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.