Thursday, February 28, 2013

Sharing the Load


Dogs playing


I pray that you and yours are well and want to thank you for your prayers for me. It’s so important in this Christian life to remember to pray for others; to share their burdens; to lighten one another's loads by a kind word or text or a prayer to God. Sometimes the burdens we bear and the struggles we face can be overwhelming; can take so much thought and energy that we simply don’t have the ability to pray.

Knowing that others are sharing our burdens and doing the praying on our behalf not only encourages us, but opens the way for the power and the hand of God to enter into our lives. This came home to me recently while talking with a friend who nearly crushed his hand when he was changing a flat tire on his car. He was making good progress, but the jack slipped and his hand got caught underneath the wheel. He was rushed to the hospital where he had emergency surgery to repair his hand. His hand was saved, but it would involve several more surgeries and a lot of hospital time.

As I spoke with him and prayed with him, he told me how much he appreciated my calls and visit. He told me he hadn’t been able to pray in the pain and during the process of recovery and therapy, which was a problem, he reminded me, since he was a pastor. I knew what he meant, having experienced similar times of struggle when I had a hard time praying. I reminded him of St. Paul’s understanding about our need to share one another’s burdens and we decided that this was very practical advice, since there are times when our burdens make it too difficult for us to go it alone. And more than that, prayer opens the way for God to intervene into our lives and into the lives of the people we are praying for.

So thank you, again for your prayers for me in the midst of my struggles and remember that there are people praying for you and willing to share your burdens to make the load a little lighter. Please continue to pray for others and to look for ways to lift their burdens when you can. It will make all of our loads lighter and bring us into the closer presence and power of God.

Happy St. David’s Day (March 1) and I look forward to worshiping God with you and praying together on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

You Belong to Me

I pray that this note finds you well and that there is some part of your spiritual life that is being fed by the season and opportunities of Lent to open the way for God to come into your life more fully. If like me, you have fallen short of some Lenten discipline you intended already, no worries. God is a forgiving God and you may take up your practice again without fear or punishment because we belong to God and He wants us. In fact, God chooses us.

Now being chosen is a high honor in life. When I was a kid growing up and at times in my adult life, there are times when we want to be chosen. As a child, we would pick teams for street football or for a pick up basketball or baseball game and choosing teams was sometimes the most critical moment of the competition. The two best players were usually the captains. After all, you didn’t want one team to be loaded unfairly. If you were a good player or older, you usually got picked first and that was a great feeling. If you weren’t so good, you usually got picked last or not at all if there were too many kids for the game. That was the worst moment. To go unchosen was humiliating and as a “fat kid” who was a little uncoordinated, that happened with enough regularity in my life that I still remember the feeling.

As an adult, it’s a great feeling to be chosen by another person as a friend or as a partner. It’s encouraging to be chosen for a job or a promotion. We like being chosen because it reminds us that we have value, that we are worthy because of who we are. And when we are passed over or outright rejected, it causes heartache that either drives us to try harder or diminishes who we are. Enough rejection and we can become less than the person God created us to be.

Well, with God, you and I are chosen. He chooses us just as we are to enter into a life with Him. He chooses us because we have unique value and gifts that no one else has. That’s Jesus’ way in the Gospels and God’s way throughout the Biblical record. God is always choosing persons just like you and me to be in a living relationship with Him. God is choosing us to live our lives with Him and for Him. God is choosing us and because He has, we know that we are loved and we are important to God.

So, as you go about your life this Lent and throughout the year, keep in mind that you’ve been chosen. You are important. You have value. You belong to God. Allow that reality to seep into your heart and mind and live your life without fear because you have been chosen by God.

See you Saturday evening or throughout the day on Sunday for weekly worship.

Grace and Peace,

WFA


Monday, February 18, 2013

Facing Up to Temptation, Becoming Children of God


Introduction: Knowing Temptation
Years ago, in my former life in the construction industry, I was delivering a proposal for a major hospital expansion. The Director of Facilities was out of his office, but his assistant told me he’d be right back, to have a seat. There on his desk were the proposals from the other three companies. I walked over to the desk and out my hand on the first one to open it and see how our proposal matched up to theirs and adjust ours as needed. I was tempted to open it and look, but sat back down.

Driving down I-95 in Maryland a few months ago, I was going the speed limit, and then passed a series of state troopers, six of them, each giving out tickets or warnings to other drivers. The guy in the car next to me smiled and sped up as they drifted out of our sight,

I thought what he thought, that’s got to be all the troopers for miles. And like him I sped up, thinking I could get to my appointment early. When I looked at the odometer as it was pushing 75. I saw that the car next to me continued to accelerate, and was tempted to press on well past the safe speed, but I slowed down.

I was speaking recently with some parents, who had been planning a long weekend to get away from their busy lives, to take a healthy break from parenting some place warm and sunny, but they told me they decided not to go because they’d have to leave their teenage children home alone. They trusted their children in most things, but with the party scene and the stories they’d heard about what can take place when parents are out of town, they felt like they couldn’t place them under that kind of temptation, and stayed home.

Several years ago when the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition arrived at our house and went directly into the paper recycling bag, much to the dismay of some of the male members of our household interested solely in seeing what swimsuit styles might be in this summer. One of our sons asked me later, in private, if I was going to retrieve it from the recycling, “I don’t know, I’m tempted,” I said.

Most of us think that if there’s one thing we know about in this life, it’s temptation. If there’s one church word that doesn’t need to be rescued for our modern ears, that connects firmly and clearly to our everyday experience, temptation may be that one church word. We may not know about grace and mercy or a peace that passes understanding; we may need some explanation about trespassing and atonement; but temptation we know. We face temptations all the time, and in this season of Lent, when we’ve gone out of our way to give something up or to take something on to try to lead a more committed, Christian life, it almost feels like we’re tempting temptation itself.

St. Paul writes that he didn’t know about sin until he read the law. To put in our terms,
he didn’t know all the sinful things he could do until the scriptures told him they were
not allowed. Temptations can grow. We’re tempted to break our Lenten disciplines if we haven’t already — to break our diets, to cheat on our taxes, to gossip about a friend, to lie our way out of difficulties. We’re constantly being tempted to do what we shouldn’t do. Most of us don’t need any instruction about temptation, temptation we know. But do
we really?

Twenty years ago, Robert Fulghum, had a best seller book entitled, All I Reall Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and in this very popular book, he argues that the deepest wisdom he knows came from the kindergarten classroom and the sandbox. Wisdom like sharing, playing fair, cleaning up your own mess, don’t hit people, hold hands and stick together. So, if Fulghum’s theory about wisdom is hold true, then maybe we should go back to Sunday School to learn what temptation is.

Truthfully, I don’t remember too many specifics about what I learned in Sunday School, beyond Jesus loves me. But I do remember most of the people who taught us, and one of these teachers said something that has always stuck in my mind. And that is that the best measure of a person is what they would do if no one else were around, is what they would do if there was no one there to reward or to punish them. It strikes me now that this is more conventional wisdom than Christian wisdom, but it’s pretty close, because we Christians believe that what we do in life as Christians comes not from a sense of reward or fear of punishment but out of who we understand ourselves to be and the kinds of persons we are becoming.

In that light, we probably have too shallow a view of temptation. In our minds we think temptation is the urge to do something. What we would really like to do, but shouldn’t do – one more piece of cake, one more juicy rumor, one more Sunday morning in bed. But the deepest level of temptation is not this urge to misbehave, but the temptation to be less than who we are called to be as God’s children. The temptation to not become who we are, but someone else.

Gospel: Jesus’ Temptations, Our Temptations
And that’s the issue at stake in this Gospel reading from Luke. The devil is not tempting Jesus to misbehave, he’s not tempting Jesus to break his fast or steal a piece of candy, or cheat on his taxes or pick a fight with his neighbor. It’s much deeper than that. The devil is tempting Jesus to deny who He is, tempting Jesus to forget His baptism, to set aside the truth that He is the child of His Father in heaven, who has been sent to restore humankind through the cross.

You see, it’s significant that Jesus is tempted, immediately after his baptism, Right after the skies opened and the dove descends and the voice proclaims, “You are my beloved Son, the one with whom I am well pleased.” You are the one I am sending down to reveal my heart of love, of grace, of forgiveness. You’re the One who will restore people to faith and to life with me. You’re the One who will walk the long, painful road to Jerusalem. You are the one who must endure the cross to save the world. It is here, then, right after His baptism, when Jesus’ vocation and identity are most clear that He comes to this time of tempting in the wilderness. And it’s Jesus’ identity that the devil seeks to destroy. That’s what temptation is really about.

The three temptations—to turn stones into bread, use all the powers this world to shortcut God’s plan; to throw himself down from the temple as some kind of circus trick — are not temptations to do bad things necessarily; Any of these actions provide an opportunity for people to know about Jesus; And perhaps even speed the process of gaining followers.

They are, at their very core, the temptation to be somebody else. The temptation to live some life other than the life of the beloved Son of God, to deny who He has been called to be and to be someone else. But Jesus remembers and knows who He is. And He chooses to be the person He is called to be and follow God’s plan, the plan that will require Him to accept the cross. With every temptation of the devil, Jesus chooses God’s way and remains who He is, the beloved Son of God. Because Jesus resists the temptation to be someone else, you and I have been freed from our sins and know for all time that God loves us.


Tempted to Be Less than Children of God
Now, because we belong to Jesus by nature of our baptisms, because we have been called to be the children of God in the world in our own day, we, too, have been given a life to live, a role to play, an important part in God’s plan of salvation. We who have been marked as Christ’s own forever, marked as the children of God Have been called to bring peace where there is strife, called to offer love in the presence of hatred, called to stir hope where there is despair, and to embrace faith where there is fear.
And because we have been called to this way of life, we are also tempted; Tempted to live out another story, a different plan; tempted to be someone other than who we have been called to be.

There’s a moment in Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring series when one of the Elf Queens is offered the ring of power. The temptation is that she would wield the ring well and for good. She is tempted, but after considering all the possibilities, she lets the temptation pass and decides to be who she is instead. You see, to give in to temptation is far more serious than misbehaving. To give in to temptation is to say, I am not a child of God, I will not take my part in God’s plan of salvation, I will not seek to know Christ and to make Christ known; I will be someone other than who I am.

And so in this season of Lent, when many of us are paying closer attention to our spiritual lives and giving up those habits that push God away, taking on habits that open the way for God to enter in, I invite you to remember who you are and to remember whose you are, to remember that you are the beloved children of God, that you belong to God.

Success or failure in a spiritual or physical habit is not the end goal we worship a God who forgives, even when we break our promise to live a certain way. No, these attempts on our part to change our habits are for a change of heart, a change of heart so that we can remember who we are and get about becoming the persons God created us to be. That’s what the season of Lent is all about.

And when the tempter whispers in your ear to be someone else, invite the power and presence of Christ to work in you all the more. Say no thanks and become who you really are, God’s child.

Amen.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

First Things


I pray that you are well and want to encourage you to keep a holy Lent. I want for you the peace and hope that come from setting aside (that’s what holy means) these next forty days as a time to get your priorities straight. I pray for God to move in your life and mine so that we will live in such a way that there will be an opening for God and God’s peace to fill our hearts like never before.

Now getting our priorities straight is no small task for most of us. Too often in life we are presented with different priorities that compete for our attention and our resources. Like standing in front of the ice cream counter on a warm summer evening, we often have some very good choices in front of us. Or when the alarm rings and we have to choose between catching an extra forty minutes of sleep or getting up for some exercise. Both choices have their benefits for living a healthy life.

We are constantly being pulled in good directions by different priorities. It’s not always clear cut that one priority is good and one is bad. On our better days choosing among a good and a bad choice makes for an easy decision and we usually make the right choice.

The problem arises when we have two or more good choices in front of us and how we choose matters.
Well on this one, God is clear. The first thing, the first priority we are called to choose is God. That’s what the first of the Ten Commandments establishes as the priority. God wants to come first in our lives. God wants our relationship with Him and living our lives with an eye toward God’s purposes for us and for our world to be our first priority. God comes first, before all other “gods” or priorities.

And what sounds harsh in some ways is actually the path toward fearlessness and a deep peace about how we are living our lives. Jesus puts it another way, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you as well.”   When we make God our first priority in our hearts, in our minds, with our time, with our wallets, then we get our priorities straight and the secondary priorities will take their rightful place as secondary.

Check it out this Lent as you make room for God and seek the first thing. Make the decision to put God first in your life. Ask God to show you how you can make God your first priority. For when we do, we will be filled with a peace that passes understanding and a life that’s really life.

See you in Church on Saturday at 5 pm or throughout the day Sunday.

Grace and Peace,
WFA

Friday, February 8, 2013

A Reconciling Love


I pray that you are well. I am looking forward to entering into the holy season of Lent with you, beginning on Ash Wednesday next week. I say I am looking forward to entering this season with you, not because I particularly enjoy fasting or giving up habits I apparently love. I am looking forward to the season because it is a time when each of us can be a little more reflective about the quality of our lives and the health of our souls. And, even though this is not always the lightest work we can take on, it is the path that leads to light and joy and the power of God’s forgiveness.

For most of us, confession is a difficult moment. Most of us prefer not to face our failings or the ways we fall short. Better to keep a blind eye to our foibles and failures and just move along, trying to forget what we’ve done. The problem, of course, is that at some level we are not able to forget fully and we need to choose a different way of dealing with our sin.

Left to our own devices, we rarely ask another person to forgive us. And if you’re like me, you simply read along with the Confession of Sin without a whole lot of self-reflection or honesty, when said during Sunday worship. But if we confess, as St. John writes in his first letter, then we will be forgiven. We know this truth in our close relationships with others, as confession followed by forgiveness reconciles or reunites us to the other person. It may be a partially broken reconciliation because all our deeds have consequences, but in almost every case, the confession and forgiveness actually deepens the love and bond we have with the other person.

And so it is with God. When we confess, God forgives us and we are drawn closer to God’s heart, and God is drawn closer to ours. And when I say confess, I’m not talking about the comedian George Carlin’s caricature of his confessions. I’m speaking of being honest with God and speaking the truth about your life and, once spoken, receiving God’s forgiveness so that you may set your fears aside and know only God’s love for you. That’s the power of confession when we freely submit our lives to God.

This Lent, inspired by The Rev. Hillary Raining’s doctoral work on reconciliation and the class she will be teaching on Tuesdays in Lent, St. David’s will be offering the Rite of Reconciliation (personal confession) on Friday afternoons and Friday evenings. It is not a requirement for any of us. It will not be everyone’s “cup of tea.” But for those of us who would like to see whether this might be a gift for us from God to lead us closer to God, come and see. For when we confess and receive forgiveness from one another or from God, then our fears will grow small and our faith and confidence in the life before us can only grow.

Grace and Peace,
WFA