Worthy

Many years ago, one of my favorite movies was released. It was called Ordinary People. In the movie, there are two brothers, Buck and Conrad Jarrett. Buck is the older and the favorite of his mother. Conrad is quieter, and lives in the shadow of his brother.

One summer, the boys decide to go sailing. There is a terrible storm. The waves surge and the boat capsizes. Conrad manages to hold onto the capsized boat, but Buck drowns.

When Conrad returns, he is changed. He does not want to live. He feels that he doesn't deserve to be alive. He is depressed, despondent. After three months in the hospital, he goes back to high school. But all the things that he loved, he no longer cares about. Nothing means anything anymore. In a last ditch attempt to find help, he agrees to see a therapist.

The therapist is a Jewish man who works out of a small, dark office. He rarely speaks but mostly just listens to Conrad. For months, Conrad talks about how bad he is, how he doesn't care about anything. He is not interested in choir or sports or friends, nothing. He is lost. He believes that he is bad and deserves to die.

Late one evening, Conrad has a panic attack. In tears, shaking, he phones the therapist. "I need to see you now!" he cries. The therapist is smart enough to know that Conrad is at a pivotal moment.  He puts his coat on over his pajamas and meets Conrad at his office. Conrad paces the office and finally gets to talking about the events of the accident itself. He describes how the boat capsized and how he held on. "I should have let go and looked for Buck, but I didn't! I didn't!" In response, the therapist says something very simple: "Conrad, you are a good person....have you ever thought that you might have been stronger?"

With those words, Conrad begins to believe in himself again. Slowly, his life returns.

Stories of Jesus began to fly about after his resurrection, and it became so important for the people who saw Him, who knew him, to write their stories down. Mark was the first one to respond to that need.

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four gospels. It is also considered to be the first gospel, the gospel that was written down the earliest.

Mark wrote his gospel with speed and precision. He only told the parts that he thought were most important. There is no story of Jesus' birth in the Gospel of Mark. No, Mark, the shortest of the gospels, gets right to the point. Mark does not consider how or where Jesus was born to be of importance. The first thing that Mark wanted to tell us was about Jesus' baptism, not his birth. For Mark, Jesus became Jesus at his baptism. It was baptism that began Jesus' life as the Son of God. The years before Jesus' baptism were just preparation for his ministry. Those years were important but they were preparatory. Jesus becomes fully himself, fully awake and aware, when he is baptized. Jesus was named by God at his baptism. And the words that God speaks aloud at Jesus' baptism are vital words; they are the words of life. Mark records only God's words, not Jesus' or John's, but only God's words.

We translate God's words into English in the following way: "You are My Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased." I have never really liked the translation "well pleased." It reminds me of my grandmother, who would tell us that she was "pleased" with our grades over dinner. So I went back to the ancient language of the New Testament. And I discovered something wonderful. The words that God spoke really mean not so much "With you I am well pleased'" but instead what God said was more like:

"I call you good."

Or

"I name you good."

When God created the world, God said that it was good. God saw the light, separated it from the darkness, and identified its goodness. All the parts of God's creation were good. Part of the act of the creation was the declaration that each part was good. It was created and it was good.

But when we fell from God, we separated ourselves from that One who calls us good. And we no longer knew who we were. 

This happens all the time in our world. Children are abandoned and no longer consider themselves good. Parents divorce and the child wonders why, was it because she was bad? A parent hands over a child to be adopted and the child wonders if he was just not good enough. He wonders for a lifetime.

We have been hosting leadership breakfasts on the plight of the child in Jacksonville. The roots of so much of the crime in this country stem back to parents who abandon their children, hit their children or neglect them so badly that the child begins to believe he is bad, that he is capable of violence, that there is no compassion left in him. And it is a short walk from there to hatred and fear. It is as if the parents are telling the child, in ways deeper than words, that they are not good, that no one wants them. And once a child thinks he or she is not good, their life is hard to retrieve.

I know a woman who counsels men who have abused women. Her great gift that is from God is this - she is able to search for the goodness that lies deep inside the man. She is able to see beneath all the pain and violence and hurt to something more, some hint of goodness. And in her eyes, they can begin to see themselves as good. Healing occurs when they believe that they are good.

What happens in baptism is so simple, so primal, and so vital. God declares what was once true before the fall of mankind. God says that in Jesus, we are given names, we are claimed by God and we are good.

Today we baptize Hunter, Owen and Kristen. Today God declares them good. And all of you, every single one of you, is now called to see their goodness. Witness to it, call them to it. As they live their lives, as they make their choices, remind them of who they already are, who God calls them to be. Good.

Remember who you are. Any voices that tell you you are not good are not of God. God created you good and names you good in your baptism. Never forget that.

The Name of Jesus

Seventeen years ago, I came to this Cathedral to work as an Intern.  I was in Seminary and my husband, JD had a clerkship with Judge Tjoflat.  I was blessed to be here, to preach my first sermon, teach my first bible study, learn to listen and sing with the choir.  It was a wonderful year for me.  Now that I am your Dean, I look back on that year as God’s way of introducing me to you.

It is hard to begin work in a parish.  The first and most important thing to do is to learn the names of people.  It is vital to learn names.  When I mispronounce the name of someone, I hurt their feelings, and even make them feel unwanted.  I will never forget when I was ordained a deacon and my bishop called me Karen.  I wondered if I had actually been ordained.

Back when I first came to this Cathedral, I was watching TV at our beach bungalow in Atlantic Beach when a television pastor came on.  I will never forget his sermon.  He was preaching to a huge crowd.  At least 1000 people seemed to be gathered.  He had the crowd all reved up.  And this is what he said,

I am a Gator Fan!  With these words, half the crowd cheered and half booed.

But if the Gators loose three in a row, I just might become a Seminole Fan! Have the crowded went wild, half booed.

Because I like a winner!  

My Jesus, he’s a winner.  My Jesus, he’s an All-American!

I remember vividly turning to JD.  “Strange,” I said.  “I thought he was a Jew from Palestine.”

My Jesus.  Why did he think that Jesus belonged to him?  I was almost envious of the way that he claimed Jesus, as if they were best friends.

Most of us Episcopalians don’t speak a lot about Jesus.  We feel that his name is too sacred just to throw around.  We want to hold it close to our hearts.  Sometimes I wonder if we are also worried that we might offend people of other religions.  Should I or shouldn’t I, say the name?  Will it offend people?  It might.  Better off just to say God. One Baptist minister says, Honoring all faiths, I pray in the name of Jesus, but that seems awfully wordy to me. Why not just say God? But we rarely pray to Jesus. Most of the time, we say Lord.

Why is it that we are shy about using his Name?

I read a story about a college girl who was attacked while walking to her dorm one night.  She attended a beautiful college on a wooded campus.  She was walking on a well-lit path, with her backpack over her shoulder, when a man grabbed her from behind and dragged her into the woods.

The girl did something strange.  Instead of screaming or fighting, she began to speak.  She told him her name.

My name is Sarah, she said. What’s your name?

He tore off her backpack and pushed her to the ground.

My name is Sarah.  What’s your name?

My name is Sarah, she repeated as he stood over her, ready to hurt her.

And then he stopped.  He just stood there, staring at her on the ground. 

He left her lying on the ground.  He did not hurt her.  There was something powerful about knowing her name.  She made him see her as a person, not an object.  And he stopped his violence.

Many of us know that there are children all over the world who are starving to death.  We know the facts, and we know the numbers.  But we do not know their names, so we’re able to say, That’s too bad. And then we move on. But when an agency writes us with the name of one child, say one tiny girl who needs food, it is much harder to say no, much harder to stay detached.  For in knowing her name, she becomes real to us; she becomes, in some way, related to us.  And we cannot watch her die.  We must act. Why do so many relief agencies ask you to adopt a child?  Because then you will see a person, hear a name and you will be generous.

Eight days after their child was born, Mary and Joseph took him to be circumcised according to Jewish custom.  It was at this time that the child was given a name.  Jesus.  Babies died so often either in childbirth or in the first few days afterwards that they were not fully human until the naming ceremony.  When they were given a name, they became a person.  And their life began.

To this day, we take naming seriously.  I remember pouring over books before naming our first born.  I was aware of how his name would affect his character, perhaps his personality.  It seemed such a monumental decision.  Would we name him after anyone?  Would he have a name from the Bible? We understand how the name of a person can impact their life. 

When we baptize a child, I will ask the parents, Name this child. And with the name, the child is baptized.  Names are spoken in marriage, in burial, they represent the essence, the individuality of a person. To love someone is to speak their name.  Somehow the personality of the beloved is reflected, captured in the sound of the name.

This child was given the name Jesus.  It means The One who Saves.

God had given us a name once before, on Mt Sinai.  But the name had been so full of mystery that no Jew even dared to pronounce it.  Many Jews even today call God Adonai, which means Lord, rather than speak the name of Yahweh.  And to this day, because ancient Hebrew had no vowels, we do not even know how God’s name was pronounced.  We can only guess.

But when the baby came to us, God gave us a human name.  A name to speak with familiarity and with love, a name that we could pronounce easily and remember well.  God gave us the name of his Son, Jesus.

From the first centuries, Christians viewed this name as holy.  Inherent in the name itself was a bit of the presence of the one who bore it.  We were supposed to pray in his name, in the name of Jesus.  That was the way that all Christians were and still are called to pray.

For hundreds of years, Christians wrote his name in symbols. IHS. Jesous Hominum Salvatio.  Jesus savior of mankind.  Jesus, the one who saves the world.

So why is it that we are shy to speak of him when his name is a gift to us?  Why do we feel that we are somehow not being respectful if we talk to him as we would a friend?  Didn’t he want that?  Doesn’t he still want that?

When Mary was weeping at the tomb of Jesus, he appeared to her, but she could not recognize him through all her grief.  And then he spoke her name, Mary.   With the words of her name, she awoke and she recognized him. 

Do you want Jesus to speak your name one day, to wake you up to his presence?  If you want this, then don’t be afraid to speak his name.  Speak it every day, quietly and loudly, in prayer and in song.  Use the sounds that God has given you to speak of his Son.  The sounds are gifts to you, bridges to the presence of the Almighty.  His name is your gift.

It’s hard to believe that you are on a first-name basis with God.  But you are.

God said, Please, call me Jesus.

The Baby is God

It is possible that the baby Jesus may have been premature. Mary had to walk or ride a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a distance of many miles. She was young. This was her first child.  It would be very possible that she delivered that baby early.

She would not have eaten much on the journey to Bethlehem.  There were no prenatal vitamins or supplements.  I’m sure Joseph would have bought whatever he could, carried whatever he could.  But the rations could not have been great.  So Jesus was probably not a big baby, not fat with cuddly legs, but probably thin and small.

Mary and Joseph had no one but each other to help in the birth.  Neither of them knew what they were doing.  They must have been so scared.

I traveled to Bethlehem years ago.  There are small rolling hills and strong winds.  Shepherds to this day dig caves in which they shelter their animals.  There are no wooden stables like the ones we like to depict in manger scenes because the wind is too strong.  No simple wooden structure would stay up.  No, Jesus was most likely born in a cave dug in the side of one of the small hills, to keep the animals out of the wind.  That was why there would be a manger, a feeding trough for the animals.  And it was here that Mary laid the child, and wrapped him in bands of cloth, or rags.

This tiny baby was born in the harsh weather without a house or a doctor.  Born to young parents who did not know what to do.  And this fragile little baby was God.  How strange for the All Powerful Maker of the Universe to come to us in this form.  We make the scene into a fairy tale, but the reality is that the Christ child was born physically at risk in one of the most violent countries in the world.  Why did God chose to be born this way?

When I was in college, I traveled to Russia to work in orphanages.  One day, I visited a baby orphanage.  The Russian woman who took me told me that it was a sign of trust that I was even taken to the baby orphanage.  Not many Americans are allowed to see inside, she said.

I have never forgotten what happened that day.

I went into a room filled with babies. But it was so quiet.  Being only in college and not understanding why, I asked the woman why the babies were so quiet.  They would moan quietly and rock themselves. The woman explained that they stopped crying when they realized that no one was going to come, so they learned to comfort themselves.

But there was one little baby girl who was crying hard.  Her face was all blotchy and red.  I was drawn to her crib, rushed over in fact to see what was wrong.  I picked her up.

Her face cleared up quickly.  She looked at me with these beautiful eyes and gave me a watery smile.

You are the mother, the woman said. Take her.

But I was in college and the organization that I worked for did not allow us to try to adopt.  I asked the woman to tell me about this little girl.

She was found in a garbage dumpster two days ago.  The woman said. She still thinks that someone might come if she cries.

I left that day and did not go back.  No one would take me back.  But I still remember the little baby girl and her watery blue eyes and the way she smiled at me.

When my boys were born and they cried at night, I would bolt out of bed with this urgency.  What was wrong?  What could I do?  How could I help?

The cry of an infant is a sign that they need you, that they want to be held, or they just want you to look at them and be with them.  It is a sign of the need to be loved.

I want you to think of God in a different way this Christmas.  I want you to think of God as The Baby.

I want you to realize that God cries out to YOU.

Many of us pray because we think it will help us, or we want God to help others.  We think that God will bring us more peace or understanding.  But it is always because of our needs that we pray.  We never stop to think that God might want us.

But God chose to become a child tonight.  God chose to be born as the most dependent, small, helpless creature on the planet.  God chose to need us just as a baby needs its mother, just as a child needs to be held.  God chose you and God cries out to you.

When you pray, go to God as you would go to hold a crying baby.  Rush to God, without thinking or analyzing or wondering how much time you have: just run to God.  God calls out to you.  God has designed this creation in such a way that God is crying to you to come and be with him.

Remember the Garden of Eden? Remember how Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  And once they had eaten that fruit, they realized that they were naked and they hid from God.  They separated themselves from God first; they did the leaving.  And God wandered in the Garden, calling to them…Where are you?

God has been searching for you ever since.  The baby cries out to you to come and hold him, come and be with him.

It is strange to think of us holding God.  It is strange to think of God wanting to be with us.  But God does long for us, yearn for us, cry out for us.  The All Powerful One, the Maker of the Universe chose YOU.  Not Mother Theresa or your faithful neighbor, but you.  Just you.  God wants you for exactly who you are.

That little girl in the baby orphanage did not care if I held her or just sat near her or sang or danced.  She just wanted me.  She just wanted to be with me.

I go up to the third floor chapel at the Cathedral to pray.  From the window, I can hear the children of the homeless shelter next door, Community Connections.  They are playing on the playground.  Some are crying, some are laughing.  And I hear the voice of God in their voices.

The baby Jesus wants You, and He cries out to you tonight.  He cries to you in the poor who don’t know where they are going to live.  He cries to you in the ill and those who are mourning someone who has died.  Jesus calls out for you to come to Him, help Him, minister to Him and with Him.  When you do anything to the least of these, you do it to me, Jesus said.   I came among you as a little baby who needed you.  And to this day, God calls out to you.  Come back to me, God says.  Come home.

Mary

As a young girl, I played Mary over and over again in a small but simple opera that my mother wrote. We traveled from church to church performing this opera for congregations of all different denominations. The result of all this was that I really began to think about Mary and what must have been going on in her head. Here is my theory about that young girl and what she went through on that fateful day that changed the world forever, that day when the angel came to visit and announced the birth of a Savior who was to be her Son and God’s son.


When the angel came to Mary, the Scripture tells us that she went through a variety of emotions. The first word used to describe her feelings means to be startled or greatly agitated. Mary was upset by the angel, there is no way around that. This was not what she expected. It may not even have been what she wanted. The Scripture is very clear that she is UPSET by the angel telling her that God is with her. It is not so much the physical appearance of the angel that frightens her, it is what he is about to say. Mary seems to instinctively know that her life is going to change forever. And she is not sure what she wants.

Mary does not ask the angel who he is. It makes me wonder, had she seem him before? She does not seem frightened by his appearance (most people are blinded, frightened by angels). Rather she is troubled because she knows that something tremendous will be asked of her.

We always depict Mary as this placid Virgin, always calm and pretty. She is never disheveled, never nervous or unsure. Just passive and peaceful all the time. But that is not how it reads in the original greek of the New Testament. In fact, it is strange to me how almost all of the English translations play down her emotions, her responses. In the original language, Mary is not so passive.

I would like to suggest that our responses to God when God enters our lives, enters our hearts, are very similar to the responses of Mary. And, like Mary, when God comes to us, we don’t just feel one thing. We feel many emotions at once. But, most commonly, the first thing we feel is fear.

The second thing that Mary feels is confusion. When the angel explains that she is going to have a baby, she is confused. She cannot conceive of how this is possible, given that she is a virgin. This seems so far beyond anything that she can even contemplate. She is honest with her confusion and is not afraid to ask the angel how this will all work. I love her for that. She does not try to impress or pretend that she understands. She does not nod stupidly or turn glassy-eyed. She stops the angel and makes him explain.

“How can this work?” she asks. “How can this happen if I am a virgin?”

We often ask the same question of God. You mean that you want me to do what? How will that work? What do you mean?

The idea of having God’s child was definitely NOT in Mary’s life’s plan. She wanted to be a mother, yes, probably, since that was the highest goal of every woman in Jesus’ day. But I’m sure that she had never conceived of this.

When the angel explains that God will simply overshadow her, she accepts this without further explanation. And then she says that greatest words of all.

Here I am.

Throughout the Old Testament, these are the words of the most faithful people. Abraham spoke these words when God told him to leave his country and go to another land. Jacob spoke these words. Joseph, Moses, Samuel, Saul and even David spoke these words. The prophet Isaiah said these words to God, Here I am, Lord, send me.

The most faithful of God’s people in the Old Testament said these very words. They are the words of the soul who is ready to let God’s will be done. They are the words of all of us who realize that God’s plan may be better, larger, more comprehensive and more beautiful than anything we could possibly imagine. These are the words that we all strive to say to God. Here I am.

And so the soul moves from fear to confusion to eventual trust, just as Mary did.

This morning we will hold the Christmas pageant as the liturgy of the Word at both the 9 and 10:30 services. A young woman will play the part of Mary. Her name is Amelia and she is very special. Amelia was born with a rare condition. She has no cholesterol. She is home schooled by her devoted mother. She is loved by our youth group. Cases like hers are very rare in the world right now and she is doing beautifully. When I look at Amelia, I see another human being who does not really know what the future will hold but who nevertheless says, Here I am Lord, do with me as you will.

It is scary to think of God being in charge of your life, scary to think of what might happen if we were to let go of our ambitions and expectations and allow God to enter us and act through us. It makes me scared just to think of it. But Christ is born when we step out of the way and allow God to do something radical and new with our lives. This kind of discipleship is very rare for we must listen deeply in order to hear God’s will for our lives. And many of us don’t have the patience to listen.

There are just seven days to Christmas. Each day, let’s say these words to God

Here I am Lord, let me be with me according to your word.

Amen.

Advent

I was nine years old when they first asked me to babysit. Nine. The couple who lived right down Willow Street had a toddler girl. She must have been close to two years old. I came over at 6 and her parents were so happy to go on a date. I fed her supper, we played. I put her to bed. And then I was alone in a strange house. I remember it vividly.


First I watched the Wizard of Oz, but when that was over, I had nothing to do. I sat on the sofa in the living room. Everything smelled funny. The grandfather clock made so much noise. The minutes seemed to last an eternity. I kept waiting for the sounds of their footsteps on the front porch. What if a robber came? Where was the telephone?

The sounds grew louder and I became more watchful. Ten o’clock came and went. It was well past my bedtime. What if they had been in an accident? What if they never came home? What was that sound? Why did the shadows look so large?

At 11, I called my dad. I asked him to come over and wait with me. He was a good dad. He got out of bed and walked down the street and sat with me. It was not so hard to wait with him. Nothing seemed scary when he was with me. Just the fact that I was not alone seemed to help so much.

They came home some time later. Now that I look back, it must have seemed strange to these young parents that their babysitter had her dad there. But what were they thinking? I was only nine!

Jesus is coming again but we don’t know when. We have no idea when, it could be hours, days, years, millennia. We just don’t know. But we know that he is coming and his arrival will be something else. In the gospel for today, the first Sunday of the Christian year, we hear about how he will come. It sounds scary to me, with him riding on clouds, swooping into our mundane world to turn everything upside down. The sun will darken like an eclipse. The moon will give off light and the stars will fall from the sky. There will be cosmic signs such that we have never seen before. Christ will come in the clouds and he will send his angels to come and gather us up. It sounds like an earthquake with shooting starts or some kind of nuclear event. The heavens will be shaken, Mark writes. The heavens will be shaken.

You would have to be blind, deaf and dumb to miss such an event. So why then does Jesus say, in just the next breath, that we are to stay awake? He says that we are like slaves in charge of a house that does not belong to us. Like house-sitters or baby-sitters, we are to sit up and watch for the coming of the Master. The only problem is that we have no idea when he will come.

Why do we need to stay awake? Doesn’t this kind of cosmic arrival mean that everybody will be shaken, that everybody will wake up and see the Second Coming? How could you possibly sleep through that king of event? Why does it matter if we sleep before hand?

And what is so wrong with going to sleep? Why is that a bad thing? If I had not been so young and so scared, I might have gone to sleep at my first baby-sitting job. Would that have been so bad? The parents would have come home to find me asleep but in one piece and still on call for their baby-girl. They would not have been mad. It does not mean that I was not there or did not care. Sleeping is just something that we humans need to do from time to time. Why does God need for us to be awake?

The state that Mark describes is watchfulness. I don’t think that it has to do with how many hours a night that you sleep. It is about awareness. It is about how you live, not how much you sleep. How you live your life, about whether or not you are fully alive. What Mark is talking about is a state of mindfulness. It is about being fully alive. Our relationship with God and the eventual state of our souls has something to do with our mindfulness. It has to do with how alive we really are.

There are many things in life that lull us to sleep. A routine schedule, the daily work grind. A relationship that is long-standing and so comfortable that we are inclined to take it for granted. Many marriages fail and when you ask them what happened, they just say, “Oh, we drifted apart.” It is as if they got so comfortable together that they stopped working on being married. They expected it to come easily and soon it didn’t come at all. Studies show that couples that fight, not physically, but argue and disagree, tend to stay together. Because they are awake and paying attention to their relationship.

When you think about it, we humans try to be as comfortable as we can. We design our lives to take the sting out. We structure things so as to remove spontaneity. Most of us prefer to eat at similar times, exercise at similar times. Babies are happier when they have a routine and grownups are the same. We just like things to remain the same.

My father has been doing the stair-master every morning for ten years. Even though doctors and trainers all tell him that he needs to use different muscles each day, that he needs to mix it up a bit, he does not want to. He likes the routine. So he has very in-shape calves and a nice beer belly. But he is comfortable with his routine. Change, mixing it up, now that is just scary.

We lock our schedules in so that it seems that our life is repeating itself, like a broken record. Then we are shocked when our child grows or we see signs of ourselves aging. We structure our lives to make it look like all was comfortable, but it is not. God just keeps mixing things up and waking us up, startling us out of our comfort zones.

Illness wakes us up. Joblessness wakes us up. Depression, suffering, death-they all serve to shake us up. People tend to come to church for the first time when something happens to shake things up in their lives. They realize that they are no longer comfortable and that they need God.

The enemy of God is not fear, it is comfort. The enemy of God is the lulling sense that you don’t need God and the way that we forget that we are fragile beings hurtling through space. The sleepiness that Jesus speaks of is not physical sleep but spiritual malaise. It is when you stop being fully alive.

There is one thing that lulls us to sleep more than anything else: our busyness.

When you are racing from here to there, consumed with the minutia of urgent daily business, where is your mind? It is focused on the minutia and not aware of the big picture. As I drove my two boys hither and yon in search of a certain kind of sneaker, I could think of nothing but the traffic, my bad mood, the fact that the car was getting dirtier by the minute, my boys were fighting and if I was going to get them to their guitar lesson on time. I was moving fast, racing at 50 miles an hour down the highway to be exact, but I was lulled into nothingness. And I guarantee that everything that consumed and worried me at that moment on a Saturday afternoon will mean nothing to me in just a few days. And in a year, I will remember none of it.

At this season, the world will tell you to get busier. Buy lots of stuff! Wake up at midnight and shop til you drop! Christmas is about buying things and racing around to parties. Do and do and do and you will successfully never think about what this all means or why we wait for Christ to come at all. If we stay busy, years of our lives will go by, getting the box of ornaments out and packing it back in year after year. Soon we will realize that we have lived for decades and we do not know God any better. And we will wonder where the time has gone.

What are the signs of your times? What are people hungry for? Are you spending your time worrying about mundane things or are you actively asking God to guide you? If you are not asking God for guidance, if you think that you know what you need and you spend most of your time asking God for things, then you are still asleep. Mindfulness, watchfulness is marked by listening to God and to your fellow human beings. That is what it means to be humble, to leave room for the other.

I think that one of the reasons why we run around so much like chickens with our heads cut off is that we are afraid of standing still. When we stand still and begin to listen, we realize that we are empty and that realization is so scary that it keeps us on the move. But God cannot fill you if you do not acknowledge your own emptiness. And once God begins to fill you, well, then you really wake up.

When I look back on the churches that I have served, there is much that I cannot remember. Days went by with business and I can’t remember so much. But I do remember one place in each church with vivid recollection. I remember the chapel, the place where I prayed. I remember every detail of that room, the way the furniture felt, the icon or cross, the sound outside, just like I remember the living room of that house where I babysat for the first time. I remember because I was awake .

Ironically, when we sit still for a moment, we are more fully alive. The more we rush, the more we go to sleep inside. Stop the car. Breathe. Don’t let the precious moment pass you by. Jesus was just asking us to be alive. Don’t let yourself die inside. Wake up! Wake up!