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Archive for August, 2022

Leave Room at the Table

Posted in Prayer, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , on August 28, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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In preparation for this week’s post, I’ve been pondering what Luke 14: 1 and Luke 14: 7-14 have to say to me. Luke 14:1 says that Jesus was invited to dinner at the home of a well-known religious leader, and while he was there, everyone else invited was “observing him carefully.”

Luke 14:1 reminds me to strive to focus on what God is asking me to do and to look to others in relation to what situations are calling me to do. It reminds me of that warning against “notic[ing] the splinter in [my] brother’s eye but . . .not perceiv[ing] the plank in [my] own” (Matt. 7:3). Second, it a reminder to be careful about drawing conclusions about people based on their appearance and what they do. My conclusions may not be accurate. Third, it reminds me that I need to ask for God’s help to make my heart and soul match the positive image I would like to project. Fourth, it reminds me to ask God for the grace not to be concerned about appearances for reasons that don’t demonstrate a love for myself, for others, and for God that reflects God’s love for us..

Luke 14:7-14 gives me, you, and the other guests invited to the dinner a parable about not presenting ourselves as if we deserve the highest honors. If we present ourselves this way, the parable tells us, we are likely to be perceived as arrogant and presumptuous. On the other hand, if we honor others, we’ll be perceived as humble and will be honored by others.

Pride makes a social circle small. In its most extreme form, pride would make room for only one person—the one consumed with pride—while humility widens a social circle, making room for those who may be different than we are and those whom we would have otherwise ignored or forgotten.

If I’m humble, I recognize that I need God and the gifts God has given me in creation and in other people, and I don’t take those gifts for granted. I recognize that I can do nothing on my own, without God, God’s other children, and God’s creation. This is not to say that I am nothing. I am — and you are — made in the image of God. I am — and you are — God’s coworkers and partners in the world. This makes each of us immeasurably important.

But if I’m humble, I don’t invite God in only once it seems I’ve exhausted all other sources of help. I make room for God, even when life seems to be running smoothly. I recognize my own flaws in the flaws I see in others and ask God to help me grow in grace while I pray for others to grow in grace as well and to receive the help they need. I ask God to help me see how I can help and to give me the courage to take action to help.

How often do I live up to the images of humility I’ve just offered? Not nearly often enough. I want to change that. God, give me the grace to get out of my own way and to open more and more to Your way — the way that would expand my embrace and would fill me with hope and courage. Amen.

Work cited

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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Be Undaunted by the Narrow Doorway

Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , on August 25, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’

Luke 13:23-27

“All I can think about are the ways I don’t feel strong enough to enter.”

“I know,” Jesus replied in my mind. “That’s why you needed me to be born, to bear the weight of human existence, weakness and sin. That’s why you needed me not only to bear the burdens of being human for 30 years or so, but also to bear the consequences of all sin in a way no other person could. I had to bear it all, so none of it would have the final say in your life if you let me bear it with you. My bearing it all and letting it kill me briefly made it so that weakness and sin will only kill you if you hold onto it instead of giving it to me. Don’t hold onto burdens I have already lifted, and if it’s our Father’s will that you carry a weight for a while, don’t believe the lie that you have to carry it alone. Don’t give up when you fall under the heaviness. Not giving up is what it means to strive. That’s why I said to ‘strive to enter the narrow gate’ (Luke 13: 24). The keyword is ‘strive.'”

“But you said ‘many will not be strong enough’ to enter (Luke 13:24).

“It takes a lot of strength to maintain hope — assurance that Good has had the final victory over Evil — in the midst of suffering. It takes a lot of strength not to try to save face, to practice the humility of sharing your burdens, and/or to make the sacrifice of admitting you’ve been wrong and done wrong. And the more you fall into the traps of pride, the easier it is to believe the lie that you always will. It takes a lot of strength to let go of the illusion that it’s best for you to control everything in your life. It takes a lot of strength to keep hoping and striving in the face of life’s uncertainty and its obstacles. You know all this as well as I do.”

“Yes, I do know. I also know I don’t have the strength for any of that.”

“Come to me, and you will,” he said. “Trust that I’ve given you the strength, and when your trust wavers, keep daring to trust again. Keep seeking me, and you’ll find me” (Matt. 11-28-30; 7:7).

“If that’s true,” I asked, “Why does the Master lock the door in the parable? Weren’t the people he locked the door against seeking him?”

“Had they striven to do as the master does?” he asked. “Did they act on what he taught in their streets, or did they only hear the sound of him teaching? Did they ever have a one-on-one conversation with him, or did they hide in the crowd, like a movie extra? Did hiding feel safer than greeting the host, or were they simply content to linger in sight of the house rather than crossing its threshold while the door was open? Did they greet the host when they accepted the food he offered? Did they receive his offerings? Did they have gratitude? Did they open themselves up to him, and did they allow him to open himself up to them?”

He continued, “Who doesn’t want to protect the peace of his or her household from disturbance and from strangers who might harm the household? Who wants to let in someone he or she doesn’t recognize, especially when it’s dark and hard to see who or what the stranger has with them? Who wants to let in a stranger who seems to want the master’s help, but might want to use gaining entry to harm the master and his loved ones?”

This master knows the intentions of all who knock on his door,” he reminded me. “This master knows who and what they’ve brought with them, and he knows whether they are prepared to leave outside anything he doesn’t want to in his house. He knows whether they are ready to make peace with him and work with him for the good of his household. If they aren’t, they aren’t ready to enter it, which is not to say they can get ready by themselves. As I said before, it takes strength to surrender to purification, the purification that’s necessary to embrace and to be fully embraced by Presence and Loving Relationship (“The Pain of Disconnection”; “Images of the Trinity”). I look out for for myself and for the good of my family and all that belongs to me. I think even someone with more limited knowledge and resources will usually do the same.”

“I think so too.”

Works consulted

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

Rohr, Richard. “Images of the Trinity,” Center for Action and Contemplation, 12 Jan. 2022, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/images-of-the-trinity-2022-01-12/. Accessed 25 Aug. 2022.

—. Rohr, Rohr. “The Pain of Disconnection,” Center for Action and Contemplation, 11 Jan. 2022, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-pain-of-disconnection-2022-01-11/, Accessed 25 Aug. 2022

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When the Truth Is Hard to Hear

Posted in Disability, Reflections on Scripture, Social Justice, tagged , , on August 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

Luke 12:51

Jesus follows this question and answer by giving various ways his message is going to divide the very units of society I’d like most to see unified — families. What verse 51 says is difficult enough to hear, but then, with the part about relatives, Jesus says to me, “There is no part of your life I won’t unsettle if you follow me.”

Because I’m someone prone to anxiety, and because I’m someone who depends on others to do for me what others do for themselves, the declarations of Luke 12:49-53 are the epitome of what I don’t want to hear. My first instinct is not to alienate anyone.

I hate controversy. I hate conflict. As someone whose “normal” has always looked and felt different than the “normal” of those around me, I just want to belong and be accepted. As someone whose brain sends garbled signals to my body, with the result being that all my muscles try to work at once, I want to be still and to relax. I want to sit on the outside of the of the events of life that range from the inconvenient to the tragic, infuriating, and horrific.

I know that my mental and physical conditions actually don’t make me different from other people in my desire not to make myself or others uncomfortable. My conditions just make this desire all the more intense — too often paralyzing. Still, I don’t think I’m alone when I acknowledge that there have been plenty of times when I wish I hadn’t been afraid to speak up. There have been plenty of situations I look back on and wish I hadn’t been afraid to stand out. There have been so many times when maintaining or earning approval felt more important than acting on what my spirit said was right. The fruits of these moments of silence and inaction haven’t been peace. Instead, my insides have churned. I may not have been divided from others, but I was divided within myself. That’s the opposite of peace.

Despite these experiences, there have been more and more times, especially as I’ve gotten further away from my teens and twenties that I have spoken out — even if I still don’t speak about my own convictions and act on my own words as often as I would like.

When I do engage in uncomfortable conversations, they usually happen with the people I’m closest to, and I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. I open up first to the people I feel are most likely to continue the relationship with me even after I tell them something they don’t want to hear.

What happens when I venture into these conversations? Yes, my heart races, I sweat, and I blush. But how do I feel once I’ve said what I needed to say? Calm. Why? Because I’ve been honest. I haven’t suppressed what matters to me. I’ve allowed myself to experience God’s peace, which is rooted in love, truth and justice. And as I heard in the homily this weekend, God’s peace means more than “getting along.”

Does this deeper understanding of peace mean I should act with violence, or that I should go through life starting arguments? No! God desires that everything I do be rooted in love, truth, and justice. And neither adopting a confrontational tone by default, nor resorting to violence is rooted in these building blocks of peace.

Work cited

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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Expect Love to Arrive

Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , on August 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

This weekend, my pastor said that another way to put this verse would be to say that faith makes what we believe in come to pass. I find this interpretation a lot easier to understand than a more literal English translation of the original Greek. That doesn’t mean I find either version any easier to live.

When I’d like to imagine a certain outcome, and conditions don’t seem to lend themselves to that outcome, I have such a hard time believing it will happen. Yet when I’m dreading a certain outcome, I experience it not just as if it’s going to happen, but as if it’s already happening.

The understanding of faith I began this post with is a good reminder to keep my eyes on the spiritual prize while I make choices that do my part to make a good outcome possible. My mind, heart, and body can get in the way or out of the way of the unfolding Ultimate Good. My mind, heart, and body can also cooperate in bringing about that Ultimate Good.

The parable in Luke 12: 35-40 is about expecting that Ultimate Good — expecting to be united with God — in mind, in will, in heart, in body, and in deed. I believe the Ultimate Good can be experienced in the clearest and fullest way after death. For me, this total, unobscured union is what Heaven means.

I usually hear and read that the parable in Luke 12:35-40 presents two scenarios:

  1. what it’s like to be in Heaven with God, to have had God’s heart and mind and have done God’s work even at times when a person hasn’t been able to experience the fullness of God’s presence.
  2. what it’s like, at the end of life, not to have recognized that Heaven is a possibility, not have sought union with God, and without reconsidering, to have done the opposite of what God would do.

But I think there’s also room in this parable for the story to be about expecting the good that God brings each day, acting and thinking as if I know today’s the day, that, like a package I received notification of, Divine goodness will arrive.

More often than a package does, a gift from God waits on the threshold of my awareness. However, unlike a package, I don’t always see a Divine gift with my physical eyes or recognize it with my wounded soul. When I don’t expect to receive God’s love each day, I may not ,experience it when it arrives. And not experiencing or recognizing it can feel — emotionally and spiritually more than physically — like receiving the beating the unfaithful servant receives in the parable.

Lord, give me the grace to expect, to receive, and to share Your love each day. Amen.

Work cited

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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Greed: A Shape-shifter

Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged , on August 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Luke 12: 13-15

When I heard this exchange this weekend, my first thought was, didn’t God appoint Jesus the judge and abiitrator between this person and his or her brother? Isn’t he the ultimate judge and arbitrator? Wouldn’t he be the most merciful and just judge and arbitrator? I believe the short answer to these questions is “Yes, but not yet.”

The way I see it, Jesus is giving this person a chance to resolve his issues with his brother while both are still alive to do so. (From now on I’m going to imagine that the person from the crowd who addresses Jesus is a man because it’s hard for me to imagine a woman of the first century addressing a rabbi or teacher in this way, especially in public. But I do find it interesting that the reading says “someone” spoke to Jesus rather than saying “a man” or “a woman,” spoke to him, as it seems like the Scriptures often do. A woman bringing this desire to Jesus would give the problem a different context in Jesus’ time. A brother might be a woman’s only source of support, and this reality would make the warning against greed all the more challenging.) After the deaths of one sibling or both when only God can be the arbitrator and judge, the siblings will have missed out on the joys and the peace that would have come from reconciling while they lived. Also, I think the response that Jesus gives directly to the person in the crowd reminds us of a couple important lessons:

  • Try to avoid erring your disputes with others in public. There are times when bringing disputes to public forums is necessary for the sake of justice, but doing so is not always necessary.
  • Proceed with caution when considering publicly shaming someone. Again, sometimes bringing misdeeds to the public form is necessary for the sake of justice, but when we are considering criticizing someone publicly, it’s a good idea to ask ourselves whether we are doing so to bring about justice or simply to embarrass the other person and make ourselves feel righteous. In the New Testament, Jesus calls out misdeeds and less-than-stellar motives in public sometimes, but as far as I can remember, the people to whom such corrections (to put it lightly) were directed were people with privilege and power. When he speaks to the woman at the well, on the other hand, we don’t get the impression that there’s a crowd around, even though the whole village has probably heard whatever sordid details or rumors got passed around about her past. Of course, immediately following the exchange that begins this post, Jesus does respond to the complaint, but he pivots him away from addressing the person directly, and he doesn’t respond with anger. In bringing the complaint, I think Jesus recognizes that the man has presented him an opportunity to teach everyone. He knows the person who spoke to him isn’t the only one tempted toward greed.

So he tells a parable about a rich man who thinks he has all the time in the world to “rest, eat, drink, and be merry,” “who stores up treasure for himself, but is not rich in what matters to God (Luke 12: 19, 21). The parable foretells that the man will die the night he presumes he has all this time, and because he kept his treasures to himself, no one will be able to benefit from them once he dies (Luke 12:20). However before he dies, he lists some things other than money itself that we can be greedy with: rest, food, and drink.

We can resent someone intruding on our resting, eating, drinking, and being merry. I think that’s what Jesus points to when he warns against all greed and not just money, specifically. Or perhaps more like the person from the crowd who speaks to Jesus, we can focus so much on what we want, even if it’s another person’s time and not their inheritance, that the other person doesn’t have enough time to care for properly the body and spirit that God gave him or her. We can be so focused on what we don’t have that we don’t appreciate what we do have, and resentment toward others eats away at our relationships and makes it more difficult for us to form new ones. On the other hand, we can be like the man in the parable who, on some level, appreciates what he has but doesn’t recognize how truly precious and limited his time is. He doesn’t make the most of the time he has by doing the most good he can with it.

I know I’m tempted to greed when it comes to giving what I like to think of as my time to others. This parable reminds me that my time isn’t mine. It’s given to me by God for me to use to glorify God. At any moment, I may run out of what I think of as my time.

While I have time, let me say thank you, God and my readers, for the time you have given me. I ask for the grace to give the time I have received back to God and my neighbor. Amen

Work cited

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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