Saturday, August 9, 2014

Today’s text

Matthew 14:28-33

Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

Be still ... and know

Human beings aren’t very good at walking on water. This goes without saying, but I am not talking about skimming across the surface of a lake without skies.

In the Bible water is often a symbol, a metaphor for life and God’s presence ... and for threat and chaos. Psalm 46, often read in troubling times, says there is a stream that makes glad the city of God. The flowing stream is a metaphor for God’s presence bringing hope and strength.

Jesus says those who know him will have streams of living water flowing through their souls; again, water is a symbol of God’s peace and love flowing through us. But water is also a symbol of chaotic (even evil) powers we cannot control. The sea is restless and powerful. Winds whip up waves that toss human beings around like child’s

toys.

The waters stand for the unruly tide of human history, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Water symbolizes changes and troubles--the storms and rough seas of life that steal our confidence and make us afraid.

These waters are everywhere. Just watch the news.

Disturbing waves appear as suddenly as an ache that wasn’t there the day before, the pink slip telling you your services are no longer needed, the awareness that you may be losing your edge or your memory, the anxiety that your life and future are not secure.

Our Camp Noah ministry team recently encountered young people in Oklahoma whose lives were distressed not only by tornadoes that smashed homes, but also by alcoholism, physical and emotional abuse and the revolving realities of life in a foster home.

Recently, I heard from a bank vice president, one of the most competent and confident people I have ever known, musing about the constant bickering around his office—the way his opinion is ignored by younger colleagues who have no idea of all he has done in his leadership ... and don’t care. Now, he questions his judgment, the sharpness of his mind, his ability to do what he has done with care and confidence for decades. The waters are choppy around him, and there is doubt in him I have never

before seen.

School soon starts. Students go to new schools, to classrooms and teachers they don’t know. Amid anticipation of good things questions and anxieties also appear. Will my friends still be there? Will I have difficult classes or people who don’t like me?

And then this week our staff visited Amado, our congregation’s custodian, recovering and rehabilitating from the bullet that ripped through his neck and shattered, nearly killing him from the five units of blood that poured from his wounds.

It is amid such wind and waves that Jesus reveals himself, speaking as the One who alone masters the storm.

“Take heart, It is I,” Jesus says. “Be still. Do not be afraid ... even when the waves are great ... even when you feel like you are sinking. I am with you. Just ... hear ... my ... voice. I am the Voice of calm, the Voice of the Love who is, who always will be ... who never leaves you.”

It strikes me that before the story of Jesus and Peter on the waves, Jesus rests on a mountain, praying, communing with God in the silence of total love, totally aware of God’s Holy Presence deep within.

He wants us to know what he knows. Most often we don’t know.

Our fears multiply when we feel separated, separated from Voice of Love that would fill us as it filled Jesus on the mountainside. He knew the Voice of Love. He always knew what we forget, especially when the waves grow high and the winds restless.

Jesus is the Voice of Love who comes amid restless waves of fear, finding ways to speak to us and in us, seeking to fill us with the Eternal Presence of Love that filled him.

That is why we pray together or in the silence of heart, with words or without, as we go about our days.

You need to hear the Voice of Love, the Voice of Jesus’ Eternal Presence deep within your heart amid the restless waves and noise of living. Hearing his Voice ... courage comes, and we begin to learn ... however slowly ... what it means to walk on water.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Today’s text

Matthew 14:28-33

Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

Walking on water

Back to the Voice. We need to hear the Voice of Love, the Voice of Eternal Presence amid the noise of living … and its absorbing fears. Peter asks to hear the Voice telling him to walk amid the restless waves that threaten.

He knows … when the Voice speaks in his soul he has what he needs to live with heart, with courage when threats come.

So speak, Lord Jesus, speak to us, speak in us. Speak from the depth of your heart where the Father dwells that we may hear and know you. Our fears are many, and we often sink beneath them.

I held my mother’s hand a few days ago. We were in a hospital room in Monroe, Wis., and she was about to be taken to surgery. Nurses surrounded her bed and began their preparations.

I started for the door, but without thinking reversed my course and stepped among them at Mom’s side. I took her right hand in mine, hands at the side of her head, bent close to her ear and whispered the best prayer I could manage at the moment.

It was not elegant, certainly not as artful as I would have liked or as she deserved.

But is was real; real, too, was the strong grip in her nearly 85 year-old hand. I knew she would never show or tell us how anxious she was, this woman who has long sought to manage and control virtually every thing she touches … including me.

All the anxiety over living and dying, fear of losing the kind of life that has been meaningful for her, all of this … was locked up in her hand, in that grip, as I prayed for healing and peace, for a quiet mind, for Christ to assure her that she is held in a Love beyond her capacity to understand.

She held on tight, just as tightly as she gripped my hand  … with words tears of thanks … when she returned to her room hours later.

Only now does it occur to me that my whispered prayer was, for her, the Voice of Love speaking to her heart as she was sinking beneath her fears of living and dying.

There is much more to say here, but this is enough for now: Jesus is the Voice of Love who comes amid restless waves of fear, finding ways to speak to us and in us, seeking to fill us with the Eternal Presence of Love that filled him.

Hearing this Voice courage comes, and however slowly … we begin to learn how to walk on water.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Today’s text

Matthew 14:22-27

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’

The Voice of Love

We know you, Lord Jesus. You are the calm voice amid the storm, the one who calls us to still our anxieties and listen … just listen and know you.

It strikes me that you went off by yourself to pray. I wonder what your prayer looked like. What did it sound like? Would I have heard anything at all had I known the privilege of sitting beside you on the mountain?

I imagine you sitting in silence, your soul quiet, resting, but feeling full, complete … aware of the Holy Presence deep within.

I cannot produce that fullness, but there are moments I am aware of it. I know it. I know what--make that Who--you knew on the mountain, and my soul, too, grows quiet and strong, fully knowing all life (mine, too) is wrapped in Love.

The assurance only Love can give fills me, leaving room for nothing else. I become the love you intend; losing the anxiety that has gripped human hearts ever since the tragedy of Eden when the man and the woman first felt separated from you.

Fear multiplies in separation, reproducing itself in new and more troubling forms when we feel disconnected from the Source, the One, the Love whom you knew so well sitting on the mountainside.

That’s the difference between you on the waves and your anxious friends shivering at the sight of ghosts: You knew. You always knew. They did not.

That is what you sought to bring them and the rest of us, too. You bring us … you are … the Voice you knew on the mountain, the One who says, “Take heart; it is I.”

And you are the One who finds us amid storms and fears, seeking to fill our anxious hearts with the voice of Love who leaves room for nothing else.

Pr. David L. Miller