Friday, October 3, 2014

Today’s text

Romans 3:21-24

 But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus … .

Knowing … grace

Who blesses you? What blesses you? I asked this of a friend yesterday.

By blessed I mean that anxiety leaves you. It flies away. Doubts … about yourself, about what you have done or need to do … disappear. They are gone.

You know you can say anything, be utterly and totally honest about your fears or failures, what you have done or not done. You know you are accepted. You are free and know you are loved, accepted, treasured and beautiful … despite whatever confusion or confliction or troubles you have or will face.

The blessed have no need to prove themselves, to win approval or justify their words or actions as having been the right, proper or smart thing to do. There is just freedom of soul deep within.

Who … what … lifts you into this state of blessing?

There are moments we know blessing; in these moments we truly know … God.

Early this week I took my tired, confused and conflicted self to the back patio. I was hungry for a little peace and quiet. I wanted every other voice to fade away so I could hear the voice of my own depths, catch up with myself … and make sense of the thoughts and feelings stirred up by experiences of the day.

Drink in hand, I retreated to the back patio and sat in the sun, now gentle, having lost the harsh glare of summer. Bricks warm beneath my bare feet, a breeze released a rain of leaves from the birch tree, golden and brown, blanketing the earth.

I had thought to read, carrying a book, but reading was not on my soul’s agenda.

I simply sat, enveloped and encompassed by rays of the autumn sun that did not ask me for anything. Nor did I have to ask them to come and warm me, to surround and fill me. The sunlight just came, free and full, filling me with a gentle awareness that there was no need for me to do anything but to be there and to let the sun do its healing work on my soul, telling me again what blessing is … and what God is like.

God speaks to the listening heart: “All you need do is to sit in the sun and know … the Love I am comes to you not because you ask for it or deserve it, not because you have done something to prove yourself, but because I , the Lord, am who I am.

“I am the Love who reaches out to accept and justify sinners. I am Jesus Christ who touches and heals, welcomes and makes whole … not the well but the sick and the broken, the confused and the needy, the imperfect and those who lose themselves amid the conflicting demands on their lives.

“There is no need to justify yourself to me. No need to prove your worth. Just take your tired and wounded heart and sit in the places … and with the people … where you know my love freely given. I will do the rest.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Today’s text

Psalm 80:7

Restore us, O God of hosts;
   let your face shine, that we may be saved. 

Light

Too much time is spent

in darkness, not knowing,

not feeling, not overwhelmed

by this love that never turns away.

I know … you are always

turned toward us, never

looking away, but the

weight of earth’s sadness

clouds the heart and shadows

the eyes so they cannot see

and do not glisten with tears

Knowing …

You.

I savor those tears; they

are gift in my soul, light

in my eyes and heart, death

of every sadness, love

of every moment, blessing

everything and everyone

who happens by; alive,

in the circle of  Your vision,

at the center of your sight,

alive, alive, alive, finally,

born anew, saved.

Autumn sun on patio bricks,

warm under foot, the heat

of summer gone, leaves

raining from the river birch

blanketing the earth in the

wealth of summer, a carpet

of gold and brown, a world

alive and golden, kissed

by light from the Source

of every light, inviting the

heart to sit in quiet warm,

held in the Light that never

turns away  …and know.

Light is everywhere, it

seems, rays of life present

inviting our presence that

we might sit for a moment

and let it do its saving work.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, September 29, 2014

Today’s text

Psalm 80:7, 14-15

Restore us, O God of hosts;
   let your face shine, that we may be saved. …
Turn again, O God of hosts;
   look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine,
   the stock that your right hand planted.

Soil

I can never move home again.

The ground where

You planted me is home

no longer.

It formed me. I lived

close to the soil and to

those who labored on

it, struggling

with winds and weather,

rain and its lack, who went

to their rest with  

soil-stained hands,

laid, finally, beneath the soil

which had pained and pleased

them, the soil where they,

like me, had been planted.

I knew this ground,

the country roads and

town streets I walked,

every rough spot in the asphalt,

soft places where the asphalt

cracked and sank, where

potholes appeared and were

filled again each spring.

.

I walked them a thousand

times, kicking rocks up the street

to salve adolescent wounds,

releasing anger at the

confines of this world,

hoping for a world beyond

my teachers and tormentors

where someone would see

me, beyond their image

of what I was, even though

I didn’t know myself. I knew

Only that this piece of soil

in which I was planted

was not home

and could never be.

You meant me to grow

like the fields of corn, no,

more like the hay

and sweet clover that

doesn’t march in neat rows.

You planted me in that

particular soil,

Holy One, a peculiar plant

that needed that place

to fill my senses

with the fragrance of

growing things, stirring hope

to know a world beyond

the soil which grew me.

Look at this soul planted

in the soil of this earth, now

far from the fields of hay

and sweet clover and the

soil-stained dignity of the

hands who worked it.

Tend the growing of this

peculiar plant that is yet

to be that the seed you

planted may bring its harvest

of grace and the beauty

of the fields that still stir

my heart.

I would be as they.

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Today’s text

Psalm 25: 5-6

Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
   for you are the God of my salvation;
   for you I wait all day long.
Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
   for they have been from of old. 

Morning praise

A long way I have traveled,

not only in miles and years

but in emotion and truth.

Love and fear,

hope and despair,

ecstasy and bitter

disappointment. I

have known them all,

sometimes on the same day.

I have breathed rare air

of giddy joy, beyond

any my younger soul

imagined.

I thought this was life

in truest form,

hoping for more,

thinking something was

wrong with the world

or me when, disappointed,

I fell from the heights.

Moments, wondrous moments,

Which I savor and to which

memory and heart cling,

thankful for what I

have known, learned, felt,

filling me with the beauty

and gratitude.

Each ascent to heights of

of human joy occasions

its own unique fall. Each

fall is more gracious still;

an awful grace it is, never

without pain, but grace

it is still … because

I fall into you,

the Mystery who is Love,

steadfast and sure.

Every road, every mile,

every height and fall,

every hope that fails,

finally, takes me back

to you where I find myself

and know

that no matter my emotion

I was never really lost

and never will be.

Nothing is lost to your love;

everything finds it's place.

Pr.  David L. Miller

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Today’s text

Luke 7:41-50

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

Don’t forget the truth

Tears are always telling. They reveal the heart. Look at the woman weeping at Jesus feet, washing them with her tears, kissing and anointing him with oil.

These are not tears of sorrow or a shower of shame. They are the tears of one who tastes the height of human fulfillment and joy. Passionate love that cannot be contained flows from her heart as from a lake into which a great rain has fallen.

She feels the Great Love who is God filling and flowing through her. Dissolving all shame and fear, it busts the narrow confines of her heart and spills from her eyes, her hands and feet. She becomes a truly human soul for the first time.

The woman is a portrait of the ecstasy and loving freedom God intends for every human being. In Jesus, she experiences forgiveness and the Love who is beyond (and within) all loves, welcoming her home. She enters a world of grace where she is held and encompassed by the Love who labors in all things, in every time and place, every moment and speck of matter.

Those like Simon, the Pharisee, cannot enter this world. They cannot ascend to the heights of fulfillment known by the woman weeping at Jesus feet. They will never be as alive, wondrous and beautiful as she. Comfortable in their respectability, they do not ache for forgiveness and the welcome of God.

She hungers, welcomes and believes that Jesus’ grace is the truth of her life, the ultimate truth of all life. Surely, she did always believe this. Until she met Jesus, she likely believed she was what others said she was—tainted, sinful, unacceptable, an outcast. She knew she didn’t belong among those invited to the party of life’s better things.

There are many who believed this about her. She internalized this identity, believing the lie that she was something less than beautiful, a soul of infinite worth, the apple of God’s eye, beloved for all time.

So many believe this lie, internalizing the identity and value projected upon them by others … or by their own internal demons, and this is who they become, acting out a part they were never meant to play.

But not this woman. Forgiven, she is given back … herself … and becomes the beauty and love, the grace and gratitude the Loving Mystery created her to be. She becomes a vessel of the Love who has neither beginning nor end.

She believes Jesus’ forgiveness—not Simon’s rejection-- is the ultimate truth of her life—and ours. Refusing the life-killing lie, she enters the joy of those who know they are beloved of God. Her faith saves her, sets her in right relationship with God, and opens a world of grace.

So it is with us. With needy hearts and eyes opened by Jesus’ forgiveness, we see and recognize the grace that finds us even in odd and unexpected moments. Late one recent afternoon, I sat in a café, glass of red wine in hand, looking up Washington Street near my office. Cars worked their way up and down the rain-washed asphalt on their way home.

I’d just had another birthday, and my mind wandered across decades of a startling life in which I have seen and felt things I never thought I’d know. My musing moved me to love and gratitude—and eagerness to bless my waiter or anyone else who happened by.

I knew what the woman at Jesus’ feet knew. All that I am, all that has been and will be is encompassed by God, held by the Love who forgives and lifts me, the Love who saves me from myself and my sadness over the failures and frustrations that too often imprison my heart.

No one needs to tell me to love or to pray in such moments. Love and prayer flow like tears from the weeping woman: “I give you thanks, O God, that you come to again and again to me with the grace of forgiveness, welcoming me home.”

This Love is the ultimate truth of our life … of all life. Knowing this Love, we become truly human souls. This is the way it is: The Loved … love.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday September 26, 2014

Today’s text

Psalm, 25, 1,6-7

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust; …

Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
   for they have been from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
   according to your steadfast love remember me,
   for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

A morning prayer

I cry to you in the morning, O Lord,

like billions before me and

untold numbers

who will take my place

when I am gone.

But that is not now.

Now, I am here, needing

the peace of your presence,

the magic of the Love that melts

every sorrow and trouble,

lifting my eyes,

telling my heart that this soul of mine

is loved and wanted,

that this heart is yet beautiful

as the symphony

that fills this basement room

and me.

Tell me

what my heart needs to know.

Fill me

with the Love you are.

Send sacraments

of your nearness

to save me from myself.

Deliver me

from demons

that wake me on lonely nights,

and I shall be free to praise you.

Knowing you is life.

So this day let me feel

the sun on my face,

the autumn air on my skin and

flowing lightly through my lungs.

Let me see

the smiles of your beloved,

and I will know joy again,

praising you for the goodness

you are.

I live to know

your Love.

Your love is life and wonder,

beauty and freedom,

and I believe against all doubt

in the Love

that never lets us go.

So let me know

in all the ways you speak

the Love that is life

and my heart shall fly free.

Pr.  David L. Miller

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Today’s text
Luke 7:41-50

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

Truth that sets free

She believed. She trusted that what Jesus said was true, no, that it is the ultimate truth of her soiled and broken life. More: She believed the grace she felt flowing from Jesus is the ultimate truth of life.

She could have believed otherwise and likely did … until she met Jesus.

She believed that she was what others said she was--rejected, tainted, sinful, unacceptable, an outcast. She doesn’t belong among those invited to the party to enjoy life’s better things.

There are many who believed this about her, and she no doubt internalized this identity. She knew who she was … this rejected, unwelcome thing. She believed the lie that she was not beautiful, a soul of infinite worth, the apple of God’s eye, beloved for all time.  (So many of us believe this lie!)

The rejected often internalize the identity and value others project on them, and this is who they become, acting out a part they were never meant to play, internalizing their oppression.

Forgiven, the woman is given back … herself. She is free to become what the Loving Mystery created to her be, bearing the grace and beauty, dignity and honor. Jesus restores her to herself, setting her free for a fresh future.

And she believes. She has faith. She grasps his words as her reality, the ultimate truth of her life, in the process rejecting the rejection that had rained down on her … as a lie.

Faith grabs hold of ultimate truth. It grasps what your heart accepts as the truth about the world, yourself, the lives of others … about God’s presence or absence, about whether the world is graced or forsaken

Are Jesus words true or are the opinions of those who reject me the real truth of my life? Do I live in a world where grace is real and seeks me very moment of my day, or is this illusion?

The woman believes Jesus … and is saved.

Freedom, a fresh future, the joy of belovedness … this is all hers the moment she believes that Jesus … not Simon … speaks the truth of her life … and ours.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Today’s text

Colossians 3.16:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

Filled with the Spirit

I remember my face burning in shame, wishing I could disappear. If only the floor would collapse so I’d fall into the church basement where no one could see me. My God, these people out there watching me, I am going to have to face them … for years.

It was all Mrs. Moll’s fault … for which I am deeply grateful.

On Saturday mornings, Mrs. Moll stood in front of the south bank of pews in our little church, St. Paul Lutheran, Warren Il. Twenty or 30 of us elementary kids gathered there to sing and before going to Bible class every Saturday; junior Lutherans they called us.

She would raise her hands, a pianist hit a chord and we’d sing Living for Jesus. It’s the only song I can remember from those days. I can still sing a couple of verses at the drop of a hat. We must have sung it hundreds of times to have left such an imprint.

About the time I was in fourth or fifth grade, she tried to shape some of us into a little choir. There weren’t many takers, never more than eight or nine, mostly girls. The few boys who sang had a marked tendency to be sick on Sundays when we were scheduled to sing--and that included the organist’s son.

But I was always there in our frilly white robes, usually standing beside Ron McNett, whose tooth I later broke off when we collided in a pick-up baseball game.

But he deserved it.

One Sunday Mrs. Moll arranged for us to sing during worship. Ron and I were the only boys in the choir that day, and the boys section--all two of us--were to sing a verse of the song … by ourselves.

I knew what was going to happen. I could feel it coming like a fright train blaring through town on the Illinois Central tracks.

The moment approached when Ron and I were to sing. As the girls neared the end of their verse, my face grew hotter and redder. I knew what Ron was going to do.

Mrs. Moll cued us. I opened my mouth and a feeble, wavering note squeaked from somewhere high in my throat. Ron, at my left elbow, sniggered beneath his breath, uttering not a word, not a note, taking pleasure as I squeaked and tripped through the verse as the congregation prayed for me to get done … quickly. Please God, make it stop.

I was on my own for an eternity as Ron’s sniggering continued through the verse.

As I said, he served that tooth thing.

Years go by, decades, and now everything transforms. I still sing, not as well as I used to, but I think God likes it more than ever. I know I do.

And I feel sorry for Ron.

I feel sorry for every boy … or person, for that matter, who never learned to sing, who were too afraid, or tone-deaf, or discouraged from opening their mouth because it was ‘unmanly’ … or not cool … to give voice to words and emotion that open the depth of one’s soul.

I think they are deprived, unable to enter the deepest parts of their souls … and of the wonder of the Love who seeks us there.

 In moments, songs run through me: “You are holy, you are whole. You are always ever more than we ever understand.”

And in those moments I understand. I understand the Loving Mystery of God. I know that Love. And I understand that there is more love and beauty in me than I ever knew. I understand that the language of song opens the heart and ushers me into a world where the wonder of God’s love fills me to the brim, filling me with the Spirit and making me glad to be alive.

I understand how thankful I am for Mrs. Moll … and for the day the floor failed to collapse.

Bless you Mrs. Moll. Now I know why you were so desperate for us to sing.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, September 19, 2014

Today’s text 

Luke 7:41-47

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

 Startled gratitude

The Loved … love.

Look at the woman weeping at Jesus feet, kissing and anointing him. Tears are always telling. They reveal the heart. Her heart knows a passionate, effusive love that cannot be contained. It overflows like a lake into which far too much rain has fallen.

Her tears are not of sorrow. They are not a shower of shame. This is not a broken soul without hope. These are the tears of one who has tasted the height of human fulfillment, the joy which God intends for all of us.

She knows and feels the Great Love flowing to and through her, filling her. It spills from her eyes, her hands and feet in passionate love and blessing that cannot be contained. It evaporates her shame and fear, and she becomes a human soul, a truly human soul for the first time.

The woman weeping at Jesus feet is a portrait of the ecstasy and loving freedom God intends for every human being.

She has entered the world of grace that is no where and every where. It is nowhere for the self-satisfied, like the Simon the Pharisee, whose hearts do not ache for forgiveness and the loving welcome of God. Nor can they fly to the heights of fulfillment known by the woman weeping at Jesus feet. In their respectability, they may never become as alive, wondrous and beautiful as she.

In Jesus, the woman experiences forgiveness and the Love that is beyond all loves welcoming her home. She has entered a world of grace and knows what it means to be encompassed by the Love that labors in every time and place, in every moment and every speck of matter.

Only those with needy hearts and eyes of faith enter and know Christ’s saving presence. They enter a world of grace where the heart pours out the wonder of Love in startled gratitude.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Today’s text

Luke 7:41-47 

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.

From Love to love

Grace is everywhere. When it hits you your heart flies free in gratitude and love. Resentments and pains disappear, and you know the joy of being alive … and the heart of God.

Grace is the experience of love flowing to and through you. It is the height of human fulfillment, what God wants for us and seeks to give.

Looking up the street late on a rainy afternoon, I sit in a café, glass of red wine in hand, watching the cars work their way up and down Washington Street, mostly on their way home, I suppose.

Something about the scene moves me. I do not know what or why; I know only that there is love and gratitude in me--and eagerness to bless my waiter and anyone else who passes by for the beauty of this moment.

I just had another birthday, and my mind wanders among places and scenes from past decades of a startling life in which I have seen felt things I never thought I’d know … . 

The blessing of it all fills me, and I know: All that has been and will be is encompassed by God, which is to say … by Love, the love I have known and which surrounds and regularly saves me from myself … and from despair over failures and shortcomings of which I am weekly reminded.

Even the grainy sky and wet streets weighted low beneath the grayness of this fall day speaks love to my heart and fills me.

And my prayer is one of thanks that your love, O God, comes to an aging sinner like me, thanks that you make no discriminating exceptions but come to the hearts of the undeserving and virtuous alike, bringing joy and gratitude for all the life and love I have ever known. Thank you.

There is an inevitable connection between Love and love. The Loved …love. Those whose hearts have been found by the One who is Love are awakened and made alive.

And all they … all we want is to bask in the Love that sets us free to bless and love and give ourselves away.

There are not many loves in this world, but only one. The Love we know in every love is the One who is Love, the one revealed in the gracious welcome of Jesus.

The woman who kisses Jesus’ feet in joy and gratitude is all of us, captured by the grace of the One who comes in words of forgiveness and on rainy autumn afternoons.

Pr. David L. Miller

.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Today’s text

John 3:13-17

No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of man; as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.

Crystal river

The heart of God is endlessly flowing stream … from which you may drink … and live.

When I was 11 or 12 I sometimes rode my bike north of town with a few others boys on summer Saturdays. We left town on highway 78, crossed the state line into Wisconsin, riding three of four miles, mostly uphill, to a gravel road … that headed west.

The road dipped steeply, and we coasted a few hundred yards down the hill and across a rusty bridge. Jamming on our brakes, we sprayed gravel across the road as we turned into a dirt lane and were stopped by a wooden gate, weathered gray through years of neglect.

Dropping our bikes in a grassy ditch, we climbed over the gate and stepped into a pasture, a narrow valley split in two by a lazy steam, three or four horses grazing at the north end of the field.

We ran and rambled along the west side of the valley, beckoned by a pool of water on the edge of the field. A spring pulsed from the bottom of the pool. Crystal clear, burning cold water flowed several gallons a minute from deep within the earth

Water cress grew along the shallow edges of the pool, crisp and crunchy, slightly salty to the taste, green as grass, fresh as the water.

Kicking off our sneakers, we waded to the center of the pool and drank from our hands right over the mysterious crevice from which the water flowed. Cooled and filled, we plunked down on the pond’s marshy bank and soaked our feet in the cold water, mud oozing between out toes, watching what … to our eyes … was a miracle.

The crystal flow at the center of the pool just kept bubbling up, pushed from the earth by forces we didn’t understand. Day and night, winter and summer, it just kept flowing.

We returned a couple of times every summer until we thought we were too old for such things… as if you ever are. Every time the water flowed, beautiful and cold, fresher than any water we’d ever taste.

We didn’t ask for it. We didn’t work a pump handle to draw it from the earth. It did not depend on us in any way. Our moods, happy or sad, make any difference. Nor did the lies we told our mothers about not riding on the highway.

The water just kept flowing, refreshing us and giving a group of boys an adventure on summer days when our little town bored us to tears.

To understand God … you must understand the spring. To must understand eternal life you must know the feeling of being revived by its crystal pure water.

God is an endlessly flowing stream of love we feel in every love we ever know. The flow just continues, night and day, without ebb or end, seeking to refresh your heart that you may find peace … and know the love that never runs dry.

The lifting up of Jesus on the cross is the sign of what is always true and what always will be true. The heart of God is a heart of love constantly pouring itself out in the hope that we will know and feel the love that seeks us in every time and place, in every grace and beauty, in every bright or gloomy day.

 

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Today’s text

John 3:13-17

No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of man; as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.

The eternal sign

The heart of God is an ocean of love that holds all we are and everything that is.

Every once in a blessed while we wake into awareness of the Love who holds all things. We feel this Love surrounding us like the air.

Every day, we need this knowledge to lift us from our fears and save us from sadness, to fill us with the hope that all is well regardless of present circumstances.

Otherwise, we feel lost and alone, burdened by the unfulfillment, the weight of our failures or whatever present darkness gulfs the heart and clouds our hope.

The lifting up of Jesus is the sign of what is always true, what was always true and what always will be true. The heart of God is a heart of love constantly pouring itself out in the hope that we will see and know and feel the love that is always ours.

No love is won on Jesus’ cross. The cross is demonstration of the Love that comes seeking us in every time and place, in every grace and beauty, in every bright or gloomy day.

Every time awareness awakens our hearts to the truth, we come alive. We smile and flower. We bloom with the life that lies latent within us.

We are saved … and live.

Be lifted up today in my heart, Blessed One, that I may be lifted into the life only your love can give.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Today’s text

John 3:13-17

No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of man; as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.

The punch line

The symbol of the cross layers so many intertwined meanings it seems impossible to sort them out. Too many, I believe, read these words and reach immediately for the idea of sacrifice and repayment of an offended deity.

God needed to be repaid for humanity’s dishonor to God. But who can pay God anything? No one. So God found a way to pay himself back for humanity’s fault by appearing on earth as a perfect human being.

This explanation is unsatisfying for many reasons, not the least of which is because it seems to turn God against God’s own self.

It also makes God incapable of real love and forgiveness. Anyone who must be repaid or appeased cannot forgive. They are merely engaging in the world’s tired tit-for-tat games that inevitably lead to hatred and revenge.

Virtually every Sunday school child is taught the famous words of John: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that those who believe in him may not perish but have eternal life.

There is nothing here about wrath or anger or sacrifice or paying God back. God is simply being the Love God is.

Jesus on the cross, with open arms, strikes out at no one … not even his persecutors. His arms are open to receive all the hatred, the vindictiveness, the rejection the world has to give … because God loves … the world.

That’s the punch line. God loves the world, this world where ISIS beheads journalists and kills children who are from the wrong families, the wrong religion, the wrong ethnic group.

God loves the world that hates and rejects God in the name of false and destructive notions of who and what God is.

God loves the world even those who turn away in mockery of our faith, acting as if they and this universe did not depend on an Eternal Source that breathes life out of nothingness.

God doesn’t seek to punish. God doesn’t destroy enemies … not even the enemies of God himself. God seeks no repayment from those who ignore or deny or turn away. God seeks only that we walk into those open arms and know … we are welcome as we are.

God is Love that transcends all human understanding.

Knowing this love … we begin to realize eternal life is this knowing, this experience of a love we cannot understand.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, September 5, 2014

Today’s text

Romans 12:4-6a

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. .

Where Christ is

We are one body in Christ. You are part of Christ ... as am I.

To touch you is to touch Christ. To touch and teach and feed and love others is to let another person know the touch of Christ, physically present and real.

Recently, I led large funeral. Many current members of our congregation were there as well as people who were once members who have moved away ... or moved to other congregations because there was something there that they needed.

But they returned for this day because they loved the person who died. They had shared life and love and faith with her and her family.

Would there have been as much of Christ in the room if one of them were missing ... or two ... or 10 ... or 50?

Truth is … Christ would have been less present in the room had they not been there.

The love of Christ would have been less real, less known, less powerful ... because that part of Christ ... that particular expression of Christ’s love that is in their lives would have been missing.

But they were there because they are part of this one ... marvelous ... and very physical body of Christ in the world in which everyone has a part to play, a life to live, a love to share that expresses that of Christ they were born to bring to the world.

And if they … or you … do not bring it, Christ’s love is less present because the world and everyone around you is denied that shape the love of Christ is pleased to take in your life.

Christ was more real and vibrant among us, and we felt it … together … because more of his body was present bearing grace and blessing for all.

Is it any wonder we need each other so much.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Today’s text

Romans 12:4-6a

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us . .

More ... together

We are many, but we are one body of Christ. This means we each are something of Christ to each other. It also means that we need each other … desperately,

I have never understood those who flee into isolation when troubles come. Perhaps their emotional wiring is different from mine, but I shake my head in sadness when I see someone retreat into aloneness--and remain there--when they encounter loss and grief, disease or conflict.

On one hand, we have needs to be alone at times to think and emote. But withdrawal cuts us off from Christ, who is experienced in this world as a body, the physical bodies of those who bear his Spirit and have been given gifts and abilities through which something his life may be experienced.

Isolation … pulling away from the body, the church, the people who know and love him … is separation from Christ.

Yes, he can knock down our walls or walk through the closed doors of our hearts most any time. The resurrection means at least this much.

But there is a body, a people who are connected at the heart to Christ, the Heart of the Universe. Together, they make up his body in the world, sharing the warm blood of his life pumped through them by that Great Heart.

In that body, his Heart is pumps the blood of creative love that gives us life when we feel dead, hope when hopeless. It shares our joy and passes it along to other members joined in this one great Heart.

To be part of a body is to need the other parts … and to know the other parts need you--who you are and what you have--even if you think you have not much to offer.

The life of the body, its joy and purpose is diminished when we are not united in the heart of Christ … when we withdraw and deny our presence to the rest of the body.

We are so much more … together … so much more joy and love, more grace and beauty … more than we are apart.

So reject the impulse to withdraw into isolation because you hurt or are uncertain..

Reject the temptation to withdraw from the body of Christ because you are insanely busy or because the cancer of apathy eats at you … or because there are people there who are at least as imperfect and frustrating as you are.

You belong to the body of Christ in which you are a member. You need them to know the love of Christ, They need you, what is in your heart, hands and mind.

And I need you … desperately.

Without each other the body of Christ, his presence in the world, remains incomplete … as incomplete as the joy Christ seeks to give us … together.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Today’s text

Romans 12: 15

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

One

You pull us out of isolation into splendid oneness with all that lives. You draw us to share what we are and receive the being of another, opening our eyes to the fact that there is no other, no outsider, no alien.

All are part of one great Life, all dwell and have their being in you who are Being itself. You dwell in all that is, and you love everything you have made without condition or limit.

You stagger me in these morning hours. Tears are the only language that speak the wonder of finding your love inside our hearts, filling our being so that we know utter and totally oneness with you and each other.

This is not a decision we make, not a choice at which we arrive. It is a gift and startling break-through that happens as we give ourselves to laugh and play, cry and comfort each other.

In the flow of living, we discover we are not separate from each other but one, sharing not just a common humanity, a common earth and universe, but a common life that is your life.

Discovering a oneness in sharing our lives, we know you, the Love from whom all things come, the Love that is the core of our being, our true selves, the Love that expresses itself in our tears, crystal pearls of praise for you who are Love. 

You invite us to rejoice and weep with each other so we may truly live … and be utterly filled … with you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Today’s text

Romans 12:12-15

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Step inside

Wednesday morning, a return to the round of work after nearly a week away, and I am eager to get to it.

It is better to throw myself into the fray of doing even as I know there is far more to do than I will get done today … or ever.

Sooner or later, we all leave the stage, so to speak, and the labors of life continue. Others must pick up where we left off.

But not today. Today is my day, and I know … I am certain that blessing will come to me and through me.

This is the hope to which we are invited. To live with hospitality, to rejoice with those on whom the sun shines and to be the light of your love, Lord, for those who dwell in sadness.

All in all, this is an invitation to step inside of you. Inside.

I cannot imagine how you are in yourself, but in this world you are the flow of giving and receiving, the dance of blessing and being blessed.

We know you--we feel you--not in idle speculation but as we throw ourselves into the fray of living and loving, giving our hearts and whole lives to the dance of Love in time and space that you are.

There is only one way to know you … from inside this dance, sharing and participating in this flow of life where we know ourselves inside of you … and you inside filling us.

So rejoice with those who rejoice, bless everything and everyone in sight, be patient when life is hard, and share the sorrow and lighten the hearts of those in sadness.

And hope … always hope that amid it all your heart and eyes will open to the truth that you are inside the Love that is now and always will be your home.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Today’s text

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The Lord of laughter

It is good to laugh. Laughter releases us from the grip of whatever confines our hearts and limits our joy. We are made for joy, intended for laughter which frees us to be the grace we each are.

Rejoice always; let your gentleness be known to all people. The Lord is near.

Yes, the Lord is near, even here, at the bedside of the dying as friends and children gather to release their beloved into the grace in which we each are made.

Even here … rejoice. Do not be conformed to the way the world sees and thinks and feels. Rejoice, for the Lord is near.

We know … we feel and know your blessed nearness in the sound of gentle laughter that comes as we acknowledge our foibles and follies, the silly things we human beings do, the ways we need each other … and have loved each other in spite of disappointments and hurts.

And who would have thought that biscotti baking would trigger laughter of truest affection in a hospice room? Who could have known?

But there it was.

No, … there you are.

We know you in our laughter amid the tears. Our laughter is the song of your Love singing in our souls, lifting us into the joy of simply knowing … simply knowing you as the Love you are.

And knowing, too, that this is all we really need.

Blessed are those who love and laugh. They know you.

Pr. David L. Miller