Tuesday, June 18, 2013

 Today’s text

Luke 8:26-35

They came to land in the territory of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. He was stepping ashore when a man from the city who was possessed by devils came towards him; for a long time the man had been living with no clothes on, not in a house, but in the tombs. Catching sight of Jesus he gave a shout, fell at his feet and cried out at the top of his voice, 'What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I implore you, do not torture me.' For Jesus had been telling the unclean spirit to come out of the man. It had seized on him a great many times, and then they used to secure him with chains and fetters to restrain him, but he would always break the fastenings, and the devil would drive him out into the wilds. Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?' He said, 'Legion' -- because many devils had gone into him. And these begged him not to order them to depart into the Abyss. Now there was a large herd of pigs feeding there on the mountain, and the devils begged him to let them go into these. So he gave them leave. The devils came out of the man and went into the pigs, and the herd charged down the cliff into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened they ran off and told their story in the city and in the country round about; and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus they found the man from whom the devils had gone out sitting at the feet of Jesus, wearing clothes and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 

Reflection

It’s not right. “Legion,” the possessed man when asked his name, and we might answer the same. “My name is legion, for many things possess and define me.”

But that is not right, not for him or for us.

We are not the demons that take control of us. We are not the fears, defense mechanisms or anxieties about our success, appearance and importance that possess us and obscure our deepest identity.

We are not the deficiencies and disappointments that haunt so many, nor are we the wounds and sorrows that seek control over our waking thoughts.

These things seek to define us, possess us, and too often we allow it, thinking that, yes, this is who we really are: that legion of feelings, the weight of the past, fears of the future and gnawing insecurities that shape our inner life and much outward behavior.

But this is not who we are. This is not our identity, and we know it when we, like the Gerasene demoniac are restored to our right mind.

Jesus enters the wild lands of our confusion, where we are driven about by one compulsion or another that takes possession of our minds and convinces us we are far less than we are.

How many times have I heard others… or myself spoken the words … ‘I am only …’ or I am just a …?’

How many times have I heard others… or myself … speak words that diminish or make light of the gifts, hopes and dignity of who we each are as human souls, bearers of great beauty, promise, love and capacity for receiving and giving grace?

How many times have do we accentuate our deficiencies or smallness for fear of making  too much of ourselves--or to lower expectations so others would not look to us for any truly important?

In such times, we truly are not in our right minds. Right-mindedness appears only in the presence of the power of love that frees us to discover and be who we are as gifted, graced, beautiful children of the Loving Father who hungers for us to know and live our true dignity.

The power of such love frees us from demons that possess that our eyes might glisten and our lives shine with the glory God intends.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 7:40-47

Then Jesus took him up and said, 'Simon, I have something to say to you.' He replied, 'Say on, Master.' 'There was once a creditor who had two men in his debt; one owed him five hundred denarii, the other fifty. They were unable to pay, so he let them both off. Which of them will love him more?' Simon answered, 'The one who was let off more, I suppose.' Jesus said, 'You are right.' Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, 'You see this woman? I came into your house, and you poured no water over my feet, but she has poured out her tears over my feet and wiped them away with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but she has been covering my feet with kisses ever since I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. For this reason I tell you that her sins, many as they are, have been forgiven her, because she has shown such great love. It is someone who is forgiven little who shows little love.' 

Reflection

Do you see this woman?

Simon doesn’t. He doesn’t see that giving yourself away in love is the reason we exist.

He doesn’t see himself as a receiver of the wonder of divine love. The woman does, and that makes all the difference in the world.

He thinks he needs little from God and therefore receives little. He imagines he is less in need than this creature weeping at Jesus feet, and therefore he is much less than she is.

She is a truly human soul, but he has not yet arrived at this elevated state. And he will never arrive until he realizes he is in as much, no, greater need than she is.

His heart will not come to full flower, like hers, until he is filled with the awareness of God’s love touching, lifting, cherishing … him.

Until then, he will not … and cannot see. He can see neither himself, the woman or anything else because he sees not as a receiver of life but as one who imagines himself a master of life and living, who is a cut above the common run of humanity.

Only those who receive divine love, those who know their need, who receive each day, each moment, as the gift it is--not as an entitlement--are freed to live in love.

True life and joy begins in receiving. It is the simplest truth of all. Nothing could be more obvious. But so few see it.

At the beginning of our lives, we are utterly helpless, dependent on others for everything. We are a burning center of insatiable need, and others care for us or we die.

We are receivers and learn to love, to smile, to show joy and appreciation in connection with those who love us enough to make sure that we have what we need.

This doesn’t change even though we imagine that we need less as we are more able to care for ourselves. Even then we are utterly dependent on the love and care of others who make this world work, and we are utterly dependent on the secret, the magic, the spark that makes our bodies live, something that even our best science is yet to explain.

We receive this… every moment, whether we are aware of it or not. Every breath, every moment is a gift of life we simply receive.

Some lovingly cherish each gift of life, breath and love. They are truly human souls, who see.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday June 11, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 7:36-39

One of the Pharisees invited [Jesus] to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee's house and took his place at table, suddenly a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.' 

Reflection

What do you see?

A woman with a bad reputation or a human soul who loves extravagantly? A histrionic display or an unshackled heart?

A generation ago Billy Joel sang that he’d “rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.” Jesus agrees with Billy. So do I.

When the saints, like this Pharisee, focus on properness and purity they are no fun and uninteresting. They are also blind to the only things that matter, loving, laughter and life.

And the Spirit of God is nothing if not the Spirit of life, laughter and love.

The Divine Spirit sets the heart free from its narrow constrictions to risk looking ridiculous, over-the-top and foolish for the sake of the love that bubbles at its core.

The Pharisee, Simon by name, lives comfortably within the constrictions of proprieties of law and convention, but I’d rather hang out with the woman who cried at Jesus feet and wiped them with her tears.

God knows, she’d make me nervous. I’d squirm in her presence because at age 60 there is still too damn much of Simon in me.

I learned social niceties quite young and was told the ‘nice people’ do the ‘right things’ don’t have bad reputations, and ‘good Christians’ are polite, respectful and don’t engage in unsettling emotional displays..

I should have known immediately that this was nonsense and had nothing to do with Jesus, but I guess I am a slow learner.

The woman would shame me, too. The free flow of her heart, shedding tears onto the feet of the soul who had healed her soul, reveals the hesitance of my heart, my tendency to hold back and be cautious. Such hesitancy resists the Spirit’s urge to praise and sing, laugh and weep at the crazy giddiness of the gospel of God’s illimitable love.

It also obscures the beauty and joy that would flow through me (and you) just as certainly as it does through this woman.

Weeping, pouring her heart onto Jesus feet, she is a compelling portrait of a soul set free, a heart come alive. She, not Simon, is the model of true humanity.

She invites us to throw our cautions to the wind, forget our self-protective proprieties and let ourselves feel … and express … the crazy love that is the Spirit within, hungry to be set free.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday June 6, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 7:12-15

Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.' Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, 'Young man, I tell you: get up.' And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 

Reflection

I am here in this basement room, a safe place away to listen and hear, to see life with clarity and compassion, myself, too.

And doing this, I enter into the way of Jesus, the path of Spirit, a way of seeing life and death, struggle and joy and being moved to compassion for my life, the lives of others and the needs of the world.

This is the way of Jesus.

He comes to town with his friends and meets a parade of death on the way to the cemetery. He comes and sees, and seeing he is moved to stop the death march right there, moved with compassion to give life.

I hardly do this in this quiet room where gentle music plays. Or in my small way, is more happening that I imagine?

Sitting here, seeing myself and the hearts of others, I get ready for the day, preparing to walk the path of Spirit, the way of Jesus once more.

And even here I am seen and known by the One who sees us all and is moved with compassion on all that is in and around us that kills our souls and weighs us beneath burdens of sadness.

Don’t cry, he says to us. I see. I see and I love … you. I see, and I give you life and always will.

I see and tell you to get up and live in a world where I am and I love.

Once more, the Voice he is invites me to live and enter his way, to see and be moved, to see and act with care, knowing that I, too--we, too--are here to stop the parade of death and sadness, to give life and joy--no, to be life and to be joy.

But it all starts with the One who sees … each of us … and says, do not weep, do not fear. You are seen and known, never forgotten and always treasured.

So, get up … and live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Today’s text

Luke 7:12-15

Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.' Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, 'Young man, I tell you: get up.' And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 

Reflection

Jesus gave her life back to her. He gave the son’s life back to him, too. Jesus gives life.

The message is clear enough, and we lose it when we focus too heavily on the miracle, asking questions for which we have no answers: Was the man really dead? Did Jesus really raise him? If so, how?

And … can I believe in a miracle like this?

Focus all your energy there and you miss the message. You spend all your time fixating on the wondrous elements of the story that you fail to hear Jesus words, spoken directly to your heart and mind.

"Don’t cry," is the first word. There are many kinds of tears: tears of joy, tears that flow when we feel deeply from the core of who we are, and tears of sorrow, of course.

The mother’s tears are from obvious sorrow. She has lost her son, and more: She has lost her only means of support in this ancient society. She has no husband, no son and certainly her society had no social security, no insurance, no pension system, no food stamps or Medicaid to care for her.

Losing her son, she was destitute and had plenty to cry about. But don’t, Jesus tells her. I am here, and I am for you. What I am you soon shall see, for I am life and where I am life, well, lives, flows, flourishes and breathes joy and peace.

So, don’t cry, just know this.

And the second word: “Young man, I tell you: get up."

Just get up. The power to do so is in you. You deny it; you doubt it, but the love and grace I am awakens it in you. Know me. Hear me. And get up.

Get up and live. That is what I want for you … and from you. I want you to live letting loose of the fullness the Loving Creator planted in you to beautify and grace his world.

I do not want you to live a half-way, colorless existence, but a life filled with the energy and confidence of one who knows there are great gifts in your mind and soul to be enjoyed, celebrated and shared.

So get up and be what you are, what the Loving Mystery has made you, no more cutting and curbing your words and actions to fit the expectations and boxes in which you and others enclose youself.

This yields sadness and dissatisfaction and dishonors the One whose breath animates your body and soul.

So get up. Get up and live. Make no apologies for who you are. Throw your heart into the day and give yourself to every moment. Get up and live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, May 31, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 7:6-10

So Jesus went with them, and was not very far from the house when the centurion sent word to him by some friends to say to him, 'Sir, do not put yourself to any trouble because I am not worthy to have you under my roof; and that is why I did not presume to come to you myself; let my boy be cured by your giving the word. For I am under authority myself, and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man, "Go," and he goes; to another, "Come here," and he comes; to my servant, "Do this," and he does it.' When Jesus heard these words he was astonished at him and, turning round, said to the crowd following him, 'I tell you, not even in Israel have I found faith as great as this.' And when the messengers got back to the house they found the servant in perfect health. 

 Reflection

This story is either a club to beat ourselves with or an invitation to hope and life, love and trust. We can wallow in guilt for our poor, weak faith, or we can choose the invitation.

I choose the invitation to life and love. Here goes.

I have no idea what happened to the centurion who sought healing for his servant. There is no reference to whether he became a disciple or simply lived out his life following orders, until he retired someplace quiet and tried to enjoy the rest of his life.

Whatever happened to him he lived at least one perfect moment when he epitomized what it means to be truly human and blessed. For one moment he trusted that there is a Love loose in the world that hungers to heal what is most broken in us--our hearts and hopes, our fears and losses.

For one moment he truly trusted the Presence of that Love and sent his petty anxieties packing because he knew that Love would bless him and the one for whom his heart hungered.

For one moment he revealed the simple trust to which Love invites us.

It was a moment of rare beauty he may have known but once. But in that moment, his words of total trust in Jesus, as the Word of Love, show us the life God wants for us.

There is a Love who hungers for my wholeness … and yours, a Love who hungers for you to be whole and happy, fulfilled and joyful, free and at peace.

We call that Love ‘God’ in our tradition, and the centurion certainly thought he saw the walking, talking presence of that Love in Jesus.

This Love cannot be confined to any one time, place or person, of course. That is what the Resurrection means. It is always present and real, alive and active.

It’s hard to believe this sometimes, perhaps all the time.

Everyday crises are at hand, at least in my work. There are people who are dying despite their determined, brave, noble fight against incurable disease. Others face money problems, failing marriages or the simple disappointments of not getting what you want and may rightly deserve.

We can either stew in our juices, picking at our wounds or decide to live … this day … now; trusting the Love that is present will meet us on our way, amid the day, although we may not always recognize its disguises.

It will be there. I should say, the Christ, the Love … is there … every moment. So every moment, or at the very least once each morning, pray the centurion’s prayer, “Say the word, Precious Love; say the word and heal this aching soul. I know you can.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Today’s text

John 14:16-17

I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth whom the world can never accept since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you. 

Reflection

Too often we look at Jesus and see the immense gulf that separates from him. He seems so unreal, so unworldly, or so we make him in our minds.

But when he says he and the Father are one, he is speaking not only of his life but ours, especially when he promises to send the Spirit, the Paraclete/Helper who will abide is us, filling us with … the same thing that filled him--awareness of the immense love that is the Father.

The Spirit comes, abides within to bring intimate union with God and the power that comes from knowing who we are: bearers of the eternal mystery, just like Jesus, our brother.

The difference between him and us, I suppose, is that he allowed his heart and mind to continually abide in the mystery of that identity. Therefore, he spoke and acted--in every moment--from the depth of his union with the Father.

We act and speak so often moved by our fears and experience of feeling threatened, anxious and wounded. No way to live, it’s not life at all.

Life is to know what Jesus knew, the Abiding Spirit of God in-dwelling the heart and mind, giving trust and peace, allowing the full power in our being to pour out unhindered, and relishing the beauty of life and living as God intends.

We are not as different from him as we think. The Spirit that was in him is in us, so hindered and buried beneath the anxious drivenness of each day. It waits for us to stop and listen, clear away the noise and pay attention to life within us that wants to live … or shall I say to come out and play in the beauty of the day?

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, May 3, 2013

 Today’s text

John 14:23

Jesus replied: Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him.

Reflection

We must nurture and protect a personal preserve of holiness within our being, a space, a place of solitude where the Christ presence may dwell and where we may commune with him.

Prayer in all of its forms is the process of nurturing this intimate space within. It is a way of keeping Jesus word, of opening of ourselves and welcoming his being that the Spirit he is may dwell richly in us, too.

Failing this, our inner-most soul, the deep inner womb where Christ seeks to live in us will collapse from the press of life filling us, leaving little room within for his being to live in us.

This is why inner communion with Christ is so rarely found among modern men and women. And it is why we fail to have the peace that only inner communion provides, a peace the world cannot give.

So perhaps we must say the name, repeat his name in the morning hours and through the day, an ancient form of prayer that opens our being to receive the substance of his soul.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus … say it on the breath. Speak it in the rhythm of life passing in and out of your lungs, for his word, that is to say his being, is life to the soul. Speak it and breathe in the beauty of the one who blessed children and reached out to heal, who cast out demons and drove away those who burdened human souls with unnecessary rules and regulations.

All we need is what is in him. So return again and again this day to the name. Speak it as you work and drive, walk and work. He will come and dwell in the inner room of your soul, driving out all pretenders to the place where only he belongs. In that holy space, he will speak peace to you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, April 26, 2013

Today’s text

John 13:35

It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples.

Reflection

Visions are fleeting. Moments of illumination come and go. They appear and quickly pass, fading in the mind’s eye before you are barely aware of them.

Yet, the images sometimes stick, enduring in the mind for decades, perhaps even for a lifetime, continuing to tell you everything you need to know.

They come at odd moments, like sitting in a coffee shop talking to a student, explaining stories you have visited a hundred times, only this time is different for reasons you will never understand.

One story was the tiny episode (three or four verses) of Jesus welcoming and blessing children others sought to shoo away. The other was the healing of a blind man who had nothing to offer Jesus but his blindness and his desire to see.

The stories were about open hearts eager to receive--and about one heart eager to give.

But they transported my mind and heart far beyond ancient times and biblical pages to deep recesses of the mind where a vision appeared and stopped me in mid-sentence, not once but several times, as tears clouded my eyes.

I saw faces, faces with million-watt smiles, wiped free of every anxiety and fear, of all suffering and threat. Nothing clouded their eyes.

I saw smiles on people known to me, people who endure trials and live with intractable situations, all of them whole and well, complete and happy, shining like sun, for the sun was shining … in them.

They were lit up from within with a joy and life that brought tears to my eyes and peace to my heart. They were enclosed beneath a grand arc that covered them. It arched high above them and all that is, holding everything together in a great protective shield.

I saw no sun, only the light in their eyes and the glory of their joy.

What does one make of such a moment, for a moment is all it was although it endures vividly in the mind? An illusion? Wishful thinking? A prayer for what I want?

Or is it an illumination, a vision of how things ultimately are?

How one answers depends on whether you are a skeptic, agnostic or seized by faith and hope. I am the latter, and I receive my coffee shop vision as a gift that tells me everything I need to know, a gift moved by ancient stories of a Loving Mystery more eager to bless than I am to receive.

All things, all I love, all that this Loving One loves will shine like the sun--and even now dwell under the protective arc of Love Itself.

So smile, be at peace and love all you do and see this day. It is the only fitting service of the One who gives vision.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Today’s text

John 13:34

I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you.

Reflection

Jesus calls us to ourselves. He calls us to our joy, the joy God intends for every human soul, a joy that is known only in loving.

Creation, life and our precious lives are expression of God, who is Love--the One who creates us out of the fullness of divine being. All that is--and each of us--is an expression of divine being, an extraversion of the substance of God’s soul, a soul that is all love and nothing but loving.

Love creates for the joy of giving and seeing its own joy in the face of that which it creates.

Love hungers to see the smile that lights our eyes when we wake up once more and realize the wonder and sheer gratuity of being alive, of coming to a new day and feeling fresh spring breeze on our flesh.

Love smiles on the startled face of our amazement when we realize we were called from nothingness into existence solely that we might know ourselves loved.

We are children of this Love, extraversions of Love’s inner heart, incarnations of the One Love from all creation comes.

The call to love as Jesus loves is a call home, a call to be ourselves, a call to share the joy of the One who made us.

We come to one more day, one more opportunity to tremble with joy at the gift of our existence, one more chance to laugh and sing, to witness beauty and to give the beauty of grace and love to Love’s other children that they, too, might be themselves.

We have now, this moment. Tomorrow is not ours and may never be. But today is ours, and we can pour out whatever love as is in us--and share God’s own smile.

It’s what we are made for.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Today’s text

John 13:34

I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you.

Reflection

These are words for a community seeking to keep alive the presence and intuition of Jesus among them.

How shall we know him when he is physically gone from us? How can the divine and the material be joined--as they were in him--so our present moments are transformed into the joy of eternity?

Fear of absence and a burning hunger to experience Jesus lies behind these words.

But there is no need for fear. We need only begin again, each day, to pour out our hearts in love within the community who knows and remembers Jesus--and we will know him. He will be there.

The church, the community of holy remembrance, gathers each week to remember him and place broken bread in empty hands to remember God’s love for the empty, the needy, the hurting, the happy, the dying, the confused, the frightened, the smug, for sinners old and young.

The broken bread tells us everything we need to know about the heart of God, broken and given to the deserving and undeserving alike.

But really, who deserves the complete, unmitigated love that poured from Jesus’ heart, letting us know that he was … and is … divine in more ways than we can possibly understand?

Once having tasted this love you can never get enough. You want it again and again until it fills you.

Jesus tells us not to stand staring at heaven and hoping. Look at each other, he says. Look into each others’ eyes and need. See their hopes and sorrows, Share your hearts and learn to give what is in your heart and hands to each other. I will be there, and you will know me.

His command to love one another is not a command but an invitation to meet him where he is--in the midst of a community hungry for his love and in our own surprising hearts that are more divine than we know.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Today’s text

John 10:28-30

I give them eternal life; they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from my hand. The Father, for what he has given me, is greater than anyone, and no one can steal anything from the Father's hand. The Father and I are one. 

Reflection

Eternal life is not far away. It is always close, but you can never give it to yourself--or get it by yourself. It is always something given, something that happens to you.

Another way to describe it is “Christ consciousness,” the experience of unity with the One from whom we all come. This is the epitome of human experience, the fulfillment of all that is most human and holy in us.

Mystics describe it variously, but their descriptions are often not better or much different from how the most articulate among us might describe the experience.

Recently, a friend described an experience of being dissolved in love. This is Christ consciousness, what other great mystical writers call contemplation.

Think about it. To be aware of being dissolved in love means--on one hand--that I continue to have the experience of being me, a self.

On the other hand, I am dissolved in a love, in a great sea of love. To be dissolved means there are no boundaries, no barriers between me and this great sea of love. I am part of the sea, one with the sea, dwelling in unity with this great Love.

Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.” He knew this oneness. More, he lived this oneness, dwelling in boundary-less unity with the Infinite Sea of Love he called, “Father.”

Jesus words and actions were so expressive of this reality that they drew others into this awareness, into his consciousness, the awareness of oneness with the Loving Mystery who is greater than all.

Eternal life is to dwell in oneness with Christ in this Infinite Sea of Love, being one with Love Itself. The experience abolishes all fear and brings peace and assurance to the soul.

In this life, our experiences of Christ consciousness are fleeting. But in those moments we taste eternity, we experience reality, and we know all we are is encompassed--and will be dissolved--in Love.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday April 16, 2013

Today’s text

John 10:27

The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me.

Reflection

To hear the voice of Jesus is to share the consciousness that is in him. It is to allow his words and deeds to penetrate one’s mind and heart so that you begin to see as he sees and hear as he hears.

This is not faith in the conventional sense that people normally think of it. Those who questioned and resisted Jesus--in the first century and now--tend to look at him from the outside and say, “Prove it. Prove you are special. Prove that you are the Son of God. Do something; maybe then I will believe.”

But ‘proof’ is not found by standing outside and looking in. We know Jesus the same way we know anyone else: By living with him closely enough so that who he is--his voice--begins to penetrate our consciousness, and we notice: What is he like? What is it like to be with him? How does he see me? How does he see the world?

Only then can we begin to know him. Only then can we know if he mediates a new kind of life--eternal life--to our hearts and minds. Only then can we feel what he awakens within us.

Jesus speaks of human beings as sheep, which is true, of course. There is no denigration in this. Sheep follow … something, someone. The idea of a wholly autonomous life is a fiction the strong-minded moderns like to tell themselves.

But they, too, are followers of ideas and commitments they often do not understand or even know about. Everyone follows something or someone.

The question we might all ask: Does the voice I follow, the voice within, make me more alive, more free, more loved and loving?

Does that voice lift me above the clatter of daily life into awareness of the Love who loves me and all things--and invites me to follow?

If so, the voice of Jesus has found a home in you, and you have found the home you always needed.

Pr. David L. Miller

April 11, 2013

Today’s text

John 21:9-13

As soon as they came ashore they saw that there was some bread there and a charcoal fire with fish cooking on it. Jesus said, 'Bring some of the fish you have just caught.' Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore, full of big fish, one hundred and fifty-three of them; and in spite of there being so many the net was not broken. Jesus said to them, 'Come and have breakfast.' None of the disciples was bold enough to ask, 'Who are you?' They knew quite well it was the Lord. Jesus then stepped forward, took the bread and gave it to them, and the same with the fish. 

Reflection

Life is about eating. Breathing comes first, of course, but eating is just as basic. We must eat to live, and what and how we eat determines how we live.

For years I often ate lunch alone at my desk, a pattern I am told is common in many offices. I told myself I was getting more work done. Meanwhile, I was starving my soul of community, of laughter, of time to tell stories, share food and … life.

Every invitation to come and eat is an invitation to life, to a communion of presence and welcome that tells us we belong. We are wanted. It tells us that the universe wants to feed us and make us more alive.

Never is this more true than with the invitation of Jesus to come and eat and to do so with other souls as hungry as oneself.

Before anything else we need this meal, early in the morning before we enter the work that will deplete energies of our bodies, if not also ours souls.

“Come and eat,” Jesus says to Peter and his other disciples, including those late to the party like you and me. “Come and eat. The food is prepared. I have cooked it for you, and it is for you. Surely, you know that.

“It is my pleasure to prepare this food. It is not an imposition for me. You are not putting me out.

“The food I give is my life, the life you receive by sitting with me in the warmth of the fire of divine love that burns in this heart of mine for you.

“Come and sit here with me. You will find food for your soul.”

There is no more characteristic action of Jesus than taking bread in his hands and breaking it open to be shared, which is exactly what he does with his heart, his life; and its exactly what he invites us to do, once we have been fed, of course.

So it is no surprise Peter and his buddies didn’t ask whether it was Jesus who was feeding them. They didn’t need to. Jesus was doing what always did.

Pr. David L. Miller

April 10, 2013

 Today’s text

John 21:4-7

When it was already light, there stood Jesus on the shore, though the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus called out, 'Haven't you caught anything, friends?' And when they answered, 'No,' he said, 'Throw the net out to starboard and you'll find something.' So they threw the net out and could not haul it in because of the quantity of fish. The disciple whom loved said to Peter, 'It is the Lord.' At these words, 'It is the Lord,' Simon Peter tied his outer garment round him (for he had nothing on) and jumped into the water. 

Reflection

There is enough and always will be enough.

Sometimes one knows without knowing. Nothing in the outer world changes, no word is spoken bringing new information, but quiet settles on the heart because it knows there will be enough.

Enough of what the heart needs to be happy, to live in peace, to smile and know that life is good and grace endures everything in this life and extends to the next. Sometimes you just know.

Today is a day of knowing.

Jesus stands in the light of new morning, eternal morning. To see him there is to enter the morning that lasts forever, to taste and know you will have what your heart needs and there is no need for anxiety about anything.

But Jesus friends do not yet see him. They have labored hard but have caught nothing. Throw the net to the other side, he yells.

I guess you need to know where the fish are to get what you need.

Or perhaps you just need to know where Jesus is. Perhaps you just need to see him standing in the light of morning waiting for you.

The great catch of fish is a symbol of the many nations that will be caught up in Jesus because his friends go tell the story of who he is. But first it is a story of emptiness and fullness.

It is the story of the emptiness of those who need him and the fullness that comes when we see and know that, in him, the fullness of God dwells and from him we will receive what our hearts require … and more.

I don’t know why Peter put on some clothes and threw himself in the water when he realized Jesus was standing on the shore. Some suggest his shame over denying Jesus overcame him, and he had to cover himself--or try to drown himself to escape it.

I prefer to think he couldn’t wait to get to morning.

Pr. David L. Miller

April 9, 2013

Today’s text

John 21:1-4

Later on, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples. It was by the Sea of Tiberias, and it happened like this:  Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two more of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said, 'I'm going fishing.' They replied, 'We'll come with you.' They went out and got into the boat but caught nothing that night. When it was already light, there stood Jesus on the shore, though the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 

 Reflection

I am going to the shore today. Someone is waiting for me there.

There are moments in the gospels that are easy to see, and so many others I want to see but cannot, which is frustrating because seeing brings me peace. Today, I see.

Jesus stands there waiting. His bare feet on the sand, he looks across the watery expanse as Peter and the others pull at the oars and creep across the waves.  

The water was a safe place for Peter, a place apart where troubles evaporated in work, waves and the winds which he understood, knowing when to make for shore as storms brewed. His head was clear on the water. He knew who he was and what to do.

But that was then. This was on the other side of Jesus, and the water no longer allowed escape, not from the pain of having failed his promise to stand with Jesus, not from the ache of missing the sound of his voice and the way it felt to be near him.

The water no longer gave him what he needed. Only Jesus, the feeling of his nearness, the sight of his face, the welcome of his open hands and the silence of his soul could silence the pain of his own.

He did not know it, yet. But Jesus stood on the shore, waiting for him to see and surrender his attempts to give peace to his own soul and receive the peace that only Jesus can give.

Peter does not yet see, but I do. I see him standing there. So I make my way to shore repeating the words, “Only Jesus. Only Jesus. Only you.”

They are my mantra, the rowing of my soul against the waves that pull me away. Two short words fix my vision on Jesus standing there, waiting.

The sight brings peace beyond the futility of my efforts to give my heart what it most needs. What I most need is you, Jesus. Only you.

Pr. David L. Miller

April 8, 2013

Today’s text

John 21:1-4

Later on, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples. It was by the Sea of Tiberias, and it happened like this:  Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two more of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said, 'I'm going fishing.' They replied, 'We'll come with you.' They went out and got into the boat but caught nothing that night. When it was already light, there stood Jesus on the shore, though the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 

 Reflection

What do you do when you have a broken heart? Peter went fishing and took his friends along.

He returned to the work he had done before he met Jesus, the work Jesus used as a metaphor for describing his mission: to catch the hearts and souls of lost human beings and join them to himself in one family, one community of God’s kingdom.

Peter returned to what he knew, fleeing what he could never fully understand. Perhaps his hurt and confusion would fade if he could sink himself in old patterns and habits that had once been enough for him.

Night had returned, and he got in the boat and pushed off.

But how do you flee into the night once your heart has been pierced by a light and love that made you more alive than you have ever been? How do you grieve the loss and move on? Can filling your days fill your heart?

Peter went fishing at night, which is a way of saying he was in the dark, whistling in the dark to be more accurate. He hoped could chase the hurt away by filling his days with what he once knew.

But it would never be enough. Certainly he knew this as he stared into the inky darkness of the night waters when no fish came to distract him from his melancholy.

Hope came with the morning light. The light was not merely another day, but a truly new day lit by the presence of Jesus, who stood there … waiting, unrecognized but already invading the darkness that weighed on Peter.

Only this, only knowing him, only basking in his presence would heal the hurt and send Peter into a new day, singing a song of grace as only hearts once-broken know how to sing.

Only the broken know how to greet the dawn of grace that awaits them each morning. Only they know how to sing the song that heals the brokenness.

Pr. David L. Miller

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