Five Minute Friday :: Spark

A fire burns out of control along a ridge
during the California wildfires in Rough and Ready,
California, October 12, 2017.
California National Guard photo

• Five Minute Friday :: Spark Linkup

Related to fire and related to sparks, I originally wrote most of this about desert spirit's fire! for the worship bulletin I designed for the Day of Pentecost a while ago.

Since the dawn of creation, God's Spirit has been active throughout the history of planet earth. Humans once intended for God to reside in the Jerusalem Temple, but that space was too limited and confining. Forty days after the first Day of Resurrection, on the Day of Pentecost the indwelling Spirit of Life came to us with spectacular signs of fire and wind. Now God's Holy Spirit the Temple could not contain lives in each of us and has free range in the Church.

This is wildfire country. Southern California fire season now is year round. You probably know a spark sometimes grows into a multi-acre fire. The experts have gotten really skilled at uncovering and discovering the source of an initial spark that's resulted in devastatingly destructive conflagrations. I've lost track of how many named fires there typically are at any time in these here parts.

In summer 2002 as I explored a few dozen possible names for this blog, from the start I suspected desert would be a winner; fire was likely, too. I've written about there being no scriptural narrative or saga about the creation of fire, yet the Holy Spirit in an individual Christian's life and in the life of a Christian community often functions in ways similar to how fire works in nature and in industry.

This is fire country. In writing and teaching theology, I often mention how prescribed or controlled burns long have served to maintain overall forest health and to deter larger, more destructive blazes that otherwise would happen. You easily can make analogies to your own situation!

This is fire country. Finding plants growing from seeds that wouldn't have sprouted unless fire first seared them always moves and amazes me.

It starts with a spark.

The Holy Spirit often nudges us to do something, whether it's visiting a friend, beginning a new spiritual practice, participating in a particular ministry, doing something life-enhancing for friends or family. Those times usually start with only a small spark from the Spirit, because a wind-driven fire would overwhelm us.

"Sparks from the Spirit of Life" would make good journaling. Sometimes those sparks seem to come unbidden from nowhere. Many times we receive an inspired spark from a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. What's your most recent experience?

# # #

Five Minute Friday :; Perception

• Five Minute Friday :: Perception Linkup

You've heard about a perceptive individual. maybe you've been perceptive at times in some situations. Perception is a spiritual gift that helps us navigate aspects of everyday life. Perception comes in more than handy when slmost every solution looks right and all the inputs add up right but something still feels wrong, or at least a little "off".

Is perception insight? Is perception the sum of what we already know about what's going on? Is it a "sixth sense" that sneaks in when the other five aren't enough? Maybe perception is all of those and even more.

When we read scripture, do we need to be perceptive? I heard how a seminary professor told his students not to assume the bible is an obscure document that's almost impossible for any human to understand. And don't assume the bible is easy to perceive and offers everything at face value without any need for prayer, study, reflection, conversation, or waiting on the Holy Spirit. So, do we need to be perceptive reading scripture?

According to what i just wrote, although interpretation always is about the Holy Spirit, haven't you discovered that at times the meaning of a passage just zaps you almost instantly with insight and perception, and other times you pray, consider, read commentaries, sleep on it, discuss it with others, and still wonder what it means?

Thanks for reading what I currently perceive about perception.

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Transform

Do not be conformed to this world
but be transformed
by the renewal of your mind.
Romans 12:2
• Five Minute Friday :: Transform LInkup

This week I get to include one of my all time favorite scripture illustrations and talk about Romans again.

World here is "age," eon, era, epoch, and not cosmos.

What can we say, think, or do about the way the world and its leaders, the USA and its leaders, and so much about and around us seems to be changing, not transforming into vibrant new life from death, but from health to despair to death itself?

"Transformed" in this passage from Romans is metamorphosis. Our most familiar images in creation may be butterflies and dragonflies; I did a little research to confirm what I thought I already knew.

Butterflies symbolize transformation and rebirth. In the Christian tradition, butterflies are an icon of easter and resurrection.

Dragonflies originate in water and migrate to air as they grow and mature. Throughout their lifespan, dragonflies are at home in both water and air. In addition to change and transformation that's similar to butterfly lore, dragonflies are about adaptability. Maybe you know they can change direction amidst flight, and they can fly backwards? Somewhere I read dragonflies are about the realization of dreams.

The world and its leaders, the USA and its leaders, and too much about and around us is changing, not into life from death, but from health to despair to death. Maybe your neighborhood, your family, or your workplace has troubles that appear beyond hope. Maybe your own situation has imploded and you need to start from scratch?

Like a dragonfly we are birthed and re-birthed in water; we need to keep returning to the water for sustenance and renewal; we need to keep walking the talk still "wet behind the ears" with God's baptismal promises and claims on us, with God's baptismal charge to us to live transformed, to be agents of change and transformation to help create a world filled with justice, righteousness, newness, possibilities, and hope.

Via the apostle Paul, God calls us to "be transformed," to undergo a metamorphosis, but no human can achieve that radical change on their own, by themselves. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's about death and resurrection. Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Wherever we are, in whatever place we live, transformed people can be agents of change and transformation for this age, this epoch, this eon. Reborn into the cross and the empty tomb. Transformed by water and word. Amen? Amen!

# # #

• Common milkweed in full flower this year in West Los Angeles
• Monarch Butterfly from West Los Angeles in a previous year (2018) with depleted milkweed plant. We've been planting milkweed at church for more than a half dozen years. What a ministry to creation!
• Dragonfly from hippo px

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Circle

• Five Minute Friday :: Circle Linkup

Talk about the circle of life is common. Because it's part of the way God has ordered creation, it's naturally part of our understanding. But the circle of life is only one way God orders and arranges creation and the times of our lives.

Nature religions and individuals with no religious or spiritual practice often claim that circular reality, but they leave out a huge part of scripture's witness to God's activity in creation, in history, in our daily walkabouts—resurrection from death.

During his public ministry, Jesus invited everyone to become part of his insider circle. In my baptism, God calls me to live as an outsider to most polite, tamed, predictable structures. God calls us to live as insiders to the way of Jesus.

Life in Jesus' circle is an identity shaped by the contours, demands, and relentless grace of the gospel that seeks justice, freedom, and shalom for all creation. Living in Jesus' circle is life sourced from Word and Sacrament, modeled by the order of creation, the actions and words of the prophets, and especially the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the Christ.

How many times have I quoted Cornel West:

We are people of hope. Why do we party on Friday nights? Why do we go to church on Sundays?

Because it's often the surprise of resurrection from the dead. The feast of fat things for all comers, even late comers. The full day's pay for everyone, even if you signed up at the last hour. The community of shalom sufficiency for friends, enemies, strangers, insiders, outsiders.

The worldview of the bible is open-ended, no longer the endless, predictable recycling of the same thing, yet there is a sense of constancy, of divine design and purpose to the order of nature and creation. Similar to my editing an image in Photoshop, the Holy Spirit edits, styles, filters, re-colors, and reformats people, communities, and institutions. The Spirit of Pentecost brings prophetic promises and broken hopes to life.

It's life-giving, world-changing, society-transforming, creation-renewing death and resurrection stuff!

It's no longer an endless circle of the same thing, so why do you still seek the living among the dead? Right here and right now, we live on the other side of death.

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Persevere

• Five Minute Friday :: Persevere Linkup

Especially in the southern states of the USA, people like to encourage one another to "keep on keepin' on." It doesn't take a regional folk saying to know you won't accomplish much of anything unless you persevere with your dreams, your ideals, your plans, your vision of a future.

This week on my scripture blog I'll be reflecting on a passage from the Acts of the Apostles. As Luke's Volume II opens, Jesus is concluding his post-resurrection ministry. He tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem because there they will receive God's promised Holy Spirit to such a degree they'll be baptized (immersed) in the life of the Spirit.

Possibly still awaiting and hoping for a military or a royal savior, they ask Jesus if now he will restore "the kingdom" to Israel. Jesus replies the question is wrong because they will receive the power of the Holy Spirit so then they will witness in word and deed "to the ends of the earth" and help establish the reign of heaven on earth that Jesus began. Because the Spirit will indwell them, they'll be able to persevere and accomplish everything God (in the HS, of course) calls them to.

Born of Spirit, Water, and Word, the nascent church made sure everyone had enough, no one lacked essentials. We hear about members constantly being added as a result of dynamic, inviting preaching and caring community, yet the earliest members had followed an itinerant rabbi whose teaching and very existence got him crucified by the occupying Roman imperial government.

Their leader was dead, yet they met Jesus of Nazareth as the very alive Christ of God three days after Rome killed him; the disciples continued to interact with him until his ascension to sovereignty and power "at God's right hand," as the ecumenical creeds proclaim. The disciples kept on keeping on persevering; they kept on persevering on order for God's dreams, plans, ideals, God's visions of a free, just, compassionate, and inclusive future for planet earth would happen.

An Acts scholar could tell us how much elapsed time the book chronicles, but we're continuing to persevere and write the Acts of the contemporary people of God in Jesus Christ. We're keeping on as we persevere in our families, our schools, our neighborhoods, our churches. Some of us have been or still serve in an elected or appointed role in local, county, provincial, or state government. We must persevere in order to resist and overcome those forces that push against God's call to justice, righteousness, and overall well-being.

Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we are able to persevere and accomplish what God calls us to. We persevere together in order to help enact God's common wealth of well being and shalom for all creation. And sometimes we even journal about it or blog about it!

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Store

• Five Minute Friday :: Store Linkup

Here's an older one that already says what I'd like to say today:

• Stored Value: from Lent 2005

Retail stores are places that hold a fair amount of stuff. These days they come in brick and mortar and virtual. Maybe your family practices food storage in case of need or disaster? That type of store always is wise, particularly in more remote rural areas.

Pantries store or hold canned, boxed, and other ingredients at the ready. Whether a place to shop, or a location to gather fixings for a meal, we fully expect all those stores to be depleted and later restocked. After all, even food that's dry needs to be fresh. When we consider non-food items, clothing, household décor, outdoor supplies, and other "stuff" rotates seasonally. Besides, clothes you bought for yourself a few years back may be seriously out of style, may not fit, and if it's your kids' apparel, they've plain outgrown it.

No stored physical provisions last forever. But we have stores of gifts in the Holy Spirit that are eternal and expansive. They don't need restocking or restoring. In fact, you may have noticed the more you gift others out of your store of love, mercy, compassion, and grace, the more your stores of those spiritual gifts expand and grow?

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Doubt

• Five Minute Friday :: Doubt Linkup

Philosophers and theologians like to remind us faith or belief (trust) and doubt (not trusting) form a bonded pair that can't be separated. We know faith as a gift of the Spirit, yet it's in spite of the existence of doubt. In memorable and memorizable form, Martin Luther's famous explanation to the Holy Christ/Sanctification third article of the Apostle's Creed in his Small Catechism reminds us it's all gift, all grace:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth… This is most certainly true.

All that is good and it's important. That it gives life on many levels is most certainly true. But my most recent doubts have been about not believing my life ever would reweave organically again. Actually? Because of too much experience and countless tries to recreate a world of meaning, purpose, and service to others, I still doubt it's possible. Not that believing everything you see and hear ever is wise, not that refusal to keep on keepin' on is a bad idea, but few events and outcomes are particularly random or unintended.

Look around! Look at yourself! How much of your family's, friends', or your own overall situation can be credited to careful planning, hard work, and capturing (sometimes closely related, sometimes at right angles to expectations) surprising opportunities that seem to fall out of the sky? A total carpe diem lifestyle almost always yields good fruit. But I've done all that and I still doubt!

I've done all that and still have serious doubts because community support is such a major piece of life-restoring and sustaining results. Where's this FMF headed? Where is my life headed?

Please stay tuned. Okay?
# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Stir

• Five Minute Friday :: Stir Linkup

Therefore [because of the faithfulness of Timothy's mother Eunice and grandmother Lois] I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of apprehension, but of power and of love and of clear understanding.

2 Timothy 1:6-7

Word study this time!

Stir up God's gift(s) that are inside us. Exactly like when we stir dying embers and the entire fire reignites, getting our talents and abilities out where people can notice and know them, where we can use them, literally stirs them up and helps them blossom and bloom. Like the wind and the fire of Pentecost, "stirred up" gifts spread far to benefit the world. I'll take stir further! Stirring cooking or baking ingredients together combines them to create yummy results no one ever could get from only a single ingredient. Using our gifts and talents together…

I love that the Greek words for grace and joy are very similar – probably from the same root. Charisma, the word for gift in this scripture literally comes from "charis" or grace. Doesn't using our gifts of grace result in joy all around for everyone?

The apostle Paul counsels his ministry sidekick Timothy to build on the testimony in words and action of his grandmother and his mother. You probably know scripture constantly tells us "do not fear." Although some translations of these verses read "God has not given us a spirit of fear;" rather than phobos that gives us the too familiar English phobia and phobic, the Greek here is closer to apprehension, uneasiness, or "timidity" several translations offer.

In Romans 8:16 Paul announces the Holy Spirit resonates with our human spirit to let us know we are God's offspring. Given the reality of God's own Spirit indwelling us, is it any surprise that our power is the dynamite word scripture often uses for God's own power?

One more! Our spirit of love is God's world-embracing unconditional agape! Do we believe it, can we rock it? Maybe so, with clarity, understanding and self-possession.

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Commit

• Then God said,
"Let the earth bring forth grass,
and the fruit tree yield fruit,"
and it was so. Genesis 1:11
• FMF :: commit linkup

Be committed to an institution. Join the church!

You may have heard the church is a human institution decided to God, a divine organism dedicated to humanity—and the rest of creation?

Whether or not you formally get baptized and officially join your local church as a full-fledged (flight wings more or less under your own control) voting member or mission partner, it began because of God's total commitment to you and to all God's beloved creation. As Martin Luther famously and scripturally explained the third article of the creed (sanctification), "I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel … in the same way the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth."

I bounced my header banner with the Genesis 1 quote off of my art for Season of Creation 2018; Word was the series focus that year. Speech and action are one and the same with God: God speaks and it happens. God's Word creates, redeems, and sustains because of God's [humanly] incredible commitment to us. Since God has covenanted with us in a completely unchanging yet endlessly adaptable commitment, is it not a privilege of grace already given to us and for us to respond with our own commitment to creation that's also our commitment to God? Caring for earth's grasses and grains, stewarding those lovely fruit-bearing trees? Not by our own power, reason, strength, or will, but because the Holy Spirit makes it possible.

So… are you ready to commit? To God who's committed to you? To the creation that's God's glory and dwelling-place, the creation that embraces us in commitment?

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Prayer

My God in his steadfast love will meet me. Psalm 59:10

• FMF Prayer Linkup

Prayer! That activity of heart, mind, and body that helps connect us to God. Prayer—it comes in varieties of praise, thanksgiving, petition, lament, celebration, solicitation, questioning why. When we pray and imagine we're alone, we're not really. As the apostle Paul points out, God's Spirit of Life within us shapes our prayer because as a supposedly solitary individual we don't know what to say. Then there are times we pray as we gather in the assembly of saints: prayers of the people bring the world's concerns before God's throne of grace; eucharistic prayer reconnects us to God's people and God's actions in every place and time and even carries us together into God's future.

But if I could continue a short five minutes about prayer, it would start with the Psalter. The Psalms were the Prayer Book of the Synagogue. The Psalms were the Hymn Book of John Calvin's Geneva Reform. Every single denominational and free church hymnal today includes dozens of hymns based on psalms. The psalms themselves express every possible human emotion, which makes them perfect examples of prayer. Psalms were composed to be sung in corporate worship and to be used in the prayer that's never private because the Holy Spirit always abides with us and within us.

Do you have a favorite psalm?
# # #

Baptism of Jesus 2021

Baptism of Jesus 2021

"You are my Son the Beloved. With you I am well pleased."

Mark 1:11

Terence Lester :: I See You

Equal parts testimony, analysis, and exhortation, at first glance Terence Lester's soon to be released I See You: How Love Opens Our Eyes to Invisible People is about the growing population of homeless individuals along with assorted "others than us" we don't perceive as part of mainstream society. However, as the late, highly admired and regarded Henri Nouwen observed, everyone is impoverished in some way, and surprisingly, "that’s the place where God wants to dwell! 'How blessed are the poor,' Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty. ... Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden." from Bread for the Journey

So I See You is about all of us.

Terence tells us poverty of any kind is about lack of access, but that's only a starter. And yes, much of this book does focus on the economic and material impoverishment that often leads to individuals and families finding themselves without physical shelter, the poverty that happens because of lack of human connections, lack of a community of support and participation.

Have you noticed how homelessness and poverty tend to be systemic and multi-generational? Lester dreams of eradicating (especially) systemic injustice. I see You chronicles the author's own experiences and his observations of others who've been poor; it particularly testifies to Terence's – and other's – experiences of being seen clearly enough to have their needs acted upon and met by people acting as God's agents—as God's eyes.

¹³Hagar answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, "You're the God who sees me! "Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!"

¹⁴That's how that desert spring got named "God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring." That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. Genesis 16, The Message

The author reminds us scripture has over two thousand references to poverty and justice; we need to recognize aspects of justice include distributive, retributive, restorative, and procedural. Possibly others, as well, though they may be sub-sets of these primary types. Quite a while ago senior pastor asked what classes I was taking and I mentioned one called "Poverty and Justice." Senior pastor responded with a longish speech about the criminal (retributive) justice system and the highly disproportionate number of persons of color and others without economic means who remain incarcerated. I replied, "No! You're thinking of retributive justice! This course is about distributive justice! Who gets what, how, when, and why!" Most poverty seems to happen because of disconnects in distributive justice that often cascade into other injustices.

Hagar's God who sees me is a God who sees each of us as we really are. That includes individuals with massive financial resources it's easy to stereotype as having everything; it includes people in ragged clothes holding a Please Help! sign at the freeway entrance. What stereotypes do you need to start breaking down? What ones do I still hold onto?

Scripture tells us, Jesus shows us how God created humanity in the image of the divine. In the power of the Holy Spirit of life, God calls and enables us to claim that divine nature and live as God's presence on earth, to act as God's voices, hands, feet, and eyes everywhere we go.

Almost everyone underestimates what a "regular" person can accomplish. Terence advises each of us, "Do something, anything for the [solitary] one." I like to remind my adult Sunday School class everything we do is synergistic and adds up to far more than the sum of our small, individual actions and prayers. "Prayers"? Yes. Read the gospels! Jesus always prayed before taking any significant action, before making any response to human need.

"Where will you start after reading this book?"

With God's blessings to us concealed in our own poverties, with God's blessings and presence in those we see and encounter hidden in their own unmet needs, in the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit, each of us can be the spring named God-Alive-Sees-Me as previously invisible people become visible to us.

Some link love:

• Terence Lester online

• Terence on Facebook

• Terence Lester's Instagram

• Terence Lester on twitter

• Love Beyond Walls, an organization Terence and his spouse Cecilia started to draw attention to homelessness and poverty and to help mobilize people in situations of poverty into a full future.

Notice of Material Connection: As a member of the launch team, I received a complimentary pre-publication copy of this book with no requirement or expectation I'd write a positive review. As always, my opinions are my very own, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

my amazon review: vision and hope

The Day of Pentecost 2018

"Alleluia! The Spirit of Life Fills the World! Alleluia, Alleluia!"

Porch Stories :: A New Calendar Year!

First Porch Story of this new year 2018 for everyone! Freedom is my word for 2018; two weeks ago, again my blog wasn't ready in time for the linkup, so I claimed Kristin's advice from a previous time–write more and link up in the future. Moving away from my tendency to plan everything and instead letting myself be surprised sounds like an excellent beginning to this blogging year, a very good initial tryout for a year focused on freedom.

Late last year, Kristin told us I'm nearly sanctified; I'm nearly broken, with a narrative about her experiences with "first-ever counseling" and the value of having someone else affirm what she basically already knew. I've discovered many times I don't need to re-hash all that stuff from the long-ago past one more time or ten more times, but I seriously need another human to admit it was terrible, disappointing, discouraging, freeing, or however it happened to affect me.

I'm nearly sanctified, I'm nearly broken, I'm down the river, I'm nearly open, I'm down the river, to where I'm going comes from Needtobreathe's "More Heart, Less Attack," that's been Kristin's soundtrack for the last few years.

This week? Kristin talks about Living Rescued {by grace}.

God calls us to be broken {not whole}; God calls us to be sanctified {made holy or whole}.

Moving Godward toward sanctification in the grace-filled power of the Spirit of holiness is a major rescue from typical human over-attachment to institutions, styles, habits, and idolatries that surround us. After God led the people out of slavery to Egypt's imperial powers and into that rich agricultural land of promise, Israel had to learn to thrive in obedience to God's commandments {Walter Brueggemann styles the commandments "the working papers for life in covenantal community"}, yet surrounded by constant temptations to be like and act like everyone else. It was about learning to live in community rather than in isolation, in the kind of commonality and common-wealth that would provide support and fill each other's needs on almost every level.

Historically, the church building – the physical church structure – was a place of refuge, a place of sanctuary; you even could call it a place of rescue! Although the church's designated gathering place is almost accidental and incidental, it still serves as a location where God's people can be fed and strengthened by Word and Sacrament, where they can practice loving, merciful, compassion and kindness to one another. During worship and during other activities, we can try out breaking ourselves open in trust to each other—taking time to listen, telling parts of our story we find scary to reveal but we know well might reveal similarities with others and help them; staying a little later against our own druthers because the kitchen needs cleaning again. You can't fill a closed bottle or box or other container—to put anything into it, you need to open it up: break it open! At least a little! Same with our own lives. Risking to break open our carefully planned schedules, to re-open our tender/stubborn hearts; simply considering a different perspective... about anything. Getting rescued from the most insular, frightened parts of ourselves, experiencing the relief of being rescued by grace. Living as God's people still is about learning to live in community rather than in isolation, in the kind of commonality that provides support and fills each other's needs on almost every level.

As people of the Good Book we affirm wherever God meets the people is holy, sacred ground—sanctuary. In biblical – in covenantal – terms, God indwelling the people, God's encounters with all creation sanctifies life. That means a dedicated church structure isn't technically any more {sacred, holy} sanctuary than any other spot on planet earth, yet we can use what we receive, learn, and practice there as starting point and model for interactions elsewhere throughout the week.

With freedom! my word for this new year 2018, I expect to spend the next twelve months breaking myself open, emptying out tendencies to become too attached to styles, habits, and literal idolatries around me. Possibly twenty-first century empires of Monsanto and Bayer and Nestle aren't our greatest danger; maybe consumerism and individualism are greater concerns?

Freedom is my word for 2018. In freedom I hope to let myself be filled with the good stuff God and the people of God are waiting to provide—moving Godward beyond basically surviving to fully thriving. So what? Then what? In the paradoxical gentle power of the Holy Spirit of life, then I can be and act as a sanctuary, a place of refuge and rescue, a grace-filled holy place for people in need. A place and a person of sanctuary to help rescue, fill, and heal a broken creation, too. Me? Yes! And all of you, too!

God calls us to be broken {not whole}; God calls us to be sanctified {made holy or whole}. By grace we've started down that baptismal river to where we're going {to where God is leading us but probably won't show us this is the place until we actually reach that place}; in freedom and trust, let's live out God's baptismal call–nearly sanctified and nearly broken! Amen? Amen!

Five Minute Friday: Play

As summer in the northern hemisphere continues, Five Minute Friday host Kate Motaung prompts us to play. I've made this only somewhat of a FMF; because I love the topic of play, I wanted to write more than five unedited minutes would allow, so I spent less than five making a quick outline, a lot more than five writing, and I edited beyond the usual checking to find repeated words and to be sure auto-correct accurately guessed what I tried to type. But it's still quite rough... I won't revise this one, but may try another post about play.

The Lord created wisdom
at the beginning of his work
before the beginning of the earth
and then when he established the heavens
I, wisdom was there
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep
when he made firm the skies above
when he established the fountains of the deep
when he assigned to the sea its limit
when he marked out the foundations of the earth
then I was beside him, like a master worker
I was daily his delight
rejoicing in the inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Proverbs 8:22-31

This creation account from the writings in the Hebrew Bible shows us the logos at the play the logos at the work of the first creation. In scripture and in Greek philosophy, the logos is both source and immanence, in a sense that's not very different from the way a logo for an organization or a business anchors its identity and promises more to come.

Unlike much of the rest of the times of our lives, have you noticed that whenever we play, we live almost entirely in the present?

Rituals and liturgies were one of the ways God's people Israel persistently recalled the past so it would remain present. Within a context that was play more than it was anything else, Israel retold and reenacted the story of their experiences with the God of the exodus, the God who covenants with creation, the God of the commandments. Like Israel, when we worship we remember who God is, who we are, how God has acted. We affirm our dreams. We announce our hopes for the future. Not only is much of our liturgy in the present, just as play is—liturgy also creates a new and different self-contained world that exists with and within our everyday world. Liturgy provides that "foretaste of the feast to come" of the new creation.

In Hebrew history people remembered and talked about past events as if they still were in the present; their history with God gave Israel confidence about the future and willingness to continue in open and responsive covenantal partnership with God. Because they knew God's saving deeds of redemption and homecoming, they faced the future with lively hope. Sacraments and liturgy form the model we follow during the week in the world outside the gathered Sunday (or Saturday evening/Sunday vigil) assembly. In the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the people of God at the work of the new creation are the people of God fully engrossed in the play of a making a new creation from the ruins of the old.

The Good Book tells us God created humans in the divine image—a picture you can perceive. Still further, scripture reveals the God who fills heaven and earth becoming human and finite in Jesus of Nazareth. God in Jesus Christ gave us a dream of a whole, healed, reconciled world, a world at peace and at play; Jesus challenged us to make it our dream and in the power of the promised Holy Spirit to make the new heaven and new earth reality. Just as Jesus resembles, represents, and reveals God, we become images of God when we play, when we dream, when we worship. We become people alive in the now—creative, responsive, and responsible.

The passage from Proverbs show us the logos at work is the logos at playful celebration of the first creation. In the presence and the power of the Spirit of Pentecost, the spirit of resurrection, the spirit of the new creation, our liturgies are the first fruit, the guarantee we finally will end up in God's image, since God's indwelling Spirit makes possible our play, our dreams—our parties! Like play, worship ends the division between material and spiritual we often make. Dreams start to become reality. In worship, God's people at play are God's people at the work of the new creation. Cornel West exclaims, "We are people of hope! Why do we party on Friday nights? Why do we worship on Sunday?!"


Pastor Eugene Peterson's The Message expresses it...

I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. Romans 8:18-21

Because God includes everything in the plan of liberation and redemption, as the twenty-first century people of God involved in the play and in the work of the new creation, we can wait expectantly for that time when all of life becomes play for every one of us, and like wisdom at the first creation, as co-creators with God in the Spirit we rejoice in the world inhabited by all of God's creatures.

Porch Stories: Navigating Faith

For her Porch Stories this week, Kristin considers Navigating Faith with Kids and features Susan Shipes' coloring book devotional, 52 Commands of Jesus for Children. I'll range further and bring adults into this post, though I'll still be more impressionistic than detailed since I check out Kristin's topic when I get online Wednesday mornings and try to blog by evening.


I love the nautical word navigating related to our journey with Jesus! Maybe you know many traditional church buildings have been constructed in the form of a ship that appears upside-down to us as we look up at the ceiling and rafters? "Nave" – as in "navy" – still designates the central space where worshipers gather. You've probably heard ships referred to with female pronouns she and her; scripture tells us the Church is the Bride of Christ, so that's also her and she. Navigating also is especially apt because we can't see what's underneath the surface of the sea our boat is on, we can't tell what's on the other side of the horizon. As we answer God's invitation with "yes" and take a first step out in faithful trust, we never really know where God will lead us; we only know God promises to be with us every moment of everywhere we venture on our voyage.

I've taught Sunday School, confirmation, and Vacation Bible School to most every age except teeny tiny tots, though middle school's probably my favorite age group! I almost just now remembered—in City of History we had Release Time classes for inner-city 4^th and 5^th graders. Middle schoolers especially appeal to me because they're old enough and have enough life experience to do some sophisticated thinking, they're open to new ideas, and they're always more than ready to challenge the teacher to stay real and relevant. Kristin mostly writes about faith with kids; currently I prepare and facilitate (all the participants teach) adult Sunday School at my church—I post my notes on my urban wilderness blog. Most weeks we mainly reflect on one of the Revised Common Lectionary passages for that day, though by the gracious movement of the HS, inevitably our discussion takes us pretty far afield of where I've started with my (always deft) theological and historical intro to the text.

Recently I read and plan to blog and review The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education by Walter Brueggemann. Related to Biblical Education in the title, a few places he mentions the coming-up generation that's also growing up in the church, but everything he says applies to any age. Because the Old Testament is his specialty, Brueggemann focuses on the Hebrew Bible and particularly emphasizes God's gracious gifts of liberation from slavery, God's subsequent gift of the Ten Commandments of the Sinai Covenant, and God's charge to us to obey in order to maintain that freedom:

Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes [because] the Lord your God brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery… remember the Lord your God. –Deuteronomy 8

Jesus also commands us to keep the commandments; he summarizes everything behind the Ten with only Two, to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength; to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In fact, he shortens that into a single, "love one another as I have loved you," but the details of the ten commandments help clarify our attitudes and behaviors. I love that the title of Susan Shipes' devotional coloring book mentions Jesus' own commands—he tells us his yoke is light because in Jesus' new covenant of grace (just as under the old covenant that also was a grace-filled way) obedience leads to freedom.

Today Kristin and I both began with navigating. Many people want direct instructions for every move in every situation; young kids and chronologically mature adults alike often struggle with the finely tuned morality involved in keeping the commandments, but learning the narratives from Jesus' life and ministry we find in the four gospels gives us additional insights for putting the good of the other and the well-being of the community before our own preferences and predilections. From Jesus' own example, we know we find healing and freedom anywhere the realm of heaven is breaking out in our midst. That knowledge isn't a road map, but it still can help guide our desire for instructions and our search for reassurance. We don't know what's underneath the surface of the water we're walking on, what gift, what threat, what grace or mercy may appear when we reach that distant horizon, but in obedience we can do this! In the power and presence of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost that fills the church, you know we can navigate this voyage!

Porch Stories: Community

Kristin's Porch Stories for two days ago Wednesday offers an optimistic How to Find Community. As she pointed out,

Women need friendship like a flower needs water. ... Loneliness is a disease. The best cure for this disease is to find community, which often involves vulnerability, risk-taking, and letting people into our not-so-perfect lives. In an effort to make new friends, I began to ask girls to join me in a small group. Soon, a group of us began to gather for dinner and discussion once a month.

Three weeks ago for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the lectionary reading from Acts 2 gave us a basic biblical model that for a couple of millennia has been a blueprint for local church ministry:

Acts 2:41-43

They gladly received the word Peter preached and three thousand were baptized on that day! [Then] they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.

During the hours and days of your life, doubtless you've noticed God doesn't mind being anonymous and not getting credit for all the awesome stuff that happens that we know only could be by the inspiration and the work of the Holy Spirit? This Acts of the Apostles passage tells us Jesus' apostles had become the teachers and preachers; it tells us the newly baptized gathered for koinonia, a ripely redolent biblical word that's about far more than simple "fellowship" {oh, too many politely tame scriptural-translations-into-English) and camaraderie, as pleasant as that can be. Koinonia helps annihilate the disease of loneliness Kristin mentioned; that devastating disconnected isolation an ad campaign a few years back announced "can kill people." Breaking of bread likely references both dining together – maybe with a contemporaneous potluck equivalent – and to regular observance of the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation Jesus gives us in Lord's Supper.

Especially regarding hoping to Find Community / Koinonia... leads to letting others into our imperfect, sometimes messy lives, even parts we try to hide from ourselves. Kristin started her own Girls Time Out that may be workable for others, or possibly not. Almost two years ago I relocated to Current City that's an even larger major metro area than Previous City; I've been basking in the energy, wakefulness, and cultural diversity all around me. God in the Spirit directed me to a church that's been taking advantage of my background in bible and theology so I've been facilitating 10am mostly lectionary-based adult Sunday School every week. I've done some art and design for the church.

But the biggest gift is every single week we have after worship brunch / lunch / Sunday dinner—depending on who's prepared what. As people typically do, each week I try to sit and visit with people I don't yet know as well as I know those I've already spent time in conversation with. Not many churches have that opportunity, but you could gather your own group for Sunday lunch or brunch at a nearby restaurant once a month or every other month; that becomes a way to sponsor local restaurants and keep $$$ in town. If you'd prefer not to do commerce on Sunday, a related idea would be to potluck in a park or in the function room of a member's condo or apartment complex. BTW, it wasn't quite exactly every single week, but church in former city offered both Second Sunday Café prepared by a member with her own professional chef business and a Third Friday evening potluck; you easily can guess I tried never to miss out on either!

Warlier in this Porch Stories post I did mention how God doesn't at all mind being anonymous and never insists on getting listed in the credits! I've joined some of the thousands of local interest-focused meetups and I've been to several concerts via that route, No fast friendships yet, but seeing the same people at different venues helps open a door to future possibilities. Depending on your geography, affinity groups and clubs still are safe ways to connect and cautiously begin opening your heart.

I began with shared meals at the beginning of Luke's Volume 2 Book of Acts; table fellowship – food! – is prominent throughout Luke's gospel. sharing a snack, a meal, or a feast is such a leveling experience! Doesn't food usually include conversation? And even some self-revelation? Koinonia includes that "fellowship" notion, but goes further to bring us into the quality of community we discover in holy communion, the astonishing revelation, "we're going to make this place you're home!"

Kristin wonders, "If God is inviting us to a table that is always open and never reserved, who are we inviting to sit at the table with us?" Who have you invited? Who would you love to invite for food, conversation, and homecoming?

Green Team Talk: Ezekiel

Here's an approximation of my talk this morning to open our Judicatory Green Faith Team meeting; I paraphrased the Ezekiel text rather than reading it, though I've included actuals here.

Since we'd scheduled a meeting Friday after Lent 5 and I often default to lectionary because I appreciate both the discipline and the ease, I'd planned to reflect on the first reading for Lent 5A, Ezekiel 37:1-14. When we rescheduled for Friday after Easter 3, I decided to keep the Ezekiel passage. The RCL appoints it for Lent 5 of this lectionary year A and for the Day of Pentecost in year B. As one of our primary resurrection pericopes and also majorly about the gift of the Holy Spirit, it's the eighth reading for the Easter Vigil in all three years A, B, and C.

God called Ezekiel to the office of prophet when Ezekiel was in exile in Babylon; you know how it goes!

Ezekiel 37:1-14

¹The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ²He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord God, you know."

⁴Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord." ⁷So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.

⁹Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." ¹⁰I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

¹¹Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord."

The New Heart / New Spirit

The book of Ezekiel is long, influential, and dense; it probably didn't get written-down and readable until after the exile ended, likely around the time of rediscovery of the books of Moses that we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah when Israel / the Jews became a people of the book, so in what order Ezekiel and cohorts originally recorded everything is up for grabs. Earlier than chapter 37 I just cited we find three new heart – new spirit passages. God tells the people to get renewed hearts and resolve; God also promises to provide that newness. And why? Primarily for covenantal obedience. Not in order to get the gift, but in response to the gift, to put God first, to keep covenant with and care for all creation.

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
–Ezekiel 11:19-20

Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
–Ezekiel 18:31

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
–Ezekiel 36:26-28

The Valleys

We know agricultural valleys as fertile places of great richness. We also know how everything trickles down the mountain into the valley: the beneficial and helpful, the not so good, sometimes the toxic. When an ecosystem is in proper balance, bugs, aquatic life, and other factors help keep it healthy. God showed Ezekiel a vision of literal dead bodies. At least as much as the reality of those physical deaths, Judah felt the death of being cut off from their God in the strange land of Babylon. They also had a sense of death because they no longer were in the Promised Land where valleys had yielded bounty as streams and rivers flowed down the hills. Judah knew Yahweh as a fertility god, but they didn't yet realize Yahweh was not a place god, a deity confined to and connected only with a particular location.

The New Creation

Near the end of his writings, Ezekiel shows us the Land of Promise reapportioned amongst the tribes of Israel. Ezekiel was a priest in the holiness tradition of the Jerusalem Temple, the tradition of "You shall be holy, for I, your God am holy!" We sometimes use water as metaphor for the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel brings us a vision of the river of life flowing from the throne of God, into the valley and the desert, out to the sea. He tells us everything whithersoever the river flows shall live, shall be healed. His vision includes trees for food and for healing on the riverbanks. Everything in the path of this river lives because people with the new hearts and new spirits have cared well for the river as part of their keeping covenant with creation. Ezekiel concludes by telling us the name of this city is "The Lord Is There!"

God commanded Ezekiel, "the human one" to speak a word of life to the dead bones; to evoke the presence of the Holy Spirit, to summon the Spirit of life! How about us? Does the human gathering of the church speak a word of life? How does the church speak a word of life? When people look at creation, will they see it so healthy and green they'll be able to say The Lord Is There?!

The Prayer

Holy God, thank you for these days of May Gray and the June Gloom we anticipate, too, as they help nourish creation. You amazingly claim and call us by water, spirit, and word. May we hear, heed, and obey your charge to speak words of life that help revive the dead in our midst! Thank you for calling us together as your Green Faith Team; please help us complete the agenda for this meeting and offer useful resources at Synod Assembly. In the name of the One Crucified and Risen for the life of the world, for the resurrection of all creation. Amen!