Today’s text
Jeremiah 31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. 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
They will all know me.
What is it to know you, Holy One? How can I say that I know you any more than the squirrels scampering across the patio can know me?
They bark curses at me when I rake up their autumnal bounty or startle them. Standing off, they assume a belligerent stance, protecting their turf, ready at my slightest twitch to scurry up the backyard birch, toenails ripping through peeling bark.
Do they know me? I suppose, but only as the alien who invades and occupies their space from time to time--and only as threat, a beast of which to be wary.
But they don’t know me any more, I suppose, than I can know you.
But somewhere and somehow I have come to faint knowledge that you are not threat, though you are always alien to me.
No, maybe you are a threat. You threaten the understanding of life and self that I fall into every time I think I am alone, every time I feebly imagine that life is only what I make of it, that we are cast-offs here on this minuscule but oh-so-wondrous planet.
And you are as alien to me as I to my squirrels, as they keep sentry over the bonanza summer’s sun has yielded, sustenance for winter’s long cold.
You are alien because you are love and unending mercy, who casts my failures and sins into the deep from which they shall never reappear. My soul is alien to such love, or is it?
Even now I know a love--for myself, for this beautiful earth and for this screwed-up rat race of a world where fear and callous meism moves so much of what we do.
Even now, I love it, and I love it with a love that is here, in me, alien though it is, for it is born of higher and infinite heart, so far beyond my own that I am reduced to the status of the squirrels.
Yet, it is your pleasure that I should know this moment, this love … you, … and fulfill again, your promise.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Today’s text
Psalm 84:2-3
My whole being yearns and pines for Yahweh's court. My heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, the swallow a nest to place its young: your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my King and my God.
Reflection
The place of your presence is hope, my abode, my home. So why do I wander so far, driven by forces, from within and without, that I neither understand nor command?
I long for home. Bring me to that inner palace where I feel and know myself surrounded by eternal arms of unfailing mercy.
Even now, through the grayness, this home calls me to my heart’s desire. I see, within my hidden soul, a life, my life, surrounded in the darkness by your embracing presence, a watery cushion conformed to the contours of my life, lest any part of me slip beyond the divine circle of your care, constant and silent, ever there.
And I lie within your constant silence, an orb, an ellipse of life within your Love, and within myself stretches a child, arms and eyes reaching for daylight; an infant within, waiting to be born.
It lives. It is me, O Lord, that deepest element of the life that I am, awaiting full birth into whatever glory your divine DNA encoded into the mystery of my life.
I see all this, clearly, yet my soul is a wandering vagabond, coursing the earth and despairing days as if it has no home, no identity except that assigned to it by others, some in care others not.
And all the while, this inner palace awaits my return, calling to me, whispering my name--the one I forget--until I return to the one place where I may know the joy of the sparrow upon her nest.
So with these few words I step toward home, the inner palace where all that matters is you and me in the secret silence, where I am born … anew.
Pr. David L. Miller
Psalm 84:2-3
My whole being yearns and pines for Yahweh's court. My heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, the swallow a nest to place its young: your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my King and my God.
Reflection
The place of your presence is hope, my abode, my home. So why do I wander so far, driven by forces, from within and without, that I neither understand nor command?
I long for home. Bring me to that inner palace where I feel and know myself surrounded by eternal arms of unfailing mercy.
Even now, through the grayness, this home calls me to my heart’s desire. I see, within my hidden soul, a life, my life, surrounded in the darkness by your embracing presence, a watery cushion conformed to the contours of my life, lest any part of me slip beyond the divine circle of your care, constant and silent, ever there.
And I lie within your constant silence, an orb, an ellipse of life within your Love, and within myself stretches a child, arms and eyes reaching for daylight; an infant within, waiting to be born.
It lives. It is me, O Lord, that deepest element of the life that I am, awaiting full birth into whatever glory your divine DNA encoded into the mystery of my life.
I see all this, clearly, yet my soul is a wandering vagabond, coursing the earth and despairing days as if it has no home, no identity except that assigned to it by others, some in care others not.
And all the while, this inner palace awaits my return, calling to me, whispering my name--the one I forget--until I return to the one place where I may know the joy of the sparrow upon her nest.
So with these few words I step toward home, the inner palace where all that matters is you and me in the secret silence, where I am born … anew.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Today's text
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
Reflection
It is important to know your place.
Everything Sunday morning a ritual is acted out on the step at the front of our sanctuary. Readings from the Bible are read, and children are invited forward to sit on this step to hear the children’s sermon.
Children rush … they run forward to beat me to this step because I have a place, my place, right there in the middle. But I am too slow. They beat me to it. They look at me and giggle.
I try to squeeze in, and they push their skinny butts together so that I can squeeze in. But I can't, so I must sit on the floor in front of them. This is my place they tell me.
So I sit on the floor and talk to children, as they line up on that step and sit with me. In mock anger,I shake my finger at them and say, “You’re in my place.” But they just laugh … because they are in their place. It belongs to them, and they know it.
We are all in our place: We belong there. We are safe there; we are wanted there … and cherished. So we tell stories and laugh, and they make fun of me, and between the lines of all that happens we realize how much we love each other.
And the love that we share there, sitting together, is not ours, but flows from the reservoir of an infinite love that draws and holds us together.
Whether the congregation knows it or not, whether they see and recognize it or not, whether they have ears to hear what is happening, we are a living sacrament, sitting right there before them. We act out and make present the central truth of our lives. The truth: There is a love that is for us, a love that always has a place for us, a place with our name on it.
Right there on those steps … heaven appears. The love of Jesus enfolds us and silently whispers in our ears: 'You belong. You belong to me. In my love there is a place just for you … and it is yours forever.'
This day, O Lord, let us know our place.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
Reflection
It is important to know your place.
Everything Sunday morning a ritual is acted out on the step at the front of our sanctuary. Readings from the Bible are read, and children are invited forward to sit on this step to hear the children’s sermon.
Children rush … they run forward to beat me to this step because I have a place, my place, right there in the middle. But I am too slow. They beat me to it. They look at me and giggle.
I try to squeeze in, and they push their skinny butts together so that I can squeeze in. But I can't, so I must sit on the floor in front of them. This is my place they tell me.
So I sit on the floor and talk to children, as they line up on that step and sit with me. In mock anger,I shake my finger at them and say, “You’re in my place.” But they just laugh … because they are in their place. It belongs to them, and they know it.
We are all in our place: We belong there. We are safe there; we are wanted there … and cherished. So we tell stories and laugh, and they make fun of me, and between the lines of all that happens we realize how much we love each other.
And the love that we share there, sitting together, is not ours, but flows from the reservoir of an infinite love that draws and holds us together.
Whether the congregation knows it or not, whether they see and recognize it or not, whether they have ears to hear what is happening, we are a living sacrament, sitting right there before them. We act out and make present the central truth of our lives. The truth: There is a love that is for us, a love that always has a place for us, a place with our name on it.
Right there on those steps … heaven appears. The love of Jesus enfolds us and silently whispers in our ears: 'You belong. You belong to me. In my love there is a place just for you … and it is yours forever.'
This day, O Lord, let us know our place.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 18:1
Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. 'There was a judge in a certain town,' he said, 'who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a Widow who kept on coming to him and saying, "I want justice from you against my enemy!" For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, "Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face." ' And the Lord said, 'You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?'
Reflection
A comic appeared in last Sunday’s paper, a single frame. A thick, muscled arm descends from a cloud, setting an enormous elbow on the ground. A huge hand extends to a stump where a small person grasps that hand and says, “On the count of three.”
There was nothing funny about the cartoon. I suppose the artist sought to comment on the lunacy of arm wrestling with God, “on the count of three” or any other count.
But such contests are not quickly over and done as the drawing suggests. They go on … and should.
Oh, we lose every skirmish. We are not going to wrestle God to the ground and demand whatever it is that we want.
But in the struggle with God we might find ourselves in the presence of a Mystery worthy of our worship, a mystery who in the end is Love, even when our heart’s desire doesn’t happen, even when what we fear becomes the bitter crust of our reality.
It is not uncommon for me to sit with souls who rail again heaven for the injustice and pain in their lives. Often as not, heaven has nothing to do with their pain, which has obvious causes closer to home.
Even then, we want what we want, an end to pain, relief from threats to those we love and healing from whatever illness, misfortune or just plain bad luck that makes life hard.
“Step in God. I demand that you do something about this. I’m talking to you God.”
For the strong ones, the blessed ones, the fight against heaven doesn’t soon end. They persevere. They press on, pressing home the justice of their cause, their honest need for blessing and relief from their unending run of miserable luck.
Blessed are they, for you, my most holy Lord, are real to them, even when your silence brings them pain.
Blessed are they, for they will wrestle with you (losing every skirmish) until the mystery of your love breaks their heart, and they stand, like Job, before the inscrutable chances of life, blessing you for being a God who refuses to be reduced to our size.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 18:1
Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. 'There was a judge in a certain town,' he said, 'who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a Widow who kept on coming to him and saying, "I want justice from you against my enemy!" For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, "Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face." ' And the Lord said, 'You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?'
Reflection
A comic appeared in last Sunday’s paper, a single frame. A thick, muscled arm descends from a cloud, setting an enormous elbow on the ground. A huge hand extends to a stump where a small person grasps that hand and says, “On the count of three.”
There was nothing funny about the cartoon. I suppose the artist sought to comment on the lunacy of arm wrestling with God, “on the count of three” or any other count.
But such contests are not quickly over and done as the drawing suggests. They go on … and should.
Oh, we lose every skirmish. We are not going to wrestle God to the ground and demand whatever it is that we want.
But in the struggle with God we might find ourselves in the presence of a Mystery worthy of our worship, a mystery who in the end is Love, even when our heart’s desire doesn’t happen, even when what we fear becomes the bitter crust of our reality.
It is not uncommon for me to sit with souls who rail again heaven for the injustice and pain in their lives. Often as not, heaven has nothing to do with their pain, which has obvious causes closer to home.
Even then, we want what we want, an end to pain, relief from threats to those we love and healing from whatever illness, misfortune or just plain bad luck that makes life hard.
“Step in God. I demand that you do something about this. I’m talking to you God.”
For the strong ones, the blessed ones, the fight against heaven doesn’t soon end. They persevere. They press on, pressing home the justice of their cause, their honest need for blessing and relief from their unending run of miserable luck.
Blessed are they, for you, my most holy Lord, are real to them, even when your silence brings them pain.
Blessed are they, for they will wrestle with you (losing every skirmish) until the mystery of your love breaks their heart, and they stand, like Job, before the inscrutable chances of life, blessing you for being a God who refuses to be reduced to our size.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, September, 23, 2010
Finding joy
I don’t think I ever met a child I didn’t like, at least a little.
I love the playful innocence of children who make fun of me during children’s sermons. I love the unfiltered connection between what they feel and what they say.
I love feeling the brand new tender life of infants. I love the wonder and openness of four-year olds discovering the world. I love the spontaneity and fidgety energy of third-graders who can barely keep their butts attached to a chair.
And I want to bless them all.
This is biggest reason I love children: They elicit the deepest beauty and care that is in me. When I am with them I become the love that I am. They draw from my soul the best that is in me.
I feel their acute need to know that they belong, and I ache for them to feel treasured for what they are--irreplaceable expressions of life who is Life. Each enters the world a craving center of near-infinite need, crying out for blessing.
I want to supply that blessing. Truth is, however, I also want to do it for myself. For in blessing them I discover in my heart the One who is Blessing Himself.
God is this energy, this gravity who continually draws me to people and places I can love so that my heart may bring forth whatever hidden decency and beauty might yet be there.
This is all average, of course. This is how God works. This is how human beings are.
We are made for blessing. We crave it, needing to bless someone else just as much, if our lives are to know the joy that God intends.
This is why I find so much joy at baptisms. It’s why baptism is one of the two most sacred acts of the church’s communal life. We are drawn into the central activity of God--blessing tender and fragile life, there to see who God is and for what we are made.
It’s not just that we bless a child with the infinite grace of an unimaginable Love. Together, we also engage in an action in which we act out the central purpose of our life and discover the place where lasting joy is found.
We bless a human soul with a love we can’t begin to understand, only to discover that this unsurpassable love is also in us--and that joy is found in blessing.
Pr. David L. Miller
I don’t think I ever met a child I didn’t like, at least a little.
I love the playful innocence of children who make fun of me during children’s sermons. I love the unfiltered connection between what they feel and what they say.
I love feeling the brand new tender life of infants. I love the wonder and openness of four-year olds discovering the world. I love the spontaneity and fidgety energy of third-graders who can barely keep their butts attached to a chair.
And I want to bless them all.
This is biggest reason I love children: They elicit the deepest beauty and care that is in me. When I am with them I become the love that I am. They draw from my soul the best that is in me.
I feel their acute need to know that they belong, and I ache for them to feel treasured for what they are--irreplaceable expressions of life who is Life. Each enters the world a craving center of near-infinite need, crying out for blessing.
I want to supply that blessing. Truth is, however, I also want to do it for myself. For in blessing them I discover in my heart the One who is Blessing Himself.
God is this energy, this gravity who continually draws me to people and places I can love so that my heart may bring forth whatever hidden decency and beauty might yet be there.
This is all average, of course. This is how God works. This is how human beings are.
We are made for blessing. We crave it, needing to bless someone else just as much, if our lives are to know the joy that God intends.
This is why I find so much joy at baptisms. It’s why baptism is one of the two most sacred acts of the church’s communal life. We are drawn into the central activity of God--blessing tender and fragile life, there to see who God is and for what we are made.
It’s not just that we bless a child with the infinite grace of an unimaginable Love. Together, we also engage in an action in which we act out the central purpose of our life and discover the place where lasting joy is found.
We bless a human soul with a love we can’t begin to understand, only to discover that this unsurpassable love is also in us--and that joy is found in blessing.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 06, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 15:1-2
The tax collectors and sinners, however, were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribed complained saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'
Reflection
Tell me, Jesus. How did your church become narrow and judgmental? You weren’t, and you paid a high price for your failure.
Deep unrest roils the souls of many U.S. Christians and churches. They are exercised by the imperative to protect the country and its children from the perils of gays or liberals or Islam and even from quieter Christians who are less adamant (or convinced) of such moral judgments.
Ironically, so many who fill the pews of American congregations have more in common with the Pharisees than with you. Right and wrong, good and bad, holy and secular are precisely parsed in their souls--one to be avoided the other embraced.
That’s what the Pharisaic spirit does, and it appears n every age, faith and society. But it is uniquely bothersome when it’s found among those who confess your name. They should known better
You embraced the secular, the bad, the wrong, a host of messy souls who populated the wrong side of the social divide. You didn’t tell them to go take a shower before they got too close.
And they liked you, too. They elbowed each other out of the way to hear what you said. They leaned close lest a stray word drop ungathered in the dust.
They wanted what was in you: the radiating Spirit of divine welcome that does not judge but draws into the gravity of an all-possessing love.
I have felt that welcome and long for it the more. Moments appear when we stand near a soul in whose presence all pretense fades, all concerns of judgment or rejection disappear. Soul encounters soul. Communion occurs, and self-consciousness flees like a lost dream upon awakening.
The life of needing to being judged and judging others--also ourselves--is the dream (the nightmare) that disappeared in those messed-up souls. It fled your presence.
So they flocked to you, seeking to be with you--soul to soul--divine welcome and human neediness wrapped up in a single embrace.
Yes, it’s true. The dream--the nightmare--of judgment is a human fiction, created from the need of threatened selves to imagine that some of us are better than others. Some are to be feared and kept out lest they spoil the lot.
Bu tin your presence, Jesus-- enfolded in that single embrace, illusion disappears in the warmth of morning light that drives off the shadows of night, and we see: the judgment of He who is Love is all that matters.
Only messed-up souls can know this, so they come to you, not the Pharisees, as do I.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 15:1-2
The tax collectors and sinners, however, were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribed complained saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'
Reflection
Tell me, Jesus. How did your church become narrow and judgmental? You weren’t, and you paid a high price for your failure.
Deep unrest roils the souls of many U.S. Christians and churches. They are exercised by the imperative to protect the country and its children from the perils of gays or liberals or Islam and even from quieter Christians who are less adamant (or convinced) of such moral judgments.
Ironically, so many who fill the pews of American congregations have more in common with the Pharisees than with you. Right and wrong, good and bad, holy and secular are precisely parsed in their souls--one to be avoided the other embraced.
That’s what the Pharisaic spirit does, and it appears n every age, faith and society. But it is uniquely bothersome when it’s found among those who confess your name. They should known better
You embraced the secular, the bad, the wrong, a host of messy souls who populated the wrong side of the social divide. You didn’t tell them to go take a shower before they got too close.
And they liked you, too. They elbowed each other out of the way to hear what you said. They leaned close lest a stray word drop ungathered in the dust.
They wanted what was in you: the radiating Spirit of divine welcome that does not judge but draws into the gravity of an all-possessing love.
I have felt that welcome and long for it the more. Moments appear when we stand near a soul in whose presence all pretense fades, all concerns of judgment or rejection disappear. Soul encounters soul. Communion occurs, and self-consciousness flees like a lost dream upon awakening.
The life of needing to being judged and judging others--also ourselves--is the dream (the nightmare) that disappeared in those messed-up souls. It fled your presence.
So they flocked to you, seeking to be with you--soul to soul--divine welcome and human neediness wrapped up in a single embrace.
Yes, it’s true. The dream--the nightmare--of judgment is a human fiction, created from the need of threatened selves to imagine that some of us are better than others. Some are to be feared and kept out lest they spoil the lot.
Bu tin your presence, Jesus-- enfolded in that single embrace, illusion disappears in the warmth of morning light that drives off the shadows of night, and we see: the judgment of He who is Love is all that matters.
Only messed-up souls can know this, so they come to you, not the Pharisees, as do I.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, August 16, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 13:10-13
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Reflection
I see no hesitation in you, Jesus.
You do not wait for her to ask for anything. You do not question her to check out whether she is good or worthy. You do not look for signs of faith or wonder if she is looking for God’s kingdom.
You do not know if she is a gentle soul or whether all that she has suffered has made her bitter and nasty, a scourge on the village whom everyone avoids.
The condition of her heart at this moment seems of no concern to you.
Your concern is singular: she must be set free.
All that matters is your mission, carrying out your work so that another kingdom, another way of being appears and beckons us to enter.
The way of your kingdom makes us nervous because it obliterates our judgments. We judge the worthiness of a human life by many measures, some known to us, many more utterly unconscious. Some we call good; others we reject.
That is not your way.
You do not walk the path of judgment and condemnation. Despite centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations the church has taught, you are not into guilt. You are not the Acme Judgment Company.
You are in the setting free business. You make things whole again, releasing bodies and souls from the bitter pains that enslave them so that they--that we, that I--might live free from all that prevents me from being human, graced and gracious.
That’s why you do not ask whether I or this crippled woman is deserving of your care. It is irrelevant.
All that matters is that we be set free and enter a way of being where judgments don’t count, even our judgments upon ourselves, because you have named us all beloved, leaving no place for guilt or deserving.
Such is the desire of your divine heart, a desire made clear when you heal and bless without request.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:10-13
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Reflection
I see no hesitation in you, Jesus.
You do not wait for her to ask for anything. You do not question her to check out whether she is good or worthy. You do not look for signs of faith or wonder if she is looking for God’s kingdom.
You do not know if she is a gentle soul or whether all that she has suffered has made her bitter and nasty, a scourge on the village whom everyone avoids.
The condition of her heart at this moment seems of no concern to you.
Your concern is singular: she must be set free.
All that matters is your mission, carrying out your work so that another kingdom, another way of being appears and beckons us to enter.
The way of your kingdom makes us nervous because it obliterates our judgments. We judge the worthiness of a human life by many measures, some known to us, many more utterly unconscious. Some we call good; others we reject.
That is not your way.
You do not walk the path of judgment and condemnation. Despite centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations the church has taught, you are not into guilt. You are not the Acme Judgment Company.
You are in the setting free business. You make things whole again, releasing bodies and souls from the bitter pains that enslave them so that they--that we, that I--might live free from all that prevents me from being human, graced and gracious.
That’s why you do not ask whether I or this crippled woman is deserving of your care. It is irrelevant.
All that matters is that we be set free and enter a way of being where judgments don’t count, even our judgments upon ourselves, because you have named us all beloved, leaving no place for guilt or deserving.
Such is the desire of your divine heart, a desire made clear when you heal and bless without request.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 12:32-34
'There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. 'Sell your possessions and give to those in need. Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it. For wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be too.'
Reflection
Recently, I was accused of employing a “heavy political and one-sided lens through which [I] have presented the ill-conceived ‘social gospel’ from the pulpit.”
Initially, I was profoundly angry and disgusted, not to mention surprised. I could more easily have been accused of being an unreformed German pietist who over-spiritualizes the gospel and is too little concerned with its social and political implications.
For the past decade, my ministry emphasis has been on personal spirituality and prayer, discernment and meditation, the knowing of God with heart and soul that relies less on the mind than on inner experience and intuition. I have studied, spoke and written hundreds of thousands of words about the teaching of great spiritual teachers of the Western Christian tradition.
Being accused of following an ill-conceived ideology rankled me. It also made me wonder if the person making the charge understood the term he was using, not to mention the deeply Christian convictions of the movement he used to insult me.
The social gospel movement was Protestant in origin and became prominent in the late 19th early 20th centuries. Proponents applied Christian ethics to social problems, such as social injustices, inequality, liquor, crime, racial tensions, slums, poverty, bad hygiene, child labor, weak labor unions, poor schools and the danger of war.
The movement encouraged people to be involved with the world’s problems, analyzing and responding to them from perspectives rooted in their Christian convictions.
A few of the movement’s theological beliefs were far too optimistic and died in the trenches of WWI. Most notably, some movement founders taught that human beings by their own efforts could build the kingdom of God and usher in the millennium.
But the influence of the movement outlived its founder’s optimism and helped shape significant events in the 20th century, such as women’s suffrage, the fight against poverty and the civil rights movement. The soaring rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr., ringing with the language of Jesus and the prophets, reflects the deepest instincts of the social gospel movement.
The hunger and poverty ministries of major church bodies and many Christian organizations such as Lutheran World Relief and Feed my Starving Children also bear witness to the way this movement raised the consciousness of Christians in North America, even among believers who did not accept some of the theological baggage of its original founders.
Reflecting on this history, my anger fades, and I realize that I stand among good company: the company of Christians who seek to take their beliefs out of the sanctuary to address suffering and injustice, the company of those who don’t rush by Jesus’ warnings about the dangers of wealth … or his words about justice for the poor.
Sometimes the compatriots in this company have been right and helpful to the entire church and the broader society; sometimes they have been naïve and not well informed: just like the church in this and every age since Jesus.
And it is to Jesus that I return each day, listening for the assurance that urges me to trust that the Father cares so much for me that I can throw off my self-concerned worries and seek God’s love and justice for those who need.
I urge you to do the same. You will find good company, the company of Jesus.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:32-34
'There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. 'Sell your possessions and give to those in need. Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it. For wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be too.'
Reflection
Recently, I was accused of employing a “heavy political and one-sided lens through which [I] have presented the ill-conceived ‘social gospel’ from the pulpit.”
Initially, I was profoundly angry and disgusted, not to mention surprised. I could more easily have been accused of being an unreformed German pietist who over-spiritualizes the gospel and is too little concerned with its social and political implications.
For the past decade, my ministry emphasis has been on personal spirituality and prayer, discernment and meditation, the knowing of God with heart and soul that relies less on the mind than on inner experience and intuition. I have studied, spoke and written hundreds of thousands of words about the teaching of great spiritual teachers of the Western Christian tradition.
Being accused of following an ill-conceived ideology rankled me. It also made me wonder if the person making the charge understood the term he was using, not to mention the deeply Christian convictions of the movement he used to insult me.
The social gospel movement was Protestant in origin and became prominent in the late 19th early 20th centuries. Proponents applied Christian ethics to social problems, such as social injustices, inequality, liquor, crime, racial tensions, slums, poverty, bad hygiene, child labor, weak labor unions, poor schools and the danger of war.
The movement encouraged people to be involved with the world’s problems, analyzing and responding to them from perspectives rooted in their Christian convictions.
A few of the movement’s theological beliefs were far too optimistic and died in the trenches of WWI. Most notably, some movement founders taught that human beings by their own efforts could build the kingdom of God and usher in the millennium.
But the influence of the movement outlived its founder’s optimism and helped shape significant events in the 20th century, such as women’s suffrage, the fight against poverty and the civil rights movement. The soaring rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr., ringing with the language of Jesus and the prophets, reflects the deepest instincts of the social gospel movement.
The hunger and poverty ministries of major church bodies and many Christian organizations such as Lutheran World Relief and Feed my Starving Children also bear witness to the way this movement raised the consciousness of Christians in North America, even among believers who did not accept some of the theological baggage of its original founders.
Reflecting on this history, my anger fades, and I realize that I stand among good company: the company of Christians who seek to take their beliefs out of the sanctuary to address suffering and injustice, the company of those who don’t rush by Jesus’ warnings about the dangers of wealth … or his words about justice for the poor.
Sometimes the compatriots in this company have been right and helpful to the entire church and the broader society; sometimes they have been naïve and not well informed: just like the church in this and every age since Jesus.
And it is to Jesus that I return each day, listening for the assurance that urges me to trust that the Father cares so much for me that I can throw off my self-concerned worries and seek God’s love and justice for those who need.
I urge you to do the same. You will find good company, the company of Jesus.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Today’s text
Psalm 33:20-22
We are waiting for Yahweh; he is our help and our shield, for in him our heart rejoices, in his holy name we trust. Yahweh, let your faithful love rest on us, as our hope has rested in you.
Reflection
I wait for you, My God. Impatiently, I wait. Come and lift the burden of past days’ sadness that I may again rejoice with uplifted heart in freedom of spirit.
I have no will or power in my soul to lift myself beyond grayness. I do not even want release, not if it requires much energy for me. I have no effort to give.
My soul is hostage. Only my fingers can move and pray. My soul cannot lift itself above the chair.
So come to me through my fingers. Let my hands become the media of your presence, the path of your approach.
Use them to surprise me, to break through sad helplessness. Move them to find the right words, the precise sound needed to startle my soul into life, my will into action that, I, with you, may fight through this gloom of soul and find the joy of your saints.
I am not alone here. You come, even through fingers. Who knew fingers could form tears of relief and release?
Many. All who have felt the gloom, bore the sadness of the hour and found you, sitting and waiting in the depths, expecting them--now me--to show up. Just sitting there … and smiling.
Pr. David L. Miller
Psalm 33:20-22
We are waiting for Yahweh; he is our help and our shield, for in him our heart rejoices, in his holy name we trust. Yahweh, let your faithful love rest on us, as our hope has rested in you.
Reflection
I wait for you, My God. Impatiently, I wait. Come and lift the burden of past days’ sadness that I may again rejoice with uplifted heart in freedom of spirit.
I have no will or power in my soul to lift myself beyond grayness. I do not even want release, not if it requires much energy for me. I have no effort to give.
My soul is hostage. Only my fingers can move and pray. My soul cannot lift itself above the chair.
So come to me through my fingers. Let my hands become the media of your presence, the path of your approach.
Use them to surprise me, to break through sad helplessness. Move them to find the right words, the precise sound needed to startle my soul into life, my will into action that, I, with you, may fight through this gloom of soul and find the joy of your saints.
I am not alone here. You come, even through fingers. Who knew fingers could form tears of relief and release?
Many. All who have felt the gloom, bore the sadness of the hour and found you, sitting and waiting in the depths, expecting them--now me--to show up. Just sitting there … and smiling.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 12:16-21
Then he told them a parable, 'There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, "What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops." Then he said, "This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time." But God said to him, "Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?" So it is when someone stores up treasure for himself instead of becoming rich in the sight of God.'
Reflection
‘The demand will be made for your soul.’ It sounds grave, the facing of death. Truth is the demand for one’s soul occurs daily.
It is a banal occurrence. It happens quietly in the course of the common and average. The demand for our soul is whispered in each encounter with every person in all circumstances. Most often we fail to hear it.
The manner in which we meet the final demand for our soul, when we face our demise, depends entirely upon on whether we have heard and responded to this whisper--and sought the wealth of God’s unfailing presence.
So what is the condition of my soul, O Lord? How well am I? Am I ready for what comes this day?
Has this soul of mine spent enough time encircled in your Loving Mystery? Have I found freedom rapt in the awareness of your love, or do I dwell in the anxiety of my fears and inadequacies?
Is my soul harried with many things, or do I know myself, my center, the core of being from which you want me to speak and act? Can I live with purpose moving deliberately amid the daily and distracting, able to pause, give, bless, laugh and listen?
The rich man sought his life in wealth and ignored the condition of his soul, dying in poverty. He’d starved the one thing he could take with him.
I know his name: Average. He is the average American. He is me … and most of those among whom I live and move. We are not evil, just busy, and often as not we are wholly out of tune with the condition of our souls. Until, of course, big challenges come, and our souls are demanded of us.
Then we know, and we regret our neglect and wish we’d done something more, paid attention, spent our time a differently, so that we knew how to touch and find the immovable rock of your loving life at the center of our souls.
The day to become rich is this one, now. And God is eager to give the wealth of the kingdom to those who come with empty hands and a willing heart.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:16-21
Then he told them a parable, 'There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, "What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops." Then he said, "This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time." But God said to him, "Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?" So it is when someone stores up treasure for himself instead of becoming rich in the sight of God.'
Reflection
‘The demand will be made for your soul.’ It sounds grave, the facing of death. Truth is the demand for one’s soul occurs daily.
It is a banal occurrence. It happens quietly in the course of the common and average. The demand for our soul is whispered in each encounter with every person in all circumstances. Most often we fail to hear it.
The manner in which we meet the final demand for our soul, when we face our demise, depends entirely upon on whether we have heard and responded to this whisper--and sought the wealth of God’s unfailing presence.
So what is the condition of my soul, O Lord? How well am I? Am I ready for what comes this day?
Has this soul of mine spent enough time encircled in your Loving Mystery? Have I found freedom rapt in the awareness of your love, or do I dwell in the anxiety of my fears and inadequacies?
Is my soul harried with many things, or do I know myself, my center, the core of being from which you want me to speak and act? Can I live with purpose moving deliberately amid the daily and distracting, able to pause, give, bless, laugh and listen?
The rich man sought his life in wealth and ignored the condition of his soul, dying in poverty. He’d starved the one thing he could take with him.
I know his name: Average. He is the average American. He is me … and most of those among whom I live and move. We are not evil, just busy, and often as not we are wholly out of tune with the condition of our souls. Until, of course, big challenges come, and our souls are demanded of us.
Then we know, and we regret our neglect and wish we’d done something more, paid attention, spent our time a differently, so that we knew how to touch and find the immovable rock of your loving life at the center of our souls.
The day to become rich is this one, now. And God is eager to give the wealth of the kingdom to those who come with empty hands and a willing heart.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 12:13-15
A man in the crowd said to him, 'Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.' He said to him, 'My friend, who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?' Then he said to them, 'Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in possessions, even when someone has more than he needs.'
Reflection
Why are you here, Jesus? You clearly grasp the reason that resides at the core of your being and the nature of your life.
Settling family squabbles over money and possessions has no interest to you. You are not defined from the outside, by what others want or expect. Frustrating the expectations and perceived needs of those who came to you doesn’t bother you.
You are not anxious about pleasing them or winning them over with a wise word or felicitous answer to their query.
You quickly dismisses the role of arbiter or judge and frustrates the desire of those you might have “won over’ with a wise or pleasing answer.
I don’t think you go out of your way to trouble or annoy people, although there are other stories in the Bible where it appears that you are dong exactly this. Not here.
Here you are clear that settling fights or offering an equitable solution to a family problem is an annoying distraction that you brush away like a pesky fly.
You knew this did not connect with the substance of your being, the depth of your soul.
Your soul was focused on life, what brings it, what takes it away, of what life consists.
And it certainly doesn’t consist of most of the things on which we spend much of our time and substance.
I think that is at the core of frustration for me on some days. When the day is done I wonder: how much of this day flows from the depth of my soul, from deepest loves and convictions?
How much of it truly satisfies the heart because it comes from or leads to my deepest loves--and the Deep Love who holds me?
How much is done to satisfy expectations or desires foisted on me from the real or perceived expectations of others, expectations I sometimes take on even when they distract from the deepest substance of my soul, from being the person I am, the one you call me to be?
Today, Jesus, let me be true to the substance of my soul. I hunger to be so clear about my reason for being as are you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:13-15
A man in the crowd said to him, 'Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.' He said to him, 'My friend, who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?' Then he said to them, 'Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for life does not consist in possessions, even when someone has more than he needs.'
Reflection
Why are you here, Jesus? You clearly grasp the reason that resides at the core of your being and the nature of your life.
Settling family squabbles over money and possessions has no interest to you. You are not defined from the outside, by what others want or expect. Frustrating the expectations and perceived needs of those who came to you doesn’t bother you.
You are not anxious about pleasing them or winning them over with a wise word or felicitous answer to their query.
You quickly dismisses the role of arbiter or judge and frustrates the desire of those you might have “won over’ with a wise or pleasing answer.
I don’t think you go out of your way to trouble or annoy people, although there are other stories in the Bible where it appears that you are dong exactly this. Not here.
Here you are clear that settling fights or offering an equitable solution to a family problem is an annoying distraction that you brush away like a pesky fly.
You knew this did not connect with the substance of your being, the depth of your soul.
Your soul was focused on life, what brings it, what takes it away, of what life consists.
And it certainly doesn’t consist of most of the things on which we spend much of our time and substance.
I think that is at the core of frustration for me on some days. When the day is done I wonder: how much of this day flows from the depth of my soul, from deepest loves and convictions?
How much of it truly satisfies the heart because it comes from or leads to my deepest loves--and the Deep Love who holds me?
How much is done to satisfy expectations or desires foisted on me from the real or perceived expectations of others, expectations I sometimes take on even when they distract from the deepest substance of my soul, from being the person I am, the one you call me to be?
Today, Jesus, let me be true to the substance of my soul. I hunger to be so clear about my reason for being as are you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 11:1
Now it happened that he was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'
Reflection
Teach us to pray. The request is simple and unadorned. The desire beneath it is anything but. It arises from a morass of feeling and intuition that is as ancient as the human soul.
God speaks life into existence and from the depth of that life sounds an echo searching for its Source, knowing it is the child of an unknown immensity, craving to touch, to feel, to move in seamless rhythm with that from which it comes and to which it belongs, and there, finally, to find its peace.
The desire to pray is the restless heart’s hunger to know the mystery of its own life, of what and for what it is made--and to taste how dearly it is treasured by the Immensity to whom it owes its existence.
There is no rest until the soul echoes the voice of its Loving Maker, and the sound of that echo resonates in harmony with the Creator’s voice, so that the soul feels encompassed in the immensity of a love, a mercy it can never fully know.
It is in this resonance of prayer that I know you Holy One, and all my anxious worries and questions fall silent.
I understand your friend’s simple question, “Teach us to pray.” It is the searching echo of your search for us; it is the divine hunger within that my life should dwell fully within your immensity, moving in perfect harmony with the love you are.
I do not choose to want this. Your loving word fashioned such desire into our souls. You speak us into existence, and depth of soul echoes its answers. Prayer is that echo.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 11:1
Now it happened that he was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'
Reflection
Teach us to pray. The request is simple and unadorned. The desire beneath it is anything but. It arises from a morass of feeling and intuition that is as ancient as the human soul.
God speaks life into existence and from the depth of that life sounds an echo searching for its Source, knowing it is the child of an unknown immensity, craving to touch, to feel, to move in seamless rhythm with that from which it comes and to which it belongs, and there, finally, to find its peace.
The desire to pray is the restless heart’s hunger to know the mystery of its own life, of what and for what it is made--and to taste how dearly it is treasured by the Immensity to whom it owes its existence.
There is no rest until the soul echoes the voice of its Loving Maker, and the sound of that echo resonates in harmony with the Creator’s voice, so that the soul feels encompassed in the immensity of a love, a mercy it can never fully know.
It is in this resonance of prayer that I know you Holy One, and all my anxious worries and questions fall silent.
I understand your friend’s simple question, “Teach us to pray.” It is the searching echo of your search for us; it is the divine hunger within that my life should dwell fully within your immensity, moving in perfect harmony with the love you are.
I do not choose to want this. Your loving word fashioned such desire into our souls. You speak us into existence, and depth of soul echoes its answers. Prayer is that echo.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Today’s text
Colossians 1:9-10
That is why, ever since the day he told us, we have never failed to remember you in our prayers and ask that through perfect wisdom and spiritual understanding you should reach the fullest knowledge of his will and so be able to lead a life worthy of the Lord, a life acceptable to him in all its aspects, bearing fruit in every kind of good work and growing in knowledge of God … .
Reflection
I wonder if any idea has been more misunderstood and abused than that of “the will of God.”
Millions of lives and myriad gallons of blood have been sacrificed to this idol in unnecessary and idiotic wars, to say nothing of programs of ethnic and religious cleansing carried out in God’s name.
When someone utters the phrase “will of God” in conversation, I hear echoes of puritanical preaching and sense the shadow of a great juggernaut hanging over our heads, ready to fall from the hand of a God who is eager to squash poor sinners for their peccadilloes.
At the very least, the phrase conjures up the notion of unpleasant and painful fates to which we must acquiesce and bear with stoic patience. They are “the will of God” don’t you know. Ours is not to question why.
Perhaps I overstate, but in most cases I feel the “will of God” presented as a power that stands over and against me, not for me, making me wonder who this God is and why I should love or serve such an arbitrary force.
But I do, however poorly, because the bitter and cruel nonsense attributed to God’s will is so far removed the knowledge of God of which I have but a pittance. But I am thankful for the meager knowledge I have been given.
It comes not from thick books but from the intuition of love that flows through the heart whenever I consider Jesus and the experience of those who first knew and believed the truth he is.
They found freedom and joy bubbling up in them, moving them to acts of generosity and great hospitality. Knowledge of God and God’s will did not move them to fear or to rail against infidels. It moved them to deeper humanity and grace.
Their knowledge was not the dusty concepts of books but of a love that abided and held them. They knew this love and the hope it stirs, and it enabled truest humanity and joyous purpose for which they sacrificed, even their lives.
Such lives are worthy of you, Holy One. They are the embodiment of your life, inspired by true knowledge of who you are and what you desire for us and from us.
Some claim knowledge of you and your will, but their knowledge doesn’t inspire love. They are still in the dark.
‘Knowledge’ that doesn’t inspire love is darkness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Colossians 1:9-10
That is why, ever since the day he told us, we have never failed to remember you in our prayers and ask that through perfect wisdom and spiritual understanding you should reach the fullest knowledge of his will and so be able to lead a life worthy of the Lord, a life acceptable to him in all its aspects, bearing fruit in every kind of good work and growing in knowledge of God … .
Reflection
I wonder if any idea has been more misunderstood and abused than that of “the will of God.”
Millions of lives and myriad gallons of blood have been sacrificed to this idol in unnecessary and idiotic wars, to say nothing of programs of ethnic and religious cleansing carried out in God’s name.
When someone utters the phrase “will of God” in conversation, I hear echoes of puritanical preaching and sense the shadow of a great juggernaut hanging over our heads, ready to fall from the hand of a God who is eager to squash poor sinners for their peccadilloes.
At the very least, the phrase conjures up the notion of unpleasant and painful fates to which we must acquiesce and bear with stoic patience. They are “the will of God” don’t you know. Ours is not to question why.
Perhaps I overstate, but in most cases I feel the “will of God” presented as a power that stands over and against me, not for me, making me wonder who this God is and why I should love or serve such an arbitrary force.
But I do, however poorly, because the bitter and cruel nonsense attributed to God’s will is so far removed the knowledge of God of which I have but a pittance. But I am thankful for the meager knowledge I have been given.
It comes not from thick books but from the intuition of love that flows through the heart whenever I consider Jesus and the experience of those who first knew and believed the truth he is.
They found freedom and joy bubbling up in them, moving them to acts of generosity and great hospitality. Knowledge of God and God’s will did not move them to fear or to rail against infidels. It moved them to deeper humanity and grace.
Their knowledge was not the dusty concepts of books but of a love that abided and held them. They knew this love and the hope it stirs, and it enabled truest humanity and joyous purpose for which they sacrificed, even their lives.
Such lives are worthy of you, Holy One. They are the embodiment of your life, inspired by true knowledge of who you are and what you desire for us and from us.
Some claim knowledge of you and your will, but their knowledge doesn’t inspire love. They are still in the dark.
‘Knowledge’ that doesn’t inspire love is darkness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Today’s text
Colossians 1:3-4
We give thanks for you to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, continually in our prayers, ever since we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you show towards all God's holy people because of the hope which is stored up for you in heaven.
Reflection
Love through hope: that is the sequence, and it stirs both hope and skepticism in me this morning.
You call us to yourself, Holy One, promising a love that outstrips every other we know or seek. Falling into the Love you are, our souls fly open, no longer grasping at life but relishing all we see and touch as a gift from your open hand.
Knowing you stirs hope that all our days will be immersed in the grace that transports our souls in moments your love frees us from gray despondency.
This land of grayness has been my home in recent days. More than anything it is the church that confines me there.
I need to feel the love hope stirs in your holy people, as you call us. But are we really?
I find too much, that is not love, that doesn’t reflect the holy presence of the love you awaken in depth of soul when we know that we eternally belong to your gracious care.
The hope stored up for us has not so impressed itself on our busy, distracted hearts that its seed can grow into the love that I need to find, if I am to escape the land of grayness.
Disappointed, I often turn from the church in despair, distancing myself from the people and place that first taught me that I have a soul and that every grace points to that Source for whom I yearn for union.
I turn from the home that long has pointed me toward Home, the people who at their best have been a sacrament of your welcome. I turn from those I need, disappointed that they cannot love any better than I can--or sometimes not nearly as much.
Can we, who are distracted, too busy and often apathetic and callous, bear the love you awaken in your people in so many other times and places?
I am skeptical, yet I hope. Mine is a fearing hope that wonders if we can truly be your people, brimming with the love you are, awakened by the hope that we are forever yours.
Remind us again that we are forever yours. Perhaps, today, we will listen … and learn to love.
Pr. David L. Miller
Colossians 1:3-4
We give thanks for you to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, continually in our prayers, ever since we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you show towards all God's holy people because of the hope which is stored up for you in heaven.
Reflection
Love through hope: that is the sequence, and it stirs both hope and skepticism in me this morning.
You call us to yourself, Holy One, promising a love that outstrips every other we know or seek. Falling into the Love you are, our souls fly open, no longer grasping at life but relishing all we see and touch as a gift from your open hand.
Knowing you stirs hope that all our days will be immersed in the grace that transports our souls in moments your love frees us from gray despondency.
This land of grayness has been my home in recent days. More than anything it is the church that confines me there.
I need to feel the love hope stirs in your holy people, as you call us. But are we really?
I find too much, that is not love, that doesn’t reflect the holy presence of the love you awaken in depth of soul when we know that we eternally belong to your gracious care.
The hope stored up for us has not so impressed itself on our busy, distracted hearts that its seed can grow into the love that I need to find, if I am to escape the land of grayness.
Disappointed, I often turn from the church in despair, distancing myself from the people and place that first taught me that I have a soul and that every grace points to that Source for whom I yearn for union.
I turn from the home that long has pointed me toward Home, the people who at their best have been a sacrament of your welcome. I turn from those I need, disappointed that they cannot love any better than I can--or sometimes not nearly as much.
Can we, who are distracted, too busy and often apathetic and callous, bear the love you awaken in your people in so many other times and places?
I am skeptical, yet I hope. Mine is a fearing hope that wonders if we can truly be your people, brimming with the love you are, awakened by the hope that we are forever yours.
Remind us again that we are forever yours. Perhaps, today, we will listen … and learn to love.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Today’s text
Isaiah 65:1
I have let myself be approached by those who did not consult me. I have let myself be found by those who did not seek me. I said, 'Here I am, here I am!' to a nation that did not invoke my name.
Reflection
I seek you, my Lord. Yet, my seeking is wane and weak. So much gets in the way, blocking the path, and I let it happen.
And still you seek my heart; still you haunt my mind; still you call in my restlessness, stirring me in the hunger I cannot satisfy, the yearning that knows no fulfillment.
I know where fulfillment lies. It rests hidden in the moment of mercy, the exquisite timelessness when nothing matters but your enveloping love.
In that blessed time--in that time alone, I know you. All other knowledge fades to beige in the bright light of Presence, and the completeness of your love completes my soul, rendering irrelevant everything else that I think I know.
I have lived too long and too far removed from the time of knowledge, but even now in the nagging and longing of an unsatisfied heart I feel you. I hear you calling, ‘Hear I am. Right here!”
You wave your arms in my hunger. You shout aloud in my yearning. You beckon me to come home and to find you who are eager to be found.
For I am never lost to you, no matter how far I wander from the places of true knowledge where you are all and all is in you.
And you find me again, even here and definitely now.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 65:1
I have let myself be approached by those who did not consult me. I have let myself be found by those who did not seek me. I said, 'Here I am, here I am!' to a nation that did not invoke my name.
Reflection
I seek you, my Lord. Yet, my seeking is wane and weak. So much gets in the way, blocking the path, and I let it happen.
And still you seek my heart; still you haunt my mind; still you call in my restlessness, stirring me in the hunger I cannot satisfy, the yearning that knows no fulfillment.
I know where fulfillment lies. It rests hidden in the moment of mercy, the exquisite timelessness when nothing matters but your enveloping love.
In that blessed time--in that time alone, I know you. All other knowledge fades to beige in the bright light of Presence, and the completeness of your love completes my soul, rendering irrelevant everything else that I think I know.
I have lived too long and too far removed from the time of knowledge, but even now in the nagging and longing of an unsatisfied heart I feel you. I hear you calling, ‘Hear I am. Right here!”
You wave your arms in my hunger. You shout aloud in my yearning. You beckon me to come home and to find you who are eager to be found.
For I am never lost to you, no matter how far I wander from the places of true knowledge where you are all and all is in you.
And you find me again, even here and definitely now.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 8:26-28
They came to land in the territory of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. He was stepping ashore when a man from the city who was possessed by devils came towards him; for a long time the man had been living with no clothes on, not in a house, but in the tombs. Catching sight of Jesus he gave a shout, fell at his feet and cried out at the top of his voice, 'What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I implore you, do not torture me.'
Reflection
Sanity, reason, hope, healing--that is why you come, Jesus, not to exact torture on a world bent on forgetting its Source, its Creator, its purpose.
You come to us to restore us to our right mind, for much of the time we live insane lives in one way or another.
There is no apparent end to the variety of ways we lose our minds. The old prophet, Isaiah, asked the operative question: “Why do you spend your money on that which is not food, on what does not satisfy?”
Like children finding their voice, we insist on finding and going our own way, thinking that autonomy, independence is the highest human expression. But we do so ignoring the markers of what it is to be human.
We seek ourselves in our fun, in lives overburdened with activities, in work, success or the obsession with making and having and doing enough. We cram every possible minute with some activity or another.
And often we wonder why our bodies and minds are restless; why do the ways we invest our hours do not totally delight the heart and leave us at peace, at rest?
Since we are insane, we scheme to find what we are missing and make plans to do more of the kinds of things we are already doing, expecting different results, the very definition of insanity.
Why have you come to us, Jesus?
Not to torture a confused and harried race, not to exact punishment for forgetting who we are or for ignoring our need to know the One who put us here. Not at all.
You come to restore our sanity that comes only when we listen to you, when we know you, when we hear the voice of a love that enters our insanity with a quiet word of mercy.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 8:26-28
They came to land in the territory of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. He was stepping ashore when a man from the city who was possessed by devils came towards him; for a long time the man had been living with no clothes on, not in a house, but in the tombs. Catching sight of Jesus he gave a shout, fell at his feet and cried out at the top of his voice, 'What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I implore you, do not torture me.'
Reflection
Sanity, reason, hope, healing--that is why you come, Jesus, not to exact torture on a world bent on forgetting its Source, its Creator, its purpose.
You come to us to restore us to our right mind, for much of the time we live insane lives in one way or another.
There is no apparent end to the variety of ways we lose our minds. The old prophet, Isaiah, asked the operative question: “Why do you spend your money on that which is not food, on what does not satisfy?”
Like children finding their voice, we insist on finding and going our own way, thinking that autonomy, independence is the highest human expression. But we do so ignoring the markers of what it is to be human.
We seek ourselves in our fun, in lives overburdened with activities, in work, success or the obsession with making and having and doing enough. We cram every possible minute with some activity or another.
And often we wonder why our bodies and minds are restless; why do the ways we invest our hours do not totally delight the heart and leave us at peace, at rest?
Since we are insane, we scheme to find what we are missing and make plans to do more of the kinds of things we are already doing, expecting different results, the very definition of insanity.
Why have you come to us, Jesus?
Not to torture a confused and harried race, not to exact punishment for forgetting who we are or for ignoring our need to know the One who put us here. Not at all.
You come to restore our sanity that comes only when we listen to you, when we know you, when we hear the voice of a love that enters our insanity with a quiet word of mercy.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 7:36-39
One of the Pharisees invited him to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee's house and took his place at table, suddenly a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.'
Reflection
You did not care, Jesus. You are unfazed by the tension that charged the air.
The irony is that the one who criticized you for being no prophet knew nothing of prophecy. If he had, he would have known that what glorifies God is mercy to the poor, the widow, the outcast, the alien. He would have understood that the Holy One desires mercy not sacrifice, compassion not self-righteousness.
But faith for him was a matter of division--separating the clean from the unclean, the divine from the common, the holy from the unholy, the righteous from the unrighteous.
Draw lines and stay on the ‘right side’ and all is well. Cross the line and you enter the disfavor of God and the rejection of those who know better.
His religion was a tool of prejudice, rejection, arrogance and self-aggrandizement. It was a device to lift him above the common run of men and women.
His understanding was a tool of detachment, with which he kept humanity’s crying needs at arms length, pretending he was not as needy or vulnerable as the woman weeping at your feet, Jesus.
It’s an attitude with which we are most familiar. We turn on the television and see CEOs and politicians able to accept anything except responsibility for their errors, failures and shortsightedness. Masters of the universe--then and now--are quite alike. Image control is always at the front of their minds.
Of course, denying one’s humanity and frailty is a sure way to fan mistrust, destroy relationships--and avoid receiving anything from you.
For the face you turned to the world showed little concern for purity or image control. You had nothing to give to those living the illusion of their mastery of life.
You were and are a paradigm of the prophetic faith of Isaiah and others before you who were consumed by the incomprehensible mercy and grandeur of the God who transcends our every thought and attempt to understand.
Faith in the face you reveal has nothing to do with drawing lines or separating oneself from impurity. It is about trusting an unspeakable mercy and loving each other in the holy fellowship of gratitude for what we will never fathom.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 7:36-39
One of the Pharisees invited him to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee's house and took his place at table, suddenly a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.'
Reflection
You did not care, Jesus. You are unfazed by the tension that charged the air.
The irony is that the one who criticized you for being no prophet knew nothing of prophecy. If he had, he would have known that what glorifies God is mercy to the poor, the widow, the outcast, the alien. He would have understood that the Holy One desires mercy not sacrifice, compassion not self-righteousness.
But faith for him was a matter of division--separating the clean from the unclean, the divine from the common, the holy from the unholy, the righteous from the unrighteous.
Draw lines and stay on the ‘right side’ and all is well. Cross the line and you enter the disfavor of God and the rejection of those who know better.
His religion was a tool of prejudice, rejection, arrogance and self-aggrandizement. It was a device to lift him above the common run of men and women.
His understanding was a tool of detachment, with which he kept humanity’s crying needs at arms length, pretending he was not as needy or vulnerable as the woman weeping at your feet, Jesus.
It’s an attitude with which we are most familiar. We turn on the television and see CEOs and politicians able to accept anything except responsibility for their errors, failures and shortsightedness. Masters of the universe--then and now--are quite alike. Image control is always at the front of their minds.
Of course, denying one’s humanity and frailty is a sure way to fan mistrust, destroy relationships--and avoid receiving anything from you.
For the face you turned to the world showed little concern for purity or image control. You had nothing to give to those living the illusion of their mastery of life.
You were and are a paradigm of the prophetic faith of Isaiah and others before you who were consumed by the incomprehensible mercy and grandeur of the God who transcends our every thought and attempt to understand.
Faith in the face you reveal has nothing to do with drawing lines or separating oneself from impurity. It is about trusting an unspeakable mercy and loving each other in the holy fellowship of gratitude for what we will never fathom.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 7:12-16
Now when [Jesus] was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.' Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, 'Young man, I tell you: get up.' And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and glorified God saying, 'A great prophet has risen up among us; God has visited his people.'
Reflection
The moment of reunion most moves me in this story. I can see it. Jesus stands beside the litter where the widow’s dead son had lain.
The young man stands between him and the widow, as Jesus, hand on his shoulder, moves him gently toward his astonished mother.
I do not see her face, but I feel her amazement in that split section before startled disbelief turns to exhilaration. And I feel my own tears at the pathos of the moment when the lost is returned and life is restored, not just to the young man but also to his mother.
This scene is frozen in time that I may leisurely take it in and know its meaning, a meaning that is better known by heart than mind. So I listen to my tears to hear what they say about human longing (or at least mine) and about the mystery of God.
What do I desire? What do I, like the widow, need returned to me by the One called Lord, because he has the power over life and death?
The widow surely enfolded her son in her arms and felt the life restored to his body. Surely, she wept, reunited with the one she most needed and wanted for her to know joy and the protection of a loved one.
The lonely silence of a too-quiet house and an empty soul was broken apart by happy tears in the presence of love personified. And she stepped into the arms of love personified: no, not the love of her child alone, but an incarnation of the love that she didn’t need to hold … because this is a love that holds her.
Stepping into her son’s arms, she stepped into the Love who seeks the soul on every day of every street. In this precious moment, she felt and knew beyond all the shadows of all doubts that Love who is Lord, the power of life who brings life from our every death.
I want to know what she knew. I want that love to melt away every sadness and still all anxiety. I want to step into the arms of love personified in every encounter and relationship.
I hunger for days and places this is real, and I grow weary when the joy of the woman is nowhere in sight, when life is more like a sad march to the grave than a celebration of reunion with my heart’s desire
That’s my want. But then it is what God wants, too.
My want--so average and human--is not different from the desire of the divine heart. It is a mirror image of what God wants to give every day, and especially on days we trudge along as if to a cemetery, instead of to a great party of life and love that is without end.
Restore to us the joy we lose, Lord of Life. This day, may we step into personifications of your love present on our way.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 7:12-16
Now when [Jesus] was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.' Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, 'Young man, I tell you: get up.' And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and glorified God saying, 'A great prophet has risen up among us; God has visited his people.'
Reflection
The moment of reunion most moves me in this story. I can see it. Jesus stands beside the litter where the widow’s dead son had lain.
The young man stands between him and the widow, as Jesus, hand on his shoulder, moves him gently toward his astonished mother.
I do not see her face, but I feel her amazement in that split section before startled disbelief turns to exhilaration. And I feel my own tears at the pathos of the moment when the lost is returned and life is restored, not just to the young man but also to his mother.
This scene is frozen in time that I may leisurely take it in and know its meaning, a meaning that is better known by heart than mind. So I listen to my tears to hear what they say about human longing (or at least mine) and about the mystery of God.
What do I desire? What do I, like the widow, need returned to me by the One called Lord, because he has the power over life and death?
The widow surely enfolded her son in her arms and felt the life restored to his body. Surely, she wept, reunited with the one she most needed and wanted for her to know joy and the protection of a loved one.
The lonely silence of a too-quiet house and an empty soul was broken apart by happy tears in the presence of love personified. And she stepped into the arms of love personified: no, not the love of her child alone, but an incarnation of the love that she didn’t need to hold … because this is a love that holds her.
Stepping into her son’s arms, she stepped into the Love who seeks the soul on every day of every street. In this precious moment, she felt and knew beyond all the shadows of all doubts that Love who is Lord, the power of life who brings life from our every death.
I want to know what she knew. I want that love to melt away every sadness and still all anxiety. I want to step into the arms of love personified in every encounter and relationship.
I hunger for days and places this is real, and I grow weary when the joy of the woman is nowhere in sight, when life is more like a sad march to the grave than a celebration of reunion with my heart’s desire
That’s my want. But then it is what God wants, too.
My want--so average and human--is not different from the desire of the divine heart. It is a mirror image of what God wants to give every day, and especially on days we trudge along as if to a cemetery, instead of to a great party of life and love that is without end.
Restore to us the joy we lose, Lord of Life. This day, may we step into personifications of your love present on our way.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 7:11-13
It happened that soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.'
Reflection
She had every reason to cry. A widow without a son to care for her was bereft. She had no means of economic support and no one to care for her in her old age.
Her son’s death condemned her to a life of loneliness, scraping by on the handouts of others in a community that would treat her as an object of God’s disfavor--and their own. You can almost hear the tongues wag.
“She is about as low as you can get.”
“I heard she was difficult to get on with.”
“They say she didn’t treat her family well.”
“And now they’re gone.”
Nothing like this ever happens today, of course. We are much more compassionate than ancient societies that treated widows as disfavored by God. Nor do we cut ourselves off from those who suffer great loss and grief, or those who suffer from mental illness, or from the loss of job or foreclosure, or from other tragedies. Right?
A deep repellent force within us resists getting too close to suffering and misfortune. We may say, “I don’t know what to say to her,” but most of the time this is cover for deeper psychological reactions we don’t understand.
Most of those reactions spring from fear of vulnerability. Even the idea that we need to know what to say comes from that fear. We want to be in control and being with those who suffer reminds us that we are not.
Being with those who grieve, who are caught up in irresolvable dilemmas and pain reminds us that it could be us, and we resist that awareness. We don’t want to see it, for to see it shakes us into the undeniable reality that we are mortal.
In our society talking about death, about one’s mortality is an obscenity, something that is not done in polite company--or perhaps in any company.
But there are those among us who run into burning houses, so to speak. They do not shy from the grief of the mourner, the struggle of the cancer patient, the fear of those for whom the future impends threat.
And there are parts of our fearful souls that want to be involved, that want to care, that may even want to say with Jesus, “Don’t cry. I am here.”
Those parts of our souls are inhabited by the Spirit of Jesus. His Spirit is not hard to recognize. It is the desire to care, the yearning to live beyond the safety of our walls, the craving to become the compassion we feel in depths of our soul that we too seldom visit.
That Spirit is known in the hope that the touch of Jesus will also raise us when our life is slipping away. And it continues to say, “Don’t cry. Grace is here … and life. No matter what.
Pr David L. Miller
Luke 7:11-13
It happened that soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, 'Don't cry.'
Reflection
She had every reason to cry. A widow without a son to care for her was bereft. She had no means of economic support and no one to care for her in her old age.
Her son’s death condemned her to a life of loneliness, scraping by on the handouts of others in a community that would treat her as an object of God’s disfavor--and their own. You can almost hear the tongues wag.
“She is about as low as you can get.”
“I heard she was difficult to get on with.”
“They say she didn’t treat her family well.”
“And now they’re gone.”
Nothing like this ever happens today, of course. We are much more compassionate than ancient societies that treated widows as disfavored by God. Nor do we cut ourselves off from those who suffer great loss and grief, or those who suffer from mental illness, or from the loss of job or foreclosure, or from other tragedies. Right?
A deep repellent force within us resists getting too close to suffering and misfortune. We may say, “I don’t know what to say to her,” but most of the time this is cover for deeper psychological reactions we don’t understand.
Most of those reactions spring from fear of vulnerability. Even the idea that we need to know what to say comes from that fear. We want to be in control and being with those who suffer reminds us that we are not.
Being with those who grieve, who are caught up in irresolvable dilemmas and pain reminds us that it could be us, and we resist that awareness. We don’t want to see it, for to see it shakes us into the undeniable reality that we are mortal.
In our society talking about death, about one’s mortality is an obscenity, something that is not done in polite company--or perhaps in any company.
But there are those among us who run into burning houses, so to speak. They do not shy from the grief of the mourner, the struggle of the cancer patient, the fear of those for whom the future impends threat.
And there are parts of our fearful souls that want to be involved, that want to care, that may even want to say with Jesus, “Don’t cry. I am here.”
Those parts of our souls are inhabited by the Spirit of Jesus. His Spirit is not hard to recognize. It is the desire to care, the yearning to live beyond the safety of our walls, the craving to become the compassion we feel in depths of our soul that we too seldom visit.
That Spirit is known in the hope that the touch of Jesus will also raise us when our life is slipping away. And it continues to say, “Don’t cry. Grace is here … and life. No matter what.
Pr David L. Miller
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Today’s text
John 16:13-14
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.
Reflection
I shy away from any notion that I can possess “complete truth.” How can my finite mind and heart grasp that which is total, complete, leaving nothing out?
And how would I ever be aware of it even if, for a moment, I knew such truth? With what measure would I judge it to be true and real, let alone complete?
Yet, isn’t this your outrageous promise, Jesus, that I will be led into complete truth?
And this is to say … into you, for you are complete truth.
This is our crazy confession. You are the ultimately real, the solid, the lasting, the unerring and unchanging.
Looking into your face, perceiving the reality that you are is to gaze into the Truth which is before time, the Truth which will remain when our old earth is frozen stone-cold and gray, rotating silent and lifeless for countless millennia around a burnt-out sun, collapsing beneath its own dying weight.
But we will not end in such lifeless futility. For you send your Spirit, the Spirit of truth who lives and breathes your present Presence, encompassing my little existence.
Your Spirit’s hungry desire is to lead me--and all--into complete Truth--into you, so that the life that I am--and the life that is in all--is taken into the fullness of the loving intimacy and eternal life that you share with the One you call Father.
And there, in this intimacy, we shall live where life is complete, where there is nothing but life.
I cannot imagine this, except in rare moments, moments even now. For moments come when some sweet Spirit transports me into a ‘space,’ into a moment of truest being in which I know complete love--and recognize it as truth unchanging and unassailable.
And I know: this is not a truth I possess, but the Truth who possesses me.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 16:13-14
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.
Reflection
I shy away from any notion that I can possess “complete truth.” How can my finite mind and heart grasp that which is total, complete, leaving nothing out?
And how would I ever be aware of it even if, for a moment, I knew such truth? With what measure would I judge it to be true and real, let alone complete?
Yet, isn’t this your outrageous promise, Jesus, that I will be led into complete truth?
And this is to say … into you, for you are complete truth.
This is our crazy confession. You are the ultimately real, the solid, the lasting, the unerring and unchanging.
Looking into your face, perceiving the reality that you are is to gaze into the Truth which is before time, the Truth which will remain when our old earth is frozen stone-cold and gray, rotating silent and lifeless for countless millennia around a burnt-out sun, collapsing beneath its own dying weight.
But we will not end in such lifeless futility. For you send your Spirit, the Spirit of truth who lives and breathes your present Presence, encompassing my little existence.
Your Spirit’s hungry desire is to lead me--and all--into complete Truth--into you, so that the life that I am--and the life that is in all--is taken into the fullness of the loving intimacy and eternal life that you share with the One you call Father.
And there, in this intimacy, we shall live where life is complete, where there is nothing but life.
I cannot imagine this, except in rare moments, moments even now. For moments come when some sweet Spirit transports me into a ‘space,’ into a moment of truest being in which I know complete love--and recognize it as truth unchanging and unassailable.
And I know: this is not a truth I possess, but the Truth who possesses me.
Pr. David L. Miller
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