A QUESTION OF FAITH - A REFLECTION ON JESUS CALMING THE STORM

 These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Mark 4:35-41

When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

A QUESTION OF FAITH

Every story in the Bible is layered with meanings.  Miracle stories are no exception and most, if not all, are there for us to explore and probe the meaningful depths they contain.  Miracle stories in the Bible are there to deepen our faith that God is involved in our day to day lives.  Paraphrasing the author of the Gospel of John at the close of chapter 20, we read, “Jesus did many other miracles and signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book  But these are written, that you might have faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that in faith you will live confidently through him.”

We don’t need stories to prove the existence of God or proof that God can perform miracles because most of us, through the eyes of faith, have witnessed the miraculous handiwork of God in our own lives.  Miracles always take us by surprise, but it takes faith to see them as such or they merely become an unexplainable phenomena that has no particular meaning in our lives.  One of my favorite biblical scholars and authors is Rabbi Jonathan Sachs who wrote in his book, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, “Faith is about seeing the miraculous in the everyday, not about waiting every day for the miraculous.”   

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The miracle of Jesus calming the sea paints a picture, an icon, or a triptych to meditate on. 

If this miracle story was to be depicted as a triptych, the first panel might portray a boat packed with Jesus’ disciples.  The boat has a mast with the sail loosed from its fittings and flapping wildly in the wind. The boat is being buffeted by the waves on all sides and filling with water.  Nobody is in control of the boat’s rudder. Jesus is asleep in the stern near the rudder and appears oblivious to the storm raging about him. The disciples, drenched with water, are depicted pleading with Jesus to wake up, with gesture suggesting they want him to take control of the rudder.  Jesus does not appear wet at all and has a serene expression on his face.

In the second panel, we see Jesus standing serenely at the stern, ignoring the rudder, with one hand raised to the wind and the other pointing to the waves. He appears to be talking while his drenched disciples are crouched down and holding on to the sides of the boat, the mast, or each other.  

In the third panel, Jesus hands are still in the position we saw them in the second panel, but now the sky is blue and cloudless, the sun is shining, and the sea is as calm as glass. The disciples are no longer wet, their faces are lit with a mix of amazement and laughter.  If this triptych was in a museum, a docent might ask, “As you are looking at this triptych, what do you think is going on? What is your take away?”

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Like most miracle stories in scripture, this story takes on a parabolic hue that allows us to see it as a metaphor for something much larger than a one-off phenomenal event some millennia ago.  As such, let’s take a deeper look at this iconic miracle story and treat it metaphorically.  Like all stories with a parabolic hue, their intent is to place ourselves in them in order to find their meaning. There are many ways to look at a story like this one. The following is just one example: 

We’re in a boat with Jesus and his other disciples riding on the Sea of Life.  The boat’s name is Faith.  Storms happen very quickly on the Sea of Life.  When they occur they can rock Faith to the point we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed by the never-ending onslaught of issues and problems driven by the winds of disappointment, discontent, division, and general dysphoria.  When these storms continue for a time, it can appear that Jesus is sleeping on the job so we pray, “Wake up Jesus!  Don’t you care about that we’re about to fall apart and sink in our despair?”  So Jesus wakes up and he says to winds of our disappointments, our discontents, our divisions, and dysphoria, “Peace! Be still” and suddenly things quickly settle down and Faith is sailing calmly on the Sea of Life. 

The story doesn’t end there.  Jesus has some questions of his own, “Why were you afraid?  You are in safe in Faith.  You were acting as if you’re paddling through the Sea of Life without a boat.”  

* * * * * * * * * * * 

It is easy to lose sight of faith during the storm squalls that quickly happen in our daily lives. There are times when it feels like we’re trying to paddle through life without a boat.  Even when we’re sitting in the boat of Faith, the nave of a church, we can be swamped and buffeted by the fierce wind and waves of life.  We feel drenched with disappointment, discontent, and dysphoria.  It can seem as though God is not present, but God never leaves us.  Within such life-storms, however, we, like Jesus’ disciples, can experience the calming presence of God in our midst.  

When Jesus asked his disciples, “Where is your faith?”  He wasn’t criticizing them for a lack of faith, but making them aware of it.  The irony in Jesus’ question is that it was their faith that led them to awaken him to take control of the boat they were in.  What they didn’t expect was Jesus ignoring the rudder to direct their lives but rather taking control the elements of their situation; the wind and the waves, the very causes of their concern.  God controls the very issues we are concerned about, and in the calm that ultimately follows such life-storms, the faithful see God’s miraculous handiwork in their lives.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE EXTRAVAGANT MINIMALISM OF GOD - A REFLECTION ON JESUS' SEED PARABLES

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Mark 4:26-34

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

THE EXTRAVAGANT MINIMALISM OF GOD

God is an extravagant minimalist.  It seems evident that God likes to start small and watch God’s creation grow and flourish. This extravagance of God’s minimalism is revealed in some of Jesus’ seed parables.

Nothing illustrates God’s extravagant minimalism better than Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, the second of the two parables in today’s lesson from Mark which is found in all three Synoptic Gospels.  As most of us know, the mustard seed Jesus is talking about is considered the smallest plant seed.  It was also a seed that produces a weed-like shrub that could grow to the size of large entangled tree-like bush which, as this parable depicts, serves as an excellent protective habitat for birds. 

Although this parable talks about the mustard seed being sown, as one would sow wheat or barely, most farmers in the time of Jesus wouldn’t dare plant it in a field because once it takes off, it is hard to control and spreads like a weed, overtaking the area where it exists.  It is not only considered an invasive but also a pervasive plant. That pervasive invasiveness is the point of Jesus using the mustard seed as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God.  Its wild, uncontrollable nature is particularly suited to describe the entangled spread of God’s Realm.  

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Found only in the Gospel of Mark, the Sowing Seed Parable is easily overlooked because it follows the well-know Parable of the Sower and uses the every day life cycle of plants to makes it point.  Within its simple agrarian reference to a farmer planting seeds, we are offered a profound insight into the nature of God's Realm.  Just as life seemingly ends with death, life comes from death.  The two are intertwined.  With the notable exception of the story of Jesus’ resurrection, this cyclical paradox is not apparent in animal and human life.  Where it is apparent is in plant life, where one can easily observe life emerging from death. 

Using the cycle of plant life of the wheat and barely grown in the area where Jesus lived, we observe, that unlike the GPS generated planting methods used today, the farmer of Jesus’ day would have simply cast these seeds on the ground and let nature takes its course. Even with the vastly improved technological planting of today, we remain amazed that “earth produces of itself;” that life from death is inherent in and emerges from the ground we walk on. 

In what may strike some as a mechanistic view of God establishing an order that lets nature takes its course, Jesus reveals that like plant life, human life has its course; that being the living souls we are follows a similar pattern.  We too are products of the earth, formed by God from its soil and breathed to life by God’s Spirit to become “living souls,” only to die so that we might live again; a cyclical process revealed in the linked together  stories of Adam's and Eve’s realization of death and Jesus’ realization of life being raised from death.

Within the parameters of human existence, is the inherent capacity for productivity in both the physical and spiritual nature of our soulfulness.  Over time, however, that which is physical will eventually die,  just like plants.  “All flesh is grass,” observes Isaiah. [See Isaiah 40:6-8].  

This parable, however, demonstrates that physical death is only part of the story.  What dies is brought to life again.  Seeds may lie dormant for millennia, only to come back to life when exposed to life-giving light and nourishment.  There is a potential energy in the seeds themselves; a soulfulness, if you will, observed in all living things, plants and animals alike.  

 

While some of our scriptures and a good deal of theology and doctrine derived from them portray death as a curse that resulted from our primeval parents’ one act of sin, the Sowing Seeds Parable suggests otherwise.  Perhaps the curse of death is not that physical life has an end but rather that we humans know it will end.  Jesus died and would have died even if he wasn’t crucified.  Death is a natural part of life and is essential for a life cycle to exist.

All physical life dies at some point. Even planets and stars die, while at the same time new planets and stars are being created. Today, we have the ability to observe such activities through astronomical technology; something the writers of our scriptures did not have available to them, and we know that stars have been dying long before life showed up on earth, which prompts one to consider whether one moment of transgression by two humans caused universal death?  It makes one wonder how our scriptures might have been written had their authors known what we know today.

Jesus’ Sowing Seed Parable suggests that death is at the service of the creator and the act of creation; that death serves as the means to bring forth abundance; that death is an intricate part of the kenotic paradox of God expending God’s self in order to expand God’s self, what Jesus referred to as the Kingdom of Heaven.  The Realm of God is all around.  We are already in it, just not aware of it.  From our perspective, life from death is a mystery and may seem implausible, until we observe plant life and see the mystery of life emerging from death.  Paul perhaps states and sums up this mystery best:

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

                ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

  Where, O death, is your victory?

      Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin (knowing - nw), and the power of sin (knowing-nw) is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”   [1 Corinthians 15:51-57 NRSV]

Amen

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

APOCALYPSE - A REFLECTION ON THE TRINITY

 This reflection was delivered on May 30th at Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota.

REVELATIONS. 3:6

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Apocalypse

by 

Norm Wright

We are living in an apocalyptic age.  No, I’m not talking about the end of the world or fire and brimstone raining down from heaven.  The word apocalypse comes from a Greek word meaning to uncover; pulling the curtain back to reveal the truth.  In an apocalyptic age we encounter truths that will make us feel uncomfortable and there are a lot of uncomfortable truths we are dealing with in today’s world, but I’m not going to delve into them.  

Rather on this Trinity Sunday, I want to pull back the curtain on the doctrine of the Trinity itself; specifically, the concept of a triune god as expressed in our creeds and doxologies. 

God being understood as our Father, Jesus as God’s Son (our brother), and God as Spirit are not in question here, such referential terms are found throughout the New Testament, but the concept of three distinct persons in one god is not found in our scriptures. 

I’m not going to try to explain the complex, meandering theology behind the doctrine of a triune god, but rather talk about the events that led to it and the creeds that express it.

Our church’s eclectic collection of stained glass windows will aid us, as we have two windows that have a connection going back to the Roman Empire and the emperor, Constantine.  The two windows I’m referring to is the DeMolay window in the back of the nave on the south side and the Trinity window located on the east wall of the South Transept.

Starting with the DeMolay window, we find an inscription attributed to Constantine, “In hoc signo vinces.”  “In this sign you will conquer”. 

In the year 312, Constantine was at war with his rival for the imperial throne of the Rome, Maxentius. On the eve of battle, legend has it that Constantine had a vision or a dream in which he saw within the blinding light of the Sun a cross and heard the words, “In this sign you will conquer.”  Perhaps his “vision” was more a stroke of genius than the anything else.

By the 4th century, Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire including the ranks of the Roman legions.  There are stories about Christians in those legions who refused to fight an opposing army if there were Christians in it.  I suspect Constantine took advantage of this knowledge to consolidate the large number of Christians in his ranks and to weaken the resolve of any Christians in Maxentius’s ranks by placing a cross on his legions’ shields, and a Chi-Rho on his banners.  Constantine wins the day, legalizes Christianity, and with legalization came imperial patronage (money).

The other window in our church connected to Constantine is the Trinity window which contains a quote from the Athanasian Creed as seen on on the front of today’s bulletin. 

Within thirteen years of Constantine legalizing and patronizing Christianity, violent disputes between various bishop and their communities broke out over the nature of Jesus and who was or wasn’t a true Christian, threatening Pax Romana.  In 325 Constantine ordered these quarrelsome bishops to attend the first church council at his palace on the island of Nicea to settle their difference. The result is our Nicean Creed.

What we don’t talk about is the bloodshed and mayhem that ensued after believing the creeds became the criteria for being a Christian and after Christianity becomes the only religion of the Roman Empire in 381; how the once persecuted Christians became the persecutors, exiling and even executing heretical Christians, among others for their opposition to the creeds.

We are living in an apocalyptic age.  In 1946 in a place called Nag Hammadi, Egypt, two brothers came across clay jars containing a number of leather-bound codices.  Archeologist were able to identify these codices as writings of the early church, some that Athanasius had ordered to be burned in 367. Included in these codices where some unknown gospels, The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and much, much more that are giving us a window into early Christianity.

Since that and other discoveries about the Church have emerged, almost every mainline Christian leader today have come to a realization, the Church needs to change.  Bishop Folts echoed that realization when he met with the Vestry and Search Committee on Palm Sunday. 

What does that mean?  Where do we begin?   

Prompting the need for change is the vast numbers of people who have left and are leaving the Church, and when that happens the Spirit of God is telling us something.  Of course, no one has given us any definitive answers as to what change means or where to begin, but I think our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is on to something with his emphasis on following the way of love, on following the teachings of Jesus.   

Love is a word that is manifestly missing from our creeds and its absence reveals a blatant neglect for what Jesus taught. 

In the Book of Revelation, the Book of Apocalypse, its author John has a vision of Jesus addressing seven churches.  At the end of Jesus’ revealing message to each church, Jesus says, “ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”  

In this apocalyptic age, God’s Spirit is speaking to us through discoveries like Nag Hammadi and through discoveries in the fields of science, history, and other disciplines.   While they take to task some of the Church’s long held doctrines about the world and about Jesus, they don’t challenge the teachings of Jesus and God’s love. 

In this apocalyptic age, God’s Spirit is on the move, helping us to understand ourselves by pulling back the curtain on the world of our making and helping us to understand who we are and whose we are.

In this apocalyptic age, we need to wake up and listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

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Until next time,  stay faithful.

Norm

THE SPIRIT OF GOD - A REFLECTION ON PENTECOST

 

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Romans 8:22-27

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (body in the the original Gk text). For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

            THE SPIRIT OF GOD

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Gen.1:1-2)

“God is a Spirit” say Jesus in the Gospel of John and “those who worship God must do so in spirit and in truth.” [John 4:24].  The spiritual essence of God is prevalent throughout scripture from Genesis onward.

The Christian celebration of the Feast of Pentecost often treats the Spirit of God as something that came about at that time, serving to fill out what is known as the Holy Trinity, but as we see in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the Spirit of God was present at the moment of beginning. The Spirit of God is associated and with the creative power of God and it is that creative power that gives relevancy to the experience of the disciples during their celebration of the barley harvest, Judaism’s Pentecost, which in Hebrew is called “Shavuot.”

The Spirit of God’s presence during the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, Shavuot, some two thousand years ago which settled upon the small gathering of the Jewish followers of Jesus while they were celebrating the beginning of the wheat harvest is both symbolic and significant.  It is symbolic in that it calls to mind the creative power that brought about all of creation and appeared as a pillar of light that guided the Israelites in darkness of the wilderness.  It is significant, in that, the Spirit of God is individualized and shown residing on (within) each of Jesus’ followers, a light to guide them, to enlighten them, and inspire them, marking them as the “harvest,” among the first fruits of  God’s new creation, the reclamation and reset of God’s original creative script.   

On this Pentecost, our attention is drawn to Paul’s letter to the Romans and his commentary on the Spirit of God which encompasses the entire eighth chapter of Paul’s letter.  I invite all who are reading this reflection to read the entire chapter.  Paul talks about the Spirit of God in conjunction with the whole of God’s creation coming into full bloom, and being ripe for harvest. 

In today’s lesson, Paul says creation is experiencing a pregnancy, referencing its labor pains in the process of giving birth to a new creation.  In the original Greek  of Paul’s letter this fullness is about a transformation or as Paul puts it, “we wait for adoption, the redemption of our body.”  Paul is not talking about a physical resurrection, but a reclamation  or a transformation of creation to what it is and who we are according to God’s original script of love.  Unfortunately, many modern translations translate Paul’s use of “our body” as "our bodies,” which is incorrect.  The Greek word Paul used was the singular “soma” not the plural “somata.”  Paul doesn’t subscribe to the resurrection of the physical body but rather to the resurrection of  the spiritual body. [See 1 Corinthians 15:42-44]  The “our body” being referred to here is a collective sense of the body as the entirety of all creation or what we might refer to as the Body of Christ, which takes in the entire reset of creation.

Early in the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter, he references the Spirit giving life to our mortal bodies; enlivening us as incarnations of God’s presence, to be the collective Body of Christ in the world or as John said in his first letter, to present God’s love in this world.  In contemporary lingo Paul says that those who don’t have the Spirit of God in them are like zombies who only appear alive but are in truth dead.  Perhaps that’s a bit extreme and I’m not sure God sees anyone that way, but it certainly appeared that way to Paul.

There is a deep sense of intimacy when Paul talks about the Spirit of God.  Paul’s intimate depiction of the Spirit of God is that of a communicator between the human heart and the heart of God.  Paul’s depiction of God’s Spirit is similar to the description Jesus gave in the Gospel of John;  that God’s Spirit serves as our advocate.  As such, the Spirit of God acts like translator for the things that are too deep for words; things that are expressed through our groans and sighing.  In fact, Paul says that the Spirit groans and sighs on our behalf, suggesting that our sighs and groans is a language God understands even when we don’t.

There are times when we feel more than we can adequately express in words.  Paul is saying that such moments are treated by God’s Spirt as prayerful moments; moments in which the Spirt of God intercedes or intercepts our experiences; taking them on as God’s experience, acting as a sort of spiritual neurotransmitter.   As mentioned in the reflections on John’s first letter, God’s love makes God vulnerable to the experiences of God’s creation, to what we experience.  

This doesn’t mean we have no need for prayer.  On the contrary, prayer is a form of Holy Communion or Holy Communication that brings us into an intentional awareness of God’s sympathetic presence in our lives.  We do not need to worry about getting our prayers “right;” saying the right things in the right way.  Prayer is not about trying to make things sound appealing to God but rather about being honest with God and being honest with ourselves by saying what’s on our minds and in our hearts; opening our gut-wrenching and heart-felt feelings to God.  It is in prayer that we enter the Holy of Holies, the heart of God; the love of God.

It is in our brother Jesus’ dying forgiveness that we find our redemption and what it means to redeem others through following his example.  Being in communion with him as the risen Christ and one with him in the rising Christ, we have and experience that same Spirit which descended on him like a dove at his baptism and appeared on the disciples as tongues of fire. 

The Spirit of God dwells with us, in us, and around us. The Spirit of God is boundless.  It is not subject to our will but rather conforms our will to the will of God.  The Spirit of God is the force of God’s love, the invisible gravity that binds us together as one with God.  The Spirit of God is the driving force of God’s will; shaping the course of our being and our lives.

On this day we invite the God’s Spirit into our awareness, to be mindful of the Spirit’s presence in all that we do and in all that we encounter.  God’s Spirit enables us to live in hope when all appears hopeless,  comforts us when there is little to be comfortable about, and guides us through the flow of life; inspiring us to be the creative children God intended us to be.   

Amen. 

HYMN

                Come, Holy Spirit, our souls inspire, and lighten

                with celestial fire.  Thou the anointing Spirit art,

                who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart

                Thy blessed unction from above is comfort, life

                and fire of love.  Enable with perpetual light

                the dullness of our blinded sight.

                        (Latin 9th century)

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

CHILDREN BORN BY LIGHT AND BY LOVE - A REFLECTION ON 1 JOHN

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

During this Easter Season, we have reflected on the First Letter of John.  On this last Sunday of the Easter Season we reflect on a few of the insights John’s letter offers regarding God and what it means to be a child of God.

GOD IS LIGHT [1 John 1:5} 

The resurrection of Jesus was not only a reset of creation according to God’s original script of love, but it was a reset of our understanding of God.  God is light is more than a metaphorical reference to God being like light, but rather that God is consistently active in creating life and sustaining life.  Physically speaking, we would not exist long without light; as such, we would not exist at all without God.  Spiritually speaking, light enlightens our understanding.  Ever since we humans have pursued knowing the difference between good and evil and attempting to be gods unto ourselves, our attention has been drawn towards the shadowy, dark side of such knowledge; drawn to what we fear in ourselves and what we see in others.  The light of God, however, bestows wisdom granting us discerning insight into the knowledge we possess.

GOD IS LOVE [1John 4:8}

God’s love for the world, a love displayed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is immeasurable.  Why God loves us so much is hard to fathom, but the experience of it leads us to understand that God is love.  Love is God’s nature.  Just as God is always life-giving, God is also constantly loving. It is love that nurtures life in all of its shapes and forms.  It is love that gives our lives meaning and direction.  It has always been God’s intent that we who are created in the image of God to be as loving as God is loving and to return God’s love by loving and caring for that which God loves.  

CHILDREN OF GOD [1 John 3:2}

Love does not exist in a vacuum.  God’ s love requires love returned.  That is why we are here.  That is why we are made in the image of God.  Since Adam and Eve where made the first children of God, all of their descendants are children of God, made in the image of God.  This central truth of our existence was re-introduced to those of us who follow Jesus. As a result of Jesus’ forgiveness of all while a victim of human injustice, Jesus was raised to new life, the first fruit of a new creation.  Just as we  proceeded from our first parents as God’s children, all of God’s children are raised to new life in Christ Jesus.  

LOVE IN ACTION [1John 3:18]

Love is more than a sentiment and an ideological belief.  Love is meant to be an act of faith and put into action.  Jesus commands us to love one another as he loves us.  Such love requires that we are wiling to put our own agendas aside for the sake of those in need of love’s nourishment.  We cannot merely say we love, we must actively love. We must be willing to let love guide us in our daily activities.  Love in action casts out fear and puts aside hatred, giving us the ability to continue with Jesus’ healing ministry on earth; to forgive, to redeem, and to restore in tangible and meaningful ways. 

PURE LOVE COVERS ALL [1 John 5:4]

In last Sunday’s reflection,  I inserted a verse from Peter’s first letter to mitigate the language of conquest. The somewhat militant language as if we’re at war is understandable given the nature of our bellicose world, but I find it distracting from the overall perspective of scripture.  Overriding the “either this or that” language found in our scriptures is a sense that all is in God; that “there is no darkness in God at all” [1John 1:5 that both day and night are alike in God’s view [Psalm 139:12].  Where God is concerned, all is light and all is loved; all is covered by the purity of God’s love. The problem we face is living in a world that has yet to embrace this truth.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Reflecting on the first letter of John reveals that God journeys with us; helping us navigate through the world of our making.  In the teachings and redeeming actions of Jesus we are graced with a new understanding, a new vision, that all of God creation is covered by the love of God. It is God’s love that  brought us into being and will see us through this life until we find ourselves in the presence of that light which gave us life and that love which has nurtured us to new life in Christ.  That is our hope and that is our faith.  

Amen

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

PURE LOVE COVERS ALL - A Mother's Day Reflection

 These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

PURE LOVE COVERS ALL

Love is at the center of all of Jesus’ teachings.  If love nurtures and casts out fear, love also heals and protects. While not a quote from the first letter of John, another apostolic letter from Peter gives us another reason to constantly love, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.”  [1 Peter 4:8 NRSV].   Peter’s depiction of love covering a multitude of sins fits well with what John is trying to convey in his first letter. 

The constant, nourishing love of God is experienced in the love we have for one another.   It is the love of Jesus that covers the sins of the world; that protects us from the effects of our selfishness.  Jesus likened Godly love to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings to protect them. [Matthew 23:37]. 

On this Mother’s Day, our attention is drawn to the nurturing and protective love associated with motherhood.  A mother’s love can be both fierce and gentle.  In many ways a mother’s love  exemplifies God’s love.  

Perhaps this is why Jesus’ mother, Mary, receives so much attention in the gospels. Mary embodied the heartfelt mothering love God intended Jesus to grow up with and grow into.  Mary exemplifies the quiet concern and watchful eye that clues a mother into sensing when things are not right or who takes quiet, unspoken delight in watching her child prosper because whatever her child does always remains a part of her. 

God’s love is like a mother’s love.  God’s love is both fierce in its determination and gentle in its application. God is quietly patient and takes delight in watching us, God’s children, grow and prosper.  It is that love which Jesus grew into and exemplified.  It is that love we are called to present to the world. 

All of us, men and women alike, are capable of taking on the nurturing role of mothers and exhibiting motherly love.  Consider the father in Jesus parable of The Prodigal Son and the Samaritan who nurtured a victimized Judean in the parable of The Good Samaritan. We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who, in many ways, have mothered us along life’s journey.

God’s determined and gentle love is as prevalent and as freely given as the air we breathe, but like the air we breathe, it can become occluded by the pollution of distrust, exploitation, fear, and the hatred of others we produce, promote, and perpetuate.  

We were made by the pure love of God and made to love God purely and that which God love.  The purity of God’s love cleanses us from all the impurities we encounter.  The purity of  God’s love heals and refreshes us.  Pure love always forgives, always redeems, and always restores.   Pure love covers all.

Amen. 

Now Thank We All Our God

  Now thank we all our God, with heart, and hands, and voices,

            who wondrous things hath done, in whom his world rejoices;

            who from our mother’s arms hath blessed us on our way

            with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

            O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us!

            with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

            and keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed, 

            and free us from all ills in this world and the next.

                        (Martin Luther 1586-1649)

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

GOD IS LOVE - A REFLECTION ON 1 JOHN

 These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

1 John 4:16-21

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

GOD IS LOVE

This selection from John’s first letter is one of the finest descriptions of how our relationship with God and our relationship with on another and the world works:   Because God is Love, we are to be love in this world.  

In this reading we find that the pervasiveness of God’s love does not allow for anything else but loving that which God loves, and God loves all.  We know God, not through our intellect, but through the experience of love. “We love God because God first loved us” is precisely how we know and acknowledge God.  

If God as light brought about life, God as love nurtures it and makes it meaningful.  We all thrive when we feel loved.  

Part of what we identify in our liturgies as Mystery of Faith is that God is love.  That God deeply cares about life, your life, my life, on this small speck of dust has been demonstrated through the life, death, and resurrection of our brother Jesus.  The intense intentionality of God’s love as seen in Jesus begs the question, why?  

Why does God love us so much? 

Love does not exist in a vacuum.  Love requires love returned. Love is the reason God made us in God’s image and breathed us to life to become the living souls we are today.  God needs us to need God.  God loves us so that we love God.  

Love makes God sound so vulnerable.  Indeed, love makes God vulnerable to our cares and our pain, just as love makes us vulnerable to same. Love like faith and hope is not about certainty, but rather about the willingness to engage and cope with uncertainties of life.  The strength of love is not in its being rigid or tough. The strength of love is its endurance, its flexibility to spring back when pushed back, and its immense patience.  The strength of love is also in its vulnerability.  In fact, love cannot exist unless there is a sense of being susceptible to the feelings and needs of others.

While God’s love is immeasurable, God doesn’t require much to feel loved.  In the Ten Commandments, God only asks for one day out of a week to take a break and take some time to express our love of God as a worshipping community.  Taking our personal and communal needs to God is an act of loving God, but what expresses our love for God best is when we love what God loves or as John says loving our brothers and sisters.     

What John’s letter clarifies is that the opposite of love is not hate, but rather fear.  Hate is the result of fear; in that, we tend to hate what we fear.  Fear and hatred are not attributes of God.  Our fears and our hatreds are not obstacles to God, but they are to us.  As the children of God, we need to ask ourselves what is the point of our fears and hatreds?

Fear abounds in our world and where fear abounds hatred abounds.  Everything we struggle with in our world is rooted in fear.   Perceptively, John writes that our fears are connected to our fear of punishment.  John is not talking about fearing God’s punishment, but the fact that we punish ourselves by punishing those we fear and then fear being punished in return. Fear begets fear in the one feared and hatred begets hatred in the one being hated.  It is a vicious cycle evident in all our struggles of the past and the present.

John points out that perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love is that love which abides in God, and if we abide in God love is being perfected in us. The antidote to our fears is to love what God loves.  It has always been love and will it always be love.  

We can’t change the fears and hatreds of the past, but we don’t have to perpetuate them.  We have within us the creative power of God’s love by which to write a different history moving forward; a power that allows us to move the needle of history from systemic fear to systemic love by abandoning the of script our making in which the plot line always ends in death in order to follow God’s original script of love which always leads to life.

Doing so requires a willingness to walk by faith, a willingness to allow room for hope, and a willingness to exercise love for all, not with words but by deeds.

God is love and so let us love God by actively loving all that God loves.  

Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm