Thursday November 7, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 12:39-44

In his teaching he [Jesus] said, 'Beware of the scribed who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted respectfully in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets; these are the men who devour the property of widows and for show offer long prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.' He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, 'In truth I tell you, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.'

Reflection

Who is rich and who is poor? Who is full and who is empty? Jesus turns everything upside down. Or does he simply open our eyes to the truth that is always there?

There are those, scribes Jesus calls them, who are full of themselves. They have had good educations and are honored for their study and significant knowledge. They are sought for answers in matters of law, property and faith.

They were long robes; like clergy, I am fond of saying. They sit up front where everyone can see and admire them, as if they were born--or made themselves--a cut above. They seek to live on their pedestals.

They obtain wealth and property for themselves. Getting people to give to them and their work is more important to them than the needs of those they fleece.

There is hypocrisy here, a wide divide between what they say about the God of justice and righteousness’ and the ways they live. But this only scratches the surface.

There’s a deeper, spiritual malady corroding their souls. They are empty.

They appear to be full of themselves, but they are hollow and shallow--and they fear their own emptiness.

They imagine that they are what others think of them, how others see them. They … who they really are … is defined by how others see them, and they do their best to influence those opinions, seeking honor, respect and deference for whatever knowledge and importance they gather from outside sources.

It is as if they are empty husks, clothed in finery. Their appearance is false. It hides a soul afraid of itself, fearing it is only what others say; unaware that it is … or can be … so much more.

Their spiritual emptiness produces constant anxiety to make themselves look good, to justify themselves, to get more of whatever they think they need to clothe their nakedness. If that means getting more from the poor and those already oppressed, so be it.

They don’t really see others. They see only that which they think they need, and they feel themselves poor until they get it.

Ironically, it is the poor woman, the widow is rich. She is full. She gives from the fullness of a heart who knows a great love within, not a great emptiness, a great hunger to share, not a deep craving to get more.

She is a soul of depth and beauty, not a finely clothed but empty shell.

Any parent or grandparent who has held an infant or young child and been filled with love, knowing they would do anything… anything to protect and care for this tender life … anyone who has felt this understands the widow.

They are this widow, this soul, for they know the fullness of heart that makes us truly alive, truly human. They know the hunger to give oneself away for the sake of love alone, which is the fulfillment of our humanity.

They are full. This inner awareness of the fullness of love is actually the awareness of the fullness of God within our souls. It is what we are born to know so that we might live from the fullness of our hearts, no longer calculating or anxious about how others see us of what they saw about us.

All that matters is living the love within, giving the gifts and graces we hunger to give, living outside that soul that we are, knowing we are not empty at all.

Such freedom comes only in the presence of invincible love. We become the widow when the Invincible Love of God that fills Christ comes and fills us, welling up within and creating that ‘divine must,’ that ‘holy urgency’ to give yourself, to give your gifts, to give such grace as is in you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 12:39-44

In his teaching he [Jesus] said, 'Beware of the scribed who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted respectfully in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets; these are the men who devour the property of widows and for show offer long prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.' He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, 'In truth I tell you, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.'

Reflection

It’s a matter of the heart: What fills the heart, self-concern or the hunger to honor God, the hunger to receive or the yearning to give oneself away in great love?

The irony in the story is that those who sought respect and greater wealth--with no concern for the poor widow--were empty, and they knew it. They relied on the externals of praise and public respect, petty privileges and greater wealth to fill their inner emptiness.

But the widow’s heart was full, feeling within the necessity of giving her substance to the wonder of the One who filled her.

She gave herself away and tasted the sweetness of pouring oneself out to the Beloved for the sake of love alone.

Love’s inner compulsion transcends rational thought. It stirs a great ‘must’ within: “I must do this.”

It doesn't calculate costs but is moved by an incalculable desire to love and serve the one, the One who fills and stirs the heart. This desire is the awakening of Spirit within our human spirits, the Spirit of the God who is Love.

The greatest human achievements, the most beautiful creations of human art, the most profound acts of courage and compassion, the quiet heroism of those who live with care and hope though no one is watching: These are the fruit of that fullness the widow well knew.

And Jesus, who was full of that same Spirit, saw it well and pointed it out for us, lest we miss knowing truest beauty and greatest joy.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Today’s text

Revelation 21:3-4

Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, 'Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone.'

Reflection

We live in hope, or we do not live at all, and every hope we hold strains beyond the horizon of daily life. Every hope presses toward final joy, the union of the heart of God with our own.

Our longings and desires, however small and short-sighted, lean forward to know the fulfillment of the human heart, hoping truest happiness is possible against nagging doubts and long waiting.

I have looked into the faces of those for whom hope is slipping away. I speak not of disease or threat to physical life but loss of heart.

The anguish of the drowning crosses their brow, as they are no longer able to imagine or hold hope for happiness, for laughter and peace, for the exultation of being alive, an embodied soul able to lift hands and heart to the sky and give thanks for the miracle of being.

Life has gone out of them; Spirit has been choked from them by disappointment and struggle, anger or rejection.

But despair must be beaten back with the only promise capable of withstanding everything that would extinguish the shining light of hope in our eyes: God will make his home among us. We will dwell in sight of the Light that can never be extinguished.

That Light will fill every drab, dark corner of our being until we shine, lit up from within by the laughing light that glowed from Jesus’ eyes as he blessed children and made the blind see.

Then our tears will not be of sadness or gray despair but of fullness of heart, crystal drops of joy spilling from souls that, finally, know the love for which they were made.

For the One who made them fills them with the light of eternal nearness.

And yes, it happens even here on this earthly plane. There are moments, such sweet moments when all doubt and despair disappear, when we know the dwelling of God is with us, in us.

Our heart and hands rise in joy, and hope ignites the light of love in shining eyes. It’s more beautiful than I can say.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Today’s text

Isaiah 25:7-9

On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken. And on that day, it will be said, 'Look, this is our God, in him we put our hope that he should save us, this is Yahweh, we put our hope in him. Let us exult and rejoice since he has saved us.'

Reflection

Salvation comes with a word or a smile. It arrives on the wings of laughter or the touch of a hand in quiet conversation. It is the rising warmth of soul physically filling you when your heart connects with the soul of another in silent knowing, the wonder of wordless union where words only intrude.

And yes, this is the salvation of our God, the sweet connection of soul to soul when Soul, the great divine soul, is known and flows into the narrow margins of our own and expands our being to hold the joy of eternity.

It happens amid the mundane and common and most certainly when the defenses behind which we hide come down, and we reveal ourselves as human and needy as every human soul and feel no shame, only grace.

Salvation is the soul-to-Soul connection when the total love of divine life flows and fills us, and we know what we need to know, a knowing not of words and concepts but of being and love that transcends all words, a knowing which awakens tears of the heart that have nothing to do with sadness but of joy at finding what one has always wanted and needed … home in the heart of God.

These words can barely touch its truth.

Yes, the prophet spoke of a historical moment when all the death that descended upon his nation, his people, would be no more, and the oppressed would know happy liberation.

But his eyes strained toward a farther horizon, and he saw the final union of the heart of God with the hearts of human beings. He saw all creation bathed and filled with deathless life, a final state of salvation when all is well.

We are not there yet, but there are moments when salvation won by the resurrection of the Christ comes and fills us. On one hand, we are saved, wanted and loved forever. The Holy One seeks intimate connection to flow into us in every moment of our days.

On the other hand, salvation doesn’t always fill us. We resist and refuse. The difficulties of our days harden our arteries so life and the breath of love find little passage into us.

But sometimes it happens. Soul fills soul, and we smile mysteriously as those around us wonder why.

But we know. Salvation comes when it comes, sometimes in odd moments.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Today’s text

Isaiah 25:6-8

On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord of Hosts is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines. On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken.

Reflection

Beyond every future, you are, O Lord.

Beyond the pain that grips our souls, beyond the fears we try to suppress, beyond the sorrows of life from the loss of those we love, beyond the hopes that once carried us, beyond the deaths we bear and those to come that we can’t stand to consider: beyond it all, you are.

So lift your heads, O people. Lift your hearts and see what is not yet.

Look not at what your hands can do or your mind imagine. The hopes of the human heart are paltry and fail to satisfy the need within us.

We hunger for a dream we cannot remember as when we awake from our sleeping world. Our agitated hearts grasp at air to hold the beauties of what we have felt in the night but cannot name in the morning light.

The dream is not our own but the intimation of eternity within, moving us to hunger for that feast of victory when the Holy One sits at able with the souls of those wounded by life, and joy washes every tear from their eyes.

Once veiled eyes are wide with joy, no longer shrouded in fear, no longer clouded by the weight of care they bore for those they loved.

That is all gone, for death is no more, and the thousand deaths human souls die during their days have all passed. The hope that haunted their hearts is no longer hope but present in the Presence of the One who is Love and who was present in every love they ever tasted.

For every love fans the holy dream of God within us, dreams of a world barely born and scarcely seen, a world where the hungry sit at table with the Lord of the Universe and receive their fill, their hearts flowing with songs of praise, a world where parents no longer watch over threatened children gripped by disease, a world where every soul is reverenced as the Maker’s art.

This is the dream, the hope, the future God has planted in our hearts so that we can’t remove it. Nothing else will finally satisfy, and nothing we can do will bring that future.

Yet, we taste and know it in every love and grace, in every moment of beauty and justice. In such moments, the dream takes shape within, fanning hope for the day when death is no more and justice covers the earth with peace.

Until then, we lift our eyes to imagine and a new world, and seeing we sing sweet songs of love and hope to the One who is all love and all hope.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 30, 2012




Today’s text



Isaiah 25:6-8



On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord of Hosts is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines. On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken.



Reflection



Beyond every future, you are, O Lord.



Beyond the pain that grips our souls, beyond the fears we try to suppress, beyond the sorrows of life from the loss of those we love, beyond the hopes that once carried us, beyond the deaths we bear and those to come that we can’t stand to consider: beyond it all, you are.



So lift your heads, O people. Lift your hearts and see what is not yet.



Look not at what your hands can do or your mind imagine. The hopes of the human heart are paltry and fail to satisfy the need within us.



We hunger for a dream we cannot remember as when we awake from our sleeping world. Our agitated hearts grasp at air to hold the beauties of what we have felt in the night but cannot name in the morning light.



The dream is not our own but the intimation of eternity within, moving us to hunger for that feast of victory when the Holy One sits at able with the souls of those wounded by life, and joy washes every tear from their eyes.



Once veiled eyes are wide with joy, no longer shrouded in fear, no longer clouded by the weight of care they bore for those they loved.



That is all gone, for death is no more, and the thousand deaths human souls die during their days have all passed. The hope that haunted their hearts is no longer hope but present in the Presence of the One who is Love and who was present in every love they ever tasted.



For every love fans the holy dream of God within us, dreams of a world barely born and scarcely seen, a world where the hungry sit at table with the Lord of the Universe and receive their fill, their hearts flowing with songs of praise, a world where parents no longer watch over threatened children gripped by disease, a world where every soul is reverenced as the Maker’s art.



This is the dream, the hope, the future God has planted in our hearts so that we can’t remove it. Nothing else will finally satisfy, and nothing we can do will bring that future.



Yet, we taste and know it in every love and grace, in every moment of beauty and justice. In such moments, the dream takes shape within, fanning hope for the day when death is no more and justice covers the earth with peace.



Until then, we lift our eyes to imagine and a new world, and seeing we sing sweet songs of love and hope to the One who is all love and all hope.



Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Today’s text

Psalm 46:8-10

Come, consider the wonders of the Lord, the astounding deeds he has done on the earth; he puts an end to wars over the whole wide world, he breaks the bow, he snaps the spear, shields he burns in the fire. 'Be still and acknowledge that I am God, supreme over nations, supreme over the world.'

Reflection

Stillness is our strength. Quiet is our might. Breathing, just breathing we find fullness of heart and silent joy filling every inner space.

Such fullness is a great and holy gift we receive only when the efforts of our minds and hands fall quiet, and the ears of our heart turn inward, listening for the great inner silence from which the Soul of the Universe speaks in our souls.

This great inner silence patiently waits for us to end our chatter and endless doing. It waits for us to stop and listen, to hear what we need to know.

The Great Soul of God speaks echoes silently in our souls, speaking the constant Presence of unrelenting life and unfailing love:

“There is nothing to fear. I am here … always. Listen. Let the stillness fill you with knowledge of the Soul I Am, and your soul will fear no more.

“Wait in silence, and I will come to you. You will know me nearer than your breath, deeper within than your own heart, inseparable from your own being, for I am the stream of life that flows from eternity through all that is, giving life to all … and you.

“Be still and know. I cannot and will not forsake you, for I am Love and Love never turns away. You may turn away, but I am ever there, present within and beyond you, speaking the truth of your life that is my life within you.

"Be still and know the treasure you bear.

"Be still and know. All is well.

"Be still."

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, October 26, 2012

Today’s text

John 8:31-32

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said: If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Reflection

I am still coming to know and always will be. There is no point of final arrival. There are resting places on the way, but only to catch one’s breath and gather up what one ‘knows’ of the mystery of Christ.

And then we continue. The spiritual life is a gracious and loving journey as long as one is content always to be a beginner, always staring again, always knowing you know only a little. You possess but the slightest knowledge of a Mystery who far transcends anything we can think or fell.

But we do know and feel the love of God at the inner point of connection where our own souls and the Divine Soul meet--that inner point we cannot reach or touch but which we know is there, present and truly us.

This knowledge is utterly different from anything gotten from a book, from a teacher, from anything our hands or minds can grasp through great effort.

Knowing the truth is feeling the love of Christ awakening at that point of depth, of soul, where a Great Soul comes and fills you with a knowing of the Love who cerhishes every atom of this universe and totally accepts, treasures and hungers for you to be home, at rest and peace, knowing … knowing … just knowing love and nothing but love filling you.

Then you will know the truth, and it will set you free.

There may only be moments of utter knowing in this life. But the moments come, and they come more often and freely when we accept Jesus invitation to come to him to know, hear, feel be touched by what is in him.

In knowing him, you will come to know the truth that frees … and the final resting place of your soul when your time here is done.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Today’s text

John 8:31-32

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said: If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Reflection

Freedom is what the truth does in us. It makes us free. If a word does not give freedom to our souls, it is not a true word, a word that bears the soul of Jesus to our soul.

For, the soul of Jesus is the soul of freedom, the soul of knowing the first and final truth of his life and ours.

God’s eternal invitation is to put ourselves inside and who and what he is that we may know who we are.

Come to me, he says. Lay down inside the truth that is in me. Live there for a while; your heart will grow large. You will come alive and bask in a truth that has always been there but which you may have never known.

So it is.

A young person sits on my couch, confirmation essay in hand, sharing what little they have learned of Christian faith through years of confirmation teaching. But their words and stories bear so much more than anything their young minds are able to put on paper.

I listen and hear the graces of their lives. I hear the beauty of love in their hearts, the passions that draw them closer to whatever it is they will become and the small acts of true goodness and strength that are not small at all.

I hear and see, and I bless them with the grace that is already in them, a grace they barely glimpse, if at all.

There are wonders in you, I tell them, and play their own words back to them so they cannot deny it or act as if I am telling them something false.

There are gifts in your soul that you did not seek, I say. You didn’t even know they are there. You are marvelous, graced with divine beauty and grace seeking to push out of your every pore.

I tell them the truth of what I see and hear in them.

Sometimes their faces get red, embarrassed however slightly, as they look at me with eyes that say, “You see that in me?”

Yes, dear child, I think but do not say, and so much more that you cannot understand right now.

But they hear me. No, more than me.

They have heard words of truth, words from the soul of Jesus about a Love that loves them and lives in them, a Love who gives them gifts that they may be the gift they are to the rest of us, so that we, too, may know the first and final truth.

We are Love’s children, Love’s treasured vessels, bearing the beauty of the One who hungers to live through all.

Breathe free, my children and release the Love you bear.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 24, 2102

Today’s text

Matthew 5:1-7
Seeing the crowds, he [Jesus] went onto the mountain. And when he was seated his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Blessed are the gentle: they shall have the earth as inheritance. Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they shall have their fill. Blessed are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.

Reflection

He was rude and crude. Sarcasm laced nearly every sentence, and he is among the most cynical people I have known.

“Money, it’s all about money,” he shouted when we talked about the wars and conflicts going on around us. “They’re fighting about money!” and then he’d swear again.

His name was Bob Koepp. Bob was the logistics coordinator in the Lutheran World Federation World Service office in Nairobi, Kenya, during the 1990s. He organized food convoys, dozens of trucks long, and sent them off on southern Sudan’s dirt roads with the hope they wouldn’t get confiscated by government troops.

He also ran a mini-airline of six or seven C-130s flying each day from Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya, to a half dozen cities and towns in Somalia, carrying food and supplies to refugees scattered around north east Africa—who were starving to death at alarming rates.

From his dingy office, this blustery, obese, diabetic man with a heart ready to blow its third and final infarction kept hundreds of thousands of people alive. You could admire him, as long as you didn’t get too close to his tirades.

I hadn’t thought of him in years, but conversation with a couple of our confirmation students brings him to mind.

Bob wasn’t a nice guy. He wasn’t pleasant or all that friendly, although he had his moments. But he certainly was a saint. He gave himself to the mission of Christ in the world.

He may have believed that money is the only real human motivation, but his life contradicted his own cynical view. He worked tirelessly to feed people much of the world was trying to ignore, and he certainly wasn’t getting rich doing it.

I will be thinking of Bob during the next couple of weeks as 18 of our youth affirm their faith. They will make bold promises to proclaim the good news of God in Christ, to serve all people, following Jesus example, and to strive for justice in peace.

The following week we will celebrate All Saints Day, remembering and giving thanks for those saints in our lives who lived the love of Christ and graced our path, showing us how to live.

Normally, we think being Christian somehow involves ‘being nice’ to people, as more than one confirmands’ final essay suggested. Most often, we think of saints, whether the great ones of history or our own saints—grandmothers, uncles and neighbors—as ‘nice people.’

There is truth there. This past weekend we celebrated the lives of two remarkable people who have left us and entered the perpetual light of God’s love. Both were ‘nice’ I suppose. Their souls carried enough of the love of God to move us to awareness that we are special--loved, treasured and safely held in a Love who will never let us go.

God’s saints do that. They are transparent to the Love that transcends us all. They tell us we are wanted and wonderful. They convince our doubting hearts that we are marvelous, for they see the beauty and grace, strength and goodness in us that we fail to notice, and downplay when we do.

For years, I have tried to fill a great hole in my heart, and I have understood ministry as finding and filling that aching hole in the hearts of others, so that it may be filled with the love that transcends every expectation we have, a love so great that it withstands anything life might throw at us.

Our saints give us that.

But they also move us beyond ourselves to go and live the wonder of love and knowledge, skill and warmth that is in us, for the world badly needs it.

The mission of the church, our mission, moves us beyond merely being nice, beyond merely saying we believe certain things and beyond ourselves.

The saints shows us the passionate love of God we most need--and then point to the world’s crying need, which is why on All Saints Day I will light several candles, one in thanks for Bob Koepp.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:35-37

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him. 'Master,' they said to him, 'We want you to do us a favor.' He said to them, 'What is it you want me to do for you?' They said to him, 'Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.' But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking.

Reflection

Adele came to me last night. She showed up sometime after 3 p.m. amid my sleeplessness with a message, “It’s all in Love’s hands. All of it.”

She was a great spirit among us, a great light that has gone out.

At the age of 96, her irrepressible spirit was taken from us two weeks ago. She is gone, except she’s not really gone. She has gone into that Great Light that shines from Eternity for all eternity into the darkness of our little lives.

So she’s ever here, in that radiance that warms and lights our way until we join her in the Loving Mystery for whom no words will do.

But her words came in an anxious night when the fevers of life and the press of deadlines kept sleep at bay. Her words were simple, “It’s all in Love’s hands.”

Hearing, my anxieties slowly began to release their grip. The endless loop running through my head-- unfinished tasks and unkept promises--slowed and finally fell silent, until I too, rested in the Love’s hands, and sleep returned.

And I knew: I rest in Love’s hands, as does all that kept me awake in the night.

Somehow, my obsessive spirit heard and was convinced there was no need to enumerate all that must be done this day. The fevered agitation over failing and falling short departed into the darkness. It is gone.

But Adele’s words remain, “It’s all in Love’s hands. All of it.”

And I know who Love is, Holy One, so now in the still dark of early fall morning I trust and rest, at peace once more, thankful for your messenger.

She reminds me again to trust and believe, even as she spoke to so many from the black narthex chair she always occupied following worship. Her words, as now, laced with faith in the unfailing love you are.

So her light has not passed from us at all. She has joined the great fullness of your light that comes to us in the night and the day, illuming our anxious hearts with the truth our souls need to know, lest our demons overtake us, stealing away the peace of Christ.

I know why Jesus disciples secretly asked to sit one at his right hand and the other at his left in glory. They were as anxious and insecure as me when the night demons torment my heart.

The disciples knew they could not secure their life by their own work and effort. Sooner or later, we know that is not enough. We know that we are no enough.

We feel our finitude, our limits, our humanity, our fragility, and we need to hear a voice in the night telling us the truth.

“It’s all in Love’s hands. All of it.”

So come to us all Adele, and tell us the truth our hearts need to hear.

And thanks … for your nighttime visit.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:35-38

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him. 'Master,' they said to him, 'We want you to do us a favor.' He said to them, 'What is it you want me to do for you?' They said to him, 'Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.' But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I shall drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I shall be baptized?'

Reflection

There come times of cross bearing, moments when decisions face us, and we must decide: Who are we?

Do we believe that we are fitted to bear the cross of Christ, or do we surrender to modern wisdom about self-care and not giving away too much of yourself to needs of another, whether mother or father, child or spouse?

Sometimes I get to see people who understand the truth of the cross. They willingly take up the burden of caring for a family member or a friend in sickness or struggle because, as one recently told me, “I cannot not do this.”

I was moved, and I knew I was looking into the face of someone who knew what it was to take up one’s cross and follow.

The future stretches out before him, and he has no way of knowing how long the burden of caring will last, what it may require of him before it is done or how much of his life will be surrendered in the process of loving someone he must love … to the end of her days.

He knows only that he must walk the path before him and that it won’t be easy.

His is that ongoing baptism into the life of Jesus, which does not look glorious. To some, it may even appear foolish, a waste of life.

But not to eyes of faith, who see the beauty of God in every act costly love … freely given.

And in every loving surrender we see re-birth into the beauty we shall become.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:35-37

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him [Jesus]. 'Master,' they said to him, 'We want you to do us a favor.' He said to them, 'What is it you want me to do for you?' They said to him, 'Allow us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory.'

Reflection

And it is glory that they want. Why?

Is the ego’s drive for admiration and power an inevitable part of being human? Or is this only a ‘male’ thing?

When my daughter, Rachel, was a small child she would take my face and her hands and insist that I focus directly on her, not on her and my book, the newspaper or another conversation.

Rachel wanted me to let her know she was utterly important to me, important enough to give her my undivided attention, my mind and heart.

But these two, James and John, want to sit beside the seat of power, assuming (and completely misunderstanding) Jesus is about to become some kind of king or ruler to whom others bow down.

They did not seek the undivided attention of one who loves them. They wanted to share in Jesus’ power so that those ‘below’ them would show them deference.

Of course, this angered Jesus’ other followers …because they didn’t want these two to be higher, greater, more important than they were.

They were tripping over their egos, too.

The ego is a heavy burden. We want to feel important, respected. Good enough, but ego always likes to compare, so that with self-satisfaction we can say, “I am more than others … smarter, more important, better at what I do,” … fill in the blank.

Ego loves to distance itself from others and then admire that vertical distance because it establishes that we are somehow superior and can prance a bit. It’s a subtle game, and most of us fall into it at various points in an average day.

I think I escape it best when I can lose myself in someone else’s needs and story, or perhaps when there is work I enjoy. Sometimes it happens when I sit with someone who allows me to be totally human or fragile … whatever I am at the moment.

I sink into such times, forgetting how I am doing or how I appear, and I just savor the moment of work or conversation.

There is great freedom in such moments because somewhere in the process I drop the heavy burden of ego that distracts me from being simply there, present to whomever and what ever I am doing.

I can give myself to something or someone and, strangely, finding myself and my freedom at the same time.

This is a small taste of the freedom of Jesus, the freedom his friends and followers failed to taste most of the time.

He had the freedom to surrender himself in utter grace to the needs of another. This was his power and his glory, a glory that is still little understood and even less desired.

But it is the way of freedom, the path of peace for our hearts and the heart of a conflicted world.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, October 12, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:17-21

He was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false witness; You shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.' And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, 'You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.

Reflection

What if … ?

What if you woke every morning eager for the day, excited and ready to go, knowing the day held a gift?

What if you didn’t know (which you don’t) what that gift is, when it will appear or where?

What if your senses stood on tip toe, on alert, ready to receive the gift, whatever it was?

What if each day were received as a gift of life, complete with moments of joy, of tenderness, with food savory in your mouth and people who wanted to see you and talk with you?

What if you began to experience life in its goodness as a grace from the Great Giver from whose hearts flows the wonder of autumn colors, the beauty of harvested fields and the brisk bite of fall on your cheeks?

What if you experienced the simple goodness of living, of being able to give and receive love, of touching the face of someone you cherish, of seeing the smile of a treasured heart who has known sorrow?

What if you were washed over and filled to the brim by a wave of knowing that you are loved and treasured, always were and always will be, from the first day of your life until the day you leave this earth and enter the fullness of God’s grace?

What if you lived awake and utterly aware of the love of the One who is good all time, The One who loves to give and loves you? What if you breathed in this awareness until it filled your lungs with life and your soul with happiness?

What if?

You would taste eternal life. You would have the treasure of heaven, the treasure the heart wants and seeks in all it tries to accomplish and possess, the treasure we need more than any other.

But possessing, getting more--money, status, power, amusement, success, stuff--doesn’t bring this treasure. You can’t inherit this treasure. You can’t gain it or earn it. It can only be received.

This requires a dramatic shift in consciousness.

A man comes to Jesus, asking to gain eternal life. We normally think of that as something that comes when we are done with this life, and that’s not correct. Eternal life, the life of eternity, is a state we enter here and now, in this life and time, or we do not enter it at all.

Why does he come to Jesus? He comes for the same reason people sometimes come to me. They know something is wrong. Something is missing. Like this man, they need healing, but they can’t name their disease.

Their prayer life has gone dead, if it ever was much alive. Or their life is going well but there is a whole in their soul that craves filling. Or they have destructive things--or suffered such pain from others, and they want to touch and taste something, a healing, a fullness that money can’t buy and working harder can’t bring.

They hunger to know the treasure of heaven, eternal life. This is the life human hearts crave whether they can name it or not. Without it, we feel incomplete.

So what must I do? Give up everything; give it all to the poor, Jesus tells the young man, and us.

We think he must be kidding. Certainly, his words have to understood in some symbolic way. We need to live. We need our stuff to survive. We accumulate what we need and hold onto it tightly.

Too tightly, for life is not about accumulating things, and this becomes abundantly clear at the conclusion of our earthly lives.

Twice in recent weeks I have listened, shared stories and tears with those who have just lost beloved family members. As I listened, I was moved by the rich tapestry of what they shared with their loved on in decades of knowing and loving each other.

The words and stories that evoked tears, the things that were most meaningful had nothing to do with the job, wealth or accomplishments of those who had died.

What mattered, … all that really mattered was the river of love and grace, giving and care that flowed from the hearts of their loved one to them and back again.

A river of grace and goodness, giving and care flowed among them, a stream that begins in the heart of God, the Great Giver, and seeks to pull us all into its joy.

This is what the young man was missing. This accounts for the hole in his heart. His life was gift, not something gained through his strenuous effort to be good.

Eternal life, the treasure of heaven could be felt in his soul and make him truly alive only when he released what he held so tightly and surrendered to the flow of generosity coursing from God’s heart and seeking to pull him along.

When he surrendered to that holy flow he would become part of the river of grace that flowed through the conversations of those to whom I recently ministered in their grief. Then, he would know eternal life, the treasure of heaven.

Until then, all he did and his wealth and all he accomplished would be an impediment to him. You see, wealth, money and what you have accumulated can bring happiness … when it is shared and becomes part of the flow.

Our hearts know this. We feel it every time we share what we have, what we own and who we are. For when we do we know the treasure of heaven, and eternal life fills our hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:23-26
Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, 'How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!' The disciples were astounded by these words, but Jesus insisted, 'My children,' he said to them, 'how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God.' They were more astonished than ever, saying to one another, 'In that case, who can be saved? Jesus gazed at them and said, 'By human resources it is impossible, but not for God: because for God everything is possible.'

Reflection

Jesus is having fun, and so should we. The eye of a needle might be understood as the tiny opening through which a seamstress passes thread as he prepares to sew. It is strictly a ‘no camel zone.’

But it was also the name of a low gate into the city of Jerusalem through which camels could not pass unless they got down on their knees and wriggled through, also needing to lose the payload on their backs. There was no other way they could pass through.

The camel gate speaks to me. Just more than four years ago, I returned to parish ministry after nearly 22 years doing other work, and I was carrying a load.

I carried a load of hurt and wounds from criticism and judgment endured while working in highly public positions. I carried a load of insecurity, wondering if I could still do parish work, wondering also if I really wanted to serve a congregation.

Could it be I only wanted to escape from the pain of criticism and nagging inner doubts about whether I had failed?

There was also a load of pride that made me anxious to share what I had done, who I’d met and the places I’d been. I was eager to be taken seriously because of past accomplishments and significant events in which I’d participated.

But this mattered far less to the new faces I met than I wanted. Few cared much about where I’d been or what I’d done.

I was disappointed by this. I wanted something different, some measure of acknowledgment from them. No more. Today, I remember this, and a strange but most welcome wave gratitude washes through my soul and fills me, bringing tears of thanks.

Realizing, however slowly, that past deeds and victories mattered little to those I had come to serve, I began to drop my load and realize that life is now and here, not then and there.

I began to learn to live … again. (Do we ever get it right?).

Learning to live meant being where I was, letting go of the anxious need to secure my identity and reputation by what once was. It means seeing and attending to what is front of you, no longer interjecting the load of the past into the present.

Being present, being in the now, the wounds of yesterday begin to fade, the self-imposed weight of needing to be taken seriously falls away and one finds freedom, the freedom to receive and share the grace and need of the present.

One enters a new way of being and living called the kingdom of God, which is always the kingdom of the present moment, which invites us to receive what is, to be open to what comes, knowing the love of God is in this moment no matter what else comes.

To know and find such love is to enter God’s kingdom and taste sweet salvation right here and now.

The kingdom is here and now, as I discovered it once more … when I dropped my load.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 8, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:17-21

He was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false witness; You shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.' And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, 'You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.

Reflection

Commentators have spilled a great deal of ink saying Jesus wasn’t demanding that it isn’t necessary to give everything away to follow him.

But maybe he was, at least to this man.

Perhaps Jesus read enough of his heart to know that accumulating and possessing wealth was at the center of his soul, and only radical surgery could free him from his addiction.

He called the man to radical reorientation of his vision, a new consciousness in which acquisition was no longer the purpose of living.

There is nothing to suggest the man was greedy. Had we known him we likely would have considered him just and decent, a well-off guy who was careful about living a just life and keeping God’s commandments.

But living the kingdom would always be second or third for him, just as it is for most Christians today, perhaps especially in developed Western countries.

Knowing God, loving God, worshiping and giving yourself to the purposes of God are spare time activities, done when there might be a spare moment.

It is too easy to distance oneself from this wealthy man, thinking that I … that we are not like him. But radical surgery is needed for all of us sometimes and most of us much of the time.

The shift in consciousness for which Jesus called is to seek him and the kingdom in all things, at all times. Knowing life is utter gift and the love of God is always ours, we need earn nothing but only respond to the central reality of life.

That reality is the wonder of God, the miracle of a love who makes worlds and places us among them to know and share the beauty and joy of being alive, human and aware of the gift of one’s life and all that is.

In modern life, a thousand forgettable, insignificant elements of living soak up our time, divert our attention and commandeer our souls so that this central reality no longer shapes our hearts and days.

Life is not about getting more, Jesus says, whether that is more education, money, status, success or amusements. Life is awareness of the giftedness of all things, the joy of receiving and sharing the love that emanates from the Infinite Source from which we receive our breath … every moment.

All that hinders such awareness makes us poor, no matter how much we’ve got.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, October 8, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:17-21

He was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false witness; You shall not defraud; honor your father and mother.' And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, 'You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.'

Reflection

Some days are designed to alter your consciousness. This is what Sabbath is to be, a day to re-enter your right mind so you might dwell there through the week. Autumn days, too, seem intended for this change of mind.

We travel streets of fading color, reminded that the beauty we are and see does not last forever. It beckons the eye to linger, to take in the best show in town that comes for free.

While it carries the melancholy awareness that summer ends and we do, too, it speaks a deeper truth.

The beauty that surrounds us, the beauty we each are, is given. Life and color comes without our asking as the first and original blessing of the One who loves to bless.

Autumn days and Sabbath time bring awareness that we do nothing to gain life’s goodness. We can only receive with gratitude from the One whose goodness is spoken in every leaf on every tree and in every breath we take.

Awareness of the towering goodness of the One who is all good, and the good in all, arises with each conscious breath. It comes in each moment of awareness that we are surrounded by splendor we did not make.

Each conscious breath: Jesus calls us from sleep to consciousness awareness that there is One who is good and who is giver of life. Look at that One. Look for that One. Feel that One in every … single … breath. Touch that One every moment that love and beauty touches you.

Be amazed that you are alive and your skin can feel the brisk bite of autumn days. Hear the whisper of the breeze. It awakens awareness of the love of the One who is good. Breathe it in until it fills your lungs with life and your soul with happiness.

Awakened souls know: You do nothing to inherit life, and you do nothing to inherit the treasure of heaven. All is gift from the One who is good.

Look and pray to see the wonder of it all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Today’s text

Hebrews 1:1-3

At many moments in the past and by many means, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the final days, he has spoken to us in the person of his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the ages. He is the reflection of God's glory and bears the impress of God's own being, sustaining all things by his powerful command; and now that he has purged sins away, he has taken his seat at the right hand of the divine Majesty on high.

Reflection

I stare sleepless at the ceiling of the bedroom; shadows from a street light fix my gaze on the far corner where wall meets wall and touches the ceiling. Sleep won’t come for some time.

So I lie still and watch as the blessings of my life appear in the dim light. They pass before me, and I am happy to be awakened at this early hour for no good reason except to see and pray.

My soul reaches out to the Great Soul who speaks in every blessing, my heart moved from within by a Spirit far greater than my own. Prayer comes too easily for it to be my creation. It flows from the Spirit who seeks me in the darkness of night.

And I understand: I am wanted far more than I can understand.

The God of heaven and earth seeks to be known. The Loving Mystery who speaks in all time and every space, including the small space of my mind and heart, calls me to know the Love that is ever for me, the Love who constantly wants and seeks me.

God hungers to be known by me, in the darkness and in the light, in the day and in the night, in the many and various ways God speaks, and certainly in the face of Jesus where what God says in other moments becomes more clear.

What moves me is that the desire of the Voice in the Night is so much like the desire of the human heart, my heart, to know and be taken in by the Love that fashions the worlds and cherishes them all. My soul is an image of the Great Soul who made the ages.

In the darkness, I see again the face of Jesus, the visible of image of the One who wakes me in the night, finding there a welcoming love who forgives the failures of my soul and invites to simply rest, breathe and know him.

And seeing, I am eager for the morning, knowing what awaits me every morning.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Today’s text

Psalm 8:3-6

I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers, at the moon and the stars you set firm- what are human beings that you spare a thought for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and beauty, made him lord of the works of your hands, put all things under his feet.

Reflection

Again I wake into the world filled with wonder that I am, amazed that I breathe and have senses that fill me with delight in every season, and most certainly in autumn splendor.

At the core of faith, at least for me, is amazement at life, at the immensity of the cosmos and my own smallness. Staggered, I gaze into the night sky realizing this is my gift. I get to take in the vast sprinkling of the Milky Way, millions of stars dusting the clear night as loons call to each other across the darkness.

Light from millions of years ago finally touches my eyes after its cold journey through yawning reaches of space, delighting my heart, moving me to wonder what each one is like.

Wonder is closer yet, near as trees electric with golden light in the October morning, moving me to thanks that I might live on this tiny planet, at this place and this time to see this tree that reminds me once more how graced I am to know the colors of a single moment. Any moment, but most certainly this one.

Open your eyes and see. The world is a wonder. Life is a mystery and miracle no words can express. And love, love for this precious life and the loves we are given, who knows how it happens?

Who can point to the moment, to the word, the turn of head, the smile, the understanding glance and laughter that ignites the heart with the joy of knowing oneness with another?

It’s all wonder, our lives, this earth, the universe, the surprising experience of being alive … able to know and feel life within and around us. None of this can be taken for granted by people who did not create themselves or a single molecule of matter.

All that fills my senses on autumn mornings flows from an Infinite Source who loves life … and me. The stars tell me so. The loons’ haunting cries echo my prayer to know the nearness of this Love who speaks in night skies and autumn trees aglow as if lit from within.

This Love wears a face who was even more enamored of golden mornings than am I, the face of the Love Eternal who seeks me every morning, the face of Jesus.

Today, I join him in the wonder of living, knowing, feeling the One who speaks through it all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 10:13-16

People were bringing little children to him, for him to touch them. The disciples scolded them, but when Jesus saw this he was indignant and said to them, 'Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. In truth I tell you, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.' Then he embraced them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing.

Reflection

There is a time to receive and a time to give, a time be blessed and a time to bless.

I have reached the time to bless, the time to give, Jesus time. More on that in a moment.

One might object that it is always time to bless and give, just as it is always time to receive blessing and grace from others

Early in one’s life there is more blessing be received than given. It is the natural way of life, easily seen when we are children. We need to receive--food, clothing, teaching and encouragement. You get the idea.

Aging, we take on greater responsibility for ourselves and others--children, students, younger less experienced people at our jobs and in our professions. We pass on what we know; sharing the wisdom and grace we have received in living.

I recently had a birthday with a ‘0’ in it … 60.

The number doesn’t bother me at all, nor does having reached an age that I couldn’t imagine being when I was younger. I don’t look or feel anything like I imagined 60 would be.

In younger years, I thought of what it would be like to reach this age, but I didn’t think I would have this much energy or joy. I didn’t imagine the sense of purpose I feel or the anticipation of what is to come. I didn’t think I’d have this much desire to grow richer and deeper in mind and heart. I thought such growth in would largely be done. Not so.

The big change I notice is that I need less and want to give more.

I devoted so much … too much of my life to filling holes in my heart, proving I was competent, a worthwhile human being to be taken seriously. I was hungry for encouragement and affirmation, needing to know I was okay, accepted and acceptable. I needed a great deal approval and worked hard (ridiculously so) to earn it.

It was never enough. What I needed was to know … and accept … blessing, the blessing of love that cherished me, no matter if I was doing well or not.

There were those beloved hearts along the way who blessed me. Often, I treated their blessing as if it were something I earned (or needed to earn) by my efforts, not as a gift of grace from those--friends, family, spouse--who wanted only that I should be myself, the soul I am and receive the grace they gave.

Somewhere on the way to 60 (I am a slow learner) enough blessing has seeped into my heart that there are fewer holes in me that need filling.

I feel richer, more complete and full of the grace that is the substance of God’s own heart. I have certainly given much to others and blessed them in the course of my life and ministry. But I have reached a point where blessing others, not being blessed is primary.

Grace received has topped the reservoir of my heart and spills out more naturally. This is not an accomplishment but the consequence of receiving the grace and love God through prayer and from other lives for many years.

This is a very good and consoling place to be.

I know what Jesus felt when he took children into his arms and blessed them. He did not feel less. He did not feel depleted.

He experienced the loving grace of an Infinite Soul filling and flowing out him, raising smiles and beauty on the faces of others. And when he was done blessing them, he felt more full than when he started.

Pr. David L. Miller