Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Author: dougfloyd (page 4 of 65)

Falling and Rising (Psalm 3)

August 21, 2011 / / 2 Comments

David is falling. The crack in his house fractures into an ever-widening crevice, and he is falling, falling, falling into that dark pit. Civil War splits his kingdom as Absalom, his son, occupies his throne, claims his title, and promises to usher in the kingdom that David could not. Lifelong allies betray David, offering allegiance to Absalom.

An age ago, he took Bathsheba and sent Uriah to his death. This fault line struck to the heart of his own family and now his own kingdom. Everything that can shake is being shook. David is falling.

1 Lord, how they have increased who trouble me!
Many are they who rise up against me.
2 Many are they who say of me,
“There is no help for him in God.” Selah*

His enemies are rising and David is falling. Falling, falling, falling into the grace of God.

3 But You, O Lord, are a shield for me,
My glory and the One who lifts up my head.
4 I cried to the Lord with my voice,
And He heard me from His holy hill. Selah

The depth of YHWH’s grace reaches deeper than the depths of David’s sin. David falls into the grace of God. As his kingdom comes crashing down, it falls into YHWH’s protection.
David lifts up his voice, “Shield me, Glory me, Head me.” YHWH lifts up David. In the covenantal faithfulness of the Lord, David can rest.

5 I lay down and slept;
I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.
6 I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me all around.

In the midst of surrounding enemies, he can fall back into the trustworthy arms of the Lord. He lays down. Sleeps. Arises.

David is acting out the pattern of God’s beloved.

Laying. Sleeping. Awaking.
Dying. Resting. Arising.

In his prayer, in his bones, in his heart of hearts, David acts out in an imperfect way the perfect and faithful response of Jesus to the Father. For Jesus lays down in the midst of His enemies. Falling. Falling. Falling into the hands of sin, evil, hatred and death. Jesus humbles himself before the Father, before humanity, before all creation, and dies a criminal’s death, bearing the sin of David and the world. His body lies in the tomb until the Father calls Him forth by His Spirit. The Father exalts Him above every name, every power, every thing in all creation. At His exalted name, all will fall and confess, “Jesus as Lord.”

Dying. Resting. Arising.
Laying. Sleeping. Awaking.

Every night we join David in rehearsing the pattern. We lay down in the grace of God. We sleep in the grace of God. We awake by the grace of God. Every night we rehearse the pattern of humiliation and exaltation, of lowering and rising, of death and life.

We are called into cross shaped lives. We are called to this fellowship of humiliation. Like David, we must also walk in the places of naked trust: the valley of the death. Like David, our enemies will surround us. Fear will raise its voice. Condemnation will shout aloud, “There is no help for him in God.” Voices of discouragement will surround us.

From the place of humiliation, we look up to our Savior, “Lord, Shield me, Glory me, Head me.” In David, in Christ, we find our prayer,

7 Arise, O Lord;
Save me, O my God!
For You have struck all my enemies on the cheekbone;
You have broken the teeth of the ungodly.
8 Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Your blessing is upon Your people. Selah

Even as we lift up our voice, the Lord lifts up our heads. He shields his people in embrace of His covenantal faithfulness. Nothing can penetrate the encircling love of God. We rise with Christ, and learn to trust, knowing one we will truly lay down to rest. And together we will truly arise into the dawn of His eternal blessing.

* Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Thoughts on The Tree of Life by Terence Malick

July 5, 2011 / / 2 Comments

What happens when you’re world comes crashing down? You show up for work and the boss sends you and half the department home: laid off. Or you come face to face with a horrible darkness in your own heart that has and is damaging relationships all around you. Or your beloved family member dies suddenly, and you wonder if God even cares.

There are moments in life that change all the other moments in life. Suddenly the frailty of our world, our beliefs, our relationships stand in naked clarity, and we shudder. These moments of suffering, of mourning, of anguish can make time feel as though it has stopped.

Struggling through the grief of death and loss, memories flood our hearts in no particular order. Or we may find ourselves fixated on one singular memory that shuts out all other memories. It is difficult to move, to think, to find solace. Just moving through the day feels like we’re pushing through a thick, choking smog that blinds our sight and smothers our lungs. If you’ve ever felt grief or depression or deep anguish, you know some form of this struggle.

Just after the opening moments of the film, The Tree of Life by Terence Malick, we discover a death. The mother (Mrs. O’Brien) breaks down weeping after receiving a letter. Mr. O’Brien answers the phone at a landing strip and is overwhelmed by the news he hears. Their son Jack lights a candle and stares numbly forward. They all three have come face to face with the death of their son and brother.

This sudden death immerses them and us into one of those moments that impacts all other moments. The outer world of schedules and events and daily life moves into the background as the inner world of grieving and questioning and remembering takes the stage. Eugen Rosenstock Huessy calls this “lyrical time.”

Time is no longer chronological. Just like our memories and our feelings don’t follow some chronology. They move and drift in unexpected ways. A smell takes us back to fifth grade in an instant. Seeing an old picture may awaken a flood of memories. This films immerses us into lyrical time through the death of a son and brother, the encounter with personal darkness, and the loss of a job.

We experience the memories and life of a family but at the same time, we experience the deep questions that plague the human heart, “God are you there?” “Do you care about us?” “How could you let this happen?”

The opening shot of the film sets this stage for this questioning with God’s response to Job’s questioning of his suffering and God’s righteousness. As Job finishes his rant against God for allowing him to suffer so completely, he asks, “Does not he see my ways
and number all my steps?” (Job 31:4). After one of Job’s friends (Elihu) speaks on and on about Job’s failure and God’s righteousness, suddenly a whirlwind interrupts and God speaks. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me” (Job 38:2-3). And then we hear the beginning of God’s response to Job, which Malick uses for his opening shot:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4)

If we read Job 38-41, we hear God challenging Job out of the whirlwind. He never answers Job’s complaint, but he challenges Job’s assumption that he could even understand the ways of God by asking Job about the creation of the world and all manner of mysteries throughout the cosmos. “The Tree of Life” draws from Job in the opening shot, in a scene from a church sermon and in a myriad of images from the creation of the world to all manner of mysteries throughout the cosmos. Malick does not explain that he is imaging Job.

But if we simply read Job, we simply a striking parallel to many of the images that Malick chooses to show. His visuals are breathtaking, beautiful and would seem disconnected if not for the questions at the heart of a family facing death. We are thrust into the story of Job through the O’Brien family. But we are also thrust into the heart of Eden.

The title of the film confronts us with another story, a story of a garden of innocence and a story of two tree: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and life. As Alexander Schmemman explained in the “For the Life of the World,” The tree of life is pure gift and humans receive and enjoy in the goodness of God. The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is not gift. Yet humans take it. They grasp what is not gift and human history becomes a story of human grasping.

This anguish is played out in the life of Jack. He says that his mother and father wrestle within him. As he remembers and reflects on her, he rehearses a life of grace, of gift, of love, of joy. The father on the other hand, models to Jack that he has to be tough and take what is his. The two trees struggle in Jack’s heart. At one point, he takes some lingerie from a women when she is not at home and it is as though Jack has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Suddenly, he is thrust out of the garden of Eden and comes face to face with his own darkness. He longs to return to innocence but instead mistreats his brothers, threatens his mother and tells his father that he knows the father wants to kill him. Jack is dying in his world of taking and of self hatred. He longs for a return to innocence.

He is not forsaken, but grace makes a way to restore him and his relations. As Jack’s memories of youth, of innocence and experience, of laughter and play flood his mind, we see a taste of the manifold memories from childhood that shape us, struggle within us, and resurface in the midst living.

This film is not to be watched like a puzzle to solve, but more like an unfolding encounter. We feel Jack’s joy and suffering. We lives inside the family. Yet we also encounter the mystery of a cosmos that is beyond our grasp and a Creator who is beyond that. This same Creator encircles us with grace, with wind and water and circles of love and joy and grace.

The great mourning that paralyzes Jack and his parents seems to resolve in worship. This is not a blind worship, but a letting go in trust. In series of images on a beach, we see some sort of family resolve and embrace. And then in a few images later, we see the mother opening her hands in release and possibly worship.

Malick does not try to fill in all the dots. Like the mystery of Job, he does not try to provide an answer for suffering, for death, for grieving. But he does reveal uplifted hands in apparent love and trust.

If you choose to watch this film. I would suggest approaching it like a poem. Let go of trying to solve or understand everything. Allow the images and sounds and clips of narrative to encounter you. And it may be that as you rehearse and revisit these images through memory, a richer story of life and love and trust will unfold within you.

Unfinished Verse to My Father

June 19, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Here are a few thoughts in memory of my dad.

Unfinished Verse to My Father

To save money, St. Mary’s
no longer rings the Angelus bells.
Three times each day I hear silence.
– David Citino

The silence of absence can be deafening.
On Sunday evenings when we gather, we break bread, we tell stories,
I hear, see, feel his absence.
In the echo of voices,
his silence silences me.

Throughout my childhood,
he brought a new story home
every day.
As we chewed our baked chicken
and buttered our bread
he’d fill our imagination
with dangerous criminals, car chases,
and captured robbers.
And sometimes he’d still
recount those years in
New York, following Russian spies
to the gym, to the tea room, to the pier.
As he waxed on,
no one spoke.
If I wanted the potatoes, I pointed.
No one spoke.
The meal moved forward with gestures,
and we listened to the adventures of the storyteller.

Now the thundering silence of his absence
echoes through me.

His words wrap around my bones,
circulate through my blood,
and burn in my heart.
I hear them when I pray
over the meal.
I feel them when I reach
for the butter.
I see them when I look
around the table.
The silence of absence can be deafening.

Walking Away

May 17, 2011 / / 5 Comments

Walking Away In the Cold (picture used by permission)

On May 8th, my friend Jack King delivered a sermon about the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He talked about how they are walking away from Jerusalem. That powerful image stuck in my mind, so I tried to write a meditation in responde to Jack’s sermon. 

They’re walking away.

Walking toward Emmaus, they leave Jerusalem behind.

Three days ago they still burned with hope that Messiah had come. They still believed the Kingdom of God was at hand. They still believed the glory of God’s people would soon be restored; the oppressive rule of Rome was coming to an end; the false king Herod would soon be deposed. They believed Jesus would restore the land, the Temple, and the people. God’s kingdom was breaking into their midst, and they were filled with joy and hope and anticipation.

Today they’re walking away.

Jesus died on the cross as a lowly criminal. His bold proclamations died with him. Their faith died as well.

Walking toward Emmaus, they leave behind faith and hope and love. They leave behind dreams that rotted on the vine. They leave behind promises that hang empty in the air. They leave behind a community of disciples that now lies in ruin. They leave behind everything that gave their life meaning.

Today they’re walking away.

An ache grips their throat choking down through to the bowels. It feels as though they’ve eaten a poison that kills from the inside out. They cough out dead words of dead dreams. They look through dead eyes at a dead world. What do you do when all hope is lost?

Walking toward Emmaus, they leave behind the future and search blindly for a past that is gone. Once you’ve tasted something so wonderful, so beautiful, so hopeful, where do you go when it dies? You can’t go back to what you knew before. So you’re stuck in between a dead past and hope less future.

Today they’re walking away.

They walk and move and breathe in the numbing emptiness of limbo.

Some of us know the road to Emmaus all to well. We’ve known the excitement of God’s people hoping and believing and experiencing His touch, but we’ve also known the loss of hope, the death of dreams, the sense that God left us, forgot us and possibly even abandoned us. Some of us are walking alongside these disheartened disciples as they leave the Holy City.

Walking toward Emmaus, the Risen Jesus joins his disciples in their unsightly death march. His disciples have lost hope, lost faith, lost vision. They’re leaving Jerusalem. They’re walking away. And Jesus is walking with them.

Even when his disciples are faithless, He is faithful. He walks beside. He hears their complaint. His listens to their groans. He even asks them questions.

In the fullness of time, He speaks. He rehearses the story of God in the midst of His people. He reveals the goodness of God in the midst of dead lives, dead dreams, dead people. Again and again and again, the Lord speaks His Word to His people in distress, in blindness, in darkness. Again and again and again, His Spirit quickens faith in their hearts.

Noah hears this Word amidst his blind and deaf world and builds an ark that will be the beginning of a new world. Moses hears the Word while wondering among the Midianites. Samuel hears this Word when Israel’s light is flickering and about to go out. David hears the Word in the tomb of the cave. Ezekiel hears the Word on the banks of the River Chebar in Babylon.

Again and again and again, the Word resurrects the dry and dead bones of God’s people. Many times, God’s people are not seeking, are not looking for Him, and are not even aware of Him. Their hope and faith have long since died. The Word of Life overcomes the darkness and quickens the dead to life.

Today Jesus is walking away.

He walks away from the Holy City to join his weary disciples in their flight from God’s work. He speaks. The ache of death fades as faith sparks afresh. Anticipation burns within. Suddenly, they can see. The Risen Lord stands among them, serving them, feeding them, sustaining them.

Walking toward Emmaus, we’re leaving behind the grand expectations we had for God. Stripped of our confidences, our conditions, our conclusions, we encounter the Risen One. He is walking with us. He is listening to our complaint. He knows our frustration and confusion.

At the outskirts of Jerusalem, we hear His strange and wondrous Word of God. And who knows? As we follow the Voice of this Holy Shepherd, we may end up walking along side those who left the Holy Spirit and are waiting in darkness for the Word of Life.

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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