Posts with the category “lent”

I know I've been saying the Sundays are not included in Lent — and that is true.  But How could I let Easter go by without a devotion?  First, our scripture for the day:Scripture Lesson John 20:1-18Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disci...  Read More

NRSV JOHN 19:38-42, THE BURIALAfter these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body.  Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pound...  Read More

NRSV GENESIS 22:1-14, THE TESTING OF ABRAHAMAfter these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”  He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”  So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young...  Read More

NRSV JEREMIAH 31:31-34 A NEW COVENANTThe days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.  But this is the covenant that I...  Read More

Mark 14:3 NRSV   While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.  4 But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way?  5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred d...  Read More

“Even the wind & the waves obey,Why can’t I?  Why can’t I?Where is my faith - is it lost at sea?Lord help me be like the wind and the waves”[Lyrics from the song Wind and the Waves by David Phelps] Matt. 14:22 NRSV  Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.  23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain...  Read More

Luke 18:18   A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  19 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.  20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.’”  21 He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth...  Read More

Go to church and celebrate the triumphal entry!...  Read More

Psa. 125:0   A Song of Ascents.1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever.
2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord surrounds his people,
from this time on and forevermore.
3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
on the land allotted to the righteous,
so that the righteous might not stretch out
their hands to do wrong.
4 Do good, O...  Read More

Psalm 126 — A Song of Ascents.1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,we were like those who dream.2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,and our tongue with shouts of joy;then it was said among the nations,“The Lord has done great things for them.”3 The Lord has done great things for us,and we rejoiced. Psa. 126:4    Restore our fortunes, O Lord,like the watercourses in the Negeb.5 May t...  Read More

Psa. 131:0   A Song of Ascents. Of David.1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,my eyes are not raised too high;I do not occupy myself with thingstoo great and too marvelous for me.2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,like a weaned child with its mother;my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. Psa. 131:3    O Israel, hope in the Lordfrom this time on and forevermore.Once again, I find the...  Read More

In the late fall of 2017 and through the start of 2018 I wrote a series of blog-posts about the “Psalms of Ascent,”  a collection of Psalms which have traditionally been associated with pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  I will be recycling a few of those posts as devotions in the next few days.  I hope that these explorations of the Psalms will be a blessing to you.Psa. 133   A Song of Ascents. [altered s...  Read More

Ours is a wordy world. With text-messaging, phone calls, radio, TV, YouTube, Twitter, & Facebook — our lives are immersed in words written, received, spoken, & heard. During a recent day of air-travel I began to notice how I was surrounded by words. Monitors everywhere declaring arrivals & departures; TVs blaring the latest cable-news; my phone dutifully alerting me to push-notifications from a do...  Read More

As we make our way ever-closer to the events of Holy Week I want to begin reflecting on our journey of faith more broadly using the metaphor of pilgrimage to explore discipleship.  Pilgrimage is characterized by tidal shifts between orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. These moments happen daily (sometimes hourly) as we phase between living our faith on the solid ground of certitude, th...  Read More

Go to worship and take a friend!  Think of Psalm 84. 1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Psa. 3    Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Happy are those ...  Read More

As we make our way through the weeks of Lent, and practice the disciplines which help us to “keep a Holy Lent,” we keep alert to the possibility that we will encounter the God we follow in the course of our journey.  There are places which become saturated with the worship of God and the prayers of the faithful.  They are not magical.  We cannot conjure God by visiting them and praying in any cert...  Read More

If you have been in the Pastor’s Class at Cary Presbyterian Church, or actually in any lesson I have taught in recent years you will know that the question of what is “true” is one I have pondered at great length over the last decade.  I will save my more convoluted discourse on epistemology for some day you take me out for a cup of coffee.  It is enough here in a Lenten devotion to acknowledge th...  Read More

The mission statement for The Pilgrimage ministry is:“For Christians hearing the call to go deeper —The Pilgrimage creates a community and provides toolsand experiences through which we learn to hear the call of Godand respond in faith, journeying together with friendson the path to a Spirit-led and joyful life.”What we are aiming for, in the end, is a community of friends on the path to a Spirit-...  Read More

When I think about remaining steadfast and loyal, my thoughts turn to Jesus’ disciples.  In particular, I think of Peter who boasts confidently that we will never deny Christ, and then before the cock-crows he has denied knowing Jesus not once, but three times.  It is easy to profess loyalty when there is no costs for our allegiance.  But how soon that loyalty fades when times get risky!  After Je...  Read More

We are told to “remember” more than 200 times in the Bible.  Perhaps we are reminded in scripture to remember because we are so often prone to forget:  to forget who we are; whose we are; and what God wants from/for us.  As pilgrims in the season of Lent there is another aspect of this remembering which we might see.  Lent, historically, was a time for catechesis.  Those wishing to enter fully int...  Read More

I have spent a fair amount of time in airports lately and I love to people-watch when I’m in the terminal.  Amid the chaos of people coming and going there are also the moments of loving connection — particularly when a plane arrives and its occupants make their way to baggage-claim.  Almost always there are loved ones waiting eagerly to embrace those who have come home.  Only seldom do you see so...  Read More

My favorite singer-songwriter, David Wilcox, has a song which begins, “I know that compassion is all out of fashion and anger is all the rage. . .”  It is sadly true that anger and rage keeps many of us separated from one another into ideological camps of partisanship on both the left and the right.  Compassion is a virtue that is  in short supply.  It is even sadder to realize that the refusal to...  Read More

At First Presbyterian Church in Fargo we are entering into a two year focus on generosity.  That focus will connect to our generosity in offering our gifts back to God: financially, our time, and our talents too.  We want to learn to be more generous because it is easy to see how generous God is.  Beyond time, talent, and money, there is another aspect of generosity which is essential to faithful ...  Read More

Living in a posture of gratitude may be the single-most elemental thing a person can do not only to relate well to God, but also to find the peace and joy which God desires to give you.  Moving from grace to gratitude is a natural progression.  Once we have experienced the depth of God’s grace, we turn in glad admiration, wonder, and gratitude to our Creator in order to “Praise God from whom all b...  Read More

Though the life of someone who recognizes their calling to be a pilgrim each day is a life ordered by a number of spiritual disciplines (prayer, study, worship, service, and holy listening to name only a few), it is nevertheless true that everything good which is worth having comes fundamentally by means of grace.  Our disciplines can (and do) help us, but all of the most beautiful and transformin...  Read More

Perhaps one of the poems of Saint John of the Cross will serve as a segue between yesterday’s devotion about the hope of finding our true home and today’s wonderment — the yearning of a hungry heart.“On a dark nightKindled in love with yearningsOh, happy chance!I went forth unobserved,My house being now at rest.”-Saint John of the CrossFor Saint John of the Cross, having his house “at rest” is the...  Read More

The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke is all about lost things; a lost sheep, a lost coin, and lastly about lost sons.  We often think about the sons being lost, and both of them are lost in their own ways . . . but you can also understand the story as a story in which the two sons have lost something precious.  They have lost their sense of “home.”  Luke 15:11[NRSV]   Then Jesus s...  Read More

Feeling spiritually restless is not necessarily an indication that you are doing something wrong.  It may be that your restlessness is an invitation to go in search of the God who desires to fill your life with good things.  Our restlessness sometimes comes in the form of absence.  Something is missing and we feel a yearning to find the missing piece whose absence leaves us unfulfilled.  In 1999 m...  Read More

This petition that the Lord be our first, fast, last friend is, of course, borrowed from the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.  In his stunning poem, The Lantern Out of Doors, Hopkins writes:Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,That interests our eyes. And who goes there?I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?Men go by me whom either beaut...  Read More

Our world can be a bewildering place to be.  Sociologist and Lutheran theologian Peter Berger has written convincingly about the “homeless mind” suffered by many who are dislocated by the rapid pace of modern change [ Peter Berger et al, Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness].  We frequently encounter complex issues which leave us perplexed about how to respond.  Thus, our pilgrim’s praye...  Read More

The Russian mystic Theophan the Recluse gives one of the best descriptions of prayer I know:“To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, within you.”Theophan finds the justification for his understanding of prayer in scripture passages like John 15:4 “4 Abide in me as I abide in you.”  Pilgrims pray lead me as a cons...  Read More

As we begin the third stanza of a pilgrim’s prayer we ask that God lead us as a felt presence.  You might be surprised how often the experience of God’s people is the experience of “presence.”  We find this throughout both the Hebrew bible and the New Testament.  Perhaps the most poignant early use of this is in the opening chapters of Genesis where we find the first humans seeking to hide from Go...  Read More

In the book of Exodus we are given a story that sadly seems to be repeated over and over with each new generation.  We are trapped in an economic system which disproportionally sends all the profits to the top of the pyramid and we are left with all the trouble and suffering of brick-making in a system that does not love us and will not bless us.  We sense in our bones that the system is not just,...  Read More

One of the first times we find this phrase “turn aside” in scripture is in Deuteronomy chapter thirty-two.  While Moses and God are up on the mountain working out the instructions which will be given at Sinai, the others who have been waiting for Moses to come down have made a golden calf.Ex. 32:7-10 NRSV   The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land ...  Read More

Saint Augustine of Hippo is famous for many things, one among them is his acknowledgement of a youthful prayer, “Grant me chastity and continency, but not yet” [Confessions VII. 17].  He feared that God might hear his prayer for chastity and he rather hoped he would have time to satisfy his impulses rather than having them extinguished.  Nearly everyone chuckles when they see this Saint of the chu...  Read More

It is easy in Lent to think of following Christ in terms of following him to the cross and, of course, that is a significant aspect of the story which is worthy of our focus.  But we also follow Christ to the place of his resurrection.  The incarnation can be understood as God’s pilgrimage — choosing to travel as a stranger among strangers with all of the perils and promise of such a journey.I do ...  Read More

Our prayer turns with this petition to address how we might respond to the Lord’s gentle, pervasive, irresistible, and increasing leadership.  We begin to wonder what our following might look like.  In a word it might look “steady.”  Not very flashy is it?  I mean, surely we want to accomplish feats of ascetic exploits - right?  To understand all mysteries?  Or maybe to become walking, talking con...  Read More

Saint Augustine of Hippo begins his Confessions with the observation:“Thou has formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”— Confessions, i. 1.We are made such that we will spend our lives longing for a respite from everything in us that leads to agitation, disquiet, and fretfulness.  Augustine reminds us that when we attempt to find a solution for our hunger in...  Read More

To ask that the Lord’s leading be irresistible is not to engage in the well-worn theological debates between Augustine and Pelagius, or Calvin and Arminius. I leave such debates to theologians who punch above my weight-class. Rather it is to ask that God lead us in paths so obviously virtuous that we are drawn naturally to the light and life offered.   Read More

To ask that the Lord’s leading be pervasive is to ask that God be present in every aspect of our life. Our work, our play, our home life, our worship, our civic responsibilities, and in our speech, both private and public. It is asking that God permeate our very thoughts so that we more and more conform our minds to the mind of Christ.  Read More