Governance

O Lord our governor, how exalted is your name in all the world. Psalm 8:1

People have a variety of daily spiritual practices. For me, the day begins with my own version of Morning Prayer. I start with reflection on opening sentences that fit the season. I then move to the Confession. After that, the psalms and readings for the day, followed by prayers for people on my heart, prayers for our broken world.

But back to the confession. Of late, I’ve found myself pausing on the first three words: Most merciful God. I take those words as, first of all, a bold statement of faith. They indicate that on some level, I believe there is someone out there to whom I am appealing.

Those words provide a much-needed reminder that my day is going to unfold in the presence of that someone. I ask God to help me remember that. Truth be told, I can live out my day, I can complete my tasks, I can tick things off the to-do list, I can even do a lot of church work without really thinking that what I do (in thought, word, and deed) unfolds in some way under the governance of God. At times, I describe this dynamic as being a functional atheist. That may sound severe, but apparently, this boy needs a daily reminder that my life unfolds in the presence of the Holy One, in relationship to the God of creation, known in Jesus, present in the Spirit. How easily I forget.

It can call for a leap of faith. I’m thinking of a good friend, a faithful woman, a spiritual teacher, who was not always a church person. She was a successful and driven lawyer, working on big cases, whose personal life seemed to be falling apart. A husband suddenly stricken with illness, a child in the grips of addiction. At that point in her life, she would not, nor could not believe in God. She thought: Even I could do a better job running the universe. Have you ever read the newspaper and thought the same thing? Like, really. Who’s in charge here?

Her life changed when in the grips of several crises, a church community surrounded her in the thick of the adversity she faced and showed her grace, lifting her up. It was through that experience that she actually came to believe in the reality of a God who governs heaven and earth.

Readers of this weekly post may note that I’ve been reading works by a theologian named Andrew Root. He writes about the current state of the church and especially its decline. I’m sure I miss a lot of what he’s presenting. (I find that’s my experience when reading theology.) But what I take away is that the church these days is too often in the grip of what he calls an immanent frame. We have lost confidence in the reality of God’s transcendence. We only think of what we can know or understand or explain or contain. We so want God in a box. We have little appreciation for the mystery of God’s transcendent rule. We have decided that the church is the star of the story, or perhaps that we are the star of the story, when the truth is, God is the star of the story.

The collect we heard in church yesterday (above) is based on the premise that God governs in heaven and earth. That can be hard to believe when we check out the news. But in our prayers, indeed in the very act of praying, in the great faith statement that comes with the address in those few words, most merciful God, we affirm that God is in control. We may not see that fully right now, but it is the foundation of our faith. How will your life unfold this week, mindful of the one who governs heaven and earth and extends mercy to each one of us?

-Jay Sidebotham

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What’s in a name?

Checked off the bucket list: New Year’s Eve in Times Square. It happened a number of years ago. I went with a group of friends to a Marx Brothers Film Festival then to Times Square to watch the ball drop. It was cold and crowded. I don’t need to do that again. Once was a gracious plenty.

But the turning of the year is always worth marking, with opportunity to reflect on the past year, with its joys and challenges, successes and failures, gratitudes and regrets. It’s also a chance to look forward and commit to hopes and intentions for days ahead.

Yesterday in church, we marked the new year by celebrating the Feast of the Holy Name, always on January 1. The collect for that day appears above. I’m told that the feast began as a way for Christians to mark the new year. The observance has Gallican origin. A church council in 567 set apart the day to counteract pagan festivities connected with the beginning of the new year, perhaps a sixth-century version of New Year’s Eve, sans Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen.

The church’s feast has as its focus the rituals associated with a newborn child, and specifically the name given that child. The prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, the gospels and other writings in the New Testament all speak of the importance of name of the messiah. So as we begin 2023, we might ask: What’s in a name? Why do we repeatedly read that the name of Jesus matters?

The name literally means “God saves.” More competent scholars can talk about the importance of naming in the culture into which Jesus was born. I have been struck with what that name, “God saves” indicates. These two words say a lot.

For starters, the name says something about God. It says that God is graciously active in our world. While many of us may be locked in what has been called an “immanent frame” which regards divine intervention as a quaint and antiquated idea, the name of Jesus suggests that the transcendent power of God comes to us still and that it has salvific significance. As theologian Andrew Root puts it: God is the star of the story (not us, not the church.) As mystic Evelyn Underhill put it: God is the interesting thing about religion and people are hungry for God. Might we begin 2023 with an expectation that God, by grace, will act in our lives and in our broken world in a saving way? What if we lived our lives in the coming year in awareness that our lives unfold in the presence of the Holy One? What if we lived with daily expectation of holy activity, when sometimes some of us (yours truly included) live as functional atheists?

Second, the name of Jesus says something about us. I’ll put it this way: We need help. We need to be saved. We need a savior. Again, a culture celebrating self-sufficiency and independence may resist that notion. But the fact is when we claim the name of Jesus, we are admitting a need for a power greater than we can muster. Seen in this light, salvation is much more than just a ticket to heaven. I’ve been told that one way to understand the word salvation is to see it as suggesting healing and wholeness. Each one of us knows something of that kind of need, as I believe we each are familiar with some kind of brokenness. We experience it in body, mind, spirit, memory, relationships, not to mention our political and social contexts. Our faith tells us that those experiences need not be the last word about us. They need not define us. Help is on the way.

Finally, the name of Jesus says something about what we are called to do. As Ted Lasso tells us (Sidebar: When do we get the third season?), we are called to believe. We are called to trust that God is active and interested. More to the point, we are called to believe that God is love and that the Holy One’s intention toward us is loving, to place our confidence in that love.

So happy new year. You’re only 24 hours into 2023, still time to make a resolution or two. Maybe one of those might be a commitment to think about what the name of Jesus actually means in your life and mine.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Born again

Last week, my laptop went on strike. I started getting messages that I was not allowed to open documents, that I needed permission from who knows who. I didn’t know what to do. I was ready to buy new software. Maybe a new laptop. A new career. A friend gave me the number of a tech guy who asked if I had tried restarting. I did. The problem went away. My laptop just needed a new start. Sometimes I need that too.

A friend, a clergyman, found his seat on the plane. Wearing his clerical collar, the passenger next to him dove into conversation about religion. As the flight continued, my friend was held captive, subject to inquisition. When the passenger found out he was Episcopalian, it was time to check bona fides. So my friend was asked: “Have you been born again?” My friend answered: “I have been born again. And again. And again.” He made the point that renewal is something that happens repeatedly.

Theologian Karl Barth had a similar exchange with an American evangelical. He was challenged to name the exact time and place when he had been born again. The questioner was quite sure the eminent theologian couldn’t do it, which would indicate that Dr. Barth was not really a Christian after all. Dr. Barth answered: “I was born again. At three o’clock on the first Good Friday on a hill outside of Jerusalem.” He made the point that being re-born is God’s work, not our own.

Carols of Christmas make the same point. Two examples are found above.

Admittedly, the notion of being born again carries baggage in our culture. It can be loaded language. For some, it has become a litmus test. The phrase ‘born again” originates in Jesus’ late night conversation with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, chapter 3 (a.k.a., Nick at Nite). Jesus tells this religious leader, someone on in years, that he must be born again or born from above or born anew. Nicodemus doesn’t get it. His systematic theology did not leave room for this idea that we need to start again, that the Holy One needs to be born in each one of us, again and again and again.

Christmas comes as a season of new life. As carols indicate, it’s all about the moment in time when one particular child was born in Bethlehem. But as the collect printed in the intro indicates, it’s also about the moment in time when we can be born again, or born anew, or born from above. As my friend indicated, that can happen again and again.

As we move through this Christmas season (It’s more than just one day!), what new thing might be born in you? How might you be open to new life, to God’s gracious and creative work? Once we recognize that that work has been done, how will we live into it, growing and deepening a life with God? O holy child of Bethlehem…be born in us today.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Making room

Lord, let not our souls be busy inns that have no room for thee or thine, but quiet homes of prayer and praise, where thou mayest find fit company, where the needful cares of life are wisely ordered and put away, and wide, sweet spaces kept for thee; where holy thoughts pass up and down and fervent longings watch and wait thy coming.

-Julian of Norwich

This Advent season, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to prepare the way of the Lord. Hymns and scripture and liturgy tell us it’s the reason for the season. But what does that actually look like in life? The prayer we heard yesterday in church, and the prayer from Julian of Norwich printed above tell us it’s about making room for Jesus. Again, what does that look like?

Does it call for a spiritual bulldozer? A teardown? Do I need to park a dumpster in my spiritual driveway to get rid of junk? How can I envision my life as a mansion prepared to welcome Christ, when my life often feels like a small studio apartment with no closet space?

One of the ways we might begin to create that space is to enter into the counter-cultural, contemplative call of the season. During Advent, the church invites us to slow down and be quiet when almost every other message we get tells us to hurry up, take in all the noise and do a lot of stuff, fueling the anxiety that we maybe did not do enough. Even in the church, we don’t always get that message right. A friend who worked in a big church used to sport a button around this time of year. The button read: Jesus is coming. Look busy. It got a chuckle but I think it’s the exact opposite of what we’re called to do.

Centuries ago, mystic Julian of Norwich crafted the prayer which helps us think about what it means to get that mansion ready. She recognized that the inner life can be very much like a busy inn, a “No Vacancy” sign prominently displayed. Lots of coming and going. Nothing settled. Does your life ever feel like that? Do you enjoy that feeling?

The alternative Julian presented was a quiet home of prayer and praise, with company fit for God’s presence. She envisions our cares put aside. Wide, sweet spaces are kept. (I love that phrase: Wide, sweet spaces. I want those spaces.)

We’re just a few days away from Christmas. How will you prepare to welcome Christ into your life in this holiday season, and in the coming new year? How can you create space for that to happen?

It might begin with asking God for help, adding to those prayers an attitude of gratitude, which can often give breathing room. It can also involve a rigorous look at the ways we spend our time. Can we carve out quiet time each day this week, even if it’s only a few minutes, to reflect on the miracle we’re about to celebrate?

It may involve rigorous choices about what we will do and what we decide we won’t do. Take a walk each day to think about all this. Jot down thoughts to clarify your thinking. The church, with its variety of worship opportunities, can help. And one of the key ways to make room for Jesus at any time of year, is to figure out how to be of service, to take a moment to look around at the needs that surround and ask: How can I help?

This week’s prayers suggest that we have agency in all of this. We can choose to make room for the Christ child. What will that look like in your life in these days before Christmas?

-Jay Sidebotham

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Sorely hindered

Often when I meet with groups, I ask people to talk about their own spiritual journeys, specifically their experience of spiritual growth. I like to ask them to think of a time when they have experienced spiritual growth and follow up with a question about what it was that helped them grow. What were the catalysts? What would you say to those questions?

After we get through that, I ask them to think of a time when they were spiritually stuck or stalled. We all have those times. Automotive metaphors are useful, imagining a time when a person ran out of gas, had a flat tire, or ended up in a ditch, spiritually speaking. As follow-up, I ask them to think about what might have caused them to experience that kind of thing as well. How would you answer those questions?

In the language of the collect we heard yesterday (printed in the column on the left), this dynamic of being spiritually stalled may be a matter of being sorely hindered by our sins, by the ways in which we fall short of the mark. When I pose questions to groups about their spiritual journey, I get a lot of answers. Not all of them appear obviously connected to sins. There are all kinds of things that hinder us in our spiritual lives.

A common answer is crisis, some difficult experience. Those kinds of things come to all people. Interestingly enough, a crisis can also be the thing that helps us grow as we recognize our dependence on God. But we can definitely be hindered by such. For example, our collective experience with COVID in recent years has definitely been for some a spiritual hindrance.

I read a study that said that one great impediment to spiritual growth, something that sorely hinders us, is the busy schedules we maintain, the ways we equate busyness with value. Advent as a season can be a good antidote to all of that, with its counter-cultural call to slow down and be quiet.

Speaking specifically of sins, perhaps the root of sin is the disordering of love, loving self more than God or neighbor, imagining a self-centered universe. Our own egos can hinder spiritual growth, mindful that ego can be seen as an acronym: Edging God Out. When we put ourselves at the center of the universe, it makes spiritual growth, a relationship with God, harder to come by. The confession found in our prayer book helps me understand the ways in which I am caught in the power of sin. It reminds me that I have not loved God with my whole heart. I have not loved neighbor as self. That’s true for me, every day.

I suspect we all know those things that can sorely hinder us. The recognition of those things is a first step. (Advent, with its call to slow down and be quiet, can give space for that kind of self-awareness.) Once we recognize things that hinder us, we are then called to recognize that we need help to be liberated from those things. That’s where we get the cry for help captured in the phrase “Stir up your power.” The prayer affirms our belief in the “bountiful grace and mercy” of God. The power is there.

Just maybe the door opens to spiritual growth when we open ourselves to that grace and mercy, forgiving ourselves as much as we forgive others. How might you open that door, even just a crack, this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

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Foundation

Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! -Matthew 7:24-27

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Fruits and roots

You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. -Matthew 7:16-20

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False prophets

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. -Matthew 7:15

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Accept that you are accepted

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him -Matthew 7:9-11

What is your image of God? Where did that come from? Is it good news or bad news?
There are a host of forces in our world that tell us we’re not enough. Not competent enough. Not smart enough. Not attractive enough. Not rich enough. Not spiritual enough. If you’ve never heard those voices, God bless you. You are fortunate.For the rest of us, a big part of the spiritual journey is reckoning with those voices, navigating the times when we refute or affirm them, when we do our level best to tune them out with any number of distractions, some of which can morph into behaviors that are not good for us.

Sometimes we imagine those voices come not only from people and institutions around us. We sometimes imagine that those voices are God speaking to us. We sometimes imagine a God who gives us stones when we need bread, snakes instead of fish. There’s a lot of religion based on that notion of God. (Read Jonathan Edwards sermon “Sinners in the hand of an angry God” if you’re looking for an example.)

But the good news of the gospel, if we have the courage to embrace it, is that God accepts us where we are (even if our own parents/community/church won’t). The good news of the gospel, if we have the courage to embrace it, is that God seeks our good, a God in the business of turning stones into bread and not the other way around. Like a loving parent, not a bully or a boss. The good news of the gospel, repeated throughout scripture, is that God is love.
While human beings in moments of depravity can fail to do good to their own children, or even seek to harm them, there is (I believe, or at least hope) a basic sense that a parent seeks the best for the child. Many parents will do anything for their children. That kind of expansive love gives us a glimmer of the love God has for all of creation, for all people.

So if we can wrap our minds around that, how does that change us?

First, in the context of this passage from the Sermon on the Mount it means that we can be free to ask for what we desire. Psalm 37 has become a favorite guide for me. I’ve included portions of it above. It speaks of God’s intention to fulfill our desires. God wishes for us to know joy.

Second, it means that we can move away from fear-based religion. So much religion, in the Christian tradition, and in others, envisions God just waiting for us to mess up, ready to hurl thunderbolts when we step out of our lane, relishing in suffering inflicted on us. Fear is a motivator and can keep us in line, for sure. But Jesus came to show us another way, stretching out arms of love on the hard wood of the cross to draw us into his saving embrace with a message that perfect love casts out fear. It can be difficult to hear that good word. The voices that tell us we’re not enough can drown it out. But if we can dare to believe it, it changes us. And those around us.

Third and finally, it means that we can be free to show grace as we come to know grace. My experience tells me that people who are animated by fear-based religion end up inflicting that on others, entering into a judgmental frame of mind. Similarly, those animated by grace, who know on some deep level that they have been accepted, can extend that acceptance to others as well.

We live in a grace-starved world, that needs to know God gives us bread, not stones. When we believe that, even just a little bit, we can share it. How might you do that this Monday?

-Jay Sidebotham

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Logjam

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. -Matthew 7:3-5

-Jay Sidebotham

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RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth