Bread and Wine Reading: "A Look Inside", by Edna Hong
Scripture Reading: Psalm 139: 1-14
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
Just as Lent is a time of refocusing and redirecting, it is also a time of reclaiming our true identity, of finding that self that God calls you to be. It is a hard journey. The journey through the wilderness of our souls is fraught with hidden dangers and perils that most of us would rather not experience. We will be forced to look at those parts of our lives that are impeding our soul’s vision of who it is, if only so that we will know what parts we need to strip away or even discard. It is a journey with the mission to free our souls to be with God, to finally be who God calls each of us to be from the very beginning of our being. God know this part of us so well. Perhaps God has hidden it so well that we will have to journey to find it.
Edna Hong contends that “the purpose of Lent is to arouse. To arouse the sense of sin…To arouse the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins. To arouse or to motivate the works of love and the work of justice that one does out of gratitude for the forgiveness of one’s sins.” She describes the Christian life, then, as a journey of downward descent, a journey deep down into who we are, deep down into the depths of ourselves, into that part that God knows so well. “It ends,” she says, “before the cross, where we stand in the white light of a new beginning.”
Discussion Questions:
1.) What keeps us from seeing our true self?
2.) What will you find when “you search and know yourself”?
3.) What meaning does the image of the Christian life as one of a “downward descent” hold for you?
So go forth toward deep into your self, the self that God is calling you to find!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Living Lent
Bread and Wine Reading: "Living Lent", by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6: 19-21 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Barbara Crafton begins her essay with the proclamation: “We didn’t even know what moderation was. What it felt like. We didn’t just work; we inhaled our jobs, sucked them in, became them. Stayed late, brought work home—it was never enough, though, no matter how much time we put in.” She goes on to portray aspects of a life with which all of us could identify—buying things we do not need, eating when we are full, and replacing furniture and household goods when they aren’t really worn out. We attribute it to “modern life”, to the benefits and perils of working hard, playing hard, and living a life trying to keep up with our own expectation and images of who we are.
What, then, is your treasure? What receives the highest priority in your life? What gets your attention, your money, your time? In what direction is your life moving?
I, admittedly, have a somewhat underdeveloped and sometimes non-existent sense of direction. Giving me directions by telling me to “go east and then go north and then go due west at the light” is worthless. My new car has a compass, a wonderful tool for the directionally-challenged such as myself. Even better, is the GPS on my Blackberry, with that kind woman giving you exact directions (regardless of the fact that she has apparently never driven in Houston on the week-ends that they close all the freeways at once!). But even compasses and GPS’s get “out of whack” at times, either because the batteries have been changed or because they, simply, have gotten shaken or discombobulated in some way. In essence, they lose their “true north”, the true sense of where they’re going and they then have to be recalibrated, a practice of finding the true north and once again knowing the direction to which they point.
Lent is a time of “recalibration” for us, a time of re-prioritizing, a time of refocusing on what is important, on what our “treasure” is in our life. Life is good, but sometimes it pulls us and shakes us and causes us to point to a place that is not the place we should be. This Lenten season is a way of resetting our own internal compass, that part of us that at the deepest level knows to what and to whom we are drawn. Lent calls us to recalibrate our lives that they might become a true way of “living lent”, of walking toward that which is the “true north”, the Way of Christ, the way to oneness with God.
Discussion Questions:
1.) What drives our needs to “have”, to “hold”, to “possess”, and to “do”? What gets in the way of our ability to “be”?
2.) What are some ways to “redirection” and “recalibrate” your life?
3.) Why is it so difficult for you to keep your priorities, your “treasure” straight in your own life?
So go forth toward a new direction that you might find the Way of Christ!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6: 19-21 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Barbara Crafton begins her essay with the proclamation: “We didn’t even know what moderation was. What it felt like. We didn’t just work; we inhaled our jobs, sucked them in, became them. Stayed late, brought work home—it was never enough, though, no matter how much time we put in.” She goes on to portray aspects of a life with which all of us could identify—buying things we do not need, eating when we are full, and replacing furniture and household goods when they aren’t really worn out. We attribute it to “modern life”, to the benefits and perils of working hard, playing hard, and living a life trying to keep up with our own expectation and images of who we are.
What, then, is your treasure? What receives the highest priority in your life? What gets your attention, your money, your time? In what direction is your life moving?
I, admittedly, have a somewhat underdeveloped and sometimes non-existent sense of direction. Giving me directions by telling me to “go east and then go north and then go due west at the light” is worthless. My new car has a compass, a wonderful tool for the directionally-challenged such as myself. Even better, is the GPS on my Blackberry, with that kind woman giving you exact directions (regardless of the fact that she has apparently never driven in Houston on the week-ends that they close all the freeways at once!). But even compasses and GPS’s get “out of whack” at times, either because the batteries have been changed or because they, simply, have gotten shaken or discombobulated in some way. In essence, they lose their “true north”, the true sense of where they’re going and they then have to be recalibrated, a practice of finding the true north and once again knowing the direction to which they point.
Lent is a time of “recalibration” for us, a time of re-prioritizing, a time of refocusing on what is important, on what our “treasure” is in our life. Life is good, but sometimes it pulls us and shakes us and causes us to point to a place that is not the place we should be. This Lenten season is a way of resetting our own internal compass, that part of us that at the deepest level knows to what and to whom we are drawn. Lent calls us to recalibrate our lives that they might become a true way of “living lent”, of walking toward that which is the “true north”, the Way of Christ, the way to oneness with God.
Discussion Questions:
1.) What drives our needs to “have”, to “hold”, to “possess”, and to “do”? What gets in the way of our ability to “be”?
2.) What are some ways to “redirection” and “recalibrate” your life?
3.) Why is it so difficult for you to keep your priorities, your “treasure” straight in your own life?
So go forth toward a new direction that you might find the Way of Christ!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Friday, February 15, 2013
In Mirrors
Bread and Wine Reading: "In Mirrors", by William Wangerin
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 13: 8-13
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Wangerin reminds us that in mirrors we see ourselves. Perhaps we see more than we want to see, but we see the real self. As all of who struggle with weight, or those nasty lines on our face, or even just some piece of clothing that just doesn’t look the way it did on the headless mannequin in the store know, mirrors do not lie. He says that “mirrors that hide nothing hurt me. But this is the hurt of purging and precious renewal—and these are the mirrors of dangerous grace.”
Others can be mirrors for us, reflecting the “us” we’d rather not see either by gentle or harsh words or even an all-too-obvious facial expression. Wangerin says that Christ’s suffering and death is also a mirror, if only we choose to see it. Perhaps the reason that this season of Lent is difficult for us is that it forces us to face our real selves—our hurts, our failures, our sins. Because this walk of passion and death is not just Christ’s to walk; it is ours. It is a forced walk through the shadows of our own lives, a walk through our pains and failures and the late coming feelings of remorse for things we have done. This season also shows us those places where we have been complicit in the injustices of the world, where we have been part of the crucifixion of the love and compassion and goodness that is Christ. And in this way, “Lent can heal the soul’s blindness.” (Howard, 44)
The season of Lent is truly a mirror of our real selves and our real lives as they are revealed in Christ. Again, this walk to the Cross is hard. But, there…there in the mirror is also your Resurrection, reflected by Christ’s own!
Discussion Questions:
1.) What are the things in your mirror that you’d rather not see?
2.) What does the idea of your own death and your own resurrection reflected in the mirror mean for you?
3.) What reflection of this season of Lent does this provide for you?
So go forth with new awareness that Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection is a reflection of your own!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 13: 8-13
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Wangerin reminds us that in mirrors we see ourselves. Perhaps we see more than we want to see, but we see the real self. As all of who struggle with weight, or those nasty lines on our face, or even just some piece of clothing that just doesn’t look the way it did on the headless mannequin in the store know, mirrors do not lie. He says that “mirrors that hide nothing hurt me. But this is the hurt of purging and precious renewal—and these are the mirrors of dangerous grace.”
Others can be mirrors for us, reflecting the “us” we’d rather not see either by gentle or harsh words or even an all-too-obvious facial expression. Wangerin says that Christ’s suffering and death is also a mirror, if only we choose to see it. Perhaps the reason that this season of Lent is difficult for us is that it forces us to face our real selves—our hurts, our failures, our sins. Because this walk of passion and death is not just Christ’s to walk; it is ours. It is a forced walk through the shadows of our own lives, a walk through our pains and failures and the late coming feelings of remorse for things we have done. This season also shows us those places where we have been complicit in the injustices of the world, where we have been part of the crucifixion of the love and compassion and goodness that is Christ. And in this way, “Lent can heal the soul’s blindness.” (Howard, 44)
The season of Lent is truly a mirror of our real selves and our real lives as they are revealed in Christ. Again, this walk to the Cross is hard. But, there…there in the mirror is also your Resurrection, reflected by Christ’s own!
Discussion Questions:
1.) What are the things in your mirror that you’d rather not see?
2.) What does the idea of your own death and your own resurrection reflected in the mirror mean for you?
3.) What reflection of this season of Lent does this provide for you?
So go forth with new awareness that Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection is a reflection of your own!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Repent
Bread and Wine Reading: "Repent", by William Willimon
Scripture Reading: Mark 1: 4-8 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
We 21st century folks often try desperately to turn the whole idea of repenting into some sort of watered down, G-rated version of the repentance that John the Baptizer proclaimed. We like the idea of a God who tells us to "be good to ourself" and who wants us to be happy. We like equating the Gospel, the "Good News" to a life of comfort. But as Willimon points out, "Whatever the gospel means, we tell ourselves, it could not mean death. Love, divine or human, could never exact something so costly." Then what do you really think John was talking about? It's simple...Repent, change your ways, and get washed.
To be baptized "into Christ" and "in the name of Christ" means to become one who lives Christ. How can we do that without changing, without turning our lives toward God, without walking the road that Christ walked? Willimon claims that "the chief biblical analogy for baptism is not the water that washes but the flood that drowns". This is not a warm bath; it's a torrent of powerful waves consuming your life. It's Noah's Flood all over again--the beginning again and the promise.
Following Christ, following The Way, is hard. There is no "cleaned up", G-rated version. It's just hard. It means giving up one's life; it means being flooded; it means change. Who are we kidding? It means death! Willimon reminds us that "on the bank of some dark river, as we are thrust backward, onlookers will remark, "They could kill somebody like that." To which old John might say, "Good, you're finally catching on.""
But what may seem to the world a truly God-forsaken road through suffering and death is also the road to life. This is truly The Way. It is the road we walk when we realize there is no where else to go.
Discussion Questions:
1.) What stands in the way of us changing?
2.) What's the difference between being willing to "die in Christ" and being "saved" by Christ?
3.) What does repentance "cost" for you?
So go forth that you might die in Christ!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Scripture Reading: Mark 1: 4-8 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
We 21st century folks often try desperately to turn the whole idea of repenting into some sort of watered down, G-rated version of the repentance that John the Baptizer proclaimed. We like the idea of a God who tells us to "be good to ourself" and who wants us to be happy. We like equating the Gospel, the "Good News" to a life of comfort. But as Willimon points out, "Whatever the gospel means, we tell ourselves, it could not mean death. Love, divine or human, could never exact something so costly." Then what do you really think John was talking about? It's simple...Repent, change your ways, and get washed.
To be baptized "into Christ" and "in the name of Christ" means to become one who lives Christ. How can we do that without changing, without turning our lives toward God, without walking the road that Christ walked? Willimon claims that "the chief biblical analogy for baptism is not the water that washes but the flood that drowns". This is not a warm bath; it's a torrent of powerful waves consuming your life. It's Noah's Flood all over again--the beginning again and the promise.
Following Christ, following The Way, is hard. There is no "cleaned up", G-rated version. It's just hard. It means giving up one's life; it means being flooded; it means change. Who are we kidding? It means death! Willimon reminds us that "on the bank of some dark river, as we are thrust backward, onlookers will remark, "They could kill somebody like that." To which old John might say, "Good, you're finally catching on.""
But what may seem to the world a truly God-forsaken road through suffering and death is also the road to life. This is truly The Way. It is the road we walk when we realize there is no where else to go.
Discussion Questions:
1.) What stands in the way of us changing?
2.) What's the difference between being willing to "die in Christ" and being "saved" by Christ?
3.) What does repentance "cost" for you?
So go forth that you might die in Christ!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Repentance
Bread and Wine Reading: "Repentance", by Kathleen Norris
Scripture: John 14: 2-6
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
In her essay, Kathleen Norris tells the story of a little boy who wrote a poem entitled "The Monster Who Was Sorry". He says that when his father yells at him, his first response is to throw his sister down the stairs, to wreck his room, and, finally, to wreck the whole town. "Then", he says, "I sit in my messy house and say to myself, "I shouldn't have done that."
I shouldn't have done that--famous last words. It's a shame they aren't the first words. That's what repentance is all about. It's not mere confession; it's not mere regret; it's not even just a promise to change. Repentance is turning around. It's doing something. It's making the last words the first words. It's looking around at the house in which we dwell and figuring out how to make it the place that God dwells, to make it the place where the Kingdom of God comes to be. That IS the Way.
I used to struggle with this Scripture: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to [God] except through me." So what happens to everyone else? I think my thinking was just too narrow. I am continually finding that God is much wider than I ever thought God to be. I do, with all of my being, think Jesus is the Way, the very embodiment of the way that God leads us to Godself. No, I do not think that those who do not profess to be Christian are disconnected from God. I do not think that Jesus ever intended that. He was just far too relational and inclusive for that! I think, rather, Jesus, as the embodiment, the very human being, the Incarnation of all incarnations of God, was God, the Divine, walking with us to show us The Way--not the "way", as in one distinct and limiting road, but "The Way", the way to be with God, the way to connect to God, the way to be who we are called to be by God.
And, just as a reminder, the writer of The Gospel According to John tells us that there are MANY rooms. In other words, our messy, little space is not the only place God is. But our messy little space is also the place that God desires to be, to pick us up, to clean us up, and to love us into The Way. There are, indeed, many rooms. We each have our place in the Kingdom--now and for all eternity. But REPENT---turn around---look around---there are many rooms...you are all here together....and it is only when you turn and look into each other's eyes that you will finally see The Way, that you will truly see and experience the one and only God, the God embodied by Jesus, the human and the Divine, the God of the interrelational Trinity, the many in one.
Discussion Questions:
What does it mean to make a place that God can dwell?
What are we called to do to "make a place that God can dwell"?
What meaning does this bring to your understanding of repentance?
So begin this journey by turning around and making the last words first!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
For this season, I will try (yes I will try!) to post at least a short devotional every day on my blog at http://dancingtogod.blogspot.com/. Many of you are part of the email group that gets it every time I post. (For those who have signed up through this blog, you will get it but for some reason known only to Google, you will get it 12-18 hours later. Go figure!) So if there are others that would like to be part of the email group that gets it right away, just email me through the St. Paul's website at stpaulshouston.org. (Go to "About St. Paul's", then "staff").
AND another opportunity...I have been posting my Lectionary notes that many of you get emailed each Thursday on http://journeytopenuel.blogspot.com/ It's a once-a-week post but if you're interested, take a look.
Thanks for being a part of my Lenten journey!
Shelli
Scripture: John 14: 2-6
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
In her essay, Kathleen Norris tells the story of a little boy who wrote a poem entitled "The Monster Who Was Sorry". He says that when his father yells at him, his first response is to throw his sister down the stairs, to wreck his room, and, finally, to wreck the whole town. "Then", he says, "I sit in my messy house and say to myself, "I shouldn't have done that."
I shouldn't have done that--famous last words. It's a shame they aren't the first words. That's what repentance is all about. It's not mere confession; it's not mere regret; it's not even just a promise to change. Repentance is turning around. It's doing something. It's making the last words the first words. It's looking around at the house in which we dwell and figuring out how to make it the place that God dwells, to make it the place where the Kingdom of God comes to be. That IS the Way.
I used to struggle with this Scripture: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to [God] except through me." So what happens to everyone else? I think my thinking was just too narrow. I am continually finding that God is much wider than I ever thought God to be. I do, with all of my being, think Jesus is the Way, the very embodiment of the way that God leads us to Godself. No, I do not think that those who do not profess to be Christian are disconnected from God. I do not think that Jesus ever intended that. He was just far too relational and inclusive for that! I think, rather, Jesus, as the embodiment, the very human being, the Incarnation of all incarnations of God, was God, the Divine, walking with us to show us The Way--not the "way", as in one distinct and limiting road, but "The Way", the way to be with God, the way to connect to God, the way to be who we are called to be by God.
And, just as a reminder, the writer of The Gospel According to John tells us that there are MANY rooms. In other words, our messy, little space is not the only place God is. But our messy little space is also the place that God desires to be, to pick us up, to clean us up, and to love us into The Way. There are, indeed, many rooms. We each have our place in the Kingdom--now and for all eternity. But REPENT---turn around---look around---there are many rooms...you are all here together....and it is only when you turn and look into each other's eyes that you will finally see The Way, that you will truly see and experience the one and only God, the God embodied by Jesus, the human and the Divine, the God of the interrelational Trinity, the many in one.
Discussion Questions:
What does it mean to make a place that God can dwell?
What are we called to do to "make a place that God can dwell"?
What meaning does this bring to your understanding of repentance?
So begin this journey by turning around and making the last words first!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
For this season, I will try (yes I will try!) to post at least a short devotional every day on my blog at http://dancingtogod.blogspot.com/. Many of you are part of the email group that gets it every time I post. (For those who have signed up through this blog, you will get it but for some reason known only to Google, you will get it 12-18 hours later. Go figure!) So if there are others that would like to be part of the email group that gets it right away, just email me through the St. Paul's website at stpaulshouston.org. (Go to "About St. Paul's", then "staff").
AND another opportunity...I have been posting my Lectionary notes that many of you get emailed each Thursday on http://journeytopenuel.blogspot.com/ It's a once-a-week post but if you're interested, take a look.
Thanks for being a part of my Lenten journey!
Shelli
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