A weed in the eyes of some beholders; for others, the yellow bloom is a "jubilant song with music."
An Imperative to Praise (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 1 May 2024)
Scripture
Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn-- shout for joy before the Lord, the King. Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy; let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. ~Psalm 98
LAST FALL, while chatting on the phone with my best friend, I mentioned that the ginkgo trees were at the height of their brief, golden glory. She urged me to take a picture to send to her, and I ended up taking several, marveling that a dinky little camera phone could capture even a trace of the brilliance of yellow leaves against a bright blue sky. This tree was praising God the only way it knows how. It can’t make a joyful noise unto the Lord, but it sure can make a splendid yellow unto the Lord. I love the imperative issued by Psalm 98. The psalmist is bossy: Sing to the Lord a new song. He or she doesn’t stop with human worshippers equipped with voices and instruments: the psalm goes on to address the sea, the floods, the hills. It is delightfully imaginative. All of creation is commanded to join in the song of worship. I can’t help but recall when Jesus makes his triumphant entry into Jerusalem and encounters Pharisees who are offended that the people are worshiping him. They tell Jesus to forbid his followers from praising him. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus retorts that if these people were to be silent, even the stones would cry out. Maybe we don’t always obey the commandment to sing praises to God, but the ginkgo trees and songbirds never fail to comply. The roaring seas and singing hills never fail to join in. When I preach this psalm, I challenge my parishioners to abide by its commands. I dare them to sing the Doxology in the shower. I press them to behold the world with fresh eyes and notice how all creation joins in the song. I pray they will remember the marvelous things God has done and give thanks. But I also remember the people for whom Psalm 98 might sound like a clanging cymbal, a loud cacophony that does not resonate with the state of their soul. I invite them to flip a few pages in either direction until they find a psalm of lamentation. Psalms do, after all, cover nearly every single human emotion we might ever know, including some that seem too impolite and gruesome to be included in sacred scripture. The steadfast love and faithfulness of God are not going anywhere, not even when we find ourselves drowning in floods of sorrow rather than clapping our hands in joy. Not even when we find ourselves tiptoeing along a sidewalk covered in foul-smelling ginkgo fruit, less than a week after the same tree was crowned in beauty. Whether we praise or we lament, the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord remain. [This devotion by Katherine Willis Pershey was posted to The Christian Century website on April 29.]
Prayer: Let us sing to the Lord a new song, Let us shout for joy to the Lord, Let us burst into jubilant song with music, Let the rivers clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy.
Music: A stunning performance by the Ensemble Iona of the choral octavo “Sure on This Shining Light” by the contemporary American composer Morten Johannes Lauridsen. The lyrics for this piece are from a poem by James, Agee–author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Printed below is Agee’s poem.
Sure on this shining night Of starmade shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north. All is healed, all is health. High summer holds the earth. Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder Wandering far alone Of shadows on the stars.
Daffodils in front of Buffalo's old limestone welcome sign (Spring 2024)
Time to Get Up!
Scripture: My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” ~Song of Solomon 2:10-13 (NIV)
“TIME TO GET UP!” my mother’s voice would call, and I would pull the covers over my head. My bed was warm; the house was cold. My mother's voice, usually so welcome, was now unbearable to hear as she laughed out my name. Soon she would call out that the day would start, with me or without me. The bus would come, ready or not. I could go to school rushing to catch up, or I could throw off those covers, splash some cold water on my face, and join the briskness of a new spring day. “Arise, my love!” The voice of the Beloved calls me toward transformation. But it’s not easy to answer that gentle, insistent call. The dark of winter is a warm bed I don’t want to leave; the covers are so comfortable and familiar. I’m not ready for morning! Please, just a few minutes more. But the voice of the Beloved laughs out my name. “Time to get up!” The day will dawn, ready or not. God’s creation is happening now, and my Beloved invites me to wake up! Arise! And share a gospel relevant to a glorious new day. [This devotion by Suzanne Jubenville was posted to the Daily Devotional website on April 17, 2024.]
Prayer: O Beloved, wake me up! Help me throw off familiar language that no longer suits, attitudes that no longer serve, beliefs that no longer build. Quicken my heart to share a living, breathing gospel of love! Invigorate me with the good, cold sting of being woke. Amen.
We All Have Our Moments (Daily Devotion for Wednesday, 17 April 2024)
Scripture: God’s anger is but for a moment; God’s favor is for life. ~Psalm 30:5 (adapted)
I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND the push to live in the moment. To totally show up in real time is always needful. But we’ve all been consumed by moments of anger, regret, sorrow and anguish. And sometimes these moments last for weeks, months, and years. Life is more than the accumulation of the good and bad moments we experience. Life is also the hope that defies current desperation. Life is also the love that is still greater than our present animosities. Life is also the faith that keeps us moving forward even after we think we’ve experienced the best there is. When I was a little boy, my mother made cakes “from scratch.” She would begin by placing all her ingredients for the cake on the table. Since her cakes were so delicious and her cake batter was so good (my siblings and I licked the bowl), I assumed that everything she used to make the cake had to be good. One day after she’d set all her ingredients out and left the kitchen, I decided to taste each ingredient. The eggs were slimy and unpleasant, the flour was dry and distasteful, the butter was repulsive, the buttermilk was bitter, and even the sugar was too sweet. When she returned, I asked her how she could make such good cakes out of such nasty ingredients. She said, “Well, you just let Momma work with all this.” We all have our moments. But God works with all of them and blends them together just right to make our lives better than we ever thought possible. (This devotion was written by Pastor Kenneth Samuel (Decatur, Georgia) and posted to the Daily Devotional website on April 15.)
Prayer: God please don’t let bitter moments cause me to miss my life. Amen.
Music: A YouTube performance of the Tommy Dorsey hymn “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. We sang this great hymn at Buffalo's worship service on Sunday, April 14.
The lawn at Buffalo with Siberian Squill blooming and the Church with the Methodist Logo and Bell Tower (April 2024)
Sailors Take Warning (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 10 April 2024)
Scripture: The sailors said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ~Jonah 1:7 (NRSVUE)
THE BIG FISH gets all the glory, but the most powerful characters in the book of Jonah are the sailors who thought they were welcoming just another passenger onto their ship and got a life-threatening storm in return. These sailors are the witnesses and near casualties of what happens when someone joins a group—a community, a church, a family, or a ship—with no self-awareness about the baggage they bring with them or the effect it has on others. When faced with the storm that follows Jonah on board, the sailors do not play the blame game or respond with ill-advised, fearful actions. They respond with a level of spiritual maturity that I can only aspire to. The sailors each search their souls to make sure they are not the cause of the tumultuous sea. They invite Jonah to join them in the soul-searching. When Jonah is revealed to be the cause of the storm, the sailors respond with curiosity and ask to know more about Jonah’s background. They ask Jonah how he thinks the storm can be calmed, including him in the problem-solving even when he is the source of the problem. When Jonah says the only option is to toss him overboard, the sailors still resist and attempt a more peaceful solution. Finally, the sailors desperately pray to God to not allow them harm someone. Their prayer is the cry that lands Jonah into the mouth of the big fish who became the timeout vessel he needed to deal with his baggage and get right with God. The fish gets the glory, but it was a community of sailors who cared enough to get him there. [This devotional by Liz Miller, Designated Pastor of Granby Congregational Church, was posted April 9 on the Daily Devotional website.]
Prayer: When the winds blow and the waves roll, may I find myself in a community that cares enough, and is mature enough, to help me deal with my baggage. Amen.
Music: A performance of Breathe on Me, Breath of God, sung by a male trio at the Church of the Cross, Lexington, Ohio. We sang this beautiful hymn in our April 7 worship service at Buffalo.
Squill blooming in the lawn at Buffalo (March 2024)
What About the 50 days of Easter? (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 3 April 2024)
Scripture: All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. ~Acts 4:32-35
IN MANY OF OUR TRADITIONS we observe the 40 days of Lent. But we don't seem to be very good at observing the 50 days of the Easter season. Yes, we pull out all the stops in worship on Easter Sunday, but then we seem to immediately go back to business as usual. While we have special times and services during Lent, we fail to place such emphasis on the season of resurrection between Easter Sunday and Pentecost. And yet, Easter is the most significant holiday of the Christian year. Though we celebrate Christmas as the central holiday as far as emphasis, it is not. Without Christ's resurrection there is no Christian faith. If Jesus has not been raised, there are no Christmas celebrations to be had. The primary importance of Easter is revealed in the ordering of the Christian year. Unlike Christmas, Easter is a moveable feast, which means that it does not fall on the same date every year; and it is the date of Easter each year that determines the entire liturgical calendar. Thus, while the church observes Advent and Christmas as the beginning of the liturgical year, it is Easter that is the theological culmination and beginning of the Christian year. So the question is why many Protestants who observe Lent, do not observe, in similar fashion (in reference to importance), the full 50 days of the Easter season. Why is the greeting, "He is risen!" reserved only for Easter Sunday and not for all of Eastertide? Why is resurrection absent from some Protestant preaching the Sunday following Easter Sunday? On Ash Wednesday we are invited to observe a holy Lent for 40 days. Why are we not similarly invited to observe a joyful Easter for 50 days following the morning the empty tomb is discovered? (This devotion by Allan R. Bevere was originally posted to The Christian Century in April, 2014)
A poem: “Second Birth”
In the quiet of the stone tomb, Knitting himself back together Eyes, hands, heart, lungs Was healing like a nap? Did it hurt? To come from The heated noise of harrowing hell Now breathing in the dark gritty air that tasted like joy
This time He gave up on parables, And settled for the direct: Meet me in Galilee. Feed my sheep. Do you love me?
That second birth was at least private, Rather than that other dark night, that poor girl, that sky wild with angels.
~by Rachel Ann Russell (published in The Christian Century in April, 2019)
Music: A YouTube performance by the Sanctuary Choir at First Methodist in Houston of Robert Lowry's “Up from the Grave He Arose,” a hymn that was sung at Buffalo’s Easter Worship Service.
Daffodils blooming in front of Buffalo's Rain Garden (April 2024)
Resurrection Grows on You (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 27 March 2024)
Scripture:
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. ~Gospel of Mark 16:1-8
YOU MAY RECALL that this ending of the Gospel of Mark, the one that appears in the most ancient manuscripts of the book, seemed too abrupt to later copyists. Before long, 11 more verses had found their way there, a busy digest of post-resurrection experiences from a variety of sources: John's account of the scene at the tomb with Mary Magdalene, John's story of Thomas the doubter, a version of the walk to Emmaus, an account of Jesus' ascension, other material from Luke/Acts. These are entered almost as bullet points. But the tacked-on verses need not concern us here—the Revised Common Lectionary walks away from them politely. We are left with the bald confusion and fear at the end of the ancient tale, from a time before it was canonized and liturgized. Late at night, a few years after the events recounted in the Passion narratives, a fire flickers shadows across the faces of the people assembled to hear the story from a traveler who heard it from someone who heard it from someone else. He ends his story just this way. And what happened next? someone asks. Well, I don't know. All I know is what I heard, that they went to his tomb and he wasn't there. And an angel appeared to them. And they got scared and ran away. That's all I know. A tale told by the light of a campfire. One of those mystery tales campfires seem to generate—a ghost story. Nobody back then thought he was writing the Bible; they were telling stories about a mystery. One person told the tale to another, and another, and another. There was embroidery upon it, we know; the bare bones of the one we have from Mark was not the last word on the resurrection. But it was one of the first. We walk through the events of Jesus' last days with sorrow and horror, but also with some understanding. We know death; we have seen death. But we hang back from the resurrection because we do not understand it. Still, we struggle to tell the tale, uninformed as we are. The very telling has become important to us—more important than a ghost story, for no ghost story has changed our lives. This story has. The resurrection is unknowable in the way we like to know things, the journalistic who-what-when-where-how that we grandchildren of the Enlightenment think comprises truth. The writer of Mark was different: he was willing to have his life changed before he understood fully what was changing it. Actually, this is the only way life ever really changes. You won't understand marriage until you've been hitched for a while—maybe not even then. You're not going to know what it's like to have a baby until you have one. You don't even know your profession until you've been in it a while. Nothing in life is obvious immediately. It all grows on us. This is how we must approach resurrection, as well. No, you don't understand it. Let it grow on you. [This devotion was written by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton and originally posted in 2012 to the Christian Century website.]
Prayer: Lord, may you be with us and support us in our lives, so full of doubts and failures to understand the mysteries of our lives and of the Resurrection.
Parched (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 20 March 2024)
Scripture: I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. ~Psalm 143:6
THE FURTHER WE GET INTO LENT, the harder it is to keep up with the practices I set for myself. I forget why I chose the particular thing; not the practice itself, but the motivation. If you’re still here reading, but having to remind yourself why, you’ll know what I mean. Why did this particular practice seem like a good idea five weeks ago? I remember my failures. If I seek some inner change, some private growth attempt, why did I think giving up caffe mochas would bring me closer to God? It only made me cranky; my daughter made me promise never to do it again. But since then I’ve learned, whether we’re giving something up or taking something on, the reckoning will always come. The psalmist describes a desire that would not be visible to others, a thirst for God so deep the soul experiences drought conditions. This far along in Lent we are in deep with Jesus, making the final turn toward Jerusalem. It might be that the commitments we thought would bring us closer to God have left us stretched out, as thirsty as Jesus must have been during his forty days in the wilderness. It’s tempting, sometimes, to give up on it. If we can’t do it perfectly, we may think, what’s the point? Why did my practice seem like a good idea? Why did yours? What were we thirsty for? Maybe the point of the practice is not to win Lent, but to reach this moment of feeling stretched and parched and uneasy, and to keep practicing anyway. [This devotion by Martha Spong was posted to the UCC’s Daily Devotional website on March 18.]
Prayer: Spirit of God, I stretch myself towards you; help me to keep stretching. Amen.
The Long Courage (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 13 March 2024)
Scripture: But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, for when I am weak, I am strong. ~2 Corinthians 12:9–10 (NIV, abridged)
OFTEN THE WORK OF JUSTICE justice seems like repeatedly pushing the same boulder up the same hill. An air of futility haunts everything we do. As the late Paul Farmer said of his work in Haiti, we’re fighting “a long defeat.” The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, but every gain is fragile and reversible. The vast, tenacious mystery of evil won’t yield to us politely just because we’re right and good. There are limits to our power and virtue. To admit this isn’t negativity or defeatism. It’s the foundation for a ministry that’s truly God’s. For unless we embrace weakness and futility, we’ll start believing that the world’s betterment hinges solely on us, that we are its saviors and heroes. Unless we accept inability, even our most principled efforts will become just one more arrogant attempt to force a vision on the world. Unless we relinquish the solace of outcomes, when we don’t see grand results, the work will turn bitter and leave us soul-fatigued and bitter, too. But when we humbly embrace the long defeat, we will receive what John Shea calls “the long courage” to fight another day, and another, and another, anyway. For when you really know that you can’t win, you really start believing that Love can. [This devotion by Mary Luti was posted to the UCC’s Daily Meditation on March 13.]
Prayer: “… Give me, Broken Lord, the long courage for compromised truths, small justices, partial peaces. Keep my soul in my teeth, hold me in hope, and teach me to fight the way farmers with hoes defeat armies and rolled up manuscripts survive wars.” –from John Shea, “Prayer for the Long Haul,” The Hour of the Unexpected
Pray the Psalms (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 6 March 2024)
Scripture: O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. ~Psalm 107: 1-9 (KJV)
TWO YEARS AGO, I heard Kathleen Norris read her poetry, and I immediately got a copy of her much-loved book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography and read it straight through. I have since read the book three times and some portions many more, used it in a sermon, and discussed it with first-year college students in a class on reading, faith, and place. In the book, Norris tells of an abandoned faith resurrected in a small South Dakota town and in an ancient monastic liturgy that taught her to read, recite, hear, and know the Psalms deeply, beyond time, beyond herself. This summary is not the one many readers would have written about this book. The Psalms, in all honesty, play a relatively small role in the book, and Norris has, in fact, written an entire book on them titled The Psalms. And yet, it is the glimpses into Norris’s practice of the Psalms from Dakota that I take with me now into my own reading of these ancient poems. It is the aliveness, the energy of these glimpses that calls me back to the Psalms again and again. In the most remarkable passage, the one I think about almost daily, Norris writes that the “Psalms, spoken aloud and left to resonate in the air around me, push me into new time and space . . . here time flows back and forth, in and out of both past and future, and I, too, am changed . . . the words spark like a welder’s flame; they keep flowing, like a current carrying me farther than I had intended to go.” Norris’s Psalms are spoken. They resonate and push. They spark and flow. They carry and change. They are ancient words that make a new world with each reading and rereading. Norris’s Psalms have become my Psalms, and they are alive and enlivening.
Norris is a more disciplined speaker of the Psalms than I am. She practices a liturgy that recites the Psalms daily, that fills the air with these ancient prayers, these poems, these sacred words, these human confessions of despair and proclamations of hope. But through her writing, I have discovered the powerful practice of psalm speaking, their “spark . . . carrying me farther than I had intended to go.” When I speak Psalm 107 aloud today, I am struck most by the calls for voice: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. . . . They cried to the Lord in their trouble. . . . Tell of his deeds with songs of joy.” The poet, anticipating Norris by thousands of years, insists on the “saying,” the “crying,” the “telling” of all God is and has done, of God’s goodness, love, redemption, healing, and deliverance. I was born into a faith community that honored the written text, and today I am a lover, teacher, and scholar of written words. But the Psalms are most alive on the lips and in the voice of poets like the ancient psalmist, like Norris, like me, and like you. What am I doing when I speak these words aloud? I am praying. I am, in the words of Walter Brueggeman, “committing an act of hope.” We are calling “into being what does not exist until it has been spoken,” he writes in Praying the Psalms, a world rich with justice and mercy and goodness. We are calling out from the sickness, affliction, death, and distress of verses 17–19 to claim that, as he writes in Spirituality of the Psalms, “even in the darkness, there is One to address,” there is One who hears. Sometimes the affliction is more acute than God’s goodness. The distress is more felt than God’s deliverance. And yet, I speak the words aloud, joining the many who have called out before me, as an act of faith so that the promises of God may be so: “I give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” [This devotion by Kerry Hasler-Brooks was original published by The Christian Century in March 2021.]
Prayer: We give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. We give thanks in knowing that God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Water (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 28 February 2024)
Scripture: For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. ~Isaiah 44:3 (NIV)
ANNIE PROULX in Bog, Fen and Swamp accuses humanity of arrogant self-centeredness. We imagine ourselves above fens, where peat is made, and bogs, where waters merge, and marshes, where water cleans itself. We act as though water was real estate. We displace it at the drop of a zone. “House with a view.” “Waterfront.” Proulx argues, “In the end all humans will be haunted by the waters.” No wonder the empty run on empty. Humans, Proulx argues, are not better than water; we are mostly water. In the 1990 book The Great Dismal: A Carolina Swamp’s Memoir, Bland Simpson admires a Carolina swamp. He delightfully praises the “genius of a natural place” and wonders why humans can’t leave well enough alone. I once visited the Big Thicket in Western Texas. I used it as a constant metaphor for a decade, as though I were the thicketed, not it. What Proulx wants us to do is to “let sleeping bogs lie.” How do we get the energy we need for our swamped, boggy, fenned, thicketed days? It is true we overdo in order to stay “on top of things.” What would happen if we learned to swim in the thick of it all? What if we took a seat at the table instead of at the head of the table? Or befriended nature the way God did and does? I wouldn’t have to even mow my lawn anymore. I could meadow instead of being thirsty. I could stream. [This week’s devotion was written by Donna Schaper and posted to the Daily Devotional website earlier this month.]
Prayer: O God, when we falsely self-promote to positions of aquatic power or other kinds of misplaced power, wash us clear. Amen.
Empty, Like a Shell (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 21 February 2024)
If thou could’st empty all thyself of self, Like to a shell dishabited, Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf, And say, ‘This is not dead’, And fill thee with Himself instead. But thou … hast such shrewd activity, That when He comes, He says, “…It is so small and full, there is no room for me.” ~Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
WE ARE CONSTANTLY ENCOURAGED TO BE FILLED: with the Holy Spirit, with the Word of God, with charity and good works and pure thoughts, love, righteousness, and joy. Be filled! But how? The prophet Haggai tell us, “You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:6, NRSV). Our “shrewd activity” gets us nowhere. Consider the life of Christ: Jesus didn’t run from emptiness; he embraced it. He emptied himself in order to become human, and while he was among us, he chose fulfillment in a life of poverty. What’s more, he sought empty places—the desert, a garden at night—in which to struggle with doubt and listen for God’s voice. To be filled, all we really have to do is: “Open wide your mouth,” says, “and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10b, NRSV). [This devotion by Suzanne Jubenville was posted on the UCC Daily Devotional website earlier this month.]
Prayer: O God, nothing I do has any meaning or substance without you. I come before you, still and empty, like a shell, that I may be filled. Amen.
Music: This week’s hymn is "Be Still, My Soul," the original lyrics by Katharina von Schlegel (1752) and music, Finlandia, by Jean Sibelius (1899). The YouTube performance is by the men's vocal sextet Eclipse 6.
A daffodil blooming at Buffalo (Spring 2023)
Two Ash Wednesday Poems (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 14 February 2024)
"Marked by Ashes," from Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann
Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . . This day — a gift from you. This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received. This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility. This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home halfway back to committees and memos, halfway back to calls and appointments, halfway on to next Sunday, halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant, half turned toward you, half rather not.
This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday, but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes -- we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth: of failed hope and broken promises, of forgotten children and frightened women, we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust; we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.
We are able to ponder our ashness with some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.
On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you -- you Easter parade of newness. Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us, Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom; Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth. Come here and Easter our Wednesday with mercy and justice and peace and generosity.
We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.
An "Ash Wednesday" sonnet by Malcolm Guite
Receive this cross of ash upon your brow, Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross. The forests of the world are burning now And you make late repentance for the loss. But all the trees of God would clap their hands The very stones themselves would shout and sing If you could covenant to love these lands And recognise in Christ their Lord and king.
He sees the slow destruction of those trees, He weeps to see the ancient places burn, And still you make what purchases you please, And still to dust and ashes you return. But Hope could rise from ashes even now Beginning with this sign upon your brow.
Illuminating the Ordinary (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 7 February 2024)
Scripture:
Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. ~Gospel of Mark 9: 2-9
LEARNING TO SEE IN NEW WAYS is one of the most difficult tasks of the transformed life. Old habits of selective vision, old choices about what to leave out and what to focus on tend to dominate us, even as we search for new ways of living that are in closer communion with the life of the Spirit. Transfiguration--that mysterious transformation of vision that is narrated in today's readings--is a radical, if brief, way of illumination. The disciples go with Jesus to the mountain--a place out of their ordinary environment--and there, they are able to grasp, for a moment, a transcendent reality that lives just beyond their normal capacities. In Annie Dillard's essay "Seeing," she recounts the experience of people who had been blind at birth, but had received sight thanks to a restorative surgery. To begin to see the world, the newly sighted had to reconcile preconceived notions of the world with objects, colors and distances. Even with this radical new gift, it was easy to get the meaning of what they were seeing wrong. This suggests a spiritual kind of sight as well as a physical--that a person having received a radical new gift might struggle, like Peter in today's Gospel, to understand precisely how to use it. Transfiguration might be about learning to see ordinary things in extraordinary ways. In a poem from Christian Wiman's new collection, Every Riven Thing (2010), he addresses transformed sight. The poem is called "From a Window":
Incurable and unbelieving In any truth but the truth of grieving,
I saw a tree inside a tree Rise kaleidoscopically
As if the leaves had livelier ghosts. I pressed my face as close
To the pane as I could get To watch that fitful, fluent spirit
That seemed a single being undefined Or countless beings of one mind
Haul its strange cohesion Beyond the limits of my vision
Over the house heavenwards. Of course I knew those leaves were birds.
Of course that old tree stood Exactly as it had and would
(But why should it seem fuller now?) And though a man’s mind might endow
Even a tree with some excess Of life to which a man seems witness,
That life is not the life of men. And that is where the joy came in.
Wiman, who has described coming to Christianity as "color slowly aching into things, the world becoming brilliantly, abradingly alive," begins the poem in a reduced state, a state in which he is unable to believe in anything, except what he calls the "truth of grieving." Seeing the truth of grieving is ordinary for him, an old habit, and he is stuck inside it. Looking out his window, he sees something that at first appears impossible: "a tree inside a tree/rise kaleidoscopically," as if leaves hidden inside the seemingly barren tree had suddenly taken flight. He feels, in a moment, like he is seeing the spirit of the tree, like he can see beyond it. "Of course," he writes, he knows the tree is just a tree, and that the "leaves" are birds suddenly taking flight. And yet the event changes his perception. The ordinary world is fuller, more real, endowed with some "excess/of life." He understands that he is participating in the creation of this image, that his mind has helped to create a transfigured understanding. But he resists the idea that this is a sufficient explanation for what he has seen. Instead, he says, the life perceived through the tree and birds is larger than he is and is connected to the holy. When he recognizes this series of connections, he experiences joy. His perspective has shifted--the limits with which he begins the poem have become something else entirely. Today's New Testament reading alludes to the provisional and yet transformative nature of this kind of sight. "We did not follow cleverly devised myths," the epistle writer asserts, but something more concrete, something the disciples saw with their own eyes, something that kept them from the blindness and nearsightedness that traps Wiman at the start of "From A Window." Despite the instability of their vision on the moment, the disciples believe it is reliable. They urge their followers to hold on to this way of seeing, this light, attentive to it, as "to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." We begin with the provisional, the momentary, the fragmentary, and reach toward a fuller perception of light. As we move between the extraordinary accounts of Transfiguration . . . and the ordinary events of seeing in our own lives, we do not need to collapse the two. But we can remember, with Peter, that the light of God is not so hidden that we cannot seek it in ordinary life. The Logos lives, enlivens, infuses, illuminates even the ordinary.
For further reflection: --Are there times when you feel like you see sacred reality better or worse? --What are the connections between the sacred and the profane, the ordinary and the extraordinary, in our everyday lives? --Are there ways we can improve our vision? --How and why do we remain stuck (Wiman) with limited vision? [This devotion by Amy Frykholm is from The Christian Century, February 2011.]
Prayer: Lord, we live surrounded by miracles. Enable us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Music: The hymn “O Wondrous Sight! O Vision Fair" is sung by the Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Michigan) Virtual Choir, James Biery, organist and director. The original Latin text was written in the 15th century and is set to a 15th century tune "The Agincourt Hymn."
United Methodist Cross and Flame at Buffalo UMC
Walking Trees (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 31 January 2024)
Scripture: [Jesus] took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had laid his hands on him, he asked, “Can you see anything?” The man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he saw everything clearly.” ~Mark 8:23-26 abridged (NRSV)
THIS IS THE ONLY TIME Jesus asks a person he’s healing whether his efforts are producing the desired effect. And it’s the only time he has to try again to get the job done. It’s a surprising detail, that it takes two tries. But what surprises me is not that it takes two, it’s that it takes only two. My own healing is requiring a lot more than that. I guess I’m a tough nut to crack. I can’t tell you how many times the Healer has laid his hands on me, then asked, “Good now?” and I’ve had to tell him no, that despite his best efforts I still can’t make out the people, only walking trees, and he’ll have to try again. Today, tomorrow, next year, the year after that. Healing is a mysterious negotiation between divine grace and human desire, God’s power and human availability. It’s a gift and a choice. Sometimes we aren’t able to receive the gift or make the choice. Sometimes we’re not quite ready to heal. Sometimes we just don’t know how. And sometimes we can only take a little healing at a time. I like to imagine that Jesus performed this two-stage healing on purpose, to let us know that healing may not fully take the first time, that it’s okay, that he’ll always be with us inquiring how it’s coming along, that he’ll always try again if we need him to, because with him there’s always more. [This devotion by Mary Luti was posted to the Daily Devotional website on January 31.]
Prayer: Those trees are still walking, Jesus. Please try again. As many tries as it takes.
Black-Eyed Susan Seedhead at Buffalo on a Snowy Winter Morning
God Is Still Speaking (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 17 January 2024)
Scripture: The boy Samuel was serving God under Eli’s direction. One night Samuel was in bed in the house of God. Then God called out, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Yes? I’m here.” He ran to Eli saying, “I heard you call. Here I am.” Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” And so he did. God called again, “Samuel, Samuel!” ~1 Samuel 3:1-6, abridged
THERE ARE FEW THINGS more gratifying to a preacher than when someone says of a sermon, “I felt like you were speaking directly to me!” But then comes the hard part: The preacher must choose between the gracious response—something along the lines of “I’m glad to know you were blessed”—or the pointed and risky comeback—some version of “I’m glad to know you felt that way, but if someone was speaking directly to you, it wasn’t me.” Perhaps too few of us actively listen for Spirit’s voice, so when we do hear a word, we generally attribute it something or someone other than God. When the temple intern Samuel heard a voice calling in the night, he assumed it was his boss. God speaks to us in countless ways—through beloveds and babies, Word and wind, music and mystery, heartbreak and healing, community and conflict, outcasts and oddballs, sacrament and storm, friends and frenemies, poets and even preachers. And still, we often miss or mis-identify God’s call. We think we hear something but, unsure of what it is, we go back to bed. And still, God keeps calling. And still, we are summoned by grace to the fullness of life. {This devotion by Vicki Kemper was posted on January 14 to the Daily Devotional website.}
Prayer: Attune my heart to your voice, Holy One. And when you call, may I respond in love and trust, saying, “Here I am!”
You Too? (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 10 January 2024)
Scripture: The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “...a sword will pierce your own soul too.” ~Luke 2:33-35 (NRSV abridged)
SIMEON IS THE MOST OBVIOUS OF PROPHETS. Not like, oh Simeon, you’re so brilliant, you’re obviously a prophet! But like, duh, Simeon, it didn’t take a prophet to see that coming! Telling a new parent that loving this little bundle of joy is also going to destroy them? Telling someone who has just given birth that for every hope she holds, there will also be pain? She’s figured it out. Jesus is eight days old now. You can already see the sword handle sticking out of her chest. That’s what it means to be a loving parent. That’s what it means to be a loving anything: friend, child, neighbor. Caring for this other person will be a sign of life, and liberation, and joy. And it will also just about kill you. Every. Single. Day. That’s the way I’ve read Simeon’s “too” in “a sword will pierce your soul too.” There will be joy and pain as well. You take the good with the bad. #factsoflife But there is another, less obvious, way. Simeon is, after all, a prophet. Maybe these are God’s words. Maybe that “too” is God’s too. Maybe God is telling Mary, “We are in this together.” And in that moment, God means it more than ever. Because, in Jesus, God finally has a soul to be pierced. Jesus is eight days old. God already knows: this hurts. Maybe God is telling Mary, telling us, I get it now. I’ve loved like you. See the sword? {This devotion by Vince Amlin was posted earlier this month to the Daily Devotional website.}
Prayer: Love hurts. Thank you for knowing.
Music: A YouTube performance by Lindsey Stirling, violinist and dancer, of “What Child Is This?” Printed below are the lyrics, written by Chatterton Dix in 1865. The melody used for this famous Christmas hymn is the 16th-century English melody “Greensleeves.”
What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping, Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping? This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing; Haste, haste to bring Him laud, the babe, the son of Mary!
Why lies He in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding? Good Christian, fear: for sinners here the silent Word is pleading. Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the Cross be borne for me, for you; Hail, hail the Word Made Flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!
So bring Him incense, gold, and myrrh; come, peasant, king, to own Him! The King of Kings salvation brings; let loving hearts enthrone Him! Raise, raise the song on high! The virgin sings her lullaby. Joy! joy! for Christ is born, the babe, the son of Mary!
Buffalo's Labyrinth Wind Chimes on a snowy day in December
The Singing of the Angels (Midweek Devotion for Wednesday, 3 January 2024)
The Work of Christmas
When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among brothers, To make music in the heart.
THERE MUST BE ALWAYS REMAINING IN EVERY MAN’S LIFE some place for the singing of angels – some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and by an inherent prerogative throwing all the rest of life into a new and created relatedness. Something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright white light of penetrating beauty and meaning – then passes. The commonplace is shot through now with new glory – old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all of the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels. Oscar Wilde says in his De Profundis, “There is always room in an ignorant man’s mind for a great idea.” It is of profoundest significance to me that the gospel story, particularly in the Book of Luke, reveals that the announcement of the birth of Jesus comes first to simple shepherds who were about their appointed tasks. After theology has done its work, after the reflective judgments of men from the heights and lonely retreats of privilege and security have wrought their perfect patterns, the birth of Jesus remains the symbol of the dignity and the inherent worthfulness of the common man. Stripped bare of art forms and liturgy, the literal substance of the story remains, Jesus Christ was born in a stable, he was born of humble parentage in surroundings that are the common lot of those who earn their living by the sweat of their brows. Nothing can rob the common man of this heritage – when he beholds Jesus, he sees in him the possibilities of life even for the humblest and a dramatic resolution of the meaning of God. If the theme of the angels’ song is to find fulfillment in the world, it will be through the common man’s becoming aware of his true worthfulness and asserting his generic prerogatives as a child of God. The diplomats, the politicians, the statesmen, the lords of business and religion will never bring peace in the world. Violence is the behavior pattern of Power in the modern world, and violence has its own etiquette and ritual, and its own morality. {This devotion is excerpted from Howard Thurman’s The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations.}