The Word of God

Helen Keller once described what it was like to be both blind and deaf and to not have language. She described her existence as living in darkness. Before language, there was nothing for her. She felt totally alone and was unable to express her isolation. It was almost as if she did not exist. All was darkness.

Then, one day, Helen’s teacher thrust her hand under an open faucet while signing the word for water into the palm of her hand. Helen recalled the one word that she had learned as a toddler before she fell ill and lost her sight and hearing. That one word was wawa, for water. At that moment, Helen had a moment of truth. She was able to connect the letters being signed into her hand with the water which was pouring over her skin. In that holy moment, the Word came to her, the Logos, the presence of God. She awoke to language. She was no longer alone. And her life began.

Before Jesus came to us, we lived in darkness. We did not understand God and we felt that God was angry and dissatisfied with us. We were lost, alone, isolated. We could not seem to communicate with God, to understand what was asked of us. We kept trying to please God, but felt that we were unsuccessful and continually punished. We were waiting for God to come and guide us, to teach us what it means to be human.

And then Jesus came, that tiny baby. He came into the midst of our chaotic world to be for us the living Word of God, to show us what it means to be loved unconditionally by our Maker. He came to us in one of the most violent parts of the world, to a homeless couple. He came right into the midst of our dirty, chaotic world.

In many ways, life begins for us in Jesus. We find in Him a reason for our existence, a reason why we are here. He is a guide for us, showing us a way for us to be human and to be loved by God. He is the Word of God incarnate.

Let us give thanks for this tiny baby who came into the world to be with us.

May God bless you in this holy season.

John the Baptist

I am struck by John the Baptist, struck by his honesty, his brutal truth-telling. I am so afraid of angering people, I find myself softening John’s own message. It is difficult to convey his urgency in this world of comfort and convenience.

In Luke’s gospel, John warns us of the coming of Christ and urges us to be ready. When the people around him asked how they were to get ready, he told them what to do with their money and possessions. He did not mention prayer or worship or laughter or art, all he spoke of was our stuff, our wealth.

“If you have two coats, give one away. Do the same with any extra food that you have.”

I am struck by his words. They hit me like a punch in the stomach. Every morning, as I walk into work, I am surrounded by homeless men and women who come to the Cathedral for a hot cup of coffee. Every morning, I say hello. Sometimes we pray together. But I have not given them my coat or my car or my home or my checkbook. Sure, I make donations, I tithe to the church. Max and I have brought them cookies, breakfast goodies. But I wonder if John the Baptist would be satisfied with me or with any of us who give but not enough.

Tim Keller, in his wonderful new book Counterfeit Gods speaks poignantly about how our money has become an idol. We believe it makes us happy, keeps us well, fulfills our dreams. Americans are surrounded by idols: pagan gods of prosperity and beauty who lure us to believe that we will be happy if we just get more stuff.

This economic downturn has given us an immense opportunity to reevaluate our lifestyles, our priorities. Do we really need everything that we have? Could we live more simply, giving more and taking less? It is as if we are waking from a long sleep, from being under the spell of prosperity. It is time for us to wake up and lighten our loads.

Our idols are falling. Look at poor Tiger Woods. Handsome and possessing a skill as a golfer that has left the world in awe, Tiger had everything that Americans long for. But he was not happy. He could not even be satisfied with one of the most beautiful women in the world. So he took what he should not have taken, and now his life is a mess of tabloids. His fame and his wealth were not enough. They are never enough. That is what an idol is, something that you begin to worship, something that leads you away from God. If we hold onto idols, they will bring us down.

John the Baptist screams at us across the centuries, begging us to wake up and get ready. This is not the time to amass more stuff! Getting ready means giving. Give like crazy, until it hurts and beyond. If you do not need something, give it away.

This is not the season of buying. This is the season of giving.

The Courage of John the Baptist

My son Jacob has decided who he is going to marry. He is nine years old.

Her name is Sarah. They have their whole lives mapped out, Jacob and Sarah. They are going to attend University together, then open a lizard and reptile store. They are going to have four kids, two boys and two girls. Since they both adore lizards, they should live happily ever after. At least, that is the plan for the moment.

Funny how we map our whole lives out, as if we are in control of it all. It makes us feel less frightened, I think, to know the way that we are to travel through time. But it is nonsense. No one that I know has ever been able to execute every detail of their lives just as they planned. And if there was someone like that, wouldn't they be awfully bored?

John the Baptist kept screaming these words, "Make His Path Straight!" His path, not ours. I think John knew that we were meant to focus on God's way for our lives not our own.

Back in John's day, when a great man was traveling, his followers would go ahead of him. Using branches or sometimes even their hands, they would clear a path for him to travel. There were no roads back then, so they would make a road, carve out a path for the great one to walk.

John the Baptist had a path laid out before him from birth. As the son of the High Priest, Zechariah, he had everything that a young Jewish boy could want. He was destined to follow in his father's footsteps. He would have been highly educated, even pampered as a child. Everyone would have known the path that he was expected to travel, the ladder of success that he was expected to climb. The question was only how high would he rise in the order of the priesthood.

Somewhere along the way, John decided to leave his chosen path and listen to God instead. He left everything: his wealth, his family, his education, his reputation and he walked out into the desert. For God, he became a fool, a homeless man who hollered a lot and ate bugs. People came just to see the spectacle. I'm sure that they talked about John. What great material for gossip! The tabloids would have a field day today! "Son of the High Priest, Now Homeless and Crazy!" I can just hear the gossip now. But John knew that it was not important, trying to please everybody else. What was important was pleasing God. And he did that.

And because he followed God's path and no other, it is John's voice that echoes accross the centuries, while the well-respected priests of his day have all disappeared from the records of history.

God's way is always more true, more fully your own, than anything that you can devise. So why do we try so hard? Why do we plan and chart, calculate and arrange? Why not admit that God has a better way and listen instead?

May you find the time to listen to God's way for your life during this Advent season.

The Beauty of Music

Last night I heard some of the most beautiful music of my life. I stood in the Cathedral surrounded by candlelight, and the choir stood around me, singing songs of longing for God. It was the annual service of Advent Procession. At the end of the service, the choir surrounded me behind the altar and I thought that I must be on the edge of heaven.

I have always thought that heaven must consist of pure music. Music transcends all spoken language in its ability to convey meaning. It lifts our hearts in ways that defy explanation. It expresses desires that we could never convey in any other way. Something about the nature of the interraction between the notes seems to defy time and touch the eternal. It is a great mystery, how music is created and heard, but there is no denying that it draws us to open our hearts to God.

It is no wonder that the Psalmist invited us to sing to the Lord. And scholars believe that the first part of Holy Scripture to have actually been written down, as opposed to orally transmitted, was the Song of Miriam. After Miriam's brother, Moses, parted the Red Sea by the hand of God, and they reached the other side safely, Miriam sang,

Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously! Horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea!
From the Book of Exodus

How amazing that the very first written word of Scripture was really a song! In fact, the Scripture both begins and ends with music. In a vision of the kingdom of heaven, Scripture depicts angels singing at the throne of God. They don't yell, or speak, they SING.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of Your Glory!
Hosanna in the Highest!
The Book of Revelation

C.S. Lewis, in The Chronicles of Narnia, depicts Christ as a Lion who sings the world into being. The creation literally seems to spring forth from the notes that He sings. Life itself emanates from his voice. This depiction of the creation captures the significance of music, which not only conveys emotion, but creates it inside of us. It is like God is speaking to us and resonating the sound of eternity into our hearts.

So today, I give thanks for music. For it is a window into the Almighty.

The Unfundamentalist Church

The Episcopal Church is in the media a lot. We have a gay bishop. We ordain women. The highest ranking Bishop in the United States of America is a woman, and an oceanographer and she runs for exercise and wears dangly earrings.

If you only read the papers, you might think that we were sort of leftist Unitarians with liturgy. The media seems to cover the hot topics while missing the biggest part of the picture.

Episcopalians are not all liberal nor are they all conservative. We are not the church of the gay bishop or the woman bishop or the millennium development goals. We are the church of the thinking devout.

An essential element of the Episcopal Church is missing in all this coverage. We are not a fundamentalist left, we just believe in discourse. We believe that God gave us brains and we are called to use them, in the reading of Scripture, in contemplating ethical issues, even in prayer. We are not supposed to check our minds at the door when we enter a church. We believe in thinking as an essential part of the devotional life.

If you allow people to think for themselves in church, you inevitably end up with a mess. Because people will disagree. And they will pray, and they will agree, and they will pray. And then they will disagree again.

Right now, across the world, the Anglican Communion is praying, discussing and wondering if it is possible to stay in communion with churches when you disagree over ethical and spiritual issues particularly the issue of human sexuality. No one is debating about Jesus. We all believe in Jesus as the Son of God, but it’s how we interpret how best to follow Him--that is what is at stake.

I feel blessed to be part of a church that embraces the mind and reason itself. I just wish that we could agree to disagree with out leaving one another out in the cold. After all, isn’t disagreement one of the greatest gifts that our church has to offer? Isn't true diversity about living with those who are different from ourselves, who may even think differently? Let us pray for the Anglican Communion to stick it out even in the midst of painful disagreement. Our unity would speak much more eloquently than our schism. If we are to answer God's call to be the unfundamentalist church, then we must be able to disagree and remain in relationship.

The Birth Pangs

As the light gets dim and the days grow short, the Scripture turns to the end of days. Daniel speaks of the end of the world as we know it, when the righteous will be separated from those who do not love God. And Jesus answers questions from his disciples about the end of time. They want to know when it will happen, and how can they guess the date.

We human being always want to guess the date. The Mayan calendar has us all hyped up these days. The new date is Dec 21 or 23 of 2012. Nothing much has changed. We too, like the disciples, want to know when we will end.

Jesus does not give the disciples a direct answer. Instead, he talks about wars, famine and earthquakes. "But these," Jesus says, "Are just the beginning of the birth pangs."

The birth pangs. It sounds like he was talking about a beginning, not an end.

Think about birth with me for a moment. All of us were content in a warm, dark world. Our every need was provided for. We did not ask for change or disruption. Probably if anyone could have communicated with us, they would have found out that we liked our little warm existence just the way it was, thank you very much. Life was pretty good in our mothers bellies, pretty comfortable, probably beautiful and gentle. Why would we have ever wanted to leave?

But then, out of nowhere, our world began to collapse. No one consulted us. We could not have predicted the date or the event for that matter, it was all beyond our fathoming. The warmness went away, there was constriction and pain. We might have thought we were dying, if we could have known what it was to die. And then there was cold and light and noise and chaos. Shapes that we could not distinguish. There was feeling and sight and sounds and light. We were born.

What we once thought was pain and death ended up being life itself.

So who is to say the the "end" of this world will not be a beginning, the beginning of something infinately greater? Something that we cannot even begin to imagine? Isn't that God's way, the way of this incredible creation?

In fact, wasn't Jesus trying to tell us just that, that we are waiting to be born? What we do not realize is that we are not yet fully alive. This life is what C.S. Lewis called The Shadowlands. We are not yet fully awake. We run around with our constant business, like tiny ants on the surface of this planet. We are not fully aware of what it is to be alive in God. There is more to come. Somewhere deep down inside, don't you believe that?

At the end, there will be birth pangs. And we will be born in God.

Clara's at the Cathedral

Every Friday, the Cathedral hosts a lunch. We call this endeavor Clara’s at the Cathedral. Clara’s Kitchen is a non profit agency that teaches culinary arts to people who are struggling with poverty or released from prison. In addition to providing a formal luncheon at the Cathedral each Friday, they cater events. Sixty percent of their graduates are now employed.
I entered the Cathedral fellowship hall last Friday and was overwhelmed. A violinist played as the patrons were professionally served. White table clothes and beautiful utensils made for an elegant presentation. And the food was superb.

A young woman served as our waitor. She was friendly, solicious, polite. She did not hover but seemed to appear exactly when my iced tea needed refilling. I was impressed.

This is it, I thought. This is the best kind of restaurant, serving hope along with a delicious meal. And all for a mere $10.I left full of good food and good will. Thanks be to God.

The Miracle Move

Yesterday was my first Sunday at St. John's Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida. It was incredible! The church was built in the early 1900's after a second devastating fire wiped out most of the city. Rennovated in the 80's, the altar is far out with the choir behind. The pulpit is stone and beautiful. Stained glass windows frame the beautiful sanctuary where I preached my very first sermon fifteen years ago. People came from all over to celebrate All Saints Sunday and the 175th anniversary of this place. They had to bring in chairs to accomodate the crowd. And once the choir began to sing the Introit, I knew that I was in heaven.

I felt God's peace once I saw the faces of the people. They were so kind and attentive. We baptized three babies, one of who screamed almost the entire time! We read aloud the names of our loved ones who died, giving thanks for their continued presence in our lives as saints. And I distributed communion to many incredible folks.

One of the most beautiful parts of the Cathedral is its diversity. A homeless man will kneel down next to a wealthy woman and together they will hold out their hands for the Body of Christ. The disabled come in wheelchairs, the old and the young, African-American, Indian, Asian and Caucasion-all together glorify God.

I was overcome with gratefulness. It was a wonderful day.

I arrived home that afternoon, tired but happy. As the boys played in the front yard, I met my new neighbors and learned that another miracle had occurred.

We live next to Ken and Barbara. They have one grandchild, Ryan, whose mother is battling stage four lung cancer. Because of her rigorous treatment and the exhaustion that it produces, Kim often lets Ryan stay with his grandparents.

Ryan's grandmother, Barbara, said a very specific prayer to God a few months ago, when she saw that her next-door neighbor was going to rent his house. Barbara asked God to find a five-year-old boy to move in next door, for Ryan is an only child and he needs a friend.

And what does God give Ryan? Not one but three boys! A loud and active pile of boys! And Max just turned five. He is two months younger than Ryan.

How great are the works of the Lord! As if it were not enough to welcome us to this beautiful Cathedral, God even called Max here for a reason.

Jesus in Kansas

I am sitting here surrounded by boxes. Leaving Kansas makes me want to write about some of the many ways I have seen Christ here. I have seen so many incredible people, I wish I could write about all of them. But here is a start.

Keith Johnson was the Junior Warden of St. James years ago. He was a concert pianist and music teacher. He loved to work at the church, care for the building and organize parishioners. Then he suffered from a major stroke.

Imagine not being able to play your music, or even to speak. He has difficulty walking. His thoughts don't arrange themselves clearly into sentences. His life was completely altered forever, and yet, he does not feel sorry for himself. Time and again, he has called me to his house to ask what he can do for the church. Finally, we came up with an answer.

Keith brings a small stool with him and places it in the bride's room, at the entrance to the sanctuary. He comes early to our 11:15 service every Sunday and he greets people. He holds out his hand and warmly says hello, welcoming them to worship. He is wonderful at this and I see Jesus whenever I watch him. Even though he cannot say much, there is no one better at welcoming people. In Keith, I catch a glimpse of Christ.

More stories on Jesus in Kansas will be coming in the next few days...

In Christ's love,

Kate+

Saying Goodbye

I had to say goodbye to St. James Church yesterday. After seven wonderful years, I found myself in tears. It was hard to hold myself together as I looked into the faces of so many beautiful people. I will truly miss this great church.

The Scripture readings seemed to be all about letting go. Job had everything taken from him and was miserable and angry at God. The Psalmist wondered if God had abandoned him. And in the gospel, a man approaches Jesus and falls down on his knees.

"What can I do to get into heaven?" he asks.

Jesus tells him to obey the commandments and the man explains that he has done all that since his youth. Jesus looks at the man and loves him.

When God looks at you and loves you, you often are asked to do more. And sure enough, Jesus pays the man the highest compliment. He invites the man to come with him. "Go," he says, "Sell everything that you own, give the money to the poor and come, follow me."

This was such an honor. Whole crowds tried to follow Jesus and he would slip away. He only asked his disciples to follow him. This was the greatest opportunity that would ever occur to this man, the greatest treasure he could ever be offered. But he said no.

This man, the rich man we now call him, was unable to leave his stuff. He was so comfortable that he couldn't disturb that comfort, not even for the Son of God. And so he left grieving. And he ended up the poorest of all, for he let Jesus pass him by.

It is so hard, how God has created us. Over and over again in this life, we are asked to say goodbye. God seems to be teaching us that we cannot hold on to anything that is of this world. The more we try to hold on to our stuff or to each other, the more miserable we become. There is a world of difference between love and attachment, but many of us never really learn the difference.

I wonder sometimes if the greatest obstacle in the spiritual life is not sin at all but just our own comfort. We will do almost anything to have things stay the same.

This past Saturday, I went to the fiftieth reunion of one of my parishioners. I sat at a table with these older folks and one of them gave me a pearl of wisdom. "Kate," he said, "It's funny to witness how we change over the years. At our 10 year reunion, we all pose and compete. We compair our jobs, we try to show off how great we look, how we haven't gained a pound since high school. Then by our 20th, we all compair kids, but we may let down our gaurds a bit to admit that married life is harder than we thought, or that we are not always sure how to be good parents. By the 50th reunion, everything has changed. We have had to let go of so much. So many of our classmates have died. We don't care who is doing what or who has made the most money. All we care about is the fact that we are here together. We laugh and cry. We tell stories. We enjoy one another, because we can no longer hold on. As hard as it has been to let go, we are wiser. We know how to truly live. "

It is so hard to say goodbye to this parish, but I know that God has great things in store for them and for me. Look at how the disciples improved after Jesus left. They were such bumblers while he was with them. They didn't want him to go, but then they became everything that God called them to be once he was gone.

I take these beautiful people with me for I have truly seen Jesus here in Kansas. And I know that God will bless all of us as we say goodbye.

The Insatiable Nature of Sin

When I was a teenager, I got obsessed with a soap opera. It was called General Hospital. Everyone on the show was gorgeous and they all seemed independently wealthy. Everyone had high-powered jobs, but they never seemed to work. And oh, the drama was intense! Despite their beauty and wealth, no one was ever complete. Nothing seemed to be enough. There was always one more love affair, one more lost twin to discover, one more tragedy to occur. I watched General Hospital for three months and by the end of the summer, I had my fill. The drama continued on without me.

There is a portion of the Old Testament that reminds me of a soap opera. It is called the Succession Narrative and it occurs at the end of II Samuel and well into I Kings. It begins with the story of King David, a man who had everything. David was ruler of a united Israel. He was wealthier than any of us can imagine. He had multiple wives, tons of servants and everything a man could want to eat. He clearly had enough, but somehow his appetite was not yet satiated.

David was walking on his rooftop in the late afternoon to escape the heat of the day. Because he was king, his rooftop was the highest. He could look down upon the city of Jerusalem and view his kingdom. That afternoon, he saw someone bathing. Her name was Bathsheeba and she was beautiful. And David wanted her. Despite the fact that he had everything a man could want, he felt that it was not enough. He must have HER. And so David took her into his bed. She was a married woman.

David’s sin begins to snowball, as sin often does. Bathsheeba becomes pregnant. David invites her husband home from battle and assumes that he will sleep with his wife, thus covering up David’s indiscretion. But Uriah does not lie with his wife. He is a moral man who cannot enjoy such luxury while his soldiers die in battle.

David tries to get him drunk and still Uriah does not sleep with his wife. So David instructs his general to place Uriah on the front line and then have the soldiers fall back so that he will be killed.

Lust becomes adultery which turns to lies and finally murder. And all of this occurred because David could not say when. He could not say no to his desire.

David's story reminds me of Eve in the Garden of Eden. I can just picture her reaching for the forbidden fruit. She had everything that she could ever need and yet she could not refrain from satiating her every desire. Even the Garden of Eden was not enough for her. She had to take what wasn’t offered and that was her downfall.

I believe that the root of much of our sinfulness lies in our inability to distinguish between our needs and our wants. We must be able to say no to our desires, it is a crucial part of the Christian journey. Not being able to say no to the insatiable needs of the self leads to destruction for all of us.

Everything about American culture tells us that we must have it all. Our consumer-driven economy is dependent on increasing our needs and desires. The advertisements tell us that we must have this product and we must have that product. Our desire seems to be never-ending.

There is now a pile of trash in the Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas. It is hurting the ocean life, but we are still unable to keep taking what is not ours. Our consumption has not been curbed and our disposal of enormous amounts of trash continues. Eve takes that fruit over and over and over again.

Only Jesus can teach us how to say when. Only Jesus can tell us that it is enough. Listen to his voice. You have everything that you could possibly need. There is so much to be thankful for.

Try walking through Walmart and say to yourself, “I have everything that I need.” You have been given everything, everything. Let us say ENOUGH and give thanks.

Responding to Dr. Tiller's Death

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am writing to you with great sadness. As all of you know, yesterday Dr. George Tiller was assassinated in the narthex of Reformation Lutheran Church. I feel the need to write to you to explain how we as Christians and as Episcopalians are called to respond.

The greatest gift of the Episcopal Church is our ability to disagree, to think and to dialogue within the context of our faith. We are a church where you can bring your questions, your doubts, your disagreements and know that you are loved by God. I know that members of this church have many differing views on the issue of abortion. No matter what your perspective, this issue can never be resolved by violence.

When we disagree, it is an opportunity that God gives us to deepen our understanding and reach one another. Relationship is nothing without dischord, it is what makes us stronger. Resorting to violence is an act of despair. It tears at the fabric of our community. The only way to respond to such violence is to double our efforts to communicate with one another, to reach out in love and respect, to pray for one another.

Please join me in praying for Dr. Tiller’s family and loved ones, for Reformation Church and for the man who chose to murder Dr. Tiller. I will be in the sanctuary here at St. James at 7:30 pm this Wednesday night. If you wish to join me, we can say Evening Prayer and pray for this community and this city.

The Episcopal Clergy of this Convocation, along with Bishop Wolfe, have drafted a statement which should reach the paper tomorrow.

God bless you all.

In Christ’s love,

Kate+

Naming the Holy Spirit

I am grateful that I have to wear a black shirt and a collar every day to work because I have absolutely no style at all. If I had to put together an outfit every day, it would be a nightmare for me.
My husaband and I have a running joke. If I step out of the closet and ask him, "Does this work?" The answer is always, "NO." In fact, these days JD won't even look up from what he is doing. If I step out of the closet and ask him if an outfit works, he will say no without even looking up.
In all the years that I have been a priest, about once a month or so, someone will ask to speak with me in private. They will tell me about a miracle that occurred to them. One woman told how she saw a strange man across a crowded room some seventy years ago and she heard a voice say, "That is your husband." And they did marry and stayed married for over sixty years. Another woman was widowed in her thirties with two small children. She stopped at a traffic light one day, feeling completely lost and overwhelmed, and a presence of peace came over her, a peace like nothing she had ever felt before.
People tell me these incredible stories that they don't dare mention to anyone else and then they ask me the same question,
"Was that God?"
And my answer is always, "YES!"
In fact, I don't even need to hear their stories anymore. The answer is always YES.

The season of the Holy Spirit is approaching. Pentecost. It is a season of great mystery, of wild miracles and people who speak in tongues. But we have become shy when it comes to speaking of the Holy Spirit. We worry that people will think we are mentally unstable or somehow medieval. We are afraid to name God's activity among us for fear of being judged by others.

In Peter's day, it was not embarrassing to name God's presence. It was considered an honor to be visited by God. So Peter spoke openly about his visions and his faith in Jesus. He loved to speak of the Holy Spirit.

A friend of mine lost her grandson when he was just 15 years old. He loved to play golf. His name was Chris. Every year, on the day of his death, his family plays a round of golf. It is their way of celebrating his life.

This year, it was pouring down rain when the grandmother and her son (the boy's father) found themselves trying to play golf. They both felt like fools. They could hardly see the ball. Chris' dad teed up and promptly hit the ball into a pond. So they went over to the pond, already sopping wet, to fish out the ball.

Chris' dad managed to salvage the ball from the pond, but he just stood there looking at it. His mom came over to see what was wrong. Without a word, he handed her the ball. There, written in someone's handwriting was his name, Chris.

Name it-The Holy Spirit. It is God's activity among us. It is the idea that just pops into your head from nowhere. It is the math problem that you couldn't solve that just seems to resolve itself in your mind in your sleep. It is running into just the person you needed to see. It is the smile on the face of your loved ones. Name it!

Don't be afraid to name it. You are not crazy. You are just Christian.

The Pruning

Every branch that bears fruit, I will prune back...
The Gospel of John

This past Saturday, the clouds parted for a few hours and I began to plant some flowers. I have this tiny garden in our front lawn, under the shade of a tree. There is a statue of St. Francis and I like to surround him with flowers each spring. A friend of our, Felix, who is 8, helped me plant.

Unfortunately, the flat of flowers sat there for one week before I had the time to plant them. The flowers had grown tall and spindly. In order to keep them healthy, I had to prune them, cutting off the flowers and planting the green stems. Felix was perplexed.

"Luke's mom," he said. "Why are you cutting off all the pretty stuff?"

I had to explain to Felix about the pruning process. "I have to cut these flowers off so that the plants will be healthy and eventually make more flowers," I said.

That's what Jesus does sometimes. He prunes us. He prunes back those branches that bear fruit. His followers who love him and who are genuinely are trying to follow him--he prunes us back. And we never really understand why.

A lady in our parish had to move into assisted living this week. The process nearly did her in. She refused to leave, went on a hunger strike, beggged and cried. But our deacon finally convinced her. It was time for her to be pruned back. She had to get rid of many of her belongings in order to prepare her soul for God. It was so hard for her to say goodbye to so many keepsakes and memories, but she did it in the end. And now she is enjoying herself in her new space.

Consider that some of the hardship you endure is really a pruning back. Suffering is not the enemy. Often, it makes us grow. We may never fully understand what God is trying to do with us, not in this life, but we can use our suffering as a way of learning and become stronger.

My flowers are doing well. Some new buds have come out, tiny ones that will take awhile to bloom. They are coming.

The Ten Commandments

Two years ago, I took my family to the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking, but I couldn't take it in because I had Max and Max was two.

Bringing a todder to the edge of a steep cliff was one of the most frightening things I have ever done. All I could do was imagine Max toddling over the edge. As I result, I could not enjoy the view. I was just too terrified.

If only they had a place for parents and little kids, I thought. They would have a huge chain-link fence, strong and durable. The kids could play freely, protected from the monstrous heights by that wonderful, sturdy, impenitrable fence. If only that fence existed, I could enjoy the view!

When God gave us the Ten Commandments, God was really giving us a fence. God was giving us the boundaries that we must respect if we were to be safe, happy and free. You cannot have a healthy civilization if you kill one another, or steal or commit adultery. These laws were the strong, sturdy rods of the fence. These laws would keep the Israelites safe from their own darker nature, safe from mayhem and chaos, safe from violence and revenge.

It is strange to think of laws as freeing, but they are. If we are not safe from one another, then we are not free.

Satan

Get behind me, Satan! For you are concerned with things that are of humans and not of God.
Mark

Why in the world does Jesus call Peter "Satan"? Peter was a bumbler but he was not a bad guy. He made some bad mistakes, but he also made some great comebacks. He was one of Jesus' closest disciples. He gave up his entire livelihood to follow Jesus. He was a good man.

Peter had just finished identifying Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, and then this happened. At one moment Jesus called Peter the Rock of the Church, at the next moment, he was calling Peter Satan. Both can't be true...

This conversation happened at the height of Jesus' ministry. The crowds were all over him. Everyone wanted to be touched, healed. Everyone wanted to hear Jesus' words. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. Peter says what everyone must have been hoping, that Jesus would save the Jewish people.

Jesus recognized that he was the Messiah, but then he began to describe the real plan that God had in store for him. He would suffer. He would die and then rise again. And Peter could not accept this. Peter scolded Jesus...

No, Lord, that is not the way that things are supposed to go. That's not what everyone wants and needs. You are supposed to rescue us from oppression and rule as king, not die. That just can't be right.

And that's when Jesus caled him Satan. Because the words that Peter spoke, the thoughts that he was articulating, were the thoughts of the Adversary.

The Satan first appears in the book of Job. The title literally means The Adversary. The One who opposes God.

Whenever we let our actions be determined by what others want and not what God wants, we follow the impulses of the Adversary.

Satan is not a red man with horns. He is the personnification of everything that slides into our minds to confuse us, to redirect our intentions away from the will of God. That is why the image of the snake is so powerful. The impulses of the adversary sneak into our lives and lure us away from God's purposes.

And one fundamental way that Satan distracts is to make us care more about pleasing people than about pleasing God.

In the 1960s, Dr. Stanley Millgram, a professor at Yale University, ran an experiment. There were three players: a doctor in a white coat, a volunteer taken randomly from off the street and a student named Carl. The doctor explained to the volunteer that he was to ask questions of the student. When the student got an answer wrong, the volunteer was to adminsiter a small electric shock. The voltage of the shocks was to increase as the student got more answers wrong. The purpose of the experiment was to see how the human brain might be capable of greater intellectual prowess when faced with discomfort.

Before the experiment began, the student, Carl, mentioned to the volunteer that he had a heart condition. The doctor gave the volunteer a small shock, so that he would feel what the student would be experiencing. It hurt.

The experiment began.

Carl got question number 3 wrong. The volunteer administered the electric shock and Carl began to sweat.

The experiment continued and with each successive incorrect answer, the volunteer administered another electric shock, turning up the dial each time so that the voltage increased.

Carl began to beg for them to stop. The volunteer looked to the doctor for guidance, but he simply nodded and smiled.

This continued. Carl pounding on the chair, shaking excessively, and begging for them to stop. But the volunteer, upon the insistence of the doctor, continued. In the end, the volunteer administered 400 volts of electricity. Carl was almost incoherent.

When the experiment was over, its true nature was revealed. Carl was an actor. The real purpose of the experiment was to see just how much pain one human being was willing to inflict on another just become someone told him so.

How often do you make decisions based on what others think or will say? Whenever that happens, you are in danger of following the Adversary.

How many people, after the fall of Nazi Germany, told the world that they felt Hitler was wrong, but they just kept thinking that everyone else seemed excited. So they silenced their reservations and followed him.

Jesus identified the mind of Satan immediately, forcefully. He recognized temptation. We are much slower to identify temptation.

How often do you let the opinions of others determine your actions, determine who you are? Pay attention to your own mind, so that one day you too will be able to say no to temptation.

Those Wise Guys

My dad was in a Christmas production years ago at a local public school. He played one of the three kings. He got to wear a big crown and march down the aisle singing. All the kids loved it.

About a month later, my dad was walking on the sidewalk near the school and a little boy ran up to him. Grabbing hold of the chain-link fence, the boy yelled, “Hey! I know you! You was one of those WISE GUYS!”

Wise Guys. I like that. The Wise Guys. They were probably not kings. What kind of a king could just up and leave his kingdom? The Bible does not say that they are kings, but we seem to have assumed that they were royalty because they give such profoundly wealthy gifts. Gold. Frankincense. Myrrh. Gifts FOR a king. Treasures for the Son of God.

The Bible does not say much about these men except that they were wise and that they came from the East. They were wise because they sought out the Christ child and they found him. They were wise because they recognized Jesus before anybody else did. It took most of the disciples until after the resurrection to begin to get it! Peter understood who Jesus was after walking around with him for about a year and a half. Most people never understood who Jesus really was. But the Wise Guys got it. They really got it. They must have been truly awake, watching and waiting. They seemed to know what they were looking for.

When JD and I go on road trips, we occasionally get lost. I will suggest that we ask for directions, but JD will usually refuse until I insist. I will needle him until he finally pulls into a gas station with a sigh, as if to ask for directions is to give up. Why is it that most men don’t like to ask for directions?

My folks got a GPS system for Christmas. They call it Gertrude. She speaks in a British accent and calls the highway the moterway. My folks will never be lost again, but I find her presence kind of confining. There is no wandering with Gertrude on your back. There is no getting lost, no asking for help, no searching for the destination. She maps it all out for you.

Most of us like to map out our lives. We want to know exactly where we will be in five years, ten years. We plan our careers and plan for retirement, we map out our children’s education and how we are going to pay for it. We make New Year's resolutions and five year plans. And there is no room for wandering. There is no room for God to guide us because we have already made up our minds. When we come to a fork in the road, we are told which way to go. Our minds are already made up.

I think that those Wise Guys wandered. That was part of their wisdom. They did not have everything planned out. They were willing to take off on the spur of the moment, travel in the dark to follow the light of a distant star. We know that they must have felt lost, for they go to King Herod to ask for directions!

I’m not saying that New Year’s resolutions are bad, but don’t plan your life so tightly that there is no room for God. You can lead a smooth life on a strict plan, but if you want to lead a life of meaning, you must be willing to wander around in the dark for awhile. Following God is not always a straight shot. Even Jesus did not always know what was going to happen next. On the cross, he wondered if God had abandoned him. But he was willing to follow God’s surprising curves rather than map out his own life. From a worldly perspective, Jesus’ life was a complete failure. Only God could know that his resurrection would change the world. Only God could take an unknown Jesus peasant and alter human consciousness with that one life freely given.

On the way home from the holidays, I sat next to a pilot on the airplane. He loves his job. He says that when he gets busy and distracted my the details of daily life, he goes up in an airplane. He sees the most beautiful sunsets. He looks down from the heavens and marvels at how small we humans are. And everything seems to fall into perspective.

Maybe we should make a different kind of New Year’s resolution in 2009. Maybe we should aim to be Wise, like those Wise Guys. To watch, to wait, and to wander in search of the Christ.