The Messiah Matthew Celebrates

The Messiah Matthew Celebrates: The New Moses who is Emmanuel – God-With-Us
(Matthew 1.18-25)
A meditation by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The First Sunday of Advent – November 27, 2011

A week ago today, my three travelling companions and I were walking through the city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, in southwest India, on the shores of the Arabian Sea. It was 85 degrees … and really, really sunny. Kerala has a remarkable history. Almost 3000 years ago, King Solomon used teak from Kerala to build the temple in Jerusalem. In the year 52, the disciple we know as “Doubting Thomas” arrived in Kerala. Thomas created Christian communities there long before Christianity came to the West. In the late 1400s, when the Spanish Inquisition reared its evil head, Kerala became a place that welcomed the Jews the Inquisition had targeted. At various times over the past 500 years, Kerala has come under the control of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British. Parts of Kerala have literacy and life expectancy rates higher than the United States.

Our tour guide in Kochi was named Marco. His relatives were among the Portuguese who controlled Kerala in the 1500s. There were lots of things our group wanted to see in Kochi. Like good tourists from the States, we kept looking at our watches, Anxious we were going to miss out on something. When we’d do that, Marco would just look at us and smile. More than once, he said, “If we keep chasing time, the only time we catch up to it is when we die. We should let time chase us.” Which was his poetic way of saying, “Stop worrying about what you might be missing out on. Let yourselves enjoy what’s right in front of you. Let yourselves experience what’s going on right now.”

Today we begin the Christian season of Advent. Advent is a Latin word that means “toward the coming”. In the midst of holiday schedules, these four weeks toward the coming of Christ’s birth call us to stop chasing time. And let ourselves experience Jesus Christ being born again, in front of us, inside us, right now.

Matthew and Luke are the only writers in the New Testament who tell stories about the birth of Jesus. The earliest New Testament writers, Paul and Mark, say nothing about his birth. Which means for the earliest followers of Jesus, how he was born didn’t matter. What mattered for these early followers of Jesus was to stop chasing time. And let themselves build a relationship with the Risen, Living Jesus Christ who was in front of them. Inside them. Right now. It was only after they had built a relationship with this Jesus, and realized how life with him had made them more compassionate and forgiving and just and peaceful, that they started to wonder, “How did such a one as this into being? How was this Jesus who is God in the flesh born?”

So Matthew and Luke began to tell stories of how this Jesus Christ came into being.

The stories they tell are very different. Which is something I love about the Bible. The people who put it together didn’t try to make everything agree. They could talk about the same event in lots of different ways. Maybe the Holy Spirit helped them see that the story of God coming to earth as a person was way too big just to tell in one way.

Matthew and Luke have different stories about Jesus’ birth because each of them had a unique relationship with the Risen, Living Jesus. How each of them talk about Jesus’ birth is shaped by who this Messiah Jesus was for them. Today I invite you to look at the way Matthew tells the story. Next week we’ll look at how Luke tells the story. I hope this will help us learn more about how these two writers experienced the Living Jesus Christ. And I hope the Spirit will break us open so we stop chasing time for at least a few moments this Advent. And meet Christ alive, in front of us, inside us, right now.

The Jesus Christ Matthew has a relationship with is the New Moses who is Emmanuel – God with us. Tradition calls the first speech Jesus gives in Matthew the Sermon on the Mount. But it really should be called “The New Law from the New Mountain” (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas, HarperOne, 2007, p. 44). Because what Jesus does in this sermon is take the 10 commandments Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai and radically re-interpret them. Because they had not formed the kind of community God wanted. The 10 commandments had not given birth to a just, joyful, nonviolent society. So Jesus, the new Moses, offered a new law from a new mountain. With the hope that this time it might be different.

In Matthew’s birth story, there are no shepherds. There’s no crowded inn. Matthew tells a story of Joseph and Mary that his audience would have immediately recognized as the story of Moses’ parents. To make this clear, Suzi will read this morning’s story from Matthew in three different parts.

The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary wouldn’t be disgraced.

We can be excused for not hearing anything in this that reminds us of Moses. But the people listening to Matthew tell this story at the end of the first century would have recognized at once the similarities. Because in the first century everyone in the Near East was familiar with a set of Jewish writings about Moses and his parents.

Moses’ father was Amram. His mother was Jochebed are the parents of Moses. Listen for anything this story has in common with what Suzi just read.

When the Israelites heard the command of Pharaoh to cast their male children into the river,…many of God’s people separated from their wives, as did Amram from his wife.

Dangerous pregnancies, and a separation, a leaving, between the man and the woman.

Let’s look at the second part of the story of Jesus as the new Moses.

While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus – ‘God saves’ – because he will save people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic sermon to full term:
Watch for this – a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son.
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).

Now from the legend of Moses:

After the lapse of three years the Spirit of God came upon Miriam, so that she went forth and prophesied in the house, saying, “Behold, a son shall be born to my mother and father, and he shall rescue the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians.”
An angel/spirit comes to Miriam. Miriam is the sister of Moses. Miriam is Hebrew for Mary. And the angel/spirit predicts that this child who is going to be born will save and rescue people from some form of bondage.

How does Matthew conclude this part of the story?

Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream. He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus (Matthew 1.18-24, The Message ReMix © 2003 Eugene Peterson).

Here’s how the legend of Moses ends.

When Amram heard his young daughter’s prophecy he took back his wife, from whom he had separated in consequence of Pharaoh’s decree to destroy all the male line of the house of Jacob. After three years of separation he went to her and she conceived. When Moses was born, the whole house was at that moment filled with a great light, as the light of the sun and the moon in their splendor.

Just like Joseph, Moses’ father hears a supernatural call to return to his wife. An extraordinary child is conceived. And when the child is born, the heavens respond with uncommon light (this section around the legend of Moses comes from Borg and Crossan, pp. 109-110). Just like the star that guided the magi to the Jesus in Bethlehem.

Matthew sees the Messiah Jesus as the New Moses. Offering a new law from a new mountain. A new law grounded in humility, compassion, nonviolence. A new law that called for profound forgiveness and unyielding commitment.

And Matthew’s relationship with the Risen, Living Christ told Matthew Jesus is Emmanuel. For Matthew, Jesus is God-with-us. Just as Moses stayed with the Hebrew people in spite of their rebelliousness and their rejection of God’s ways, Matthew experiences the new Moses staying with those who seek to follow him. In spite of their rebelliousness and rejection, the Risen One stays with those who seek to follow him. So Matthew makes Jesus as God-with-us bookends for his Gospel. As Suzi read, he begins with the birth story that says Jesus is the child Isaiah prophesied about who would be called God with us. And the last words in this book are the words of the Living, Risen Jesus … those words of life … his promise, “Lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28.20).

I don’t want this message to be misunderstood. Some people might hear me talk about how Matthew created this birth story from his relationship with the Risen, Living Jesus and say, “Why should I believe something he just made up?”

But doing that totally misses the point. Matthew has created a story which proclaims who Jesus is and what Jesus means for us. There is nothing that could be more true. Matthew knew Jesus as a living, active, calling present. This Jesus was trying to lead his followers to the hardest kind of freedom. A freedom where we love our enemies and where we refuse to surrender to the corrosive power of fear. No one knows exactly how Jesus was conceived or what happened when he was born. And I don’t think that matters. What matters is that Matthew and Luke have given us powerful, life-changing stories of Jesus’ birth that grow out of their relationships with the Living, Risen Jesus Christ. So I believe Matthew. I believe it is true that Jesus is the New Moses. I believe it is true Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.

As I said at the beginning of this message, what I love about the Bible is that it doesn’t try to tell only one story of God-with-us. The story of God-with-us is way too big to force into one story. God is way too big for any group or any religion to try to take possession of.

Last Sunday, when we were in Kerala, I read this story:

Hindus recall how the god Krishna came to earth as a herder of cows. He used to beckon milkmaids to the forest in the middle of the night to dance the great circle dance. They came, risking everything and Krishna miraculously multiplied himself to dance with each and every one of them. There was plenty of Krishna to go around, an abundance of Krishna’s presence. But the moment the milkmaids became possessive, each thinking that Krishna was dancing with her alone, Krishna disappeared. Krishna’s hide-and-seek in the world enabled the milkmaids to recognize that God was not theirs.

The point is one that speaks to us all. The moment we human beings grasp God with jealousy and possessiveness, we lose hold of God
(Diana Eck, Encountering God, Beacon Press, 1993, pp. 46-7).

Be A Sheep

Be a Sheep
(Matthew 25:31-46)
A reflection by Gloria Rose Koepping
Spirit of Peace, United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
November 20^th, 2011

^31-33"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

^34-36"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
   I was hungry and you fed me,
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me a room,
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
   I was sick and you stopped to visit,
   I was in prison and you came to me.'

^37-40"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

^41-43"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
   I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
   I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
   I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
   Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'

⁴⁴"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'

⁴⁵"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'

⁴⁶"Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."
The Message, Matthew 25:31-46

Today’s reading uses the metaphor of a Sheppard herding goats and sheep to suggest how followers of Jesus will be viewed on Judgment Day. It then goes on to spell out what kind of behaviors we ought to emulate in order to make the cut.

When I read anything, I usually approach it as a giant projective, looking for the special message that is intended for me alone, that reflects my psychological or spiritual need of the moment. Today’s gospel I view through the lens of my old Rorschach professor and the nuns from my early elementary school days at St. Philomena’s, my faith community of origin.

Dr. Tom Shill had a buzz cut straight from the 1950’s, even though it was 1980. His hair looked frozen in time. He was one of my favorite instructors in grad school because he taught me to keep looking for multiple levels of meaning in even the simplest things. Instead of being focused on sex and death, as you might expect from a good Freudian, he was always focused on the quality of relationships people had in their lives and what they were doing with that life.

About this bible passage, I can imagine Dr. Shill, complete with his interpreting a Rorschach voice, saying, “So, Sheep… What might THAT mean? What are sheep like? Soft wool, not aggressive, easily led- compliant, will eat extra grass, helpful that way. Now , Goats… What are THEY like? Furry, aggressive, stubborn, will eat just about anything in their way. Plus they have a beard and look a little demonic, wouldn’t you say? Which one do you think is a more healthier percept or image? It depends. It depends on what the animals are doing, what actions are they involved in with each other and themselves. Look carefully; pay as much attention to what the animal is doing as to what it is not doing. Therein, lies your answer.”

Dr. Shill might go on, saying, “Now those sheep, are they REALLY sheep? How do we know? Or do they just LOOK like sheep? Have they disguised themselves in some way? Hidden something? Is that why you NEED a Sheppard to tell them apart? Can the sheep tell who is a goat and who is a sheep? Why is it important to tell the goats from the sheep? Think about what this might mean.….Maybe you do need that Sheppard! He must have something special that other people don’t have if he can see clearly who is really a goat and who is really a sheep.”

“NOW, how does the story end? What happens to the sheep? What fate will befall the goats? It sounds like it depends on whether the animals pay attention to what their neighbors need and notice their plight. How many good works will keep them from the fires of hell? It isn’t exactly clear. If you believe the Sheppard is merciful, even one might be enough. But why TEMPT the Sheppard? It might be prudent to establish a pattern of behavior that promises an eternal reward.”

I can also hear the nuns from St. Philomena’s, in a different way, chiding us to dig deeper into this scripture, looking to see it as more than a list of directives or works of mercy. Sister Francis Julie would say that this Bible passage was very important in the early Christian times, but still has meaning today, although that meaning might have changed some over time. “I don’t want to hear just the obvious answers,” she’d say, “give me something original!”

“So when people are hungry, you should give them food. What does that mean? Yes, it means we should give food to the food bank or to the missions that feed people overseas. In the past, 2000 years ago, giving someone food might have been a life or death gift. We don’t always look at it that way today. But there are people today that need our food to have a better quality of life. Today this passage might also mean that we invite a friend over for lunch and feed them, it might mean we grow food in our pea patch for the food bank, it might mean we bring food to church for snacks or a potluck. It might mean that we bake cupcakes for people who might otherwise not have any. It might even mean we give people what they are hungry for, even if it isn’t food. Sometimes a visit, a short conversation, a card in the mail is what people are hungry for. “ Sister Mary Paul would say, “Never miss an opportunity to do a small kindness. That’s the way you can tell if you are being more sheep-like than goat-like. Now look for those opportunities! “

I suppose the same thing goes for being thirsty. Share that bottle of wine, lemonade, or Martinelli’s cider with a friend. When you walk with your walking buddy, be the one to bring the cold water. My daughter Juliana suggested you might get “extra points for sustainability if you bring it in a multiple use container.” Maybe God doesn’t operate on the point system, but I’m sure you’ll get credit just the same. Donating blood or platelets might fit in this category. Trying to be creative with this verse makes me think music also belongs here. Share your songs. Not just on your iPod, but your voice at church or camp or out and about. When you find a song that inspires you, share it with a friend. Hum a little more. I think people are thirsty for music, for art, for something that touches their spirit.

Giving the homeless a bed is more difficult. I say that because I see so much homelessness and it seems harder to solve. It’s not so easy or safe to invite strangers into our homes and give them beds. It is easier to give money to homeless shelters, or if we see someone in need to direct them towards a shelter, than to take them in ourselves. Surely, many of us have opened our home to host friends, family, visitors or exchange students over time. But those strangers, how are we to bring them in? Here the conversation or solution is a bigger one. Maybe if we buy local, we can help others support their family. Maybe this means that we buy fair trade goods from other countries so that people have money to put a roof over their own head. Maybe that is one way we can share what we have.

Giving people clothes seems to be less of a problem. I have gratefully received hand me downs and I gladly give them away when we outgrow what we have that is still good. Our church has given away backpacks to school kids, and socks, warm hats, and coats to Hero’s for the Homeless. Giving new parents baby clothes is also a social and spiritual work. Think about the many ways that clothes pass through your hands. You buy something for yourself and then notice that it might look better on someone else so you give it to them. You buy a warm coat for your child. It’s all good. (Here, I am also wondering if God would consider earrings as clothes in some fashion. I love to wear earrings and I love to give them to others.) Perhaps.

Visiting the sick and those in prison might be harder for some of us. If you visit someone sick, you might get sick too. It might be scary to do this. Maybe you are also sick, so it might be more of a gift to stay home and send a card. Or drop off chicken soup on their porch, ring the doorbell, and run. Whatever food or companionship you bring, or errands you do for those that are sick is surely a good deed. Taking folks to doctor visits, or the ER, or picking up their medication, also count.

When I think of prisons, it is harder for me. I am not fond of the idea of visiting someone in prison. I want to be practical and safe about my choices and still be able to visit someone. When I was a teenager, I went with my church choir, to sing at the state penitentiary, it was too scary and I have not been back. Maybe someday I will find a way to go there again. I have a colleague who goes to the women’s prison at Purdy to teach meditation once a month. That’s a great community service. These days I usually interpret this part of the passage as meaning the prisons or constraints that people live within, that don’t have bars. When I see someone who is so controlled or stiff about something that they have limited choices, I try to see it as their prison and wonder some about how I can still “visit” them there. I don’t have to fix them, but I can be with them, talk to them, listen to them, even if they are seeing the world differently than I do.

I’d like to think this whole passage in Matthew is like a menu. Do what fits for you. There are plenty of choices and I don’t think you have to do them all. I do believe you need to do what you can to bring more kindness into the world, especially to those that have less kindness in their everyday lives than you do. (I’m sure that’s what my old religion teacher, Sr. Mary Paul would urge us to do.)

So go ahead, be a sheep, be a kind and helpful sheep. Do it because it’s the right thing to do, do it because it feels good, but also do it so the Sheppard can easily pick you out of the herd at the end of the day.

The Power of Words

A meditation by Dick Williams
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
November 13, 2011

I began the sermon by asking the congregation members to ponder the following prompt:
"Think of something someone once said to you that you have never forgotten, but likely the person who said it to you would not remember having said it."
I asked if any in the congregation would be willing to share their reflections with those present -- several did.

I turned to the Gospel Reading, in Matthew 5.21-24 contains the following sentence: "The simple moral fact is that words kill.”

^21-22"You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.
(Matthew 5:21-24, The Message)

Upon first reading this, the sentence struck me as quite an overstatement. I recalled something we used to say on the playground in elementary school, "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me." Now, in Matthew, Jesus is saying that words can kill. Which is it?

Then I reflected on recent tragic stories in the news about individuals, often teenagers, who had committed suicide because of horrible cyber-bulluying on their websites or FaceBooks. Indeed words can kill! Words can kill one's will to live, or on a less tragic note, they can kill one's self esteem or self-confidence. But, importantly, words can also build and enrich.

I used as an example, of the positive power of words, the final words that the late Andy Rooney used when he "signed off" finally from his last program on the CBS Program, 60 Minutes. Andy had been a regular feature on the program for many years. Each Sunday, he would present a short essay at the end of the program. In those essays he would reflect on some event or situation in modern life. Often many of his comments were humorous; some were quite serious.

In this last appearance, Andy said that many who had written him or talked to him about his work, emphasized his radio performances. But Andy said he always considered himself not as a performer, but as a writer. He said he was inspired by a teacher many, many years ago who said to him, "Andy, you are a writer." And indeed, he became a writer. He started out during WWII writing for the "Stars and Stripes." He subsequently wrote for television and he published numerous essays and several books.

Andy knew that what he was going to say at his last appearance on "60 Minutes" would attract a very large audience. CBS had announced this event on several occasions. What struck me as being relevant to this sermon, was that at this important moment at the conclusion of Andy Rooney's long career, he did not reflect on the influence of his many producers or editors or agents -- instead he referred to a comment made by a teacher, many decades ago, "Andy, you are a writer." And it changed his life. Words can build and inspire and have a profoundly positive influence.

As an example of how one who embodied the ability to use words to build and inspire, I described a friend, named Maxie, who in her life has embodied that spirit. My wife, Michele and I first met Maxie in the mid-60 when Maxie and I worked together on a research project at UCLA. She and her husband lived a few short miles away from us in Malibu, California and we were together often. Maxie celebrated her 90th Birthday in April 2011, and we traveled to California to be with her. The celebration was held in a very large hall and was attended by dozens and dozens of her friends and admirers, some of whom traveled from across the country to be with Maxie. In her career, Maxie was a wonderful researcher and writer. She published articles and books based on her work. She is also a very accomplished cook. While those attending no doubt admired Maxie's many accomplishments, what brought them together in admiration was her quality as a very good listener, and her ability to inspire confidence in all who had an opportunity to be with her. One always came away from a conversation with Maxie feeling appreciated and more confident.

Words do indeed have power--the power to kill and diminish, and the power to build and inspire. One does not have to be a CEO or a teacher, or a pastor, or a parent to have one's words matter to others. The words each of us uses, regardless of station or position, can and will have an influence on those to whom we speak. Consequently, we should all be mindful of what we say to others and strive to use this power of words in a loving spirit.

Come Tell Us What is Saving Your Life Now

Come Tell Us What is Saving Your Life Now
(Matthew 6.22-26, 33-34)
A meditation by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – November 6, 2011

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things.
(Mechtild of Magdeburg)

Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest and a preaching professor. Groups all over the world invite her to come lecture and preach on all kinds of very important academic issues. A while back, she got a call from an old priest in Georgia who asked her to come talk to his congregation. When she asked what he wanted her to talk about, he said, “Come tell us what is saving your life now.”
(Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, HarperOne, 2009, p. xvii).

What a great thing to be asked to show each other. Come tell us what is saving your life now.

A second-century Christian named Irenaeus said the best way we praise God is by being fully alive. What makes you fully alive is what’s saving your life now. We often hear words like saving and salvation and think that means where we go when we die. But saving and salvation are all about how we live in this world, not the next
(Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, Harper San Francisco, 2003, p. 172).

What’s saving your life now is what calls out of you everything you have to give.

What’s saving your life now is what wakes you up so you don’t go through life on auto-pilot.

What’s saving your life now is what makes you fully alive.

Sometimes we assume to feel fully alive we have to climb a mountain or head for the coast or take a drug or run off to join a monastery. But what’s saving our lives now has to be something we can do every day. What is saving our lives now is whatever helps us trust “that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world”
(Taylor, p. xvii).

This morning, I’d like us to open ourselves to the wisdom of Jesus and two of his twelfth-century followers. And let their words wash over us, and awaken us to what is saving our lives now. Jesus said to his disciples, “Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have! Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
(Matthew 6.22-26,33-34, The Message Re-Mix © 2003 Eugene Peterson)

Eight hundred years ago, a Christian woman named Mechtild of Magdeburg wrote, The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things.
(quoted in Taylor, p. 1).

A legend about St. Francis tells that he was hoeing his garden one afternoon when someone asked him to speculate on what he would do if he knew he was going to die that day.
"I would hoe my garden," he replied.
When I am faced with my death I would like to be so present to the task at hand that I would want to keep on with whatever happened to be my particular hoeing. To love is to be content with the present moment, open to its meaning, entering into its mystery
(Elizabeth O'Connor, Cry Pain, Cry Hope).

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things.

If I knew I were going to die today, I would keep doing what I’m doing right now. I would hoe my garden.

Three simple statements that most of the time feel too hard for me to follow. What is saving my life now?

One thing that’s saving my life now is trying to move through the world with open hands. For most of my life, I’ve lived with closed and clenched and filled hands. Hands that tried to cling to the past. Hands that refused to let go of a dream that was never going to come true. But a dream I held onto anyway. Because I couldn’t imagine what my life would be life if it didn’t come true. I’ve filled my hands with things to keep me busy and distracted. So I wouldn’t have empty moments those uninvited voices filled the emptiness and told me I wasn’t very happy.

I used to fill my hands so I’d have an excuse for not doing things I was afraid would make me look foolish. I’d never really learned how to swing a baseball bat, or repair things. And I never learned to play soccer. I’m the only person I know who, no matter where they are on the field, every time they kick a soccer ball it goes out-of-bounds. Instead of swallowing my pride and asking people to teach me these things, whenever someone invited me to do something I was sure would humiliate me, I could always gesture toward my busy, filled hands and say, “I’d love to, but I’ve got all these things to do.” And my filled hands could keep me from having to hold the hand or put my arm around someone I didn’t want to have to love.

Going through my life with filled, closed, clinging-to-the-past hands is not saving. It only breeds fear and loneliness and boredom.

These days, I’m trying to go through my life with open hands. If all things are in God and God is in all things, and God is doing something right now, then my full hands will keep me from receiving what God wants to offer. And my full hands keep me from giving to another something they need.

The early Christians moved through the world with open hands. They practiced a truly radical hospitality. They believed every guest who came to their door had a gift someone in their community needed. A gift that could be saving for them. If they refused to welcome the guest, they were rejecting this gift. And it’s possible God wouldn’t send anyone else to them with that particular gift. By welcoming all guests as Jesus, they opened their hands to this life and gift God had sent them. They opened their hands to what was saving them.

A second thing that’s saving me now is trying to live so I can say with St. Francis that I was so content in whatever I was doing, that if death came at that point, I wouldn’t wish I’d been doing something else. He was so sure God was there while he was hoeing, he was so immersed in his hoeing, that he was perfectly content to die while he was hoeing.

I’d love to live with that kind trust that God was in everything I was doing. So I could be with God in everything I was doing.

I’ve been trying to practice this when I lead support groups at Recovery Café. At the beginning of the group, I always ask people to put their cell phones on vibrate. And to take them off the table. I ask them to do whatever they need to so they don’t have to get up and leave the room during the hour we are together. I tell them that, for this hour, each of us is the most important person in the world. Right now, there is no more important thing going on than us being together. I don’t use religious language, but when I am fully awake and fully alive, I know God is in each person around that table. God is in each story and each piece of feedback. And when God is present, there is no more important moment, no more important person.

Maybe what made Jesus, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and St. Francis different is that they knew God was with them always. They knew all things were in God and God was in all things. They knew they didn’t have to be afraid of the past or the future. They could pay attention fully to what God was doing in the present moment. What was saving them was knowing everyone and everything they came across was in God. Because they knew whatever happened, God was saying to them what God has always said to love and reassure her daughters and sons: I am here. Don’t be afraid. That’s what was saving them.

Come, tell us, what is saving you?