| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | From the story of creation, here is an interesting look at the Creator - again this is from the chapter, "You Cannot Fool Your Nephesh" in his book "Mandate to Difference." And God rested! God had done enough. god was tired. It was the weariness of a kingly ruler who had spent a week issuing orders and edicts. It is a weariness of a caregiver who has been using energy to infuse creation with the energy of life. The fatigue of God is replicated by Jesus in the narrative of the woman who has hemorrhaged for twelve years: "Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, 'Who touched my clothes?' And his disciples said to him, 'You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?' He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth." (Mark 5:30-33) Being a healer is costly to the one who heals. Being a creator is costly in the extension of blessing. Being a caregiver is costly, as every caregiver notices, because it entails the transmission of the self to the other. In a conversation yesterday, a woman told me about the the healing that she experiences as being a healer. Though we hear of this energy going out from God at creation and Jesus with this woman, what if there is energy that simply envelopes everyone. This does not mean there is no need to rest, rather it is a reminder that healing involves the energy of the community. Healing makes itself known on all who stand within the action of healing and making things new. It is too easy to feel the presence of destruction and brutality and despair. This is the way the world is too much of the time. I think we get used to it so that we do not let it touch us as it needs to. Then on the other hand, when we live in a world beat up and pushed around and neglected, it can be very, very difficult to sense the presence of healing. Could this be why some intentional rest is so important. In times of rest, we may give ourselves the time to look over the condition of our own lives and the life of the world. We are given the opportunity to breathe and contemplate on the welfare of all. Such an intentional time potentially lifts us out of our self-concern (that often leads to self-centered lives that can be quite uncreative) and enables us to see the healing that is taking place and the places that are in need of healing. The rest prepares us for more healing as it helps us acknowledge the healing God has already brought to our lives. Connection: Resting is a part of the week that is creative and healing and full of care. It is part of the essential flow of life that is so easily experience within a few moments of paying attention to our own breathing. Spirit of All Holiness, you bless your creation and invite us to be a part of that blessing that continues through time. We are stewards who are the active presence of your blessing. In and through all things of the day, your healing and creative power is upon us. Help us to release and use that power for the well-being of life - all life. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Again this is from the chapter, "You Cannot Fool Your Nephesh" in his book "Mandate to Difference." The creator God....is a God of blessing, capable of assigning life and well-being to every aspect of creation. When the Creator had arrived on the scene, the already extant chaotic matter of "Tohu-wa-Bohu" was distinctively unblessed and incapable of life. by word and by act, the creator God transposed that seething chaotic matter into an ordered, coherent life-support system. The blessing-giving God transposes reality by three times blessing the creation: - The first blessing is toward sea monsters and winged creatures
- The second blessing is toward the human couple
- The third blessing is of the seventh day now made holy
The blessing, the infusion of the life force of God, is in turn to (a) non-human creatures, especially sea monsters - thus, a witness that God has ordered even chaotic waters; (b) humans as God's regents in the maintenance of an order of abundance; and (c) a day of rest intrinsic to the structure of the created order of fruitfulness. I was caught up in the blessing of the sea monsters. If God can bless the sea monsters - those beasts from the deep that we cannot see but are always a threat to where we can go in life - and in that show God's dominion over such disorder and chaos, certainly God can handle and bless this day in which I can so easily be overcome by the beast who I envision are biting at my life. Then again, what a place of responsibility we are bless to take on. We are to maintain this order of abundance. The abundance is a reality - we must make sure that it is managed so as to provide for life that is ordered and well - for all. It is our responsibility to make sure that the produce gets to those whose need is at hand. We do not have a good history of doing this. In fact, too often we follow the lead of Pharaoh who makes sure there is surplus without making sure that all are well-fed and sustained. Connection: How do we - as individuals and as church and as community - make sure that the abundance is spread around? How to we break the mighty cycle of self-indulgence and enter into the miracle of enough for all? When you bless us, O God, we are handed the opportunity to shape our lives into the stewards you call us to be through this blessing. Within this day continue to bless us and move our hearts. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Walter Brueggemann has a way of seeing within the stories of the Old Testament a way to address the day at hand and the vision of God's Reign for us today. Again this is from the chapter, "You Cannot Fool Your Nephesh" in his book "Mandate to Difference." The memory of Israel that it repeats at Passover is of an irrepressible brick quota and an impossible production schedule. And like any driven production system, the quotas keep increasing. Every success generated more rigorous demands. You may be sure that there was no work stoppage under Pharaoh because the production apparatus was at work 24/7. You may be sure that there was not seventh day, no sabbath, no day blessed and made rich with vitality, no holy day devoted to YHWH, the Lord of the sabbath. Seen in this way, the eagerness of Israel for the Sinai commands is easy to understand. The Sinai offer was an alternative to the quota system of the empire. Now the production system would be interrupted and shut down every seventh day. Israel would rest as it never did in Egypt, because YHWH, unlike the Egyptian gods, is a God of restfulness. Our God is a God of restfulness. This is not only to be applied to the "day" of rest. We are also told that our lives can be ones that spring forth from a rest that is handed to us as promise. We need not have our days be full of things that must be done in order that we can "be somebody." We are people who are called beloved - from the get go. That word is our place of rest. This is where our anxious lives are handed a way not to spin around endlessly and what may seem to be forever. The God of liberation from Egypt liberates us from the hellishness of life that never stops demanding that we must be more, do more, and produce more. This is not an invitation to slothfulness. Rather it is the way we are invited to see the day. How am I going to be the Beloved of God today. What will come my way? What gift can I share? Who will come by me and open up my vision? How will I rest and become refreshed in the middle of a world that is dedicated to following the gods of productivity and surplus? Connection: How often do you feel at rest during the day - at rest in the sense that you are assured that you are beloved and thus can catch your breath by breathing in this promise from God? O God, you invite us to rest in you alone. It is not always easy. We have our agendas and the lists of things that must get done and cannot be interrupted - less we fail at the game of life. Continue to call to us and touch us and remind us to breathe in your refreshing Spirit of life. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | The break from life under Pharaoh and life within the community of Sinai was quite a dramatic change. Walter Brueggemann continues to write about the central place of sabbath in the life of God's people. The meeting of Sinai culminates in Exodus 24:3,7 which are oaths of allegiance and obedience. "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." (Exodus 24:7) Israel signs on gladly and quickly and without reservation to the demands of YHWH. The rabbis have long noticed that the sequence of verbs is "do and hear" (shema = obey). We might expect the reverse, "hear and do," but Israel acts first and then knows what has been commanded. Israel knew from the outset that the commands of YHWH are better than the commands of Pharaoh. There was something already different about being out there in the wilderness under the domain of YHWH. Yeah, they were complaining on the way but they were being supplied with enough as was need. Israel was already into the life of promise - following. Now was the time to be shaped - to obey the commands that would continue to make for a corporate life that would be like a light to all nations. This "loving God and loving neighbor" is a radical adventure and yet before they can see it completely, they are jumping on board - it is that good - that full. It is not easy to remember that God has acted already and we are in the middle of promise before we do a thing. It is then that God's words pull us into the vision of what is to come. Connection: There is something about the sacredness of what God has done even when we were not yet able to put the story together and make sense of the way we were being led. Lead us onward, O Lord of Life. As we walk into your future, keep us alert to the promise you have handed to us so that our walk will be bold and full of courage and hope. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Walter Brueggemann keeps us looking at the importance of the command to keep holy the sabbath. This is again from "Mandate to Difference." This command stands at the center of the decalogue and dominates the horizon of commands at Sinai; - The seventh day is holy....requiring a disengagement from the way we devote our other days to ourselves
- The seventh day is for work stoppage....
- The requirement of work stoppage is comprehensive....
- But it is the motivations for work stoppage that is important for us. The grounding of this dramatic work stoppage is that creation itself culminated in work stoppage for the creator after six days of creation. As a consequence, this day, which is unlike every other day, is blessed, invested with power of life and healing, devoted to the mystery of God's own life.
- From the eternal foundation of the world, the reality of God is not invested in perpetually "continuing creation," and so the ones in God's image are not invested in perpetual productivity. Work stoppage characterizes the way in which the creator relates to creation.
As I was reading through this, I realized that this day is also a day when there would be nothing to do. This could mean no worship. We worship and honor and obey our God by letting go of our control of the day and maybe - even how we think we are to "structure" the day. Rest - do nothing - do not use it a day to complete a project or even one where people have to pick up responsibilities within what we call a worship "service." What would that kind of thinking do to worship life. Well, it might make worship something we do in the midst of all the other things of the week. it might be that worship is the work of the people that orders our week. That is work. Then, another day - a day of rest - a time to let go of the pull to create the world as we would want it. Productivity is our way of attempting to rule. I have to hear this more than I have to write about it. Then....I wonder if it is work to enter into something that brings a person joy and refreshment and a sense of community. I don't think that is so. I suppose we simply need not make the whole command to rest something we think we must regulate so that even thinking about the day makes us work about how to keep it holy. Connection: It has taken me years to let go of the ordering of the day into segments of work. Some weeks, I do let go and rest even when I could be "doing something" or "getting something done." I have also come to see being with friends a way to rest and enter into a sacred time of simple conversation, fun, and food...and whatever. You bless this day, O God, and you hand us our lives and tell us to be full of life and then also to make sure that we are full of rest. Guide us in our resting and stepping out of the currents of the day and simply sitting back and putting our feet into the refreshing movement of your river of life and rest in you alone. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | Today we pick up from the words God spoke at Sinai. Yesterday there were nine times that God spoke (love of God - love of Neighbor). Brueggeman now writes of the ten time God speaks. And then this emancipatory voice circled back and pressed the "insert" button on his computer; YHWH inserted between the three on love of God and six on love of neighbor, the longest of all commandments. The command on sabbath occupies a central position, because it looks back to the first three and the God of restfulness and it looks forward to the last six concerning the neighbor who needs restfulness. Right at the center of this charter for freedom, the great God of freedom has placed the central provision for freedom that rings always and now in the years of the faithful: Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Most often this command is associated with a "day of rest" - as though it is fulfilled when we stop everything and do absolutely nothing - and rest. The rest is vital for our lives. It is much to easy to keep on running until we run ourselves out of life. And yet, I wonder if it is good for us to look beneath the day of rest. In some ways, taking a day of rest can be like another bit of work we have been able to accomplish - "Look what a good boy am I!" In reality though, the sabbath rest is given to us as a gift - not a work. We rest because God has promised to be our God and save us in and through all the days of our lives - even when we think we must win the day and make something of ourselves. Sabbath rest is an explosion of laughter - at all our ways of making things work out and all of our controls that we think will win the day. The laughter is an unbounded joy in which we are invited to remember that covenant with our God. It is for me whenever I am able to rest as I remember the mark on my forehead - no one else notices it but it helps me breathe, laugh, rest, breathe again. Connection: A good restful discipline is a wonderful gift to the world. For the undisciplined (like me) we must be vigilant to enter that rest and honor our God whose word of promise is enough to sustain us and bring life. Again and again, O God, come and be our rock and foundation upon which we will rest and smile and laugh and love and know that you alone grant us such peace and rest. Praise to you, O God of New Life. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | When Israel is at the mountain in Sinai - God speaks. As you know, this mountain God of freedom speaks ten times, only ten, and then not again at Sinai, for after that everything comes via Moses. These ten utterances constitute the only direct speech of YHWH. As he spoke ten times, he spoke three times about the love of God, "love" being a covenant word for honoring treaty commitments. You know them no rival gods, no manufactured replicas as fetishes, and no words that reduce God to a means. A pause....and then he spoke six times about love of neighbor, "love" being a covenant word for honoring treaty commitments. You know these six about parents and killing and committing adultery and stealing and giving false witness and coveting. Three for God and six for neighbor - nine altogether, love of god and love of neighbor, the two great commands. The two great commands that must really be spoken together - one close to the other. These are to be so close they must never be allowed to stand alone. In fact, we must argue that they cannot stand alone. To love God is to love neighbor - to love neighbor is to love God. To go about the day saying we love God and yet the way we live with our neighbors is in the way of warfare and abuse and oppression, we are not really a people who "love" God - or enter into a covenant relationship with God. We become a distant people separated from God and separated from our neighbors. At Sinai the life of the new community is being shaped for life that will not only be a covenant among themselves, it will also be a witness to the world of what it is to be in a covenant relationship with this God and God's people. The covenant is no coercive. It is a gift just as the life that is held up in these "words" for the people. Connection: We are always walking in the covenant. It is for us - it is for our living - it is for our joy and our fullness of life. You, O God, make us your own and we are given the opportunity to reflect your glory within the simplicity of this day - in how we live with one another. Guide us to be for others the touch of your love. Amen. |
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