Church

A Prayer for “This Day” — offered in Worship, 8/18/19

August 21, 2019 By Diana

“This day all His mercies are new.
This day ev’ry promise is true.
Father help me to believe,
Give me faith I need
to know you and trust you this day.
This day.”

Good Shepherd,
there are many things — situations/people/relationships —
about which we could pray today.
The state of the world — our country,
the tragic situation at our borders,
the state of the church —
around the world,
in our country,
right here in Santa Barbara.

But in light of these lovely words that were just sung,
it feels right and good to center down on just one thing.
And so, Lord God, we want to pause right now
and say ‘thank you,’ for this day.

Thank you for this time, set aside
to be together in your presence.
Thank you for the person to our left,
and the person to our right,
no matter how near or far from us they may be.

Thank you for this lovely space,
for songs, both old and new,
for your Word,
for the chance to give back to you a small portion
of the gifts we enjoy;
thank you for the little ones who gather on these steps,
and thank you for the time, energy and skill that is poured into this hour,
each and every week,
from our dedicated and gifted staff,
and from a long list of volunteers, too.

Thank you for THIS day, when we sit shoulder to shoulder
and turn our attention in your direction for 75 minutes.
May what we do and what we say and what we hear
enrich our own journey of discipleship
and may all of it reflect both our love for you and
your great love for us.

When we get caught up in the details of our lives,
the demands and commitments, the habits and struggles,
the relationships and the input from so many places —
when we get caught up in all of that,
it is so easy for us to forget
that all we’ve really got in this life is . . .

this day.

Whatever day it is, that is the day we have.
We are promised no more than that, ever.

Will you help us to pause
and say thank you in the midst of each one of
the ‘this days’ we’re given, please?
Because each and every one of them –
well, they land in our lap like small jewels.
Sometimes, that jewel of a day
is clear and shiny, and filled with promise;
sometimes it feels decidedly dull or even dark.

But whatever any of our days contain,
each one always holds the gift
of life with you.
Always.

When we’re walking through seasons of loss,
of massive change,
of anxious wondering about what’s coming next,
or of new beginnings —
like the school year,
or a new job,
or an uncertain invitation of some kind —
those are the times when it’s harder for us to take that pause,
hit that re-set button and say,
“Ah, the gift of this day!
Thank you, Lord.”

Forgive us for the myriad ways we allow that gift
to get buried beneath . . .
our lists,
our worries,
our addictions,
our obligations,
our need to control outcomes,
our fears about the future.

Release us, O Lord, from all of that and help us
to hear your gentle invitation
to trust,
to follow,
to be thankful,
to accept with grace
whatever each one of our ‘this day’s may bring us.

Guide us now, as we listen to your Word
and as your servant comes to break it open for us.
Lead us into the truth you have for us
to learn this day,
may we open our hearts as well as our ears,
for Jesus’ sake,
through the power of the Holy Spirit,
because of the love of our Good Creator.
Amen.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Blessings, Church, community, Confession, Encouragement, God's gifts, Grace, prayer

Let Go, Let God — for Addie Zierman’s LinkUp

September 26, 2018 By Diana

So, this whole ‘let go and let God’ cliche from so many voices in the evangelical world. I’ve written about and around and through this whole idea from lots of different angles over the years, most especially as this cliche morphs with others — like, ‘he must increase, I must decrease,’ or ‘more of Jesus, less of me.’ There’s something about the whole ‘dying to self’ mentality that has gotten more than a little bit twisted over the decades. The longer I live — and clearly, that has been a lotta years now — the less I like any of it. In truth, I believe that this particular worldview has done far more harm than it has good.

When we advocate for the annihilation of the self — and at its core, this phrase is advocating for exactly that — we are lying to people, big-time. We are teaching something that is diametrically opposed to the kind of life Jesus invites us to live, the kind of life Jesus modeled for us, the kind of life we are designed to inhabit. We are, in a word, deeply devaluing the Incarnation. God took on our flesh — that’s how deeply we are loved. That’s how valued human flesh is — every single human-fleshed person ever exisiting — every.single.one.

Please hear me clearly here: I am not in any way disparaging the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross, nor am I saying that we are destined for an easy, comfortable life. If the gospel shows us anything, it is that a life lived well is a life lived with generosity, kindness, tolerance, joy and acceptance. It is also a life marked by suffering, loss, sorrow, grief, tragedy and sometimes unspeakable horror. We are human persons, living in a world of beauty and of terror. Life lived here will always be a mixed bag. Yet we are promised joy in the midst of all the mess and mayhem. How is that possible?

Well, it doesn’t happen by abdicating our selfhood. It doesn’t happen by waiting for some kind of robotic activity within our zombie-like bodies under the strange spell of a god who is outside of us and chooses to use us like puppets on a stage.

It does happen when we are open to the possibility of partnership.

When we say ‘yes’ to the sweet voice of the Spirit who woos us with an invitation to join the dance.

It happens when we spend time, energy, effort — and money, as needed! — to discover who we are and how we’re wired. It then becomes our ‘job,’ if you like — our primary task in life — to experience God’s delight in us and to realize that it is God’s delight that both invites and empowers us to use our unique mix of gifts and talents in service of the kingdom dream. And that is going to look different for every single one of us.

There are no duplicates in God’s design. And we will never, ever become clones of anyone, not even Jesus. Hopefully, there will be in us — as in an old, married couple — an increasing similarity, striking ways in which we begin to resemble one another and our elder brother. But letting go of who we uniquely are at the core of our being is not what is required. Not at all. On the contrary, it is when we discover and release our ‘who-ness’ that God is most delighted and most honored. Ireneaus got it right, all those centuries ago, “The glory of God is a human person, fully alive.”

There will always be things to let go of, oh, yes, there will. Most particularly, we must learn to release all the accretions of time and choice that are keeping us from knowing and being our truest selves. Things like pride, fear, obsessive drives of any kind, besetting sins. Those things we must part with — or at least, keep working on!

But that center piece, that true blue, loving, imago dei? Oh, no — not that. Not ever that. YOU are designed in the image of a loving, creative, hard-working, knows-when-to-call-it-a-day, merciful, justice-seeking, lovely, kind and joyful GOD. A God who sends some spark of divinity right into each and every soul that draws breath on this planet. A God who sees, knows, loves, and draws forth that spark, over and over and over again. A God whose desire is for our good, for our growth, for our mutual embrace. A God who — beyond our power to reason, imagine or sometimes, even believe — wants human beings to jump into the circle and DANCE.

Don’t ever let go of that.

Joining this reflection with Addie Zierman’s, “Let Go, Let God” link-up. Oh YAY for link-ups!

Filed Under: Addie Zierman's Monthly Link-Up, Beauty, biblical reflection, Church, community, Confession, Creativity, Delight!, Encouragement, Enough, God's gifts, Grace, Gratitude, Hard Things, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Wonderings in the Word

A Prayer for Those Needing Hope

August 19, 2018 By Diana

As is my custom, whenever I am asked to offer prayer in public worship, I post it here. Today, I also had the privilege of leading the worship service, in the absence of both of our pastors. Another congregant, Dr. Greg Spencer, Professor of Communication at Westmont College, preached a powerful word on learning to hope well. This prayer was built on two passages — Psalm 33:18-22 and John 11:1-44. Immediately before this prayer, the congregation sang 3 verses of
“Be Still, My Soul.”

I want to invite you to still your souls for a few moments. To quiet and center yourselves in the presence of the God who loves you,
the Lord who is on your side,
the One who is your best, your heavenly friend.
I will extend this same invitation to stillness
at several points throughout today’s prayer.

Please pray with me:

Faithful Friend,
Loving Father,
Beautiful Savior,
Winsome Holy Spirit,

Blow through the cobwebs,
loosen the grip of fear and anxiety,
free us from the distraction of the various responsibilities we carry,
open our minds and our hearts to YOU.

Help us to remember you are consistently guiding us to a future which you can see, but we cannot. You are not controlling us or condemning us, you are guiding us.You are coming alongside, you are a companion on the way. A companion who knows us, inside and out . . . and loves us anyway.

Part of what keeps us distracted, what makes it difficult to still ourselves, are all the lists we carry around in our heads. One of those is the list of ways in which we have fallen short — fallen short of who you’ve designed us to be and fallen short of what you’ve called us to do.

So, in the silence of the next moment or two, help us to still our souls, and to offer that list to your tender care. Help us to also receive the forgiveness and acceptance that your grace makes possible.

Hear our prayer, O Lord:

+++Silence+++

There are other lists inside our heads, too, Lord, lists we sometimes fail to recognize
or acknowledge in ways that might bring us life and joy. A primary one of those is the gratitude list — all those things, which, if we take just a minute to think about it, we are deeply grateful for — things about our life, our work, our community, our home, our relationships. It’s a good thing to be grateful, God, a very good thing. So hear our words of thanksgiving now, as we sit, quietly, with you.

+++Silence+++

And as a gentle word of encouragement to those sitting nearby us, we offer to you one or two items from that list out loud, all together, right now:

+++Shared speech+++

Oh, it’s lovely thing to say thank you! And we truly do have so many things for which to say it. “Thank you! Thank you!”

Then there is different kind of list, a heavier one. That’s the list of people and situations that feel difficult, maybe even hopeless to us — physical, emotional, mental, financial, political, relational — all of them places of pain, in our lives and in the lives of others whom we love. Hear and answer, O Lord, as we silently lift to you some portion of that list which we each carry in our hearts. Have mercy, Lord Jesus. Hear us as we pray:

+++Silence+++

Last, but far from least, in that pile of lists we carry with us is the one which holds those things we hope for — events, milestones, healing, newness, times of refreshment, moments of reconciliation — this list is unique to each one of us and yet the hope is something we share, at a level deeper than words. Will you help us to hope well? To trust that you know best? To learn from our mistakes, to focus on your faithfulness, and to practice resurrection as we wait? Help us in this moment of stillness to verbalize or to visualize those things for which we hope:

+++Silence+++

God of all hope, thank you for listening. Thank you for the invitation to be still in your presence, and for the assurance that though the way may be thorny, the end, ah, the end, is filled with joy.

Be with our brother Greg as he breaks open the Word for us this morning. And bless our pastors this day, Lord God — Ian and his family as they find rest and recreation in the Sierras, and Jon and his family as they meet and worship with the congregation in Salem on this day. May each one of them find moments of soul-stillness, moments when the assurance of your loving presence fills them, and us, with joyful expectation.

We pray all these things in the blessed name of Jesus, the Christ, Amen.

John 11:1-44
“Well, what did you expect?”

Here you are reading this. You anticipated something, or you hoped for something, right? “What did you expect?” is a question we often hear—and it has a hint of criticism in it. “Aren’t you shrewd enough to know what’s coming next . . . that there would be traffic . . . or a negative answer . . . or that you would need your sweatshirt?” Expectations are part of how we think and talk about the future. So are anticipations and hopes. Jesus cares about how we live in relationship to the future. He wants us to “anticipate well” by keeping our insistent expectations about this world low and our hopes for what God can do high. Sound like a hard line to walk? We’ll walk through it together this Sunday morning.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Church, community, Confession, Encouragement, Grace, Gratitude, hope, prayer, Public Prayers, silence, stillness

Who Says?? — an essay for SheLovesMagazine, July 2018

July 13, 2018 By Diana

Sunset refracting on the Baltic Sea, June 2018

Depending upon our age, family background, religious experience, friendships and a long list of other variables unique to our own story, discovering our personal territory can be tricky business. Where do we fit in this world? What tasks or joys are ours to bear and to share? Where do we go to discern answers to those questions?

Who says?

Whom do we give authority to speak into our life? Do we allow that influence intentionally or automatically? Might there be other options available to us, maybe even preferable for us, than the ones we have assumed?

Who soys?

I think it may take a lifetime to answer that question well and thoroughly. We are always unpeeling the onion that is us, taking off another layer, carving off the accretions we’ve accumulated from the various ages and stages of our life. There is a lot of two-steps-forward-one-step-backward on this journey. And one of the best questions we can ask as we do the good work of peeling back those layers is this one:

Who says?

For example — who told us we were ‘less than’ or even ‘differently called than’ because we were born female? Or male? Or somewhere in between? Whom do we allow to define us, limit us, box us in, decide what we can and cannot do? Where do we go for answers? Whose voice echoes most loudly in our interior conversations?

Surely, our parents show up all along the way, bringing with them their own baggage and boxes. Yet cultural mores and values shift constantly, and sometimes, the ones we were raised to believe were sacrosanct, written in concrete, indelible and eternal . . . simply are not. So how much power do we give to parental/familial voices?

If we grew up in a faith community, the voices of our congregation(s) show up in our psyche as well. Much of what we heard there may stand the test of time and truth, but some of it? Not so much. Understandings morph, interpretation shifts, life experience teaches us to examine and re-examine what we’ve learned. And there are all kinds of ways in which these things are learned. Some of it comes at us didactically, in classroom settings or from a pulpit. But more of it trickles into us from conversations on the sidewalk, from expectations laid on us by a long list of teachers/preachers/leaders, most of whom are as trapped by expectation as the rest of us.

Other powerful voices, ones that can significantly expand our understanding of who we are and where our personal territory begins and ends, may come to us from books, articles, art exhibits, music, plays and movies. As I look back over my own story, I gratefully acknowledge that some of the most powerful voices helping me through times of transition have been artists, writers, poets, composers, musicians, movie-makers and dramatists.

Our image of ourselves needs adjustment, expansion, tender care, and honest exploration.

CLICK TO TWEET

Who says, indeed?

The journey to wisdom and self-acceptance takes us to some deeply introspective places. Our image of ourselves, our empathy for others, even our experience of God’s winsome and challenging place in our lives—all of it needs adjustment, expansion, tender care, and honest exploration. Learning to discern the sweet breeze of the Spirit often requires us to jettison a whole lot of what we thought we knew. And that means consistently asking ourselves, “Who says?”

Filed Under: Aging, Blogging, Church, SheLoves

A Prayer for the Table — Second Sunday in Lent, 2018

March 10, 2018 By Diana

A Prayer for the Table
offered on the Second Sunday in Lent, March 4, 2018
Montecito Covenant Church
coming out of a powerful sermon from Jeremiah 29,
preached by Pastor Jon Lemmond

Lord Almighty, you are our God in the midst of life —
in good times and in hard times,
in beauty and in disarray,
in success and in failure,
in life and in death.
Thank you.

Thank you that you know our names,
that you care about our story,
and that you invite us to make our home in you.
Thank you most of all, on this day, on this Lenten Sunday,
that you take the broken pieces of our hearts
and weave them together to make art,
in ways we cannot now imagine.

Even so, Lord, empower our imaginations —
give us glimpses of the possible,
even when everything around us feels decidedly the opposite.
And help us to begin . . . always, to begin . . . with gratitude.

Thank you for today,
for safety through the storm,
for comfort in grief,
for inspiration from the Word.
Thank you for friends,
for beautiful spaces in which to sit,
for music that stirs our hearts and lifts our spirits.

Thank you for faithful leaders who try to listen well
to the movement of your Spirit and who hang onto you
when it gets murky out there.

Thank you for gray heads, and newborn baby heads,
for the laughter of children, and the tears of caring adults,
for the sturdy curiosity of adolescents,
some of whom are traveling back from winter camp today,
and for the burgeoning maturity of college students.
Thank you for the community we enjoy today,
in the here and now, and for the communion of saints,
all those who have moved ahead of us to life eternal.

Special thanks today for the multiple beauties of divine and human creation
all around us in this beat-up-but-not-defeated town we call home.

Thank you most of all on this day, for the table — this tangible reminder
that even the most horrific event is not beyond the redemptive power of your love. Thank you for the beauty of broken bread and poured out grapes,
for the grace of saying and hearing the words, for the way you,
O God of the Broken Beautiful,
can take the most common, ordinary things and transform them
into nourishment for body and soul.
Thank you for feeding us well.

We began with gratitude, Lord, but we need to also make space for lament today.
Our hearts are broken for the Gross family,
in the loss of Jordan this past week.
Surround them with your love, help them to find peace
in the midst of their pain,
to find their way to a completely new definition of life
as they have known it for the past 22 years.
Lord, have mercy.

There are others of us in the throes of grief, too, Almighty One.
We are people who always hold some kind of pain, even as we smile and nod.
For some of us, the pain comes from the loss of loved ones;
for some, it comes from dealing with our own illness.
Others are dealing with job loss, or with financial insecurity,
or troubled relationships.
Many of us wrestle with hard questions about faith or about the future.

Hear us now, as we offer names to you,
names that represent some kind of story of need and uncertainty.
Help us to trust that you hear and answer as we lift them to you:

Prepare us now, O God, to receive you anew.
Help us to rest in your healing power and in your forgiveness.
Teach us the truth of Jeremiah — that there is life to be lived,
there is beauty to be found,
even though we may feel overwhelmed, defeated or abandoned.
Even in exile, you are here, the God who can be found.
Help us, dear God, to make our home in you.

Amen.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Church, church year, Communion, community, death, Doubt, Encouragement, Gratitude, Lament, Lent, Sacraments

Journey’s End! Christmas Day

December 25, 2017 By Diana

Luke 1:46b-55, NRSV

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
  and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
    Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Yesterday’s reading is the more common one for Christmas morning, but this year, we have the Magnificat. And it is so appropriate! This beautiful song/prayer, sung/offered by that young mother-to-be — it’s remarkable on so many levels. She sings of things turned upside-down — and that is exactly what her baby boy came to do, isn’t it? To turn this world around, to make us think and act and live differently, to help us look out for one another and to praise God for his goodness and mercy. May it be so!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, Christmas, Church, church year, community, daily devo

An Advent Journey: Reflections for Weary Travelers — Day Twenty-Five — Fourth Sunday of Advent

December 24, 2017 By Diana

Luke 1:26-38, NRSV

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

This is it, friends. The beautiful story we celebrate every year. Take some time this morning to read it through — to mark down your own favorite phrases, the ones that catch your heart or make you wonder. Then ask God to give you some small shaft of new insight and understanding sbout the miracle that is the incarnation. What a crazy idea! God become human, entering into our messy world, becoming small, small, small.

Oh, thank you, Jesus, for cramming your magnificence into the size of a zygote, for entering the womb of young Mary, for being born into poverty and exile, for living an itinerant yet richly-layered life, for dying in misery and for rising in glory. Hallelujah, hallelujah!

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, Christmas, Church, church year, community, daily devo

An Advent Journey: Reflections for Weary Travelers — Day Twenty-Four

December 23, 2017 By Diana

Judges 13:2-24, NRSV

There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren, having borne no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, or to eat anything unclean,for you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor is to come on his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth. It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”Then the woman came and told her husband,“A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name; but he said to me, ‘You shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’”

Then Manoah entreated the Lord, and said, “O Lord, I pray, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we are to do concerning the boy who will be born.” God listened to Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” Manoah got up and followed his wife, and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” Then Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the boy’s rule of life; what is he to do?” The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Let the woman give heed to all that I said to her.She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine. She is not to drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. She is to observe everything that I commanded her.”

Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Allow us to detain you, and prepare a kid for you.” The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat your food; but if you want to prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of theLord.) Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your words come true?” But the angel of theLord said to him, “Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful.”

So Manoah took the kid with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord, to him who works wonders. When the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.The angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” But his wife said to him, “If theLord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.”

The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him.

Many years ago, before I ever entered seminary, before I became a pastor, I wrote a series of small, one-act, readers’-theater versions of several OT stories. This was one of my favorites. I mean, just read it! This woman is the hero of the entire drama, and she is never even named. NEVER EVEN NAMED.

For all of history, she remains, “Manoah’s wife.”

And Manoah? What a dunce! She tells him what’s happened to her and his feathers are ruffled. “Why didn’t that man come to ME? I’m the man of the house!” And then he doesn’t believe what she tells him.

So the angel comes again and decides to depart in a particularly dramatic way. FINALLY, Manoah understands that his wife was right all the time. She did have a visit from a messenger of God. SHE, not he.

Seems to me that the messengers of God have a partiality for women during this Advent season.

Thank you, Lord God, for all the nameless women who have gone before us, who have been faithful, who have seen you, active in their lives. Thank you for their witness, even without being named. And help us, with the increased power and recognition that has been gained over time, help us women of today to be as faithful and true as this one was. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, Christmas, Church, church year, community, daily devo

An Advent Journey: Reflections for Weary Travelers — Day Twenty-Three

December 22, 2017 By Diana

2 Samuel 6:12-19, NRSV

It was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing; and when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. David danced before the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.

As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

They brought in the ark of the Lord, and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the Lord. When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts, and distributed food among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins. Then all the people went back to their homes.

So . . . why is this passage among our readings for Advent? I’m not entirely sure! But I’ll tell you what percolates in my mind as I read it: dancing for joy. What does that look like? What does that feel like?

Michal, Saul’s daughter and one of David’s wives, didn’t like the look of it at all. And there is something very important about her inclusion in this story, I think. She didn’t approve of her husband’s semi-nakedness, nor of his exuberance. Approval . . . such a strange idea. If God approves — and clearly God does — then what right does Michal have to do otherwise?

We can fall into her trap so easily! Someone gets a little too agitated, too noisy, too revelatory in some way — and we pull into ourselves, noses in the air, and decide that kind of behavior is somehow beneath us.

Well . . . maybe not.

How differently this story might have unfolded if Michal had gone out and joined her husband in praising God for the safe arrival of the Ark of the Covenant! How might the troubled family dynamics that were yet to come have been ameliorated if Michal had entered into her marriage relationship with her whole self? We will never know . . . but, I wonder. I wonder.

Lord, keep me from becoming Michal in any way! Help me to let go of my need to offer either approval or disapproval for anyone else’s behavior/decisions/actions. Keep my eyes and my heart focused on you, always looking for reasons to dance for joy, to lift my hands in praise. Keep me limber, open, and in tune with joy.

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, Christmas, Church, church year, community, daily devo

An Advent Journey: Reflections for Weary Travelers — Day Twenty-Two

December 21, 2017 By Diana

Hebrews 1:1-4, NRSV

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Somehow, this photo seemed appropriate for the reading today. It was taken on the first day of the Thomas fire and has a slightly apocalyptic feel to it. And there is a very real way in which the first coming of Jesus into this world was its own kind of apocalypse!

Before Jesus, we had the prophets to speak of God to us. Now, we have Jesus, who IS God. “The exact imprint of God’s very being,” the author of Hebrews tells us. Could it be any more clearly stated? If we want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If we want to know how we should live, look at Jesus.

Look at Jesus.

That’s what Christmas, Advent, LIFE is all about.

Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit — teach us to look to Jesus. Always and only. Amen.

Filed Under: Advent, An Advent Journey, biblical reflection, Christmas, Church, church year, community, daily devo