Today’s text
Matthew 13:44
'The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off in his joy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.
Reflection
We understand nothing of this until we have known freedom of heart, the kind of freedom that stirs us to surrender ourselves, risking who we are or what we have to give ourselves to a grace and beauty we have discovered--or which has discovered us.
So much of life commences with calculated care. Closely counting costs, whether in time or money or energy, we ask if each new activity, commitment or relationship in our path is “worth it.” Do we want to spend ourselves, our precious time, or protect our resources for something later?
It’s a safe way to live, and much of our living requires such care. But there is an element of soul that cannot and will not be fulfilled, its joy stunted, until we know a beauty, a grace, a cause, a holy love to which we can give ourselves without counting the cost, our hearts knowing that this is right, this belongs to the essence of my soul and life itself.
The freest human souls I have ever known are those who had found--or been found by--the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price which moved them beyond lives of bean-counting calculation to act, to love, to given themselves to a great love even though it cost them pain, or perhaps the various currencies our society most values--money, status and power.
In this culture, we sometimes have trouble understanding those who choose to step away from high-powered posts, moneyed positions or safe, easy lives for other values, commitments and joys that are not so easily enumerated.
Jesus did, and he invites us to listen to the depth of our hearts. The key to the treasure is in the field of our souls. There is a pearl of great price hidden there that, once discovered, draws us beyond the calculated life to one of joyful freedom--and perhaps risk and pain, too, which are always part of loving.
Before I graduated seminary, I, like all ministry students of that place and age, faced a panel of faculty members who could ask anything to test our knowledge and fitness for ministry. I have forgotten all but two questions from that inquisition, and only one is perfectly clear: “What would you die for? For what are you willing to go to the wall?”
Age 27 and foolish, I muttered an absurdity about a theological doctrine with which I had recently been infatuated. I’m surprised they didn’t laugh in my face. But a few years later I met people who truly did and would go to the wall for a holy love, a cause, a person God had given them to love.
Then I knew: My seminary inquisitor had asked me to name the pearl of great price, the treasure in a field that was so essential to my soul, my heart, my love that it freed me to rise above a life of mere calculation to give my life freely in service of more than my own petty concerns.
Find your freedom, the place where you don’t count the costs, and you will know yourself, you will know God and the treasure which the Loving Mystery gives you.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:31-33
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.' He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.'
Reflection
For hours we sat in an emergency room last night. Our names are not important, only our anxieties and hope.
Two women, one man, waiting to find if a troubled body and soul could find the help needed to birth a new life (please God) in the stuffy box of a room where we sat and felt the walls close in on us.
Hours dragged on, medical staff made promises of updates seldom fulfilled, and we stood by, sometimes praying, sometimes working our phones, periodically stroking and reassuring the soul in the bed that she’d done the right thing to come to this room where agitation and sickness only seemed to grow as the hours wore on.
But we were there, standing by, doing what little we could, waiting for breakthrough moments when our words might penetrate the thicket of emotions binding the soul who made the difficult decision to come … finally … to the admission that life is too much too hard to handle all alone.
There were a few moments when our blessings and reassurance made it through, and this morning I am certain we are glad we stood there, providing presence if nothing else, because we cared for one troubled soul and for the mysterious leaven of God in our hearts moving us to hope that something new, fresh and alive might come.
Sometimes it’s hard to hope that the future can be different from the present. Troubles bear such crushing weight upon human hearts that there seems no way out. Trapped in the human condition, however that is for us, the future stretches out, holding nothing more inviting than the dismal repetition of present bondage.
But leaven was stirred into our souls somewhere, sometime, raising in us the desire to be in this dingy, cramped room, loving as best we can. The leaven worked its magic in us; we know not how, exactly. So why not now, again, here?
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:31-33
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.' He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.'
Reflection
For hours we sat in an emergency room last night. Our names are not important, only our anxieties and hope.
Two women, one man, waiting to find if a troubled body and soul could find the help needed to birth a new life (please God) in the stuffy box of a room where we sat and felt the walls close in on us.
Hours dragged on, medical staff made promises of updates seldom fulfilled, and we stood by, sometimes praying, sometimes working our phones, periodically stroking and reassuring the soul in the bed that she’d done the right thing to come to this room where agitation and sickness only seemed to grow as the hours wore on.
But we were there, standing by, doing what little we could, waiting for breakthrough moments when our words might penetrate the thicket of emotions binding the soul who made the difficult decision to come … finally … to the admission that life is too much too hard to handle all alone.
There were a few moments when our blessings and reassurance made it through, and this morning I am certain we are glad we stood there, providing presence if nothing else, because we cared for one troubled soul and for the mysterious leaven of God in our hearts moving us to hope that something new, fresh and alive might come.
Sometimes it’s hard to hope that the future can be different from the present. Troubles bear such crushing weight upon human hearts that there seems no way out. Trapped in the human condition, however that is for us, the future stretches out, holding nothing more inviting than the dismal repetition of present bondage.
But leaven was stirred into our souls somewhere, sometime, raising in us the desire to be in this dingy, cramped room, loving as best we can. The leaven worked its magic in us; we know not how, exactly. So why not now, again, here?
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
The day of the lilies has begun to fade. Their stems stretch five feet high, the ambitious a bit more. Many of the stems now are stumps, their orange and yellow blossoms having trumpeted their beauty, opening and closing with each cycle of the sun through summer skies.
Maroon and deep purple blossoms open now as dog days approach, and the mercury pushes 90. Their colors divert attention from crisp, faded remnants of the vivid orange that have had their day and now hang loosely from dozens of stems. They hang, poised for me or the next breeze to separate them from the veins through which their life blood flowed. They fall into the soil and become the hope of a tomorrow that I know will come.
It will come. I know this even as I savor the late colors and remember carefully pulling the weeds that, two months before, threatened to choke the young plants. Button weed, thistles, switch grass and a half dozen others I cannot name were stronger, more aggressive, and I pulled them, careful not to break off young lilies only beginning to throw their height.
Sometimes I was clumsy and broke one, which is heartbreaking. A unique created thing, God-fashioned to sing divine beauty, was denied its day in the sun--and I, such joy as it would have given.
My spring-time concern for the weeds appears overwrought now. What few weeds remain long since have been shouted down by the lilies insistence that they, not the weeds, are the rightful heritage of the flower beds. Their beauty is stronger than the early aggressiveness of their opponents in the soil.
Beauty wins again. So it is and will be next year … the next, forever. Let those with eyes … see.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
The day of the lilies has begun to fade. Their stems stretch five feet high, the ambitious a bit more. Many of the stems now are stumps, their orange and yellow blossoms having trumpeted their beauty, opening and closing with each cycle of the sun through summer skies.
Maroon and deep purple blossoms open now as dog days approach, and the mercury pushes 90. Their colors divert attention from crisp, faded remnants of the vivid orange that have had their day and now hang loosely from dozens of stems. They hang, poised for me or the next breeze to separate them from the veins through which their life blood flowed. They fall into the soil and become the hope of a tomorrow that I know will come.
It will come. I know this even as I savor the late colors and remember carefully pulling the weeds that, two months before, threatened to choke the young plants. Button weed, thistles, switch grass and a half dozen others I cannot name were stronger, more aggressive, and I pulled them, careful not to break off young lilies only beginning to throw their height.
Sometimes I was clumsy and broke one, which is heartbreaking. A unique created thing, God-fashioned to sing divine beauty, was denied its day in the sun--and I, such joy as it would have given.
My spring-time concern for the weeds appears overwrought now. What few weeds remain long since have been shouted down by the lilies insistence that they, not the weeds, are the rightful heritage of the flower beds. Their beauty is stronger than the early aggressiveness of their opponents in the soil.
Beauty wins again. So it is and will be next year … the next, forever. Let those with eyes … see.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What today am I to nurture? What goodness is here that I might seek to grow?
The questions are painful and pressing when one considers a loved one in pain, an adolescent living on the edge of trouble, a beloved soul who is hurting themselves--or the bottomless needs of the world’s poor strafed by evils of indifference, addiction, abuse or oppression.
It is so tempting to be angry at evil, to rail and condemn people, systems and forces that maim and deface human life. Evil fascinates the soul. It seduces us to imagine that it is more powerful than it is, and that we can and should try to reach into others lives--or our own--and pluck out such evil influences we see or feel are there.
But the life of faith, it appears, is not about fascination with evil and its destruction, whether in our souls, those of others or the systems of the world, although we must seek to change and improve what we can.
Real change, truest growth comes not from the elimination of life’s weeds but in caring for the wheat, trusting the seed of God implanted in one’s soul and in the soil of the world.
Even in the poorest of places, in the most troubled adolescents and yes, amid the brambles of our own souls, seeds of the kingdom, the tender plant of God’s precious life grows.
Fixing our eyes on the beauty of this growth, on the health that exists amid the brokenness, on the goodness that is present even amid its opposite, we see the beauty of God, the strength of seeds of life, the wonder of the kingdom.
Tend to this, and divine beauty uproots our fixation with what is wrong with life, peace replaces anxiety and hope pushes fresh stems through sadness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What today am I to nurture? What goodness is here that I might seek to grow?
The questions are painful and pressing when one considers a loved one in pain, an adolescent living on the edge of trouble, a beloved soul who is hurting themselves--or the bottomless needs of the world’s poor strafed by evils of indifference, addiction, abuse or oppression.
It is so tempting to be angry at evil, to rail and condemn people, systems and forces that maim and deface human life. Evil fascinates the soul. It seduces us to imagine that it is more powerful than it is, and that we can and should try to reach into others lives--or our own--and pluck out such evil influences we see or feel are there.
But the life of faith, it appears, is not about fascination with evil and its destruction, whether in our souls, those of others or the systems of the world, although we must seek to change and improve what we can.
Real change, truest growth comes not from the elimination of life’s weeds but in caring for the wheat, trusting the seed of God implanted in one’s soul and in the soil of the world.
Even in the poorest of places, in the most troubled adolescents and yes, amid the brambles of our own souls, seeds of the kingdom, the tender plant of God’s precious life grows.
Fixing our eyes on the beauty of this growth, on the health that exists amid the brokenness, on the goodness that is present even amid its opposite, we see the beauty of God, the strength of seeds of life, the wonder of the kingdom.
Tend to this, and divine beauty uproots our fixation with what is wrong with life, peace replaces anxiety and hope pushes fresh stems through sadness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What quickly impresses me is the unperturbed response of the farmer to weeds in his fields. No startled exclamation or condemnation springs to his lips. He accepts the news as a matter of course. These things happen, and the best we can do is to wait and continue on without worry.
Who or what has disfigured the field is of no concern. He points no fingers and wastes no time trying to find or destroy the source of contagion.
The weeds will disfigure the field for now, getting in the way of the wheat. But the seed will produce its goodness in its time.
This is how it is, and it’s best to accept what is--evil and good, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, care and apathy inseparably mixed--as opposed to declaring war on the weeds, lest your violence destroy what is good.
Our job is not to root out evil, as if we could. Would to God that the makers of our nation’s foreign policy better recognized this, fewer innocents would get killed.
The same is true of too much Western Christianity, which historically (and especially in evangelical circles) has been more concerned with pointing out sin and impurity than with the goodness of the seed God sows everywhere in human hearts, celebrating and nurturing divine beauty in mortal hearts.
Trust is the word that comes to mind. Just trust. Good and evil, beauty, ugliness and all the rest are and will remain inseparably mixed in this world--not to mention in our own hearts.
Ours is not to sort it out, but to see and trust the beauty of God in the midst of it all.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What quickly impresses me is the unperturbed response of the farmer to weeds in his fields. No startled exclamation or condemnation springs to his lips. He accepts the news as a matter of course. These things happen, and the best we can do is to wait and continue on without worry.
Who or what has disfigured the field is of no concern. He points no fingers and wastes no time trying to find or destroy the source of contagion.
The weeds will disfigure the field for now, getting in the way of the wheat. But the seed will produce its goodness in its time.
This is how it is, and it’s best to accept what is--evil and good, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, care and apathy inseparably mixed--as opposed to declaring war on the weeds, lest your violence destroy what is good.
Our job is not to root out evil, as if we could. Would to God that the makers of our nation’s foreign policy better recognized this, fewer innocents would get killed.
The same is true of too much Western Christianity, which historically (and especially in evangelical circles) has been more concerned with pointing out sin and impurity than with the goodness of the seed God sows everywhere in human hearts, celebrating and nurturing divine beauty in mortal hearts.
Trust is the word that comes to mind. Just trust. Good and evil, beauty, ugliness and all the rest are and will remain inseparably mixed in this world--not to mention in our own hearts.
Ours is not to sort it out, but to see and trust the beauty of God in the midst of it all.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 11:16-19
'What comparison can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place: We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't be mourners. 'For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He is possessed." The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.'
Reflection
It is not just Jesus’ generation. It is every generation.
Unrest distresses the soul. Deep at heart, we are confused about what we really want, better, what we truly need. So we keep ourselves busy, distracted, drowning out the echo of our inner emptiness.
And we look askance at the missions of the Spirit that come each day to our spirits, missing what is right before us.
Distrust colors the heart. We evaluate and discover what is wrong and flawed with what comes each day, missing divine beauty and invitation where they so regularly appears in words and faces and the new light of every sunrise, little asking: from what immensity, from what infinitely generous dimension does life (and my life) appear?
Blind to Spirit, we live dissatisfied lives, dismissing beauty, simple graces and moments of happiness and freedom as diversions or exceptions to “real life,” instead of invitations to truly living.
John appears, gripped by God’s overwhelming holiness, demanding a change of heart and action to honor the author of all life, and he is dismissed as a crazy man. Jesus parties with outcasts and no-counts--the well-heeled, too, and he is discounted as a party boy.
Both were an appeal of Spirit to human spirits, giving knowledge of the God who can never be fully known, the Mystery who seeks us in all beauty and comes in every small grace.
We discover what we want and need, amid surprising joy, as we give ourselves to the moment, to the now, receiving what is given there, ready to accept and receive rather than dismiss whatever the Spirit sends our way.
The Spirit’s missions of life come each day and in every moment. The wise do not dismiss but receive what comes, trusting that each is an invitation to know and become the Seeking Love who seeks them.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 11:16-19
'What comparison can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place: We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't be mourners. 'For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He is possessed." The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.'
Reflection
It is not just Jesus’ generation. It is every generation.
Unrest distresses the soul. Deep at heart, we are confused about what we really want, better, what we truly need. So we keep ourselves busy, distracted, drowning out the echo of our inner emptiness.
And we look askance at the missions of the Spirit that come each day to our spirits, missing what is right before us.
Distrust colors the heart. We evaluate and discover what is wrong and flawed with what comes each day, missing divine beauty and invitation where they so regularly appears in words and faces and the new light of every sunrise, little asking: from what immensity, from what infinitely generous dimension does life (and my life) appear?
Blind to Spirit, we live dissatisfied lives, dismissing beauty, simple graces and moments of happiness and freedom as diversions or exceptions to “real life,” instead of invitations to truly living.
John appears, gripped by God’s overwhelming holiness, demanding a change of heart and action to honor the author of all life, and he is dismissed as a crazy man. Jesus parties with outcasts and no-counts--the well-heeled, too, and he is discounted as a party boy.
Both were an appeal of Spirit to human spirits, giving knowledge of the God who can never be fully known, the Mystery who seeks us in all beauty and comes in every small grace.
We discover what we want and need, amid surprising joy, as we give ourselves to the moment, to the now, receiving what is given there, ready to accept and receive rather than dismiss whatever the Spirit sends our way.
The Spirit’s missions of life come each day and in every moment. The wise do not dismiss but receive what comes, trusting that each is an invitation to know and become the Seeking Love who seeks them.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2010
Today’s text
1 Samuel 10:6
The spirit of Yahweh will then seize on you, and you will…and be changed into another man.
Reflection
I want this change. I want to be changed, not into some other person but into the man I am when the strong Spirit of God’s grace and goodness fills me. I want to bring out of my mind and heart the best I have, the best I have received from God through creation and all the days of my living.
Sometimes it happens, unleashing joy and immense freedom. I become what I am, powered by the Spirit of Love, who moves me into the fullness of my beauty and strength that I may pour it into the task of blessing and caring for the daily duties and people who have been given to me.
There’s no feeling like it in the world. The heart is filled with gratitude, and satisfaction of soul fills my being as I know that at least for one moment or hour I have done or said what I was born to say and do.
So it is when the Spirit of God fills us. Samuel, the Prophet, was sent to find and anoint Saul, a tall, strong, handsome youth who was traversing the hills of Palestine, looking for his father’s lost donkeys. Saul was to be king, the first one over Israel. But he could not lead until the Spirit seized on him and made him a different man, the leader God saw in him.
May it be so also for us.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Samuel 10:6
The spirit of Yahweh will then seize on you, and you will…and be changed into another man.
Reflection
I want this change. I want to be changed, not into some other person but into the man I am when the strong Spirit of God’s grace and goodness fills me. I want to bring out of my mind and heart the best I have, the best I have received from God through creation and all the days of my living.
Sometimes it happens, unleashing joy and immense freedom. I become what I am, powered by the Spirit of Love, who moves me into the fullness of my beauty and strength that I may pour it into the task of blessing and caring for the daily duties and people who have been given to me.
There’s no feeling like it in the world. The heart is filled with gratitude, and satisfaction of soul fills my being as I know that at least for one moment or hour I have done or said what I was born to say and do.
So it is when the Spirit of God fills us. Samuel, the Prophet, was sent to find and anoint Saul, a tall, strong, handsome youth who was traversing the hills of Palestine, looking for his father’s lost donkeys. Saul was to be king, the first one over Israel. But he could not lead until the Spirit seized on him and made him a different man, the leader God saw in him.
May it be so also for us.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Today’s text
John 4:7-10
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.
Reflection
If you only knew … .
But I do know. I have drank the water of life and been refreshed by its sweetness. I have been lifted beyond the plane of earthly concern to know that everything I strive for on this earth is nothing compared with the ecstasy of being encompassed in the mystery of a love that has neither beginning nor end.
I know. I have dwelt in that delicious space where all earthly care is illusion and only you are real.
And I want to return, to flee this desert and rest at the well of life where all that matters is being with you, tipping high the cup until the water runs down my chin with no worries because there is always more.
It is hard to say what this water is. Divine presence? If so, it is a presence at once in me and surrounding all that is. It fills me with complete peace and freedom from every anxiety--and the knowledge that only this … flow of love … matters.
If you only knew ... .
I have known, yet the concerns of this age--human respect, accomplishment, reputation, the demands of time and work--replace you in my soul.
There is no time to sit and drink, no time for the refreshment of life, no time just to be with you at the well of life waiting for the moment when the waters of your soul fill my own and teach me again what I already know--and what I so desperately want to feel … again.
So again I pause from all doing and ask, “Give me something to drink. I want to live.”
Pr. David L. Miller
John 4:7-10
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.
Reflection
If you only knew … .
But I do know. I have drank the water of life and been refreshed by its sweetness. I have been lifted beyond the plane of earthly concern to know that everything I strive for on this earth is nothing compared with the ecstasy of being encompassed in the mystery of a love that has neither beginning nor end.
I know. I have dwelt in that delicious space where all earthly care is illusion and only you are real.
And I want to return, to flee this desert and rest at the well of life where all that matters is being with you, tipping high the cup until the water runs down my chin with no worries because there is always more.
It is hard to say what this water is. Divine presence? If so, it is a presence at once in me and surrounding all that is. It fills me with complete peace and freedom from every anxiety--and the knowledge that only this … flow of love … matters.
If you only knew ... .
I have known, yet the concerns of this age--human respect, accomplishment, reputation, the demands of time and work--replace you in my soul.
There is no time to sit and drink, no time for the refreshment of life, no time just to be with you at the well of life waiting for the moment when the waters of your soul fill my own and teach me again what I already know--and what I so desperately want to feel … again.
So again I pause from all doing and ask, “Give me something to drink. I want to live.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 17:1-3
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light.
Reflection
In a moment of graced awareness, they saw you as you are, Jesus, and they knew you as the light of heaven. I want to live in this awareness always.
My reasons are not noble, although they are quite human.
I have stood inside the light of your presence and known you as you are. Everything else goes away when I am in that space, and nothing else matters. I know everything, and I know nothing except that you are the love that holds all life … and me. And that’s all I need.
I want to live and die in that awareness. I have seen people do it. I always thought they were better than me. I suppose they were.
But I feel no shame in this, only an invitation to come to this place again and again, hoping that graced moments will come, and the light of heaven will wash from me all that is not awareness of you.
Then the light of your eternal day will illumine dark and anxious places of my soul, and I will know that the beginning and end of all things is love. My soul will breathe free, and for a fleeting time I will know the joy for which you created me.
And I will thank you, even as I do now, for this moment.
For again I come to you, and again the light of heaven warms a winter morning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 17:1-3
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light.
Reflection
In a moment of graced awareness, they saw you as you are, Jesus, and they knew you as the light of heaven. I want to live in this awareness always.
My reasons are not noble, although they are quite human.
I have stood inside the light of your presence and known you as you are. Everything else goes away when I am in that space, and nothing else matters. I know everything, and I know nothing except that you are the love that holds all life … and me. And that’s all I need.
I want to live and die in that awareness. I have seen people do it. I always thought they were better than me. I suppose they were.
But I feel no shame in this, only an invitation to come to this place again and again, hoping that graced moments will come, and the light of heaven will wash from me all that is not awareness of you.
Then the light of your eternal day will illumine dark and anxious places of my soul, and I will know that the beginning and end of all things is love. My soul will breathe free, and for a fleeting time I will know the joy for which you created me.
And I will thank you, even as I do now, for this moment.
For again I come to you, and again the light of heaven warms a winter morning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 1:18-23
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us'.
Reflection
Your promise is always the same: Immanuel, God is with us.
Jesus, you are the sign of Immanuel, the flesh and blood mark of what is always true. You are the physical presence of the constant abiding of the One who knows no boundaries, the Mystery who is ever here, everywhere.
You invite me to enter the true state of things, to come out of illusion into the reality of Abiding Presence.
I may live as if life is what I make it. I may imagine that I am largely on my own on this green planet, save those nearest and dearest to me. I may dwell in the fantasy that I face my trials and sorrows alone and that my joys and small victories are shared only by those closest.
I may imagine, but imagining is not the reality that You Are. You Are everywhere I am and go. You Are grace that makes and savors life, my life with every true and false step on the way. You Are love embracing each moment of existence.
Your appearing in the arms of your mother and under the watchful vision of your confused earthly father speaks the truth I most need: Immanuel, God is with us.
In life and death: Immanuel. When I feel alone: Immanuel. When the load of my beloved is too heavy: Immanuel. When I am fail and sin: Immanuel.
Immanuel comes in a sign I can hold in my arms, with a tender face I can trace with my fingers.
He comes to save me from my sin, the most important of which is the big lie, the illusion that I live anywhere but in the presence of Immanuel.
Save me today. Make my heart dance to the music of Love ever near.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 1:18-23
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us'.
Reflection
Your promise is always the same: Immanuel, God is with us.
Jesus, you are the sign of Immanuel, the flesh and blood mark of what is always true. You are the physical presence of the constant abiding of the One who knows no boundaries, the Mystery who is ever here, everywhere.
You invite me to enter the true state of things, to come out of illusion into the reality of Abiding Presence.
I may live as if life is what I make it. I may imagine that I am largely on my own on this green planet, save those nearest and dearest to me. I may dwell in the fantasy that I face my trials and sorrows alone and that my joys and small victories are shared only by those closest.
I may imagine, but imagining is not the reality that You Are. You Are everywhere I am and go. You Are grace that makes and savors life, my life with every true and false step on the way. You Are love embracing each moment of existence.
Your appearing in the arms of your mother and under the watchful vision of your confused earthly father speaks the truth I most need: Immanuel, God is with us.
In life and death: Immanuel. When I feel alone: Immanuel. When the load of my beloved is too heavy: Immanuel. When I am fail and sin: Immanuel.
Immanuel comes in a sign I can hold in my arms, with a tender face I can trace with my fingers.
He comes to save me from my sin, the most important of which is the big lie, the illusion that I live anywhere but in the presence of Immanuel.
Save me today. Make my heart dance to the music of Love ever near.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Today’s text
Isaiah 35:4-6
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water.
Reflection
Our God comes not with vengeance but to restore sovereignty. Vengeance does not best capture the reality.
God is the power of deliverance at work in the universe. God’s delight is to save. God comes to reorder life, to set things right, to establish that God rules. God is the final and ultimate power over a cosmos that threatens to devolve into chaotic disorder.
The end is always joy. Sorrow may endure for an evening, but joy comes in the morning. This is the constant message, the profound hope that runs throughout all of Scripture. The reason is simple. This has been the experience of those who have looked and prayed for God’s deliverance in every age.
Deliverance may not come in the form we want. Our family struggles may not be resolved. Our cancer may not find healing. Death and pain may come to us and those we love.
But in the midst of human struggle, God comes.
That’s the message of hope to which we cling in all times. Joy starts the moment our souls begin to trust that God will come to deliver our souls from despair and dissolution.
Joy and strength do not return to reinvigorate our bodies when all we want or pray for finally happens. Our souls rise from dead when we are lifted by a simple, single truth: God comes to us and always will.
The living hope for appearance of the One who is the Power of Deliverance makes us strong in ways we doubt we could ever be. The strength we hold is not of our making, and it is more powerful than all that disfigures life and tempts to despair.
It lifts weak arms and troubled heads. It turns desert hearts into streams of living water. It gives silent souls songs to sing and moves lame legs to dance to the music of God’s future, which is life, always life.
Be strong. God shall come, and you will laugh.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 35:4-6
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water.
Reflection
Our God comes not with vengeance but to restore sovereignty. Vengeance does not best capture the reality.
God is the power of deliverance at work in the universe. God’s delight is to save. God comes to reorder life, to set things right, to establish that God rules. God is the final and ultimate power over a cosmos that threatens to devolve into chaotic disorder.
The end is always joy. Sorrow may endure for an evening, but joy comes in the morning. This is the constant message, the profound hope that runs throughout all of Scripture. The reason is simple. This has been the experience of those who have looked and prayed for God’s deliverance in every age.
Deliverance may not come in the form we want. Our family struggles may not be resolved. Our cancer may not find healing. Death and pain may come to us and those we love.
But in the midst of human struggle, God comes.
That’s the message of hope to which we cling in all times. Joy starts the moment our souls begin to trust that God will come to deliver our souls from despair and dissolution.
Joy and strength do not return to reinvigorate our bodies when all we want or pray for finally happens. Our souls rise from dead when we are lifted by a simple, single truth: God comes to us and always will.
The living hope for appearance of the One who is the Power of Deliverance makes us strong in ways we doubt we could ever be. The strength we hold is not of our making, and it is more powerful than all that disfigures life and tempts to despair.
It lifts weak arms and troubled heads. It turns desert hearts into streams of living water. It gives silent souls songs to sing and moves lame legs to dance to the music of God’s future, which is life, always life.
Be strong. God shall come, and you will laugh.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Today’s text
Isaiah 35:3-8
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water; the lairs where the jackals used to live will become plots of reed and papyrus. And through it will run a road for them and a highway which will be called the Sacred Way; the unclean will not be allowed to use it; He will be the one to use this road, the fool will not stray along it.
Reflection
The prophet speaks of the joy of returning home for a people long separated from the place they belong. This is one of the great stories of Hebrew Scripture, the deliverance return home of exiles.
I have seen the anguish of exile. As a journalist, I walked through refugee camps on more than one continent. The language, culture and skin color of the refugees were different in each case. But the single question on their lips was always the same: When can we go home?
Home may have been in shambles, ravaged by looting, bombs and fire. They may have known or suspected that their physical dwellings no longer existed. It didn’t matter. Their hearts’ desire was the same … home. I want to go home.
Every strange face of a journalist or aid worker was one more person to ask the sad question: When? Will it be soon?
I dreaded the question. I had no answer, and the answer I suspected might be accurate was depressing. I would shake my head, look at the ground and say, “No, not soon,” all the time wondering if the honest answer was, “not ever.”
Almost every person I met longed to return home. Their eyes said it without words, “I need to return to my place in the world, to the place I know, to the place that knows me. Until then, there is no peace.”
Such longing is the ground from which the prophet Isaiah’s joy springs. The land, the animals, all nature participates in the exiles’ joy as they walk the road home, a holy road that only the faithful could walk, only those who kept hope alive, only those who were not reduced to foolishness of despair by interminable waiting for a release they could never assume was coming.
When release comes all nature lights up with the joy of souls whose hearts’ delight is coming true. Such feeling is not unknown to us. We well know what happens in our hearts and in the entirety of our outlook when the sun comes out after a long or deep sadness.
The hopeful message is that God is the loving power of deliverance that seeks to bring us home to the joy for which we are intended, to the places we know and the places that know us, to our true home. Foolishness is failure to trust the good and gracious will of the One whose name is Deliverance.
I could speak of this as a physical coming home to a place we once knew or perhaps a place we never knew, until we stumbled into a somewhere that became a true home for us, after years of never really having a home.
Or we might speak of the home as the spiritual discovery that we have spent much of our lives wandering about, going places, doing work, living in ways that left our souls uneasy and dissatisfied.
There is a coming home, here, too, a return to the Love for which no name will do. When we begin to feel and know it’s stirring, our lame hearts leap in joy and streams of water flow in the wastelands of our hearts. And we know: This is the sacred way.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 35:3-8
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water; the lairs where the jackals used to live will become plots of reed and papyrus. And through it will run a road for them and a highway which will be called the Sacred Way; the unclean will not be allowed to use it; He will be the one to use this road, the fool will not stray along it.
Reflection
The prophet speaks of the joy of returning home for a people long separated from the place they belong. This is one of the great stories of Hebrew Scripture, the deliverance return home of exiles.
I have seen the anguish of exile. As a journalist, I walked through refugee camps on more than one continent. The language, culture and skin color of the refugees were different in each case. But the single question on their lips was always the same: When can we go home?
Home may have been in shambles, ravaged by looting, bombs and fire. They may have known or suspected that their physical dwellings no longer existed. It didn’t matter. Their hearts’ desire was the same … home. I want to go home.
Every strange face of a journalist or aid worker was one more person to ask the sad question: When? Will it be soon?
I dreaded the question. I had no answer, and the answer I suspected might be accurate was depressing. I would shake my head, look at the ground and say, “No, not soon,” all the time wondering if the honest answer was, “not ever.”
Almost every person I met longed to return home. Their eyes said it without words, “I need to return to my place in the world, to the place I know, to the place that knows me. Until then, there is no peace.”
Such longing is the ground from which the prophet Isaiah’s joy springs. The land, the animals, all nature participates in the exiles’ joy as they walk the road home, a holy road that only the faithful could walk, only those who kept hope alive, only those who were not reduced to foolishness of despair by interminable waiting for a release they could never assume was coming.
When release comes all nature lights up with the joy of souls whose hearts’ delight is coming true. Such feeling is not unknown to us. We well know what happens in our hearts and in the entirety of our outlook when the sun comes out after a long or deep sadness.
The hopeful message is that God is the loving power of deliverance that seeks to bring us home to the joy for which we are intended, to the places we know and the places that know us, to our true home. Foolishness is failure to trust the good and gracious will of the One whose name is Deliverance.
I could speak of this as a physical coming home to a place we once knew or perhaps a place we never knew, until we stumbled into a somewhere that became a true home for us, after years of never really having a home.
Or we might speak of the home as the spiritual discovery that we have spent much of our lives wandering about, going places, doing work, living in ways that left our souls uneasy and dissatisfied.
There is a coming home, here, too, a return to the Love for which no name will do. When we begin to feel and know it’s stirring, our lame hearts leap in joy and streams of water flow in the wastelands of our hearts. And we know: This is the sacred way.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 3:5-9
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John the Baptist], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones.
Reflection
Come as you are, beyond all presumption. That’s what I hear, and it’s a good word, one I need.
The day arrives, and I see opportunities that promise growth and goodness, but a sinking feeling wafts through me as my mind enters the possibilities. Entering the future I perceive means more work, more dedication, more than time or energy allows.
Quickly, I am cast back upon my limitations, knowing the strength of my abilities and will are not up to the tasks that I see as most crucial. I need help. I cannot stand alone. Others must stand with me.
This makes me part of a crowd to which I want to belong, the crowd of faceless and nameless souls who made their way to John and Baptist to confess their sins, their failures of will, nerve and goodness.
He did not refuse them. No shaming tone colored his voice as they came. We are told nothing of what he said to them, only that he received them willingly with acceptance, it appears. And he baptized them as a sign of their desire to change and be more fully given to God’s dream for their lives.
He thundered no anger or denunciation upon them. That was reserved for the entitled and presumptuous, those who imagined they didn’t need what John offered.
But what is that, and why does it still draw … me?
John called people to stand in the river shallows beside him, without or fear or shame. He invited them to put away all arrogance or presumption that they had life figured out or that they were any but human and needy.
Through John’s bluster and demand, a deep whisper echoes. “Come, bring what you are, your weakness and need, your failed attempts to fulfill the promise of your humanity. Come stand with me. There is a place for you here, and you will never be cast out.
“Come and taste the rule of heaven.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 3:5-9
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John the Baptist], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones.
Reflection
Come as you are, beyond all presumption. That’s what I hear, and it’s a good word, one I need.
The day arrives, and I see opportunities that promise growth and goodness, but a sinking feeling wafts through me as my mind enters the possibilities. Entering the future I perceive means more work, more dedication, more than time or energy allows.
Quickly, I am cast back upon my limitations, knowing the strength of my abilities and will are not up to the tasks that I see as most crucial. I need help. I cannot stand alone. Others must stand with me.
This makes me part of a crowd to which I want to belong, the crowd of faceless and nameless souls who made their way to John and Baptist to confess their sins, their failures of will, nerve and goodness.
He did not refuse them. No shaming tone colored his voice as they came. We are told nothing of what he said to them, only that he received them willingly with acceptance, it appears. And he baptized them as a sign of their desire to change and be more fully given to God’s dream for their lives.
He thundered no anger or denunciation upon them. That was reserved for the entitled and presumptuous, those who imagined they didn’t need what John offered.
But what is that, and why does it still draw … me?
John called people to stand in the river shallows beside him, without or fear or shame. He invited them to put away all arrogance or presumption that they had life figured out or that they were any but human and needy.
Through John’s bluster and demand, a deep whisper echoes. “Come, bring what you are, your weakness and need, your failed attempts to fulfill the promise of your humanity. Come stand with me. There is a place for you here, and you will never be cast out.
“Come and taste the rule of heaven.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 3:1-3
In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judaea, '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 a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'
Reflection
For what should I repent? I can list a dozen things, but my heart is in none of them.
I really don’t want to change. I am attached to the way I live and see things. The thought of changing how I see (and pigeon-hole) people and situations is harder work than I care to do. I am comfortably stuck in patterns of living that feel better than any alternative, if only because I know them. They are my ruts, familiar and well-worn.
My heart knows I can’t change anyway. I am stuck with the same sadness and fears that long have hemmed in my life. As much as I want to be happier, stronger and less able to be hurt, nothing will change unless you change me, O Lord.
Fear holds me back, which proves that again that I am 100 percent human. Fear is always the root of our problems and sorrows, our hatreds and our resistance to grow into your dream of what our lives could be. There is no greater enemy.
Fear keeps us from letting down our guard to enter a new way of life, a new way of being. John the Baptist (Jesus, too) called it the kingdom of heaven, the administration of the heavenly king, a rule quite unlike governments we know.
John describes this kingdom as a threat to all that resists it. This new godly administration will violently wipe away everything that is contrary to its way.
I don’t think John got it right. He understood a new king, a new rule was coming, but he failed to grasp how radically different the rule of heaven is from anything we have ever known or felt.
God’s new kingdom strikes at the root of our problem: our fear of each other, our fear of being hurt, our fear of losing what we think we most need, the fear moves us to strike at others, the fear that stops us from opening our hearts and being truly human with each other so that we may grow into God’s dream for our lives.
The kingdom of heaven, unlike earthly kingdoms, rules not by force but through the persuasion of love. The king appears in the form of Jesus, our brother, inviting us to enter a circle of blessing. The mercy of forgiveness and unmerited grace pours through him from the heart of God, drawing us into a new arrangement of things where each passes along blessing and grace, receiving the same in return from others. The circle of blessing melts away our fears, whispering that the rejections and pains we feel, the threats to our life and health, the sorrows we know do not finally matter.
They don’t matter, for heaven rules, and heaven is this circle of blessing with neither beginning nor end. When you get caught up in this circle, in God’s kingdom--if only for a moment, you feel the freedom from fear that changes you from the inside out. You know: the circle of blessing is more real and powerful than anything you fear.
The kingdom of heaven is near, always. The only thing it threatens is your fear.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 3:1-3
In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judaea, '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 a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'
Reflection
For what should I repent? I can list a dozen things, but my heart is in none of them.
I really don’t want to change. I am attached to the way I live and see things. The thought of changing how I see (and pigeon-hole) people and situations is harder work than I care to do. I am comfortably stuck in patterns of living that feel better than any alternative, if only because I know them. They are my ruts, familiar and well-worn.
My heart knows I can’t change anyway. I am stuck with the same sadness and fears that long have hemmed in my life. As much as I want to be happier, stronger and less able to be hurt, nothing will change unless you change me, O Lord.
Fear holds me back, which proves that again that I am 100 percent human. Fear is always the root of our problems and sorrows, our hatreds and our resistance to grow into your dream of what our lives could be. There is no greater enemy.
Fear keeps us from letting down our guard to enter a new way of life, a new way of being. John the Baptist (Jesus, too) called it the kingdom of heaven, the administration of the heavenly king, a rule quite unlike governments we know.
John describes this kingdom as a threat to all that resists it. This new godly administration will violently wipe away everything that is contrary to its way.
I don’t think John got it right. He understood a new king, a new rule was coming, but he failed to grasp how radically different the rule of heaven is from anything we have ever known or felt.
God’s new kingdom strikes at the root of our problem: our fear of each other, our fear of being hurt, our fear of losing what we think we most need, the fear moves us to strike at others, the fear that stops us from opening our hearts and being truly human with each other so that we may grow into God’s dream for our lives.
The kingdom of heaven, unlike earthly kingdoms, rules not by force but through the persuasion of love. The king appears in the form of Jesus, our brother, inviting us to enter a circle of blessing. The mercy of forgiveness and unmerited grace pours through him from the heart of God, drawing us into a new arrangement of things where each passes along blessing and grace, receiving the same in return from others. The circle of blessing melts away our fears, whispering that the rejections and pains we feel, the threats to our life and health, the sorrows we know do not finally matter.
They don’t matter, for heaven rules, and heaven is this circle of blessing with neither beginning nor end. When you get caught up in this circle, in God’s kingdom--if only for a moment, you feel the freedom from fear that changes you from the inside out. You know: the circle of blessing is more real and powerful than anything you fear.
The kingdom of heaven is near, always. The only thing it threatens is your fear.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 3:5-10
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire.
Reflection
Long ago an image appeared in my prayer, a tree. It stood in the back field behind my aunt’s home, across the street from where I went to grade school. A small yard surrounded her house, and then the land dropped precipitously to a narrow stream that cut across town from the northeast to the southwest, on its way to the Apple River.
In my meditation, I saw that tree, thick at the trunk, tall and strong, an oak or spreading maple. It rose from the grassy field around the creek, limbs stretching wide, its foliage so thick with wide green leaves that the sun could not reach the ground beneath it.
But there was no tree in that field behind my aunt’s home. It appeared only in my prayer. In the inner eye of heart, I saw people coming out of the sun to rest under the tree, finding shelter from the sun’s searing blast.
I did not go there. I was the tree. This was the desire of my heart and the call of God to me. Somehow I was to be that tree, a place of shade and rest from the heat of life. Souls could come and just be there, free from the wearing heat of the day, at home in the calm shade of grace, strong and unwavering as that tree.
That was--is--the good fruit that my Lord commands me to bear. It is written on my soul, and I cannot escape it. The voice of one’s inner purpose can get drowned out amid the noisy distractions of living. We can ignore it. We can pretend God’s call is romantic nonsense.
But (I think) it never goes away. It is always there amid the myriad voices in one’s mind. It stirs feelings of restlessness and longing when we move too far from it, and it calls us home through that nebulous, vague sense that somewhere along the line we have lost something important--ourselves, the core of what the Loving Mystery has written on our hearts. As long as that voice niggles deeply in us we are not totally lost; we can still hear our Lord speaking, calling us to peace.
I don’t know if the Pharisees and Sadducees felt this niggling any longer or if they had ignored the calling of Spirit in their lives for so long that that their ears could no longer hear. They were trees of God’s shelter for the people, and John was calling them back to themselves, calling them to produce the fruit of blessing, help and hope for which they had been fashioned.
As harsh as John’s voice sounded in their ears, I hear also a call of grace from the wounded heart of God, and a promise: God will cut down that which doesn’t bear fruit. There is much too much in me that needs cutting down and clearing away so that this one tree, the one in my aunt’s grassy field, may grow strong again.
John’s harsh message sounds like grace to me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 3:5-10
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire.
Reflection
Long ago an image appeared in my prayer, a tree. It stood in the back field behind my aunt’s home, across the street from where I went to grade school. A small yard surrounded her house, and then the land dropped precipitously to a narrow stream that cut across town from the northeast to the southwest, on its way to the Apple River.
In my meditation, I saw that tree, thick at the trunk, tall and strong, an oak or spreading maple. It rose from the grassy field around the creek, limbs stretching wide, its foliage so thick with wide green leaves that the sun could not reach the ground beneath it.
But there was no tree in that field behind my aunt’s home. It appeared only in my prayer. In the inner eye of heart, I saw people coming out of the sun to rest under the tree, finding shelter from the sun’s searing blast.
I did not go there. I was the tree. This was the desire of my heart and the call of God to me. Somehow I was to be that tree, a place of shade and rest from the heat of life. Souls could come and just be there, free from the wearing heat of the day, at home in the calm shade of grace, strong and unwavering as that tree.
That was--is--the good fruit that my Lord commands me to bear. It is written on my soul, and I cannot escape it. The voice of one’s inner purpose can get drowned out amid the noisy distractions of living. We can ignore it. We can pretend God’s call is romantic nonsense.
But (I think) it never goes away. It is always there amid the myriad voices in one’s mind. It stirs feelings of restlessness and longing when we move too far from it, and it calls us home through that nebulous, vague sense that somewhere along the line we have lost something important--ourselves, the core of what the Loving Mystery has written on our hearts. As long as that voice niggles deeply in us we are not totally lost; we can still hear our Lord speaking, calling us to peace.
I don’t know if the Pharisees and Sadducees felt this niggling any longer or if they had ignored the calling of Spirit in their lives for so long that that their ears could no longer hear. They were trees of God’s shelter for the people, and John was calling them back to themselves, calling them to produce the fruit of blessing, help and hope for which they had been fashioned.
As harsh as John’s voice sounded in their ears, I hear also a call of grace from the wounded heart of God, and a promise: God will cut down that which doesn’t bear fruit. There is much too much in me that needs cutting down and clearing away so that this one tree, the one in my aunt’s grassy field, may grow strong again.
John’s harsh message sounds like grace to me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Today’s text
Colossians 1:15-16
He 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.
Reflection
Formless substance passes through you and becomes a world, a universe of relationships and order, purpose and beauty. No, I say, more: Substance itself flows from within the Mystery you are into surprising existence.
All is made in you, an expression of your own life, of you who are Life, the flowing fountain of Being. All passes from and through you, bearing the gift of existence because you will it; you want it.
It is your nature that life should be, that the substance of your hidden heart, the content of your all-surpassing mind should be shared with that which doesn’t yet exist, so that it may exist.
This tells me all I need to know of your nature. You live to give life, to make life, to share the Mystery which you are so that we and every twig and tree in the stark autumnal woods should be.
So the face of my brother, Jesus, shouldn’t surprise, the face of one given, of one who loves his own and loves them to the end, whose heart is fixed on healing a world that threatens at every point to separate from the Source (you) from which it springs eternally every moment.
He is the Image of the Eternal Giver, the face of the Eternally Given, and the life we are is, too.
Words fail. I have none to capture the mystery of what I see and feel. My hopeless meanderings of thought cannot corral the wonder you are.
I stand in awe, constant and holy wonder knowing that all I see--and am--flows from the hiddenness of your divine being, each an expression, a clue to the Mystery of every age: Who are you? From what do we--and all life--spring?
You are the all-generous Source who gives life to what is not. I am that which is not life, given life as holy gift.
It is your nature to give. It is your work to create life, life that shares in your nature, your image in multifarious manner and expression.
You are giver, and you are gift, the gift we have simply by existing. By existing we are alive with the life of you, O Infinite Source, Flowing Fountain, Unceasing Generosity.
This is how I name you, words of praise for you whom I have no chance of ever understanding. May my overwhelmed wonder and tortured prose praise you.
It’s all I’ve got.
Pr. David L. Miller
Colossians 1:15-16
He 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.
Reflection
Formless substance passes through you and becomes a world, a universe of relationships and order, purpose and beauty. No, I say, more: Substance itself flows from within the Mystery you are into surprising existence.
All is made in you, an expression of your own life, of you who are Life, the flowing fountain of Being. All passes from and through you, bearing the gift of existence because you will it; you want it.
It is your nature that life should be, that the substance of your hidden heart, the content of your all-surpassing mind should be shared with that which doesn’t yet exist, so that it may exist.
This tells me all I need to know of your nature. You live to give life, to make life, to share the Mystery which you are so that we and every twig and tree in the stark autumnal woods should be.
So the face of my brother, Jesus, shouldn’t surprise, the face of one given, of one who loves his own and loves them to the end, whose heart is fixed on healing a world that threatens at every point to separate from the Source (you) from which it springs eternally every moment.
He is the Image of the Eternal Giver, the face of the Eternally Given, and the life we are is, too.
Words fail. I have none to capture the mystery of what I see and feel. My hopeless meanderings of thought cannot corral the wonder you are.
I stand in awe, constant and holy wonder knowing that all I see--and am--flows from the hiddenness of your divine being, each an expression, a clue to the Mystery of every age: Who are you? From what do we--and all life--spring?
You are the all-generous Source who gives life to what is not. I am that which is not life, given life as holy gift.
It is your nature to give. It is your work to create life, life that shares in your nature, your image in multifarious manner and expression.
You are giver, and you are gift, the gift we have simply by existing. By existing we are alive with the life of you, O Infinite Source, Flowing Fountain, Unceasing Generosity.
This is how I name you, words of praise for you whom I have no chance of ever understanding. May my overwhelmed wonder and tortured prose praise you.
It’s all I’ve got.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:17
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.
Reflection
I fell into a pattern of prayer more than a year ago that continues to appear from time to time. I was writing a small book when I first noticed I kept returning to a particular phrase.
I did not want the book to flow from my mind, but from a deeper and truer place in my being. I wanted to experience oneness with the words and ideas that flowed from the end of my fingers, so that there was no distance, no separation between what appeared on the page and what I felt within.
The words needed to express what my soul knew by way of deepest feeling and intuition. So, each morning I knelt in the place of my writing and prayed: “May I hear the voice within the voice that renders all other voices irrelevant.”
I sought that voice that speaks within my own being that, when I hear it, all else flees my heart, all anxiety and uncertainty, all other truth and awareness.
Following this prayer, I would write.
I do not know if I can describe the sensation or awareness that frequently arose from within me in this process of putting fingers to the keys. I always knew when the words were forced, coming from mere thought and not from some hidden point within me where my spirit and the divine spirit rested comfortably within each other, abiding.
I could feel it. I knew when the words where right, and when they were clever ideas but not the expression of that deeper voice. When I heard it I did not need to ask whether the words were true, for they resonated with the calm of a grace-filled love that filled the soul with the sublime sweetness of utter peace, often with tears.
In such moments, the voice I heard within, the voice that spoke back to me from the computer screen, was so much greater than my own, more calm, utterly certain and unperturbed.
Yet, it was my own voice, speaking divine wisdom and truth through my experiences and struggles, which had become the medium for the voice of the Loving Mystery who was pleased to join divine Spirit with my frail and mortal spirit … to speak.
And, I think, this prayer of Ephesians was answered: “May … the Father of glory give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.”
There was a voice inside of my own to which I listened. It spoke wisdom I do not possess and gave knowledge, however full, of the Unimaginable One, of you my Lord, Holy and Loving Mystery.
In that time, nothing else mattered. All other voices were irrelevant. All that mattered was hearing, listening, feeling and speaking from the point of soul where my spirit and your own merged into a single speaking of total love for a crazy world … and for me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:17
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.
Reflection
I fell into a pattern of prayer more than a year ago that continues to appear from time to time. I was writing a small book when I first noticed I kept returning to a particular phrase.
I did not want the book to flow from my mind, but from a deeper and truer place in my being. I wanted to experience oneness with the words and ideas that flowed from the end of my fingers, so that there was no distance, no separation between what appeared on the page and what I felt within.
The words needed to express what my soul knew by way of deepest feeling and intuition. So, each morning I knelt in the place of my writing and prayed: “May I hear the voice within the voice that renders all other voices irrelevant.”
I sought that voice that speaks within my own being that, when I hear it, all else flees my heart, all anxiety and uncertainty, all other truth and awareness.
Following this prayer, I would write.
I do not know if I can describe the sensation or awareness that frequently arose from within me in this process of putting fingers to the keys. I always knew when the words were forced, coming from mere thought and not from some hidden point within me where my spirit and the divine spirit rested comfortably within each other, abiding.
I could feel it. I knew when the words where right, and when they were clever ideas but not the expression of that deeper voice. When I heard it I did not need to ask whether the words were true, for they resonated with the calm of a grace-filled love that filled the soul with the sublime sweetness of utter peace, often with tears.
In such moments, the voice I heard within, the voice that spoke back to me from the computer screen, was so much greater than my own, more calm, utterly certain and unperturbed.
Yet, it was my own voice, speaking divine wisdom and truth through my experiences and struggles, which had become the medium for the voice of the Loving Mystery who was pleased to join divine Spirit with my frail and mortal spirit … to speak.
And, I think, this prayer of Ephesians was answered: “May … the Father of glory give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.”
There was a voice inside of my own to which I listened. It spoke wisdom I do not possess and gave knowledge, however full, of the Unimaginable One, of you my Lord, Holy and Loving Mystery.
In that time, nothing else mattered. All other voices were irrelevant. All that mattered was hearing, listening, feeling and speaking from the point of soul where my spirit and your own merged into a single speaking of total love for a crazy world … and for me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Today’s text
Jeremiah 31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Reflection
They will all know me.
What is it to know you, Holy One? How can I say that I know you any more than the squirrels scampering across the patio can know me?
They bark curses at me when I rake up their autumnal bounty or startle them. Standing off, they assume a belligerent stance, protecting their turf, ready at my slightest twitch to scurry up the backyard birch, toenails ripping through peeling bark.
Do they know me? I suppose, but only as the alien who invades and occupies their space from time to time--and only as threat, a beast of which to be wary.
But they don’t know me any more, I suppose, than I can know you.
But somewhere and somehow I have come to faint knowledge that you are not threat, though you are always alien to me.
No, maybe you are a threat. You threaten the understanding of life and self that I fall into every time I think I am alone, every time I feebly imagine that life is only what I make of it, that we are cast-offs here on this minuscule but oh-so-wondrous planet.
And you are as alien to me as I to my squirrels, as they keep sentry over the bonanza summer’s sun has yielded, sustenance for winter’s long cold.
You are alien because you are love and unending mercy, who casts my failures and sins into the deep from which they shall never reappear. My soul is alien to such love, or is it?
Even now I know a love--for myself, for this beautiful earth and for this screwed-up rat race of a world where fear and callous meism moves so much of what we do.
Even now, I love it, and I love it with a love that is here, in me, alien though it is, for it is born of higher and infinite heart, so far beyond my own that I am reduced to the status of the squirrels.
Yet, it is your pleasure that I should know this moment, this love … you, … and fulfill again, your promise.
Pr. David L. Miller
Jeremiah 31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Reflection
They will all know me.
What is it to know you, Holy One? How can I say that I know you any more than the squirrels scampering across the patio can know me?
They bark curses at me when I rake up their autumnal bounty or startle them. Standing off, they assume a belligerent stance, protecting their turf, ready at my slightest twitch to scurry up the backyard birch, toenails ripping through peeling bark.
Do they know me? I suppose, but only as the alien who invades and occupies their space from time to time--and only as threat, a beast of which to be wary.
But they don’t know me any more, I suppose, than I can know you.
But somewhere and somehow I have come to faint knowledge that you are not threat, though you are always alien to me.
No, maybe you are a threat. You threaten the understanding of life and self that I fall into every time I think I am alone, every time I feebly imagine that life is only what I make of it, that we are cast-offs here on this minuscule but oh-so-wondrous planet.
And you are as alien to me as I to my squirrels, as they keep sentry over the bonanza summer’s sun has yielded, sustenance for winter’s long cold.
You are alien because you are love and unending mercy, who casts my failures and sins into the deep from which they shall never reappear. My soul is alien to such love, or is it?
Even now I know a love--for myself, for this beautiful earth and for this screwed-up rat race of a world where fear and callous meism moves so much of what we do.
Even now, I love it, and I love it with a love that is here, in me, alien though it is, for it is born of higher and infinite heart, so far beyond my own that I am reduced to the status of the squirrels.
Yet, it is your pleasure that I should know this moment, this love … you, … and fulfill again, your promise.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Today’s text
Psalm 84:2-3
My whole being yearns and pines for Yahweh's court. My heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, the swallow a nest to place its young: your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my King and my God.
Reflection
The place of your presence is hope, my abode, my home. So why do I wander so far, driven by forces, from within and without, that I neither understand nor command?
I long for home. Bring me to that inner palace where I feel and know myself surrounded by eternal arms of unfailing mercy.
Even now, through the grayness, this home calls me to my heart’s desire. I see, within my hidden soul, a life, my life, surrounded in the darkness by your embracing presence, a watery cushion conformed to the contours of my life, lest any part of me slip beyond the divine circle of your care, constant and silent, ever there.
And I lie within your constant silence, an orb, an ellipse of life within your Love, and within myself stretches a child, arms and eyes reaching for daylight; an infant within, waiting to be born.
It lives. It is me, O Lord, that deepest element of the life that I am, awaiting full birth into whatever glory your divine DNA encoded into the mystery of my life.
I see all this, clearly, yet my soul is a wandering vagabond, coursing the earth and despairing days as if it has no home, no identity except that assigned to it by others, some in care others not.
And all the while, this inner palace awaits my return, calling to me, whispering my name--the one I forget--until I return to the one place where I may know the joy of the sparrow upon her nest.
So with these few words I step toward home, the inner palace where all that matters is you and me in the secret silence, where I am born … anew.
Pr. David L. Miller
Psalm 84:2-3
My whole being yearns and pines for Yahweh's court. My heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, the swallow a nest to place its young: your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my King and my God.
Reflection
The place of your presence is hope, my abode, my home. So why do I wander so far, driven by forces, from within and without, that I neither understand nor command?
I long for home. Bring me to that inner palace where I feel and know myself surrounded by eternal arms of unfailing mercy.
Even now, through the grayness, this home calls me to my heart’s desire. I see, within my hidden soul, a life, my life, surrounded in the darkness by your embracing presence, a watery cushion conformed to the contours of my life, lest any part of me slip beyond the divine circle of your care, constant and silent, ever there.
And I lie within your constant silence, an orb, an ellipse of life within your Love, and within myself stretches a child, arms and eyes reaching for daylight; an infant within, waiting to be born.
It lives. It is me, O Lord, that deepest element of the life that I am, awaiting full birth into whatever glory your divine DNA encoded into the mystery of my life.
I see all this, clearly, yet my soul is a wandering vagabond, coursing the earth and despairing days as if it has no home, no identity except that assigned to it by others, some in care others not.
And all the while, this inner palace awaits my return, calling to me, whispering my name--the one I forget--until I return to the one place where I may know the joy of the sparrow upon her nest.
So with these few words I step toward home, the inner palace where all that matters is you and me in the secret silence, where I am born … anew.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Today's text
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
Reflection
It is important to know your place.
Everything Sunday morning a ritual is acted out on the step at the front of our sanctuary. Readings from the Bible are read, and children are invited forward to sit on this step to hear the children’s sermon.
Children rush … they run forward to beat me to this step because I have a place, my place, right there in the middle. But I am too slow. They beat me to it. They look at me and giggle.
I try to squeeze in, and they push their skinny butts together so that I can squeeze in. But I can't, so I must sit on the floor in front of them. This is my place they tell me.
So I sit on the floor and talk to children, as they line up on that step and sit with me. In mock anger,I shake my finger at them and say, “You’re in my place.” But they just laugh … because they are in their place. It belongs to them, and they know it.
We are all in our place: We belong there. We are safe there; we are wanted there … and cherished. So we tell stories and laugh, and they make fun of me, and between the lines of all that happens we realize how much we love each other.
And the love that we share there, sitting together, is not ours, but flows from the reservoir of an infinite love that draws and holds us together.
Whether the congregation knows it or not, whether they see and recognize it or not, whether they have ears to hear what is happening, we are a living sacrament, sitting right there before them. We act out and make present the central truth of our lives. The truth: There is a love that is for us, a love that always has a place for us, a place with our name on it.
Right there on those steps … heaven appears. The love of Jesus enfolds us and silently whispers in our ears: 'You belong. You belong to me. In my love there is a place just for you … and it is yours forever.'
This day, O Lord, let us know our place.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
Reflection
It is important to know your place.
Everything Sunday morning a ritual is acted out on the step at the front of our sanctuary. Readings from the Bible are read, and children are invited forward to sit on this step to hear the children’s sermon.
Children rush … they run forward to beat me to this step because I have a place, my place, right there in the middle. But I am too slow. They beat me to it. They look at me and giggle.
I try to squeeze in, and they push their skinny butts together so that I can squeeze in. But I can't, so I must sit on the floor in front of them. This is my place they tell me.
So I sit on the floor and talk to children, as they line up on that step and sit with me. In mock anger,I shake my finger at them and say, “You’re in my place.” But they just laugh … because they are in their place. It belongs to them, and they know it.
We are all in our place: We belong there. We are safe there; we are wanted there … and cherished. So we tell stories and laugh, and they make fun of me, and between the lines of all that happens we realize how much we love each other.
And the love that we share there, sitting together, is not ours, but flows from the reservoir of an infinite love that draws and holds us together.
Whether the congregation knows it or not, whether they see and recognize it or not, whether they have ears to hear what is happening, we are a living sacrament, sitting right there before them. We act out and make present the central truth of our lives. The truth: There is a love that is for us, a love that always has a place for us, a place with our name on it.
Right there on those steps … heaven appears. The love of Jesus enfolds us and silently whispers in our ears: 'You belong. You belong to me. In my love there is a place just for you … and it is yours forever.'
This day, O Lord, let us know our place.
Pr. David L. Miller
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