December 9, 2012

Today's text

In the fifteenth year of Tiberias Caesar's reign, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, … the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah, in the desert.  He went through the whole Jordan area proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah the prophet: A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight! Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill be leveled, winding ways be straightened and rough roads made smooth (Luke 3:1-6)

Reflection

No matter what else you are preparing for this Christmas, prepare a way to come home.

We need to return home to the place where our hearts belong, where anxiety evaporates, shame disappears and hope fills every corner of our soul.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah imagined a highway for exiles to return home. Mountains would be laid low, and low places built up. Crooked roads would be made straight.

John the Baptist echoes this image, calling us to repent that God may come to us and our hearts may find their way home to God.

Repentance is much misunderstood. It is not a word of condemnation but an invitation to come home.

It literally means to go beyond the mind you have, to enter a new mind, a new way of seeing and being. It means to find your right mind so you may know the truth about who you are and who God is.

It is easy to lose your mind this time of year. Thousands of voices tell us to buy the right gift, shop at the best store, get the newest digital gadgets and prepare until the wee hours for parties and gatherings of all sorts. Go faster, work harder. You need to keep the season bright.

Amid the rush, we lose touch with our deepest realty, forgetting that we are created for love, to know love and to become the love of the One who comes to us wrapped warm in Mary’s arms.

Repentance is about turning from your overwhelmed weariness and the anxiousness of the season to regain your sanity, reclaim your identity and arrive again at the love for which you were made.

It begins with a quiet prayer that we might feel ourselves truly loved by God, a prayer for God to chase away our feelings of failure, self-hatred and unworthiness that we might know that we are beloved beyond our wildest imaginations.

Only then are we in our right minds, and the road is ready for us to walk home into the love that awaits us every morning … and most certainly on Christmas morning.

For prayer & reflection

• What drives you out of your right mind during this season?
• What do you most need to do to prepare the Lord’s way within your heart and life?
• Where does the word of the Lord speak to you--in the wilderness of your heart--this time of year?

 Another voice

Then cleansed be every heart from sin. Make straight the way for God within,

shine forth and let your let restore, and spirit blessed forever more.

To heal the sick stretch out your hand, and bid the fallen sinner stand.

(“On Jordan’s Bank”, Charles Coffin, 1974)

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Today's text

 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary He went in and said to her, 'Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favor! The Lord is with you.' … Mary said, 'You see before you the Lord's servant, let it be with me as you have said.' And the angel left her (Luke 1:26-28, 38).

Reflection

When the angelic messenger came to Mary, he was not speaking just to her. He was speaking to all of us, “Rejoice, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

You are favored more than you know. For you, too, are Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Mary is all of us. She is the model of our humanity and the key to the mystery of our souls. She reveals our proper destiny, our greatest joy and most profound sorrow.

We are to bear the divine life of God in our mortal flesh.

Like her, we each are pregnant with the sacred seed of God’s gracious life and love, the God seed, planted deep within us.

We each are to be the mother of God, nurturing divine life within our hearts that Christ may live in us--and we may become the soul we are created to be.

The mystery of Christ’s birth among us is not so much a story to be believed … or rejected; it is a life to be received and cherished in the depth of your being.

For if Christ be born a thousand times in Bethlehem, what difference does it make … if he is not born also in us?

Mary shows the way. She bows in humility and trust, “Here I am, the Lord’s servant. Let it be to me according to your word.”

Let it be. This is Mary prayer … and ours.

“Let it be. I cannot control the future. I do not know where life will lead or what the new year will bring. So let it be, Lord, according to the word of your promise. May the life you are grow in me that I, too, may be your dwelling place.”

Some of the most precious moments of my day are spent in a basement office, listening to gentle music. It opens up space in my noisy heart that I may hear the Lord’s voice speaking, “I am with you, closer than you imagine. I am the seed of divine life in your own heart.”

Then, with Mary, I pray, “Let it be with me as you will.” And Christ is born again.

For prayer and reflection

·         What ideas, feelings, hopes and memories are awakened by today’s reflection?

·         How can you nurture Christ’s life within you? What people, places and practices help? How do you hinder Christ’s birth within you? What gets in the way?

·         Quietly read and repeat Mary’s words in Luke 1:38: Here I am; the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” What is awakened in your heart and mind?

Another voice

The angel Gabriel from heaven came, with wings as drifted snow, with eyes as flame; “All hail to thee, O lowly maiden Mary, most highly favored lady.” Gloria!

Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head. To me be as it pleaseth God, she said. My soul shall laud and magnify God’s holy name. Most highly favored lady. Gloria!

(“The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came”, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1955)

Friday, December 7, 2012

Today's text

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; on the inhabitants of a country in shadow dark as death light has blazed forth (Isaiah 9:2).

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:78-79).

Reflection

The lights came on in the narthex last Sunday. Normally, it is a bit dark there, but on Sunday the room glowed and it had nothing to do with the overhead lights.

Jim and Jennifer walked into the entry of the church with their four-year olds twins, Niklas and Sydney. They had just returned from Boston and Sydney’s fourth open heart surgery.

No one needed to say how things had gone. The light in their eyes told the story.

The anxiety that had shadowed their eyes in recent weeks was gone. The lights had come back on … in them. Christmas had come once more.

Christmas comes, as it always does, resplendent with light that scatters the darkness, chasing away our fears and warming our hearts.

Glorious light, joyful light plays and dances through the stories and songs of Christmas.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Arise and shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen on

            you.

The dawn from on high shall break upon us to give light to those who sit in

            darkness and in the shadow of death..

The glory of the Lord shined around them.

A great star arises in the sky to announce the arrival of God’s light in human

            face.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

We sing of a little town called Bethlehem in whose “dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” Our hearts are moved to deep quiet in a silent night when “all is calm, all is bright” and “love’s pure light” radiantly shines from the face of a child.

We understand the songs because we have felt the darkness, and we know the exhilaration and peace that fills us when the light comes on in our hearts.

It awakens undeniable hope and the certain awareness that the light of God’s presence has come and always will. The dawn of God’s eternal day will penetrate the world’s darkness, scattering the doubt and hopelessness of human hearts that we may live with joy and love with strength.

As the year wanes and nights grow long, our need to see and feel the light of God’s loving nearness grows urgent. We need to hear, once more, that the light of God’s dawning is always near, always at hand.

Come Lord Jesus, pure brightness of the ever-living God. Come lighten our darkness.

For prayer & reflection

• What experiences or hopes did today’s reflection stir in you?
• What is your favorite Christmas song or story? What grace and blessing does it give you?
• What darkness do you bear this year which needs the light of God’s dawning?

Another voice

Voice in the distance, call in the night, on wind you enfold us, you speak of the light. Gentle on the ear you whisper softly, rumors of a dawn so embracing. Breathless love awaits darkened souls. Soon we will know of the morning.

(“Night  of Silence,” Daniel Kantor, 1984)

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Today's text

And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; because he has looked upon the humiliation of his servant. Yes, from now onwards all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name, and his faithful love extends age after age to those who fear him. He has used the power of his arm, he has routed the arrogant of heart. He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly. He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty. He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his faithful love (Luke 1:46-54).

Reflection

We romanticize the scene. The angel Gabriel and Mary greet each other with a gentle bow, and he tells her not to fear. “The Lord is with you,” he says. “You have found favor with God and will bear a child, the Son of the Most High.”

But Mary lived in a land of fear, when the hopes and fears of all the years had met in battle, and fear won.

Near the time of Jesus birth, uprisings sprouted across the land as would-be messiahs revolted, trying to rid the nation of the Romans with their oppressive taxes and overbearing military.

One rabble rouser gained a large following at Sepphoris, about an hour’s walk from Nazareth, Mary’s town. The Romans sent more than 20,000 troops to pillage, rape and burn the town, reducing survivors to slavery.

One can only guess how bad it was for nearby villages like Nazareth. Mary surely heard the stories about the day the Romans came and knew those who escaped with their lives and perhaps those who never came home.

She had seen fear, and knew Rome’s brutality. The promise that she would bear a new messiah certainly awaken fear of further imperial cruelty. Knowing this, her song of praise to God takes on visceral meaning.

She sees God trampling the oppressors underfoot so that the wounded poor who walk the dusty streets of Nazareth might taste justice and be filled with blessing.

She dares to trust, believing with all her might in the God who remembers and keeps his promise to show mercy to the lowly ones, like her.

Lifting her arms, she shouts praise to the listening skies. Shaking her fist at Rome and any others who would dare crush her hope in God’s promise, she cries out, “My soul proclaims the greatest of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my savior” (Luke 1:46-47).

She is one of the lowly ones, but in her praise and defiant trust she stands unbowed, strong as the love of the God who cannot forget her … or us.

Come, Lord Jesus, stir our hearts to defiant hope in your mercy and justice that we may live strong as your love. 

For prayer and reflection

• Does today’s reflection change your image of Mary?
• What fears, or situations trouble you, stealing your hope to know God’s mercy and presence?
• Slowly read Mary song, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). What does she say to you?
• Does praising God make you strong?

Another voice

My soul proclaims your greatness, Lord; I sing my Savior’s praise! You looked upon my lowliness, and I am full of grace. To all who live in holy fear, your mercy ever flows. With mighty arm you dash the proud, their scheming heart expose.

(“My Soul Proclaims Your Greatness,” Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1995)

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Today's text

Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth. Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb (Luke 1:39-42).

Reflection

There are times I like Christmas shopping. Sometimes a deep quiet settles over me, and I am alone with my thoughts amid the scurry of people moving from one store to another at the mall.

I move slowly amid the hustle, watching faces and wondering what they are looking for. I listen to the music, too, waiting for a song of substance to slip into the holly-jolly play list and transport me into that mysterious love waiting within me to be born again.

Sometimes I see happiness on the face of someone whom I imagine has purchased that ‘just-right’ gift.’

But I also see emptiness on the faces I meet, and I am reminded that the worst thing you can feel at Christmas is … nothing, and nothing is what we sometimes feel, emptiness, barren loneliness.

Many congregations know this and hold “longest night services” in December, timing them near the winter solstice, the longest and darkest night of the year. The services provide a gracious space to acknowledge and pray the weight sadness that won’t go away.

The longest-night symbolism cuts to the heart of many, perhaps you, who come to Christmas hungry for happiness but burdened by loss and grief, disappointed hopes or fears of threatening illness.

The burden of melancholy magnifies in the expectation that Christmas should be a happy time. When it isn’t, we wait for a song or grace to awaken some small gladness that, for a moment, makes us feel alive again.

Until then, we wait, like Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is a little celebrated character in the Christmas story. Wanting a child, but ever barren, she is getting old when the miracle happens. Her emptiness stirs with life, and her heart leaps in hope that her womb might yet bear life and beauty, happiness and grace into this world.

Luke’s gospel says that when a pregnant Mary, the mother of Jesus, came to visit, Elizabeth’s child leapt in her womb.

That child was John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus’ ministry. But first, he was the joy of new birth amid barrenness, a sign that God awakens life precisely when hearts are empty and hope seems lost.

God is bringing life, even when it seems nothing is happening. So, come, Lord Jesus, awaken life in our barren places.

For prayer & reflection

·        When have you felt empty and lifeless at Christmas … or other times? What brought you back to life and joy?

·        What is hardest and happiest for you in this season? What thoughts and memories appeared as you read today’s reflection?

·        What joy are you hungry for? Read Luke 1:24, 39-45 or the song below. What do the words awaken in you?

Another voice

Unexpected and mysterious is the gentle Word of grace Ever loving and sustaining is the peace of God’s embrace. If we falter in our courage and we doubt what we have known, God is faithful to console us as a mother tends her own.

In a momentary meeting of eternity and time, Mary learned that she would carry both the mortal and divine. Then she learned of God’s compassion, of Elizabeth’s great joy, and she ran to greet the woman who would recognize her boy.

(“Unexpected and Mysterious,” Jeannette M. Lindholm, 1977)

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Today's text

Arise, shine out, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen on you. Look! though night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples, on you the Lord is rising and over you his glory can be seen. The nations will come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness (Isaiah 60:1-3).

Reflection

There were people in the streets of Naperville last night. They carried candles in the darkness. Children’s faces were wet with tears.

“It’s okay to be sad,” said a little girl into a television camera. “It’s okay to cry.”

She cried for a whole community as her neighbors mourned for two young children murdered in a mother’s knife-wielding rampage.

The girl’s face shimmered with tears, but if you looked closely and opened your heart you saw not her face but the face of God. Her tears were the sorrow of God who mourns for a broken world, for beauty cut down before full bloom, for souls that would have brightened the hearts of those they would have known and loved through the decades.

God mourns for beauty lost, for life cut down.

St. Ignatius taught a way of praying to prepare for Christmas. Look at the world around you, listen to  what is happening in the daily news, and imagine God looking down at all that happens on earth.

See the divine Trinity huddled as one, Father Son and Spirit, gazing across the face of the earth, taking in the pain and loss, the wars and grief, the wounding of souls, the destruction of creation’s beauty.

Hear what the Lord is hearing, see what he is seeing, feel what he is feeling until a passion builds in your soul that cries out, “This should not be!”

Then see him extending the divine arm to the Angel Gabriel, pointing at the Earth and mouthing a single word, “Go!”

Christmas is born in the passion of God to save the children of earth from themselves. For God surveys the glory and tragedy of all that happens here, seeing, too, a little girl’s tears on a chilly November night.

God sees, too, a little girl’s tears on a chilly November night.

Look at her face, and make no mistake: Here is the face of God. Her tears are God’s own.

Her shimmering cheeks are the light of the Lord shining in the darkness, the brilliance that shines from that other child’s face, born in Bethlehem stable.

Come, Lord Jesus. Illumine our darkness.

For prayer & reflection

• Where do you feel the passion of God to heal and make things right?
• What feelings, images and memories came to mind as you reflect on the meditation?
• Where has the brightness of God’s arising appeared for you?

Another voice

God of all places; present, unseen; Voice in our silence, song in our midst. We are your presence, sent forth afraid. Come, Lord Jesus, come!

God of all people, dust and the clay. Breath of a new wind, fire in our hearts. Light born of heaven, peace on the earth. Come, Lord Jesus, come!

(“God of All People,” David Haas, 1988)

December 3, 2012

Today's texts

So the Lord God expelled him [Adam] from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he had been taken (Genesis 3:23).

Go up on a high mountain, messenger of Zion. Shout as loud as you can, messenger of Jerusalem! Shout fearlessly, say to the towns of Judah, 'Here is your God.' Here is Lord Yahweh coming with power … . He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep (Isaiah 40-9-11).


Reflection

I remember Christmas Eve when I was 15.

The stone block church on the west edge of town was festooned for Christmas. Garland hung around the walls. A giant white star with gold glitter hung high from the ceiling, lifting worshipers eyes if not also their hearts.

The star shimmered in a spotlight Pastor Maxim trained on it for the children’s program the week before. It was a high-tech special effect for our village, the highlight of the season for our church.

But a week later on Christmas Eve there was no light, no shimmering star in my heart, only darkness, the lonely hunger of a heart longing for a peace nowhere to be found.

I sat alone in the darkness of the back pew, weeping, wondering if whatever my heart needed to be happy, to feel known and understood, would ever come.

Adolescent angst, I suppose. “Growing pains, “adults might have told me had I possessed the courage or words to name what was in me. “Get over it,” I was told if I moped about. “It will pass.”

But it didn’t. It just kept going, and it still does.

There was a longing in me deeper than the lonely disorientation of being 15 and misunderstood. I felt the grip of a yearning common to human souls everywhere … and of every age.

It is the longing of exiles for home. We want to come home but don’t know the way.

A deep ache in the human heart feels its separation from the Love who made it, the Love who wants it, the Love who gives rest and peace, assuring us that we are wanted and treasured and always will be.

We live east of Eden, far from the garden of God’s constant nearness, the only true home for our restless hearts.

It is no surprise that the poetry of Isaiah, spoken to exiles long ago, tugs at our hearts and stirs longings we try to bury beneath layers of busyness. If we are lucky, those longings never leave us.

That Christmas Eve, years ago, the prophet’s words released a torrent of tears in the back pew of the old stone church: “He will feed his sheep. He will gather the lambs in his arms … and carry them in his bosom.”

That’s what I wanted then and still need now. It’s what we all need.

So, come, Lord Jesus, gather us in. Carry us in your arms. Take us to the depth of your heart where Love abides.


For prayer & reflection

• When do you want to come home but don’t know the way?

• What do Isaiah’s words stir in you? What longing or desire for this Christmas?

• What memories, joys, hopes or pains are awakened by today’s reflection?


Another voice

But your word, O God, is faithful, your arm O Lord is strong; you stand in the midst of nations and you will right the wrong. You will feed your flock like a shepherd, the lambs you’ll gently hold; in pastures of peace you’ll lead them, and bring them to your fold.

(“There’s A Voice in the Wilderness,” James Lewis Milligan, 1908)

Sunday, December 2, 2012

(Note: During Advent, Praying the Mystery will be posted every day using the format below, which includes additional helps for personal and group prayer and reflection. I welcome your responses and suggestions to this format. Pr. David L. Miller).


Today's text

In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1).

I have loved you with an everlasting love, and so I still maintain my faithful love for you (Jeremiah 31:3).

Reflection

Christmas begins in the heart of an everlasting longing, a burning desire we can only begin to understand.

We are born in this world hungry for an all-surpassing love, and we live out our lives seeking to satisfy an inner ache for this love, which we somehow know is our truest home.

It can be no other way. We are created in the image of God, the image of an infinite love who longs to fill us so thoroughly that every fear evaporates and all that remains in us is the delight of being alive, the joy of arriving, finally, home.

Our hunger is fanned by unfulfilled dreams, unhealed wounds and our need for release from all that weighs us down and steals our joy. Our hearts are restless until we know for life unlimited and love unbounded.

We are not alone. Such is the nature of the human heart … and the heart of God.

In our hunger for more, we know the divine distress of the One who loves us with an everlasting love.

In the beginning, before the dawn of time, before the first gentle fall of snow, before hoarfrost made exquisite art on barren limbs in winter’s cold, before the red cardinal’s flight excited human hearts at the miracle of color, before it all … was the Word, the heart, the passion, the hunger of the One who is Love and nothing but Love.

Christmas was already there, a seed in the divine heart ready to be planted in the cold dust of earth-bound souls. From all eternity, God was hungry for creation and Creator, time and eternity, the divine heart and human hearts to join as one.

Love wants only one thing … to give itself away until it fills the beloved with the joy of completion, the peace of home. Until it does, there is no fulfillment, no final joy for God’s heart … or for ours.

There was never a moment when Christmas was not on the way, never a moment when God did not hunger to come and share with us all whom God is.

Christmas comes on the wings of Love’s everlasting desire for each of us.

And it is received only by hearts hungry for home.

For prayer & meditation

• What thoughts and memories does the reflection stir in you?

• What hopes and longings do you bring to Christmas this year? What do the lights and songs awaken in you?

• When do you feel God’s desire for you, to love you? How are your desires and God’s the same desire?

Another voice

Love has come a light in the darkness! Love shines forth in the Bethlehem skies. See, all heaven has come to proclaim it; hear how their song of joy arises; Love! Love! Born unto you, a Savior! Love! Love! Glory to God on high.

(“Love Has Come,” Ken Bible, 1996)

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