Thursday, March 12, 2020

Old Testament: Jeremiah 17: 5-10

Gospel:  Luke 16: 19-31

Psalm 1

Psalm 1 asserts that the blessed ones meditate on and delight in the Law of the Lord day and night. They can become like trees planted by streams of water, “bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither” (vs. 2-3). By contrast, the Psalmist also declares that those who linger in the crooked ways of the world with the scornful, the distracted, the sinners, are “like chaff which the wind blows away” (vs. 4). The Hebrew Prophet Jeremiah echoes the Psalmist’s foundational Torah admonitions (vs. 5-10).  Let us focus on the encouragement given us in the positive, life-giving images of streams, trees, leaves, roots, and fruit.

To be like a tree, grounded by deep roots, beside a stream or in a forest, is, over time in a storm-tossed world, to be kept stable, rooted in God.  The beloved American poet, Mary Oliver (1935-2019) shows us her way of grounding mind and heart: her regular, slow rambles in the Cape Cod woods. “When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say, and daily.”  The trees call out to her: “Stay awhile.” Light is flowing to her through their branches. They say again, Mary, “It’s simple, and you have come into this world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”  

On Shades Mountain in Birmingham, each morning I greet the trees and the birds and God the Creator with thanksgiving (well, most mornings!) to remember to choose the delights of God’s Law, to seek advice for going forth nonviolently and with loving compassion into an increasingly distracted and conflicted world. So let us imagine flourishing fruitful trees: apple, fig, tangerine, apricot, pistachio, and olive: beautiful and life-giving, rooted and watered. Not like chaff which blows away with the wind. 

One of the early Christians from Rome, Hemas (100-160 AD/CE), in his treatise “The Shepherd” suggests some simple, challenging ways that we can be rooted and “fruitful” in our daily lives: “Do good, and with simple hearts share the fruits of your labor, which God gives to you, with all those who are poor, not wondering to whom you should give and to whom you should not give. Give to all, for God wishes that you give to all from [God’s] gifts to you.”

Stanley Rich

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Old Testament:  Jeremiah 18:1-11,18-20

Gospel:  Matthew 20:17-28

Psalm 31:9-16

“I am as useless as a broken pot.” Psalm 31:12b

“Life was not supposed to turn out this way,” a friend lamented to me recently. Those words, spoken with refreshing honesty in the midst of grief, have stuck with me.

I wonder how many of us would admit to a similar broken feeling, at least during certain times in our lives or on certain dreadful days. I wonder how many of us carry such thoughts within, even when all looks grand on the outside.

I am not made for this. I missed that opportunity. I made a mess of things. I took a wrong turn. Whether negligent or calculated, I squandered and surrendered. I am as useless as a broken pot.

But in today’s Old Testament reading, the prophet reminds me that I am in the Potter’s hands. I am fashioned and refashioned as the wheel continues to turn. What is spoiled is remade. And the merciful Artist calls it good (Jeremiah 18:4).

I don’t mean to make light of mistakes made by us or harms caused to us. Life can be hard and painful. Pots do indeed break, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

Rather, teach me to trust in you, Lord, through my shame and sadness and regret. Guard my heart and redeem my thoughts, reminding me that what is broken is being transformed.

“You are my God. My times are in your hand.” (Psalm 31:14-15a)

Michael Barnett

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Old Testament: Isaiah 1:2–4,16–20

Gospel: Matthew 23:1–12

Psalm 50:7–15,22–24

As I write this in early February, I have the scene of the recent National Prayer Breakfast fresh in my mind. It’s difficult for me to refrain from contrasting the instructions of Jesus with the very public displays of religiosity in contemporary time. I wonder if the people who originally began the breakfast event (in the 1930s) would even recognize it today. I wonder how it happens that a person can begin an activity with the best of spiritual intentions only to have that activity become so steeped in “religiosity” that its spiritual nature is threatened. I’m going to interrupt my laughter at the National Prayer Breakfast and ask the more difficult question: what are the implications in my own life?

It’s always easier to point out someone else’s short-comings than it is to examine my own honestly. My ego wants to be a full-service public relations agent at times. It can be too hasty in relegating the parts of my personality that need improvement to a closet and trying to shut the door. But denying those parts of myself will not result in a personality that is whole. I must remind myself that God created all of the pieces of who I am. My job is to assemble the puzzle so that it ends up as the picture that God intended.

In this passage from Matthew, I hear Jesus reminding me to keep God at the center of my spiritual life. Public posturing as well as its opposite, false humility, seeks attention for myself.

The activities that will nourish my spiritual needs are not always public. There are also times when it is important for me to be outspoken. I must prayerfully try to discern God’s will in each situation as it presents itself.

I will try to remind myself that my job is to do what I can to help bring the Kingdom of Heaven to this place right now.

Sharon Fugate

Monday, March 09, 2020

Old Testament: Daniel 9:3–10

Gospel: Luke 6:27–38

Psalm 79:1–9

“Remember not our past sins;

let your compassion be swift to meet us;

for we have been brought very low.” Psalm 79:8

Today’s readings would not let me get away from sin. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about sin over the past year, since I was asked to give my personal definition of sin. On the spot, I said something about how, as part of the condition of being humans in the world, we all trespass and transgress, adding that we’re also trespassed upon. I explained it mostly a matter of proximity: the nature of living close to one another. My answer sounded a lot like describing a rush hour ride on the Metro when I lived in D.C.

I got the chance to test the working definition of sin I’d offered very soon after, when I said something mean I wish I hadn’t said to someone I loved. I transgressed and trespassed, before I even realized it. My words hadn’t reflected how much I cared about the person. But now sin felt more painful and immediate than my easy, theoretical answer. Having come face to face with sin in my own life, I felt like Daniel in today’s reading, ready to don my sackcloth and ashes. His prayer of confession reminded me how painful sin is, no matter which side of it you find yourself on.

Jesus teaches, in today’s Gospel from Luke, the kind of forgiveness I hope all my transgressions will be met with: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” I want to be part of a community like the one Jesus describes, where forgiveness is practiced in abundance. 

I’m lucky in that I’ve known forgiveness, and that when I work through problems like sin in my own life, I have a great community of people in my life who remind me of grace, of who I am. I’m also grateful for Mary Oliver, whose “Wild Geese” is was a comfort to me, and a perfect poem for Lent. I wish I could share the whole poem with you now, but as I close, I’ll just get us started:

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” 

Whitney Williams