Year C

Dec 10 2024

Does God Love Me?

I sat at her kitchen table with a cup of tea. She had been at a retreat that I had given a week earlier, and she wanted to talk about it. “You know, I really don’t believe you,” she said. That sharpened my attention. “Would you tell me about that?” I asked. “Well,” she said, “You told us that the core of our faith is that we are loved with a mighty love by a wonderfully good God.” I nodded. She shook her head. “I can’t believe that.” She went on, “I believe that you believe that. And I believe that God loves you.” She looked down at the table. “I just don’t believe that God loves me.”

That was twenty years ago. Since then, as a hospital chaplain and a teacher, a spiritual director and a preaching coach, I have heard it many times, though perhaps not said so explicitly. Others have that same block of being unlovable. I cannot just intone, “God loves you.” It does not it sink in.

I recently participated in a seminar on childhood trauma. It began to fit. Trauma survivors are not helped by solutions. “God loves you” sloughs off like oil in a non-stick pan. Trauma survivors are helped by developing resilience to deal with those early experiences that do not go away.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “We will make our dwelling with you.” Resilience comes through that “with.” Love comes in relationship, that there is Someone who walks with us no matter what life has thrown at us. That presence is what brings peace. The Spirit is our Advocate, God by our side here and now.

And yet . . . even as I write them, these words also just feel like words, solutions. The experience of divine presence—that is what will heal our hearts. Holy Spirit, come, make it so!

Consider/Discuss

It is estimated that 50 to 70 percent of the people who sit in the pews of Christian churches have been impacted by some kind of childhood trauma. One of those people may be you. One of them may be your brother or spouse or child. How has the presence of God, Father, Jesus, Christ, Holy Spirit—whatever name for the divine works best for you—helped you to cope with life’s experiences? What words could you use to share that sense of presence with someone whom you know that needs healing? What words don’t work?
Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” These words come just before he is to suffer the deep and difficult trauma of the cross. Pain is real. Yet we are in the Easter season of resurrection; we believe that the Lord has transformed this valley of tears. Healing is also real. Death and destruction are not the final answer. How does Easter resurrection give you peace and/or hope?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord God, you who love us so deeply, we come to you for presence. We turn to you in silence. We wait for you. You know the broken places within us. You know where we block you out. You know where we have been hurt. Sometimes we cannot believe the words that we hear about you. Sometimes they feel too good to be true. Come and be with us. Walk with us. We are afraid. We are troubled. But we bring you that fear. We bring you our troubles. We cannot walk through this valley of tears alone. Be with us. Help us. Let us not be afraid to come into your presence, to enter into your glory. Be present with us now in quiet and in splendor and in peace.

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

Today’s reading recounts what is often called the Council of Jerusalem, the earliest instance of the church debating and clarifying matters of doctrine and practice. The issue at hand is the status of certain aspects of the Mosaic law: are they required of disciples of Christ? At this point, Christianity is not a distinct religion, but understood by followers of Christ to be a living out of the covenant relationship with God. Some understandably take this to mean that followers of Christ have to become Jews. Paul and others disagree (as we know from Paul’s letters). The leaders in Jerusalem determine that those who are not already Jews need not become Jews, and thus take on all covenant responsibilities, but they must avoid ethical transgressions of the Law, which would be considered binding on anyone following Jesus.

An angel takes John to a high mountain so that he will be able to behold in a single vision the sight of the new Jerusalem, a representation of the totality of God’s holy people. It is envisioned here as an idealized earthly Jerusalem, God’s holy city. The city, or people, of God encompasses both Israel and the entire world, as represented by the twelve gates, all facing in one of the four cardinal directions. The foundation of this holy people created by God is the proclamation of the gospel by the apostles. Unlike the earthly Jerusalem, this new city has no need of a temple, a sacred precinct set apart for God to dwell in nearly inaccessible holiness. The new people itself has been made holy by God, who now dwells with the Lamb in the midst of the people.

In his final words to his disciples, Jesus returns to the topic of love. Love, here as in the rest of the Bible, is not so much an emotional attachment (although it can be that) as it is a firm commitment to the good of another, or—in the case of love for God—a commitment to living in God’s will. Especially in his imminent death, Jesus demonstrates his love for his own in the world, for which he is willing to die, even though many have rejected him (John 1:11; 3:16). Those who are able to love others make it possible for both the Son and the Father to dwell within them, giving them fullness of life. Jesus does not leave his disciples with commandments alone, but also with the promise of the Spirit and the inestimable gift of peace, which surpasses any “peace” the world has to offer.

Dec 10 2024

Churchy Words

Churchy words have gone flat. Like a car tire sitting flat on the ground, some words have no air of experience to pump them up. Mercy and salvation, repentance and incarnation, are some words that come to mind. We hear them in church; we do not use them in ordinary life. On the other hand, some churchy words are used so glibly that they lose meaning, words like “ awesome” and “love.”

For me, the word “glorify” is a “churchy” word. Jesus uses it five times in the reading today. I skim those “glorify” verses (a word of which I have little experience) and gravitate toward the later ones that talk about love (a word of which I am fond). Do you do that, too?

Synonyms for “glorify,” when I looked it up, didn’t evoke much for me either. Why is that? Maybe because we “moderns” have more experience with its antonym—to give someone the reputation of “scumbag.” The opposite of glorify is to denigrate, to make to seem worthless, to lower someone’s reputation: that is familiar. We don’t worship leaders, we dig up dirt on them. We don’t elevate heroes, we fell them. We don’t praise, exalt, deify, adore, or worship anybody. To “glorify” is not in the air that we breathe.

In 2006, my college-age son and I went to the Philippines. He was taken aback by the air of optimism among college students at Silliman University. It made him realize how very cynical the U.S. world in which he lived was.

Was “the air” also more positive in Jesus’ day? Could you actually think well of someone? Honor them? Did the word glorify have some air of experience: to think the best of another, to see God in them? Jesus glorifies God. God glorifies the Son of Man—not denigrates him, not trashes his reputation. Glorifies. Lifts up. It makes you think, doesn’t it?

Consider/Discuss

How empty is a life devoid of glory! How do we pump the air of experience back into the word glorify so that it extols the richness and grandeur of God? It obviously meant something to Jesus, that he would use the word five times in today’s Gospel. Maybe this week, we could set cynicism aside and glorify something by saying, “This is great!” or “He/she is wonderful” or “God is good!” Try it at least once each day. See if it changes the words you say and the air that you breathe.
When I give workshops for preachers, I offer the thought that churchy words have gone flat. One of the purposes of preaching (and writing reflections) is to translate the rich theology of the church into the language of everyday experience. Abstractions mean little to how we live our ordinary Christian lives. Are there churchy words that you hear often that don’t have much life experience in them? What phrases would you like to ponder or learn more about?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you preached so concretely: you told stories of fish and farming, the soil and the sea. Help us to make your Good News clear and plain. In the world in which we live and breathe, move us from cynicism to hope, from bitterness to peace, from trashing each other to lifting each other up.

We adore you. You are the King of Glory. You are the Prince of Peace. We glorify you, we swell with admiration for what you have done and who you are. Help us to make praising you a way of life. Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ!

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

Having traveled for some time proclaiming the gospel and making disciples, Paul and Barnabas now return home, reversing course and revisiting earlier regions. They emphasize to these fledgling Christian communities that their discipleship will bring hardship, but that this is a necessary result of their fidelity to God. They also serve the communities by appointing religious leaders (presbyters), who will guide and strengthen them. Upon returning home to Antioch (of Syria), the apostles report with great joy what God has done in extending his gifts to the Gentiles. So ends Paul’s first mission to the Gentiles, which has already borne great fruit by spreading the gospel throughout much of the Mediterranean world.

The book of Revelation culminates with a dramatic scene of recreation, in which everything is renewed by God. All of the damage done to God’s creation through human sin and violence is undone or transformed in God’s new creation. The sea is a common scriptural metaphor for chaos, the hostile forces in the world that oppose God’s creation. That it is “no more” indicates the final conquest of chaos and the definitive triumph of God’s saving will for all of creation. The old order has passed away, death and mourning are no more as God “makes all things new.” The heavenly Jerusalem, as it often does in the Old Testament, represents God’s people. God will now dwell with the people (as God did originally in Eden); the estrangement between God and the people is now brought to an end.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ “glory” begins and is most clearly manifested in his death on the cross, an example of Johannine irony. The glory of Christ consists in his showing forth the Father, and in his death, he exhibits the Father’s love for what God has created. In this way he also glorifies God. Jesus and the Father thus glorify one another and are glorified in one another. The glory is in the divine love shown by both, and it is this love that Jesus insists his followers must also exemplify (and thus, we may say, give glory to both the Father and the Son). Those who meet them will know they are true disciples of Jesus not by their teaching but by their love, which is the true test of Christian discipleship.

Dec 10 2024

Darkness. Silence. Danger.

True art awakens us. As I gaze at Henry Ossawa Tanner’s 1902 painting of the Good Shepherd, mystery and longing arise in my chest. Tanner sets up the atmosphere with blues and dark greens. The shepherd is seen against the lighter sky behind him. The sheep are almost imperceptible brushstrokes in the shadow beneath two trees. Bodies brush together—wool to wool, wool to knees, sheep’s wool to man’s wool coat. As one moves, they all move, as much by touch as by sight. The one thing that breaks the monochrome of blue and green is the white of the moon, which peeks out from behind the clouds and lights the earth behind them. It is dark, silent. The shepherd leads his sheep home by the moonlight.

City dwellers may not know how dark darkness is, how silent is silence, how truly hazardous is rural hazard. To be apart from the shepherd in Tanner’s painting, to be separated from the flock, is darkness, is silence, is danger. That shoulder-to-shoulder-bumping into-each-other is safety in a barren land.

Art can lead us to pray. Without words, without light, we move into silence, into the blessed darkness of prayer, longing to sense that touch, that bumping of shoulders with the divine. The Good Shepherd leads us through dark valleys, keeping us close. Sometimes a shard of light illumines our prayer, like Tanner’s moon; mostly though, prayer is dark, more felt than seen, a glancing touch of the Shepherd’s wool coat brushing against us. Shoulder to shoulder, we move, the Shepherd leading us home. Home: where no one can take us out of the Father’s hand. Home: where God will wipe every tear from our eyes. Home: where we will dwell in the land of the Lord forever. Home with the Shepherd and our fellow sheep.

Consider/Discuss

Jesus tells us that his sheep hear his voice. But sometimes that voice is hard to hear. Good and evil, right and wrong, black and white, can seem like a hazy shade of gray in the lights of the city. This week, what is one thing that we could do differently in prayer to bump shoulders with the Shepherd so that we know which way to go?
The comfort of the Shepherd isn’t just for our personal satisfaction. When we arise from prayer, strengthened and encouraged, we are to be sources of peace and surety for others. With whom in God’s flock do we need to be more in solidarity? Who is being left out? What can we do to make that right?

Living and Praying with the Word

Good Shepherd, we are your people, the sheep of your flock. You have made us, and we are yours. Refresh and bless us this day. We want to be close—and yet we wander away. We take our own paths. Lead us back. We have allowed others to lead us astray. Sometimes you take us by the neck with your crook and pull us away from the cliffs. Sometimes a simple brush of your cloak steers us straight. As we enter into the darkness of prayer, reveal to us how that redirection is your love. We want to be near you. You are our safety. Keep us close, Lord. Lead us home.