The Season of Creation concludes with the celebration of the life of St. Francis – Matthew 6:25-29
St. Francis – More than a bird-bath!
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Monthly Archives: September 2019
Hell Is Here On Earth – Luke 16:19-31
For those of you who are working on the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, here’s a copy of a sermon I preached a few years ago.
I moved out of my parent’s house when I was quite young and like most young people I didn’t have much money so I lived in some pretty weird places. I once shared a house with a bunch of people that I met working in the travel industry. I didn’t know them very well when I first moved in but as the months dragged on, I got to know some of them better than I would have liked. There were five of us living in a four-bedroom house about a block from Spanish Banks in Vancouver. The house’s proximity to the beach made up for some of my roommates’ shortcomings and the rent was cheap. So, even though I didn’t like the idea, I didn’t kick up much of a fuss when one of my roommates brought home a puppy.
Now there are those people who would argue that all puppies are cute, I just don’t happen to be one of them. Besides this thing was a Doberman and I don’t care if it was cute, I don’t like Dobermans. I was trying to convince my roommate David that he couldn’t possibly keep a Doberman in our house, when two of my other roommates showed up and quickly became besotted with the creature. One of my roommates when so far as to insist that the puppy was the cutest thing she had ever seen and that we simply had to keep it. While she was hugging and kissing the puppy, David got quite annoyed and pulled the puppy away from her and insisted that this dog was not going to be a pet. He declared that we needed this dog to grow up and be a guard dog, and if that was going to happen then we needed to start treating this dog as we meant to continue.
I had no intention of sharing a house with a Doberman, let a lone a guy who wanted to have one as a guard dog, so I started looking for another place to live. Before I moved out of that house, I had the unfortunate opportunity to watch David as he tried to train his puppy. First of all, David had to give the dog a name and it had to be a name that would instill fear into people, so that’s how the puppy ended up with a name like Vader, as in Darth Vader. None of us were supposed to cuddle the dog or pat the dog or play with the dog. That was just fine with me. But one of our roommates, Ellie was forever getting into trouble for treating the puppy like a baby. So, David insisted that Vader be chained up outside. A few months after I moved out of the house, I went back to visit and discovered that even Ellie was afraid to go into the backyard because Vader was actually turning into a viscous guard dog. She told me that David had been leaving Vader chained up for longer and longer periods of time and no one in the house would dare to go out into the back yard to feed Vader. I found out from the others that even though they’d tried to get David to pay more attention to Vader, he insisted that it there was nothing wrong with the way he was treating Vader. For months David left Vader chained in the backyard for days at a time and as the dog got bigger and bigger, the three roommates that were left in the house with David became more and more afraid of the dog and eventually they had to insist that David move out. A few months later, I heard that David and Vader had parted ways. It seems that Vader had taken a chunk out of David’s arm and David had to have the poor creature put down. For some reason Jesus’ parable about Lazarus reminded me of Vader the Doberman. Continue reading
You Are More Powerful Than You Think – Cosmos Sunday – Psalm 139
In our ongoing celebration of the Season of Creation, today we shift our focus to the Cosmos. Usually, the word “cosmos” conjures up starry images of far distant constellations. Staring out into space can make us feel small and insignificant. But on this Cosmos Sunday, I’d like us to move us from our usual perspective of the cosmos. Perspective is a powerful tool, especially when we contemplate our place in the cosmos. You see the word “cosmos” refers to the entire universe, every dimension of time and space, spiritual and material. The cosmos includes the glittering galaxies that are so distant that we must peer at them through sophisticated giant telescopes as well as the deep domains within each minute molecule which we can only peer at through the lenses of sophisticated giant microscopes.
In addition to the material dimension of universes, the cosmos also includes the dimensions of time, our imaginations and of the spirit. Take a cube of sugar for example. Scientists tell us that you could fit the entire human race into the volume of single sugar cube; that’s right all 7 billion of us in a single tiny sugar cube. Something about the emptiness of matter that is beyond my intellectual ability to comprehend.
The cosmos is both infinitely large and infinity small. None of our telescopes and none of our microscopes can actually capture the vastness of the infinitely large nor the infinitely small, we must rely on our imaginations for this perspective on the cosmos. Staring out in the night sky can make you feel very small. Looking around the Earth, which is in and of itself a small planet can make you feel small and insignificant. But as the psalmist insists, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. The Hebrew word that is translated as fearfully can also be translated as awesome. Your very being is so very wonderful that it inspires awe. Awe and wonder are the very first religious impulses. Congratulations, for you are awesome, tremendous, wonderful. And yet, so often we can only see ourselves as small in relation to the cosmos; small and insignificant, small and powerless.
I remember, once long ago, when I was feeling so very small, insignificant and powerless. I was only ten years old. My Grandfather had a way of belittling people that was crushing. Granda had been taunting me over something I had said. The adults had been talking about war in the Middle East. The year was 1967, the year of the Six-Day War. I was just ten and didn’t understand the details of what was happening. But I did understand the drills we went through at school. Those of you of a certain age may remember hiding under your desk as we practiced what we would need to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Somehow our wooden desks were supposed to offer us some sort of protection. It was madness. A kind of madness that all of us, even the adults in the room all bought into. Continue reading
LOST: Done That! Been There! – Homecoming Sunday – Luke 15
They say, whoever they are, that “you can’t go home again.” You can’t go back to a place you once called home because in your absence that place will have changed. I remember, travelling across the world and needing desperately to return home. I’d been travelling for several months and I had intended to stay away for many more months. I was in England when doctors informed me that there was a tumor lodged between two of the bones in my foot that needed to be removed. I can still remember the doctor telling me that there was a distinct possibility that the tumor was a malignant cancer. Suddenly, home seemed like the only place in the world I wanted to be. Even though I was already in the city of my birth, I knew without a doubt that Birmingham was not my home. The only trouble was, that during my travels my parents had moved from the one town to another. Even though the place where my family was living was familiar to me, it was not the home which I had left behind. So, when I arrived at my parents’ new home, everything felt very different. Perhaps the most important change was in me. I was not the starry-eyed young woman that I once was. The future was suddenly very uncertain. Fears that I had never ever had to deal with, were suddenly part of who I had become. But I was home and even though home was the last place I expected to be, home was the only place I wanted to be. So, I set about trying to feel at home in what was for all intents and purposes a very different home than I had hoped to come home to.
When I think about Jesus’ parable of the lost on this Homecoming Sunday, I can’t help wondering how many of us here at Holy Cross feel like we have come home to a different church. Now, I know that many of us haven’t really been away but bear with me for a moment so that we can explore the contours of the metaphor of coming home. All of us carry with us, all sorts of images of what we want and need the church to be. Some of us long to return to an image of the church as it was at a particular time in our lives when we felt at home in the church. Some of us long to come home to a church that was full of particular people, or to a church that sang certain songs, or worshipped in certain ways, or comforted us with particular ideas, or inspired us with certain hopes. Others of us, long to come home to the church of our dreams, a church that never really was, but a church that we are convinced we would feel very at home in. You know the kind of church home I’m talking about, a place full of people who are exceptional, a place filled with inspirational activities, a church that accomplishes stuff, important stuff, vital stuff, a church that has absolutely no financial worries at all.
There’s an old gospel song that comes to mind:
There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood
No lovelier spot in the dale
No place is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale
Whatever the contours of the church of your longing, I suspect that the most important ingredients that make up the church of your longing revolve around the people. A church is not a church without the people and one thing I’ve learned about people, is that people are complex creatures. Take that lost child, the one who is known as the prodigal, no matter how you look at this parable, one thing is clear, the child that returned to his home, was not the same child that left his home.
Think about the other lost child, the one who can’t quite seem to share his father’s enthusiasm for his brother’s return. That lost child, is not the same person as the one who went out into the fields in the morning, the child who thought his future was secure, is no longer the same child as the one who returned to find his Dad throwing a lavish party for his wastrel of a brother, whom he believed he’d never have to contend with again.
Then there’s the Dad, who certainly isn’t the same person that he was before his youngest child left him behind. He’s not even the same person that his older child left that very morning. Nothing stays the same. We are all changing, all the time. Is it any wonder that it is so very easy to get lost? Looking in on this parable, I can see myself in each of these three lost souls. I’ve certainly messed up in ways that make me want to tell the younger child, “Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt.”
I’ve also lost people, for all sorts of reasons that have left me miserably longing for their return. So, I can see exactly why the lost father, who let’s face it played a pivotal role in both his children’s angst. I mean, that child would have never left if the Father hadn’t acted the way he did and as for the older child, well how could the Father forget about him? Why didn’t he even bother to invite his eldest child to the party? We’ve all messed up in our dealings with people, enough to cause us to lose them. We can all relate to the kind of longing for the lost that would cause us to throw a party if they ever returned. Continue reading
Jesus Was and Is an Absolute Fool – Luke 15
I am indebted to two beloved seminary professors for the formation of this sermon: Dr. Donna L. Seamone and Dr. Ed Riegert. All preachers stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us!!!
Jesus was and is an absolute fool! An absolute fool, I tell you! Among the teachings of Jesus, the parables of the lost and found are so well known, so familiar that we are in peril of failing to hear the foolishness they advocate.
Although only a few of us have had the opportunity to tend a flock of sheep, most of us at one time or another have been responsible for the welfare of a flock. Whether that flock be sheep or co-workers, clients, customers, students, friends, or children none but the foolish among us would leave 99 to the perils and dangers of the wilderness in order to go looking for one idiot who’d been stupid enough to get themselves lost.
We may not keep our coins at home, but I daresay that most of us have felt the sting of loosing a drachma or two or three in this recession. Only a fool would waste a moment searching for our losses when our portfolio’s are so full. I dare say that if we managed to find or recoup our loss, we’re hardly likely to invite the neighbourhood to a party that would in all likelihood eat up more than we had found. Continue reading
Lighten Up! – Luke 12:22-31
“Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your body. Can any of you, for all your worrying add a single hour to your life?” Look at the birds! Look at the flowers! Stop worrying! When we try to understand a biblical text, it is helpful if we keep in mind three particular contexts. The first context to keep in mind is the context of the story itself. What is happening in and around the characters in the story itself. The second context to keep in mind is the context in which the storyteller tells the story. What is happening in and around the anonymous gospel-storyteller that we call Luke. The third context to keep in mind is our own context. What is going on in our lives and in the lives of the communities in which we live?
So, let’s begin by looking at the context of the story itself. Jesus is speaking to his disciples. The year is somewhere between 30 and 33 of the Common Era. The place is Palestine, a far-flung province of the Roman Empire. The people to whom Jesus is speaking are a conquered people, living under the oppression of a foreign power. The people to whom Jesus is speaking have no power. They are being persecuted, oppressed, and terrorized. Life is difficult. There’s a very thin line between life and death and the people to whom Jesus is speaking understand that by listen to this rebel Jesus they are risking death. All Jesus’ listeners really have is hope, hope that one day their Messiah will rescue them from their cruel taskmasters.
Fast forward about 60 years or more to the context in which the anonymous gospel-storyteller that we call Luke tells this story. Conditions have deteriorated. The Jewish people have rebelled against their Roman oppressors and they have been crushed. The Temple, the very heart of who they are as a people, has been destroyed and much of Jerusalem along with it. Both Jews and the followers of the Way have been driven out into the wilderness as outlaws. Historians tell us that after the rebellion Rome inflicted abominable terrorism upon the people of the once proud Jewish nation. The smell of rotting flesh was very familiar, thousands upon thousands were crucified as enemies of Rome, their corpses left to rot upon makeshift crosses. For the Followers of the Way life was worse. Excommunicated from the synagogues they met in secret fearing not only the Romans but their Jewish neighbours as well.
Fast forward to today. What is going on around us as we hear this story? Well, there’s a crazy orange megalomaniac sitting in the most powerful office the world has ever known. We are told that this powerful buffoon has seriously contemplated exercising his power to nuke hurricanes. All around us the dangers of climate change are being felt as winds blow, and sea-levels rise. Money, money, money is the order of the day as we all scramble to ensure that we get what is ours.
So, we are busy people. We are well informed people and we know more about what is going on in the world than any other generation before us. We are stressed out and we don’t know what to do first. And so, we come to church, seeking what? guidance? solidarity? comfort? inspiration? or maybe just a little distraction from the stress of it all. But even here we can’t relax because here too we are met with stress inducing challenges. Churches are closing all over the place. The once mighty flagships of our own Lutheran church have already closed, and our beloved little Holy Cross is struggling to survive. There are just a few of us left and we are finding it more and more difficult to meet our challenges. In all three contexts to which this story speaks, there is so much for people to worry about.
Indeed, in all three contexts the temptation to despair is immense. To all three contexts, Jesus says the same thing: LIGHTEN UP! “Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your body. Can any of you, for all your worrying add a single hour to your life? Look at the birds! Look at the flowers! Stop worrying! Lighten up!
Look around. Look at the beautiful people who are here. Look at where we are. We live in one of the best places on earth! We are richer than the vast majority of people on this planet. We have wealth beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors. We have this building! We have each other. There are no oppressors on our doorstep waiting to torture us. The first followers of the Way would have loved the opportunity to worship in such a fine place as this.
We are all relatively healthy. Most of us live very comfortably. So why is it so difficult for us to hear Jesus say: “Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your body.” “Can any of you, for all your worrying add a single hour to your life?” Look at the birds! Look at the flowers! Stop worrying!
I know, I know, it is easier said than done. It is so very difficult not to worry when we are so stressed out. Stressed out. Think about that phrase for a moment. I don’t remember my parents ever complaining about stress. Being “stressed out” is a condition of our age. We have become masters of the art of catastrophizing. We can awefulize a situation faster than a Roman centurion could grab his sword.
I know I’ve said this many times but think about the way we greet one another. “Hi how are you?” What is the most common response to this simple question? “I’m busy.” We have become obsessed with our own business and it brings us precious little pleasure. When we tell someone we’re busy, they usually respond with something like, “you think you’re busy. let me tell you how busy I am.” We no longer human beings we are human doers, obsessed and stressed out by all the stuff we need to do and all the stuff that we aren’t doing. It’s no wonder that we catastrophize and awefulize all day long. We’ve forgotten how to enjoy this life of ours.
Take the weather for example. We are entering a spectacularly beautiful autumn. The weather has been fabulous around here. And yet, all this week instead of remarking on how lovely it is outside, people insist on awefulizing the weather. “Winter’s coming.”
“Yeah it may be lovely now. But winter is coming.” It’s as bad as Game of Thrones, “Winter’s coming.” Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Doesn’t matter that winter can be beautiful. Doesn’t matter that we all enjoy the luxury of beautiful centrally heated homes. Most of our cars have heated seats. I even have a car that will heat my steering wheel. Heck we have cars. We won’t have to trudge here on snowshoes. Nevertheless, we moan winter is coming.
There are lunatics running the world. Churches simply can’t survive in our modern world. We are fighting a losing battle. People these days are spiritual but not religious. So, we huddle together and we do what everyone else is doing these days, we catastrophize and we awefuize because winter is coming. These days seems as though worrying is the only way we connect with one another. So many of our speech patterns revolve around our stress. Take a moment to step out of yourselves and pay attention to how and what we are saying to one another. The experts say that the average person has about 60,000 thoughts in a day. How many of your 60,000 thoughts are negative? How many of the conversations we have with one another lean into your fears? Think about social media? How many posts or articles do you read that strike fear into your hearts? Global warming may not be as big a problem as global whining.
To all of this catastrophizing and awefulizing Jesus insists: “Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your body.” “Can any of you, for all your worrying add a single hour to your life?” Look at the birds! Look at the flowers! Stop worrying! Lighten up! To which I’m sure you may be thinking, “Easier said than done.”
Don’t get me wrong our problems are real. But can any of you, for all your worrying, add a single hour to your life? Lighten up. Let’s try to be spiritual but not religious. One of the best definitions of spirituality that I have come across recently comes from the social researcher Bene Brown, who writes, “Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us,
and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.” To which I say, in the spirit of Jesus “Lighten up dear friends.”
If we can connect to one another in ways that do not begin with catastrophizing and awefulizing, perhaps we can begin to gain a sense of perspective that will not only bring meaning to our lives together but may just remind us of the many things we love about one another. I know we have all sorts of challenges in our little church. It is difficult not to worry. I stay up nights worrying about our life together as a community.
One of the things that I have come to believe is that if the only level at which we can connect with one another is through our worries, we will lose any desire that we may have to connect in the first place. We need to connect in ways that remind us of our many blessings and inspire us to share our blessings.I’m hoping that we can begin by stepping out of ourselves and looking at how we talk to one another. If we try to become witnesses of our own behavior. Think about what we are thinking. Are we leaning into fear? Are we connecting through negative language? Are we connecting through misery?
The best way I know how to step outside of myself is with humor. When I hear Jesus say, “Do not worry!” I hear him say it with an Irish lilt. “Sure, what da want to be worrying about. Have ya taken leave of yer senses? What good is worrying going to do ya? Look at the birds – sure they’re not worried. Look at the flowers – they can’t worry. Look around the birds can fly. The flowers are lovely. How stupid you to be worrying in such a place as this? Stop worrying.”
Now as lovely as an Irish lit is, I can still find something to worry about. And it doesn’t quite make me laugh. And laughter is what is called for because laughter is one of the deepest surest ways that humans connect. So, the other day, I was wondering how we get from worrying to laughter. Now I’m not a comedian. So, I’m not going to try to joke us out of our troubles. But I am a student of human behavior and apparently, it’s almost impossible to take someone seriously if their wearing one of these. (put on a Red nose).
“Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your body.” “Can any of you, for all your worrying add a single hour to your life?” Look at the birds! Look at the flowers! Stop worrying! Lighten up!
Okay, this might work better if we all wear a read nose. (distribute red noses)
As your go through the week and you find yourself slipping into catastrophizing or awefulizing or even just complaining, put on your read nose. And say: “Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about your body.” “Can any of you, for all your worrying add a single hour to your life?” Look at the birds! Look at the flowers! Stop worrying! Lighten up!
We have all sorts of challenges to deal with. If we can put our challenges into perspective and connect with one another without catastrophizing or awefulizing, together we can meet whatever challenges come our way in the LOVE that IS the ONE who nourishes grounds and sustains us in the beautiful life, in this beautiful place, in these wonderful times. For we are after all is said and done, a spiritual people.
“Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.” Therein lies our hope. Lighten up! Look at the birds. Look at the flowers. Remember the CREATOR of ALL that IS created the duck-billed platypus. So, laugh a little.
Jesus You’ve Got to be Kidding!!! – Luke 14:25-33
I am indebted to Pastor Michael Rodgers for preaching a sermon long ago that stuck with me for decades. This sermon is inspired by his brilliant work!
Jesus you’ve got to be kidding! “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes and even life itself, cannot be my disciple?…None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions?”
Hate your father; hate your mother; hate your wife; hate your children; hate your brothers; hate your sisters; hate even life itself and oh yes while you are at it, give up all you possessions and then, and only then will you be ready to take up your cross and follow Jesus. What is Jesus talking about? Has Jesus forgotten about the fourth commandment? Are we to forget about honouring our parents? Wasn’t it Jesus who said that we are to love our neighbours as we love ourselves? Didn’t Jesus try to talk people into loving their enemies? Has Jesus forgotten that his Abba is LOVE itself? Why does Jesus rant and rave about hating our father’s, mothers, children, sisters, brothers and even life itself?
It is difficult to recognize the Jesus in this text. This is not the gentle Jesus of my childhood. This is not the happy Jesus who smiled out from the pictures in my illustrated Bible.This is not the Jesus that the rightwing conservative Christians point to when they harp on about family values. This is not the gentle Jesus we have come to expect. This Jesus sounds too harsh. This Jesus wants to turn us into religious fanatics who hate everybody and give up everything, even life itself.
For a few years now, there has stood on the shelf above my desk a quotation from Deuteronomy 30. I put it there so that these word’s of WISDOM might guide me in my decision making. According to the writers of Deuteronomy, our CREATOR says: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live”. Our CREATOR says “Choose life!” How do I reconcile this to the Gospel lesson in which Jesus says whoever does not hate even life itself, cannot be a disciple of Jesus? Why was Jesus so harsh? What is going on here? Continue reading
Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside: Job 38:1-18, Luke 5:1-11
On this the first Sunday of the Season of Creation, we pause to contemplate the Ocean. I say the Ocean because even though we can the Ocean by many names, there is only one Ocean. Covering 71% of the Earth’s surface in one interconnected body, the Ocean contains 321 million cubic miles of water. This one gigantic Ocean contains 97% of the Earth’s water in which somewhere in the neighbourhood of 250,000 different species of life make their home. Only about 5% of the Earth’s Ocean has been explored by humans. The truth is that we humans know very little about the Ocean. We do know that at its deepest point, the Ocean reaches a depth of 6.8 miles.
For me, the Ocean has always been, what the Celts describe as a “thin place” – a place where the DIVINE permeates our being; a place where all the divisions we have constructed between the sacred and the ordinary disappear. A distant memory of my small barefooted self, clutching a bucket and spade, splashing in tide-pools, humming an old song, “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, Oh I do like to be beside the sea!”, a memory that brings with it the sweet, salty smell of the sea.
I have not always been land-locked. Childhood memories of trips to the seaside in Northern Ireland, followed by high school memories of skipping class to pay amongst the waves, youthful excursions sailing up the coast of British Columbia, and long walks along Vancouver’s sea wall, permeate my senses with memories so sweet that I can almost hear the sound of waves lapping on shore, bringing with them the sure and certain knowledge that life is sweet and good. “Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside, I do like to be beside the sea!”
When my Dad was just a teen-age boy, he joined the British Merchant. Years spent travelling the Earth’s Ocean spawned a healthy respect for the power of the Sea; a deep abiding respect that he engendered in his daughter. To this day, while I do like to be beside the seaside, the deep, dark, open waters of the Ocean with their unknown secrets inspire a fear in me that can make my land-loving legs tremble.
What lurks beneath the Sea from which our ancient precursors first emerged? Deep, deep, darkness harbours mysteries of our origins over which the CREATOR of ALL that IS brooded and the RUACH swept over the face of the deep drawing forth life; our primal memories of the Sea inspired perhaps, by the breaking of the waters that heralded our own birth. Some four billion years ago, the miracle of tiny, living cells percolating in the depths remains a mystery we long to unravel. Six hundred million years ago, life miraculously moves onto the land, out of the waters of our gestating mother the Earth life emerges in all its magnificent complexities. Staring down into the depths of the Ocean, I have often been struck by the magnitude of my own insignificance and yet, here I am. Here you are. Here we are. All of us floating along in the blue-boat home of ours, even as sisters and brothers, cousins, and friends in the southlands prepare themselves for the power of the oncoming rush of the Ocean’s furry.
Storms rage upon the Ocean each and every day. But not until the Ocean threatens to encroach upon the Lands, do we shift our gaze and wonder at the depth of life’s mysteries. Knowing that in the coming days, like Job shaking his fist at the heavens, there will be those in the path of a storm named Dorian, who will be left with nothing but their own shaking fists with which to protest the cruel vicissitudes the powers of the Ocean. Dorian from the Greek word meaning “gift” as if such furry could be tamed by a name. This gift-storm will surely stir us, if for but a moment from the momentum of our lives, inviting us to spare a thought for our fellow creatures.
Recalling our connections one to another inspires a kind of concern that causes some to exclaim, “There but for the grace of God…” A kind of trivial response of inconsequential value in the face of such suffering. Is it any wonder that the god of our ancestors scorns our shaking fists in our sacred scriptures, where out of the storm YAHWEH can be heard to demand: “Who is this obscuring my plans with such ignorant words?”
Dare we turn the pages to seek comfort in a later text. As from the confines of a small boat, Jesus directs us out into deeper waters. Do we have the courage to risk deeper waters? I wonder.
Before a storm the calm upon the surface inspires such confidence in us as we quietly navigate without risk. As the storm rages, the temptation is to rush to the shore and abandon our small boats. Even if there are fish out there to be caught, why take the risk? After all we’ve been work hard for years and have caught nothing and lost more than we can bear. Our boat is too small. Our spirits are weary. And still Jesus says, “Pull out into deep water.”
In the midst of the turbulence we long for calm clear waters in which to sail. Fearful of the depths, can we hear Jesus, urging us to go deeper. Deeper, where pretentions having floated to the surface give way to authentic connections. Deeper, where we must hone our focus in order to see what really matters. Deeper, where conscious communication opens our lungs so that we can breathe with compassion. Deeper, where the LOVE that lives in us longs to stir us beyond our fear. Deeper, where MYSTERY dwells, compels, and empowers. Deeper, where darkness gives birth to awakening.
To this day, while I do like to be beside the seaside, the deep, dark, open waters of the Ocean with their unknown secrets inspire a fear in me that can make my land-loving legs tremble. And yet, here I sand, clutching my bucket and spade, full of visions of castles yet to be built in the sand, nursing my fears that the crashing waves might just wash it all away. Somewhere from deep, deep, within, I hear the words of Jesus, “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. “Pull out into deep water.” Go deeper still.
May the ONE who gave birth to the OCEAN fill us with the courage to go deeper still. Deeper where the LOVE that lives in us longs to stir us beyond our fear. Do not be afraid.