Divine Hours Daily Blog

Notice

2005-07-23T03:59:00.000-07:00

Until further notice, I will suspend this daily journal linked to Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours. This fall I will be writing a small volume, Praying with the Church, and this daily journal may be resumed then.

I thank each of of the readers for their comments.

Friday, July 22

2005-07-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

This post is linked to The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime, pp. 271-273, or click here.

Our Refrain this morning speaks volumes: "Know this, the Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture." This line, from Psalm 100, is a version of the old-old covenant formula that we are to be his people and God will be our God. It is a commitment from God as a covenant to be with us and to protect us -- and that vision of God's covenant presence is finally expressed in Revelation 21-22, when God fully dwells among his people eternally.

To say then that God made us and we are his is not simplistic: it is more than "God made us so we better buckle under." It is saying that we are his people and the sheep of his pasture -- those whom he cares for and worries about and protects.

Today, as I live, I want to know that God is with me -- even when life is running smoothly; today, I want to know that God is protecting me -- even when I am aware of no dangers; and I want to know that God is caring for me -- even when I think the cruise control is on.

From Genesis 1 on, our faith only makes sense when we understand that the Creator God is more than "Maker" but is "Covenant Love" who has come to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Incarnate One.

Thursday, July 21

2005-07-21T04:09:00.000-07:00

This post is linked to The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime, pp. 266-268, or click here.

James and John, who were with Jesus on the Mountain when he was transfigured into glory before their very eyes, and who know that the heavens and all of nature declare the glory of God, and who saw all that in full display in Jesus, just a few chapters later think that "being on the inside" should privilege them above all other disciples. They want to be the MVPs of the Apostolic Circle.

Now let's remind ourselves one more time: the Jesus who knows the heavens and all earth can declare the glory of God, and who displayed such glory to three Apostles, is the one who became the example of servanthood. What James and John want is the opposite of what Jesus wanted: they wanted glory and Jesus wanted to serve.

How often, I say to myself, do I want glory instead of service? To be noticed instead of just doing what God beckons me to do? To be given an award instead of going on without anyone noticing?

Servanthood is not something we choose once and then are done with it. No, servanthood is a lifetime disposition of four things:

We need to look to see what we can do;
we need to listen to the needs of others;
we need to learn about those needs;
we need to link to others to help them.

These are the "4Ls" of the love that serves. I need to keep them in front of me everyday.

Because our desire for glory sometimes overwhelms our desire to serve, we need to pray to the fountain of wisdom who knows to give us not what we want but what God wants.

Wednesday, July 20

2005-07-20T03:32:00.000-07:00

This post is linked to The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime, pp. 262-263, or click here.

"Happy are the people whose strength is in you! whose hearts are set on the pilgrim's way." This Refrain in our Morning Office comes from a psalm for pilgrims (Ps 84). Pilgrim psalms, and there are others, are prayers written for those who leave home, travel and face danger and isolation, in order to find the greater joy of dwelling in the house of the Lord.

I have never made a specific pilgrimage as others have. Like going off to Israel and being a pilgrim walker or through some terrain in Italy or to sacred sites in France or Poland or Germany or England or Spain. My pilgrimages, to Assisi or to York Minister in England or to visit an author's home, have been short episodes. I've not been in danger, but I would say they have been intense visits with lasting impressions.

But, as you well know, the writer of Hebrews sees our entire life as a pilgrimage. Hebrews 11 is filled with thoughts like this. What pilgrims most long for is strength, and the risk they take and the dangers they face are undertaken with the challenge that they will have to trust the Lord for protection and provision.

Someday, as we pilgrimage our way through this life, we will dwell with the Lord and we will find that "leaving home" was well worth it because the Father's house is not only our pilgrimage destination but what our home on earth was anticipating.

Tuesday, July 19

2005-07-19T04:20:00.000-07:00

This post is linked to The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime, pp. 257-259. [The online form is not in sync with my book.]

I love to begin the day with The Concluding Prayer for the Church in the Morning Office. One day I found myself unable to remember it and I stumbled for its words until I hit upon "preserve" and then it all came back to me. Here it is:

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day: Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all I do direct me to the fufilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

This prayer, so it seems, brings to a head theme of the Morning Office. The "mighty acts" of God, and "he looks at the earth and it trembles" and Jesus' ability to calm the waters and the "awesome things" God shows us and "the earth is the Lord's."

The reason we can begin in safety, the reason we can summons God to "preserve" us throughout the day, and the reason we can ask God to "direct" us is because the earth is the Lord's.

We are asked to live by faith: when the world seems to be tumbling into chaos, when injustices are so rife, when so few are willing to lay down their differences for the good of the world, we need to remind ourselves and learn to walk to the refrain that the earth is the Lord's.

Today, Lord, give us the faith to live for the Earth Trembler.

Monday, July 18

2005-07-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

This post is linked to The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime, pp. 252-254. [The online form is not in sync with my book.]

Mary of Magdala (Magdalene) is the focus of the Church's memory this week. In the Gospels, Mary is defined by her location (from Magdala) not by her family, as it would be had she been, say, Mary daughter of Reuben. Her story is an interesting one: she was released from seven demons and was a constant traveling companion of Jesus. She was one of the few (Mel Gibson's movie elaborates too much here) at the Cross and she sees where they placed the body of Jesus.

When she finds that Jesus' body is gone on Eastern Morning, she weeps. Why? Because, and here we are guessing somewhat but the guessing is consistent on this point in the Church, the One who gave her an identity was dead and gone.

She's got nowhere to go. She's utterly alone. She's an abandoned, stranded woman who had placed her hope and future in the hands of the Galilean.

But, as you know, the story does not end with Mary weeping: she sees Jesus! There is hope that fellowship will follow abandonment.

Jesus dispenses her with the commission to tell the disciples that he has been raised. She is the first witness to the resurrection, and one can easily say that the Christian faith rests upon the word of Mary to the others -- not that other appearances didn't take place.

But, still, Mary is the first to announce to the community of faith that Jesus was alive again.

There is no end of surprises in the Bible, but surely the most "common surprise" -- so common it doesn't even surprise us anymore -- is that God takes ordinary people and gives them the gift of witness to his marvelous works.

How about us, How ordinary are we and how often do we get to testify to God's great things?

Sunday, July 17

2005-07-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

Each Sunday morning I look forward to reading The Prayer Appointed for the Week. This week's prayer is especially suggestive.

How many times have I prayed, wondering if what I asked for was after all what I should have been asking for? How many times have I prayed with less than full confidence for my request? Often enough.

How many times did my children ask me for something that I knew they did not really want or need. Not long ago we visited my son and his wife in their new home, and we told them we'd like to help them out with some yard tools -- so we went to Home Depot. We said to them both, "Just ask." They did. And we bought a few items: two shovels, a rake, a wheelbarrow. We knew they knew what they needed.

Therein lies one of the mysteries of prayer: "we knew that they knew what they needed."

Sometimes, however, we don't know what we really need for life, God knows that we do not know what we need, and that is why we pray,

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom,
you know my necessities before I ask and
my ignorance in asking:
Have compassion on my weakness,
and mercifully give me those things for which my unworthiness I dare not,
and for my blindness I cannot ask.

If God knew that we knew what we really needed, we'd always get what we wanted. We are broken vessels, we are fallible humans, we are selfish people -- and part of life is to learn that our condition is such that we genuinely need God's Wisdom to walk this life uprightly.

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 247-248.

Saturday, July 16

2005-07-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 243-244.

"Bless the Lord, o my soul, and forget not all his benefits," so says our Refrain this morning.

Yesterday's morning office led me to think of what has happened in my life because of the incursion of God's grace into my life, and today the office leads me to think of the "benefits" and how they lead me to "Bless the Lord" from my "soul."

I am grateful today for the fellowship of my Department colleagues, and I am reminded of this because of our dinner together last night. Boaz and Sarita, Brad and Barb, Genevive, Kris and I are trying to get together once a month this summer to be friends, to fellowship around our work, and simply to enjoy one another. So, last night we went to an Ethiopian restaurant and had a splendid time.

We catch up on what we have been doing, on one another's kids, on what we will be doing -- nothing intense, nothing out of the ordinary -- just friends brushing up against the mystery of what happens when human meets human for the purpose of fellowship. We just want to be together.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sees playing and fellowship as similar states. Playing is doing something for the sole purpose of its pleasure. If we convert some game we are playing with one another into winning, the game becomes sport. For it be playful, it must stop at being done for no other reason than the joy that comes to us in the doing.

In the same way, I see the "benefit" of fellowship to be "human playing." But more than this, playing in this sense is exactly what the three persons of the Trinity were doing in Eternity Past: simply put, Father-Son-Spirit were in the dance of love, called the perichoresis in ancient theology, in the three-circled splendor of light of interpenetrating one another.

Having dinner together, fellowship, and playing -- we were not doing "nothing." No, we were enjoying the Dance of the Ages.

Bless the Lord, o my soul.

Friday, July 15

2005-07-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 239-240.

Most of us know moments or seasons from our past when had it not been for the Lord's intervention or guidance or help we would have made a mess of things. We join the Psalmist in this morning's Psalm with these words and I will ask you to fill them out:

"If the Lord had not been on our side, then..."

Feel free to fill in that sentence and send me your responses.

Here's my response: "then...

I would have made a mess of my life as a teenager,
I would have missed the wife God had planned for me and our wonderful children,
I would have found a vocation that would not have satisfied,
I would have avoided the opportunity to teach college students,
I would have never had the chance to write Christian books and articles and to speak in churches,
I would not have had the wonderful colleagues that I have had over the years,
I would not have met other Bible teachers and preachers throughout the world,
I would have been a whole harder to get along with than I am now,
I would have been even more impatient than I am now,

and

I probably would have made a lot more money and not been as happy.

In sum, I would have missed the chance to be who God wanted me to be.

I sure am glad the Lord was with me.

In God's grace, the Lord was with me and I am grateful today.

Thursday, July 14

2005-07-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 2235-236.

"Gracious is the Lord and righteous; our God is full of compassion," our Morning Office Refrain tells us. But gracious in our Office includes being pruned, as Jesus says in the Reading.

Everyone has done this, so I did it: we had a Lilac bush that got out of hand and Kris thought it was time that I "pruned" it. I really didn't know what I was doing, but I had heard that you need to cut them way back, so I did. I pruned that puppy from a 7 foot bush into a 3 foot set of stubby branches. Kris thought it was a huge mistake, thinking that I had cut it back way too much. Knowing that I had no idea what I was doing, I quickly agreed with her and wondered if I had ruined the tree. I felt bad about that because I like the lilacs and the smell and the wren that hid itself under its protection.

But, sure enough, the next year it started to blossom. It sent out leaves, which relieved me some, and then out came some blossoms, and then we could smell their scent as we sipped evening tea on the screen porch. In the end, I felt a little puffy-chested about my accident of doing a good job of pruning.

Graciousness on God's part is like this: sometimes we are cut down to size by what we learn about ourselves, or by the talent we see in other people that makes ours look so pitiful, or when we come to terms with what we've accomplished or not accomplished, or singular events in life like missing an opportunity to share God's embracing grace with someone else or finking on an appointment because we were too preoccupied to remember that other people are in our world. When these things hit us, we realize that we are not all we are cracked up to be.

But we know that God is still gracious and will be forever because that is the way God is. God is "full of compassion" it says -- I'm glad because I need it, and it is that compassion that comes home to me just after being pruned down to the stubby branches.

Wednesday, July 13

2005-07-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 231-232.

The Refrain in today's office is sobering: "Our God is in heaven; whatever he wills to do, he does."

But sometimes this one is harder to comprehend than anything we say about God: why, we are entitled to ask, does God permit so much cruelty? the senseless bombings in London? the bloodshed in Rwanda? the systemic violence of corrupt leaders? Why?, we ask.

To approximate the words of St. Augustine, we are left with this:

If God were all-good, he would only will good, and if he were all-powerful, he would be able to do all that he wills. But there is evil. Therefore God is either not all-good or not all-powerful, or both.

To which I would comment: The problem with this way of putting it puts us in the laps of Job's friends, who constantly worked with the correlation of life here as a reflection of obedience. The resolution of Job, if we can call it that, is this: we don't know why God does what God does. But we are committed to God's goodness and his mercy, and that means when we see bad things on earth we do two things: (1) confess God's goodness and live in light of it, and (2) continue to live our life in dedication to the kingdom of God. God gave us freedom, and no one ever said that giving us freedom to love or not to love would mean that everything in life would correlate good behavior with good results and bad behavior and bad results.

I struggle with the news shows; I'm deeply sorry about Natalee Holloway and her family; I wonder about those who were near the English bombs and who survived and those who didn't and the loved ones of those who died. But I live in light of God's goodness and sometimes it is hard.

It is because I don't understand that I trust God; it is because I understand God that I trust.

Tuesday, July 12

2005-07-12T04:08:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 226-227.

"May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us," so reads The Request for Presence in the morning office. "Awesome things will you show us," answers back the The Greeting. What might these "awesome things" be, I am asking myself this morning?

The rest of the office helps: God's awesome things include that his "testimonies are very sure" -- we can trust God; "holiness adorns your house" -- God is pure and right and just and this gives us stability.

Even more, and paradoxically, in our Reading we learn that the "awesome things" of God include seeing the kingdom of God, the universal establishment of God's sure and holy will, is like a "treasure hidden in a field" that, when discovered, is of so much value that everything is surrendered for it. It is like the discovery of a "pearl of great value," again worth of everything we have.

To see in this world the "awesome things" of God, I am seeing in this office, I am being asked to take God at his word and to bank on the treasure that we find in God's embracing grace and give my life for it.

What the morning office is telling us is the Jesus Creed: we are to love God with everything we have and all that we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and it is only in giving our all to God that we see that the All of God is ours. Faith is the name of the game: we are invited to trust God to find the pearl of great price.

Monday, July 11

2005-07-11T04:13:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here. [The online readings are still one week off. So, this reflection is from The Divine Hours, pp. 222-223.]

In The Prayer Appointed for the Week we find a thought that shapes everything.

... grant that I may know and understand what things I ought to do, and that I also may have the grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.

Each day the Divine Hours is designed to bring us into contact with God's Word and God's People reciting them so that we may develop the discipline of being formed by God's Word. Such formation comes to us through God's grace: "grant that I..." and "that I also may have the grace and power...".

For years I have believed that we Christians, by and large, don't have a problem with "knowing" God's will so much as "doing" God's will. And "doing" God's will is not the result of mustering our inner forces or working at it, but the result of "surrendering" to it. In such a way do not surrender who we are but we become who God made us to be.

John Stott, Rector Emeritus of All Souls London, provides the paradoxes we need to hear:

Only if we serve, will we experience freedom.
Only if we lose ourselves in loving, will we find ourselves.
Only if we die to our own self-centredness, will we begin to live.

The delight in the Lord's will we all so cherish comes from surrendering to the grace that can re-make us and the power that can re-energize us. Let us turn to the Lord over and over and simply ask for his grace.

Sunday, July 10

2005-07-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

Our Morning Office sets before us a marvelous Christian truth: that in Jesus we see the face of God. The connection is clear: God comes to the Temple; Jesus is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; in Jesus we see the coming of God.

I wonder what this might mean for us today.

The first thing it means is this: God is essentially personal. To know about God by learning creedal statements about God, as J.I. Packer once reminded us in his Knowing God, is not the same thing as knowing God. Knowing God is deeply personal; it is the way I know Kris.

The second thing it means is this: trusting God is about living in light of our relationship to God. I trust Kris because I know her; we are to trust God because we know God. And this personal knowledge of God comes to us by knowing Jesus.

Today, I will spend time with the Gospels reading about Jesus (and I think I'll choose Matthew 8--9) and I will read about Jesus knowing that in Jesus I am seeing God.

The third thing it means is this: this one is scary. If the face of God is Jesus, then the face of Jesus is the Church. And that means that others see God in and through us -- the Body of Christ.

What kind of God, I ask myself, will they see today as the Church gathers for fellowship, for worship, for sacrament, for Word? Will they see the face of Jesus in the face of the Church?

Saturday, July 9

2005-07-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

If my Jesus of Nazareth class has fifty students, which is the average, I will get to know about five or six students pretty well, I will have short exchanges with most students, and will barely know about 10 of the students. I will know names (though those that don't talk at all tax my name-memory) of nearly all of them. To get to know all of them is exceedingly difficult, and some of them don't want to be known at all.

This is just one class. If the other two classes have fifty students, then the challenge of getting to know students by name and at some level below "I know your name" is impossible.

Compounded it becomes this: after one year I forget many students' names even if I remember some odd bit about them.

God, however, knows each of us. This is more than difficult for us to comprehend: an infinite God, who knows each of us by name, who knows each of us better than we know ourselves, who knows every human being from Siberia to Shanghai, from the North Pole to the South Pole. The mind simply cannot comprehend it, and calculation compounds the problem beyond its capacity.

And I believe (because I could not prove it if I tried) this is easy work for God -- not that it doesn't vex God and pleasure God. God easily knows all of us, God's phone line is never busy, it never has to go "blink" as God shifts to another caller. Indeed, incomprehensible.

But very comforting. So comforting to know that God can hear the gurgles of children when we are asleep and the sighs of children when they are at a distant from us. So comforting to know that in the depths of our problems God loves us and showers his grace upon us. So comforting to know that God will hear us today as we pray for "traveling mercies" as we drive to Indianapolis to pick up our son and comforting to know that others, everyone around us who cares to lift a prayer to the Lord, will sense the same comforts.

I may be small and of little account but the Lord hears -- and it is easy for God to listen.

Friday, July 8

2005-07-08T04:04:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

Often we confess in a catechism or a creed or in a theological moment that our desire in all things is to glorify God. "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever," so reads The Westminster Catechism. This notion is more profound than we sometimes think and also more practical than we imagine.

In this morning's office, the psalmist prays "For your Name's sake" and "for your mercy's sake." And the Morning Psalm is almost a litany of the sins of those who do not care about God along with clear indicators of the righteousness of the one praying. That person understands life from the end: "Until I entered the sanctuary of God and discerned the end of the wicked."

The psalmist prays to God, not because he knows he's right but because he knows God is right. He wants God to be glorified. The same God who has redeemed him. Are we confident enough in God to stand with the psalmist?

Seeking God's glory involves seeking the glory of the God who has redeemed and restored us, who has embraced with grace, and who empowers us to embrace others with the same grace. Seeking God's glory involves knowing that God wants us to be uplifted and demonstrated to be the people of God. When we are uplifted, God's Name is seen for who God is: the glorious one.

God's Name is besmirched when his people's spirit sags, when his people's zeal cools, and when his people's love weakens: God's Name is honored when his people's spirit soars, when his people's zeal fires up, and when his people's love is enflamed.

May we glorify God today.

Thursday, July 7

2005-07-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

My house doesn't work right without electricity, my car doesn't move without gas, my relationship with Kris doesn't run smoothly without spending time with her, and the Christian life collapses into routines without the Holy Spirit.

"Grant me the grace," we pray in the Prayer Appointed for the Week, "of your Holy Spirit that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection." To have a heart that is "firmly fixed" means that the Holy Spirit is at work doing what the Holy Spirit does: enlivening us, softening us, and guiding us.

We need the Holy Spirit for the little and the large, for the routine and for the challenging. My day will involve hours of the routine editing and writing at my computer, and it will also involve the challenge of a radio interview. For both, as I begin this day, I am asking that the grace of God's Spirit will be granted -- so that my writing and speaking may be with my whole heart and manifest itself in love and pure affection.

How do we "get" the Holy Spirit? The famous lines of Jesus, "Ask and you will receive" is about the Holy Spirit. Ask, I say to myself, and God in his grace will give.

Wednesday, July 6

2005-07-06T03:58:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here. [My reflection is from the Wednesday, nearest to July 6, selection, and the online link seems to be from next week's readings.]

This morning, as I say the Morning Office, when I read The Greeting's words, my mind is drawn to a pastor's friend whose adult daughter was in a bicycle accident. The medical team wonders if it was an aneurysm that led to her accident, and further tests are being taken. The family, as I can only imagine, is greatly unnerved and wondering and waiting and trusting in God.

"O Lord my God, I cried out to you, and you restored me to health." Our Refrain is perfect today: "May you," I pray for her, "be blessed by the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth."

We carry around all the time these burdens of life, vexations for others and worries about what may happen and requests for so many, and the reason we do is because we know the Lord can bless, with one Word, with one stroke, and with one act of mercy. We do so because our faith is in the Lord who created and makes.

May you, too, pray for Lori and her family. May we all learn that those whom we carry to the Lord in prayer are those who need God's blessing. Carrying such requests to God may not end our anxiety (for we are anxious, I say to myself, because we care) but it a blessing just to know that God cares and that we can go to the Lord our maker.

Apologies

2005-07-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

Our 7pm flight from Pittsburgh last night was delayed, then cancelled, and we just got home -- after a 4am wake-up and a 6:30am or so flight.

Be with you tomorrow.

Monday, July 4

2005-07-04T03:25:00.001-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

If our heart is not in the act, the act is superficial. Sometimes our heart is not in it because we are strangers to those to whom the act is most important. Yesterday, Kris and I went with his wife's family to the dedication service of a new chapel at Christian camp, called Mission Meadows. We didn't know but a handful of people, but the service itself was about people we'd never heard of, funny events in the camp history we'd never heard about, and about connections and experiences we had no part of. So, much of what was said and done went by us. You could say our heart was not in it. We did our best to enjoy what we could -- the music, the prayers, the litany written for the occasion, and the entire value of camping to the Christian community.

More importantly, as we say our offices we challenge our hearts to wake up and be receptive. Reading novels, attending movies, or watching theatrical performances have one thing in common: if you open your heart to receive what is there the story can take you for a ride.

If you say your offices with a heart prepared to receive, the office can speak to you: it will tell you, in the course of the year, the Story of the Bible and of Jesus Christ; it will tell you, in a week, a Story of the Prayer Appointed for the Week. And it will tell you something specific each time. But only if the heart is open to receive.

How to do this? I like to pause, quiet my heart, rid myself of all distractions, and concentrate as I read and to read in such a way that I expect anything rather that than something specific. Let the Word speak, I say to myself, and my heart answers back:

"The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; and a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

Sunday, July 3

2005-07-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

The beginning of our witness is our silence, the beginning of our power is taking refuge in God, and the beginning of our understanding is understanding the face of God in Jesus Christ. I am impressed in this morning's office by how often I am being drawn in to the presence of God, how often I am being asked to find strength and security and power in the presence of God.

Christians often speak of being a presence in the world, but our presence is to be God's presence and our presence becomes witness only after being in God's presence to take God's presence into the world.

Today as we worship in a new community of Christ with our son and his wife, my heart is committed to seeing the presence of God that emanates from those who are taking their presence in God. It is said of Brother Lawrence that he exuded the presence of God because he practiced the presence of God. It is still being said of the aged Billy Graham that he, too, exudes the grace and love of God because he constantly turns to the God of grace and love.

Our office this morning calls us into the Presence of God in order that we might know and accomplish the presence of God in our world.

Saturday, July 2

2005-07-02T03:32:00.000-07:00

To read this morning's office, click here.

This weekend many of us will gather with our families to celebrate July 4, the day we remember our own founding and coming to adulthood as a nation. All nations have such a day to celebrate. In a day when many are nervous about any one country getting too full of itself, the best solution is not to deny any nation's this joy but to encourage each to celebrate its own history. In fact, we need to remind ourselves that all nations do this.

One feature of such days is the inclusion of children in the celebration. In fact, children feature as a regular feature in national holidays: we will see them in marches, we will see them with sparklers, we will see given special attention at meal time. I like this because it brings to the front what holidays are all about: passing on our cherished memories, our founding visions, and our deepest dreams.

When we include children we tell everyone that everyone matters. In our morning's office (and this computer does not have the editing capabilities that mine has and I don't know why), the following prayer reminds us of what we all are called to do: whether we are old or young, what we all called to pass on and cherish and dream about. This part of flattens the playing surface, and equalizes us all:

O God, you have taught me to keep all your commandments by loving you and my neighbor: Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may be devoted to you with my whole heart, and united to others with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

All of us, young and old, are called to walk with God and God will walk with us: to walk with God means to love God and my neighbor. Today, we are called to the love that begins at home and spreads to the neighborhood and the world, because any part of the world we see and touch is the neighborhood of God.

Friday, June 31

2005-07-01T01:58:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 156-157)

To read this morning's office, click here.

We are on vacation in the Chautauqua region and will return soon. I'll do what I can to post from there.

Thursday, June 30

2005-06-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 156-157)

To read this morning's office, click here.

I have been privileged to travel abroad -- and a listing of places is not the issue. Every time I go abroad, whether it is for a short visit or a longer stay, I have been impressed as a Christian of three things: first, that there is always a church where I go; second, that the church is filled with local customs, history, habits, issues, concerns, translation, and commitments; third, that it is always the same gospel: that God, in Jesus Christ, has come to us to forgive us and restore us and liberate us.

When the early apostles were shoved out of Jerusalem they had no idea that this small movement, this little mustard seed of followers, would explode into a world-wide Church.

"The Lord is King." "Happy the nation whose God is Yahweh." "He molds every heart and takes note of all that men do."

God cares for each of us, and he cares for each person in the entire world. God makes each person to be who they are, and God calls each person to love God and others, and he calls each of us to do the same. We are all alike -- and we are all different.

Today I will take note of the diversity of the Church and the simple unity of its gospel.

Wednesday, June 29

2005-06-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 149-152)

To read this morning's office, click here.

Our faith is profoundly personal. God reveals himself in nature, but that is not enough. God reveals himself in Law, but that is not enough. God reveals himself in the Temple, but that is not enough. God raises up kings and prophets and sages, but they are not enough.

It is easy for me, as a theologian, to spend my time learning "about" God by analyzing nature and what natural theologians say; or what the Law tells us; or what the Temple reveals; or what God has said through people. But, learning about God is no substitute for learning to know God personally. To do this I must turn all my study into worship, and all my research into relationship.

Not until God had made himself manifest, not until God had become in incarnate, not until God had become just like us, was God able to say, "It is enough."

God is a Person, and so his final revelation of his love, his grace, and his redemption is found in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Places, laws, natural beauty may reflect God, the way a sacred icon reflects God for those who use them in worship, but nothing tells us more about God than the Son.

In fact, we can say that we don't know God until we know the Son, who has disclosed God's very nature to us.

Our faith is personal because our God is personal.

Tuesday, June 28

2005-06-28T04:23:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 145-147)

To read this morning's office, click here.

Time, they say, heals all wounds. I'm not sure, but it helps. What I am sure of is that time gives us perspective on many events in our life.

Perhaps we didn't get admitted to the school of our choice, or perhaps one of our children didn't get admitted to their school of choice. Perhaps we didn't get the job offer. Perhaps we didn't find the house we always wanted. Perhaps we didn't land the opportunity we desired in our local church. We could go on.

Most of these are resolved with time -- the school we did attend was perfect; the job we are doing is what God wants after all; the house we have is where God placed us; our gifts are used better elsewhere.

Our lives, if seen from God's perspective, are a "puff of wind" or "like the grass" or "like a flower of the field." Since we are here for a brief spell, knowing how God looks upon life gives us perspective and wisdom.

During my postgraduate days and some years as an adjunct professor I wondered if I would ever get a teaching post at some college or seminary. More than twenty years later I reflect on the deep anxiety I felt and wonder how I could have worried so. Time, they say, heals all wounds and minimizes all anxieties. But most of all, the passage of time affords us the opportunity to reflect on life from the perspective of God. He is in control; he can be trusted; he will draw us into himself. God is good.

Monday, June 27

2005-06-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 140-142)

To read this morning's office, click here.

"Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant that all of us may be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you..." (The Prayer Appointed for the Week).

What can it mean for us, for me and for you, to be "joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching"? A century of efforts by most well-meant Church folk has not brought about the unity that the ecumenical movement sought, and sometimes (or even more often than that) the disunity of local churches is an embarrassment. Debates by dignitaries, speeches by sermonizers, and the efforts by the elites simply have not brought about "unity" either "in spirit" or "by their teaching"? What can we do?

We can begin with ourselves with this commitment: if the Church is founded upon Jesus Christ and his apostles and prophets, then there ought to be greater unity -- both with what we believe as central and with how we treat one another.

Here's what I suggest: first, let us learn what all Christians have in common. Regardless of our denomination, we need to be aware of the gospel itself and creeds that shape the story of faith we tell. And, what we also have in common is celebration of the story of Jesus in the Lord's Supper. And, on top of this, we know that for this story to be our story we have to be committed to it.

Second, let us speak today only what we have in common, never uttering a word about how we differ but only of what we agree on. This can sometimes take effort, and the reason is because too often we stake out our own turf and identity by emphasizing our distinctiveness.

Third, let us learn about one another for the purpose of understanding and appreciating the wondrous diversity of God's people, a diversity rooted in what we hold in common.

Why? Because the Church, what Lesslie Newbigin calls the "legacy of Jesus Christ," is built on Jesus Christ and the apostles and the prophets and on that foundation we stand -- and if we all stand on that foundation we can be more unified.

Sunday, June 26

2005-06-26T04:28:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 131-132)

To read this morning's office, click here.

One of the regular lines in The Divine Hours is from Psalm 55:18: "In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, and he will hear my voice." This verse is one of the biblical foundations for the regular practice of prayer, or the development of sacred rhythms.

More than one person has told me that Phyllis Tickle taught them how to pray. How so? By developing sacred rhythms of prayer (3x a day, or 2x a day), our day is punctuated by a pause that draws us into the presence of God with the Church.

I know it has been wonderfully beneficial to my own prayer life and to praying with Kris. We struggled to pray together but now, in the morning (when our morning schedule permits) and in the evening (and we rarely ever miss), we pause to say our offices with The Divine Hours. There are many benefits, including the sense of praying with others, but perhaps the most significant is the use of Scripture, especially the Psalms, as words that become prayers. Instead of simply reading Scripture, our sacred rhythm teaches us to pray Scripture.

Hollowing out time for prayer is a hallowing of that time.

Saturday, June 25

2005-06-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 131-132)

To read this morning's office, click here.

The Request for Presence this morning asks this: "In your righteousness, deliver and set me free." The Greeting continues this theme of freedom: "you have freed me from my bonds." Thomas, who is the subject of our Reading, finds that liberation when he sees the very wounds of Jesus. "This," our Refrain tells us, "is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."

Our society is both enriched and confused by the notion of freedom. Our Constitution is the basis for most of our ideas about freedom, but the Christian sense of freedom is so much more. It makes these simple claims: We are God's, we are made in God's Image, and we can only be who were meant to be when we live out the Image God made us to be.

We don't have to be what others want us to be; we don't have to be what we'd like to be; we don't live the script others have written for us. We can only be what God made us to be: the Image of God. To be the Image of God means to embrace the God who made us and let God embrace us.

The most liberating or freeing idea that I have ever come across is this one: God made me to be me, that special me he made me to be, and I need only to be the person God made me to be.

This, too, is "marvelous in our eyes."

Friday, June 23

2005-06-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 125-126)

To read today's office, click here.

"So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom," says the Refrain. I've often wondered why it is that we don't have courses in our churches, or even in our colleges and universities to poke myself in the eye, on Wisdom. I could imagine a series of courses on Wisdom and ... the family, the workplace, the neighborhood, the political world, and international politics. We could use more thinking and strategizing about Wisdom as the most important goal a Christian can have. What does a Wise person look like? how does one speak? how does one listen? how does one do all sorts of things?

When Solomon was asked what he wanted most of all, he said Wisdom (2 Kings 3). He's about the only king in history who wouldn't have asked for Almighty Power.

When I was a 5-year old, my great-aunt took me to St Louis, to a large Department store (something like Sticks, Bayer, and Fuller), and told me I could have anything I wanted. I asked for a baseball glove and then had the temerity to ask for a new baseball as well. My great-aunt was relieved I hadn't asked for anything expensive.

If I was asked today if I could have anything I wanted, and especially if I could be taken back 30 years or so and asked that question, I hope I would ask for wisdom. Wisdom to know what to write when I am given assignments, wisdom to know how to speak to my neighbor who refuses to mow his grass, wisdom to know how to deal with my grown and married children, wisdom to know how to respond as we try to sell our house, wisdom to know how to treat certain kinds of students, wisdom to know how to deal with three wonderful departmental members, wisdom to know how to speak to those to whom I can give witness ... . Yes, I say to myself, that is what I would ask for.

But would I? I've failed enough times with family and students and administrators to know that I need Wisdom, and to know that I need to think about asking for it more often.

Wisdom is what Jesus had when he saw through the cracks of society and found people in them; wisdom is what Jesus had when he replied with utter brilliance when he said God's work was for the "sick."

If Wisdom is a supreme value, then perhaps numbering our days (and my days are ticking off as yours) will aid us to see its supreme value.

Thursday, June 23

2005-06-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 120-122)

To read today's office, click here.

"Behold, God is my helper; it is the Lord who sustains my Life." This word is a word I need today. Our house goes on the market and Kris and I would like a quick sale, my editor has sent me her suggestions for changes to a manuscript I worked long and hard on and editor's comments, even when you've got the best one in the world as I do, are hard to take.

My needs some so minor compared to those of David, who was hunted like prey by his enemies. Or so minor compared to the children of Israel when they found themselves in Babylon and needed a king to take up their cause and give them safe passage back to the Land of Israel. Or so minor compared to the Centurion whose servant was on the edge of death; or the many diseased and ailing that Jesus healed; or the many prostitutes and marginalized that found their way to the table with Jesus; or Jesus himself who was put to death; or the early Christians who were martyrs. And my needs are "minor" compared to these.

But, God cares and no matter how great or minor our needs, they are all needs to God for "God is our Helper." This is not something God occasionally does, it is an attribute of Who God Is.

Just thinking my needs are "minor" misunderstands the greatness of God, for it implies that God is like CEOs who have to decide which employee's concerns and which middle-level leader's issues are worthy of her or his attention. But, God is so vast that our needs are always his concerns, and we can take them to God and God will hear. I bless him for this.

Wednesday, June 22

2005-06-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 116-117)

To read today's office, click here.

Our office today weaves in and out with the theme that "the Lord protects the faithful" and so the Refrain is the request "Protect my life and deliver me." Why does the Christian make this request to God? "let me not be put to shame for I have trusted in you."

Much easier said than done. I have one of those minds that works from a small symptom (say, for instance, my lower abdomen aches for some odd reason) to a large conclusion (I am dying of cancer). I have been wrong, as my physician often reminds me, each time. "Stick to theology," he tells me. "Good idea," I tell him, "but I can't help it."

What I need to say though is that I also move from my large conclusion to a fair amount of fretting and worrying, and sometimes even to complaining to God that it would not be fair to my family or that I was not done with the work he had given me or that it would be unfair to take me and not some knucklehead who doesn't even care about God or that ... I could go on. What happens is that I can get pretty worked up, and I can get pretty far down the road before I come to my senses that it is my responsibility to call on the Lord and to trust in the Lord that he will protect me.

Trust, I find, is not something mastered as one masters a commute to school, but instead is something that calls our entire being into action each time it is needed. We don't learn faith so much as we practice faith, and we practice faith whenever we are called upon to trust in God for something. And what I also find is that practicing faith is hard sometimes, in fact often.

But the ground of trusting in God is the sheer goodness of God: God protects the faithful.

So, today, if some worry comes along -- and we are putting our house on the market today and that will bring enough worry of its own, I need to remind myself that God is a Protecting God, and I can trust God with my whole being.

Tuesday, June 21

2005-06-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 111-112)

To read today's office, click here.

It has always amazed me that we constantly need an old lesson: "Open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of your law," as The Request for Presence says in this morning's office. Familiarity with old texts, like the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 1--3, or the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, or David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11, or the wonders of Psalm 23, or the growing mountain of predictions in Isaiah 52--53. Or the Sermon on the Mount or the Pentecost account of Acts 2 or the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. Familiarity, as I was saying, with such texts can dull their luster or blind our eyes to seeing what they really say. We need to ask God to make these words fresh.

So, the Psalmist, who ought to know, asks God when he reads the Law to open his eyes so he can see the glory of God's good words for his good people so they can live as they can.

Perhaps we don't often enough pause to ask God to "open our eyes" to the glory of the words we read in our offices, but the structure of The Divine Hours is such that we are daily (three or four times, in fact!) reminded of being summoned to pray, of the request for God's presence to attend to our reading (so we can hear and see), and the profound Greeting of the Lord as God makes his presence known. Only then, after we have requested God's presence and greeted that presence, do we have a Refrain and a Reading of Scripture.

Our Father is a person; the Son is a person; the Spirit is a person. To attend to Scripture as God's Word to us -- as God speaking directly to us as a communication, is to be treated as persons and to treat God as a person. To do that we need to listen, and when we can recollect ourselves before this "one God, forever and ever" we can see who God is and hear what God wants us to hear.

Indeed, we pray, "Open our eyes" for we would hate to miss an encounter with the infinite God who created the universe and who attends to us as we request his presence.

Monday, June 20

2005-06-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 106-108)

To read today's office, click here.

Guidance is a theme in this morning's office. From the "do not cast me off" to the "show me your ways" to the theme of "deliverance" to the potent theme of the Holy Spirit as the Alter Ego of Jesus within us, the theme of guidance runs through our office like a river.

The key to guidance is the sense of needing guidance. Some of us (perhaps more than we care to admit) our stubbornly convinced that we either have it figured out or that we can fight our way through something difficult. We don't have it figured out as often as we like, and fighting through life is the opposite of what Jesus intends for us. He has sent the Spirit to guide us -- so our Reading this morning tells us.

When my daughter, Laura, was about six or seven, I had it in my head that I would make her a bed out of wood. With the help of my father-in-law we drew up some plans, bought the oak, cut the wood to the general specifications, and then he began to chisel away some grooves at the end of the wood so it would fit firmly into the lathe, and then we'd be able to turn the lathe on, use the tools, and shape the square posts into a rounded bedstead. But, the grooving proved difficult, he had to run an errand, and he gave me this piece of guidance: "You better wait until I get back because I'm not sure the grooves are deep enough to hold the wood once it starts spinning." He left; I got to looking at the wood and the grooves and (knowing nothing about what I was doing) became convinced that the grooves were deep enough, and I'd surprise him by getting a little of the lathing done. I had the machine on for about 1 minute when the 4 foot piece of oak came flying off the lathe and smacked me in the face -- a little chip of a tooth, some smashed glasses, and a little cut under the nose (and plenty of blood) only persuaded me of one thing: I should have listened.

The secret to guidance is knowing that we need it. Today, perhaps, we could begin to look over the bedsteads of our life and see if we are admitting the guidance we need -- and to begin asking the Lord for guidance -- and to begin listening to the Spirit's still, but pure, voice.

Sunday, June 19

2005-06-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 93-94)

To read today's office, click here.

Happy Father's Day to all fathers who might come upon this blogsite!

The Prayer appointed for the Week is always a highlight for me. Today's prayer is apposite the entire office, which is dedicated to the theme of God's provisions for us and our need to trust in God to supply -- which is easy when we have supplies, easy to talk about when we might not have supplies, but very difficult when the supplies are running low.

God's provisions for us are not to be seen as the dispensing of gifts by some unknown god or by some rich estate manager who happens to dole out things now and again in order to keep the rabble quiet. Instead, our Prayer today equates God's provisions with his "loving-kindness." It reads: "For you never fail to help ... those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness." The foundation upon which we are placed, placed as gently as a father placing a child into a bed of comfort or onto his back as he carries the child through the city, is the foundation of loving-kindness.

For this reason, the response we are to have for God's gracious provision is to ask God to give us "perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name." The response of a child of God to a God who has placed that child on the sure foundation of his perpetual loving-kindness is the response of loving God back. As John said, We love because God first loved us.

Saturday, June 18

2005-06-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 93-94)

To read today's office, click here.

Centering down is an old Quaker expression for finding ourselves at the our center, a center where God meets us. There are all kinds of terms used for this: our inner self, our real self, and more importantly (from a biblical standpoint) our heart. We commune most deeply with God in our heart of hearts, when our heart says an authentic "Yes" to God's heart. When we simply tell the authentic truth about ourselves by simply handing ourselves to God.

I am impressed by the The Greeting this morning: "O God, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on you; for in returning and rest we shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be our strength." There are paradoxes here: "peace" and "fixed" (a strength word), in "returning and rest" we are "saved"; and in "quietness and trust" we find "strength."

Perhaps with me you will be reminded of Brother Lawrence, who learned prayer by speaking authentically with God as a form of constant communion. His contribution to the lives of millions is "practicing the presence of God." This is what the Psalmist has in mind in our Greeting today: perfect peace comes from being fixed on God; we rest in God; we find our strength in God in a sweet quietness.

How The Divine Hours ties this into the gospel is a stroke of genius: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light (Jesus Christ). Thus, with this stroke it is all tied together: the constancy of life, found in the presence of God, has become Incarnate in Jesus Christ, to whom we go to find rest for our soul.

Friday, June 17

2005-06-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 93-94)

To read today's office, click here.

Because our God sits in judgment it is our responsibility, as the Reading for this morning tells us, to listen to the words of Jesus and act on those words. The gospel, as it is becoming clear in our generation as never before, is to be performed and it is the performance of the gospel that speaks most potently to many. Many today are asking the Church not only to proclaim its gospel but also perform that same gospel. They are asking this more of the Church and not just individual followers of Jesus.

The recent study of St Francis by Lawrence S. Cunningham has the subtitle of Performing the gospel life. St Francis, like many in our generation, was tired of hearing Church leaders squabble about land and about theology and about power and said to himself: "I will live as Jesus lived." And his testimony is known throughout the entire world -- and it is a witness in a brown gown to the impact of a person who performed the gospel.

God sits in judgment, and he calls us to perform the gospel daily -- and that is why we begin our day with our offices and in them we greet our Lord with this: "I cry to you for help; in the morning my prayer comes before you."

That is why we need to pray, with the Church, the Prayer appointed for the Week: Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace each of us may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion ... for the sake of our Savior Jsus Christ." It is the Church that performs the gospel to the world, and it is ours to play a small role -- a role we can be grateful to have.

Thursday, June 16

2005-06-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 84-85)

To read today's office, click here.

Today's reading weaves together two indissoluble themes: the goodness of God's grace and the need for us to "remain" (I prefer the KJV's "abide") in Christ. So, the Refrain puts it together perfectly: "no good things [God's gracious provision] will the Lord withhold from those who walk with integrity [remaining/abiding]." Because it is the Lord's wondrous provisions that keep us on the "straight and narrow," the Request for Presence says, "I call with my whole heart [every bit of me knows the need]; answer me, O Lord, that I may keep your statutes."

What I have noticed about the spiritual masters of the Christian tradition is this: each of them shows a very real and noticeable dependence on God's grace and, at the same time, an unwavering discipline to do what they know to be good and right.

Take John Bunyan's classic, The Pilgrim's Progress, a book unfortunately not read enough any more. Christian, the pilgrim character who lives out the Christian life, is constantly affirming how great the Lord's provisions are and how important it is for him to keep his mind on the business of staying on the path to the Celestial City.

Wednesday, June 15

2005-06-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 84-85)

To read today's office, click here.

The practice of a sacred rhythm of prayer, or saying your prayers or offices daily, along with the Church, is rooted in Israel's reciting of the Shema ("Hear, O Israel") as found today in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The Psalmist speaks of praying three times a day -- morning, noonday, and evening (actually the original text begins with evening, as the Jewish day began in the evening). The reason this is done is not so humans could feel special or religious, as if doing something religious three times a day somehow earned favor with God.

No, the reason for the sacred rhythm of prayer and praying with the Church is so we can reminded of what is most important. The reciting of the Shema twice a day reminds us that we are to love God as a central focus of life; Jesus' amendment of the Shema by adding "and love your neighbor as yourself" (what I call The Jesus Creed) enables us to be reminded that life is about loving God and loving others.

And our text today tells us that we need to be reminded of what God has done for us. The lines "come to us" and "come and listen all you who fear God" finds a wonderful climax in our Morning Psalm: "That which we have heard [by reciting the stories over and over!] and known, what our forefathers have told us, we will not hide from our children." What will they tell them? "We will recount to generations to come the praiseworthy deeds and power of the Lord, and the wonderful works he has done." Why? "That the generations to come might know." Why? "So that they might put their trust in God."

The major reason why recitation of Scriptures, which is what The Divine Hours is all about, is because not everyone had Scriptures at hand -- so the leaders read them aloud so the people could hear, listen, remember, and recite. We are fortunate to have all our Bibles, but this fortune needs to be met with responsibility -- the responsibility of reading and hearing and embracing and telling others of the great works of God.

Tuesday, June 14

2005-06-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 78-80)

To read the office, click here.

The singular gift of the Christian faith is summed up in the word grace and it reverberates throughout this morning's lesson. God's glorious and providential control in the Call to Prayer, the "word" in which we can trust in the Request for Presence, the desire to glorify the Lord because of his "love" in the Greeting, dwelling in the "word" of Jesus in the Reading, the "new song" that the believer can sing in the Morning Psalm, but most especially in both the Refrain and the Prayer Appointed for the Week: "those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish" and "that through your grace each of us may proclaim." Each of these carries on the theme of God's embracing and healing grace.

God calls us to himself and God enables us to answer that call; God calls us to serve him and God enables us; God gives us a new song and enables us through the Holy Spirit to sing that new song.

In our many walks in the last month Kris and I have seen numerous ducks with their new little family of babies. Somehow, someway those mother ducks communicate with their little ones. For, when we get near them the little ones have heard the voice of the mother, the mother has shown the way to safety, and the little ones need only waddle behind the mother to find that security -- sometimes into the water and othertimes into some clump of taller grasses.

In much the same way, God calls us into the safety of his grace and the security of his love, and all we need to do is listen and "waddle behind the direction God takes us." In that grace and love we become the ones who are "planted in the house of the Lord" and who can "flourish in the courts of our God.

Monday, June 13

2005-06-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 74-75)

For the lesson, click here.

"Wait upon the Lord and keep his way; he will raise you up to possess the land." The vocation of each of us is to worship the Lord, but some bless the Lord while the fool says in his heart that there is no God. When the presence and power of God seem so far away and so hard to see, we are still to wait upon the Lord. Soon God will come.

This is the faith that Jesus teaches under the image of a mustard seed -- the faith that the little is the large. Bob Muzikowski, a business man in the inner city of Chicago, saw his neighborhood as a place where, if he could plant his mustard seed of loving his neighborhood by offering to administrate a baseball program, a big work could flourish. And it did. Though Bob spent plenty of time worrying and working and pushing and asking, eventually sign-up day came. The line was at first little more than a few stragglers, but before the day was done -- a full league and coaches. The league flowered, Bob ministered grace to hundreds of kids and families, and soon another league -- and then one off in New York, too.

Bob learned what the Psalmist learned: Wait upon the Lord. The little is large.

Sunday, June 12

2005-06-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 68-70)

To read this morning's lesson, click here.

The "human problem," as the Bible's narrative tells it, begins with Adam and Eve. Actually, Genesis 1:2 tells us that God turned the primeval soupy tohu va-bohu ("formlessness and void") into a gloriously perfect order, setting human beings into an orderly world so they could live with God and before God in an orderly way. Adam and Eve are part of God's orderly creation.

But, Genesis 3 tells us that Adam and Eve, who here speak of each of us, opted for another way than God's perfect order. The wheels began to fall off, the tohu va-bohu began to creep its way back into the picture, and Cain killed Abel and humans, one after another, began to run east from Eden and do nasty things. And one long-term impact of all this is that the powerless were ignored and suppressed.

Jesus came to do what God said God had to do: "I will judge with equity." Jesus did just that by a Spirit-guided concern with the "affllicted," the "captives," the "blind," and the "oppressed." His mission: to liberate and to proclaim the "year of the Lord's favor" (if you have time, read this in light of Leviticus 25).

With one quick stroke of power we cannot heal the world's ills, but today, tomorrow, and throughout the steps of the rest of our days we can respond to those who are around us who speak of needs, who speak of afflictions, who speak of oppressions -- and when we do, we are doing what Jesus was called to do. Today, God's judging with equity is our own special vocation. Notice, sometime, the diversity -- or what ought to be the diversity -- of God's people. We have heard Jesus proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Saturday, June 11

2005-06-10T18:56:00.000-07:00

Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 64-65)
[If you'd like to read this morning's lesson, click here.]

Traditional places of worship or symbolic places of significance are and become even more a place where people meet God. A recent trip to Italy permitted us to visit the Roman Forum, now but a dust heap with an attempt to stand old, broken pillars and monuments up enough to give the resemblance of the glory that was once the Roman Empire. A short trip on a bus across the city and over the Tiber led us into St Peter's Square and the Cathedral, and that place was filled with pilgrims and tourists. For many it was a place of worship. (For myself, I was more awed by the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi.)

The Psalmist announces the happiness of those who are privileged to dwell in the Temple courts, and our Refrain this morning is this: "How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts!" There is a whole world of mystery in this line.

Next we have a reading from John 10, in which we find the NT principle that Jesus fulfills the Temple as he forms his own flock from the whole world. "I know my own and my own know me" is all that needs to be said. We are now privileged to dwell in God's presence, or better yet, to have God's presence dwell in us. This is a grand turnaround on God's part -- instead of drawing us to his physical dwelling, God searches us out and dwells within us. We long for this dwelling.

Perhaps we need to learn more about the inner sanctum, the "inner sanctuary" that we are, where God's Spirit dwells in order to make the sort of people that declare forth the goodness of God's grace and dwelling.

As we prepare for Sunday, we could think about being a bundle of God-indwellt temples as we gather with others.

Friday, June 10

2005-06-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 59-60)

We are invited in the Call to Prayer to "come now and see the works of God." And, we are reminded in the Refrain that "mercy and truth have met together" and that "righteousness and peace have kissed each other."

We see the works of God and we see holiness kiss love in the life of Jesus, who says he has loved us the way the Father has loved the Son.

Here's the sublimest privilege you and I as Christians can ever have: when we love God and others, as we are taught to do, we "perform" the very nature of God in the world around us. So, when we love God and love others, we bring together mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, and they are kissed in our lives.

John Wesley, that great revivalist, once challenged a skeptic to faith by saying, "Come and see." And what he wanted the skeptic to see was how the Christians lived their lives in such a way that the gospel was declared. In that community of faith the skeptic could see the "works of God" and could see holiness and love kiss; in short, he would see Jesus Christ.

Thursday, June 9

2005-06-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 54-55)

"Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts" says David. It is this "through me" that opens up our morning office. David is overwhelmed by his troubles, troubles at the hands of those who oppose the work of God through him. And David is quite willing to confess anything amiss that he has done. But, David's concerns here are not just, or even primarily, with himself.

Instead, David is worried that those who trust in God, those who have their hope in Israel's future, those who have taken the David Road to its promised kingdom -- he is worried that those whom he has drawn into the work of God through him might be put to shame. So, he calls on God to "act" for the sake of God's good people.

God is a great God; we are to lift up our soul to God for he will lift us up. But, David's concern is that those who have depended upon him will see the work of God so that their faith will not fail.

Do we, in line with David, think often of our own troubles instead of how our own troubles may impact those who are under our care? Maybe we can learn from David to turn our trials into an opportunity to ask God to "show off" for the good of God's good people.

Wednesday, June 8

2005-06-08T03:44:00.000-07:00

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (pp. 50-51)

Our strength is in the Lord. That is why we pray "Send forth your strength, O God." By calling upon God to be our strength, we can then call out, "Wake up, my spirit" and we can read with meaning this morning's Gospel lesson: "As long as the day lasts we must carry out the work of the one who sent me." The waters may be lifted up, but the Lord's power is mightier still.

We need the Lord's mighty strength this very day. For a long while, before reciting the Lord's Prayer, I "warm up" with the the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9). Basically, "Hear O Israel, Love the Lord your God... and Love your neighbor as yourself." So, before reciting the Lord's Prayer I always recite the Jesus Creed. It reminds me of the two major vocations of life: to love God and to love others.

We need God's strength for this love -- because it is easy to love those we like but challenging to love those we don't. And we need God's strength for the latter.

We need God's strength to live out the Lord's Prayer -- it involves seeking God's holiness, his kingdom, his will, trusting him for daily provisions, enabling us to forgive others, and along with the customary daily petition for the Lord to preserve us at the end of each morning's lesson, we need God's strength to ward off temptations.

God's strength is our joy.

Tuesday, June 7

2005-06-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime (45-47)

Those who genuinely pray with the Church that God may inspire us to think those things that are right will learn, if they listen and look into the work God is doing in this world, that with God the little is the large. Mary, little more than a poor woman with deep piety and passion for the things of God, somehow knew that the little baby she was promised to deliver to the world would be the Son of God who would rout injustices and tear down arrogance and pride. And, as the giver of grace, that same Son of God would dispense mercy to generation after generation.

Mary, whose mind was attuned to what was "right" with God, knew first-hand that the little was large. She, too, said that from now on all generations (including Protestants!) would bless her. We bless her today.

And what we are grateful for is that our own little offerings, when we see what God is doing through us, can become large offerings in God's eyes.