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Monday Matters (January 2, 2023)

January 2, 2023
3-1

The Collect for the Feast of the Holy Name

Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.

Amen.

In coming days, Monday Matters will offer reflections on the prayers we say in church on Sunday, the collect of the day. We do this based on the conviction that praying shapes our believing, that what we pray forms us. We do this hoping that the prayers we say on Sunday will carry us through the week.

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

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.

Monday Matters: December 26, 2022

December 26, 2022
3-1

The Collect for the Feast of the Nativity

Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever.

Amen.

In coming days, Monday Matters will offer reflections on the prayers we say in church on Sunday, the collect of the day. We do this based on the conviction that praying shapes our believing, that what we pray forms us. We do this hoping that the prayers we say on Sunday will carry us through the week.

Born again

O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.

Mild he lays his glory by, born that men no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.

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

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.

Monday Matters (December 19, 2022)

December 19, 2022
3-1

The Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

In coming days, Monday Matters will offer reflections on the prayers we say in church on Sunday, the collect of the day. We do this based on the conviction that praying shapes our believing, that what we pray forms us. We do this hoping that the prayers we say on Sunday will carry us through the week.

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

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.

Monday Matters (December 12, 2022)

December 12, 2022
3-1

The Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

In coming days, Monday Matters will offer reflections on the prayers we say in church on Sunday, the collect of the day. We do this based on the conviction that praying shapes our believing, that what we pray forms us. We do this hoping that the prayers we say on Sunday will carry us through the week.

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

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.

Monday Matters: September 26, 2022

September 26, 2022
3-1

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
To you whom for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake

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

George Burns, comic from a few years back, put it this way: The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible. As a preacher, I take his point. And I have often had that point made to me as I stand at the door and greet congregants at the end of the service.

As we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we note a good beginning (the Beatitudes) and a good ending (today’s passage about foundations). But contrary to what Mr. Burns has to say, there was plenty of good stuff in between. Life changing, history shaping material. At its conclusion, the Sermon on the Mount winds up with a challenge to think about our lives. On what are we building those lives? How would you describe the foundation on which you are building your life?

A priest I admire often tells his congregation that suffering is the promise that life always keeps. Maybe that’s a slightly more dire variation of the saying that into each life some rain must fall. The premise of Jesus’ counsel is that the rain and floods and wind will inevitably happen. That’s not in question. The question is how we will be sustained in those moments.

Are we founded on rock or sand? What would a foundation on rock look like? What does a foundation of sand represent? The great hymn, Christ is Made the Sure Foundation, speaks of a life that finds its stability, its strength in Christ. St. Paul spoke about the importance of being rooted and grounded in love. That stands in contrast to a life built on a foundation that can’t handle the storm and ultimately proves itself insufficient to meet the crisis. We don’t have to look far to find lives built on ever-shifting ground, offering perilous illusion of permanence and stability.

Take some time this week to re-read the whole Sermon on the Mount in one sitting. It’s three chapters (Matthew 5-7). The sermon starts strong, by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which has been translated “Blessed are those who know their need of God.” In the guidance that unfolds before the conclusion is reached, there are all kinds of ways to find a solid foundation. Despite what George Burns had to say, focus on the riches of those verses. Which of those ways speak out to you?

Years ago, when our family was going through a crisis, my mother sat us four kids down and made us begin to memorize the text of the hymn printed above. I thought it was kind of a dumb idea. But she was smarter than I am. Needless to say that was a few years ago. But over the years, the words of that hymn have sustained me, in everything from drizzling rain to torrential downpour to hurricane-force winds. May you find grace to discover a firm foundation, one upon which you can build a life, for this life and the next.

-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.

Monday Matters (September 12, 2022)

September 12, 2022
3-1

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:16-19

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Galatians 5:19-23

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:37-40

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

James Forbes, former Senior Pastor at Riverside Church, one of the best preachers I ever encountered, put it this way in a sermon (as best I recollect): It’s about the fruits not the roots.

His point was that what matters is how a life is lived, whether the love of God is brought to fruition in that life. As we come to today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had just finished warning about false prophets, calling for discernment between what is true and what is false. That discernment, he seems to say, will come by looking at the fruits, not the roots. In a few verses, he will continue the theme by saying: “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom.”

Too often, we want to focus on the roots. We do it in relationship to religion: What’s your theology? What’s your denomination? To what creed do you subscribe? We do it in other areas of life: Where did you go to school? What’s your zip code? What political party do you belong to? What news programs do you watch? Who are your people?

But our faith indicates that maybe the more important bit of info is not the roots but the fruits. St. Francis of Assisi famously told disciples: Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. In so saying, he echoed Jesus’ teaching that people would know his followers by the way they showed love to one another. Fruits.

St. Paul wrote a letter to the Galatians, a church that had gotten him hopping mad. In that letter, he sets up a contrast between works of the flesh and fruits of the spirit. Note that he doesn’t talk about works of the spirit. He describes them as fruit. (You can see the list above.) Those fruits grow effortlessly, not the result of works, or what one person described as teeth-gritting Christianity. The fruits are an extension, a reflection, a natural expression of who that person is, someone who has come to know grace in such a deep way that they effortlessly show grace.

They may do so unconsciously. I think of the parable Jesus told later in the gospel of Matthew (25:31-46) about the contrast between sheep and goats brought before the king, who is the judge. The sheep are commended by the judge, because they fed the poor, visited the prisoner, clothed the naked. In so doing, they are told that they had offered those life-giving, loving, liberating ministries to the king himself. The amazing thing is, the sheep did so unconsciously. They ask: Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, sick, imprisoned?

This is not to say that roots don’t matter. A prayer found in the letter to the Ephesians (also above), speaks about the importance of being rooted and grounded in love. Out of that will come fruits that reflect God’s presence and power.

If we are rooted in a mindset that it is all up to us, that we have to prove our worth through our actions, intelligence, income, resume, religious practice, theological or political correctness, those kinds of roots produce fruits that set us apart from one another. Those kinds of roots diminish or even dismiss the power of grace in our lives.

If we are rooted in the love of God, we find our worth, our value, our dignity grounded in the amazing fact that we are made in the image of God and that Christ is present in each one of us and that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked as Christ’s own forever. Those roots will then bear a whole different kind of fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control

Think this week about roots and fruits. Where are you grounded? How is that being expressed in your life? What kind of fruit are you bearing?

-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.

Monday Matters (September 5, 2022)

September 5, 2022
3-1

As we give thanks for the life and ministry and witness of Frederick Buechner, and as we mourn his passing (such a loss), some of his thoughts on telling the truth:

Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that it is into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have.

from Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

False prophets

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

One of my seminary professors, a mentor (and hero) named Christopher Morse wrote a book entitled “Not Every Spirit.” The title takes its cue from a New Testament passage (I John 4:1: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.). In that book, he made the point that part of the journey of faith, part of the responsibility of Christians, part of the work of discipleship is to evaluate the spirits at work in the world. It presumes that some spirits work counter to God’s purposes, purposes of love. Those spirits can look innocent, wrapped in sheep’s clothing. Underneath there can be danger. Ravenous wolves.

Dr. Morse also talked about the Christian responsibility to commit not only to what we believe but also to what we refuse to believe. As an example, he noted how the theology of apartheid needed its spirit tested. Followers of Jesus needed to reject it. We can apply those principles to our own time. We need to test the spirits, when so much of current public discourse seeks to wrap itself in Christian cloak, or perhaps more precisely, in Christian costume.

It’s tricky stuff. As I think about who I consider to be false prophets, in my experience, it’s usually folks who differ from me on theological, political or social issues. With that in mind, I need to mention again the wisdom of Anne Lamott who said: You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. So what might be the way to tell the difference between true or false prophet? Perhaps more to the point, in a culture that increasingly distrusts institutions and often speaks of fake news and alternative facts, what is the truth? Would we know a false prophet if we met one?

The Gospel of John provides interesting answers. One of the most riveting moments in that gospel for me is the private exchange between Jesus and Pilate, right before the crucifixion. The conversation ends with Pilate’s question to Jesus: What is truth? Jesus seems like he lets the question hang out there, but he’s said a lot about truth already.

Earlier in that gospel, Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. History shows that the message of false prophets often has the opposite effect. Curtailment of freedom stifles the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10.

In John 10, Jesus talks a lot about sheep, and who they follow. He contrasts himself, the good shepherd, to thieves and hired hands (a.k.a., false prophets). He invites followers into relationship with him, describing himself as the way, the truth and the life. He provides a guide to discernment. He said: By this will all people know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. I was at a gathering recently where we sang: “They will know we are Christians by our love.” I got the idea of making a video, playing that song, showing images of Christians (and other religious folks) in our world who preach and practice anything but the love of God. You don’t have to look hard to find them. (For my part, a look in my mirror might well reveal one of those.). Want to help me make that video?

In the prologue to John’s gospel, Jesus the word is described as being full of grace and truth. We need both. The true prophet can provide both.

In my years in the church, I’ve met wonderful prophets. Some, for all their wonderfulness, have disappointed. Some have done harm, revealed to be ravenous. Which for me is all the more reason to do my level best to just hang out with Jesus, to savor his teaching, to follow his example, to celebrate and imitate his grace, to be in relationship with him (whatever that looks like). In my own journey, the eucharist taken regularly is a way to stick close. Rhythms of prayer and reflection on scripture do that. Service to those on the margin does that. What are the ways you do that? Let this week, the start of a new season, be a time to explore that question, to do that tricky and wonderful work of discernment.

-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.

Monday Matters (August 15, 2022)

August 15, 2022
3-1

Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers,
for they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.
Trust in  the Lord and do good; live in the land and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:1-4

Do we know what it means to be struck by grace?… Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” If that happens to us, we experience grace.

-Paul Tillich from The Shaking of the Foundations

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

Thinking about joining the September 2022 RenewalWorks cohort?

Register by August 26th to join us.

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.
A cohort of churches is launching the process together this fall. If you’re interested in joining us for the September cohort, you can sign up now!
Learn more in our digital brochure.

Monday Matters (July 25, 2022)

July 25, 2022
3-1

O Dear Lord,
three things I pray:
to see you more clearly,
to love you more dearly
and follow you more nearly,
day by day.

More thoughts on pride from C.S.Lewis:

 

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man… It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.

When man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off. He is back where he always was, where every man always is.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility…Accord-ing to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”

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

In 1970, Sesame Street recycled an old joke. Bert approaches Ernie who appears on screen with a banana in his ear. Bert says: You have a banana in your ear. Ernie doesn’t respond. Bert repeats: You have a banana in your ear. Nothing from Ernie. Bert finally gets Ernie’s attention, again tells him that he has a banana in his ear. Ernie says: I can’t hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

I wonder if Sesame Street writers had read today’s verse from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus presents his own funny image, one that might lend itself to cartoon. Someone with a log in their eye is trying to fine tune a speck in somebody else’s eye. The log-blinded person seems clueless about what is getting in the way of clear vision, kind of like that Muppet with a banana in his ear.

It’s a reminder of how many times in the gospels Jesus addresses blindness. His many healings of physical blindness provided a way of saying that folks can be blind in other ways as well, blind spiritually, blind in the ways we regard God and each other, blind to the needs of a broken world. That condition seems especially true for really religious folks, the good church-goers of Jesus’ day. Maybe even clergy.

Jesus speaks of hypocrites, which reminds me of what some people have said when I ask if they are part of a church. People will sometimes say that they don’t go to church because it’s just full of hypocrites. To which I can only respond: Guilty as charged. So what’s the answer? What are we to do?

An ancient prayer which became popular in the musical GODSPELL (see above) asked that among other things we would see more clearly. In today’s passage, it seems that if we wish to come to clarity, we need help to make that happen.

And we’ve got work to do on ourselves. The work on ourselves (with a metaphorical log blocking our own vision) can be a lot more extensive than the work we imagine other people need to do (a speck of dust blocking theirs).

I found myself wondering what the log-in-the-eye represents. What is the thing, the big thing, that keeps me from seeing clearly? If I had to boil it down to one thing, I guess it would be the sin of pride. C.S.Lewis wrote a lot about pride and how it blocks vision. He said: A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

He continues: There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit.

Lewis says that the opposite virtue is humility, which may suggest that the pathway of humility is the key to log removal. Tim Keller, in his book The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness, speaks of gospel-humility. Its essence is “not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less. Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. Not needing to connect things with myself. It is an end to thoughts such as, ‘I’m in this room with these people, does that make me look good? Do I want to be here?’ True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself. The freedom of self-forgetfulness. The blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings.”

We come to this gospel-humility in a number of ways. Worship helps, a way of seeing that our lives unfold in the presence of a power greater than our own. Gratitude helps, a way of seeing that we are on the receiving end of grace, that goodness comes to us not because we’re so magnificent, but because God is. Service helps, a way of seeing that we are connected to each other. Prayer (especially confession) helps, a way of seeing that we don’t always get it right, but that help is available. All of those things help with log-removal. All so we can see more clearly. And love more dearly. And follow more nearly. Day by day.

-Jay Sidebotham

Thinking about joining the September 2022 RenewalWorks cohort?

Register by August 26th to join us.

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.
A cohort of churches is launching the process together this fall. If you’re interested in joining us for the September cohort, you can sign up now!
Learn more in our digital brochure.

Monday Matters (June 27, 2022)

June 27, 2022
3-1
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

-Isaiah 52.7

 

O heavenly Father, who hast filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold thy gracious hand in all thy works; that, rejoicing in thy whole creation, we may learn to serve thee with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

O God, whom saints and angels delight to worship in heaven: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; and grant to them even now glimpses of your beauty, and make them worthy at length to behold it unveiled for evermore; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth, over and around us lies. Christ our Lord, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

 

Do you want to do something beautiful for God? There is a person who needs you. This is your chance.
There is a thing you can do but I can not and there is a thing I can but you can not; so let us make something beautiful for God.
-Mother Teresa

Being considerate

And which of you by worrying can 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. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
-Matthew 6: 27-30

Consider the lilies, with the glory they effortlessly show. This bit of wisdom is a whole lot more than simply stopping to smell the roses (although that’s an excellent thing to do). In the call to consider the lilies, we’re asked to learn from them, to gain wisdom from them, to imitate them. It’s a call to notice beauty and to celebrate it.

First, we notice beauty as gift. As the collect above indicates, God has filled the world with beauty as an act of grace, one that helps us grasp a power greater than ourselves, one that reveals the holy character as loving attention, one that simply brings us joy. Beauty itself, clearly holy intention in creation, is also there to be our teacher. And so we hear the refrain from the psalm that we are to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Recognizing that holy beauty is indeed key to our worship.

Second, we notice beauty as lens. It provides a way to look at the world around us, appreciation of nature for sure. It also includes the ways we look at each other. I recently came across a photographic study which showed how people reacted when someone told them they were beautiful. Pre-comment, sullen. Post-comment, glowing. It struck me because I’m spending time on crowded subways these days. I have felt called to pay attention to other people in the car. I sometimes will get out my small sketch pad and draw them. Slightly risky, but it’s my way of considering the beauty in each person (not unlike the dignity in each person). Not because they are attractive in any movie star way, or because they are dressed particularly well, but simply because they are. They are beautiful.

Third, we notice beauty as offering. Note that the second prayer above talks about the gifts of musicians and artists who help us glimpse beauty. My own faith journey has been deeply shaped by those gifts as well as architectural beauty. I’m grateful for those who made that possible, for their offerings. Offerings of beauty are not only located in liturgy and sacred space. I’m mindful of the ministry of Mother Teresa who said that her life goal was to offer something beautiful for God. (As a work of art, her ministry was the moral equivalent of the Sistine Ceiling.) My offering will never rise to that level, but I appreciate her sense that we each and all can do something beautiful for God. She once described herself as a pencil in God’s hand, revealing her openness to God’s will for her life. Nice image.

Newsflash: There’s a whole lot these days in our world that is not beautiful. There’s a whole lot to make us worry. That’s why the call to consider beauty and upon consideration to extend it is so important. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, it takes faith to see the beautiful in our grace-starved world, a world that seems to grow more mean-spirited by the minute. It’s a world that can easily make us anxious, a world that can make us think we are not beautiful enough, that we need to work harder and longer and better to solve the things that cause us angst. Truth be told, that over-functioning will not ultimately do the trick. But it seems to me that Jesus is telling us that we can navigate the anxiety with an expression of gratitude and hope that beauty will grow.

We worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in the conviction that God cares and God provides. Be on the lookout today for beauty. Don’t let the ugliness dominate us. Consider the lilies. Consider how your faith is deepened by attentiveness to that which is beautiful.

-Jay Sidebotham

Thinking about joining the September 2022 RenewalWorks cohort?

Register by August 26th to join us.

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.
A cohort of churches is launching the process together this fall. If you’re interested in joining us for the September cohort, you can sign up now!
Learn more in our digital brochure.