River of God's Delights

Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." If delighting in the Lord is the desire of your heart, you will receive His presence. This matches what Jesus said in Matthew 3:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." In his book "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing," Soren Kierkegaard observed that purity in this sense is not so much about piety or morality as it is the purity of having only one thing in your heart - seeing God. When seeing God is the only thing you want, you will see God. This also matches what Jesus told Martha in Luke 10:42, "There is need of only one thing." Or as Jesus put it in Luke 11:34 (KJV) "When thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light." So, regardless of what our culture says, glorifying God is not dour but intimacy with God is the spring of water gushing up to eternal life (John 4:14). I love the imagery of Psalm 36:7-9. "How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."

Mine, Mine, Mine!

On bright, sunny days like today, my wife Candy often sings Heavenly Sunshine, that ends with “hallelujah! Jesus is mine.” Sometimes that triggers the ditty “Mine, mine, mine. Jesus is only mine.” Then she will grimace and cringe at such blatant self-centeredness. Now with her Alzheimer’s she is almost completely unaware of current happenings with no idea of the issues swirling around Donald Trump, but the irony of his assertion that the files he took from the White House are “not theirs but mine,” points to our human propensity for self-focus.

Besides Jesus’ repeated emphasis on humility and service, 1 Corinthians is clear the folly of claiming anything as “mine.”  “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? “ (4:7) “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (6:19)

For about 40 years I have found a personal anchor in the first answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. “My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”

Interpreting the Present Time

 In my lectio divina on the Gospel reading for Sunday, Luke 12:49-56, I have been struggling with Jesus saying he came to bring division. (v. 51) That seems remarkably ominous in this time a deep division in the US that has spread from politics to infect the Church. I am not one to give a lot of credibility to claims of “worst ever,” but it has grown in the last couple of decades to define our time. Accusations of  “destroying the country” or “destroying democracy” are hurled in both directions over the present chasm. Even with that observation, I well remember the bitter divisions of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights era. The Civil War/War Between the States may qualify as the deepest division of US history, and it still echoes and divides today.

 Then I come to verse 56 where Jesus asks, “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” I readily acknowledge I do not know how to interpret the present time.

 One popular interpretation is that it is “all politics.” Donald Trump and his defenders shout that all of the investigations around him are nothing more than political witch hunts. Interestingly enough I saw one commentator suggest that Merrick Garland’s reluctance and slowness to charge Donald Trump is political awareness that an absolutely airtight case is politically essential if charges are to be brought. I guess I agree that politics are driving not just the Trump investigations but much of the division we are experiencing. I just don’t think that really explains anything but is an evasion of thinking more deeply.

 In many church circles “interpreting the present time” is part of “end times” speculations. In Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32 Jesus was clear that even he did not know “the day or the hour.” Acts 2:17 suggests that the “last days” began with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 1:2 asserts that in these “last days” God has spoken to us through the Son. I certainly have no insight into God’s schedule, so by the end of today or millennia hence seem realistic possibilities. I don’t think that considering the current climate of division in the US as a sign of impending “last days” actually explains anything, and may inhibit we who trust, love, and follow Jesus from living as citizens of the Kingdom of God in our present time. I am content with praying from Psalm 31, “Into your hands I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God, (v. 5) for my times are in your hand.” (v. 15)

 Then in my Psalm prayers today, I came to 131:2. “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.” While I cannot make a convincing interpretation of the present time, I can curl up on God’s lap to be consoled through the turmoil.

 

Contemplating a Thin Place in the Sunset Clouds

Tonight I sat on our porch swing contemplatively watching the sunset. Almost no breeze moved the leaves on the trees, and the clouds seemed not to move, even as the light from the setting sun changed their appearance. I know the science of the low setting sun shining on the bottoms of the clouds making them appear to be sort of roof extending toward the horizon, but the thin gap under the cloud roof before the more distant, less glowing clouds seemed to be a window, not to the sky but a glimpse of a reality beyond the sky, reminiscent of the Christian Celtic understanding of "thin places" where the temporal and eternal come close enough to offer a tantalizing look into the other side. I took another picture when the street light came on and the clouds had grayed, closing the window for the night. As Psalm 108:4 says to God, "Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds."

I am aware that "thin places" were a part of pre-Christian Celtic culture, but I think they have shared it with all of us who long for intimacy with Jesus. Sacraments similarly allow we who are physical creatures to participate in profound spiritual reality. To me, Zwingli's "bare symbols" are inadequate, and changing of the physical substance obscures the real mystery involved. The Easter Orthodox understanding of icons are not pictures to look at but windows, thin places if you will, that invite us to look beyond the temporal into the eternal. I believe many more "icons" work this way even if not officially labeled as icons. After 53 amazing years of marriage. I would have to say that in this sense, for me our relationship has been both sacramental and iconic. We have been able to see past each other glimpses of Christ's covenant love for the community of faith, the Church, and to participate in it together.

My sense is that we get in trouble when we try to reduce sacred mysteries to rational, human, logic. We start thinking that we are capable of that and then our explanations become substitutes for the holy and we fight with each other over our limited explanations instead of embracing the mystery in awe and wonder.

Watching when the street lamp came on took me back to my early childhood. I remember kneeling on the couch in my grandparents' apartment on Park Blvd in Oakland, CA to watch the lights come on. I remember having Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "The Lamplighter" read to me. I associated it with watching the street lights come on (and I still do). My grandfather died and my grandmother moved in with us when I was five years old, so this is clearly a very early embedded memory. Even though lamplighters were obsolete long before I watched the street lamps from my grandparents' couch, that poem touched something deep in my heart that is still there. So here it is for whatever it may evoke for others. 

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;

It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;

For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,

With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,

And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;

But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,

Oh Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,

And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;

And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,

O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!