By This We Are Known

It was show and tell day at school.  The little kindergartener wanted to create someting to take.
He told his mother, "I want them to see what's in me.  I want them to see I can be an artist."

So he took a small box and with his mother's help creatd a jungle scene with green construction paper
for grass, blue paper for the sky, darker blue paper for a watering hole and a collection of cut out animal figures he had colored. 

This is quite a risky move on his part.  What if the kids in his class laugh at him?  What if they don't see the artist inside him working its way out?  What if his work of love and self-giving is not appreciated?

Jesus told his disciples, "Love one another as I have loved you.  By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  (John 13:34-35)  Earlier Jesus had gathered up his robe around himself, knelt down, and washed their dirty feet as a sign of servanthood.  Later, he would lay down, offer up his very life on their behalf and for the whole creation.

For too long we in the Christian community have settled for a faith that is based on affirming certain beliefs.
While beliefs are important, they are not the whole picture. 

People need to see the workings of God's love in us.  No amount of fancy PR or slick advertizing will do.
Only faith making itself active in loving action.  And until people see God's love  working itself out through our lives, we will continue to struggle to find a way to impact the hearts and lives of our culture and communities. 

They will see God's love through our weaknesses and our strengths, our failures and achievements...and most of all in our risks of self-giving.   Then the Word of God will become flesh and blood through us.

It's worth serious pondering on the journey.

Roots

"Singers and dancers alike say, "All my roots are in You."   Psalm 87:7  (Jewish Study Bible)

Various translations for this verse simply add multi layers of meaning and depth to the passage.
           " All my springs are in you."   NRSV
            " In Zion is the source of all our blessing."  TEV
            "All my fountains are in you."  TNIV
            "All find their home in you."   Jersualem Bible

While the writer is stressing that Zion, the city of God, Jerusalem is the center of life for all nations, I think the deeper theological insight of this passage is that God is the ground, the source, the home for all life.

When I was in seminary studying to be a pastor, I read a theologian who talked of God as the "Ground of all Being."  At the time, I thought "ground" was much too static a image for God.  Now, some 40 years later, I have a better understanding of how alive ground is.  Ground is that which anchors the roots of growing things, a source of nourishment for plant or tree roots. 

And as I consider this connection, I remember the words I spoke at our Ash Wednesday service, "Dust you are and to dust you shall return."  Just recently at a grave side I spoke the words, "This body we commit to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."   I spoke those words in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to life initiated by the raising of Jesus.

I recognize I can choose to plant my roots in a variety of places, even places that have little or no obvious connection with the light and life of God's presence. And I do make that choice, sometimes consciously and at other times unconsciously.  So prayer, worship, study, witness and service become key practices for me to  be rooted deeper into God's presence. 

I am convinced that God has given us life so that we might plant our roots deep within his springs and fountains of life, within the good earth of divine grace and compassion.  To that end, God pursues us and plants us. So be it.

Awaiting the Son Rise

A couple of years ago I was attending a spiritual growth retreat for United Methodist pastor at Kenlake.  The leader of the sessions had invited us to meet him at the lakeside to watch the sunrise.  The small group that gathered waited and waited and waited.  The morning was gloomy and the clouds were thick. We told ourselves that we trusted the sun rose somewhere today, even if not immediately here with us.   Just as we were getting ready to leave and go to breakfast, the sun broke through the gloom.

In the gospel accounts of that first Easter, when the Son rose,  gloom and thick sadness covered the first witnessses.  They came to Jesus' tomb expecting to find him lifeless and prone, flat on his back in death.
What they found was an empty tomb.  Jesus had stood up.  And depending on the gospel story teller, Jesus was  to be found out ahead to them in Galilee, or on the road to Emmaus, or showing up behind locked doors later in the evening.  Other places, but definitely not back in the tomb.

According to Barbara Lundblad in a 1996 article in Journal for Preachers,  a Dutch word for resurrection is "opstanding", which to me catches the dynamic nature of resurrection...up standing.

In a world that seems so captive to the gloom of despair, anger, violence and bad news, I take heart this Easter season in the One who breaks into those dark and lifeless places in our lives, our relationships, or world with upstand breaths of fresh air and hope.  God is not finished with us and that which is created just yet.   We may, though, have to wait through the gloom to witness the Son rise.