Sunday, May 4, 2008

“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12

The church remembers today a 4th-century woman named Monica. She was a faithful Christian who was married to an unfaithful and ill-tempered pagan man. Not surprisingly, Monica rejoiced when both her husband and his mother converted to Christianity. But this is not why she is remembered. She is remembered for being a mother; specifically, for being the mother of St. Augustine, one of the handful of thinkers who have had the greatest impact on Christian theology. Monica was a disciple of St. Ambrose, and eventually her son came under his influence. Almost everything we know about this woman comes from Augustine’s “Confessions,” his autobiography. Her dying wish was for her son to remember her at the Lord’s altar, wherever he was. Augustine took a long and winding road through life, putting off conversion to the faith for a long time. But his mother hung in there, as good mothers do. Monica reminds us of the pivotal role played by parents in the lives of their children; you can see it in the eyes of parents who stand proudly by the font as their children receive God’s grace. We are not commanded to honor our parents without reason. We honor them because they hope that our days may be long in the land of God’s grace.

Monday, May 5, 2008

“The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all.” John 3:31

The primary task of the church is to witness to Jesus Christ, both in our worship of him and our annunciation of his gospel to others. This always has been true. Yet it also has always been true that the church is always seeking to remember just who Jesus is. His identity seems to slip through our fingers. He always is being reinvented in the culture around us. Just so, however, does his identity never waver or change; only our perception of him does that. Beyond confessing Jesus as Christ and Lord, our basic confession of his identity is that he is truly human and truly divine. As he tells us in John 3, this is no abstract matter. Jesus is the one who comes from above, occupying a position to which we could never aspire. But Jesus is also the earthly one, speaking of earthly things in earthly ways. Jesus is both heavenly and earthly. He speaks to us as one who knows what we do not. But he also speaks to God on our behalf in our language. It is in this way, this identity, that Jesus is proclaimed and exulted as the one about all. He came from heaven and comes from earth, that we who are on earth might find redemption and learn of heavenly things. Jesus has to be both so that we can become more than we otherwise could.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

“And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” John 8:29

Today’s passage comes from a section of John’s gospel that does not appear in our 3-year lectionary. This is perhaps understandable, because the argumentation is very dense. It’s also unfortunate, because in this section Jesus moves his disciples closer to an understanding of his identity as the Son of Man, God’s Son and chosen instrument in the world. So far his followers have come to understand that Jesus is special in his relationship to God. What they have failed to grasp is the deep, mutual interpenetration that exists between the Son and the Father. Although the Father has sent the Son into the world they have remained intimately connected, to the point that one could claim no real distance or separation between the two. The disciples have seen Jesus in human terms. He’s trying to teach them to view him in divine terms as the one who lives in perfect accordance with the will of God. In acting out the Father’s will the Father is present with and through him. Just so are Jesus and his Father present in and through us when we act according to his will, working that which is pleasing in his sight. Once we begin to understand who Jesus really is, we can then understand how he is present for us in our brokenness and through us in our obedience.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling.” Ephesians 4:4

I was recently speaking to a group of high school students in a nonchurch context. Many of the kids have no church background and so had all kinds of questions about Christianity. One question was why are there so many different kinds of churches? Why, indeed? In his letter to the Christians at Ephesus, Paul writes that there is only one body and one Spirit. In other words, the Christian church exists in unity as defined by being the body of Christ. Many Christians would like to speak about “unity in diversity” and such things, but that is really just a papering over of the deep divisions that scandalize the church universal. Our division and divisiveness is not so much testimony to God’s glory as it is witness to our own sinfulness. Don’t get me wrong; I know that simply saying we should all agree is not going to make it happen. What I do know is that God’s eternal design is to make us one. To pretend that our disunity in the present doesn’t matter is a huge mistake. And chances are that the solution isn’t to get everyone to think like us. We are called to be one body. What notions and conditions do we harbor that keep us separate from our brothers and sisters in Christ?

Thursday, May 8, 2008

“Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:11-12

Although we don’t know much about her life, we remember Julian of Norwich today as a notable renewer of the church. Julian was probably a Benedictine nun. She would have lived in one of the isolated cells attached to the Carrow Priory in Norwich, England. Beyond that, we know very little of Julian except what she left behind in her remarkable writings. These writings are derived from visions she reported having at the age of 30, visions that she compiled later into a book, “Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love.” Her revelations have become a classic text of medieval mysticism, declaring that the root of all Christian knowledge and experience is divine love. For Julian, as for us, this divine love found its ultimate expression in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God’s loving Word for us and all people. Julian experienced visions that revealed God’s love to her, and through her visions learned what St. John had written so many years before: that since God loved us so much, we also ought to share that love with one another. In doing so – in letting our lives rest in the love of Christ – we find the perfection God intends for our lives.

Friday, May 9, 2008

“That word is the good news that was announced to you.” 1 Peter 1:25b

Today the church remembers Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, and not just because he had a cool name! This 18^th-century renewer was born as an aristocratic count. After his father died, Zinzendorf was raised by his Pietistic grandmother, whose influence extended throughout his life. At the age of 22, he granted permission to a group of Moravians to settle his land. His property became a shelter for religious refugees from Moravia and Bohemia. The land became known as Herrnhut, which means “under the Lord’s watch.” In 1728, Zinzendorf gave his congregation a “watchword,” a passage from the Old Testament that would give shape to their day. To this day, the Moravian community selects two texts – one from each testament – to guide devotional living. God’s Word is the good news that has been announced to us, and God desires for his words to encounter us anew each day. The daily texts prayerfully selected by the Moravians provide this opportunity, all because of Zinzendorf’s commitment to Scripture. To acquire a copy of this year’s texts, contact Mount Carmel Ministries at www.dailytext.com and join the worldwide community that finds God’s good news through these watchwords, new each day.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

“Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” John 7:39

Tomorrow is Pentecost, when we celebrate the beginning of the church and remember the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon God’s faithful people. What we don’t celebrate at First English, not in corporate worship anyway, the day before Pentecost. Unfortunately it’s not known as Pentecost Eve, which would be kind of fun. Today is known as the Vigil of Pentecost. Before the day of Pentecost, the disciples were living in an in-between time. Jesus had been crucified and raised, and he had ascended into heaven. But the Holy Spirit, promised to them by Jesus, had not yet come. Sure, the Holy Spirit existed before Pentecost; the Spirit is eternal with the Father and Son. But the Spirit had not yet been given over to believers, connecting them together as the Body of Christ and uniting them through Christ to the Father. The Holy Spirit provides the glue, so to speak, for the whole people of God, just as the Holy Spirit is the bond of divine love between the Son and the Father. Today the church remembers a time when we were still waiting for the Spirit to unite us, to cleanse us, to bring God to dwell in our hearts. Today is a day of quiet prayer, reflection, and meditation. It is a day to shut out all of the other things that fill us, that God might find space within us for the Spirit that is coming. Come, Holy Spirit!

Devotions – Year Five – Week Eighteen

Pastor Dave Lyle