Why Wasn't I Myself?

Paraphrasing a rabbi, theologian Miroslav Volf said, "I don't fear that at the end God will ask why I wasn't Moses (great leader) or Thomas Aquinas (towering intellect), but why I wasn't myself."

From nearly the beginning of our lives, we live in a state of constant comparison with those around us. 

She walked so early. 

He didn't talk until late.
She was always short for her age.
He had many developmental delays.
I'll never be as smart as she is.
What did you get on that math quiz?
I wish I was as tall as he is.
I am not as pretty, talented, or gifted as they are.
You're so much better at nearly everything than I am.

Sound familiar?

We all do it.  We compare ourselves with our neighbors, our fellow students, our colleagues, our family members, or what we have come to believe is "normal."

And this sickness invades all of our lives.  None are exempt from its fever and its lingering debilitating side effects.

This is not how it is supposed to be.  

This isn't how we were designed.  

We were made in the image of the Divine One.  The breath, the ruah, of the Creator of all things fills our lungs and feeds our being.  We carry within us the legacy of our first ancestors who the Author of Life called "very good."  This is the gift of God.  There is nothing we can do to earn God's favor or the blessing that courses through our veins.

The challenge is to find a way to drown out the lies that are whispered in our ears telling us that we are not who we were created to be.  When these lies are allowed to take root, we begin to live as if they are the truths that define us.  We must take time to linger in stillness where the voice of God can be heard reminding us that we are indeed "beloved children of God." This is the truth that should shape us.  This is the truth into which we should live.  When we can hear this voice, all other false comparisons fall away, and we can be the person who we were created to be.

You are a child of God.  Nothing can ever take that identity away from you!

Blessings.

Bigger Than We Imagine, Closer Than We Think

Sermon on Memorial Day – May 29, 2011 - (to view video, click here)
Acts 17:22-31 (click on citation to view text)

The morning was full of excitement and anticipation. No one really knew exactly what to expect, but somehow everyone knew it would be great.

The entire group had been preparing for nine months. They had explored, studied and discovered together. They had thought and dreamt about this very moment. And here they were. They had traveled to a new city, a new country together and had a full day ahead of them. As they walked down the street in the early morning sun, the energy was high and the chatter was lively. This was to be the first day of a ten day journey of faith.

The group was handed their tickets and they began the climb up the magnificent hill. As they took the long walk up the hill the group had no idea what is in store for them when they would finally reach the top. I walked in the front of the group and stopped to face them. I wanted to see the looks on their faces. As each individual made the last turn in the path, they came face to face with the grandeur of the historic acropolis in heart of Athens, Greece. Their eyes widened to take the entire scene in as their breath was momentarily abated. There they stood surrounded by the monumental glory of ancient Athens.

Athens…a city named for Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom; a city filled with memories of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; a city noted for its fantastic architecture and beautiful Classical Greek art. Located in this city were the Academy of Plato, the Lyceum of Aristotle, and the Areopagus. Ancient Athens was a tribute to the abilities of human hands and a testimony to the wonders of the human mind.

All of the students had seen it in pictures and movies. They had learned about it in history class. But this was different. As they walked through the Propylaea, a magnificent columned gate reaching to the heavens, each was overwhelmed by the majesty of the entire scene. Just inside the gate the students came face to face with the Parthenon in all of its glory! At the top of the hill one could see the entire city laid out at their feet.

After experiencing the acropolis, the group then went to what is affectionately called Mars Hill, the location of Paul’s famous speech to the Areopagus which we read this morning. While there the group of students saw a glimpse of what Paul would have seen in the first century during his visit to Athens. There to the left was the temple of Hephaestus and off in the distance was the famous Stoa, from which Stoics derived their name. This was the site of many great debates and trials in the history of ancient thought. This was the hill of Aristotle and Socrates, the Epicurians and the Stoics. Of the Areopagus, the author of Acts wrote, “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.”

This is the cultural context of our text this morning. In the shadow of the acropolis – the center of the religious life of the Athenians – and just above the bustling agora – the Athenian marketplace – Paul was brought to speak to the Areopagus about this, “new teaching…” As he spoke about his faith, Paul could look down and see the statues and the temples to various gods scattered about the agora.

So who was this God about whom Paul was invited to speak before the learned of Athens? In this famous speech in Acts 17, Paul masterfully speaks of a God that is beyond our imaginings and human ideas of what God might be like yet is simultaneously closer than our own breath. To the Athenians, a very religious people by Paul’s own admission, Paul declares that this God whom they worship as “unknown” can be known and is at the same time both transcendent and immanent.

Paul declares to a people who built wonderful statues and awe inspiring temples to their pantheon of gods that God transcends or is beyond definition, description or category. To the learned of Athens and to our listening ears, Paul proclaims, this unknown god is “the God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:24,25 NRSV). God is beyond the creative thoughts of our minds and the artistic creations of our hands. God is beyond. God transcends our understanding of who we imagine God to be. In his Institutes, reformer John Calvin wrote, “God’s infinity ought to make us afraid to try to measure God by our own senses. Indeed, God’s spiritual nature forbids imagining anything earthly of God…as God is incomprehensible” (Calvin 1.1.8.1). There is nothing to which we can compare the glory and majesty of God. God is wholly other than us. God is transcendent.

Yet, God is not, as Aristotle once posited, an “unmoved mover” distant and unengaged in the happenings of the world which God created. The God of Paul, the God of our faith is transcendent, yes, but ALSO immanent. God is closer to us than we are to our very selves. The First Testament prophets and poets understood that God was not only the creator of all things seen and unseen, but this God was also engaged in the world and each in person’s life. It was a psalmist who famously wrote, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast…For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb” (Psalm 139:7-10; 13 NRSV). God is present in creation and active within our lives. God is actively engaged in the happenings of the world in which we live and is not simply a distant unmoved deity unconcerned with the ways of the world. And indeed, God’s immanence, God’s proximity is most evident in the mystery of the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. One commentator wrote, God “is at once transcendent yet personal, sovereign and fully engaged in human life” (Wall 248).

This is a challenge to us as people of faith. Do we have the courage to allow God to be all that we can imagine and then even more still? Will we allow the God of the universe to be closer to us than we are to our very selves? Of this delicate and often difficult balancing act theologian Stanley Grenz wrote, “On the one hand, God is transcendent. God is self-sufficient apart from the world. (God) is above the universe and comes to the world from beyond…On the other hand, God is immanent in the world. This means that God is present to creation. God is active within the universe, involved with the natural processes and in human history…In short, the God we know is immanent and transcendent. (God) is that reality who is present and active within the world process. Yet (God) is not simply to be equated with it, for (God) is at the same time self-sufficient and ‘beyond’ the universe. In conceiving of God, therefore, we dare neither place (God) so far beyond the world that (God) cannot enter into relationship with (God’s) creatures nor collapse (God) so thoroughly into the world processes that (God) cannot stand over the creation which (God) made.” (Grenz 81).

We tend to err on one side or the other. We either conceive of God in such as fashion as to keep God distant and disengaged from the world in which we live or we bring God so near that God becomes equated with our human experience and reality. As people of faith, we must find a way to allow God to be a God who transcends definition and yet is closer than the air we breathe.

In less than two weeks, another group of students from Second Presbyterian Church will walk up to the top of Mars Hill. They will sit together in the shadow of the acropolis and in full view of the agora. They will take their place where the Areopagus once met some 2000 years ago. They will add their names to the list of over 210 young people from Second who have stepped foot on that very hill over the last 11 years. They will hear the words of the Apostle Paul and ponder who this God is about whom Paul is speaking.

What difference does it make that this God is both transcendent and immanent? I think you can find evidence of the importance in the lives of these young people. You see, some of the students who have sat on that hill have lost a parent or a sibling. It is vitally important for them to believe in a God who is bigger than their experience but close enough to walk through it with them. Some of the young people who have sat on that hill struggle with depression or physical illness. There is no question that they long for a God who is beyond their pain and yet familiar with their struggle. Some of the recent high school graduates who have made that trek have walked a path through life that is more difficult than anything I can imagine. Indeed, their belief in a God that is simultaneously transcendent and immanent has sustained them along the way.

And what about you? Through your most difficult moments, unexpected diagnoses, trying treatments, and painful experiences is it not your conviction that God is big enough to be beyond your circumstance and close enough to walk through it with you that allows you to carry on?

A covenantal God must be immanent as well as transcendent. Without God’s immanence, we are left with a God who transcends all things yet is not engaged in lives of God’s people or their world. Without God’s transcendence, we are left with a God who is engaged in the world but not sovereign over all things and events.

“True to the core biblical idea, then, God is transcendent yet personal, vastly superior to some detached deity that consigns humankind to the vicissitudes of fortune. God is not some provincial deity, the God of a few; nor is God unmoved and unconcerned about the struggles of real people in particular places” (Wall 250). This is a God who is truly worthy of worship; a God whose transcendence and immanence are held in tension, held in one God. This is the deepest mystery. God is bigger than we imagine and closer than we think. Amen.

How then were your eyes opened?

This past Sunday, the Gospel lectionary text was the story of a man who was born blind and his interaction with Jesus.  It is a confusingly beautiful story of pain, sorrow and restoration, life. 

Take a moment to read it...

John 9:1-12

1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." 6 Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. 7 "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. 8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?" 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, "No, he only looks like him." But he himself insisted, "I am the man." 10 "How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded. 11 He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see." 12 "Where is this man?" they asked him. "I don't know," he said.

Throughout the season of Lent, I have been reading a daily devotion on Journey to the Cross, a wonderful online Lenten Devotional written by Andy Watts and Amy Dodson-Watts. On Wednesday, their devotional centered on the above passage from John about the blind beggar.  About this passage, they wrote the following, 

Could this story be about visibility more than sight? People in Jesus’ day believed blindness was caused by sin. The blind lived tough and lonely lives. They were invisible and out of sight to the world. Chances are, this man never had a real conversation with anyone but his parents or another beggar. He couldn’t see others. They couldn’t see him. And he couldn’t see himself as fully human. 

But with Jesus, all that changed. The man began, in Thomas Merton’s words, to 'shine like the sun.' He became visible to others, and they to him. No longer invisible, he was God’s beloved. The muddy gift restored his personhood and his community.

What part of you needs the healing mud of Jesus? What do you need to more fully love God, your neighbor, and yourself? If people were to say of you, 'Is this not the person who used to ________ and _______?' how would you fill in the blanks?



Pool of Siloam, Jerusalem



Jesus came to restore sight.  Jesus came to restore personhood.  Jesus came to restore community.

During this season of Lent, where is it that you need to be restored.  May you be given sight. May your personhood be restored.  May you begin to live into the community of the restored.
Go, wash and be restored! 

Sweeter then Honey

Psalm 119:98-103 - "Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts. I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word. I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"

In the early 70's there was a PSA (Public Service Announcement) campaign entitled "Time for Timer".  These minute-long cartoons were played during Saturday morning cartoons and after school specials.  Timer was this nondescript yellow character that sang songs about healthy snacks, the wonders of cheese and the importance of eating right.  All of his PSA's started the exact same way, "It's time for timer..."

The one I remember most is "You Are What You Eat."  Timer moved through the digestive system to remind children everywhere that in order to be healthy and to grow up big and strong they must eat right.  After all, "you are what you eat". 

I am not sure how effective the campaign was.  I mean, nearly forty years later, I still eat garbage. However, I do remember the ad campaign.  I guess it depends on your definition of success.

In Eat This Book, author, speaker and pastor, Eugene Peterson encourages his readers to read the Bible as if they were eating it.  He says, the practice of "spiritual reading" (also known as lectio divina) is "reading that enters our souls as food enters our stomachs, spreads through our blood, and becomes holiness and love and wisdom" (p. 4).  This echoes what the psalmist says in the passage above.  The poet writes, "I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"  For the psalmist, the word of the Lord had become reading that enters the soul and transforms the life in the same way food enters the stomachs and transforms the body. 

Yes, reading Scripture can be difficult, but so can eating the right foods.  In the same way that we cannot expect an apple to be good for us simply because we like to think of apples or because we enjoy the way apples look or because we like they way an apple feels in our hands, we cannot expect the words of Scripture to be transformative simply because we like to think they are good or because we enjoy the way the words sound or because we like the way the book feels in our hands. It is important to engage the words.  We must allow them to enter into us.  Sometimes they may cause us indigestion.  However, the words of Scripture also have the power to transform us as they become a part of who we are.  After all, we are what we eat.

Happy eating during this season of Lent.

If you are struggling with where to start, try reading a Psalm a day.  If you would like to have something that goes with the season of Lent, try reading the book of John.  If you would like a little variety, try reading one of the lectionary texts of the day (to find these texts, check out this website http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/).

Poured Out

Look up Luke 7:36-50 (Or click here to read it online).  

In this text, Luke has painted quite a scene.  Jesus has been invited to come dine at a Pharisee's home (a Pharisee was a Jewish religious leader in the first century).  While he was dining a woman came to Jesus and acted in a rather peculiar fashion.  This was a woman of bad reputation.  Apparently, everyone knew.  We are not told what her sins were.  That isn’t point.  What is important is that this unnamed woman came to Jesus immediately upon learning that he was in her town.  She had the audacity to enter into the house of a Pharisee.  She had the veracity to come to Jesus just as she was.  She came to him, but did not approach him in conversation.  Instead, when she was in the presence of Jesus, she wept. 

She wept.  Her tears weren’t any ordinary tears.  No, these tears contained the entirety of her mistake-filled life.  Each salty drop was a new tale of bad choices and soul scars.  Each drop from her downcast eyes traced the lines on her checks that had been left there by her hard life.  And then they fell.  Her tears of lament fell not to the floor, but onto the feet of Jesus.  And Jesus heard the story that each tear carried. 

This courageous woman then opened her jar of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus' feet.  This jar and the perfume it contained were quite possibly her most prized possession.  This perfume represented who she was in this world, and she chose to empty it on the feet of a man who was called teacher, prophet and miracle worker.

She gave Jesus everything she was and all that she possessed.  She bared her soul and her life to him without even saying a word. 

Now go back to the passage and read it once more.

Notice that there were two responses to the woman’s actions.  The first was the unspoken response of the host.  Under his breath, he condemns the woman and questions Jesus.  “How could he allow this sinful woman to touch him?  How could he allow a woman with that kind of reputation to even get close to him?  Just think of the rumors.  If he only knew.  What kind of prophet could he possibly be?” 

Yet, Jesus knew.  Jesus knew much more than the host of the dinner party could have ever imagined.  Oh, if only the host could have known what was really going on.  Oh, that his heart could have been as open as hers.

The second response is Jesus’.  His focus and his heart-felt, grace-filled response is aimed directly at the beautiful woman kneeling at his feet and collects all of those gathered in its redeeming wake.  Jesus takes this woman of bad reputation and elevates her.  He makes her the example to be followed: her honesty, her sorrow, her brokenness, and her willingness to pour out her life and her soul at the feet of the Master.  Her sins were forgiven because of these things, not just because of her actions.  It was her faith that allowed room for grace and renewal to enter her life.  She had the courage to pour out her life and empty her soul to Jesus, and her sins were forgiven.   

Do we have the courage to follow the example of this unnamed woman?  Can we bring our authentic selves to Jesus?  Can we allow the room to hear and receive Jesus' words, “Your sins are forgiven.  Your faith has saved you, go in peace”?

Hope is the thing with feathers

Where do you find hope?   

Emily Dickinson once wrote,
"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,


And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.


I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."

Where do you find hope?

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul writes, "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. " (Romans 5:1-5, NRSV) 

Where do you find hope?

It seemed as though winter would never end.  I had grown weary of the frigid temperatures, the biting wind and ever present threat of snow.  I was never more ready for winter to be over, and I would gladly tell anyone who would listen about how irratated I was with my plight. 

One late afternoon, I was walking in the parking lot with my hands in my coat pockets, shoulders hunched close together and my head down cursing the breeze that was attempting to chill me to my core.  How I longed for this dismal winter to finally be over!

Then it happened.  Hope took me by surprise as I neared my car.  The sight of it stopped me in my tracks, and I literally laughed aloud at the sight.  There peaking up through a tiny crack in the pavement was a small flower. There was hope.  Hope disguised as a bloom that had no regard for the impossibility of its surroundings or the harsh realities of its climate.  And there it is.  Isn't that what hope always does?

"and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

Where do you find hope?

In the Face of Uncertainty

Each and every day we face uncertainty.  It seems to be waiting around every corner and hiding in the darkness of every room.  We fight it with all of our might.  With jaw set and fists clinched, we stress and strain hoping that through our own effort we can turn that uncertainty into certitude making clear all that was once unclear.  At the close of another battle with this unseen foe, we realize that this fight is unending.  It seems that uncertainty will always be there.  Life's edges will always appear hazy and unclear.

Yet, our hearts continue to burn for clarity in life.  We long to know exactly what we will face around life's next bend.  We want to know that our actions today will positively impact tomorrow's outcome.  Therefore, we try to project and plan the unclear and uncertain out of our lives.  We pray that their grip on our mind might finally be broken. 

In his book Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning tells of a man who went to spend three months working with the sick and dying in Calcutta with Mother Teresa.  On his second morning there, he met Mother Teresa.  She greeted him and asked, "And what can I do for you?"  (Can you imagine that - Mother Teresa asking what she can do for you?) 

The man replied, "You can pray for me." 

She then asked, "And for what should I pray?" 

The man said, "Pray that I might find clarity."

To his astonishment and dismay, Mother Teresa smiled gently and said that she would not do that. 

When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing that you cling to that you must let go of."  When he told her that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed to have, she smiled again and replied, "I have never had clarity, but I have always had trust.  I will pray that you trust God."

Life's unquenchable thirst for certainty and clarity satiated not by effort or through planning but with a relentless trust in a sovereign God.

In what we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today" (Matthew 6:31-34 - NRSV).

I pray that none of us receive the clarity for which we long.  Rather I pray that all of us learn to trust in the One who will never leave nor forsake - a relentless trust in a sovereign God.

Eyes to See and Ears to Hear

"Claudia said, 'But, Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did even at the museum.'
'No,' (Mrs. Frankweiler) answered, 'I don't agree with that.  I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal.  But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything.  And you can feel it inside you.  If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.  You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them.  It's hollow'" (p. 153).


This short passage comes from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg, a great little book written for preteens.  In this book, Claudia is a young preteen who had run away from home in search of an adventure.  Mrs. Frankweiler is the wise 82 year-old woman who holds many of life secrets.  It is a meaningful book that is worthy of a read.


As I was reading this book with my twelve year-old daughter, this passage stopped me cold in my tracks.  I almost had to put the book down.  Instead, I nonchalantly dogeared the page to come back to it later.  Well, it is later now.  And here I am.  

I would never advocate for a cessation of learning.  I love to learn. I actually enjoy the entire process of discovery.  I find a tremendous amount of satisfaction in the "Ah-ha" moment.  However, I must confess that I often get so wrapped up in the process that I forget to allow that which I have learned to walk around inside me for a while.  I get lost in learning the next thing.  And sometimes it is too uncomfortable to give the space and the breathing room for the discovery to gain a life of its own.  It is just so much easier to "accumulate facts." 

Jesus often spoke in parables.  According to the authors of the Gospels, the people who were gathered around Jesus often had difficulty understanding what it was that he was saying. Apparently this was especially true of those who were supposed to be closest to Jesus - his disciples.  In order to explain this, Jesus says, “This is why I speak to the crowds in parables: although they see, they don’t really see; and although they hear, they don’t really hear or understand” (Matthew 13:13, Common English Bible). 

As long as I only seek to gather the facts, I will be one that sees without seeing and hears without hearing.  I can fill my head, but unless I allow it "to swell up inside of (me)until it touches everything" I will not feel it inside of me. 

True transformation comes not with the simple accumulation of facts, but in the change that comes when these bits of information take up residence inside and begin to grow together touching everything.  I long to be more than just a knowledgeable noisemaker.  I long to be transformed.

May we all have eyes to see and ears to hear.  May we all have the courage to "allow what is already in (us) to swell up inside...until it touches everything."  

Dr. King's Challenge

In January of 1955, in a speech titled “A Realistic Approach to Progress in Race Relations” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. boldly declared to an audience that included many clergy, “You must do more than pray and read the Bible” in order to destroy racism and segregation, “you must do something about it."  

He also wrote, "How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds!  We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism…This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage" (Strength to Love 40).

Dr. King famously over and over called the church to truly walk in the footsteps of the one whom we claim to follow, Jesus.  He admonished that we must follow his example of extravagant love not only when it is convenient and confortable.  Our lives are to be characterized by this love even when it is difficult and brings great discomfort.  This is the radical call of the Christ. 

As we read in 1 John, "By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, "I abide in him," ought to walk just as he walked. Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, "I am in the light," while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness" (1 John 2:5-11).

What would it look like if we were to truly walk in the footsteps of Jesus, the Christ?  What would happen if the the "agonizing gulf between the ought and the is" where closed?

It is a question Dr. King asked long ago and is a question with which we must still wrestle.

Breathing the Divine

Fr. Thomas Keating, Trappist monk, once wrote, "We rarely think of air we breathe, yet it is in us and around us all the time.  In similar fashion, the presence of God penetrates us, is all around us, is always embracing us, and it is delightful."

In Genesis we read these words, "On the day the LORD God made earth and sky - before any wild plants appeared on the earth, and before any field crops grew...the LORD God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life's breath into his nostrils.  The human came to life." (Genesis 2:1-7, Common English Bible) 

We rarely think of the air we breathe.  However, maybe we should.  The Divine breath is in each one of us.  We cannot get away from it.  It permeates the very blood that courses through our veins and the air that fills our lungs.  We cannot flee the presence of God any more than we can run from our own breath. 

Take heart.  God is with you.  God fills every breath you draw. 

Divine Breath

Ceaseless

Ever present

Change of seasons

Passage of time

Simplistic rhythm

Enigmatic process

Filling with life

Purging of death

Ceaseless

Ever present

Rising of the sun

Appearance of the moon

Proximity unnoticed

Necessity irrefutable

Providing life’s essence

Expelling its poison

Ceaseless

Ever present

Air we breathe

Sustenance we need

Intimacy overlooked

Impact undeniable 

Bestowing new life

Conquering sin’s infliction

Ceaseless

Ever present

Beat of life

Power to live

Heart’s desire

Spirit’s yearning

Loving with passion

Living within

                      --- by Brian Shivers

Let me know what you are thinking and DON'T FORGET TO BREATHE.

The Face of Grace

What is grace?  What does it look like?  Does it have a face?

Here is a thought-provoking quote from theologian Paul Tillich about grace.
"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’ (emphasis added)  If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance."

Grace is inexplicable.  Grace is more than what we imagine.  Grace sustains.  Grace exclaims, “You ARE accepted.”

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”  Ephesians 2:8-9

What or who is the face of grace to you?

Blessings in the peace and grace of God who accepts you for who you are.

Welcome to Anthology

Someone once said, "We are not theologians because we are particularly religious; we are theologians because in the face of this world we miss God."

It is my conviction that if you spend any time thinking about and discussing God (as most of us do), you are indeed a theologian.  Here at Anthology, it is our hope that you will share some of your theological thoughts and ideas (about faith, life and God) with one another. 

Let's get started! 

This week you are invited to take a moment to share some topics that you would like us to tackle as we dive in to 2011.  Check back with Anthology every week to see what new thoughts have been stirred up.

It is my hope that this blog will be a place for us all to share our theological meanderings with one another. 

Peace in the New Year,
Brian Shivers