April 2, 2013

Today’s text

John 20:18-20

In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. 

 Reflection

You are our peace: You, not ideas, facts or theories about you, but you.

So come behind the closed doors of our hearts where secret fears, pains and longings fester. Come and speak the word I long to hear: Peace.

You need not say a thing. Just come behind the wall of our faces into the secret domain of ourselves where we so desperately need to feel a love that fills every space and casts out the emptiness of ourselves.

All you need to do is stand there and let me see and feel you.

I will know it is you because everything else will go away, every fear of the thoughts of others, every unfulfilled longing, every feeling of being lost or alone, every need for anything other than just to be … with you.

Peace abides when I know your presence holding me from within. This goes beyond love.

For you do not love me as an object, from the outside looking at me, taking mercy on me in my fallen and confused state. You love me from within my very self, your love filling the infinite emptiness of soul that craves and yearns and hungers.

Nothing else can satisfy me. So come.

I do not know how you come into me, where the secret passage way is. If I did, I would run there now and throw open the door. Or is being here … in the silence … opening enough?

But it seems you need no door or secret pathways. You make your own way. You do not need my help. You move through walls as if they were not there, including mine.

It just happens, and I trust that it will again. Sunday, a small girl ran to me, lifted her arms and insisted on being held. She buried herself in my chest. It wasn’t quick. She clung, holding fast, not in fear or in pain craving comfort. She folded herself into me so that we were one, not two.

For a moment everything went away. Everything. Nothing existed except the moment, the loving, the freedom from every troubling thought.

There was peace. I needed and wanted nothing. My thoughts did not wander. I was aware of only this moment.

It seems silly to ask, but was that you, or just a little girl?

I have often said that you are in everything, working to fill creation with the love you are. When that filling comes to us, so does peace, and it was peace I knew in that moment with her head buried in my chest.

So, please, today, can you do that again?

Give me the peace of the love that folds itself into my soul and chases away everything else. You are my peace.

Pr. David L. Miller

March 27, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 23:35-41

The people stayed there watching. As for the leaders, they jeered at him with the words, 'He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.' The soldiers mocked him too, coming up to him, offering him vinegar, and saying, 'If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.'

Above him there was an inscription: 'This is the King of the Jews.' One of the criminals hanging there abused him: 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us as well.' But the other spoke up and rebuked him. 'Have you no fear of God at all?' he said. 'You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.' Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' He answered him, 'In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

 Reflection

Easter comes where it will. Little moments of heaven appear and grace cold March mornings.

I went to see Len Peterson a few days before Easter. Len is a member of St. Timothy. He has lived in a Naperville nursing home for several years because he has dementia and other health challenges that make it impossible for him to live alone.

Len is a Lutheran pastor who served congregations in the metropolitan Chicago area for more than 40 years. He visited and took Holy Communion to hospital beds and nursing home residents thousands of times in his ministry.

In recent years, it has been my privilege to return the favor. I visit and greet him as ‘Pastor Peterson’ trying to remind him who he is, what he’s done and sing a few old hymns engraved on his Swedish soul.

I go hoping to arouse some sign of recognition that he is still there, hoping I can stir his memory and touch his soul with the songs, the words and the gift I bring in the small brown case I carry into his room.

He showed clear signs of recognition a year ago. Sometimes he would try to sing with me. But such signs faded away during the past 12 months. On this day, he has not eaten for several days. His jaws no longer know what to do with food, and he has lost nearly half his body weight.

His daughters hold his hands and touch his shoulder as I prepare the wafer and pour wine in a tiny chalice. I kneel at his feet and bend down to look straight in his eyes, as his neck and head bend far over, and I fight off tears.

There are few honors greater than kneeling by his wheel chair hoping and praying he will recognize not me but the grace I bring. I want him to know, once more, that he is remembered by the One who does not forget even when we do.

On this day, one more time, my silent prayer is answered. Heaven happens.

His eyes grow wide as I show him the cup. He tries to free his almost immobile hand from his daughter’s grasp to take it. I dip the wafer in the wine and twice touch it to his lips. The second time he bites off a small piece and eats … though he hasn’t eaten in days.

His heart is so indelibly stamped by the grace he extended to others that not even advanced dementia has managed to steal this beauty from his tired soul.

He cannot say a word, but somehow he knows this is ‘for me.’ He remembers what to do, and the gentle grace of our all-loving God breaks through once more.

Our poignant hopes were answered. We wanted him to remember and bless us with the awareness that he knew we were there to bless him.

But on this cold March morning, we received much more. We discovered that we are remembered even when we forget ourselves, our worth, our dignity, our beauty, our joy, … even our name, as I suspect Len long ago forgot his.

We are remembered by a Love that refuses to let us go, a mercy that is new every morning, a compassion that doesn’t lose us when we lose ourselves.

As we watched Len eat and drink the love of Christ, we were gathered into a little community of care around a dying man, and we became whole again, even though our hearts may have been breaking.

For we remembered who we are: Beloved Children of the Love who never forgets, the One who gathers up the broken fragments of our lives and hearts and puts us back together … again and again.

We are always remembered, until the day the Holy Remember-er gathers us up once more … with the likes of Len and all who gone before.

Pr. David L. Miller

March 26, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 23:32-35

Now they were also leading out two others, criminals, to be executed with him. When they reached the place called The Skull, there they crucified him and the two criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.' Then they cast lots to share out his clothing. 

 Reflection

Betrayed, beaten, whipped, nailed to a cross, Jesus blesses and saves the world. See and hear this bleeding man bless our broken, bitter world. This is the most important thing.

He uses his final gasps not to curse the awful cruelty that destroys the innocent but to bless and love.

His words are one more luminous sign of the heart of the Father, one more expression of the divine passion to love and save us from ourselves.

Jesus forgives those who torture and kill him. He forgives the world its brutal rejection of the way of peace, the road of compassion that he walked from the Father’s heart into our own.

Forgive it all, Father. Hold it not against them. Release them from the guilt and consequences of their actions, Holy One, for you have no heart to destroy them. You want them to bask in the light of your presence and be lifted into the love you are.

You want them to receive your love and know that you cherish each soul as a beloved and favored child. You want to open their hearts that they may know you as the Loving Source from which they come, the home to which they go and the graceful power that lifts them in every joy, every love, every grace and beauty that decorates their days.

At the beginning of your ministry, Jesus, you said that you came to proclaim liberation to the captive. You are still carrying out this ministry with your final breaths.

Your whole life down to your final words of forgiveness is the great pleading of God to open our hearts and welcome the Love who liberates us from our wounds and fear, our bitterness and cruelty, our hopelessness and despair.

You plead with us to your final breath: Open your heart and welcome the heart of God. His love will save you from yourself.

Pr. David L. Miller

March 20, 2013

 Today’s text

Philippians 2:5-7

Make your own the mind of Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are; and being in every way like a human being.

Reflection

Walking a labyrinth has been a regular spiritual practice for me this Lent. A long, challenging day yesterday moved my feet to the room where the labyrinth is spread out, so that I might walk and shed the weight of care that hung on my shoulders.

The labyrinth removes the need to make decisions. The path is a single line. You walk where it goes, turning where it turns, letting it lead you around many bends to the center where you rest and perhaps pray, attending to whatever you noticed inside yourself as you made the journey.

Listening is the primary mode of being as you walk, listening to what is in you, to the voices that are there, and speaking, releasing those feelings and thoughts, even out  loud as you go … if there is no one else there to overhear your secrets.

The voice you hear within is deeper than your conscious voice. It comes from deeper within. Sometimes you hear a voice beyond your own, the Voice of the Spirit within your spirit, telling you what you need to hear.

Yesterday, the voice came early in the walk. “Pour it all out,” it repeated. “Pour it out.”

Pour out the sorrow you bear and the frustration of being unable to do much to help or relieve it.

Pour out your tears and bottled emotions. Release them into me, the voice said. Pour them into mystery of the love of the One who surrounded my walk.

Pour out every hope and fear you have. This is a holy place where everything you are and feel is welcome, known and cherished. Name everything that is on your soul.

Pour out the confusion about what life is, what you should do, about whether you even know yourself or your own needs. It doesn’t matter, the voice said. I know.

Pour yourself out. Leave nothing unsaid. Hold nothing back. You are known and welcomed here. My hand is raised over you in blessing, total blessing. That hand and the peace that floods you tell you who I am, so that you know.

Pour out all that is in you, the beauty, the love, the skill and knowledge.

Pour it all out. Hold back nothing. Give it all away in utter confidence and total joy, for this is your joy. This is your peace. This is your purpose.

This is the way, the way of the Christ, and it is way that souls become free and large enough to love as I love.

Pr. David L. Miller

March 13, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 19:30-35

'Go to the village opposite, and as you enter it you will find a tethered colt that no one has ever yet ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, "Why are you untying it?" you are to say this, "The Master needs it.”’ The messengers went off and found everything just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners said, 'Why are you untying it?' and they answered, 'The Master needs it.' So they took the colt to Jesus and, throwing their cloaks on its back, they lifted Jesus on to it. 

Reflection

Jesus, you deliberately chose this way to enter the Holy City. You were making a statement, calling to mind a centuries-old prophecy of a king who would come to the city not to conquer but to bless and unite.

You wanted them to see you riding and remember the words of Zechariah about a day of rejoicing when a new king would bring the peace of God, establishing it from sea to sea.

The peace you offered came not through the power of the sword and military might. You did not seek to conquer anyone. You appeared to welcome them into new relationships with each other based not on fear or status, not on the desire to dominate and subjugate but on mutual care and regard.

You saw the belovedness of every living soul in the eyes of God who wants all to shine with dignity and beauty, receiving and sharing the wonder of life and love that pours from the divine heart.

You brought a kingdom that reached to the poor and the forgotten, the diseased and the broken, and set hearts free to become the love of the One who is Love. You brought the kingdom of God’s holy dream and ancient intention.

You healed and sat with those who imagined they were far beyond the favor and care of God. In your presence, you revealed how wrong they were, how badly they underestimated the wonder of God and the reach of divine compassion.

So you didn’t come to the city with a display of immense power, but on a young animal, riding awkwardly along, close to the ground where even children could reach out and touch you.

You wanted to be with and near them so they would know you came to bring blessing to those who didn’t imagine themselves blessed, bringing peace to those who longed for love and grace to replace the bruising power of dominating forces that controlled their lives.

I not only see, but feel your intention, Jesus, and I pray: May the intention of your loving kingdom rule my heart and words this day. May I, too, be a sign of peace for hearts that hunger for the peace you bring.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

 Today’s text

Luke 19:35-38

So they took the colt to Jesus and, throwing their cloaks on its back, they lifted Jesus on to it. As he moved off, they spread their cloaks in the road, and now, as he was approaching the downward slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole group of disciples joyfully began to praise God at the top of their voices for all the miracles they had seen. They cried out: Blessed is he who is coming as King in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens!

Reflection

This Saturday we will be led by children. Behind a cross held high, 10 third-graders will process into the sanctuary, having been prepared to receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time.

Their minds will little know or comprehend the mysteries of what the church teaches about the meaning of the Eucharist.

As they come forward to be given the broken bread and cup, I hope they will look at their empty hands cupped to receive. Their hands tell them all they need to know about who they are … and who Christ is.

Christ is the giver; they are receivers of eternal life and deathless love.

They receive, even as they are received by God and fed with a bread that lasts forever.

They will march into church, small, possessing no great strength or influence, largely innocent of life, but much loved by their families and congregation. When the right time comes families and friends will usher them to the table, opening their empty hands with them.

We will join them in this community of the empty-handed, this communion of compassion and companionship in which we all receive from the fullness of the One in whom all fullness of life and love dwell.

This is the community, the kingdom that Jesus brings, and it is for this that the crowds hailed him as the bringer of heaven’s peace to the heart of the earth-bound.

This is his glory. The angels proclaimed it at his birth” Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on Earth.”

The chief miracle of Jesus was not his healing of the broken and blind, nor even raising the dead to life.

The greatest was the creation of a community where all that really matters is the heart’s willingness to receive the blessing and welcome of God--and to share in this communion of gracious welcome.

This is not something we teach to the children. The children teach us.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, March 11, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 19:35-37

So they took the colt to Jesus and, throwing their cloaks on its back, they lifted Jesus on to it. As he moved off, they spread their cloaks in the road, and now, as he was approaching the downward slope of the Mount of Olives, the whole group of disciples joyfully began to praise God at the top of their voices for all the miracles they had seen. 

Reflection

I understand their joy, and that may be the greatest blessing of all. I know what moves a human heart to release all self-repression, throw caution to the wind and let loose in full-throated praise.

Your friends lifted you, Jesus, on the back of a gentle beast to process into the city.

They lifted you because you had lifted them above mere existence into the presence of God where their hearts were full and they wanted for nothing.

You awakened their hopes that neither they nor this poor planet is abandoned but is enveloped in love and guided to a goal, to final completion when the compassion that fills you fills every heart and relationship.

You stirred their souls to feel this hope within and opened their eyes to see signs of this new kingdom appearing in your face--and even in their hearts, hands and voices as they offered the grace that poured from them in your presence.

You lifted them from mere existence to life and the joy of knowing themselves caught up in God’s total, crazy love for them and all in this world.

You lifted them, and they lifted you, throwing their cloaks on the road and hailing you as the fulfillment of God’s promise to come fulfill their hope for life.

These are not calculated actions on their part but spontaneous joy spilling from the hearts of those who have been lifted into the kind of life and hope they never imagined was possible for them.

Fullness of gratitude cannot be bottled up. It bursts the heart and finds expression, rushing out to give thanks and to bless the source of the startling and joy that comes as utter gift.

Just so, Jesus, this may be your entry of triumph into the holy city, Jerusalem. But it is also the liberation of the human heart from the constraints and chains that hold it captive to fear and hopelessness.

In you, they knew … the heart of the Holy One who holds them and all time.

You lifted them above their sorrows and troubles into a knowing their hearts never knew that they always wanted … and so desperately needed.

So they lifted you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday, March 10, 2013

 Today’s text

Ephesians 4:2-4

With all humility and gentleness, and with patience, support each other in love. Take every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together. There is one Body, one Spirit, just as one hope is the goal of your calling by God. 

Reflection

Paul Tillich and my friend, Lauren, couldn’t be more different. Tillich was one of the most influential theologians of the 20^th century. His works are still read, especially in seminaries and graduate schools, and will affect the thought of pastors, novelists, poets and scholars for decades to come.

Lauren is a wonderful young woman who has struggled with muscular dystrophy ever since suffering strokes while she was still in her mother’s womb. One of her hands is twisted and crabbed, fingers malformed. The other works slowly, awkwardly. The same is true of her legs and feet.

Her strength is waning these days, but Lauren soldiers on. Last year she graduated from a two-year program at a local community college and now works for an agency that provides resources for people like her. After talking with her last Friday, I want to visit her office.

Lauren tells me everyone who works there has one disability or another. They are all different, she says, and every hour of the day they make allowances for what the people around them cannot do, or need help doing, or what they can do but slowly …  with many pauses for rest or to secure their balance.

They all “get it,” Lauren tells me. They know what it is to struggle with one challenge or another, and they extend grace to each other’s needs …  and the dignity of allowing each other to do what they can in their own way.

Tears formed as I listened to Lauren and thought how wonderful it must be for her to work in this world where people “get her,” a place of grace and mutual respect. She is seen as the person of care, hope and good humor that she is, as she begins to make a life for herself against odds greater than most of us face.

Listening to her transported me more than 30 years back to a seminary classroom where I first learned to love and (partially) to understand Tillich.

He wrote powerfully of spiritual community near the end of his Systematic Theology, and most students knew, of course, that he was talking about the church as the creation of the Spirit of Christ in the world.

But our thoughts were far too narrow. We did not clearly envision Lauren and her work place. We couldn’t then grasp the sacrament of human community and care in all its beauty, as the Spirit of Christ freely creates the wonder of spiritual community far beyond the boundaries of church buildings.

Tears are an interesting thing. They appear when something deep within us is wounded, touched by love or set free to live and breathe. Lauren’s words do not flow like water in a stream. She stumbles and often works hard to say what is clear in her mind. Her words come out in threes and fours, a pause then several more.

Still, her description of the spiritual community as it exists in her office was as eloquent and powerful as Tillich’s words--and far more concrete. She brought me to tears of joy for her.

She also awakened a desire to live, love and laugh in such a community. My soul longs to breathe freely, revealing its beauty and brokenness among souls who, with all humility, gentleness and patience, support each other in love. Who doesn’t want this grace?

But my tears revealed one more blessed truth. Listening to Lauren, I realized so clearly that I already know and have this grace.

There are many days when I experience this depth of spiritual community among a people who struggle to live the love of Christ. Often, we fail. But there days we succeed almost as well as Lauren and her colleagues.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 15:27-31

The servant told him, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the calf we had been fattening because he has got him back safe and sound." He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to urge him to come in; but he retorted to his father, "All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed any orders of yours, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property -- he and his loose women -- you kill the calf we had been fattening." 'The father said, "My son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours.

Reflection

You are always with me. Don’t you know? Didn’t you realize that all I am and have … is yours? Always was; always will be.

This is the singular reality of your life, but on average days we live the unreality of separateness, not knowing, not feeling, unaware that our souls are always connected with the Soul of the Universe.

But moments come when we feel and know.

Some call it a sense of oceanic awareness. We feel we are part of everything. We belong to everything, intimately connected with all that is. We are engulfed in a sea of love that surrounds all that is.

All that is, all creation and all we are is inside this sea, a part of the sea; yet each thing has distinct identity. Distinct, yes, but nothing is ever separate or apart from this embracing reality. Everything belongs.

This sea is the infinitely Abundant Source of all that is and holds all creation in an embrace of love that knows us entirely and loves us completely.

What words shall I use to capture what I know of you, Holy One, when such moments of blessing wash over me? What can I say? I struggle and strain, casting one metaphor after another to tell what you reveal of yourself.

I know only that peace settles on the soul, the heart slows, breath deepens, stress evaporates, and I find myself in an infinite sea of love.

I know … I am always with you. There is no escaping you, no getting lost; no place I go where you are not, no moment when the sea is unwilling to flood the soul with this sublime awareness that I may always know … you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

 Today’s text

Luke 15:27-31

The servant told him, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the calf we had been fattening because he has got him back safe and sound." He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to urge him to come in; but he retorted to his father, "All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed any orders of yours, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property -- he and his loose women -- you kill the calf we had been fattening." 'The father said, "My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. 

Reflection

Moments come and go. They arrive and immediately flee, but some leave their mark.

You never know when such moments will appear, whether they will come amid success or stress or when you are taking a brain break over a cup of coffee. Like yesterday.

Nothing was happening. Indiscernible music played in the background. There was no one around the coffee shop to interrupt me. I was as unknown to them as they to me. The top pulled off the cup, dark aroma and steam rise in the late afternoon light.

And it hits me. I have everything I need here. This awareness is not about material needs but fullness of heart, assurance of life, peace.

My in-most heart, the depth of my being reaches out in whispered words and tears to Something so far beyond me I cannot name it, yet which is part of me, deep within.

Awareness of complete oneness with this Mystery floods every sense, and I know … I share in the fullness of this Great Mystery. We are one with no separation, although I know this Great Mystery infinitely transcends everything I know or can know.

There is no need for mind and soul to grasp or possess what comes in this moment. You don’t need to grasp what is freely given, what is already yours.

There is no need for anything, to be or do anything. There is only being, my being dwelling in ecstatic peace with You in this fleeting moment that tells me the truth of every moment.

All you have and are is mine. I know this, although no words are spoken. There is only awareness of this as the first and final truth of my life--and the wordless joy of ecstatic tears.

Now, the morning comes once more. The moment of total awareness has passed, but it has left its mark and lingers in mind and heart.

I know it will come and fill me again, teaching me what I need to live and die in peace. But just for today, don’t let me lose the moment of total knowing what you most want me to know.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, March 1, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 13:1-5

It was just about this time that some people arrived and told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices. At this he said to them, 'Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than any others that this should have happened to them? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell, killing them all? Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.' 

Reflection

An ancient view of the universe plays at the back of mind. The good thrive; the evil come to ruin. We reap what sow.

It’s a neat formula except it doesn’t always fit the facts. Someone steals at work. He gets caught and gets fired. He had it coming. A man abuses his body with too much food and heavy drinking, and his organs fail from excess. What goes around comes around.

But there are so many other times when this neat formula doesn’t apply. The careful and virtuous suffer outrageous fates, die young, fall victim to sudden disease, abuse, accidents or financial downturns not of their own making. They didn’t deserve it.

For some, this undermines faith in God. The good should be rewarded. Those who are less good … not so much. The mean and nasty … let them get what they gave. Divine justice seems to require at least this much.

And when evil times and grief fall heavily on those who “don’t deserve it,” this means God isn’t just, doesn’t care … or isn’t there. The faith of more than a few has foundered on this point.

But life cannot be reduced to formulas. It must be lived in all its wild unpredictability. And God cannot be boxed in by our logic. Both life and God remain wonderfully, terribly and wildly free from us and our formulas about the way things should be.

Sounds like bad news, threatening news. But it’s the best news of all, though challenging. 

You, Holy One, invite us to throw our formulas to the wind and see life as you see it.

Get over yourself and your need to force everything to make sense. Receive life as a great mystery and adventure you can neither predict nor much control.

Instead of judging who is deserving and who isn’t, instead of seeing through your shoulds and oughts, see the grace of each day, the need and humanity even of those you consider undeserving.

See without the need to make things fit the way things should be. See people in their imperfection and peculiarities without judging or blaming.

See the unpredictability of life, the surprises pleasant and painful. See it all as an arena where love plays and invites you to dance to its music so you might be as free as God and as gracious.

When for a moment you see this way, you will have begun to live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday February 27, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 13:1-5

It was just about this time that some people arrived and told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices. At this he said to them, 'Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than any others that this should have happened to them? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell, killing them all? Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.' 

Reflection

How shall I live? As I grow older the question becomes more urgent.

What shall I do with my precious, unpredictable life? How shall I spend the irreplaceable resource of time, which is always shorter than we want it to be?

Two tragedies focused the attention of people who came to Jesus. One was an act of brutality, a murder, the other an accident that killed hapless victims. Both incidents prove the fragility and unpredictability of our lives. We never know what might happen.

Never, which gives urgency to every decision, every action, every day.

Each one must count for something, each must express the wonder of our particular lives, the graces we have to beautify and bless this world while we can, doing the will of the Grace who made and loves us. Time must not be lost.

This urgency seldom sets in on modern souls until sudden threat or evil happens.

We fill our lives with commitments and activities, little questioning: Which is best, which express our deepest convictions and faith, which would we do if we knew this was our last day on God’s good earth?

You can live for decades like this until something unexpected happens. Someone we love gets dangerously sick, our diagnosis is what we feared or an accident touches our lives.

Urgency then enters the mind, and we ask what we want our lives to be. We repent, finally seeing life as a precious and fragile gift that must not be wasted or taken for granted.

Each moment must be lived as much as possible from our depths that we might be and share whatever wonder and beauty, grace and care that is in us--being the soul that the Soul of Grace always knew we could be.

Such repentance of life need and must not wait the day when we realize life is not under our control. It starts today, every day.

We wake and receive one more day, a joyous gift of grace from the Soul of Grace who wants only that we should live, truly live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday February 26, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 13:1-5

It was just about this time that some people arrived and told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices. At this he said to them, 'Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than any others that this should have happened to them? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell, killing them all? Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.' 

Reflection

Tragedy strikes, evil happens to a person, and someone watching will assuredly come up with a reason why they deserved it. It’s called the just world hypothesis.

The human mind is hard-wired to seek explanations, and we want the world to be fair. We want to think people get what they deserve.

When something painful or tragic happens, the mind looks for reasons why they deserved it. They must have done something wrong. They must have brought this on themselves … somehow.

By blaming them we protect ourselves from the thought that such tragedy can happen to us.

Pointing fingers is an effective defense mechanism. Finding a reason, even connecting the fate of others with God’s will, keeps us from having to look at ourselves, at our faults and vulnerabilities as mortal human beings.

All this backfires when something evil or tragic happens to us or someone close to us. Unhelpful and uncomfortable questions quickly disturb when we are accustomed to thinking everything happens for a reason, that God’s will is somehow in what is happening.

“What have I done … what have we done to deserve this?”

Jesus has no time for any of this. He doesn’t appeal to some idea that God’s permissive will allows bad things to happen. He doesn’t point to some higher wisdom or hidden plan at work behind events that would explain everything … if we only knew what it was.

Nor does he say people suffer because they are worse sinners than everyone else.

He turns them … and us … back to ourselves and tells us to repent. Change your mind; change the way you see.

Don’t see people who deserve what is happening to them. See people who need the love and mercy of God. See people whom God treasures.

Look at yourselves, and see that you need God’s mercy and grace as anyone else.

Pr. David L. Miller 

Today’s text

Luke 13:34-35

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

Reflection

The tenderness and longing in Jesus words cannot be overestimated.

He imagines the city, its peoples and places, the broken bodies of those in need, and the lostness of those seeking a sign that God is near and has not forgotten.

He sees those who care nothing for knowledge of God yet wonder about the inner gnawing they cannot name.

He imagines the hungry and those burdened by poverty and the oppression of Roman occupation. He sees people who need leaders who will lift their spirits with God’s loving presence. He imagines the rulers and bureaucrats who care less about justice than about keeping Rome happy and protecting their privilege and pay.

Jesus sees their struggle for bread and their hunger for Spirit. They live aimlessly for want of the Love who comes and fills them; so that they feel their dignity and live truly human lives of grace, beauty and holy purpose.

He sees … and is moved. His words bear the fullness of God’s holy heart.

“If only … . If only you would come to me. If only you would taste the wonder that is in me. If only you would once be filled with the substance of Spirit I would awaken and pour into you.

“If only you knew me, you would know your dignity, your beauty and the purpose of God in you. If you knew me, no suffering or oppression would steal your dignity, your strength, your beauty or your hope.”

Jesus sees … and longs … for us.

But it is our longing for wholeness and peace, for grace and holy purpose that moves us to cry our, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Longing for life, we open our hearts and allow ourselves to be drawn into the heart of Jesus. In him, we feel the holy longing of God for each of us, a yearning echoed in our longing for that Love that is so hungry to come and complete us.

Blessed is he who comes … .

Pr. David L. Miller

 Today’s text

Luke 13:31-32

Just at this time some Pharisees came up. 'Go away,' they said. 'Leave this place, because Herod means to kill you.' He replied, 'You may go and give that fox this message: Look! Today and tomorrow I drive out devils and heal, and on the third day I attain my end.

Reflection

Anyone who expects a smooth path hasn’t lived much. Everyone has stuff, stuff to carry, stuff that gets in the way, stuff we could do without.

To speak plainly, there is resistance to what God’s Spirit requires in every life. Some resistances are internal; many are the temptations and fears that keep us from truly being ourselves and fulfilling the hope of our hearts, living out who we are created to be.

Some resistances are external--the attitudes of others, the refusals of our gifts and ideas, the people and situations that don’t change or stand aside so we can move forward with the hopes we have, the missions of grace calling within us.

Years ago, I served as editor of our church’s national magazine. Coming into that office, I wanted to change the culture of the publication to make it easier for staff members to suggest and act on their ideas.

Everyone welcomed the idea, but change was hard. The gravity of established patterns and internalized habits kept us in familiar ruts. It took concerted effort over a long period of time to overcome internal and external resistance before much happened.

Resistance to the good, the true, the beautiful--to the work of God’s Spirit--is not hard to see or find. It is deeply rooted in human egoism, in the desire for comfort and human anxiety to hold onto what power and influence one has. Change is fearful.

Jesus brought the ultimate good and final grace of God’s kingdom. He healed and crossed the boundaries that excluded people from entering the inner circle of God’s love. He made the broken whole and drove out the forces that disfigure human life.

But he encountered resistance almost every step of the way. He was a threat to those in power because he acted with a power they didn’t have and could not understand, a power that was for others not over others, a power that was for all people … not just for a favored few.

So resistance came from those he threatened, from rulers and religious leaders who immediately knew he didn’t fit into their way of living and thinking--and that he didn’t much care about preserving their privileges.

Others resisted because it was just too good to be true. Can God’s kingdom, God’s rule really be for me? And if it is, am I willing to let it change me, how I think and feel, what I do and risk?

Resistance came, too, from within, even for Jesus, who was subject to the same human fears that we all have--fears of suffering, rejection, loneliness, and I suspect there were moments when he may have wondered if what he was doing was truly God’s will.

In each case, he retreated to prayer and then moved forward, having found in his prayer reinforcement of his identity as God’s beloved. He found the assurance needed to stay his course, to reveal God’s kingdom … to share the soul of God within him.

His way is the way to which we are called. Not an easy path, but the path the Spirit writes inside each human soul. Only in listening closely to the heart of God within can we find … again and again … the strength needed to walk the path of grace when resistance comes.

Pr. David L. Miller

 Today’s text

Genesis 15:1-6

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’ But the word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.’ He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Reflection

An old man looks into the future and sees … nothing, no legacy, no promise, nothing that endures and no one who will carry his soul and hopes into the future.

He looks into the darkness of his heart, but you lead him into another darkness, Holy One. You lead him outside his tent and bend his neck the other way.

You turn his face from the ground to the stars and tell him to do the impossible … to count the billion points of light burning in the cold immensity of space. No, more.

“How many?” You ask. “How many? Go ahead and count. Tell me how many you see.

“That’s how many descendents you shall have. That’s how many blessings will come. That’s how many will know the blessing of my faithful promise.”

Go, look up. Look at the stars and imagine.

Imagine the power that fashioned and still creates them as they burst into being and flame out thousands of times each day. Imagine the yawning immensity of space.

See the unique beauty of each star, some a bare twinkle that seems to blink out if you don’t look hard. Others shine so brightly their refection glows in the night on lakes and rivers by which you stand.

Imagine and see.

See not the starts but their Infinite Source, the Promiser who says all things are possible with me. Imagine being addressed by this Greatness.

Imagine your face in the loving and gentle hands of this One who lifts your head from the ground to the stars that you may see, hope and know the staggering love who holds your life.

Imagine it all, and know: This is not your imagination. It is your reality.

Pr. David L. Miller

Today’s text

Deuteronomy 26:1-9

When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket … . When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt … and brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Reflection

You shall remember, for remembering restores and reinforces identity. It tells you who you are, where you have come and what you shall do.

When Israel came into the promised land the first fruits every year were to be offered to God as an offering that they might remember what had happened to their ancestors and how they came to be in this good and gracious place.

They brought offerings not because God needed to be fed but because they needed to offer themselves in thanks, a way of celebrating and reliving the goodness of God and of the life they lived, lest they forget who they are.

Those who forget begin to live in ways that contradict their inner being, their character. They get lost, allowing others to choose how they see and act.

The ways and opinions of those around them assume the role of their own conscience, and they no longer act according to their own purpose

The central question of living as a child of God is to remember and ask, “Who am I? Who are we, and what does this mean for how we should live and act?”

Like the ancient people of faith, we need to remember are people who have received many rich blessings. We receive life as gift. We didn’t make ourselves or fashion creation.

In this good land, we receive a way of living that is the envy of most of the world.

No less than the people of Israel, we are chosen, wanted and loved by God who writes our names on the palms of his hands.

The Holy One claims us in our baptism, fills our empty hands and hearts with the bread of life and pours unmerited forgiveness and constant love into our being through every beauty, every gift and every love we know--each a sacrament of the love of God who seeks to touch us each day and make us truly alive.

Who are we? We are a people gifted, a people bound to greet each day with two words. “Thank you.”

When we don’t we begin our days this way we begin to forget, and consequences soon come.

Our joy and gratitude for life is diminished. We are more likely to be saddened when life challenges. We are weaker.

Who are we? We are a people bound to celebrate the love of the God who seeks us at every hand. We are a people who can bask in the knowledge that there is nothing in all creation that can stop the constant loving of God … for us.

This makes a people bound for joy, for strength, for hope, a generous people who have received much and share generously.

That’s who we are. When we remember the days are beautiful, laced with gratitude and our hope is boundless.

Remember, … and live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Today’s text

Psalm 126:1-2

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
   we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
   and our tongue with shouts of joy.

Reflection

Sometimes our reality outstrips our hopes and expectations. Sometimes what comes to us exceeds what we thought was possible. So it was for your people, Holy One, when they returned from exile, home to Zion, the city of their sweetest dreams.

Their longings were fulfilled, and they breathed the fresh air of the home to which they never expected to return.

Their story is my story, our story, for we live so much of our lives in exile, far from home.

You made us for this earth, to tend and till, care and nurture with our hands and hearts, giving all that we are to the life of this precious planet and the lives therein.

This is home, this is life, this is our place of being. Joy comes as we give our hearts away in care and nurture of what you have made and given us. Heaven is not our home … this is. This is where you placed us to live, to grow and love.

Yet, this is not quite home.

We do our work, care for homes and families, jobs and community, striving to do and be all we can be, all the while hoping and craving something more, fearing it will never come, distressed that we may never reach it.

A sense of exile disturbs the soul.

We long for unity in love with the Love who made us. We seek the More beyond whom no more is or can be.

We try to still our restless longings with success or money, fun and ever-more crowded schedules, but these never fully satisfy the soul’s desire for more. We will always want more.

Except, … there are moments when we feel ourselves inside the More you are, Holy One, and we enter a home that exceeds every expectation of joy and peace we have ever had.

Moments come, faces appear, grace and beauty find us, touch us, fill us, carry us away into the Heart that is the home our hearts seek.

Every biblical story about God’s exiled, wandering people hungry for home, every story, myth and fairy tale that speaks of separation from home, from lost love or from a promised land not yet found--all of this speaks our soul’s unsatisfied longing to enter the heart of God.

But even in this life, moments come when our longings are stilled, when dreams are fulfilled, when reality exceeds hope and expectation, and our souls are released in joy.

And God’s dream for us comes true.

Pr. David L. Miller