Numbers brings comfort. (Numbers???)

A moment of honesty:

I have found it hard to believe that the Old Testament books of Numbers or Leviticus would have inspirational words in them. The wars, the blood, the sacrificial system just didn't speak to me. Maybe you've kinda wanted to skip over that stuff, too.

But -- recently I was writing an essay on the making of the tabernacle in the desert (Numbers 3-9). And as I read Numbers 9, I was struck by the promise God made - to always be with the people who were called to love and serve YHWH. Even though they had chosen to worship an idol in their man-made golden calf, even though they complained, even though they did not believe God would rescue them from the Egyptian armies, again and again God was faithful.

When the tabernacle was built in the desert, God's Presence descended over it as a pillar of fire at night, and a cloud by day. In the middle of the camp, there was a visible sign that God would never leave nor forsake the people God had called by name. When the cloud moved, the people moved. When the cloud stopped, the people stopped. It didn't matter when. It didn't matter for how long. They just watched and obeyed.

I think that many times my fears and reluctance are because I am not confident of God's presence and direction. And yet - in every circumstance - if I just look and wait and pray - God is very clear. When I charge off on my own and then look over my shoulder to see if I'm doing what God asks, ah, then, more often than not, I'm struggling.

So as I read over Numbers 9 recently, I journaled this prayer... and I thought I'd share it with you.

Lord of the Comforting Presence and Awe-bringing Fire,

I am only able to enter into your Presence because the sacrifice of Jesus, who was made sin on my behalf, and who goes before me as my High Priest, Savior and Lord. I recognize that nothing I could ever do would make me worthy. I seek Your guidance, protection and re-direction as I prayerfully make decisions about future ministry and service for You.

God, I ask that You make me wise as a leader. Give me discernment to see Your guiding hand. Give me patience to wait on Your direction. And give me humility to follow others in authority over me as You direct them, whether or not the way seems plain or clear to me.

Thank You, Father, Protector, Redeemer, Friend and Guide. I am listening to Your Spirit’s call and I desire to obey You in every way.

In the Name above all names, Jesus –

Amen.

Morning prayers

For the things which weigh us down...
Give us perspective and peace.

For the worries that press in on our thoughts...
Give us confidence that You are in control.

For the joys that light up our lives...
Give us thankfulness.

For the decisions we have to make...
Give us wisdom and clarity.

For the commitments we have chosen to make...
Give us energy to follow through.

For the unloveliest moments and people in our lives...
Give us Your Holy Spirit, full of love and grace.

For the unanswered questions...
Give us discernment as to Your timing, as well as Your answer!

For our achievements and celebrations...
Give us humility and remind us that You blessed us.

And for all the other things I have forgotten to pray about this morning...
I give them up to You now.

Amen.

Ashes...

Remember...
dust thou art...
to dust thou shalt return...

I helped with an Ash Wednesday service this evening. It was a gentle, thoughtful time of reflection and prayer. I'm really glad I was able to be a part of it.

You might be wondering... what? aren't you one of those non-liturgical pastors?

Well... I am. But I 'm not ANTI-liturgical.

I am serving right now in a church that uses elements and symbols that are familiar to churches all over Christendom (for instance, prayer, baptism and Communion) but one which does not have a written liturgy. I grew up in various flavors of Protestantism so it's not like I've never experienced this before. However, as a pastor it was a new experience to help lead an Ash Wednesday service.

A pastor friend cares for a trio of small churches in here in Maryland. She divides her time among them, listening, praying, and caring, and the services are scheduled between their buildings. Solo pastoring gets to be difficult, so she welcomes my help and is patient with my inexperience.

In the quiet, cold church, there was time to sit and think and pray about the past year, and the upcoming days of Lent before Easter. Today on Pray-as-you-go the music and text helped me reflect and repent. Return to the Lord your God. Return...

Ash Wednesday is an opportunity to start over. To go back to GO or to re-boot. It's human nature that either we are too afraid or too embarrassed to try again. And yet we're invited... Return to the Lord your God...

We used a simple exercise for their time of reflection. I brought bits of broken sea glass and watercolor markers. Those present were invited to think about ways they would like to make a change, or to tell God about something in their lives where they were ready to repent. They wrote something representing this change or area of repentance on the glass and when they were ready, walked to the front and dropped them in the baptismal font. The lovely visual reminder of sins being washed clean -- clean because of the cross -- happened before their eyes. Some were bemused and some were startled as they slipped back into their seats.

Later in the service they came forward for ashes, and again, a new experience "from the other side"... Remember... Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.

The words of Joel 2 came to me...

¹² "Even now," declares the LORD,
"return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning."

¹³ Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.

We are all broken people. The difference is that some of us have found a way to find healing, and hope -- when we return... with all our hearts. We walk about 364 days of the year with "clean" foreheads. Today, we had a visible smudge - one that God washes away.

thoughtfully...

deb

At the Foot of the Cross by Kathryn Scott

At the foot of the cross
Where grace and suffering meet
You have shown me Your love
Through the judgment You received

And You’ve won my heart
Yes You’ve won my heart
Now I can

Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross

At the foot of the cross
Where I am made complete
You have given me life
Through the death You bore for me

And You’ve won my heart
Yes You’ve won my heart
Now I can

Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross

I’m laying every burden down
I’m laying every burden down

words and music by Kathryn Scott
© 2003 Vertical Worship Songs/ASCAP

Undo...

UNDO!! UNDO!!!

Do-overs.
Mulligans.
Reboot.
Retry.
Correct.
Amend.
Fix.
Improve.
Clean up.
Try again.
De-bug.

We ask for them in golf matches.
We beg the umpire for a review.
We fix documents.
We persuade our computers to work. (maybe!)

We need UNDOs in life.
And more than once when I've realized I've let someone down or watched as someone is hurt... I've wished that we could just erase memories and conversations with an "undo" button, or something.

As part of the reflection process in my coursework, I'm asked to consider what I've succeeded at doing, where I need help, and where I need to make more minor, mid-course corrections.

So many UNDOs, so little time...

I know that there's really two steps to this process for me.

The first is that I be willing to try again.
For me, that's huge. If I'm hurt, or have been wounded by someone, I have trouble trusting it will turn out OK. Ever. But to gather courage in hand and try again, (and again and again and again... times seventy!) is all God asks.

The second is to forgive.
Forgive without expecting the other person will change, setting aside pride and anger and hurt to forgive the other person. That's harder. Because I personally want blame assigned or accepted. Or I want to, as they say, "chew 'em a new one."

Instead, God asks that I forgive and wisely choose my next course of action. It's not that I would automatically choose that same course of action, or the same relationships, or even the same job... but to leave things hanging out there, bleeding and oozing pain??? Or to stuff my disappointments, hide them, and not admit it hurts??? No, that's not what God asks.

Please note.... FORGIVENESS does not equal STUPID.
I can take steps of healing or steps of wounding. And as far as God helps me, I'd like it to be the former.

If I hang on to my anger, I become sarcastic. Or bitter. I retreat and I don't invest emotionally, because, who wants to hurt again? As an extrovert and a "feeling" person, sometimes I feel overexposed and vulnerable. I need to step back, assess, and own my part of the problem (which is always bigger than it first seemed! Funny how that works....) and not retreat. I need the opportunity to have a big "UNDO" in my life, in my heart, in my relationships.

Time and time again, God has been patient, faithful and accepting towards me. Not because I deserve it, but because I have a love relationship with God that is not based on performance, but on a God-sized sacrifice.

I just stumbled on to the band Rush of Fools and this song in particular has been running through my mind... it's called --- "UNDO"

Hear their message of honest confession and healing... It's yours, mine, ours for the taking.

Peace-
Deb

UNDO by Rush of Fools

We must listen and remember...

8 And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: 9 "This is what the LORD Almighty said: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'

Zechariah 7:8-10

My prayers are with President Obama, our country, our churches, our communities and our homes. Our job is not finished with Inauguration Day. It's time to put aside "politics as usual" and be a part of the change we elected. Regardless how we voted -- it's time to get to work.

Peace -

Deb

A prayer in the night...

Ahhhh....
Mother Laura posted this and I'm grateful.

Enjoy a moment of reflection and, perhaps, re-direction.

Deb

from St. Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises

when there are no words...

I learned a shortcut to respond to blog posts from the RevGals when you can't formulate an answer, but want to leave a word of love and presence... a "blogstone" -- which looks like this:

(o)

Two blogging friends have had huge losses -- makes my whining seem completely selfish (uh... which it is.) To them, and to others who may be walking in faith and in pain, I leave a "love and prayers blogstone."

<3 & \o/

d

Friday Five: Five for Good Friday

RevHRod from RevGalBlogPals writes:

As a child the designation "good" for today confused me. How could we call such a somber day, good? Holy, yes. Blessed, yes. But, good?

As an adult I understand the meaning of good for this day. It is a solemn day of remembrance but it is also a time for us to stop and recall the great gift of love that we received this day. And that is most certainly good.

Our worship today will differ from place to place. Some services will focus on the great litany of prayers. Others will use the seven last words of Jesus. Some of us will walk the stations of the cross. Others will participate in a Tennebrae service of shadows and light.

I hope that this Friday Five will be a meaningful part of your Good Friday. God's blessings to you on your journey.

1. Our prayer concerns are as varied as we are this day. For whom would you like us to pray? Please pray for my co-worker, Richard (he really does need that pill from Dr. McCoy.)
   
2. Are there things you have done or will do today to help the young ones understand this important day in our lives? Mostly, we continue the conversation of life, reality, and Jesus. Our kids are not so "young" any more (16 and 12).
   
3. Music plays an important part in sharing the story of this day. Is there a hymn or piece of music that you have found particularly meaningful to your celebrations of Good Friday? See my previous post... "On My Cross" reminds me that the sacrifice was for me, for the world, for the reconciliation of the Creator with the Creation.
   
4. As you hear the passion narrative, is there a character that you particularly resonate with? Mary Magdalene. Forgiven much. Faithful in spite of fears and worries about what was happening to her Lord. And stayed and watched Him die with a faithful few when many of the men had left. (The picture with this post is of the sculpture by Donatello -- at the Duomo Museum in Florence.)
   
5. Where have you seen the gracious God of love at work lately? In my own life... becoming more aware of His changing love within me. Now if I can just live it.
   

Below is part of Henri Nouwen's Good Friday prayer:

Dear Lord Jesus,

You, “the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for whom all things are created in heaven and on earth, everything visible and everything invisible,” you hang dead on a cross. You have just spoken your last words, “It is fulfilled,” and given up your spirit.

*****

I look at your dead body on the cross. The soldiers, who have broken the legs of the two men crucified with you, do not break your legs, but one of them pierces your side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flow out. Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space. Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity. There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out. There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched. Together with all people of all times, I look up to you whom they have pierced, and I gradually come to know what it means to be part of your body and your blood, what it means to be human.

*****

As I look, my eyes begin to recognize the anguish and agony of all the people for whom you gave yourself. Your broken heart becomes the heart of all of humanity, the heart of all the world. You carry them all: abandoned children, rejected wives and husbands, broken families, the homeless, refugees, prisoners, the maimed and tortured, and the thousands, yes millions, who are unloved, forgotten and left alone to die. I see their emaciated bodies, their despairing faces, their anguished looks. I see them all there, where your body is pierced and your heart is ripped apart. O compassionate Lord, your heart is broken because of all the love that is not given or received.

*****

Blood and water flowed from your broken heart. Lord Jesus, help me to understand this mystery. So much blood has flowed through the centuries: blood of people who did not even know why they were trampled underfoot, mutilated, tortured, slain, beheaded and left unburied; blood caused by swords, arrows, guns and bombs, tainting the faces of millions of people; blood that comes forth from angry, bitter, jealous, vengeful hearts, and from hearts that are set on hatred, violence and destruction. From the blood of Abel killed by his brother to the blood of the Jews, the Armenians, the Ukrainians, the Irish, the Iranians and Iraqis, the Palestinians, the South Africans and the countless nations and ethnic groups victimized by the evil intentions of their sisters and brothers in the human race, blood has been covering the earth, and cries have gone up to heaven: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?”

*****

Let the blood and water that flow from your heart give me a new heart to live a new life. I know that in this world water and blood will never be separated. There will be peace and anguish, joy and tears, love and agony. They will be there always—together—leading me daily closer to you who give your heart to my heart.

Miserere...