Spiritual Formation

31 Days of Giving Permission . . . TO BE SEEN

October 13, 2013 By Diana

The sermon topic was centered around the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well, one of the richest passages in the entire New Testament. So many layers, so much great stuff to think about. And our pastor did a fine job asking good questions, finding great points of application. It was my turn to lead in prayer, and I wove together some of my own thoughts on that passage and the emotions that were triggered by a poem posted on Facebook Saturday by John Blase, one of my favorite people writing anywhere. The gospel passage is about a tough conversation, and a woman who discovers that there is a man, an amazing man, who truly sees her for all of who she is — and accepts her anyhow.
So as you pray this prayer today, will you give yourself permission to be fully seen by Jesus? For who you are and what you’ve done and what you’ve not done?

A Post-Pentecost Prayer
October 13, 2013
written by Diana R.G. Trautwein

I came into worship today with this poem on my heart.
It’s written by a friend I’ve met online. He’s a writer, an editor, a poet,
and a bit of a cowboy, who lives in Colorado.
And he often puts words to things I’m wrestling with,
words that are just behind my eyes, but I can’t quite see.

Do you know that feeling?
His name is John Blase and these are his words.
They’ve been haunting me a bit this weekend:

The loneliness lays
claim to you with
cumulative power.
It starts as a wild hair.
You break rank and
keep your eyes open
as others bow to pray.
You see a sea of crowns
for the very first time
and feel adrift: who
are these strangers?
You close your eyes
before the final amen,
a timed acquiescence.
You file out with the
throng into the bright
sunlight. But you can’t
shake the bony chill.
You sense this will
only grow sharper.

–-John D. Blase*

As we, in this circle, go to prayer, I want to acknowledge that
some of you may well be feeling what is described here.
And if you want to keep your eyes open while we pray, that’s just fine by me.

Let’s pray together:

There are days, LORD, when the only prayer we can find
is the one we just sang: Come, Lord Jesus, come.

The truth is,
we’re all thirsty, most all the time.
We’re thirsty for things we can’t quite name,
hungry for friends we don’t quite see,
often painfully aware that we’re lonelier than we know.

And that’s one of the reasons that we come here,
and we join our voices together, to sing out your praises.
Somehow, we feel a little less alone, a little more connected,
when we sing.

But I’m not sure that connection is as easily found when we pray.

So, as we begin this part of our conversation with you today, Lord,
I want to acknowledge those who feel the bony chill of loneliness and disconnection.

Our gospel story today tells us about such a one, a woman on the edge,
on the outside of her community.
Yet, you saw her. You acknowledged her and drew her out,
you confronted her and challenged her.

You. Saw. Her.

She gave you water from the well.
But you gave her life, and hope and newness.
And she ended that well-side conversation
with all of that outside-the-edginess gone, her loneliness dissolved.

So I guess, Lord, I am asking you to remind us — each one of us,
in ways that are as unique to us as they were to that woman —
that you see us.

Tell us again that the water you give is the only water that works,
living water that does what water does –
it filters down into every crack and crevice and brings new life.
It meanders, and slowly but surely snakes its way into every layer of who we are,
and it changes us.

Even on the lonely days, it keeps on trickling down.
Even when we can’t find the words because the grief is too deep,
or the fear is too high,
or the harsh words we said in the car on the way to church are still hanging in the air —
that water of life keeps working its way into us.

Will you help us to remember that, please?
To know that when we come to the Water that is you,
we will always find what we need?

We confess to you that we don’t always make it easy
for your water to do its watery thing.

We build dams and we blow a lot of hot air
and we sometimes even turn off the spigot,
with our stubbornness and our proclivity for desert living.
Forgive us, Father, and strengthen us to follow the river of life right to its source!

Thank you so much for the richness of your gift to us,
for the assurance that our hope is in you, and nowhere else.

And help us to see with your eyes, to spot those who are lonely
and reach out in kindness,
to offer that famous cup of cold water
in ways that are specific and unique to each person along the way,
help us to be leaky vessels,
through which the water of life gets spread all over the place.

We will thank you and we will praise you
and we will gladly drink at the fountain again and again.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

*Here is a link to John Blase’s website, The Beautiful Due. I urge you to subscribe and get his beautiful, thoughtful, challenging poetry in your inbox. You will never regret it.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, biblical reflection, Blogging, Confession, Encouragement, John Blase, prayer, Spiritual Formation, Wonderings in the Word, worship, Writing

Full to Overflowing . . .

September 16, 2013 By Diana

Jesus is an interesting dude.
Full of surprises, un-pin-down-able, a fascinating amalgam of
human and divine, comforter and cattle prod.

Take the leap-off-the-bridge-into-the-chasm story in John 2, for instance.
In this narrative, Jesus is standing on a precipice.
Oh, it doesn’t look like much of a leap — he’s at a party, not a smack-down.
A wedding party, one of those 7-day deals in the ancient Middle East,
where everyone hangs around, eats and drinks and talks
and then eats and drinks a little more.

He’s just called his first five disciples, and is growing ever more surely into
his own sense of himself and his destiny. Jesus is getting ready to inaugurate
what he will soon call the Kingdom of God.
But other than some heartfelt conversations with his new followers,
he hasn’t done anything yet.

I’ve always found it fascinating that in John’s gospel, Jesus’ ‘coming-out’ party happens in
a small, country town at what was most likely a family gathering. I mean Luke has him in a synagogue, at least. And Matthew has him up on a hill, doling out powerful teaching by
the bushel basketful. Mark, who’s always in a hurry, leaps right into exorcism
and multiple healings.
But John?
In a backwater town, at a party.
And one where his mother is scurrying around, trying to make sure the tables are full,
the guests are happy, the details are being covered.

We’re moving slowly through the gospel of John at church this year, creating our own lectionary, reveling in the meatiness of this last-written of the stories of Jesus.
And the pastoral staff has called for ideas — literary, artistic, reflective —
to help us consider the story of Jesus as John presents it to us.
Yesterday, one of the resident poets in our midst read this wonderful
reflection on the opening verses of this story:

Mysterious Ways

“They have no wine,” his mother said to him.
He rolled his eyes. “Not now,” he whispered. “Mom,
please.” She didn’t care about his secrets.
Why bear the Son of God if all he does
is keep it to himself? Here was a time
to make the promise good—and please the neighbors.
“Forget it. Absolutely not. You don’t
have any idea what you’re asking me.
Woman, no.” And he rebuked her with
a godlike gaze. But mildly she turned
and told the servants, “What he tells you, do.”
– Professor Paul Willis (originally published in The Christian Century,
reprinted here by kind permission of the author)

You have no idea how validating it was for me to hear that poem!
I have an interesting relationship with my own son,
one that involves eye-rolling from time to time,
and whenever I read this small gem of a story,
I, too, see the eyes roll and hear the sighs heave.
But what I really love here? That off-handed comment to the servants.
Complete confidence that eventually this son would come around
to his mother’s way of thinking.

And so, with a series of simple imperatives — fill, take, bring —
Jesus steps out into the New World, the one where scarcity is no longer the norm,
where abundance surges forth from the most surprising places.
Water into wine, and not just any old wine, either.
The finest wine of the entire week of feasting,
the best stuff showing up at the last minute.

And then, like a seamstress picking up a sparkling piece of golden thread, John weaves this story together with the overarching theme of the entire book: GLORY.
“What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” (verse 11)

Overflowing wine, delicious wine, the BEST wine —
yet only the servants and the disciples know its source.
Doesn’t sound all that glorious, you know?
The crowds are not pressing in with words of acclaim,
the sky has not opened, the lame do not walk, the lepers are not cleansed.
But John tells us that GLORY happens here,
in the side patio of a sleepy town, where a party is winding down.
GLORY.

Most of the time, I live a pretty ‘small’ life.
I stay home a lot, I entertain and/or visit with family, I write notes on Facebook.
I like my smaller world these days, yet I don’t often think of anything I do
as somehow a reflection of GLORY.
But I’m rethinking that this morning.
I’m wondering if maybe we sell ourselves short,
or more importantly, if we sell God short.
Maybe it’s part of the scarcity mindset, the fear that we don’t have enough,
that we aren’t enough.
Wherever it comes from, I find myself praying today that I can
move away from scarcity thinking to reflecting on, remembering, celebrating,
and even reveling in the abundance that is mine.

Because the truth is this:
NOTHING is small in God’s economy,
NO ONE is forgettable in God’s memory.
And if Jesus can usher in the kingdom with no one
knowing it but the servant and five rag-tag disciples,
maybe we can be kingdom-bearers
in the middle of the dishwater,
the lawn that needs mowing,
the wiping of noses and the changing of diapers,
the attention we give to our school work,
the ‘hello’ we offer to the guy in the next cubicle,
the kindness we show to the salesclerk,
the interactions we have with neighbors,
the time carved out to be with aging parents,
the offering of hospitality even when we may not think we’re ‘ready.’

After all, Jesus hesitates for a moment in this story.
“Not yet!” he tells his mom.

And then, he turns to the servants.

Joining this with Michelle, Jennifer, Ann and Emily this week:

Filed Under: biblical reflection, church year, Encouragement, Spiritual Formation, Sunday Reflections, The Church, Uncategorized, Wonderings in the Word, worship

Learning to Listen: A Guest Post with Anita Mathias

August 1, 2013 By Diana

Many years ago, one of my dearest friends pinpointed a particular problem of mine: I wasn’t really listening when she talked to me.

Oh, I was physically present, with my body turned towards her, ‘hearing’ her words. But I was not truly listening. She told me that I seldom made eye contact and seemed to be constantly distracted by everything else that was going on around us.

Ouch. Her words stung, as the truth so often does.

After a minute or two of denial, I had to admit that she was right on target. I had this habit of trying to multi-task when someone was talking to me.

I too often chose that time to scan the room, or the patio, or the restaurant — wherever the conversation was happening — to be sure I wasn’t missing something important going on around me.

As if the person in front of me was not important enough.

Or, I would busily scan an invisible list in my head, checking off tasks that needed to be done.

As if life is all about how much we can do, accomplish or perform.

Almost always, I found myself so concerned about my own response to whatever I was hearing, that I had little interior space to simply receive the words of another as the gifts they were.

As if my words, my stories, my experiences were of more intrinsic value than the other person’s.

I was there. But. . . I wasn’t. Physical presence? Yes, assuredly. Emotional presence? Not so much.

For most of my life, I have been a busy person, involved in numerous activities and commitments. From family to church to philanthropic groups to running a small business from my home, to attending seminary, to working in the parish setting — I’ve kept my plate full.

My friend’s words came when I was a seminary student, still managing a floral business, and also serving as a pastoral intern at the church we both attended.

I was over-extended, over-tired and emotionally overdrawn. The well was dry.

Listening, really listening, to anyone became increasingly difficult for me to do. Something had to give, priorities needed to be realigned, and I desperately needed to learn what it meant to pay attention to the lives and stories of other people, most especially people near and dear to me.

Please join me over at Anita’s lovely blog, “Dreaming Beneath the Spires,” to see the rest of this reflection and to find out how I learned to listen a bit better. . .

Filed Under: Confession, Encouragement, Guest Post, personal journey, prayer, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Formation

Midweek Service: Written On Our Hearts

July 3, 2013 By Diana

This summer series of long-ago sermons continues with one from Lent in the year 2003 – a full decade ago. We had a different Senior Pastor then and were facing into different life events as a congregation and as a nation. Yet, somehow, this message is not tied to a particular time in history, but an expression of one of the most powerful of God’s timeless truths.

Written on Our Hearts

Jeremiah 31:31-34
April 6, 2003
5th Sunday in Lent
preached at Montecito Covenant Church by
Diana R.G. Trautwein

My husband and I have just returned from a week away – something we both needed and thoroughly enjoyed. We traveled to the desert, and a primary motivating factor for this trip was to see if we could find some displays of famous California wildflowers.

Now both of us are native Californians and we have lived here almost all of our lives, yet we have never done the wildflower bit. People come from all over the world – as we quickly discovered – to see the wonders of the desert on fire with the colors of God’s palette – but we, like the cobbler’s children without any shoes – had never taken the time to see the beauty that God provides for us each and every spring. So this year we did it.

We drove to beautiful, downtown Palmdale the first night out, with the intention of seeing the Poppy Reserve near Lancaster. And we did see the Poppy Reserve, and we actually saw thousands of poppies strewn over the hills and fields. Unfortunately, we didn’t truly see them in all of their splendor and glory because. . .these little flowers, which land where the breezes blow them – and at one time, according to the conquering Spanish explorers, flowed like rivers of molten lava toward the sea with colors so vibrant they could be seen from the decks of their ships as they sailed into what would eventually be known as the Los Angeles harbor area – these little golden flowers are incredibly crafty.

Somewhere written in their DNA is the helpful hint that neither shadow nor wind is good for them. So. . . as the late afternoon sunshine casts longer and longer shadows over the landscape (as it did on the afternoon we arrived) – or as the wind picks up velocity greater than a gentle breeze (which it did the next morning, on our way out to Death Valley) these exceedingly well-bred, vibrantly colored cups of gold clamp their little heads tightly shut and hide themselves away from potential threat – and from poorly-educated flower-viewers like ourselves!

There is a law ‘written on their hearts’ – a law that says: “Darkness and high winds are dangerous to your future – protect yourself!” And California’s golden poppies are totally obedient to that interior instruction. They don’t have to be taught to do this – they KNOW to do it, it’s become a part of their identity as poppies and it just comes naturally.

I wonder. . . what laws are written on our hearts this morning? What do we at the core of our being, know so well that it has become part of our identity? What beliefs/ideas/values/instructions/’laws’ do we hold so close to ourselves that they just come naturally. . .

Tuck those questions in the back of your mind and we’ll get back to them in a few minutes. Because just now, I want to remind us all that for the past four weeks, we’ve been traveling through the Old Testament on our Lenten journey to the cross. We’ve been examining the ways in which Almighty God reached out to his human creatures in order to engage them in relationship. We looked at Noah, the flood and the rainbow promise; we looked at Abraham, a childless old man who was taken by God out into the desert, pointed toward the night sky and promised offspring as numerous as the sparkling canopy of stars above him; we looked at the 10 Commandments given to Moses on the mountain of God – the beautiful law of God that set out parameters in which God’s people could live rich and full lives.

Over these weeks, we began to get a picture of what God had in mind when he created a Covenant people for himself, a people who would belong to him in a particular way, enjoying his love, protection and blessing and, in return, worshipping him alone. And then last week, Curt took us to a point in that covenant relationship that was painfully close to home, and we watched the grumbling, idolatrous, rebellious, cranky people of God decide to move away from the covenant relationship and go their own way, ultimately saved from dismay, despair and death only by the gracious deliverance of the God they had abandoned. This wasn’t the first time God’s covenant people had turned away from the promise, and it most definitely was not the last.

Today, we come – in some ways, at least – to a very different place, in a very different time. Yet some things never change. The prophet Jeremiah has been warning the people of Judah that their days as landowners are numbered. Why? Because they have continued to be a grumbling, idolatrous, rebellious and cranky bunch. They’ve worked their way through judges and kings and wars and alliances and misalliances, all the while ignoring God’s promises and disobeying God’s law. In fact, the people of God are no more. They are living in exile, scattered amongst their enemies, disheartened and disinherited.

And right there, in the midst of that kind of confusion, turmoil, dismay, anxiety. . .right there in the midst of it all, God decides to do a new thing, a radically new thing – a new thing that is based on an old idea – a familiar idea – a covenant idea. And it comes in the form of a promise – a promise to the people of the land that was no more, the people of the divided kingdom, the exiled kingdom, the people whom God chose as his own special tribe, despite their disobedience, despite their failure to be all that he called them to be. And the promise is found in Jeremiah 31:31-34:

“The day will come,” says the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the LORD. “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the LORD. “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their family, saying, `You should know the LORD.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me,” says the LORD. “And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins.”

These beautiful words were given to a people living in exile, a people who had ruptured their relationship with their God so severely that something entirely new was required to salvage things. These words were given to Israel and to Judah and they were words of hope and delight, words of encouragement and reconciliation. And they were built on an entirely new concept. No more rainbows in the sky, no more stars in the night, no more tablets of stone – no more externalsigns for the covenant people of God. No. The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will write my law on their <em >hearts, I will put it in their minds – and they will KNOW me, really, truly, know me –from the inside out>, rather than the other way around. This is a new covenant, says the Lord — a new way of entering into agreement with one another, a new way of enjoying relationship together, a new way of being connected, committed, intertwined, covenanted together.

The old way had not done the job. Coming at things from the outside in wasn’t cutting it. Signs and promises – as wonderful as they are – aren’t powerful enough in and of themselves to change things from the inside out, God knew that, and Israel learned it – through painful and difficult experience. And every one of us in this room can testify to this truth. Tablets of stone, lists of rules, even very clearly laid out instructions for good behavior and wise choices do not make a heckuva lot of difference if we don’t find them inside us. If they’re something outside of ourselves, they can’t effect change that is real and lasting on the inside. They need to be written on our hearts, part of our identity, a natural and normal part of who we are.

Is it any wonder, then, that the early church read these words and saw Jesus in them? Is it any wonder that Jesus himself borrowed this language to talk about his mission, his purpose in life, his work here on earth? As he gathered his disciples in the upper room the night before he was betrayed and murdered, he offered his friends the traditional cup of Passover wine, the cup of blessing, with these very words:

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood,” he said. “Do this in remembering me.” And so they did, and so we do. For this is how God writes his law, his love, on our hearts. . . through the blood of Jesus.

About seven or eight years ago, Alison Krauss sang an old, old gospel song on a highly successful album, a song that puts this marvelous truth into poetry that truly gets your toes to tappin’. It’s called “When God Dips His Pen of Love in My Heart”

When God dips His pen of love in my heart,
And He writes my soul a message He wants me to know.
His spirit all divine, fills this sinful soul of mine.
When God dips His love in my heart.

He walked up every step of Calvary’s rugged way.
And He gave His life completely to bring a better day.
My life was steeped in sin, but in love He took me in.
His blood washed away every stain.

I said I wouldn’t tell it to a livin’ soul.
How He brought salvation and He made me whole.
But I found I couldn’t hide /such a love /as Jesus did impart.
Well. . . He made me laugh and He made me cry.
Set my sinful soul on fire (hallelujah).
When God dips His love in my heart.

Hallelujah.
When God dips His love,
His sweet love,
In my heart.

There was only one way that God could change his people from the inside out – and that way was Jesus. With the incarnation, when God became human and came to walk and talk and live among men and women, it truly became possible for God to dip his pen of love in our hearts.

For in Jesus, the glorious, transcendent creator of the universe comes within touching distance.

In Jesus, the character and the glory of God are fully revealed and realized.

In Jesus, we are able to see the real deal, not our imagined images of either terror or comfort, those pictures of God that we carry around in our heads and our hearts, those pictures that are shaped by our culture, our parents, our own psyches.

We meet Jesus in the pages of scripture and then we meet Jesus in a personal encounter, an experience that changes our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, an experience that calls us to ‘know’ God, starting at the center, starting on the inside, learning more and more about what it means to trust.

Brennan Manning’s book called Ruthless Trust has been enormously helpful to me in understanding what it means to know God in the way that Jeremiah is describing in these beautiful verses before us this morning, especially chapter seven of Manning’s book. For the intimate way in which this verb ‘know’ is used by the prophet implies a relationship firmly built upon trust. “For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me,” says the LORD. “And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins.” The door to intimacy with God is open wide and is totally inclusive – ‘everyone, from the least to the greatest’ – and Jesus is that door.

What exactly is trust and how does it help us know God?

Trust is that marvelous combination of faith and hope – faith that comes from a personal experience of the living God as encountered in Jesus – and hope in the promises of Jesus, with full expectation that the promises he makes will be kept. We need both qualities – faith and hope – in order to grow in trust. If we trust Jesus, we can begin to let him soften our hearts, to write his words of love in our very tender flesh, to rest and relax in that love and to be all of who we are without fear. “I will forgive their wickedness,” the Lord tells us in Jeremiah, “and will never again remember their sins.” Manning talks about it this way:

“Our trust in Jesus grows as we shift from making self-conscious efforts to be good to allowing ourselves to be as we are (not as we should be). The Holy Spirit moves us from the head to the heart . . .”

And as that trust grows, we find ourselves understanding at deeper and deeper levels what it means to be in relationship with a covenant-making God. There are most certainly no guarantees that life will be trouble-free. On the contrary, Jesus himself warned that following him would involve suffering, possibly even rejection and death. What is promised is love, what is promised is acceptance and forgiveness, what is promised is peace, what is promised is presence, even when the way seems overwhelmingly difficult, even when life seems way too complicated, even when tears are our constant companion. And we could add this morning, even when we are a nation at war, even when our pastor is leaving, even when our loved ones are suffering. Even then. . . he is worthy of our trust.

The rabbis of old noticed that in this passage in Jeremiah the word ‘on’ is used when describing our hearts rather than the word ‘in,’ and they wrestled with that word choice for years. Why did God’s Word say ‘on’ our hearts? Why not ‘in’? The answer they came to was this:

The text reads ‘on’ so that when our hearts are broken (as they always will be in this life), then the love written there can fall ‘in’ and help us to heal.

So now I’m back to the beginning. . . and I’m wondering. . . what is written on our hearts? Do we find ‘laws’ like:

“Success at all costs.”
“Things are more important than people.”
“You can never be too rich or too thin.”

Or perhaps like these:

“I’m basically a no-good, worthless pile of nothing.”
“If I let people come too close, they’ll see what I’m really like and hate me.”
“I’ve been hurt before and nobody’s gonna do that again.”
“If I smile and say ‘I’m fine,’ nobody will know how much pain I’m in.”

When your heart breaks – and believe me, it will – are those the kinds of ‘laws’ that you want to fall in? What possible healing can those words bring?

Ah, but if you are growing in your trust, your knowledge of God, then perhaps you are beginning to find laws like these at the center of who you are, words of love written on your heart:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
“Because of Jesus, I know that Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, is also Abba, Father.”
“I am his and he is mine.”
“Jesus loves me, this I know.”

May it be so – by the grace of God, may it be so.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Encouragement, God's gifts, Sermons/Homilies, Spiritual Formation, Uncategorized

The One Thing That Silences Heaven

May 1, 2013 By Diana

I’ve read the book several times.
I’ve even taken an entire seminary class on it.
That helped, actually.
That helped me to see the book as a whole,
instead of a bunch of crazy-making pieces;
as a dramatic re-telling of God’s story,
of incarnation, salvation, faithfulness in the journey,
hope for the future.

Still.

It’s a tough nut to crack,
filled as it is with highly visual language,
pictures of strange creatures, horrendous battles,
frightening predictions.

So when it showed up in the lectionary for this Eastertide season,
and when Pastor Jon chose to use those texts
for the preaching series,
I will admit to a few moments of freak-out.
“Oh, no!” I thought. “Not THAT.”

I’m talking about the book of REVELATION,
that frequently misinterpreted, over-analyzed, deeply profound
collection of visions from John, the teacher, as his life neared its end.
To tell you the truth, I was dreading it a little.

Little did I know.

This has been a dynamite series, rich with meaning and encouragement.
Our Director of Worship Arts took up Jon’s challenge to write a song
for each week in the series;
our chancel artists have outdone themselves with altar pieces,
and Jon (and Anna, our intern this year)
have preached the word with power.

From Revelation.

Each week’s text has been centered around a worship scene in heaven,
worship — the true theme of this book.
The magnificent songs that fill these passages are
ones that have been written and re-written over the centuries,
enriching worship services from Orthodox to Pentecostal,
and most certainly enlivening our worship, week by week this Eastertide.

This week’s text was particularly powerful — please read it below the picture.

“When he opened the seventh seal,
there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
And I saw the seven angels who stand before God,
and seven trumpets were given to them.
Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar.
He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people,
on the golden altar before the throne.
The smoke of the incense,
together with the prayers of God’s people,
went up before God from the angel’s hand.
Then the angel took the censer,
filled it with fire from the altar,
and hurled it on the earth;
and there came peals of thunder, rumblings,
flashes of lightning and an earthquake.” — Revelation 8:1-5

Did you catch that?
“There was silence in heaven. . .
for about half an hour.”

Silence. In heaven.

And what is that makes all the noise in heaven come to a halt?

The prayers of God’s people are being offered on the altar.
The prayers of God’s people.

Rising like incense, heaven is silenced as the people of God
offer their prayers, their words of thanks and praise,
their, ‘Help, ‘Thanks’, ‘Wow,’ as Anne Lamott has put it recently.

EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IN HEAVEN IS QUIET WHEN WE PRAY.

This is a picture I want to keep in my mind’s eye, day in and day out.
This is a vision that is important for us to grab,
to savor,
to hang onto
when it feels like all the silence
is on THIS end of the prayer equation.

The big take-away from this picture is this:

NEVER DOUBT FOR A MOMENT THAT YOUR GROANS AND SIGHS
ARE HEARD IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS.

NEVER.

All of heaven quiets for our cries.

And then, after the hearing:

those words, those sighs, those groans,
THOSE PRAYERS. . .
are thrown right back down onto the earth.
Do you see what happens?

“. . . and there came peals of thunder, rumblings,
flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

As John enters into this vision, he actually sees our prayers —
ascending like incense, and then descending with power.

There are dangerous things going on when we pray, my friends.
Dangerous, wondrous, life-changing things.
The ways of the world are upset, the dynamic,
ever-fluid partnership that God Almighty has established with
the people of God is alive and well and making a difference.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE.

So why, then, do we spend so little time in prayer?
Why do we more often choose to spin our wheels,
to worry,
to busy ourselves
with whatever we think it
is God ‘needs’ us to do
in order to change this world of ours?

Why is prayer so often a last-order resort
rather than our first thought?
Do we feel like we’re taking an illegal escape route of some sort?
Do we think there’s something magical about it all?
Are we afraid to take the risk of believing
that the God of the Universe
invites us into the work of creation,
the plan of salvation,
the transformational work of redemption?

Or maybe we worry too much about being ‘nice,’ and polite,
politically correct and proper when we pray.
Maybe we need to remember the psalms of lament,
the cries of dereliction,
the heartfelt pleas of those who suffer
that are woven throughout scripture.
Maybe we need to shout down heaven’s doors when despair hits us hard.
Maybe we need to keep on pounding and pounding on the gate,
like the widow who refuses to stop pleading her case.

Maybe we don’t believe that prayer makes any difference at all.

Ah. But it does. It does.

Not always the difference we hope for,
maybe not even very often the difference we hope for.
But maybe, just maybe,
that’s not the point.

Maybe the point is that prayer is the greatest school of all,
prayer is how we learn and grow and understand.
Prayer is the cauldron in which the work of the Spirit gets done in us,
and then through us, in the worlds we inhabit, day after day after day.
Maybe the prayers that we offer to God are then flung back into our very souls
as fire and lightning and earthquake . . .
changing us from the inside out.

Maybe prayer is where the truest transformation takes place.

And maybe, just maybe,
the deepest experience of prayer begins to happen,
when we, too, learn to be silent.
To stop.
To pay attention.
To offer just one word, or two,
to sit in the presence of God,
in the anteroom of heaven itself,
and become prayer.

Our very selves, offered on the altar, and then flung back to earth,
slivers of shimmering reflected glory,
living out that deepest, wildest, most profound prayer of them all:

THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

AMEN.

Joining with Jennifer and Emily and Ann tonight.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, biblical study, church year, prayer, Spiritual Formation, The Church, Uncategorized, worship

Grace and Peace — Lenten Services

February 21, 2013 By Diana

Am I ready for this?

I’ve been sitting in the back pew for over two years now, and happy to do so.
Enjoying the leadership of others, fed by the word,
encouraged by the music,
grateful for the community.

After a few months of some disorientation,
wondering a bit about how I’d discover who I am
without the hard-earned role of pastor as my identity,
it’s been a rich two years,
filled with surprises and grace upon grace.

Who knew that reading and writing and meeting people
through the miracle that is the internet
could be so rich, so challenging?
Not I, that’s for sure.
It has been wondrous serendipity for me,
week after week.
Reading good words,
thoughtfully offered;
giving and receiving encouragement,
finding a prayer community.

To tell you the truth, it’s been a lot like pastoring.

So much so, that I have not missed the work like I feared I might.
So much so, that I’ve discovered that long stretches of
unscheduled silence and solitude,
by the sea or in the quiet of my bedroom,
can be gift-beyond-measure.
So much so, that working with directees in person,
and communicating with a wide range of ‘parishioners’ via the interwaves
has filled that pastor-piece very nicely indeed.

So it was with some trepidation that I assumed ‘the mantel’ this month.
On February 1st, I began a 3-month, very part-time stretch
as. . . Associate Pastor, once again.
And to start things off, I was invited to do something I love —
planning and leading a series of six Lenten services,
in preparation for Holy Week and Easter.

We began with a simple soup supper on Ash Wednesday, one week ago tonight.
We had about 25 RSVP’s,
but enough soup and bread for the nearly 70 people who showed up.

Then another 20 people joined them in the worship center
as we began to celebrate the beginning of Lent,
sharing communion and ashes.

There is a sweet seriousness about Lent,
about worship in Lent.
There is an intentional slowing,
a purposeful remembering,
a focussed attention.

The structure is simple,
both formal and informal,
with responsively read prayers,
songs in a minor key,
times of silence and confession.
But there is also coming forward to tear the bread and dip into the cup.
There is a time for public offering of brief prayer requests,
and a shared response to each one . . .
“Hear our prayer, O Lord.”
And there is the passing of the peace.

I love the combination of words written
and words offered,
words from the tradition and
words from the heart.
I like reaching out to one another,
with a hug or a handshake,
a ‘peace of the Lord be with you.’

I’ve done the brief homily for the first two of our six,
braiding thoughts from the four scripture passages
read aloud during the liturgy.
And tonight,
with a very much smaller group,
I also offered the bread and the cup.

Doing this again makes me want to take off my shoes;
I am standing on holy ground,
offering the gifts of God to the people of God,
saying the words to each person by name:
“The bread of heaven, the cup of salvation,
for you, . . . “
“The body of Christ, the blood of Christ,
for you, . . .”

This is the heart of it all, isn’t it?
For you,
for me,
for all of us together?
All of us together.

Whether that ‘all’ is 250 or 12,
this is our collective story,
our shared remembering.

This is who we are; this is why we’re here.

I am including the homily from tonight’s service below the links to Jennifer’s place and Emily’s and Ann’s.

Lent, Week One — Brief Homily on Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans
10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

Four scripture passages, just like every week in the church year. But these four? They seem to have something important in common. And I think maybe it’s this: they all call us to remember important things.

The Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy? “Remember the story. . .” –the story of deliverance, of faithfulness. Tell it again and again and tell it with thanksgiving made visible in offerings and words and oil and song and respect.

The psalm? “Remember that refuge is found in God alone. . .” — when we name the name of Almighty God, we are secure in God’s presence, no matter what comes.

Paul’s letter to the church at Rome? “Remember that the word is near you. . .” —
in your mouth and in your heart, and this living word is how we find rescue, how we are being saved, day by day.

And the gospel lesson — ah, yes, the gospel lesson. . . That one’s a little harder to pull out, but I think maybe it’s something like this: “Remember to have your yeses so firmly in place that your noes will be almost automatic. . .”

And the through line all the way along, in each of the four, is this idea of ‘the word.’ The WORD — whether that word is the name of God, or faith in the resurrection, or offerings poured out in thanksgiving, or meeting up with the devil himself in the wilderness wasteland after 40 days of fasting and isolation — the Word is central.

Familiarity with The Word — learning it by heart as well as by head. Knowing the details of the story of deliverance, knowing them in our very marrow. Sitting with the story long enough to breathe it in and breathe it out. Absorbing the words as if they were living things, because that is exactly what they are, living and life-giving things.

Even when we’re at the end of our natural resources, even when we’re exhausted and hungry and thirsty, even when we’re wandering in the back of beyond, seeking the Face of God, carrying with us a blessing.

That pretty much describes where Jesus was in our gospel lesson tonight, right? From the high point of the dove descending in the River Jordan, to the immediate journey to the desert, to the 40 days of concentrated prayer and filling with the Spirit, Jesus is at his most vulnerable point when the devil shows up: weak, tired, hungry.

But ready.

Ready to meet the temptations thrust in his face, one by one, each invitation offered parried by a word from the Book.

We can only imagine what those 40 days were like for him – we are given no details other than it was a long season of fasting and solitude. What I imagine happening is something like this: gathering thoughts, solidifying goals, wrestling through the hard stuff, cementing in his mind and in his spirit who he was and why he came. Learning the YESES of kingdom work.

I think Jesus understood so clearly who he was and what he was about that saying ‘no’ was just about the most natural thing he could do when that temptor showed up. He knew the ‘yes,’ so he could offer the no. No to magic tricks. No to power plays. No to super stunts.

Yes to grace. Yes to worship of the True God. Yes to the upside down world that was his to usher in. YES to the story of God’s love for the world.

I wonder, what are the yeses in my life, in yours? Do we have them clearly in mind, part of our DNA? Yes to grace. Yes to God. Yes to the upside-down-ness of the gospel.

Because if we do, then saying no gets a whole lot simpler, doesn’t it? I’m pretty sure none of us is tempted to jump off a pinnacle in order to prove that angels will save us.

And I’m guessing that we don’t hear dark whispers, enticing us to make stones into bread.

Ah, but I too often succumb to the siren call of things that do not truly nourish me or others. All kinds of things – from food that is lousy for me to words that I read or say that do not bring life. I sometimes wrestle with the need to feel important and needed, to have others validate me and offer me ‘authority and splendor.’ How about you?

What are the words that can help us with the particular wildernesses in which we find ourselves these days? Where are they found?

Right here, around this table. That’s a good place to start. This is the primary place of remembering, for us who follow in the Jesus way, isn’t it? Remembering the story, remembering the refuge, remembering the word, remembering what we so need to say ‘yes’ to.

Remembering the gift and grace of salvation, taking in the bread and the juice, letting it flood us with light and hope, with peace and grace. Amen.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Church, church year, Lent, preaching, Spiritual Formation, Taize, The Church, Uncategorized

An Advent Journal: Stop, Look, Listen – Day 2

December 3, 2012 By Diana

“I, Paul, together here with Silas and Timothy, send greetings to the church at Thessalonica, Christians assembled by God the Father and by the Master, Jesus Christ. God’s amazing grace be with you! God’s robust peace!

Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night you’re in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in following our Master, Jesus Christ, before God our Father. It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much, but also has put his hand on you for something special. When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn’t just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions.

You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you, and determined to live that way yourselves. In imitating us, you imitated the Master. Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit — taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.

Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces, but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore — you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead — Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom. — 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, The Message

There are times in life when the sight of one beautiful red leaf in the middle of a rain-soaked sidewalk is enough to carry you through all kinds of puddles ahead. The day may be grim, the majority of the leaves dried up and rattling in the wind, but there it is. That one thing of beauty, the one that makes you gasp and say, “Thank you!” The one that makes you remember the joy.

It’s not that the puddles disappear or that the brown leaves are suddenly green again. No. The ugliness remains. But somehow, all that is dead and dying is more bearable, a kind of balance has been struck. I cannot explain it, I only know it when it happens. “Taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.”

And into the middle of gray days and bone-chilling winds and too-early darkness comes. . . Advent. A small candle flickering against the gloom, a beacon of hope and promise. A time to wait, yes. But a time to wait with hope.

Where is your red leaf today? Where do you find hope?

Adjust our vision, Lord. Help us to see the trembling flame, the single shining beacon that will lead us to the center of the fulcrum. Help us to find that balance between trouble and joy. And then embolden us to help others find it, too. It doesn’t take much, does it? Just something the size of a red leaf.

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, church year, daily devo, Encouragement, ministry, Spiritual Formation

An Advent Journey: Stop, Look, Listen – Day One, First Sunday

December 2, 2012 By Diana

“O LORD, I give my life to you.

I trust in you, my God!

Do not let me be disgraced,

or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat.

No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced,

but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.

Show me the right path, O LORD;

point out the road for me to follow.

Lead me by your truth and teach me,

for you are the God who saves me.

All day long I put my hope in you.

Remember, O LORD, your compassion and unfailing love,

which you have shown from long ages past.

Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth.

Remember me in the light of your unfailing love,

for you are merciful, O LORD.

The LORD is good and does what is right;

he shows the proper path to those who go astray.

He leads the humble in doing right,

teaching them his way.

The LORD leads with unfailing love and faithfulness

all who keep his covenant and obey his commands.”

Psalm 25:1-10, NLT

Somewhere on the internet this past week, I saw a little tidbit about Frederick Buechner’s ‘last’ book, one that he, one of the most popular Christian authors of the last 30 years, had a hard time getting published. To say I was stunned would be a very large understatement. So I promptly looked up the book (The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany) and ordered a copy for myself. It was eventually published — now fours years ago (!) — and consists of remembrances, short essays, assorted bits and pieces from his long, literary life. I am loving it as I chew on a morsel or two each evening.

Here is a brief paragraph that grabbed me by the neck this past week and shook me pretty hard. It is part of a chapter entitled, “Bulletin Board,” in which Buechner describes a variety of photographs scattered around his office, telling a brief story about each person pictured:

“Frank Tracy Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, is smiling benignly in his dog collar and steel-rimmed glasses, that strikingly intelligent, articulate, sweet-tempered man. He told me that once when he was taking a shower, he distinctly heard a voice from somewhere saying, ‘Why do you take your sins so much more seriously than I do?’ His first reaction was to burst into laughter. His second was to burst into tears.”

All my life, I’ve been taught that my sins, and the sins of everyone else in this wide, wonderful world, are the reason that Jesus came in the flesh. The love of God was in there somewhere, but my own sin sort of took center stage in the teaching of my youth. So reading a small, explosive paragraph like this one sometimes stops me in my tracks.

Then I read through the psalm for today, the first day of Advent – the first Sunday of Advent. And I remembered: the Psalmist, singing centuries before that Baby was born in the stable, the Psalmist sings about ‘unfailing love,’ about mercy, about God’s gentle guidance in the way that is right and true. This song is about God pointing the way, pointing the right way.

And I began to remember, to see, to celebrate that Jesus came to show us how: how to live in this world, how to die to this world, how to live forever. And showing us the way includes pointing out the sin that cripples and wounds us. It includes the shedding of precious blood and the rending of tender flesh that we might be healed. It includes learning to live in the center of God’s goodness and grace and ‘unfailing love.’

Contrition is right and good and necessary. Repentance is right and good and necessary. But focusing exclusively on how terrible we are ultimately turns the whole wonderful story completely on its head. Love comes first. Forgiveness comes first. Desire for relationship and healing and wholeness – these are far more serious than our sin. And that is cause for wonder, cause even for joyous laughter.

And that is also, of course, cause for tears. Tears of gratitude, humility, and tender homage. Because that precious Baby came — and that Glorious Savior will come — for love’s sake alone. Imagine that!

Point us in the right direction, Jesus. As we step into Advent this year, remind us where we fall short, yes, we need those reminders. But O LORD, whisper to us of love, sing to us of forgiveness, beckon us toward holy righteousness. Because YOU are righteous and because of Jesus, so are we. Thank you!

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, church year, daily devo, Encouragement, God's gifts, Spiritual Formation

Small things… 2009 – Archive-Diving

December 2, 2012 By Diana

In this long process of moving my blog (sometime early in the new year, most likely), I am digging into the archives and re-editing some draft posts that were never published. This one was written over three years ago, right after I sent an email, intended for just one person, and accidentally sent it to hundreds. Yes. I did that. And it felt pretty horrible. Thankfully, God is gracious and so are God’s people and we all survived. I do not, however, recommend carelessness with email, or any other kind of correspondence. :>) Maybe someone out there can empathize with these sentiments:

It’s a funny thing about horizons. Depending on distance, objects can appear to be much smaller than they actually are.

30 foot fishing boats can appear to be no larger than a gnat when viewed from the shore. Sometimes life events are like that.

Things that seem like tiny errors can explode into potentially life-altering happenings in the blink of an eye.

Why is that? Perhaps because we live as fallen, broken people in a fallen, broken world. We are not perfect. We make mistakes, all the time.

We speak too quickly – and someone’s feelings are hurt.

Our eyes miss a date on the calendar and we fail to keep an appointment that is crucial.

We get in a hurry and cut off a conversation too soon, just as important revelations are to be made.

We fill our brains with so much information that the truly important stuff gets crowded out by what has been termed the ‘tyranny of the urgent.’

We don’t take the extra 2 minutes to move from reaction to response when we’re surprised or startled by something new, and we blurt things that should be stopped at the lips and eventually removed from the brain.

Lord, have mercy. We are your broken people, wanting to live in step with your sweet Spirit, but far too often missing the mark. Thank you for grace. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for the chance to start anew.

And save us from ourselves, please. We are far too often our own very worst enemies.

Filed Under: Archive-Diving, Confession, Spiritual Formation

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 24

October 24, 2012 By Diana

Yesterday was an amazing day.
Startling, sometimes confusing,
interesting and humbling.
In the middle of this 31-day blogging craziness,
I put up this small post to tell you about an essay
I wrote over at A Deeper Church.
In that brief post, I also urged you to
read my friend Emily’s post in which
she asked some questions about the very
topic I was speaking about right next door to her.
The comment thread, especially on her essay,
was pretty overwhelming.

But here is what I feel about it,
late this night,
after spending about 14 of the last 36 hours
in the car, driving up and down this
magnificently beautiful state of ours:

I feel profoundly grateful.
And humble.
I would happily wash Emily’s feet,
and I believe she would do the same for me.
And that? THAT is a beautiful thing.

I slept last night in a retreat center in Burlingame, CA,
run by the Sisters of Mercy.
Our meeting room there contained about a dozen
magnificent prints by a Japanese artist from the 20th century
named Sadao Watanabe.
I tried to take photos of them all,
but a few of them showed too much reflection from
the hideous (why oh why??) florescent lighting.
These two, however, are perfect.

Two different interpretations

of the same seminal event

in the life and ministry of our Lord,

our Savior,

our Christ.

Jesus – the Son of God,

the Creator of the universe,

the only fully Human Being who ever walked

the dusty roads of this globe –

washing the feet of his disciples.

And then telling us to do the same for one another.

THIS is who we are, dear friends.

We are the ones who follow Jesus.

We are the ones who share in the bread and cup.

And we are the ones who wash one another’s feet.
Whether we agree with one another on every doctrine or not.
Whether we work at home or outside the home.
Whether we homeschool our kids or send them to school
Whether we even like each other or not!

We are the ones who wash each other’s feet.

And that –
because Jesus did it,
because Jesus
continues to do it through each of us –

that is BEAUTY.

Humbly joining with Michelle, Jen, Jennifer, Ann, Duane, and OF COURSE, Emily: