Dear Friends,

So, if you heard the “poor in spirit” sermon, you might remember that I proposed an evolving meaning for that bless-ed condition:

a little less ego...

leads to openness to the Lordship of Christ...

leads to participating in blessing poor-in-spirit neighbors.

By Sunday, I expect the next sermon will have a similar sort of evolution.

For now, I want to share a little vocabulary enrichment, pastoral counselor style. (This is likely to be the start of the sermon, so apologies to those of you who engage this blog and have to hear it all over again on Sunday!)

There’s Loss. And then there’s Bereavement.

Loss is to now not have something that you once had. As in: I lost my keys. I lost my slim figure. I lost my ability to multitask.

Bereavement is a particular sort of loss where it feels like something - most often someone - is abruptly taken from you. Loss of someone we love, especially by death, is experienced as bereavement. I’ve also had people report to me that they felt bereft when a child left home or when a spouse filed for divorce. Bereavement is the feeling that someone who’s part of the very fiber of your life has been ripped right out of your life.

If there are degrees of loss, there’s also a spectrum of experience in response to loss or bereavement. First, there’s Grief.

Grief is more than sadness. It’s a whole constellation of experiences that wash over in the wake of bereavement. (Hmm: Wake. Put a pin right there.) I’ve argued that grief is a whole body experience. It’s emotional, yes, but the emotions extend beyond sad: fearful, angry, worried and so on. Grief also has physical symptoms. For example, studies show our immune systems are compromised when we are grieving. There’s a mental aspect, too: Folks have reported being more forgetful than is their norm or unable to make sense of things that would come easily, but for the grief. On top of all that, there are often behavioral changes that come with grief: For example, someone who’s usually gregarious might need to hibernate or a favorite restaurant no longer has appeal because your dining partner is no longer in your life. Finally, grief triggers spiritual sorts of questions: questions like, “Who am I now that I’m no longer a spouse?” or “why would God let me feel this lonely?”

Grief is unique to each individual and, for each individual, it’s often unique to each experience of loss or bereavement. (BTW, as far as “stages” of grief, yes, there are aspects of the grieving process that most people experience, but by no means do they unfold in a a linear progression or predictable pattern.) Most important for where this post is heading: Grief is the more individual, personal and often-times private part of one’s response to bereavement.

And then there’s Mourning.

Mourning is often lumped in with grief - or the two are used interchangeably - but mourning is actually a whole different thing. If grief is personal and even private, mourning is shared and public. Mourning is the family and friends who gather to sit in silence with the reality that someone has died (as in the photo accompanying this post.) Mourning is a friend crying with you when you’re grieving. Mourning is the parade of food (actually, it’s the parade of friends showing their care by way of food) that arrives in the week after someone dies. Mourning is laying remains to rest after the breath of life has left a body. Mourning is gathering at church for a worship service in hopes of hearing God’s promises as we face the reality of death. In other words, mourning involves rituals that bring a community together to grieve together and to offer mutual comfort to one another.

So, yes, there’s grieving

and then there’s mourning.

And “Bless-ed are those who mourn,” says the Lord, “for they will be comforted.”

See you Sunday (when I think I’ll pick up that pin I dropped several paragraphs ago).

Peace,

Lisa

Photo of artwork from Unsplash

Dear Friends,

So far in our Lenten focus on the Beatitudes, we’ve considered:

1) a couple of ways the Beatitudes might help us “become more like Jesus” (Ash Wednesday) and

2) how Jesus’ version of #Bless-ed differs from our culture’s notions of #Blessed (1st Sunday in Lent).

This week we turn our attention to the first Beatitude - the first declaration of heavenly bless-ed-ness: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

And right here at the get-go, I’m already scratching my head: “poor in spirit”. Huh? Luke’s first Beatitude is a little different from Matthew’s. Where Matthew talks about the “poor in spirit,” Luke talks about the “poor.” What gives?

The questions keep coming, though. While Matthew starts his version of Jesus’ Beatitudes with the “poor in spirit,” on down the line he’s going to include (among others) “the meek,” “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and “the pure in heart.” Can’t speak for you, but I could think of those as interchangeable synonyms. Of course the sermons on the remaining Sundays in Lent will tease out the nuances of each of those bless-ed states, but here at the outset I want to sketch a little bit of distinction for at least these four, seemingly overlapping, circumstances.

(Before you read on... maybe stop and print this document - or write out a list of the Beatitudes - and jot your personal definition for each Bless-ed circumstance. (At least write out and ponder the four Bless-eds in the prior paragraph. Please?) Whom do you know who might fall into each category? How do you see the Holy Spirit at work in each one? What sort of transformation is Jesus calling you to as you consider each Beatitude? Who is it that Jesus is calling us to bless as he declares these states of bless-ed-ness? There are no right or wrong answers to those questions. Rather, even a five-minute meditation on at least the four potentially overlapping Beatitudes can deepen your encounter with this teaching from Jesus.)

I began that work for myself when I wrote the intercessions for our Great Prayer on Ash Wednesday. I put a copy of the Beatitudes on my desk early last week and jotted my own prayerful interpretations for each of these four Beatitudes. They might not be the same interpretations you’ll hear in James Howell’s The Beatitudes for Today; they might not even be the same interpretations I’ll explore as I preach our way through the Beatitudes! Rather, here’s what I wrote as part of our Ash Wednesday prayer:

• for “the poor in spirit” (and with Luke’s “the poor” also in mind), I wrote that we pray for
  “all who live at the margins, who are overlooked or excluded; the ones whose voices are drowned out by more powerful voices.”
• for “the meek”, I wrote “all of the wise and gentle ones who shepherd and encourage us by their presence.”
• for “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” it was “all whose highest longing is for your will to be done, O God.”
• for “the pure in heart,” “all whose love is shared without condition and for the many who need to know unconditional love.”

Maybe not a perfect un-packing, but it’s a start, right?

There are three Beatitude books floating on my desk (in addition to Howell’s The Beatitudes for Today). While I’m not sure this interpretation of “poor in spirit” will be the one I riff on this coming Sunday, I do want to share a bit of what John Redhead has to say about this Bless-ed circumstance in his 1968 book, Finding Meaning in the Beatitudes. “Poor in spirit does not mean, of all things, poor-spirited [which Redhead describes as helpless, dejected, fearful]... We can get closer to the Lord’s meaning if we substitute for the word spirit our more modern word ego. Ego means self, and to be rich in ego is to have too much of the same... To be rich in ego is to be self-contained. It is to possess such an acute awareness of self that one’s world begins and ends with self.” (p. 12) So, poor in spirit is, at least in part, to keep one’s ego in check? That’ll preach! (Ouch, by the way.)

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

We’ll be focusing on the Beatitudes for Lent this year. Which can be a tricky thing to focus on. I’ve seen the Beatitudes get turned into a to-do list. As in, the “be-attitudes” to which Christians should adhere: “Christians oughtta be more meek,” or “We can’t be children of God unless we’re peacemakers,” or “If you’re not getting persecuted then you’re not proclaiming the Gospel.” Yea, I suppose. But I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that. (Yup. Even for the peacemaking one!)

Scholars would say that there’s no “imperative” in the Beatitudes. Which is to say that Jesus did not say, “Be meek.” He said, “Bless-ed are the meek.” He’s stating this state of blessedness as fact rather than issuing a command. Or, just maybe he’s saying, “The meek are the ones I’m blessing”? (Put a pin right there; coming back to that.)

Same scholars would draw some other conclusions about the Beatitudes: a) they’re part of a narrative parallel between Jesus and Moses, b) or a similar parallel between Jesus and the Servant referenced by Isaiah, or c) the Beatitudes cast a vision of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. I’ve read those interpretations; all of them make all kinds of sense. Yet, I still think there’s more. Maybe a + b + c + a-least-a-little-bit-of-imperative-even-if-it’s-not-there-grammatically?

Going back to that pin a couple of paragraphs back, if the Beatitudes tell us who Jesus is in the business of blessing, I keep wondering whether we ought to be in the business of blessing the same sorts of folks? As in, maybe I’ll never be meek, but maybe I oughtta be looking for a way to be a blessing to the meek? If Jesus has a preference for the poor-in-spirit (and the economically poor as well, if you read Luke’s Beatitudes) maybe those are the folks to whom I oughtta be offering preferential treatment? And yes, if Jesus blesses peacemakers, then perhaps a baseline activity for the children of God is to go about joining him in the way he makes peace even as I join Jesus in blessing those who are more profound peacemakers than I.

I suppose all this amounts to an overall re-thinking of what the Beatitudes are about. And that’s what I hope our whole Lenten journey, right on up to Easter morning, will be. If Ash Wednesday started that journey in confession, on the first Sunday in Lent we’ll wonder together about the whole business of blessedness. ‘Cuz I think what our culture means by “blessed” is pretty, ahm, skewed. At the very least, blessed more than a hashtag indicating that good fortune has found you.

So, obvious question, I guess; What might it really mean to be bless-ed?

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Júlia Borges on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

(Kinda rambly this go-round... she says as though this blog isn’t always rather rambly!)

Mardi Gras is a curious observation that’s effectively a trip to indulgence-city on the eve of a season meant for self-restraint and self-examination, introspection and repentance. What’s fascinating is that masks feature so heavily in the festivities. Is that so we can try to hide our identities while we eat, drink and be merry to excess? If so, are revelers hiding from each other or trying to hide from the Triune One? Does a mask somehow convey license to do whatever one wants without fear of reprisal? Are they indicators that we’re cultivating some sort of “what happens behind the mask stays behind the mask” vibe? (And then, pancakes?) Mardi Gras is, indeed, curious.

If Mardi Gras is about hiding behind a mask (whatever the reason), I’d have to say that Ash Wednesday is about parading/exposing/revealing whatever it is that we’re wont to hide. One even wonders whether the light of Transfiguration sorta blinks out for Mardi Gras and then increases to maximum lumens on Ash Wednesday. Maybe, then, the masks help us shield our eyes from Transfiguration’s brilliance for at least the duration of our Mardi Gras carousing?

If you heard Sunday’s sermon, maybe you’ll remember that I kinda had to hold my mouth just right, then sorta tilt my head and squint in order to understand how Psalm 19:7-14 might have anything at all to do with Transfiguration. Turns out, thinking about how what we hear and see gets transformed into thoughts we have, and how those thoughts become meditations at the very core of our being, and how those meditations then inform (or not) all of our actions - thinking about that arc of transformation is exactly the impact that Christ’s Transfiguration ought to have on us.

So, at our worship gathering on Wednesday night, we will, indeed pull off our masks - even if only for ourselves. We’ll look beneath what we try to project to the world and consider how well we’re doing the work of living “to become like Jesus, bringing faith and life together.” We’ll do that work as we switch - at least for a season - away from James Howell’s 40 Treasured Verses and to the same author’s The Beatitudes for Today. Lent, Holy Week, and Easter will be one extended meditation on how the beatitudes can shape us to “become more like Jesus.”

If you want to do some preparation for Ash Wednesday (apart from whatever Mardi Gras merriment you make on Tuesday), read the beatitudes - Matthew 5:1-12 and/or Luke 6:20-26 - and meditate on how those blessed conditions call you to some sort of transformation.

See you Sunday (and Wednesday!).

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Llanydd Lloyd on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

One of the most fascinating classes I took in seminary was about first century Judaism. A Rabbi/Professor taught the course and it gave me a very different appreciation of the religion that shaped Jesus. I also got insight into some of the ways Christianity - once it could rightly be called a religion of its own - developed in contrast to first century Judaism. In particular, I gained a whole new perspective on “the law.”

We can thank Paul (and later, Luther) for drawing a sharp contrast between “law and gospel” as well as between “works and grace.” And I get why the distinction is important, so don’t jump to report me to the doctrine police! I just think there’s at least a little more gray area that we sometimes admit. As we prepare for Sunday’s focus on Psalm 19, lemme make two observations in favor of reclaiming reverence for the law.

First, both Jews and Christians aim to please God. Is that fair? Our Jewish kin do that by following the Law; Christians try to please God by following Jesus. Second, as the words of Torah are central for Jews, Jesus the living Word is central for Christians. For all the differences between us, starting with that crucial similarity/crossover/connection between Jesus and the Law might oughtta encourage us to pay a little more attention to Torah. (Kinda like the man in the photo above.)

Psalm 19 is essentially an ode to Torah. The Psalm ends with the words I pray prior to most every sermon I preach: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable unto you, O Lord, for you are our rock and redeemer. There’s a connection between that prayer and the meditation on the Law that precedes it. I’ll be working on that connection as I prepare this week’s sermon.

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Aharon Luria on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

I used to think Raleigh was in the mountains.

Even though I was born here in Raleigh, most of my growing up happened in Wilmington, where the highest elevation was probably a speedbump in some obscure corner of town. Or maybe atop one of the sand dunes at Wrightsville Beach. (Actually looked up “highest elevation Wilmington NC” and it turns out that spot isn’t a speedbump at all, but an intersection just down the street from Mom’s house. Who knew?!)

My parents had friends here in Raleigh, though, so we’d make the trek up here every once in a while to do some shopping and visit the Edwards family at Cheviot Hills Golf Course. Of course there was no I-40 at the time, so it was 421 all the way, with a stop at Stephenson’s BBQ in Willow Spring (at least that was the case if Dad was driving).

It was along about Willow Spring that I thought we’d arrived in the mountains. (I know, I know.) Be assured that I had, indeed, absorbed the content in middle school geography; I knew coastal plain vs. piedmont vs. mountains, right along with the foothills - sandhills distinction, but in real life, those designations meant nothing. (That’s my excuse, anyway, and I’m sticking to it!) Turns out the rolling hills of the piedmont have a dizzying effect on someone who thinks a sand dune is tall.

I suppose it was my first high school ski trip that exposed me to the NC mountains. Then that “see every country in Europe in twelve days” trip after high school introduced me to the Alps. It wasn’t until after undergrad that I got a glimpse of the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. Mercy!

Talk about dizzying heights! There is something about mountains - real mountains - that changes the way we see everything. There is a grandeur, a permanence, a reverence about a mountain that is nearly unequaled. (Though I’d say that the ocean evokes some similar characteristics, even if that’s in a whole different way. But I digress.)

“I to the hills will lift my eyes,” Psalm 121 begins. I wonder what the Psalmist saw in those hills? What do you see when you see dunes or hills or - better yet - mountains?

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

Note: Since weather precipitated cancellation of worship on 2/1/26, the day’s sermon was posted to the blog for any who’d be interested. As a rule I’m not inclined to post sermons online. Lots of reasons for that, but chief among them is that I typically write sermons for the ear and not the eye. In fact, I’ve been known to use my voice and facial expression to indicate the exact opposite of the words on the page! So, in reading some sermons, the words you’d read could come across in a very unintended way. (Furthermore, I throw every rule of grammar to the wind when I write sermons and that comes flying in the reader’s face, while hearers actually understand better when grammar’s ignored.)

This particular sermon is a narrative one and I did my best to minimize the risks of misunderstanding. So, if you’re inclined, enter into one version of how Jacob’s dream in the wilderness might’ve come about. -LFWH

******************

You know, one person’s miracle can be another person’s absolute nightmare. That was the case for me regarding a family story about my father and grandfather. They thought it was such a wonderful story of the Holy One’s providence; for most of my life I thought of that story as anything but providential. One night I slept on a rock, though, and my perspective changed – at least my perspective about the Holy One changed.

******************

My name is Jacob. My father was Isaac. And my grandfather was Abraham. Maybe you know the very story I mean. My father’s version – Isaac’s version of the story goes something like this:

“One day the Holy One summoned my father Abraham and he replied, ‘Here I am!’

“Then the Holy One said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, the son you dearly love and offer him as a burnt offering on the place I will show you.’”

[Every time father would tell that story I’d wrestle with those words. What kind of god would ask such a thing? How can you call such a one good? But the story was important to my father, so I’d endure it. Then, Father would carry on...]

“Your grandfather Abraham arose early the next day, saddled his donkey, then gathered up a couple of servants and of course me so he could do the Lord’s bidding. He cut up wood for the offering and we all set out.

“It was a three-day journey before we reached the place the Holy One intended for us. Our journey was a quiet one, somber even, yet at the time, I didn’t know why. I kept my head down and my feet moving.

“When we finally reached the place that the Lord had shown him, Grandfather Abraham told our companions to remain with our pack animal, that he’d take me and we’d go a bit farther to worship. Then he took the wood and laid it across my shoulders for me to carry while he carried the torch in one hand and a knife in the other.

“As we walked toward the clearing, I asked my father where the lamb for the sacrifice was and he assured me that ‘the Lord would provide.’”

[Of all the times my Father told that story, he never said that he fought Grandfather Abraham as he was bound and placed on the very firewood that had once laid across his shoulders. And he never would tell us what he was thinking as he lay atop that pyre, waiting for whatever would come next. Instead, my Father would go straight on to say...]

“As the sacrifice was about to begin, the Holy One called out to my father again, ‘Abraham! Abraham!,’ and Father answered, ‘Here I am.’ Then the Lord told him not to harm me, that his fear of the Holy One had been proved.

“No sooner did the Lord stop speaking, but Father saw a ram. The Lord provided indeed!”

******************

For my father, Isaac – the very one who carried that firewood, who laid bound on that sacrificial pyre, who waited silently while his father Abraham spoke with the Lord, who no doubt wept with relief when that ram appeared – for my father, Isaac, that is a story of God’s providence and goodness and blessing.

It was somehow a test that my grandfather passed – and with apparent flying colors – because afterwards, an angel of the Lord called out to Grandfather Abraham to reiterate the covenant the Lord had made with him: “Because you have done as I asked and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.”

Father would absolutely glow when he’d say that last part. I suppose he was always proud that Grandfather Abraham had obeyed the Holy One, even to the point of being willing to sacrifice his son. And I suppose Father might even have been proud that he’d had some part to play in the Lord’s test of Grandfather Abraham – he’d been the sacrificial lamb after all.

I could not come to terms with that test, though. I wasn’t able to celebrate Grandfather Abraham’s fidelity to the Holy One. And I couldn’t find a way to bask in the glow of my father Isaac’s rescue from the sacrificial pyre. For as long as my grandfather was alive and for as many years as I’ve heard my father tell that story, it’s been a record of a miracle for our family legacy. But to me, the whole business was an absolute nightmare. That is, it was a nightmare until the night I made a rock my pillow.

******************

There’s not time today for me to tell you how I became the one to receive my father’s blessing.

Though we were twins, my brother Esau was born first; he was meant to have the rights of the firstborn son. Let’s just say that I was chasing at Esau’s heels from the day of our birth, and I closed in on him on the day that I persuaded him to sell me his birthright for a single meal. I finally caught him for good when I conned our father into giving me the sacred blessing that rightly belonged to my brother.

Esau was, of course, furious; he even swore to kill me. Father sent me to uncle Laban’s house in Haran “so I could find a wife”; I expect my mother encouraged the decision in order to keep me out of Esau’s reach. I could not get out of there fast enough; I’m the better schemer of the two of us, but Esau’s the better huntsman. Get him mad enough to forget his better sense and Esau would take me out in a skinny minute.

******************

It took me weeks to get to Haran. It was quite a journey, and I mean that in more ways than one. Early in the trip I stopped in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. The sun had set and I was bone-tired. Best I could do for a pillow was to find a curved-out stone. Even so, it did not take me long to fall into a deep sleep.

The dream I had that night made me wrestle with, well, everything. It made me re-visit all that had been promised to my grandfather Abraham. It made me think all over again about the near sacrifice that almost ended my father Isaac’s life long before I was ever born. And it made me re-consider the very nature of the Holy One’s presence with us.

You see, in the dream I saw some sort of pathway – some have called it a ladder, others have said stairway – all I can say is that I saw a clear, open, busy route between heaven and earth. I was intrigued, even as I slept.

Apart from the pathway itself, I saw messengers from the Holy One – angels? – travelling to and fro along that earth-to-heaven incline. (Who knows, maybe one those messengers even brought the very dream I had that night!) In the weeks of travel after the dream – and in the many years since then – I have continued to wrestle with the notion of holy messages coming to us by way of that route between heaven and earth.

There was more than that, though, in my dream. Beyond the pathway and beyond the messengers, I’d always thought that the Holy One was well-protected from everything going on in the realm of creation. I mean, only someone who was insulated from the pain of human life could require the sorts of things the Lord once required of my father and grandfather, right?

My thinking was that it would be better to have a transcendent, disconnected deity-in-a-bubble who simply didn’t realize the anguish, heartache and agony Abraham experienced in preparing to sacrifice his son’s life – or didn’t care. Better to think of the Holy One as too far removed from Isaac’s terror, panic and horror as he lay on that pyre than to think the Holy One meant to scare my father half to death. Yup, if I ever made sense of that story at all, it was by thinking that the good Lord – sequestered away in some heavenly realm – simply didn’t realize the great price attached to the requirement he set before my grandfather.

So, the well-travelled pathway in that night’s dream absolutely unwound all my thinking about the Holy One being holed away in some heavenly hideaway. At the very least, the dream made me realize the Lord’s not as far removed from human suffering as I’d long thought.

Yet the most compelling part of the dream was that it moved beyond thinking about the Holy One being present; I also experienced the very presence of the Lord that night!

******************

Who’s to say where a dream ends and actual experience begins? All I can say is that when I awoke, I was sure I’d been visited by none other than the God of my ancestors. No sooner did my eyes flutter open than these words were on my lips: “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!” That sensation – no, that palpable assurance – made me think differently about what made a place holy and how such holiness is tied to the very real presence of the Lord!

That was my conviction upon awaking, anyway, and it made the dream I’d had seem even more real. In the dream, it wasn’t just that pathway linking heaven and earth, and it wasn’t just those angels seeming to travel that route carrying messages back and forth, it was the direct presence and address of the Holy One that came to me in that do-i-even-keep-calling-it-a-dream?

I tell you truly, the Lord of my ancestors, the very one who made heaven and earth, none other than the God of my grandfather Abraham and the God of my father Isaac, the Holy One stood by me and spoke. directly. to. me. The Holy One reiterated the covenant promises exactly as my father and his father before him had heard them delivered. Promises about land for our people, descendants for our tribe and blessing for all the families of the earth. They were words I’d heard about for my whole life, but I was hearing them directly from the very One who’d made such promises! It was not just a dream; it was as real as I am real and standing here.

Before that – what, encounter? meeting? manifestation? – before that experience was over, the Holy One said words I needed to hear even more than those covenant words. Into the most tender, obstinate, angry, broken part of my being, the Lord of the universe said, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

“I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” Grandfather Abraham must have had that conviction when he hauled my father out into the wilderness for that test. And my father, Isaac, must have shared that conviction since he, too, was able to honor and call upon the Lord after all he endured. I cannot imagine more comforting words and now I cannot imagine a life of faith without that promise!

I marked the place of my dream as a holy place, because the Holy One broke into my life on that spot. And as I resumed my journey, I did the best that I could to commit myself and my way to the God of my ancestors.

******************

My life’s journey was not always easy after that day; I was never going to be a perfect human. In fact, I’d go on to wrestle with the Holy One, with my family and with the legacy that found me on more than one occasion.

I must tell you, though, that my encounter in the night was a crossroad for me. My life has unfolded over so very many miles since then. I made a life in Haran and eventually made my way back home. I have been blessed with sons – some who inherited the best of me and others who inherited my more wily traits. At one point I thought I’d lost one son, but he ended up saving our family even as he drew us away from the very home the Holy One had promised us! But that is a story for another day.

My prayer, as my end draws near, my prayer is that all who come after me will be able to confess with me, “the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”

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

Photo by James Handley on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

Last week’s post ended with this paragraph:

“What’s wild to me is that I’m pretty sure (and scholars I’ve been reading would corroborate) that the actual text in Genesis has something else entirely in mind! Circle back to the image (and the translation in paragraph 1 above) and see what you think the “something else” might be. I expect I’ll head in that direction in the sermon. (Yup, the sermon that may never see light of day because snowmageddon appears to be on the way!)”

As it turned out, snowmageddon 2026 wasn’t all it could have been (at least not for us; mercy, the reports from elsewhere in the country!)

At some point in the lead-up to Sunday, Terri and I had a chat about the plan for February 1 in light of the January 25 cancellation. We decided to push our January 25 plan forward a week and skip our planned focus for February 1. In real life that means last week’s sermon (and choir anthem) will see the light of day.

When the Thursday Morning Bible Study took up the text intended for February 1 (Psalm 118.1-2,19-29), we ended up in a conversation about happiness. Effectively, “can you be happy-slash-content even when you’re not particularly happy-slash-grinning.” I expect that’s a crucial consideration for people who follow Jesus, so stay tuned for that focus in a future week! (Actually, with the Beatitudes a our focus for Lent, be ready for a whole season of that focus.)

Meanwhile, I was clearing out digital files yesterday and ran across a note I wrote several years ago to someone who’d just been moved to hospice care. I dared to give that friend a to-do list! I can remember when the to-do list came to me; I was wondering what in the world I was going to say to that person as real encouragement. The list practically fell from the sky (maybe a heavenly messenger brought it down a ladder?) and it strikes me as one potential answer to the question, “How can you be happy even as you face your death?”:

• Laugh a little – even in the hardest of places, I pray joy always finds you.
• Cry a little – because this means you’re spending sacred time with people you love.
• Read a little – or listen to something going on ‘out there’ so that your world stays wide.
• Visit a little – and stay connected to friends and others who make up your community.
• Eat a little – even as you begin to imagine the Great Feast, let every bite be a foretaste of that banquet.
• Splash a little – whether it’s washing your face or soaking in a tub, whenever water touches you, remember that baptism promises new life every. single. day.

Re-reading that list today, I might add a couple of things – “Share a little” and “Listen a little” come to mind – but for the most part I expect these rough measures get us closer to “happy” than the happiness factors our culture would have us adopt.

What else would you put on your happiness to-do list?

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

So, click here to see the full photo in this post's header. Pretty amazing, huh? It’s from the ceiling of the Monheim Town Hall in Monheim, Bavaria, Germany. The gilt letters are Hebrew; here’s a translation (not my translation, btw, but one provided by the photographer):

• The sun contains the words וְהִנֵּה יְהוָה נִצָּב עָלָיו וַיֹּאמַר (And, behold, the LORD stood beside him, and said).
• The ray coming from heaven reads וְהִנֵּה אָנֹכִי עִמָּךְ וּשְׁמַרְתִּיךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר-תֵּלֵךְ (And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest).
• Jacob exclaims מַה-נּוֹרָא הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה (How full of awe is this place!)”

That’s pretty much Sunday’s scripture lesson in a nutshell.

Say the words “Jacob’s Ladder” and I bet at least one of three cultural interpretations come to mind: Some might remember the Jacob’s Ladder string trick; others might think of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven; yet others will recall the Spiritual, We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder. Kudos to you if you anticipated 3 out of 3; I had to have a reminder for the Led Zeppelin connection. (And if I’m missing a cultural reference, drop me a line!)

Having mentioned the string trick, nerdy me wants to say that the “ladder” Jacob saw in his dream was more likely to be something more closely resembling a “stairway.” (At the Thursday Morning Bible Study we imagined an up-and-down escalator!) Walter Brueggemann suggests it was probably a ziggurat - a terraced temple structure; think of a flat-top pyramid with terrace-like “steps” on the sides - that informed the dream image.

Stairway to Heaven and We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder move beyond thinking about the structure itself. Each song, in its own way, interprets the image for those who sing or hear the respective songs. For all of the apparent controversy surrounding the Led Zeppelin song (I’d totally missed all that!), a prevailing interpretation out there in internet land is that the song contrasts one spiritual seeker who wants to purchase a straight pathway to heaven, with another seeker who follows the less-straightforward but perhaps more rewarding pathway that involves following the piper. (I’m kinda tempted to capitalize “piper” for our context, but I’ll resist.) So, Stairway can be understood as having some sort of spiritual path in mind.

We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder might well have a spiritual path in mind, too, but there are more layers to that pathway in the Spiritual. As an African American Spiritual from the late 18th/early 19th century, it’s a resistance song - a source of encouragement for enslaved people hoping for freedom. As the song builds, hope grows. Read (or recall) the verses and you’ll see/hear even more: As the song “climbs” so does the singer grow ever stronger in Christian discipleship.

What’s wild to me is that I’m pretty sure (and scholars I’ve been reading would corroborate) that the actual text in Genesis has something else entirely in mind! Circle back to the image (and the translation in paragraph 1 above) and see what you think the “something else” might be. I expect I’ll head in that direction in the sermon. (Yup, the sermon that may never see light of day because snowmageddon appears to be on the way!)

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo Credit:
EA210269, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Friends,

(Rambly post ahead. I am likely to revisit this on 1/14. Unless I run out of time. Again.)

So, I’m a cross stitcher. And a seamstress. An occasional quilter, knitter, felter, embroiderer, weaver, crocheter, [the list goes on]. A fond and vivid memory is of my maternal grandmother teaching me how to tat! (She’d also inspect my stitching - whatever sort of stitching I might have been doing at the time - and on a fairly frequent basis, encourage me to pick out the uneven stitches and try again. Somehow she could tell me to do that and I was quite happy to improve. Hmm. Didn’t see it coming, but that last sentence will preach by the time you get to the end of this post.)

Pretty much, if it involves thread or yarn or fabric, I’ve tried it. My current needle-and-thread obsession is cross stitch.

Now, I started cross stitching in high school and kept on with it through at least part of undergrad. Then a looonnng hiatus. And I’ve gotta tell you, cross stitching in the 2020’s is a whole different hobby than what I did in the 70’s and 80’s. Now there is a - well I guess you’d call it a sub-culture - on YouTube that’s called FlossTube. In vlog after vlog (as in Video Log after Video Log) people share what they’re stitching and what they’ve finished along with new pattern, floss or fabric acquisitions. Who’d have ever guessed it, huh?! FlossTube.

This time of year folks on FlossTube are forever doing “WIP Parades.” This means adults sharing, as children would for show-and-tell, all the projects (”Works”) they have at an “In-Process” status. Some folks have a handful. Some have dozens. There are some FlossTubers out there with three digits worth of in-process projects.

Today I began to think back to last Sunday’s sermon. I never quite said it directly, but it was a sermon about humility. By the time of the Charge and Benediction, I suppose you figured that out. Felt like the humble thing to do, after preaching a sermon on humility, to confess that I work hard at - and regularly fail at - humility. Mercy. (It was the same stitch correcting grandmother - we called her Pie - whose constant prayer was “Mercy.”)

As I was watching a WIP Parade Sunday evening (while getting in a few stitches of my own!), I started to think of all of us as as many WIPs. Works In Process. Some of us a few “stitches” (or years) into this thing called life and faith; some of us closer to the end of the project. But you know, even when every stitch is finished, we’re still pretty much “in process”: Imperfect. Not fully finished. Some parts of us not exactly to plan.

Wonder what would happen if we were to have a WIP Parade at church? Flip the prayer of confession, maybe, so that we silently read the printed confession then dared to show-or-tell each other some part of us that’s most definitely still a WIP? (Hmm. Sounds like Ash Wednesday to me.)

I don’t know that there’s space enough in the blogosphere for me to parade all the parts of myself that are most certainly still Works In Process. But humility might well be close to the top of that list.

What WIPs do you need to parade, even if only to yourself?

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by yours truly

I’m currently stitching this reproduction sampler titled Ann Grimshaw 1818, charted by Scarlet Letter.
In FlossTube fashion I feel compelled to add “stitched with Missus Seda’s silk on 40-count Weeks Dyeworks Havana.”

(Just decided that I WILL pick out (for the THIRD time, btw) the stairstep part on the right where you can see the needle. Mercy.)

Dear Friends,

So, this week we’ll look at the second of James Howell’s 40 Treasured Verses. And the particular verse of scripture for this week is this: “Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

Choosing a photo to represent that verse landed me on the three cherubs at the top of this post. I couldn’t help but grin when I saw the photo; their unbridled joy is absolutely contagious! There’s more, though:

• It looks like they’ve been playing hard;
• The children seem oblivious to who’s older or younger, more or less knowledgeable;
• Unless I’m mistaken it seems they’ve enjoyed a snack together and are not at all worried that there might be remnants around their mouths;
• And in the story I’ve invented to go with the photo, they had a spat about something a couple of hours ago but have so forgotten the argument that they’re now taking a break from playing in order to share a group hug.

Perhaps, if we want to show the world what the kingdom of heaven is like, we might take a cue or two from these children. In particular:

• Those of us who value hard work need to remember the value of play;
• Those of us who are driven by entitlement, privilege or accomplishment need to let go of some presumptions about who’s important and who ought to be in charge;
• Those of us who are anxious about appearances might do well to cultivate a little more of a “let it be” attitude;
• Those of us who are eternally keeping score could stand to drop the pretentiousness (or the self-righteous/martyr/victim act) and give reconciliation a try instead.

Most of all, if the church is meant to be a signpost of the Kingdom, love and joy must be the first things that anyone notices when they encounter our community.

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

PS: So, when I sat down to write this post, I was wondering whether to write about the upcoming Sunday focus or come up with something New Years-y instead. Realizing that when I write “those of us” I’m probably talking about myself, I think this post about Sunday might also suggest some resolutions I’d do well to consider!

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash