Romans 8:26-27

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” vs. 26

Praying can be easy! It doesn’t take much planning or thought to pick a table prayer to use before each meal, and often at other times we have our regular list of people–we pray for them every day, often in the same order. Occasionally we even  go through the names without even stopping to think of those for whom we are praying. It really can be an easy discipline! But at other times, the really important times when our souls have been crushed and our very spirits are threatened, words become nearly impossible. We don’t have a clue about what to say or even to whom to speak. In those moments we are driven to grunts and moans, and cries of frustration. And Paul says that’s good enough! He tells us that in our weakness the Spirit will intercede, and our mumbling becomes a deep and profound prayer. Jesus himself told his disciples that their best praying would be done in secret, and in the hiddenness of their prayers God would be certain to hear and reward them. Don’t be fooled by those who show off their piety with emotional and effusive prayers in public–that’s only a show, and God is not impressed. It’s the simple inarticulate prayer that will go directly from our mouths to the ear of God.

Thought for the Day: How would I describe my prayer life?

Romans 8:22-25

“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” vs. 25

Hope is a big part of the believer’s journey! Because life is not like a novel there’s no way we can look ahead to the last page and see how the story is going to end, and some days that just drives us crazy. It’s not that we haven’t been told what the future will be like–all kinds of scenarios have been laid out for us to consider, and some are better than others. Paul says that if we could see what lies ahead, we wouldn’t have to hope. But since we can’t see, hope is all we have to hang on to, and some days that’s enough. The key is patience, waiting with confidence day after day, trusting that there will be a fulfillment of our deepest dreams. Of course life is long and it’s filled with intermediate hopes all along the way, and sadly some of those don’t turn out so well for us. And those disappointments can sometimes eat away at the big hope we have for reconciliation and completion at the end of our lives. Discouragement sets in, we lose our patience, and all hope goes out the window. Paul says that it’s the Holy Spirit who helps us in our weakness, and amazingly enough, even when we feel overcome by hopelessness, out of nowhere, hope appears. That’s how precious it is. Its resilience is awesome, and it just doesn’t take much to revive it.

Thought for the Day: What are my greatest hopes right now?

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” vss. 24, 30

The psalmist understood the basics! All things have come into existence through the Lord and all things are sustained by the Lord. There is nothing whose source of being is not the Lord! For that reason the psalmist daily gave thanks and praise to God for everything he perceived with any of his senses, and more than that, he believed that every living creature had that same relationship with God. When this great truth fills our hearts we begin to see the natural world from a different perspective. Like St. Francis we find solidarity with the creatures of the forest and the birds of the air. We feel the Spirit of God in walks through natural landscapes, and relish the sound of the wind through the boughs of pine forests. Paradoxically we find that “wilderness areas” can provide food for our souls and breathe new life into our wounded spirits. Oh how God’s blessings can abound when we sense solidarity, not only with other humans, but with every whale and condor, and even monarch butterflies! Worship opportunities are expanded to all the days of the week, and redwood forests become our great cathedrals! Our God is more expansive than we can even imagine!

Thought for the Day: What blessings can come from a walk in a park?

Acts 2:14-21

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” vs. 17

From the disciples’ perspective what had happened with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was unprecedented. All the old presuppositions about how God works in the world had been turned upside down, and from now on anything was possible. Luke uses a magnificent verse from the prophet Joel to show that the Spirit of God can be expected to show up anywhere and at any time. While we pay lip service to this notion and even enjoy telling about the Pentecost experience in Acts 2, it’s more difficult when we encounter the Spirit in real time in our own environment. Religion is all about uniformity and developing creeds and doctrines that are changeless, and we don’t like it when new things explode into our church experience. We’ve seen that in the last half century when women and then LGBTQ folks started showing up asking for full inclusion in the life of our congregations. This outpouring of the Spirit seemed strange and even wrong to may believers, and deep divisions appeared in the Body. This kind of change was just too much and many questioned whether this really was of God or some sort of cultural aberration. And it is true that not everything new is Spirit-driven–but sometimes we just plunge in and trust that blessings will follow!

Thought for the Day: How do we know when a change is Spirit driven?

Acts 2:1-13

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” vs. 4

Luke and John deal with the gift of the Holy Spirit in different ways. John’s account is more subdued and occurs in a locked room, away from public scrutiny. Jesus simply breathes on his disciples, and says “Receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” In Luke’s account the Holy Spirit arrives on the Day of Pentecost in a storm of wind and fire, and soon everyone in Jerusalem knows that something spectacular has taken place. Fittingly enough, it’s Luke’s story that for most marks the birth of the Church, and it’s what we think about when Pentecost rolls around on the liturgical calendar. However we prefer to remember the day, this occasion clearly marks the transition from the personal mission of Jesus to a dynamic, Spirit-driven movement that spread rapidly all over the earth. And even though we don’t always know what to make of the Holy Spirit, there is no doubt that this is truly the continuing Spirit of Jesus. Through the work of the Spirit people have been called and gathered to be the living Body of Christ, and within that Body countless lives have been transformed and made holy. And as the gifts of the Spirit have been recognized and released, the outpouring of the fruits of the Spirit have changed the world.

Thought for the Day: What are the signs of the Spirit’s presence in my congregation?

John 17:14-19

“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” vs. 18

Even though the world can be dangerous and is continuously trying to confuse and entrap us with its seductive ways, this is exactly where followers of Jesus have been sent to love and serve. In fact if it weren’t for the presence of people of faith it’s hard telling what dreadful conditions would exist. Moral corruption would be rampant and it would be virtually impossible to trust anything that we see or hear. Everyone would be operating in their own self-interest and there would be no controls on any kind of behavior. Now some might say that this is already how things are, and sometimes it does seem that way. Some days it’s hard to find any good news in the news at all. But that’s only if we close our eyes to the truth being lived and proclaimed by the people of God all around the globe. The homeless are being housed, the hungry are being fed, and truth reigns supreme in countless people’s lives. People are even coming to know Jesus in response to faithful preaching and teaching. Repentance is happening and lives are being changed. And even if some days our mission seems formidable, Jesus calls on us not to lose heart. We are making a difference, and that’s going to continue being our story until the end of time. What a blessing it is to be a purveyor of love in a broken and hurting world!

Thought for the Day: Am I more of an optimist or a pessimist about the world?

John 17:11-13

“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” vs. 11

In this story John pictures Jesus at the end of his ministry, meeting with his disciples for one final moment of communion and instruction. Earlier in the gospel it had been made clear that God loved the world, but here we see it further described as a dangerous environment for the disciples. Another way of saying this is to affirm the world as being good and broken at the same time. Indeed, most of us have experienced the world as exactly that. We marvel at the goodness and beauty of it, but also know that in its brokenness it can be a dangerous and threatening place. All of us know people who have gotten caught up in the ways of the world and who have been sorely injured as a consequence. Here, Jesus prays fervently that his disciples might be protected, and most particularly he prays that they might be one, even as he and the Father are one. The implication is plain. Of all the protection plans our minds can devise, the most secure will be found in the  context of community. It is as we are bound together in love that we find the unity and safety God desires for us.

Thought for the Day: How are we protected by community?

John 17:6-10

“for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.” vs. 8

The gospel of John does a masterful job of connecting the Creator of the Universe directly to Jesus of Nazareth. In his familiar prologue, the gospel writer makes the claim that the Word through whom all things came into being is the source of all life and light. Moreover, he says clearly, this Word later became flesh and dwelt among humans as Jesus, the one he later calls Jesus Christ. In today’s passage, part of what is known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer, it is implied that this basic truth was a central part of the faith that was closely held by Jesus’ disciples. Among some there is a reluctance to believe that Jesus is the unique source of divine inspiration. They feel that there have been others, perhaps even many others, in whom and through whom God has chosen to speak. Most of us do acknowledge that there have been wonderful spiritual leaders in the other great faith traditions. In fact sometimes we will gladly make use of their sayings and writings in developing our own spirituality. But at the same time we yearn to believe that there’s something special about Jesus, that through him we can know the truth about God and the way of salvation. There’s no doubt that’s how John felt, and there is a blessing in feeling the same way!

Thought for the Day: What is the uniqueness of Jesus?

1 John 5:9-13

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” vs. 13

The gospel of John was written so that readers might come to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, so that through believing they might have eternal life. It seems that many people did become believers, and it is to these persons that this epistle is addressed. The letter is meant to bring assurance, it’s a reminder that because they believe they do in fact have new life. All of us need that assurance from time to time. It’s one of the reasons that many make worship a part of their weekly routine. We don’t come to be convinced that the good news of Jesus is true–we already know that. But it feels good to be told that we already have what we have been promised. And blessed are those preachers who are able and willing to say those words clearly and regularly! We don’t gather to be yelled at or threatened, nor do we much like frequent calls for repentance. We are there to be reminded of God’s unconditional and sacrificial love and to be assured that we are a part of the family. There are other voices in our worlds and we regularly hear words that could cause pain and humiliation. As believers we don’t need to listen to that stuff! We are in Christ and Christ is in us, and that’s all we need to know.

Thought for the Day: What assurance is most precious to me?

Psalm 1:4-6

“for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” vs. 6

The psalmist was certainly no nihilist, i.e. one who believes that life is meaningless and that there are no eternal values. Rather, he had a strong conviction that there is a right way to live, a way that is looked over and protected by the Lord. He also believed that there was another way, one that was pretty much a dead end. While some of us might lack his dualistic perspective, i.e. the notion that good and evil are separate and distinct, we cannot deny that some ways of living are less fraught with brokenness than others. And there does seem to be a connection between trusting in the Lord and the presence of love and joy in our lives. To put it simply, there are blessings that are the companions of faith. If that weren’t the case it’s doubtful that there would be anyone who would even bother to be a believer! At the same time it has to be said that we are called to be disciples, not so that we can pile up the goodies, but that we might be servants, and be willing to give ourselves in generous caring for others. Such sacrificial and unconditional loving, walking in the way of Jesus, has always been a hallmark of the Christlike life.

Thought for the Day: Why is dualistic thinking so appealing?