Children of God

When we read Matthew 5:14 which records Jesus saying to us, "You are the light of the world,"  one of the first things we think about is that children's song, "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine."  The song's reference to putting that little light under a bushel makes it clear that the inspiration of the song is from this passage in the Sermon on the Mount.  It is a fun song to sing.  When it is announced, young and old enjoy making all the motions that go with the singing.   

 

There is one huge problem with this song about the little light.  It teaches bad theology. There is nothing little about the light of which Jesus spoke that day.  It is the eternal light of which Genesis speaks in its very first verses.  The light which Jesus saw afire in each one of us is the light of Genesis 1:3.  It is the creative light which defines who we are.  The light Jesus saw in those who listened that day and who continue to hear the echoes of His voice first spoken from that mountain is described by the Apostle John as the light that "...shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."  (John 1:5).  The light Jesus saw in us is not the light turned on by our education, or that burns because of determination and will power.  It is a light that is separate from us; yet, one without which we could not be.   

 

When Jesus spoke that day He was not speaking of a little light, but the eternal light which first shined in us at conception and which defines who we are and to Whom we belong.  It is in the forgetting that the essence of our life is about this eternal life that has led to our choosing the darkness of separation from our Creator. This spiritual amnesia causes us to choose a way inconsistent with the purpose for which He created us.  When Jesus came to shine among us, He reminded us that our choosing the darkness may prevent us from seeing the eternal light within us, but no choice of ours can ever extinguish or overcome it.  We are bearers of eternal light and when He came, He called us to see and to claim once again our birthright as sons and daughters of God our Father.

   

The Great Theft

We live in a culture which sees the Creation as something to be used.  It really goes beyond using to abusing and exploiting.  Our contemporary mindset views the Creation as an inexhaustible resource that provides a easy means of fattening our bank accounts.  Water wells are dug without any thought to the long term affect the drilling has on the underground aquifers.  The color green is disappearing from the face of the earth in favor of asphalt, concrete, and buildings without any regard for the life giving process of photosynthesis.    

It is obvious that we have forgotten an important Word which the Scripture says about the Creation.  In Hebrews 2:10 it says, "It is fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist..."  All the things we use to fuel our insatiable greed are not here for us to handle carelessly, but with a reverence that honors the Creator of all things.  Everything that is bears the mark of the holy.  The first Words of Genesis speak of every part of creation coming into existence with the imprint of the hands of the Creator God upon it.  Not only is everything that is holy, with the words "for whom" we are reminded that the Creation was brought into being not for us, but for the Creator.  In other words, what we use and exploit for personal gain belongs not to us, but to the One who created it.    

As we begin to think of what we have done, a horrible thought comes to mind.  It is a thought birthed by number eight of the Ten Commandments.  In Exodus 20:15, the Word of God says, "You shall not steal."  Stealing is an act of taking what belongs to another for our own personal use or gain.  Could it be that we are not only guilty of abusing the Creation, but also guilty of stealing it from the One to whom it belongs?  May God have mercy upon us all.

A Moment of Transport

This morning's Holy Communion transported me from the Table in the room to the one in heaven.  It took me away from the gathering of the saints in the sanctuary to the communion of the saints described in the book of Hebrews.  As if the place where I was kneeling was not holy enough, I found myself in an even holier place as memories took hold.  As I saw families gathering together around the Table to receive the Holy Sacrament, my spirit was flooded with memories of last communions.  

Being a pastor for a life time put me in the privileged places of offering the holy meal to the people of God.  It also provided me the the blessing of offering my Mother and my Dad their last communion.  Mom's was at the end of 2019 and Dad's was toward the end of 2023.  As I broke the bread and shared the cup in those moments, I was somehow aware that the next time we gathered for the holy meal it would be in the eternal place.  As I sat there in the quiet moments of waiting for others to move to the Table, those memories for some reason overwhelmed me to the point of tears.   There are times when we are aware that we are sharing last moments with someone we love, but most of the time we only realize it through the window of hindsight.  

The writer of Hebrews reminds us to "...pay greater attention..." (Hebrews 2:1). He was speaking about what we have heard as the message of Jesus, but it is also a phrase which tells us how to live in each day and in each moment.  We can never be sure exactly how God is blessing us in what seems to us to be such ordinary moments in our life.  The important thing is to live each moment, share each experience, and to give and receive love as if it is the last time such a moment will come to us.  Surely, it is true that paying greater attention to what is happening now in our life will bring us to moments of greater gratitude for the blessings of grace be given to us.

Sunday is Coming

As far back as I can remember, Sunday meant going to church.  A lot of different churches have been a part of my Sunday goings.  The first one remembered with any clarity was the little matchbox of a country church which maintained the cemetery where my father was laid to rest.  Over the years I went to the church of my baptism, the church of my wedding, the church of my ordination, the church of more funerals than I want to remember, the church which provided me a pulpit to preach, and the church which blesses me in the present moment.   

Some were very small like the first and others were large enough to make this old country boy feel mighty small.  As I recall, all of them had the sense of the holy within and about them.  Each seemed to have a quietness about them that invited my spirit to pray.  To this day it is hard to pass by a church without wondering what it is like inside.  I have memories of peering through the windows of many an old church with a padlock on the front door.  I had a preacher friend who used to collect church bulletins from churches he visited or that he found open in the moment of his passing by.  I often thought about following his example, but instead, I became a collector of memories.   

Today is Sunday and I will be doing what I have done most all the years of my life.  I will be going to church.  I could say I will be going because it is what my Mother taught me to do, but she is gone and I still go.  I go now and have gone for a long time because it has become a place which speaks of belonging.  I belong to those folks who sit around me and struggle with me to stay in tune during the singing.  I now belong to that crowd that gets restless when the preachers runs past too many stop signs in the sermon.  I belong to the God who is worshiped there.  I have found He can be worshiped anywhere on any day, but there is something that renews and stirs my spirit as nothing else can do on those Sunday mornings when I gather with the people of God that gather in those churches made holy by divine presence and sacred memories.

Never Be Satisfied

One of the worst things we can do in our spiritual life is to be satisfied.  Being satisfied is just another way of defining complacency.  Jesus warned against this as He told the disciples, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."  (Matthew 5:48). The Apostle Paul pointed us in the same direction as he wrote, "...forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 3:13-14).  The writer of Hebrews sounded a similar note as he wrote, "...we must pay greater attention to what we have heard." (Hebrews 2:1).   

We cannot give in to being satisfied.  Even if we have walked with Jesus for what seems like more than a life time, even if we have read and studied the Word until it seems like the language of our heart, and even if no one can find fault with evidences of love and compassion flowing from within us, we cannot allow ourselves to pause even for a moment with the spirit of self satisfaction.  Self satisfaction gives birth to comparisons of ourselves with others instead of Christ and it allows us to put ourselves on that perilous perch which gives us permission to judge others.    While all these things are true, an even greater danger is the way being satisfied in our spiritual life cuts us off from the new things the Holy Spirit seeks to do in and through us.  

The Spirit is never through with us.  He is always seeking to take us to new levels of intimacy with Christ and into a greater awareness of the way the presence of God can permeate every single part of our life.  The Christian journey is never about arriving, but of going.  It is never about trusting ourselves, but of trusting Christ.  It is never about finishing, but striving forward.  The self satisfied may enjoy themselves, but they can never enjoy the fullness of life with the Christ who is always calling us to follow Him on the journey toward Home.

A Hungering Faith

As one whose spiritual mantra has for a long time been, "Pay Attention,"  I was stopped dead in my tracks when I came across Hebrews 2:1 which says, "Therefore, we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it..."  I sat there for a long minute scratching my head.  What does it mean to pay greater attention when paying attention has become a way of life? Is it speaking a word about being more focused?  Is it sounding a note saying to live with more attentiveness?  Or, is it a call to live with a mindfulness that points to having missed something, some thing, or some opportunity?   

I am sure the answer is out there somewhere where the Word of God makes itself known in a "now you see it, now you don't" manner.  Such is how God often reveals Himself in the creation.  What is seen in one moment is gone as quickly as a glance away; yet, there can be no doubt that it was a moment of holy revelation.  It is like the sunset.  Run in the house to get someone to see the magnificent display of colors and by the time the front door is opened the second time, what was seen is no more.  All day I have carried this Word from Hebrews with me.  All day I have constantly been looking for the way deeper into the truth of the passage, but still it remains as invisible as the Creator Himself.   Some Words that God speaks to us through the sacred Word are slow in coming.  It seems sometimes that greater clarity often means waiting for God to unfold the Word before us.  

I want to hear this word with greater understanding, but One thing I have learned over the years is that He is not in a hurry to bring the understanding I seek.  He is not hurried by my impatient seeking.  What I seek from the Word may be like a big ball of string being slowly unwound.  Perhaps, I will be around to see the core of the truth I seek, but, perhaps, not.  For now I know what I seek is out there invisible to my understanding and so I will wait to see what this hungering faith of mine will finally enable me to know.

Faith for the Journey

While it is true that deciding to follow Jesus is accepting a call to know-not-where, such a beckoning never really ends.  Most of us think in those beginning steps that we know where we are going.  Right or wrong, we have our expectations about the difference following Jesus is going to make in our life.  When we say "Yes" to Jesus, we may even have a plan in our mind that seems most likely.  Our beginning notions may actually get in the way of going where Christ wants us to go even though it may not be obvious to us in the beginning.   

The truth is we did not know then, nor do we know now.  To live with faith in Christ means going where He leads and not according to our plans and expectations.  Where He leads is always going to be outside of our comfort zone.  A Christian life lived within comfort zones is not really Christian living.  Christian living is not about us being in control, but about Jesus being in control.  At its core living by faith means turning lose of the controls of our life and trusting Jesus to be in charge.   To live within our comfort zone creates no challenge for us.  We can depend upon ourselves.  Our comfort zone is the place where we have placed everything in a particular place and where we only need ourselves to sustain life.  Such is not the way Jesus leads us.  

As we start whining in our spiritual life about the changes Jesus is asking us to make, we need to realize that without such leading we are going to live a mediocre spiritual life that takes us nowhere except deeper into a kind of spiritual entrenchment in the status quo.  To read the gospel is to see Jesus moving steadily toward the point of risking His whole life on the cross as an expression of His obedience to the Father.  Those of us who are serious about following Jesus should not expect a journey to the rose garden, but a journey of faith which takes us to the place of total abandonment to the Father's will.