It's Time for a New Choreography

Dancing Feet by Bob Handelman, Madison

This is such a great invitation and reminder from Farrell Mason today... that I share it with you on Facebook and here on my blog. It is time for a new choreography for living life ... for me today in this "meanwhile" and maybe too for you. Or, maybe it's an encouragement to keep living life with joy in our footsteps, leaving His grace wherever we go. Click on this link and may you read with hope and delight...
It's Time for a New Choreography

God's Loyal Love Is...

Recently, in the daily lectionary we read "The Love Chapter" ... 1 Corinthians 13. The Gospel reading which followed was Matthew 10 where Jesus sends out his disciples to declare the Kingdom of God and "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." Whoa, wait a minute. What?! I picked myself up off the floor and re-read, "...raise the dead." Then, I returned to The Love Chapter (you'll see how this connects later). It begins,

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 

BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, 

I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.

And, if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains (raise the dead!), 

BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, 

I am nothing. 

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, 

BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, 

I gain nothing. 

(1 Corinthians 13.1-3)

Let me explain (this is where "raising the dead" comes in): I have been praying for a greater blessing of spiritual gifts in my life ... things like faith and prophecy and words of knowledge and healing. Paul exhorts us to do this. No, I have NOT been praying to raise the dead but, reading these two passages together reminded me that what I need to pray for is the gift of God's Love, His loyal love ... chesed to be poured in to my life and out to my daily living.

So, what does that look like in real life? I took the verbs of what "Love is..." and looked up the definitions:

Love is patient [bears provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain, etc. with fortitude and calm and without complaint, anger and the like; quietly and steadily persevering or diligent especially in exactness or detail] 
and kind [good or benevolent in nature or disposition; mild; gentle; characterized by expressing goodwill; charitable; compassionate; pity];
love does not envy [feel discontented or covetous for another's advantage, success, possessions, etc.; jealous; backbiting] 
or boast [speak with exaggeration and excessive pride or vanity about oneself]; 
it is not arrogant [making claims or pretentions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud] 
or rude [discourteous or impolite, especially deliberately; rough in manner or behavior]. 
It does not insist on its own way [act like a selfish king - that was interesting]; 
it is not irritable [easily annoyed; readily impatient or angry; bearish; contentious; grouchy]
or resentful [full of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc. regarded as causing insult or injury; sourness; roughness; thinks evil]; 
it does not rejoice at wrongdoing [to look at or think about with great or excessive, often smug or malicious, satisfaction; to crow; to exult or glory over an evil done], 
but rejoices with the truth [be glad; take delight; be happy over].
Love bears all things [holds up, supports; holds or remains firm under; brings forth; gives birth to; is capable of; presses on or pushes onward; suffers, endures, or undergoes; sustains without yielding or suffering injury],
believes all things [has confidence in the truth, reliability, or existence of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so],
hopes all things [the feeling that what is wanted can be had; to look forward with ... I add faithful ... confidence],
endures all things [holds out against; sustains without impairment or yielding; undergoes; bears without resistance or with patience; continues to exist; has continued or lasting gain].
Love never fails [not ever, at any time, not at all, to no extent or degree ... will love ... fall short of success or achievement; receive less than passing grade or mark; dwindle, pass on, or die away. lose strength or vigor or become unable].

Oh boy. Ouch! We can do all sorts of miraculous things but without love, they are as nothing. ... But, here is what is miraculous: 

That love is at work and living within us 

to will and to work for God's good pleasure! 

And, it never fails us! 

This is the work of our hands, the work of our hearts ... to love as God loves us, to freely give it as God freely gives it to us. Is it hard to give up our selves ... our boastful, arrogant, irritable, wants my own way self ... and take up the ... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things self? Yes. But, it is possible. It takes a daily looking to Jesus and asking for help. And, He gives us that Help in the power of the Holy Spirit at work within us. He is the power of God's Love at work within us. Can't get much better than that.

Could this work of love ... chesed ... not be as miraculous as healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons? Absolutely.

Jesus, Master ... chesed!

So, yesterday The Rev. Dr. Ann Paton challenged us with how we frequently say in our liturgy "Lord, have mercy" ...but do we really know what it means? Do we understand mercy ... hesed  or chesed, that back in the throat pronunciation that we in the west have to think about before we say it ... chesed ... God's mercy? When the lepers cried out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" they knew what they wanted more than anything ... mercy! They nearly spit out their cry ... their yearning of the heart

"Jesus, Master, have chesed on us!"

I know a little about this right now. Having been without income for over 9 months I have said more than once, "Jesus, have mercy." And, He has. I still don't have an income and none looks to be on the way any time soon, but I have never gone without a place to lay my head or bread on the table. Jesus has provided for me (and my car! Thank you kind friend!) through the gifts of others. He has shown me His mercy through His mercy that lives and is at work in the hearts of others. This is His economy. (I even saw examples of this on the news last night ... mercy being stirred up in the heart of people to help others in need.) This is His mercy, but it is also so very much ... so very very much more.

Chesed: mercy; grace; favor; lovingkindess; 

loyal love; covenantal faithfulness.

God's mercy, God's grace and favor, God's lovingkindness ... His loyal love and covenantal faithfulness ... shown to us, given to us in Jesus Christ. It's too much to take in! When I think that I ask for mercy and in the back of my mind I'm thinking about work for my hands and income. Yes, I want that and need that ... but Lord, don't stop there ... show me your chesed, your loyal love, your lovingkindness. Like those lepers cleanse me to make me presentable in the temple granting me access to Your Throne that I may worship You in spirit and in truth. Pour out Your Holy Spirit upon me that I may in turn show Your Chesed, Your Loyal Love to others ... that I may give You praise and glory in Your Name! Is not this work for my hands? Does this not give me an income that is far greater than anything I can ask or imagine ... any of us can ask or imagine? 

"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us."

Oh, Jesus, Your Name is mercy.

Your Name is Chesed.
Lovingkindness.

Your Grace.

Favor.

Loyal Love.

Covenantal Faithfulness.

The world is built with chesed. Psalm 89.3

(Look... it's a chalice... sort of.)

Living in the meanwhile ... Lilias Trotter

Miriam Rockness wrote this from her blog about Lilias Trotter. How like God to encourage during my "meanwhile" from lots of different avenues...

When God delays in fulfilling our little thoughts, 

it is to have Himself room to work out His great ones.    

29 December 1903

"How do we live in the meanwhile?"  These words have been playing over and over in my mind since I first heard them this past Sunday.  So, with a tip of the hat to Dr. Will Miller, I take this thought and wrestle out its meaning in my own life.

Consider, at start, how much of our thoughts are consumed with looking back (better days or wounds sustained) or looking ahead to the next big thing.  Since our earliest years we have strained for what was next:  starting school, summer vacation, graduation from high school, starting college, graduating from college, first fulltime job, marriage, children.  Later on the future held a job promotion, perhaps, a significant accomplishment, a bigger better house, retirement, the dream trip or site.

Fact is, much of our life is lived "in the meanwhile" - that middle ground remembering (for good or for bad) what has been and longing for something yet to come. When things are going swimmingly, "meanwhile" is not a bad place to be but there are those times - periods of time - when our existence seems ordinary, at best, or insufferable at worst.  We long for the extraordinary to relieve us from the ordinary. . .  we desperately pray for something, someone to rescue us from whatever lament we are experiencing.

What do we do when we are waiting for the big miracle?  The change or the circumstances that will make the difference? How do we cope with the meanwhile?  How do we live in the meanwhile?

Consider the Children of Israel, wandering in the wilderness, looking back to what they had (slavery). . .  remembering the big miracle (deliverance). . . and looking ahead to the next big thing (the promised land).  Their problem was "how to live in the meanwhile."  And they didn't do a very good job of that!  They looked back with longing, forgetting their true condition:  oppressed slaves; they looked ahead with yearning for what seemed unattainable: the land of promise.  In the meantime they grumbled and complained and, in the process, stalled entrance to the land of their desire.

Frankly, they were not unlike ourselves - at least me, at least some of the time.  How do we "live in the meanwhile?"  How do we exist without knowing for sure what is ahead and making sense of what is behind?  Probably each one of us could say, without a moment's hesitation, what it is that would give shape and meaning to everything - past and future - if only we could make it happen.  If only we had control of the circumstances.

Or could we?  Could we really make meaning and sense of life with our thoughts, our plans?  Lilias suggests that our thoughts are, in fact, small compared to what God has planned for us.  "When God delays fulfilling our little thoughts, it is to have Himself room to work out His great ones."  Do I really believe, in the midst of the mess and mystery, that God's great plans will trump my thoughts - my hopes, my plans, my dreams?

We, like the fickle and feckless Children of Israel, have been given a map that tracks the story - His Story - and we know that despite our limited vision, there is not only a beginning but an ending.  Better yet, a new beginning in the endless elasticity of time called Eternity.

Futhermore, we have been given a context in which to live out the "meanwhile:" a community of faith, the church which, while not perfect, is united in that same pilgrimage to make meaning along the way to true understanding.  Holy knowledge.  We laugh and cry and listen and learn - from each other.  We break bread and worship;  we forgive each other and are forgiven - through the Grace of God.

In the meanwhile, we capture joy as it comes our way - catch it on the wing, so to speak - in nature, in art, the face of a child, a song, a meal, in conversation that touches deep places in our hearts.  In music, in praise, in fellowship, in remembering.  In the meanwhile.

How do we live in the meanwhile?  Ultimately, we get our cue from God-made-man, in Jesus who chose to live in the meanwhile with us.  Incarnate.  How did He live in the meanwhile?  He loved and served.  He served and loved.  Then He laid down His life on a cross.  His supreme act of love and service for us.  In so doing, He liberated us to love and serve. . . to serve and love. . . more perfectly.

How do we live in the meanwhile?  Love. Serve. Rejoice.  Follow.  Believe!

Painting:  Journal 1893

Do your simple tasks for Me.

That came from God Calling this morning, and it was a good reminder for me, especially today.

Just recently another set-back came in this 9 month search process for whatever God has next for me. My first thought was, "What is God doing?" My second thought was, "What do I do now?" And, this is what I heard ... "Do your simple tasks for Me." That didn't say for me as in me, myself, and I ... do for me. It said for Me as in God ... the Lord Jesus. What are our simple tasks?

Meeting with Him sometime during the day to eat and drink from His Word (which helps me know what my simple tasks are!).






Taking time to eat and drink from the beauty of the world given to us as our home!









Looking for ways to practice the simple tasks every day ... like loving God and loving our neighbor ... (yes, walking the dog can be a way to love God and love our neighbor ... especially when it's the neighbor's dog!) Loving God and our neighbor can also be giving a cool drink of water ... listening to someone in need (not giving advice ... just listening!), visiting someone who is lonely or alone, calling someone who is new to your area and taking him/her out for a cuppa joe, paying for someone's groceries, writing a postcard to a friend ... you get the picture.



Remembering He calls us the Beloved
and His arms are always open to receive us ... always.

So, when we're feeling kinda lost because we're in a place we haven't been before and it seems as though we don't know what to do ... we can remember that He loved us, loves us, and will always love us ... and will never leave us or forsake us. He is near to us ... and isn't asking us to do great and miraculous things for Him ... He will do that ... He asks us to do our simple tasks for Him And, it is enough.