Hallowe’en … Not death, but life

Morning: Psalm 50; Nehemiah 1:1-11; Revelation 5:11- 6:11

Evening: Psalm 34; Wisdom 3:1-9; Revelation 19:1, 4-10

Christian and pagan traditions have melded into a very curious set of Hallowe’en customs, a prominent one being that the souls of the dead return for one night in the year, needing to be appeased by the living (“trick or treat!”).  This reflects humankind’s uneasy relationship with death.  The various mythologies we have created about death may perpetuate our uneasiness, since they mostly ignore the affirmation of faith, namely, the resurrection of the dead.  We quaintly hide our fear of death under cute costumes, while faith proclaims the renewal of all things … not death, but life.

Listening is so rare … but what a gift it is

Morning: Psalm 119:49-72; Ezra 6:1-22; Revelation 5:1-10

Evening: Psalms 148, 150; Psalm 48; Matthew 13:10-17

Listening is so rare!  John Fox writes: “When someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you’ve had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold, fresh water. When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touches your skin, you are loved … When someone deeply listens to you your bare feet are on the earth and a beloved land that seemed distant is now at home within you.”  Jesus laments our failure to listen well. He teaches and himself models the gift of truly paying attention.

How receptive am I?

Morning: Psalm 45; Ezra 5:1-17; Revelation 4:1-11

Evening: Psalms 47, 48; Matthew 13:1-9

When Jesus spoke to the crowds from the boat – “a sower went forth to sow” – they may have wondered, why is he telling us this? Or, what does this have to do with me? I’m a fisherman not a farmer!  Even so, perhaps they saw themselves in the different types of ground he was describing – rocky, thorny, fertile?  Perhaps they even realized that Jesus was wondering how receptive they were to him?  For that matter, how receptive am I?  Am I ready for something good to grow in me or am I still too hard and prickly?

Saints love God – so they can’t help but live well

Morning: Psalm 66; Isaiah 28:9-16; Ephesians 4:1-16

Evening: Psalms 116, 117; Isaiah 4:2-6; John 14:15-31

“If you love me you will keep my commandments.”  This is not Jesus being whiny, like, ‘Show me you love me … do as I say.’  It’s the other way around … ‘Love me and what I love and you will live well ... you won’t be able to help yourself!’  Today is St. Simon and St. Jude’s Day.  Jesus taught Jude that if anyone loves God, God will live in them and in their actions.  Saints don’t spend their lives doing good … they spend their lives learning to love God and what God loves.

Love and mercy begin with the person next to you

Morning: Psalms 63:1-11, 98; Haggai 1:1-2:9; Acts 18:24-19:7

Evening: Psalm 103; Luke 10:25-37

Paradoxically, human life gets lonelier the more people there are.  In the UK recently, where the population is nearly twice that of Canada, I found people often pass by without saying hello.  Jesus’s call to love our neighbour does extend to all.  But it’s helpful to realize that you can only relate in this moment to the person next to you … so you show mercy to them for now, then to the next one, one at a time - it doesn’t have to be all at once.  Love and mercy begin with the person next to you.

What we do springs from who we are

Morning: Psalms 30, 32; Ezra 4:7, 11-24; Philemon 1-25

Evening: Psalms 42, 43; Matthew 12:33-42

Telling children to “behave” is pointless if you don’t nurture them in an environment that embodies and fosters goodness.  So, when you say, “be good”, you point towards a more helpful path.  No-one becomes good by “doing good”; what we do springs from who we are.  In common speech, “be good” actually means “behave” or “do good”, but we cannot act outwardly in a way that is out of character with our being, which is our essential character.  Our actions flow from that.  Strong character >>> integrity.  Weak character >>> chaos.

On not cutting off our nose to spite our face

Morning: Psalm 31; Ezra 3:1-13; I Corinthians 16:10-24

Evening: Psalm 35; Matthew 12:22-32

Ever prune a tree and realize you’re about to cut the branch your ladder rests on?  Ever inadvertently clean a floor around yourself? Ever venture into danger with no escape?  When your actions destroy your future, your house is divided against itself.  Think of divisive rhetoric; or blaming others to save face; or minimizing the proven climate crisis.  Similarly, by cursing or turning away from God, you cut yourself off from the very source of your own nourishment and well-being.  Getting our act together as a society is being divided no longer – finding common cause.  We can do this.

Strength with gentleness

Morning: Psalm 37:1-18; Ezra 1:1-11; I Corinthians 16:1-9

Evening: Psalm 37:19-42; Matthew 12:15-21

A crocodile can crush its prey between its powerful jaws and teeth.  It can also carry one of its own fragile eggs between those same fearsome teeth and not break it.  Jesus exhibits great strength in confronting those who misuse power.  He also shows supreme gentleness in dealing with fragile souls, those whose spirits have been crushed or bruised by life.  Jesus combines strength with gentleness in pursuing justice. Theodore Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”  But Jesus proves that strength does not mean violence any more than gentleness means weakness.

The first priority … mercy

Morning: Psalm 38; Lamentations 2:8-15; I Corinthians 15:51-58

Evening: Psalm 119:25-48; Matthew 12:1-14

“What’s my first priority?” asks a little inner voice.  It can get drowned out by louder voices clamouring for me to put them first.  ‘Pressing priorities’ and ‘deadlines’ may appear to be more important than they are.  Erma Bombeck wisely joked, “I love deadlines … I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by!”  When they pressed Jesus about the law, he responded, in effect, like Mr. Bumble in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, "If the law supposes that, the law is a ass—a idiot."  For Jesus, if our much-vaunted ‘priorities’ do not serve mercy, they should wait.

Something greater than wisdom

Morning: Psalm 26, 28; Lamentations 1:1-12; I Corinthians 15:41-50

Evening: Psalms 36, 39; Matthew 11:25-30

I used to pray most for Wisdom. Wisdom shows itself in loving actions.  Yet Wisdom comes from putting your trust in the right place.  “Come to me,” Jesus says, “all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens … learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Even infants trust gentleness and humility because behind them is Love.  You can be wise like Solomon or intelligent like Einstein, but I am learning from Jesus … Now I pray more for Love, so that I may become truly wise.

The problem with this generation …

Morning: Psalm 25; Jeremiah 44:1-14; I Corinthians 15:30-41

Evening: Psalm 9, 15; Matthew 11:16-24

Yesterday, a (millennial) friend of mine lamented about ‘Baby Boomers’ in terms that echo Jesus: “To what shall I compare this generation?”  One, perhaps justifiable, caricature of Boomers is that they are ‘entitled’ – they get what they want, now!  Spiritual guide Bill Plotkin says many Boomers have not yet emerged from adolescence!  Such laments call for repentance, and that means action.  Our grandchildren’s future – post-millennials and beyond – requires the action of Boomers now to address the harms done by our generation’s excesses.  If we are ever to be called wise, Jesus is right, wisdom must be vindicated by her deeds. 

Rejoice at how precious you are

Morning: Psalms 148, 149, 150; Jeremiah 29:1,4-14; Acts 16:6-15

Evening: Psalms 114, 115; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

My mother has fairly serious dementia. There are poignant moments as I visit with her this week.  Mum asks, “Are you my son?” and apologizes that she doesn’t have a meal ready for me.  She says she’s “not much of a mother”!  Of course, I expect nothing of her; I only hope that she will sense how precious she is to me.  She no longer remembers the bumpy stretches of our relationship – I gladly forget them too!  When the disciples or we seek affirmation from Jesus, he only wants us to rejoice that we are precious to him.

Is it my expectations that need to change?

Morning: Psalms 20, 21; 2 Kings 25:8-12,22-26; I Corinthians 15:12-29

Evening: Psalms 110, 116, 117; Matthew 11:7-15

Your expectations shape your beliefs – If you think God should be like this and isn’t, or that God should act that way and doesn’t, you may think you don’t believe in God, whereas you just don’t believe in the ‘god’ your own mind created!!  In Jesus’ day, many expected the ‘Messiah’ would be a warrior, who would impose God’s will by the violent overthrow of the dominant Roman imperial power.  So, they rejected Jesus.  My expectations condition my responses to life’s events.  When I think events should happen differently than they do, maybe it’s my expectations that need to change?

You will receive power to speak truth

Morning: Psalm 103; Ezekiel 47:1-12; Luke 1:1-4

Evening: Psalms 67, 96; Isaiah 52:7-10; Acts 1:1-8

Yesterday, my mother lamented, “Graham, I forget so much!” “Me too,” I said.  Given the failings of human memory, we are fortunate that Luke, whose day we mark today, wrote what he did … more than 25% of the New Testament.  Without his Gospel and Acts, we might forget what was accomplished by the power of the Spirit. But through his ‘orderly account’ of Jesus and the apostles, especially Paul, Luke reveals that the power of the Spirit to speak truth is available to us all … when we open ourselves to a power greater than our own. 

Jesus: turning the world right side up

Morning: Psalm 18:1-20; Jeremiah 38:1-13; I Corinthians 14:26-40

Evening: Psalm 18:21-50; Matthew 10:34-42

Jesus is often said to be turning the world upside-down.  When you are settled into a comfortable way of life, you don’t want that!  But what if the world is already upside-down?  We in ‘the West’ realize more and more that our way of life may cause suffering among those around the world whom Jesus calls our sisters and brothers.  So, what if Jesus’ work, using our hands, is to turn an already upside-down world right side up? … which may turn out to be dizzyingly uncomfortable for some of us. 

Pray for courage to embody Love

Morning: Psalm 119:1-24; Jeremiah 37:3-21; I Corinthians 14:13-25

Evening: Psalms 12, 13, 14; Matthew 10:24-33

Jesus warns his disciples they can expect harsh treatment.  He embodied Love and yet was crucified.  I wonder … will I take courage to embody Love too and admit that I am Jesus’ disciple?  Near my mother’s home in north Wales is tiny St. Trillo’s chapel, built in the 500s over a holy well, now of stone, originally probably of wood.  Though it is the smallest church in Britain, it stands for the great truth of enduring Love.  I will pray, when I visit there this week, for enduring courage to embody Love in my actions and words.

As sheep in the midst of wolves, but not alone

Morning: Psalms 5, 6; Jeremiah 36:27-37:2; I Corinthians 14:1-12

Evening: Psalms 10,11; Matthew 10:16-23

It’s not a happy metaphor … Sheep don’t stand a chance with wolves, yet Jesus still sends his disciples out!  He knows that as they speak for him and serve his purposes they will meet with resistance, even violence, but he commissions them anyway.  Good purposes seldom go unopposed.  In his own suffering Jesus faces down and overcomes the power of death, whose most active energy is fear.  Jesus wants his followers to be aware of what they are getting into when they follow in his Way.  But they are reassured … they do not go alone.

Travel light

Morning: Psalms 1, 2, 3; Jeremiah 36:11-26; I Corinthians 13:1-13

Evening: Psalms 4, 7; Matthew 10:5-15

Today I journey to Wales for a week to visit my mother.  Yesterday, I decide to pack as little as possible.  Then I read about Jesus’s sending out the disciples to share Good News.  Not surprisingly, the part that gets my attention is when Jesus says: “Take no gold, or silver or copper in your belts …” (They didn’t have Visa, eh!), “no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff.”  ‘Travel light’ seems like good advice for today and for life in general.  I’ll try to remember this when I get back!

Being forgiven makes it possible to love

Morning: Psalms 146, 147; Jeremiah 36:1-10; Acts 14:8-18

Evening: Psalms 111,112,113; Luke 7:36-50

Most of us need to find forgiveness for something.  When you are un-forgiven, the love in you shrinks.  When you find forgiveness, love expands within you and overflows to others.  Refusing to forgive someone is acting out your own need for forgiveness and love.  But when you forgive someone, you break open your own heart to love; you offer them (and yourself) a new world of possibilities.  Forgiveness multiplies love.  Love multiplies forgiveness.  You don’t have to be God to forgive someone.  Amazingly, though, when someone forgives you, it’s as if God has forgiven you too. 

Help wanted!

Morning: Psalms 137:1-6, 144; Jeremiah 35:1-19; I Corinthians 12:27-13:3

Evening: Psalm 104; Matthew 9:35-10:4

People think about God as a service provider rather than as an employer.  We don’t look for God under ‘Help Wanted!’ but under ‘Goods and Services’.  We come with requests, with “Help!” instead with “How may I help?”  Jesus calls disciples not as hangers-on but as workers in a harvest of wholeness and well-being on the earth. It is now ready. It is what we’re here for.  And what we need is already here … with one exception – that we all need to be employed in nurturing life and wholeness in ourselves and in one another.  Our help is required.

Vision for the blind, voice for the voiceless

Morning: Psalms 140, 142; 2 Kings 23:36-24:17; I Corinthians 12:12-26

Evening: Psalms 141, 143:1-11; Matthew 9:27-34

The healings of Jesus promise healing for all.  Two blind men receive their sight; another who is possessed and cannot speak finds his voice.  Jesus, when we seek him out, causes scales to fall from our eyes so that we see the world afresh … as a place of wonder and promise that is yearning for us to prize its beauty and love it into new life. Jesus, when we attend to him, calls the voiceless to speak … those whom the world marginalizes because their truth is too difficult to hear.  Jesus - Vision and Voice!

By faith, to be at one with Life.

Morning: Psalms 131, 132; 2 Kings 23:4-25; I Corinthians 12:1-11

Evening: Psalms 134, 135; Matthew 9:18-26

If Jesus is the Creative Word through whom all things were made, it is fair to expect that it is his nature to bring new life and healing.  And yet, we are mortal and know that life and health are temporary states for us.  Jesus calls us – through faith in him – not to immortality but to living well within the limits of our humanity.  He seeks to heal our Life, and teach us to endure, with grace and courage, the suffering we humans inevitably face on this earthly pilgrimage … thus, by faith, to be at one with Life.

Remember mercy

Morning: Psalm 119:145-176; 2 Kings 22:14-23:3; I Corinthians 11:23-34

Evening: Psalms 128, 129, 130; Matthew 9:9-17

Christian religion is being stretched.  Jesus said new wine needs new wineskins or the skins will burst.  The ‘new wine’ of Jesus’ mercy may be causing this crisis of religion; mercy calls for new containers.  Some religious people still think you have to be morally righteous to belong.  The Gospel says No! … You do not have to be good to be a disciple; on the contrary, you have to admit that you’re not!  It is time judgmental religion was replaced with more flexible containers that can hold the ‘gentle rain’ of mercy Jesus brings.

There is already too much suffering in the world

Morning: Psalms 121,122,123; 2 Kings 22:1-13; I Corinthians 11:2,17-22

Evening: Psalms 124, 125, 126; Matthew 9:1-8

In Jesus’ day some thought illness was punishment for our alienation from God (or ‘sin’) … some still do.  Did Jesus affirm this perverse idea?  Jesus would say sin has devastating consequences; but that it is very different from seeing paralysis as punishment.  Jesus’ life was about the healing that comes when we turn our lives around to receive forgiveness. Healing, therefore, may mean no longer believing that God punishes sin by inflicting suffering.  There is already too much suffering in the world.  God does not want to break us but make us whole.

Who or what wields power in my life?

Morning: Psalm 106:1-18; 2 Kings 21:1-18; I Corinthians 10:14-11:1

Evening: Psalm 106:19-48; Matthew 8:28-34

It was a bad day for the Gadarenes when, because of Jesus, their demon-possessed pigs ran off a cliff into the Sea!  Those pigs remind me to be aware of any illegitimate power in my life – it could be, perhaps, another person, or a fear of poverty, or a desire for wealth; it could be an unrealistic dream or goal?  St. Paul makes demons equal to idols.  I can become so possessed by these powerful energies that they become like little gods, running my life.  Which invites me to ponder: Who or what wields power in my life?

Bringing to life previously unimagined possibilities

Morning: Psalm 118; 2 Kings 20:1-21; Acts 12:1-17

Evening: Psalm 145; Luke 7:11-17

People from many backgrounds seek understanding about what Jesus brings to life in us.  Like, what’s happening when Jesus restores the widow’s dead son to life? This is a remarkable story about Jesus, who, the Bible tells, will himself rise from the dead.  Wherever Jesus is found, he brings to life in people hope, joy and delight – previously unimagined possibilities.  Isn’t that what a miracle is?  Isn’t that what resurrection is? … A previously unimagined opportunity to find something remarkable in a life that you thought was spent, or empty or meaningless? 

One who will stretch and empower you beyond your wildest expectations

Morning: Psalms 107:33-43; 108:1-6; 2 Kings 19:21-36; I Cor 10:1-13

Evening: Psalm 33: Matthew 8:18-27

Jesus demands much of his followers … it won’t be easy.  You may not know where you will sleep tonight.  Also, Jesus regards some of your stifling family obligations as a sort of living death.  His work is to bring life; that work takes priority.  Storms will come and you must trust him to help you weather them.  What sort of man is this Jesus?  One thing is sure … he will test you, as God will test you also. And his good purposes will be realized in you by his stretching you – and empowering you – beyond your wildest expectations.

Under whose authority will I live?

Morning: Psalm 102; 2 Kings 19:1-20; I Corinthians 9:16-27

Evening: Psalm 107:1-32; Matthew 8:1-17

In 1210, St. Francis, whose day we observe today, asked Pope Innocent III to endorse the Order of Friars Minor.  After dreaming of Francis holding up the cathedral of Rome, Innocent agreed.  Some folks say we should live our lives ‘with authority’, as ‘authors of our own destiny’.  But Francis, like the centurion who trusted that Jesus could heal his servant, recognized an authority greater than his own.  His Church authority was Pope Innocent.  Francis’ ultimate allegiance, though, was to Jesus.  The stories of both the centurion and Francis encourage me to decide under whose authority I will live.

Action and faith complete one another

Morning: Psalm 105:1-22; 2 Kings 18:28-37; I Corinthians 9:1-15

Evening: Psalm 105:23-45; Matthew 7:22-29

The Protestant Reformation was based, among other things, on the realization that we cannot live well only by doing good deeds … none of us manage to be consistently good and we always find reasons to be unhappy with our efforts.  Christians believe, though, that help is available from beyond – we call it ‘grace’ – and that grace is shown in Jesus.  Trusting the Way of Jesus is ‘faith’.  We are most fully alive when we act on what we believe.  So faith and action complete one another … together they form the solid rock foundation for a life.

Find companions whose lives are fruitful

Morning: Psalms 101, 109:1-30; 2 Kings 18:9-25; I Corinthians 8:1-13

Evening: Psalm 119:121-144; Matthew 7:13-21

Jesus says the road to fullness of life is less travelled because it is hard and narrow. Many deceptions entice you to take easier paths. But life requires careful discernment about which road to take.  Fullness of life (Jesus calls it ‘the kingdom of heaven’) is a journey … into justice.  For that, there is a path.  You seek out other pilgrims who are trying to live well – not lavishly, but justly.  It’s good not to be on this journey alone.  Companions help, people to share bread with, who are on the same path.

Is life harder because we don’t pray for virtue?

Morning: Psalm 97, 99; 2 Chronicles 29:1-3 & 30:1-27; I Cor 7:32-40

Evening: Psalm 94; Matthew 7:1-12

Why are the obvious virtues the hardest to practise?  Judge not.  Guard what is holy.  Do to others as you would have them do to you.  No-one disagrees with these, yet no-one practises them consistently.  We judge. We squander our greatest treasures. We do not treat others with the grace and love that we ourselves desire.  The answer may lie in the hardest virtue of all … PRAYER … Do our prayers too often seek things for ourselves; whereas if we prayed more for help in being non-judgmental, holy and kind, maybe these virtues would come easily to us?