This pastor’s letter is the text of the message I offered at our Ash Wednesday service, which we celebrated jointly with the Virginia United Methodist Church. A couple of tiny modifications were made for the newsletter.
Lent is a journey through the cross to Easter. It’s a journey of resurrection, from darkness and dormancy into new life. Some people find it meaningful during this time to remove some aspects of ordinary life – to give things up – so they can refocus their attention on what new things God is doing. Others will find meaning in adding new disciplines – times for prayer, reflection, or exercise – that help us till the soil for the new life God is planting in us. (more…)
2 Corinthians 4:3-10
Mark 9:2-9
We love mountains. Not just for sliding down on little fiberglass boards, but for surveying the landscape, for getting our perspective, for being with God. It’s not perfectly universal, but people have always been drawn to the mountains in their spiritual quest. We put temples and cathedrals on top of mountains. Pierre L’Enfant put the Capitol building on top of the highest hill in Washington, DC because our highest ideals seem like they belong on top of mountains. (more…)
2 Kings 5:1-14
Mark 1:40-45
Naaman listened to a servant girl, which is great. But he also got some things wrong (or his king did). For starters, he went off to the king of Israel with a letter asking to be healed. He went to the seat of human power, because that’s the kind of power Naaman knew and understood. There would be good official reasons, of course, for checking in with the king of a country you visit, especially when you’re the ranking general in your own country’s army. Oh, and your countries are at war with each other. But still, you can see why the king of Israel might be a little bit nervous about this letter: “I want you to cure Naaman of his disease.” The king is just not the right guy for the job. (more…)
One year ago this week, I started unpacking books and putting them on the shelves in my office (I could triple my library and still have room on those shelves!). It’s hard to imagine that it’s been a year already, that I already feel so at home here, and that I have so much ahead of me before I’ll really feel at home. I have to keep reminding myself, this transition had to take as long as it has. (more…)
Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39
Today is Boy Scout Sunday, and the story I’ve been thinking about this week is from my time in Boy Scouts. I was hiking at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, and I was having one of my first deepest encounters with God. It felt as if God had made the whole event just for me: the sunshine, the rain, the water stops, even the trail crews we encountered. It was a deep, formative experience for me. The silence and the nature helped me recognize God with my own eyes. I was seeing God from the end of this reading from Isaiah: God knows me and lifts me up. God gives me extra strength. Emphasis on the ‘me.’ (more…)
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Clearly, Jesus is in charge. The authority to order unclean spirits out of people sets him above all the other prophets. Still, this unclean spirit questions him: “What claim do you have on me?” Jesus might answer, “The same claim as this brother of mine has on me.” Jesus has power over the spirits, but no power to resist the claim of this person barging into the synagogue. Jesus kicks the unclean spirit out of this person because he has to. He can’t deny that he came for this one too. This one too is his brother. (more…)
For Christmas, I received an amaryllis bulb. A whole amaryllis planting kit, really, with the bulb, a little disk of just-add-water planting medium, and an attractive ceramic pot to hold the whole works. This is about right for me, especially when it comes to flowers: not too much work, and it will bloom indoors during the winter!
I took the bulb kit home and set it in a safe place so I could plant it later. This was shortly before Christmas, which is something of a busy time in the church world, and like many other things, planting the bulb just didn’t happen. We left town after Christmas for a week and a half of vacation, and there the bulb sat in the dining room, inside its pot with the cardboard sleeve over the top.
When we came home from vacation, I noticed a leaf sticking out from between the pot and the cardboard sleeve. Maybe you saw this coming before I did, but the bulb sprouted without me! Not that I imagine myself to have anything like a green thumb, but I would have assumed the bulb would at least want some faux dirt to nest in before it would send up its greenery. Apparently, all it needed was some brief late sunlight on the side of its packaging.
The amaryllis now sits happily in its pot and is getting ready for its first flowers. It sits on the little prayer shelf in my closet, where it gathers its afternoon sun and adds a little life to the upstairs. I worship best in nature, after all, so what would my prayer space be without a hint of green? This hint of green sprouted out of season, even out of soil. One proverb of our time advises us to “bloom where you’re planted,” but this bulb tried to bloom without being planted in the first place.
While I knew life sat there in that bulb, I didn’t think it would do anything yet. It was too dark inside the container. There were no nutrients to stimulate or support a “fragile little plant” as it pushed its way up and into the world. This life wouldn’t sprout, let alone flourish, in such a dry and neglected environment.
This life did sprout, even there. Life sprouts in tougher places than that, and more often than we might notice. Many of us are accustomed to thinking of winter as a dormant season when life rests and stores up its energy, but doesn’t do much of anything interesting. We might fill the time with activities or planning, but we see the time itself as primarily about waiting for life to sprout again. Sometimes, during that time – while we’re waiting – life sprouts.
Life doesn’t wait for the most opportune time or the most comfortable circumstances. It doesn’t necessarily even wait to be planted before it tries to take root. It was there in the darkness of night that the Lord of Life came to live among us, and it is there in the shadow of the grave that the Anointed One will be raised to new life. As we begin the season of Lent this month, we might wait for life to spring forth, but we might just as well be surprised at the life that God has already created in the places where we were too reasonable to look for it.
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In other news…
Leanne and I can’t express enough how grateful we are for the extremely generous gift you shared with us to help with our adoption expenses. The monetary gift will be a major help to us in the adoption process, and the cute stuffed puppy will be the Williams Addition’s official first toy. Thank you to everyone who contributed.
In Christ’s peace,
Nathan
