Today’s text
John 2:18-22
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what he had said.
Reflection
They remembered, and so should we.
We should remember that the life Jesus bears, the life we bear, cannot be confined to a tomb. It bursts free from every prison, even that of death, to illumine life with the color of eternity.
It has always been so.
The body, our flesh, is no prison to be escaped but has become the temple of the Holy, the place of divine meeting.
Our ears and eyes can behold the beauty of holiness and the holiness of the One who is Beauty itself in the joy of children and the generosity of hearts that are truly human.
Jesus shows the way. He dwelt in constant intimacy with the Life that was in him, the Life that is before all time, the Life that is the breathing presence of God. His words and hands moved at the impulses of the One in whose heart he abided without a moment’s separation.
And Jesus invites us into this way, the way of abiding, of resting and knowing the Heart who offers eager to welcome to each of us. Come home to the Love who has always known and ever wanted you.
Come home and rest in the Life that seeks to breathe in you, through you, and move your soul into a grand spaciousness where you know true freedom and the tension in your chest is no more.
The Life who is God dwelt in Jesus, and in all who know and love his way. Temples of the Eternal One are they … are we, bearing that Life that does not die.
Remember.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Today’s text
John 2:18-21
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body.
Reflection
And here is the change Jesus brings. No more is relationship with God one more version of let’s make a deal. No more do we engage in the commerce of something for something, giving to get.
Nor shall we imagine the Holy One is attached to any one place or people or activity, as if the Holy Mystery who is God can be nailed down or confined by human constraints, definitions and desires.
The mystery of God is known in the body of Jesus, dwelling there, being known, felt and see there. And if there, then in our bodies, too.
His human body is a temple, the place of God’s abiding, the point of divine meeting where we may encounter the One who infinitely transcends every body, but can be known in any and all of them.
Jesus body bore the eternal life who is God, a life that raised him up from the dead dust of the grave, all of him, his body, his whole person.
The Life he bore can not be destroyed, for the God who creates universes and human souls out of star dust can not be contained by a trifle like physical death.
It raises up all who bear this life. Their bodies (our bodies) are temples of divine dwelling, the dwelling of the Most High.
So there is always hope, always. And beauty can abound even in the most unlikely souls.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 2:18-21
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body.
Reflection
And here is the change Jesus brings. No more is relationship with God one more version of let’s make a deal. No more do we engage in the commerce of something for something, giving to get.
Nor shall we imagine the Holy One is attached to any one place or people or activity, as if the Holy Mystery who is God can be nailed down or confined by human constraints, definitions and desires.
The mystery of God is known in the body of Jesus, dwelling there, being known, felt and see there. And if there, then in our bodies, too.
His human body is a temple, the place of God’s abiding, the point of divine meeting where we may encounter the One who infinitely transcends every body, but can be known in any and all of them.
Jesus body bore the eternal life who is God, a life that raised him up from the dead dust of the grave, all of him, his body, his whole person.
The Life he bore can not be destroyed, for the God who creates universes and human souls out of star dust can not be contained by a trifle like physical death.
It raises up all who bear this life. Their bodies (our bodies) are temples of divine dwelling, the dwelling of the Most High.
So there is always hope, always. And beauty can abound even in the most unlikely souls.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Today’s text
John 2:13-16
When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked their tables over and said to the dove sellers, 'Take all this out of here and stop using my Father's house as a market.'
Reflection
Today, we would send Jesus to an anger-management class. At least that would have been part of his sentence for disrupting trade.
The temple was, indeed, a place of trade. People bought and sold birds and animals intended for sacrifice in the temple precincts as those coming to the temple sought atonement with God for their sins.
The system of sacrifice had long since been established by divine decree. Jesus was interfering in holy work, or so it seemed to those in charge and, likely, many others.
We can imagine there was underhanded dealing and overcharging happening, and that is why Jesus flew off the handle. He was objecting to dishonesty and injustice, taking advantage of those who came to make sacrifice and find peace.
But something more appears is at work. He was about to affect a sweeping change in how people thought about worship … and God.
Worship required no sacrifice to change God’s mind or to give God something (a sacrifice) so that God will give us something (forgiveness, a blessing). God is no deal maker, and that’s what people do in markets, or at least in the temple marketplace: they make deals.
Something for something.
God gives the blessings of life to all and the grace of forgiven life, free and full, freely, for nothing, to any who seek and hunger for God’s gifts.
No sacrifice is required, no giving up of something to get something. God is not in the deal-making business.
God gives out of an infinite abundance of love and unending generosity. No deals necessary or wanted. The desire and attempt to make deals with God reveal that we don’t get it.
We don’t get God, who is as unlike our deal-making ways as night is from day.
No need to pay God off, for the Holy One is a deep river of generosity flowing from an ever-abundant source to the hearts of all who can simply receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 2:13-16
When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked their tables over and said to the dove sellers, 'Take all this out of here and stop using my Father's house as a market.'
Reflection
Today, we would send Jesus to an anger-management class. At least that would have been part of his sentence for disrupting trade.
The temple was, indeed, a place of trade. People bought and sold birds and animals intended for sacrifice in the temple precincts as those coming to the temple sought atonement with God for their sins.
The system of sacrifice had long since been established by divine decree. Jesus was interfering in holy work, or so it seemed to those in charge and, likely, many others.
We can imagine there was underhanded dealing and overcharging happening, and that is why Jesus flew off the handle. He was objecting to dishonesty and injustice, taking advantage of those who came to make sacrifice and find peace.
But something more appears is at work. He was about to affect a sweeping change in how people thought about worship … and God.
Worship required no sacrifice to change God’s mind or to give God something (a sacrifice) so that God will give us something (forgiveness, a blessing). God is no deal maker, and that’s what people do in markets, or at least in the temple marketplace: they make deals.
Something for something.
God gives the blessings of life to all and the grace of forgiven life, free and full, freely, for nothing, to any who seek and hunger for God’s gifts.
No sacrifice is required, no giving up of something to get something. God is not in the deal-making business.
God gives out of an infinite abundance of love and unending generosity. No deals necessary or wanted. The desire and attempt to make deals with God reveal that we don’t get it.
We don’t get God, who is as unlike our deal-making ways as night is from day.
No need to pay God off, for the Holy One is a deep river of generosity flowing from an ever-abundant source to the hearts of all who can simply receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
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