Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 2:1-7

Now it happened that at this time Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be made of the whole inhabited world. This census--the first--took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria,
and everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. So Jospeh set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judea, to David's town called Bethlehem, since he was of David's House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. Now it happened that, while they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the living-space.

Reflection

What difference does it make if Christ is born at Bethlehem, if he is not born also in me?

My Mexican friends have a wonderful tradition at Christmas, Las Posadas. It is play, a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph arriving at Bethlehem and knocking on doors, seeking a place where they may enter and stay that the Christ might be born in warmth and safety.

But each place they go the door is locked or harsh voices refuse to open and let them in. So they continue on their way, lonely hearts seeking shelter, until someone opens the door and welcomes them that Mary might give birth to the God-child who brings the blessing of God to earth.

The tradition follows the pattern of Joseph and Mary coming to Bethlehem and being refused hospitality until someone gives them shelter in a stable where Christ is born.

But it holds deeper meaning. It is a parable of the heart of God hungry to born in this world, longing to be born in human hearts and mortal flesh that the world might be blessed, forgiven and made warmed by the light of the world shining in a human life.

We come to this night hungry for something to happen, eager to feel something. 

Like Charlie Brown in the 1960s cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas, we want to know Christmas as more than something to believe in. We want to feel it happening in us. We want to feel Christmas happening in our all-too-human lives that we might know the love that came in the Christ, born in a Bethlehem manger long ago.

We want to taste and touch Christmas now. We want to feel Christ not out there somewhere, not way back in time, but deep within, making us feel fresh and new, washed and clean, hope-filled and love adorned.

But much as we might want this there is One who wants it more. This is the message of Christmas.

The Love who was born in Bethlehem is a lonely and constant hunter, who goes from door to door, knocking and being refused, again and again, until someone gives him entry, until he can be born again in human flesh and shine grace and beauty on our troubled world.

He stands at the door … and knocks.

But we live in a time of no room, when everyone is obsessed with the lack of time and space for matters of heart and meaning.

There is no room for quiet, no room for solitude, no room for thought, no room for awareness of what we most need, no time to notice what waits in our hearts, ready and eager to be born.

Little wonder so many feel so alone or wonder who they are and what they need.

But the Love who shines from the manger in Bethlehem refuses to go away. He stands and knocks …on your door. His voice is always there.

“I hunger to be born again in you, to fill you with the light and love of the eternal God.

“Look at how far I have searched. I come from the wonders of eternal heaven in dimensions beyond all your science. I come in humility to a manger of poverty to be laid in straw that you may know my heart. I come that you may know … there is no place from which I turn, no soul so dark or troubled which I refuse.

“Even these, even you … are a proper home for me to be born and live.

“I come to this world hunting and hungry for a home for the Love I am. I seek to fill all creation, one end to the other, with the beauty of my presence.

“I come that my holy image may be seen in every place and creature, every life, every land.

“I come to mangers in the dark of night, to the arms of Mary in her poverty and shame, to silent Joseph wondering what will come next, and I come to you, to the dark inner-center of your heart, that place only love can touch.

I come to be born in you, to fill you with the light and the warmth of an everlasting love that you may shine with the glory of God, just like the child in Mary’s arms.

I come that you may know … Christmas is not a long ago event, but a miracle that happens every moment, every time Christ is born in us again with great joy and endless love.

Merry Christmas, my brothers and sisters. Merry Christmas.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 23, 2013

Today’s text

Matthew 1:18-25

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! The virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us.' When Joseph woke up he did what the angle of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home; he had not had intercourse with her when she gave birth to a son; and he named him Jesus.

Reflection

We don’t know much about Joseph. He never speaks in the Bible. We never hear this voice, his thoughts.

Mary’s voice rings with joy and faith through the stories of Jesus birth, but Joseph is silent. We know him only through his deeds.

If we imagine him at all, we might see him trudging along, rope in hand, leading a donkey on which Mary rides as they make their way south, to Bethlehem. None of this is in the Bible, but popular images long ago created this picture in our minds. 

We have no way of knowing what ran though Joseph’s mind as they made their way among the rocky Judean hills. But there must have been voices and questions.

There was the voice of reason that said, “Joseph, be smart. This child of Mary’s is not yours. Break the engagement and get yourself out of this mess. Nothing good can come from it.”

There was the voice of law and tradition that said, “Joseph, you are not required to take her or have anything to do with this child of questionable origin. This is not a new situation. Listen to the law, and let it guide you out of this embarrassment.”

Then there was that other voice, the one that came at night in the middle of his sleep … with an amazing message: “Do not be afraid, Joseph. Take Mary. Care for the child. The child within her is holy, from the Holy Spirit. He will save his people. They will call him Immanuel, God is with us.

“Joseph, the child is a sign. Every time you look at him, you will know … God is with you. This is Immanuel. Just look at him … and know.

Now, I ask you, who believes voices that come in the night? Who does what the voices tell them to do?

Crazy people? Foolish people? People who believe that God really does speak to us through our hearts?

Joseph has a decision. What voice should he listen to? What should he do?

Shall he do what rational, thoughtful people do? Or should he ignore the voice of reason and follow the voice that says there is something more important, something deeper and more compelling than reason or law … or even wisdom?

He listens … and follows the deeper voice, the messenger of God who comes to him at night and tells him that is better, more real and faithful to take a risk for the sake of loving God, for the sake of loving Mary, for the sake of trusting God will yet be with him.

He steps into the unknown as if stepping off a cliff, trusting that the Love who speaks in his dreams will be there to catch him no matter what.

He clings to the words, “Do not fear. I am sending Immanuel, God with us. Wait, watch, trust this … no matter what happens, no matter where your journey takes you. This child is a sign that you are never alone and never will be.”

Immanuel means God is fully immersed into human life. Our ordinary life is fully embraced by God, our highs and lows, our challenges amid the messiness of daily living.

I am here, God says. Where ever your path takes you I will meet you on the way. I am there at the start of the day and its ending. 

We never hear Joseph’s voice, but we see his faith. There is nothing showy or dramatic about it. It is the faith of one who listens to the voice of God that moves him beyond an ordinary life to a life of extraordinary love.

Have you ever known someone to do that? Have you ever done that?

There is nothing more beautiful. 

The people and that surrender themselves to extraordinary love are those that most move and fill our hearts. They are the ones who fill us with the awareness of Immanuel, God with us.

Joseph may be silent in Bible, but he invites us to listen to our souls, to pay heed to the voice of God, calling us beyond ourselves and what we think right and reasonable that our lives might become extraordinary, filled with light and love, a sign of Immanuel … even when we don’t say a word.

Pr. David L.Miller

December 13, 2013

Today’s text
 

 Matthew 11:2-6, 11

Now John had heard in prison what Christ was doing and he sent his disciples to ask him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?' Jesus answered, 'Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, those suffering from virulent skin-diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor; and blessed is anyone who does not find me a cause of falling.' In truth I tell you, of all the children born to women, there has never been anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.

Reflection

Jesus sends the messengers of John the Baptist back to John who is in prison: Tell them what you have seen and heard, he says. The blind see, the dead are raised, the deaf hear and the poor hear they are favored by God, who will never forget them.

John expected the Messiah to be a prophet of doom come to judge the world and burn the wicked like chaff. He expected a powerful ruler. But Jesus appears as a healer, who makes the broken whole, who restores us creation to its beauty, who brings life to the hopeless.

Little wonder John doubted Jesus could be the Messiah, the bringer of salvation.

John was great, Jesus says, but greater still are those who have tasted the kingdom of heaven, who have tasted the union of their hearts with the heart of God’s all-surpassing love. They know the healing and liberating power of arriving at their true home, sharing union with God is who love and in all love.

At Christmas, we hunger for home. We want to discover a place in our souls where there is no separation between us and God, where great and impassable love fills us. 

We come to the manger where Jesus is laid, looking for home. We kneel and look in once more to see the Love who refuses to let us go and to feel that love in our deepest selves.

It is then that Christmas comes. It is then that Christ is born. It is then that we are truly and finally … home.

Gaze on the love he is and know ... this is your true home.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Today’s text

Matthew 3:1-3

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judaea, 'Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.' This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said: A voice of one that cries in the desert, 'Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'

Reflection

They kneel at the center of the labyrinth, a man and a woman, having followed the winding path to the fleur de lis at the center of the canvas.

There is nothing in their hands. The serpentine path stripped them of all distractions and every extraneous weight they were bearing. Non-essentials fell by the wayside, too heavy to carry.

Theirs is a journey to the center of the soul. They have arrived at themselves, souls stripped down to a singular desire that brings them to their knees in a prayer that needs no words. Their posture says everything necessary.

His head low, nearly touching the canvas by a pot of candles, flickering light reflects from hair thinned by chemotherapy. The woman kneels nearby, eyes fixed on him, attentive to his every move, her heart clear in unwavering eyes.

At the center of the labyrinth the surface noise of life disappears. The daily clatter falls blessedly silent. And the voice of the soul, a voice that is always speaking, is finally heard, “I want to live. Just let me live.”

The voice pleads to be known and heard and loved. It pleads for real life where the deepest things in us breathe and are spoken to those most loved. It cries for joy of being the beauty and love it feels inside, the love and beauty the Creator intends.

At the center, you hear your own deepest voice and the voice of God, all at once. They are the same voice, one voice with a single cry, “I want to live. Just let me live.”

This desire takes different forms and assumes different words on different days. But underneath it all is this one, holy desire, first-born not in our hearts but in the heart of the One who made us.

Advent is a time to prepare for the Lord’s coming, a time to repent, to clear away that which that gets in the way of living from the center of God’s heart within.

As I watch them, the man and the woman, kneeling at the center, I see that they have arrived. Repentance has happened in them. There is no doubt they can live lives more real than any they have lived before. The voice of soul speaks even in their silence.

I hear it, also in myself.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Today’s text

Isaiah 60:1-3

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

Reflection

The mind is a ready traveler, instantly flying to far flung rooms and places the heart knows well.

Today, I see a holy pilgrimage from afar, a hospice room, and an old friend, Bev, tired, played out, knowing it is about time to go. No more chemotherapy, no more trips to he hospital, just keep the pain at bay. Please.

Entering there are familiar faces, friends, colleagues, members of the congregation, bearing prayer shawls and bread, wine and oil to do a holy thing, assuring a tired heart that there is One who never tires, who always watches and does not sleep.

They come bearing the peace of God and their grief, barely able to take in what decades of disease has done to their beloved.

I see their faces, their sadness and their overwhelming hunger to find some way--please God, some way!--to pour the love within them onto this soul who has barely enough strength to smile.

Still, there is that smile, dimmed, yes, but still there. I have seen and know it, and it whispers a gentle welcome to each beloved face that enters the room.

Even here there is joy; even in this darkness light shines. Each pilgrim to the bedside awakens joy for one more time to say thank you, one more time to receive the gifts of bread and wine they bear, to feel the warmth of a shawl and the blessing of the hands that made it.

Everything I see is a sacrament of a transcendent love that death cannot defeat. The windowless hospice room, dimly lit in shadows, glistens with light. The room is filled with knowledge of God. No words can speak it, but the heart knows.

Each pilgrim comes to this holy place bearing the gift of their life, their heart, their hands. Each comes to bless, yet wondering if they really have much to give.

They shouldn’t wonder though. They are well equipped for their holy mission. They bear the love who will never let us go.

I wish they could see themselves as I see them. They are more beautiful than they can possibly know. And when they leave, after they have blessed Bev with the beauty of their souls, after they received the grace of her whispered welcome, they will be more alive and glorious than when they first arrived.

I could pray my Advent prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come to this place and lighten our darkness,” but it seems unnecessary. You already have.

And you have given me the eyes to see it. What more could I want?

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, November 28, 2013

 Today’s text

Isaiah 2:2-4

It will happen in the final days that the mountain of Yahweh's house will rise higher than the mountains and tower above the heights. Then all the nations will stream to it, many peoples will come to it and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.' For the Law will issue from Zion and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem. Then he will judge between the nations and arbitrate between many peoples. They will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, no longer will they learn how to make war.

Reflection

Advent directs our eyes beyond the bumps and bruises of the day, beyond momentary successes and satisfactions to the big picture--to the fulfillment of God’s dream.

Some have called it the Cosmic Christ, which is actually for what we pray in Advent. There is no need to pray for the gentle Christ to come in our human flesh. We have seen and know him there. The sight still moves our hearts to love and deep affection for him and the heart of God he reveals.

Now, when we pray, Come, Lord Jesus we pray for the completion of all our lives and of all life. We pray that the wonder of Christ might become the reality of our lives and all creation.

The wonder of Jesus, the Christ, is that in him a mortal, flesh and blood human being dwells in utter union with the heart and mind of God. The Loving Mystery from whom all creation flows fills this man’s heart and mind, so that he becomes transparent to the Mysterious Source of all life.

In him we see that this Source is Creative Love beyond imagining, a Love who hungers to fill us and all life, so that we and all things become as Christ, a union of divine Spirit and created matter.

It sounds complex, and it is profound, but it is not far from us, for we have seen in others and felt in our hearts moments of complete and utter union when Love Itself fills us, every fear dissipates and love and gratitude flows from our pours into the life of the world around us.

We have seen and felt this! We have known what it is to say with utter simplicity and total joy, THANK YOU!

It may last but a moment, but in that moment we know and feel the Cosmic Christ. We are part of the Cosmic Christ, as our frame is filled by God, even as Jesus was.

This is the big picture, what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God. This is the holy dream God is working every day, seeking every opening in our hearts and minds, every opening in creation, to pour out the divine heart so that everything is incorporated into Christ, and all things become one harmonious and loving whole.

This is God’s holy dream, revealed in the unity of flesh and Spirit in Jesus, the Christ.

All we do--our prayers and work, our words and values--are to be aimed at fulfillment of God’s dream.

Advent directs our eyes to this completion of life. It ignites hunger to be filled ourselves and to see creation filled and healed. Just so, we pray: Come, Lord Jesus.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Today’s text

Revelation 22:17, 20-21

The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' Let everyone who listens answer, 'Come!' Then let all who are thirsty come: all who want it may have the water of life, and have it free The one who attests these things says: I am indeed coming soon. Amen; come, Lord Jesus. May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.

Reflection

Advent begins at the pit of your stomach where you long from something or someone to complete you, to fill the emptiness in your inner being and obliterate the longing for something more.

Advent is this hunger for more.

It begins with awareness that you and this broken, tear-stained world are incomplete and unfinished. Awareness awakens desire and hope for the more to come fill the empty places and heal the division and discord that scars creation.

But from where is the fullness that fills our being to come, the healing that salves the world’s wounds and brings peace?

I lift my eyes to the hills, the psalmist writes, from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, the One who made heaven and earth … and me.

Just so, we pray, come Lord Jesus. Come from eternity into time. Come to us. We were made in you and for you. We are not complete until we enter utter unity with you. Only then will our hearts rest in the peace of home, knowing we have arrived at the place for which you intend us.

With all creation, we yearn for the marriage of God and creation, the union of mortal flesh with divine substance. The completion of creation and of our mortal lives is found in the intimate bonding of our being with the God who is love and nothing but.

This blessed union appeared in Jesus, which is why we call him the Christ. He is the marriage of mortal flesh and the heart of God. He is the fullness for which we hunger.

Our longing is not simply to look upon his beauty and be moved to wonder and praise. This alone is great joy, but the more for which we hunger is to be as he is, a unity of mortal and divine life. This marriage of created matter and the heart of God is our completion and the world’s healing.

And so we pray with fervor and hope, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come to us. Come to our world and keep on coming until you fill us and all that is. Keep coming until all that is empty and incomplete is healed and whole.”

This is our Advent prayer, a prayer that is answered and will be answered until the end of time when there is no more need to pray it.

Christ is being born in a thousand ways and labors to be born also in you. The miracle of the manger happens all the time, every day, which is why the Advent admonition is, “Watch, stay awake.” For, our heart’s desire comes to us.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Today’s text

Isaiah 2:2-3

It will happen in the final days that the mountain of Yahweh's house will rise higher than the mountains and tower above the heights. Then all the nations will stream to it, many peoples will come to it and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.' For the Law will issue from Zion and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

Reflection

I can feel the drawing, the desire of those who come to Zion. It is in me, the deepest part of me. Call it soul, I suppose, or awareness. It is hard to describe and impossible to define.

There is part of me, of everyone, who can stand back and look at the parade of emotions and experiences that occupy the conscious mind, realizing that those emotions and experiences are not me, certainly not the center of who I am.

The center is this one who can stand apart and observe all that it is going on in me, aware it is something more and different from the thicket of fleeting thoughts, experiences and feelings that distract the mind each day.

This center is greater, free and not defined by the driven, busy parts of consciousness needed to navigate through the day.

It is here, at this center, that I feel the desire of the nations to come to Zion, to come home, walking as a pilgrim to the place where I may sit in silence before the Source of Wisdom, the Fountain of Justice, the Origin of my Soul.

The desire to come to the place where Yahweh speaks emanates from the center, the soul, the deepest part of me where I hunger for union with God, the Source, the Fountain, the Origin of all that is.

Only in this union am I completely at home and in peace. Only there do I know myself.

Mystics of the Christian tradition (others, too) suggest the center, the apex of the soul, is the reality of God within us. There is no end of the metaphors for this.

Some say the soul is a plant that grows from the ground of God. Others say it is the God-seed planted within us. Others suggest the soul is a Word spoken by God from eternity into time, a partial of expression of divine life.  Still others compare it to a coin, one side of which is an expression of God dwelling in this world, and the other side is the unseen mystery of Yahweh, himself.

Interesting thought, for it suggests that the home we seek, the pilgrimage we make to Zion to hear God speak, is an internal journey from the edges of who we are to our center where we also meet God.

God draws us home, to that deepest soul, Zion, the mountain of Yahweh where we are aware we are not the parade of emotions, ideas and experiences that fill us every day and too-often define us.

We are expressions of God’s own heart and mind intended for loving communion with the Mystery we each bear.

In this holy communion, we become, finally, human.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

 Today’s text

Luke 21:14-19

Make up your minds not to prepare your defense, because I myself shall give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relations and friends; and some of you will be put to death. You will be hated universally on account of my name, but not a hair of your head will be lost. Your perseverance will win you your lives.

Reflection

Jesus looks ahead to a cataclysm that had occurred by the time his words were written down in the Gospel of Luke. He saw it coming.

Roman troops occupied the city. Revolutionary movements were arming themselves and whispering war. The population was tired, over taxed and dispirited.

Conditions were ripe for deluded separatists to imagine they could rise up against the Roman military juggernaut and free the nation from foreign occupation. The people would surely rise up and join their cause.

It didn’t take a much of a prophet to see catastrophe on the horizon.

Destruction came in the years following Jesus words. The temple, the center of Jewish life, the holy place where heaven and earth meet, was crushed. Its courts were large enough to hold 400,000 people. Its towering thick walls moved awe for the God who inspired its size, grandeur and unparalleled beauty. But it was reduced to pavement scattered with stones.

Predictable things happened in the wake of the military catastrophe. The Romans destroyed and plunder anything of worth, society was torn apart, people argued, families turned on each other, and early Christians were persecuted, hated and scapegoated as being responsible for helping precipitate disaster.

Amid all this Jesus sounds a bit like Bobby McFarrin, “Don’t worry. Be happy.”

Forget worry! Don’t even prepare.

His message: You will have what you need. I will give it to you. Words and wisdom for the day will appear when you need it. Trust. I will not leave you to face the peril alone. Lift up our hearts. Salvation is near. God is at hand.

Keep calm and carry on.

I think those were the words Winston Churchill, England’s Prime Minister, spoke to his nation during the Nazi blitz of London.

I like the message. It invites me to place my soul in the promise that God will not leave me. My soul lies in, is surrounded by the great soul of God. The divine soul is my bed, my resting place, the home to which I return and lie down in peace.

I can visualize this. I see a great expanse, a huge field of grass, soft as I lay in it. Looking to my left and to the right I see no end to this great plain. It is immense, unlimited, extending to every horizon. There is no place it is not.

And I am one small soul, one person, lying in the grass, resting safely in my home, gazing into the blue sky, soaking up the sun, knowing this peace is the truth. The chaos around me, the rise and fall of nations, the rejections and pains, the disruption of societies as times and values change--all this is not the home of my soul.

My home is this restful assurance to which Jesus invites me.

Just keep calm and carry on, he says. I’ve got this. Don’t lose your soul to the chaos around you. Find it in me.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 11, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 21:5-8

When some were talking about the Temple, remarking how it was adorned with fine stonework and votive offerings, he said, 'All these things you are staring at now -- the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another; everything will be destroyed.' And they put to him this question, 'Master,' they said, 'when will this happen, then, and what sign will there be that it is about to take place?' But he said, 'Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, "I am the one" and "The time is near at hand." Refuse to join them.

Reflection

We need to learn to refuse anxiety, to live beyond it. We need to know “the one.”

The life to which you call me, Jesus, has nothing to do with knowing the times climactic events will occur and shake the foundations of normal life.

You do not invite me to know and understand the future. You do not call us to study the signs of the times or even the scriptures so that we know what will soon come and warn others.

We cannot predict the times and great changes that occur in every age, every nation, every society and every life. The future remains a mystery to mortals despite our arduous attempts to control it and turn it to our advantage.

Everyday, you turn my mind from speculation and fear of what might come and say, “Look at me. I am the one.”

Seeing you I know, not with mind but heart: You are the door to a life of joy beyond the dread of threat and uncertainty that sometimes grips the soul.

While some of your misguided disciples, then and now, clamor to predict the times and seasons, offering harebrained speculation about what is coming and when, I will take your advice: Ignore them all.

I will look at you. You are the one.

Every suffering you endured was born out of love, and every pain you born, even the death you died, was the doorway to new life, resurrection.

The mystery I need to understand is not about the signs of the times but the sign of your cross. It tells me that the foundations of life will shake. We will know fear. We will feel pain and endure changes we do not want.

Even then, especially then ...  lift your eyes and see the one who raises us anew, giving new life from every ending.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, November 7, 2013

 Today’s text

Luke 20:37-38

And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.'

Reflection

Many who grieve speak to the one who has left them. They do so years, even decades later.

It has been 10 years since my father died, and I still sometimes speak to him. Usually, I thank him for something he did, for the person he was, part of which continues to live in me.

He is as real to me as the clutter on my desk that I promise to clean some day but probably never will. I quickly get distracted by what I find any time I try to make order of the mess.

Sometimes I speak to him with understanding, finally comprehending what life was like for him. I empathize with his struggles and talk to him as a companion on this crazy journey of life that, on days like this, I love so dearly. He taught me that love.

Watching him taught me to love my struggles because it is in the midst of them that you find yourself … and God. In the midst of the mess you discover your soul. You discover you are deeper, more mysterious … and beautiful … than you’d imagined.

“You never know what will happen.”  I have recollection of Dad saying that sometimes. Maybe he didn’t say it much or even once, but somehow I remember it. Maybe it is just what I feel when I look at his life … and mine. “You just never know. Life surprises.”

So open your heart and embrace what comes as from God; it will bless and challenge you in ways you have not imagined. This is the attitude of faith in the face of life … and death.

Don’t think you have it all figured out. Don’t imagine you have really understood much that has or will or might happen. Don’t even think that the dead are dead and can’t speak to you. They do.

God is. And all who have lived live now in him in ways we can’t imagine. The universe is more mysterious, more confusing, more interconnected and more surprising than you think … because God is God of the living.

So live this day and love everything and everyone that comes. You just never know  what might come.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

 

Today’s text

Luke 20:37-38

And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.'

Reflection

You are life and the God of the living, so be my God this day. Lift me into the land of the living, for weariness of body and soul weighs on my heart, and I hunger for life.

I hunger for the vitality of assurance that invites human souls forward to embrace the day, to throw their hearts into what must be done and into whatever comes with expectation of love and laughter, knowing the goodness you are will crease my cheeks with joy and fill my eyes with hope.

For I know, … I know Love abides and always will to meet me on my way and to open my eyes one final time when my body fails and I fall into the repose of those who rest in you.

It is faith to which you invite me, the faith of the seed that falls into the earth and dies soon to be born into life unimaginable. It is a mystery, of course, one that does not await the end of my days, but which is here and true on this day.

This day I surrender myself, my life and hopes into the mystery of your love, trusting you have plans for me I do not know.

But this much I know, of this much I am sure: You love life and will lift me from all the little deaths I die, lifting me from despair as I surrender plans and hopes I cherish. So I trust that like the seed I will be born anew from every death, every end, every weariness and sorrow, born anew and more alive than ever before.

I will trust that every day is truly new, and joy comes in the morning.

I will trust because this is who you are and what you do, so let me laugh this day and love … knowing.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, October 24, 2013

 Today’s text

Jeremiah 31:33-34

No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'

Reflection

To a people in despair, to a nation defeated, to those who dwelt in the darkness of endless exile--because they screwed up, the prophet speaks of a day far in the future, so far in the future no can see or imagine it … but him. And he wonders if he is seeing an illusion that can never happen.

But it does happen, and when it does the people will all know who God is. No one will bother to tell their neighbor who God is or what God is doing. It will be obvious.

But what will they know? Who will they say God is?

God is the One who works behind the scenes of history, in the details of what is happening to bring life out of death, restoration out of destruction, morning light from darkest night.

That is who God is, unimaginable, unpredictable, silent as light but always bringing life and newness from their opposite.

That makes us people of hope because this newness is entirely God’s doing. We don’t bring it about. It is not dependent upon our resources or actions. Newness appears, morning comes, life is reborn from destruction for one reason only: Because God is God, and this is what God does and who God is.

When we see it, wherever we see it we know who God is … even if we don’t much believe or think about God. Doesn’t matter. God is always being God whether we pay attention or not.

But it is better to keep your eyes open and pay attention. For then, you get see and celebrate the light of morning when it first appears on the horizon.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday October 18, 2013

 Today’s text

Psalm 121: 1-4

I lift up my eyes to the mountains; where is my help to come from? My help comes from Yahweh who made heaven and earth. May he save your foot from stumbling; may he, your guardian, not fall asleep! You see -- he neither sleeps nor slumbers … .

Reflection

An image appears in the mind and blesses the morning.

You float shapeless yet ever present, an angel wisp of substance, transparent yet unmistakably there, neither male nor female, yet gentle and vigilant as a mother hovering over her sleeping child, keeping watch.

A peace-filled smile of infinite tenderness looks down on a sleeping form, covering the sleeper, a silent vigil of love over the beloved.

The image returns to the mind in this early morning hour, and I recognize that it has been present, waiting for me to notice for a least a day since I piloted my car to the home of one threatened by dire disease.

The image of you watching, covering, smiling, tenderly looking over your beloved has lingered at the edge of awareness, but only now do I see what you were revealing to my heart.

This is who you are, and for some challenges, for some threats and suffering, the only answer, the only hope, the only peace is knowing--or in this case seeing--who you are.

Now I see. Thank you.

Now I know, one more time, you are there watching, waiting, loving, hovering and covering even when we suffer, even when death comes near.

You are Love, Love that never ends, Love that never sleeps, Love that in the end always gets its way.

So be there, with them, with me, with all of us. Cover us all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday October 16, 2013

Today’s text

Psalm 121: 5-8

Yahweh is your guardian, your shade, Yahweh, at your right hand. By day the sun will not strike you, nor the moon by night. Yahweh guards you from all harm Yahweh guards your life, Yahweh guards your comings and goings, henceforth and for ever. 

 Reflection

Guard our lives, O Lord. Keep us from dying.

There are so many ways we lose our lives and die. Days come when we feel the breath of energy and joy fleeing our hearts and failing our bodies.

You are the breath of life that flows within us. Don’t leave us.

Come fill us each morning, for you are the hope for joy and goodness, for meaning and laughter that stirs us to meet each day with expectation and eagerness.

We breathe you in and throw ourselves into the day, doing what you have given us to do in this life.

Turn our eyes from our weakness and failures. Turn us from our fears of not being enough for the challenges of our days. Protect our hearts from eroding despair that we may not receive what our hearts most need to live with joyful purpose and love.

Guard our lives from the forces and emotions that kill our souls and reduce us to empty husks.

Just breathe, O Lord; breathe the felt assurance of your nearness into our lungs with every breath we take. Smile at us in the faces that bless and fill us with the wonder of love and loving.

Guard our comings and going this day lest the weight of our labors or the fatigue at day’s end wither our life and joy.

For we want to live; we yearn to be filled with your breath and life.

We want to draw it into our lungs and feel it filling our hearts. We ache to breathe in the love you are and be filled with the assurance of knowing, always knowing that we are children of a great and eternal love.

And this, only this, is living, really living.

So let us feel your life in us, filling us, guarding us from all the ways death comes. Fill and guard us all, especially those most death most threatens.

We have known your breath within us, O Lord, and we cannot be satisfied with anything less. So please, breathe in us.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, October 11, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 17:12-19

As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin-disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, 'Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.' When he saw them he said, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.' Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, 'Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.' And he said to the man, 'Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.' 

Reflection

What does it mean to be well? Ask a sick person, any sick person … and they will have an immediate answer.

To be well is to be rid of this miserable condition that limits my life and ties me to this chair, this bed, this house. It is feel energy flowing through your torso, your arms and legs again so that you can get up live the life you have known and want to resume.

To be well is to breathe deeply the sweet air of morning and feel the joy of being alive. It is freedom from the sickness or condition that holds you back and stirs fear of losing your abilities or even your life.

This begins to touch the meaning of ‘being well,’ but it does not come close to the kind of ‘wellness’ that Jesus brings and invites us to enter.

For him and those who seek his way, wellness is a life of gratitude in relationship to the Source of all life and goodness. It involves seeing … and faith as a way of seeing.

“Your faith has made you well,” Jesus says to the sole leper who returned to give thanks. He healed 10, but only this one was well. Only one returned to give thanks. Only one returned to the Source of blessing, mercy and compassion.

Only one saw in Jesus the face of that invisible and all-gracious Source.

Wellness is not the absence of debilitating illness and symptoms. It is the presence of sight, the kind of sight that sees the heart and smile of God in every beauty, every grace, every good person and thing that graces this earth.

Wellness is the gratitude that springs from the center of the soul when you feel and know this Source is love and loves you.

Wellness leaps to life when we see and feel the smile of God behind every good thing. It gives thanks and seeks to live in prayerful relationship with the One from whom all blessing flows.

Those who see and live this way are well, no matter how sick or healthy they are at the moment.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

 

Today’s text

Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith.' The Lord replied, 'If you had faith like a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it would obey you. 'Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, "Come and have your meal at once?" Would he not be more likely to say, "Get my supper ready; fasten your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink afterwards?" Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, "We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty." '

Reflection

What in the world is faith? When I was young I thought I knew what the word meant. I could define it and hold forth on the vocabulary of faith, citing each word in Hebrew and Greek.

Now, I wonder if I knew anything then, and I know that I know nothing now, nothing except this Wonder in my soul that I did not awaken. I did nothing to create or summon it. My only act is that of noticing.

In wordless speech, this Wonder speaks and assures me that all is well, that Love abides, that I have all I need, even when I feel like I have nothing of what I need.

It assures me that I have all that is needed to be who I am, which is all I am called to do.

Offer what love and grace as is in you, it says; that love and grace flows from an endless supply you cannot see, but which is always, always there.

It says, Go, do what is given you to do. It does not matter that you feel weak or inadequate or that you are convinced you do not have the internal resources to stand the heat or do what needs to be done. It does not matter that the challenge before you is great.

The Wonder in you is greater still, greater than anything you will ever face. Smile and know. Laugh in the face of struggle. Walk peacefully into each moment. Your seeming inadequacy does not matter. I matter, and I am greater.

I am the Wonder within and so far beyond you. You have what you need … to live.

Faith comes in hearing the Voice, a gift to be received each new day.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, September 30, 2013

Today’s text

Psalm 37:5-6

Commit your life to the Beloved,

     confident that Love will act          

on your behalf,

Making clear you pathway,

     Bright as the sun at midday.

Reflection

Sooner or later circumstances reduce you to what is most basic. It does not feel good, but it is great grace.

There are many forms. You come to see your best efforts aren’t enough to change things or do what needs to be done. Unmoved shoulders shrug and walk away from your deepest thoughts and heartfelt labor.

Finitude whispers in wordless speech the body knows: a subtle ache that refuses to leave, a small cough that interrupts sleep, a trembling hand that won’t do what it did with ease yesterday. Where did it come from? And why? 

None of this matters as much as the humble embrace of one’s humanity and of the certainty that human life is and always will be unpredictable and unfair--and no words can make it seem otherwise.

But only the humble, those who feel the ache in the night, the chill of fear and the pain of shrugged shoulders can hear the Voice of Love who breaks through the barriers of our aloneness.

The Voice speaks in the breeze of autumn mornings, still warm with remembrance of summer days. The soul hears and knows: the breeze blows because Love is. The leaves turn because Love is.

Love speaks and awakens itself in the soul, singing Love’s song, reminding the soul that this day is lit by a sun much warmer and brighter than Earth’s midday star.

And just as certainly as life is unfair, this greater sun is more unfair still, more unfair than our failures and finitude, our fears, pains and longings. For, it comes without our asking, and stays beyond our deserving--and never quits.

Love will act, the Voice says at a place so deep in the heart that it is inaccessible to all but the One who made it. So trust and know.

Trust is not an act of will or human accomplishment. It is the gift of Love in the soul, awakened by the breeze that speaks and the leaves that sing a single song:

Love is. Love will be. Love will light your days and abide with you on lonely nights when you long for that Voice that tells you the truth.

Trust and live.

Pr. David L. Miller