Tag: faith

Looking for Mercy (Isaiah 63:15-19)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Divine Mercy, by James Janknegt, 2009

Lord, look down from heaven;
    look from your holy, glorious home, and see us.
Where is the passion and the might
    you used to show on our behalf?
    Where are your mercy and compassion now?
Surely you are still our Father!
    Even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us,
Lord, you would still be our Father.
    You are our Redeemer from ages past.
Lord, why have you allowed us to turn from your path?
    Why have you given us stubborn hearts so we no longer fear you?
Return and help us, for we are your servants,
    the tribes that are your special possession.
How briefly your holy people possessed your holy place,
    and now our enemies have destroyed it.
Sometimes it seems as though we never belonged to you,
    as though we had never been known as your people. (New Living Translation)

Desperation takes many forms – financial straits and grinding poverty; chronic physical challenges; the horrors of war; homelessness which never seems to end; and continual harassment. And that is only a short list of the destruction, death, and grief we have experienced and will encounter in our lives.

The penitent person who looks to God for help and strength through such times faces the possibility of divine disappointment. God’s timetable is not the same as ours, not even close. So, it is understandable that we can become upset with God. It can even appear as though God knows nothing about our situations.

Nevertheless, the penitent believer still prays, still hopes, still insists on faith, and even keeps up a steady stream of loving God by loving the people God created. But none of that means we never question God, never pour out our raw emotions and palpable hurt toward the Lord whom we have known.

The spiritual life has never been one of unending upward ascension toward the divine. Rather, the spiritual life is filled with continual ups and downs; three steps forward and two steps backward; and wondering if the spiritual journey of faith and patience is worth it.

I myself am in one of those ponderous times in which both my physical and mental health are in a place where I can see no way out. It’s as if God has taken his summer vacation somewhere on the other side of the universe, and left me to fend for myself.

Yet, I am one of those stubborn penitent believers who knows better. I have walked with God for nearly 50 years, and I’m not about to let go of faith, hope, and love, just because my life has several adversities and challenges. The truth be told, God owes me not a single thing, and yet, grace, mercy, and peace have been liberally and lovingly given time and time again.

But I admit, I long for those kind of glorious times once again. I’ve seen far too many genuine and unexplainable miracles in my past ministries to ever lose hope or ever believe God isn’t really there. I just don’t know why God is presently aloof, or if I’m too hard-headed to observe all the little graces He’s been tossing my way.

Yet, me, along with the ancient Israelites of old for whom Isaiah prophesied, who have experienced goodness from God, have our times of complaint, as well as penitence.

Today’s Old Testament lesson is filled with prayers and petitions, complaints and laments, confessions of sin, and confidence in the great Yahweh we have served for so long.

These heartfelt petitions are meant to move the passion of God to our deliverance and the meeting of our needs. Remembering the past commitments given by God is like the firewood of prayer we are trying to kindle and bring to full strength and heat.

In difficult circumstances, God seems much more transcendent than immanent. That is, God is understood as high as the heavens, and not so much as close as a friend. The Israelites pleaded with God to just give at least a glimpse toward them – to look down for just a moment so that divine mercy can quickly assess what’s going on.

The Lord is a gracious and compassionate God; it’s not in God’s nature to have no zeal for the ones who are devoted to that divine nature. God is reliable, right!? God will do what is right for us, if God sees what the heck is happening, right!?

The Israelites remind God of the past relationship which was an intimate connection of care and well-being. Father Abraham may have been the original Hebrew, but he isn’t around – Abraham is not God. Just as Abraham counted on God during his earthly life, so the Abrahamic community of Jews are depending on Yahweh for help.

The people knew something was awry, and they were not about to accept that. They want to understand what’s going on, and why they are in such a dire predicament. The Israelites even go so far as to blame God for leading them astray in some way. That’s the level of wondering and hurt they were under.

Charging God with neglect is a bad path forward for anyone. Just because things are bad does not necessarily mean that God is aloof, and that one’s enemies will take advantage of the supposed power vacuum.

It just gives us the sense of hopelessness, anxiety about the present, and worry about what will happen tomorrow. What they, and we, know about God is that without divine help, we are nothing, and going nowhere. So, that’s why we pray so fervently.

Yet, methinks we take ourselves far too seriously, as if the world would crumble without our divine connections. In reality, God doesn’t need us, yet chooses us for loving our neighbors in our world. It’s a privilege. Yet, one with a high cost. Love and mercy are a commission which will take everything from us and out of us to do.

As the people we are, there is a tendency to look for continual divine kudos and the accolades of others for our good work. But to be humbled and overlooked is a good thing, not a bad one. For we are being taught to disdain all the broken systems of this world. If we do that, we shall not continually be grieved, because God is our everything.

We are easy victims of vanity, and really have no reason to give God a list of complaints about how things have shaken out of our favor. Peace – real and sustaining peace – comes not from having everyone like us or get along with us. Peace actually comes from having others despise us, slight us, and have some contempt for us. This is when we become spiritually enlightened and learn to enjoy a full and rich connection with the God who once seemed remote.

As for me, I’ll take me and Jesus any day over any other relationship. For no other friend or foe can ever take away something that is living and permanent.

The grace of the Holy Spirit is always seeking the humble heart, and is always on the lookout for those seeking to liberate themselves from systemic and structural evil in order to do the greatest work of love. Wherever there is desperation, there is where God does His best work of mercy.

Grant to me, Lord, I pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, so that I, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Straddling Two Worlds

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

“You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:34)

It really sucks being sick, no matter what the particular illness is.

I realize those may be strange words coming from a tenured and ordained church pastor and hospital chaplain. Nevertheless, it is a truism which far too many people know about intimately.

Yet, there might be something even worse than the devastating effects of one’s own ill health – whether it be cancer or a cold, epilepsy or constipation – and that is the awful grinding reality that someone you love dearly is suffering beyond what you can do for them. If you could take their place, you’d do it in a heartbeat.

And, honestly, many, if not most, people are in one of those situations right this very minute – either needing care or being the caregiver.

As I was walking through my neighborhood last night, as I often do after the day’s sunset, I couldn’t help thinking about all my neighbors inside those lighted rooms. Every single person, I felt and knew in my bones, was going through some sort of illness that’s impeding the quality of their life; or they’re struggling to know how to pray for that friend or loved one who is profoundly ill, wondering what to do, at all.

Debilitating illness is one of those realities of the human condition that appears to be so devilishly odd in a world where billions of people worship God. If there is such a divine Being, where the hell is he!? Why do I feel so helpless?

There is something else for us to contemplate – that we live in a weird space between two worlds. The first world we are quite familiar with – the tangible reality of our five senses. But this other world is a place we are much more unfamiliar with; it has multiple if not millions of senses which we cannot see, hear, feel, taste, or touch with our physical capabilities.

Something inside of us, besides our literal brains, hearts, and guts, existentially knows that deep within us is a soul. I personally don’t care much what you want to call it – spirit, metaphysical awareness, biological wirings, gut feelings, etc. But there is a special place inside of us that is ready-made to connect with that other ethereal world of the spirit and soul.

Let me ask: What makes a young woman with cancer become driven to make a difference in the world, even though she may die tomorrow? Where does the desire bubble-up for a heart patient who could be gone before the day is out to say something of great value that family and friends will forever remember and record?

And what makes you and I get out of bed in the morning, desiring to impact the world in significant ways that makes things better, not worse?

I confess that far too often, in my own ill health, as well as the debilitations of my dear wife, I throw a daily little pity party complete with doll sized cups along with juicy gossip of how others don’t understand.

I rehearse old wounds from the past, wish things were different in the present, and fear for what is to come in the future. O, my friends, you already know this is no way to live a good life.

If we’re going to live with any sort of faith, hope, and love, we will need to recognize our place in-between these two worlds of earth and spirit.

I wish I could tell you that I have it all worked out, that I could give you some short pithy statements of experiential truth which will transform your life experience.

But I don’t.

So, here is what I try my darndest to do ever single day, as a person who seeks to touch both worlds, and who is devoted to the person of Jesus: I surrender to Love. I give myself to what is most important. And when I fail, I let divine forgiveness wash over me.

I luxuriate in the spiritual world’s reality that if somehow I lose myself, I will find Jesus – or rather that Jesus will find me. Love has its own mysterious ways of making the right connections when they need to happen.

I bask in the profound paradox that in renouncing everything I have and everything I am, I gain the greatest possessions in existence – and they are found on that other side, in the spiritual world.

I freely humble myself and resign myself to the words and ways of Jesus – even when they make no sense in the earthly world. “Love your enemy.” Really!? Okay, I’ll give it a go… and it is amazing to always see the results that happen inside of me, and in the other spiritual world, that have little to do with that other person.

The medieval mystics are not popular with a lot of people. I admit Christian mystics are strange people, and have the sort of demands of the Old Testament prophets. But I love them.

One of my favorites, Thomas à Kempis, is insistent that if you lose yourself, you will find Jesus. To resign oneself completely to Jesus, fully and totally without any wavering, is to find the appropriate sweet spot between the two worlds of physical and spiritual. Writing to his young acolytes, Thomas minces no words:

“Let this be the goal of your striving and the object of your prayer, namely, to desire to be stripped of all your belongings, and once naked, that you may be ready to follow the naked Jesus. You must die to yourself to live eternally with me.” (The Imitation of Christ)

Sometimes this happens intentionally, as one longs to connect with the Christ they sense around them. In other ways, much like C.S. Lewis, other people come kicking and screaming to the place between the worlds.

Yet, by whichever means we get there, a place of grace opens to us. From that awkward vantage point – between health and illness – we discover that binary explanations have no place in this realm. Instead, all of us move between the worlds throughout our lives.

And, I would suggest, that the best and most effective way of navigating those worlds is taking the strong advice of both the medieval Thomas and the ancient Jesus. Little do we know how close we are to finding peace and purpose in our upside-down lives:

Now when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21, NKJV)

What we truly want and long for is no further than the hospital bed we’re occupying, or any other place we find ourselves in. And, furthermore, the place to find how to help that dear loved one is to journey within ourselves, not without.

If you are like me, you don’t much like limitations. I like the feeling of handling multiple responsibilities and accomplishing them with care and competence. The last thing I want is anything or anyone getting in my way of fulfilling great and meaningful work.

But I have had to learn that my limitations – which grow every day – are actually the key to knowing how to live the Christian life, as well as just plain old life in general.

The more I become aware of my true abilities, accept them, and move with them, the more I see that the world does not spin on the axis of my ability to accomplish anything. And the more dependent I realize I truly am, the more I observe the Christ who has everything under control – even when it seems God is absent.

It is to be expected that God will eventually put us in places of great limitation. Yes,  it will frustrate us in our seeming inability to effect any sort of change to an unjust situation. We just want whatever the offending circumstance is to be exorcised from this world. Yet, it rarely, if ever, happens.

This is not some demented divine game which God is playing on us – to be caught between worlds, and to struggle with all our might to make the best of our situations as people who are both sinner and saint, sick and well, sinister and full of goodness.

No, the nature of our common human condition of hard circumstances as people of faith is meant to strengthen our allegiance and our hope, so that we may be Christians publicly displaying who God is like, and that there is such a thing as truth in the public square.

“…even though you have to suffer different kinds of trouble for a little while now. The purpose of these troubles is to test your faith as fire tests how genuine gold is. Your faith is more precious than gold, and by passing the test, it gives praise, glory, and honor to God…” (1 Peter 1:6-7, GW)

It is downright hard trying to straddle between the two worlds of spiritual hope and physical adversity. But it’s necessary, even if we are unable to discern this reality for now. Every small decision of faith made in love with a good heart has immense impact in the universe, although we may never see that great and good consequence this side of heaven.

Living between two worlds will always be difficult. And it requires a level of surrender to God that is scary. Yet we can still be safe, strong, and spiritual; because we are all in this human condition together.

Christ’s Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Wheat Fields with Stacks, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.

“The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’

“‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.

“‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn….’”

Then, leaving the crowds outside, Jesus went into the house. His disciples said, “Please explain to us the story of the weeds in the field.”

Jesus replied, “The Son of Man is the farmer who plants the good seed. The field is the world, and the good seed represents the people of the Kingdom. The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels.

“Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand! (New Living Translation)

As you have likely noticed, not everyone in this world is supportive of you and what you’re doing.

The good work we do – no matter how competently and expertly done – will be undermined by others. There will be people with selfish and sinister agendas who put roadblocks in our way to frustrate our ongoing work. They don’t like what we are doing and what we’re trying to accomplish.

Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is. So then, one of the big questions for all of us is this: How do we live with others trying to subvert the good work we are doing for the Kingdom of Heaven?

One of the most popular responses is to strike the enemy on their cheek just as hard or harder in the way they slapped you. It is responding to evil in kind.

But if we will ponder for a moment, we shall realize that is makes no sense to repay evil with evil. Why? Because then the Kingdom of Hell has just snagged this one with doing evil in order to defend good work – which ends-up ruining the whole enterprise.

No, instead let’s heed the words of Christ to turn the other cheek and not retaliate; and live the words of the Apostle Paul who reminded us to overcome evil by doing good. (Matthew 5:38-42; Romans 12:14-21)

Yes, all judgment belongs to the Lord, and not us. In today’s Gospel lesson the reasoning Jesus provides for non-retaliation and non-violence is both reasonable and practical.

Field with Stacks of Wheat, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

Christ told his disciples that the enemy’s efforts at thwarting our good works are sinister enough to bring about a situation where evil is so close to the good that to eradicate the evil is to therefore also do away with the good.

If you have weeds in your field or your garden, you know that some of those nasty weeds cannot be pulled out of the ground without yanking-up the good plant along with it. Instead, you’ll have to wait until you can harvest the plant, and then you can safely get rid of the offending weed.

Let’s think, then, about our own situations right now in this world. For myself, it seems that every single day I am upset and angered over decisions made by those in political power, because they almost always involve oppressing and/or harming powerless people.

Yet, to immediately stop the offending persons and organizations would involve some wicked methods. Instead, if I want to maintain doing good, I will have my time to unseat them through the vote, or writing my Senators, or directly contacting the offices of the institutions, etc.

Some of our responses may seem tepid in comparison to the evil being perpetrated, yet we can be sure that there is a time coming in which the reality of divine judgment will handle the wicked once and for all. At the proper time, heaven’s angels will do their own good work of removing evil and eradicating it forever.

We need to put our efforts into doing the very best at living in harmony with one another, promoting peace, and being peacemakers – using our greatest and most effective tools of humility, gentleness, grace, and love. These are the proper fertilizers which will keep the plants of righteousness and justice growing and thriving, even though they are surrounded by a bunch of close weeds.

As maddening as it is to see those weeds grow up alongside the plants, nowhere in Holy Scripture are we called or encouraged to become judge, jury, and executioner to the wicked.

Furthermore, Christians are nowhere called to force onto others Jesus as King through a theocratic nation, using authoritarian means. We are called, rather, to put our faith where our fear is and exercise a faith that does good work through love. (Galatians 5:6)

Equipped by the Spirit, we urge oppressors, tyrants, and egotists to turn from their selfishness and amend their evil ways. And we are not called to force the Kingdom of Heaven on others by trying to ensconce a form of Christian nationalism. For Americans, many of our ancestors came to the New World in order to flee their home Christian nationalist countries who persecuted them and did evil to them.

“To identify any particular form of government with Christianity is a dangerous error, for it confounds the permanent with the transitory, the absolute with the contingent.” T.S. Eliot

It takes very little prodding for Christians with political power to move into glorifying violence and ignoring biblical injunctions to love enemies, seek peace, and grant grace.

God puts a high premium of looking after the poor and needy, and rescuing them from oppression and violence. The last thing we ought to be doing is becoming the violent oppressors ourselves!

Giving ourselves as ambassadors of reconciliation, speaking truth to power, and doing the work of peacemaking is a narrow and hard road to hoe. The easy way is typically the road of destruction. (Matthew 7:13-14)

As citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are to labor toward the things Jesus himself did: Challenge the arrogant religious types; offer mercy to the lowly and forgotten ones; warn of judgment; encourage faith; forgive generously; and speak words of truth in all places, including the halls of political power.

It is perfectly legitimate to disagree with others, but only if we ourselves are willing to defend their equally legitimate right to be disagreeable.

So, instead of always trying to snuff-out and vanquish our opponents with overt tools of evil, let us do the good work of winning their respect, living in peace with them, and affirming our shared humanity together.

We all have the right to be different; we don’t have the right to do evil and reprise evil with evil. The organizations, institutions, faith communities, corporations, and governments of this world are only as good as the people guarding that goodness through their good work, utilizing good means toward good ends.

Anyone with ears ought to listen and understand.

God of steadfast love and grace: Teach us your way and your truth. Root us in you alone, and help us to grow in grace and love, so that we may fulfill our role and our work in the reign of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Severe Mercy of the Easy Yoke (Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
The Burden of Christ, a sculpture of Jesus Christ, in the Oratoire Saint-Joseph, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
    we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds….”

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Exchanging one yoke for another is really a rather radical act. It is akin to dying to self, so that there can be new life in Christ.

In our anxiety-laden society, filled with multiple fears, worries, and frustrations, we are being invited by Jesus to lay it all down. In other words, every one of us must unequivocably die to self.

Perhaps this might best be illustrated by expressing my own struggle with the pharisaical yoke and the Jesus yoke:

A year-and-a-half ago, I abruptly had to leave my job as a hospital chaplain due to deteriorating health. I am now retired, not because I chose retirement, but because retirement chose me.

So, for the past eighteen months, I have struggled with this reality of no longer being a Chaplain. As hard as I thought and pondered, I’ve gained no understanding as to why I am no longer serving patients, their families, and hospital staff.

What’s more, I have no insight as to why – during my tenure as Chaplain – I experienced an awful time with a gaslighting boss for three of those years. This boss continually made nonsensical decisions, and defied any understanding, even though I sought it out. (I might add that it is super-creepy that the current U.S. President is so eerily like the former boss, as if I’m still under the abuse!).

If I was a good Chaplain doing good work (which I believe I was) then why was I treated so oppressively? Why did my employer turn a blind-eye to it all? Why would God almighty sideline me in such a loathsome health situation. Why must I keep experiencing the awful effects of incompetent political leadership? Why all of the nonsense? It is a terrible yoke for me to carry.

Likely, none of this has to do with me needing to understand any of it. It could be that it is more akin to Abraham being told to sacrifice the son of the promise, Isaac.

It was a completely nonsensical command from God. It defied any sort of understanding on Abraham’s part. And yet he quietly obeyed, with the text of Genesis 22 telling us nothing about any talk-back nor questioning from Abraham. Only obedience. It appears that Abraham was able to exchange yokes, from the oppressive one to the easy one.

In telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, the real death taking place was Abraham’s, not Isaac’s. Abraham was to die to anything that may compete or be likened to some sort of idolatry before God. For even the very good things, like families and jobs, can become idolatrous to us.

I don’t know about your situation, but maybe for me the point is that I must allow the old life to die, and to let a new life grow out of it. Maybe it’s time for a change of yokes. After all, one cannot have a new resurrected life without first experiencing a crucifying death to the old life.

Death is an integral part of life. To exchange yokes is to experience a death. I’ve wanted badly to return to chaplaincy in the hospital. But I am being commanded to sacrifice it on the altar of God. I am being told to die to myself, so that I may live a new life to God.

Any sort of mere earthly hope must die within us, that an unselfish and godly hope may arise anew. And that happens when we deliberately switch-out one yoke for another.

Chaplain Tim, in a way, is dead. I now accept that which is already true of me. It is a death to self. And I am now patiently awaiting my resurrection.

I do not understand this weird liminal space I’m inhabiting; and I need not understand it. I’m deprived of the object of my former job. And so, I let go of it. I will cling no longer to the old life.

What I seem to be currently experiencing is a severe mercy – the mercy from God to not make Christianity wholly understandable, nor boil it down to pharisaical laws of which I can clearly either follow, or not.

Instead, I allow following Christ and taking up his easy yoke to maintain it’s true mystery and grace. If I have died with Christ, I shall also live with him.

Only in hopelessness can we entertain hope. God loves me enough to let me feel the awful severity of Divine nonsense, so that I may experience the real nature of Christ.

I suppose, then, that I am really dead to having to understand everything, and am instead alive to hope. And hope will not disappoint me.

Through dreams and visions, O God, you broaden the horizon and hope of your people, so that they may discover the meaning of your covenant, even in the midst of trial and exile. Increase the number of those who believe in your word so that all people may joyfully respond to your call and share in your promises. Amen.