Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

Jan 27 2025

This Is the Day—to Take a Chance

Jesus seemed to be a failure. He came to his hometown. They had heard about his miracles. They wanted him to be a local sensation. But he only did a couple of healings. To their faithless eyes, he looked like he might be a failure.

St. Paul likewise seemed to be a failure. He wrote that he had a thorn in his flesh and prayed three times for it to go away. Yet God did not take it away. Did Paul not have enough faith? At first glance, that might seem to have been the case.

Today, Christianity may look like a failure. There are fewer avowed Christians in Europe and a growing number for whom it doesn’t matter in the U.S. Jesus is a prophet without honor in our society.

You and I, we might be in a time of failure, too. A relationship may have crashed. A job may have bombed. An institution that we trusted has revealed its brokenness.

What are we to do with failure? It can bring us low. Failure hurts. Let us not be afraid to wrestle with God about that. The core of our faith is the cross. Hanging on that wood, Jesus was an utter failure. The cross hurt.

Then God did something completely new and raised Jesus from the dead. Who expected that?

Through the Resurrection, God transforms failure into hope— hope that our shortcomings will be redeemed, hope that what is dead will live again; hope that God will re-create all things afresh.

For God defines success differently. Like a perpetual inventor, God risks new things. Every time a baby is conceived, God tries again. Ninety-nine percent of the species that have ever lived on this earth are now extinct. The Creator tries again.

When we are low, the Holy Spirit tugs at our hearts to strengthen our hope. We too can try again. What did Paul hear in prayer? “My grace is sufficient for you.” History is long. God is continually at work.

Consider/Discuss

Jesus was not afraid to be innovative. He lived in a risky way. The living God was willing to die on the cross. Sometimes we are afraid to try something to which God calls us because it is risky, because we might fail. How many God-inspired opportunities do we miss because of our fear? How could we flex our risk-muscles today?
What troubles come when we are too successful? Throughout history, when Christianity looked like it was “winning,” power tainted the practice of faith. What if Jesus had allowed the people to make him their king? Imagine how the history of the world would have been different if Jesus had “succeeded” instead of “failed.” Where would we be today?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord God of all creation, it feels as though we are in a season of failure in the Church in the Western world. We have moved away from a time of success, when there were many cultural supports for Christianity. Thank you for this “failure.” Thank you for shaking us out of business as usual. Jesus our Savior, you are still very real. You are still here. You know the broad sweep of history. You yourself have seen what can arise from failure. Holy Spirit, come! Come to us! Grant us new ardor and new ways to proclaim the time-tested gospel. Purify us to live wholly for you, today, this day, for this is your day, when you make all things new.

Jan 27 2025

Answering the Invitation

It came early that day. She was weary of it—the constant flow of blood, draining her of strength, setting her apart from life. She could still hear the singing from the wedding last night. Her niece . . . She buried her head into her elbow and wept so hard that her stomach hurt. Her brother’s child . . . Just a baby when she—the unclean one—had last been allowed to hold her, now married. All those years . . . She would just spend the day lying on her mat. Again.

And yet . . . a beckoning within her said, “Get up.”

No. The wedding reawakened the other memory, the newborn in her arms . . . the boy, if he had lived, who would also be old enough to wed . . . and the bleeding they couldn’t stop at his birth. Still cannot stop. No, she would stay here.

And yet . . . she had heard it yesterday. “The healer is coming.” She tried not to let hope arise within her. “If only . . .” She had thought it every time she had tried a new physician. And they had only made it worse. No, not again.

And yet . . . maybe this time? She had heard of the demoniac being healed on the other side of the lake.

“If only . . .” The voice of reason said, “No, you can’t go out there. You are unclean.” But the song from the wedding echoed within her: “The Lord is my strength and song . . . , and he has become my salvation.”

The urge in her heart grew into an overwhelming ache in her stomach: “Oh, God, please . . .” Why was she saying yes to this? She wove through the crowds, hidden beneath her mother’s scarf, glad to be small. Her mouth mumbled, “If only I could touch him.” She knew no man could touch her. “If only I could touch the hem of his garment.”

And then . . . she did.

Consider/Discuss

The woman with the hemorrhage was set apart through no fault of her own. Her pain is the pain of all of those on the “outside.” Injustice like this should unsettle us. Some who are reading this are on the outside, hurting. Others are on the inside, singing and dancing at the wedding, unaware of those who are distanced. (Some may be in both places at different times.) How can the Holy Spirit awaken our awareness of “the other” so that we live with greater compassion?
Faith is not a psychological trait that we manufacture within ourselves. God is the source of faith. Faith is first a gift, a (sometimes subconscious) movement of the Holy Spirit rising within us. That inner beckoning becomes a dance of call and response between us and our Creator, as the woman in the story experienced. Faith grows as our yes responses grow. Faith shrinks as our no replies compound. What about today? In the grace of God, to which of these will we say yes today—the urges toward fear, doubt, and despair, or the beckoning toward faith and hope?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you looked Jairus in the eye and whispered, “Just have faith.” You did not sling that phrase at him like a slogan, but you offered him an invitation to look into your eyes and trust you. Look us in the eye also, especially when we are hurting. Help us to whisper yes back to you. Deep inside us, stir the enthusiasm of your presence, here, now. Help this to become a summer to give you our yes. Thank you for your healing tenderness.

Jan 27 2025

From Fear to Floundering to Faith

When I was a little girl, a picture in my children’s Bible depicted Jesus standing in the front of a boat with his arms sweeping high into the air. The sea has calmed. The disciples look relaxed and happy. All is good.

But I used to wonder, even as a little child—in the middle of the storm, how did Jesus get to the front of the boat? In the beginning, he slept in the stern. In the end, he stood majestically in the prow. How did he wrestle his way from the back to the front as the waves tossed the boat?

The picture suggests fear in the back, faith in the front . . . ? But wait! Right in the middle of this story, between fear and faith, is this moment of floundering.

Sometimes we want to skip that floundering part. Why? Maybe because once we are adults, we are not supposed to flounder? But we do flounder. We have moments of helplessness. In times of trouble, we may accuse God of “not caring.”

Jesus asks, “Do you not yet have faith?” Maybe that is an accurate observation. The disciples do not yet have faith. Yet Jesus helps them just as they are. He doesn’t ask them to believe based on nothing; he is willing to show them. He has changed water into wine. He has made a blind man see. He now calms the waves.

It is in their floundering that they find faith. They discover an inner certainty, a deep assurance, a faith in the One who keeps showing them someone to believe in.

Perhaps the picture in my storybook was wrong. Maybe Jesus lifted his head slightly, stilled the sea, and went back to sleep. Who knows? Either way, the disciples swelled with amazement and awe: “Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

Consider/Discuss

Much of life is lived between total fear and total faith, often in floundering with high winds and rough waves. The possibility of drowning is terrifying. The waves could pull us under. Why can’t we smoothly slip past the floundering of this story? How has the Lord calmed the seas for you, kept you from sinking into the deep?
We are not alone in floundering. Peter put his foot in his mouth more than once. Moses told God to go find somebody else. The prophet Jeremiah said, “Nah, I’m too young.” Even one of Thomas Merton’s most famous prayers begins by telling God that he (Merton) has no idea where he’s going. How have you experienced God taking you as you are and lifting you to something greater? How can we do that for others?

Living and Praying with the Word

Thank you for giving us fortitude when we have no courage left. Thank you for your helping hand that seems to come out of nowhere to lift us up. Thank you for your unexpected calm when the world swirls in chaos around us. Thank you for that invisible help that we name “grace.” Thank you for the assurance that we can make it through the storms because we are not alone in the boat.

Jan 27 2025

Grow—Now!

In the children’s book Frog and Toad Together, Toad admires Frog’s garden. Toad wants to grow flowers too, so Frog gives him some seeds. But, Frog warns him, gardening is hard work. So Toad runs off and puts his seeds in the ground. Then he jumps up and down and shouts for the seeds to begin growing immediately!

As I read that story aloud to my grandson, I chuckled at Toad’s unholy impatience to get his seeds to grow. But then I went outside and saw my bed of carrots. I also wanted to yell at the seeds to start growing immediately. To germinate in our sandy soil, I have to keep them evenly moist for three weeks. Three weeks is a long time to look at bare dirt. I want to shout with Toad, “Come on, already!” Gardening is hard work.

Seed science is extraordinary. Germination is a tenuous process: not all seeds germinate, some rot, some never come up. Under ideal conditions, the seed coat swells with moisture and begins to transform. Two leaves erupt (in a dicotyledon), looking nothing like the hard seed. The tiny plant relies on the food stored within the seed. The dampness of fungus can wilt it. Dryness can kill it. When the second set of leaves erupts, that is a sign that the plant has developed its own root system. It will grow.

Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like the seeds that grow of their own accord. We do not know how the kingdom of God grows. Some days we might want to jump up and down and bellow, “Hey God, get working now!”

We are not in charge of transformation. But we can water. We can tend. In the grace of the Holy Spirit, we work hard while allowing Divine Mystery to be mystery, God to be God.

Consider/Discuss

It is hard to wait. Sometimes we want to jump up and down and shout, “Hey God, get going!” We want to be in control. We want to make things happen already. How do excess worry, unproductive fretting, and unholy impatience reflect our lack of trust? On the other hand, how does a healthy dose of concern keep us watering and tending? Where is the fine line between the two?
Just because the kingdom of God is a mystery does not suggest that we be lazy, settle for mediocrity, or excuse ourselves, in our efforts to further the Kingdom. Soil conditions are up to us. If we offer too heavy a clay, too shady a spot, and give too much or too little water, seeds can die. We are partners with God in the growth of the Kingdom. What tending does God want me to do today?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, your friend St. Paul tells us that we feel far from you while we are in this human body. We have to walk by faith because we do not see you. And yet you are also here. You are a constant gardener, present among us, planting and reaping in ways that we do not see or know. Even as we jump up and down in fret and worry, grant us the grace of inner calm that all will be well. We are willing to work to make your kingdom come. But only you can make it happen. Help us to trust in your timing.

Jan 27 2025

Cleansed (?) by the Blood

“Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people? Yuck . . . gross.” Her face wrinkled with disgust. As I looked around the room, all of their faces said the same. Sacrifice and the splashing of blood and the slaughter of heifers and goats; the ninth-grade girls whom I taught had no cultural framework for that use of blood. “That’s repulsive,” they grimaced.

We talk about “the bread” on this feast day. But what about “the blood”?

The Hebrews sacrificed an animal for its blood. Blood was life. Life was from God. Sprinkling with blood was to purify, to set things right, to atone for sin. To sin meant to throw things out of kilter, to break a relationship, to miss the mark of what we should be or do, to sever a bond. So the blood was for cleaning things up. But why did they need to do that?

At the core of Jewish theology is the “bigness” of God. God is untouchable. God is inaccessible. The God who is holy is so pure that sin cannot even be looked upon. We who are sinful, therefore, have no access to the Almighty. The atonement of blood made things right again when people messed up and strayed. Think of the psalms: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

The reading from Hebrews also talks about this cleansing of blood. But goat and bull blood are temporary. Jesus shed his own blood so that we would be made clean eternally; clean so that we could draw near to God. He said, “This is my blood,” then took a cup, and they all drank from it. Did they, like those teenagers, maybe . . . gag a little?

Consider/Discuss:

“Wash up for dinner,” my grandmother used to say. I can still hear her words. “Wash up for dinner;” whenever we say the words, “I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof” Jesus says back to us that we will be healed—also made clean, restored, and sanctified. Have we grown so accustomed to that cleansing of Jesus’ blood that we don’t think about it? Does it (or should it) unsettle us a little bit?
When our image of God grows inordinately small, almost teddy bear–like, we can become presumptuous, as though we ask, God is so nice, how could we not “get through?” What happens to our worldview if we grow blasé about the “bigness” of God? What does that do to reverence and awe?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, Blood of cleansing, you have opened the way for us to be holy. You came to make things right. Yet we are still broken. We still mess up. Life knocks us around. Life knocks around those we love. Wash us this day with your Blood, for we want to be healers as well. You who are infinite have chosen to dwell among us. Let us not take you for granted. Come, Lord Jesus; bring us into your presence, so that we can bring you to others.