Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Month: April 2011

We Used to Wait

April 27, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Izaak read Change and Boats and thought about this song. Interesting connection between speed and waiting and memory and life. Believe it or not this stuff about speed and rate of change is all going somewhere at some point. Where? Not totally sure. Right now, I’m listening, watching and still waiting. Sometimes learning new things requires that we stare.

Here are the lyrics to the Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait.”
I used to write,
I used to write letters I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met
By the time we met the times had already changed

So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was left standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

It seems strange anekatips
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what’s stranger still
Is how something so small can keep you alive

We used to wait
We used to waste hours just walking around
We used to wait
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

oooo we used to wait
oooo we used to wait
oooo we used to wait
Sometimes it never came
(oooo we used to wait)
Sometimes it never came
(oooo we used to wait)
Still moving through the pain
(oooooo)

I’m gonna write a letter to my true love
I’m gonna sign my name
Like a patient on a table
I wanna walk again gonna move through the pain

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

oooo we used to wait
oooo we used to wait
oooo we used to wait
Sometimes it never came
(oooo we used to wait)
Sometimes it never came
(oooo we used to wait)
Still moving through the pain
(oooooo) anekatips

we used to wait (x3)
www.lyrics-celebrities.anekatips.com

We used to wait for it
We used to wait for it
Now we’re screaming sing the chorus again
We used to wait for it
We used to wait for it
Now we’re screaming sing the chorus again

I used to wait for it
I used to wait for it
Hear my voice screaming sing the chorus again

Wait for it (x3)

Change and Boats

April 26, 2011 / / 4 Comments

Dlubanka swidnica dugout (from Wikipedia)

As I was driving by Concord Lake the other day, I watched the speed boats, fishing boats, and jet skis moving through the waters. This influx of activity helped to focus some of my thoughts on change in one specific area: boats. Here is an ancient form of transportation. According to Wikipedia, boats have been found, dating back somewhere between 7,000 to 10,000 years old.

This form of transportation that dates back to a variety of early civilizations, and yet, it’s still here. The category of transportation has changed over time and changed rather dramatically in the last two hundred years, but the boat is still here. The change didn’t eliminate the boat, but it has led to changes within the boating category.

Different types of boats emerged at different times and places within history. A variety of cultures have used some form of a canoe made from a dugout tree. Ancient canoes have been discovered in Africa, Europe, America, the UK, and even the Pacific Islands. Even those this form of boat is ancient, we still have canoes today. The material may change or the way the canoe is made may change from place to place, but we still have canoes exploring our waterways and for rent at our parks.

The canoe may fit with a category of human-powered boats, which could range from one man vessel to large sea-going Viking ships. Over time, other types of boats emerged such as air-powered boats and motorized boats. Within these three large categories of human-powered boats, sailboats and motorized boats, changes continue to take place that may improve specific features of boating, may address certain challenges of the user or the region, or may simply improve cosmetic aspects of boating.

Now this highlight is cursory. But as I think about change within the boating category, I might detail a few observations.

  1. Dramatic changes in size, capacity and power have not eliminated older forms of boats. So in spite of change, the old and the new co-exist, serving different applications.
  2. Just as major changes have occurred in size, capacity and power, other changes continually occur in small details of a specific boat such as shape, paints or other type of protectant, and so on.
  3. Change in boats has led to changes in non-boating areas. From winning or losing wars to spreading culture to solving environmental challenges, one change has led to other changes that may be good or bad.
  4. Change has sometimes resulted in specific environmental challenges such as shallow waters, rough seas, navigation, and so on. (Solving one aspect of the navigation challenge led to a change in maps (use of true north) and eventually to the introduction of wristwatches.)

I’m not through thinking about change but by thinking about boating certain aspects of change come into focus that may be relevant in other areas when we thinking about change in our lives and our cultures.

Rate of Change

April 25, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I was listening to James Burke’s book, The Day the Universe Changed the other day (see video below) when he captured my imagination by an offhand comment that different parts of culture change at different rates of speed. Wow. This simple comment got me thinking and maybe to writing about movement through culture, and it connects perfectly with Eugen Rosenstock Huessy (for more info see here and here) and time and space.

Since I’m attempting to keep the posts here brief, I’ll shoot out a few blurbs instead of one big post. But I am thinking about how we’re immersed in multiple rates of change at one time. In some areas of life we experience change that seems almost dizzying whereas in other parts of life, change seems so slow. (More to come on this later).

If you’ve thought about this or read some interesting books on differing rates of change, I’d love to hear them, please comment or contact me. Thanks.

* I think Burke’s book covers similar territory to his amazing TV series of the same name.

A New Creation

April 25, 2011 / / 1 Comment

“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43:18-19

Sometimes worlds come to an end. It might be a worldview, it might be a nation, and it might be a blog. Just as the ancient Israelites had to let go of the past and step into the new, I am letting go of the past douglasfloyd.com blog and starting afresh. When the blog got a php code error last spring, I could no longer access the admin panel. I debated digging through the files trying to find the error, but after a few attempts I gave up. Then I decided to start fresh this week and reinstall WordPress. To my surprise, I had failed to backup the actual content. So those blog entries are history. Of course, my other blog (Doug Watching) did not lose files and continues to remain active.

For some reason I like to keep several blogs in motion. But for those keeping score, this blog will focus on shorter entries of whatever is buzzing through my mind that morning. Doug Watching will continue to record longer reflections.

Behold the Lamb

April 22, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Through this lenten pilgrimage I’ve been thinking about “pressing into this world.’ I used to think of the words “press in” as a spiritual intensity of pressing into the things of God, the things of the Spirit, the supernatural. The Scripture reveals God pressing into to His own creation. In the pain and struggle of our world, we want to escape the flesh and rest in a spiritual state. But God is often calling us into the middle of struggle, pain and brokeness. Even though we want to run away. This little meditation is a poor attempt at reflecting on the movement of God into the corruption of His beloved creation. 

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us. He is here. The One in Whom and through Whom all things were created has come.

Behold Jesus in the midst of His people.

He Who Is before Abraham stands among us. The Son of God pours His Divinity into our humanity. He’s not a phantom. a spirit. a fading vision. He is God and He is Human and He is here with us.

Behold Jesus the Marvel of God become Man.

He walks our roads, eats our food, drinks our wine. He is Holiness in the middle of our earthiness. No one-not even priest or prophet– can stand in the unapproachable Holiness of Our Lord, and yet He is here. Eating, drinking, living in the midst of these less then holy ones. He Who dwells in the High and HolyPlace is living among the profane. He enters our problems, pains, and failures, abiding in the midst of broken people,

Behold Jesus pressing into the weakness of our lives.

In the middle of the day, the Light of the world penetrates our shadowed lives. Our secrets are not safe. Our darkness cannot overcome His Light.

Behold Jesus in the very midst of our shame.

His words and actions confound, confront and confuse. The powerful are threatened by this would be prophet. The Sadducees are scandalized. The Pharisees are furious.

Turn away from Jesus who challenges our tradition.

He gathers followers, incites the crowds, rejects the authority.

Turn away from Jesus who destabilizes our world and threatens our future.

He is captured in a garden in the middle of the night. Even while he’s tried for blasphemy he  disrespects the High Priest.

Turn away from Jesus who embarrasses his own disciples.

Peter cannot claim this lord but denies him, despises him, curses any connection with him.

Turn away from Jesus who is less desirable than the most despised.

Barabas is more worthy, more desired to be released than this, this blasphemer who brings shame to the nation.

Turn away from Jesus who is stripped, mocked, and hung.

Don’t look. Run away. He has no form that should make us desire him. This creature writhing, gasping, dying is the shame of all humanity.

Turn away from Jesus who darkens this creation.

The sun will not shine. He’s immersed everything on the earth, above the earth, and below the earth in darkness.

Turn away from Jesus who bears the blackness of all depravity.

God looks away as the utter corruption of all history hangs in the balance. Jesus exhales, expires, exclaims, “It is finished.”

Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

Building Altars, Digging Wells

April 15, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Abraham lives life en route.

He lives in between.

In between the encounters with the Lord.
In between the encounters with kings.
In between the promise of the son and the arrival of the son.

Life is mostly waiting in between.

His life is a travel journal. Always moving. Looking. Searching. Longing for a city, for the place of promise.

Just around the next corner. And the next. And the next. The holy city of God is always just out of reach. Just beyond humanity’s grasp.

He wanders and waits.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy once said of his time served in World War 1 that most people don’t realize the single greatest struggle of the soldier: boredom. In the war to end all wars, Huessy says vast amounts of time waiting. Waiting for orders. Waiting to move forward. Waiting.

What to do?

Remember back to the hot August summer days of childhood when the neighbors were gone on vacation. No one to play. A long hot day of waiting.

Life sometimes feels like that long hot day.

In the soul-sucking heat of that day, Abraham does what he has to do to survive. He builds altars and digs wells.

When life is stretched so very thin and human frailty becomes so very real, Abraham builds altars. He worships the One who took him from beyond the river. Worship is like breathing.

For the good God sustains his beloved people, and all we can do is lift up hands and offer thanksgiving.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Every breath is gift.

Breath in, breathe out.

The way may be unclear. The days may seem long and hot. The promise may seem long in coming. But the simple gift of breath continues.

Breathe in, breathe out.

In the waiting, in the long pause, Abraham worships. He becomes living song unto the One God who rescued him from the world that was collapsing under its own decadent blindness.

Abraham, the friend of God, believes, trusts, awaits the coming of the faithful One. While he waits, he digs wells.

Come and drink.

Beneath the desert runs a river of life. Abraham drinks the sweet water of that river and refreshes all those who live under his care.

Come and drink.

In the soul choking dryness of stark landscapes, water is life. So the people gather at the wells. The well becomes the center of the community.

Come and drink.

Long before his three guests, Father Abraham plays host to many a thirsty wayfaring one.

Come and drink

He wanders. He worships. He waters the dry land and the dry people.

We are Abraham’s children. We’ve been caught up into Christ. And yet, we still wander across fierce landscapes.

When the heat burns deep into our soul, let us not grow faint, but fall back into Love. Let us breathe the fresh air of praise and drink the sweet cup of communion.

Abraham on the Unfamiliar Way

April 14, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Remind yourself, when you wake to a strangeness
of foreign lights through blowing trees
out the window of yet another hotel,
that home is only where you pretend you’re from.
What’s familiar sends you packing,
watching for “some lost place called home.”
You’re from wherever you go.

Rod Jellema

One morning you wake to a world that is unfamiliar. Suddenly you’re an alien. Rod Jellema captures this sense of unfamiliarity in his poem “Travel Advisory.” He starts out in a foreign hotel, among foreign people and the sense of strangeness we feel. He ends by reminding us that when we return, we are still not home.

you’re a citizen of never was a place.

Remember not to feel too much at home.

Abraham leaves Ur and never returns home.

He is searching for a city “whose designer and builder is God.” He dies en route. Abraham’s life is a sojourn through the unfamiliar.

Being in an unfamiliar place is uncomfortable. In the “Journey of the Magi,” T.S. Eliot’s wise man returns home from the nativity and encounters an “alien people clutching their alien gods.”

In an unfamiliar place, we may hear similar sounds and see similar sights, but we know we are not at home. Maybe the language is different. Maybe the customs are different. The roads are surely different.

All the familiar markers are gone. Unfamiliar places can be the ground of adventure, but they can also be the ground of disorientation. We may get lost. We may loose our sense of direction.

We may lose control.

When we step off the plane, we may step into an alien city. Then again, we may step into an alien city in our own hometown. A job loss, a job gain, a marriage, a divorce. One change ripples through our world, and suddenly the familiar haunts grow unfamiliar. We are lost.

In the land of the unfamiliar, our sense of control slips away. We may battle loneliness, a sense of isolation, even a sense of loss. Suddenly, we realize our vulnerability. Life is tenuous. We are so very thin.

God calls Abraham into a lifelong journey across an unfamiliar way.

We walk the same path. In Christ, we know the way, the truth and the life. And yet, we see so dimly. Our Savior saves us from ourselves by calling us into the way of trust and out of the way of control.

Our methods, systems, paradigms fall before the Lord of glory.

In this place of letting go, in this place of self-abandonment, in this place of unfamiliarity, we discover.

We discover the strangeness of grace. The odd refractions of God’s love, enclosing, surrounding, sustaining us.

We gain new eyes to see the world afresh. What seemed like security was slavery. What seemed like love was control. What seemed like success was a momentary glimmer of a fading star.

In the place of unfamiliarity, we become children again.

We learn new words.

We sing new songs.

We play new games.

Unfamiliarity may become a garden of innovation and creativity.

Abraham leaves the land Ur and gives birth to a new race, a new people, a new world. Thomas Cahill suggest that Abraham is the father of the Western world. Time and space  as we know change because Abraham walks away from the never-ending cycles of Ur and enters into a world of possibility, of newness, of a real future full of surprise.

If you woke up today and suddenly everything seemed unfamiliar. Don’t panic. The Lord of surprise may have called you out of comfort into a whole new world of possibility.

to be continued.

The Call Out of Comfort

April 13, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1 ESV)

Abraham leaves the world he knows and steps out into the unknown. Genesis tells us that God tells Abraham to “Go!” Later, when Joshua recounts this journey we hear that God took Abraham out of the land.

And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac.
(Joshua 24:2-3 ESV)

God calls Abraham. God takes Abraham. Both happen at the same time. This suggests the call of Abraham may have been more dramatic than a simple invitation. The call of God is often cloaked in crisis, dissolution, and collapse of all our comfort places.
Sometimes our Lord stands at the door and knocks. Sometimes he comes like a thief in the night. When you hear someone say that the Holy Spirit is a gentleman never forget that this gentleman is a wind and a fire that may blow your house down and immerse you in His living flames.

We may sometimes speaks of spiritual formation as a series of disciplines like prayer, Bible study, fasting and the like. These are helpful and certainly patterns that we see in Scripture. But let us never assume spirituality is trapped within our scope or definitions. All of life bleeds into one.

Our spiritual life is our family life is our business life is our personal journey of “self discovery.” God is no respecter of the categories we create and use to control our lives. He breaks in anywhere and everywhere with His burning fury.

Consider Father Abraham.

Abraham comes from Ur, the wealthiest city-state in the world. The residents of this world seem safer than those who live at the edge of existence. These civilized people have structures of support that assure their daily bread, their security, their self image.

Abraham is called to leave this behind.

He is taken out of this land, this culture, this world. He is called to live in the land of the people who live at the edge of existence. He leaves behind the world that guards his identity, his control over life, his survival. He is sent to a land that his offspring will inherit.

Much of his life is spent waiting and waiting and waiting for the promised offspring. He never owns the promised land and dies with only a burial cave to him name.

Abraham’s journey into nowhere is way of rescue for a world that is collapsing. Ur is dying. Unlike Sodom, it’s not being bombarded by fire from heaven, but it’s dying nonetheless. Before we even learn that the Lord calls Abraham out of the land of his fathers, we find out that his wife Sarah is barren. In some ways her, barrenness represents the end of the culture. Ur still appears to be thriving, but it is fading and eventually fades away completely.

Ur is trapped by cyclical thinking. As a past-oriented culture, they believe they are re-enacting some type of drama in the heavens. Ever person simply plays the role in culture they are supposed to play just like their father and his father before him. Abraham breaks the cycle. He leaves.

The businesses, cultures, and systems that seem so secure and successful have no enduring quality. Our spiritual journey is often the story of stripping away of supports that seem firm but ultimate have no enduring quality.

We really are on journey, traveling across a wilderness. Look around. What seems permanent is temporary and fleeting. Whether you’re surrounded by the comforts of life or struggling to survive, remember that you are on journey. You are moving.

The struggles and the successes are temporary signposts.

God is calling you. God is taking you.

He is leading us from faith to faith. He is leading us from love to love. Though the way seems clouded and unclear at times know that He is leading, He is guiding, He is sustaining.

to be continued.

(My friend David Legg ends his writings with the subscript “to be continued.” There is always more to say but it may not be the time to say and we may not even be the persons to say it. )

Children of Abraham

April 11, 2011 / / 3 Comments

This is a teaching from Lent 5.
The Children of Abraham
John 8:46-59
Doug Floyd
April 10, 2011

James Jordan says that the Bible was written by a musician, but it’s been interpreted by lawyers for the last 500 years. Like a fugue, Scripture opens with a theme that is revisited again and again through the text. Genesis opens with a repeated rhythms of day 1, day 2, day 3 and so on. Throughout the story key songs interweave to form a multilayered composition that we are still unfolding in all its brilliance.

When reading through the Gospels, I sometimes hear a jazz ensemble in the background. Matthew lays down a steady beat with a cool tune exploring an expected birth that still comes as surprise. Luke joins the sweet sounds with a variation on a theme and adds to the surprise with another birth that comes unexpectedly. But then some minor chords from the song of Herod’s rampage break in with discordant strains that threaten the melody line.

During Epiphany, we focus on the great melody that surprises, delights, and fills with the wonder of God become man. This song seems to fully flower on Transfiguration Sunday, sending light beams of peace and love in all directions. During Lent, we pay more attention to those minor chords, playing a tune with a threat of discordance.

If you listen to those discordant sounds, the hints keep reappearing. Immediately after the baptism, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to face the tempter. Think about that for a moment. The Spirit comes down and the Father speaks, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Right after this moment of glorious authentication of Jesus’ life and ministry, the same Holy Spirit drives him into the threat of the evil one.

Those minor key’s in Herod song resound in the “Satan.” Or rather, we discover the true singer of discordant songs, the evil one. His song works against the theme, attempting to question, challenge, unravel the glorious melody at every point. After Transfiguration, the discordance becomes more pronounced.

In fact, the stories are a bit jagged. Think of the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees in John. Instead of the sweet miracle stories, we hear fighting words back and forth, back and forth. The dialogues are almost irritating, unsettling. A certain dissonance moves toward center stage.

As Jesus and the Jews argue, we hear a clash of sounds. Disruptive. Unsettling. In the dialogues of John chapter 8, we hear this clash, this discordance all too clearly. Jesus and the Jews both seem to be arguing about their respective fathers. He speaks of His Father, and they accuse him of being a Samaritan and having a devil.

They speak of their father Abraham, and Jesus retorts that while they may be the offspring of Abraham, they look and act more like their father the devil.

It used to bother me how Jesus seems so aggressive in these stories. He’s not the kind and gentle Jesus we’ve all come to adore. C.S. Lewis has said that kindness can kill. In the “Problem of Pain” he writes, “Kindness consents very readily to the removal of its object – we have all met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.”

Jesus is not always kind but he is always loving even when his love has an edge: a double edge to be exact. His word pierces “to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 ESV).

In the confrontation with the Jews, Jesus speaks as Emmanuel, the “Lord with Us.” The Lord comes in judgment and finds these people wanting. Their blind and cannot behold the “Light of the World” who stands in their midst. His very presence is judgment on their blindness, their hardness of heart, and the dangerous containment of their enclosed world.

When God breaks into that world, he is not welcome. But Abraham welcomed the God who breaks in. Abraham obeyed. Abraham beheld. And Jesus says that Abraham would have rejoiced to see this day.

As we read this stark confrontation, let us pause and give thanks to God who has given us eyes to see Jesus and lips to proclaim “Jesus is Lord.” We cannot make this confession of faith outside the grace of His Spirit. We cannot grasp why, but in His loving grace, the Father has drawn us to Jesus and sealed us with His Holy Spirit.

In Christ, we have eyes. In and through Christ, we behold the goodness of the Lord. By the sheer overwhelming grace of God and through faith we have become the children of Abraham. As his descendants, let us pause think more deeply about Abraham’s song of faith, his life of trust, his longing to see the fullness of God’s promise that would one day be fully unveiled in Jesus.

He starts out as Abram living in the land of Ur. The land of plenty. Ancient Ur built a thriving civilization, sustained a successful and wealthy people, enjoyed the riches of the land. Ancient Ur was also a self-contained world sealed off from the voice of God.

God breaks into this world and commands Abram to “Go you forth!” The word “lech lecha” means Go! or Go forth! It only appears in Genesis 12 and Genesis 22. Both times it refers to the command of God to Abraham to “Go ye forth!”

In Genesis 12 we read,
Yhwh said to Avram:
Go-you-forth
from your land,
from your kindred,
from your father’s house,
to the land that I will let you see.
I will make a great nation of you
and will give-you-blessing
and will make your name great.
Be a blessing!
I will bless those who bless you,
he who curses you, I will damn.
All the clans of the soil will find blessing through you!1

The Lord breaks into this self-contained world and calls Abraham to leave. In Joshua 24:3, we read that God “took Abraham from beyond the River.” The command of God seems to have come with force. Again and again in Scripture, we behold a God who comes and calls His people with dramatic force.

Abraham must leave behind his identity, his comfort, his people, his civilization. He is called to an uncivilized world of barbarians, and he is promised land and descendants. Not simply descendants but a great nation that will impact all nations. Yet as we read the story, we discover a problem. Abraham never gets the land. When he dies he own one tiny plot of land, the tomb where he is buried.

There is also a second problem. Sarah is barren. In some ways, the barrenness of Sarah and Abraham may image the world they are leaving. While Ur wealthy and strong, it is in decline. It is barren. It has no power of the future. It will eventually cease to exist.

Abraham and Sarah are called to future promise with visible signs of the promise. They spend their lives as nomads, trusting the call of God. Their needs are met. The Lord prospers them with great wealth and cattle and servants but the promise of land and descendants is slow in coming.

Finally after many years of wandering, the Lord gives them the child of promise, Isaac. Through Isaac the Lord will fulfill His promise to Abraham of making him a great nation. God breaks in yet again with His command to “Go you forth!”

In Genesis 22 we read,

Now after these events it was
that God tested Avraham
and said to him:
Avraham!
He said:
Here I am.
He said:
Pray take your son,
your only-one,
whom you love,
Yitzhak,
and go-you-forth to the land of Moriyya/Seeing,
and offer him up there as an offering-up
upon one of the mountains
that I will tell you of.2

Before Abraham was called to leave his past behind. Now Abraham is called to leave His future behind. Isaac is spared, but the story reveals God’s demand upon Abraham: he must live in naked trust before the Lord. He lives as a friend of God and in relation with God. His hope is not in past identities and future dreams but in the Creator who sustains him moment by moment.

If we follow the story in Genesis 22, we’ll notice an emphasis upon seeing. By God’s grace Abraham has moved from hearing to seeing. As a man of faith, who has learned to trust in faithfulness of God, Abraham has learned to see, and he does rejoice in to see the day of the Lord’s appearing.

Now if we view Abraham’s whole story, we’ll notice several dramatic encounters with the Lord. We’ll notice several adventures that Abraham lives through. But if we think of the long period this story covers, we may come to see that Abraham had a few encounters with Lord but was called to walk out in obedience to the command with long stretches of no words, no encounters, only promise: a tentative promise of land that Abraham never fully realizes and a slow in coming promise of descendants.

In one sense, much of Abraham’s story is a story of waiting. Waiting. Waiting. What did he while he waited?

In the beginning of his story, we notice that he built altars wherever he went. In Isaac’s story, we see the same pattern. So this pattern of building altars was still going on as he raised Isaac. So Abraham builds altars while he waits. Isaac’s story also tells of unplugging wells that Abraham dug.
So Abraham wanders through the wilderness following the call of God. All the while, he is building altars and digging wells. The altar is the place of worship. The place of acknowledging his dependence on God. The place of offering thanksgiving.

The well is place of sustenance. In a wilderness area, a well can mean the difference between survival and extinction. This place of provision also becomes a gathering place. If we follow the image of wells through Scripture, we discover people gathering in community at the wells. Several people meet their spouses at a well.

As Abraham follows the call and waits on the promise, he worship God and sustains community. As the children of Abraham in Christ, we should hear and see the Lord calling us even in the life of our father Abraham.

For we also live in the land of Ur. Like the ancient Jews and the people of Ur, we live in a self-contained world that has little room for God. When writing our current culture, Louis Dupre exclaims, “Culture itself has become the real religion of our time, and it has absorbed all other religion as a subordinate part of itself. It even offers some of the emotional benefits of religion, without exacting the high price faith demands. We have all become atheists, not in the hostile, antireligious sense of an earlier age, but in the sense that God no longer matters absolutely in our closed world, if God matters at all.”

We live in a world of practical atheism that has no room for God. It is in this world where God breaks into our lives with his command to “Go you forth!” In following our Savior, he may lead us away from comfort, security, old identities. He may call us a land of promise that we cannot see.

Much of the life of faith may be spent following a call that seems as though we are gazing through a glass darkly. We may not understand the story we are in or even the part we are really playing in God’s grand design. And much of our lives may be spent waiting. Waiting upon the Lord. Waiting for His promise. Waiting for His guidance. Waiting for His grace.

In this place of waiting, let us heed the simple discipline of our father Abraham. Let us build altars and dig wells. Let us cultivate a life of thanksgiving and worship to God in all things. When we eat and drink and work and play, let us lift up praise unto the Lord. Let us worship in the assembly of God’s people. Let us heed the words of Scripture. Let us draw near to the table of the Lord.

At the same time, may we also dig wells. Let us live in and sustain communities of faith. We need one another. We need to hear one another, face one another, love one another. Let us offer our bodies as living sacrifices unto the Lord and serve one another humbly in the grace of our Lord.

Even as we struggle and wander and wonder when the Word of the Lord will be made sight, let us rest in His faithful love. He is making us into signs. As living witnesses before a dissonant world, we are echoing the harmony of His love, His grace, His goodness. We are truly caught up in a song of praise, and He is assembling into a vast symphony of praise unto our God and Creator. Blessed be His name.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

1 Fox, E. (1995). Vol. 1: The five books of Moses : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy ; a new translation with introductions, commentary, and notes. The Schocken Bible (Ge 12:1–3). New York: Schocken Books.
2 Fox, E. (1995). Vol. 1: The five books of Moses : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy ; a new translation with introductions, commentary, and notes. The Schocken Bible (Ge 22:1–2). New York: Schocken Books.

Jazz Gospel

April 4, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Jazz Ensemble (Photo used by permission viz Creative Commons by JanetandPhil)

When reading through the Gospels, I sometimes hear a jazz ensemble in the background. Matthew lays down a steady beat with a cool tune exploring an expected birth that still comes as surprise. Luke joins the sweet sounds with a variation on a theme and adds to the surprise with another birth that comes unexpectedly. But then some minor chords from the song of Herod’s rampage break in with discordant strains that threaten the melody line.

During Epiphany, we focus on the great melody that surprises, delights, and fills with the wonder of God become man. This song seems to fully flower on Transfiguration Sunday, sending light beams of peace and love in all directions. During Lent, we pay more attention to those minor chords, playing a tune with a threat of discordance.

If you listen to those discordant sounds, the hints keep reappearing. Immediately after the baptism, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to face the tempter. Think about that for a moment. The Spirit comes down and the Father speaks, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Right after this moment of glorious authentication of Jesus’ life and ministry, the same Holy Spirit drives him into the threat of the evil one.

Those minor key’s in Herod song resound in the Satan. Or rather, we discover the true singer of discordant songs, the evil one. His song works against the theme, attempting to question, challenge, unravel the glorious melody at every point. After Transfiguration, the discordance becomes more pronounced.

In fact, the stories have a bit of an edge. Think of the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees in John. Instead of the sweet miracle stories, we hear fighting words back and forth, back and forth. The dialogues are almost irritating, unsettling.

As the music moves toward Golgotha, the melody is virtually lost in the dissonance. The sounds sound more like noise. Voices shout. Mobs growl. Fists raise. The form falls. The song dies. Discord rules.

But then, suddenly the major chord kicks ups in full brilliance and the melody overwhelms with complete resolve. All we can do is cheer.

As we focus on the minor scales of Lent, life may seem to be playing the same troubling song. Discordant sounds encircle. Our world may reverberate like the chaos of crisis resounding from the evil one.

People hurting. The world in confusion. Problems with no answers.

Stop a moment and listen.

Listen.

Beneath the roaring cacophonies, a sweet melody still plays. It keeps playing and playing, steady unyielding, upholding, moving toward complete resolution.

If you’ll listen, you’ll hear echoes of a Choir surrounding the Risen One.

We’re waiting in hope for the great resolution. Though tarries, we don’t fear. We don’t lose heart.

We wait and listen.

Really listen.

This tune’s got a great beat and you can dance to it.

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