Author: Pastor Jeff Smith

Thursday, March 5, 2020

James 1:1-15

The American philosopher, Ken Wilber, has some significant things to say about perspective. He uses a great example to talk about perspective. We can take a three-year-old child, show them a ball that is blue on one side and red on the other, and spin it slowly so the child can see both colors. Then we stop with the blue side facing the child and ask what color they are seeing, most often the child can answer, “Blue.” But then when we ask the child what color we, on the other side of the ball, are seeing, most often the child will say, “Blue.” Why? Because children, at that age, are unable to understand different perspectives. Wilber calls much of our modern life “aperspectival madness.”

James reminds us of the perspective of God who sees abundant wealth in poverty, strength in weakness, and beauty amidst what the world considers ugly. When tempted to see things any other way, he challenges us not to give in. When we give into temptation, it is assuming the perspective of death. James is asking us to see from the perspective of life … the perspective of perfect freedom born of faith in God.

As we face uncertainty in our world … in our nation and civic life … in our church, I am challenging us to assume a different perspective. The perspective of God. It is a perspective that sees value in each and every child of God. It is a perspective that sees value in every rock, every tree, every blade of grass in all of creation. It is a perspective that, if we could see it, would help us learn to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. It is the perspective of Christ.

So today, I am asking you to join me in contemplating a new perspective. How does God see our world? How does God see the most challenging person in our life? How does God see you?

God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear from your perspective. Amen.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Romans 4:16-25

Ours is a God of miracles. Paul continues to offer insight into the faith of Abraham. He describes God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” and then goes onto describe Abraham as having a body that was “as good as dead, (for he was about a hundred years old),” which sounds like one of my grandchildren describing me.

What was the promise here? It was that Abraham and Sarah, who were both childless and beyond the age of having children, were told that a great nation would be created from their descendants. Paul reminds us that ours is a God of impossibilities.

What are impossibilities that we face today? Do we think it impossible to mend fences with people who have different cultural or political perspectives? Do we think things like global peace … global hunger … environmental disaster … are simply too overwhelming or too complicated? It boggles the mind to think of things like this. Yet our God is greater than our greatest fear or our greatest woe.

Where to start? Abraham and Sarah didn’t have millions of children. Together they had one child. If we want to make a difference in race relations or connecting with people who are culturally different from us, perhaps we could start in our neighborhood or our city. If we want to care for the poorest in our world, we can start with those right across town and in our state. The care of our planet starts with our own decision about whether to use disposable or reusable plates … cups … bottles.

In my journey through Lent, I am making a serious effort to do one small thing each day in hopes that God will magnify that one small thing millions of times. How about you?

You call us to do the impossible, O God, and as we journey with you, may we see that, for you, nothing is impossible. Amen.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Romans 4:1-5

Righteousness. We think of it as meaning “holy,” but its deepest meaning is “right way.” Paul reminds us that Abraham was not known for what he did since what he did was wander through a land without ever possessing that land. Abraham was righteous because he faithfully listened … believed … God. That was all it took to be considered righteous.

Paul points us to an economy that we find hard to understand. Our economy is built on the notion that work and pay somehow equal (though we know that not all work is equally valued for all people). Our standard of living is dictated by how much we make, but I do not thank God for my comfortable living. It didn’t come to me as a gift but by a combination of things that include work and privilege (the justice of which is, at best, ambiguous).

God’s economy, however, is very different. It isn’t based on how much we work. It really isn’t based on how much we “believe in God;” rather, it is based on whether we believe God. Even then, this isn’t about our salvation. This is about our ability to move forward in “the right way.” Walking humbly with God. 

Doing this will mean that we will find ourselves in some odd places. It might mean that we find ourselves standing with refugees. It might mean we find ourselves holding hands with people with whom we sharply disagree both politically and theologically. In the past, it has meant speaking out about abuse and injustice. It has meant facing a tank in Tiananmen Square. It has meant kneeling in the gutters of Calcutta offering a word of love and grace to people in their last moments of life. It has meant standing on a bridge that links Selma and Montgomery. It is to follow God into places we would often rather not go.

So listen to God. Follow God. It is the right way to go!

Lead us, O God, in the ways of righteousness. Amen.

Monday, March 2, 2020

1 Kings 8:22-30

That particular place. Mount Zion is one of seven large hills (mountains) that surround Jerusalem. It is a holy site for Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And it is where Solomon built Judaism’s first temple. His prayer to God is a prayer that God will watch over the temple … that the temple will be the locus of worship for the people. He also acknowledges before God that there is no place that can pretend to contain the uncontainable God, yet there is this need to have a place.

The truth I have experienced in my life is that there exists in the human soul the need for the particular. A particular place … a particular person … a particular ritual or routine. “Particular” can define something that contains the universal in something small.

While it was true that Solomon would use this particular temple as a means of further consolidating his kingdom, he also saw it as a lens through which people might experience the greatness of God. A lens doesn’t need to be seen. It needs only to clarify and magnify what the viewer is seeing. The temple isn’t about the temple itself … it is about the eternal God. If it does its job, however, it will have fulfilled its particular purpose.

During this season, we might ask ourselves how we can be particular lenses through which to see God. In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Paul states: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” We embody the infinite God in our particular bodies, and through our embodiment of God, we have the opportunity to transform the world.

You are the particular place … the particular person … through which others will come to know the God of all creation!

Eternal God, use our particular gifts so others might see you. Amen.

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Matthew 4:1-11

It is my observation that we live in a deep fear of scarcity. This is a reality that Jesus experiences, and I am fairly confident that this truth is a part of the human condition. According to most models of developmental theory (both generational and individual), we all experience times in our lives where we think in smaller terms about our own survival. A baby cries at the first signs of hunger pain because there is no ability to discern that there is a next meal. Indigenous tribes fight for fear of limited resources.. The fear of scarcity is a universal reality, yet this same fear is a primary source of our dualistic mindset and the strong desire to see the “other” as a competitor for limited resources.

There just isn’t enough. There isn’t enough land, enough food, enough wealth, or enough power. It isn’t a far leap to think that there isn’t enough love, compassion, grace … or even God to share. The former is the stuff of empires, military conquests, closed borders, and exclusive control by the few over the many. The latter is the stuff of privilege in religious life as well as notions of heaven and hell. Infinity is a nice notion; we just have no way to understand it.

Then comes Jesus into the wilderness … into our fear of scarcity. The temptation he himself experiences is to fear such scarcity. Not enough food … not enough fame … not enough power. But Jesus knows the infinite God whose gifts are abundant. 

So during this time of “giving up” in Lent (whatever that looks like), I would invite you not to come at it from the place of scarcity. Come at it from the perspective of abundance. Perhaps we will be surprised by just how much we actually have when we have “given up” the fear of scarcity! May today remind you of the abundant goodness of our God.

Lord, today grant me the eyes to live in your abundant grace. Amen.

Saturday, February 29, 2020

John 12:20-26

My grandfather was a wheat farmer. His annual struggle was to get the ground plowed and then get the wheat in the ground. Then it was in the nature’s hands … God’s hands. Grain grew. Harvest. Repeat. I can remember holding grain in my hand and marveling at how this small grain produces so much more just by putting it in the ground.

Jesus understood agrarian realities. He also understood that life was never about a single grain … it was about the collective that was required to put bread on the table. He also understood something greater than that. These texts are hard to hear. Falling into the earth … dying … hating our life that we might have life. Where is Jesus taking us here?

John Donne’s famous poem, No Man is an Island, tells us of the truth I think Jesus is telling us:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

This text is not about self-loathing. It is about being folded into the whole of creation … of being part of the other as the other is part of me … to the point that there is no “I” that can exist apart from “us.” It is about understanding organically that we are all part of the integrated whole of creation. When we can see from that vantage point, we will have discovered the kingdom of God.

God, give me eyes to see all of creation as you see it. Fully integrated and completely whole. Amen.

Friday, February 28, 2020

1 Peter 4:1-11

Discipline is a word Methodist clergy are supposed to know. Early on, we learn that the rule book adhered to by so many of our fellow Methodists is called a Discipline. It contains our constitution, our methods of administering things such as election of bishops, the running of the General, Jurisdictional, or Annual Conferences. There are specific provisions of the work of the clergy, whether licensed local pastor, deacon, or elder. There are details as to how we buy, manage, and sell property. Suffice it to say that it is required reading for clergy and leaders.

But the interesting thing here is that we have reduced “discipline” to the external structures around us. The word itself comes from the word disciple. It is what the followers of Jesus have called themselves for 2,000 years. Instead of talking about true discipleship, we have reduced our participation in the church to “membership.” We are not “members!” We are DISCIPLES!

To be disciples is to be students! We are called to participate in a loving and learning relationship with God in the same way our children both belong to and learn from our family. As we learn to live more deeply into our relationship with God, we do so by loving and learning from this Christ to whom we belong.

This is not intended to be restrictive! Quite the contrary, it is liberating. It is living intentionally in relationship with God. It is spending time reading and learning. It is time spent in care and conversation with people whom Jesus called “the least of these.” It is to spend spend time in prayer and contemplation. It is to be free! My prayer is that the disciplines we practice this Lent will, in fact, connect us as disciples to teacher … as children to our God!

Lord, in our prayer today, we come to you intentionally. Love us and teach us your ways. Amen.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10

The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, reflected on a story from his childhood that defined much of his life. John’s father, Samuel Wesley, was an Anglican priest and rector at Epworth, England. John was 6 years old when the rectory caught fire. Samuel realized what was happening and awoke his wife, Susanna, along with a nanny who was sleeping with the other children. They all managed to get out of the rectory except young John who had not heard the call to get out of the house. With his parents giving into despair young John appeared at a second story window. Neighbors managed to get to him from outside the house, and he was pulled from the fire. John’s reflection on this story later in his life caused him to write that he was “a brand plucked from the burning.”

Lent is a time when we remember that God is reaching out to us, offering us hope, and reminding us that we worship a God who pulls us closer especially during times when we are most vulnerable. Paul describes a God who offers God’s own self through Christ … this gift of incarnation … who is embodied fully in our joy and in our sorrow, in our comfort and in our suffering, in our life and in our death. God comes to offer us righteousness, a pathway, and reminds us, that no matter what we face, we who are dying are yet alive … we who have nothing live with the richness of possessing everything.

It is God who “plucks us from the burning” and then uses us, like John Wesley, to change the world.

You have reached into our world and have come to sit with us in our living and in our dying. Use us now, O God, that we might be incorporated into the work of your salvation. Amen.

Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Matthew 6:1-6

It had been a particularly challenging time in my life. I had been in the pastoral role about eight years, and I was serving as the executive pastor of a large suburban church. I was beginning to experience the stress that comes with the demands of ministry in that setting. It then occurred to me that I was experiencing something that was not healthy … depression and anxiety.

As I was struggling to deal with these effects of stress, I had a friend who invited me to read a chapter from Thomas Moore’s book, Care of the Soul. The title of the chapter was “The Gifts of Depression.” In that classic work, Moore, while acknowledging the need to medically treat severe depression, teaches that melancholy can be a time for inner reflection … for contemplation … without fearing what this “inner seeing” might reveal to us.

As an extrovert, I knew this would be hard. I was not into any form of contemplative practice, and I wasn’t sure that my mind would be quiet enough for me to spend that kind of time in silence. I was one who spent my time praying with people while standing beside a hospital bed or hospice bed. I spent time writing pastoral prayers for worship. Only on occasion did I spend time in quiet reflection or contemplation. It was time for me to learn.

What ensued was a time of growth for me. It was a time to reflect … to pray … to listen … to journal and write. It was a time of finally hearing God call me into that secret, quiet space. For the first time in my life, I felt free. Jesus says it is “rewarding,” and I wholly agree. It is liberating to be in that place where God sees me as just me … not for what I do but for who I am.

Thus begins the journey of Lent. Thank you for joining me as we spend some quiet time letting God see us … just as we are!

Lord God, you call us to the quiet place to be centered only on you. May we experience you in the quiet solitude. Amen.

I find it interesting that Transfiguration Sunday is the Sunday just prior to Lent. It is the day we celebrate the story of Jesus as he takes Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain where Jesus begins to shine radiantly. Then suddenly, Elijah and Moses are standing and talking with him. We will hear more about this story at Wellspring on Sunday, but there is this lingering question of why this Sunday precedes Lent.

Historically, it stands where it does because we see Christ who embodies the lawgiver and the deliverer (Moses) and the prophet who beckons nations to God and who has an extraordinary exit from human life (Elijah). This is the Christ who will make a journey that proves be filled with both darkness and light.

I also experience it as a journey of courage and solidarity as Jesus demonstrates the power of the heart to hold in tension the darkness of human violence and suffering and the hope of light that is greater than darkness … life that is greater than death. It is Christ who stands in solidarity with those who endure systemic suffering and violence, and it is Christ who stands with us in our own darkness, suffering, and grief.

As we planned this year’s Lenten Devotional, I made the decision that I would write the devotional for Wellspring this season. In the past, we have chosen published works (in the form of books or devotional guides) and we have had individuals from Wellspring write reflections, as we did in Advent 2018. The devotional is printed in booklet form for people to pick up, but I have made the decision to share it in my blog, as well.

Each devotional will be scheduled to go out in the early morning hours of each day in Lent. Those who subscribe to my blog will be notified by email, but we also will make an effort to include the link on the church’s Facebook page, as well.

Thanks to the many people who have challenged and supported me in producing this devotional. My prayer is that, as the Spirit spoke to me, the Spirit will speak to you by adding your own narrative and experience of Lent as we celebrate the Gifts of Courage and Solidarity: A Lenten Journey

.