What are you waiting for?

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

What are you waiting for?

Here’s one of my favorite questions to ask Episcopalians: When in your life have you experienced what you would call spiritual growth?

And then there’s a follow-up: What caused that growth to happen? While I can only go on anecdotal response, I will say that there is one answer that comes up most often, no matter what group I’m talking to.

People say that they experienced spiritual growth in a time of crisis, maybe when they hit bottom, maybe when they had exhausted every other course of remedy. That might well be the experience of the psalmist as conveyed in Psalm 30, which you may have heard in church yesterday. (Included above)

Take a look in the spiritual rear-view mirror this Monday morning and think about when you experienced spiritual growth, a deepening of your relationship with God and neighbor. Were you, like the psalmist, crying to God out of the depths? Maybe that’s how you’re feeling this Monday morning.

The psalm tells us that as we call to God from that particular place, there is no guarantee of a quick fix. We are called to wait for the Lord. Left to my own devices, that’s not my favorite thing to do. Do you know the prayer of St. Augustine as a youngster? He prayed: Give me chastity, but not yet. I have a flip side to that: Give me patience, and I want it now.

Waiting can be hard, whether we wait in line in a store, in traffic, or on the tarmac. On a deeper level, waiting can be hard as we wait for word from a college admissions office, or from a potential employer, or a doctor. Where do you experience this challenge? And how do you meet the challenge?

Waiting is an exercise in trust. It may take practice to believe that all will be well, that all manner of things shall be well, as Julian of Norwich reminded us. It calls us to focus on our relationship with a living God, and to recall how God has acted in the past.

Waiting is an exercise in gratitude. As we practice an attitude of gratitude, we find space to be in the moment, grateful for the ways that God has acted in the past.

Waiting is an exercise in hope. Last week, one of the great theologians of our time died at the age of 98. Jurgen Moltmann, no stranger to the cruelties of modern politics, guided a countless number of Christians with a theology of hope. As we give thanks for his life, ministry and witness, consider these reflections on hope which speak about waiting. He speaks about how we wait for the Lord, and how the Lord waits for us at the same time:

“But the ultimate reason for our hope is not to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us? Does anything await us at all, or are we alone? Whenever we base our hope on trust in the divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God’s first love.”

God is our last hope because we are God’s first love. Dare we believe that?

The saying goes: patience is a virtue. St. Paul goes deeper, telling us that it is a fruit of the spirit, a gift. May this week be an occasion to grow in appreciation of that gift, and in understanding what it means to wait for the Lord, even as the Lord waits for us.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Memorize Psalm 139. It will change your life.

That’s what the Rev. James Forbes said to incoming students as part of our seminary’s orientation process, lo these several years ago. A good chunk of that psalm was read yesterday in church (see above). Every time it pops up in the lectionary, I think of that counsel from Dr. Forbes, who taught at the seminary and went on to be Senior Pastor at the Riverside Church in New York. I did my best to memorize it then, figuring he knew what he was talking about. I’ve often pondered why he picked this of all the psalms, indeed all the passages in scripture that might have chosen for our fledgling group.

The psalm says a lot about who we are, as it celebrates the mystery of the transcendent nature of God, broader than the measure of the mind, and as it celebrates our relationship to the Holy One.

For starters, the psalm reminds us (as if we needed it) that we are limited. It is just possible that we have grander visions of ourselves than are due. Dwight Zscheile, one of my teachers, says that a job of the church is to see what God is up to in the neighborhood. Too often in Christian history, Christians have behaved as if they are bringing God to places God couldn’t go without some help. We might even imagine that God is lucky to have us on the team. Where would God be without us?

Psalm 139 helps us see that God is in all things, present with us, surrounding us, preceding us, guiding us into a new future. That leads to an appropriate sense of humility. At the same time, it provides a comforting notion that there is a guiding hand in our increasingly chaotic world. Howard Thurman said that if God is the creator of all things, then all things are in candidacy for God’s high and holy end. Thurman may well have been channeling the psalmist.

In my own devotions in the morning, I often have to start by remembering that the coming day unfolds in the presence of God. It’s why the prayer from Psalm 19 is so important: “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight.” I too often fancy myself a bit of a free agent. A friend recently gave me a postcard which reads: “Dear God, I’ve penciled you in for Sunday morning.” Ever felt like that? Psalm 139 calls us to recognize that in the limits of our humanity, humility before the God of all creation is the proper and holy response.

Second, the psalm reminds us that we are known. That can be a frightening thought, actually. I would not want my inner most thoughts projected on a screen. It would not be edifying, and it might be a career ender. The psalm tells us that God knows all about us, our sitting and rising, our innermost thoughts, all the words we utter.

Third, and perhaps most critical, the psalm says that while we are limited, and while we are known by God, we are also loved. It may be hard to see God’s love as unconditional, since so many of our human relationships proceed in a transactional way. Have you ever felt that if the people who love you knew some of your darker thoughts, or if they knew some things about the past, that your relationship would be off? The psalm says that we are known by the Holy One in ways that surpass even our own self-awareness. We are loved nonetheless. If that’s not amazing grace, I don’t know what is.

We are limited, for sure, and a recognition of that is key. It leads to holy humility in the presence of a power greater than ourselves.

We are known. There are no secrets to be kept from the Holy One.

And in it all we are loved, with a love from which we can never be separated.

Dr. Forbes was on to something. The embrace of those facts about ourselves can change our lives.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

The Stream

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. A few centuries later, a desert father named Abba Poemem cranked it up a bit and said: Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.

I hear both statements as challenge. They make us think about where we give our hearts, what we value, where we spend our time, where we draw our strength. What are the resources we tap in our own journey? The implication of these statements is that we sometimes treasure things that will not sustain us. We treasure that which is of no ultimate value. These statements also imply that we have agency in deciding what we value, and where we will seek resources for a meaningful life.

That’s what the first psalm is getting at. It’s included above, and you may have heard it in church yesterday. As the first psalm, it’s been described as a preface to the 149 psalms that follow, an introduction to this remarkable repository of wisdom teaching. Some of it was written 3000 years ago and yet I find the psalms speak as if written yesterday.

As in many places in scripture, this first psalm presents a spiritual fork in the road. The choice was expressed by Joshua as the children of Israel entered the promised land. He said: Choose this day who you will serve. The choice was expressed by Jesus in Luke’s version of the beatitudes which includes blessings and woes, two distinct pathways.

The first psalm speaks of those who are blessed in the ways that they choose to make their way in the world. They choose not to walk or linger or sit in the ways that counter God’s life. Note the verbs: walk, linger, sit. There are all kinds of ways we can live our lives separated from God’s life, some more active than others.

The blessed ones are like a tree planted by a source of water. They have given their heart to that which satisfies their heart. They’re plugged in, meditating on God’s teaching day and night, letting that wisdom permeate all they do.

Compare and contrast with those separated from that life-giving stream. They are not plugged in. Their battery is empty. They have run out of gas. They’re running on fumes. They are like the chaff which the wind blows away. They have no root.

Yogi Berra said: When you come to a fork in the road, take it. As the psalm presents this choice, it is describing two kinds of people. My own experience is that on any given day, I can be both of those folks. Emily Dickinson said that she believed and disbelieved a hundred times an hour. She said it made her faith nimble. I don’t know how nimble my faith is, but I do sometimes try to walk both paths at the same time. Sometimes I plug into the life giving stream. Sometimes I prefer to try to rely on my own grand skill. Is there any hope for conflicted folks, like me?

With all this talk about our agency, a reminder that all is grace. There is a stream that can give us life is a gift. That gift remains available, always. There’s always a way to come back, to take steps on the right path, to plug into the life-giving stream.

What might you do to walk in that blessed way today? What might you do to tap into that loving, life-giving, liberating stream this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Name that tune

Is there a song title that captures the way you’re feeling this Monday morning? Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen? You’re so vain (Carly Simon)? Is that all there is (Peggy Lee)? Glory days (The boss)?

I rarely remember sermons, even my own. But I remember a sermon that I heard more than 20 years ago, a sermon on Jesus’ parable about the sower and the seed. It’s the one where a farmer throws out seed on the ground and some of it takes and some of it doesn’t, for any number of reasons. The preacher focused on seed that was carried away by the birds of the air before it could take root. He compared it to those of us who may have had dreams snatched away. He noted the tragedy of people who never have the chance to sing their song in life. Maybe that’s been your experience. Maybe you know people who have had the experience. Maybe life’s challenges made you stop singing your song.

The psalm above is chosen for the sixth Sunday in the Easter season. You may have heard it in church yesterday. It’s an invitation to celebrate the possibility of new life. The psalm issues that invitation by calling for a new song, a song to the Lord. So what is the new song that you would like to sing with your life? What does it sound like? What are the lyrics? Minor or major key? And what was the old song?

In the Bible, when amazing things happen, people break into song. One of the oldest pieces of biblical literature is the song attributed to Miriam (Moses’ sister) after the deliverance at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20, 21). Hannah broke into song after her son, Samuel, was born (I Samuel 2:1-10). Hannah’s song offered a template for Mary’s song, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Mary broke into song when she met with cousin Elizabeth and both of them realized they would bear children, one of them too young, the other too old.

Many of the psalms were songs offered in liturgy, reflecting the range of human experience. For me, one of the most poignant psalms, emerging from the experience of exile, has the children of Israel asking their captors: How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? The fact is, we may feel that our lives unfold in a kind of exile. We may wonder how we can manage a song. We may not feel like singing, thank you very much. And that is precisely when we hear a call to a new song.

Yesterday’s psalm seems to imply that we have a choice about the kind of song we want to sing with our lives. I’m wondering what a song sounds like when it is informed by the news of Easter. It’s a song that would reflect the possibility of resurrection, which means to stand again after one has been knocked down. It’s a song that would include an alleluia refrain, guided by praise of the God of creation. It’s a song that would reflect the joy of a dead end turning into a threshold.

Fact of the matter is, singing helps.

But don’t take my word for it. Whether the new song is metaphor, or an actual piece of music, hear the wisdom of Martin Luther: “My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.” Hear the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Music will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.” Hear the wisdom of Leonard Bernstein, particularly apt these days: ‘This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever.” As you think about your own song, pray the collect for artists and musicians printed in the column on the left. Celebrate the healing power of music, the power of a new song.

The old adage has it that the person who sings, prays twice. When we find our song, it stays with us in ways that intellectual propositions, theological constructs, and even brilliant sermons can not. As you make your way through this Monday, as you make your way through the Easter season, as you make your way through life, find your song. Name that tune. And sing it.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Beyond forsakenness

We read Psalm 22 a lot in church. Well, let me qualify that. We read the first 21 verses of Psalm 22 a lot.

The first part of the psalm appears several times in Holy Week, and comes up in the daily lectionary, usually on Fridays, a weekly reminder of the events of Good Friday. The psalm begins with the plaintive prayer: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It’s a prayer Jesus offered from the cross. The following verses in the psalm describe the deepest kind of suffering, including a break in relationship with God, a profound sense of isolation.

On those days when the church seeks to recall the passion, the suffering of our Lord, the first 21 verses capture that pain. The remaining verses, which were read yesterday in church and which appear in the column on the left, mark a shift in tone. That says something important about our life of faith. It says something important about Easter faith.

When I began parish ministry, the learning curve was steep. I started in a church in a university town. The congregation was filled with some of the smartest, most put together people I’d ever run across. I saved a New Yorker cartoon which captured my feelings at the time. It shows a young man entering a swell cocktail party. The bubble over the young man’s head reads: Yikes! Grown-ups! That was kind of how I felt.

But a memorable lesson of this season of steep learning curve came as I began to get to know members of the congregation. Perhaps because I was newly sporting a clerical collar, they would open up to me about what was going on in their lives. I came to realize that you can scratch the surface of the most put-together person and you will find some area of brokenness, a need for healing of body, mind, spirit, relationship, memory, some acute sense of the suffering of the world. It led me to believe that healing ministries are some of the most important ministries of the church.

I later served for a number of years at a large church in Washington, DC, a church with an active healing ministry, offering prayers for healing and the laying on of hands right after people had received communion. The lines were long. As some of Washington’s most powerful people came to kneel, asking prayers for healing, I confess I would sometimes think: What on earth do you need healing for?

What I’ve learned is that we all come to church bearing the experience of brokenness, an encounter with suffering, a need for healing, the sense that we may have been forsaken.

But that is not the last word. We can turn the corner. We can move beyond forsakenness. We can find a way forward. (I’ll repeat a reference to two books that capture this possibility. Uncommon Gratitude: Thanks For All That Is, by Rowan Williams and Joan Chittister, and Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott.)

The concluding portion of Psalm 22 is read in Easter season as a reminder that we are never promised that we can skip the challenges. They are part of life. But those challenges are not the last word. They need not define us or determine our destiny. In many of the resurrection appearances, Jesus makes a point of showing the disciples his wounds. His new life bore those marks. And perhaps those marks only made the joy of resurrection richer. When the psalmist says that his praise will rise in the great assembly, that signals the hope of the Easter season.

As we continue our journey through the Easter season, may it be a reminder that resurrection literally means we can stand again. All will be well in the end. If all is not well, it’s not the end. How can you savor that possibility, that promise this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Enough already

Years ago, I read a story in the New Yorker, a poem actually, about an exchange between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. I may not get all the details right but here’s the gist of their conversation. They were attending a cocktail party at the home of a rich, young investment banker on the end of Long Island. At the party, Mr. Vonnegut leaned over to Mr. Heller and asked something like this: “How does it make you feel to know that this young man made more money last week than you made from your novel, Catch-22?” Mr. Heller responded: “I have something this young man will never have.” “What’s that?” Mr. Vonnegut responded. Mr. Heller: “The knowledge that I have enough.”

We read Psalm 23 in church yesterday, on what has come to be known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s included above. The version from the Book of Common Prayer may vary slightly from the version most people know. That’s a good thing, as it allows us to hear this well-known psalm anew.

There’s much we can focus on in this psalm. What caught my eye anew this week was the first verse, which reads: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. In other words, the Lord is my shepherd and what I have is enough. It echoes the line in the Lord’s Prayer which asks for our daily bread. Not an overabundance, but bread that is sufficient for this day, the knowledge that it will be enough. The pastoral power of this psalm may come from the fact that in much of life, we battle a sense that whatever we have is simply not enough.

How do we come to a place in our lives where we sense that we have had a sufficiency, a gracious plenty?

It begins with an attitude of gratitude focusing on all good gifts around us, instead of focusing on what we might be missing. That grateful heart opens the doorway to contentment, which brings to mind the counsel of St. Paul as he wrote the beloved Philippian church. He spoke about his own sense of contentment, which I could imagine was a challenge for him: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have.  I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13) In another letter to his protégé, Timothy, he writes: “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.” (I Timothy 6:6).

A call for contentment can be complicated in a world marked by deprivation and gross income inequality. The persistent biblical call to work for justice and peace trumps any message of stay in your place. It’s not a message of passivity or helplessness.

But in a culture stricken with affluenza, symptoms being the nagging sense that whatever we have is never enough, an attitude of gratitude leads to contentment which leads us to notice that we have what we need. As the hymn reminds us: All I have needed thy hand has provided. Great is thy faithfulness.

Where do you need to work on contentment in your life? Where does covetousness threaten contentment? And where do you need to embrace holy restlessness, an unwillingness to settle? As you embrace that restlessness, at the same time, remember all that you have been given, with a grateful heart. Remember that the world will tell you it’s never enough. Remember that you have a good shepherd.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

RenewalWorks is about re-orienting your parish around spiritual growth. And by spiritual growth – we mean growing in love of God and neighbor.

Churches can launch as part of a fall or spring cohort or go on their own schedule. (Now accepting signups for Fall 2024 cohort)  Sign up now!

Write your own Magnificat

What would you say about the greatness of God? What would be your version of the Magnificat?

Today, in a bit of calendar juggling, we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, the day that the angel announces to Mary that she was going to have a baby, the Son of God. The child will be called Jesus, because he will save people. The name means “God saves.” The feast is usually celebrated on March 25, which was the beginning of Holy Week this year. The church therefore transferred the feast until after the first week of Easter is over. So here we are.

Mary models a way to respond to a call from God. In many of the call stories in the Bible, the person receiving the call acts like the call was a wrong number. Moses said that he was not a good public speaker. Isaiah said he was a person of unclean lips. Jeremiah said he was just a kid. Peter told Jesus to depart from him because Peter thought himself unworthy to be called a disciple, to be near Jesus.

And along comes Mary, who does her share of wondering about how this all could be. Reasonable. But then she provides the model for us when we hear God’s call. She says: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.

Shortly after she gives her okay, as she visits her cousin Elizabeth, she breaks into song, the Magnificat, which proclaims the greatness of the Lord. That song is a kind of riff on the Song of Hannah, a character in the Hebrew Scriptures, who also breaks into song at the news of the coming birth of a child. Mary’s song also sounds a lot like the psalm printed in the column on the left, which is why that psalm is selected for this day.

It’s doubtful that any of us will receive a call from God as consequential as the call that came to Moses or Mary. But each one of us has a vocation. On a daily basis, we need to decide how we RSVP to God’s invitation to us, an invitation to be part of the Jesus movement, part of the saving, healing work God intends to accomplish in the world. How will we say yes?

A part of the answer, so fitting in this season of Easter, is to proclaim the greatness of God, to recognize the amazing grace that God calls each one of us to be part of the work of salvation.

Take time on this day in the Easter season to reflect on the greatness of God. Sing that old hymn, “How great thou art.” Give praise and thanks for God’s great wonders and plans for us (Psalm 40:5). And let that proclamation of God’s greatness, your own personal Magnificat, set the stage for doing God’s work in the world.

Join Mary in saying: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.

-Jay Sidebotham

Asking for directions

I was reflecting on the different ways, over the course of my life, that I would get directions. Younger readers may not believe that glove compartments were crammed with maps and atlases, telling us where to go. At some point, mapquest emerged, providing a print out of where to turn right and where to turn left. That felt like great breakthrough. Now someone talks to you, telling you that in ten miles you need to take an exit. For those of us of a certain age, such guidance would have been unthinkable in earlier days. But however it comes to us, we all need direction in life.

We’ve completed the journey through the season of Lent. We’ve walked the way of the cross through Holy Week. Yesterday we arrived at the Feast of the Resurrection. The celebration of Easter may feel like we’ve reached a destination. Phew. But the journey continues, as we begin making our way through the season of Easter, 50 days that help us reflect on the path ahead.

For this Monday in Easter Week, we read from Psalm 16 with a promise (See the psalm above) Speaking of the Holy One, the psalmist says: You will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. All of which is to repeat that the spiritual journey continues. There’s always more. And so we need guidance along the way. Where will we find the guidance for next steps?

There are a variety of ways we find our way spiritually. For all of us, there are probably wrong turns that we make. The news of resurrection is that a living Christ provides the guidance we need. In coming days, we’ll read from Jesus’ last words to his disciples in the Gospel of John. We’ll see how he prepares them for the time when they don’t see him in person. He says that the Holy Spirit will come and guide them into all truth.

We claim such guidance is still available for us. It’s one of the things we celebrate in the Easter season as we make our way towards Pentecost when the Spirit comes to the church with that promised direction. I’m wondering if you’ve had the sense of the Spirit guiding you along the way.

Guidance for the spiritual journey can come in many ways. A good starting place is simply to do some listening, to set aside time in the rhythm of your life to sit in silence.

I’ve tried over the years to listen with the ear of my heart, as St. Benedict suggested. What’s your gut say? What brings you joy? What just doesn’t feel right? Frederick Buechner said that the place where God calls you is the place where the world’s deep hunger and your own deep gladness intersect. So we listen with our hearts.

That in turn means that one of the ways we are guided is by service to the world’s needs. Those needs are all around us, appearing in great variety. Clarity of direction can come as we get outside ourselves, seeking and serving Christ in all persons.

In my own journey, I find guidance in connection with scripture. There are plenty of passages I don’t quite get. Some I don’t like. But repeatedly, I find that these ancient words speak to my circumstances and provide a pathway forward.

God places us in community so that we can bounce ideas off each other and get direction. In communities where there are deep connection, we can find people who can speak the truth in love to us. (If you’re looking for a good book on discernment, consider getting a copy of Listening Hearts.)

And of course, we can return to a basic tool of discernment offered by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry who said that if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.

In this beautiful psalm, we find a promise that we will be guided in the way of life. May God give us grace in this week, in this Easter season and beyond to claim that promise for our own spiritual journeys. Happy Easter. And traveling mercies.

-Jay Sidebotham