Faith

A Feast of Fools

shelliwilliams Cross, Faith, Foolishness, LENT, Life ,

April FoolLectionary Text:  1 Corinthians 1: 18-20 (21-24) 25
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?..For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

What an odd day this is!  We have set aside and declared an entire day dedicated to nothing but pranks and fools.  If someone were looking at this world from afar, they would surely think us more than odd. Precursors of our April Fools’ Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, held on March 25th (which, interestingly enough, is also the Feast of the Anunciation) and the Medieval Feast of Fools set of December 28th, when pranks are played in Spanish-speaking countries. In Iran, jokes are played on the 13th day of the Persian new year (Nowruz), which falls on April 1 or 2.  This day, celebrated as far back as 536 B.C.E. is called Sizdah Bedar and is the oldest prank tradition in the world still alive today.  In Poland, Prima Aprilis (“April 1st”, in Lat.) is a day full of jokes.  Hoaxes are prepared by people, media, and even public institutions.  Serious activities are usually avoided.  This conviction is so strong that the anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I, signed on April 1, 1683, was backdated to March 31st.  Did I say that we were an odd bunch? 

So what is this “foolishness” of which Paul writes?  He was really the only one that really ever dated to speak of the foolishness of the Cross, of the foolishness of God.  And he’s right, because in terms of the world, the Cross is utter foolishness.  The world says “mind your own business”; Jesus says “there is no such thing as your own business”.  The world says “buy low, sell high”; Jesus says “give it all away”.  The world says “take care of your health”; Jesus says “surrender your life to me”.  The world says “Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own”; Jesus says “whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  The world says “get what you are due”; Jesus says, “love your neighbor as yourself”.  Essentially, if someone were looking at us from afar, they would just think us a bit odd.  After all, who gives up what they’ve gained, changes one’s life completely, and follows someone to an instrument of death?  That, indeed, is just foolishness in terms of the world.

In his book, The Faces of Jesus, Frederick Buechner says that “if the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party…In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under delusion.” (Buechner, The Faces of Jesus, p. 61)  Think about it.  It is really pretty ludicrous.  (At first glance, it probably resembles an April Fool’s prank.)  It’s actually downright absurd.  Here in this season, we are called to enter Christ’s suffering, called to follow Christ to the Cross.  Are we nuts?  That could get someone killed!

And yet, there…there up on the altar every single Sunday is that beautiful gleaming cross.  Yeah, we all have them.  We polish them, we wear them, and we hang them on our walls.  I’ve seen them on bumper stickers, billboards, tattoos, and cupcakes. (You know, I guess you can put anything on top of a cupcake!)  But maybe sometimes we clean it (the cross, not the cupcake) up too much.  Maybe we have forgotten the stench of death emanating from it or the sight of a mangled body hanging from it.  Maybe we have forgotten the foolishness of it all.  Maybe it is just too much for us.  After all, we’re good Methodists, people of the “empty cross”.  But it’s NOT empty; it’s full of life–life born from death, life recreated from despair and hopelessness and the end of all we knew.  But this promise of life did not just pop out of a cupcake.  It did not just appear in the midst of an array of carefully-placed lilies one Easter morning surrounded by spirited renditions of Handel’s best music.  God took something so horrific, so dirty, so unacceptable and recreated it into Hope Everlasting.  Daniel Migliore calls it God’s greatest act of Creation yet.  But in terms of what we know, what we expect, even what we deserve, it is an act of utter foolishness.  Who writes this stuff?  In terms of this world, it is fool’s gold; but in terms of God’s Kingdom coming into being, it is a veritable Feast of Fools because it takes us and turns us into the wise.  But perhaps wisdom is not about worshipping a gleaming, pristine cross but rather looking at an instrument of death and seeing the life it holds.  I know…none of it makes sense.  If it all made sense, we wouldn’t need it at all.

And, truth be told, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the wise and powerful ones mocking and getting mocked, never really understanding this lowly carpenter’s son born of a scared young girl from a no-name town.  But notice that it is the ones who are considered fools–the outsiders, the shunned, the ones who do not measure up to society’s standards–that get it.  So, maybe you have to be a fool. After all, don’t you think that those who followed Jesus to the Cross thought to the very end that something else would happen.  Perhaps they thought that at the last moment, someone would jump up and yell “April Fool’s”, implying that it would have been the most tasteless prank ever.  But that’s not how it happened.  Jesus died that day and in that moment, Creation changed as the Sacred and the Holy poured into this foolish world.  And we, we have been gathered in, into a Feast of Fools.  Thanks be to God!

Faith, you see, is largely an intuitive process, not a summing up of “data.” Faith listens to life and hears something new. Faith drifts off during a sermon and lands on new terrain. Faith sings a new song and suddenly knows more. Faith feeds a stranger and responds differently to one’s own meal. Faith makes wild leaps, risks strange thoughts, dashes outside the box, asks foolish questions, hears unexpected voices. Little by little, faith’s “whole being”grows deeper and deeper, broader and broader.  (Tom Ehrich)

On this Lenten journey, think what it means to play the fool.  Think what it means to let go of the wisdom of this world and take on the Wisdom that is God.  (No joke!)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Fast Track

shelliwilliams Abundance, Faith, Fasting, LENT, Temptation

FastingScripture Text:  Deuteronomy 8:3

[God] humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Lent is typically a season for fasting, for self-emptying oneself  of whatever overfills us.  And yet, fasting, is something that postively eludes most of us who live in this world of instant gratification and excessive consumption.  In fact, “going without” is completely anathema for us so fasting has more than likely been shoved to the back of the storage closet with all those other archaic things. After all, we want to believe in a God that blesses us with showers of abundance rather than a God that might on some days expect us to go without.  I’m afraid many of our somewhat fragile identities have a lot to do with what we have.  What if, instead, we were defined by what we could do without?  (That’s purely rhetorical…I have no answer!)

But fasting has for centuries and centuries been a part of just about every religious tradition.  The ancient Hebrews (and those of the Jewish tradition today) observe a special period of fasting as a sign of repentance on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur.  Fasting was a sign of mourning or act of reparation for sins.  It was both a way to express repentance as well as prepare oneself inwardly for receiving the necessary strength and grace to complete a mission of faithful service in God’s name.  This was the reason that Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness–not to prove something but to prepare himself for a life of ministry.  Fasting is neither abstinence from nor avoidance of, but a journey into a place that’s empty enough to fill with what God offers.  Essentially, it is allowing oneself to die to self and to our selfishness and rise again in Christ.

So, why is it so hard?  Maybe it is not merely because we have a hard time going without (although I think that is a large part of it.)  Maybe it is because we are expecting it to produce results that it is not meant to produce. Fasting is not meant to make us lose weight or make us decrease our sugar consumption or whatever else you’re trying to cut back on.  Fasting is not meant to be manipulated in that way. It is meant to clear rather than produce.  Think of fasting as response–a response to grief or sin, a response to graciousness or thankfulness, a response to a God who calls us out ourselves.  But perhaps fasting is also about return, a return to our own self before we developed all these needs, before we stored everything away, a return to the self that God created–with proper perspective and an awareness of what basic needs actually are. If you look up the physiology of fasting, you will find that a body can survive for 40 days or more without eating (Well, isn’t THAT interesting?)  In that time, depriving a body of food is not starvation but rather a burning of stored energy.

But I have to say that fasting has never been a huge part of my spiritual discipline.  Being the good Methodist that I am, I have always maintained that I can “add” to my Lenten practice and do the same thing as fasting.  I’m not real sure, though, that that is the case.  (Although writing on this blog every day during Lent has become my Lenten discipline.)  Maybe, even metaphorically, I am only storing in excess, building and building for the future, trying to take as much of God’s abundance as I can and stash it away.  Maybe in this 40 days of fasting, we are indeed called to let something go, to return to who we are before we stored it all away–the “leaner”, fuller, more focused self who knew that our basic daily needs would be met and that the abundance of God was really about allowing God to fill our needs and fill our lives and show us the way.  In other words, we are called to give up our self-imposed “fast track” for a new and freeing Fast Track, a journey toward God with God.  And once our bodies and our minds and our souls (and our houses!) are cleared of all the stored excess, we will be open to what we need–the very breath of God who breathed life into us in the beginning and each and every day–if there’s room.

Fasting makes me vulnerable and reminds me of my frailty.  It leads me to remember that if i am not fed I will die…Standing before God hungry, I suddenly know who I am.  I am one who is poor, called to be rich in a way that the world does not understand.  I am one who is empty, called to be filled with the fullness of God.  I am one who is hungry, called to taste all the goodness that can be mine in Christ.  (Macrina Wiederkehr)

We are more than halfway through our Lenten journey.  Many of you may already be fasting from something for Lent.  But why don’t you try giving up those things that are not blamed for your weight or your high blood sugar, but the things that get in the way of your self, that person that God created you to be.  Try giving up anger or resentment or greed or worry.  Try giving up the need to be in control.  You may come up with others.  Just try it through the week-end and if that works out, make it part of first your Lenten discipline and then your Life discipline.

Grace and Peace on this Lenten Journey,

Shelli

Deep Waters

shelliwilliams Depth, Descent, Faith, Journey, LENT, Openness to God, Spiritual Journey, Transformation

Diving into watersScripture Passage:  Ephesians 3: 18-19

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

What does it mean to “go deep”?  (No, I’m not talking about a football pass.)  Depth is a hard thing for many of us to master.  Depth takes time.  Depth takes patience.  Depth is allowing oneself to essentially go beyond where one is comfortable standing.  So many in our culture tend to be content to sort of skirt along the shallow surface, always in a hurry, always trying to move forward, never standing long enough to be able to sink into the depths that call us forth.  Standing in shallow waters feels safe, controlled.  But going deeper gives one insights into newness.  It is a return to the place from which we came.

Think about the earth.  Its surface is beautiful, more beautiful than any of us can even articulate.  But beneath that beauty is oh, so much more.  Just dig into the earth a bit.  That hard sun-bleached dirt on top gives way to that first level of top soil.  It is darker, more full of nutrients.  But dig a little deeper.  Dig into the rich dark earth that rests below that, capable of holding what is good longer, capable of holding water long past any drought.  It’s the reason that deep watering systems are so optimal.  The slow watering drives the water down deep into that rich soil underneath that is capable of holding the water.  And the slow watering encourages the roots of the plants to go deeper, to rich down beyond themselves, beyond what they were initially capable of doing, to be watered continuously by the deep, dark earth.  But there is more beneath that.  Beneath all that dirt are layers upon layers from which we have learned to extract nutrients and fossil fuels that give us energy and much, much more than what we could ever obtain from the surface that we see.

Our life is no different.  What we see is beautiful but it’s just the surface.  We need to go deeper, to delve into the rich, dark earth that brings us life.  I have to admit that our religious traditions often do not encourage us to do that.  There seems to be some level of contentment at just skirting along the surface of the meaning of faith.  Maybe it’s because it’s easier.  Maybe it’s because it’s safer. Maybe it’s because deep down (pun intended), we’re all a little afraid of the unknown or the questionable or the difficulties that deep discussion brings about.  Maybe we’re afraid we’ll be left with more questions than answers.  (ACTUALLY, I can tell you that will probably be the case.)  And I don’t really think that we should shy away from going deeper for fear that those new to the tradition will not “understand”.  I think we all want to be challenged.  We want to learn.  We want to traverse the never-ending nuances that make up our faith, the pathways that lead us to God.  But it takes time.  It is not a really good sermon or an overnight retreat project or a short-term study series or even 36 weeks of Disciple I.  It is rather a lifetime of swimming downward into the deep waters of one’s soul.  There is no bottom but rather an infinite depth that we are called to traverse, growing as we go.

The Lenten season is by its very nature one of descent.  It is one of going deep, journeying deep within oneself to a place that is often successfully hidden from view.  It is the way of transformation, a search beyond what we know.  When I was little, I think I had this image of God high above me, looking down.  I assumed that I was supposed to rise above where I was.  I have now realized that I must go deep.  God has in all of us a deep well of living water.  We are called not to just perch on its edge and look down into it, but to plunge deep, immersing ourselves in the questions of faith.  Our finite minds cannot truly wrap themselves around the unfathomable depths of God’s love.  So we have to live it, breathe it, become it.

Every question in life is an invitation to live with a touch more depth, a breath more meaning. (Joan Chittister)

On this Lenten journey, think of those places where you are just skirting the surface of life.  Do not hold back.  Go deep, dive into the deep waters of God. 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Psalm 121: A Season for Blessing

shelliwilliams Blessing, Darkness, Death, Faith, Journey, LENT, Presence of God, Recreation

BlessingPsalter for Today:  Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.  He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.  The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.  The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.  The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.  The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Several months ago, I was about to leave a wedding rehearsal that I had just finished when the bride’s parents came up to me and asked if I could give them a blessing.  I have to admit that I was surprised.  We give blessings at baptisms and blessings at weddings.  We bless meals and houses and ships and new buildings.  We even bless our animal companions once a year or so.  But for some reason, blessings just for the sake of blessing, just for the sake of being, has become almost non-existent. Perhaps we’ve become almost distrustful of it, as if it’s some sort of implied expectation that God will shower good things upon us.  Our language has taken that concept of being “blessed” as some sort of reward, as if God has somehow built a bubble of good things and protection around us.  Well, truthfully, that’s just bad theology.  No where are we promised that God will shield us from bad things or continually shower us with good.  Faithful living does not guarantee that one will become healthy, wealthy, and wise.  The promise is that God will journey WITH us through all that life holds, even through the valley of the shadow of death.

This Psalm is known by some as one of the psalms of ascent, a traveler’s psalm.  It was often used as one began a journey and was a reminder to look to that place where God was, to know that God was there, a traveler with the traveler.  It is also a Psalm of blessing, a blessing for one who is about to begin a journey.  In our translation, the scripture begins with a question.  But since there’s no real punctuation in the original Hebrew in which it was written, this may or may not be intended this way.  Maybe, rather than a sojourner looking for help, it is one who acknowledges that he or she is not alone.  “I lift up mine eyes to the hills from where my help will come.”  This is the Lord who, no matter what happens, will keep your life–through all that life holds, darkness and life.  The Lord is always and forever present, never drifting away or slumbering. The chorus from Elijah (Mendelssohn) uses this theme.  “He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps.”  God is always there.  This is the promise of faith.

The Hebrew call to be a blessing (Parshas Lech Lecha) is used eighty-eight times in the Book of Genesis.  A blessing is a gift.  It involves every sphere of our existence.  It is not, as our language and our culture seems to depict, payment for a life well-lived; it is not taking the bad things of life as God’s way of strengthening us or something; it is not somehow straining to proclaim the bad as good; and it is certainly not living some unreal existence where darkness does not seep in at all.  Being blessed means to be recreated.  It takes time.  To be a blessing is to enter the story.  God calls, God promises, and, as the Psalmist depicts, God walks with us, ever-present and ever-faithful.  That is how God is revealed.  When we enter the story, we are truly blessed.  We begin again.  We are blessed to be a blessing, one who journeys with God.

A Blessing is a beginning, a new beginning, an acknowledgment that, even now, recreation is happening.  Life is a blessing.  Even darkness and wilderness and desert spaces in our lives are blessings as they look ahead for the Light to come.  On Ash Wednesday, we were blessed with ashes as this Lenten journey began, as we were reminded who and whose we are.  We began again.  God walks with us on this journey.  We know that.  Intellectually, we know that.  But knowing it deep within our being is what being blessed is all about.

Blessing is one of the ways that God makes the presence of God known here and now. (Joan Chittister, in Listen with the Heart:  Sacred Moments in Everyday Life, p. 8)

On this second Sunday of our Lenten journey, know yourself blessed, know yourself recreated, know yourself as you begin again.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Pilgrim’s Way

shelliwilliams Alien, Awareness, Faith, Journey, LENT, Openness to God, Plans, Presence of God, Spiritual Journey, Way, Wilderness

the_journeyScripture Passage:  Genesis 12: 1

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Have you ever noticed that no one spends much time standing still in the Bible?  The story begins with God breathing life into Creation and, in essence, making us a home, a place.  But it doesn’t take but a few chapters before we are on the move–aliens, immigrants, sojourners.  It’s pretty clear that God calls us to be pilgrims on this Way, traveling light and gathering all of Creation together as we move. And along the way, we hear lots of words like “sent forth” and “go” and “follow”.  We are called to be a people on the move (at least figuratively and probably even a little literally), essentially migrating from one place to the next, from one way of being to another.  And most of the time, those that came before us moved freely through their journey without a map, without real plans or even real provisions.  Most of the time they were just journeying to a place they did not know but that they knew that God would show them. 

So what has happened to us?  How did we become so planted? How did our lives become so safe?  It was never that way in the beginning.  The journey of faith was a wildly unpredictable one into places unknown. The journey of faith called its travelers to be pilgrims in the wilderness, sojourners through foreign lands.  Oh, we like to think of ourselves as journeyers, particularly we Methodists who readily espouse Wesley’s notion of faith as movement, as, to coin his words, “going on to perfection”.  (Gee, there’s that “go” thing again!)  And yet, we will do everything possible to avoid getting driven to the wilderness or left without everything that we need (or at least the latest technological gadget).  We tend to separate ourselves from discomfort or inconvenience or chaos.  We stick to our plans.  But wildness and chaos often creates a certain energy.  It wakes us up; it makes us pay attention.  Maybe that’s why Lent begins in the wilderness.

Have you ever noticed that when you travel you see a lot more than when you’re just driving to and from work?  Is it because there’s more to see?  Or is it that when one is unfamiliar territory, one is more aware of the surroundings, more open to seeing things as they are?  Seeing oneself as a pilgrim, a wanderer, is the same thing.  It keeps our eyes open and our minds alert.  We notice God’s Presence; we notice God’s People; we do not see ourselves as “owners” or even squatters.  We see ourselves as part of Creation.  We begin to see that we are called not to arrive but to journey.  Our faith IS the journey.  So Lent begins in the wilderness and asks us to travel deep within ourselves, beyond our preconceptions, beyond our assumptions, beyond our plans.  We go, open to what God has to show us along the way. 

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work. And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. (Wendell Berry)

So as we make this Lenten journey, what do you see?  What are you missing?  Where are you being called to go? (And does that have to involve your cell phone?)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Re-Patterned

shelliwilliams Awareness, Faith, LENT, Openness to God, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized

RoundaboutScripture Passage:  Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17 (Lent 2A)

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness…For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

We are creatures of habit.  We cling to our patterns of life sometimes for our very identity.  And it is no different with our faith.  Our ways of believing, our ways of worship, our ways of practicing our faith are, for most of us, virtually untouchable.  (If any of you have ever tried to make any changes in a worship service, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about!)  We are open to change as long as WE don’t have to change.  We are open to doing things differently as long as it doesn’t affect us.  Does that sound a little bit uncomfortably familiar?

The audience to whom Paul was probably writing were really no different.  They had grown up with norms of what was “right” and “righteous”, what made them acceptable before God and as people of faith.  For them, their revered patriarch Abraham was blessed because he followed God and did the right things (which also happened to of course be the things that they were doing).  And now here is Paul daring to write that that’s not what it meant at all, that it had nothing to do with what Abraham did or whether he lived and practiced his faith in the right way but that he had faith in a God that freely offered relationship, in a God that freely and maybe even a little haphazardly offered this relationship to everyone.  Faith is not something that you define or check of your list of “to do’s”; faith is something that you live.

In this Season of Lent, we talk a lot about giving up old ways and taking on new patterns in life.  Lent is a season of re-patterning who we are and how we live.  Maybe it’s a time to let go of the things that we assume, those habits that are so ingrained in us that we don’t even realize that they are there, things that have somehow become so much a part of our lives that they have by their nature changed who we are.  Think of Lent as the season that asks us to drive on the other side of the road.  I remember the first time I did that.  It was in New Zealand.  Now if you’ve been to New Zealand, you understand that the miles and miles of rolling hills patterned only by sheep farms is a good place to learn to drive on the other side.  There is lots of room for “correction”, shall we say.  That wasn’t the problem.  The problem was the more heavily populated areas where we had to deal with other people’s habits and ways of being.  (As in when you had to worry about other people on the road!)  And in the middle of every town was what they call a “round-about”.  It was sort of fun to get on but getting off was a completely different story.  My brain did not work that way.  I couldn’t make myself turn the right way (or the wrong way) while I was driving on what was to me the “wrong” side of the road.  (So, needless to say, we would just drive around that circle several times!)  It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.

Paul was trying to get people to look at things differently, to think differently, perhaps even to drive on the other side of the road.  “Leave the old patterns and the old rules and the old ways of thinking behind,” he was saying, and get on.  It’s a little scary and you might have to drive around it a few times.  But just do it.  Open your eyes and look at things differently.  Open your lives to faith.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, our rules and our patterns can help us at times.  They give us foundations, sort of a tangible guide to support us on this journey.  They are necessary.  They are a means of grace.  But the passage reminds us that these rules and foundation are just that.  They are not an end unto themself.  It takes faith to breathe life into them, to make them come alive.  It takes faith to give us the ability to back away from ourselves sometimes and figure out in what ways our life needs to be re-patterned.  (Otherwise, we just keep driving around in circles!)  Lent calls us to look at all of our life with a critical eye, to discern what is purely habit and what is truly a way of living out our faith.  Lent calls us to look at things differently, to really see rather than just assume.  Lent calls us to have enough faith to drive on the other side of the road.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t. (Blaise Pascal)

As we continue on this Lenten journey, take a look at your habits, at those things that you just take for granted.  Which ones are life-giving?  Which ones hinder faith and openness?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

The Dwelling Place

shelliwilliams Desire for God, Faith, God-bearer, Home, LENT, Openness to God, Temple, Uncategorized

Open HouseScripture Passage: Psalm 27:4

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple. (KJV)

The Psalmist gives us great comfort, this idea of dwelling with God forever.  It is our hope; it is our promise; it is what our faith is all about.  So what does it mean to “dwell”?  One definition is to “stay” or to “reside in permanent residence.”  That is usually the way we think of this notion–to live with God, to stay with God forever.  For us, a “dwelling” is something permanent, a structure that protects us and gives us shelter.  It is the place where we can go when life gets to be too much and when we need rest and sustenance.  It is the place where we can hide ourselves away and heal.  It is the place that feels like home. 

But dwellings also wall us off from the rest of the world, setting up boundaries of what is “mine” and what is “yours”.   They allow us to ignore the needs and the lives of those who are not within our walls.  I live in an older neighborhood in Houston.  Once filled with a few older Victorian homes and lots of small 1920’s bungalows (I have one of those), it is now becoming a victim of the so-called “McMansion” syndrome as bungalow after bungalow is torn down so that a sprawling three-story (or even four-story) Victorian wannabe can take over the entire lot.  So, beyond mere protection and shelter, the dwelling has creeped beyond its own boundaries and taken on an identity all its own.

Is this how we read these words now, as if we have somehow taken up residence with God and God’s sprawling house?  Is that what it means to dwell with God, to stay, to hide, take move into a permanent structure (perhaps with other like-minded children of God)?  But there is another meaning of the word “dwell”.  It is also defined as “to linger over” or “ponder”.  So what, then, would it mean to spend all the days of one’s life pondering God, lingering with God?  I don’t think God calls us to stay with God but rather to be with God.  The walls of dwellings sound to me far too limiting of a limitless God. (Which is the reason that the image of Christ becomes the new Temple, the new Dwelling.)  But this dwelling that we have somehow conjured up in our minds is not where God lives but rather where we want God to be, the place where we envision pulling God into our notion of who God is.  But to be, to be with God, means to go where God is, to open one’s mind and heart and soul to being the very image of God, to being the dwelling of God.

Once again, it requires us to make room, to clear our lives of the “stuff” that we have accumulated and to perhaps open the doors and windows and let the fresh air and light in.  God IS our sustenance, our shelter, even, at times, our protector.  But God does not wall us off from the rest of the world.  We are called to go forth, to be God’s image in the world.  We are called to ponder, to linger over, to become.  Doesn’t that sound a little familiar?  Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2: 19, NRSV)  And then, if you remember, she became the very dwelling of the Godself, the God-bearer, the one that birthed God into the world.  We are not called to stay with God; we are called to be with God, to be a dwelling place for God with God in God.  We are called to be the God-bearers.  It is home, the place where we can truly rest our souls.

My ego is like a fortress.  I have built its walls stone by stone to hold out the invasion of the love of God.  But I have stayed here long enough.  There is light over the barriers.  O my God…I let go of the past, I withdraw my grasping hand from the future, and in the great silence of this moment, I alertly rest my soul.  (Howard Thurman)

On this Lenten journey, what does it mean for you to dwell in God, to ponder?  What does it mean to become a dwelling place for God?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli