Have you heard the voice of the Lord?

When people tell me that they heard God talk to them, I have a variety of reactions. I can be skeptical. Are you sure? Have you been working too hard? Need some sleep? I might consider psychiatric referrals. I can be jealous that I’ve never heard the voice they describe. The cynic in me can assume they’re trying to ratify a personal agenda by claiming God told them to do something. Our politics seems to be full of that these days. As Anne Lamott has noted, we can safely assume we’ve created God in our own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people we do.

And sometimes I think: “That is simply amazing that this holy event happened to you.”

Maybe you can tell that all this talk about hearing the voice of God is a spiritual growth opportunity for me. I got to thinking about the voice of the Lord when I reflected on the psalm heard in church yesterday (included above). The psalm speaks about the power of that voice, how it can break cedar trees, split flames of fire, shake the wilderness, make oak trees writhe, strip the forests bare. Yikes. Where do we experience that kind of power in the voice of God? And if it is there for us to experience, is it always as dramatic as this psalm makes it out to be?

I commend to you a column written by David Brooks, printed in the N Y Times on December 19 entitled: The Shock of Faith: It’s nothing like I thought it would be. His evolving relationship with the Holy One was not conveyed with wilderness shattering, tree stripping force. Rather, he describes a gradual, unfolding process, with quiet and unsuspecting moments of epiphany. A subway ride where he looked at fellow passengers, recognizing each had a soul and deducing that there was a higher source of all that soul-ness. He describes revelation that came to him on a mountain hike, when the voice of the Lord was heard through the glory of nature. Not the hurricane force voice of Psalm 29. More like the still small voice, the sound of sheer silence which Elijah heard in his encounter with God on the holy mountain. (Read the story in I Kings 19.)

I was thinking of where the voice of the Lord came in the life of Jesus. On occasion, we read that God’s voice sounded to bystanders like indecipherable thunder, though Jesus got the message. Since yesterday we observed the baptism of Jesus, we begin the season of Epiphany by hearing the voice that came from heaven at the Jordan River, a voice that said: You are my beloved. It’s quite similar to the heavenly voice heard on the last Sunday of this season, when Jesus is transfigured in Stephen Spielberg special effects mountaintop glory. The heavenly voice speaks of Jesus’ belovedness.

Henri Nouwen zoomed in on that voice from heaven when he wrote his beautiful book called Life of the Beloved. It’s written for a secular friend to explain Nouwen’s faith. The book is centered on the voice Jesus heard in baptism. Nouwen claims we can hear that voice as well. He wrote to his friend: “All I want to say to you is “You are the Beloved,” and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold.  My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being – “You are the Beloved”.

Nouwen recognizes that we are surrounded by competing voices: “It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody—unless you can demonstrate the opposite.”

He reassures his reader: “Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper.”

We may not hear God speaking to us in the voice of James Earl Jones, as much as I would like that. But God’s voice is there for us, as David Brooks found out. We can hear it in the most ordinary places, like a subway car. We can hear it in nature, maybe a morning walk on the beach or in the woods.

Paradoxically, we can hear that voice as we address the suffering of the world. For those of us who swim in the Christian stream, we hear that voice in scripture, in worship, in community, in sacrament. In Epiphany, we are reminded that we find that voice in Jesus himself, the word made flesh, God speaking to us of a love from which we cannot be separated. That voice has power, the power to change our hearts.

Listen this week. Can you hear that voice speaking directly to you, speaking of your belovedness?

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

Praise

More than a week before Christmas, I drove past a billboard telling folks where to recycle Christmas trees. It reminded me how hard it is for us to live in the present moment. We’re always thinking about what’s next. After breakfast, I wonder what I’ll have for lunch. Before I finish a project, I wonder what I’ll work on next. As new year approaches, I wonder how I’ll navigate 2025.

Being present to the moment is a spiritual growth opportunity for me. I can spend a lot of time revisiting the past, especially those things I would have done differently. I can fret about the future. That may be the reason that the liturgical seasons are important.

Specifically, that’s why it’s helpful to speak of Christmas as more than one day. It’s a season to savor, without rushing to figure out how to recycle the tree. The psalm heard in church yesterday (reprinted in this email) can help. Like many of the psalms that come at the end of that collection in the Bible, it’s a call to offer praise, to let that be our focus in these twelve days of Christmas.

I encourage you to read over that psalm and reflect on why praise is the order of the day, a theme for this Christmas season. The psalm speaks of a transcendent God, source and sustainer of all creation. At the same time, the psalm speaks of a God who is very much down to earth. We meet that God in Jesus. Like shepherds and magi, we are invited to let our focus be gratitude and worship, awe and praise.

With two Sundays in the season of Christmas, we’ve had the chance to sing about all this in worship: O come let us adore him. Glories stream from heaven above. Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia. Come adore on bended knee. Let heaven and nature sing. Gloria in excelsis deo.

And carols aren’t only for Christmas Eve. I know a rector who would schedule “Joy to the World” in the middle of August, just a reminder of good news. Another friend worked with me, planning her mother’s funeral. She requested “Joy to the World,” even though Christmas was months away. A posture of praise need not be limited to the end of December.

There’s no need for the spirit of those carols to be limited to song. In our actions, not only with our lips but with our lives, we can offer praise of the God who, according to the psalm, gathers the exiles, heals the broken-hearted, binds up their wounds, lifts the lowly. What better act of worship of the God who does such things than for us to find ways to do the same. Those opportunities surround us.

My 5-year-old grandson asked me last week if I would be celebrating my birthday in heaven. I confessed that I hadn’t thought about that. I said it was a good question. It caused me to imagine a wondrous timelessness in heaven, when we eternally live in the moment. Christmas may well be that time when we glimpse such wonder here on earth. Maybe it’s what Christina Rossetti had in mind when she wrote the poem: Love came down at Christmas. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar said that Christmas was more than an event. It was invasion of time by eternity.

Such wisdom might tell us to pause the plans for recycling the tree. That day will come. Such wisdom might tell us to experience the invasion of time by eternity, reflected in the story of Christmas. Such wisdom might lead us to live in the moment by responding with a posture of praise. Such wisdom might invite us to think this Monday morning about what causes us to lift our hearts in praise of God from whom all blessings flow.

For many folks, this Christmas season has its own timelessness. School’s out of session. Work schedule is different and for some, quite light. Some might ask: What day is it? This time can be a gift to be present with a focus on praise. How might you do that in the remaining days of this Christmas season, as we hear heaven and nature sing? What blessings have flowed your way? What leads you to praise in this moment?

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

To-do list

By way of refresher, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I’m guessing there’s still a lot that has not been crossed off your list, even if you’ve been checking it twice. So it may be time to take a deep breath and prioritize. Hit the pause button and consider the reason for the season. I know. None of us have time to do that. Which is precisely why we need to do that.

Here’s one way to do that. Turn to the song Mary sang when she began to wrap her mind around the miraculous prospect of being the God-bearer. In the version of the song we heard in church yesterday (reprinted in this email), Mary proclaims the greatness of the Lord. In older (perhaps more familiar) translations, she magnifies the Lord. I want to suggest that such magnification is what we’re called to do as we enter into the celebrations of the next few days.

What might it mean to magnify the Lord? It is not about making God greater, as if that was our job or skill set. Rather it is widening our vision, enlarging our hearts, coming to recognize a bit more of the transcendent greatness which has been there for eternity and is actually beyond human comprehension.

That’s probably why the first way we magnify the Lord is by coming together for worship, as we claim that worship is at the heart of all we do. Maybe you come to church every week. Maybe you come to church only on Christmas and Easter. Whatever your pattern, use upcoming church gatherings over the next few days to focus on the mystery of a power greater than ourselves, a loving presence that chose to take on the form of a child. Marvel at the mystery of Immanuel, God with us.

Getting back to to-do list: Getting to church on Christmas can be rugged. Everyone needs to be dressed. Presents have not all been wrapped or even purchased. Children’s toys have not been assembled. What if someone drops by with a present and you have nothing to give in return? Family members squawk at each other. Somebody with whom you disagree insists on talking politics. Parking is a nightmare. People you’ve never seen in church commandeer the best pews, saving rows of seats. Recent experiences of loss and navigation of grief can make it feel hollow to sing “Joy to the World.”

But what would it mean to let all of that go and to sing with all our hearts: “O come let us adore him”?

Then what would it mean to let that worship experience spill over into all of life, to magnify the Lord not only with our lips but with our lives. Thank God that Christmas is more than just one day. It’s a season in which we might find opportunity to be of service, to continue the spirit of gift giving. Maybe there’s a chance to cheer someone in your orbit who battles loneliness or sadness. Maybe you and members of your household can help prepare a meal for people in need. Maybe you can go through the closet and find stuff you no longer use, delivering it to a place where it can find usefulness. Maybe there’s a way to strive for justice and peace.

Magnify the Lord this Christmas. Proclaim God’s greatness. Let every heart prepare him room, as heaven and nature sing. Merry Christmas, friends.

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

You shall draw water from the springs of salvation.

Um, excuse me, where might I find those springs?

I’m wondering where in your life, when in your experience you have run across springs of salvation. Maybe we can begin by talking about salvation. How do we understand that word? The way that Christian theology has evolved among certain circles, salvation is about a ticket to heaven. Depending on which group you’re talking about, it can be a very small number of folks who make the cut.

When I was a kid, I would often walk each day with my neighborhood best friend. As we passed by a couple churches, we would often have profound 7 year old conversations about religion. He was Roman Catholic and was concerned I was not going to make it to heaven. I was Protestant Evangelical and I was concerned he was not going to heaven. That mindset can come early. Salvation was about the heavenly price of admission.

There are other ways to think about salvation. I’ve been told that it really means wholeness, that it suggests healing, a process of restoration and reparation and renewal. Among other things, that means that salvation begins right now. See St. Paul: Now is the day of salvation. (II Corinthians 6.2 ) As I thought about this, it seemed like a good idea to go to wiser sources, so I considered what Frederick Buechner had to say about salvation.

In his book Wishful Thinking (a great Christmas gift by the way), he speaks of salvation as an experience first and a doctrine second. He says it is a process, not an event. For him, it is the paradoxical experience of losing oneself and then finding that one is more fully oneself than usual. Perhaps not surprisingly, he says that the closest analogy is love. He says that when you love somebody, it is no longer yourself who is the center of your own universe. It is the one you love. He suggests that is what Jesus had in mind when he said: He who loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39). In that way, we do not love God so that, tit for tat God will save us. Rather to love God is to be saved. Get this: “You do not love God and live for him so you will go to Heaven. Whichever side of the grave you happen to be talking about, to love God and to live for him is Heaven.”

And he has a word for those who have had this experience. “How about the person you know who as far as you can possibly tell has never had such a moment – the soreheads and slobs of the world, the ones the world has hopelessly cripple? Maybe for that person the moment that has to happen is you.” In other words, best I can tell what Buechner is getting at is that we can point others to springs of salvation.

The psalm begins: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1,2) Hear what Jesus told the woman at the well: “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4.15) The woman said to Jesus: “Give me this water.” Which is to say that the springs of salvation are accessible right here. Right now.

Hey, maybe that’s what the good news of Christmas, God with us, is all about.

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you odd.

–      Flannery O’Connor

Case in point: John the Baptist. We hear a lot about him these days. If Academy Awards were given for liturgical seasons, John the Baptist would get an Oscar for Best Actor in Advent. Our church lets us know he is a big deal, with attention not only on several Sundays in Advent but also on a few feast days throughout the year. That is probably a reflection of what Jesus said about John the Baptist, which is that there was no one greater born of woman than John (Matthew 11:11).

The most generous adjective I can come up with to describe the guy is eccentric. He wore strange clothes. Ate strange food. Set up a public ministry in the wilderness where there were no people. When people finally found him out in the desert, he called them a brood of vipers. No Dale Carnegie course graduate here.

We heard about him in church yesterday, and in lieu of a psalm which usually appears in the line up, the lectionary invited us to read a canticle which is really a passage from Luke’s gospel (see column on the left). Zechariah, John’s father, holds forth with prediction of his son’s greatness. So what does John have to teach us this Advent?

We get clues from a tradition in Christian art that has John the Baptist depicted again and again with outstretched hand, index finger pointing away from himself to Jesus, usually to Jesus on the cross. It’s an illustration of what John said when asked about his relationship to Jesus. John said: He must increase and I must decrease (John 3:30).

Let’s be clear. There was no shortage of ego strength with the Baptist. But he knew who he was and he knew who Jesus was, and he knew the difference, so his ministry was one of preparation for the advent of a greater presence, a higher power. It was a ministry of humility. Cue in Godspell: Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

How does that apply to us? First, channeling Flannery O’Connor, we might embrace the weirdness, the oddity, the eccentricity that comes with the truth of our faith. What might that look like? Maybe like St. Paul said, it’s being a fool for Christ (II Corinthians 4:10). Maybe it’s letting someone ahead of us in traffic or in line at the store. Maybe it’s giving an absurdly generous tip to a server the next time you go out to eat. Maybe it’s extending forgiveness to someone who by all accounts doesn’t deserve it. Maybe it’s listening to someone else’s point of view when you have felt that their point of view is wrong or stupid. Maybe it’s advocating for justice and peace (in word and action), in a season when the most vulnerable are threatened, for example, those threatened with deportation (See Leviticus 19:34). Maybe it’s resisting a racist joke or comment or policy. In a time when church attendance may be an oddity, maybe it’s inviting someone to an Advent or Christmas gathering in your church, or telling someone why the place means something to you. Maybe none of these make sense in the economy of our common life, but the truth will make you odd.

Second, it’s about getting clear eyed about who we are and who Jesus is. The slowed pace and quiet time recommended for Advent might give us space to reflect on Jesus’ question to his disciples: Who do you say that I am? That kind of clarity is bound to make our experience of the joy of Christmas more intense.

Finally, it’s about finding a way to point beyond ourselves to Christ. John had his own distinctive way. We are called to find our own way. How will your life this week point beyond yourself to Jesus? How will you prepare the way of the Lord?

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

How would you like to be remembered?

A friend attended a retreat where participants were invited to write a brief autobiography, viewed through three different lenses. They were to write their story as hero, as victim, and as learner. The suggestion is that the ways we tell our own story, the ways we wish to be remembered, indeed our sense of identity depend on our point of view. The point of view we choose shapes the ways we think and behave. To those three categories, I might add a fourth. I haven’t settled on the word to capture this category. Perhaps mistake-maker (the most generous option) or screw-up, transgressor or sinner.

The psalm printed above, read on the first Sunday of Advent, talks about how God might remember us. The author of the psalm makes the following request to the Holy One: Remember me not according to the sins of my youth (and we all have those). Rather remember me according to your love.

Implicit in that psalm is the idea that while it matters how we regard ourselves, a bit of that has to do with the way we believe God regards us. For many people raised in religious contexts, the assumption is that God is scorekeeper, a slightly grouchy one at that. It’s most vividly brought to mind by a Gary Larson cartoon. God sits at the computer. On the screen, a grand piano plummets towards unsuspecting pedestrian. God at the keyboard is about to hit the “Smite” button.

When we imagine God regarding us in that way, it makes for an anxious approach to life. Ironically, it means we begin to regard other people in that same way, keeping score, all the while treasuring resentments and infringements as if they were trophies.

But if we can believe that God’s overriding regard for us is one of compassion, we find a different way forward, marked by freedom and joy. The good news of our faith is that while the Holy One knows our stories, knows us each as hero, victim, learner and sinner, the overriding way the Holy One regards us is as beloved child. Maybe that should be the fifth option. The challenge of our faith is to ask whether we can really believe that we are the beloved child in such a way that it shapes the way we live.

Savanna Guthrie, of TODAY show fame, recently wrote a book entitled Mostly What God Does. She is not only an accomplished television presence but also a person of faith. In her book, she makes this simple point: Mostly what God does is love you. In the intro, she writes:

If we could believe this, really believe this, how different would we be? How different would our lives be? How different would our world be? If you ever struggle with your connection to God (or whether you even feel connected to a faith at all!), you’re not alone. Especially in our modern world, with its relentless, never-ending news cycle, we can all grapple with such questions. Do we do that alone, with despair and resignation? Or do we make sense of it with God, and with hope? In these uncertain times, could believing in the power of divine love make the most sense?

If we can embrace the idea that God knows all the ways we’ve messed up and still looks on us graciously, then we may well find ourselves a bit more compassionate and forgiving to people around us. St. Paul captured that idea in his letter to the Romans. He wrote: Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.

As we begin a new year, take stock of the ways you imagine you are regarded by God.

Join with the psalmist who prays to be remembered with compassion. Join with the thief on the cross who asks Jesus: Remember me when you come into your kingdom. Offer the prayer of commendation from the Burial Office which speaks of how we might each and all be remembered: Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

Persistence

The route of the triathlon went right by our house. I sat on the front porch to cheer people on. The first runners came through, lean and fast. After swimming more than I could ever swim, cycling further than I could ever pedal, they were sprinting for the finish line and made it look easy. Breezy. I thought to myself: Definitely another species. It is not now, nor could ever have been my experience.

That was midmorning, and the participants went by throughout the day. By late afternoon, there were just a few. It was a group I could identify with. Some older than you might imagine would wisely enlist for such a race. Others may have made a few too many visits to Dunkin Donuts. Some shuffling. Some walking. Some nursing pain. But they were intent on finishing. I was as impressed with their persistence as I was with the strength of those at the head of the pack.

For most of us, life is more like marathon than sprint. Furthermore, it’s not a race we can choose to enter on a lovely fall weekend. No opting out. It’s a long haul. It requires taking the long view. It requires persistence. It requires endurance. That doesn’t just happen. It takes training. It’s true of the spiritual journey. The language we use for training in the church is that it takes spiritual practice.

So what spiritual practices are good for us if we want to train for the marathon? These come to mind: A steady, honest prayer life. Time spent in quiet contemplation. Engagement with scripture in some habitual way. Regular participation in the eucharist. Gathering with other people of faith (those also running the race so you can talk about how tough it is). Service to others. All of these foster spiritual persistence and build spiritual endurance.

The psalm printed above, one you may have heard in church on Sunday, talks about the spiritual gift of persistence. David will not rest until he feels his spiritual mission is fulfilled. David may come across as spiritual superheroes, like those at the head of the triathlon pack. Yet the Bible is careful to indicate he was by no means perfect. Nevertheless, he persisted. That’s good news for all of us.

Persistence is not one of the fruits of the spirit listed by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians (although patience is related). But it seems to be one of the qualities exhibited by saints, especially saints who dealt with adversity (which means most of them). It’s related to endurance which is a key theme found in the letter to the Hebrews, a sermon to a congregation under fire.

Speaking of marathons, the author of Hebrews writes the following in chapter 12: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls or lose heart.

I have no clue where the need for persistence, for endurance surfaces in your life this morning. It may be a need you sense in your household, in your work place, in your faith community, in this divided nation, in this broken world. But as we move into Advent, with expectation of the coming of the Christ child, perhaps we can prepare by finding our own way to look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter, the author and finisher of our faith. Maybe when we do that, we can run with perseverance the race that is set before us.

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!

Now

The psalm you may have heard yesterday in church (above) concludes with this statement about the way God will act. Verse 11 says: You will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it strikes me that the psalmist is confident that the way of life will be made clear, but it hasn’t happened yet. The question, then, for people of faith: How do we navigate the present not knowing the future? How do we live in the present with a sense of equanimity and peace?

It’s a question that people of all faiths ask. Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist priest spoke about the power of deep breath amidst the changes and chances of life. He said: Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.

Jesus made a similar point in the Sermon on the Mount, citing the wisdom of lilies who do not worry about tomorrow, the wisdom of birds who soar, trusting they’ll be fed. He said: So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6)

A friend who was a philosophy/religion major in college used to end each of his papers with this anagram: SOKOP. Sounds okay on paper. Easier said than done. How do we live life in the present, letting go of resentments about the past, released from fears of the future.

In reflection on this question, I started thinking of biblical stories in which God calls someone and they answer with three words: Here I am. Volumes are spoken in those three words. They suggest self-awareness about the present, even if present circumstances were not always easy.

Moses, stuck in the wilderness for forty years, wonders why his stellar upbringing and gifts for leadership were not being used. But with the burning bush speaking to him, he simply opens himself to God’s presence by saying: Here I am.

God finds Elijah bummed out because the powers that be were out for retribution. While he sits on that pity pot in that cave, the still, small voice of the Lord comes to him and asks: What are you doing here? Another way to ask might be: What are you doing with the present moment? Elijah leaves that cave and goes out to anoint a future king.

Isaiah, when called to prophetic ministry, took his own spiritual inventory at that moment, telling the Holy One that he, the prophet, was a person of unclean lips. I suspect God was not surprised by that news. Despite Isaiah’s inventory of his own life, he makes himself available in that present moment by saying: Here I am.

Mary, a young girl, gets a surprise visit from an angel with a message that will change the course of history. In that moment, she wonders: How can this be? I can imagine it could have been unsettling. Do you think? In the end she says: Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be unto me according to your word.

I suspect all you biblical scholars can cite other examples, but you get the idea. We are called to live in the present, ready to say: Here I am, to hear that still, small voice come to us, not drowned out by resentment or regret about the past (I’m working on that one) or fret about the future (a lot of which is out of our control). In the present moment, we take stock of where we are and who we are. That includes expressions of gratitude for blessings surrounding us. The present moment holds no pretense that we have it all together. In the present moment, all we are called to do is open ourselves to God’s grace. Breathing helps.

Find quiet time today (and maybe each day) to take stock of where you are. Give thanks for ways you are blessed. Recognize your special brand of human frailty. Say: Here I am.

-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. (Now accepting signups for the January 2025 cohort)  Sign up now!