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Sacrifice

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During the season of Lent we are invited to focus on the cross, and that means spend some time thinking about the sacrifice. Which is hard. We don’t do sacrifice. We all know this is true. We don’t do pain, we take a pill. We don’t do hardship, we pull out the credit card. We have been taught, by the powers of consumerism and medical science, that sacrifice is unnecessary. And we would like that to be so. We would prefer if, somehow, everything could just work out well for everyone, no harm done. Nobody suffer, nobody go hungry, no innocent people become casualties of war. No sacrifice, please. But that’s not the world we live in. We live in this world where good and evil co-exist. And sometimes we experience pain for the sake of something good. While God did not promise to take away all our hardship and suffering, God did promise to be with us through it all, no matter how hard. In this world, sometime you suffer for the sake of something good. It seems to me that the people o...
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Present

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One Christmas maybe 20 years ago, Kim and I decided that instead of buying lots of presents for each other and the kids, we would take a family winter vacation. On New Year’s Day we flew down to the Florida Keys for a week. We swam and snorkeled, visited the Everglades and Miami, and had a really great time. We still talk about it. Toys or clothes would have been long forgotten, but that January vacation is still with us in certain ways. Because experiences give you special moments together, doing special things. And what is more valuable than enjoyable times spent with the people you love? It really makes me wonder why we don’t give more experiences than we do.
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Celebrate

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Celebrate your beauty!
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Chosen

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When I was a kid I hated when it was time to pick teams. You know what I’m talking about? It’s a nice spring day, the gym teacher takes the class outside, says we’re going to play softball today. You and you – pick your teams.  Believe me when I tell you I was always among the last chosen – I was not much of an athlete. I remember distinctly standing there waiting until another girl and I were the only ones left. Super great for your developing self-image, right?  I wonder now, what in heaven’s name was the matter with these gym teachers? The humiliation they inflicted! If you were never chosen last, then maybe you don’t know. But it was cruel.  Being chosen is all wrapped up in love. Everyone wants to be chosen.  There are so many stories in the Bible about particular individuals who are chosen by God – some who didn’t even want to be chosen. Some who were not the ones anybody expected to chosen. For example, choosing little David to be the king of Israel would be l...
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Good

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The young ruler approaching Jesus for advice called out, “Good Teacher!” And Jesus replied, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” I have never known why Jesus said that. I assume it is because the young man caught him at a bad moment when his patience was running thin. It seems unnecessary and nonsensical. Besides, if Jesus is God incarnate, why is he not good? Didn’t the young ruler have it right?  Could it really be true that ONLY God is good? The first creation story in Genesis describes how God created the world, step by step. Day by day, and at the end of every day God deemed it good. So, there it is: the word of God. I still don’t know what Jesus meant, but this plant is good. Because it is part of God’s good creation. And it is just doing what God made it to do.
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Awake

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When the going gets tough, Jesus’ disciples have trouble staying awake. When Peter, James, and John are confronted with his glory as he is transfigured before their eyes, they become weighed down with sleep. On the night he was arrested, when Jesus implores his disciples to come and pray with him, but when he looks up they are asleep. Asleep because of grief, as Luke says. Sleep is an escape from the world. Newborn babies know this. Honestly, there are times I cannot wait for the end of the day so I can escape into sleep. And, if even a good night sleep is not enough to take care of the grief, we might find ourselves effectively sleepwalking through our days. As though we are shrouded in a blanket buffering us from the world. We see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. You don’t have to be asleep to be, well, asleep. Jesus warns us again and again: Stay awake! Because he sees this problem we have in the face of challenges. Our eyes get glassy, we retreat. We avoid. And it won’t be solv...
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Glory

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Glory. I have struggled with this word for a few days now. I am troubled by glory. The glory of the world might be studded in diamonds and plated with gold, draped in velvet and silk. But the glory of God is hidden from us. It is a glory that we cannot comprehend, cannot even bear the sight of. In the Exodus story we read that Moses carried the glory of God in his face when he returned from the mountain, and the people could not bear the sight of him. As Christians, we see glory in the cross, because we understand it as the way of salvation. We know Christ said to his disciples that each one must take up her own cross. If we are to follow in his way, we follow him through death and beyond – all the way to glory. And so our Christian tradition has seen glory in suffering. Not suffering for its own sake but suffering that becomes necessary on the way to something else. Glory. But this, too, troubles me, it all too easily becomes a glorification of suffering, a glorification of violence. ...
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