May 2, 2015

February 17

Colossians 1:15-16

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

The cosmic dance

Our telescopic eyes look deep into distant time, and we stagger at the color and beauty, the immensity and intricacy of a universe we can barely imagine, if at all. We see nearly to the dawn of time—15 billion years I am told. How can I imagine that?

But that is when all that is exploded into existence from an infinitesimal speck, so dense no light could neither penetrate or escape its gravity. An unimaginable blackness—and from this comes billions of galaxies each with billions of stars that make our sun look like an underachiever. And it continues to expand every second, an expanding cosmos.

And every atom, every drop of water, every galaxy, the dark matter stretching billions of light years between the burning suns bears the mark of Christ, created in love, by love and for love—from the joy of the divine heart who makes worlds and drives us to our knees at the sheer wonder of it all.

And we, too. All of us. All that is bears the mark of its Maker. We are fashioned in and for the Love he is, being drawn into a harmony of Spirit and matter so that everything, everywhere glistens with the glory of his life.

For you, Holy One, draws all that is into a great, cosmic dance, a holy harmony of peace and beauty where all is one.

This universe is one great story, and we are part of that story. The story begins in the impenetrable darkness of the divine will and ends in a great dance of light and color, beauty and love where each things finds its place in the Love he is.

No words can speak this. The silence of awe is the only true worship. 

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, May 1. 2015

Colossians 1:9-10

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.

Lost in love

Sun awakens my soul as I drive down the street and know what I need to know. The world is alive, but more wondrously, so am I. More than physical life, something within surges and fills every pore of my being.

It is love, or shall I say Love? For the Love that fills me is you, and for a moment I know you beyond any ideas I ever learned about you. I am in love with everything and everyone I see.

I am one with you, sharing your life, for your life is the Love flowing from your unfathomable heart, flowing now through me.

I know you and what you are doing under sun that warms me this wondrous spring morning. All that is, all I see, every soul I meet this and every day is to be brought in union with the Love you are, joined with you.

Your will is that we be as Christ, a blessed union of created and divine life where your love fills and infuses all, so that it is alive with light and color … and shining like the sun on this crystal day.

This is the deep desire of your heart, your will, and today … my great joy.

Thank you, again, for shining the light of your love and lighting the world for me to see.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Colossians 1:7-8

This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

Madison’s ministry

Madison is my teacher. She is six, and she has a new lesson for me every Sunday. She hunts me down whether I am in the sanctuary, the sacristy or my office, often with several other children in tow.

Brown eyes flashing, she turns her face up to me and wants to be hugged … or picked up. She is getting a bit big for that. But she wants the touch of the love that binds us, the joy we find in knowing that we love each other—and we love each other a lot.

Once in a while, she brings me a gift, but the real gift is the connection we share that teaches me week-by week what this life is about.

Madison is a good teacher, a faithful minister of Christ. After six decades of living, I am beginning to understand. The life to which you call us, Holy One, is about being connected with each other in common hope, love and struggle to live the Love you are, a common life ministering to each other amid the average stuff of daily life.

It is not about me, but about us, joined to each other by the love your Spirit awakens in our souls.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Colossians 1:3-5a

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. 

One hope

Two words fill the heart. They are absolutely necessary and totally inadequate: Thank you.

Thank you, Holy One, for the hope that fills my life with light and color, beauty and joy. I do not hope for this or that … but for you, to know union, total and complete … with you … who are Love Incomprehensible.

Nothing else will do. Nothing else satisfies the soul. You made us for this, and whether we recognize it or not … our hearts long to see you, to know you, to live beyond the shadows of our earthly vision that we may see you face-to-face.

And we have seen your face in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and have come to believe that the Love in him is you, Holy One, a Love with nether beginning or end.

Having seen and having tasted, having known in our brother, Jesus, we hope for utter union with you who sent him to invite us home into the Love who made us.

This hope, laid up for us in heaven, fills us with love for you and all you have made, for sun and moon, for the souls we meet and the distant stars, knowing all that is comes from the Love you are. 

Knowing, too, you will not rest until all that is shines with the colors of your life, in utter harmony with you and all that is.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Colossians 1:1-2

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 

Ready to go

Every day is a journey, Holy One, a journey of hope. How can it be otherwise? For it is you who send us out.

I remember all those trips, dragging my packed bag through airports to cities and peoples unknown to me, knowing only that was you, through your church, who sent me to go and see.

I went, knowing always I would see you. You would find me in places and faces I had never known or imagined. You taught me to live in expectation for I never knew who, where, how or when you would open my eyes to see and my ears to hear … you.

I knew only that you sent me that the Love you are might be made known to and through me. That’s the way you are. You hunger to be known. You communicate not this or that idea about you … but you, the grace and peace, the fullness of Love you are.

No longer must I hustle through airports. Those days are done, but each day is its own journey. And I still don’t know who or when, how or where I will speak and share the love you are … or receive it from it another soul in an expected moment.

I know only that you are the Mystery of this Love who seeks not merely to communicate … but to commune … with me and every face today I see.

So let the journey begin. Send me to share and receive the wonder of your grace. I carry no bag … only a heart filled with hope.

 You have surprised me many times. Surprise me again, today.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Acts 6:29-31a                                                               

But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior.

A joy beyond

There are truths that must be spoken, joys that must be shared and love that cannot be denied or held inside.

Peter knew. He knew a Life evil cannot kill, a Love death cannot destroy. He knew God keeps the promise of life and always will. And he had to speak. No human command or power could stop him.

That’s what I want for us all, O Lord. I want to know Christ alive and loving, resurrected and real. I want to know you in every love that comes and every day that dawns.

Knowing you fills my heart beyond its capacity to hold it in. Grace and joy, blessing and beauty flow from depths of my being--no, not from but through my heart from the boundless source of grace you are.

And in the speaking and sharing I know a joy beyond any other in life. It is the joy of feeling myself in this boundless flow of a Love that never runs dry.

I am part of this flow that carries me and all who know the Love you are through this life and into the fullness of your eternal embrace.

It is for this that you made us, Holy One, to know this Love filling and spilling from us so that we must speak and share the Love that cannot be denied.

It is the fulfillment of our humanity.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

2 Samuel 6:14-15                                                               

David danced before the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.

Carried away

The ark, symbol and presence of the Holy One, is carried into the city, but it is David who gets carried away. He dances in the street, his heart bursting with the uncontainable joy of knowing you, O Lord. 

I see him, and I know him. In precious moments, I am him. And every single soul of us is invited to join him in the dance. Sometimes it happens.

I lift my hands high on Easter morning surrounded by children. They lead the congregation calling out, “Jesus is risen.”

“Alleluia,” the assembly erupts in reply, and we are lifted out of our everyday selves into the fullness of the joy we are invited to know—not just on Easter, but every day.

Ecstasy is the word. We are raised out of ourselves, beyond preoccupation with what we know and how we look. Normal worries and cares evaporate in the warmth of communal joy as resurrected Love is known and shared.

Lifted out of ourselves, ironically, we become who we are. You transform us, Holy One, into the people of love and joy you made us to be when you formed us in the image of you who are Love.

And for one blessed moment, we join David in his crazy, holy dance and know what it means to be a human being.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, April 2, 2015

 Revelation 12:1-2

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.

Pregnant with life

With each morning a challenge comes. Shall I rise above the lethargy that longs only for my bed, or shall I come here and seek you, Holy One? Shall I descend the stairs once more that my fingers may find the keys and my mind the words that open my heart?

Shall I come to this candle-lit space that I might know you and be raised from sleep once more?

Resurrection is not only an event but a practice to be renewed each day. Our souls are pregnant with life.

The One who is Love waits to be born again in us that we may know the exhilaration of love that is Love passing from the womb of our souls, through our lips and fingertips to speak and touch this world.

We give birth again to you whose birth within brings joy that shines in our eyes and spills from our hearts.  

These seem strange thoughts, but they are true to your people in every age. We, your people, are the woman clothed with the sun, pregnant with you.

Will is required for the new to be born and raise us to life, the will to pray or sing, to listen or see, to serve or to just keep trying to do the good when it is easier to quit. Such is the labor that delivers life.

For me, it requires the will to get out of bed listen again to your word (even strange passages like this one). I listen to you, to life and to my heart, and the birth of Spirit within my spirit comes.

You are born again in me, and I am alive with life that does not die. Resurrection comes once more with joy and hope so much brighter than my candles. 

That’s the way it works. It’s why I come here.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

1 Corinthians 5:7-8

Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

As you are

Who are we?

We are not a people bound by the past, stuck in old sins and patterns that hold us fast in the mire of soulless living.

Resurrection power lives in our souls. Christ stirs within, raising our hopes and vision, transforming us into more than we ever thought we could be.

We are people of the resurrection, souls in whom the light of day casts out night. The joy of hope drives out despair and the presence of love awakens peace … and the passion to be the love we know.

Christ has broken death’s grip. He lives not far off but within the processes of history, in the fabric of life and in movements of our hearts.

He is the whisper reminding us anew, “You are more than you think. You bear the life who is life, the love who is Love.

“Lift yourself above the passion to pay evil for evil, beyond surrender to petty angers and grudges, above the anxious need to prove you are important. 

“And do not diminish yourself or what you can do. For you are a vessel of my life with the power to bless and lift others into the fullness of who they are as my blessed children.”

“The festival of life has come. All things are new, including you.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, March 30, 2015

March 30, 2015

Luke 24:1-3

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.

It’s dawn

It was dawn when they went to the tomb to care for their friend’s body. It was dawn when they discovered he was not there.

It was dawn. But they didn't know it was a new day when the promise of life was fulfilled.

Now every new dawn is new. The weight of yesterday need not encumber the freshness of morning. Fear of tomorrow need not cloud the horizon.

Each day is new. Each is laced with hope for the fullness of the One who always was and will be is present and can be known in every love, every beauty and every grace that touches our flesh.

Every morning glimmers with the dawn of eternal light, of everlasting day because the One who is Life and Love lives.

Today … whatever it is and brings … can be embraced in hope with love for we know that whatever else it holds … it holds you, Holy One, and you hold us.

Amazed, Peter ran to the empty tomb. But amazement is not enough and not nearly what you want for us. Amazement is not joy. It is not trust and anticipation that the Risen Love you are will meet us on the way, making each day new not just a weary repetition of what was.

You rise to make us new, transformed by Love into the Love that rises anew every day.

It is dawn. Tomorrow has come. The future has dawned. Eternity appears now in the crazy, complicated mess of living.

It is dawn. The promise of life shines fresh.  Give us the eyes to see and the heart to know you, the morning light of eternal Love in each new day.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Matthew 27:59-60

So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.

Salvation had come

Care and sorrow … I am not sure which most moves me. Joseph tenderly wraps Jesus broken body, covering the oozing wounds, a final act of love for someone he barely knew—a man who had awakened a hope in his heart he did not understand.

He seals the body in a tomb, behind a great rock, with even deeper sadness. The flame of hope Jesus sparked now gone, extinguished, his word, all he was, soon to be forgotten. Buried hope.

Care and sorrow. They are not two emotions but the expression of a single truth. The love that filled Jesus awakens an answering love in those willing to hear and feel what was in him. Make that who was in him.

This is the way it works. The Love who fills Jesus awakens the Love that is God’s presence in the lives of those who listen and hear.

Maybe Joseph was moved by the dignity of Jesus presence, undeterred from his mission by the powers that would crush him. Maybe his hope was stirred by Jesus vision of another kind of world, a kingdom ruled not by love of power but by the power of love.

Maybe Joseph didn't have a clue what moved him to care for Jesus and grieve his destruction.

What is clear is the love Jesus awakened in his depths. And with that love, salvation had come to him, even as he tenderly wrapped that broken body and anointed those terrible wounds.

Joseph could not have known his buried hopes were about to be born.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, March 26, 2015

[Good Friday thoughts a little early]

John 19:30

When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Not finished … ever 

Well, it’s done. Over. Finished. A long day’s dying is complete, and the forces that that refuse the One who is Love have won … again.

The world stays the same. The attempt to force the wheel of history to a course beyond the constant,  cycle of living and dying, gaining and losing has lost. And the cynics are correct. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Nothing has changed.

Our hopes for something truly new under the sun and in our hearts can be sealed in a tomb and locked away. We can try to forget the fire of passion Jesus awakened in our breasts and go on living, doing the best we can, knowing tomorrow is not a new day but the same old day over and over again until the grave finally swallows us up, too.

He is gone and too soon is all we see and love. It is finished.

No … never. For the Love that was … and is … in Jesus the Christ has completed its course of loving this world … and us … to the end, giving itself to reveal and glorify of the Love who is always and always will be.

The Love Christ is has reached the depths of human experience and revealed the height of the Love our minds and hearts cannot imagine.

What is finished is death. What is finished is guilt and shame. What is finished is our separation from the Love whom our hearts require to be full and whole.

What is finished is all the sin and pain that mars the wonder of creation and our precious lives. It is defeated by Christ who absorbed it all and gave back only the beauty of One Love who filled him.

What is done is the need to wonder if Love or death reigns. We have seen Jesus dying on the cross where Love is crowned and the glory of God made clear.

Soon the world shall see … a new day is about to dawn. It’s still Friday, but Sunday is coming.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

1 Corinthians 11:26

For as often as you eat of this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Circle of hope

My favorite experience of the Eucharist occurs every summer when we move our early service from the church building to a nearby park. Gathering under 100 year-old oaks in a grassy field, we form a circle around a table—one people, around one table with one loaf, one cup at the center.

Standing beneath those old trees, we hear birds sing as early morning sun warms our cheeks. We soak in the greening of creation, knowing all we are and see is a gift beyond our making. And we receive the bread that makes our circle a holy place where we know who Christ is and what heaven is like.

The great giving of Christ comes alive. It is the reason we are there, standing with open hands to receive what he freely gives. Standing together, we are connected to each other and millions more in a great circle with Christ at the center, a community of hope.

That circle is our hope—and God’s holy dream for all creation. We hope that every soul of every land and time will be drawn into this circle of sharing to know loving union with Christ and all that Christ loves.

No one ever asks if Christ is present in our Sunday circle. There is no need. We just look around … and know.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday March 23, 2015

Isaiah 49:6

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
   to raise up the tribes of Jacob
   and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
   that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ 

In your eyes

I imagine your eyes, Jesus. Sometimes I truly see them and know what is there.

The tenderness in your eyes when you held and blessed children brings tears. But I also love the fire and anger there when you threw money changers from the temple and railed against arrogant Pharisees who parsed the law but cared nothing for the poor.

It is easy for me to see compassion in your eyes as your head turned side-to-side surveying the longing crowd, who were like sheep without a shepherd. Your eyes reveal your frustration over the dullness disciples who failed to understand you. And I see the quiet that filled them as you prayed by the lake.

Most painful is the desperation and pain as they tied you to a stake and whipped you bloody. I can barely look into your eyes then.

You are so real to me, and your eyes are lights into your soul, no, into the soul of the Loving Mystery who filled you.

Your eyes are a light, revealing the heart of the One who longs for us.

I look into your eyes and know what I need to know. But the mystery I see in you shines, too, in other eyes that glisten with the light of God, speaking a surprising love that finds and fills me even in these morning hours.

Two words: Thank you … for what I know in your eyes.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Isaiah 42:1

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
   my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;

He will bring forth justice to the nations.

Our hope

The Spirit of God’s Holy Presence is gentle and strong, tender to the weak, challenging to the oppressor and a word of hope for we who hunger to see and know God in our lives.

We see the Spirit of the Holy One in the lives of those who know how to love, how to give from their heart.

We know God not in acts of power that protect us from the normal troubles of life, but in the lives of those who lift the hearts of those beaten down by disease, prejudice and forces of history they cannot control. We see the Spirit in those who seek justice for those denied the blessings God intends for every human soul.

They radiate the beauty of God. They give hope where it is failing. They are a light amid the darkness that sometimes engulfs human hearts.

The Spirit is the presence of the Love God is, healing broken hearts and standing with those oppressed.

There is a new atheism taking hold in western nations that rejects God as unreal. But the god they reject is not the God we meet Isaiah, the One who sends his servant to bring freedom to an enslaved people and who tenderly cares for the weak.

They do not see Jesus as that Spirit-filled servant of the One who refuses to pay back evil for evil, but who loves amid the forces of rejection. This God is God, our hope.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, March 16, 2015

Luke 22:19

Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’

For you

I feel your heart, Jesus, and more than anything I want all who are near to feel it, too.

It happens most every week. I hold high the loaf and repeat your words. “This is my body … broken … for you.” Some days I can barely say them as tears of knowing fill my eyes.

I know you as the words cross my lips and I break the bread. If I should be so bold, I feel what you felt. I know your desire. I know what you wanted your friends to know: “This is my life, my love, yes … the infinite love of God … for you.

“It is my delight and deepest desire to give you this life. I want you to break bread, remember and know … there is a Love who always wants you, always treasures you, a Love who has known you since before the birth of time. Always know.

“Oh, you will forget. You will get lose yourself in the details of living. You will know hurt and shame and disappointment and begin to doubt that my love is real. You will fail me … and yourself. Sometimes, you will feel lost and a million miles from me. And the deep desires of your heart will not always come true, perhaps not ever.

“But even then, especially then … hear my words, receive this bread … and know what is in my heart … for you.”

Pr. David L. Miller