Saturday, September 20, 2014

Saturday, September 20, 2014



Today’s text

Colossians 3.16:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
Filled with the Spirit

I remember my face burning in shame, wishing I could disappear. If only the floor would collapse so I’d fall into the church basement where no one could see me. My God, these people out there watching me, I am going to have to face them … for years.

It was all Mrs. Moll’s fault … for which I am deeply grateful.

On Saturday mornings, Mrs. Moll stood in front of the south bank of pews in our little church, St. Paul Lutheran, Warren Il. Twenty or 30 of us elementary kids gathered there to sing and before going to Bible class every Saturday; junior Lutherans they called us.

She would raise her hands, a pianist hit a chord and we’d sing Living for Jesus. It’s the only song I can remember from those days. I can still sing a couple of verses at the drop of a hat. We must have sung it hundreds of times to have left such an imprint.

About the time I was in fourth or fifth grade, she tried to shape some of us into a little choir. There weren’t many takers, never more than eight or nine, mostly girls. The few boys who sang had a marked tendency to be sick on Sundays when we were scheduled to sing--and that included the organist’s son.

But I was always there in our frilly white robes, usually standing beside Ron McNett, whose tooth I later broke off when we collided in a pick-up baseball game.

But he deserved it.

One Sunday Mrs. Moll arranged for us to sing during worship. Ron and I were the only boys in the choir that day, and the boys section--all two of us--were to sing a verse of the song … by ourselves.

I knew what was going to happen. I could feel it coming like a fright train blaring through town on the Illinois Central tracks.

The moment approached when Ron and I were to sing. As the girls neared the end of their verse, my face grew hotter and redder. I knew what Ron was going to do.

Mrs. Moll cued us. I opened my mouth and a feeble, wavering note squeaked from somewhere high in my throat. Ron, at my left elbow, sniggered beneath his breath, uttering not a word, not a note, taking pleasure as I squeaked and tripped through the verse as the congregation prayed for me to get done … quickly. Please God, make it stop.

I was on my own for an eternity as Ron’s sniggering continued through the verse.

As I said, he served that tooth thing.

Years go by, decades, and now everything transforms. I still sing, not as well as I used to, but I think God likes it more than ever. I know I do.

And I feel sorry for Ron.

I feel sorry for every boy … or person, for that matter, who never learned to sing, who were too afraid, or tone-deaf, or discouraged from opening their mouth because it was ‘unmanly’ … or not cool … to give voice to words and emotion that open the depth of one’s soul.

I think they are deprived, unable to enter the deepest parts of their souls … and of the wonder of the Love who seeks us there.

 In moments, songs run through me: “You are holy, you are whole. You are always ever more than we ever understand.”

And in those moments I understand. I understand the Loving Mystery of God. I know that Love. And I understand that there is more love and beauty in me than I ever knew. I understand that the language of song opens the heart and ushers me into a world where the wonder of God’s love fills me to the brim, filling me with the Spirit and making me glad to be alive.

I understand how thankful I am for Mrs. Moll … and for the day the floor failed to collapse.

Bless you Mrs. Moll. Now I know why you were so desperate for us to sing.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, September 19, 2014

Friday, September 19, 2014



Today’s text 

Luke 7:41-47

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

 Startled gratitude

The Loved … love.

Look at the woman weeping at Jesus feet, kissing and anointing him. Tears are always telling. They reveal the heart. Her heart knows a passionate, effusive love that cannot be contained. It overflows like a lake into which far too much rain has fallen.

Her tears are not of sorrow. They are not a shower of shame. This is not a broken soul without hope. These are the tears of one who has tasted the height of human fulfillment, the joy which God intends for all of us.

She knows and feels the Great Love flowing to and through her, filling her. It spills from her eyes, her hands and feet in passionate love and blessing that cannot be contained. It evaporates her shame and fear, and she becomes a human soul, a truly human soul for the first time.

The woman weeping at Jesus feet is a portrait of the ecstasy and loving freedom God intends for every human being.

She has entered the world of grace that is no where and every where. It is nowhere for the self-satisfied, like the Simon the Pharisee, whose hearts do not ache for forgiveness and the loving welcome of God. Nor can they fly to the heights of fulfillment known by the woman weeping at Jesus feet. In their respectability, they may never become as alive, wondrous and beautiful as she.

In Jesus, the woman experiences forgiveness and the Love that is beyond all loves welcoming her home. She has entered a world of grace and knows what it means to be encompassed by the Love that labors in every time and place, in every moment and every speck of matter.

Only those with needy hearts and eyes of faith enter and know Christ’s saving presence. They enter a world of grace where the heart pours out the wonder of Love in startled gratitude.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Wednesday, September 17, 2014


Today’s text

Luke 7:41-47 

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

From Love to love

Grace is everywhere. When it hits you your heart flies free in gratitude and love. Resentments and pains disappear, and you know the joy of being alive … and the heart of God.

Grace is the experience of love flowing to and through you. It is the height of human fulfillment, what God wants for us and seeks to give.

Looking up the street late on a rainy afternoon, I sit in a café, glass of red wine in hand, watching the cars work their way up and down Washington Street, mostly on their way home, I suppose.

Something about the scene moves me. I do not know what or why; I know only that there is love and gratitude in me--and eagerness to bless my waiter and anyone else who passes by for the beauty of this moment.

I just had another birthday, and my mind wanders among places and scenes from past decades of a startling life in which I have seen felt things I never thought I’d know … . 

The blessing of it all fills me, and I know: All that has been and will be is encompassed by God, which is to say … by Love, the love I have known and which surrounds and regularly saves me from myself … and from despair over failures and shortcomings of which I am weekly reminded.

Even the grainy sky and wet streets weighted low beneath the grayness of this fall day speaks love to my heart and fills me.

And my prayer is one of thanks that your love, O God, comes to an aging sinner like me, thanks that you make no discriminating exceptions but come to the hearts of the undeserving and virtuous alike, bringing joy and gratitude for all the life and love I have ever known. Thank you.

There is an inevitable connection between Love and love. The Loved …love. Those whose hearts have been found by the One who is Love are awakened and made alive.

And all they … all we want is to bask in the Love that sets us free to bless and love and give ourselves away.

There are not many loves in this world, but only one. The Love we know in every love is the One who is Love, the one revealed in the gracious welcome of Jesus.

The woman who kisses Jesus’ feet in joy and gratitude is all of us, captured by the grace of the One who comes in words of forgiveness and on rainy autumn afternoons.

Pr. David L. Miller


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