Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Wednesday, August 13, 2014



Today’s text

Matthew 15:21-28

Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

No limits

What is great faith? How does it happen?

I wish I could turn back the clock 11 years and give it to my father. I am haunted by the image of him lying helpless in bed, his body limp and weak as a kitten after a second heart surgery.

Post-polio syndrome, not heart disease, had totally depleted him. The rehabilitation staff tried to get him some strength in his one “good” leg and arm. But there was nothing left to rehabilitate. Nothing. And we all knew it, including him … though he kept trying and we cheered every tiny sign of growth even when we knew they were false.

We loved him too much to admit to ourselves or to him what our mind and heart could not deny. This time he was done. There would be no more coming home, no more adjustments to get just a little more out of his broken, polio-ravaged body.

Heartbreaking for us who loved him more than we knew how to say, but it was worse for him.

“I wish I had your faith,” he said to me one morning as lay nearly immobile in his bed at the rehab hospital.

He wanted greater faith … mine. I have no idea what this means.

Did he think more faith would have lifted his broken heart as he was forced to live a life and die a death captive to the disease that had stolen his youth … and now, everything?

Did he think greater faith would have given him more courage?

And what is great faith anyway? The strength to continue on? The flame of trust that God’s goodness will yet come? The hope that pushes forward when everything is dark? The grip that holds fast to God’s grace even when it seems there is nothing there?

I said the first thing that came to mind when Dad wished aloud for my faith.

“Let me have faith for both us. “ I said. “I will have faith for both of us. You … just rest. You rest in the arms of Love as surely as you rest in this bed. You have worked long enough. Now it is time for rest.

I was asking him to end the struggle he waged since his 29th year when disease had stolen the life he was born to live … along with the rolling hillsides he had farmed and never ceased to love.

Once, faith was loving the land and trusting the Creator’s goodness amid the struggle of nurturing those hills to the vibrant green beauty of life.

After disease came, it meant holding on, making changing and trusting that life was still rich and beautiful, a holy gift of God to be received and cherished even when loss and struggle came

At the end, faith was knowing it was time to let go and just know … all the beauty, all the love, all the wonder he had ever known and seen, tasted and touched shined with the face of the One Great Beauty who would receive him home.

Great faith, I suppose, means different things at different times. Sometimes it shaking your fist at God and complaining, sometimes trying to accept what can’t be changed, sometimes it is struggle, sometimes just resting … and knowing.

Faith is the lifetime journey of leaning there is no place the Love of Christ cannot or will not go.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Tuesday, August 12, 2014


Today’s text

Matthew 15:21-28

Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

No limits

It is hard to know what all this story is about. Is it about Jesus learning the breadth of his mission, the universality of God’s love for the peoples of the earth? Perhaps his vision was too narrow, too parochial.

Was your heart moved, Jesus, as you felt the woman’s desperation as she knelt in the dust and begged for your help? Did you think, “Why not? Why limit the loving power of God to some narrow band of chosen people?  Can I not share it with all the peoples of this troubled world?”

Did the depth of her sorrow and fear so move you that you could not turn away? 

Did she teach you more about God’s love for this world than you had before understood?

Or is the story about the woman’s desperation … and ours? Does it lead us to throw aside all pretense and pride before you to plead for the deep needs of our hearts that we so often try to deny or ignore?

Both messages seem present. Day-today we take life and health for granted, failing to humble ourselves before the magnitude of your divine immensity to say ‘thank you’ for the generosity of your all-loving heart.

But I come back again to that all-loving heart … to the revelation that there are no boundaries in divine grace, no limits or borders that allow it to go only so far.

I come back to this woman who begged and dared to believe what we forget: Nothing limits the range of divine compassion. As soon as we draw lines and circles, boundaries and borders, we exclude ourselves from the place you are and from the people you love.

There are no dogs, no outcasts, no one whom you are not willing to feed at the table of your grace.

Our angers and fears exclude those who threaten or wound us, but even these, you say, are dear to you.

As we open our hearts to them … we open our hearts to you … and know the love that flowed from the heart of Jesus to the woman at his feet.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, August 11, 2014

Monday, August 11, 2014



Today’s text

Isaiah 56:7-8

 … for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.’

Thank you … even for the pain

The grace of these words still excites my heart. I remember, too, how Jesus used the words as he cleared the temple of dishonest money changers and those who turned a place of prayer into an arena of money-grubbing.

My house shall be a place of prayer for all peoples, he said.

It’s the word all that stirs my heart and fills me with joy, yes, fills me … complete. All.

This includes me … and all of me. All are welcome to this place of prayer.

And what is prayer other than a time and place of meeting, communing and knowing the Love who has no other name. Knowing the great I Am, who was and is and always will be.

I suppose the words move me so deeply because I have not forgotten what it means to feel like an outsider, excluded, not wanted--separated from those whose acceptance and approval I desperately wanted in childhood and adolescent days when I felt at ease and welcome … nowhere … not even in my own skin.

Those feelings no longer plague my heart. They come and go from  time-to-time, so I have not forgotten--moving me to wa extend the gracious welcome of God especially those who know what it is to be on the outside of life looking in.

But today the stirring and joy in my heart over three small letters--all--stirs nothing but joy. It’s all joy, even the pains that come. I am thankful for them all, all of them.

For all of them led me to you, Holy One; all of them lead me back again and again to you, the Loving Mystery who has haunted my heart from childhood.

All of them are part of the journey that keeps me near your heart and my heart needing and wanting you. All of them are the cause of my startling joy this morning and this moment.

The bumps and bruises of life’s journey open my ears and my heart to hear the word … all … and to know the Love you have always wanted me to know.

Thank you.

Pr. David L. Miller