Luke | Michael Valliant

Faith and Gratitude

Lead in: I am in my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. October 8-9 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for October 9 was Luke 17:11-19, where Jesus heals 10 men with a skin disease and only one, a foreigner, comes back in praise and gratitude.

“Faith and Gratitude”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. Over the past few weeks, we have seen him talking to and teaching his disciples. But today there is a bit of shift.

He’s approached by 10 lepers. What do we know about lepers during this time?

They kept distant from non-lepers.
They formed their own colonies.
They positioned themselves near trafficways so that they could make appeals for charity.
To be let back into society they had to be checked out by a priest, in a kind of certification process.
Leprosy was estrangement from both God and other people. It had a stigma.

When writing his novel, “The Name of the Rose,” Umberto Eco put it like this: “In saying ‘lepers’ we would understand ‘outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the city.’”

They were the fringe of the fringe.

The lepers are keeping their distance and following protocol and they call out to Jesus. And he SEES them. Seeing is important here.

He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, which is how they would be able to get back into everyday life, to no longer be outcast or untouchable.

And “as they went,” they were made clean. Their healing was connected to their obedience—they did what Jesus told them to do.

One of the lepers, a foreigner, a Samaritan, SAW that he was healed, and his response was to turn back, praise God with a loud voice, and to lie on the ground in front of Jesus and thank him.

It’s notable that the leper doesn’t just thank Jesus as some great healer on the street, he knows the healing has come from God and he praises God before he thanks Jesus.

Jesus SAW the lepers and the one Samaritan leper saw that God had healed him through Jesus. And he was grateful.

We see a lot of healing stories in the Gospels, but in this case, the story Luke tells is less about the healing and more about the response of the one leper.

The three questions Jesus then asks are not really addressed to the grateful Samaritan but they underscore the point of the story:

Were not 10 made clean?
Where are they?
Were none of them found to return and give praise except this foreigner?

Why the Foreigner?

This is not a knock on the nine who did what they were instructed. They followed orders. They were healed. We don’t know what happened to them after—they may have gone on to spread their own stories and good news for the rest of their lives.

But the foreigner, the stranger was different. Why is that? What was it that made him turn around while the others went on their way?

I like a thought that Fred Craddock shared in his book, “Interpretations: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching—Luke.” In thinking through the stranger in our time, he said:

“It is often the stranger in the church who sings heartily the hymns we have long left to the choir, who expresses gratitude for blessings we had not noticed, who listens attentively to the sermon we think we have already heard, who gets excited about our old Bible, and who becomes actively involved in acts of service to which we send small donations. Must it always be so?”
Fred Craddock

I wonder, do I get complacent? Do we sometimes go about our business doing what was asked of us, but not stopping to give thanks and praise for both remarkable and everyday things that bring us joy? Or those things that connect us to God and to each other?

Reading Scripture: WWJD?

Studying Scripture has so many layers to it, any of which can give us pause, can make us think, can stop us and meet us where we are.

We need to understand the context in which something was written; we need to think about the audience the writer, in this case Luke, was writing for; and we have both God’s Word in the Bible and any number of great commentaries that have been written to help us understand it.

And then we also want to figure out the relevance of something for our lives. What do we do with what we read? Why does it matter? What is the “so what?” of ten lepers getting healed more than 2,000 years ago? Why should we care?

Fr. Bill Ortt often says to think about Scripture as a prism, where you can turn it around to see different facets of it. And if we do that in this story, we’ve got the grateful leper, we’ve got the other nine who were healed, and we’ve got Jesus. We may have a tendency not to put ourselves in Jesus’s place in the story, because, well, he’s Jesus and we’re not.

But these stories are shared for us to learn from. For us to ponder, to take in. And who is the main character in the New Testament who we want to learn about? Jesus.

And why? Maybe to be more like him. What’s the bumper sticker—what’s the saying that is used over and over again: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?

And how do you know, how can you consider what Jesus would do if you don’t read Scripture to get to know him better?

So in this story, what does Jesus do?

Seeing and Doing

First, Jesus sees the lepers who call out to him. Really sees them and what their problem is. And what he sees is human beings, not lepers. Luke illustrates this point over and over again in his Gospel:

When we meet the demoniac at Gerasene, Luke calls him, “a man from the city who had demons.”
Here, Luke doesn’t say 10 lepers, he says, “10 men with a skin disease.”

In writing his Gospel, Luke doesn’t define people by their afflictions, by their diseases, by what’s wrong with them. Because Jesus doesn’t define people that way. Jesus sees our humanity. And he sees the humanity of these 10 men.

And what does he do once he sees? He acts, he steps in to help, to heal.

If we want to model our lives after Jesus, where does that leave us?

We need to see. Do we take the time to see what is going on around us? We can look nationally and globally—the devastating damage in Florida from Hurricane Ian; the ongoing war in Ukraine; insert your news of struggle and suffering going on in the world.

We can also look closer to home: our family, our friends, our neighbors, and people in our community. We’ve got a lot of people barely holding on around us. Do we see them?

Then, what do we do when we see them? Do we reach out? Do we pray for people? Do we come alongside them when we can and walk with someone who is having a hard time.

Do we do…what we see Jesus doing time and time again in Scripture, and especially in Luke’s Gospel, and in today’s story? See, help, heal.

What do we see?
Do we see the needs, the struggles of others?
And what do we do?

Let’s take some pressure off of ourselves for a minute. Living like Jesus is certainly the goal, but wow, is that tough. Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning and getting through the day without telling someone off seems more attainable.

Gratitude

Let’s look more closely at the Samaritan who was healed and who came back. Let’s walk in his footsteps.

Back to seeing: what does the Samaritan see? He sees that he has been healed. He recognizes that God was at work. And he praises, he humbles himself, and he gives thanks.

We can do that, right? There are times when being grateful is everything. That’s a big part of my story and what has me standing here in front of you.

I caught up with a childhood friend who I haven’t seen in decades. We grew up playing little league baseball together in Oxford and he went on to fly F-16s in the Air Force for 20 years. We had lunch last week and what we both wanted to talk about was faith and spiritual awakenings. And he asked what prompted this calling in me.

My one-word answer was, and is, gratitude.

A little more than seven years ago my younger daughter had a bad seizure caused by brain swelling. She was visiting family outside Pittsburgh and she had to be intubated and flown by helicopter to Children’s Hospital, where she was in pediatric intensive care for 10 days and in the hospital for the next month.

Faith wasn’t a big part of my life then, but as I sat with her in the hospital, as I listened to doctors, as we tried to figure out what was next, people continually reached out to say they were praying and ask how they could help.

And what I could feel, could palpably feel, was a community of prayers changing me. I wouldn’t say I started out where the Grinch was, but my heart grew in significant ways that I am still trying to wrap my head around. And I felt a peace and calm in the midst of so much worry.

When we came home, I was full of capital “G” Gratitude. I didn’t necessarily know where to put it or what to do with it, but a friend invited me to church. That sounded like a good start. And that was the first step on a path that led here, and with gratitude every day it is a walk that is still going.

I saw healing. I felt a change, a kind of healing in me. And giving praise and thanks is my response.

Salvation

Let’s turn our attention back to the grateful leper. Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well.” Fred Craddock who I quoted earlier points out that the verb that was used for “made well” is the same word that is often translated, “to be saved.”

Jesus healed 10 people, but only one, the one who came back and was grateful, received something much bigger than physical healing. His faith, as expressed by his gratitude, saved him.

Alan Culpepper in “The New Interpreter’s Bible,” looks at this and says that the story challenges us to regard gratitude as an expression of faith.

That resonates with me. Gratitude feels like a way to express our faith.

Culpepper says further: “If gratitude reveals humility of spirit and a sensitivity to the grace of God in one’s life, then is there any better measure of faith than wonder and thankfulness before what one perceives as unmerited expressions of love and kindness from God and from others?”

Living with a Grateful Heart

What does gratitude look like in our lives? What do we do when we have a grateful heart?

I have one more quick example. When I started working here at Christ Church they gave me the office at the top of the stairs in the Rectory. I end up talking to just about everyone who comes up and down the steps—which aren’t the easiest steps to navigate.

Well, a few times a week, Bruce Richards would come up the steps and go into the bathroom, and when he came out he would stop in and share this amazing smile, and energy, and joy and gratitude.

It turns out at the time that all the Stephen Ministry books, brochures and pins were kept in the bathroom closet, and he would go in to stock up on whatever he needed.

So I had a running joke with Bruce that he had a Clark Kent/Superman phone booth in the bathroom and he would come out as a superhero for pastoral care. Except it wasn’t a joke at all. That’s who Bruce was.

As the years went on, Bruce was slower getting up and down the steps, but his joy, his smile, and his gratitude didn’t change.

We commended Bruce to God on Saturday and I have so many pictures of him on my heart. Bruce carried printed out prayers in his wallet and in his calendar and he sometimes gave me one if he thought I looked like I needed it, or he would tell me to pass it on to someone who did.

Bruce came with us to give Communion to a parishioner in Oxford who had fallen and couldn’t make it to church for a while. For us, it was a special visit, but Bruce did this all the time, in nursing homes, people’s houses, you name it.

And I have a picture of Bruce coming to his door on his 80^th birthday, during the height of the pandemic, when a group of us went to sing happy birthday to him with Brenda Wood playing the accordion.

Bruce was a grateful heart personified. He showed us what it looked like to live with gratitude and for him it looked like caring for others, so much so, that he helped begin a new ministry at the church, specifically to care for people going through tough times… by listening to them, praying with them, and walking beside them. And Bruce’s work of 18 years here continues today with all the Stephen Ministers, the care givers and care receivers, who are grateful and helping us create a church community of compassion.

Bruce saw people hurting. He acted, he did something about it, using gifts that he didn’t know he had, always giving thanks with gratitude.

I wish we didn’t have to lose people like Bruce, people in our lives who show us what it is to live with a grateful heart—people we are grateful for. But it makes me even more thankful for the time that we had together and the example he still is for all of us. What a gift to know people like that and to be able to continue their work in love.

Alan Culpepper has a thought here that I’d like to close with, which gets us to the heart of today’s Gospel:

“Faith, like gratitude, is our response to the grace of God as we have experienced it. For those who have become aware of God’s grace, all of life is infused with a sense of gratitude, and each encounter becomes an opportunity to see and respond in the spirit of the grateful leper.”

Amen.

A Sermon in the Books

Prologue

Sunday morning, I walked up to the church about an hour before the 8:00am service. The evening before, I preached a sermon–still a very new-to-me experience–on Luke’s gospel story of Jesus healing a man possessed by demons.

Christ Church Easton has multiple worship services each weekend and Saturday is the most casual. People in the service, priest included, wear regular clothes. I was myself–talking in jeans and a Hawaiian-ish shirt and Vans. On Sundays, those serving are vested/robed. I was on my way inside to get robed up for three Sunday services.

The sunlight was dancing in the garden next to the church and I almost walked by it, feeling like a needed to be on task. And then I thought about being in the moment, for as many moments as we can, and I stopped and walked over. And perched on a flower was a dragonfly, who stayed, and didn’t fly away.

The dragonfly, the sunlight, and the flowers set the tone. Be in the moment.

A little background.

This past year, I became a first-year seminary student discerning a call to the priesthood. I’ve been a full-time church educator for the past five years. Our rector/pastor is giving a co-worker/fellow seminarian and I opportunities to preach, each of us being scheduled one weekend every other month. We have an incredible congregation/community, who are encouraging us.

So there’s that.

In the Episcopal Church, what the readings are each week comes from a common lectionary, which rotates over a three-year cycle. Generally speaking, an Episcopal service on a given weekend anywhere you go, will likely have the same Gospel reading. And if you are preaching, that is the Gospel you want to make sense of for folks in some way.

The reading for my preaching weekend was Luke 8:26-39, the story of Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac. You know, a story that anyone would be keen to talk about 🙂

But as I thought about the reading during the week, an angle presented itself–talking about why a seemingly dated, archaic reading, which to many people might not seem to be at all relevant, actually matters here and now.

So I set out to look at demon possession through a modern lens. And here is what I came up with.

Personally, I retain more by reading than I do from listening. So the text is below. A friend was able to record the sermon portion of our 10:00am traditional music service, which you can watch here. Bear in mind that this is among the earliest sermons of someone not inclined to speak in front of gatherings of people.

An alternative to being demon possessed

Leading up to today’s reading, in Luke’s Gospel story, Jesus has been walking through cities and towns “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”

The crowds are everywhere around him, so much so that when his mother and brothers come to see him, they can’t even get to him.

So Jesus does something that plenty of people on the Eastern Shore can relate to: he gets on a boat.

And he says, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” Jesus falls asleep in the boat, and Luke gives us his account of the storm coming up, the disciples waking Jesus and Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are blown away that he can even command the wind and the waves.

So in our reading for today this boat ride takes them to the country of the Gerasenes. Jesus has gone over to the other side of the lake to get away from the crowds. And as soon as he steps on land, a man with demons meets him.

The funny thing, reading about the demon-possessed people in Scripture is that I think we dismiss these stories. Because we don’t talk like that anymore. Most of us aren’t worried about demons when we go into the grocery store or walk across town. So we say, okay, this story doesn’t apply to me. It’s not relevant.

Let’s think for a bit on this man and his demons. Here is a guy who is not in his right mind. His mind has been taken over by so many demons, they identify themselves as “Legion.” Here is a man on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee, meaning he is a gentile, not Jewish, which we further see by the fact that there are pigs around, which anyone Jewish wouldn’t have had. But what this area did have in common with Galilee, Jerusalem, the whole region, is that it had been taken over by Rome. And legions of Roman soldiers. So here is a man whose people had been conquered by foreign powers, and whose lives would have been affected accordingly. We might say that he was dealing with the spirit of the times.

Do we feel like the spirit of the times, of our times, might take over our minds sometimes? As Fr. Bill mentioned last week, do we feel like an unholy trinity of fear, leading to anger, leading to violence might carry us away with it sometimes?

Social media offers us more than a peek inside something like this. I have seen people who I know to be loving, caring, do anything for anyone people, say things on social media that certainly point to something taking over their minds and hearts—things full of blame and hate and anger and fear. Those are things, especially when they take over people who are otherwise loving and giving and caring, that lead us nowhere we want to go. And I get it, I feel those things too, I can be overcome with thoughts and feelings I don’t know where they came from and I wish they weren’t there.

We have dear friends and brothers and sisters at Christ Church who have shared their addiction stories and their journeys in recovery. Addiction is a disease that takes over someone, in a way that someone in Jesus’s time might well have described as demon possessed.

And when we look around the country at a new mass shooting each week, now including St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Alabama—it is not hard to make the case that we have people, here and now, who are not in their right minds; we are struggling and trying to understand and to help people through mental health crises, to help them know that they are loved and valued, at times when they are having trouble finding themselves.

We can see all around us that there are forces at work that have nothing to do with love, grace, forgiveness, or God.

All of this is to say, when we run into the demon possessed in Scripture, don’t be so quick to dismiss these stories—they still happen today, to us, just as much—with things taking over the way we think, feel, and act—which cause us to act in ways we normally wouldn’t.

And so in today’s reading, what do we see immediately with Jesus: these demons know him, and know that he has authority over them. They know he can get rid of them. Which he does and puts this man back into his right mind. And that is a great line, I think, when the people came out to see what happened, “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

And then there is one of the most curious, interesting lines. Seeing this guy back in his right mind, how did this make the people feel? “They were afraid.”

Let’s circle back to our times. If we know that love conquers all; if somewhere in our hearts, we know we could live differently, be more loving, but we would have to put down this armor, this way of seeing and being that we’ve become accustomed to… if we were asked to stop blaming people we disagree with, if we were asked to love our neighbor who lives differently or votes differently than we do: would we? If we are asked to love and forgive and do something about the state of the world around us—will we?

If we get so used to looking at the world through certain lenses, taking those lenses off, and trying on a different way of seeing, of living, can be scary. It requires us to change. It asks something of us.

So into this demon-possessed way of being, Jesus comes, and frees this man from the legion of things that cloud his heart and mind. Jesus, with power and authority, gives him, and gives us, an alternative way to be. A different way of seeing things and being in the world.

Jesus restores the man who was possessed by demons. And in the next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus calling the twelve together and giving them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sending them out.

We are called to be disciples of Jesus, right? I am going to speak for probably most of us, when I say I don’t know how well equipped I am for casting out demons and healing the sick. But there is some good news for those of us who don’t feel up to those tasks. And this season of Pentecost gives us a clue: He hasn’t left us alone to do this kind of work. He has sent us the Holy Spirit as our advocate, as our comforter, as our helper. We are never alone, especially when we are doing the work that God has given us to do.

A number of us have begun a three-week study of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples.” And at the end of the first chapter, Williams has this profound thing to say about discipleship. He says:

“A disciple is, as we have seen, simply a learner; and this, ultimately, is what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”

We are learning how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.

No pressure, right?

Let me tell you a quick story. Over the past month and a half, I have taken 20 minutes each morning for centering prayer. What that is, at base, is breathing, clearing my mind, and being in the presence of God. One of the ways I try to keep that focus is when I breath in, I think about breathing in God’s love. And that makes me smile. And when I breathe out, I think about filtering God’s love through me, and breathing out compassion, empathy, and love for others. And if I sit with that for a minute, and wrap my mind around spending more time breathing love into the world, than I do fear, or hate, or anger, that should certainly change how I act, how I see other people, and how I treat others.

This is maybe the exact opposite of demon possession. Instead of taking in all these things of the world that keep us from God, I try to take in, to dwell on, to feel God’s love and grace.

I’m not saying that centering prayer is the answer to evil in the world. But let’s ask ourselves, what are those things we can do to help us focus on God, on love, on healing and forgiveness, rather than the different forces at work that want to keep us from the power of God’s love.

Rowan Williams has a few suggestions as to things that can help. He says: 1) attending to Scripture, following the Gospels so we can better understand this life we are called to live. 2) He says coming together to worship, to baptize, to celebrate Communion together and to welcome others to do the same. 3) And he says looking to the lives of others around us that help us to have faith. We need each other for that, to help us focus on God.

And so what if all of us who think of ourselves as Christians spent even a little time each day trying to focus on God’s gifts for us; on God’s grace and his love, in whatever ways we find most nourishing.

And then what if, by our breath, by our thoughts, by our actions, we tried to put more love into the world—taking in God’s love for us—and putting that love, in our own special and unique ways, into our community, into our world. Would that make a difference? And if it would, are we willing to put the time in, to put the work in, to do it?

We are called to be those people. We are called to be that community. We are called to further this work.

Today’s story of a demon-possessed man should resonate with us in today’s world, if we use the language of our time. And Jesus having the power to heal, to drive out the demons that tormented this man, and many others, is still as true today as it was then.

The world we live in is a frightening and heart-breaking place too much of the time. Helping to set it right, helping to be places where the acts of God can happen in the world is the work we have been given to do.

But we don’t do it alone. We have each other, and we have the Holy Spirit. And that is enough.

Amen.

Oh, also. It helps to wear your preaching Vans.

Being Neighbors: Our Sacred Call to Empathy

If you take Jesus at his word, loving our neighbors is a big deal. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they record the same to-do list from Jesus, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV)

These are important. And if we take to reading, studying, reflecting and meditating on, and praying on Scripture, we’ll find new depths and heights for how to connect to and love and obey God.

I’ve got to say, the Bible is my favorite book. That is not a statement I could have made 10 years ago. And part of the reason I say that is that I’ve spent the last three years reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s versions of the Gospel, slowly, chapter by chapter, studying with different groups, using the help of N.T. Wright’s “New Testament for Everyone” commentaries. And we’ve prayed, laughed (a lot), cried, wrestled with things, been confused, found grace, found ourselves in the stories, found God and Christ in the Scriptures, found poetry, and soared to new heights of feeling and depths of understanding. I can’t recommend it enough and it has become one of my favorite things to do. We’re currently studying John’s Gospel and, wow.

But about this loving our neighbor thing: what if our neighbor has no interest in the Bible? And there are plenty of big reasons they might not (disdain for organized religion being one). One of the best things we can do is look to Jesus for an example. Jesus is constantly reaching out to the lonely, the outcast, the disenfranchised, the unclean, the sick, the marginalized–the people who the “church people” of the day wouldn’t have anything to do with. And when he reached out, he didn’t tell them to go to church, read their Old Testament, etc. He heard them. He met them where they were. He healed them. He loved them. He knew them and spoke to them. In the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, who society would have told Jesus he had no business talking to, Jesus talks to her, tells her things about who he is and who she is; the woman is amazed and tells others he “told me everything I have ever done!” He told her HER story.

At a time where we don’t know our neighbors, or their stories, and in many cases, maybe we don’t know ourselves the way we should, it’s our sacred duty to recognize the divine in each of us. In a 2018 sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, Brene Brown reminds us that,

“If you are a person of faith, you are called to find the face of God in every single person you meet.”
Brene Brown

Sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when we disagree with someone, maybe don’t like them; or if they look, think, love, or act differently than we do. A key way to know someone is to hear their stories; to understand who they are. Brown shows one way of doing that in a short, narrated cartoon video about empathy. Sometimes it is no more simple, and no more profound, than just being there.

Brown says that empathy fuels connection and cites Theresa Wiseman’s four qualities of empathy: perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotions in others, and communicating that. If we want to love our neighbor as Christ both told us and demonstrated, this is a pretty solid beginning.

Part of the problem is that this isn’t an easy thing to learn. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone. And it isn’t always easy. We need all the help that we can get.

This fall, we’ve had two evening classes reading and discussing Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.” It’s been interesting, hearing some folks who are not church-goers, who say, “A church discussing a Brene Brown book? Wow, that’s really cool, I’d love to be a part of that.” And some folks at the church, who wonder about discussing a book that isn’t the Bible and doesn’t talk directly about the Bible or God in the way that we are used to. And both of those things are great and right and fair discussions to have.

I love the idea of thin places–places where heaven and earth are closer, or places where we are closer to God. There are absolutely physical places in the world where that space exists. But I think it that space can also be a state of mind or emotion. And when we feel vulnerable, that is one of the places–being exposed, and truly seen and heard, where we feel our need for God and for each other. Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”And she points out that love for us feels uncertain, incredibly risky, and leaves us emotionally exposed.

She points out that, “vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

This is not easy stuff and it’s not necessarily a feel good book, in that it asks us to look past all the barriers we build to protect ourselves and be open with ourselves, each other, and with God. Being open to God is to be vulnerable, to put our hearts out there, which is the business God is in: the battle for our hearts.

Brown gets the title for her book from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech, about the “Man in the Arena:”

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…”

God calls us not to be on the sidelines, but in the arena. He tells us that Jesus has come so that we may “have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He wants us to get to know Him and get to know each other. And He knows it is a struggle, a journey to get there, one where we lay down our old lives to have a new life in and through Him. And that it’s worth it.

What keeps us from having that life in all its fullness? The life that we might dream of, or that God dreams for us? What, in our culture, are the things that most stand in our way? If most of us had to name it, it would probably involve fear, shame, vulnerability. We are often afraid of failing, afraid of falling, afraid of being ridiculed, afraid of being exposed. This is true in our personal lives, in our education system, and at work. And in Daring Greatly, Brown helps us to look at this, to name and understand it, and talks about how we can connect with one another and develop a resilience that could allow us to try; to dare.

In the Gospels, Jesus compares himself to a physician, who is not here to help the healthy, but here to help the sick. He asks Peter and his disciples to continue his work. He asks us to continue his work today. And when we can diagnose something that keeps people down, keeps us from knowing each other and knowing ourselves; keeps us armored up, numb, and therefore not open to God or His love for us and what plans He might have for us, maybe He asks us to reach out to people where they are. Maybe he asks us to open ourselves up and help others connect to us and to Him.

And maybe we need to use every tool, every language, every means that He has given us to help do that. It’s a sacred call, to love our neighbors. And to love them, we have to know them, and know ourselves.

There are different paths to come to faith. I know my own did not involve the Bible until it did. And that has begun one of the coolest lifetime adventures there is. And our paths also involve finding God in all of creation, in other people, and in books, some of which are obvious, some of which are subtle, but all of which are part of God.

At our best, maybe we are called to synthesize secular and sacred texts, or to view everything as sacred, seeing with the eyes of a Creator who loves his Creation. Maybe we can create a language and a vision with room for both. I appreciate folks like Rev. Arianne Rice, who in her practice is both an Episcopal priest and a certified Daring Way instructor, bringing together Scripture, faith, social work, research, vulnerability, and empathy. And who may be able to help us, and others, do the same. It’s cool to see Christ Church Charlotte offering classes, lectures, and an evening with Brene Brown; Stonebriar Church in Texas talking about healing from shame; and the Episcopal Church and United Thank Offering talking about return, practice, and gratitude, citing Brown’s work. The point here is not about Brown, but about cases where churches are looking to engage their congregations and communities by being open to new ways of thinking about connection, empathy, vulnerability, and how to be neighbors. It doesn’t change our sacred calling, it engages it on the ground.

I have so much to learn from so many different people. And so much to learn about God’s love, and grace, and Word. And I am grateful for all those in the arena, trying to do God’s work , through their unique gifts, perspective, and place in the world.

Prodigal in Flux

Two kids. One is out of control, squanders opportunities, messes up, fails repeatedly, doesn’t know which way is up, goes off track, loses track, what track? Tries to find their own way in so many ways they get lost. The other child doesn’t question, stays in line, is dutiful, doesn’t stray from home. And a father (or parent) who loves them both. That’s a set up of the parable of the prodigal son that Jesus lays out in chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel. And it’s a story, and family dynamic that is familiar to a lot of us.

I have always been the first example; I am much more prodigal than prodigy. I’ve taken more wrong turns, wasted time and money, and been clueless enough to be dropkicked more times than I can count.

But a funny thing happens to the wayward, reckless prodigal son in Jesus’ parable. When he is lost and at his lowest, he humbles himself. He swallows his pride, casts off his son-ship, and looks to return home to his father to beg to be a servant or slave, no longer a son. The father is overjoyed, knows in his bones that his son was lost, but now is found, welcomes him home and celebrates.

Meanwhile, the other son, the one who was there all along, didn’t stray, stayed in line, is furious. And we get that, we recognize it, we see that tendency in ourselves. When Jesus told his parable, he used it as a way to talk about groups and types of people, but man, can we feel it personally and emotionally. It works both ways. We recently discussed it in our Luke studies and it is remarkable what it stirs up in us. It’s the parable in the Gospels that I most identify with.

Writer and theologian Henri Nouwen had an encounter with Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” which changed Nouwen’s life. It started him on a long spiritual adventure, got him thinking about his own life and calling in terms of the parable, and sent him searching inside himself in new ways. He took his reflections and experiences and turned them into what he calls his favorite of the many books he has written.

“For many years I tried to get a glimpse of God by looking carefully at the varieties of human experience: loneliness and love, sorrow and joy, resentment and gratitude, war and peace. I sought to understand the ups and downs of the human soul, to discern there a hunger and thirst that only a God whose name is Love could satisfy.”

Rembrandt’s painting helped him find God’s home in Nouwen’s own heart, showed him to look inside himself as well.

“I have to kneel before the Father, put my ear against his chest and listen, without interruption, to the heartbeat of God… I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into passing realities of our short existence on this world, from the house of love into the houses of fear, from God’s abode into the dwellings of human beings.”

Jesus invites us into his story and Nouwen invites us along for his journey of personal discovery. This March and April for five weeks, I am stoked that we are going to make it a group adventure. Wednesday evenings at 6:30pm, from March 20 through April 17 at Christ Church Easton. If it’s the kind of adventure that you are looking for, you can sign up here.

I like this from the back cover of the book, “For all who ask, ‘Where has my struggle led me?’ or for those ‘on the road’ who have the courage to embark on the journey but seek the illumination of a known way and safe passage, this book will inspire and guide each time its read.”

And I am a big fan of Charlie Mackey‘s bronzes and drawings of the prodigal son (below).

Ultimately, I wonder if we are each of the characters in the story–the prodigal when we are reckless, self-destructive, stray and feel lost. And when we humble ourselves and look for forgiveness. The other brother when we feel resentful of others, entitled to what we feel we deserve, and maybe when we go through the motions without putting our hearts and souls into things. And we are asked to be the father when we forgive, welcome back, and celebrate those who were lost, but now are found.

The Tree Which Moves Us

William Blake’s writing and artwork inspired my first tattoo, 21 years ago. This morning he reminded me to see God in all things. And it turns out today (Nov. 28) is also Blake’s birthday.

Reading him in a British romanticism class at Washington College changed the way I thought about writing. This morning, drinking coffee and reading, a letter Blake wrote to a patron-turned-critic popped up:

“I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eye of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

I didn’t set out to read Blake this morning, the letter was in a chapter of Eknath Easwaran’s commentary on the Beatitudes. I came across the same letter again, referenced by Maria Popova’s Brainpickings, pointing out his birthday. I like it when God makes it obvious that you are supposed to read and think about something today.

Walking around Tuckahoe State Park on Sunday, I kept taking pictures because the sun was setting and bouncing light beautifully off the trees and the water. We live in a place where we can be frequently reminded to stop and look at amazing things. If we make time. It’s all around us: yellow ginkgo leaves covering the ground, Great Blue Herons in flight, seldom seen birds at the feeder outside the window.

Blake’s point is that we don’t all look at things the same way. For someone looking to clear land and build a house, or someone who is late to work, a tree might be just something in the way or background scenery. For others, it can be the tree which moves us to tears; overwhelms us with gratitude and wonder at being out in nature.

After quoting Blake, Easwaran goes on to quote Thomas a Kempis, saying:

“If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.” The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation.

Every creature a book of holy doctrine. Wow. It comes back to being able to look, being able to see things that way, see each other that way. We determine how and what we see in the world. Seeing the tree which moves us, seeing God’s handiwork in nature and people in our lives, is the reminder I take today.

It’s cool to have Blake surface while studying Luke’s Gospel and the Beatitudes. Jesus was calling for people to see and be in new and different ways than what was going on around them. In his art and writing, Blake saw in new ways, broke from tradition, and conveyed the prophetic and the wondrous. He opened my eyes to writing being able to break free from form and constraint.

Since it’s his birthday, let’s walk toward Blake a bit more. He illustrated religious texts; it’s moving quickly into Advent and Christmas; and we have groups who have studied Luke’s take on Jesus’ birth narrative where angels appear to the shepherds. So this struck me today: Blake drew and painted scenes for a John Milton poem, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.” Blake illustrates Milton’s words, which describe a scene we know better using Luke’s words:

And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2:14)

Today, on Blake’s birthday, and every day, whether we need angels to point it out to us, or whether we can use our own eyes, maybe we can see the divine in the everyday, the tree which moves us.

Helped are those

I’ve got to get to know Alice Walker. I’ve never read “The Color Purple,” but I love and live by her character Shug Avery’s quote, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” God gives us things to notice, to experience, to enjoy, to wonder about, but it’s up to us to see them.

We are up to chapter six in our study of Luke’s reporting of the Gospel at Christ Church Easton, which includes Luke’s version of the Beatitudes–Jesus’ sermon on the plain, which is slightly different than His sermon on the mount in Matthew’s Gospel. Most people have heard it–“Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God, Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” (Luke 6:20-21)–even if they don’t know it. But it’s fair to say that most people don’t give it much thought.

“Blessed” is a word that is overused and casually used, to the point that maybe it has lost its meaning in daily life, or at least it’s been watered down. As I was looking around this week for thoughts, commentary, and creative takes on the Beatitudes, Alice Walker popped up again. It was her same character, Shug Avery, but in the sequel to “The Color Purple,” the novel “The Temple of My Familiar.” In it, Shug gives her own version of the Beatitudes, but she replaces the word “blessed” with “helped.” And it changes so much (grabbing just a few):

“HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.
HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.
HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.
HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.
HELPED are those who love the earth, their mother, and who willingly suffer that she may not die; in their grief over her pain they will weep rivers of blood, and in their joy of her lively response to love, they will converse with the trees.
HELPED are those whose every act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or child.”

I love the way “helped,” changes the way we think about things; blessed is easy for us to think, oh, that’s nice, things will balance out eventually. Helped lets us know that we are helped by seeing things that way, or by being or acting a certain way. We can also look at it as helped by God for loving, living, acting, or seeing in a particular way. But it puts it on us to take action, to be in the world.

Eknath Easwaran was a fascinating, brilliant mystic who wrote about all kinds of religions, on meditation, prayer, and who has written a commentary on the Beatitudes called “Original Goodness.”

To begin his book, Easwaran quotes another mystic, Meister Eckhart:

“I have spoken at times of a light in the soul, a light that is uncreated and uncreatable… to the extent that we can deny ourselves and turn away from created things, we shall find our unity and blessing in that little spark in the soul, which neither space nor time touches.”

Easwaran goes on to outline four principles that Eckhart tried to get across:

“…there is a light in the soul that is uncreated and uncreatable… a divine core of personality that cannot be separated from God.
“This divine essence can be realized… it can and should be discovered, so that its presence becomes a reality in daily life.”
“This discovery is life’s real and highest goal. Our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, nor to write our names in history, but to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts.”
“When we realize this goal, we discover simultaneously that the divinity within ourselves is one and the same in all–all individuals, all creatures, all of life.”

From Jesus, to Eckhart, to Easwaran, to Shug/Walker, the idea is that we can know God directly, personally, that He dwells in each of us, and that we would do well to get in touch with this Holy Spirit inside us, which connects us to God; and in order to do so, we need to look past, to strip away so many of the worldly things that we hold up as more important.

Simple, right? Not so much. Jesus calls for a reversal, for us to change our priorities, our way of looking at and being in the world; how we look at and treat each other. That’s the goal, what we aim toward–feeling connected to God, feeling helped or blessed in all that we do. We may never get there (I’ll probably never get there), but that doesn’t mean we don’t pray, meditate, study Scripture, love each other, live it out, and try to get closer to God in our attempt.

We’ll leave it to Shug to say a thing or two more about the “helped:”

“HELPED are those who strive to give up their anger; their reward will be that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or or war.
HELPED are those who forgive; their reward shall be forgiveness of every evil done to them. It will be in their power, therefore, to envision the new Earth.
HELPED are those who are shown the existence of the Creator’s magic in the Universe; they shall experience delight and astonishment without ceasing.
HELPED are those who love all the colors of all the human beings, as they love all the colors of the animals and plants; none of their children, nor any of their ancestors, nor any parts of themselves, shall be hidden from them.
HELPED are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another–plant, animal, river, or human being.”

Weekly Reader: Luke, Linus, Fred and Gary

I hear Linus Van Pelt’s voice in my head. We are two chapters into our study of Luke’s Gospel at Christ Church Easton and there is Linus.

“And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this [shall be] a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” – Luke 2:8-14

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. – LVP

That last line might not be in the Bible. But it applies. I still well up a bit anytime I watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special and the feckless search for the meaning of Christmas leads to Luke and Linus. And I will say, just two chapters into Luke, it is beyond cool to get a deeper sense of Luke’s good news and what he is doing as essentially a journalist, making sure we don’t miss the story of Jesus.

Yesterday morning, I opened up Frederick Buechner’s quote of the day and found my mind in an upward spiral thinking about this:

“Some moment happens in your life that you say yes to right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. Laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. Waking up to the first snow. Being in bed with someone you love.

“Whether you thank God for such a moment or thank your lucky stars, it is a moment that is trying to open up your whole life. If you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. If you throw your arms around such a moment and bless it, it may save your soul.”

Buechner’s context with salvation, love, and gratitude is key, but that is the part that spoke to me.

This morning I returned to Gary Snyder’s “Mountains and Rivers Without End,” a book/meditation it took him 40 years to write, and which I never keep far from reach. I’m trying to read Snyder and Jim Harrison in the mornings with coffee, to stoke my sense of wonder and to remember to look at the world around me with eyes and a heart to take everything in. Snyder’s meditation goes throughout the world, history, into our minds and souls, and was begun looking at a scroll of a landscape.

I had a picture in my head this morning of Weekly Readers, a weekly newspaper/magazine we got in elementary school that told us what was going on the world that we might want to pay attention to.

The week is just starting, but I like the notion that this week, the things I am reading, that I want to pay attention to–Luke, Linus, Fred, and Gary–help keep my mind connected to God, nature, blessing everyday moments in our lives, creativity, incarnation, and love.

Mountaintop Experiences

Sometimes hospitals can be mountaintops. Mountaintop experiences are those moments or experiences in our lives that rearrange things, change our hearts, bring us closer to God.

Two years ago today, while visiting her mom’s family in Pennsylvania, Ava had a seizure that led her to be flown by helicopter to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. I was sitting in my sun room at home at 9pm, and got a phone call, and was on the road within a few minutes.

She spent 10 days in pediatric intensive care and all told about a month in the hospital between neurology and the rehab unit. After EKGs and MRIs and who knows what other acronyms, the likely diagnosis was that Epstein-Barr Virus had gotten into her spine, and caused her brain to swell and provoked that and subsequent and ongoing seizures. The doctors, nurses, and technicians at Children’s were rock stars, stayed the course and sent Ava home to conquer 5th grade. Since then, she has been on medication to manage her seizures and we have learned a bit about the world of provoked epilepsy. Ava’s has been a good story, with her making honor roll at school, playing sports, and living a mostly normal life, albeit mornings and evenings feeling like a pharmacy.

Mountaintops are what you make of them. The main thing I remember is the amazing support, prayers, good vibes and good deeds from so many people. It redefined what community meant to me. What Ava went through, and her attitude, and watching her come back to herself gave me a sense of gratitude I wouldn’t have come to any other way. It showed me first-hand, the way a community of people praying can change the heart(s) of the people being prayed for. I have been in a constant and growing conversation with God since (not that I always listen the first time or catch what He’s saying).

Yesterday’s Gospel reading and sermon at Christ Church Easton were about a mountaintop experience–Luke’s story of Peter, John, and James witnessing Jesus’s transfiguration, “And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.”(Luke 9:29). You can’t get much more mountaintop than that. I like how Frederick Buechner brings transfiguration back to everyday life:

“Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it’s almost beyond bearing.”

When I think back to two years ago in the hospital and getting home, I have seen that look on a face. It was there in Anna caring for her sister; it was there in Ava getting home, excited to see her friends and start the school year. And because of that mountaintop experience, when I remember to look with the eyes of my heart, I see it now.

Making Us New

Each day is full of the expected and the unexpected. There are things I see coming and plenty I don’t. There are things I recognize and those I know are new. And that goes for myself as well; there are parts of me I recognize and parts I have to do a double take to catch (some I like, some I need to work on).

We can say the same thing for each of our paths through life: there is familiar ground and new ground every day. The thing about it is to keep going.

By your endurance you will gain your souls. – Luke 21:19. That was the Gospel from this morning’s worship service at Christ Church Easton. Over the last couple months, I have been reading the Books of Luke and John, and I underlined that passage a week or so ago. As a distance runner it speaks to me of lessons learned through perseverance. As someone whose life doesn’t generally seem to move in straight or discernible lines, it’s also about endurance in the face of the unknown. We might call that faith. Faith helps us endure.

Jesus talks about the destruction of the temple, the impermanence of the earthly life, the trials and tribulations and hardships that lie ahead, and the need to stay on the path, have faith, “by endurance you will gain your souls.” There are a very few things we can control, life happens all around us, what are we to do, what are we called to do as followers of Christ in the face of it all?

What we are called upon to be in this world is a force for good, for hope, for reconciliation, and righteousness… we can be better vessels of grace in this (community). – Fr. Bill

Life happens in ways we can’t understand. What we are called upon is to be a force for good, for hope, for faith. To focus on those things we can do something about, how we treat others, how we serve, what we can do for ourselves, our families, our communities.

Our walk may require different shoes than we expected (I had to grab the photo above, which shows what happens when a priest has to go from two morning worship services to volunteering at the Waterfowl Festival). It may take us down different roads, put us in different places, and run us into different people than we expected or than we would have chosen on our own. Though we’d like to, we can’t control what or who we encounter, but we can control who we are, how we act, and how we see things and people.

Sometimes I think we adapt to the path we are on. We are made new by how we respond. Sometimes, I think we adapt to the path we see coming. We are made new to prepare for what’s ahead. In both cases, it is our response to God, what He’s put in front of us, and how we respond to His calling that makes us new.

Endurance, enduring doesn’t just have to be work and suffering. Those things are there, but so are happiness, joy, celebration, inspiration, and love. All things by which God makes us new, renew us. Along our path, we are able to become new again, invent, and improve ourselves. We can look to God for inspiration and we can surround ourselves with people who inspire us.

I’ve had the great fortune over the past couple weeks, to be inspired by two friends, in their mid-40s, doing amazing things that they have taken upon themselves to do.

Jeremy Joseph is an elementary school art teacher, father of two girls, his wife is also a teacher. He is an artist with a cool style. Recently he decided to take his painting in a new direction and opened a solo exhibit of 30 new works. More on that another time, but Jeremy has long been an inspiration for me and writing, the way he makes time for creativity, for his passion, when it would be easier just to work, to be a dad, live life. Instead he chooses to have creativity, art, and newness be a part of his life.

A.K. Leight is a marine biologist. He decided a number of years ago that he was going to get his PhD in environmental science (Biological Oceanography) knowing he and his wife work full-time, have two girls, and that it was going to be a long, slow process. This past week he successfully defended his thesis, bringing the culmination of so much time, effort, and study. It’s not something most people do 20-some years into a career. As I am entering a new life adventure where continuing education and/or graduate study are a part of a calling, I am inspired by what A.K. has done and how he has gone about it. I am blessed to have friends who inspire me by their example.

Every day there is something new for us. Every day we can bring new eyes and renewed heart to what we are doing and how we live our lives. Every day God makes us new.

Open Our Hearts, Open Our Lives

I’m learning to get out of the way. Sometimes that means to move over to let what’s coming through get where it’s going. Sometimes I realize it’s because I’m what’s standing in the way of me getting to where I need to be.

When I pray (someone cue MC Hammer), I get out of the way. When I am quiet, when I listen, I get out of the way. It’s a matter of clearing out my ego, clearing out uncertainty, and trusting God, allowing bigger things to work.

Lately I’ve been moving in a certain direction. I’ve listened, written things down, made a gameplan. I’ve been looking for ways to help put things in motion, ways to serve, and at the same time, still having those pangs of doubt. A friend/mentor came across a quote from Henri Nouwen and sent it along:

When all is said and done, what we must learn above all is to offer ourselves–imperfections and all–to God. If we keep waiting until we are ‘worthy’ of God, we will move farther rather than closer to Him. It is through our broken, vulnerable, mortal ways of being that the healing power of the eternal God becomes visible to us.

We are called each day to present to the Lord the whole of our lives–our joys as well as our sorrows, our successes as well as our failures, our hopes as well as fears. We are called to do so with our limited means, our stuttering words and halting expressions. In this way we will come to know in mind and heart the unceasing prayer of God’s Spirit in us. Our many prayers are in fact confessions of our inability to pray. But they are confessions that enable us to perceive the merciful presence of God. – Henri Nouwen, “A Cry for Mercy”

Sometimes I’m good with cliff diving. Sometimes I can use a shove off the ledge. Sometimes it can be just a nod. That’s where having others to encourage us along the way, fellow pilgrims on their own journeys, makes the walk easier, lighter, more certain. It can be a hard road alone.

Pride is a funny thing. We think we need it to accomplish things. We naturally feel proud if we do something well and it turns out better than we hoped. But riding pride’s high horse can be a dangerous trip. It grows our egos and prevents us from getting out of our own way. Today’s Gospel in church was from Luke (18:9-14). It’s the parable of the proud Pharisee and the repentant tax collector. Jesus closes with:

…all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus digs parables. He’d rather make us think than tell us straight. But that one is pretty clear. Be humble, you’ll find the reward in it.

Getting out of my own way means opening myself up to possibilities. Opening my heart to the flow of what’s coming through. Whatever we choose to call it, we’ve all had those moments, whether playing sports, or fishing, hiking, playing music, running, writing, where we have felt we were in the zone, in the flow, something bigger than ourselves took over. Getting out of our own way opens us up to what God is sending through. In the Trinity notion, it’s the Holy Spirit.

And when we open our hearts, we open our lives to let things happen. To let God work. To do things, move in directions, I wouldn’t have come up with on my own.

Opening our hearts and lives to something bigger than us, is to serve. To offer ourselves to and for a bigger purpose. The contemporary choir this morning, with a soloist, belted an inspired version of Matthew West’s “Do Something.” The lyrics pretty well sum up the notion of God/Jesus at work in the world. Working through people. The singer is fed up with all the terrible things that happen in the world and asks God to do something:

He said, “I did, I created you.”

That’s how I think about how God works in the world: through us:

But it’s easier to say than to be
Live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves
It’s alright, “somebody else will do something”
Well, I don’t know about you
But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire
I don’t want a flame, I want a fire
I wanna be the one who stands up and says,
“I’m gonna do something”

It’s not a song I would have listened to on the radio or downloaded. But if I could have the version that was performed in church–choir, band, soloist, live, inspired, moving an entire congregation–I would play it on a loop. It’s the kind of message that always hits me hardest. God works through people. God works through you. If you see a problem, it’s on you to fix it. To do something.

I’m learning to get out of the way. I’m learning to let bigger things work. To let God work. I’m learning to open my heart, to open my life. To serve. To do something, those things that I can do differently than anybody else could. Even me, flawed, imperfect, with my “limited means, (my) stuttering words, (my) halting expressions.”

I’m learning to get out of the way.