beyond the usual words we designate to our wrongdoings against one another, words like "hurt" or "wound" or "fault" or "harm." It implies that something has been so violated that a permanent mark has been made. Indeed, transgression often applies to the breach of boundaries or the breaking of law or command. Strangely enough, it's a geological term too. It refers to the coastal flooding of land due to the rise and fall of plates. In other words, the waters transgress against the land and leave permanent evidence of their onslaught.

Not so with God. With God, the imprints have returned to form, the law has been restored, we have arrived home.

Reflection

• When have you transgressed against God or a loved one? When have your experienced genuine forgiveness?
• Which words speak to you in the psalm?

Prayer

God who forgives all, we turn to you and ask to return home. We rejoice in your land. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen

Hiding

Read Psalm 32.

I am intrigued by the psalmist's attention to the work of unconfessed truths on our hearts. "While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long" (v. 3). How true is this? As I read it, I could feel in a visceral way what it is like to be weighted down by something that needs to be revealed in the light of day. When most of us read these lines, we probably associate them with personal guilt at our own wrongdoing: how have I hurt someone or what have I done that might hurt someone if they were to find out?

Consider however, what it is like to keep any sort of secret, whether or not you were the one responsible for the harm. What if you were the one harmed? I had student once who never did his homework because he was too busy working for his parents chopping wood and doing manual labor on the odd jobs his dad picked up. He was cold in the long winters and probably hungry. He never had time to play or be kid and didn't have anyone to tell. He was wasting away. And so what if you carry undressed wounds of anger or fear? Sometimes confessing sin is simply giving words to brokenness.

The effect of holding things inside of ourselves that need to have breath is a toll on our bodies: sleeplessness, loss of appetite, stress on our internal organs, sometimes even new pathways of anxiety carved into our brains. Experiencing confession and forgiveness is our way to survive.

Since Lent began, I have spent a good deal of time in the parish dwelling on "silence." And this week, we have a psalm that shouts to us "SPEAK!" Do not hide in yourself. Hide in God.

Reflection

I'm not sure I even need to ask a question. We all know what the psalmist is talking about. If there is something you carry well hidden, is it possible for you to ask God into this place?

Prayer

Let us thank you, God, that we are not alone. You take us as we are and draw us into the light of your grace. You know what we have done. You know what has been done to us. You do not leave us there but surround us with steadfast love. We thank you in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Loosing Track in the Story

Read again Joshua 5:9-12.

Before starting these entries on Joshua, it had been a long, long time since I had read that book of the Bible. Funnily enough, Joshua is one of my favorite heroes. I thought it would be good to refresh myself so I reread the first seven chapters. As soon as I became involved in the story of the spies taking shelter in the house of Rahab, the prostitute (she's an ancestor of Jesus by the way), I forgot I was reading the Bible. (I admit, I remembered again when the Israelite warriors were marching around the city walls for the millionth time.) I love it when I forget myself while reading scripture. And I was all caught up when God rolled the river Jordan back and allowed the tribes to pass over into Canaan on dry land. I remembered too in that moment the dry passage through the Red Sea and Jesus' baptism in that holy river. There are many stories held in the sacred geography of the Bible.

I was thinking about the two most recent baptisms in our church while I read these stories as well -- how the water we poured over them contains that whole history. The water contains the travels of all our ancestors. We need our rituals to remind us of the stories that have formed us. But we also need to know the stories so that when we enact our rituals, we feel the richness of meaning layered into the signs of God's grace.

Reflection

• What book of the Bible is a favorite of yours that you haven't picked up in awhile?
• When you participate in church rituals like baptism, what do you think about? How about communion? What do you imagine during the Words of Institution?

Prayer

We give thanks, O God, for our traditions and the stories that made them. Guide our feet in the way of our ancestors and as we travel, open us to your mysteries and Word. In your Holy Name, Amen

A Full Belly and a Full Heart

Read Joshua 5:9-12.

Two Sundays ago, I preached on the literal meaning of salvation and the call to live out our freedom beside one another. Joshua, whose name means deliverance, shares the same name with Jesus, I said. This week, we hear about the first days in the land. The passage opens with the Lord explaining to the people that they are now free of "the disgrace of Egypt." Slavery cripples people. Slavery creates a world where obeying God and loving each other freely is nearly impossible even when safe in the wilderness. And so the new generation enters Israel with not one survivor of Egypt among them, not even Moses. The disgrace of their disobedience while enslaved has been rolled away. They move into the land uncorrupted by the experience of oppression.

Dennis Tucker Jr. on workingpreacher.org makes a helpful observation: notice the connection between forgiveness, freedom, and feasting. The Israelites are forgiven for their ancestral transgressions. They are given a bounty of crops in a sign of the Lord's faithfulness. Further, it is the Passover feast which they keep. As we read with Christian eyes, we may think of the Last Supper and the ongoing relationship between forgiveness and nourishment in divinely ordained meals.

There's another connection too in our lives. I cook for people when I am done arguing with them. And they cook for me as well. How many times have you found yourself sharing a meal with someone with whom you have reconciled be it a family member or friend? Eating and forgiveness go hand in hand. The bounty of our kitchen tables can be a sign of healing. I lost my best friend once for more years than I care to recall. When I couldn't take it anymore, I flew to her city. She drove me to her home, sat me at her table, and fed me.

Reflection

• Imagine yourself at Gilgal. What would you have been thinking before stepping foot in the promised land?
• When has reconciliation been sown through eating in your life?

Prayer

Lord of our freedom, you keep promises. You roll away the shortcomings of our past and lay a feast before us, your people. You heal us with crops grown on promised land. We give you thanks in your Holy Name, Amen

A Patient and Confident God

Read again Luke 13:1-9.

My mom is blogging for her church too. Funnily enough, we didn't discuss these projects beforehand; we just discovered we had chosen the same Lenten discipline. She's a pastor in Gloucester, MA and left a gushy comment on here not long ago. One of her better entries is on the patience of God. And she turns to this image of God the gardener waiting gently on the fig tree to produce fruit. I love this idea of a patient God giving us what we need to thrive and then giving us the time and space to grow the bounty we were meant to give. As I think on ministry here at Hope Lutheran, we are producing fruit for the garderner. But we are also waiting...waiting for the nutrients God has mixed into our soil to do its work in us. We are waiting for two new pastors: an interim, then our called pastor, we are waiting on each other in the back of forth of organizing. I myself am waiting to be ordained. We are waiting on many things. It's not easy. But it is exciting.

Which brings me to the mysterious last line of the story: the man in charge tells the gardener that if the fig tree produces no fruit within a year, cut it on down. Some people interpret this as a kind of warning of our final judgement. Other people see it as Jesus' way of getting urgent as he implores us to repent. Still some see it as a dramatic moment...what will happen to the tree? The story never tells us. (See Matt Skinner again on workingpreacher.org). I'm going to take a different line -- I think the man tells the gardener to go ahead and cut if it bears no figs because the man KNOWS it will. There's just no question. When God tends to us, we won't be able to do anything BUT produce fruit. The man has total faith in his little tree.

Reflection

• How do you interpret this last line?
• What do figs and repentence have to do with each other?
• Who are you in the story: the man waiting, the tree nourished, the gardener tending, all of them?

Prayer

How patient you are with us, O God. How patiently you water, feed, and sustain us. How patiently you wait for the fruit of our very beings to push its way from our depths. Amen

Sometimes someone needs to to give us a good shake.

Read Luke 13:1-9.

He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?" (Luke 13:2)

What a strange and gruesome opening to our gospel passage coming on Sunday. Before I had the responsibility of actually explaining scripture to people, I tended just to skip these kinds of verses. People's blood mingled with sacrifices? Yeah, maybe I'll just go straight to the part about the garderner tending the fruit tree.

But here's some food for thought for anyone who might be trying to digest this in full. 1) There are two historical events alluded to in these passages, both of which were horrific. Pilate slaughtered a group of people in his fashion of random brutality. He polluted sacrfices in doing so. This was a wildly oppressive gesture on his part and effected the psyche of the his people much in the same way torture and murder affects people living under violent regimes today. The other event was a random tragedy: the collapse of a building crushing eighteen people. This prompted survivors to proclaim their uprightness. In this way, that ancient world isn't so unlike our own -- all the time, we have to make sense out of violence and tragedy. Sometimes we take the moral high road; other times we imagine ourselves immune for these kinds of horrors. (Matt Skinner this week on workingpreacher.org gives a good explanation of these events and texts and how they connect to repentence which is where I looked for help.)

2) My second thought is this: Jesus' words sound a little harsh. And yet, all he does is call us to task in our false securities. We are no different, no better or worse than any other victim in the world. Just because we live in a place with earthquake proof buildings and a functional government doesn't mean our lives cannot be cut short. It doesn't mean we are better believers because we have survived. Because life is random, the urgency is to right ourselves in relationship to God for the sake of our lives now. Jesus wants us to live our lives as if we are alive to God and not live as if we are slowly perishing from spiritual alienation. A change of heart, an alertness to God, is the root of spiritual growth. And Jesus wants us to have fruitful lives.

Reflection

• How do you handle the parts of the gospel that can come across as condemnation?
• How does one live being mindful that life may be randomly cut short and yet not perish in anxiety trying to stop that from happening?

Prayer

God of love, how you long for us to turn to you. You sent your Son to us, the truthteller, the one who cuts through all the falsities we build around our lives. He reminds us that we are like every one else. With our hearts tuned to you, we may live in peace even amidst the uncertainty. Thank you. Amen

Pop Theology

Read 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.


"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)


There have been a handful of occasions in my life when friends of mine have said to me in the midst of tragedy that God never gives us more than we can handle. (I don't think they knew they were quoting Paul.) I use to think that myself. There was something kind of reassuring about that sentiment. It implied I was strong enough to cope with whatever trial had beset me. But as I've grown into my Lutheran identity, all kinds of things seem wrong with that statement. First of all, does that mean that God is the root of all hardship in our lives? Second, what about the people who are overwhelmed and take their own lives? Does that mean that God tested them beyond their limits? Somehow I think not.


I know I'm arguing with Paul here, but I just can't swallow this idea. I had a professor in seminary who took umbrage with this bit of cultural theology. She told a few of us one day, "You know...we were born with more than we handle. Isn't that the point of baptism? The world is already too much to handle." Yes! I wanted to shout. That's it! (Maybe Paul would agree with me). The world is too much. I can't believe how people survive sometimes. And I don't even mean that in the have-you-watched-the-evening-news-today kind of way. As I get to know some of you here at church I am amazed at how much you carry.


For all those people quoting Paul in the midst of their trials, I want to say: read the second part of the verse. God always provides a way out. And the first way out, the ultimate and eternal way out, was the water poured on us in our spiritual births.

Reflection

• Paul sometimes is not the easiest to read. He can make a person nervous in his ethics. What makes you nervous or uncomfortable as you read this week's passage?
• What bits of cultural theology to you find yourself repeating? Does it comfort you? How does it fit with what you affirm in church each Sunday?

Prayer

God of our baptism, from our births you have seen to our safety and endurance. We give you thanks for receiving us and bearing us up in this life and the life to come. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen

Memories of Song

Read Psalm 63:1-8.

"Oh God, you are my God alone." (Psalm 63:1)

I found my home church back in the bay area by virtue of proximity. It just happened to be the closest Lutheran church to our house. One mile. To get almost anywhere, I would have to pass it. And yet, it took me a year and half to visit on a Sunday morning. After seminary, I needed a break from church. I had left the ordination process and needed to find my voice again. More than that, I needed to find God again, because somewhere along the lines in my work, God got lost. And church no longer felt holy. How's that for irony? So when my baby was about eight months old and could stand a few hours without me, I snuck into the back pew of my little neighborhood church. I haven't been the same since.

There are a few things I feel passionately about when it comes to church growth. They come from my story of renewing my church identity as an ex-patriot seminarian. One of them is that when I walk into a church to worship, I want to be standing next to people who know they are alive. I use to think I had to worship in a certain style or hear a certain kind of sermon in order to feel fed. I realized after being at that church for awhile that it wasn't any one thing. It was simply worshiping with people who truly felt that Christ was present in that moment. So I kept going back every Sunday until one day I once again found myself teaching classes, assisting with choir, and preaching when the pastor was out of town.

What does this have to do with Psalm 63? One of my favorite contemporary hymns is based on these words. It's a hymn we would sing quite a bit back home. Funnily enough, I didn't even realize it was based on this psalm until I opened up my Bible for this blog. As I read Psalm 63 again, I was reminded of the people that helped me declare again that God is my God alone. And I was thankful that Hope Lutheran, even in the midst of its transitions and concerns for the future, Hope Lutheran knows its alive.

Reflection

• What pieces of scripture hold memories for you?
• What are the most powerful rituals of the church for you: the reading of scripture, sacraments, singing? Or is it the friendships?

Prayer

Oh, God, my God, we come to you in deep thanksgiving for the gifts you have given us to express your love and ours: worship, companionship, the good news. Encourage us in our faithful practices. We ask these things in humility, and in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen

The Word on our Ear

Read Isaiah 55:1-9.

"Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." (Isaiah 55:2)

It appears that there is a relationship between listening to God and eating. This brief passage in Isaiah is overflowing with commands by the Lord to come and eat, feast on that which cannot be bought with money. Quench your thirst. It brings to mind the wilderness when Jesus beat back the devil by reminding him that we live by every word from the mouth of God. And it is true, human beings are filled with so much longing for the life beneath the common routines of our work, markets, and homes. Why do we labor for things that cannot satisfy us? It's a good question. Is it just the condition of being human that requires it? Is it a form of bondage to be locked into habits that only make us hungrier? The funny thing is, I'm not even sure most of us know just how hungry for God we are. Why? I don't know, but maybe it's because it's just plain hard to feel that kind of ache.

"Listen carefully to me," says God. Listening and hearing however, are not the same thing. Hearing is when our eardrum sets our inner ear to vibrate in delivering audible information to our brains. Listening however...ahhh...now that is another matter. Everyone one of us carries around memories of when we spoke and no one listened, or when we heard, but failed to listen. It takes practice. It means our ears must be unstopped. It means we have to withold ourselves and receive the fullness of that which comes to our ear. Sometimes it means we have to listen hard for what is not said, what is happening beneath the words. No easy task. Maybe the Lenten desert can help us with this. Maybe it will give us the silence we need. And in the silence if you should discover you are hungry, be at ease: for if you know you are hungry for the Word, this is a sign that your ear is well inclined.

Reflection

• Do you ever struggle with a sense that something is missing and you are not sure what?
• Do you ever tell God about this missing something?
• Just how are your listening skills?

Prayer

God who fills us with all good things, may our ears become mouths to feast on your Word. Open these ears of ours so that we may live. This we ask in your Holy Name, Amen

Holy Poultry

Read Luke 13:31-35.

"How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" (Luke 13:34)

A chicken? Really?

I imagine that if I asked someone to liken God to a bird and what kind of bird that would be, they might say a dove as the Holy Spirit comes to us, or an eagle so that we may be born or their wings. I could imagine the plume of a peacock or the majesty of a swam before I would think: Jesus is like a chicken. Surely there are other birds, beautiful or unusual, that instinctively shelter their young when a cunning predator threatens their safety. No?

We had chickens when I was a kid, seven hens that came with the farm my parents rented. They poisoned me when I was three with salmonella and pecked at my hands when I reached for their eggs. But they also constitute some of my earliest memories. They may not be such exotic animals, but they were part of my landscape. Right alongside memories of my sister crawling and some stray kittens we found in box alongside the road are the chickens strutting around the driveway. Chickens must have been common too to the townspeople where Jesus proclaimed, healed, and loved. He must have known that if he compared the way he loved people to a mother hen and her brood, they would have known exactly what he was talking about. And so there are times when we hear in the Bible of the unbounded, frightening, blinding glory of God. And then there are other times when Jesus' power is earthy and everyday and woven seamlessly into our world.

Reflection

Begin a list like this: Jesus' love is like... and what kinds of things can you imagine? Be concrete. Email me your list if you don't want to post it here.

Prayer

We give thanks, God, for the beauty of the land and people in which you have raised us up as your children. Clear our vision that we may witness you in the small and ordinary places of our daily lives. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen

What We Already Know

Read Philippians 3:17-4.

"Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things" (Phil. 3:19)

My favorite passage in the Bible comes when Moses exhorts his people to choose life. They are some of his last words before he dies, his last words before they cross the river Jordan into Canaan. He tells them, "I call upon heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him..." (Deut. 30:19-20). I love this passage because it cuts right to heart of the matter. There are essentially two ways of being: the way of life and the way of death. Since the moment we step foot from the Garden of Eden, God has been inviting us, sometimes gently, other times harshly, to choose life.

In Philippians, Paul makes the same sort of argument. He tells the people: there are two ways, that of destruction and shame and that of the cross and transformation. He tells this community, they know who the enemies are. It's no secret what kinds of habits or thinking come between us and our Creator.

This is true of us as well. Our instinctual selves know how to walk in the Way of Christ. And even in the complications and demands of daily living, we know what things pull us away from God. Come on, Paul says, you know. The Bible is always inviting us to get honest with ourselves and reject these enemies. It's a big risk getting honest because it means for every single one of us, something will change. But Paul is clear about something else too: although you may suffer for it, stand firm, for Christ will transform you.

Reflection

• What do you need to be honest about in your relationship to God?
• What could God transform in your life right now?

Prayer

God of life, remind us again that the choices are few. Give us the strength to walk in the Way of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

What does God look like?

Read Psalm 27 again.

"Your face, Lord, do I seek."

I would imagine I'm not the first parent out there whose pre-k child wants to know what God looks like. Lately, my daughter has been asking the question at a higher frequency. I don't have a fixed answer to give her. Maybe I should. But how on earth do I answer that question anyway? And so I tell her something inadequate each time she inquires. Sometimes I say that it's a mystery and God is hiding. She wants to know where of course. I just say, "I don't know. Maybe you know." Sometimes I'll tell her that God looks like lots of things, like people we love or people who need us to help them, or like the deep ocean or the night sky. Or sometimes I'll say that God looks like Jesus and we don't know exactly how he looked but that Jesus was a human being once. (I was surprised actually at how satisfied she seemed with this explanation.) But then she'll ask me again the next night and I'll give up and say, "What do you think God looks like?" She is no fool and in a battle of wills over unanswered questions, I always lose. So we end up back where we started. "It's a mystery. I don't know really."

Only later do I remember that God is alive in her -- God pestering me at my dinner table at night with this insistent question. If that's true then maybe the question keeps coming up because God wants something from me. So I tried something different last night. I said, "Why don't we ask God." She said of course, "You do it." She always gives this order when she's suddenly shy. So I tell her, "Okay." And I close my eyes and sit silently across the table from her. Suddenly, this seems right; this seems like the answer I've been searching for. Just ask God. So I keep sitting, savoring the silence. After some long moments, she leans toward me and whispers, "What's God saying?" There's just no winning sometimes.

Reflection

• Has a child ever asked you this question? What did you say?
• Did you ever ask this question of a parent or teacher or someone you trusted? What did they say?
• Do you still ask this question?

Prayer

We seek your face, God. We seek it in the people we love and the strangers we meet. Help us seek it too in the people from whom we turn: our suffering neighbors, our difficult relations, even our enemies. These things we ask in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

Psalm Consolation

Read Psalm 27.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"

I was surprised this year when I sat down to read the scriptures appointed for Lent this season. Why surprised? Like we all do, I think of these forty days as a time of penitence, of difficult undertakings and of setting ones face to Jerusalem. And yet...the actual scriptures work so hard to console us. Instead of being hit over the head with our shortcomings, the Word calls to us with consolation and protection (Psalm 91 in Week One). It assures us that we might know "the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm 27:13). Lent is a time of renewal: renewed trust in the promises of God (Psalm 63 in Week Three). In the final days before Passion Sunday, we hear of the a harvest of joy (Psalm 126 in Week Five). How hard God seeks to tend to our hearts in this season of honest accounting and repentence. How hard God works to feed us in our vulnerability and hunger in the spiritual desert of temptation.

Reflection

• Lent is a time for disciplined focus on God. How does God stregthen and console you?
• Which words of this week's psalm do you seem to need the most?

Prayer

God of light and love and consolation, you turn us to you. Help us to turn in love and forgiveness to one another. Amen

Okay, there's a little exegesis in this one...

Reread Genesis 15:1-18.

"When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." (Genesis 15:17)

Slaughtered livestock and a vision of a smoking fire pot and flaming torch? This is one of those passages when I ask myself, "Just what is going on here!?!" It's one of those biblical moments when I feel the thousands of years between Abraham and myself. The world of Genesis sometimes feels so utterly remote, veiled really, by time and culture. So a little research...I discovered that this ritual of laying out the sacrifices and the walking between the halves was a Near Eastern oath ceremony. Abram (before he was renamed as Abraham) would have understood this command as a sign that God would keep his promise of fruitfulness in both land in children. God and Abram would be bound to one another in a covenantal relationship.

And yet, Abram does not pass between the animals. Only God does -- God as the smoking fire pot and the flaming torch. Does this mean that Abram receives the covenant without condition, that God carries the weight of its fulfillment? (see citation below)

What does this mean for us as 21st century Christians? I think it means a good deal in how we might understand God's grace as a freely offered and unconditional gift. I also think it means rituals are crucial to our life of faith. Rituals, our sacraments, are places where God reminds us of covenantal promises: fruitfulness, deliverance, and freedom.

Reflection

In what ways to you feel obligated to God? What would happen if you didn't meet those obligations?
How do church rituals sustain you?

Prayer

God who delivered us from oppression, continue to renew your covenant with us on this journey of Lent. Sharpen our ancestral memory that we might recall your bond to us. Amen

(The above citation is from the following: Deffinbaugh, Bob. "The focal point of Abraham's faith." Bible.org. 18 February 2010. Web. 2 February 2009.

Spiritual Nomad

Read Genesis 15:1-18.

"On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying 'To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates..." (Genesis 15:18)

"Imagine," my friend says handing me a section of grapefruit, "Not far from here, Abraham was wandering around talking to God." We are seated on a bench at the edge of town overlooking the vast space of Negev desert below us. Behind us are paved streets lined with modest homes and flowering shrubs. The town does not peter out as it might here on the central coast where town centers give way to housing developments which give way to ranches then mountain cabins. In Arad, the paved streets of civilization end and the wilderness of the desert begins. The contrast in stunning. And so we sit on our neighborhood bench staring into Canaan.

The desert in Israel is different than the deserts here in the Southwest. They seem so much more emptier to me: no cacti or lush desert blooms, or tenacious animal dwellers. Without leaf rustle, the wind has only its own self to gust against and so sounds like the flapping of laundry on the line. And so for the desert wanderer, the smallest sign of life like bird wings or shepherd's steps come sharp to the ear. My friend and I wondered how loud God's voice might have been to our ancestor, our father, Abraham. Abraham, nomad who in solitude carved our covenental path. In Lent, we travel the desert of our interior, stripping bare the noise of world to hear again the promise of deliverance and abundance.

Reflect

• How do you observe the Lenten journey?


• What kind of wilderness or land has been meaningful in your own faith life?

Prayer

God of our fathers and mothers before us, from the beginning you have rooted faithful nomads in your love and grace. We remember in this season that we too are rooted in your freedom in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son and our companion. Amen

On the Corruption of my Childhood Babysitter

Read Luke 4:1-13.

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." (Luke 4:1-2).

I had a babysitter once who got into an argument with me on the existence of the devil. At one point she thrust her open Bible in front of my face and with her blood-red nails, traced some words my five year old eyes could not yet read. There were drawings too of the chief demon embedded in the text. So with a fierce urgency, I left her to wake up my younger sister to tell her we had to get Dad to church. Otherwise he was going to burn. She hid under her covers and cried. I whole-heartedly agree with Martin Luther when he wrote that the devil likes nothing better than for us to actually pay him attention. As long as we pay attention to the devil, we are not paying attention to God. So for many years, and with the memory of that babysitter seared on my soul, I held this story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness at a distance.

And then I discovered the mysteries of biblical wilderness places. (I also discovered John Milton but I won't go there.) Much is revealed in these harsh landscapes. We see in a different way when confronted by the scarcity and fragility of life. So I studied this story with a renewed interest and a little less skepticism. What I discovered is that Jesus also ignores the devil in a way. He just never really enters the argument the devil wants to have.

At one point in my chaplaincy program, my supervisor commented that Lucifer means light-bearer in Latin. Now I know this name is never used in the New Testament. But given how our culture associates the titles Devil and Satan and Lucifer, it meant something to me when he said that. What if that's the devil's job: to bear light by which we may see with clarity the darkest of human capacity? Because what kinds of other temptations are there that could be worse than believing that life has no meaning, or that we can serve power and wealth over God, or that ultimately, we are alone? I mean really, those are pretty bad.

So now I love this story. I love it because of its bright truth. I love it because the devil is just the devil. I love it because unlike us, Jesus never falters.

Reflection

• Have you ever journeyed into a physical or spiritual wilderness?
• Who was waiting for you there?
• What tempted you?

Prayer

Jesus, Son of God, our wisdom and strength, guide us in our most vulnerable moments to a vision of your love for us. Help us keep the integrity of our faith. In your name we pray, Amen

The Word on our Lips

Read Romans 10:8-13.

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

When I read this passage of Romans, I think of my non-Christian friends who claim to be without faith. And yet, I know otherwise from the stories they've told. In their most raw and exposed and vulnerable moments, they have found themselves uttering words of thankfulness or mercy to God. They have had concrete, palpable experiences of passing through a deep threat into safety. And they have known upon arrival, they were delivered by someone other than their own selves. The mouth sometimes betrays us -- it can reveal our true self, the one that senses a wider mystery.

Where does knowledge of salvation come from? Is it ritual and worship and scripture reading? Certainly. Is it the communal if not individual memory of baptism? Maybe. Or is it something else? Instinct or experience? All of these things? I like to think our hearts may be our guide, that our hearts know things our intellect does not always. St. Paul assures us, the Word is near us, on our lips and in our hearts. We need not look to far away places but to what is close, often deeply within.

Reflection

• What does your heart, imagination, and belief tell you about salvation?
• What does salvation look like if you had to choose an image?

Prayer

God of mercy, in these forty days of desert wandering, reveal to us your deep wisdom and saving grace. Amen

First Fruits

Read Deuteronomy 26:1-11.

"...and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me." (Deuteronomy 26: 1-11)

For many years, I have thought of tithing the first fruits of my labor as an obligation. And if I didn't think of it as an obligation, I would imagine it as something I do as a personal insurance policy: if I give this to God, then God promises to take care of me. Therefore, I can reap a reward for my tithing efforts. Yet, these words from Moses at the edge of the promised land don't seem to be about obligation, or even law really; they seem to be about responding to a new creation. The instruction is to tithe the first fruits upon entry into the blessed land of milk and honey. Tithing then is a sign that grows out of belief that we have been brought to freedom. We tithe because we have arrived. If we liken the resurrection to the passing over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then could the same question be asked? How do we respond to the resurrection? Talking about money and financial attitudes is not the most glamorous of ministries. But in the Bible, tithing is as much about guiding principles for living in community as it is about dreams, visions of the Holy One, and deep longings to respond to God's love and faithfulness.

Reflection

Do you ever have the desire to give more to your community in talent or treasure and stop short of action?
How do you experience the call to tithe? As law or hope or something else?

Prayer

We pray to you, O Lord, to inspire our giving hearts. Help us respond when the little voices inside of us tell us to keep quiet or keep back or keep still. Amen

Ash Wednesday

Read Joel 2:1-2 and 12-17

“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart.” (Joel 2:12)

*a portion of the following reflection appeared in the February church newsletter

They were full of questions. They wanted to know everything about the process: from the science and mechanics of embalmment and burial, to the kinds of conversations and decisions that take place when families arrive at the Chapel of the Roses. There was much humor amidst the somber atmosphere. Our tour guide, funeral home Director Cindy Nielsen told us how people sometimes like to be buried with things they found meaningful in their life. Last week, she prepared a body for burial alongside six cremated pets. She tells us how sometimes people like to be dressed in Hawaiian shirts or their sweatpants like they wore when their bodies were alive. Some want their golf clubs or fishing poles to accompany them in their caskets.

I and a group of students and parents from our church wander from the chapel out into offices and rooms behind the scenes. We examine a hearse in the garage and the students gasp as Cindy talks about the places where bodies come to lie as they await preparation. Later as we step into a room where families meet with the directors to select everything from urns and caskets to photo albums and grave markers, someone asks at the entryway, “Is this a gift shop?”

In a most surreal moment, our young Lutherans encounter the crematorium. They contemplate the bricks of the retort furnace and the brooms for sweeping out the ashes. Cindy encourages them to feel the sifted softness of cremains, which they do, with some nervousness.

Every other year, our confirmation group takes this tour. They acquaint themselves with death just as they do baptism, communion, and the Bible. They draw close to these mysteries as Martin Luther would have us do when he wrote, “We should familiarize ourselves with death during our lifetime, inviting death into our presence when it is still at a distance…” He encourages us in this way that the terror of death may have no power over us. Martin Luther believed that to flee death, to “abhor” it, was to flee God. If we practice this kind of contemplation, in our final hours we might be fully prepared to focus whole-heartedly on life, love, and grace, and the promise of the kingdom for we which we would have long ago left our fears behinds us. (see citation below)

I once contemplated my physical death for seven months. It was a project I undertook (well perhaps was assigned) as an intern chaplain. Maybe as a healthy twenty-something at that time, I could afford to consider who I would miss, what kind of funeral I wanted, what might happen to my body as it approached its last moments. And yet, I found myself surprised by the kinds of emotions that welled up over the course of those weeks. Next to a real vision of my death, all kinds of things began to feel unimportant. Other things became urgent. I tried to repair a damaged friendship and I spoke to my parents about their post-mortem wishes and presented them with mine. And I saw with a burning clarity the kind of life I wanted remembered of me.

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” On Ash Wednesday our tendency is to spiritualize our mortal deaths. We consider instead of the departure from our bodies, the death of relationships, or ways of being, or bad habits. These are good and necessary things on which we may focus. But what would happen if we did on this day, consider our physical deaths? How might we then live differently? It is our yearly invitation to be marked by a sign of our mortality. May we walk with courage to receive that sign in the full confidence of God’s love for us made known through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Reflection

What do those ashes mean to you?
When you hear the words “Remember you are dust…” what do you think, or remember, or feel?
What happens inside of you when you imagine the end of your earthly life?

Prayer

God of our beginnings and endings, guide our vision that we may see the world as it is and your promise of everlasting love and life as the hope or our lives. Amen

Martin Luther Quotion from: Luther, Martin. "A Sermon on Preparing to Die." Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings. Ed. Timothy Lull. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. 640-41.

Secret Worship

Read: Matthew 6: 1-2 and 16-21

“But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees you in secret will reward you.”

Here again, as in yesterday’s reading, is this word “secret.” In Psalm 51, we read of a secret heart. Today, we hear Jesus speak of a secret place, a secret place where we might worship God authentically. Without showmanship. Without concern for how others might see us. Without a desire to prove our deep faith. A secret place where we might be ourselves before God and know it is enough.

When the expressions of our faith have an audience, how do they change? Do we worry in church how we appear or if we are doing the right things or using the right words? I know I do and I worried about it long before I ever took on the role of worship leader. It’s why I found it hard to pray spontaneously out loud, or even read scripture, or lift my voice, or acolyte. But Jesus’ words, I think, go beyond just worship. When we obsess over how others perceive us, that worry comes between our true selves and God. And everything Jesus did and spoke for us sought to tear down the divide between us and our Holy One.

Reflection

How is being in church for you? Are you more yourself? Less yourself?

What does authentic worship feel like for you?

What does it mean that God sees us in secret?

Prayer

Gracious God, guide us in our worship that we may love and consider our neighbor while standing before you as our true selves. Amen

Secret Hearts

Read Psalm 51

“You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”

I am intrigued by the secret heart. I think we all have one: a heart beneath our hearts that holds our deepest longings and desires. It’s the heart that desires an authentic life in which what we believe might be lived out in our daily lives. It’s the heart that craves meaning and connection and belonging. Maybe it’s a heart that holds wounds we cannot dress on our own. Perhaps those wounds were inflicted upon us. Or perhaps we have been wounded by what we have done to others. Maybe that heart is encased in silence for it is certainly a heart that is shy, maybe known only to ourselves, or maybe even only to God.

In the season of Lent, we are given the space to open our secret hearts. The psalmist prays for wisdom and truth. If our inward being is restored to our Creator, we might live in unity with God and with one another in wholeness and freedom.

Reflection

What does your secret heart look like? How does it sound? What does it desire?

Who knows your secret heart and inward being?

Prayer

Holy and Wise One, we turn to you in the coming days knowing we can entrust our hearts to you – for you know us better than we know our own selves. Amen