Open Face courtesy of Morguefile
One of the things I believe is scarce in the conversations we have, particularly on social media and blogs, is honesty. Perhaps even more so in Christian circles, where we are sometimes scared to admit our fears, our ignorance and our pain, and certainly we rarely talk about sin or the dark things that have a hold on us, as though now we know salvation we have instantly become perfect and free from every poison. I know also as a writer that it is so much neater if what I want to say all fits into 800 words and doesn’t contradict itself, and preferably has three summarising words that all start with the same letter. It’s nice if it feels whole and I can make a sweet meme to encapsulate the wisdom I believe I’m sharing. Sometimes that happens, but it feels unsatisfactory, a little hollow, even. That carefully contained few paragraphs is never the fullness of what I want to say or read.
Yes, I want to share and find thoughts, truths, even, sometimes beauty. But I also want to cast a light down into the dark places and let readers know that it is okay to portray these too. I want to profess my own ignorance and laugh at my failures and be fully human. So when I come across a writer who is not afraid to say that this is not how it always is, or to show compassion for the dark sides to our moons, to even dare to say we might learn something from our shadows, I feel more sated. When I experience the freedom to say how it really is, how it honestly feels, what the upside and downside is, to admit that compassion and the heart want to stray elsewhere, along the gutters and down the stained steps and beside the lost or the dying, then my truth-seeking missile-mind leaps with joy. Because my God is a down in the pigsty, slipping away from the stoners, shouting at the Pharisees, calling out the Baal-worshippers, seeing the fiery chariots that are invisible to everyone else, dragging me up from the deep drowning waters to prophesy salvation kind of God.
Don’t we need, more than ever in this terrifying world, to talk about the scary stuff? Promiscuity, mistakes, violence, abuse, poverty, pornography, death, pride, alcoholism, the stink of self-righteousness, sickness, consumerism, misogyny, slavery, the scandals of institutionalised racism and patriarchy? Not to obsess about them, because Philippians 4:8 (a guiding verse for me) makes it clear our focus is the light, the good, the wonderful. But to have honest conversations in order to help one another, we need to be truthful.
Even more than this, I want to be searingly honest about the one who is the centre of my life. I want to be able to describe him as a her when I feel it appropriate, or say God is beyond gender and outside of time, I want to boggle minds and push boundaries of conventional understanding. To talk about where we sadden the Lord or frustrate her. This longing to be real, to talk to the Church about how our fellowships need to be whole, inclusive, all-encompassing, truly forgiving and loving, this is a hunger I have stirring and crunching my innards, and I see it in others too.
I see a community of searching disciples of Christ of all ages who look at him, hear his words, take them on board in a fire of deeply passionate commitment and then look disappointedly at the coolness of the organised religions around them. I see that desire to bridge the gaps they see, to be the change that’s needed, to have the difficult discussions and hold the spaces around disagreements and doctrine with holy patience. I want this honesty because I long for the Body of Christ to be an organism that the world can look at, and see him. Look at and say, oh, those Jesus folks, they are about love. Not the easy, on the surface, smile now gossip later, maybe we’ll do lunch kind, but the completely committed, there for you in a crisis and a chronic situation, not just now but always, warts and all, unjudging agape wholeness. However paining or hard it is, above all I want our servant-king-friend-brother-lover of our souls to look at us as he did at Nathaniel and say, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”
© Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2016
Matai Bay by Ana Lisa De Jong
Today reading Christine Sine’s beautiful prayer on her Godspace Post ‘Meditation Monday – A Prayer for Ash Wednesday’ I was struck by these words, ‘may this journey of Lent get us ready, to be God’s good news of hope and wholeness and resurrection life’. Meditation Monday – A Prayer for Ash Wednesday
God has been teaching me much about the Kingdom of God lately. As I consider the Holy Spirit’s whisperings, I think how the teachings come from many different directions, and together form a picture of what the Holy Spirit seeks to impress upon me. In other words, ‘the radio programme I just heard’, or ‘the journal entry I wrote last week’, or ‘the prayer I just read’, or ‘the conversation I had’, or ‘the bible verse that jumped out at me’, they are all means God uses to get my attention, (which normally jumps around like a puppet on a string), and draw my focus to a message or idea that he wants to me to understand deeper, or even to recall once again! At the moment, for me, it’s the Kingdom of God. And the recent revelation that came to mind was that though the Kingdom of God is within us, it is not meant to remain within us, but is meant to impact the world around us. We are transformed to transform the world in which we live, through the sharing of the Kingdom within us. The Kingdom is evolving. By sharing the Kingdom we can have a hand in transforming the present, and future of those around us. We are creative beings, made by a creator God. The creating is never over. I look down at the bookmark in my journal as I write this. It reads, ‘In a word what I am saying is, ‘Grow up. You are Kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God created identity. Live generously and graciously towards others, the way God lives towards you.’, Matthew 5:48 (The Message). And I remember a poem written a couple of years earlier, on the theme of passing on what we have been given.
Life – As a Gift
If life is indeed a gift,
then we being alive, must bear the gifts of life.
Our whole and entire purpose…
to breathe it in,
to grow in its nourishment,
to reproduce it, to extend it.
It was given to BE PASSED ON.
Fishes and loaves to feed thousands,
dandelion seeds aloft on the wind.
To land where they will,
and take root where they can,
and bring and give new life.
If life is a gift
then we, the receivers of such a gift;
unwrap it to find
a gift, within a gift, within a gift.
And at the centre – a seed.
A seed, not to be stored,
not to be hidden,
not to be discounted,
or disregarded.
But to be planted,
nurtured, encouraged;
cultivated to full and beautiful expression.
And in its strong and tender growth
harvested and released….
Released to grow another harvest.
Released to inspire another gift.
Released to encourage another’s faith.
Released to embolden another believer,
to take their seed out of the dark.
We pour it out, until we are empty.
But we refill with each and every breath,
of the Holy Spirit;
who is not only the giver of gifts,
but the one and only greatest gift.
In whom is truth, and light and ‘fullness’ of life.
His fullness flowing into us, that we might release it.
A gift given that we might re-gift it,
life given for us to respond to Him,
with the gift of our life.
All the tentative talents and fledging abilities,
within that gift of life, harnessed and then
passed on, shared out,
given back, in order that they might flourish…
for His purposes.
I have never really been hungry, at least not by necessity. I occasionally fast a meal (a little more frequently during this season of Lent,) and like so many in our society go on a spring diet to try and lose those few extra pounds that have accumulated over the Christmas season.
My hunger is a choice.
My dieting is a choice, my hunger is a choice and there is plenty of food around to tempt me away from it, and sometimes I succumb. And of course I have lots of ways to rationalize my lack of dieting discipline.
What decisions would real hunger force me to make I wonder and how would I respond? My hunger doesn’t gnaw at my stomach because there is nothing to fill it, and I certainly don’t face the soul destroying choice of whether to feed my family the last of the seeds I have stored or to keep them to plant in expectation of next year’s harvest and let my children starve.
Would I have the discipline to cling to the future hope of a coming harvest and hang onto seed for planting or would I succumb to the immediate desire for another meal? Would I be willing to make the choice that poor societies have made since the beginning of time to let one person starve so that others might live? In some cultures when hunger struck the elderly made a deliberate decision to walk away and die so that others could live. In others a choice might be made to allow one child to starve so that the rest could survive.
Maybe even more importantly how would I respond if those around me were hungry and I still had enough seed left to plant my fields in expectation of an abundant harvest? What sacrifices am I willing to make so that everyone in our world has enough?
Would I be willing to starve so that others might live?
Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. After this fast, He was, as you can imagine, hungry. But He was also curiously stronger, when the tempter came to Jesus. Devil: If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus (quoting Deuteronomy): It is written, “Man does not live by bread alone. Rather, he lives on every word that comes from the mouth of the Eternal One.” (Matthew 4:1-3, The Voice)
As I reflected on the second of the weekly prompts in our Lenten guide Hungering for Life, it occurred to me that my question: would I be willing to starve so that others might live? was very much the dilemma that Jesus faced. He had choices about how to respond to his physical hunger. He could have walked out of the desert and gone back to have a meal with friends. Even when he decided to stay, the devil had great ideas about how he could overcome those physical hunger pangs. Yet he resisted.
Jesus resisted because he knew there was more to life than the assuaging of physical cravings. The deeper hunger gnawing at his soul was a hunger to see God’s world restored and all of creation made whole. He was willing to endure physical hunger and even to face death because he knew it would mean that others would come to know life. He was willing to let the seed of his life fall into the ground and die so that it could grow and provide an abundant harvest that others could feed on.
So as we sit here this morning what is the hunger that gnaws at our souls? Is it a hunger for physical food and comfort for ourselves or is it a longing after justice, righteousness and freedom for all the peoples’ of the earth?
Picture by Tom Sine
By Tom Sine
“Hitting the reset button” is one way to think about preparing for the Season of Lent suggested Cherry Haisten at our Ash Wednesday Service at Saint Andrews here in Seattle. She added that for many of us it can be a more serious time to make a new beginning than we achieve with our new year’s resolutions on January 1.
Lent provides an opportunity to look at ourselves honestly. It provides a chance to release attachments that pull us away from God, those we love and our best selves. It is also an opportunity to live our lives with more intentionality creating new ways to use our time and money for what matters most.
In my new book, Live Like You Give A Damn! Join the Changemaking Celebration, which will be published in April, I observe that many of us could be missing out on living our best lives. Too often it feels like our churches seem to become chaplains to the dominant culture…simply helping us limp through the week instead of empowering us to live our best lives.
As we hit the reset button for Lent 2016 we have the opportunity to make changes in our time styles to be more present to God and those we love. We also have the opportunity to carve out space in our lives to join those in the change making celebration who are creating new ways to empower our most vulnerable neighbors. I guarantee you will enjoy this Lenten activity much more that giving up Lattes or chocolate!
Last year in his address Guide to Lent: What You Should Give Up This Year.” http://time.com/3714056/pope-francis-lent-2015-fasting/ Pope Francis stated that more important than fasting from candy or alcohol is fasting from “our indifference towards others”.
I urge you to join those, like Pope Francis, that are enjoying Lent more than ever before because they are creating innovative new ways to live like they give a damn!
About 7 months ago, we moved into my parent’s home, as they were relocating into the country. At the front gate of Berg ‘n Zee are two bushes to greet you and these were beautifully kept standards, until we moved in. And forgot to water them!
The bush pictured on the right is under the shade of mirror bush trees; so that one continued to flourish. But the one on the left exposed to the bright sun and elements, over a period of time began to show signs of neglect. The ever slowly browning leaves of the little wild cherry didn’t manage to arrest our attention. It was only when the leaves turned completely brown (and my parents were coming back for a visit) that I finally began to take notice! I used a pair of sicoteurs to remove the incriminating evidence! And shaped it into a little bush of grey twigs. That was all that was left. Except for one remaining twig with a few sparse leaves left hanging on.
Yet this gave me hope. I thought, it looks dead, but that one twig, just maybe it will revive? And so I started to water it. So did my Dad when they came to stay. And miracle of miracles, little green leaves started to push up from those seemingly dead twigs and life slowly returned. So we went from a place of my Mom offering to get us a new bush… to coming to realise that this one was indeed going to make it. It is now covered with new leaves, and happily connected to the sprinkling system, so will not suffer the same fate in time to come!
This little bush has become our parable of resurrection this year. A sign and a wonder, that God can take something that looks to be on its last legs (or twigs) and cause life to return to the branches, leaves to sprout, and a bush to return to the land of the living. “Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays, at the scent of water it will bud and sprout again like a new seedling.” Job 14:8-9.
In the film Enchanted April, based on the book by Elizabeth Von Arnim , a group of ladies comes together seemingly by chance to a castle, San Salvatore, in Italy for a holiday, each of them having their own reasons to be there. They came in different states of the dishevelling of life, but slowly the lake and garden, the medieval castle and the magic of it all, brings them together as they start to decrust and heal. There is a quote from this book that recurs to me time and again, “…The great thing is to have lots of love about.”
One character in the story is an old woman who only lives to talk about what famous people meant to her, people who have all subsequently passed away. A cantankerous lady, she slowly turns around and becomes refreshed, like our little bush, as love is continuously offered her in an unconditional way. Her grumpy manners give way to a whole new approach to the world. On the way back home, as they walk down the road from San Salvatore, this woman pushes her long depended upon walking stick into the ground at the edge of the path. A stick that was an excuse, now pushed into the earth at San Salvatore… becomes what? The final picture of the film sees this stick budding, branching out and growing flowers and leaves!
At church recently, a word was shared about Lazarus. A wonderful tall African man shared with us all. When Jesus came to the tomb, Martha said, “Lord he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.” And yet, Jesus said, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” So they rolled the stone aside. (See John 11).
The word this man shared was that God has removed the stone from every impossible situation of our lives and will call things that feel impossible and dead, into resurrection life. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life! The stone has been rolled away! No longer is there a stone in the way of what God wants to do. So we can call forth the resurrection of God into situations with a hearty, “Come forth! Come out of the tomb! Take off the grave clothes.”
Perhaps the grave clothes are not for the burial of dead things after all. Perhaps the grave clothes are only a cocoon and the things that feel lost are being allowed a time of metamorphosis so that they can come into a new season of life, changed by the very breath of God as the cocoon peels away. When we come to the end of our capabilities and the end of our plans to turn things around, there is a perfect opportunity for God to work. It is often when I have come to the end of myself that I have seen God show up and do what only He can do! And then I know, it’s nothing of my own doing or of human capability, but only of God’s doing!
In Ezekiel 37 we read a powerful word given to a valley of dead bones. (NLT & The Message)
“Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”
“ O Sovereign Lord, you alone know the answer to that.”
“Prophesy over these bones: Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!
Watch this: I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realise that I am God!”
I prophesied just as I’d been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them. He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy son of man. Tell the breath, ‘God, the Master says, Come from the four winds, Come breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!’”
So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army. Listen to what they’re saying, “Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.” Therefore prophesy. Tell them God the Master says, ‘I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive – O my people! I’ll breathe my life into you and you’ll live.’”
In Mozambique there is a place called Iris Ministries in Pemba. Heidi and Rolland Baker founded this ministry through great hardship and they have seen God come through for them time and again. To the place where there have been numbers of documented resurrections from the dead and many miracles of healing, the blind seeing, deaf hearing… food being multiplied. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3.
I know that the God who manifests His presence in these ways in Mozambique, is the same God in our lives day to day wherever we may be in the world. And I offer myself up to Him, all that feels in need of His touch, my state of health, my wild-hearted dreams that seem somewhat impossible to see realised on this earth… everything. My family, friends, my country South Africa, the nations of the earth, all hungry hearts and bodies, the people of this world I offer up to the Resurrection and the Life: COME FORTH! COME OUT! LIVE!
With man these things may seem impossible, but with God all things are possible.
So what are you hungry for? Blessed are those who hunger…and thirst…for righteousness for they will be filled. (Matthew 5:6) They…will…be…filled. As we approach this Lenten season, may we too be surprised with child-like wonder, as we find that it is with the faith of a child that we will inherit the kingdom. And children are always open to miracles.
Let us be awakened Lord, to the scent of the waters of your Spirit, to feel the sap flow through us once again, and to suddenly find, that new green leaves sprout out of what we thought were only dead branches. You will do the work as we come to you Christ, our Resurrection. Amen.
As you listen to these songs, may every area of your life receive the life-giving resurrection of the Spirit.
Fall on Me – Vineyard Worship
Come Alive (Dry Bones) – Lauren Daigle
Pillow by Andy Wade
By Andy Wade
Lent begins. I opened Christine Sine and Jean Andrianoff’s “Hungering for Life: Creative Exercises for Lent” and read these words for this week: “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see”. (Hebrews 11:1, NLT)
Immediately in my mind I traveled back to seminary, sitting in a class taught by Eugene Peterson. It was there I first heard the idea that day begins when we lie down to rest. Each day starts while we sleep, with God faithfully at work preparing our day. When we wake, we walk into something God has already begun. This may not be news to any of you, but at the time it was revolutionary for me.
So much of God remains hidden from our eyes and yet, day after day after day, God prepares. “New every morning” are his mercies. So often I lose sight of this truth. I wake – after a couple cups of coffee – with a list of things to take care of. Even before that last sip, my mind is swirling with the busyness of the day ahead. It’s so easy to forget to ask God, “What have you prepared for me today?”
So as I continue to reflect this week I will remember; the first business of preparation is God’s, not mine. Faith, the assurance that even before the crust from my sleepy eyes breaks open, God is there. God is here. God has prepared a new day for me to walk into.
If this were just an individual truth, it would be quite amazing. But as the coffee takes effect and my eyes begin to focus, I realize this is bigger than me, this is truth for all creation. God is weaving together a new day for the whole creation. Faith reminds me that God, in Christ Jesus, is reconciling all things. Creator God is still creating, weaving life and lives together. Knowing this I can begin the day as a child, fully trusting that what God is up to will be grand and beautiful.
But on Ash Wednesday, as we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together, I again trembled at the words, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. Confronted by the turmoil within, I jotted down these words: “The same Lord who commanded us to love our enemies also taught us to pray, ‘Forgive us our sins in the same way we forgive those who sin against us,’ and I shudder.”
As I reflect now, I’m less disturbed. That idea still makes me tremble, but now I have a bigger hope, an assurance of things not seen. Even now in me, God is silently at work. God is cultivating the soil of my soul while I rest, preparing me to walk fully, faithfully, into the promise of shalom for the whole creation. If we dare to believe, we become both recipient and participant in the greatest gift of God.
Hungering for life is fully possible when we embrace God’s order for the day. The world may rage and the creation groan, but God, each night, is preparing a way toward shalom.
Cross by Kymme (courtesy of Morguefile)
By Rowan Wyatt
Matthew 25
“Ten girls were waiting for the bridegroom, lamps in hand to light his way when he arrived, but five of them hadn’t prepared and were not ready for his arrival”.
So begins the famous parable in the Gospel of Matthew. A cautionary story about making sure you are ready when the time comes, at the return of Jesus, the end of things. I also look at it as a Lenten parable, looking at the time from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday where we as Christians are to prepare ourselves for the risen Christ.
Lent is a time of preparation and taking stock of your life and spiritual journey, looking at yourself as in a full length mirror and taking it all in. Looking at yourself as Jesus sees you, a loved child for sure but also draped with yellow warning tape reading “Still Under Construction”. There is always work to do in you and while care should be taken to continue this progress daily in our lives, Lent gives us a real opportunity to dig in, making sure we are as prepared as possible.
I propose your arsenal for the time of Lent to consist of three things: – A Bible, a mental shovel and a spiritual broom. These tools will help with the six life-giving disciplines of Lent: prayer, penance, repentance, alms-giving, atonement and self-denial.
Lent is a time to dig deep. Use that mental shovel to work your way deeper in prayer and build firmer foundations with God, a relationship with the Father in Heaven. Eschew the quick-fire prayer of the “don’t have the time” brigade and make time for God. Dig past the surface further and look deeper into your own heart and prayerfully seek penance and repentance. This will be tough work indeed and will cause some blisters and a few tears along the way, especially in the act of atonement, but these acts will become the cement in the foundations of that Godly relationship between Father and child, as in the parable of the prodigal son.
We all, most of us, give regularly to charities of one kind or another. If this is something you don’t do, then Lent is the perfect time to start. Dig deep and pray about which charity and how much financially or even how much time physically, you can afford. Alms giving can be just as valuable if it is volunteering for a few hours at a shelter or program, sometimes more so. The gifting is returned with each freely given sacrifice, time or money, with a sense of spiritual joy and a relieved feeling of a job well done, especially when the fruits of the alms giving is observed. The giving, freely, of such mercy is a part of this preparation period and is wholly recommended.
So now we come to a Lenten sticking point, self-denial.
For so many Lent has become a time to give up chocolate, having a beer whilst watching a game, eat fewer steaks etc, and while for some these can actually be very important, life changing acts, they are not the entirety of the Lenten pilgrimage. Self-denial is so much more than that and it is a very deep, powerful act that should never be used as just an excuse to lose a bit of weight just to feel slightly better about oneself. No, self-denial is an important discipline that helps firm those foundations of the relationship with God.
The act of self-denial should be a full inventory in the mind of everything you do that you know is not right. Viewing salacious material, casual blasphemy, hatred, anger, lust, theft, the list goes on and only you can know which thought patterns, daily habitual sins, need to be swept away and dumped in the trash can, thus bringing in another aspect of repentance. Fasting is a good thing and should be encouraged during this period, including giving up chocolate or beer if that is something you wish to do but just don’t make that one thing the epitome of your Lenten journey.
“All ten girls had fallen asleep waiting for the Bridegroom to arrive and when he was spotted they roused. The five who had prepared for his arrival lit their lamps while the other five hurried about trying to rush the job, to no avail. The girls with the lit lamps were invited into the banquet while the others were shut outside”. Matthew 25 my paraphrasing.
So make ready. This Lenten period equip yourself and being the six-week journey to welcome the risen Christ in prepared mind, body and spirit.
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