St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, Lincoln, Neb., celebrates the Holy Eucharist on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The parish’s rector, Father Jerry Thompson, asked me to lead worship on Tuesday, December 27, 2011. This is the third day in the Octave of Christmas and the Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist.

Readings

1 John 1:1–9
Psalm 92
John 21:19b–24

Homily

In Advent, we heard the cries of John the Baptist calling to us from the wilderness, baptizing and saying, “Repent” (Matthew 3:2) and “Behold, here is the Lamb of God” (John 1:36b). As John’s Gospel reminds us, “[The Baptist] came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light” (John 1:6–8).

Today, we celebrate the feast of the other John, the saint and apostle and evangelist. In his letter, he reminds us that the apostles say, “… this [word of] life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it” (1 John 1:2a). Their testimony is simple and pure, like the clear ringing of a bell that cuts through the noise of our lives and calls us to silence, to reverie and prayer.

John’s testimony is this: “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Right there is the Good News in a simple sentence. Jesus Christ, who is the Word in the flesh, is the light that shines in the darkness and overcomes it.

Even when we may feel that darkness presses in upon us like a wall of unbreakable stone, like a wave of irresistible force, the light—who is Christ—shines in our lives. He breaks that wall; he repels that wave. Darkness may seem unstoppable when Christians die in bombings in their churches on the Feast of the Nativity, when families lose loved ones in tragic house fires, when relatives do not speak to one another, when congregations face division and disintegration, and when we know that “we lie and do not do what is true” (1 John 1:6).

Darkness may look victorious. But John tells us: stick to the light; walk in it; live in Christ. As he says in his letter, “If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

And so, here we are, coming into the light, gathering around the table, offering our gifts in sacrifice, praising God our Father, receiving the body of God the Son—the bread of heaven—and the blood of the Word—the cup of salvation.

Soon we will leave, heading back into the darkness. But we will bear the light that shines unstoppably. We will testify to the light—Jesus Christ—who overcomes all darkness. Amen.

Memories are sometimes fluid and elusive.
We can come to believe
that we recall an event
in the kind of vivid detail
that only arises from personal experience.

But as we turn the memory over and over in our mind’s hands,
and look at it from different angles,
it gets hard to tell when our actual recollection ends
and our memories about the stories of those memories begin.

It’s what happens when we look at faded snapshots
taken when we were children.
Do we remember the lived event
or have we just built a memory
around the image in the photograph,
the stories our relatives have recounted over the years?

It’s hard to tell.
But in the end,
I don’t think it really matters,
because memory is not a transcript, a recording, a documentary.

It’s less than that, but infinitely more.
It’s our personal story,
and even if it’s not accurate in every detail,
it bears the truth of the meaning of the memory of the event.

That’s why our original memories
get overlaid and adorned and filigreed
with snapshots and anecdotes and stories and new memories
about those times when we have shared our old memories
with friends and family.

The picture we can envision
to help us understand ourselves
is of an attic, with boxes and chests
scattered in delightful disarray.

Some of these treasures are well marked,
but others are just a jumble,
waiting for us to come and to sort through them,
to make sense of them,
to put them in order.

This common and familiar experience
is what I imagine we share with Mary, the mother of our Lord.
Luke’s familiar telling of the birth of Jesus
reminds us how she and Joseph
found themselves swept up
in the Spirit’s whirlwind of action.

We know that God’s angel, Gabriel,
had announced to Mary
that the Spirit would come upon her
and she would conceive and bear a child,
the Son of God and Savior of the world.
That’s why the Church calls her Theotokos, or God-bearer.

And Mary remembers all of this, vibrant with detail.

And then the political powers
do what they do,
and upend the lives of the common people
to achieve their own ends.
So Mary and Joseph journey to Bethlehem
in the midst of her pregnancy.

And Mary adds to her memories.

They end up finding shelter with the beasts.
Then Jesus—God in the flesh—is born among the animals
and rests his head in a feed trough.
Soon the shepherds come and testify to the angels’ message:
“Do not be afraid. A Savior, the Messiah, the Lord is born.”

And Mary remembers this as well.

As St. Luke tells us,
“But Mary treasured all these words
and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19, NRSV)

It’s the treasuring and pondering
that draws a picture for me
of the ministry of memory we share with Mary.
As the years go by and Jesus grows up,
Mary finds time to go to the attic of her memory,
she kneels beside a great big box,
and takes from it some straw,
a long strip of cloth,
a curl of lamb’s wool.
They are reminders to her—
in an age with no cameras
and in a time when she had no money
to pay scribes to write the memories on scrolls—
of the miracle of her son’s birth.

And “Mary treasured all these words
and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19, NRSV)

The Greek words Luke chooses are powerful.
What we read as “treasured” is the Greek word suntereo.
It means “to preserve (a thing from perishing or being lost),”
or “to keep within one’s self, keep in mind (a thing, lest it be forgotten).”
(http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/suntereo.html)

And where we read, “pondered,” the Greek is sumballo.
This means “to throw together, to bring together,
to converse,
to bring together in one’s mind, confer with one’s self,”
or “to encounter in a hostile sense.” (http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/sumballo.html)

It’s the work of a lifetime
to sift through memories such as these,
to keep them fresh in one’s mind,
to sort through the jumble,
to let the conflicts that arise work themselves out.

This was Mary’s work,
but it is ours as well.

We are like Mary in being swept up by the Spirit,
having our lives changed by the birth of God’s Son,
finding our journeys redirected,
walking to places we had not imagined,
meeting people we had not anticipated,
hearing messages we had not expected.

This is what happens when God our Father
gets to work in our lives,
when he breathes his Spirit into us,
when he comes among us in the flesh of his Son,
the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is nothing else for us to do
but to follow Mary’s lead,
to “treasure[] all these words
and ponder[] them in our heart[s].”

And as we do,
we can kneel together
before the manger
and tell one another in gentle whispers
how this helpless infant,
so “tender and mild,”
how this Son of God,
has touched us, changed us,
given us life and freedom,
blessed us with love
that we might follow him,
no matter what and no matter where it leads,
even to the foot of that baby’s cross. Amen.

“Be silent before the Lord God!
For the day of the Lord is at hand;
the Lord has prepared a sacrifice,
he has consecrated his guests ….
At that time I [the Lord] will search Jerusalem with lamps,
and I will punish the people who rest complacently on their dregs,
those who say in their hearts,
‘The Lord will not do good,
nor will he do harm.’” —Zephaniah 1:7,12, New Revised Standard Version

“But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of the light and of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness …. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.” —1 Thessalonians 5:4–5, 9–10, NRSV

MEDITATION

With each passing week, we draw closer to the end of the church year and to the beginning of Advent, the time of anticipating the coming of our Lord in his birth, in the life of the Church, and in judgment at the end. The readings for this Sunday, November 13, speak to us of the end of this world in ways that may give us discomfort.

As we overhear Zephaniah’s prophecy, we easily can find ourselves among those who—in the secret places of their hearts—don’t really trust that God is at work in their daily lives. We say to ourselves that we are on our own to make our own fortunes, to fix our own problems, to plan our own futures. “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.”

This saying captures the sometimes-subtle shape that our disbelief assumes. Think back over our conversations in the meetings of our task force. How often do we focus on the mundane: the tallies of our demographics; the patterns of our culture; the influences of our marketing; and the predictions flowing from our habits? We leave God out of our reflection. He is there, somewhere, but what matters most is our effort and insight. “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.”

We tend to believe, or at least to act upon our convictions, as if God cannot and will not take that surprising, day-of-the-Lord action to upend our congregation’s life and to do something new and wonderful, something that purifies with judgment and rejuvenates with grace. When we trust in this conviction, we cling to an illusion.

Zephaniah calls us to “be silent before the Lord God!” He reminds us that “the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, he has consecrated his guests.” As Christians, we cannot help but be reminded by these words that the Father prepared Jesus Christ to offer himself for all of humanity—including you and me—as a sacrifice for our sins. Then, by virtue of our baptism into his sacrificial death, we arise from the waters as his consecrated guests, both at his Eucharistic Table and at the gates of his heavenly city.

This is why St. Paul reminds us that we are “children of the light and of the day.” He proclaims that we have been adopted into the family of the God and Father who “destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” His reminder helps dispel the notions we might want to hold, that we are on our own, that God has withdrawn his guiding hand from our lives, and that we must trust only in our own efforts and plans.

In these dark days, conflict and confusion threaten to rend our world, our lives, and our congregation. We find ourselves succumbing to the temptation to travel only along the paths that we have picked out for ourselves. But by faith, we hold in a creative and uncomfortable tension these two truths of God’s work in our lives: he punishes us in our complacency and he destines us for salvation.

REFLECTION

• When will you “be silent before the Lord God?”
• Where in your life do you find yourself trying to make your way on your own? How have you pushed God to the margins of your life?
• What can we do as a congregation to turn us from relying on our own powers and solutions to trusting the work of God to help us to live as children of the light and the day? What can you do in your own life to make a similar change?
• What prayers will tell God of your desire to live as a child of the light and of the day?

PRAYER

Gracious Father, bless us with the silence we need to hear your voice. Help us to abandon both our complacency and our trust in ourselves so we may rely upon your promise to work your will in our lives. Inspire us, by your Holy Spirit, to trust in your Son’s sacrifice to consecrate us to live as children of the light and of the day; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

AUTHOR

David Frye is a member of the Spirit-Driven Task Force and its Steering Committee.

NOTES

The people of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, Neb., have organized a Spirit-Driven Task Force, bringing together almost forty members who have committed to a year of study, prayer, reflection, and deliberation to discern how God is calling the congregation to renewal for the sake of his mission.

This is the twenty-sixth of a series of weekly meditations with the aim to inspire reflection and encourage conversation among the members of the task force as we journey together in obedience to our Lord’s calling to serve him.

St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, Lincoln, Neb., celebrates the Holy Eucharist on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The parish’s rector, Father Jerry Thompson, asked me to lead worship on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. This is Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time. The Feast of Saints Simon and Jude was transferred from October 28 for this mid-week Eucharist.

Readings

Deuteronomy 32:1–4
Psalm 119:89–96
John 14:21–27

Homily

This Friday is the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude. Jesus chose them to be his apostles. And that’s really all we know about them. Beyond that, Tradition tells us that they preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia and Persia—present-day Iraq. Their shared ministry eventually led to their martyrdom in that land on the same day.

It’s helpful to be reminded by these apostles what most lives of service look like. Few of us can expect to be remembered for the details of our discipleship. We’re not Peters or Pauls. Instead, we are much more like Simons and Judes.
Jesus Christ has called us, like Simon and Jude, to be his disciples. He gives us faith in him, leads us to praise his Father, and empowers us by their Holy Spirit to witness and to serve.

One time my wife, Anne, and I were visiting with one of her cousins who had become the family genealogist. As she was flipping through these large binders of family history, she would stop on a page, point at a picture, and say one sentence about that person’s life. I don’t remember what she said, but each sentence was something like this: Harry lived in a white-frame house and collected old phonograph records.
What has stuck with me ever since that day is a haunting question: What one sentence will some future family genealogist use to describe my life? What sentence would you write to describe your life? Simon and Jude were called by Jesus to be his disciples and apostles. It’s only one sentence, but it really does say all that we need to know about them.

The First Reading appointed for today from Deuteronomy contains a verse that captures the voice of the faithful—the people of Israel, Simon and Jude and the other apostles, along with the great crowd of unnamed disciples who have labored for the Lord over the centuries. It’s a thought we can hold in our hearts and speak with our lips. It’s only one sentence, but it says all that we to say about our lives of faith:

For I will proclaim the name of the LORD;
ascribe greatness to our God
(Deuteronomy 32:3, New Revised Standard Version). Amen.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” —Matthew 11:28–30, New American Bible

MEDITATION

Twice in just two sentences Jesus promises his followers rest. Like any true gift, the rest that Jesus gives comes to us and to all his followers as an act of grace. He gives it freely to all who need it, all who “labor and are burdened.”

Our labors are varied and our burdens are many. We labor for pay in our work, yet we also labor silently to carry out tasks with no hope of pay, no promise of glory, and no end of responsibility. Some of these labors bring us joy, while others bear down upon us as burdens, loads to bear.

The promise Jesus offers is a simple one: come to him and he will give us rest. He does not promise an end to our labors, but instead he promises us a new way to bear them. He fits us with a yoke and he shows us how to wear it, how to bear our burdens in meekness and humility. When we do, we will—he promises—find rest.

This is rest of a strange sort. It is not the rest that brings to us the end of labor, the release of burdens, and the ease of leisure. Instead, the rest that Jesus Christ promises comes only by his grace, under his yoke, and in his footsteps.

When we realize how this gift of grace promises to change us, we see that following Jesus, living as his disciples and bearing his yoke, is not a quick and simple fix, a cheap solution to our problems that waves a wand and makes them go away. Instead, the grace of the yoke is costly because it is cruciform.

In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and martyr, wrote,

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life …. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (p. 45)

Right there is the distinction between cheap and costly grace, between pointless and worthy burdens, between aimless wandering and Christian . When we shoulder the yoke that Jesus gives us by his grace and follow him, then we find the yoke makes each day’s burdens bearable and life’s journey purposeful.

REFLECTION

• What are your burdens? How do you labor? What does the yoke of Christ look like in your life? Along what path does he call you to follow him?
• What could we say and do as a congregation to tell others that Christian discipleship is a gift of costly grace, that Christ calls us to lives of meekness and humility?
• Who do you know who needs your prayers for the courage to submit themselves to the yoke of Christ? If you have not been praying for them, what stands in your way?

PRAYER

Gracious Father, open our ears to hear your Son’s promise to give us the gracious gift of his yoke. Stir up your Holy Spirit in us so that we may find rest in bearing our burdens under that yoke, while following in his footsteps. We pray to you through your Son, Jesus Christ—our Savior and Lord. Amen.

AUTHOR

David Frye is a member of the Spirit-Driven Task Force and its Steering Committee.

NOTES

The people of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, Neb., have organized a Spirit-Driven Task Force, bringing together almost forty members who have committed to a year of study, prayer, reflection, and deliberation to discern how God is calling the congregation to renewal for the sake of his mission.

This is the twenty-fifth of a series of weekly meditations with the aim to inspire reflection and encourage conversation among the members of the task force as we journey together in obedience to our Lord’s calling to serve him.

In the second creation story in Genesis, we hear that “the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7, NAB). And later, the prophet Isaiah proclaims to God, “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands” (Isaiah 64:7, NAB)

How long does it take for a lump of clay, pounded, kneaded, picked free of stones, thrown onto a wheel, pressed under strong hands, shaped by firm muscles, drawn up into graceful curves, adorned with patterns, and then set aside to dry, to face the fires, to be glazed and fired again—how long does it take for that lump of clay to fathom the potter’s mind and heart?

How long does it take us to begin to glimpse the splendor of that potter’s creative vision? How long to come to appreciate the intricacy and the beauty of the design pressed upon us, the plan guiding the throwing of a whole set of pieces, the compassion of pounding down a misshapen pot and beginning anew until the lump takes just the right form?

At least a lifetime. At least all the days we have received as gifts from our Master Potter. And so we begin. From the day he washed the dirt from us in Holy Baptism and made us his children, we have confessed, “I believe in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Then we have learned to ask in company with those who have gone before us, “What does this mean?”

And for the hints of an answer, for insights into wisdom that lies beyond us, we turn to the Scriptures, the Creeds, the Confessions, the Church’s Traditions of Liturgy, and her Teachings of Morality. We look in these places for the palm prints, the impressions of the divine hands that shape us, that turn us from formless muddy lumps into creatures fashioned in the image of God, people redeemed from death by the Son’s sacrifice, sinful saints living only by the power of the Spirit.

How long does it take? Maybe that’s the wrong question. Perhaps we ought to ask God, “We won’t ever finish exploring your mind and mission, will we?” Why would we want to? What else could possibly matter more, be more significant, consume us so fully, fill us so completely?

Because we are God’s pottery, we are not God, but instead his handiwork. The shape we have, the grace filling us, the promise that leads us all come from him and not from within us. And so for us to learn about God is to come to appreciate the form he has given us, the marks he has pressed upon us, the design he has worked into his world, the plan for our redeeming. We learn about God when we receive our form, shape, and pattern, our ways of thinking and reflecting, our wisdom and understanding from what comes to us from beyond us.

That’s why we, as God’s pottery, do well when we embrace our learning as formation rather than education. Formation reminds us that our shape comes from outside of us and is pressed upon us. Education leads us instead to focus upon what we draw out of ourselves—the word’s root meaning.

What is the end—the purpose—of our formation? St. Paul offers a prayer for the Ephesians that speaks of us, as well:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14–19, NAB).

Amen.

Emmanuel Lutheran Church, east of Beatrice, Nebraska, invited me to preach and preside at worship on Oct. 16, 2011, the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Readings

Isaiah 45:1–7
Psalm 96:1–13, antiphon v. 7
1 Thessalonians 1:1–10
Matthew 22:15–22

Homily

Let us pray …. May the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Freedom from Want, Norman Rockwell

One of America’s most beloved and iconic images is this one [Show print.] Sometimes it’s called “Thanksgiving Dinner.” Norman Rockwell painted it during World War II as an illustration for a war bonds poster. Then it appeared as the cover art on the March 6, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Called “Freedom from Want” in that issue, it was the third of four paintings to appear in the magazine to dramatize the Four Freedoms that President Franklin Roosevelt outlined in his January 1941 State of the Union address.

I think we’d be safe in saying that this image rests in our memories more as the ideal of Thanksgiving than as a reminder to us of war bonds or even of the President’s speech. Even so, the themes of Thanksgiving and Freedom from Want somehow tie together.

Here in the painting, a family gathers in joy and peace around a table dressed in white. Young and old together, they are all smiling, except the grandmother who may be more focused on finding a space for the turkey platter and the grandfather who perhaps is resisting the urge to guide the platter to its resting place. And we are there too, at the foot of the table, taking in the scene, our eyes caught in the gaze of the gentleman in the corner looking expectantly at us.

The turkey is large; the fixings are simple and not overly abundant. The drink is water. A good meal in wartime; surely the family will be praying in just a minute, basking in the diffuse white light filtered through the curtain from the sun, shining on a land and a people caught in the throes of war.

It’s funny, though. Our understanding of words has changed over the years. This was a painting about Freedom from Want, but if you look at the food on the table, you see a meal that offers freedom from need, not want. Or perhaps the family in the painting wanted less in the middle of World War II than we do today.

Even so, despite the differing interpretations we might make of this painting, it sticks in our minds’ eyes as an illustration of Thanksgiving, of gratitude for the sufficiency of God’s gifts in our lives.

But sadly, now as then, not all people can look forward to placing enough food on the table to feed a family. They cannot afford what they need to eat, much less to pay for what they might desire beyond their needs.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last month notes that across the United States in 2010, about one in seven households experienced what experts call “food insecurity.” That level of insecurity shows the effect of lacking the resources to afford to purchase the food needed to eat nutritionally sound meals. So it’s easy to see that poverty and hunger go hand-in-hand. In 2008, government statistics showed that 15.4 million Americans found themselves living in extreme poverty, where their family annual cash income didn’t amount to one-half the poverty level. That meant that their income was less than $10,000 for a family of four. (http//www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm, accessed Oct. 13, 2011, citing http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR125/err125.pdf.).

Numbers and statistics can quickly cause our eyes to glaze over. So, it helps to keep faces in mind. Perhaps you know someone who doesn’t get enough to eat, or some family facing questions of what they might find to eat, rather than figuring out if the leftovers in the fridge are still safe after a week or more.

Those are the faces to envision as you gather your offerings for the food pantry. Picture the joy on the faces of a family as its members gather around their table—lifted up by the generosity of the community—and prepare to give God their thanks and to eat the meal he has provided through your contributions.

Why do we give canned and dry goods to the food pantry? For a variety of reasons. First, we and others give because it is a kind and neighborly thing to do. America is not always all about competition and getting ahead, making a killing off of those trying to make a living, just as it is not always about getting one’s fair share without contributing the sweat of one’s brow.

A great and deep strand in our national heritage is to reach out to others, to help them when they have a need, just as they will help us when we face a need. As Christians, we can ands ought to give for this reason, working alongside of others who do not share our faith in Jesus Christ.

This type of charitable work is good. We see a need. Someone is hungry. So, we share our food. That’s our basic humanity at work.

But for us as Christians, other, deeper motivations take root. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’s pointed parable about the judgment of the sheep and the goats reminds us that the righteous king will say on the last day, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me …. Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25: 34–36, 40, New American Bible).

So beyond acting out of basic humanity and basic decency, we can trust our Lord’s promise that when we feed people who are hungry, we are offering food to him. And so, in our minds’ eyes, our Lord joins us around the table spread in white. He comes to eat whenever we give our food to someone in hunger.

And finally, there is a third reason to give food to hungry people, to share what God has given us with the food pantry and other ministries that serve people in need. St. Paul hints at this third reason in his first letter to the Thessalonians. In today’s second reading, we heard him say:
For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction … (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5a, New Revised Standard Version).

The message of the gospel comes not only in words, but also in power and in the Spirit and with the full force of conviction. And so, we give food to hungry people because it is humane, because by feeding them we feed the Lord who gives us life, and finally, because our actions proclaim the gospel with power. We can say that God loves his children and that he calls us to care for others. Once we have said that, we can share God’s love and care by giving food.

And beyond that, if someone asks us why we give food to people who are hungry, we can say we do so because we are neighborly and because we are grateful to God. But in truth, when our giving prompts someone to ask why we give, then our proclamation comes fully to life, “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” as we take that opening as an invitation to tell them about the love and grace we have received from Jesus Christ.

So, when we discover the opportunity to share food, we have privilege of giving to meet a need and the chance to proclaim the grace of Lord. For that, we can say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen.

The black walnut trees north of our house have shed their leaves. Only a few walnuts still cling to their branches, silhouetted against the blue skies we have enjoyed the past few weeks. Amid the leaves on the ground, the fallen walnuts—husks green, but mottled with brownish black—lie scattered. When I go outside and wait patiently and quietly, I can eventually spot the resident squirrels at work, burying here and there carefully selected nuts, treasure they will reclaim when they follow the maps they have committed to memory … or entrusted to instinct.

A squirrel’s life has purity and simplicity: find nuts, eat some, hide others, elude predators, raise up little squirrels. Our lives confront us with more complexity and, sadly, less clarity of purpose. Even so, much of our lives and energy remains committed to finding, gathering, consuming, storing, and worrying about our walnuts, our treasure.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matthew 6:21, New American Bible). By that he means that when we want to know what matters to us—what we value, what drives us, what we choose to honor—we need look no further than the reflection glinting off of our treasure. Our treasure is not a hoard of walnuts, but rather the object of our attention, the recipient of our devotion, the focus of our dedication.

How do we use our time? What excites us? On what do we gladly spend our money? Where do we choose to use our talents? What topics of conversation entice us? These are the questions that help us to learn the truth about our treasure. Do we desire treasure that really doesn’t last much longer than walnuts buried beneath the leaves? Do we seek treasure that distracts us from devotion to God? Jesus reminds us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19, NAB).

Our Lord desires for us to treasure him. He knows when we hold him most dear, when he lives in the center of our lives. He knows, too, when the pursuit of other treasures occupies our thoughts and drives our desires. The wise advice King David gave to his son Solomon applies equally well to us:

… know the God of your father and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing soul, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the mind’s thoughts. If you seek him, he will let himself be found by you; but if you abandon him, he will cast you off forever (1 Chronicles 28:9, NAB).

This month presents us with at least two occasions to reflect on the treasure in our lives. First, when we gather as a congregation to consider our 2012 budget, we can ask ourselves, “How does this plan for ministry reflect the treasure in our life together? What does it say about how we use the time and the talent and the money God has given us? When God looks at our budget as a testimony that reveals what lies in our hearts—both as individuals and as a congregation—what does he see?”

Our second occasion is our nation’s Day of Thanksgiving. As we gather with friends and family, we can offer our prayers of gratitude to the Father who grants us life each day, who enriches our world with abundance, who blesses us with grace through his Son’s sacrifice, and who sustains us by their Holy Spirit. These are the great treasures God alone can and does give to us, his children.

David M. Frye, Stewardship Ministry

This is the twenty-fourth of a series of weekly meditations with the aim to inspire reflection and encourage conversation among the members of the task force as we journey together in obedience to our Lord’s calling to serve him.

Author
Pastor Ron Drury, a member of the Spirit Driven Task Force and advisor to its Steering Committee.

Scripture
“Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD all the Earth. Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD; proclaim God’s salvation from day to day. Declare God’s glory among all nations and God’s wonders among all peoples. For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised, more to be feared than all gods. As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; but You, O LORD, have made the heavens. Majesty and magnificence are in Your presence; power and splendor are in Your sanctuary. Ascribe to the LORD you families of peoples, ascribe to the LORD honor and power. Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name; bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness; tremble before the LORD all the earth.”—Psalm 96:1–9, Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

Meditation
Martin Luther is given credit for proclaiming—”When you sing you pray twice!” I once read similar words from St. Augustine when I was in Seminary.It really does not matter who first declared this truth,unless we see the wisdom within. In singing our praises to God we are honoring and glorifying the Almighty with more than mere words. The rhythmic movement of our bodies through breathing and the joyous sound that bends the airwaves enhance and empower the letters that are woven together. Singing often brings delight to the singer, to others who may be raising their voices together and any creature who may hear from near or far. When I was a camp youth counselor in the wooded hills of northeast Ohio, our head counselor would awake us every morning with or without campers on site with the refrain from the opening number of the musical Godspell: “Prepare Ye The Way of The Lord!” Even as I type this, joy fills my heart as I recall awakening each morning all summer long to the vibrant notes of what we were called to be about that day and everyday! Music can be a very powerful motivating force to direct and bring joy to all creation!

Reflection

• How can you “tremble before the LORD” to find new songs and sing to God joyfully here and throughout God’s creation in “majesty and magnificence”?
• What music warms your heart and motivates you to better serve God each day?
• How can we work together more in harmony even when we have different notes in our heart of hearts to sing to praise and glorify God together?

Prayer
Direct us, O God, to gather together to sing your praises joyfully empowered by the Holy Spirit to better proclaim and bear witness to the Savior of all—Jesus the Christ! Amen.

This is the twenty-third of a series of weekly meditations with the aim to inspire reflection and encourage conversation among the members of the task force as we journey together in obedience to our Lord’s calling to serve him. You can find an archive of these meditations on the Web at http://widesky.biz/blog/ephemera/spirit-driven-task-force-meditations.

Author
Kurt Kechely, a member of the Spirit Driven Task Force and its Steering Committee, shared this devotion from the ELCA’s periodical, “Christ in Our Home.”

Scripture
“I am with you to save you and deliver you.” —Jeremiah 15:20.

Meditation
No matter how devoted you are to serving Christ, you can’t please all the people all the time. Several negative comments can make you question your decision to lead a committee or continue in ministry. Yet when you feel at your lowest, someone may come up to you and tell you how much you have influenced his or her life. Words like these are a soothing lotion on dry and parched skin. They refresh one’s sense of purpose.

Those who work in the church—whether they are pastors, teachers, administrators, or workers on a mission project—will always know the sting of critics nipping at their heels. It’s part of working with people.

Jeremiah also felt the frustration of working with people who were negative. He wanted to please the Lord, but some days were harder than others. Yet, a word from the Lord encouraged him. He heard words that brought joy, delight, and affirmation that God had called him to this work.

God is faithful when the call to serve sends us to share the message of the gospel. We are delivered as we are encouraged by others through the Word.

Prayer
Faithful Lord, renew the call you have placed on my heart to serve you, and let me know its joy, through Christ. Amen.