Category: Grace

Grace

Sunday, November 5, 2023

This is Life,

To Walk Free In through the Woods, through the Snow,

and Know it is All Gift.

Especially to Be Able to Walk.

Proverbs 21:21

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour.

Matthew 6:33

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Death

Death comes in so many ways, quick and merciful, slow and cruel, hungry and thirsty …

when so many people act from selfish motives, against anything good for others, with violence or deception, with twisted words and cruel actions, without regard for decency or rightness, even where there is not much by which to gauge what is right and what is wrong …

so even truth seems difficult to remember …

From where will we find strength to remember what counts, what is truly valuable, what speaks truth clearly enough not to be drown out by all the other voices,

and by our own pain, grief, and despair,

so that we know God’s grace, gentleness, steadfast love and … and hope for all the future days as rough as they may be.

For as we stare death in the face

we know

both the Devil’s worst

and God’s best,

a freedom and truth in the deepest, widest way,

to see Grace coming for us again

to see God’s Grace clearly coming for us again

and to see God’s all-embracing Grace clearly coming for us again

… again.

Death met by God’s Grace creates hope that is unrelenting and … undying.

That’s what Jesus give us … the

End of death

Now we can chase away our living days pursing righteousness and kindness or striving after the kingdom of God and his righteousness in order to find life and honour.

This, though is a fantasy made by people who cannot accept that life and honour, God’s kingdom and righteousness are gifts, gifts that we can never earn, nor achieve, or pursue successfully, nor come close to with our strivings.

And that is what Jesus teaches us about death, sins, and life as God’s children.

It’s all gift … all the way down.

And all the way up.

And all around.

Begging

For a Future

of Peace

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Palestinians cross to the Egyptian side of the border crossing with the Gaza Strip in Rafah Wednesday [Hatem Ali/AP Photo]

Looking for a Future.

Isaiah 66:13

As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

John 16:24

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

…

Words of Grace For Today

We are baptized, all that we were to that point drowned out, dead.

So we learn that in the Kingdom of God what we thought was valuable is worthless. In there go all our dreams of greatness and grandeur. Instead what we thought was nearly bereft of worth or even notice without scorn is actually what God treasures and would have us treasure as well.

We learn to set aside our ambitions, hopes, and dreams in order to understand and embrace God’s ambitions, hopes and dreams for us. We learn not to ask for anything, but to beg to see and understand God’s will for us.

Not that our past dreams and expectations die out or that baptism actually kills off the great sinners that we were (and still are.) We live on dreaming, expecting, and hoping for our own ‘success’ in life. And God keeps bringing us back down to the reality of Jesus’ way of sacrifice for others, so that others will share God’s blessings (as we give to them what God has entrusted to us as stewards.)

Now Jesus reminds us, that we are not totally lost to our old sinful selves, lively as they may still be. In us the Spirit moves and we can and should ask for what we see is needed … by and for others,

…

and sometimes even by and for ourselves.

So

We

beg

this day

for peace

especially in the Middle East,

that we may be comforted in also Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and in Gaza,

for all people there are also God’s people,

with hopes, dreams, and expectations of a future

that is

better

than this today.

Stoop Low

To Move Forward

Friday, November 3, 2023

The Sky May Be The Limit, Expansive and Inviting,

But

God Calls Us To Do The Work of the Kingdom

Down Here,

In The Snow and The Bushes of Life.

Zephaniah 2:3

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath.

Colossians 3:12

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

…

Words of Grace For Today

I was at a conference recently at a monastery dedicated to  teaching people to follow Christ to be leaders in the church.

In the long hallways between rooms & buildings looking ahead the door tops are at chest height. When one comes to the door, though, as the door opens by sliding down into the floor, after a slight delay the top also rises up higher than any person I’ve seen or heard of, and I’ve been among the Maasai – and I’ve watched NBA games.

The perception given is that following Christ does not offer lofty things in the future. One looks down looking forward. And just so there is no mistake as one passes through some doors about 20 feet further there is a beam at the same height as the closed doors. At these one must stoop low to pass onward.

The faith passed on to us does not promise us great things (as we humans rate them); our faith does not meet our dreams & expectations. Just the opposite. The saints show us that our faith teaches us to give up our dreams & expectations as we stoop low to pass through each day.

God’s surprise for us is what God does offer the saints, which we learn is ultimately everything of utmost value! Starting with humility, compassion, kindness, patience, service, and love.

The Broken

Weary, Kingdom Workers

Thursday, November 2, 2023

A general view shows smoke as it rises following Israeli strikes in Gaza, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/live-updates-whats-happening-in-the-israel-hamas-war-as-israeli-airstrikes-hit-gaza-refugee-camp-for-second-day

Out of Sinners,

God Makes Saints,

Is that us, today?

Isaiah 50:4

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

Matthew 25:39

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?

…

Words of Grace For Today

As I write this it is All Saints’ Day. The Hamas – Israel war continues, and continues to kill civilians, and Hamas continues to use civilians, even hospitals as shields.

There are few prayers which are sufficient. One prays that God will remake the catastrophe into something life-sustaining. It seems only God can do that.

In the future a few years a young family of three will tour the ancient cathedral in Gaza with it’s wonderful stained glass windows. Bombed in 2023 the windows were cracked, some missing pieces. One stained glass artist works on the second to last window, repairing, but not removing the signs of the damage, filling in the gaps and repairing the cracks with silver, gold, and blue glass pieces and structural materials. As the family looks at each window, the parents will explain the scene and name the saints depicted. Afterwards, the young daughter will burst in on grandma and grandpa sitting at home and exclaim, “Grandma we saw the saints today!” Grandma asks, “Who are the saints that you saw?” Without pausing the daughter responds: “The saints are the broken people the light shines through.” (decades old story, reworked)

What God does as always, is call broken people to shine the light of Christ on all that is, and all that can be.

Let us so shine, even in our brokenness.

Even though those in need are so many and the needs so great and our help seems so little.

μακάριος

The Blessed

The Saints

For All the Saints

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

All the ordinary, lowly people, Jesus says, the ones who suffer,

They-We are the saints,

the wisps of life in the sky for all to see God’s great works of saving ordinary, lowly people, giving them-us

…

everything

worth anything.

Deuteronomy 32:7

Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you.

2 Timothy 1:5

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Saints, or as Jesus calls us, the blessed, μακάριος, were understood to be different things.

At first the μακάριος were the gods, literally, for only gods could achieve a state of happiness and contentment in life that was beyond all cares, labours, and even death. The blessed ones were beings who lived in some other world away from the cares and problems and worries of ordinary people.

Well, that’s not us, no question. No, we are not the ‘makarios’, the gods.

Then the μακάριος were seen to be those who had died. That’s how they moved beyond the cares and labours of life here on earth. Death gave them entrance to God’s paradise.

Well, last I checked anyway, that’s not us either.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Nope, not me anyway.

Then the μακάριος were thought to be the elite and privileged, those people whose riches and power put them above the normal cares and problems and worries of the lesser folk—the peons, who constantly struggle and worry and labour in life.

Then along comes the usual thought that if people were wealthy they must have earned it, so the μακάριος were those who enjoyed the results of right living, or righteous living. If you were blessed you received earthly, material things: a good spouse, many children, abundant crops, riches, honour, wisdom, beauty, good health, etc; more things and better things than an ordinary person. To be blessed, you had to have big and beautiful things.

Nope, definitely not anyone I know. Those that are rich like that and think they have earned it are almost always pretty ugly people on the inside if you know how they’ve gotten so much more than the ordinary stiffs, like us.

Fortunately Jesus puts things upright (upsetting the apple cart of all that blessed privilege stuff of so many generations and fools).

Jesus says the lowly ones: the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the meek, the mourning, are the μακάριος, the blessed saints.

(Thanks to Brian Stoffregen again for providing the summary I’ve used as the basis for this.)

Now that’s a crowd, and it is a huge crowd of the hoi poloi of every generation, the majority of people who ever lived, that’s a crowd that we fit into.

Maybe.

If we are lucky.

If we are …

Blessed!

If God has claimed us and made us

saints.

For all the saints, a day to remember, and a time to look to the future God provides for the saints.

Yep, now that’s us.

That’s the down and dirty of it,

of it all, actually.

At least that’s what the old folks taught me.

Blame?

Blame God!

Or?

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

It Must Be God’s Fault,

All the Dead Trees in Threes,

And Ice In Our Way,

And Dirt In the Sand,

Right?!

Isaiah 64:5

You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

Luke 15:21-22

Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

…

Words of Grace For Today

It is all too easy to blame someone else for what we do wrong. Why not blame God for everything that we do wrong and all that is wrong, when we are at it?

Well, because it is not the truth.

And it obscures our ability to see God’s abundant mercy and generous gifts that we receive, leaving us in the eternal darkness where the Evil One plays havoc with everyone and everything.

Confession, even made late after so much of life is wasted in the dark playground of the Devil, is God’s gift to us, a ticket to freedom to live in the Light again.

We tell stories of God’s forgiveness of the most grievous sinners, as Jesus told the parable of the great sinner son, who finally comes to his senses and returns home to his father, from whom he has taken his inheritance and squandered it on wasteful living, begging (for he has no rights left at all, not at all) to work for his father as a servant.

The father’s response is exactly what God’s is for all us great sinners who return begging God for mercy and the freedom to serve in God’s farm yards, lest we have only the pigs’ feed to keep us from starving.

God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love …

most evident when we are everything but.

Getting Around to

Righteousness

Monday, October 30, 2023

On Our Own, We Allow So Much To Block Us From Seeing,

Yet Alone Being the Light of Christ.

Isaiah 32:17

The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.

1 John 2:29

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who does right has been born of him.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Life, seems for many, a struggle to see how much they can ‘get ahead’ of others, or how much they can have for themselves.

Doing things right goes out the window along with truth every morning, if they were even in the building at all.

God offers another way.

Following Jesus offers a way to not ‘get ahead’ and take everything one can get, depriving others of the necessities of life. Instead, following Jesus’ example we give God thanks for all that we receive from God, and then use it to give those same blessings to others. Always doing things right is just a beginning. We go beyond that to do what is best for others.

Sometimes that means we sacrifice some of ourselves, some of our life.

Always it means we freely surrender any claim or right to ‘possess’ anything for ourselves. We are always stewards of God’s blessings, blessings intended for everyone.

And when that is how we live, then righteousness prevails, peace, quietness, and trust grow and lasts … forever and ever.

Thanks alone we give to God for working in us, for on our own we could not even start to follow Jesus, nor grow righteousness in our midst.

Fear

Or Freedom

Sunday, October 29, 2023

The Path Following Jesus is Narrow,

and Leads Us

to the Light of Life.

Isaiah 57:11

Whom did you dread and fear so that you lied, and did not remember me or give me a thought? Have I not kept silent and closed my eyes, and so you do not fear me?

Romans 8:15

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’

…

Words of Grace For Today

Fear grows out of many different kinds of circumstances. Perhaps the worst is real fear from people and circumstances that will kill or maim one’s loved ones.

In slavery everything about one’s life circumstance is determined by an other. Today things may be quite tolerable. That holds no promise for tomorrow.

That can drive one to real fear.

Being a slave to sin, a slave to the Evil One, is as high as the stakes can get, for not only is life here on earth at risk, but all life, after death and eternally, as well as life of one’s spirit, which normally can thrive even as one’s body does not.

This slavery is a valid, urgent, and critical reason to run through life in fear.

Caught in that slavery, as we all are born into it, leads to to no end of absolutely terrible things we do to try to deny that slavery, or to counter it’s effects on us and our loved ones. All our efforts are in vain, but the Devil has many ways of getting us to hide that truth from ourselves.

This is not that for which God created us to live, that we would run ourselves and others ragged out of fear, lying and deceiving even ourselves about the reality of life in God’s creation.

Hard to get that message across to us thick-headed humans, God sent Jesus, God’s own Son, to teach, heal, and guide us, and to be an example of love, even love so profound that one sacrifices oneself so that others can live, and live well.

Adopted into Jesus’ disciples we are at baptism, and then …

well life goes on and unfortunately so many of us forget all God has done for us, and we allow the Devil to consume us with fear,

and we lie

to ourselves and others

and destroy others and ourselves and those we love

and

…

it seems that nothing is better than before God adopted us in baptism as God’s own children.

Thank God, God knew we’d do that, and planned for that, so that Jesus’ forgiveness applies to us anew each day, each hour, each minute, freeing us once again from that fear and all fear that would drive us back into the Devil’s devious and destructive hands.

So we are free.

Free to follow Jesus’ example of

being slaves to God’s Will for us,

that we would love one another as God loves us,

even to sacrifice ourselves so that others will live, and live well,

live abundantly,

and joyfully.

…

Many have done this for us, so we live abundantly,

and can joyfully give all God has given us so others may live abundantly and joyfully.

For this we were created and given even this day.

HOMƎLAND

or PICARD?

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Looking to the Future: Do We See Doom or Hope!

Isaiah 38:17

Surely it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but you have held back my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

1 John 3:19-20

And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

…

Words of Grace For Today

How we see the world around us and our lives in it is the result of many choices we make in response to what happens around us and to us.

In ‘HOMƎLAND’ the TV series, the challenges of deciphering deception, love, and despair never resolves in any episode. Instead (no matter what answers are revealed) the persistent looming doom ends each episode and season and we are left craving a resolution, so we return to more of the same. The beginning setting is not great. The end is still not great. Evil prevails like onions still present no matter how many layers we peel back to ‘see’ what is happening. Always people die along the way.

In ‘Star Trek, PICARD’, we see the old heroes of past series of Star Trek play again against all odds, against old and new enemies that would do them in. Each episode may or may not resolve some challenge, but within a few episodes (though wider threats continue) each ‘life or death’ situation is resolved, and as always our heroes live on (or at least most of them!) What we know, even before we start watching, is that no matter the evil that threatens life on earth and in the Federation, at the end, because humans and aliens can and do work together, the goodness of life will prevail. Not all challenges to goodness will be eradicated. Life remains filled with loss, death, and sorrow, but in the balance the goodness of life is restored and celebrated.

How do we play out our days?

How will we play out this ‘today’ and our many ‘todays’ to come?

As we trust that God is greater than our hearts, and that God has put our sins behind God’s back, to allow us to move on, the greatest evils are not eliminated from life for us, but they have no power over our ‘todays’.

Our hearts may continue to condemn us, and convince us that tomorrow will be worse, that ‘hell is other people’, but God is greater and God promises in so many ways that our lives are good and will be filled with goodness, and that other people (damned good sinners that they may be) are not ‘hell’, but rather God’s choice for love, life, and joy …

also for us

today.

So today, let God’s Will be for us, as well.

Delights?

or Despair?

Friday, October 27, 2023

A drab morning, snow falling, making wood collecting more difficult.

Or delight in the cool that makes working outside a bit easier

than with countless bugs looking for a meal from your skin?

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Courage is hard to come by when one is down and out, beaten again and again by enemies, lies, deceptions, and others’ greed.

At times one has to agree with Thomas Hobbes when he said about life being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.

God answers that and all our other despairing with a simple reassurance: God is with us through it all.

Like walking in a sunset alone, still unable to do anything but despair how tough life is, ‘going it alone’ is always a recipe for struggles without end.

Like walking in a sunset with a loved one, the experience grows beyond itself to convince you two that life is a wonderful, marvellous adventure, with promise unending of things good and better.

So God walking with us through it all, turns life inside out with joy, delights, and hope.

And when God walks with us, we need not be overcome with fear of yet another enemy taking more of life from us, for even if that does happen, God will show us how to find joy and delight in all that life is for us.

Today, as the snow falls again, and then hard cold of winter is coming, the joy is in the warmth provided by a hot fire in the wood stove, held close by many insulated tarps. It may not be much, but it is as much a home as I have, and in it I find endless delight even as the challenges never cease to more than fully occupy my days.

So what will we see today? The enemies efforts or God’s Grace and delights for us?