Well of life

Where are you finding strength these days? What resources keep you going? Does it ever feel like you’ve run out of gas, that you’ve come upon a dead end, that your well has gone dry?

As we begin Holy Week, I want to focus on the psalm selected for this Monday in Holy Week, which is included above. It provides beautiful context for the ways that we make our way not only through this week, but also through all of life with all of its challenges. The psalm speaks of the lovingkindness of God, love from which we can never be separated. That love is at the heart of Holy Week, which is to say that it is at the heart of our faith. Here’s the verse from this particular psalm that always catches my attention:

For with you is the well of life, and in your light we see light.

Going back to the questions raised in the opening paragraph: Is it well with your well? A friend who was senior pastor of a large non-denominational church told me that from time his senior lay leadership would come to him with this question: Is it well with your soul? Much has been written about clergy burn-out, about how to keep going in ministry. I know that challenge, yet I don’t need to tell you that that dynamic is in no way limited to clergy. Where do we go to discover the well of life when it feels like our own well has run dry? Maybe you feel like that this Monday morning.

The verse about the well of life makes me think about the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well (John 4). One could imagine that the woman Jesus met there was on her last nerve, at the end of her rope. Five marriages hadn’t worked out. Who knows about the current relationship? She came to the well at an hour when nobody else would be around, suggesting she was being ostracized. Add to that her awareness of the discrimination a good Jew like Jesus might show her. Where was she finding the resources to move forward?

Jesus and this woman get talking about water, about resources for life, about where to access those resources. It’s about a whole lot more than H2O. The woman comes to ask for living water, drawn from a well that will make it well with her soul. Jesus promises and provides that resource.

We come to Holy Week with the same request. How can we obtain life-giving resources when our well has gone dry? Where can we find living water? Where can we find the well of life? Allow this Holy Week to answer those questions. Pray the collect for today which asks that as we walk the way of the cross today, we will find it be the way of life and peace (You can find this collect on p. 220 of the Prayer Book). In the end, as the verse from the psalm says, we will see light. That is our hope for this week, the hope for all of our weeks.

-Jay Sidebotham

Spring Training

A wise priest I admire, who also happens to be a baseball nut, has compared the season of Lent to Spring training. With that in mind, as we await opening day, a word from Francis T. Vincent, Jr., former Major League Baseball Commissioner:

“Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often—those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players (.333 average), I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.”

Along with baseball, our Christian faith embraces that rigorous truth. We see it in Psalm 51, a portion of which was read in church yesterday and is included above. The psalm surfaces early and often in the season of Lent, attributed to King David. Tradition holds that it was written to express his remorse over failures, egregious sins of adultery and murder, after he was called out by the prophet Nathan. To put it mildly, he did not bat 1000.

I’m not sure how one knows that David is the author. I don’t worry about that, because it points to something true about all of us. We each have occasions when we have messed up. We all stand in vital need of opportunity to start over. That is one of the things that I find compelling about the Christian message. Our faith tells us that there is always opportunity to begin again. Sometimes folks talk about it as being born again. The gospel holds the promise of renewal, a fine thing to think about in the season of Spring.

I find this hopeful dynamic in the baptismal covenant when we promise to persevere in the resistance of evil, affirming that whenever we fall into sin, we can repent and return to the Lord. The operative word in that promise is whenever. It doesn’t say if ever. Our falling short will happen as surely as the sun comes up in the morning. Rigorous truth. The good news is that there is always a way to come back. Failure does not define us. It does not limit us. It does not end our story. We bless the Lord who forgives all our sins. God’s mercy endures forever.

Here’s the verse from Psalm 51 that I find myself rehearsing over and over:

Create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me.

The verse is really a prayer, asking God to go to work in us, making a clean heart. That is God’s work, not our own. At the same time, Lent is billed as a season for self-examination. That kind of spiritual audit has revealed that there’s a lot in my own heart that doesn’t feel particularly clean. I’m not inclined to share (or over-share) on the particulars, but trust me, there’s a lot there. And I find a need for a renewal of a right spirit. The prospect of renewal means that I can come back to a healthier place. I may be a miserable offender, but that’s not the bottom line on who I am. That is by no means the end of my story. God can turn that around. I think all that’s needed from me is openness to that good work.

We’re coming to the conclusion of the season of Lent. In these last days, before we come to Holy Week, prepare for this most extraordinary week by offering the prayer for a clean heart, a renewed spirit. I suspect that there is some way in which every one of us needs that restorative, renewing work. And with that in mind, we can get ready to play ball, spiritually speaking.

-Jay Sidebotham

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What does it cost to say thanks?

A sacrifice of thanksgiving. A funny phrase when you think about it. It not only appeared in the psalm read yesterday in church (see verse 22 above), but also comes up in a bunch of other places in the psalter. Each time it surfaces, it suggests that this is the kind of sacrifice God is interested in. But how does it square with your associations with sacrifice?

We usually think of sacrifice as something we give up, something we lose, often accompanied by pain and cost. It’s often something that gets put to death, marking the end of some kind of liveliness. It can be violent. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the kind of sacrifice God desires.

In what sense is the offering of thanksgiving a sacrifice? In some ways, an offering of thanksgiving does mark the putting to death of something, i.e, the illusion that we are in control, that what we have comes to us the old fashioned way. We earned it. It’s ours, thank you very much.

When we offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving, we are putting aside the mythology of self-sufficiency, the pride of accomplishment, the illusion of independence. When we offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving, we are remembering the good news that all is gift. All is grace.

St. Paul talked about sacrifice in his letter to the Romans when he said we have been buried with Christ in baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so too we might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6.4) In the sacrifice of thanksgiving, we put to death a way of thinking focused on the self.

For me, the beautiful thing about the language of the sacrifice of thanksgiving is that it is not ultimately about something dying, something being killed, something ending. It is about a pathway to new life. In the eucharist (Rite I, p. 342 in the Prayer Book, Rite II, p. 363), we offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, presenting ourselves, our souls and bodies a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable service. Fed by that sacrifice, we move forward into the world with strength and courage, with gladness and singleness of heart.

A wise bishop offered some advice when I was at a fork in the road. She said that in the decisions we make, in the discernment we do, there is always cost and promise. There is cost in a sacrifice of thanksgiving, the surrender of the notion that the solar system is me-centric. But there is also promise, because our grateful offering of sacrifice to God, our worship, is a living thing, bringing us new life.

As we continue through the season of Lent, consider what it might mean to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving in your own life, in your daily routine. What are you giving up in order to say thanks? What new life is in store for you as you nurture an attitude of gratitude?

-Jay Sidebotham

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What’s on your mind?

This Lent, I’ve been reflecting on the Litany of Penitence, which gets read once a year on Ash Wednesday (p. 267 in the Book of Common Prayer, if you want to have a look). I confess that in the past, I’ve not paid a whole lot of attention to it. This year, it has become a way to focus my Lenten intentions.

One of the phrases that has caught my eye is a confession that we have not had the mind of Christ. I’ve been thinking about what it means to have the mind of Christ, and how we might get there.

On a related note, you’ll often hear a preacher begin a sermon with the last verse from the psalm printed above, a glorious psalm heard yesterday in church. The psalm begins with the recognition that all of nature points to the glory of God. It goes on to talk about the power of God’s teaching (the law of the Lord) to renew our spirit. It ends with prayers for the health of our inner life, one of the important themes of Lent.

In its final verse, the psalmist prayers that the words of our mouth and meditations of the heart be acceptable in God’s sight. I want to focus on the meditations of the heart, because I suspect that they have something to do with the mind of Christ. I’ve become fairly adept at watching what I say, filtering, screening. But if some of the things that go through my head were projected on a screen, I’d be in trouble.

So we join the psalmist in praying that we be kept from presumptuous (or willful) sins, that the secrets of our heart be cleansed. We pray that those things won’t get dominion over us. We pray that our meditations be acceptable in God’s sight.

Jesus had this to say about our inner life: What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile. (Matthew 15:18-20) Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells disciples: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (another bit read on Ash Wednesday). It seems that for Jesus, it’s a matter of the heart, the inner life.

St. Paul wrote about the discipline of attending to the inner life in his letter to the Philippians: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4.8) Apparently, we are granted agency in what goes through our head.

In the second chapter of that letter, Paul tells us what the mind of Christ is all about. He says: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

If you’ve got a monkey mind like me, with all kinds of random (and unsavory) thoughts flashing through all the time, join me in praying this Lent for the mind of Christ. Join in confession that it is not fully realized yet in our experience. And when monkey mind seems to have dominion over us, choose to turn your thoughts to the wisdom of St. Paul, who invites us to have the mind of Christ.

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

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APB: Calling the liturgical police

Maybe Psalm 23 is the best known of the 150 psalms. But Psalm 22 may be a close second. The first 21 verses are read in Holy Week, especially on Good Friday, as the psalm begins with the poignant, painful cry: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Those words are repeated by Jesus on the cross. They suggest one of the deepest wounds of Calvary, which is that Jesus senses abandonment by his father. When Jesus offers his question from the cross, it’s been regarded as shorthand for the rest of the psalm which vividly describes the pain of that crucial moment.

When this psalm appears in our liturgy, we usually just read the first 21 verses, again, a picture of suffering and abandonment. But consider the last part of the psalm, heard yesterday in church, included above. After 21 verses of grim news, rightly reflecting the grimness that life can serve up, the tone shifts. These verses suggest that even in the face of devastating loss, there is cause for praise, cause for hope.

Since I’m writing this on a Sunday in Lent, I’m going to take a Sunday break from Lenten observance and let loose a few hallelujahs. If you or the liturgical police take offense, know that I only do so based on the wisdom of spiritual writers (heroes) who know a lot more about the life of the spirit than I do.

I’m talking about Anne Lamott, who wrote a book called Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy. In her book, she notes the ancient Chinese practice of embellishing the cracked parts of valued possessions with gold leaf. According to Lamott: “We dishonor it if we pretend that it hadn’t gotten broken. It says: We value this enough to repair it. So it is not denial or a cover-up. It is the opposite, an adornment of the break with gold leaf, which draws the cracks into greater prominence. The gold leaf becomes part of its beauty. That leads her to hallelujah, because “in spite of it all, there is love, there is singing, nature, laughing, mercy.”

I’m talking about Joan Chittister and Rowan Williams, who collaborated on a book called Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia For All That Is. Here’s some wisdom from Sister Joan: “Life itself is an exercise in learning to sing “alleluia” here in order to recognize the face of God hidden in the recesses of time. To deal with the meaning of “alleluia” in life means to deal with moments that do not feel like ‘alleluia moments’ at all.”

I’m talking about Henri Nouwen, who wrote an article entitled “All is Grace” for the journal Weavings in 1992. In that article, he says that “gratitude as the gospel speaks of it embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not so holy…The cross is the main symbol of our faith and it invites us to find hope where we see pain…The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life.”

Maybe that’s what St. Paul was after when he said to give thanks in all things (I Thessalonians 5.18).

We’re in the thick of Lent. Maybe that corresponds to a sense of wilderness, even forsakenness in your own life. I suspect that sense comes to each one of us at some time. Is there a way to offer praise anyway?

Read all of Psalm 22 today, as a Lenten practice. Maybe when Jesus asked his question from the cross, shorthand for Psalm 22, he was including the last portion as well, glimpsing with praise the possibility of a new life, a new beginning which we’ll observe on Easter. Maybe he knew what Anne Lamott says in her book: “God makes a way out of no way.”

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

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This is God speaking

The psalm assigned for worship yesterday (see above) begins with the rather amazing claim that the Lord, the God of gods, has spoken. What does that voice sound like? How does God speak to us? Have you had an experience where you heard the voice of God? If you admit that you have, might that make some folks consider you in need of psychiatric care?

A central tenet of our faith is that God reaches out to us way before we reach out to God. That kind of gracious revelatory action may well be our great hope. The mystery of the Holy One, the mystery of God’s transcendence only underscores the limits of our imagination. Said another way, the only way we’ll come to get inklings of God’s reality is if God makes that possible.

It can be risky business, claiming to hear God speaking to us. People often make that kind of claim to further their own agenda, to own God’s voice. Anne Lamott says that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. People have justified all kinds of messy behavior by claiming God spoke to them.

So think this morning about the ways God speaks, maybe more specifically about the ways God has spoken to you.

Yesterday’s psalm tells us that the heavens declare the rightness of God’s cause. We read in Psalm 19 (vv.1-4): The heavens are telling the glory of God and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. All of which is to say that God speaks to us through the marvel of creation.

Yesterday’s psalm also says that God reveals himself out of Zion, which I take to mean that God is revealed through the faith community. It’s been my experience that folks of faith have at times revealed to me something of God’s presence, sometimes through a word spoken, sometimes through an act of compassion.

In church, we hear a reading from scripture punctuated by the phrase: The word of the Lord. That suggests that our engagement with scripture is a way God speaks to us. I confess that I sometimes hear a rough passage and am not sure how that is the word of God. That taps into our need to be discerning, perhaps using the criterion of our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry: If it’s not about love it’s not about God. We see that love in Jesus, the word made flesh, who according to the gospel of John, chose to dwell among us, full of grace and truth.

Along those lines, Psalm 50 may well have been chosen for yesterday’s worship because of the gospel story always read on that Sunday before we begin the season of Lent. In yesterday’s story, Jesus on the mountaintop hears the voice of God speaking to him, declaring belovedness. As we enter the season of Lent, a season dedicated to spiritual growth, may we hear that voice speaking to us.

Here’s the challenge, maybe a good challenge to take on in the season of Lent: Are we listening for God’s voice? Or are we doing all the talking? Are we making up what we think God should be saying? This Lent, how might we carve out time for holy and faithful listening? How might we expect God to speak? To us?

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

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A couple good questions

Early in my ministry, someone told me that there are two questions to ask of any gospel passage heard in church on Sunday. The first: Who is Jesus? The second: What does it mean to be one of his disciples? They are good questions for those standing in the pulpit and for those sitting in the pews. They keep us all on track, a special challenge for preachers.

More recently, I read that St. Francis of Assisi had his own version of those questions. He used to spend the whole night offering this prayer: Who are you, O God? And who am I?

The psalm offered in church yesterday (above) helps us think about the question: Who are you, God? I come away with the sense that God may be the ultimate multi-tasker.

On the one hand, we read that God is counting all the stars and giving them names. God is covering the heavens with clouds and preparing rain for the earth. God is covering the earth with plants, and while God is at it, God is rebuilding Jerusalem and gathering exiles, managing massive social change. God has a big job.

On the other hand, that same God is down to earth, healing brokenhearted, binding their wounds, lifting the lowly. As God does a big job, God is down in the weeds, with us.

It’s transcendence and immanence captured in one holy presence. Which is maybe one of the best answers to who Jesus is, the God of all creation, present with us in the most humble circumstances.

That leads to our second question: What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? Or in keeping with the prayer of St. Francis: Who am I, in light of what we learn about who God is?

The answer is captured in the way the psalm begins and ends, with the word: Hallelujah. That one word provides an answer to the question of our identity, the question of who we are. We are those who are called to praise, called to worship. It may be all we can do, for the mystery of the divine could make us stay up all night like St. Francis, wondering who God is and who we are.

That life of saying “hallelujah” shapes our identity. We are those who worship, not only with our lips but with our lives. We worship as we are ever mindful of the miracle of creation that surrounds us. We worship as we follow the commandment to love of God and neighbor. We worship in imitation of the Holy One, seeking to lift up the lowly, committing to a life of service. All of it is driven by our glimpses, by our inklings of the character of the Holy One.

As we live our lives, noting mysteries and miracles that surround us, we find our own identity by remembering that our lives unfold in the presence of God, whose quality is always to have mercy. (That’s why the confession begins with the words: Merciful God.)

Spend some time this week with St. Francis’ questions. Maybe make a Lenten commitment to ask the questions each morning. See what you learn about your own identity by exploring the mystery of God’s identity.

-Jay Sidebotham

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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.  Sign up now!!

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Courage in the face of fear(s)

Could the biblical writers please make up their minds? The portion of the psalm we read in church yesterday (see above) concludes with reference to the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom. We find variations on that statement in several places in scripture.

At the same time, one of the most common biblical lines when conversation begins between heavenly and human beings: Fear not. Don’t be afraid. Beyond that, there are scriptures that place fear and love in opposition. We read in the New Testament that perfect love casts out fear.

So which is it? It’s clear we’re faced with two different kinds of fear. It may well be that we harbor both.

On the one hand, there is the fear that sets itself in opposition to love. There’s plenty to be afraid of. We live in a world with devils filled that threaten to undo us, according to Martin Luther. The history of religion across many traditions has often been fear-based, calling us to compliance and conformity. Or else. We may imagine a God who waits for us to step out of line, eternal damnation resulting. Thanks be to God, a lot of that fear-based religion as motivator for religious practice has given way to the way of love.

At the same time, we’re encouraged to embrace the kind of fear that paves the way for wisdom, wisdom as something the world needs now, something there’s just too little of? (Thank you, Dionne Warwick.) This brand of fear has to do with a recognition of God’s greatness. It can be captured in the word “awesome,” a word which may have lost meaning as it is used to describe a cup of coffee or a movie or the latest fashion.

If you’ve ever been tempted (as I have) to imagine that God is lucky to have us on the team, the fear of the Lord opens the way for a better and wiser understanding of our own place in the universe. Scripture can assist us in that understanding, as the psalm du jour speaks of God’s greatness and majesty, as it reminds us of God’s faithfulness, God’s patience.

Maybe the question for us this Monday morning is this: What kind of fear is shaping our lives these days? What kind of fear will we choose to live by?

We may need to admit that in our complicated interior life, we harbor both kinds of fear at the same time. It will take courage to deal with that complexity. A meditation from Richard Rohr which I read last week cited this quote from James L. Farmer: “Courage, after all, is not being unafraid, but doing what needs to be done in spite of fear.” Rohr goes on to note the implication, which is that if you’re not scared, it’s not courage.

In our liturgy we ask for strength and courage. Courage in terms of bravery to recognize those things that make us fearful. Courage in the sense of love (the word courage has at its root the word for heart, as in the French coeur) as we recognize the truly awesome nature of amazing grace.

What kind of fear do you harbor this morning? Ask for grace to face fear with courage. Let that prayer open the pathway to the holy fear that can lead to greater wisdom.

-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.  Sign up now!!

Learn more in our digital brochure.

RenewalWorks – Digital Catalog