Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 3:1-2, 5-6

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” …Then Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins.

Prayer

What moves human souls to surrender certain routine to seek an unknown in the unknown? They go to find John, a desert wild man whom most would avoid should they see him on the street. What did they expect to find? And why should we listen, Great Mystery?

They went and confessed their sins. I do not carry a burden of guilt, but all too well I know the incompletion of my humanity. Fashioned to be so much more--more love, more grace, more beauty, more generosity, I am less of these and more of fear, anxiety and self-absorption.

But souls do not go into the desert to confess unless there is hope of something more. Routine binds us, unless the heart flickers with the warm thought that, maybe, there is secret substance that can lift me above sin and incompletion; maybe I can know more than fear and inconsequence; maybe I can enter that mystery that niggles restless at depths of heart unreachable by mere mind.

In the heart lies awareness of a kind of life, a grace and beauty beyond that which we have seen and lived and been. It is that which moves us to your messenger to repent, to confess we have been so much less, crying, “Make us more. Make us the more you intend. Fill us with the More you are, for you made us in your image to bear the substance of your life.”

So we come. We come from the comfortable knowns of routine that we know can never fill our hearts with delight. We come to the unknown and unknowability of your mystery confessing our restless incompletion. We come in hope.

So come, Lord Jesus. Grace our lives with that love that lifts us above incompletion.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 10, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 3:1-4

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “A voice of one that cries in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’” This man wore a garment of camel-hair with a leather loin cloth around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Prayer

How shall I make your paths straight, O Lord, that you may come and excite your presence in the depth of this soul and live? You come in times and ways of your choosing, not mine. The visitation of your power depends not at all on me.

And yet, you call: “prepare my way.” Perhaps it is only so that I will not be asleep when you appear.

I sleep through much of my life. I miss your nearness, your constant coming. Preoccupied with my tiny self, its bumps and bruises, I seek to make life on my own terms, little seeing that every moment of life is laced with your appearance, your coming, the presence you who are life.

And I fall into melancholy and confusion, knowing you are near but unable to reach into the darkness of soul and touch--or be touched--by you whom I crave. So, again, how shall I prepare? For I hunger for your approach, and you do not ever avoid coming to me.

John went to a wilderness abandoning the comforts of the human city, seeking and serving you, freed from pursuits that preoccupy and drown out the cry of soul. Perhaps he heard that cry once he was beyond the bounds of the busy streets.

Perhaps he met your approach and knew your nearness in that deep cry of soul that he heard and released there in his wilderness, calling me, too, to hear. If so, lead me into my wilderness that I may hear and know and call out word of your coming.

Come to me this day. I languish lonely without you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 7, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 24:36, 40, 44

[Jesus said:] “But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father. … So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. … Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Prayer

I should not be surprised that we cannot know the day or the hour. It has always been so.

For I remember, Jesus. I remember the despairing years of unending grayness. I remember the desperate wanting when I needed you to come to my heart, withered joyless in your absence. And even then, you still showed up, at least from time to time, startling my soul to tears in moments I could neither predict nor manipulate

And now, again, I stand in ready need of your arrival. I always stand in such need, Jesus. But there are times and days when I lose myself in the winds of circumstance, times when I am not myself, never more, always much less than when I am in your nearness.

Today is such a time. There is too much to do and think and too little time to feel and know just exactly what is happening in this soul of mine. And you know: I only know myself when I know your nearness, when you come with love and mercy, and my soul releases its conflicts and confusion into the enveloping ocean of your immensity.

I hunger to be myself, that which I am only in your inscrutable nearness, your all-embracing love.

So come, Lord Jesus, and keep coming.

Come with the final revelation of your holy reign. And until then, open our hearts to the sweet nearness of you who are ever here.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 24:36, 40

[Jesus said:] “But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father. … So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming.”

Prayer

What do I know for sure, Dear Friend? Not much, and little can I know, save your promise. All else I touch and know is temporal, changing, finite. Too soon it will pass away, all we know, our times and all we’ve touched with mind and hand.

I wish not to be morbid on a cold winter morning. The day is challenge enough, and a chilled soul offers no comfort when the air we breathe burns our lungs and bites our flesh.

We need a word of warmth, too, when times change: when people and places we have loved--and which have loved us--are carried on in that ever rolling stream, thinning the daily landscapes with which we have grown familiar. All our times end, and with an end a beginning, ready or not.

And here, Jesus, you tell me that I cannot know when this current will reach its destination and pour into the sea. Neither do you know. We know only your promise that there is an end to time when the Holy One will make justice and be mercy.

How? Who knows? But your promise stands firm amid our changing times and transitions. And a quiet comfort and calm humility floats through the heart’s chambers when we release our fevers into the assurance of your promise: “I will come to you,” you say. “I will come wherever you are and wherever you go. The master will not abandon the beloved.”

That is enough for us.

Come, Lord Jesus. May we stay awake to all your comings.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, November 30, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.

Prayer

You are … you are … you are … the beginning. First born from death, you are the beginning of all we want, all for which we hope. You are the daybreak of eternity, the first light of our final tomorrow, the rose-glow sunrise of newest day that never grows old, unlike this heart of mine.

You are. You are the beginning of the end of death’s finality.

You are the beginning of your church, a people made new, born from the cold death that is this separation from your ever-abiding love.

You are the beginning of the new being, risen afresh from the leaden weights that drag us to earth so that we do not soar on wings of your risen life that lift us above the daily drudgeries of mere existence.

You are the beginning of bitter tears’ hope, the rising of the multitude who will follow you from death into life unimagined.

You are the beginning of all that will be when there will be nothing but you, for you will be all in all.

Be all in all in me this day, risen Christ, for I languish in listless melancholy. I hunger to taste the beginning of the end for which you made me and all. I want to live beyond the death that so often grips the soul.

Let me, this day, see you, lest my heart grow old. May the first light of your tomorrow shine in these, my eyes.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.”

Prayer

You are the beginning, O Morning Star, marking the dawn of eternal day. First born from death’s demise, risen from the end our hearts fear, you sign the start of everlastingness, joining all that is in the sweet marriage of divine Spirit and created matter even as they dwell together in you.

We start again the day, knowing little about how it will end or what smiles and desolations we may meet. We cannot see the end of the day, yet we see the end of days, the eternal tomorrow, for we have seen your risen face, Jesus. And we know: every one of our days begins under the sign of the Morning Star, marking the resurrection dawn of a love no death can hold.

We have seen the future, the world’s future--my future, and it is you. All that is, all that I am shall be joined in utter unity with all that you are. You shall be supreme in me and in all, and all shall be life, the life I see and know and taste in you.

Morning Star of everlasting tomorrow, let me taste your holy future today. I crave it like my next breath. Draw us from our divergent hearts into that great harmony of life and love, purpose and passion that is your future present, even here, even now.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.

Prayer

You want your fullness to be found. This is your everlasting desire, Loving Mystery. You want to be known. You want me to find and bask in the fullness of what the eye cannot see, the ear cannot hear and the mind cannot imagine.

Your desire consoles my heart and elevates my soul this winter’s morning. I am warmed by the love revealed here.

For the day’s work called to me amid fitful sleep. It awakened my anxious heart to tasks that out number the hours of the day. But now I awake in a world where your extravagant desire out weighs the anxiety of unfinished tasks.

You hunger for me to find, today, the fullness of you who are the Fullness of life and love, to know you in my brother Jesus, the Christ, the human face of your divine immensity, the shining light of your infinite darkness.

You made me in him, through him, for him, shaping me body and soul that I should be capable of you, capable of wanting you, of knowing you, of finding you--and incapable of finding fulfillment for my restlessness anywhere but in the fullness of your divine generosity.

May I find it today, O Loving Mystery? Let me know the fullness of your divine heart in the grace that draws us beyond ourselves into the blessed harmony and oneness that you intend. Open my heart to the gallery of divine wonder and joy in the familiar faces and spaces of my day.

Then I shall know the love by which, through which and for which I was made. I shall know you. Then your everlasting desire and my restless hunger will find peace.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 26, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-17

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together

Prayer

Morning breaks the darkness. Daylight ends the little death of sleep, and here we are again in the midst of life, finding the wonder life in the midst of our mortal bodies.

As at the beginning, we spring from the nothingness of nonbeing into the morning of life, appearing in this particular moment of time for reasons beyond our knowing. Suspended by invisible threads of being, we are joined in an intricate web of being, connected … somehow … to all that it is in a vast fabric of life, moving in indiscernible patterns we sometimes affect but never control.

Instinctively, we turn our eyes to the impenetrable darkness out of which we have sprung, somehow knowing this great obscurity is our Source and the fountain of all life. But the dazzling darkness reflects all vision back upon itself.

Until … until we see you, blessed Christ. For you step from the invisibility we cannot penetrate to reveal the source of our soul and all the soul of all that is.

You are the face of the Impenetrable Darkness, O Christ. You are the first, before all that it is. All that is comes to be through you: all things, each person, each element of creation, each spoonful of matter, each living, growing greenness. Each bears the mark of you who are love. Each is an expression of your life, your beauty, your incorrigible creative joy. Each lives with the life you are. Each finds its place and purpose in the love from which all life springs.

For you are love and life, and in your love you choose to make good and beautiful beings come to life and grow. We don’t know why you should make us or makes us as we are. Except, you love life, and love always has reasons the mind cannot enter.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 21, 2007, Thanksgiving

Today's text

John 6:32-35

Jesus answered them: “In all truth, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “give us this bread always.” Jesus answered them: “I am the bread of life. No on who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst.”

Prayer

It went away, Jesus. I can’t tell you exactly when or where. But it is gone, that gnawing anxiety at the pit of my stomach. I sought to extinguish it with food and drink, risk and work, learning and accomplishment, none of which provided adequate antidote, only momentary relief.

While I don’t know when it left me, I can tell you the how and why, Jesus. And may my telling be your praise. For you are the cure, the bread, that fills the fretful hunger. What I could not remove, you graciously heal, replacing my emptiness with a loving longing to know you, to lose myself in you and never return.

I have come to know you. I have spent just enough time gazing on your face, seeing your smile, your fierce love, your living labor, that I know the beauty that flows from your oneness with the Loving Mystery you call Father.

We, too, try to name that One. Mother, some say; others say Brother or Sister, Lover or Friend, Morning Star or Silent Cry, Flowing Fountain or Living Flame. In moments of shattering blessedness, we simply fall silent, enrapt in the immensity of that love which has no name. I think our praise is fullest then, and most true.

On this and every day of thanksgiving, we remember faces present and gone, blessings long past and others that endure. We wipe away sweet tears of gratitude for our lives and for the improbable reality of life itself. I mean, why is there anything at all? And why are there grandchildren whose hugs have such a curious, sacramental power to heal, and to render most else insignificant?

I don’t know. I know very little. But I do know you, Jesus, and blessedly, I still can remember the anxious emptiness that is now gone, relieved by a bread that is food my soul need never live without. And for that, thank you. Thank you for my life.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Today's text

Luke 21:8-13

But Jesus said, “Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, ‘I am the one’ and ‘The time is near at hand.’ Refuse to join them. And when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for this is something that must happen first, but the end will not come at once.” The he said to them, “Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes and plagues and famines in various places; there will be terrifying events and great signs from heaven. But before this happen, you will be seized and persecuted; you will be handed over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and brought before kings and governors for the sake of my name—and that will be your opportunity to bear witness.”

Prayer

You do not count time as we do, Jesus. The time you describe is not one we welcome; it’s an evil time as we judge it. And each of us has known many such times we’d happily do without, times we would pass by had we the chance—and not repeat because once was enough.

We divide our days into good and evil time, painful and pleasurable moments, times to savor and times to run through as fast we can, times of joy and sorrow, of success and failure, of struggle and ease, of hope and despair, of beauty and ugliness. Our lists extend the length of a lifetime, dividing our days into two separable parts, one to be avoided and the other cherished.

And we miss half our life, Jesus. What is left is a kind of half-life in which we have cast aside much of what we are for the sake of comfort, missing, I fear, the deep truth of our days, which is you.

For you make no division. Bright summer days and the hours of tumult and terror are but one time for you, the time to reveal the faithful God who bears all our times in loving hands.

We never know what the times will bring, Jesus. Everything can turn in a single breath. Whatever our days bring, may we receive each moment as an opportunity to witness to you who hold us in every time.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 19, 2007

Today's text

Luke 21:8-11

But Jesus said, “Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, ‘I am the one’ and ‘The time is near at hand.’ Refuse to join them. And when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for this is something that must happen first, but the end will not come at once.” The he said to them, “Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes and plagues and famines in various places; there will be terrifying events and great signs from heaven.”

Prayer

Have you read the paper today, Jesus? Thousands of Bangladeshis died in a cyclone, and many more will die from too little food, tainted water, infection and disease. And that is one page, one story, one nation. Need I go on?

Your warnings of tumult, war and terror describe virtually any and every period of human history. The events to which you point destroy millions … every year. And still time wends its wearisome way without any end in sight.

Suffering continues unabated as feverish preachers sound the alarm saying that earth can’t endure much longer. But it does, and broken human souls must carry on, sorting through the mess we make of things. For the only end we see is the end of days for our beloved, and, too soon, for ourselves.

For some this stirs zeal for the end of things. Others descend to gray despair. And I? I hope. I bear a flame, however small, ignited by your words, Jesus. And it never goes out. Never.

“Do not be terrified,” you say. “Do not fear. Do not be distressed by the tumult around and within you. For I am. I live. And I will speak the final word on the welter of the world.”

So I hope. For I know: that word cannot be less gracious than your divine heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:34-38

Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.”

Prayer

You are God of the living, and all that know you are alive. None are lost, leaving no trace, no mark on your divine heart. All are cradled in your nearness, drinking the nectar of life.

And yet, there are places in my heart that do not know you, dead places where wounds new and old fester and breed resentment and anger. In me are barren landscapes where joy evaporates, where my heart withers in a desert of self-absorption, where I feel nothing but aggrievement and hunger for attention.

There is no freedom there, no life, vitality or joy, for those parts of me do not know you, Living One.

Come to me this day with the fullness of your love and life and let me live. Let me know the blessed rush of feeling truly alive. I weary of the deadness that too often crushes my heart so that I neither receive nor share your love in whole hearted abandonment. I long for that abandonment. It is the certain mark of freedom and joy.

So come, God of the living. Come to every dead place in my heart and to every place of death on this earth. Come. Give us today the life of your eternal tomorrow.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:27-36

Some Sadducees--those who argue that there is no resurrection—approached and they put this question to him, “Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man’s brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wide, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally, the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?” Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God."

Prayer

Death haunts our lives, Jesus. From our earliest moments we know we are timed and that time is short. It runs out before our human hopes and dreams are filled. So we strive to make a name, to leave a mark, so that our presence in this life is not insignificant or soon forgotten. And yet, millions die and leave little trace.

Even the clever and conniving souls who put you to the test with this silly story knew the tragedy of those who die with no progeny of flesh or creative labor. Even they seem to know the sadness of soul that settles upon us when we imagine that there is no one left to remember what we remember, no one remaining to carry on a name, a tradition, a bouquet of fragrant memories bearing what gifts they contain into the future’s unknown.

But you lift me beyond such sadness, Jesus, beyond the tragedy of the forgotten and overlooked who pass with little notice. You shatter the boundaries of imagination, directing my aching eyes to a space where death no longer haunts us, where all you love are children of the resurrection, sharing all the life that you are.

I am a child of the resurrection. Such is the knowledge you hunger for my soul. Thank you. For even now I breathe the fresh air of liberty, knowing life without limits, convinced that nothing is lost to you who have loved us from everlasting.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:27-36

Some Sadducees--those who argue that there is no resurrection--approached Jesus] and they put this question to him, “Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man’s brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wide, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally, the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?” Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God.

Prayer

Forgive us our presumption, Jesus. Who are we to contend with you? What foundation for argument can we offer to you who dwell in intimacy with the Holy Wonder? What source shall I footnote to overwhelm your understanding and turn the tables on you?

Nonsense, all of this. Yet, you invite us to bring our arguments and objections, our deductions and highest flights of reason. Bring them all, you say. And it is well that we do. Our intellectual tussles with ourselves and you are doorways of relationship.

But what can we know of you and the mysteries of eternity that lie hidden in your soul? You abide in the One who is Love Eternal and Everlasting Surprise. You dwell in the One who is undivided and irreducible, despite myriad human attempts to confine her to human proportions.

Our intellectual thrusts never reach the heart of the matter. For the heart of the matter lies beyond all human understanding, wrapped in the mystery of everlasting love. And from there you invite us to expect a barrier-breaking resurrection and redemption beyond all human reason from the One who is Life.

We will continue our arguments as long as we breathe, Jesus, struggling to know what we can, for that is how the Holy One made us. But at the end of each day, may we lay our battles down and simply hope in a love that transcends our reach, there to find the peace that mere comprehension cannot provide.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Today's text

Luke 19:1-9

Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town, and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man. He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too sort and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully. They all complained when they saw what was happening. ‘He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house,’ they said. But Zacchaeus stood his group and said to the Lord, ‘Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times to amount. And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this too is a son of Abraham; for the Son of man has come to seek out and save what was lost.

Prayer

It is hard for me to imagine that Zacchaeus was truly lost, dear Friend. The Spirit of holy desire stirred his blood, and he surrendered to that hunger which brought him to you--and you to his house.

Surely, salvation has come to him, for you ate at his table, drank from his cup. You shared fellowship with him and his beloved. But lost? His heart was near and ready for you well before your arrival, supple and eager to receive whatever you should bring. And you bring salvation, which is but another way of saying ‘you,’ for you are the full heart of the All-Loving Mystery, who has no name.

You bring the presence of the One whom we cannot speak, the One our hearts constantly desire. And in your presence, hearts overflow with generosity, not from fear of condemnation but from the nearness of overwhelming love and desire.

Bring such salvation to us this day. Come near and fill our hearts that they may spill over and water the landscapes of our lives with the generosity released by the joy of your nearness.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Today's text

Luke 19:1-6

Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town, and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man. He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too sort and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully.

Prayer

Tell me, Jesus, does Zacchaeus remind you of anyone? Do you smile in recognition at his anxious antics? You should, my Friend, because you know well that holy and crazy desire to which he abandons himself.

I can’t get beyond the smile I see in you as you watch him. A smile of delight and divine pleasure? To be sure. But more: a smile of recognition. You know him. You know what moves him. You know the uninhibited surrender to a Spirit truly holy to whom you will give everything because nothing else much matters.

You bear and are moved by the Spirit that makes short men climb trees just to see you. Your life is totally given and utterly transparent to that Spirit of divine love and holiness. Just so, you are crazy in love with this world, willing to love it—and me—to the end of all you are.

An act of surrender? Truly. But also of mad, outrageous love that knows no satisfaction but in the presence of the beloved. So you, too, will climb your tree in utter abandonment to a world you love, and in total trust that the All Loving One is stronger than death itself.

Thank you.

May I be so given as you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 5, 2007

Today's text

Luke 19:1-6

Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town, and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man. He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too sort and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully.

Prayer

A smile tugs incessantly at the corners of my mouth, Jesus. Does it not mirror your own? You stop on the road to watch this little man climbing his tree to gain bird’s-eye vision of your approach. And you smile.

Your smile is silent grace, speaking louder than any words, a holy blessing on the divine craving that stirs our blood.

You delight in the transparent desire of Zacchaeus’ soul, his uninhibited hunger for your heart. Bemused, you are, at his impetuous, shameless scamper up the tree, utterly unconcerned at making a spectacle of himself.

It does not matter. All that matters is seeing you, Jesus. Swept up in the Excessive Spirit of holy craziness, Zacchaeus finally comes to his senses and knows what, no who, his heart must have.

And you smile, Jesus, at the extent to which we humans go when we see what we must have to live. We need you.

May I give myself utterly and excessively to that need this day, dear Friend? For I want to be the secret of your smile. I want you to delight in my impulsiveness, my impetuosity, my shameless scamper to stay near you. For I need you no less that this little man. And I want to see your smile raining blessing over the hunger of this heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, November 2, 2007

Today's text

Luke 6:20-21

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled."

Prayer

I am filled, and I hunger. My hunger is not that of the myriad whose cries rend your divine heart as they call to you for food and justice. They suffer and die for want of the grace of simple human kindness.

Needs of food and shelter are more than well cared for in my case, and I thank you for the goodness of your earth. But I have another need, connected, I believe, with the need of the multitude for tender mercies.

I long to have my heart filled with you. You, Gracious, Surprising Mystery have opened my heart to “get it,” to know a fullness of soul and love not made by human hands.

You have filled me, and filled, I long for more of you, who are the Infinite More. Nothing else satisfies my heart so that I fall quiet and calm, generous and whole-hearted, even as you are whole hearted, loving good and evil alike.

You invite, indeed, you coax me to know the More you are. You draw this stubborn and timid heart into whole-hearted loving surrender to a world of need, to the soul cries of the many, to the next human heart waiting at the door.

“Look there,” you say. “Surrender to this, and you will be filled. Come and know me.”

Pr. David L. Miller

November 1, 2007 All Saints Day

Today's text

Luke 6:20-21

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kigdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled."

Reflection

It happened again, Sunday. The front wall of the sanctuary disappeared. Standing behind the table, the pastor raised her hands lifting the bread, then the cup. Suddenly, the bricks behind her were not there anymore, obscuring my vision of eternity. Instead, I saw those who have gone before and now enjoy clear vision of the One whose name is mercy, the blessed God whom I glimpse but in bits and snatches.

I saw them, and their eyes, too, rose as the pastor lifted the holy gifts of God’s constant giving. A great crowd with smiling eyes and moist cheeks, they looked back at us, the living congregation among whom I stood.

We were not two, but one congregation: Here and there, in time and eternity, living and … well, living. One part shining in glory, the other struggling and confused, yet all sharing “mystic sweet communion” with the One we receive at the Lord’s Table.

I saw Grandma Lavina and my beloved father, as gentle an s ever. I saw strangers and faces I have known in the death camps of Sudan and Somalia, the deserts of Namibia and the hovels of Nicaragua to those I knew and loved on the sun-baked plains of Nebraska, Magdalena and Eilert and all the rest, all of us gathered around the table, receiving God’s inexhaustible, eternally abundant life.

My vision, like the holy table, is not an illusion. It is reality. It is now. And it is the future to which the risen Christ is drawing all things, you and me and the beloved for whom our hearts long.

We gather around God’s eternal table of grace, those in time and eternity, those here and those who gaze upon the beauty of God.

We stand together, with all the hosts of heaven, with saints of every time and place, with all the missing faces for whom we light our candles. With them, we hold out empty hands and taste eternity, even now, even here, at this table.

The body and blood of the One who is life is here for us all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Today’s text

John 8:31-36

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free.” They answered, “We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean ‘You will be set free?’” Jesus replied: “In all truth I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave. Now a slave has no permanent standing in the household, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free.”

Prayer

Your freedom is like no other, Dear Friend. Abiding, resting, dwelling in the heart of your love for me, the soul opens up in a generosity of spirit known no where else.

The heart becomes a wide open space with room for many visitors and grace for all who come, a comfortable room where the souls of others may take their rest, a broad oak giving a circle of shade where the heat of rush and the enslavement of ‘have-tos’ and ‘must-dos’ filters away in the breeze.

Resting in the Eternal Love, the divine Word whom you are, the soul comes to such rest and is filled with the awareness that “I belong.” Indeed, for the heart arrives home. Why do we ever leave this space? Why do we imagine there is need for us to labor and earn some kind of self-justifying meaning, when being in your love is the fulfillment of the heart and of all that is?

This is the freedom you give, and which you allow me to enter even as I write these few words. The words themselves bear me into you, my home, where sin is replaced by sonship, enslavement by freedom, and the heart wants only to know and be the love that makes free.

Pr. David L. Miller