We were using 2×4’s from a lumber yard where you can always save big money. Some were true, while others looked as if they’d escaped an archery range. The foreman said we had to use them. One of the 2×4’s we forced into alignment by pulling from the other side of the foundation with a chain and come-along. When we got it lined up, we drilled holes through it into the foundation and drove in big bolts. The foreman ran the chain through a tire so that if the chain snapped it would catch in the tire and not swing about wildly and fatally.

Prayer is like that come-along. It brings us into alignment, trues us up, with God and God’s will for us. It is drastically short-sighted to perceive prayer as only a wish list delivered to God.  There is far more. And as the come-along analogy implies there is always a tension.

If we stop talking and instead listen we then here – from God – from the still small voice, from the Holy Spirit what we should be doing and where we should be and where we should be going. That’s how we get into alignment. We are the ones who move – not God. Yes, God answers prayer. God never doesn’t answer; God always hears.

But after presenting our list of petitions, wishes, _{(note the Oxford comma)} and worries we must then wait, watch,_{(again the OC)} and listen. For as long as it takes.

God does not do immediate, that would be Amazon. God asks for faith; Amazon asks for your credit card. There is a difference: one has grace, one doesn’t.

During what remains of this season of Lent try listening to yourself to hear any groaning and creaking as you are drawn into alignment. There may be some pain involved, some psychic discomfort, some emotional work. But that’s part of being a child of God. It’s in our Affirmation of Baptism vows somewhere. The Kingdom of God isn’t always Disney Land or being four and falling asleep in your Grandfather’s lap on Christmas morning.

But we always, always loved and heard and never, never forgotten unanswered.

That’s the tension. That’s the tug.

 Bridge builders build their bridges to stay in one place, especially the pier anchorages at either end, the Golden Gate Bridge used more than a million tons of cement in its pier anchorages.  Piers are the structures that carry the weight of the bridge. They can’t be moving.  Roads aren’t supposed to move, buildings are supposed to stay in one place. It’s just a good thing, a fact of life we count on: immovable objects.

What about a church building?  Obviously, it has to be immovable. What about the congregation? Does it move? if so, where? Does it grow? Does it change over time? Sure, it does.  Or it perishes.

A congregation is people – people of faith. People of faith change. We oxidize, get old, move, fail at some enterprises, succeed at others. We change jobs, calcify, have epiphanies, we get cranky, we get peaceful, wander off or wander in; we experience great crippling grief and also great shouting joy. By definition, congregations are dynamic, constantly changing, constantly active. The change and activity may be subtle or obvious or anything in between.

A congregation cannot spiritually stay in one place. It has to be flexible, it has to be movable. At high tide the Golden Gate Bridge withstands a flow of 2.3 billion ft.³ of water per second (Is Google fun or what?! How did pastors write before the internet? Thanks, Al Gore!) it cannot be movable. A congregation, on the other hand, does have to change with the ebb and flow of cultural tides.

But we also remember, in the midst of our human and cultural dynamism, that we belong to the divine God. We gather in the immovable building to worship a living God, offer our sacrifices, offer our praises, hear our call in God’s word and be reminded, in Holy Communion, that we are forgiven.

Psalm 77

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me.  In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;  in the night

my hand is stretched out without wearying;

my soul refuses to be comforted.
I think of God, and I moan;

I meditate, and my spirit faints.   

You keep my eyelids from closing;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old,
and remember the years of long ago.

I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit: ‘Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?
Has his steadfast love ceased for ever? Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?’
  And I say, ‘It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed.’

I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
I will remember your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all your work, and muse on your mighty deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy.
What god is so great as our God?
You are the God who works wonders; 

I will remember who built this church. I will remember the people who first gathered in faith to find space and money and contractors and more faith and more money to build Saron. I will meditate on what they thought and prayed around someone’s kitchen table. Did they really have in mind that the Saron congregation would become a fixed quantity?

We don’t know. The rhetorical question above is manipulative; I want to inspire guilt.  OK, kidding.

On the other hand, what did the Holy Spirit have in mind when it both prompted and answered those Saron-start-up kitchen table prayers all those years ago?  A solid building? Sure. And a movable congregation?  Yeah, probably.  Probably.

Certainly our eyelids have been kept from closing by all the conflict these days. We cry aloud to God, we stretch out our hands, our souls could use some comfort, our spirits faint.

Remember who built this building, remember who started this congregation. We are part of their history, they are part of ours. Together we are all part of God’s history; we are all part of God’s present. We are all part of God’s future.

We belong to a God who works wonders.

Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield

Dear Saron Sisters and Brothers in Christ:  June 16^th of 2024 will be my last Sunday serving as your pastor. I will be retiring from active ELCA Ministry of Word and Sacrament. 

I will be 71 years old.  Although I still feel young at heart, I am relatively certain my Spring Chicken days are over; I haven’t been bullet proof for quite some time now.  Unlike some members of Congress, I realize it is time to step down.  It is time for The New, time for the Young.  I started here New Years Day of 2009: 14 years in one call is plenty, retiring or not.  Martin Luther’s First Law of Ecclesiology states:  Pastors come and go; congregations remain.  His Second Law of Ecclesiology states: Rotate your pastors before they and their congregations become too comfortable with each other.  The Third Law states: Fire up the coffee pot.  These are Ecclesial – churchly – laws.

However, it cannot go unspoken or unwritten that, Luther’s main Law of Faith was the Gospel Paradox: God loves you – regardless.  This is delineated in John 3: 16, 17 and Romans 5: 8-10 and again in Ephesians 2: 8-10; and many, many other Biblical locations.

I have not kept this retirement a secret, but neither I have a made a formal declaration until now.   Sunday, August 27^th, at the beginning of worship, I announced before the congregation that I would be retiring June 16, 2024.  I now do the same here in the Saron Newsletter for all to see everywhere.

I make this announcement this far in advance in hopes and prayer that there will be sufficient time for the Holy Spirit to work in meetings and conversations and negotiations, formal and otherwise, so that Saron and Good Shepherd can work their way into sharing a pastor.  This is not a done deal but ground work is being laid.  Pastor Sieja and I have been talking to each other; council presidents Cheryl Klobucher and Nancy Brede have also been talking. Over the coming months, the executive councils and councils of the whole, of both congregations, will be meeting in attempt to hammer out finance and logistics.  I hasten to add this is not in any way a merger.  Good Shepherd and Saron will remain separate entities but share a pastor.

Congregations sharing pastors is now far more common and no longer the exception; and not just in the ELCA.  It makes little sense that small congregations try to manage the salary burden of a full-time pastor.  Good Shepherd and Saron are small congregations.

By ourselves, our witness is fragmented.  The two congregations partnered (yoked is another term) together can develop a stronger, more energetic, more vital witness and ministry for our children and for our communities. 

Survival on our own is not necessarily an achievement. 

Flourishing together is.

In Christ,

Pastor Paul Simmons

Rhythm: a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound. Rhythm can be detected or sensed in many situations in life.  Music certainly, but over the course of the day there is a rhythm.  Sports commentators talk about a quarterback and his offense or a pitcher getting into a rhythm and gaining momentum in completions and strikeouts.  Kneading bread, vacuuming, sewing, rowing, mowing (lawn), correcting papers, preaching (when a good ol’ fashioned revivalist gets rolling – “Can I HUH get an Amen HUH!  The word God, just three little letters, can have many syllables and lotsa rhythm.) Running, cycling all occur with less effort and more efficiency when there is a rhythm. 

With rising and getting ready for the day there is a rhythm not just that morning but through the week.  At work there is a rhythm to the day’s events and requirements over a single day and over a week.  It’s called a schedule – but isn’t a schedule just a slow rhythm? 

There is something in us that simply responds to a beat.  Because we are beating: it’s our heart.  Our lungs also have to be in a rhythm.  Soldiers have gone to war and into battle marching to a drum, parade bands need a drum section.  I catch myself tapping my foot to the grocery store music.  There are hymns that cry out for a polka step!  Rhythm drives us.  It cannot not drive us. 

Does God have a rhythm in your life?  Does God drive your life with a beat no matter how fast or slow, no matter how loud or how soft?

As you go through your day, how many things are you sensing, feeling, hearing, seeing?  Do they have a rhythm?  Does your life have a beat?  If so, is it God?  And certainly you can say yes, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  My heart and lungs have a rhythm.  The heart at between 60 – 80 bpm; the lungs in the 12 – 20 respirations per minute.  I may not always be fully aware of them – but I will know when they stop.

Are there other rhythms driving you?  Is God at work in them?  Can God be at work in them?  Should God be at work in them?  Is your life mechanical or musical?  Are you dancing, marching – or just . . . shambling . . . da doot da doo da doo . . . along?

The Kingdom of God and experiences in church during worship are meant, among other zillions of things, to be sensual.  The incense, the music, wine, bread, flowers, anointing oil, ashes, chanting, even silence are all there to have an impact so that God is more than just in our head and heart.  The sensation of God can be in our nostrils, on our tongue, in our gullet, on our skin, in our throats when we sing.

Take in all there is to take in of Jesus, of God’s word, of the Holy Spirit right when and where you are.  Do you perceive a beat?  Do you perceive a rhythm?

Granted there is the constant beat of disaster and doom in the media – a bass drum and a rattling snare.  Ignore it. Don’t let it drive you.

Instead, listen for, feel for, the rhythm of the Spirit in your body, in the day, the week, the month, the year. In your life.  Move your spiritual hips.

Read the Bible down by the lake shore, listen to the rhythm of the waves.  Read the Bible outside as the sun sets – rhythm slows.  Read the Bible outside as the sun rises, especially the Easter texts – rhythm picks up.  Read the Bible, Genesis 1, in the trees on a windy day.  Read the Bible in a thunderstorm.  Read the Bible as a baby is crying; or asleep on your chest.  Read the Bible in absolute silence; or in the stands during the chaos of a football game.  Read the Bible in a hospital lobby; read the Nativity story in a barn.  Try to pick up the beat.

It is God.  Let yourself be driven. 

You may have to let go of some things.  You may have to dance.

OBLIGATORY YET NECESSARY STEWARDSHIP PARAGRAPH

If there is a rhythm to your giving it goes better than when it is sporadic.  

$50 at Christmas and $50 at Easter feels big.  

But $20 every Sunday is more and easier – it’s $1,040 – easy like ringin’ a bell. 

It adds another steady beat to your relationship with God. 

This rhythm is the beat of a life lived in worship and trust. Not a bad thing.

This rhythm does not go unnoticed by God. 

Again, be ready to be taken out on the dance floor.

And remember:  It is never to late to start.  It is never too late to start over.

The snow began ever so lightly on the afternoon of the 21^st, a Monday.  Then came the wind and more wind; along with more snow.  And more snow.  Tuesday the 22^nd of February was a snow day for the upper third of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In the early morning of Wednesday, the 23^rd, the snow ended and the stars came out.  When daylight came, we all started shoveling, blowing, blading and plowing out.  Get the snow out of the way and let’s get moving again.

   The snow was in the way!  We couldn’t drive, we couldn’t walk and we had appointments and things to buy at stores and breakfast and lunch dates.  At the very least we had to get out of the house.  Netflix can only do so much.

  The beautiful white, silencing, purifying, peaceful, muffling, wind-sculpted, softening snow was nice.  And beautiful.  And poetic.  But not now.  Get it out of the way.

  It is Lent.  A season of contemplation and repention repenting, of self-examination and renewing spiritual disciplines.  A season of getting stuff out of the way so you can move around in your life and get where you (and your family and those you love – and God) need to be emotionally and spiritually.

  Getting stuff out of your way, just like snow removal, takes time and energy.  The stuff in question is not so much sin, as it is plain and simple you.  It is what you do without thinking (usually) that keeps you away from God.  It is what you don’t do that stretches the distance between you and God. 

  The time and energy involved is the time it takes to sit and be silent; the time it takes to read and contemplate (chew on) a Biblical passage – say Psalm 51 or Psalm 139.  The energy involved is spent in frank and honest self-examination.  Did I really ___?  Is that what happens when I ___?  What was I thinking when ___?  Why do I keep doing ___?  Y’know a little self -control wouldn’t kill me.  I could’ve asked God here___ and here ___ and should’ve really asked God here ___.  Yikes!   O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!

  Lent is not about what you give up.  It is about the subtle turns you make to change direction away from bad things – repentance; and towards good things – righteousness.  It’s not what you give up – it’s what you leave behind because it is dead weight – because it is in your way, like 28” of snow which is no longer quaint and pretty.

  For the next five or six Sundays you are invited to take the shovel of repentance and move the drifts and piles of sin out of your way so you can make a path and walk to (access) God and God’s free forgiveness, righteousness, call and vision and purpose, and joy. 

  Joy.  And Peace

  Wouldn’t some joy be nice?  With a side of Peace? 

  Do the Lenty thing.

 See you in worship!  Bring the kids!

 The lights and sirens on an ambulance are to warn and theoretically clear the road ahead for a safe and efficient trip to the emergency and then to the hospital.

     But I believe they have an other purpose.  They tell the people at the emergency that help is on the way.  As someone waits for an ambulance – or fire truck or police car – the minutes until arrival of emergency personnel seem like hours.  Fear and desperation lay thick at the site. I am reminded of the lyrics in Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, “…does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? …”  

     If those awaiting rescue and relief can hear the siren they know, they hear, that help is on the way.  “Help is on the way” is in itself a life-saving phrase.  It offers hope.  It offers hope to those in pain, fearing for their lives; they cling to it desperately – as if their very lives depend on it.  Because they do.

     People without hope wear out, quit, give up, can’t stay up; death becomes inevitable.  They say, “OK.”   On the other hand, people  with hope can last a long time.  People with hope can go a long way.  People with hope cling to life when there is no earthly reason to do so.  People with hope say to themselves and anyone who will listen, maybe they even speak to death, and say, “Not yet.  Not now.  Not today.  I am going to live.  I hear the siren.  It’s getting closer.”

     Advent is God’s siren to us.  John the Baptist is that wailing, whooping, undulating, locust-eating, wild honey-eating, River-baptizing, honking, beeping sound in both his wilderness then and our wilderness now that tells us God is near, God is on the way.  We hear it.  We have hope.  Creation has hope.  We can go on.  And instead of giving in to fatalism, cynicism and despair, we can relax, loosen our jaws, breathe, look up.

    Instead of looking for the flashing read and blue lights.  Light an Advent Candle.  Read those first chapters of Matthew and Luke.  They were written to be read this day in this time in this pandemicized, divided country and world.  Those words are your siren.  Salvation is on the way.  Salvation has been here.  Salvation is here now.  

     You don’t have to type Amen.  You don’t have to be brave enough to repost.  You don’t have to re-Tweet.

      Believe.  Listen.  Watch.  Wait.  Breathe.  It is Advent.  It’s always Advent.  It has never not been Advent.

      God’s Peace be upon you.

  Do you remember when you were younger and didn’t get to run anything – operate anything? The riding lawnmower, the car, boats, sewing machines, power tools, snowblowers, chain saws, big fire crackers (M80’s, Cherry Bombs no longer available legally), vacuum cleaners, power trowels, F-15’s, rocket launchers and cement mixers were off limits because you were too young.  You were presented with the twin specters of bodily injury and property damage totaling anywhere between $113 to $275,000.  You were also told the device, vehicle, explosive device or implement in question was for Mommy or Daddy to operate.  You were relegated to your Hot Wheels, Gameboy, Lady Fingers, Matchbox or the Easy-Bake Oven.

  Now we are adults, give or take, and the thrill of “running things” comes from larger more expensive objects.  We have motorcycles, snowmobiles, motorhomes, antique tractors, mortars, bass boats, home theaters, M-14 deer rifles, sergers, and ATV’s to name a few.

  But, do you remember swelling with pride and anticipation; being transfixed by the challenge of finally “running” something for which you were once deemed too young?  Do you remember the excitement and anticipation of “running” it the next day?  Do you remember not wanting to get off the lawnmower, out of the F-15 or beyond arm’s reach of the mixer because someone else, especially an undeserving younger sibling, would take over your duty?

  Has it ever been like that between you and God—swelling with pride (in this case swelling with humility) and being transfixed by the challenge of mission and or service for which you once considered yourself unworthy or too young?  Have you ever shot out of bed powered by the Holy Spirit and raring for action?  For service (servanthood)?  For worship?  For Bible study?  For a day full of sunshine (sonshine) and joy and overwhelming mountain-moving-into-the-sea hope?

  Some people can answer in the affirmative.  Whether referring to a day, a month, a trip or maybe even a lifetime.

  Maybe that’s what Jesus had in mind when he said (in the 18^th Chapter of Luke):

“Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

  Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God swelling with humility, transfixed by the challenge and a wearing a big, dumb, grateful grin will never enter it.

  There is another story about kids in the Bible:

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.  At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.  Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.”  Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.  The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy.  Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.  Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

That might be something to try, a phrase to remember, a prayer to pray.  In your next devotions alone or with the family just say, “Speak, for your servants are listening.” 

  In about a month Advent will be here.    

                              “… said the night wind to the little lamb  . . .

September 2021

  In her later years my mother broke her hip.  She deeply resented this event not because of the pain or hospitalization, but because it was a threat to her mobility.  She refused to be bound by a walker or cane; and do not even try to take her car keys.  With a little bit of pride – and relief – she related how her orthopedist told her he’d found purchase in her femur for the screw he inserted to hold the two broken segments together.  Purchase.  The threads of the screw bit and held – found purchase – in her femur.  Mom healed up rapidly and was quite mobile up until the last few months of her life.  She was indeed blessed with determination and healing.  And a solid femur.  So the screw could find purchase.  If screws, nails even, don’t find purchase hips – and everything else in the world – fall apart. 

   When the screw finds purchase it holds solid and secure.  No doubt, many a DIYer has had to work with screws and holes and trying to fasten something to something else and not being able to gain purchase. 

  But in terms of people, in terms of relationships, how many people have found purchase in you?  How solid are you?  And with how many people have you found purchase?  Are they solid enough for you?  Sure – spouses, children; parents, grandparents, close friends.

     Has God found purchase in you?  Has the Holy Spirit screwed itself into you fastening you to God, tying you into God’s will?  Have you found purchase in God?  In your relationship with God, in your Christian fellowship, your conversations of faith, have you found purchase for your soul?  Are there people and ideas, church groups, let alone a congregation, where you can get yourself screwed in?  Are there places where you feel solid and secure – and safe – in widening and deepening your faith?  Have you and your pastor found purchase with each other? Have you tried drilling a pilot hole or two?  A pilot hole (this sentence is not a rhetorical question – what a relief!) is a hole smaller than the screw into which the screw is then driven to avoid splintering the wood.  Avoiding getting the screw forever stuck, spraining your wrist and melting your drill.

   More rhetorical questions designed NOT TO INSTILL GUILT but examination of the situation.  Within the church are there people who don’t find purchase because they don’t fit the usual male female model?  Are there people who don’t find purchase because they are indeed people of color?  Are there people who bounce off instead of being welcomed – not finding purchase, not getting screwed in – because they just don’t look like us northern European types?  Yeah; maybe; sure; I s’pose; probably; I dunno; what was the question?

  Same questions again, in case you actually bought the not instilling guilt caps:  are there people who just don’t find purchase in our country?  Because they refuse to let us fit them into categories and stereotypes that keep us comfortable?

  Is there a place?  A calling?  A holy duty for the church – for Christians – to be drilling pilot holes all over, anywhere and at random?  From Deuteronomy 10:

¹⁷For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, … ¹⁸who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. ¹⁹You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

 It’s time for us to go get some drills and look for purchase.  Or just be: a pilot hole.  

    After all, we were purchased when the nails found purchase.  

     The stone over the tomb, however, did not.  Find purchase.

I never realized….

There is always the part in a movie, usually near the denouement, when one or both of the stars says, ”I never realized….” And it continues,  “… never realized you were my daughter, loved me, were a man, were a woman (a favorite device of Shakespeare), never realized you were rich, dirt poor, a Vikings fan….” going on ad nauseam.  The drama is centered around one or more people not knowing – realizing – some huge almost obvious fact central to the plot.

Something was unknown that should have been made known.  Something was unknown, which if known or exposed or declared, would have made lives much better and freer.  The end of the scene beginning with, ”I never realized,” usually ends with and incredulous, “Why didn’t you tell me?” or the excruciating, “If only I’d known!”  Fade to black.  Roll credits.  Insert gag reel.

The word realize is not limited to simply knowing.  It can have tangible dimensions to its definition.  As in

an older use or definition “ . . . the investors realized a profit of nearly 30% on the their lint farm.”  The actual definition is: give actual or physical form to.  As in “the stage designs have been beautifully realized.” Almost as if realizing means fulfilling.   Yet another definition (don’t failed English majors just give you a royal pain!?) is to cause something desired or anticipated to happen.   e.g. “his worst fears have been realized.”

Or you can try it like this.  Make a substitution:     John 1: 1-5   1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with realized God, and the Word was a realized God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being were realized through him, and without him not one thing came into being was realized. What has come into being been realized ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.   Farther on down John 1 is verse 14:   And the Word became flesh was realized and lived among us, and we have seen realized his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son realized full of grace and truth.

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, dear Gentle Reader, it is our calling to realize Christ so Christ can be realized by the world.  We, through Baptism, are called to do the realizing.  We are called to make Christ realizable.  Visible.  Perceptible.  In lives of servanthood, a generous spirit, and words.  We are called to give actual physical form to Christ – as we are called, gathered and enlightened by the Holy Spirit.  It’s fairly simple.  All you have to do is submit.  Piece of cake.  Or communion bread.

So maybe that is the question or two for July.  Has Jesus been realized for you at any time?  Have you realized Jesus for anyone at some time?  I’d bet maybe you have.  Don’t feel guilty with these July questions.  They are to make you wonder.  To make you watch and listen.  To yourselves and others.  Don’t underestimate where God is and how God chooses to act and how subtle or obvious the act may be.  Be ready to realize.  Be ready to be realized – as part of the body of Christ – or as we church pros say, The BoC.

Realize: To see, to perceive; and then to give form to. 

A life.  A body.  You.  All of us. 

Jesus.

June 2021

  In the morning, when the light was rich, he would drive around and look at his fields full of …. weeds.  He was transfixed by the sea of yellow that was mustard blossoms.  He was enchanted by islands of white lamb’s quarters waving in the breeze; acres of foxtails reminded him of the ocean.

    One day another farmer came by and offered him money to rent or buy the land with which he was so infatuated.  The one who came to the country to farm was hurt by the offer – what was he doing already if not farming?  The farmer making the offer said, “You’re not farming, you’re wasting the land.  There is no market for mustard, foxtails or lamb’s quarters.  And certainly not for kosia.”  

  The one who came out to farm, whose name was Earl, said, “But I love the land, I want it to grow as it sees fit, it should be free to determine for itself what it wants to be.  I don’t want to limit it to monocultures” 

  The other farmer, whose name was Loren, snorted an apt and descriptive though unacceptable word and said, “It wants to be weeds, Earl” he said.

  “Right.  Prairie,” said Earl. 

  “Prairie?”  Loren shook his head almost imperceptibly and looked down, “This land deserves—needs—to be farmed”, he said.  “People, the world, needs to eat, you need to make your payments, you need to feed your family, you need to be growing things.  You’ve come out to the country, you’ve got land, a pickup and a cap and  you’re calling yourself a farmer.  You need to be growing things.  You can’t be infatuated with the dirt and the plants and the wonder of it all—or it will all go to hell on roller skates.  You have to tell it what to do.  You have to cultivate it.  You have to plant it.  And then cultivate some more and then harvest it.”  Loren paused to fill and fire up his pipe. 

  It was dawning on Earl, that he was in the early traumatic stages of Agonizing Re-appraisal.  It further dawned on him that like Audrey Hepburn in “Daddy Longlegs,” he was in love with love.  To have a real and true farm and a real and true relationship with that farm he would have to do more than simply be in love with loving it.  Loren had filled the still air with pipe smoke and his word came out of the smoke into Earl’s thought “…can’t just take it off the shelf and play with it in the store, have to take it to the counter. pay for it and take it home—make it part of your life …people these days … during the depression we knew the value … electricity … never the same .. she left me …”

  Earl agreed with Loren but told him no sale and went off to hitch up a plow.  Later that week he hitched up the mower and the disc and he bought a spraying rig at an auction.

  Permission can become indulgence which then is taken as license.  And a farm or a life or a business or marriage or the life of a child, let alone our relationship with God and all his blessings is put in serious jeopardy of being wasted.

  The phrase “tough love” was once in style or vogue, maybe now it is coming back with Dr. Phil on TV—the brevity and convenience of 43 minutes of commercial television programming aside. 

  Tough love: is there some other kind?  Tender love, certainly; tough and tender love are by no means mutually exclusive.  God loves us and God always answers prayer, but sometimes the answer is No.  Martin Luther says we cling to that No.

  Think also of redemptive love, love that redeems, love that brings back, love that prevents.  How many times have you been brought back from the brink of   insert your scariest memory here ?  How many times have you brought someone back from insert the near or actual disaster   ?  Heavens, that can’t be easy – it must be … tough.  Tough – just like a nail through a hand or a foot.  Tough like listening to a child scream or cry in rage because of the word, “No.”  Tough like weeping.

 

Proverbs 5:22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the toils of their sin.

 23 They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are lost.

 

Proverbs 10:18 Discipline your children while there is hope; do not set your heart on their destruction.

 

 Hebrews 12:5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children–“My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him;

 6 for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.”

 

John 15:2  Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

6 Hence I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands;

 7 for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control.

May 2021

 

As of this writing, the National Football League will be holding their annual Draft Day tomorrow, the 29^th of April.  To say the speculation as to who will choose whom is psychotic, feverish and ludicrous is understatement; second guessing, third guessing and fourth guessing abound.  And that is just on a daily basis.  Since Christmas. 

  These folks doing the speculating are fans and coaches and scouts and “experts” who devote their lives (not exaggerating!) to evaluating and identifying these saviors and getting them drafted into the franchise.  The intensity is radioactive.  It is a matter of life or death, but not really; but yes, it is.  Abject despair looms but a heartbeat away.

  For those of you who have not given your lives over to sports in general and football specifically and the Packers explicitly; this is the day when the professional football franchises choose from among 259 extremely gifted and competitive college athletes Thursday and Friday ending Saturday May 1^st.  Whom they choose are players to play on their team – and save them.  Sometimes it is a specific player, a receiver or running back, but usually a quarterback.  This player will be their savior.       

  In college these star athletes are treated as demi-gods.  When they get to their pro team (assuming they sign a contract worth millions of dollars – not exaggerating) they go from demi-god to actual football god to be worshipped by coach and fan alike. 

  As long as they produce.  Yards per throw, yards per carry, yards per catch, touchdowns per game and Super Bowls per season.  There is tremendous talent (probably, maybe), tremendous money and tremendous pressure involved.  This is where many players learn NFL stand for Not For Long.

  The first picks, this year probably 4 or 5 quarterbacks, will be chosen to resurrect a floundering franchise.  Resurrect is exactly the word.  These players, quarterbacks, will win games in the last three seconds, will dominate as their team wins 35 to -3, will charm and lead all the other players on their team to a Super Bowl victory and the beginnings of an era (named after the drafted savior QB) of win after win after win at the Super Bowl.  Everyone is looking for a dynasty; a kingdom – of god, the football type.  It is a matter of salvation and glory.  It is salvation for the franchise and glory for the city and the head coach. 

  If all goes according to plan.  And blind luck.  They save everyone.  Joy and Shalom abound.

 

  Why do people get so crazy about this?  It happens on a lesser scale in other sports, and it gets a little or a lot nuts.  The counter argument “but it’s only a game” holds no weight whatsoever; it is scornfully laughed off.  Adult beverage container thrown at it.

  We want saviors.  Deep down in our core – home of core values – we want someone or something that will tell us everything is going to be OK.  We want someone who can offer us peace and righteousness.  We want the exhausted peace of Triumph.  We want to go to heaven.  But we don’t want to die.  We want a savior our own choosing.

  St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  There is a part of us that wants Jesus, wants a Savior, longs for peace, bleats and baaahs for a shepherd to make us lie down in green pastures, lead us beside still waters and restore our soul.  But we rarely know it is Jesus.  We want to go to heaven.  But we don’t want to die.  There is part of us that says, “I should be over there, in that green pasture where it is righteous and fulfilling and good and true.”  But there is another part of us that says, “But I like it here; in the wilderness, in the choking heat” without having a glimmer of a notion why.

  So we die with our false, fallible saviors, with our draft choices that just didn’t work out.  We languish in despair for a fallen idol who does not know our name and never felt the need to.  It may even be a president.  It may even be a political party.  It could be anything or anyone who tells you what you want to hear; who caters to your fears.  This person or institution can be from any party, anywhere on the political cultural social spectrum (and probably not the middle).

 

From Matthew 11:  Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

 

From Psalm 23:  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord    my whole life long.^*

 

  Forget your draft choices and saviors and demi-gods and athletic idols and glittering franchises.  Forget your lust for victory to feed your self-esteem.  Forget bragging rights and batting people around with a triumph you only watched.

  Rest.  Meet a gentle savior – who does indeed know your name and loves you and died for you.  Stop beating your head against the wall.  Stop worshipping also-rans.  Take up an easy yoke and a light burden.

  Walk in the dark places of the heart and soul and be unafraid.  Sit down to a table prepared for you in the midst of terror and unrest, pandemics and extremists, the fascist right and the psychotic left, racial injustice, and carnivorous, unforgiving capitalism.

  Dwell – not hide – dwell in the house of the Lord your whole life long.

  You didn’t draft him.  He drafted you.

April 2021

  In the musical West Side Story, Tony (Richard Beymer), realizes he is head over heels stupid in love with Maria (Natalie Wood).  He is so in love even her name sends him into paroxysms of singing.  “The most beautiful word I’ll ever hear . . . Maria, Maria etc. etc.,” he sings his solo.  Richard’s career didn’t quite take off; Natalie’s did.  Irrelevant.

   What are the most beautiful words in the Bible?  In the Old Testament?  New Testament?  Certainly there is John 3: 16, 17 or Ephesians 2: 8 – 10.  Maybe the beginning of Luke’s nativity story, ”In those days a decree went out . . .”

  But when life starts coming at you fast and thick, whether it be personal or family tragedies or watching rioting on the news, what verses offer you strength and promise?  On what passage can you hook your little finger and hang on?

   How about the most beautiful words we’ll ever hear in Luke 24:5?  “They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, he is risen.’” 

  Why do you look for the living among the dead?  Do we take it for granted that our savior rose from the dead?  Do we just assume that it’s the usual Happy Ending, the dénouement, that comes after scary and fatal Rising Action on the Cross? 

  Back up a little, do we take for granted the love of God?  God reveals himself to us and we say, “Well, sure!  That’s Christmas!  The reason for the season.  D’you like eggnog?”  We forget that Jesus was born to die on the Cross.  It was God coming into our midst in human form. To be sacrificed for our sin.  To reconcile the cosmic conflict between Creator and Created; between human and Divine; between pure and impure.

  We take too lightly that Jesus was stone cold dead when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took him off the cross, then hauled him to the tomb.  Think, for a moment, on getting a dead person down from a cross to which they have been nailed.  Feet first; or arms first, then flop forward, still hanging by the feet?  How difficult was it to get the nails – spikes probably – out?  Using what tool?  Maybe they took the cross down first; big, bulky and heavy.  Entirely droppable.  Maybe the guards helped – yeah, right.  We read the words too easily.  We consider the finality too lightly.

The man, Jesus, God incarnate, present at Creation, had no heartbeat, no brain activity, no warmth when he was laid to rest with seventy-five pounds of myrrh and aloes.  Rigor mortis probably hadn’t set in yet.

  For Joseph and Nicodemus it must have been utter and complete heartbreak and despair.  For Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of Joses, the weeping was uncontrollable; no doubt, Joseph and Nicodemus wept also.  Jesus was silent and still and cold.  Hope was absent.  Their world had come to an end.  Dreaming a happy ending would be foolishness; an insult. 

  However.  The story takes a 90ᵒ turn. 

  In Mark’s gospel, Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother of Joses, and Salome go to the tomb to anoint Jesus.  They know he’s dead.  They know they won’t be able to roll the stone away.  But they can’t not go.  Jesus was dead, they loved him, they can’t just sit.  It’s been three days.

  They arrive.  In Mark, there’s an angel sitting there telling them Jesus is raised and gone.

   In Luke, are the most beautiful words, the question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

  Again, the words are too simple.  Jesus has been raised. He’s not here.  You are looking in the wrong place.

  His heart started pumping again.  Blood began carrying oxygen to his brain, muscles and organs. Jesus had been in hell, with the dead.  The sights, sounds and smells: unimaginable.  This visualization or imagining doesn’t even begin to do justice, to accurately portray what actually happened.

  However.

  God is what happened.  Power over death, biochemical or otherwise.  Probably the otherwise, probably the same breath of God that brought Adam and Eve to life brought Jesus back to life; called him back from death.

  It wasn’t resuscitation.  It was resurrection.  Death rendered powerless – real but powerless.

  This whole story in Mark or Luke or Matthew or John is about two things: Jesus dying – our forgiveness.  And Jesus rising again – our promise of eternal life with our Creator who does indeed have power over death.       

  And by the grace of God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, pause for emphasis, it is our story too. 

  Yours.  Mine.  The World’s.  It is our Story to live out; it is our Story to tell again and again.

  It is Easter.  We are Easter people.  Resurrection people.  Die and rise again people.  Feast and dance people.    

  We do not have to look for the living among the dead.  

  We listen for the rhythm of Joy, the rhythm of God, and we dance.

  And There were no Easter Bunnies present.  They are unclean. 

           Deuteronomy 14.7:

Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock-badger, because they chew the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you.

  And they don’t lay eggs; they’re mammals.  Stop chasing bunnies.  Come to the Feast.

March 2021

       Once upon a time there was a man going on a cross-country trip.  It had been a long trip so far with no end in sight; with the man were his wife and three daughters.  And it was February.  Why he had undertaken this journey with family was pretty much a mystery; it was part of a larger plan, a vision.  His wife and daughters had serious doubts, but he was the Man of the House and he had Decided.  So there they were.  In Montana.  In the Winter. 

  In Montana in the winter one must have a fully functional vehicle; especially if going from one end of the state to the other.  Their vehicle was an AMC Pacer; 100,000 miles ago it was a fully functional vehicle; 75,000 miles ago the tires weren’t bald; 80,000 miles ago it started leaving a trail of blue oily smoke.

  In the middle of nowhere the Pacer did indeed become fully non-functional.  Steam was coming out in front, black smoke from underneath.  They evacuated the vehicle, standing on the opposite side of the two-lane road.  It was a bright, cold, windy day.  Mother and daughters huddled together in coats that were too light under a blanket that was too old, too small.  They were shivering with cold and desperation; any hope for anything good had long since disappeared.  It was cold.  It was looking more and more hopeless.  It was so cold.  

  The Man was tinkering under the hood with he knew not what.  They had not seen another vehicle for three hours; they hadn’t seen another anything for three hours.  The smoke was getting blacker and starting to fill the interior.

  Along came salvation.  A big pickup towing a horse trailer pulled up, out dashed the driver, grabbing a fire extinguisher from the trailer.  She sprayed with authority, the smoke stopped; the steam fizzled out on its own accord.  The driver set down the extinguisher, put her arm around the four huddled females and ushered them into her pickup – a Ford F-350 crew cab, Diesel, 6.7 liters, duals, chrome, lots.  The rattle of its idle mocked the silent Pacer.  Inside, mother and daughters were overcome with warmth and rescue.  They wept in relief, their noses ran; feeling began to return to their fingers and toes.

       The pickup driver began transferring what little luggage there was from the Pacer to the horse trailer.  The man continued to work under the hood because he didn’t know what else to do; he was studiously avoiding the driver’s activities.  Finally he stood up and attempted eye contact, “Well, thank you so much, but I think we can handle it from here.  I’ll get the car running here in a bit and my wife and daughters and I can get on to the next town.  So, ah … thank you very much.”  He walked to the trailer to retrieve the luggage. 

  The driver was incredulous, “You’ve got nothing to fix.  It was on fire, for heaven’s sake.  You’ll need parts and water and anti-freeze.  Do you even have tools?  Duct tape and a screw driver aren’t going to cut it. It’s getting colder and darker and you look frozen too.  Don’t be a such a donkey!  Let’s go.  C’mon!”

Struck by the donkey epithet, he stepped back.  “No, no.  Really.  You can go.  Again, thank you.  So much.  We’ll get it into town …”

  She cut him off, “The nearest town in 110 miles away, and it’s not open.  You and your family will die.  Because you’re proud or stupid or both.  Now, let’s go.”

  The Man hesitated; then went to the pickup to get his wife and daughters back with him.  He beckoned to them. 

    The driver, a ranchwoman, stood between the man and his family thinking she could at least save them.  His stubbornness was utterly, blindingly senseless.  

She was going to give it one last try, “Come with me,” she pleaded, “I’ve got a great big movie-money ranch.  I will put you up in my guesthouse – it has many rooms.  You can stay there for as long as you need, as long as you want. No charge. I’ll give you one of the ranch vehicles.  You can come and go as you please.  You can eat at the main lodge or by yourselves.  Groceries and gas on me.  And you’ll owe me nothing.  You don’t have any money and I’ve got more than I know what do with.  I’m between movies now.  I fly to Hollywood and get paid obscene amounts of money because they make me beautiful and witty.  Let me do this for you!  Let me … save … you.”  She didn’t want to beg, didn’t want to preach, was almost in tears, almost ready to kick him in the backside. 

  Silence, a lame conciliatory smile and a head shake.  “No.  I can’t let you do that.  We’ll be OK; we’ll get by.  Again, I want to thank you.”  Over her shoulder he beckoned again to his family.  They did not move; the daughters were asleep on each others’ shoulders. 

  His wife got out and came to him.  She wiped her nose and hissed, “What is wrong with you?  Get in the pickup with us and leave this stupid dead car behind.  You can’t fix it and you know it.  You’re too proud to accept help?  This woman is offering us everything.  Everything!  And you can’t let someone save you?  Rescue us?”  She paused, biting her lip.  “We’re leaving with her.  Whether you come along is up to you.  And, if you stay here,” her nostrils flared, her eye’s hardened, “that’s fine with me.  Just fine.  We’ve had enough.”  She didn’t blink.

  He said nothing.  He knew somehow he could make the car go and he didn’t want to be beholden to someone.  She tried to take his hand, he didn’t respond. She turned on her heel and got back in the pickup in front.  The ranchwoman was waiting behind the wheel; the man’s wife closed the door and said go.  The driver did not hesitate.  They departed.

  The man, whose name was Tom, stood there, then walked around to the other side of the car.  The windshield was all sooty on the inside.  Tom’s wife watched him shrink and disappear in the Ford’s big passenger side mirror.  Her eyes grew heavy and her sight grew dim.  She slept.

   There was man stuck in sin; afraid to repent.  His sin was all he knew.  Even as grace stared him in the face and called out with salvation he couldn’t move; couldn’t leave his wreck behind.  He could not repent.  Could not change his mind.  He died figuratively and maybe even literally.

Lent is underway.  It is forty days of hearing, learning and digesting the fact that repentance is possible and necessary.  We all sense, in some way, that it is necessary, and we keep that thought comfortably at arm’s length. 

  But do we think it’s possible?  Can we think of it as a possibility?  Do we see it as a desirable measurable goal to be achieved with cogent strategies employing simple steps? 

  It takes a bit of meditation.  Serious meditation.   A life or two may well hang in the balance.  For real.  You may not die.  But part of you might.  And what about those you love?

The prophet Joel wrote: 

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful; Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love;

       Return to the Lord. 

You can’t fix it.  Leave it.

       He is gracious and merciful. 

Get in and thaw out.

       Slow to anger. 

You stay outside, you freeze to death.

       And abounding in steadfast love. 

Everything she has is yours. 

     Pride never saved anyone.

Let God do that. 

Get in.

2021

Some people love to sing.  Some actually can sing.  Even people who think they can’t sing or don’t like to sing, sooner or later, in an event of great joy or great sorrow, make some kind of sustained utterance that sounds like singing.  Singing is natural.  We hear the birds and at least try to whistle along, attempting to mimic their melody of merriment or mischief. 

  My Grandmother Dagny Simmons hummed while she peeled potatoes; my Grandfather Elvin Olson hummed while he milked cows.  How many millions of us sing along to the radio in the car?  It is natural to want to make music somehow; even if we can’t sing we at least beat a rhythm, tap a toe, nod our head.  Using a Bible app(lication) got 141 hits on the word song.  “Sing to the Lord” is found all over the place.  “All over the place” is a copyrighted designator phrase for Bible scholars.

  Here’s the problem:  the Pandemic.  We have to wear masks and we cannot sing in church.  And rightly so, we spew virus-laden aerosol … um … all over the place©.  It is maddening.  What good is a hymn if we can’t sing along?  What’s the point of worship if we can’t sing our praises?

  I do not have a solution for this temporary ongoing disaster.  I am NOT advocating that we return to worship without masks and just let it rip; singing hymns full-throated, robustly and lustily.  But I know that when we open our churches up again, hymn singing among all congregations everywhere will be bigger and louder and more cherished than pre-pandemic times.  And tears will be shed – because it will feel so right and so good to praise God belting out a hymn we love.  On that day, which is closer to happening than it was a year ago, singing may be more important than preaching.

Augustine of Hippo said,

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

   Hippo is actually Hippo Regius, present-day Annaba, Algeria; located in the northeast corner of Algeria on the Mediterranean coast not that far from Tunis.  Augustine knew that we’re born missing a piece; which makes for an anxious soul.  Our anxious soul can find peace only in God, only in the arms of Jesus.  Martin Luther was a big fan of Augustine.  Luther said our missing piece is God; our missing peace is in God.

  Augustine’s restless heart theology has a corollary.  If we are restless until we find ourselves in God, it follows that we are then restless, again or still, until we can also sing our praises to God.  We can’t be aware of Jesus and not feel anything.  We cannot be aware of Jesus and not be driven to shout or sing or at least wave our arms around.  Here insert cheap jab at Lutherans for smiling as loudly as possible.

  Robert Lowry, the Baptist minister who wrote “Shall We Gather at the River?” also wrote “My Life Flows on in Endless Song.”  It is # 783 in our ELW.

 What tho’ my joys and comforts die?

   The Lord my Savior liveth;

  What tho’ the darkness gather round?

   Songs in the night he giveth.

  No storm can shake my inmost calm

   While to that cross I’m clinging;

  Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,

   How can I keep from singing?

   How can I keep from singing?  We can’t.  We’re not supposed to.  It’s Lowry’s refrain to this hymn.  It could just as well, should just as well, be the refrain to our lives.

  Even though we cannot currently sing in worship, let alone meet in worship, we have to sing.  Even though it is soon Lent we must sing before, during and after Lent.  I’d bet a carton of disposable communion cups that singing loudly, robustly and lustily would be a good way to lift depression.  As they say at the rodeo, “Open the chute and turn it loose.”  Sing in the car, sing in the shower, sing in the house and impress your family, sing at work, sing with your dog.  Sing praises to God anytime, anywhere. 

  Try to remember a hymn, one of your favorites; Beautiful Savior, This Is My Father’s World, How Great Thou Art, Silent Night, I Know That My Redeemer Lives, I Love to Tell; the list goes on.   Come in and borrow a hymnal.

   Sing and be free.  Sing and find some peace.  Sing because God hears and God loves you.  Sing!  Sing all over the place©!!!  When you sing – the angels dance and God grins.

That’s right: God grins.  Sing out!  Let your soul rise in praise!  You can grin too.

December 2020

On a mission trip in Minneapolis my group of kids and I ended up playing with a large  group of children.  Their parents were out looking for jobs or working – or missing.  We were the activity crew for a large day-care.  It was great fun; demanding; rewarding.  At one point a young girl came up to me and told me I had to sit down.  She took me by the hand – firmly – led me to a chair.  With a bit of a shove sat me down.  “OK, I’ll play along,” I thought.  She then crawled up in my lap and sat down, got herself situated and said, “You have to hold me.”  I put my arms around her as questions of appropriateness danced in my head like fevered sugar plums.  Several times early on I tried, “OK, now.  Gotta go.”  She wouldn’t have it, ”No.  Stay;” she held my arms tight around her.  It finally dawned on me that holding her outweighed my anxieties about how proper this was and the perception of it all. We sat like that, oblivious to all the others, for probably two hours or so.  Hardly a word was spoken between us.  At lunch time she crawled down and went with the other kids to the cafeteria.  She just needed to be held.

  In this time of Pandemic and Quarantine and safe distancing and hand sanitizing and surface sanitizing and being locked up and locked down and being scared to death of COVID or dismissing it as a hoax and just the flu and wearing a mask and fogging up your glasses (LASIK surgery is up 30% during pandemic) and ZOOM meetings and daily doses of drama and heightened hysteria . . . we are desperately missing human contact.  We have relatives and friends, people we love and enjoy being with, who need to be held.  And we long to hold them. 

  We all need to be held; taken by the arm and pushed into a chair. We need to crawl into a lap.  We need to have our lap crawled into.  It is as natural and necessary as breathing and eating.  Intimate physical touch is a need.  Without touch brains and hearts grow stunted and crooked; they dry up and crack, pieces fall off.

  So now, as 2020 draws to a merciful, well-deserved, long-overdue close; it is painfully obvious and we understand now more than ever why Jesus came to us.  To touch and be touched.  To hold and be held.  To be intimate.

  God revealed God’s self – herself, himself, itself – as an act of intimacy, in an act of intimacy.  When you truly love someone one and want to love them well and fully you make yourself available.  You give your self, because it somehow feels natural, because you don’t know what else to do; because anything else would not be enough.  In so doing you make yourself vulnerable; vulnerable to heartbreak and joy; vulnerable to sorrow and ecstacy – and everything in between

  This is what God did.  This is what God does.  This is what God is.  Love.  Intimately.

  Letting Moses see his backside wasn’t enough.  Administering the Law wasn’t enough.  A much more intimate relationship was desired – is desired.  He was born of a human woman – that’s intimate – her name was Mary.  She carried him in her body for nine months, nursed him – that’s intimate.  Presumably, at some point, Joseph got to hold him – intimate; all kinds of touching and holding those first years of his life.  Jesus loved, like any human child, to be held, needed to be held.  Jesus, like any infinitely and only marginally comprehendible loving savior of Creation, has to hold, loves to hold, longs to hold us.  You.

  Find a chair.  Sit down.  Let the arms of Jesus enfold you.  You need it.  So does God.

  From the start of John’s Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning    with God . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth . . . .¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.    

  Jesus, in the flesh and living among us, was and still is an act of love.  He is grace.  He is truth.  He is ours. 

We are his.  We are in each other’s arms.  Hold on tight.  A blessed New Year to you all!!