Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

A prayer for the day we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jesus said: But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:27-36, chosen for the day we remember Dr. King

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MLK

We set aside today to remember the life and ministry and witness of Dr. Martin Luther King. In a season when our nation seems more divided than ever, here are thoughts about how to navigate division, wherever it turns up: at home, in a workplace, at church, in our country, on our globe. Like Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy, Dr. King shaped his strategy with an eye on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s a great example of how important scriptural engagement can be. A selection from that sermon (Luke’s version) is printed above. In that sermon, Jesus offers a counter-intuitive call to love enemies.

Here’s how Dr. King spoke of Jesus’ teaching:

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.

It is in fact a spiritual practice, and I come back to Dr. King, who offered specific guidelines for those who would join him in non-violent resistance. Dr. King, often compared to Moses, came up with his own ten commandments for those who would choose to be part of his movement. Here they are:

• Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus
• Remember always that the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation-not victory.
• Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.
• Pray daily to be used by God in order that all might be free.
• Sacrifice personal wishes in order that all might be free.
• Observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
• Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world.
• Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
• Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
• Follow the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.

We can take a broad view of what it means to love enemies. We all have them. They turn up in many places, in many ways, evoking varying degrees of intensity and complication. It takes practice to relate to them in the transforming way Dr. King describes. 

You may not feel able to embrace all of his commandments, tackling them all at once. So do what you can today. Because this day, honoring Dr.King’s birth, and this week, and this new year all offer opportunity to hear these commandments, and set them to work in a world that sure could use them.

-Jay Sidebotham

AN INVITE:
As part of The Good Book Club, I’ll be leading an online Bible Study for 8 weeks. It started on January 9, but it’s not too late to dive in!
Time: Wednesdays at 8pm EST Topic: Paul’s letters to the Romans. Learn more here. I hope you will join me!

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

Seek the Lord and his strength. Continually seek his face.

-Psalm 105:4

The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning.

-M. Scott Peck

Working life has extended so much in the last fifty years that it exceeds life expectancy of even the most successful businesses. Very few businesses are successful for more than 25 or 30 years. And yet most educated people who go to work in their early twenties will keep working until they are 70. And so they had better be prepared for a second career whether it’s in another organization where they are doing what they have been doing or in a new line of work. They must be prepared to learn again. They must be prepared to position themselves. They must be prepared to want to learn- to see it not as something they need to do, but as something they enjoy doing. They will have to learn how to learn.

-Peter Drucker

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Disciples Are Learners

If I were ruler of the universe, I might lose the word “disciple” for a while. Just for a while. I’d replace it for a season with the word “student” or “learner.” There is no limit to the reasons why it’s a good thing I’m not ruler of the universe. Just ask my family.

But here’s one paradoxical thing I’ve learned about being a learner. Times of deep learning came for me when I was asked to be a teacher about something I may not have been entirely comfortable teaching, times when I had to be a learner in order to be a teacher.  We’re talking stretch goal.

This has happened for me recently as I have been asked to teach a couple classes that feel like the deep end of the pool for me. Fun but not always easy. I was asked to speak at a day on discernment, a day about figuring out what God is calling us to do and be. I feel like I’ve been in discernment my whole life. The more I’m at it, the less sure I am how much I really know about it. 

So when I got this assignment, I was grateful to have a guide, a book about discernment entitled Decision Making And Spiritual Discernment: The Sacred Art of Finding Your Way, written by Nancy L. Bieber. This wise author identified three aspects to discernment, not necessarily a sequence as much as a braid, interwoven dynamics that strengthen the process of figuring out what God calls us to do and be.

The first of these elements is willingness. What does it mean to say yes? To God? To life? Prophets in the Bible put it this way: “Here I am.” Dag Hammarskjold described his own moment of assent: “I don’t know Who or – What – put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone –  or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.” To what degree do we meet God’s invitation to new life with willingness?

The second element is attentiveness. Are we paying attention, or are we asleep? The question surfaces in other traditions as a matter of mindfulness. Of all the problems that the disciples had, as described in the gospels, insomnia was not one of them. At critical moments (the Transfiguration, the Garden of Gethsemane), they snore. That strikes me as both recognition and caution. We too often sleepwalk through life. And if we’re not asleep, we’re often distracted. What do we miss because of it? To what degree do we meet God’s invitation to new life with attentiveness?

The third element is responsiveness, which is all about showing up, putting faith into action. It’s about taking a step, like Abraham leaving homeland for a new land, not knowing where he was going. It’s Peter seeing Jesus walking on the water, and then putting one foot over the gunwale, then the next, stepping out in the confidence (a bit fleeting) that he could too walk on water. To what degree do we meet God’s invitation to new life with responsiveness?

The author promotes these three strands of discernment, interwoven, interdependent. She makes no claim that they promise success from the culture’s point of view. Neither did Jesus. In terms of the times in which he lived, he was not such a great success. But according to the author, these strands do provide a foundation for living. So does Jesus.

I’ve been told that as we write the narrative of our own lives, we have options. We can look at ourselves as hero, victim, or learner. Be a learner this week. Discernment is really another word for learning. Seek the path God intends for you, the path into which God invites you. As you tackle that work, do so with an eye on willingness, attentiveness and responsiveness.

-Jay Sidebotham

AN INVITE:
As part of The Good Book Club, I’ll be leading an online Bible Study for 8 weeks. It started on January 9, but it’s not too late to dive in!
Time: Wednesdays at 8pm EST Topic: Paul’s letters to the Romans. Learn more here. I hope you will join me!

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith that we may behold him in all his redeeming work.

-A prayer from Easter Week

Open our eyes that we may behold the wonders of your law.

-from Psalm 119

I heard a story this weekend told by a woman in her 60’s. She remembered her father, now deceased, a military man who was away a lot as she grew up. But when he was home, he would have a pre-dawn breakfast with his daughter. Just the two of them, meeting over bowls of Grape Nuts. And they would each talk about miracles they had seen the day before. Decades after these breakfasts, this woman still remembers the early morning God-sightings. Not a bad spiritual practice. Not a bad way to begin a day. Not a bad way to be family. Not a bad breakfast.

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God-sightings

When I was rector in Chicago, it was my privilege and joy to travel with our young people for a mission trip each summer. We boarded busses, headed for communities where people needed minor construction done on their homes. We pledged to leave places better than we found them, which happened most of the time.  I invoked the Hippocratic Oath, which most of the time was fulfilled.

The program was well organized, so that many youth groups came together, with hundreds of teenagers staying for a week in a high school. I’ve had better night’s sleep. (I usually found a remote corner for my sleeping bag which I called “The Rectory.”) The teenagers were divided into work teams, serving along side people from other churches. At the end of each workday, we’d reunite for dinner, fun, games, and worship. Let’s just say that the latter wasn’t Anglican chant. Not particularly contemplative. Lots of lively music, funny skits, teaching and preaching. And the following interesting feature.

At one point in the liturgy, the worship leader would invite young people to come forward and share God-sightings. Open mic testifying. Where had they seen God that day? So picture this. We’re all in a gym, in bleachers. Our group, good Episcopalians, climbed to the absolute back row, a bit skeptical, smugly resistant  to this exuberant worship, suspicious of the theology. The first night or two, our group sat back, with arms folded.

But I remember that night, as I sat with our young people, when one of our young people clomped noisily down the bleachers, making his way to the mic where he shared his God-sighting. Not exactly an Anglican thing to do. But it was simple and beautiful and authentic. In nights that followed, other members of our group did the same. They spoke of small kindnesses, a homeowner who brought a cool glass of lemonade to break the summer heat. Others spoke of the faithful courage with which homeowners navigated poverty and illness.

We returned to the parish. Young people were given opportunity to preach, to talk about work trip. Their sermon text? They offered God-sightings, which launched a new dynamic in the congregation. People began to keep an eye out for God-sightings. Parishioners of all ages, including most reserved and proper pillars of the church, shared the ways that they saw God at work. Unprecedented in my experience. Epiphany began yesterday. It’s a season (a long one this year) when the church talks about God-sightings. We began with the three wise men from the east, ending with the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop. In between those two stories, we find a great variety of God-sightings that show up in the gospel reading in Sunday. Listen for them on upcoming Sundays.

And then look for your own God-sightings. Where do you see God at work in your world? You might see God on a walk in the woods or a ride on the subway. You might have a God-sighting when you have dinner with those who share your household. You might have a God-sighting when you watch the news with stories from the other side of globe. The sightings are there. And there is great, transformative value in living life with an eye open for God-sightings.

The reason for this season? Remarkable epiphanies happened in the story of Jesus. Ordinary epiphanies happen to us all the time. Do we have eyes to see them? Are we expecting them? Can we wake up to them this week? Start each day asking God to help you see them. End each day noting how that happened.

-Jay Sidebotham

AN INVITE:
As part of The Good Book Club, I’ll be leading an online Bible Study for 8 weeks, starting on January 9, Wednesdays at 8pm EST. Topic: Paul’s letters to the Romans. Learn more here. I hope you will join me!

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. -Psalm 96:1   Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.   -Psalm 51:11 You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forward I make you hear new things, hidden things that you have not known.                 -Isaiah 48:6   And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.      -Rev. 21:5   For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.                   -Isaiah 65:17 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.             -II Peter 3:1   So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!         -II Corin. 5:17

Whenever

It’s one of my favorite words in the Prayer Book. It appears in the promises we make at baptism, when we say that whenever we sin, we will repent and return to the Lord. It doesn’t say if ever. It says whenever. It’s gonna happen.

The word also appears in the prayers at a wedding. As we pray for the couple, we ask that they receive grace whenever they hurt each other. Not if ever. Whenever. It’s gonna happen (as one who has been married 33 years can attest).

So why do I like this word? It champions the premise and promise that there is always a chance for a new start. God does not write us off. God is in the forgiveness business. And just to make sure that we get the point, the Bible is full of stories of folks who screw up and find a new path forward. Moses, a murderer and fugitive, becomes the greatest leader in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jonah is told to go east so he heads west, ends up as lunch for the whale, and proclaims grace to great effect. The prodigal son creeps home filled with shame and receives a party. Peter denies. Thomas doubts. Paul persecutes. You get the idea.

All of which is worth thinking about on the cusp of a new year. What will you do with the new? We often make resolutions, teeth-gritting determinations to be better, to be different, to improve self, to assert power when we may at our core know our selves to be powerless. I saw a billboard on Saturday. Big headline: New Year. New You. It was for a team of plastic surgeons. I may well be a candidate, but I don’t think it gets to the heart of the matter.

The Christian faith, the gospel, approaches all of this in a different way. It goes to the heart. God is in the business of making our hearts new. Jesus told Nicodemus, an old really religious guy, perhaps the Episcopal clergy of the day, that he must be born again, born from above, born anew. Resurrection means to stand again. Paul speaks of the possibility that we can become a new creation. The psalms repeatedly invite us to sing a new song. The Revelation to John envisions a new heaven and a new earth.

You can look at our world, our nation, our church, our own lives and reasonably conclude that old ways are not working. (File by title: Government shutdown.) Perhaps that’s precisely what we need to see in order to invite God to do some new work in our hearts. How might we offer that invitation?

One suggestion: In the church in which I serve, over the next two months, we are going to explore the Way of Love: Practices for a Jesus-centered life. These are seven simple (but not necessarily easy) things we can do to live in a new way, proposed and promoted by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. Check it out at https://www.episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love.

One of my favorite prayers in the Prayer Book intercedes for young persons. That’s all of us, isn’t it? Here is the prayer: 

God our Father, you see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world. (I’ll buy that.) Show them that your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following you is better than chasing after selfish goals. Help them to take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for a new start. Give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Did you catch that part? Failure is not a measure of our worth, but a chance for a new start. You’ve got that chance today, on the last day of 2018. Fact is, you have that chance every morning. That’s good news, worth celebrating. Happy New Year.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

When I was growing up, around this time of year, my mom would play this carol on the piano and my dad would sing. He had a good voice. It was a gift. Here’s the text of the carol:

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
all for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
all for love’s sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
all for love’s sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising,
heavenward by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
all for love’s sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
savior and king we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
savior and king, we worship thee.

-text by Frank Houghton (1894-1972)

Gift 

I’m guessing your day is full so I’ll get to the point. Think about gift. First, think about the ways in which the message of Christmas represents gift to you. What specifically about the story of Jesus strikes you as gift? Not just the manger and shepherds and magi, but the whole story, through miracles, teaching, death, resurrection and ascension. The fact is, religious folk can lose sight of Jesus’ story as gift.

That old, old story can get hijacked by a sense of obligation, so that religious observance becomes a duty, or a set of rules, or a weapon against people of different traditions, or heaven forfend, it can become boring routine. It can become an ought, shaping what one friend called, teeth-gritting Christianity. For some church attendance at Christmas can be a speed bump on the way to more festive celebrations. Attendance can become a transaction with a relative (spouse, parent, child) who bargains for your attendance at Christmas liturgies. We can lose sight of gift. With that in mind, take a bit of quiet time today (we could all use some quiet time,) to think about how this familiar story suggests gift. John’s gospel says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Literally, the Word pitched a tent with us. That Word made flesh was full of grace and truth, a winning combo. As Paul wrote to Titus, in his succinct, six word description of the gift of Christmas: The grace of God has appeared. What do you know of grace? That’s Christmas. Second, think about the gifts you will give today and tomorrow and in coming days (Christmas is a season, not just a day). Why are you doing that? There can be obligation that comes with that as well. Perhaps there’s fear you’ll receive something and not have something to give back. 

Take time to think about the people to whom you give gifts tonight or tomorrow. What makes you thankful for that person?  What do you love about that person? As you give those gifts, focus on how that person might be a gift to you. I know, it’s harder to do with some than others. Offer them your blessing. Third, think about gifts you offer to God this Christmas. Romans 12:1-2 calls us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, not putting something to death but bringing something to life, out of thanksgiving, as a gift. Today and tomorrow, carry with you the final stanza of the hymn “In the bleak mid-winter”
What can I give him, poor as I am.
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part
Yet what I have I give him, give my heart. 

Give your heart this Christmas. Best gift ever. 

–Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

From Luke 3:
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

Memorable Sermons

I confess that I rarely remember sermons, even my own. What did I preach on last Sunday? Give me a minute. I know I can pull it up.

So it’s striking to me that I remember a sermon given in Advent over 30 years ago. It was a sermon drawn from the gospel we read yesterday in church, delivered in a church filled with people in powerful positions. (That passage is included above. Read it before you read the rest of this column so I can share why the sermon from the late 1980’s meant something to me.)

But before we get to that, let’s talk about memorable sermons. Did you notice in the passage that John the Baptist had a distinctive (and memorable) preaching style? When I start a sermon, I sometimes begin with a winsome joke or squishy story I got off the internet. Warm up the crowd, you know.

Not John the Baptist. He looks out on the crowd that made a big effort to hear him in the desert. They had passed up a lot of pulpits along the way. And what does he do but greet them as a brood of vipers. A career killer for most preachers. But the more John does that kind of thing (hardly the stuff of a Dale Carnegie course or Toastmasters), the more people came to hear him. I think the reason is because people knew, as I know about myself, that there’s a bit of the snake inside each one of us. We mask it pretty well, especially in the Episcopal Church where we savor salvation by good taste. But John issued a rigorous assessment, and the people buy it, because they know on some level it’s true. On some level, I imagine they want to change.

So they are prompted to ask: Well then, what are we supposed to do? That question at the end of a sermon is the mark of a good sermon. John’s answer was clear, simple, practical, again a key to a memorable sermon.

Folks in the crowd asked what they should do. He told them that if they had two coats, they should share with someone who didn’t. Same with food in their pantry. If they had more than they needed, they should share it. I don’t think there has been a moment in my privileged life when I didn’t have more than I needed. That’s a blessing for which I give thanks. But it’s also a spiritual challenge, as my ability to hoard suggests there may be some viper in me.

Tax collectors asked what they should do. I might have expected John to tell tax collectors that they had to give up that vile profession by which they collaborated with oppressor and ripped off neighbors. Instead, John the Baptist tells them: “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” In other words, stay where God has put you. Bloom where you are planted. Bring the values of God’s life to your life. Bring the values of the Jesus Movement to the movement of your own spiritual journey. The impact of honesty in a profession marked by extortion will be a great witness.

Soldiers asked what they should do. “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” Again, I might have imagined John telling the soldiers they needed to go AWOL. Instead, he tells them to stay put, to navigate their lives with integrity and honesty, or as Michael Curry has been saying of late, to focus more on the power of love than the love of power.

The point of the sermon I remember from years ago was the same as John the Baptist’s teaching. We are called to let our transformed lives transform the places where we are right now. If we want to live as followers of Jesus, we can do that right now in the place God has placed us. Faith unfolds in real time, in real life. The point I remember? The preacher told us: Live your life, in your home, in your office, in traffic, in church, as a citizen, with integrity, with honesty, with charity, with humility, with kindness. If we have been given any power, let it be guided by love. Let your light shine. 

I heard that message from that sermon long ago. I still think about it. I’m still working on it.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. – Karl Barth   The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. – Thomas Merton   Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible. – Karl Barth   Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true. -Thomas Merton   Joy is the simplest form of gratitude. -Karl Barth   Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. – Thomas Merton   To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. -Karl Barth   The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds. -Thomas Merton   Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning. -Karl Barth   To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. -Thomas Merton   I haven’t even read everything I wrote. – Karl Barth

Fifty years ago today

How’s this for holy coincidence? On this day, December 10 in 1968, two spiritual heroes died. Karl Barth and Thomas Merton both transitioned to eternal life on the same day in that tumultuous year. They were different from each other. I don’t know if they ever met. They came from different Christian traditions. They died on different sides of the globe. But for different reasons, I was formed by their writing, which reflected their faith and witness. Maybe we all were. We talk in the church about being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. These guys were cumulonimbus. Giants.

Karl Barth’s theology was shaped by the horrors witnessed in World War I. Years later, with Hitler’s rise to power, Barth joined the Confessing Church and he was chiefly responsible for the writing of the Barmen Declaration (1934), one of its foundational documents. In that document, Barth claimed that the Church’s allegiance to God in Christ gave it the moral imperative to challenge the rule and violence of Hitler. Barth was forced to resign his professorship at Bonn due to his refusal to swear an oath to Hitler. In two world wars, Karl Barth saw sin at work. That shaped his theology. But he also believed deeply in grace, the love of God from which we cannot be separated.

In 1941, Thomas Mentor entered the Order of Cistercians, the Trappists, at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. His gifts as a writer were encouraged by the abbot. In addition to lots of translation work, Merton corresponded with people around the world, offering spiritual direction, showing affection for friends outside the community, and demonstrating ability to be fully engaged in the world even though he lived a cloistered life. Merton shaped a generation of faithful folks who sought connection between the contemplative life and action for justice and peace. He came to be a force for peace in a time when our nation was deeply divided by war. He explored pathways to engagement with other faith traditions, part of that work for peace.

Both Barth and Merton, each in his way, helped me see what grace is all about, and that it is all about grace. Even though one was cloistered in academia and the other in a monastery, both taught that a vision of grace does not remove a person from the world, but calls for deeper engagement to work for justice and peace.

Today, we give thanks for their lives, their witnesses, their ministries. We are challenged by their examples to bring the gospel of grace to a broken world. So celebrate their remarkable lives by reading some of what they’ve written (samples included above to pique your interest). Celebrate their lives by asking this question: How does our relationship with Christ shape your response to the needs of the world?

Karl Barth, who apparently never had an unexpressed written thought, did most of his writingat a small desk in his study in his Swiss home. Probably billions of words. Maybe trillions. Over the desk, he hung a print  of John the Baptist from Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. That piece of art guided his writing. John (that great Advent figure) stands with arm extended, pointing beyond himself to Christ on the cross, where in the words of the hymn, love and sorrow flow mingled down. That was Karl Barth’s work: to point beyond self to Christ. I sense it was Thomas Merton’s vocation as well. How will you and I do that? May that be our work, our vocation this week.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

A prayer for the season:   O blessed Lord Jesus, give us thankful hearts today for thee, our choicest gift, our dearest guest. Let not our souls be busy inns that have no room for thee and 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. So when thou comest again, O blessed one, mayest thou find all things ready and thy servants waiting for no new master but for one long loved and known. Even so come Lord Jesus. Amen.

The Advent Adventure

So we begin the season of Advent, a new year in the life of the church, a counter-cultural season that invites us to slow down and be quiet. That’s easier said than done when the list of things to do lengthens and social commitments increase. I remember the reaction of one colleague at a church where I served. When I’d go around saying how we were supposed to slow down and be quiet in this season, she gave me this “Yeah, right” look, major eye-roll, and whipped out a button that read: “Jesus is coming. Look busy.”

At the start of Advent 2018, I was thinking about the relationship between the word “advent” and the word “adventure.” An etymology dictionary indicates that the word “adventure” originally suggested that which happens by chance or fortune or luck. Later, the word came to mean that which is about to happen. It had an element of risk or danger or perilous undertaking, softened by a sense of a novel or exciting incident. An adventure was a remarkable occurrence, maybe even a wonder, a miracle suggesting marvelous things.

Does any of that jibe with your experience? Does it sound like your own spiritual journey, your religious life? What will your version of an Advent adventure look like this year?

Is there an element of expectation about what is coming, as far as your spiritual journey is concerned? Do you have any sense that God might do something new in your life? In the work we do with congregations around spiritual growth (a.k.a., change), I have heard a few Episcopalians say that they don’t expect anything to happen in their spiritual lives, or in their engagement with church. They can’t imagine change in their lives attributable to their faith. They are not against it. They just don’t see it happening. Faith is there as comfort, maybe even ratification of what they’re already doing. But in their minds it’s not about transformation. The Advent adventure invites us to think in a new way, to think that things might change, that we actually might grow.

Is there an element of risk in your spiritual journey? Where does courage come in? Advent is filled with people who take risks. The starring role goes to John the Baptist, who risked speaking truth to power, and lost his head over it, as a party favor no less. He did anything but play it safe. Jesus called him the greatest person ever born. Just think about what both Mary and Joseph risked. What risks do you take for the sake of your faith? A risk for many of us over-programmed types would be to savor silence, to set aside quiet time, maybe just unplug for a bit. Maybe a risk is to take even a small stand for justice and peace, to give to help those in need. The Advent adventure calls us to step out in faith.

Is there any sense of wonder connected with your spiritual journey? What causes you to wonder? If an adventure is indeed a remarkable occurrence, a wonder, a miracle suggesting marvelous things, then Christmas fills that bill. Can we take this time to keep focus on the reason for the season, which is to celebrate the miracle of the word made flesh, God present with us, born into humble surroundings, born into our hearts. Grace has appeared. The Advent adventure calls us to focus on that miracle, mindful of what Albert Einstein said: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Take this holy season to ask: In what way can you describe your spiritual journey as an adventure? And then discover your own version of an Advent adventure.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

The collect for Thanksgiving Day   Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.   Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. -Corrie Ten Boom   Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths. -C.H.Spurgeon   If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath. -Amit Ray  Om Chanting and Meditation   There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature. -Henry David Thoreau   All I have needed, thy hand has provided. Great is they faithfulness, Lord unto me.

Did you catch the recent interview on the talk show “Faith in Focus“? Stephen Colbert spoke of his shift from atheism to Christian faith. It happened when he was in his early 20’s, working in Chicago. On a cold night someone on the street handed him a Bible, one with an index suggesting particular verses for particular situations. Colbert was at the time dealing with anxiety, so he looked up the verse to address that challenge. He was directed to a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. Oddly enough, that passage happens to be the gospel chosen for this coming Thursday, the Feast of Thanksgiving, one of the few secular holidays that has made its way into the church calendar. Here’s the passage:

Jesus says: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear….Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

For Colbert, reading that passage was transformational. He stood on that cold street corner and read the entire sermon. He said he felt lightened. He said his life has never been the same. He now never goes anywhere without a Bible.

I suspect that scripture can have that effect on us as well, and maybe especially in this week. Scriptures chosen for Thanksgiving Day point to a way to move beyond anxiety and fear. I’m guessing that these readings were selected because the offering of thanksgiving in some way counters this kind of worry.

I don’t know how you cope with worries, fears, anxieties. They often get the best of me in most unproductive ways. I often fret in the middle of the night about stuff that will happen the next day. Sometimes those concerns never materialize. Sometimes they come out entirely differently than my anxious predictions. Sometimes they make me unpleasant towards spouse and other people I care about. Sometimes they displace things I should probably be worrying about.

I’m taken with the thought that thanksgiving counters anxiety. Such grateful intentionality often begins with a look in the spiritual rear view mirror, seeing where blessings have come in the past. A common practice in many faith traditions is to list a few things for which one is grateful on a daily basis. One rabbi I know told her congregation to list 100 on a daily basis. Just naming those 100 things, when I’ve tried to do it, crowds out space for anxious thought. If you haven’t tried it, give it a shot this week. See what emerges for you.

And we don’t need to limit thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November. Our principal act of worship, the eucharist, is really a thanksgiving meal. Eucharist means thanksgiving. Every time we participate, we are focusing our lives by giving thanks.

This attitude of gratitude is not denial. It’s not a refusal to admit good reason for concern. It recognizes that hard things come our way. It doesn’t sugar coat the power of those challenges. But it does offer perspective, as a grateful look in the rear view mirror offers a way to look ahead through a much broader windshield, helping us see more clearly where we are and where we are headed, pointing us in a more loving, liberating, life-giving direction.

Blessings in this week devoted to thanksgiving. One of my 100 thanksgivings this week: the opportunity to connect with you on Monday morning, and any attentiveness you extend to my Monday morning ramblings. Thank you. Thank God.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org