Running in Faith is an electronic devotional guide written by members of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church to help readers take their Sunday faith into weekday lives. Each Devotion represents the personal opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent Abiding Presence Lutheran Church. Permission is granted to link to this page and to use the Devotions for personal, non-commercial purposes only.

Week of March 2, 2008
Jessie E.

"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot."    Matthew 5:13 NRSV

"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage."    The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language

When Jesus said this, he provided his hearers with an expression that has become the greatest compliment that can be paid to any person. When we wish to stress someone's solid worth and usefulness, we say of him or her, "People like that are the salt of the earth."

In the time of Jesus salt was connected in people's minds with three special qualities.

1. Salt was connected with purity. The Romans considered salt the purest of all things. It was the most primitive of all offerings to the gods. The Jewish sacrifices were offered with salt. So then, if the Christian is to be the salt of the earth her or she must be an example of purity.

One of the characteristics of the world in which we live is the lowering of standards. Standards of honesty, standards of diligence in work, standards of conscientiousness, and moral standards, all tend to be lowered. The Christian must be the person who holds aloft the standard of absolute purity in speech, in conduct, and even in thought.

2. In the ancient world salt was the commonest of all preservatives. It was used to keep things from going bad, and to hold putrefaction at bay. If meat is left to itself, it goes bad; but salt preserves it and keeps it fresh. If the Christian is to be the salt of the earth, he or she must be the cleansing antiseptic in any society in which he/she happens to be. He/she must be the person who by his/her presence defeats corruption and makes it easier for others to be good.

3. But the greatest and most obvious quality of salt is that salt lends flavor to things. Food without salt is a sadly insipid and even a sickening thing. Christianity is to life what salt is to food. Christianity lends flavor to life. Men and women need to discover the lost radiance of the Christian faith.

An essential point that the New Testament makes and remakes again and again is that uselessness invites disaster. If a Christian is not fulfilling his/her purpose as a Christian, then he/she is on the way to disaster. We are meant to be the salt of the earth, and if we do not bring to life the purity, the antiseptic power, the radiance that we ought, then we invite disaster.

Heavenly Father, we give thanks to you for this day, and for the gift of the Holy Spirit who is ever near us.
   Forgive our mistakes and selfish ways.
   Don't let us be discouraged by the failures we have had.
   Help us to think of your forgiving love.
   Teach us how to choose those things
      that are good in your sight.
   Help us each to be like the salt of the earth
      and to see where we may serve you more faithfully. Amen.

Week of March 9, 2007
Donald P.

If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then you light will rise in the darkness and your gloom by like the noonday.    (Isaiah 58:10)

13 Billion Pounds

Thirteen billion pounds! Not one billion. Not ten billion. Thirteen billion pounds! This is approximately how much edible food is thrown away in the United States each year (Some estimates are much higher!!). I could make a ludicrous comparison as to how many blue whales equal 13 billion pounds, or how much the Empire State Building weighs, but the fact of the matter is, grocery stores and delicatessens and restaurants and public institutions, and yes, even common households; we are all lolling in the same boat while those around us and far away are drowning in starvation.

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to the disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted" (John 6:1)

There are estimates that at least 700 million and possibly up to 890 million people in the world today suffer health problems related to hunger. To put this in its proper perspective, think of every man, woman and child in the United States, our entire country's population...and multiply it times three.

Why is my pain unending and my wounds grievous and incurable? (Jeremiah 15:18)

Fifty-five percent of the world's population sits down to a "meager" meal every day. A meager meal is defined as rice and water. Thirty percent of the world's population sits down to a "simple" meal every day. A simple meal is defined as rice with perhaps beans or bread and butter...and water. So, to do the math, eighty-five percent of the world's population eats less food per sitting than is included in a Happy Meal at McDonalds.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. (Psalm 130:1)

For those of us in the remaining 15% who profess to be Christians, we are compelled through our faith to provide hope and change for "the afflicted". There are literally dozens of scriptures to support the simple notion that we should be providing food, kindness, justice and love to the hungry, poor, oppressed, and bereaved.

If a brother or sister lacks food and one of you says, "go in peace," and yet do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? Faith if it has no works is dead. (James 2: 15-17)

If we deliberate on James' scripture, we are obliged to ask the question, "Is our faith dead?" The next time you sit down to a meal of soup, bread, salad, two vegetables, meat, and perhaps a dessert, think about your brothers and sisters half way across the world who are sitting down to a pad of rice and a half a cup of water. As Christians, can we ever look at food the same again?

Dear Heavenly Father,
            Thank you for the gift of your creation, this world, although we freely acknowledge that we have been poor stewards of it and often selfish in our ways. Please urge us with the words of the prophets and the apostles to do whatever we can to eradicate hunger from the face of your creation. We know that "We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once". We ask this for Jesus' sake, who gave everything to us so that we could give everything to others. Amen.

P.S. The Senior High Youth of Abiding Presence recently sponsored a Hunger "Banquet" on Wednesday, February 27 to draw our congregation's attention to not only the dreadful statistics of the world's hunger situation but also to provide information on how we can help. Hundreds of organizations (just Google on 'hunger") are combating this problem and slowly making headway, including ELCA who is prominent among them. If you want to find out what ELCA is doing, visit www.elca.org/hunger.

If you are looking to do something locally and immediately, APLC has a food pantry in the corner of the narthex that benefits Redeemer Lutheran Church in Trenton, NJ...and the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK) is only minutes away.

The Senior High Youth drew a poster called the Tree of Life that is currently hanging in the Fellowship Hall. If you feel driven to actively participate in the relief of world hunger in 2008, please sign this poster. Thanks be to God.

Week of March 16, 2007
Jeremy H.

Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, but they have been led astray by the same lies after which their ancestors walked. So I will send a fire on Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals-- they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.    (Amos 2:4-8)

The first chapter and three verses of the book of Amos castigate the nations surrounding Israel and Judah for various crimes: Aram-Damascus has used farm implements as instruments of torture in the war against Israel, fought in the Transjordanian Israelite province of Gilead (1:3). Gaza and Tyre have sold entire populations into slavery in the copper mines of Edom (1:6, 9). Edom has itself gone back on its covenant with Judah "his brother", slaughtering the population with bloodlust (1:11), and the Ammonites have committed similar atrocities "in order to expand their borders" (1:13). Moab has apparently practiced disgraceful burial practices, burning the bones of another nation's king as a gesture of hatred and spite. The prophet Amos condemns these crimes in his excoriating remarks of 1:3-2:3 - some might say crimes against humanity.¹ But the most damning incriminations are launched at the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in the following verses (2:4-7), and indeed against Israel throughout the rest of the book. The human rights violations committed by the other nations, and outlined in 1:3-2:3, serve as a preface to the list of accusations that the prophet levels against the people of God.

I do not want to lay out the specifics of the divine court case against Israel; the unauthorized use of ill-gotten collateral and the sacrilege of drinking wine taken as a fee or fine (while in the house of the Lord no less!) are symptomatic of the nation's sin as a whole and indicative of the prophet's remonstrations throughout the book. What interests me in this reflection, on the other hand, is why, exactly, these foreign nations are listed first and in this specific order - why should it matter, for instance, that Tyre is mentioned after Damascus? Is any group's crime more or less severe than any other? And why are Israel's and Judah's crimes listed last? Even if there are social evils predominant in Israel, does that match the slaughter of which the Ammonites are accused? Many biblical interpreters have posed these and related questions throughout the ages. Some argue that the prophet originally listed those whom he castigated in a clockwise order, with some nations interpolated later. Others have suggested that all the crimes against humanity for which God will punish the nations may justly be attached to Israel. Many would claim that the nations here are simply listed in order to make the claim of God's sovereignty over all peoples. And while all these solutions may be correct in their individual elements, they all seem to me to evade a salient aspect of the text, namely, the interrelatedness with which these nations were intertwined.

Edom, Moab, Ammon, Gilead, and Damascus sat astride a major trade route in antiquity, a trade route that ran from Arabia all the way through the modern country of Jordan, north into Syria. Various shoots of the trade route angled west toward the Mediterranean Sea, connecting Edom with Gaza, Damascus with Tyre, Moab with Judah and Israel. Not only were Judah and Israel caught in the middle of this spider's web literarily speaking, but geographically as well. Sitting astride some of these trade routes, and in competition for others, Israel had grown wealthy during the eighth century B.C. precisely because of its position in the world, much like our own nation has grown wealthy in the modern world.

In an era of increasing globalization and economic interdependency, Amos draws out the potential pitfalls of national wealth, and the nation's collective complicity in others' sin. While we may believe ourselves to be guiltless in this regard, the first two chapters of Amos claim exactly the opposite: it is impossible to escape guilt of some form or another in a world with so much economic interaction and oppression. Amos reminds us, in this most powerful country of the modern world, that we too sit astride a network of trade routes, a spider's web of interrelations. These interrelations encompass the sources of our coffee, our gasoline, our valuables - every consumable item that we buy comes from somewhere...and even if we are not guilty of crimes in the strictly legal sense of the term, Amos claims, we are in fact complicit in any wrongdoing committed in the production of those items, we become involved in the sin of others as they produce those goods. We are inextricably bound "captive to sin" and unable to free ourselves, as we confess weekly, and it is the refusal to acknowledge precisely this inescapability of such bondage that Amos excoriates, especially in light of the covenant obligations that Israel has with the Lord. Our admission of guilt - intentional or unintentional - in our everyday activities, purchases, and consumption is the step that begins our weekly worship of the Lord, and smoothes the path for our communion with our forgiving Lord, who is the only one who can set us free.

Dear Lord, I ask you to increase my awareness of my impact in this world - on the people who produce the clothes I wear, on the land that puts forth the food I eat, and on every element of your creation. Help me to come before you humbly, to confess my complicity in the depredation of your world and its inhabitants, and to work constantly for their renewal and redemption. Amen

References:
1. Matthew R. Schlimm, "For Three War-Crimes and for Four: Amos 1:3-2:3 and the Current Human Rights Crisis" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 2005).

Week of March 23, 2008
Rosemary S.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.    (John 20:1)

Dark! It was very dark, before dawn, on the darkest night of their lives. Perhaps this is the derivation of the saying, "It is always darkest just before the dawn". The hearts and minds of the followers of Jesus were dark, too. Jesus, their master and their friend, had been brutally crucified. That Friday afternoon, the sky turned to night and the howling winds tore the curtain of the temple in two, a sign of mourning for the Jewish people. About 3 pm, Jesus uttered his last words and died. Hurriedly, Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, requested permission from the authorities and had taken Jesus' body from the scene of torture. Because it was nearing the beginning of the Sabbath, friends of Jesus quickly wrapped the body in new linen and placed him in Joseph's new rock-hewn tomb on his own property. A large stone was set in front of the opening. The chief priests and Pharisees, fearing the body would be stolen to fulfill the promise that Jesus would rise in three days, set a guard at the tomb. The women who had kept vigil at the foot of the cross all day sat watching this interment. For the next night and day, the disciples hid, anxious that the authorities would come to get them, too. Not only had they lost their beloved Jesus, but Judas, the one of the twelve who had turned Jesus over to the soldiers, had hanged himself in shame and despair that dark afternoon.

(Note the parallels here. A "Joseph" had been at Jesus' birth and now another Joseph took a leading role at his death, and of course, there was the famous Joseph in Genesis 39. Gardens are prominent throughout the Bible, from the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane and the garden where the tomb of Jesus was located.)

Finally, the Sabbath was over, and the women were able to return to the tomb and prepare the body properly. Here, as they often do, the gospels differ on the information in the story. Matthew tells that while they were there, an earthquake rolled back the tomb and an angel told them Jesus had risen. Luke states two figures in white were sitting there. John writes that the tomb was opened, the frightened women went back to get a couple of the disciples, who looked in, and everyone except Mary Magdalene ran away. Whichever way it happened, Mary Magdalene was left alone weeping at the tomb, where two angels in dazzling white sat in the place the body had lain. She asked where the body had been taken, and was spoken to by a figure she thought to be the gardener. He called her by name, "Mary!". Realizing it was her dear Jesus, she joyfully greeted him and, at his command, ran to tell the other disciples that he had risen, indeed!

Each year during the three year cycle of readings, a different description is read. Listen for each author's report of each gospel - what is identical, what details are included or omitted in each account? This year, as we talked about the event in confirmation class, Pastor Pancoast noted the words, "and Peter" in the command by the angel to tell the disciples that Jesus would meet them in Galilee. (Mark 16:7) Why was Peter singled out from the other disciples? Was this a sign that he had been forgiven for his denial of Jesus? Was it because he was now the head man on the team?

Today, many churches, including Abiding Presence, end the Lenten Season with an Easter Vigil. Like the first disciples, we gather in the dark, recount the narrative of the crucifixion, and then begin the celebration of the Resurrection at approximately midnight. A new fire is kindled; candles are lit, flowers brought forward to adorn the chancel, and the sanctuary lights blaze. The darkness of sin and death has been overcome by the light of Christ.

The Blessed Easter Story! Desolation and sadness turned to hope and gladness. In the midst of death, there is new life. Return to your home after worship on this glorious day and tell others, as Mary Magdalene did, "I have seen the Risen Lord!" Let the brilliant Light of Christ shine in your heart and in your life.

Heavenly Father and God of mercy, we no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for he is alive and has become the Lord of life. From the waters of death you raise us with him and renew your gift of life within us. Increase in our minds and hears the risen life we share with Christ and help us to grow as your people toward the fullness of eternal life with you. We ask this through Christ our Lord. AMEN
   from Easter Season Meditation by Robert F. Morneau

Week of March 30, 2008
Susan L.

     While I was in high school, a period when the Cold War was raging, I read a book entitled Earth Abides, by George Stewart, which was an account of life in America following a plague which wipes out all but a few survivors. I associated the plague with a nuclear holocaust, a risk we often discussed in history classes. The lesson of the book for me was that although civilization as we know it may be destroyed, Earth abides, or awaits a new beginning of civilization or even of life forms.
     More recently, I have been reading books on Afghanistan which again emphasize to me the fragility of life and the short-sighted corruptibility of mankind. The Hosseini books (The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Sons) portray a variety of characters at the mercy of authority figures that may be kind or cruel. Lucky is the small child raised by a loving parent. Woe to that young child when he or she falls victim to a sadistic authority figure. Lucky is the young person who first discovers a loving partner and woe to the partner that finds herself simply a slave to be willfully abused. The Bookseller of Kabul portrays a family patriarch who in public appears to be an enlightened individual, but in his private life acts like the cruelest tyrant. The lesson of these books to me is: "Try not to live in a place where one person can have absolute authority over you." Humankind is a mixture of good and bad people and you do not want to have to risk being subject to a bad one.
     In What is the What, the main character Valentino is a small child who flees with a band of other small boys to Ethiopia when his Dinka village in southern Sudan is attacked by northern Arabs. During their long march, they are helped by many decent people. In his 15 years of flight and refugee camp living, Valentino witnesses human slaughter, famine, class struggles even in a refugee camp, and yet is able to stay on an even keel. He is sent to America and begins a quest for education and a better life. Do not expect things to become easy for Valentino. The title of the book is taken from a Dinka creation story. God gives the Dinka people the cow as a creation gift and then asks them if they want to exchange the cow for something else? The Dinka people decide to keep the cow (it supplies all their needs) but they want to know what the other gift (called the What) would have been? God refuses to tell and gives the What to the Arabs instead. Valentino tries to figure out what the What is. Is it the AK47s with which his people are shot? Probably it is whatever makes one people think they are different from others: geographical location, skin color, money, intelligence, religion, etc.
     Finally, I have been reading Russian history recently. I was surprised to learn a year ago that the word "slave" is derived from the word Slav, because the Slavs (i.e. Serfs) were the major source of European slaves until Africa became a huge market. Reading the history of the czars, I was amazed at their autocratic ruthlessness and how they treated millions of Serfs like animals. Peter the Great's attempts to Europeanize Russia were accomplished by a five-fold raising of taxes on the Serfs. Catherine Great who prided herself on being a member of the "Enlightenment" was no different in her treatment of the Serfs.
     It is possible in reading history to see an unending string of ghastly periods of human suffering. We may not understand What is the What. However, when we see the beauty of the earth, then we are reminded of our faith that God is good. A single wildflower growing on a volcanic flow is a reminder that the natural devastation of a volcano will eventually result in extremely fertile soil. A single sunrise is a promise that beauty is possible and attainable. A rainbow is a promise there will be no more floods.

Dear God,
I thank you for being born in a time, in a place and in a family where I am surrounded by love and opportunity. Help me protect and extend those options for the future for others. What is the What? If it is whatever makes me fail to see my similarities to others, then help me to neutralize its negative effects. Amen