Today’s text
1 Peter 1:6-7
This is a great joy to you, even though for a short time yet you must bear all sorts of trials; so that the worth of your faith, more valuable than gold, which is perishable even if it has been tested by fire, may be proved -- to your praise and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Reflection
What is the worth of our faith? What proves its value and praises you, dear Friend?
I have often seen the faith of souls who did not crumble under hardship. They kept hoping and looking for signs of your redeeming presence well beyond the limits of normal human patience.
Perhaps this is a primary proof of faith’s great value. We hope when no one and nothing else gives reason for hope. We look for the enduring presence of love when grief, loss or threat fill our senses.
Our souls lift to the future’s unseen, unknown hills, trusting that something, someone--You--will be there and we will know it, even though your nearness is not felt in the here and now.
Our faith brings with it an endurance, buoyancy, a sly wait-and-see smile that intuitively knows you are God, and you are not done.
It stands ready to break out in joy, with a heart that “knew all along” that you would answer with a love that constantly labors beyond the limits of our vision.
Today, well everyday, I need this faith, my Lord. It awakens in me a giddy joy quick to laugh and willing to wait and see what you yet will do.
That laughter is prayer of greatest praise for you, Loving Mystery. So today, let me laugh.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:6-7
This is a great joy to you, even though for a short time yet you must bear all sorts of trials; so that the worth of your faith, more valuable than gold, which is perishable even if it has been tested by fire, may be proved -- to your praise and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Reflection
The fire that tests our faith burns more slowly and secretly today. Generations before us bore scars of rejection and bitter persecution. This still happens, though usually not in Western countries.
Those who endured such trials knew that faith is perishable. It must be struggled for or one soon sinks into the great mass of mediocrity, indistinguishable from the surrounding culture. Faith no longer shapes one’s words and acts. It devolves into meaningless belief without power to shape choices or determine who we are.
Consumerism may be the most dangerous fire for North Americans. Slowly, secretly and inevitably, it erodes awareness that we are beloved children of the Beloved One, called to live the love we receive.
Consumers know the world exists for them, and they demand their way, to get what they want when and where they want it. Our culture does an excellent job forming consumers. From an early age we learn life is about consuming things, finding happiness there.
For us, the earth, other people and even the Christ’s holy Church easily become commodities to be used for one’s one purposes. We come to each situation with the attitude that it exists for me, to deliver what I want, and when it doesn’t deliver frustration and anger quickly appear.
Consumerism is the bitter enemy of communion, and it is to communion that we are called.
Christ brings us into a communion of love, life and mission, communion in his life, shared with others. Our souls are made for this. It is holy, bringing consolation and joy.
Consumerism brings anxiety and unrest. It is never truly satisfied. It worships its whims and ability to satisfy them, often at the expense of others close at hand or the great mass of humanity far away who labor for near nothing to make our lives possible. It constantly justifies its anger and frustration, and it tears at the fabric of communion in Christ’s church, treating human souls as mere objects.
It constantly misses the truth: by love and for love we are made, and in loving communion we find ourselves and God. This faith is surrendered to the logic of the marketplace that makes everything an it and nothing is a thou.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:6-7
This is a great joy to you, even though for a short time yet you must bear all sorts of trials; so that the worth of your faith, more valuable than gold, which is perishable even if it has been tested by fire, may be proved -- to your praise and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Reflection
The fire that tests our faith burns more slowly and secretly today. Generations before us bore scars of rejection and bitter persecution. This still happens, though usually not in Western countries.
Those who endured such trials knew that faith is perishable. It must be struggled for or one soon sinks into the great mass of mediocrity, indistinguishable from the surrounding culture. Faith no longer shapes one’s words and acts. It devolves into meaningless belief without power to shape choices or determine who we are.
Consumerism may be the most dangerous fire for North Americans. Slowly, secretly and inevitably, it erodes awareness that we are beloved children of the Beloved One, called to live the love we receive.
Consumers know the world exists for them, and they demand their way, to get what they want when and where they want it. Our culture does an excellent job forming consumers. From an early age we learn life is about consuming things, finding happiness there.
For us, the earth, other people and even the Christ’s holy Church easily become commodities to be used for one’s one purposes. We come to each situation with the attitude that it exists for me, to deliver what I want, and when it doesn’t deliver frustration and anger quickly appear.
Consumerism is the bitter enemy of communion, and it is to communion that we are called.
Christ brings us into a communion of love, life and mission, communion in his life, shared with others. Our souls are made for this. It is holy, bringing consolation and joy.
Consumerism brings anxiety and unrest. It is never truly satisfied. It worships its whims and ability to satisfy them, often at the expense of others close at hand or the great mass of humanity far away who labor for near nothing to make our lives possible. It constantly justifies its anger and frustration, and it tears at the fabric of communion in Christ’s church, treating human souls as mere objects.
It constantly misses the truth: by love and for love we are made, and in loving communion we find ourselves and God. This faith is surrendered to the logic of the marketplace that makes everything an it and nothing is a thou.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, November 06, 2009
Thursday, November 6, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:6-7
This is a great joy to you, even though for a short time yet you must bear all sorts of trials; so that the worth of your faith, more valuable than gold, which is perishable even if it has been tested by fire, may be proved -- to your praise and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Reflection
Trials come with the sunrise. Sleep is blessed respite for those who can, but anxiety and pain flood the conscious mind of the burdened before slumber leaves their eyes.
It is so for many, and certainly for those who fill my mind as quickly as I choke the alarm’s infernal buzzing. Their faces bring no new questions, only old unanswered ones.
Why this suffering? Why do those who already have too much on their plate get second and third helpings? Why do even the young suffer so much illness, depression, abuse and untimely death?
This is so gloomy compared to the joy you speak to my heart, Lord. Your words penetrate and clear away my questions without offering an answer.
“You must bear all sorts of trials.” Yes, we know. You need not tell us. But the hope we hold is “a great joy.”
Now that we most often don’t know. Hope gets hidden in the cloud of trial, and its joy is lost to us. We must struggle for it.
We must remind each other that You are not silent. Love speaks. It is near as the trembling flesh and quavering voice of those who know neither what to do or say to end our trials, but who come near, bearing the weight of their own humanity.
There will come a day when the separation of our mortality and your immortality is gone, when our ceaseless need and your constant love fully find each other at last.
I believe this not because words on a page tell me so, but because every experience of love and loss, trial and struggle reveals an objection and a hope written on my soul. Each trial awakens awareness that we hunger for more, for freedom from all that disfigures life and snatches it away.
This comes from you and is flagged into flame by the resurrection of Jesus. So that on days like today, I look at the present circumstance knowing, “this, too, will find redemption.”
I don’t know how, where or when. But it will, and I will fight to make it happen even if I don’t get to see it until the day you make all things new.
It is your fight, Holy One. Let me fight it with joyous hope, for I want to honor you.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:6-7
This is a great joy to you, even though for a short time yet you must bear all sorts of trials; so that the worth of your faith, more valuable than gold, which is perishable even if it has been tested by fire, may be proved -- to your praise and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Reflection
Trials come with the sunrise. Sleep is blessed respite for those who can, but anxiety and pain flood the conscious mind of the burdened before slumber leaves their eyes.
It is so for many, and certainly for those who fill my mind as quickly as I choke the alarm’s infernal buzzing. Their faces bring no new questions, only old unanswered ones.
Why this suffering? Why do those who already have too much on their plate get second and third helpings? Why do even the young suffer so much illness, depression, abuse and untimely death?
This is so gloomy compared to the joy you speak to my heart, Lord. Your words penetrate and clear away my questions without offering an answer.
“You must bear all sorts of trials.” Yes, we know. You need not tell us. But the hope we hold is “a great joy.”
Now that we most often don’t know. Hope gets hidden in the cloud of trial, and its joy is lost to us. We must struggle for it.
We must remind each other that You are not silent. Love speaks. It is near as the trembling flesh and quavering voice of those who know neither what to do or say to end our trials, but who come near, bearing the weight of their own humanity.
There will come a day when the separation of our mortality and your immortality is gone, when our ceaseless need and your constant love fully find each other at last.
I believe this not because words on a page tell me so, but because every experience of love and loss, trial and struggle reveals an objection and a hope written on my soul. Each trial awakens awareness that we hunger for more, for freedom from all that disfigures life and snatches it away.
This comes from you and is flagged into flame by the resurrection of Jesus. So that on days like today, I look at the present circumstance knowing, “this, too, will find redemption.”
I don’t know how, where or when. But it will, and I will fight to make it happen even if I don’t get to see it until the day you make all things new.
It is your fight, Holy One. Let me fight it with joyous hope, for I want to honor you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
At the heart of our lives, Holy One, is a yearning for a great love, a love for which we stretch and grasp but which lies always beyond our reach. We hunger to unite as one with that love to fulfill this longing, an ache we did not choose but find within ourselves.
We yearn and stir with anxious agitation, hungry for final satisfaction of soul that can come only as we and that love are one love, abiding in each other so closely that we find that love within ourselves and find ourselves within that love, walls of separation finally gone.
I feel this better than I describe it, My Lord, for I know it within myself. And I know what it is that I describe--salvation, the final wholeness for which our human frame is made.
The word … salvation … has grown so trite and meaningless in our world. It is used for those who have made some kind of decision about who you are, those intended for heaven, those who will escape final punishment. It’s all so disconnected with what is most deeply rooted in us that you seem so intent on saving.
You would save our inmost being, that hunger for love (for you!) that you fashioned in us, a salvation that comes not from some decision of ours but only as we find and see and surrender to the presence of Love within our own being.
There are moments when your love and ours seem one, when your joy and mine are shared, when your struggle and my labor beat in time, singing a single tune. The heart falls quiet, at rest, and I realize I am possessed, indwelt by a Love I did not fashion. I find myself (yes, finally) in a space where your love surrounds and envelops me and all that is.
This is salvation, and the joy it brings need not be forced or even requested. It is just there before any asking can occur.
I suppose something like this is what you have prepared and laid up in heaven for us. But great as this will be, I think I might recognize it. For, I have known it here and now, kneeling and lighting a candle and discovering a joy within that spills from your heart and into my own, sensing that we are not two, but one.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
At the heart of our lives, Holy One, is a yearning for a great love, a love for which we stretch and grasp but which lies always beyond our reach. We hunger to unite as one with that love to fulfill this longing, an ache we did not choose but find within ourselves.
We yearn and stir with anxious agitation, hungry for final satisfaction of soul that can come only as we and that love are one love, abiding in each other so closely that we find that love within ourselves and find ourselves within that love, walls of separation finally gone.
I feel this better than I describe it, My Lord, for I know it within myself. And I know what it is that I describe--salvation, the final wholeness for which our human frame is made.
The word … salvation … has grown so trite and meaningless in our world. It is used for those who have made some kind of decision about who you are, those intended for heaven, those who will escape final punishment. It’s all so disconnected with what is most deeply rooted in us that you seem so intent on saving.
You would save our inmost being, that hunger for love (for you!) that you fashioned in us, a salvation that comes not from some decision of ours but only as we find and see and surrender to the presence of Love within our own being.
There are moments when your love and ours seem one, when your joy and mine are shared, when your struggle and my labor beat in time, singing a single tune. The heart falls quiet, at rest, and I realize I am possessed, indwelt by a Love I did not fashion. I find myself (yes, finally) in a space where your love surrounds and envelops me and all that is.
This is salvation, and the joy it brings need not be forced or even requested. It is just there before any asking can occur.
I suppose something like this is what you have prepared and laid up in heaven for us. But great as this will be, I think I might recognize it. For, I have known it here and now, kneeling and lighting a candle and discovering a joy within that spills from your heart and into my own, sensing that we are not two, but one.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
How might I be different if I consistently believed that I am “kept safe” by your power? My mind would entertain far fewer anxious thoughts. My anxious heart would find rest even when threat is near, for you, Holy One, are here, always holding us.
The things that happen to all human beings can and will happen to me. I expect no special protection from the pains of mortality and finitude. The last day provides ample evidence that those nearest me possess no special exemption.
For one, insidious decline brings greater confinement. She must be tied down lest she hurt herself, while those who love her best look on, helpless to do anything for the person who most taught them how to be human.
For others, financial and housing set-backs reveal that they have less influence over what happens to them and their families than they want, need or imagined they had. The weakness of the flesh is their daily bread.
Undeniable threat and inevitable loss loom near. And for some, the only assurance is greater grief.
Safety is not the condition for any of those who faces appear in my morning mind.
But even these, you tell me, are kept safe in your power. Even now, even these rest in the hand of grace from which they will not be snatched. Even in unsafest condition, the power and grace you are can and will be known.
Trust, you say. Have faith. Tears are laced with grace. Threat has its moment. Sorrow endures an evening, but grace will have its say, and its final day holds no setting of the sun. It will not fade once begun.
For I am. And I am love unbounded. Morning will come … and stay. Even in grief, grace will mark your cheeks, and the hope held in your heart will hold you.
As do I.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
How might I be different if I consistently believed that I am “kept safe” by your power? My mind would entertain far fewer anxious thoughts. My anxious heart would find rest even when threat is near, for you, Holy One, are here, always holding us.
The things that happen to all human beings can and will happen to me. I expect no special protection from the pains of mortality and finitude. The last day provides ample evidence that those nearest me possess no special exemption.
For one, insidious decline brings greater confinement. She must be tied down lest she hurt herself, while those who love her best look on, helpless to do anything for the person who most taught them how to be human.
For others, financial and housing set-backs reveal that they have less influence over what happens to them and their families than they want, need or imagined they had. The weakness of the flesh is their daily bread.
Undeniable threat and inevitable loss loom near. And for some, the only assurance is greater grief.
Safety is not the condition for any of those who faces appear in my morning mind.
But even these, you tell me, are kept safe in your power. Even now, even these rest in the hand of grace from which they will not be snatched. Even in unsafest condition, the power and grace you are can and will be known.
Trust, you say. Have faith. Tears are laced with grace. Threat has its moment. Sorrow endures an evening, but grace will have its say, and its final day holds no setting of the sun. It will not fade once begun.
For I am. And I am love unbounded. Morning will come … and stay. Even in grief, grace will mark your cheeks, and the hope held in your heart will hold you.
As do I.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you … .
Reflection
I don’t think much about heaven, my Lord, except at funerals when I must stand and speak … or listen myself for words of hope.
The rest of the time the idea seldom enters my mind, although I am more sure of it as the years pass. Perhaps it is because I am closer to the time when I, too, will be gathered to the parade of generations who have gone before, who have dwelt this earth, lived their lives and fallen away. I, too, will take my place.
When I think of this a strange love appears in my heart for that great multitude and especially for those whose faces quickly come to mind, especially my father. I miss him at this time of year as All Saints approaches; he is one of my saints.
I think he would be surprised to think that I hold him responsible for the faith that burns today in my heart. He faced his end with a doubting faith, and I could not take his doubts away. I could only love him, telling him that he should rest and let me believe for him. I wanted him to have utter assurance, but I doubt I was able to provide that at the end.
Still, he believed and hoped, and he knew, truly knew, the beauty of eternity, the treasure that doesn’t fade shining through this translucent world. He had few words for this. It fell to me to name that beauty for him, the beauty of sunrise and set, of hills and green, of cattle and living things scattered on hills beneath an everlasting blue sky of wonder.
And he gave this wonder to me, along with the intuition of a Heart from which such glory springs. That would be your heart, Dearest Friend.
You are that Heart of infinte generosity and love that shines through and stirs hope even in old dying men … and me.
So when I think of a heritage laid up for me I can imagine it only in terms of the love and hope I know here and now because of faces like my father’s and what they gave me, often without even knowing it.
What awaits is completion of what already is, and I have tasted enough to know there are some things for which I have no words.
So let my silence praise you.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you … .
Reflection
I don’t think much about heaven, my Lord, except at funerals when I must stand and speak … or listen myself for words of hope.
The rest of the time the idea seldom enters my mind, although I am more sure of it as the years pass. Perhaps it is because I am closer to the time when I, too, will be gathered to the parade of generations who have gone before, who have dwelt this earth, lived their lives and fallen away. I, too, will take my place.
When I think of this a strange love appears in my heart for that great multitude and especially for those whose faces quickly come to mind, especially my father. I miss him at this time of year as All Saints approaches; he is one of my saints.
I think he would be surprised to think that I hold him responsible for the faith that burns today in my heart. He faced his end with a doubting faith, and I could not take his doubts away. I could only love him, telling him that he should rest and let me believe for him. I wanted him to have utter assurance, but I doubt I was able to provide that at the end.
Still, he believed and hoped, and he knew, truly knew, the beauty of eternity, the treasure that doesn’t fade shining through this translucent world. He had few words for this. It fell to me to name that beauty for him, the beauty of sunrise and set, of hills and green, of cattle and living things scattered on hills beneath an everlasting blue sky of wonder.
And he gave this wonder to me, along with the intuition of a Heart from which such glory springs. That would be your heart, Dearest Friend.
You are that Heart of infinte generosity and love that shines through and stirs hope even in old dying men … and me.
So when I think of a heritage laid up for me I can imagine it only in terms of the love and hope I know here and now because of faces like my father’s and what they gave me, often without even knowing it.
What awaits is completion of what already is, and I have tasted enough to know there are some things for which I have no words.
So let my silence praise you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-4
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.
Reflection
What is this lightness of being, this unbidden appearance of joy? It comes when I expected nothing, creeping unheard into my being. No signal marked its approach. I could not run to welcome the sunrise amid the night of soul of recent weeks.
Nothing sudden occurs, no great and shining moment, no reversal of fortune or deliverance from challenge. Nothing. But joy comes, welling within, lifting and filling the heart that it becomes, again, an engine of energy and gracious good will.
Hectoring inner voices fall silent. Their ghosts disappear, leaving no fear of their return.
Hope fills their place, and promise colors the day and each new encounter. Anticipation lives were avoidance and dread cast their dreary shadow.
There will be joy. There will be grace. This I know without knowing how I know.
Surely, I am deluded. But this freshness is as undeniable as the unrelenting sadness that had turned all days gray. I choose to deny neither. Honesty requires this much.
Strangely, there is no need in me to grasp this new birth that quietly appears from the grace of your Mystery. This is new.
I feel no desire to hold it fast lest it escape me, and I fall again into the darkness. My soul knows only rest and confidence. I have no idea what the day will bring. I know only the unwavering assurance that you will abide my being, unshakable and sure.
Darkness comes and darkness goes, but you abide, Holy One. New birth will come out of the darkness, and I cannot command its time.
“Patience,” you whisper. “The day will come.”
I can only await the sunrise, oppressed by the darkness, yes, but knowing the freshness of unspoilt morning will again be born in a time of your choosing.
Wait, trust, the day will come. Even now.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-4
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.
Reflection
What is this lightness of being, this unbidden appearance of joy? It comes when I expected nothing, creeping unheard into my being. No signal marked its approach. I could not run to welcome the sunrise amid the night of soul of recent weeks.
Nothing sudden occurs, no great and shining moment, no reversal of fortune or deliverance from challenge. Nothing. But joy comes, welling within, lifting and filling the heart that it becomes, again, an engine of energy and gracious good will.
Hectoring inner voices fall silent. Their ghosts disappear, leaving no fear of their return.
Hope fills their place, and promise colors the day and each new encounter. Anticipation lives were avoidance and dread cast their dreary shadow.
There will be joy. There will be grace. This I know without knowing how I know.
Surely, I am deluded. But this freshness is as undeniable as the unrelenting sadness that had turned all days gray. I choose to deny neither. Honesty requires this much.
Strangely, there is no need in me to grasp this new birth that quietly appears from the grace of your Mystery. This is new.
I feel no desire to hold it fast lest it escape me, and I fall again into the darkness. My soul knows only rest and confidence. I have no idea what the day will bring. I know only the unwavering assurance that you will abide my being, unshakable and sure.
Darkness comes and darkness goes, but you abide, Holy One. New birth will come out of the darkness, and I cannot command its time.
“Patience,” you whisper. “The day will come.”
I can only await the sunrise, oppressed by the darkness, yes, but knowing the freshness of unspoilt morning will again be born in a time of your choosing.
Wait, trust, the day will come. Even now.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, October 22, 2009
October 22, 2009
Reflection
The color of paradise
The trees grow bright with praise, lit from within by colors no hand can produce, except yours, Loving Mystery.
Fall comes demanding poetry to capture the colors. But our flat souls lie content with mere prose, words that tear and strain to describe the beauty our eyes caress--and this feeling that arises from a place we cannot name, except that it is in us.
Awaking, I open the door and smell the earth, moist and fresh. My heart rises for reasons it refuses to tell me, but I know: all is well and will be so.
This lightness of being … and hope is the greatest I have known in days, and it comes at the end of things.
Summer is gone. Autumn comes reminding me again that all things end. The warm sun wanes, and winter (too soon to come) must be endured … again, until I am no more.
But the colors speak, an impressionist’s palette of burnished red and gold constantly remixed, shimmering fire and translucent gold, falling by the millions in piles school children shuffle through on their way to more mundane concerns.
Gold leaf covers the back patio inches deep awakening a quiet joy I can neither bid nor stop. Its source is as mysterious as the hand who paints the earth on this October morning.
Too soon it will all be gone. The colors will fade to brown and be swept into gutters. Cold rains will turn the decaying mass to thick dark sludge as we enter winter’s trudge.
But today I have seen the brilliance, the colors lit from within by the uncreated light of the One who is Being itself. I have seen, and having seen I cannot be the same.
Eternity appeared on Janes Avenue, and I was there. And more: the Spirit who paints cool fall days gave me eyes to see the fire that burns in the Heart of Love for whom I most hunger.
That Mystery paints the day with brilliance and wonder, so that with eyes of the heart, we may see the beauty of the One who treasures and holds us, who decorates fall days with the light of eternity that we may know we are made for more than just trudging through our days.
We are made to know more love, more beauty, more wonder than we can imagine. We are made for the More that shines through autumn days and in the beauty of our brother Jesus, who is lit from within by the Love that will not let us fall into the gutter and be swept away.
Some say the life of faith is about avoiding sin and being righteous … that this most glorifies God. But the glory of fall days suggests otherwise.
Maybe our life is about seeing and knowing the More that shines through every beauty, every love, every caring word--and every fresh, moist Autumn morning that awakens the awareness that all is, indeed, well.
And it is, for we rest in the hands of the Maker of the Morning, who decorates the day with the color of paradise.
And in seeing this, our little lives are colored with the beauty we see, alight with a glory beyond all time.
Pr. David L. Miller
The color of paradise
The trees grow bright with praise, lit from within by colors no hand can produce, except yours, Loving Mystery.
Fall comes demanding poetry to capture the colors. But our flat souls lie content with mere prose, words that tear and strain to describe the beauty our eyes caress--and this feeling that arises from a place we cannot name, except that it is in us.
Awaking, I open the door and smell the earth, moist and fresh. My heart rises for reasons it refuses to tell me, but I know: all is well and will be so.
This lightness of being … and hope is the greatest I have known in days, and it comes at the end of things.
Summer is gone. Autumn comes reminding me again that all things end. The warm sun wanes, and winter (too soon to come) must be endured … again, until I am no more.
But the colors speak, an impressionist’s palette of burnished red and gold constantly remixed, shimmering fire and translucent gold, falling by the millions in piles school children shuffle through on their way to more mundane concerns.
Gold leaf covers the back patio inches deep awakening a quiet joy I can neither bid nor stop. Its source is as mysterious as the hand who paints the earth on this October morning.
Too soon it will all be gone. The colors will fade to brown and be swept into gutters. Cold rains will turn the decaying mass to thick dark sludge as we enter winter’s trudge.
But today I have seen the brilliance, the colors lit from within by the uncreated light of the One who is Being itself. I have seen, and having seen I cannot be the same.
Eternity appeared on Janes Avenue, and I was there. And more: the Spirit who paints cool fall days gave me eyes to see the fire that burns in the Heart of Love for whom I most hunger.
That Mystery paints the day with brilliance and wonder, so that with eyes of the heart, we may see the beauty of the One who treasures and holds us, who decorates fall days with the light of eternity that we may know we are made for more than just trudging through our days.
We are made to know more love, more beauty, more wonder than we can imagine. We are made for the More that shines through autumn days and in the beauty of our brother Jesus, who is lit from within by the Love that will not let us fall into the gutter and be swept away.
Some say the life of faith is about avoiding sin and being righteous … that this most glorifies God. But the glory of fall days suggests otherwise.
Maybe our life is about seeing and knowing the More that shines through every beauty, every love, every caring word--and every fresh, moist Autumn morning that awakens the awareness that all is, indeed, well.
And it is, for we rest in the hands of the Maker of the Morning, who decorates the day with the color of paradise.
And in seeing this, our little lives are colored with the beauty we see, alight with a glory beyond all time.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Today's text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.’s
Reflection
Only you are never spoilt or fade away. We rise and fall. We draw breath and grow quiet. The earth changes, erodes, erupts and reshapes itself in the constant movement of nature, unresting, unceasing, day to day, age to age.
Eons pass. The new that comes allows faint memory of the joys and sorrows of the millions who have gone before, of the earth they knew.
It is the nature of things, and we find ourselves thrown into it, taking our place in the chain of ever-changing generations, rising up with promise only to fade away.
This should be a council of despair to my soul. But it is not, for eternity is known amid the temporal and dying, the unchanging is felt in and through all that changes. You who are n ever spoilt or soiled, you who never fade away are tasted amid all that fails and falls.
Life is known by those for whom death is certain. Of this, I am certain, eve now.
For even now I know life, not as biological fact but as the eternal stirring of your grace and beauty in the tears of hope that are my morning praise to you.
Even here, even now, that which does not fade or fail, spoil or decay dwells in my inner experience of joy and hope … and the love that I know you to be, through and through.
What I taste is but a taste. Yet, it is real, and it is now. And my prayer to know the joyous consolation of your life within my mind and heart finds its answer.
So blessed are you, for you do not let death have its way in human souls. You give life and then life eternal to dead, here and now, and a hungry assurance that what I taste will be forever.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.’s
Reflection
Only you are never spoilt or fade away. We rise and fall. We draw breath and grow quiet. The earth changes, erodes, erupts and reshapes itself in the constant movement of nature, unresting, unceasing, day to day, age to age.
Eons pass. The new that comes allows faint memory of the joys and sorrows of the millions who have gone before, of the earth they knew.
It is the nature of things, and we find ourselves thrown into it, taking our place in the chain of ever-changing generations, rising up with promise only to fade away.
This should be a council of despair to my soul. But it is not, for eternity is known amid the temporal and dying, the unchanging is felt in and through all that changes. You who are n ever spoilt or soiled, you who never fade away are tasted amid all that fails and falls.
Life is known by those for whom death is certain. Of this, I am certain, eve now.
For even now I know life, not as biological fact but as the eternal stirring of your grace and beauty in the tears of hope that are my morning praise to you.
Even here, even now, that which does not fade or fail, spoil or decay dwells in my inner experience of joy and hope … and the love that I know you to be, through and through.
What I taste is but a taste. Yet, it is real, and it is now. And my prayer to know the joyous consolation of your life within my mind and heart finds its answer.
So blessed are you, for you do not let death have its way in human souls. You give life and then life eternal to dead, here and now, and a hungry assurance that what I taste will be forever.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
Reflection
It is at the point of hope that we are most vulnerable, Holy One.
The hope born in us is simple, yet all eternity will not be enough to satisfy it. We hope to know you, and you are inexhaustible.
You are the inexhaustible fountain of life from which all that lives flows. You are the fount of mercy who has mercy even on that which does not yet exist.
How can one have mercy on the nonexistent? I don’t know, but you do.
You look upon the infinite possibilities of life and color and beauty within yourself, and in mercy you make them come to life. Such is the source of my own being, from within you who are Being.
You had mercy on me before I existed. Seeing the possibility of my life, your mercy willed that I should be and know the joy and mystery of just being alive--and of knowing that I had nothing to be bringing myself to be. All is gift.
The inexhaustible flow of your life cannot be dammed or held captive by the cold clutch of death. You bring my brother, Jesus, again to life.
Seeing this, the soul leaps and knows that hope is no illusion. It finds its Source in the Source of Inexhaustible Mercy, in you.
Tasting the sweet surprise of being alive, we sample your mercy. We know you. Hearing the ever-fresh news of Jesus resurrection, we feel hope for all eternity flicker to life in our souls. We know you.
This is our living hope: to know you completely, with a knowledge felt in one’s uttermost depths. I know you as the Inexhaustible Fountain of the life that is in me. I know you as the Infinite Mercy who gives me life again and again that my soul may not die.
The evil one attacks at exactly this spot, seeking to erode the hope of knowing you today.
Surely, today is not special, he taunts. Surely, the pettiness of routine, the crush of deadlines and the challenge of difficult circumstances will push aside all else. Surely, my only real hope is just getting through the thicket of daily detail and making to evening.
But a living hope seeks you in every moment.
So today, I claim again the sweet surprise of being alive with a life I did not make. Today, I claim again the presence of your risen life in my heart and the lives of so many others.
Today, I feel once more that you, Holy Mystery, are the Inexhaustible Fountain of living Mercy that will not let me die.
Today, hope will live in me because you live.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
Reflection
It is at the point of hope that we are most vulnerable, Holy One.
The hope born in us is simple, yet all eternity will not be enough to satisfy it. We hope to know you, and you are inexhaustible.
You are the inexhaustible fountain of life from which all that lives flows. You are the fount of mercy who has mercy even on that which does not yet exist.
How can one have mercy on the nonexistent? I don’t know, but you do.
You look upon the infinite possibilities of life and color and beauty within yourself, and in mercy you make them come to life. Such is the source of my own being, from within you who are Being.
You had mercy on me before I existed. Seeing the possibility of my life, your mercy willed that I should be and know the joy and mystery of just being alive--and of knowing that I had nothing to be bringing myself to be. All is gift.
The inexhaustible flow of your life cannot be dammed or held captive by the cold clutch of death. You bring my brother, Jesus, again to life.
Seeing this, the soul leaps and knows that hope is no illusion. It finds its Source in the Source of Inexhaustible Mercy, in you.
Tasting the sweet surprise of being alive, we sample your mercy. We know you. Hearing the ever-fresh news of Jesus resurrection, we feel hope for all eternity flicker to life in our souls. We know you.
This is our living hope: to know you completely, with a knowledge felt in one’s uttermost depths. I know you as the Inexhaustible Fountain of the life that is in me. I know you as the Infinite Mercy who gives me life again and again that my soul may not die.
The evil one attacks at exactly this spot, seeking to erode the hope of knowing you today.
Surely, today is not special, he taunts. Surely, the pettiness of routine, the crush of deadlines and the challenge of difficult circumstances will push aside all else. Surely, my only real hope is just getting through the thicket of daily detail and making to evening.
But a living hope seeks you in every moment.
So today, I claim again the sweet surprise of being alive with a life I did not make. Today, I claim again the presence of your risen life in my heart and the lives of so many others.
Today, I feel once more that you, Holy Mystery, are the Inexhaustible Fountain of living Mercy that will not let me die.
Today, hope will live in me because you live.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Reflection
Morning is the time for new birth, though you are not confined to the rhythms and seasons of my life, Holy One. You can make new birth occur any where, any time. That is your way and power, and you almost always surprise.
But morning is a time of hope for newness in my heart. Daylight appears with the longing that maybe today I can get it right, do all I need to do, complete my labors and come to the day’s end with a peaceful heart.
It’s a nifty formula, if entirely misguided. My hope is premised on me getting things done, organizing my life so that the nagging anxiety of uncompleted tasks is put to bed by the work of my mind and hands.
The whole effort of trying to still my soul is moved by my fear of failing, of looking and being inadequate, unprepared and foolish.
How’s that for getting down to basics?
New birth is not found in my efforts. All I can do is anxiety management, but what I want and need is to end the anxiety altogether. This can happen only if I become someone new, someone other than whom I too often am.
Someone new must be born (again) within me. Even now, that happens. You, Jesus, come to me, come in me, in the morning light, changing my heart. No, you give me a new heart. The heart of my soul turns from worry over myself to simple trust in the Love who is the Father.
I become as you are. You trust the Love who is always enough, knowing that all that really needs to be done is not what the anxious mind suggests. All that matters is to express whatever this Love moves in heart and mind.
That is enough for the day, for any day.
You knew this every day.
So be born again in me, Lord Jesus, that my heart may be ever new.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Reflection
Morning is the time for new birth, though you are not confined to the rhythms and seasons of my life, Holy One. You can make new birth occur any where, any time. That is your way and power, and you almost always surprise.
But morning is a time of hope for newness in my heart. Daylight appears with the longing that maybe today I can get it right, do all I need to do, complete my labors and come to the day’s end with a peaceful heart.
It’s a nifty formula, if entirely misguided. My hope is premised on me getting things done, organizing my life so that the nagging anxiety of uncompleted tasks is put to bed by the work of my mind and hands.
The whole effort of trying to still my soul is moved by my fear of failing, of looking and being inadequate, unprepared and foolish.
How’s that for getting down to basics?
New birth is not found in my efforts. All I can do is anxiety management, but what I want and need is to end the anxiety altogether. This can happen only if I become someone new, someone other than whom I too often am.
Someone new must be born (again) within me. Even now, that happens. You, Jesus, come to me, come in me, in the morning light, changing my heart. No, you give me a new heart. The heart of my soul turns from worry over myself to simple trust in the Love who is the Father.
I become as you are. You trust the Love who is always enough, knowing that all that really needs to be done is not what the anxious mind suggests. All that matters is to express whatever this Love moves in heart and mind.
That is enough for the day, for any day.
You knew this every day.
So be born again in me, Lord Jesus, that my heart may be ever new.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
Now, I return to work after a week of respite, wondering if I can hold the slender insights that appeared during these days away from the stress that steals my soul.
My soul has known no rest, no peace in my normal labors. The peace that passes all understanding has passed me by altogether. It has been utterly beyond my reach, belonging to a world far removed from the one I have inhabited in recent weeks.
Now, I see that your peace has eluded me because I was dwelling, by choice, in fear, in a home of my own making, a place where I could protect myself from the judgments of others. I was not true to my own heart, the heart that is in me when I know you as all-surpassing love.
I have known grace and peace in abundance, and reading these words (from 1 Peter) I am captured by the generosity of heart of the writer. But this generosity has its Source in the surging waters of your abundance, in the incomprehensibility of your divine kindness.
May grace and peace be yours--be mine--in abundance. This is your heart speaking to this oft-despairing soul so needy and resistant to trusting your kindness.
Lacking trust, I protect myself from others, from their views and judgments, not revealing the heart of this soul of mine, where I know you as the Love you are. Amid difference and controversy, I seek reasons others may find convincing or worthy of respect, knowing all the while that I am being false to my truest self, to the soul that I am, to the Love that dwells there, to You.
I know no peace, no rest, because I am not living in your love but in an illusion I create for my own protection. You make a home for me in which to abide, and I try to build my own.
I know why. The home you make for me is the way of Jesus, my brother. Sprinkled with his blood, I have his life, his Spirit, a paschal spirit in which the way of life is letting go, releasing control, refusing my normal strategies of self-protection and relying on your love alone.
The way to new life is through death, the way to joy is through sorrow, the way to assurance is abandonment of the supports and protective walls I build for myself. Abundant peace arises from frightening vulnerability. This is the blood-sprinkled way into which my life has been initiated.
Seven days away has taught me this … again.
I ache for the abundance of peace you promise, Loving One, but the way to this home scares me. May my hope and aching need prove stronger than my fear.
May I trust you to be the abundant home I crave, and let go of all that is not you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: Thanks for blessing me with your notes, letting me know that you are still receiving … and welcoming these posts. May God’s peace rest upon you all.
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
Now, I return to work after a week of respite, wondering if I can hold the slender insights that appeared during these days away from the stress that steals my soul.
My soul has known no rest, no peace in my normal labors. The peace that passes all understanding has passed me by altogether. It has been utterly beyond my reach, belonging to a world far removed from the one I have inhabited in recent weeks.
Now, I see that your peace has eluded me because I was dwelling, by choice, in fear, in a home of my own making, a place where I could protect myself from the judgments of others. I was not true to my own heart, the heart that is in me when I know you as all-surpassing love.
I have known grace and peace in abundance, and reading these words (from 1 Peter) I am captured by the generosity of heart of the writer. But this generosity has its Source in the surging waters of your abundance, in the incomprehensibility of your divine kindness.
May grace and peace be yours--be mine--in abundance. This is your heart speaking to this oft-despairing soul so needy and resistant to trusting your kindness.
Lacking trust, I protect myself from others, from their views and judgments, not revealing the heart of this soul of mine, where I know you as the Love you are. Amid difference and controversy, I seek reasons others may find convincing or worthy of respect, knowing all the while that I am being false to my truest self, to the soul that I am, to the Love that dwells there, to You.
I know no peace, no rest, because I am not living in your love but in an illusion I create for my own protection. You make a home for me in which to abide, and I try to build my own.
I know why. The home you make for me is the way of Jesus, my brother. Sprinkled with his blood, I have his life, his Spirit, a paschal spirit in which the way of life is letting go, releasing control, refusing my normal strategies of self-protection and relying on your love alone.
The way to new life is through death, the way to joy is through sorrow, the way to assurance is abandonment of the supports and protective walls I build for myself. Abundant peace arises from frightening vulnerability. This is the blood-sprinkled way into which my life has been initiated.
Seven days away has taught me this … again.
I ache for the abundance of peace you promise, Loving One, but the way to this home scares me. May my hope and aching need prove stronger than my fear.
May I trust you to be the abundant home I crave, and let go of all that is not you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: Thanks for blessing me with your notes, letting me know that you are still receiving … and welcoming these posts. May God’s peace rest upon you all.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
October 11, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
I have heard the cry of refugees, living “behind the wire” of cold camps far from home. “When?” they all ask silently or aloud, fearing the answer. I never had an answer to give them, not the one I wanted to give.
I wanted to say, “Soon; the time is near,” but I could not. I didn’t know, so I shook my head and stared at the dead dust on my shoes into which their lives had descended with no end point in sight.
They yearned for what every refugee wants: home.
So do I, my Lord. I hunger for home. It’s not a new feeling, even the intensity of this distress is not unknown to me, but it has been a great while since it has been so strong.
My dispersion is not one of geography but of heart. I am what I am not; and what I am not, that is what I am.
I dwell far from home, from the heart of love where I know peace, where I rest secure in the heart of my soul … and you. When I find and enter my truest heart I discover yours also.
I am at peace, content to be who I am, neither more nor less, and the demands of others to be what they need or want me to be flies away. It does not matter.
All that matters is the dwelling, the abiding, the resting in that secret soul where I know who I am in the warm light of your smile.
My tears are not yet those of fullest joy. I stand at the portal, yearning to enter, to come home to myself and to you. But I still am an exile from the home I seek.
What keeps me out? What prevents me from entering? This is a mystery to me, for even now I see your smile, Blessed Mystery. Your hand extends to sprinkle me with the blood, the life of Jesus, who always knew his heart and yours, never knowing this distance I feel except, perhaps, in the final hours of his torture.
You want to sprinkle me with his life, his consciousness, the graced awareness of his identity as your beloved, your special servant. The heart that is his you would give to me. You have chosen me for this.
Move my soul to enter the blessedness you hungrily give. I want to come home.
Take from me every word and desire that hides and protects me from the judgments of others, for in fear I turn from being the heart that I am and become an exile from myself and the great bounty of your heart, my home.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: I have made few posts in recent monthes as I wrote a book, Marks of the Christian Life, soon to be released by Augsburg Fortress. Please let me know if you are still receiving and find these posts useful.
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
I have heard the cry of refugees, living “behind the wire” of cold camps far from home. “When?” they all ask silently or aloud, fearing the answer. I never had an answer to give them, not the one I wanted to give.
I wanted to say, “Soon; the time is near,” but I could not. I didn’t know, so I shook my head and stared at the dead dust on my shoes into which their lives had descended with no end point in sight.
They yearned for what every refugee wants: home.
So do I, my Lord. I hunger for home. It’s not a new feeling, even the intensity of this distress is not unknown to me, but it has been a great while since it has been so strong.
My dispersion is not one of geography but of heart. I am what I am not; and what I am not, that is what I am.
I dwell far from home, from the heart of love where I know peace, where I rest secure in the heart of my soul … and you. When I find and enter my truest heart I discover yours also.
I am at peace, content to be who I am, neither more nor less, and the demands of others to be what they need or want me to be flies away. It does not matter.
All that matters is the dwelling, the abiding, the resting in that secret soul where I know who I am in the warm light of your smile.
My tears are not yet those of fullest joy. I stand at the portal, yearning to enter, to come home to myself and to you. But I still am an exile from the home I seek.
What keeps me out? What prevents me from entering? This is a mystery to me, for even now I see your smile, Blessed Mystery. Your hand extends to sprinkle me with the blood, the life of Jesus, who always knew his heart and yours, never knowing this distance I feel except, perhaps, in the final hours of his torture.
You want to sprinkle me with his life, his consciousness, the graced awareness of his identity as your beloved, your special servant. The heart that is his you would give to me. You have chosen me for this.
Move my soul to enter the blessedness you hungrily give. I want to come home.
Take from me every word and desire that hides and protects me from the judgments of others, for in fear I turn from being the heart that I am and become an exile from myself and the great bounty of your heart, my home.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: I have made few posts in recent monthes as I wrote a book, Marks of the Christian Life, soon to be released by Augsburg Fortress. Please let me know if you are still receiving and find these posts useful.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:9,10
He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ, for him to act upon when the times had run their course: that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth
Reflection
Have the times run their course, my Friend? Have we arrived at the day when you will bring everything together under Christ?
I haven’t yet read the paper, but I am certain the front page will tell me the news: “not yet.” No, not yet. The time has not arrived that will put at peace the tortured, divided world that, at once, longs for harmony but fails to know what makes for peace.
But here, in this oft-tortured heart of mine, there is, for once, no division. Only joy.
No, not the noise of happiness and good fortune, but the quiet giddiness that I know a secret and that secret is you, a love, a center of infinite gravity pulling, towing, drawing all life into yourself.
And for these morning moments, I am so drawn, knowing peace of heart, quiet of mind, joy of soul and the secret.
Time and history is a one-act play with one plot and a single motive force. You labor in all time and space to draw all things into the harmony of flesh and spirit, matter and divinity that is the life of Christ. He is the face of the future which all will become.
And the motive force is one: a love that cannot let go and let be, but which hungers for all and for me.
And for this morning at least, you’ve got me.
Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:9,10
He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ, for him to act upon when the times had run their course: that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth
Reflection
Have the times run their course, my Friend? Have we arrived at the day when you will bring everything together under Christ?
I haven’t yet read the paper, but I am certain the front page will tell me the news: “not yet.” No, not yet. The time has not arrived that will put at peace the tortured, divided world that, at once, longs for harmony but fails to know what makes for peace.
But here, in this oft-tortured heart of mine, there is, for once, no division. Only joy.
No, not the noise of happiness and good fortune, but the quiet giddiness that I know a secret and that secret is you, a love, a center of infinite gravity pulling, towing, drawing all life into yourself.
And for these morning moments, I am so drawn, knowing peace of heart, quiet of mind, joy of soul and the secret.
Time and history is a one-act play with one plot and a single motive force. You labor in all time and space to draw all things into the harmony of flesh and spirit, matter and divinity that is the life of Christ. He is the face of the future which all will become.
And the motive force is one: a love that cannot let go and let be, but which hungers for all and for me.
And for this morning at least, you’ve got me.
Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Today’s text
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
I wake again into a world where you are, Holy One. I light three small candles and kneel. Lacking adequate words to thank you, I mumble my prayer in language that strains to say what I am really feeling or what I most need.
But I hope my posture, humble before you, is better prayer than the weak words with which I try to express my need to know you loving and near. May my body praise you when my words cannot say enough. And they never do.
Kneeling, I present myself before you in effect saying, “Take me this day. Do what you will with this life. It’s yours.” Then, I remember Dimce, who was so more given to you than am I.
The front curl of his wavy brown hair danced up and down as he drew a series of intersecting lines on a succession of paper napkins. We sat in a café in Skopje, Macedonia, on a sunny mid-April day.
Dimce was the business manager of a non-profit agency that dug wells in poor villages in his country. But this day he was diagramming how he managed the flow of food and supplies from ports in Greece and Albania, through rugged mountain passes to refugee camps that housed more than 80,000 in Macedonia.
Eighty thousand lives depended on his incomprehensible scribble that looked like the diagram of a football play drawn in the dirt by a demented 11 year-old in his backyard.
Most impressive, though, was Dimce himself. He never looked up. He extended his diagram from one rumpled napkin to the next, explaining all the while but he never looked at me. Not once.
He was given, totally surrendered to a life-giving task that had become a holy obsession. Holy, indeed, since creating and nurturing life to fullness and joy is God’s work, God’s only work. Dimce was given to that holy labor, body and soul.
I think of him, My Lord, and so many others who taught me without having any idea that I would remember them long after. He did not give you a part of himself, nor did he surrender some small pleasure to discipline himself or to identify with your sacrificial love as we do in Lent.
His gave himself to your life-giving labor of love for the world. And there was no doubt in my mind that this is what he wanted to do. A deep desire within his soul moved him, not some external compulsion or law.
I wonder, from what life-giving spring does this desire spring afresh?
It is you, loving God. It is always you. Give me that desire. Awaken me each day to your mercies that I may be as surrendered to your life-giving ways as is Dimce. He is a portrait of all that you are. Would to God that I should glow with such beauty.
Pr. David L. Miller
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
I wake again into a world where you are, Holy One. I light three small candles and kneel. Lacking adequate words to thank you, I mumble my prayer in language that strains to say what I am really feeling or what I most need.
But I hope my posture, humble before you, is better prayer than the weak words with which I try to express my need to know you loving and near. May my body praise you when my words cannot say enough. And they never do.
Kneeling, I present myself before you in effect saying, “Take me this day. Do what you will with this life. It’s yours.” Then, I remember Dimce, who was so more given to you than am I.
The front curl of his wavy brown hair danced up and down as he drew a series of intersecting lines on a succession of paper napkins. We sat in a café in Skopje, Macedonia, on a sunny mid-April day.
Dimce was the business manager of a non-profit agency that dug wells in poor villages in his country. But this day he was diagramming how he managed the flow of food and supplies from ports in Greece and Albania, through rugged mountain passes to refugee camps that housed more than 80,000 in Macedonia.
Eighty thousand lives depended on his incomprehensible scribble that looked like the diagram of a football play drawn in the dirt by a demented 11 year-old in his backyard.
Most impressive, though, was Dimce himself. He never looked up. He extended his diagram from one rumpled napkin to the next, explaining all the while but he never looked at me. Not once.
He was given, totally surrendered to a life-giving task that had become a holy obsession. Holy, indeed, since creating and nurturing life to fullness and joy is God’s work, God’s only work. Dimce was given to that holy labor, body and soul.
I think of him, My Lord, and so many others who taught me without having any idea that I would remember them long after. He did not give you a part of himself, nor did he surrender some small pleasure to discipline himself or to identify with your sacrificial love as we do in Lent.
His gave himself to your life-giving labor of love for the world. And there was no doubt in my mind that this is what he wanted to do. A deep desire within his soul moved him, not some external compulsion or law.
I wonder, from what life-giving spring does this desire spring afresh?
It is you, loving God. It is always you. Give me that desire. Awaken me each day to your mercies that I may be as surrendered to your life-giving ways as is Dimce. He is a portrait of all that you are. Would to God that I should glow with such beauty.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Today’s text
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
Remembering the mercies of God … . The morning comes, dearest Jesus. The day holds the promise of blessing and hope. I hunger to taste again our blessing. And I hope that I may be an expression of your unceasing grace, a soul through whom the grace of all eternity flows, a river of peace, cooling the fevered lives of others that they may bask in the joy you intend for them.
But if so, the day must begin with an act of memory. Not just any memory, but the recollection of your mercies.
So I remember. There are so many, but today I remember just one, driving to Dubuque, Iowa, and parking my car in from of Martin Luther’s statue at Wartburg Theological Seminary. It was an act of faint hope on my part.
Sitting silently in the car, looking the statue and tall tower rising over the beckoning doorway of the school, I hungered to enter, but my hope was far weaker than the sinking awareness that I could ever walk through those doors.
A college drop-out, I made cheese, sold cars and worked in a drapery hardware factory. I found myself, my heart in none of them, and the longer I worked at each I longed. I hungered for another kind of life I could barely imagine even existed.
And that life was in wrapped up in the gospel of a love I also could not imagine. But that love burned in me. Not that I was so generous or giving, Jesus. I was not, but love for you and for the mysteries of your life burned in me.
I hungered not just to know more. I also burned, truly burned to know the love that you are that my soul might rest in the gentle consolation of simply being loved with that love for which my insatiable soul longed.
This burning moved me beyond my fears to embrace my hopes. No, that’s not quite right. Through the restless burning of my soul you moved me beyond my fears to throw myself into the hope you implanted in me
Loving Mystery, you were … and are … that hope that burns in us, moving us to reach beyond our fears and all that holds us back from deeper knowing and serving of you.
That burning made me so restless, so uncomfortable, so wanting … more that I pushed through my fears. I forgot about how much work it would be, how much money it would take, how impossible it all seemed as my wife and I planned for our first child.
And I walked into those beckoning doors to enter a world of studying and serving and struggling to know the love for which I and all are intended.
This is your mercy to me, Loving God. You refused to leave me to my fears. You made my heart relentlessly restless so that I might enter the hope you had in me, the hope fanned by those drives to Dubuque when I sat and stared.
The day begins, and I remember your mercy, a mercy that made me uncomfortable but moved me to trust your guiding and to walk into the warmth of your eternal embrace.
Pr. David L. Miller
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
Remembering the mercies of God … . The morning comes, dearest Jesus. The day holds the promise of blessing and hope. I hunger to taste again our blessing. And I hope that I may be an expression of your unceasing grace, a soul through whom the grace of all eternity flows, a river of peace, cooling the fevered lives of others that they may bask in the joy you intend for them.
But if so, the day must begin with an act of memory. Not just any memory, but the recollection of your mercies.
So I remember. There are so many, but today I remember just one, driving to Dubuque, Iowa, and parking my car in from of Martin Luther’s statue at Wartburg Theological Seminary. It was an act of faint hope on my part.
Sitting silently in the car, looking the statue and tall tower rising over the beckoning doorway of the school, I hungered to enter, but my hope was far weaker than the sinking awareness that I could ever walk through those doors.
A college drop-out, I made cheese, sold cars and worked in a drapery hardware factory. I found myself, my heart in none of them, and the longer I worked at each I longed. I hungered for another kind of life I could barely imagine even existed.
And that life was in wrapped up in the gospel of a love I also could not imagine. But that love burned in me. Not that I was so generous or giving, Jesus. I was not, but love for you and for the mysteries of your life burned in me.
I hungered not just to know more. I also burned, truly burned to know the love that you are that my soul might rest in the gentle consolation of simply being loved with that love for which my insatiable soul longed.
This burning moved me beyond my fears to embrace my hopes. No, that’s not quite right. Through the restless burning of my soul you moved me beyond my fears to throw myself into the hope you implanted in me
Loving Mystery, you were … and are … that hope that burns in us, moving us to reach beyond our fears and all that holds us back from deeper knowing and serving of you.
That burning made me so restless, so uncomfortable, so wanting … more that I pushed through my fears. I forgot about how much work it would be, how much money it would take, how impossible it all seemed as my wife and I planned for our first child.
And I walked into those beckoning doors to enter a world of studying and serving and struggling to know the love for which I and all are intended.
This is your mercy to me, Loving God. You refused to leave me to my fears. You made my heart relentlessly restless so that I might enter the hope you had in me, the hope fanned by those drives to Dubuque when I sat and stared.
The day begins, and I remember your mercy, a mercy that made me uncomfortable but moved me to trust your guiding and to walk into the warmth of your eternal embrace.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:3-9
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'
Reflection
The wind blows where it wills. We do not see from where it comes or whither it goes, but we do hear it. We sense and feel it and can flow with its currents … or resist.
So it is with those who are born from above, from your Spirit, my Lord.
They are made young again. They are fresh and hope-filled by the Spirit within them, possessing eyes and ears to perceive where you blow and how. They know: the Spirit blows and it will, never ceasing.
It gives life wherever it finds the slightest opening, for that Spirit is the living breath of the Ever-living God, of you, Holy Mystery.
Those born of your Spirit are the truly blessed. They hear and are moved by the currents of your life present in all that is and lives. They are made new, seeing and feeling the fresh breeze of your loving nearness blowing through once stale, lifeless halls of soul.
It’s true: once old, one can be born again, and again, and again. The soul can be young again and forever, standing in the fresh breeze of your blowing. For the Spirit opens eyes to see your creative love and joy in everything the eye takes in--sky and trees, faces and all matter.
So blow, Spirit, blow that I may be forever young. Born from above, let me feel your rule of love and beauty even when others imagine that only cynical and skeptical eyes can see.
Open my eyes to the dearest freshness of your love blowing in every place and circumstance.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:3-9
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'
Reflection
The wind blows where it wills. We do not see from where it comes or whither it goes, but we do hear it. We sense and feel it and can flow with its currents … or resist.
So it is with those who are born from above, from your Spirit, my Lord.
They are made young again. They are fresh and hope-filled by the Spirit within them, possessing eyes and ears to perceive where you blow and how. They know: the Spirit blows and it will, never ceasing.
It gives life wherever it finds the slightest opening, for that Spirit is the living breath of the Ever-living God, of you, Holy Mystery.
Those born of your Spirit are the truly blessed. They hear and are moved by the currents of your life present in all that is and lives. They are made new, seeing and feeling the fresh breeze of your loving nearness blowing through once stale, lifeless halls of soul.
It’s true: once old, one can be born again, and again, and again. The soul can be young again and forever, standing in the fresh breeze of your blowing. For the Spirit opens eyes to see your creative love and joy in everything the eye takes in--sky and trees, faces and all matter.
So blow, Spirit, blow that I may be forever young. Born from above, let me feel your rule of love and beauty even when others imagine that only cynical and skeptical eyes can see.
Open my eyes to the dearest freshness of your love blowing in every place and circumstance.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:3-10
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. 'How is that possible?' asked Nicodemus. Jesus replied, 'You are the Teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things!'
Reflection
Morning comes, and you awaken in me desire for the life that I want, Loving Mystery. You show it to me here. But I struggle to describe it, quickly dismissing words that come to mind. all inadequate and inaccurate.
Still, I see what it is to be born from above.
There are souls I have encountered whose eyes seemed fixed on a far point, a horizon lost to the rest of us. Their minds awakened, they take in a world most can not imagine. And their gaze rests there, drinking in a distant beauty whose light reaches into here and now, calming their heart and illumining their face with a quiet joy.
Centered on this vision, their days are less distressed by the winds of anxiety that scatters normal consciousness. They seem certain that what they know is the real and the true, even if no one else confirms it. They are born from above.
This is my prayer, to be as they, to be held in rapt attention by the uncreated beauty that shines from that far point through what is created, in blessed moments appearing also to … and in … me.
Awaken me by your elusive Spirit, Loving Mystery, to a world beyond the noise of clamoring egos and the din of the latest thing.
Fix my eyes on that far point that I, too, may see the present beauty awaiting to born in all that lives.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:3-10
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. 'How is that possible?' asked Nicodemus. Jesus replied, 'You are the Teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things!'
Reflection
Morning comes, and you awaken in me desire for the life that I want, Loving Mystery. You show it to me here. But I struggle to describe it, quickly dismissing words that come to mind. all inadequate and inaccurate.
Still, I see what it is to be born from above.
There are souls I have encountered whose eyes seemed fixed on a far point, a horizon lost to the rest of us. Their minds awakened, they take in a world most can not imagine. And their gaze rests there, drinking in a distant beauty whose light reaches into here and now, calming their heart and illumining their face with a quiet joy.
Centered on this vision, their days are less distressed by the winds of anxiety that scatters normal consciousness. They seem certain that what they know is the real and the true, even if no one else confirms it. They are born from above.
This is my prayer, to be as they, to be held in rapt attention by the uncreated beauty that shines from that far point through what is created, in blessed moments appearing also to … and in … me.
Awaken me by your elusive Spirit, Loving Mystery, to a world beyond the noise of clamoring egos and the din of the latest thing.
Fix my eyes on that far point that I, too, may see the present beauty awaiting to born in all that lives.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Today’s text
John 16:13-15
[Jesus says:] However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.
Reflection
I take no aim at completeness. Only in recent years, my Lord, have I become content with incompleteness, resigned in the knowledge that everything I touch and am will always remain less than whole, less than finished.
My heart rests easier on the days I manage to surrender the hunger for completeness and the illusion that it is attainable or even expected of me. I am what I am: perfectly incomplete, always unfinished and typically certain that I am meant for more. But seldom am I able to touch what that is.
But what that is … is not of my achievement or struggle, for it is the completeness of your love for this crazy world. That is the completeness for which I hunger, and I enter it only in surrender to the undeniable fact that I am far less than complete or whole, and the more I struggle under any other illusion, the more fragmented my soul becomes.
But you send the Spirit of truth: helper, advocate, friend, comforter, Paraclete; none of our terms exhausts the abiding of that Presence whose first mark in our souls is a loving resignation to your completeness.
In that release, that surrender to our incompleteness we begin to enter the complete truth of the complete love you are and in which you hold us.
All this mysterious Presence has and brings to us is in and from you, Loving Mystery. It is the substance that so filled my brother Jesus, whose soul resided completely in you.
So it is enough, sufficient for this day, any day. And with quiet confidence, I release myself, my incompleteness and insufficiency into the completeness of you who are complete truth, complete love.
I surrender to you again my illusions of controlling the events of my life, for you will fulfill your promise to send the Spirit of your completeness to me that I may savor the sweetness of what my soul can never attain, only receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 16:13-15
[Jesus says:] However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.
Reflection
I take no aim at completeness. Only in recent years, my Lord, have I become content with incompleteness, resigned in the knowledge that everything I touch and am will always remain less than whole, less than finished.
My heart rests easier on the days I manage to surrender the hunger for completeness and the illusion that it is attainable or even expected of me. I am what I am: perfectly incomplete, always unfinished and typically certain that I am meant for more. But seldom am I able to touch what that is.
But what that is … is not of my achievement or struggle, for it is the completeness of your love for this crazy world. That is the completeness for which I hunger, and I enter it only in surrender to the undeniable fact that I am far less than complete or whole, and the more I struggle under any other illusion, the more fragmented my soul becomes.
But you send the Spirit of truth: helper, advocate, friend, comforter, Paraclete; none of our terms exhausts the abiding of that Presence whose first mark in our souls is a loving resignation to your completeness.
In that release, that surrender to our incompleteness we begin to enter the complete truth of the complete love you are and in which you hold us.
All this mysterious Presence has and brings to us is in and from you, Loving Mystery. It is the substance that so filled my brother Jesus, whose soul resided completely in you.
So it is enough, sufficient for this day, any day. And with quiet confidence, I release myself, my incompleteness and insufficiency into the completeness of you who are complete truth, complete love.
I surrender to you again my illusions of controlling the events of my life, for you will fulfill your promise to send the Spirit of your completeness to me that I may savor the sweetness of what my soul can never attain, only receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:17,18
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, how rich is the glory of the heritage he offers among his holy people … .
Reflection
Full knowledge of you? What might that mean … and change?
You desire that I should know you fully, blest Christ. My knowledge is not to be partial but complete, as if then I would be complete, knowing what how to live and choose with confidence and wisdom.
You seem especially concerned that I live with real wisdom rooted in real knowledge of your purpose that I might live in awareness of what life is … and who you are.
Your purpose is to draw me and all that is into loving harmony.
You, Christ, are the unity of human flesh and divine desire, a harmony, perfect oneness of the created with the Creator. And your purpose is to include me, and all that is, into this oneness so that every heart beats and all matter moves in perfect time with your own.
And all will be one, and all will be love, and all will know love and peace will fill every corner of creation.
But this vision is not yet, and most of us long ago gave up any hope of seeing it … at least in this life. We pay it no mind. Utopian dreams that appear nowhere.
And so we live without wisdom or perception of what life is intended to be: the search to see and taste that unity, the labor to fulfill the vision of all creation singing in harmony with the music that rises from your divine heart.
The search and labor for this loving harmony (however partially we may see or fulfill it) is our call and joy. It is a life of wisdom flowing from true perception of who you are and the hope that burns at your heart.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:17,18
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, how rich is the glory of the heritage he offers among his holy people … .
Reflection
Full knowledge of you? What might that mean … and change?
You desire that I should know you fully, blest Christ. My knowledge is not to be partial but complete, as if then I would be complete, knowing what how to live and choose with confidence and wisdom.
You seem especially concerned that I live with real wisdom rooted in real knowledge of your purpose that I might live in awareness of what life is … and who you are.
Your purpose is to draw me and all that is into loving harmony.
You, Christ, are the unity of human flesh and divine desire, a harmony, perfect oneness of the created with the Creator. And your purpose is to include me, and all that is, into this oneness so that every heart beats and all matter moves in perfect time with your own.
And all will be one, and all will be love, and all will know love and peace will fill every corner of creation.
But this vision is not yet, and most of us long ago gave up any hope of seeing it … at least in this life. We pay it no mind. Utopian dreams that appear nowhere.
And so we live without wisdom or perception of what life is intended to be: the search to see and taste that unity, the labor to fulfill the vision of all creation singing in harmony with the music that rises from your divine heart.
The search and labor for this loving harmony (however partially we may see or fulfill it) is our call and joy. It is a life of wisdom flowing from true perception of who you are and the hope that burns at your heart.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Today’s text
John 15:15,16
I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.
Reflection
I live too much of my life far from this knowledge. The words here invite a confidence and purpose far beyond the frequent uncertainties of my soul.
Oh, of you I am quite certain, Jesus. I have no real doubts, but of myself I have little except for uncertainty, not knowing what I am to do, uncertain of who I really am, hesitating when I should step forward and lead, ever doubting that what I do is helpful, well-informed or in any way useful.
But here you commission me to go, to bear fruit, to reveal the depth of God as those depths are revealed in the love that intimately passes between you, Jesus, and the One you call Father. You dwell in intimate sharing with that One, and you invite me to do the same with you, so that the knowledge I have is not second-hand, but immediate and … certain.
Is it there, in this certainty of knowing you, that our steps find the surety and resolve that filled you during your earthly ministry? Is it there that I find the equanimity and assurance to live with confidence, knowing that you are my friend, and will be even when I am not much of a friend to you?
I want this confident joy, which is had only by knowing you, only by having you reveal in me the love you are, only by knowing the mystery of what you awaken in me when I feel enveloped by you.
Then, I am known, and I know. I know you know me. And I know I am chosen by Love, for Love, to Love, and it doesn’t really matter where I am or what I am doing. For your friendship fills me, and I know what to do and how to live, no matter where I am or where I go.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 15:15,16
I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.
Reflection
I live too much of my life far from this knowledge. The words here invite a confidence and purpose far beyond the frequent uncertainties of my soul.
Oh, of you I am quite certain, Jesus. I have no real doubts, but of myself I have little except for uncertainty, not knowing what I am to do, uncertain of who I really am, hesitating when I should step forward and lead, ever doubting that what I do is helpful, well-informed or in any way useful.
But here you commission me to go, to bear fruit, to reveal the depth of God as those depths are revealed in the love that intimately passes between you, Jesus, and the One you call Father. You dwell in intimate sharing with that One, and you invite me to do the same with you, so that the knowledge I have is not second-hand, but immediate and … certain.
Is it there, in this certainty of knowing you, that our steps find the surety and resolve that filled you during your earthly ministry? Is it there that I find the equanimity and assurance to live with confidence, knowing that you are my friend, and will be even when I am not much of a friend to you?
I want this confident joy, which is had only by knowing you, only by having you reveal in me the love you are, only by knowing the mystery of what you awaken in me when I feel enveloped by you.
Then, I am known, and I know. I know you know me. And I know I am chosen by Love, for Love, to Love, and it doesn’t really matter where I am or what I am doing. For your friendship fills me, and I know what to do and how to live, no matter where I am or where I go.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Today’s text
John 15:9-11
I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.
Reflection
Your commandment is that we abide in you, Jesus, abide with you in the arms of the Eternal One. You call that Mystery ‘Father’ and know him as love, but your words are no more adequate to the Mystery than are mine.
Your command is that we seek in every space the face of that Love, to look upon every story as a holy story, a story where you are, where love labors, where the central struggle is to live fully.
Every story is the story of a struggle to come fully alive amid all that prevents it, even though what prevents it is usually we ourselves, in one way or another.
Every one is the story of the struggle of life with death, of love with ego. Yes, ego, for it is ego that moves me to withdraw into a self-protective shell. It is fearful ego that narrows vision to mere narcissism so that I can see only what immediately affects me.
It is ego that keeps me from seeing the stories and struggles of life to live in the souls of others. And not seeing them, my soul remains unmoved by the loving desire for life in abundance that is there. I fail to see their hunger for joy, for freedom and love.
You command me to remain, to abide in you. But how and where …if not to seek vision of your loving longing amid all of life, and especially where the struggle is most intense?
Pr. David L. Miller
John 15:9-11
I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.
Reflection
Your commandment is that we abide in you, Jesus, abide with you in the arms of the Eternal One. You call that Mystery ‘Father’ and know him as love, but your words are no more adequate to the Mystery than are mine.
Your command is that we seek in every space the face of that Love, to look upon every story as a holy story, a story where you are, where love labors, where the central struggle is to live fully.
Every story is the story of a struggle to come fully alive amid all that prevents it, even though what prevents it is usually we ourselves, in one way or another.
Every one is the story of the struggle of life with death, of love with ego. Yes, ego, for it is ego that moves me to withdraw into a self-protective shell. It is fearful ego that narrows vision to mere narcissism so that I can see only what immediately affects me.
It is ego that keeps me from seeing the stories and struggles of life to live in the souls of others. And not seeing them, my soul remains unmoved by the loving desire for life in abundance that is there. I fail to see their hunger for joy, for freedom and love.
You command me to remain, to abide in you. But how and where …if not to seek vision of your loving longing amid all of life, and especially where the struggle is most intense?
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, May 08, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Today’s text
John 15:1-5
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.Reflection
You are the vine, O Christ. Through you flows the life of the infinite and eternal, the substance of the Father, the nectar of being and truth.
Apart from you we are, indeed, cut off, cut off from the source of our being, cut off from ourselves, cut off from the peace and unity that is our truest rest, cut off from our home.
Cut off from you we restless and searching, disconnected from the life and peace, the calm and rest, the vitality and purpose for which we hunger.
We hunger for the flow of life through our bodies. No mere knowing of mind will do.
We long for the experience of being filled and carried along in the flow of life coursing through body and soul, bearing us with joy into our days, filling us with assurance and certainty that we are born on by love.
It is love, then, that fills our hearts and strengthens our arms, our resolve. It is love that courses through the vine--and our bodies, truest joy and purpose filling and carrying us into tomorrow with unflagging hope.
How I hunger for this awareness, for you. How I wish I could make this experience happen just by willing it. It is the experience of being alive. Anything less won’t do; it can never satisfy the soul. The soul knows: I am made for more.
So I will seek to be humble and human, knowing the life flowing through the vine is not mine to order or control. It is the living life blood of Eternity’s love, a love which called me into being and presses to fill me--if I would but stay connected to the vine, the artery of every blessing, the Source of life that is life.
Let me humbly cleave as tightly to you as I can and wait for your life blood to fill me again … that I may live.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 15:1-5
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.Reflection
You are the vine, O Christ. Through you flows the life of the infinite and eternal, the substance of the Father, the nectar of being and truth.
Apart from you we are, indeed, cut off, cut off from the source of our being, cut off from ourselves, cut off from the peace and unity that is our truest rest, cut off from our home.
Cut off from you we restless and searching, disconnected from the life and peace, the calm and rest, the vitality and purpose for which we hunger.
We hunger for the flow of life through our bodies. No mere knowing of mind will do.
We long for the experience of being filled and carried along in the flow of life coursing through body and soul, bearing us with joy into our days, filling us with assurance and certainty that we are born on by love.
It is love, then, that fills our hearts and strengthens our arms, our resolve. It is love that courses through the vine--and our bodies, truest joy and purpose filling and carrying us into tomorrow with unflagging hope.
How I hunger for this awareness, for you. How I wish I could make this experience happen just by willing it. It is the experience of being alive. Anything less won’t do; it can never satisfy the soul. The soul knows: I am made for more.
So I will seek to be humble and human, knowing the life flowing through the vine is not mine to order or control. It is the living life blood of Eternity’s love, a love which called me into being and presses to fill me--if I would but stay connected to the vine, the artery of every blessing, the Source of life that is life.
Let me humbly cleave as tightly to you as I can and wait for your life blood to fill me again … that I may live.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Today’s text
Luke 24:45-48
He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.”
Reflection
We are witnesses, Jesus. We are those who have heard the proclamation going out to the ends of the earth. Our faith witnesses to the fact of that proclamation.
But it is being a witness to your resurrection that we most want, and to understand how it is written that you would suffer, die and rise.
All the Scriptures that speak of God’s suffering servant, the rejected witness of God’s righteousness are veiled to many eyes, and to mine, I suppose. Some of those ancient prophecies seem to apply to the nation of Israel, some to an individual who is present or one to come in the near future.
Yet, you treat those ancient words as applying to you, coming to the fullness of their meaning in your ministry, your witness, your death and resurrection.
And I believe you: the full intention of God to forgive and save, to love and make whole is fully realized in you. And that brings me joy, calling down the curtain on my restless search to know ‘what it’s all about.’
It’s all about you, experiencing you, nurturing in my being and in the world the life that I see and know in you, a life of continual turning from all that is not you, a life of knowing a graceful forgiving that is the heart of God.
This is a life of knowing that in each tiny moment of grace it is you that I know, Jesus.
It is you, and there I am a witness to the resurrection of your flesh into my own.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 24:45-48
He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.”
Reflection
We are witnesses, Jesus. We are those who have heard the proclamation going out to the ends of the earth. Our faith witnesses to the fact of that proclamation.
But it is being a witness to your resurrection that we most want, and to understand how it is written that you would suffer, die and rise.
All the Scriptures that speak of God’s suffering servant, the rejected witness of God’s righteousness are veiled to many eyes, and to mine, I suppose. Some of those ancient prophecies seem to apply to the nation of Israel, some to an individual who is present or one to come in the near future.
Yet, you treat those ancient words as applying to you, coming to the fullness of their meaning in your ministry, your witness, your death and resurrection.
And I believe you: the full intention of God to forgive and save, to love and make whole is fully realized in you. And that brings me joy, calling down the curtain on my restless search to know ‘what it’s all about.’
It’s all about you, experiencing you, nurturing in my being and in the world the life that I see and know in you, a life of continual turning from all that is not you, a life of knowing a graceful forgiving that is the heart of God.
This is a life of knowing that in each tiny moment of grace it is you that I know, Jesus.
It is you, and there I am a witness to the resurrection of your flesh into my own.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Today’s text
Luke 24:36-40
They were still talking about all this when [Jesus] himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you!' In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, 'Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts stirring in your hearts? See by my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have. And as he said this he showed them his hands and his feet.
Reflection
You are as wonderfully and tangibly as real as ever, Jesus. Amid the fears of human souls, you come with words of peace in flesh and bone.
Touch for yourselves, you say. And touch we must. For we need to see and know you alive and real and loving us. Failing this, we can barely believe.
But with the touch of risen flesh in eyes of faith we can and know that you live and live here among us, in the flesh and bone of the gathered community of those who love and long for you.
Leading us to constantly question: where do we see your hands and feet? What hands become for us the blessed hands of your blessing for us? Where do we see the suffering love, wounded in faithfulness to the great love of the One whose grace is unending?
What feet carry to us the word or your reality, bearing it into the midst of common days we had imagined forsaken and empty of divine presence?
Surprising is how you sometimes come to us. You come in the guise of those we were ready to reject, those we were prepared to defend ourselves against.
Where we least expect, where we expect condemnation or trouble or rejection, even there you have come to me in flesh and bone and words of peace. And I did not fear. No, my fearing soul instantly was transformed into a singing soul.
I felt alive, truly alive, as alive as you who come in flesh and bone. It is good feel this alive. Very good.
Pr. David L. Miller
Today’s text
Luke 24:36-40
They were still talking about all this when [Jesus] himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you!' In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, 'Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts stirring in your hearts? See by my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have. And as he said this he showed them his hands and his feet.
Reflection
You are as wonderfully and tangibly as real as ever, Jesus. Amid the fears of human souls, you come with words of peace in flesh and bone.
Touch for yourselves, you say. And touch we must. For we need to see and know you alive and real and loving us. Failing this, we can barely believe.
But with the touch of risen flesh in eyes of faith we can and know that you live and live here among us, in the flesh and bone of the gathered community of those who love and long for you.
Leading us to constantly question: where do we see your hands and feet? What hands become for us the blessed hands of your blessing for us? Where do we see the suffering love, wounded in faithfulness to the great love of the One whose grace is unending?
What feet carry to us the word or your reality, bearing it into the midst of common days we had imagined forsaken and empty of divine presence?
Surprising is how you sometimes come to us. You come in the guise of those we were ready to reject, those we were prepared to defend ourselves against.
Where we least expect, where we expect condemnation or trouble or rejection, even there you have come to me in flesh and bone and words of peace. And I did not fear. No, my fearing soul instantly was transformed into a singing soul.
I felt alive, truly alive, as alive as you who come in flesh and bone. It is good feel this alive. Very good.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Today’s text
John 20:19-23
In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, 'Peace be with you. 'As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.
Reflection
They saw you, Jesus. They saw you, and were filled with joy.
Such is the source of our joy. It flows from the spring of having seen you alive and yet wounded, knowing from the wounds that it is you on whom we gaze.
So starts the story of Thomas, Doubting Thomas, who is so badly misunderstood and maligned. All he ever wanted was the same experience you offered to your first frightened followers.
Receiving it, he proclaimed you his Lord and God, no, more: the Lord and God of all that is, on his knees giving his heart wholly to you.
But he needed to see and touch and know.
Still we are told: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe, believing from the testimony of those who did.
And yet, are any of us who believe bereft of seeing? Do we not all need to see … something … of your risen abiding, your fleshly presence, and seeing with eyes informed by faith that you live and transform human souls?
Don’t we have to see your risen life in the wounds of those who given themselves for the sake of the same love that is in you? Without this, can any of us really believe?
And is it not the wounds of those who love you the most convincing witness of all? The wounds of love that eschews physical comfort to love in ways that are real, tangible, touchable … it is this that convinces and convicts the impregnable heart.
And there it is again: our need to see that we may believe that it is your risen wounded love upon which we look.
We need to see it. And you are pleased to give it. So today, may I look on your wounded face in the love of your people and their wounds and know … you live.
This brings me the joy for which I long.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 20:19-23
In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, 'Peace be with you. 'As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.
Reflection
They saw you, Jesus. They saw you, and were filled with joy.
Such is the source of our joy. It flows from the spring of having seen you alive and yet wounded, knowing from the wounds that it is you on whom we gaze.
So starts the story of Thomas, Doubting Thomas, who is so badly misunderstood and maligned. All he ever wanted was the same experience you offered to your first frightened followers.
Receiving it, he proclaimed you his Lord and God, no, more: the Lord and God of all that is, on his knees giving his heart wholly to you.
But he needed to see and touch and know.
Still we are told: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe, believing from the testimony of those who did.
And yet, are any of us who believe bereft of seeing? Do we not all need to see … something … of your risen abiding, your fleshly presence, and seeing with eyes informed by faith that you live and transform human souls?
Don’t we have to see your risen life in the wounds of those who given themselves for the sake of the same love that is in you? Without this, can any of us really believe?
And is it not the wounds of those who love you the most convincing witness of all? The wounds of love that eschews physical comfort to love in ways that are real, tangible, touchable … it is this that convinces and convicts the impregnable heart.
And there it is again: our need to see that we may believe that it is your risen wounded love upon which we look.
We need to see it. And you are pleased to give it. So today, may I look on your wounded face in the love of your people and their wounds and know … you live.
This brings me the joy for which I long.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, April 10, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Today’s text
John 19:38-42
After this, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus -- though a secret one because he was afraid of the Jews -- asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away. Nicodemus came as well -- the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time -- and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, following the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried. Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
Reflection
Well, that is that, Close the book. Shut the door. The most remarkable like ever lived is finished. Over. Done. Time to go home and forget it ever happened.
Caiaphas returns to his home to celebrate Passover. Pilate stretches out on his couch for a full meal and drinks more than usual to wash away the awareness that he helped kill an innocent man. But he knows: it wasn’t the first time. And it needed to done, he tells himself.
Joseph of Arimathea and his friends go to the tomb to make it ready … and to lay down their hopes. They clear the cave, brush away the dust and lay out the spices and linens in which to wrap their friend, Jesus.
They fumble with the dead weight of Jesus’ body, turn it, hold it up, wrapping strips of fabric around him. Slowly, his wounds disappear, first his feet and legs, his hands and side, chest and shoulders. Finally his face … the face they had learned to love, even if they seldom understood him.
They carry out their heartbreaking work, laying to rest their fondest hopes, burying, too, the yearning they felt whenever they heard his voice, saw his face or touched his hand.
All is quiet. The crowds have dispersed. The threat to the public order is quelled. The ancient lust for the blood of one’s enemy has been satisfied.
Now is the hour of regret and sorrow, of whispers in the silence, of echoes of what might have been.
That is all we have in the hour of death, as hopes are dashed and memories lie crumpled in a heap. That is all we have.
But it is not all God has.
God has more … and Jesus knows it every step of the way to the cross.
He knows it when he refuses to run from those who come to take his life. He knows it when he insists he must drink the cup God has given him to drink. He knows it when gives his mother to his friend to care for each other. He knows it when he cries in the torment of thirst and pain on the cross. He knows it when he calls out, “It is finished,” and breathes out his Spirit.
And he knows it when he when he stands silent before Pilate, giving him no answer.
“Where are you from?” the Roman governor asks him.
And that is the question. Where is Jesus from? Not here.
Jesus is from the heart of God. He dwelt continually in God’s holy immensity and mercy.
He belongs to the One who is Life. And he knows death is no hindrance, no limitation to the heart of God. The God who made the complexity of human life and joy out of the dust of stars finds no challenge in giving life to the dead.
Jesus knows … because he is from the heart of the Love death does not destroy. He knows with God there is always more, more love, more life.
So Jesus stands silent before his murderers. His silence is not mere resignation. For he knows, it’s only Friday. Sunday’s coming.
The gloom of despair will be lit with the light of everlasting morning. The garden of sorrow will bloom with the fragrance of eternity. Sunday is coming, and God has more.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 19:38-42
After this, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus -- though a secret one because he was afraid of the Jews -- asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away. Nicodemus came as well -- the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time -- and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, following the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried. Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
Reflection
Well, that is that, Close the book. Shut the door. The most remarkable like ever lived is finished. Over. Done. Time to go home and forget it ever happened.
Caiaphas returns to his home to celebrate Passover. Pilate stretches out on his couch for a full meal and drinks more than usual to wash away the awareness that he helped kill an innocent man. But he knows: it wasn’t the first time. And it needed to done, he tells himself.
Joseph of Arimathea and his friends go to the tomb to make it ready … and to lay down their hopes. They clear the cave, brush away the dust and lay out the spices and linens in which to wrap their friend, Jesus.
They fumble with the dead weight of Jesus’ body, turn it, hold it up, wrapping strips of fabric around him. Slowly, his wounds disappear, first his feet and legs, his hands and side, chest and shoulders. Finally his face … the face they had learned to love, even if they seldom understood him.
They carry out their heartbreaking work, laying to rest their fondest hopes, burying, too, the yearning they felt whenever they heard his voice, saw his face or touched his hand.
All is quiet. The crowds have dispersed. The threat to the public order is quelled. The ancient lust for the blood of one’s enemy has been satisfied.
Now is the hour of regret and sorrow, of whispers in the silence, of echoes of what might have been.
That is all we have in the hour of death, as hopes are dashed and memories lie crumpled in a heap. That is all we have.
But it is not all God has.
God has more … and Jesus knows it every step of the way to the cross.
He knows it when he refuses to run from those who come to take his life. He knows it when he insists he must drink the cup God has given him to drink. He knows it when gives his mother to his friend to care for each other. He knows it when he cries in the torment of thirst and pain on the cross. He knows it when he calls out, “It is finished,” and breathes out his Spirit.
And he knows it when he when he stands silent before Pilate, giving him no answer.
“Where are you from?” the Roman governor asks him.
And that is the question. Where is Jesus from? Not here.
Jesus is from the heart of God. He dwelt continually in God’s holy immensity and mercy.
He belongs to the One who is Life. And he knows death is no hindrance, no limitation to the heart of God. The God who made the complexity of human life and joy out of the dust of stars finds no challenge in giving life to the dead.
Jesus knows … because he is from the heart of the Love death does not destroy. He knows with God there is always more, more love, more life.
So Jesus stands silent before his murderers. His silence is not mere resignation. For he knows, it’s only Friday. Sunday’s coming.
The gloom of despair will be lit with the light of everlasting morning. The garden of sorrow will bloom with the fragrance of eternity. Sunday is coming, and God has more.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Today’s text
John 13:1-5
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, and he got up from table, removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.
Reflection
Jesus knows. The end is near.
The time has come to leave friends he has loved so well.
He knows one he has loved will betray him to those who will destroy him.
He knows he is to die, to suffer, be denounced and destroyed.
He knows he is to glorify God and return to the One whom he calls as Father.
Knowing this, he takes a towel, ties it about his waist, pours water in a basin and
washes the feet of those he loves and loves to the end.
I don’t wonder why. I know.
I see him, kneeling at the feet of human souls he has known and loved.
Much is said of this act of humility. No Jewish slave could be compelled to wash feet even though a slave.
But what moves my heart and the heart of a cynical world is Jesus’ desire.
He knows he will soon leave them.
He knows he soon will no longer be able to touch their flesh, see their smiles or witness their uncomprehending brows.
He knows they will turn from him, every last one, running from him in shame.
Yet knowing this, he wants to touch them, to love them, to wipe the dust from between their toes, to feel his hand on the leathery soles of their worn feet.
He wants to look them in the eye and touch them on more time.
So he kneels before each one after the other, intimately touching, revealing to each the love in which they are held, showing that all he is, all he has done and all he is about to do is for them, for each one, personally.
Watching the water roll from each foot, Jesus dries them with the towel, absorbed,attentive to the task of loving.
Why?
Because he wants to.
He loves his own … and me, to the end.
Three things I don’t understand. No four, I say, are too wonderful for me:
The way of a mother with a child;
The way of the waves on the lake;
The dust of stars in the night sky, and
The desire of God to love us to the end,
to the everlastingness of eternity.
Jesus kneels at the disciples feet, and we see all the way from Mill Street to the
depths of eternity. We see into the incomprehensible heart of God.
We see past our fears and despair to the one truth that is more true than all that troubles and disfigures our lives. More true than fear. More true than cancer. More true than loneliness. More true than our highest joy in happiest moments.
We see the length and breadth, the height and depth of the eternal wonder of God who has loved us since the birth of time when all the morning stars sang together for joy at the delight in which God has always held you.
The desire of God is to give the fullness of divine life and love to you, to me.
Such is clear as Jesus washes feet and the holy intention of God’s self-giving is unmistakable for all with faith to see and receive.
Jesus washes feet, and we see the love God cannot and will not hold inside.
A love that is ever for you.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 13:1-5
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, and he got up from table, removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.
Reflection
Jesus knows. The end is near.
The time has come to leave friends he has loved so well.
He knows one he has loved will betray him to those who will destroy him.
He knows he is to die, to suffer, be denounced and destroyed.
He knows he is to glorify God and return to the One whom he calls as Father.
Knowing this, he takes a towel, ties it about his waist, pours water in a basin and
washes the feet of those he loves and loves to the end.
I don’t wonder why. I know.
I see him, kneeling at the feet of human souls he has known and loved.
Much is said of this act of humility. No Jewish slave could be compelled to wash feet even though a slave.
But what moves my heart and the heart of a cynical world is Jesus’ desire.
He knows he will soon leave them.
He knows he soon will no longer be able to touch their flesh, see their smiles or witness their uncomprehending brows.
He knows they will turn from him, every last one, running from him in shame.
Yet knowing this, he wants to touch them, to love them, to wipe the dust from between their toes, to feel his hand on the leathery soles of their worn feet.
He wants to look them in the eye and touch them on more time.
So he kneels before each one after the other, intimately touching, revealing to each the love in which they are held, showing that all he is, all he has done and all he is about to do is for them, for each one, personally.
Watching the water roll from each foot, Jesus dries them with the towel, absorbed,attentive to the task of loving.
Why?
Because he wants to.
He loves his own … and me, to the end.
Three things I don’t understand. No four, I say, are too wonderful for me:
The way of a mother with a child;
The way of the waves on the lake;
The dust of stars in the night sky, and
The desire of God to love us to the end,
to the everlastingness of eternity.
Jesus kneels at the disciples feet, and we see all the way from Mill Street to the
depths of eternity. We see into the incomprehensible heart of God.
We see past our fears and despair to the one truth that is more true than all that troubles and disfigures our lives. More true than fear. More true than cancer. More true than loneliness. More true than our highest joy in happiest moments.
We see the length and breadth, the height and depth of the eternal wonder of God who has loved us since the birth of time when all the morning stars sang together for joy at the delight in which God has always held you.
The desire of God is to give the fullness of divine life and love to you, to me.
Such is clear as Jesus washes feet and the holy intention of God’s self-giving is unmistakable for all with faith to see and receive.
Jesus washes feet, and we see the love God cannot and will not hold inside.
A love that is ever for you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Today’s text
John 13:12-17
When [Jesus] had washed their feet and put on his outer garments again he went back to the table. 'Do you understand', he said, 'what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash each other's feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you. 'In all truth I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, no messenger is greater than the one who sent him. 'Now that you know this, blessed are you if you behave accordingly.'
Reflection
‘Blessed are you.’ It’s music to my ears.
Blessed is no ordinary word, no mere best wishes. It bears the weight of the All-Holy and All-Loving.
To be blessed is to share in the substance of divinity, to participate in the reality of who and what God is. It is intuitively to know that the impulses of one’s own flesh and blood, nerve and muscle, translate the secrets of eternity into sensate knowing.
Touch and feeling, intuition and insight can fill with knowledge of the One who is beyond all knowing
This is all invitation to pick up our respective towels and wash feet where we are, to serve, to give ourselves fully to the tasks of loving.
In the giving, we will be blessed. In the serving, we will know God, not because we serve or are good, but in the very acts of loving service we will touch and taste the heart of the Unknowable God.
That Holy One will be known to us in a dark but savory knowing, a knowing that no words can say, a knowing beyond reducible concept, a knowing akin to knowing one’s own breath. Only closer.
And when we know, we will know what it is to be blessed.
I long for your blessing. I long to taste and touch the mystery of Love Unknowable. My frustrated soul fades to gray depression and immobile self-absorption without the consolation of such blessing.
So what do you do, Jesus? You point me to my daily-ness, to the tasks that need be done, the people who need to be loved and blessed themselves, to a world where souls hurt and fear, get sick and lose battles, laugh and long.
You say nothing, Jesus. You just point in the direction of blessing.
May I know you amid the mess this day. And may my mind find words to say.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 13:12-17
When [Jesus] had washed their feet and put on his outer garments again he went back to the table. 'Do you understand', he said, 'what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash each other's feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you. 'In all truth I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, no messenger is greater than the one who sent him. 'Now that you know this, blessed are you if you behave accordingly.'
Reflection
‘Blessed are you.’ It’s music to my ears.
Blessed is no ordinary word, no mere best wishes. It bears the weight of the All-Holy and All-Loving.
To be blessed is to share in the substance of divinity, to participate in the reality of who and what God is. It is intuitively to know that the impulses of one’s own flesh and blood, nerve and muscle, translate the secrets of eternity into sensate knowing.
Touch and feeling, intuition and insight can fill with knowledge of the One who is beyond all knowing
This is all invitation to pick up our respective towels and wash feet where we are, to serve, to give ourselves fully to the tasks of loving.
In the giving, we will be blessed. In the serving, we will know God, not because we serve or are good, but in the very acts of loving service we will touch and taste the heart of the Unknowable God.
That Holy One will be known to us in a dark but savory knowing, a knowing that no words can say, a knowing beyond reducible concept, a knowing akin to knowing one’s own breath. Only closer.
And when we know, we will know what it is to be blessed.
I long for your blessing. I long to taste and touch the mystery of Love Unknowable. My frustrated soul fades to gray depression and immobile self-absorption without the consolation of such blessing.
So what do you do, Jesus? You point me to my daily-ness, to the tasks that need be done, the people who need to be loved and blessed themselves, to a world where souls hurt and fear, get sick and lose battles, laugh and long.
You say nothing, Jesus. You just point in the direction of blessing.
May I know you amid the mess this day. And may my mind find words to say.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, April 06, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Today’s text
John 13:1-5
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, and he got up from table, removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.
Reflection
Some acts play better in silence. Words are not needed. A whispering soundtrack would distract from the simplicity of scene and the echo of one’s own beating heart.
And what do we see, Jesus?
You … a towel about your waist … pouring water in a bowel … kneeling on the floor … washing feet.
It’s an unlikely posture for a messiah, the incarnation of the most high, holy God, or I suppose for anyone of that day who possessed the slightest self-respect.
But I have seen mothers in this posture, many times, wiping off shoes, wiping feet lest they track across a clean kitchen floor.
I have seen paintings that exude an inexhaustible tenderness, showing a mother wash her little girl’s feet. One moved me to tears. Still does. The gentle solicitude of the mother for her child is so great it breaks the heart.
The mother’s heart pours out in tender hands, touching her child, and in her enduring gaze at the child’s feet in her hands. She does not look into the child’s eyes, but at her feet, as if gazing into her eyes would break the tender spell of a sacramental moment.
No, that’s not you, Jesus. It’s a painting. But it leads me to see you, your eyes on your work, holding the dusty foot of one of your followers, intent on serving them, giving yourself, doing for them what your heart requires.
Yes, that is what most moves me.
Your brimming heart moving you to kneel, pour water and wash feet. A humble act, a caring devotion, gentleness in a rough world where every gentleness is a holy sacrament.
An almost final act, this is, revealing a love that bursts the bounds of the heart and demands to be given, shared, acted out in a way no words can express.
So you washed feet. And we see the love not even God can hold within.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 13:1-5
Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God, and he got up from table, removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.
Reflection
Some acts play better in silence. Words are not needed. A whispering soundtrack would distract from the simplicity of scene and the echo of one’s own beating heart.
And what do we see, Jesus?
You … a towel about your waist … pouring water in a bowel … kneeling on the floor … washing feet.
It’s an unlikely posture for a messiah, the incarnation of the most high, holy God, or I suppose for anyone of that day who possessed the slightest self-respect.
But I have seen mothers in this posture, many times, wiping off shoes, wiping feet lest they track across a clean kitchen floor.
I have seen paintings that exude an inexhaustible tenderness, showing a mother wash her little girl’s feet. One moved me to tears. Still does. The gentle solicitude of the mother for her child is so great it breaks the heart.
The mother’s heart pours out in tender hands, touching her child, and in her enduring gaze at the child’s feet in her hands. She does not look into the child’s eyes, but at her feet, as if gazing into her eyes would break the tender spell of a sacramental moment.
No, that’s not you, Jesus. It’s a painting. But it leads me to see you, your eyes on your work, holding the dusty foot of one of your followers, intent on serving them, giving yourself, doing for them what your heart requires.
Yes, that is what most moves me.
Your brimming heart moving you to kneel, pour water and wash feet. A humble act, a caring devotion, gentleness in a rough world where every gentleness is a holy sacrament.
An almost final act, this is, revealing a love that bursts the bounds of the heart and demands to be given, shared, acted out in a way no words can express.
So you washed feet. And we see the love not even God can hold within.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, April 03, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Today’s text
Mark 11:7-11
Then they took the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on its back, and he mounted it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were all shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of David our father! Hosanna in the highest heavens!' He entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple; and when he had surveyed it all, as it was late by now, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Reflection
I want to linger here … and not go forward for a good while, for I know what comes next. A promising and happy entry into the city will not be well received by those whose control and privilege is threatened by you, Jesus.
Leaders who depend upon Roman largess for their comfort will not want an up-country prophet to blow into town and upset the tenuous order that allows them to live in anxious peace with occupiers from far away Rome.
They want things quiet so those legions don’t get twitchy and start sharpening their swords and swinging at things.
And your approach is politically dangerous, Jesus, regardless the humble donkey on which you ride and the peaceful greenery they wave at your entry into Jerusalem.
For the rabble crowd acclaims you son of David, a warrior king, who made the land safe from foreign occupiers, chasing out would be conquerors.
And it’s true: You come to upset the status quo. Anyone who comes in the Lord’s name is not utterly peaceful in intent.
To arrive in the Lord’s name means other lords get nervous. They begin talking to their troops about the necessity of breaking a few heads as a deterrent against forces that are a threat to the state, i.e. to them.
And you are a threat, Jesus. You are a threat to all the lords who pretend their power must be honored and their decisions must be followed. You are a threat to all the lords who rule the nations and our souls.
For you undermine the finality of their authority in the name of the One who is Lord and God. You reveal the way of the one Lord and call all others into question, insisting that we serve that One alone.
This is all quite upsetting, since we like some of the lords we serve instead of you. So we understand why your enemies opposed you and wanted to kill you.
But you remained true to the one Lord, whose rule is so different from those who muster swords to discourage or destroy perceived threats. You come humbly to bring the peace of God to the heart of our darkness that we may unlearn our anxious, warring ways.
So come, Lord Jesus. Let us see where you way leads. And though it leads to the cross, may we, as you, love the world, friend and enemy that your kingdom may come.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 11:7-11
Then they took the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on its back, and he mounted it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were all shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of David our father! Hosanna in the highest heavens!' He entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple; and when he had surveyed it all, as it was late by now, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Reflection
I want to linger here … and not go forward for a good while, for I know what comes next. A promising and happy entry into the city will not be well received by those whose control and privilege is threatened by you, Jesus.
Leaders who depend upon Roman largess for their comfort will not want an up-country prophet to blow into town and upset the tenuous order that allows them to live in anxious peace with occupiers from far away Rome.
They want things quiet so those legions don’t get twitchy and start sharpening their swords and swinging at things.
And your approach is politically dangerous, Jesus, regardless the humble donkey on which you ride and the peaceful greenery they wave at your entry into Jerusalem.
For the rabble crowd acclaims you son of David, a warrior king, who made the land safe from foreign occupiers, chasing out would be conquerors.
And it’s true: You come to upset the status quo. Anyone who comes in the Lord’s name is not utterly peaceful in intent.
To arrive in the Lord’s name means other lords get nervous. They begin talking to their troops about the necessity of breaking a few heads as a deterrent against forces that are a threat to the state, i.e. to them.
And you are a threat, Jesus. You are a threat to all the lords who pretend their power must be honored and their decisions must be followed. You are a threat to all the lords who rule the nations and our souls.
For you undermine the finality of their authority in the name of the One who is Lord and God. You reveal the way of the one Lord and call all others into question, insisting that we serve that One alone.
This is all quite upsetting, since we like some of the lords we serve instead of you. So we understand why your enemies opposed you and wanted to kill you.
But you remained true to the one Lord, whose rule is so different from those who muster swords to discourage or destroy perceived threats. You come humbly to bring the peace of God to the heart of our darkness that we may unlearn our anxious, warring ways.
So come, Lord Jesus. Let us see where you way leads. And though it leads to the cross, may we, as you, love the world, friend and enemy that your kingdom may come.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Today’s text
Mark 11:7-11
Then they took the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on its back, and he mounted it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were all shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of David our father! Hosanna in the highest heavens!' He entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple; and when he had surveyed it all, as it was late by now, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Reflection
You come, Lord Jesus, arriving in Jerusalem in the Lord’s name, mounted on a donkey, and people wave branches, not swords or shields.
There are no signets of power or dominating force. You do not ride high, on a horse decked in armor, and the palm fronds and tree branches they wave are not clubs or weapons but emblems of praise and ecstatic welcome.
They throw their cloaks in the dirt path before you, their lowliness conferring great dignity upon you. But it is their words that most draw me, Jesus.
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
You come in the name of the most high holy mystery, the hidden wonder, the eternal God. That’s what they say, and you do nothing to deny it or dissuade them.
You just come, mounted on a beast of burden, while happy crowds wave signs of peace, hailing a new kind of kingdom (and king) and hoping that it just might be true. They have seen quite enough of the dominating and the kinds of kingdoms they bring.
But there is nothing of dominating force about you. Even the beast you ride can’t hurt a fly. You ride close to the ground, where people live and hope and die. And you come in the Lord’s name.
The Lord, the most high God, whom you represent, my Jesus, is apparently not interested lording over us, the small and dusty, who live close to the ground as we work out our little lives.
You come in peace, welcoming the joyous gestures of eager hearts who have learned that fullness of life and joy are not produced by the mighty and self-important. They are not brought by power or domination or great accomplishment.
They are the gift of the One who comes gently, humbly, revealing the divine heart of peace and seeking the peace of our hearts.
Blessed are you, Jesus. You come in the name of the Lord.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 11:7-11
Then they took the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on its back, and he mounted it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others greenery which they had cut in the fields. And those who went in front and those who followed were all shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of David our father! Hosanna in the highest heavens!' He entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple; and when he had surveyed it all, as it was late by now, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Reflection
You come, Lord Jesus, arriving in Jerusalem in the Lord’s name, mounted on a donkey, and people wave branches, not swords or shields.
There are no signets of power or dominating force. You do not ride high, on a horse decked in armor, and the palm fronds and tree branches they wave are not clubs or weapons but emblems of praise and ecstatic welcome.
They throw their cloaks in the dirt path before you, their lowliness conferring great dignity upon you. But it is their words that most draw me, Jesus.
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
You come in the name of the most high holy mystery, the hidden wonder, the eternal God. That’s what they say, and you do nothing to deny it or dissuade them.
You just come, mounted on a beast of burden, while happy crowds wave signs of peace, hailing a new kind of kingdom (and king) and hoping that it just might be true. They have seen quite enough of the dominating and the kinds of kingdoms they bring.
But there is nothing of dominating force about you. Even the beast you ride can’t hurt a fly. You ride close to the ground, where people live and hope and die. And you come in the Lord’s name.
The Lord, the most high God, whom you represent, my Jesus, is apparently not interested lording over us, the small and dusty, who live close to the ground as we work out our little lives.
You come in peace, welcoming the joyous gestures of eager hearts who have learned that fullness of life and joy are not produced by the mighty and self-important. They are not brought by power or domination or great accomplishment.
They are the gift of the One who comes gently, humbly, revealing the divine heart of peace and seeking the peace of our hearts.
Blessed are you, Jesus. You come in the name of the Lord.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Today’s text
Mark 11:1-6
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, close by the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, 'Go to the village facing you, and as you enter it you will at once find a tethered colt that no one has yet ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, "What are you doing?" say, "The Master needs it and will send it back here at once." They went off and found a colt tethered near a door in the open street. As they untied it, some men standing there said, 'What are you doing, untying that colt?' They gave the answer Jesus had told them, and the men let them go.
Reflection
‘The master needs it.’
Sometimes you seem so large, Jesus. You speak and what you say is done. You make a request and soon receive what you ask.
You were always in possession of yourself, knowing what you wanted and what kind of statement you desired to make with each action. Even here, you make a command and your will is carried out. Your words open the door to your desire with simple immediacy.
Everything you have I seem to lack. I have little control over myself, and my emotions scurry about like scared chickens, running in every direction at once. Every direction, that is, but the one I most need at this and every moment.
I need my heart to stay on you with the same single-mindedness with which you sought to reveal the holy kingdom of God.
But what here do you invite us to know, other than your single-minded focus?
For no reason, I think of the colt, new, never ridden that will carry your weight into the city where people of no particular importance will welcome you with glad shouts.
I wish the beast had human consciousness to know that it carried the only human soul as gentle as first daylight, a soul through which flows the substance of God into this world.
Gentle beast, you carried the center of universe, the secret of eternity, the face of the Everlasting Mystery. But you know nothing; you just bear the weight of your burden without complaint or urgency, trudging slowly toward the city with the wonder of God on your back.
You knew nothing, but I am a little jealous. I would have loved to have felt Jesus’ weight leaning on me, his hand patting my back, urging me onward.
Sounds silly. But it’s true. Perhaps it is just a prayer to know and feel you near.
And I dare to believe that if I bear my load quietly and listen closely I just may be blessed to feel the weight of your presence.
Call it the hope of the beast.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 11:1-6
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, close by the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, 'Go to the village facing you, and as you enter it you will at once find a tethered colt that no one has yet ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, "What are you doing?" say, "The Master needs it and will send it back here at once." They went off and found a colt tethered near a door in the open street. As they untied it, some men standing there said, 'What are you doing, untying that colt?' They gave the answer Jesus had told them, and the men let them go.
Reflection
‘The master needs it.’
Sometimes you seem so large, Jesus. You speak and what you say is done. You make a request and soon receive what you ask.
You were always in possession of yourself, knowing what you wanted and what kind of statement you desired to make with each action. Even here, you make a command and your will is carried out. Your words open the door to your desire with simple immediacy.
Everything you have I seem to lack. I have little control over myself, and my emotions scurry about like scared chickens, running in every direction at once. Every direction, that is, but the one I most need at this and every moment.
I need my heart to stay on you with the same single-mindedness with which you sought to reveal the holy kingdom of God.
But what here do you invite us to know, other than your single-minded focus?
For no reason, I think of the colt, new, never ridden that will carry your weight into the city where people of no particular importance will welcome you with glad shouts.
I wish the beast had human consciousness to know that it carried the only human soul as gentle as first daylight, a soul through which flows the substance of God into this world.
Gentle beast, you carried the center of universe, the secret of eternity, the face of the Everlasting Mystery. But you know nothing; you just bear the weight of your burden without complaint or urgency, trudging slowly toward the city with the wonder of God on your back.
You knew nothing, but I am a little jealous. I would have loved to have felt Jesus’ weight leaning on me, his hand patting my back, urging me onward.
Sounds silly. But it’s true. Perhaps it is just a prayer to know and feel you near.
And I dare to believe that if I bear my load quietly and listen closely I just may be blessed to feel the weight of your presence.
Call it the hope of the beast.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, March 27, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Today’s text
John 12:26-28
[Jesus said] Whoever serves me, must follow me, and my servant will be with me wherever I am. If anyone serves me, my Father will honor him. Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name! A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it.'
Reflection
Yes, you do glorify your name, even in us, and we have so little to do with it.
You call us to follow you into the tiny details of living. There, you urge us to give our hands and attention to small tasks of caring that make common life possible: making meals, getting the paper work done, looking after family members, cleaning up the mess on the floor, talking to an angry or distressed friend or colleague whose trouble always appears at the most inconvenient times.
Often, we feel more is being asked of us than is right or fair--and much more than is comfortable for our schedules and desire for a little peace and quiet.
But in the midst of our days, if we are blessed, we may notice that we are giving and loving a couple of inches beyond our natural capabilities or intentions.
You take us beyond ourselves through the little commitments you move us to make, commitments to be helpful and human. Through them, you make us more human than we had intended.
You move us to give ourselves beyond what we prefer. And there you are glorified. For you are the giving that knows no ending, and you draw us to give as you give, to love as you love, surprising us that some inkling of holiness should appear in us through our grudging surrender to tasks that must done, though we prefer that someone else would do them.
When we open our lives but a crack to you, you insist on sanctifying us in spite of ourselves. Or maybe that is just the way it works for me. But I don’t think so. Even my brother, Jesus, was troubled by the way of cross. He, too, wanted another way.
But it is the challenges of our lives that move us beyond ourselves to glorify you by becoming part of the great giving of life and love that you are, O Holy Mystery.
So glorify your name … in us. We will resist it. But there is a beauty you insist that we bear. And it is your own.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 12:26-28
[Jesus said] Whoever serves me, must follow me, and my servant will be with me wherever I am. If anyone serves me, my Father will honor him. Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name! A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify it.'
Reflection
Yes, you do glorify your name, even in us, and we have so little to do with it.
You call us to follow you into the tiny details of living. There, you urge us to give our hands and attention to small tasks of caring that make common life possible: making meals, getting the paper work done, looking after family members, cleaning up the mess on the floor, talking to an angry or distressed friend or colleague whose trouble always appears at the most inconvenient times.
Often, we feel more is being asked of us than is right or fair--and much more than is comfortable for our schedules and desire for a little peace and quiet.
But in the midst of our days, if we are blessed, we may notice that we are giving and loving a couple of inches beyond our natural capabilities or intentions.
You take us beyond ourselves through the little commitments you move us to make, commitments to be helpful and human. Through them, you make us more human than we had intended.
You move us to give ourselves beyond what we prefer. And there you are glorified. For you are the giving that knows no ending, and you draw us to give as you give, to love as you love, surprising us that some inkling of holiness should appear in us through our grudging surrender to tasks that must done, though we prefer that someone else would do them.
When we open our lives but a crack to you, you insist on sanctifying us in spite of ourselves. Or maybe that is just the way it works for me. But I don’t think so. Even my brother, Jesus, was troubled by the way of cross. He, too, wanted another way.
But it is the challenges of our lives that move us beyond ourselves to glorify you by becoming part of the great giving of life and love that you are, O Holy Mystery.
So glorify your name … in us. We will resist it. But there is a beauty you insist that we bear. And it is your own.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:18-21
And the judgment is this: though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up; but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.
Reflection
What is the light we flee, Jesus? Or the darkness we prefer?
You appear in the world as a gift of love from the Holy Mystery who can’t stand to watch the world destroy itself. God loves and that love appears most fully, in pristine clarity, in you who welcome and forgive and reveal the darkness of our souls.
For it is the light of holiness, the glow of ultimate goodness that reveals how curved in we are upon ourselves, seeing little of and caring less for that which does not directly touch our flesh.
You love and you love to the end of your breath Jesus, giving yourself for the friends you gather. In this light so much of who we are and what we do appears as the pettiness that it is.
But you mince no words: You call it darkness. And on a deep level we prefer our darkness. Maybe it is easier. Maybe we have been so self-centric for so long it is hard to imagine even the possibility of changing, let alone actually doing so.
Maybe we see our lives as little fortresses that must be tended and carefully protected; hence we protect and tend our little gardens, hiding beyond high walls of ego defenses, making sure we are well, but avoiding the vulnerability of loving relationships for which you made us.
And maybe we just don’t think anyone or anything can be trusted with anything as precious as ‘my life.’
Whatever words capture the truth, it is true that we dwell in darkness and self-protection, avoiding the voices in our soul that beg us to open our hearts and give, and love and be vulnerable.
Being exposed to that much light is scary.
Still, you invite us into the light, there to know of ourselves what you know: that we are loved, completely, and in that love we could truly live, if we could only creep from our darkness.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:18-21
And the judgment is this: though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up; but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.
Reflection
What is the light we flee, Jesus? Or the darkness we prefer?
You appear in the world as a gift of love from the Holy Mystery who can’t stand to watch the world destroy itself. God loves and that love appears most fully, in pristine clarity, in you who welcome and forgive and reveal the darkness of our souls.
For it is the light of holiness, the glow of ultimate goodness that reveals how curved in we are upon ourselves, seeing little of and caring less for that which does not directly touch our flesh.
You love and you love to the end of your breath Jesus, giving yourself for the friends you gather. In this light so much of who we are and what we do appears as the pettiness that it is.
But you mince no words: You call it darkness. And on a deep level we prefer our darkness. Maybe it is easier. Maybe we have been so self-centric for so long it is hard to imagine even the possibility of changing, let alone actually doing so.
Maybe we see our lives as little fortresses that must be tended and carefully protected; hence we protect and tend our little gardens, hiding beyond high walls of ego defenses, making sure we are well, but avoiding the vulnerability of loving relationships for which you made us.
And maybe we just don’t think anyone or anything can be trusted with anything as precious as ‘my life.’
Whatever words capture the truth, it is true that we dwell in darkness and self-protection, avoiding the voices in our soul that beg us to open our hearts and give, and love and be vulnerable.
Being exposed to that much light is scary.
Still, you invite us into the light, there to know of ourselves what you know: that we are loved, completely, and in that love we could truly live, if we could only creep from our darkness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:15-18
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God's only Son.
Reflection
No one who believes shall be judged. And yet we judge ourselves and each other all the time.
But you, O God, do not judge me. You do not hold me up to the light and look closely at the lines and creases of my life, the imperfections that we both know are there.
This is not your way. Those who believe into Jesus dwell in an unfailing environment of grace, a bubble of blessing in which you seek to envelop our every pore.
Our lives know the ordinary bumps and bruises of living amid the unruliness of chance, of human emotion and action, of sickness and health. Sometimes those bumps are not ordinary at all, but truly frightening and destructive, or they fall heavy on our hearts.
Yet even then, we dwell in the land of the Son. We may struggle and fail, we may hold little strength or power; heaviness of spirit may grind us down, and circumstances may whisper that we have no worth. But we can look into the eyes of all this and more. And shout: ‘no judgment!’
None.
You judge us worthy of love and care, worth dieing for, treasured to the end of our days and to the eternity of time.
Our life’s struggle is to surrender our judgments of ourselves to your judgment--and to dismiss others judgments of our value altogether.
For you do no judge us based on our human frailties and wrong doing. You see us dwelling in the air of Christ’s love, struggling, yes, to breathe in the fresh, lightness of non-judgment.
Teach us to breathe the freshness of this air that our judgments and condemnations, our self-loathing and hatreds may end. We would walk unencumbered into the lightness of being you intend.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:15-18
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God's only Son.
Reflection
No one who believes shall be judged. And yet we judge ourselves and each other all the time.
But you, O God, do not judge me. You do not hold me up to the light and look closely at the lines and creases of my life, the imperfections that we both know are there.
This is not your way. Those who believe into Jesus dwell in an unfailing environment of grace, a bubble of blessing in which you seek to envelop our every pore.
Our lives know the ordinary bumps and bruises of living amid the unruliness of chance, of human emotion and action, of sickness and health. Sometimes those bumps are not ordinary at all, but truly frightening and destructive, or they fall heavy on our hearts.
Yet even then, we dwell in the land of the Son. We may struggle and fail, we may hold little strength or power; heaviness of spirit may grind us down, and circumstances may whisper that we have no worth. But we can look into the eyes of all this and more. And shout: ‘no judgment!’
None.
You judge us worthy of love and care, worth dieing for, treasured to the end of our days and to the eternity of time.
Our life’s struggle is to surrender our judgments of ourselves to your judgment--and to dismiss others judgments of our value altogether.
For you do no judge us based on our human frailties and wrong doing. You see us dwelling in the air of Christ’s love, struggling, yes, to breathe in the fresh, lightness of non-judgment.
Teach us to breathe the freshness of this air that our judgments and condemnations, our self-loathing and hatreds may end. We would walk unencumbered into the lightness of being you intend.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:14-17
[Jesus said] as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Reflection
Everyone who believes … will have life. But this belief is not merely affirming statements about Jesus, who he is or what he does.
It is a believing into, a believing into what he does and gives. Believing into Jesus is a movement of heart, mind and body.
We give ourselves over to a way of seeing and being, Jesus’ way. He is lifted up like Moses’ snake in the desert, a fearful symbol of death and destruction. Surely no one wants to be bitten by the snake or end up as Jesus on a cross, an instrument of execution.
But we are invited to ‘believe into’ this way, to see in Jesus’ destruction God’s ultimate sign of love and life. Giving ourselves to it means cleaving to this sign, holding it fast even when it seems we are being torn apart by destructive forces in our lives.
It is hoping against every whisper of hopelessness that as Jesus rose from destruction to new life, we too shall find life out of the ashes of every trial and terror, every destruction and loss, even that of life itself.
Believing in Jesus is living trust that the one who is lifted up on the cross now lives to lift us from each valley into the fullness of God’s love and life.
We look at the sign of the cross and make it on ourselves, knowing Jesus way is and always will be our own.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:14-17
[Jesus said] as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Reflection
Everyone who believes … will have life. But this belief is not merely affirming statements about Jesus, who he is or what he does.
It is a believing into, a believing into what he does and gives. Believing into Jesus is a movement of heart, mind and body.
We give ourselves over to a way of seeing and being, Jesus’ way. He is lifted up like Moses’ snake in the desert, a fearful symbol of death and destruction. Surely no one wants to be bitten by the snake or end up as Jesus on a cross, an instrument of execution.
But we are invited to ‘believe into’ this way, to see in Jesus’ destruction God’s ultimate sign of love and life. Giving ourselves to it means cleaving to this sign, holding it fast even when it seems we are being torn apart by destructive forces in our lives.
It is hoping against every whisper of hopelessness that as Jesus rose from destruction to new life, we too shall find life out of the ashes of every trial and terror, every destruction and loss, even that of life itself.
Believing in Jesus is living trust that the one who is lifted up on the cross now lives to lift us from each valley into the fullness of God’s love and life.
We look at the sign of the cross and make it on ourselves, knowing Jesus way is and always will be our own.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, March 13, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Today’s text
John 2:18-22
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what he had said.
Reflection
They remembered, and so should we.
We should remember that the life Jesus bears, the life we bear, cannot be confined to a tomb. It bursts free from every prison, even that of death, to illumine life with the color of eternity.
It has always been so.
The body, our flesh, is no prison to be escaped but has become the temple of the Holy, the place of divine meeting.
Our ears and eyes can behold the beauty of holiness and the holiness of the One who is Beauty itself in the joy of children and the generosity of hearts that are truly human.
Jesus shows the way. He dwelt in constant intimacy with the Life that was in him, the Life that is before all time, the Life that is the breathing presence of God. His words and hands moved at the impulses of the One in whose heart he abided without a moment’s separation.
And Jesus invites us into this way, the way of abiding, of resting and knowing the Heart who offers eager to welcome to each of us. Come home to the Love who has always known and ever wanted you.
Come home and rest in the Life that seeks to breathe in you, through you, and move your soul into a grand spaciousness where you know true freedom and the tension in your chest is no more.
The Life who is God dwelt in Jesus, and in all who know and love his way. Temples of the Eternal One are they … are we, bearing that Life that does not die.
Remember.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 2:18-22
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what he had said.
Reflection
They remembered, and so should we.
We should remember that the life Jesus bears, the life we bear, cannot be confined to a tomb. It bursts free from every prison, even that of death, to illumine life with the color of eternity.
It has always been so.
The body, our flesh, is no prison to be escaped but has become the temple of the Holy, the place of divine meeting.
Our ears and eyes can behold the beauty of holiness and the holiness of the One who is Beauty itself in the joy of children and the generosity of hearts that are truly human.
Jesus shows the way. He dwelt in constant intimacy with the Life that was in him, the Life that is before all time, the Life that is the breathing presence of God. His words and hands moved at the impulses of the One in whose heart he abided without a moment’s separation.
And Jesus invites us into this way, the way of abiding, of resting and knowing the Heart who offers eager to welcome to each of us. Come home to the Love who has always known and ever wanted you.
Come home and rest in the Life that seeks to breathe in you, through you, and move your soul into a grand spaciousness where you know true freedom and the tension in your chest is no more.
The Life who is God dwelt in Jesus, and in all who know and love his way. Temples of the Eternal One are they … are we, bearing that Life that does not die.
Remember.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Today’s text
John 2:18-21
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body.
Reflection
And here is the change Jesus brings. No more is relationship with God one more version of let’s make a deal. No more do we engage in the commerce of something for something, giving to get.
Nor shall we imagine the Holy One is attached to any one place or people or activity, as if the Holy Mystery who is God can be nailed down or confined by human constraints, definitions and desires.
The mystery of God is known in the body of Jesus, dwelling there, being known, felt and see there. And if there, then in our bodies, too.
His human body is a temple, the place of God’s abiding, the point of divine meeting where we may encounter the One who infinitely transcends every body, but can be known in any and all of them.
Jesus body bore the eternal life who is God, a life that raised him up from the dead dust of the grave, all of him, his body, his whole person.
The Life he bore can not be destroyed, for the God who creates universes and human souls out of star dust can not be contained by a trifle like physical death.
It raises up all who bear this life. Their bodies (our bodies) are temples of divine dwelling, the dwelling of the Most High.
So there is always hope, always. And beauty can abound even in the most unlikely souls.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 2:18-21
The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us that you should act like this?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body.
Reflection
And here is the change Jesus brings. No more is relationship with God one more version of let’s make a deal. No more do we engage in the commerce of something for something, giving to get.
Nor shall we imagine the Holy One is attached to any one place or people or activity, as if the Holy Mystery who is God can be nailed down or confined by human constraints, definitions and desires.
The mystery of God is known in the body of Jesus, dwelling there, being known, felt and see there. And if there, then in our bodies, too.
His human body is a temple, the place of God’s abiding, the point of divine meeting where we may encounter the One who infinitely transcends every body, but can be known in any and all of them.
Jesus body bore the eternal life who is God, a life that raised him up from the dead dust of the grave, all of him, his body, his whole person.
The Life he bore can not be destroyed, for the God who creates universes and human souls out of star dust can not be contained by a trifle like physical death.
It raises up all who bear this life. Their bodies (our bodies) are temples of divine dwelling, the dwelling of the Most High.
So there is always hope, always. And beauty can abound even in the most unlikely souls.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Today’s text
John 2:13-16
When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked their tables over and said to the dove sellers, 'Take all this out of here and stop using my Father's house as a market.'
Reflection
Today, we would send Jesus to an anger-management class. At least that would have been part of his sentence for disrupting trade.
The temple was, indeed, a place of trade. People bought and sold birds and animals intended for sacrifice in the temple precincts as those coming to the temple sought atonement with God for their sins.
The system of sacrifice had long since been established by divine decree. Jesus was interfering in holy work, or so it seemed to those in charge and, likely, many others.
We can imagine there was underhanded dealing and overcharging happening, and that is why Jesus flew off the handle. He was objecting to dishonesty and injustice, taking advantage of those who came to make sacrifice and find peace.
But something more appears is at work. He was about to affect a sweeping change in how people thought about worship … and God.
Worship required no sacrifice to change God’s mind or to give God something (a sacrifice) so that God will give us something (forgiveness, a blessing). God is no deal maker, and that’s what people do in markets, or at least in the temple marketplace: they make deals.
Something for something.
God gives the blessings of life to all and the grace of forgiven life, free and full, freely, for nothing, to any who seek and hunger for God’s gifts.
No sacrifice is required, no giving up of something to get something. God is not in the deal-making business.
God gives out of an infinite abundance of love and unending generosity. No deals necessary or wanted. The desire and attempt to make deals with God reveal that we don’t get it.
We don’t get God, who is as unlike our deal-making ways as night is from day.
No need to pay God off, for the Holy One is a deep river of generosity flowing from an ever-abundant source to the hearts of all who can simply receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 2:13-16
When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked their tables over and said to the dove sellers, 'Take all this out of here and stop using my Father's house as a market.'
Reflection
Today, we would send Jesus to an anger-management class. At least that would have been part of his sentence for disrupting trade.
The temple was, indeed, a place of trade. People bought and sold birds and animals intended for sacrifice in the temple precincts as those coming to the temple sought atonement with God for their sins.
The system of sacrifice had long since been established by divine decree. Jesus was interfering in holy work, or so it seemed to those in charge and, likely, many others.
We can imagine there was underhanded dealing and overcharging happening, and that is why Jesus flew off the handle. He was objecting to dishonesty and injustice, taking advantage of those who came to make sacrifice and find peace.
But something more appears is at work. He was about to affect a sweeping change in how people thought about worship … and God.
Worship required no sacrifice to change God’s mind or to give God something (a sacrifice) so that God will give us something (forgiveness, a blessing). God is no deal maker, and that’s what people do in markets, or at least in the temple marketplace: they make deals.
Something for something.
God gives the blessings of life to all and the grace of forgiven life, free and full, freely, for nothing, to any who seek and hunger for God’s gifts.
No sacrifice is required, no giving up of something to get something. God is not in the deal-making business.
God gives out of an infinite abundance of love and unending generosity. No deals necessary or wanted. The desire and attempt to make deals with God reveal that we don’t get it.
We don’t get God, who is as unlike our deal-making ways as night is from day.
No need to pay God off, for the Holy One is a deep river of generosity flowing from an ever-abundant source to the hearts of all who can simply receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
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