Memorization: Try it, you’ll like it.

I left my job as an art director in a New York ad agency on a Friday. The next Monday morning, I showed up at Union Seminary to start the three year Masters of Divinity program. Slight career shift (though some snarky friends say I’m still in advertising.)

I was excited to show up on campus. As I walked the halls, I was struck with its history, sensing the presence of spiritual giants who had studied or taught there, people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tillich, Raymond Brown, James Cone.

We had an orientation session, led by the Rev. James Forbes, who was teaching at the time at Union, and went on to become Senior Pastor at Riverside Church. I was impressed with the headiness of it all. So I was a bit surprised by the counsel given by Dr. Forbes, the advice he offered to help us navigate our course of study. He said: Memorize Psalm 139. It will change your life.

I grew up in a church that held memorization of bible verses in high regard. There was an almost magical way of thinking about the value of the practice. We would get points if we could recite verses in Sunday School. I developed an ability to locate the shortest verses in the Bible, for example, John 11:35: Jesus wept.

Fast forward to my matriculation at Union. I did not expect that coming to this high-falutin’ institution I’d be asked to memorize Bible verses. But I quickly came to admire Dr. Forbes, and so in that first year I memorized the first 17 verses. I don’t remember them all now, but whenever the psalm turns up in liturgy (as it did yesterday in church…see the portion of the psalm included above), I remember Dr. Forbes’ counsel. So think with me about why this psalm might be so important.

Lord, you have searched me out and known me. Psalm 139:1

For one thing, it reminds us that God knows us better than we know ourselves. It reminds me that my prayers are not a matter of clueing God in on what God does not already know. I’m coming to realize that perhaps the most powerful kind of prayer has to do with contemplation, with finding a way to sit in silence in the holy presence, trusting God knows the secrets of our hearts, that God knows what we need before we can even articulate those needs.

You are acquainted with all my ways. Psalm 139:2

It also reminds me that with such intimate knowledge of my inner thoughts, God is not put off. The great grace of our faith may be that God knows us and still loves us. In many human interactions, we sense that if people really knew who we were, they would have little to do with us. Not so with the Holy One. Which is probably what makes God holy. It’s what makes grace amazing.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is so high I cannot attain it. Psalm 139:5

Finally, the psalm reminds us that our lives unfold in the face of mysteries beyond our understanding. Speaking for myself, there’s no way I can wrap my mind around the mystery of God knowing us and loving us, knowing every person on every floor of every apartment in my neighborhood, in my city, in the world. That’s where faith comes in. Albert Einstein said that there were two ways to look at life. One, as if nothing is miracle. Two, as if everything is miracle. The journey of faith, which often involves a leap, asks us to trust that this divine knowledge is our reality.

So as the new year begins, maybe you want to memorize this psalm. Or perhaps pick just one verse to chew on. And see if Dr. Forbes was right. See if it changes your life.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Beauty

It goes without saying that as we begin a new year, there is much in our world that is not beautiful. We are confronted with images of rubble in Gaza, and all the pain implied in that destruction. The cruel violence by Hamas terrorists makes us want to look away. Wanton destruction in the Ukraine continues. More than 300,000 Russian mothers have lost soldier children. Closer to home, partisan political rhetoric heats up, with language that can only be described as ugly. On that cheery note, where do we look for beauty?

The psalm read in church yesterday (above) contains a refrain heard in other psalms. It calls on us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. As I run across that phrase in this psalm and others, I often wonder if that is just denial at work. Is it a call to bury our heads in the sand?

Our worship, on a good day, strives for an experience of beauty. That comes in all styles of worship, architecture, language, music. All of it is intended to help us get a glimpse of the transcendent. In our life as a church, one of the things we strive for is beauty.

Newsflash: That doesn’t always happen in the church. Malcolm Muggeridge, a journalist from the last century and a late convert to Christianity, came to faith without rose-colored glasses. It was his opinion that organized religion can kill the beauty of God. (Thank goodness the Episcopalians aren’t all that organized.) I wonder if you’ve ever had that experience of the church.

Mother Teresa was well acquainted with the ugliness of the world, confronting day after day the poverty of Calcutta. She was asked by Malcolm Muggeridge how she could keep going amidst it all, the problems so enormous, her contributions so small. She replied that God had called her to be faithful, not successful. Again and again, she spoke of her vocation to do something beautiful for God (That phrase provided the title for Muggeridge’s book about Mother Teresa.) Her worship in the beauty of holiness did not need to take place in a stunning cathedral. It took place smack dab in the middle of the world’s ugliness, a beautiful expression of worship not only with her lips but with her life.

In the midst of exile, one of the ugliest phases of Israel’s history, the prophet Isaiah spoke of beauty: How beautiful are the feet of those who bear good news. (Isaiah 52.7, and echoed by St. Paul in Romans 10)

Here’s a thought as we begin a new year. Wherever we confront the ugliness of our world, whether in the news or on social media, or in our own resentful hearts, are there ways to notice beauty? And beyond that, are there ways that you and I can bring the beauty of God’s good news to those places where beauty is in short supply? Can we let the good news of grace, love offered without condition, forgiveness, healing that is ours in Jesus Christ, be shared? Can we keep an eye out for God’s beauty?

Notice the beauty today. It’s there to discover. Find it in your connection with church, perhaps. Whatever access you have to the beauty of creation, find it there. Find it in the people around you. I carry with me a sketch book. I often draw people on the subway, at an airport gate, in the park. (Sometimes risky business.) As I’ve done that over the years, I’ve come to see that there is beauty in every human being I draw, even those most disfigured, even those that fashion magazines would deem unattractive. See the beauty around you. Do something beautiful for God. Let that be your worship today.

-Jay Sidebotham

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What’s in a name?

Isaiah spoke with deep joy about what had not yet happened. (See reading above, a reading which you may have heard in church yesterday on the first Sunday of the Christmas season.) Not a bad way to begin a new year. He says that righteousness and praise will spring up. He affirms impending vindication, visible for all the world to see. And then he says that his readers will be called by a new name, reflective of divinely given beauty.

The Bible is full of stories of people who get a new name to signify the transformation God brings to our lives. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. Simon becomes Peter. Saul becomes Paul.

One of my favorite name changes in the Bible comes from the book of the Acts of the Apostles. We read that a man named Joseph had his name changed to Barnabas. Barnabas means son of encouragement. The church found him to be such an encouraging presence that that they changed his name to reflect his gifts. Soon after that, he became traveling companion of St. Paul, who I suspect was not always easy to get along with. Barnabas was the guy for the job. Every time I read about his name change, I find myself wondering (with some nervousness) about how my community would change my name. What name would your community give you?

This business about getting a new name is really about stepping into a new identity, not destroying what we are or where we’ve been, but recognizing gifts and building on that, for the sake of the good news. The good news Isaiah anticipates is that God is preparing a new identity for God’s people. We can claim that possibility for ourselves. For those of us who are Jesus followers, in this ongoing Christmas season, that possibility has everything to do with Jesus showing up.

It’s not lost on me that while the reading from Isaiah turns up on the First Sunday of the Christmas season, today we also observe the Feast of the Holy Name, observed on January 1. Holy coincidence. (Happy new year, by the way. How are you doing on those resolutions?)

The Feast of the Holy Name is a day to celebrate the naming of the infant Jesus in the temple rituals of his culture. It’s worth noting what his name means. The name Jesus means God saves.

Throughout the New Testament, as early Christians took first steps as a movement, they were invited to call on the name of Jesus. In other words, they were making the claim, indeed betting their lives, on the promise that God would save. They were called to trust in the power of that name. We are still invited to call on that name, to claim that we are saved not by our good works or our good theology or our good liturgy or even our good taste. God is the one who saves. Jesus comes to make that happen. We are saved by the one whose name suggests grace.

To the extent that we can embrace that, our identity can be transformed. We might even come to feel that we have been given a new name, a new identity. And as we begin a new year, that gives cause to join with Isaiah in rejoicing and in hope. May this coming year be filled with the joy of experiencing God’s saving activity in your life.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Christmas Lights

Our Advent series, with prompts from the prophet Isaiah, spills over into the Christmas season (Merry Christmas, by the way) and continues on this holy day, the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord. For your consideration, a reading from Isaiah which you may have heard in church on Christmas Eve, or perhaps a reading you’ll hear today in church. We’ve reprinted that reading above.

Those who selected readings for our worship chose this vision from Isaiah for this particular day. The reading is filled with Christmas sermon material, filled with insight into the character and mission of the Messiah. For our purposes this morning, join me in reflection on the first verses, with the image of a great light shining in a land of deep darkness.

How is it that the arrival of that baby Jesus represents light shining in a world where light seems to be in rare supply? The prologue to the Gospel of John (1:1-18) states in this way: In him was life and the life was the light of the world. What might that light mean for you this Christmas? Let’s look at light.

Light shows us the way. Scripture is filled with stories of wilderness, people wandering aimlessly. We often do that in life. Think this Christmas morning about how Jesus shows you a way forward, what our Presiding Bishop calls the way of love.

Light reveals what is hidden, including those things that we might want to keep hidden. Jesus comes to show us, how shall we say, our growth opportunities. We don’t often see those things in ourselves (though we might see them clearly in others). Again, from John’s prologue, we read that the word made flesh came among us full of grace and truth. Both things.

Light shining can offer judgment, a clear-eyed view of the ways we fall short. Think this Christmas morning about how Jesus casts light on ways we need to grow.

Light dispels fear. I’ve been told that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. As we stumble around in clueless darkness, fears of what we can’t see can mount. Think this Christmas morning about how the perfect love of God expressed in Jesus’ presence among us can cast out fear.

Light allows us to see that we are not alone. When the light of Christ breaks into our dark night, we can see that we journey with others, and that God is present with us. Think this Christmas morning of the meaning of Immanuel, the name given to Jesus. It means God is with us. Give thanks that we are not left alone.

Light, like the sun breaking the horizon at dawn, represents the possibility of a new start. Each day we’re given that chance. Each new season in the church year gives us that chance. Each New Year’s celebration gives us that chance. Think this Christmas morning about the new thing God might do in your life in the days ahead, remembering that in our worship we recognize a God who makes all things new.

Finally, light brings with it a sense of joy. The psalmist put it this way: Weeping may spend the night but joy comes in the morning. This Christmas, if you happen to sing “Joy to the World”, reflect on how the arrival of the Christ child can lead you to a deeper experience of joy.

Blessings on this holy day. In all the celebrations, presents opened, feasts prepared, take a moment to reflect on the light of Christ in your life, with a spirit of thanksgiving and hope.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Jesus’ Job Description. And Ours.

If it’s true that you get only one chance to make a first impression, what do you imagine was the impression Jesus made when he read from Isaiah 61? He did so at his first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth, a sermon which got mixed reviews, to put it mildly. You may have heard that same reading from Isaiah yesterday (a portion of which is above) on the Third Sunday of Advent.

As a good preacher, Jesus knew how to keep it short, so he didn’t read the whole passage, just the first verses, which he claimed had been fulfilled in his presence, his advent. In fact, as far as we know, the sum total of his sermon was the following: “Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (You can read the whole story in Luke 4.) Would that current preachers (including this author) could model such succinctification.

As we prepare for the arrival of Christ (One week away, folks), in this last full week of the season of expectation called Advent, what kind of Messiah are we expecting? What are we looking for? What clues do we get from this Isaiah reading?

According to Isaiah, the expectation is for one who is anointed to bring good news to the oppressed, healing to the brokenhearted, liberty to captives, release to prisoners, comfort to those who mourn. That is what the Messiah will be about. That is what Christians believe Jesus is about. How does that square with your impressions of Jesus?

We can take that job description literally. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, there were plenty of people who were oppressed, brokenhearted, captive, prisoners. Many people were in mourning. Jesus’ ministry is filled with moments when he brings healing to those situations. And the question for us then becomes how we will continue that work as part of the Jesus movement, as part of the body of Christ.

Our baptismal promises call us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. Pete Buttigieg, a faithful Episcopalian, gives us a place to start, as he speaks in a movie to be released in January, a movie called The Case for Love. It’s inspired by Presiding Bishop Curry’s focus on the way of love. Secretary Buttigieg notes his many encounters with people who disagree with him wholeheartedly and even treat him with disdain, not uncommon in our current political climate. He says in the movie that he is called to remember that God loves his opponents just as much as God loves him. Keeping that in mind is a good way to begin to fulfill this Isaiah reading.

I’m wondering specifically how we might live into Isaiah’s vision in this Christmas season. There are plenty of opportunities to strive for justice and peace in our broken world. There are great needs for healing. Who do you know who is feeling broken-hearted, who is gripped with grief? The holidays can be especially difficult for those who bear that burden, whether the loss is recent or happened a long time ago. Who do you know who is held captive, by resentment or a sense of injury, by addiction or compulsion, by hatred or fear? Meeting those needs is the work we are given to do as members of the body of Christ, as his hands and feet in the world.

As you ask God to show you ways to be a healing presence, reflect on the wisdom of Howard Thurman, who wrote a poem called The Work of Christmas. Here it is:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.

Let this poem guide you in the celebration of this season.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Ah, Wilderness

A favored, savored New Yorker cartoon depicts a woman in business attire, a tiny, lone figure out in the wild, in the middle of nowhere. The title: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, the caption: “Get me the hell out of the wilderness.” We all know something about wilderness. For many, it’s a place from which we’d like to escape.

“Get me the hell out of the wilderness!”

The Advent season takes us to the wilderness, as noted in the reading from the prophet Isaiah, which you may have heard in church yesterday. Wilderness imagery shows up in a number of places in the Bible. Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness watching sheep before he heard the call from the talking burning bush. The children of Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness after their deliverance from Egyptian oppression. Elijah made his way to the wilderness when he thought the world was out to get him. The children of Israel living in exile knew that if they were to find their way home, it would mean traveling through wilderness. John the Baptist chose to offer his ministry in the wilderness. Jesus began his public ministry with a time of testing in such a place. Throughout the history of the church, people of faith have found themselves in the wilderness, by choice or not,

The wilderness is undoubtedly a place of challenge, where we are tested. It can be a place where comforts are stripped away. It can be a place of loneliness. For many in scripture, the wilderness could be a fearful place, filled with menacing beasts. For some the greatest fear was that it was tractless. No clear roadways. No clear sense of direction. No way out. No way forward. I suspect we all know something of experiences like that.

At the same time, the wilderness is a place of formation. In the meandering of the children of Israel over those forty years, apparently walking in circles, they were formed as a people. Jesus’ time in the wilderness strengthened him, equipped him for the public ministry about to be launched. Distractions removed, it can be a place where clarity increases. People of faith over the centuries have attested to the fact that the wilderness is a place where they have come to know what really matters, a place where God’s presence and power in new ways.

Reflect this morning on your own wilderness experience. Maybe you’re there now. Acknowledge that it’s a place marked by challenge. Know that people have faced the challenge before and come out on the other side.

And see what can be learned in the moment, how you might be experiencing formation. Advent as a season reminds us that we are not always going to be in the wilderness, that there will be a way prepared, with rough places plain. But it also tells us that there can be learnings as we wait. My hope and prayer in this Monday offering is that your time in the wilderness, whatever that looks like, will prove to be helpful in that way.

-Jay Sidebotham

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The potter and the clay

It’s an image that comes up in several places in scripture. The Lord is the potter. We are clay, ready to be shaped into something useful, maybe something beautiful. According to this image, we find our identity as God’s creation, or as the letter to the Ephesians puts it, we are God’s workmanship created for good works which God has prepared to be our way of life (Ephesians 2.10).

The prophet Jeremiah used the image, as he reflected on the inexplicable hardship being visited on his people. St. Paul used the image as he puzzled about why some folks had faith and others didn’t. And the image pops up in the reading from the prophet Isaiah (above) a reading you may have heard in church yesterday on the first Sunday of Advent. Let’s just say it’s an interesting way to start the church year.

In that reading, Isaiah addresses the Lord and basically asks: Where have you been? You used to show up for us, but lately you’ve been absent. It’s similar to the question posed in Psalm 22: O God, why have you forsaken me? That question is echoed on the cross. Is it a question you’ve ever asked?

In this reading, it sounds like Isaiah may even be blaming God for ways that the children of Israel have messed up. After all, God had been absent. (Because you hid yourself, we transgressed. V.5) Some of that blaming of God goes on elsewhere in scripture. When the Lord confronts Adam in the garden, noticing that he’d been snacking on forbidden fruit, Adam says to the Lord: The woman you gave me made me do it. When Aaron was brought up on the carpet because he made a golden calf, he said he did it because Moses and God were off on the mountaintop having a 40-day conversation. It was their fault. It underscores that human tendency to look for anyone to blame, anyone but ourselves. It’s the tendency to dodge responsibility, to dodge accountability.

At the same time, we also acknowledge the human tendency to imagine that we are in charge, that we call the shots, that we have a better idea of how to run the universe than God does. We imagine that we are the potter.

Peculiar sort, we human beings.

In the end, there’s one critical word in Isaiah’s passage. After Isaiah gets through with his complaining, he says: Yet. Yet, O Lord you are our father. You are the potter. We are the clay.

What’s the lesson for us? I struggle with the image of potter and clay, mostly because I want to be the potter, thank you very much. I want to be in the driver’s seat, the one shaping things. Which is why it is important to remember that in the history of God’s relationship with us, starting in the book of Genesis, we are not the star of the story. The church is not the star of the story. God is the star of the story.

That could be tough to swallow if separated from the promise that the one who is the potter is also the one from whose love we can never be separated, one whose creative energy is shaping us into a beautiful vessel to be filled with God’s spirit and to be used for God’s glory. That’s probably not a bad message for us as we begin a new year. As the year unfolds, and as our world seems at times to spin out of control, can we trust in the one who is shaping us with holy and loving intention?

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

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Restoration

Restoration. Apparently, that is God’s intention, according to the collect we heard in church yesterday, a prayer included above. It suggests a return to the goodness God spoke into being at creation. Please note: Not just goodness, but very goodness. The book of Genesis reports that as God finished the holy creative work on the sixth day, God noted that it was not simply good. God said it was very good.

What has happened to that very goodness? The prayer says that the peoples of the earth have become divided and enslaved. We’re talking about a loss of community and a loss of freedom.

Division is easy to see, whether you look at the border of Ukraine and Russia, the border of Israel and Gaza, the aisles in the House of Representatives, the aisles of many churches, or the political conversation when families sit around a table for a holiday meal. The outward and visible signs of division can be seen in barbed wire, border walls, and gated communities. We see it in societal systems. We see it in individual relationships.

Enslavement is also a fact of our time, its most egregious expressions found in human trafficking, mass incarceration, crippling poverty and rising authoritarianism. But dehumanizing confinement can be seen in patterns of addiction or refusal to offer forgiveness. (Nelson Mandela said upon release from 27 years in prison that if he didn’t forgive his captors, they still had him in prison.) We see it in the habits of our hearts, where we may feel that we can’t help ourselves from hurting ourselves and others.

Yesterday’s collect says that Jesus can address the loss of community and loss of freedom. How does he do that?

To see how he begins to restore community in the face of division, we eavesdrop on his words to his disciples at the last supper, as recorded in the Gospel of John. As he was preparing to leave them, he stopped calling them servants and began to call them friends. He gave them a new commandment, which was to love one another. That love in action would be the way that outsiders would recognize their discipleship. He brought into being a new community, a movement where dividing walls could come down (see Ephesians 2:14). St. Paul captured that notion when he said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, a vision that the church has yet to fully realize.

To see how Jesus comes to restore freedom, we turn again to words offered in John’s gospel. Jesus said that everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. He goes on to say that if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:34, 36) Again, St. Paul spoke of this freedom in his letter to the Galatians, when he said that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Newsflash: We’re not there yet. We continue to grapple with division and enslavement on a global and systemic level, and within our own hearts. Sometimes it seems that we’re not making progress at all. But we keep at it.

As we come to the end of a church year, we begin again, with another trip around the sun. We’re presented with more opportunities to participate in the intention of the Holy One to restore community and freedom. With a new year starting (in the church calendar), make a resolution to participate in the holy work of restoration, working for community and freedom. What will that look like in your life this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth

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Bible believer

A word from the newly elected Speaker of the House: “I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘… People are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it – that’s my worldview. That’s what I believe and so I make no apologies for it. That’s my personal worldview.”

I don’t expect I’ll ever have the opportunity to sit down with Speaker Johnson and talk about how he understands what it means to be Bible-believing. I’m guessing we would mean different things by that, but I nevertheless count myself as a Bible-believer, serving in a denomination that is Bible-believing.

That might not be people’s first impression of the Episcopal Church, but the words of scripture are woven into the fabric of our church culture. I get a chuckle when Episcopalians begin to explore the Bible and marvel at how much of it was swiped from the Book of Common Prayer.

Our Sunday worship involves the reading of lots of scripture. Similarly, the Daily Office (Morning, Noonday, Evening Prayer) all include big chunks of the Bible. When a priest is ordained, at the beginning of that grand liturgy, that person commits to an understanding of scripture as the word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation.

Thoughts about the Bible are prompted not only by the new Speaker of the House, but also by the collect heard yesterday in church (see above), which is focused on scripture. As we say in our tradition that our praying shapes our believing, consider what this prayer says about us as Bible-believers.

It says first of all that God caused the scriptures to be written for our learning. It doesn’t say that it’s got science nailed, or that it provides a map for political party. It does say that it’s there for our learning. And since another word for learner is disciple, we as disciples take this mosaic of texts and see what they have to teach us. We think about how they help us grow.

We take scripture seriously, if not literally. A measure of that seriousness is reflected in the process outlined in the collect. We hear, read, learn, mark and inwardly digest the words of scripture. In other words, we work them through and take them in, so they become part of us. I’ll be the first to admit that many of these passages are hard to swallow. We grapple with them anyway, and as we do, we discover that they begin to shape us.

And why do we go to all that trouble? Because scripture will enable us to embrace and hold on to hope. Lord knows, we all could use more hope. It’s the hope that comes through the story of creation, when we read that God saw what God had made and declared it to be very good. It’s the hope we share with the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. We all know something about wilderness and we all have the hope of being led to a promised land. It’s the hope we share with exiles who were eventually brought back home. It’s the hope we share with the women who went to the tomb on Easter morning and found their grief turned to amazed joy, their dead end into a threshold.

Jurgen Moltmann, great theologian, posed the question this way: Where would we stand if we did not take our stand on hope? The premise, the promise of our faith is that we make that stand as we take the words of scripture to heart and find in them a guide into a life marked by hope, a life marked by confidence in the God who is in the business of making things new. Think this week about the rewards and challenges you have experienced in encounter with scripture. What might you do to go deeper, for the sake of embracing a deeper hope?

-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