Saturday, August 28, 2021

The masters’ heart

“It will be as when a man who was going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one." (Matthew 25:14-15a)


This is where the story starts, a man going on a journey gives three employees some cash. The tale ends successfully for the first two who did something with it, but disaster for the third guy who buried his bit in the backyard, thinking his boss was a harsh, unforgiving jerk who expected a fat return even when he didn’t invest.

The story is one of Jesus’ judgment parables. At its end, the first two guys “enter into the joy” of their master, Jesus says. The third is consigned to the outer darkness far from the master’s joy and generosity.

And this is what he ... and most Christians ... don’t understand. They don’t understand where the story begins, with the generosity and hope of the master, who is not harsh or unforgiving. He is trusting and full-hearted, giving some of his substance that his servants might do something good with it ... even as he has.

The first two servants took risks. One supposes they could have lost it all, but they knew what the third servant failed to recognize. The master is not harsh but has a magnanimous heart so that failure is not fatal but forgivable.

They trusted the master and engaged what they were given, even as we can engage what we are given. “Talents” the parable calls them. We might better call them life. We are given life, breath, material reality, genetic inheritance of one sort or another and the inimitable, inherent potential that unfolds through millions of encounters large and small for as long our bodies last.

The trajectory of our lives is in large part determined by whether we live in the outer darkness of fear, like the guy digging up the master’s cash in the backyard, or whether we live in joyful freedom, knowing the master’s heart.

David L. Miller

 

 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Verbish

 Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.  (Matthew 24:42)


Most certainly, God is a verb ... or at least verbish.

Were I still a parish pastor, right about now I would be preparing to lead a group of squirrely third graders through the basics of Holy Communion.

I would enter the room wearing my Indiana Jones fedora, ready to launch into the adventure it always was, not knowing what would come and doubting my ability to hold the attention of 8 and 9 year-olds. But I always knew, sooner or later, one of them would crack a joke at my expense or stump me with a question and reduce the room to raucous laughter.

I used to consider paying one or two of kids to make sure that happened at some point, so that they knew this was all about love, the love that brought us to that room and held us together as we learned—and as they opened their hands for the first time to receive ... and every time thereafter.

It never grew old, not once, not in all the years I stumbled through those sessions, always wanting to share just a little bit more to help them know what I knew every time I broke the bread and every time I opened my hands to receive what nothing on earth can hold.

That is done now, but remembering is a blessing beyond compare. Faces stream through my mind and heart, children I wish I could hug once more and let them know how much they are loved and how dearly I treasure every one of them, including those that were, well, a challenge.

Would to God that I could name them all ... from all the years, including the faces who have gone on before me, now knowing the Love I know only in part.

As we met and talked and laughed together in all those rooms through all those years, God was not an object outside of us to be known, but the flow of love and laughter among us. A verb not a noun. Or at least verbish.

And we were caught up in the flow, encompassed and carried in an all-possessing love.

Joy, healing, freedom, pretty much everything our hearts truly need is in that flow, so go with it. Wherever you go. It’s always there.

David L. Miller  

 

 

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Return to ‘yes’

 

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes. (2 Corinthians 1:19-20a)


Sooner or later one comes to realize all attempts to fulfill one’s life are futile.

They all fail because they are all more less the product of the ego’s attempt to satisfy itself, thinking, “If I just do this ... or go there ... or get that ... or accomplish this, I will be satisfied.” Fulfillment will follow like the dawn.

But it’s an illusion for at least three reasons I can see.

First, the human heart is a bottomless abyss, always aware there is more it doesn’t have and might well enjoy. Second, because the human ego is inherently arrogant, thinking it can satisfy itself by its own actions and best laid plans.

And third, because we tend to think we know or can figure out what we need, but this is just another version of reason two: arrogance.

We don’t, of course, know what we need, until what we need finds us, and that what is really a Who ... who is known only in moments of knowing a great love you cannot deny and know you did nothing to deserve.

It is right about then that the heart grows still, and you begin to realize this is what you needed all along.

If you can resist the urge to do something or hang a label on what is happening in you, in other words, if you can just be there, you can abide in the Loving Mystery who is saying “yes” to your life in all its mottled glory, with its loves and losses, its failures and false steps, its sins of omission and commission, its best intentions and futile efforts to give itself what it actually needs.

The human heart is a reservoir for the glory of God, which is to say, for the Love who says “yes” to us every blessed morning, if we can just find a place and way to listen.

If you find such a place and a way, go back there, return often. You will stop asking questions about life’s meaning.

David L. Miller

  

 

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Heaven’s gate

 

Jesus said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51)

It was here all along, this balcony, early morning before the sun is high, its rays filtered through the locust as the martins play above. It’s here, the gate of heaven.

For here, at least today, is where I meet you as tears of recognition silently tell me it is you, and you are as pleased to be with me as I with you.

But it is not this place, blessed as it is, but you who are the gate of heaven.

Here, with you, heaven opens, and an incomparable mercy descends from an infinite realm asking nothing except to be here, in this moment, as eternity fills temporal time and the distance between heaven and earth dissolves.

Stay close, Jesus told his first disciples, I suspect, with sly smile tugging at his lips, knowing how much he had to share and how greatly he longed to share it.

They followed for the same reason as the rest of us, hoping to catch a glimpse of the heaven that opens when your heart knows him near.

There is no better healing.

David L. Miller

Monday, August 23, 2021

Spirit & life

It is the spirit that gives life.  (John 6:63a)

The spirit is life. So look around. Take stock when love and peace, joy and freedom touch the heart and breathe life into your mortal flesh.

‘Tis an eternal moment in which the Spirit of Life finds an opening in your shuttered heart to breathe in and then out, blessedly carrying you along in its flow.

Such is the Spirit’s nature. Like the current of a stream or a morning breeze, it cannot be grasped but savored as it caresses the heart, wakes joy from its slumber and dissolves the illusion of aloneness.

For we are not alone, but alive in the Spirit’s playground. All that awakens our senses to joy and beauty, goodness and grace is the breath of the Spirit resuscitating our hearts that we might lighten up, laugh and join its holy game of giving life to the dead.

So notice when the breath of dawn awakens a sigh, when the martin’s flight gives wings to your heart, and when the smile behind the counter is so honest and real that it becomes a sacrament of Love’s holy nearness.

Stop there. And breathe. Someone is trying to bring you back to life.

David L. Miller