| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Good words from Moltmann on work and rest and the fullness of life. It is in the rhythm of the times and the alternation of work and rest that we find the pulse of life. That is the spirituality of the lived life. Whatever the mystics sought in solitary inwardness as the seventh step in the soul's union with God can be found simply and naturally on that seventh day. According to the Jewish idea, on the seventh day Queen Sabbath enters Israel's families and unites God's Shekinah with the eternal God himself: the Shekinah being God's indwelling in his people in its wanderings in the exile of this world. That is the primal biblical image for the soul's 'mystical bridal' with God. I found it interesting that Moltmann previously points out that prior to the command to rest there is the command to work: "six days you shall labour." That is the fullness of life. We become whole as we enter into all of life - work and rest is a must. There is also the beauty of the image of God's people living within the movement of the world as wandering exiles. The world around us may live in one way, but we will live another way. It is in the living of the day-to-day that we find ourselves within the depths of what is holy and there we find what a gift life can be. That rhythm is not something we fall into naturally. It must become a discipline. We must seek it out and follow its beat and dance within its flow of life. Thinking about being a wandering people in the wilderness, this sabbath command is like the one about the manna. We would - if left up to our own ways - grab hold of more than enough and store it away for ourselves. And yet, the discipline of this holy community is to take enough - enough is enough and all will have that when we are people who care about the ebb and flow of life within the community. This spirituality is no mere personal, individualistic journey. It is a corporate adventure. Connection: Finding what is enough and how to rest within the movement of our work is not always easy - it is always necessary, though. Presence and Eternal God, as you dwell among us continue to shape us with your breath of life that we will be free to live in you alone. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | This 'source of life' continues to bring us back to the life we have as a body - in the flesh and in the midst of all things. Today I will suggest that this is not only talk of sabbath, but, for me, talk of the body as the body of Christ. According to Israel's exilic traditions, the holy place of God's silent presence is no longer the space of the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem. It is now found in time, in the time of the holy rhythm of the sabbath days. God lives in time, and interrupts the plans and purposes of human labor through his resting presence. I would like to suggest that this rhythm is the beat of the Christ as the image of God present in the world. A whole existence that brings all things into the form of the Reign of God. In that sense, all days become sabbath days - days when we rest in God alone. This is how the ethics of everyday become transformed or transfigured into something that is not the ways of the world but the way of the fullness of our humanity. Though I like the image of the day of rest, I all the more like the image of the life of rest. It is not earned - it is a gift - it is a life handed to us in which God is for us before we even step off into the day. It is with that frame put around the day that we become a part of the image or picture of God's Reign - all of us and all of time. My other thought about this kind of holy rhythm is one in which we let go of the notion of 'holy land' that has become idolatrous. All that we see in that land that is called holy is the great display of all that is not holy. It is a land of destruction and brokenness and no sense of forgiveness - that is, no sense of 'God with us.' Wouldn't it be a sign of amazing grace in action if the followers of Jesus let go of the need to act like land owners gripping onto things so tightly we forget about the life we have been handed? Connection: Holy rhythm. Be for us, O God, the way that we sway and move through this day so that the world around us will be wooed into dancing to the tune of your shalom. Make our time into your time and your place and your will. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | This 'source of life' continues to bring us back to the life we have as a body - in the flesh and in the midst of all things. After six working days, people are to rest, and that means not intervening in nature, either nature outside ourselves or our own nature within. On this day of divine rest, men and women will stop looking at nature from the angle of cost-benefit calculations. They will 'let it be' as God's creation, and will enjoy it. On this day of the week, the nature which human beings process and utilize should be allowed to breathe and to come itself again. Our mental and purposeful concentration on reason and will is relaxed. On this day the mind or spirit can return again to the body which it had made its instrument. The body becomes the temple in which God's Spirit can live and rest. I find it interesting that this day of rest is considered a time when the body is so much of the focus. The body must rest and in that real physical resting comes the wholeness of the day. I wonder if that is why new ideas and fresh insights come when we allow the body to chill a bit. I know that a good, long, walk at the beach or even in the morning can be refreshing to my whole life. There is no agenda - no getting ahead - no need for a calendar - no 'what's next? There is only the walk. When I walk in the morning, I recently switched my music from listening right through an album to putting the ipod on 'shuffle.' I've noticed that it allows me to let go of what is coming up next. Have you ever noticed that once you listen to a CD a number of times, you actually start singing the next song before it begins. Not with the shuffle. You get one at a time. You don't know if your are coming to the end of a CD - for there is no end - there is only now - the fullness of now. I wonder if that is part of sabbath rest?! Connection: Maybe it would be a good exercise to shuffle all the way through a day. Spirit of Creation, we know that we can rest in you and find there a peace that will bring us back to life when we are exhausted and overextended. Remind us that your peace is eternally available so that the exhaustion does not overwhelm us. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | | Today we move into a new section called "A new lifestyle" in Moltmann's book "The Source of Life." Parts of it eventually will sound a bit like Walter Brueggemann's previous words on sabbath. God's Spirit which makes us live does not merely free the soul from its miscarried love. It also liberates the body from its tensions and poisons. The new spirituality comprehends the whole of life, not just the religious sides that used to be called 'the life of faith' or 'prayer life'. The whole of life as it is lived is seized by God's vital power and is lived 'before God', because it lives 'out of God'. What we call prayer in a one-sided way includes rejoicing and complaint before God, and lays before God the life we live and suffer. Faith isn't something special, cut off from everything else; it is the trust in life which finds utterance in all the ways in which we express life. This being so, we can also see this new spirituality as a new lifestyle, a facon de vivre. This is where we are always to be going as we call ourselves followers of Jesus. We are people in the midst of a lifestyle. This is a full of life experience that makes up all that we are. There is to be no compartmentalizing. We are as whole as God is whole. From the very small things in life that seem to pass by and mean nothing we are called into the fullness of the moment or the place or the time. It is there - in the midst of things - that God's breath of life is seen among us. If we cannot become caught up in the work of the Spirit of God even as we plod through the many sides of this day, how is it that we can claim to be caught up in certain times and places. Do wee need to limit God's touch to a few places and times? Are we unable to exercise the brilliance of God's Reign right where we are now? Maybe that is why it is so easy to limit our way of following Jesus to those few moments and places that "look" religious or "sound" like something other?! Connection: Think of this hymn as you enter this day; Holy, Holy, Holy. Now what does that change among us? Come. O Spirit of Life and awaken us to experience the wideness of God's Reign so that we will be swept up into its glory and in the midst of the ordinary we will take on the wonder of your holy Reign. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | The very end of the section "New Spirituality: life against death" in The Source of Life by Jurgen Moltmann ends with what I think is a good way to begin the week. If we are seized by the Spirit of the resurrection, we get up out of our sadness and apathy. We begin to flower and become fruitful again, like the plants and trees in the spring of the year. An undreamed-of love for life awakens in us; we drive out the sweet poison of resignation, and our painful remembrances of death are healed. We encounter life again like children, in eager expectancy. This is not a questioning "if". It is an "if" that is more like a "since" or a "considering the fact that". It is what is. The Spirit of the resurrection does seize us. We may fight like hell to get away from it and crawl into another life that seems like it will be best for us but that does not stop this Spirit from residing among us. When I am within the bounds of the land of sadness, I know that there is a short step into the domain of apathy. I do not like to be there. And yet, when I am dragged there - I go there. It is overpowering and it can take the best of the day or life and make it all seem worth-less. And yet, we are told again and again that the Lord of all hopefulness is eternally available to us for life. The life has a shape to it even when we are are sinking so low we do not want to wear its baptismal robe and rise again to new life. Only the Spirit can heal us and cleanse us when that 'sweet poison of resignation' is pressing in and will not stop. When those tears filled with fear and sadness and an unknown despair that makes no sense and is yet so real - are at hand, it is time to breathe. Breathe simply for the purpose of taking in this promise of healing and wholeness and child-like joy. Connection: What do you do when you are being sucked dry and there doesn't seem to be any specific reason or any specific way of stopping the sucking? Maybe step one is to acknowledge that it is real....and wait to see what the Spirit throws out into the way. Renew us, O God. Breathe life into us, O God. Restore us, O God. Bring your Reign of peace among us and within us. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | It is the end of the week so why not offer a bit more on "New Spirituality: life against death" in The Source of Life by Jurgen Moltmann. Since the raising of Christ from the dead, the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of resurrection of the dead and of eternal livingness. The Christian hope is foundationally and in essence the hope of resurrection. In this it is universal, and expects what Hildegard of Bingen finely calls the ultimate 'springtime of all creation'. This ultimate springtime of creation is experienced here and now in the Spirit in the charismatic quickening of our own life and the life we share. I just received some strange e-mail quoting the book of Revelation and trying to pin down a precise meaning to the gospel. It is obvious from the e-mail that the writer of it takes the book literally and cannot see the fullness of words and images that is meant to free up our view of God's gracious Reign so that it is not captured and melted down to one "gotcha" kind of theology. Having said that, I am once again caught up in the wonderful 'now' of this 'springtime of all creation." Rather than having the Good News wrapped up for a day that will come - sometime, we are invited to be wrapped up with this time at hand. Here and now the hope of the resurrection is the power of transformation and renewal. There were days when I did not like the word charismatic. I think it is because I was once sold on a version of that word that really wanted something other than what is. We were always planning on going somewhere else. But now, this word of grace (charis) becomes more of a reality check. Is this Spirit of resurrection bringing life to me and you today? Yes it is - so let's live within it. Connection: The dead - all of us - will be raised up to new life. That is a universal promise we must stop refusing to hear in all of its power. Lord of New Life and the Spirit of Resurrection, take us along the way within your promise and be our source of comfort and transformation both now and forever. Amen. |
| | | | Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions | | | | | | More on "New Spirituality: life against death" in The Source of Life by Jurgen Moltmann. What do we hope for? It is true that the experience of the life-giving Spirit of god does rouse us to dissatisfaction with disturbed and false life which has missed its mark, and awakens an ardent longing for the true life. But this hope is not turned toward a world beyond this one, or towards heaven, in a flight from the world in which we live. Our hope is addicted to the future, and it looks for the coming of God's kingdom 'on earth as it is in heaven'. What an interesting way to look at hope - our hope is addicted to the future. It certainly grabbed my attention - like apocalyptic writing. It grabs but it is not exactly the fullness of the concept. Hope is not addicted to the future. Hope is more than the future. We tend to have ways of attempting to control the future and therefore we might just be addicted to our own vision. Addiction is never a good word in my book - it means something is out of control or one is possessed by something other than life itself. I would expect that Moltmann is using such an image to make sure we know that hope within the Reign of God is a complete gift that grabs us and will not let us go - no matter how hard we try. This hope is grounded here - now - in the moment and in the moments to come. Nothing is to be saved for latter. I guess the addiction image is good in this respect. For someone suffering from addiction, there is no later and there is no waiting until we go over there - it is all about now. Hope therefore, is about now. How is the now of our lives made full of this Spirit of life that is all about the Reign of God wholly present? Connection: It is not all that easy to become fully engaged in the 'now' with our whole life. It is here and now that the witness of the Reign of God takes place. It is now that martyrs come to life and show us the way into the fullness of the living Reign of God. Carry us into your life, O God. Surround us with the power of your Spirit so that we will be moved to be awakened to your power. Amen. |
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