prayer — Page 6

Scandalous, Extravagant Love — A Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Lent

March 17, 2013 By Diana

Scandalous, Extravagant Love
a sermon preached at Montecito Covenant Church
Sunday, March 17, 2013
by Diana R.G. Trautwein

(If you prefer to hear rather than read a sermon, the podcast for this will be available late in the day on Thursday, March 21, 2013 at www.mcchurch.org under “Resources”)

We’ve heard the word of the Lord from the prophet Isaiah and the apostle Paul. Now it’s time to hear it from John. Today, I invite all who are able, to stand for the reading of the gospel. And though I do encourage you to turn to chapter 12 in your pew Bibles, or in the Bibles you’ve brought with you today, I’d like to ask that you listen to it now. I’ll be reading from The New Living Translation.

Hear the good news from John 12:1-8:

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the
home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared
in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him.
Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of
nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house
was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon
betray him, said,“That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been
sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor — he was
a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some
for himself. Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my
burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.

The gospel of the Lord.

You may be seated.

I don’t know whether it’s the arrival of daylight saving’s time or the early beginning date for Ash Wednesday, but somehow, Lent seems to be flying by this year. I don’t often say that, you know. Lent sometimes feels endless to me, six long weeks of plodding my way through the wilderness, of not singing, ‘hallelujahs,’ of giving something up or adding something on, of getting ready for the events of Holy Week. But here we are: one week from Palm Sunday, on our calendars — only one day away on John’s.

This little vignette happens just before the triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem. And Jesus is deliberately not in the city. Because at the end of the preceding chapter — the one in which Jesus commands Lazarus to, ‘come out!’ from the tomb, four days after the man died — there is a lot of buzz going on about him, and about Lazarus, too.

There were a lot of witnesses to this miraculous stripping away of the bonds of death from Jesus’ friend Lazarus. All those who came to help the sisters mourn — who were with Mary and Martha when their brother died — they saw what happened. And they were blown away by it. Many of them followed after Jesus — John tells us that they ‘put their faith in him.’ But a few, well a few of them went to the Pharisees. . .who went to the High Priests. . .who called an emergency session of the ruling council to talk about this remarkable feat.

And in the verses just before our story for today, Caiphas, the highest of the high priests, spoke these prophetic words: “It is better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Apparently, this latest Jesus-deed was terrifying to them, so terrifying, that they immediately began to intently plot and plan for his death.

So Jesus removed himself from public view for a little while. In the meantime, the people who were gathering in the temple court, getting ready for the festival of Passover –they were looking for him, wondering where he was. And the high mucky-mucks? Oh yes, they were looking for him, too.

And Jesus? Well, Jesus went to a dinner party.

It’s interesting to me how often Jesus is eating dinner or somehow referencing food in the gospels. We’ve got parables about salt and yeast, and mustard seeds and banquets. Jesus miraculously feeds large crowds of people, he is criticized for eating and drinking with sinners and for not forcing his disciples to fast. He dines at Peter’s home, and more than once, at the home of the siblings we see today — Mary, Martha, Lazarus. And of course, he uses the imagery of the Passover feast to describe what his own death means. As Jon’s quote from N.T. Wright last week put it, “Jesus didn’t give his disciples a theory about the cross; he gave them a meal.”

So with all these pieces of background in mind, let’s look at this eight verse section a little bit more closely and see what we can glean from the story before us this morning.

The scene is a party, a party honoring Jesus. Maybe it’s a big thank-you feast, with Jesus as the honored guest, and Lazarus as one of his tablemates. Lazarus, the dead man brought back to life — yeah, that guy — he’s right there, eating and drinking and whoopin’ it up with the rest of the gang.

You’ll note that Martha — well, Martha is serving the dinner. That’s familiar information, if you’ve read Luke’s gospel, very familiar. You may remember that Luke talks about these sisters as two sides of one coin — one busy and distracted (that would be Martha), scrambling around to make and serve dinner; the other quiet and reflective (that would be Mary), sitting in the position of a disciple, at the feet of Jesus. And here in John, we think we’re hearing a snippet of the same kind of song — yet I see no judgment or critique of Martha’s role here.

John, you see, has already told us that dear Martha is no slouch in the theology department. She is the one, the insightful disciple, who boldly tells Jesus — even before he raises her brother from the dead — “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Not bad for a worker bee, not bad at all.

So, the three siblings: Lazarus is at table with Jesus, Martha is busy carrying hot dishes in from the kitchen, and Mary?

Where is Mary anyhow?

Ah yes — once again, Mary is at the feet of Jesus.

But oh, my goodness, this is a brazen woman! In the ancient middle east, women did not enter the public dining space of the house when men were eating, unless they were carrying food, like Martha was. Martha’s presence was legit. But Mary’s? Not at all.

In fact, just coming into the room would have been offensive and questionable in that time and that place. But what she does next? The only word for it is this one — scandalous.

She takes an extremely expensive vial of perfumed oil, she breaks the top off, and she pours it all over Jesus, most specifically all over his feet. The very place where she went to listen and to learn.

Those feet that trudged up and down the long,
dusty roads between Jerusalem and Galilee.
Those feet that went into the byways of small country villages,
into the synagogues and the temple court,
into the homes of his friends,
up into the hills
and out onto the boats,
and across the landscape of the land
carrying the body of the Lord, the Teacher,
the Healer, the Beloved of God,
carrying him into the lives of the people of Palestine.

Those feet that Mary loved.

She poured this gift liberally, spreading its beautiful fragrance all through the house, infecting everyone gathered there with that scent, that scent of love and sacrifice and extravagance.

And then, she did the unthinkable — she untied her hair, and she leaned over those feet, and she wiped the oil right into all the cracks and crevices, anointing him with this precious stuff, this imported, expensive, strong, sweet stuff. Such an intimate act, and such a shocking one.

I don’t know if it’s even possible for us to grasp just how scandalous this was. A woman in 1st century Palestine could be divorced if she was ever seen in public with her hair down. To use it to wipe the feet of an adult male? Unheard of.

Mary’s act is a scandal. And according to Judas, it was also a disgrace, an ethical failure, a misappropriation of funds. A waste.

And Jesus cuts him off, right then, right there.

“Leave her alone!”

Down from the soapbox, Judas. Stop your moralizing and take another look at what’s really happening here. Do you see this woman, this friend, this disciple of mine? She is sitting right square in the center of God’s will, in the center of my life right now. Mary has been paying attention, really listening to me. And this generous gift she’s given? It’s the most perfectly appropriate thing she could have done: she is getting me ready, she is marking me, anointing me –not in the usual way, not in celebration, not to mark a festive occasion — but to prepare me to die.

To prepare Jesus to die. This scandalous, extravagant gift had one primary purpose: to mark the physical body of Jesus with the promise of death.

Kings were anointed before their coronation. Jesus is anointed before his death, which will be, as we now know, the opening of that final door to the Kingdom of God. The cross, that place of paradoxical humiliation and glory, of strange and wonderful, upside-down power, of scandalous, extravagant love.

“The poor,” Jesus says to Judas, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”

Mary and Judas stand in such stark contrast in this small story, don’t they?

Which one are you?
Which one am I?

My guess is, we’ve got a bit of both goin’ on. My guess is, it’s that Judas bit in us that keeps us from fully embracing the Mary side that’s struggling to be free. It’s the phony moral outrage that trumps the passionate embrace. It’s the self-righteous judgmentalism that supersedes the intuitive sensibilities. It’s the sneak thief that pushes the empathic encourager into the background.

It is Mary in this story who sees and tells the truth.
It is Mary in this story who makes her love for the Lord visible and tangible.
It is Mary in this story who pays attention to what’s really going on.

And it is Mary who is strong enough on the inside to do something scandalous, and extravagant and real on the outside.

And you know what I think? Despite John’s extra details about betrayal and thievery, I have a hunch Judas wasn’t all that different from a lot of us church folk. He was part of the inner circle, after all. He was privy to the private lessons, the extended discussions, the uneasiness of the disciples about where Jesus was headed. He was on the inside.

But he wasn’t paying attention.

Maybe he was too busy with his own agenda. Maybe he completely misunderstood who Jesus was. Maybe he wanted to control outcomes, to manipulate the Lord into doing what Judas thought was best.

Whatever it was, Judas was tied to a lie, unable, maybe even unwilling, to see the truth that was right there in front of him. Judas had not built an inner life that had space for empathy or insight or loving response.

It is Mary who is the model disciple in this story, the one who both listens to and acts on the commandments of the Lord. You remember those? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus was both, wasn’t he? The Lord her God, and her neighbor.

Here’s the piece that we must not miss here, my friends. Jesus tells us that he continues to show up in our neighbors. “If you do it unto the least of these,” he says, “you do it unto me.”

Staying close to the heart of Jesus necessarily means staying close to our neighbors. Staying in tune with the God of Love means offering that love to others. Paying attention to what Jesus teaches brings insight, intuitive responsiveness, genuine empathy and acts of love.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus will always lead to pouring out the fragrant oil on those very same, very dusty, very real feet. They go together, two halves of a whole, two sides of the equation, two parallel, intertwined pathways leading to the same destination.

It is also true that sitting at the feet of Jesus may very well lead us into some scary, risky places. Learning to be in tune with Jesus could bring us to make a wild leap once in a while, to do the unexpected — maybe even the unacceptable, but oh-so-deeply loving thing. Because sitting at the feet of Jesus will always involve a shocking amount of wild and crazy love.

Because the feet that were nailed to that cross are the most perfect picture of Love this world has ever seen. And sitting by those scarred feet will lead us down, down, down into the very heart of our God, where we will know that love is, and always has been, the only answer that makes any sense of anything.

And when that happens, when that downward, deepening, true knowing about love happens — the world moves.

I tell you, the world moves.

Pray with me:

Oh, Lord — will you move the world through us?
Draw us to those feet of yours, help us to sit still long enough to listen,
to understand, and to experience your love.
Then send us out to pour scandalously expensive love on the feet of others.
And when we do, to see you there, to see your eyes shining back at us.
Help us to be you, and help us to see you.
St. Teresa used to say that you have no other hands but ours —
will you help us to give these hands, and these hearts,
and these feet to you, Lord?
To you. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Maybe you’re sensing today that pull inside,
that downward pull to the heart of love, the pull that will
always bring you to the feet of Jesus.
And maybe, just to sort of cement that awakening in your spirit,
you need to take a risk.
And dear friends, in this particular community,
sometimes the riskiest thing we can do
is to step out, in front of God and everybody, and just say, ‘yes.’
So Pastor Jon and Anna will be here in the front to hear your ‘yes,’
to pray with you if you wish prayer, to encourage you to let the Mary in you
come out into the light. We’re going to sing a litte, and you can come right then,
if you’re feeling especially brave; but they’ll both be here after the benediction, too,
so you may come whenever you wish. But, I say to you,
as kindly and lovingly as I can, if the Spirit is drawing you, come.

Joining this much-longer-than-usual-blogpost with Laura, Jen, Michelle, Jenn and who knows who else I might think of. . .

Filed Under: biblical study, church year, Holy Week, Lent, Lenten Journey, prayer, preaching, Sermons/Homilies, Sunday Reflections, Uncategorized, women, worship

Bare: A 5 Minute Friday, Embellished + A Photo Essay

February 9, 2013 By Diana

I have a love-hate relationship with the wind.
It’s a California weather feature that no one talks about very much.
You hear about the sunshine. Or the smog. Or the fog.
But the wind?
Not so much.

But it’s here and it’s sometimes huge.
When it comes in the dark of night, howling through the canyons,
I detest it.
Sleep becomes impossible, yard furniture tumbles across the lawn,
tree branches click against the windows, power flickers,
often going out for hours.
Demons can loom large in such weather.

When it comes in the light of day,
and the day is hot and the season is dry,
I fear it.
Wildfires are endemic to this climate and they are terrifying.
Massive damage in moments,
families displaced, memories lost, even lives,
if it’s bad enough and fast enough.

But when it comes in the middle of winter,
as storms are brewing and blooming,
the wind is an entirely different thing.
It’s a friend, a welcome, bracing blast of cold, clear air.

And I remember what it felt like when I was an early adolescent,
old enough to be taller than almost everyone I knew,
but young enough to allow a rich imaginative life.

We had a back porch that was nothing more than a steep staircase with a landing.
We had milk delivered to that porch, twice a week,
and I often put the empties out in the case
to be picked up in the morning.

When the wind blew in the wintertime,
I would go out to check on the bottles,
imagining that they might be lonely or frightened,
and I would tell them that everything would be all right.
And I would stand up tall, spread my arms,
lean my head back and close my eyes,
and present myself to the force of that wind,
standing bare before it, willing it to blow me over.

And it never did.

Instead, it reminded me that there was much in this life
that is so much bigger than I am,
and beyond any feeble ability of mine to control.

I was reminded of that feeling yesterday,
and it was wondrous.

I took a walk on the bluffs, following the paths to Coal Oil Point Reserve.
And the wind was blowing mightily.
My jacket zipped to my chin, a brimmed hat holding wispy hair
firmly in place, I walked in wonder,
dressed from head to toe,
yet bare before the beauty.
Bare.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by my life of late,
trying hard to control all the pieces that are coming together
in this month of February.

I am back at work for three months,
something I never planned, nor even thought about,
to tell you the truth —
yet here it is.

My mother will move to my community next weekend,
and various family members will help me make that happen.
That’s not something I planned, either,
even though I have done all the legwork,
checked out the options,
taken my mother to see them all.

Still, I didn’t plan to have to care for her in these late years of her life.
I didn’t plan for her to have dementia.
I didn’t plan for her to lose her eyesight,
her son, her self.

But here we are.

Why, I wondered, did I say ‘yes’ to this job right now?
Am I crazy?
(Don’t answer that.)

I’ve been laying out Lenten services for the last couple of weeks,
enjoying the feel of it, not sure about the weekly commitment
of leading them all, but pondering, with what I hope is an open spirit.
Yet I haven’t felt any strong confirmation that
this decision was one I should have made,
thinking only it is one I have made.

Yesterday’s walk opened something in me.
I guess that’s what being bare can do, isn’t it?
Standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind blowing wildly all around you,
staring off into the wonder and beauty and complete untame-ability
of this world — well, that can strip away a lot of things.

So, as I got in my car to drive home,
after taking these pictures, and saying, “Thank you! THANK YOU!!”
with my arms outspread, my head bent back, my eyes closed —
after that. . .
I drove down the ramp to the 101 Freeway,
I thought about the intense privilege it is to be
asked to pastor anyone, anytime, anyplace,
and tears of gratitude spilled.

I GET to do this.
I am invited to do this.
I am welcomed to do this.
I do not, in any way, have to do this.

I cannot put into words what a gift that experience was to my roiling
spirits and troubled heart.
What’s happening in my life right now
IS beyond my control. It just is.
But it is not beyond God,
it is not beyond hope,
it is not beyond wonder,
it is not beyond joy.

It is gift.
ALL of it.

Thank You.

Joining late with Lisa-Jo’s community over at the 5-Minute Friday link-up. Five minutes took me to “beyond any feeble ability of mine to control.” Another ten minutes took me to the end of the words. The pictures and the techno stuff with formatting?
Well that took another 45 or so.

I just read this through, after plowing through HTML to figure out why the font keeps shrinking every time I insert a picture. Finally, the preview matched the draft. And as I read, I wept again — grateful for the windy day, even more grateful for the ways in which God chooses to reveal love and grace to me, despite my anxious heart and control-freak nature!!

adding this tonight to the Monday crowd – Michelle, Jen, Laura and Ann – with thanks for the invitation to think about how God is working in us, how we’re learning through play, and how gratitude changes everything.

Filed Under: 5 Minute Friday, Beauty, Encouragement, family, God's gifts, memoir, ministry, personal journey, Photo Essay, photography, prayer, Santa Barbara, The Church, The Journey with Mom, Uncategorized

A Little More Epiphany, Please . . .

January 8, 2013 By Diana

So . . .
Yesterday was Epiphany Sunday.
And on my calendar, we are now in the season of Epiphany.

Some call this Ordinary Time, this season-between-the-seasons.
Christmastide just past, Lent just ahead — yes, to call this time ordinary
seems right and good.

But I love the idea of epiphany spreading itself out into ordinary time.
Epiphany — revelation/insight/an experience of ‘sudden and striking realization.’
Yes, I could use a little of that just now.

The new year begins, and this one feels like an out-of-control freight train already.
Too many commitments made, too many unexpected developments in the midst of those commitments.
And very little time to be reflective, to be quiet, to be.

I was glad, then, to be in worship yesterday.
To be in worship twice. In the morning for communion,
in the evening for Taize.

The altar held reminders of the magi, those wise men who followed the star
like an arrow in the sky, bringing their gifts of worth and wealth and death.
They found what they were looking for,
who they were looking for,
and they were smart enough to ‘go home by another way,’
as Sweet Baby James used to sing.

Some days I feel like I need to go home by another way myself.
To change direction in the midst of too much activity, too many people,
and head for home quietly, so that neither suspicion nor attention is roused.

Morning worship was refreshing,
though I dearly missed the renewal of baptismal vows
I had hoped might become a tradition on this Sunday.

Ah, but Sunday evening was that different way home for me, thank God.
Fifty minutes of sung prayer, candlelight, the read word, and silence.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

The altarpiece from the morning remained, though shifted slightly, with candles added.

The sky was still light as we entered, but pitch black as we left,
and that, too, felt exactly right.
Sometimes it’s a good thing to go from light to dark,
to be a little unsure of your footing,
to let the darkness wrap itself around your skin like a velvet cloak.

And sometimes it’s good to be reminded of our connections to others,
our connections to the saints who’ve gone before us,
those who have been the church in other times, other places.
The very structure of this small service reminding us of six decades of
a particular style of ecumenical worship,
originating in the Burgundian countryside of France.
And the embroidered IHS on the gold table drape, a christogram —
a monogram of sorts —
the first three letters of the name of Jesus in Greek,
an inscription that has been in use since the second century.

There is something about this quiet, musical worship that touches deep places in me,
and in my husband, too.
It’s the closest I come to singing in a choir,
something I did for nearly fifty years of my life,
before I moved to Santa Barbara and joined a community without one.

And it’s also the closest I come to ‘singing in the Spirit,’
something I have so learned to love since my connection
with the Charismatic Catholics who trained me in the principles of spiritual direction
over the last few years.

The choruses are simple, short, often in a minor key and very, very repetitive.
But this is a very different kind of repetition from the never-ending
rendition after rendition of many contemporary praise choruses.
It is soothing.
It is prayer.
That’s EXACTLY what it is — it is prayer.

So I will put the words to the songs we sang last night here, one after another.
At your leisure, read them through.
Pause every once in a while, and read a line again.
And again.
See if maybe, just maybe, you might experience a small epiphany as you do.

Surely God is in this place, Holy ground.

Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.

O Lord, hear my prayer.
O Lord, hear my prayer:
when I call, answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer.
O Lord, hear my prayer:
come and listen to me.

Our eyes are turned to Jesus Christ, our salvation.
Our eyes are turned to Jesus Christ, Lord of all creation.*

Lord God, heal me, heal me, O my Lord,
that I might fulfull all your plans for me.

Call: Christ the Lord, you became poor and you offer the kingdom of heaven
to the poor of the earth; you fill us with your riches.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Call: O Lord, gentle and humble of heart, you reveal a new world
to all who abandon themselves; we receive of your fullness.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Call: O Lord, you fell prostrate on the ground,
and you show us a path of consolation in our distress;
you are the joy no one can take from us.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Call: O Lord, you shed your blood, and you give the cup of life
to seekers after justice; you quench every thirst.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Call: O Lord, you showed yourself to the disciples and you pluck from our flesh
our hearts of stone; we shall see you face to face.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
O Lord, you divest the powerful and cloth peacemakers in festal robes;
you transform us into your likeness.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
O Lord, first of the living, you welcome into the kingdom of heaven
all who die for you; we dwell in your love.
Refrain: Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Darkness is never darkness in your sight.
The deepest night is clear as the daylight.*

The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Come, Lord, and open in us the gates of your kingdom.

Let your servant now go in peace, O Lord,
now go in peace according to your word.

*These two lovely sung prayers were written for us by our
Worship Director, Robert Gross.
Accompanying him last evening were Jon Lemmond on piano
and Anne Anderson on oboe.
This service includes a triple reading of the morning sermon text for reflection,
a corporate confession of sin,
the Lord’s Prayer,
an opportunity to light a candle and set it into a dish of sand
alongside the candles of those worshipping with you,
and a concluding prayer, read in unison.

And that is all.
And it is exactly enough.

I am still learning the formatting ins and outs of WordPress, so this is a day late. But I am joining with Michelle, Ann, Jennifer and Laura for their Monday/Tuesday communities:

Filed Under: church year, personal journey, prayer, Taize, worship Tagged With: Church Year, Epiphany, Prayer, Taize, Worship

An Advent Journey: Stop, Look, Listen – Day 6

December 7, 2012 By Diana

“I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other — ‘We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!’ — suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.

But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love and the hope of salvation.

God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, The Message

Generally speaking, I am not a huge fan of apocalyptic literature. Don’t like dystopian novels (except for Margaret Atwood), am easily pushed to metaphor fatigue by the book of Revelation. There are days when I really, really wish Jesus had not talked as much as he did about The Last Days.

And then there are the letters to the Christians at Thessalonica. Written early in Paul’s ministry, they show us more clearly than anything else that the early church believed themselves to be living in the last days, at least initially. And for some reason, that has always bothered me a little.

Or it used to.

However. . . this passage, this one right before us today, on the first Friday of Advent 2012, this one I have come to love. A lot. In fact, I believe it contains some of the most important teaching of all the epistolary writing in the entire New Testament. Why? Because it tells us how to live while we wait.

And we are always waiting, aren’t we? Waiting for something, someone, some time. Here is a definition of the verb “to wait”: ‘to stay in place in expectation of; to remain stationary in readiness or expectation; to look forward expectantly; to be ready and available.’ (Courtesy of Merriam-Webster online dictionary)

While we wait — in a spirit of expectation and readiness and availability — Paul instructs us to:
*remember who we are
*keep our eyes open
*be smart
*dress for the occasion
*speak words of encouragement and hope to one another

And it is that last one that resonates with something deep inside: encourage one another. Offer good words, hopeful words, loving words. Now that’s the kind of apocalyptic writing and thinking and living I can get excited about.

How do you encourage others? And how are you encouraged as you wait?

Lord, you know how weary I am with doom-mongers — always a discouraging word to be heard, always a fearful worldview to be touted, always an us vs. them mentality. I am exhausted by that attitude. Especially when I feel it creeping into me, into my thought life — even into my language. Help me to read these good words from Paul again and again, especially when I feel discouraged by life, by the church, by the world. And help me to choose, every day, to push through the discouraging word and find an encouraging one; to make the move from passive resignation to active anticipation, trusting that there are good things yet to come.

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, Encouragement, hope, prayer

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 11

October 12, 2012 By Diana

This is the main drag of our town,

State Street.

In this picture,

we are very near the northern end of downtown,

before the road takes a hard left,

and becomes something else entirely.

But here,

right here,

on the corner of Micheltorena,

you can find this beauty:

A beautiful, Gothic

brownstone church.

Trinity Episcopal Church,

to be exact.

It comes complete

with bell tower and carillon,

which plays hymns at noon.

And its large, red door

is open – all.day.long.

Like any brownstone church should,

it has it’s interesting details,

including side doors,

hidden from the front.

But this particular church has something truly

special and unique.

It has a prayer labyrinth,

after the design of the one at Chartres,

in France.

It is beautiful,

and it is completely visible to

all north and south bound traffic

on State Street,

which as I mentioned,

is the main drag in our town.

I love that.

Every year, the students at
the School for Spiritual Direction
trek down from the Mission Renewal Center
to spend some time
walking
and praying
the labyrinth.

The beige color is the pathway in (on the left)
and the pathway out (on the right).
The charcoal areas are for stepping out if someone
is walking in the opposite direction
and your paths cross.

I’ve already written in this series about
how walking has enriched my prayer life,
here, here, and here.

The labyrinth is yet another way in which

movement can be combined with

prayer, meditation and silence

to enlarge, refresh and enliven

personal prayer.

You enter the labyrinth in a spirit of quiet,

seeking to listen,

to receive,

to understand,

to discern.

Walking into the labyrinth,

you are invited to

let go

of the concerns and

worries of the day,

and all those things

which sometimes

distract from a

deepening interior journey.

When you arrive at the center flower,

you are encouraged,

in fact, invited,

to spend

time in reflection,

prayer,

thanksgiving –

taking as long as you

need, as long as you like.

As you begin the walk out,

take heart from

the time spent quietly at

the center, and prepare

to re-enter the world

of everyday responsibilities

and commitments,

refreshed and strengthened

for the journey.

The interesting part of this experience for me

is the rhythm of the walking.

Parts of the labyrinth are long

and graceful, allowing me

to move easily,

even quickly, if I wish.

But many parts are tight,

with twisting turns,

requiring concentration

and attention to navigate.

The path doubles back,

seems to repeat itself.

A lot like life.

But, in a labyrinth,

you are never lost,

no matter how convoluted

the pathway may feel

at any given moment.

There is one way in,

and one way out,

and when you leave,

you will want to come again.

This labyrinth is just across the street

from my dentist’s office.

Occasionally, when it’s time

to get my teeth cleaned,

I come early

and walk the labyrinth for twenty

minutes or so.

It’s a space of quiet beauty

and refreshment,

and I am grateful for it.

I particularly like that it

is situated on the main street of our town.

Because that’s where prayer

is so often lacking,

and where it is often most needed.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, personal journey, prayer, Santa Barbara, The Church

The Call to be Wise – A Prayer for Worship

September 24, 2012 By Diana

It’s been a while. Twenty two months, to be exact. Twenty-two months ince I’ve prayed in public, in a Sunday morning worship service. I am rusty, and I am nervous. Really nervous.

We’ve been studying the book of James this fall, trying to discover what this small book might teach us about living the life of a disciple, a disciple who makes disciples. This small epistle is part of the lectionary readings as we cycle through the last weeks of Ordinary Time and this week’s reading is from chapter 3, verses 13-18 – words on wisdom, true wisdom, godly wisdom. And, of course, the kind of ‘wisdom’ that is far from godly.

The gospel reading in Matthew 10 includes the words of Jesus, sending the disciples out on their own for the first time, encouraging them to be ‘wise as serpents…’ Oh – and we’ll be singing, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” just before the prayer.

Will you join me as we pray together this morning?

It is good to praise you, Almighty God.

It is good to sing loudly, tapping our feet – at least

on the inside – joining right in with those angels,

the ones who are adoring you,

the ones veiling their sight.

Because even the angels cannot look directly

at you, O Lord of Glory.

They cannot behold your splendid and radiant Being,

because you are just . . . too much.

Too much for them,

and surely too much for us,

“frail children of dust” that we are.

It’s hard for us to even begin to wrap our minds around

the Truth that is you,

the Immensity of you.

You are the Wild and Untamable Source

of all that is beautiful,

mysterious,

awe-inspiring,

and powerful –

in this universe;

on our planet;

in these bodies, which we treat with such casual neglect;

this natural world in which we live –

this world that speaks to us of

your creative genius and

your overwhelming attention to detail.

And yet . . . you are the very same God who

guides the likes of us, day by day,

and who invites and encourages us

to join you in the ongoing renewal of creation.

So, YES!!

It is good to praise you,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God of Immensity,

Son of Humility,

Spirit of Comfort and Conviction.

Help us to do this always,

to offer our songs,

our words,

our hearts

in joyful thanksgiving for who you are,

and how you are working to revive and restore and refresh

all that you have created,

most especially each and every one of us.

And some of us truly need to find that refreshment this day, O Lord.

We’re wondering what’s coming next –

feeling overloaded at school,

maybe worried about our jobs, or our children, or both.

Some of us are waiting on doctor’s diagnoses,

some of us have already heard hard news.

Some of us wonder if we’ll have enough money to cover the month,

some of us have plenty of money, but not much joy in it.

Some of us are young and curious,

often thinking we know more than we actually do.

And some of us are old and failing,

not sure if we know anything at all.

Some of us are worried about a lot of things,

and getting plenty sick of worrying.

And some of us are just plain sick.

Sick and tired of all kinds of things and wondering

where you are. And even there, Lord God,

even there, it is good to praise you.

Maybe even especially there.

So, Only Wise God,

will you help us to become wise people

who know how to praise you well?

Because wise people are people who know how to say thank you,

even when we have to stretch pretty hard to do it.

Wise people are people who do good deeds,

even when that’s the last thing we feel like doing.

Wise people are people who don’t give in to

bitterness, or cynicism, or sarcasm,

but choose words that honor, and uplift and encourage.

Wise people are naturally generous,

offering what they have to others,

sharing the gifts they’ve received.

Wise people are people who look like the folks Jesus is

talking about in our Gospel lesson for the morning.

People who are ‘wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.’

Yes, Lord – that’s exactly who we’d like to be.

But we readily admit that we are not all that wise a lot of the time.

So, will you remind us to say we’re sorry,

to admit our frailties and flaws

and to consistently seek to grow into the people

you have in mind for us to be?

O Lord, if everyone in this world who says they are a

follower of yours would do this –

if we would all admit we’re far from perfect,

if we would ask for help when we need it,

and if we would seek to be wise –

what a different place this old planet of ours could be!

So, begin with us, will you, please?

Soften our hearts,

open our wallets,

give us words of peace to offer,

wherever we go, whomever we meet.

And we’ll end right where we began,

by praising your Holy Name,

O, God Only Wise.

Amen.

Joining with Michelle’s Sunday invitation and Jennifer’s sisterhood:

Filed Under: biblical reflection, church year, community, prayer, Public Prayers

Paying Attention: A Prayer with Photos

August 14, 2012 By Diana

Grant that I may I have eyes to see you, Lord.

To see you in the light,

to see you in the dark.

To see you in the rainbow,

to see you in the clouds.

To see you in the new,

to see you in the worn and weary.

To see you in the blessed and blissful details,

to see you in the rougher edges.

To see you in the easy, graceful gifts,

to see you in the slogging, stultifying backwater.

To see you in the immensity of the universe,

to see you in the intensity of a single cell.

Grant that I may have a heart to hear you, Lord.

To hear you in the laughter of children,

to hear you in the slowing of age.

To hear you in the soft sighs of the sea,

to hear you in the harsh cries of the hawk.

To hear you when the joy breaks loose,

to hear you when the sobs don’t stop.

To hear you in a beating heart,

to hear you when the beating stops.

To hear you in the wonder of a well-fed child,

to hear you in the one who starves.

To hear you in the still, small voice,

to hear you in the silence
of questions without answer.

Even there, O Lord.

Even there.

May I have eyes to see,

ears to hear,

and a tongue to tell

the glory of our God.

Even.There.

The photo of the ‘shoes’ near the end of this prayer is from eastern Europe –
a WWII memorial sculpture commemorating Hungarian Jews
who were lined up on the edge of the river,
told to take off their shoes, and then shot to death.
This reflection was prompted by a post about photography and truth at Kelly Sauer’s blog today. She was pondering old versus new in her photographic style. That got me to thinking and praying about the contrasts in this life; that the light and the dark are often closely connected and reflective of one another; that God doesn’t abandon us when life looks dismal or terrifying. I need eyes and ears that look and SEE and hear and LISTEN for evidence of the Presence of God – wherever and whatever and whenever.
Sometime during the dark morning hours, I realized that this post was also triggered by the powerful WWII story shared by Ann Voskamp in yesterday’s blog post.
Even in the most horrific of human-devised schemes,
God does not abandon us, God is not absent.
So thank you, Kelly. And thank you, Ann.
I’ll put this one with Michelle tonight, Jen tomorrow, and Ann on Wednesday and Duane and Jennifer, too.

Here is a legend for the photographs.

1. Reflections of stained glass on the stone walls of a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, 2009.

2. Sunlight breaking through the clouds as we flew from Florida home to LAX, May 2012

3. Cloud-covered moonlight over Puget Sound while staying on Whidbey Island, August 2007

4. Layers of color at sunset at the same place and time as photo #3

5. Our youngest granddaughter Lilly on the day she was born – 2/25/10

6. An oversized drawing entered in an art contest spotlighting the homeless population of Haarlem, The Netherlands, 2009

7. Our dining room pine buffet, loaded with my much-loved Fiestaware, taken on the day of my mom’s 90th birthday party, June 2011

8. Silhouetted ruins above the Rhine River, 2009

9. A tableau of bicycle against the stone wall of a local Catholic retreat center, Spring 2011

10. Garbage gathered at the edge of a marina in Miami FL, May 2012

11. Yosemite National Park, summer 2010

12. A birch leaf in our front yard, fall 2010

13. Sunlight through amber windows at the New Camoldolese (Benedictine) Hermitage Retreat Center, near Big Sur CA, December 2011

14. Our granddaughter Gracie, aged 2, laughing at the antics of her cousin Griffin, aged 2, on Whidbey Island, August 2007 (They’re six years old now, soon to turn 7)

15. My favorite centering prayer spot – the beat-up swing that hangs from an oak tree in our front yard, taken in the spring of 2010

16. Hendry’s Beach, Santa Barbara CA (officially known as Arroyo Burro State Beach), sunset, winter 2011

17. A bird of prey overhead – maybe a hawk, maybe an osprey, in British Columbia, summer 2007

18. Municipal flower garden, Nuremburg, Germany, 2009

19. The cross on our back fence that marks the place where my youngest brother’s ashes are buried. Taken in the spring of 2011.

20. Lilly, playing in her tent, Christmas 2011

21. Santa Barbara cemetery on a foggy morning, winter 2011

22. Lilly’s adorable bunny slippers, Christmas 2011

23. A skeletized leaf, picked up by my grandson while we were hiking in the Redwoods near Santa Cruz CA, summer 2011

24. Window angel spotted in a side street of Regensburg, Germany, 2009

25. War Memorial in honor of slain Jewish citizens, Budapest Hungary, 2009

26. Approaching Laity Lodge through the Frio River, the hill country of Texas, September 2011

Filed Under: hope, personal journey, Photo Essay, photography, prayer

Losing a Mentor: A Re-Post Plus a Tribute

March 4, 2012 By Diana

I am re-posting this one from last January,

in honor of Abbot David Geraets,

my spiritual director and friend,

who died on Friday morning.

These are words I wrote to a few friends earlier today about my response to receiving this sad news:

My mentor died on Friday. He was 77 years old – only 10 years older than I am –

and he’d battled a number of ailments this past year.

But still…I didn’t think he would DIE.

We all die.

I know this in my head.

I even know it in my heart,

as we’ve lost a lot of dear ones in the last 10 years.

Yet each time I get a phone call like the one I got on Friday afternoon, I am bereft. Like part of me has been sliced with a very sharp blade

and all that pours out are tears.

I took my usual evening walk on Friday, walking circles around our large driveway parking area. I’ve been learning to pray while I walk this past year – many fewer words, lots more images. But what I found myself doing on Friday was simply saying the name of Jesus, over and over and over again.

And here is why: a friend had posted a very old video on YouTube. A video of the mentor I had just lost. This clip, filmed in 1986, was an interview with Abbot David (who, at that time, led a much larger community in New Mexico) by a nun named Mother Elizabeth. Now may I just add, with a repentant heart and spirit, that if I had seen this video when it was filmed 26 years ago, I would have either switched it off immediately, or watched it with a sort of gleeful feeling of superiority to those ‘weirdos’ in the habits and collars. I’m ashamed and embarrassed to admit that, but it’s the hard truth.

I watched all 30 minutes of that grainy old video, marveling at the sweetness in David’s face, the kindness of his words and the truth of his life. I met with him monthly for the last three years, receiving spiritual direction in the form of dream interpretation. He was an expert at that and also at encouragement and gentle prayer. In this video, he suggested praying the Jesus prayer (which has been a favorite prayer practice of mine for about ten years) or just simply saying the name of Jesus over and over for 20 or 30 minutes. I have discovered that following Abbot David’s advice is a very helpful thing. (I wrote a post about the benefits of one piece of that advice at the end of January.)

So on that first afternoon after this dear man’s death, that’s what I did when I walked. I cannot put into words how intensely moving it was for me, in these initial hours of grief, to just say the Name over and over and over again. And I wept my way through a 45 minute time of walking, praying, remembering, celebrating. I will never again feel the dear Abbot’s fingers make the sign of the cross on my bent forehead at the end of our hour together. I will not be blessed by his hand when I receive my certificate in spiritual direction next August. I will not engage with him in friendly, loving conversation.

And that is a huge, huge loss to me.

And to so many.

Thank you Abbot David Geraets for your loving commitment to Jesus, for your years of kindness, wisdom and gentle correction, for your heart as big as the sky above the ranch you and the brothers live(d) in out in the back country of San Luis Obispo.

I will be grateful for your presence in my life during these pivotal years in mine until the day I die.

And then I will hug you fiercely.

SLO stands for San Luis Obispo, a town 115 miles north of my home.

This was our late-lunch view today, as we traveled home again.

One day each month,

I take a road trip.

This particular road trip is not like

the other ones I take.

I’m not going to take care of my mother.

I’m not going to enjoy my children and my grandchildren.

I’m not going on vacation.

Strike that.

I am going on a vacation, of sorts.

I am vacating the usual rhythm of my days

to embrace a different one.

And I find that I am hungry for re-creation as I travel.

I am eager to be addressed as…

me.

Not as wife/mother/grandmother/daughter/

pastor/teacher/friend.

Just me.

Child of God.

Stumbling follower of Jesus.

Seeker after wisdom.

And this is where I go.

A strange looking monastery,

one that used to be the ‘dream house’

of a retired dentist,

but was bought by some monks

from New Mexico to be their community home.

The monastery is the long white,

red-tiled house to the left in this shot.

To the right of the drive, is the chapel & bookshop

with a couple of additional bedrooms.

To the left of the drive, below the monastery itself,

is the home of Connie, the oblate who lives on the premises

and assists the brothers.

There are only five or six of them now,

praying the hours,

assisting the people of a dozen parishes

with healing prayer, special masses and spiritual direction.

This is where I meet my spiritual director every month.

The sign says it all:

And this is the view from that house,

in the springtime,

when all the hills are green and the sky is blue.

And this is the man I meet with in that house:

Abbott David.

Spiritual Father to this small band,

and an acclaimed leader in the

charismatic renewal movement

of the Roman Catholic Church.

He is a remarkable man, gifted and humble.

Did I ever tell you how we met?

Now, that’s a great story.

“Once upon a time, there was a tired pastor,

full to overflowing with the needs of her congregation,

the struggles in her family.

She had tried direction a couple of times,

with mixed results.

“Not a good fit,” was the diagnosis,

whatever that means.

For her, it felt like failure.

And she is not a fan of failure.

So she began to pray about it,

to search for someone.

She even went online, used Google

and found a monastery website.

Not a fancy, bells-and-whistles kind of place,

that website.

And the monastery featured there was over 100 miles away.

But something caught her eye,

her spirit.

And email responses were invited.

So she sent off a note.

“Is there anyone there interested and available

to offer direction to a tired

female pastor,

one who needs listening ears,

wise words,

some guidance along the way?”

That was in July of 2007.

Nothing came back.

Sigh.

So, she got on with life,

a life that was feeling a bit overwhelming

about then.

And she forgot all about that note.

One early morning, in September of the following year,

FOURTEEN MONTHS

after her initial inquiry,

her cell phone rang.

Puzzled at the early hour, she picked it up.

“Abbott David here,” a strong, friendly voice declared.

“You wrote about spiritual direction?”

And she burst into laughter.

“Yes,” she said. “I did. Over a year ago!“

“Really?” came the response.

“Because I just received this yesterday.

Would you like to meet with me and see if this

might be what you’re looking for?”

They set a date for one week later,

she drove up the 101, took the country road out to

his place and sat,

absolutely fascinated and astounded as he told

her his story.

Raised on a farm in Wisconsin,

paid his way through college by playing

trumpet in a dance band,

became a priest,

sent by his order to

study in Rome,

multi-lingual,

specialist in Jungian psychology

and dream analysis.

“If you work with me, you’ll keep a dream journal.

And that’s what we’ll talk through each month.”

She was hooked – line, sinker, bobble, lure –

the whole kit and caboodle.

“Thank you, Jesus,” she cried to the heavens as she headed south again

at the end of the hour.

Before their next visit,

there was a tragic death in her immediate family.

And before the following visit,

there was a ferocious wildfire in her community,

stripping lifetime memories from many in her congregation.

Within the first year, she herself landed in the hospital, was forced to make a major shift in her own training

program to become a director herself,

and by the second year, she was enrolled in the Abbott’s school for spiritual direction certification.

Not sure that she lived happily ever after,

but deeper ever after? That would be a big ‘yes.'”

Now I would call that whole tale

a God-thing.

My friend Jennifer might call it “God-Bumps” or a “God-Incidence.”

All I can tell you is that my entire spiritual journey

took a decisive turn upward from the moment

I heard that voice on the phone:

“Abbot David here. You wrote….?”

Abbott David leading mass in the monastery chapel.

Today, I had only one dream for the month.

Of my own, that is.

I also shared a tricky one from someone I am directing.

Somehow, this kind, brilliant man

(who has been seriously ill this year)

wove those two together, asked me some penetrating

questions, and helped me think about myself

in some new ways.

“You’ve spent your whole life relying on your left brain, Diana, your intellect.

It’s time to learn to trust your gut, your intuition.

You need to spend long stretches of time just sitting and looking at the ocean.

Do that long enough so that eventually, you find yourself on the other side of the picture – you’ll be the ocean, looking back at you.

And take a look at what you see when that happens.

I think you’ll like what you find.

Be still long enough to let the beauty in,

to let God in,

to shift inside from reason to intuition.

Learn to trust that,

to know that God meets you there, too.

This is the gift of aging, Diana.

There is gift in all of life.”

I sure hope he’s right.

I’m counting on it.

Stopping at Costco on our way home this evening,

I looked up from loading the bags into the back of the car and saw this.

My gut said, “Grab that camera, even if it is the little one,

even if the picture won’t be sharp.”

So I did.

The gift of the present moment.

Right brain all the way.

Joining with Jennifer and her “God-Bumps” meme and with Ann and her Walk with Him Wednesday invite. Even though this is way too long – two posts in one, actually – I’m also joining with a few friends with very different invitations – not because this post in any way ‘matches’ with most of them, but because it’s a big piece of my heart right now and I’d like them to know.

Bonnie & the two Laura’s and Michelle, too:

Filed Under: death, friendship. personal journey, God's gifts, memoir, prayer, Spiritual Direction

Jesus and Prayer

April 21, 2011 By Diana

Reposting an older reflection for this Maundy Thursday, thoroughly re-edited for today.

What a topic. The text is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane – Mark’s version. The assignment is to confine my remarks to 20 minutes or less, to capsulize the teaching and the modeling of Jesus about prayer, and to do it with truth and love.

How did I ever get myself into this???

The preaching task is always an overwhelming one. An intriguing, challenging, convicting, enormously rewarding one, but still….to think that any human person has the right to speak on behalf of Almighty God, to bear the good news to the church, to parse sacred text…yikes.

And, of course, living with the text over time means that the preacher is the first to hear the sermon. If the text doesn’t knock me to my knees, shouting truth into my own heart and spirit somewhere in the process of reading/researching/thinking/praying/talking it through with others, then I will have nothing to say to anyone else. And this one has just knocked me flat.

And as always, I am impressed at how the Spirit weaves together the study and research I do in my office with the conversations and experiences I’m having elsewhere. To illustrate – a brief, but deeply thoughtful conversation with our son and daughter-in-law about prayer – about how we so often view prayer as another in a list of tools to help us manipulate God, to work ‘magic,’ to utilize (in the philosophical, utilitarian sense) our faith to bring about a desired end. Yet the text before me was anything but manipulative, and everything about relinquishment. Hmmm…

Illustration #2 – a wonderful gift from my friend Anita, a small, brilliant book entitled “Everything Belongs,” by Richard Rohr, about contemplative prayer, a book that touches on some of the same ideas that are flitting round this brain of mine. Like…the 3 fold admonition to ‘watch’ given to the sleepy disciples. Isn’t that a lot of what prayer is truly about? Placing ourselves regularly, preferably continually, in a position of prayer, of watchfulness, of presence, of paying attention, even more than it is about saying the right words – or even saying anything at all.

And all of these lovely serendipities of daily life help to thrust me back again into the text before me. As I read through Mark’s account, again and again I am blown away by Jesus’ wrestling match in that olive garden on the night in which he was betrayed. Such a powerful study in contrasts:

….from warm fellowship in the upper room to the cool solitude of the garden

….from the comfort of the reclining supper chair, to the hard reality of the rocky ground

….from a place of acceptance and understanding of what was to come, to a place of resistance and fear about the painful death ahead.

I am humbled by this story, I am moved by it and I am deeply, deeply grateful for it. It gives me great hope to read that the Savior of the world wrestled with the harsher realities of this life, that, if possible, he wanted to avoid pain; that he struggled with the dark stuff, the hard stuff, the ugly stuff. It helps, of course, to know the end of the story, that end toward which we have been moving during these weeks of Lent. It helps to know about and to firmly grasp the reality of the empty tomb.

Yet what I truly cherish about this passage in Mark 14 is how it shows us the fullness of Jesus’ humanity in ways that many of our Jesus stories do not. Here we gain insight into some of his emotional and spiritual struggles. Just days before this time of pleading prayer, Jesus was able to speak prophetically about the restoration of the ‘temple’ of his body in 3 days. Yet here, he begs God to let this cup pass. It seems that Jesus was frightened by the prospect of suffering and death on that night when he stared directly into the abyss. All of us human creatures resist death, we deny it, we cry out against it. Even Jesus cried out for deliverance from the painful unknowing-ness of it all.

Many biblical scholars tell us that this struggle in the garden was about Jesus’ fear of his coming separation from the Father. Maybe. But maybe he was just plain scared of the pain, scared of the suffering, scared of the unknown, just like the rest of us would be. And there is something strangely comforting to me in that idea. To think that the son of God, our fully human, fully divine savior, was frightened by what lay ahead of him somehow helps to relieve my own fears. It’s a paradox, maybe even an oxymoron, to say that. And yet it’s true. There is a wonderful way in which Jesus’ wrestling in the garden helps me to lean into my own humanity a little bit more willingly and easily, to accept my own feebleness and fearfulness with less self-condemnation and disdain.

But here’s what truly, strongly cheers me in this story: after the struggle, after the tears, after the first of what would soon be an avalanche of disappointments and betrayals from his friends – after all of that, Jesus moves out in confidence and trust to meet his enemies, to meet his future. “Rise. Let us go,” he says to the speechless, feckless disciples. “Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.”

At the end of the day, at the end of that long night, Jesus chose to trust God.

Jesus chose to believe that God was at work, even in the ugliness of betrayal and conflict, even in the midst of false accusations and illegal trials, even in the brutality of torture and death. Even there, God is.

Once it became clear that God was not going to intervene in the way that Jesus wanted him to do, he made a conscious, deliberate choice to trust God anyhow. To trust that God would take the mess and work a miracle in the midst of it. To trust that God would accomplish something so beautiful, so powerful, so filled with hope and promise that the world would never be the same again.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known,” the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. I believe that for the period of his ‘tabernacling’ with us here on earth, Jesus gave up his right, his divine ability, to see ‘face to face,’ to ‘know fully.’ Jesus lived within the limits that we as humans experience.

But here’s what our truly human Savior learned through living a life of prayer, prayer that came to fruition in that garden across from the temple mount:

He learned to trust that he was fully known,

he learned to trust that the one who fully knew him, fully loved him,

he learned to wrestle through his fears…in the presence of the God who knew and loved him…

and to emerge on the other side with a confidence and a courage that challenged every definition of confidence and courage that his world had constructed.

Oh, may I learn from his example!

Filed Under: biblical studies, Lent, prayer