Week of August 1, 2010
Pastor Whitener

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,
give thanks in all circumstances.
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18a NRSV)

As a college history major, I still like to ask myself from time to time: "Which historical figure would you like to join these days for dinner and conversation?" Recently, the British writer G.K. Chesterton has come to mind. He's the kind of person one could have some fun with. He had the reputation for exuding a blessed and joy-filled Christian orthodoxy.
 
Chesterton once wrote in one of his notebooks:

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera
   and grace before I open a book,
   and grace before sketching, painting,
      swimming, fencing, boxing, walking,
      playing, dancing;
   and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

Say grace before a movie? Before a swim? Before signing up for ballroom dancing lessons? Before the next round of UNO? Before checking to see what's ripe in the garden today? Before doing the dishes?
 
Why not! Grace is not confined to mealtime. The gifts and blessings from God are all around. With the encouragement of Chesterton, try giving thanks to God in a variety of circumstances today.

Let us pray. . .,
God of unlimited giving and forgiving, stir us to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all circumstances. Amen

Week of August 8, 2010
Carol Y.

 
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
 
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
 
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
 
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 NIV

Bittersweet occasions, such as reunions, roil the emotions. After more years than I care to count, I attended a gathering of members of my 8th grade class. None of us chose our birthplace or where we grew up, but the pull to return felt as strong as the tide swaying the seas. This group of students matured and scattered widely, following various career paths and lifestyles. After gazing at each other in amazement, studying the thinning, graying hair, expanding waistlines, and incipient wrinkles, we began to get to know each other anew, and the years fell away. The noise level rose, and the sense of comfort and belonging descended.
 
Middle aged people recalled the insecurities, rivalries, and hurt feelings of youth. We gasped at learning that one of our peers, a brilliant, popular cheerleader took her own life decades ago. The class beauty, still strikingly attractive, told of struggles with alcohol, and depression, then described her ongoing 20-year divorce battle. Thinking of the envy this young girl had inspired, I was amazed at the emotions she called forth, and contemplated the effects of perspective.
 
After the winds and streams influencing each life story move and change us, we can find ourselves both battered and polished to a glowing patina. The infusion of life experience alters our courses and personae, though the sea of the soul never completely fills. The sun rises and sets on all that lives, but the earth remains forever. None of us know the position the sun currently occupies in our personal trajectory. Personally, I'm thankful for the time given me, and the chance to look back to ascertain my source again after many wind blown years.

On what has now been sown
Thy blessing, Lord, bestow;
The power is Thine alone
To make it spring and grow. Amen.

Week of August 15, 2010
Hon-Wai W.

Gentleness suggests moderation and docility. Titus is asked to admonish his congregation "to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone" (Titus 3.2). However, "gentleness" can mean "meekness" in the sense of longsuffering. One of Matthew's Beatitudes is "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5.5). Jesus declares as blessed those who are poor, mourn, hunger and thirst, or are persecuted. The gentle ones are afflicted in spite or because of righteousness but still pin their hopes on God. So we have two shades of meaning, docility and meekness. 1 Peter 3.14-16, addressed to Christians under pressure if not persecution, blends these two shades together: "if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed... Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence".
 
What ties these two shades together? Let us return to Matthew. In Matthew 11.28-30, Jesus takes on the persona of divine Wisdom and sends out an invitation, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest... for I am gentle and humble in heart". Matthew 21.5 comments on Jesus' procession on Palm Sunday thus: "Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble [=meek], and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt". We have a picture of our Lord who is gentle in both senses of the word. He is patient and offers rest free from burdens of religious trappings. He is the humble king who commands following not by might, but by offering his life.
 
Jesus' gentleness stems from his confident waiting on God. Divine wisdom displays no anxiety on human intransigence to divine truth: "I thank you, Father... for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 21.25-27). Trusting in divine initiative and graciousness of God, one is freed from anxiety and insecurity that breed impatience and acquisitiveness, drivers of human aggression. The sense of utter dependence on God also removes human arrogance ("you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants" Matthew 11.25), another driver of aggression. This is what underlies the truth in the Beatitude "Blessed are the meek".
 
Jesus is not just the perfect exemplar of human response to the divine initiative, He can be such an exemplar because he is the divine initiative. So we come to the heart of the matter, God is Himself gentle. He has been patiently inviting the simple to be instructed and the weary to rest. He tastes human afflictions and shows that the way of life is the way of the cross. It pays to be gentle because this is the character of the Creator. Gentleness reflects strength and power, not weakness. This is most paradoxically displayed in Paul's warning to the intransigent Corinthians, "What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness" (1 Cor 4.21). Paul's hands are forced, he has to threaten a confrontation. His threat sounds antithetical to gentleness, but is gentleness antithetical to firmness, one must ask. If push comes to shove, what kind of big stick can Paul possibly wave? I can only guess: surely it is an apostolic authority that commands awe due to the crucified Lord, complemented by the respect for the longsuffering apostle, as well as a fear of hell - unending fire of self aggression, rage, and self-centeredness, cut off from truth, love, and community. If I am right, Paul's stick is just a converse of gentleness.

O Almighty God, give to Thy servant a meek and gentle spirit, that I may be slow to anger, and easy to mercy and forgiveness. Give me a wise and constant heart, that I may never be moved to an intemperate anger for any injury that is done or offered. Lord, let me ever be courteous, and easy to be entreated; let me never fall into a peevish or contentious spirit, but follow peace with all men; offering forgiveness, inviting them by courtesies, ready to confess my own errors, apt to make amends, and desirous to be reconciled. Let no sickness or cross accident, no employment or weariness, make me angry or ungentle and discontented, or unthankful, or uneasy to them that minister to me; but in all things make me like unto the holy Jesus. Amen. (by Jeremy Taylor, clergyman in the Church of England, 1613-1667)

Week of August 22, 2010
Tracie B.

Philip said, "Come and see"...
    John 1:46

  She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me
everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
    John 4:29

I love getting invitations! I love being invited to parties or weddings or showers or outings of many kinds. Whether it is a fancy, formal printed invitation or an email invitation or a simple, spoken invitation, getting invited to something is fun!
 
These two short verses from the Gospel of John are but two examples of invitations that are issued after someone has encountered Jesus. Philip invited Nathanael to come and see the one who had just called him to follow. The woman of Samaria, after a lengthy conversation with Jesus, invites the townspeople to come and see the one she believes to be the Messiah. Having been touched by Jesus, these two cannot help but invite others to "come and see". It is a natural response for them - a spontaneous reaction to reach out to others and invite them to experience for themselves the person of Jesus.
 
We, too, have encountered Jesus. We, too, have been called to follow Jesus. We, too, have witnessed the life-giving, life-changing power of Jesus in our own lives. So what keeps us from rushing out and inviting others into this same relationship?
 
There are many things, excuses, we can name - we don't want to offend someone else, we don't want to sound fanatical, we don't have big theological words or arguments to present to another should we be questioned - and on it goes.
 
But look again at the invitations that our biblical forbears issued - come and see. Pretty simple by any measure. Come and see!
 
Come and see Jesus in song and prayer and meal at worship. Come and see Jesus in the children and teachers at Vacation Bible School. Come and see Jesus at the MidWay connection on Wednesday nights. Come and see!

Who's waiting and hoping to receive an invitation from you today?

Week of August 29, 2010
Debra B.

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.   (Psalm 1:1-2)

A few weeks ago I was presented with the opportunity to be the story teller for Vacation Bible School. It required me to read and meditate on several biblical stories from the Old and New Testament. In fact on His Word I did "meditate day and night." I wanted to get the stories just right. I wanted them to appeal to the various ages that would be visiting our story telling oasis. I wanted to give each of these children the happiness that I remembered from studying these stories when I was a youngster. In fact I still remember the song my Sunday School teacher taught us to sing right before she presented us with the story of the day.
 
  "Tell me the stories of Jesus I long to hear;
   things I would ask Him to tell me if He were here:
   stories of wayside, tales of the sea, stories of Jesus,
   tell them to me."
 
I strived to give each child who sat before me that lasting, longing for the Word, that God with the help of my Sunday School teacher instilled in me.
 
I have no way of knowing if any of the fifty or so children who scrambled through the meercat tunnel and sat in the shade of the taped together plastic and construction paper Baobab tree will still be excited about God's word fifty years from now. The only thing I do know is that studying God's Word with each of them brought joy and happiness to me, and a new excitement for the good news that God loves me and all his people.
 
I recently came across these words from Martin Luther. "The angels like nothing more than to watch us deal with the Word of God; with such people they enjoy dwelling." I believe there were joyful angels dwelling among our Baobab tree this year. Thanks be to God.

Heavenly father help us to make the time to read your word and meditate on it's message of Love. Amen.

 
Author Index
Running in Faith Home Page

Running in Faithis a personal interpretation of scripture, written in faith, by members of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church Lutheran Church to help readers take their Sunday faith into their 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.