Category: Devotions

---

Show Notes:

• “Concerning the perfection of the virtuous life … [I have outlined the] pattern of beauty the life of the great Moses, so that each of us might copy the image of the beauty which has been shown to us by imitating his way of life.” – Gregory of Nyssa. That we might also live to be a “friend of God” (Ex 33:11)
• I highly recommend that you read “How I Rediscovered Faith” by Malcom Gladwell on his own faith journey. If you are not already a listener of his podcast Revisionist History and looking for something new, it is one of my absolute favorites. 
• Not to overwhelm your ears, but another episode recommendation from the Holy Post podcast (episode 415) a helpful interview with Jon Tyson a pastor in New York City on his new book Beautiful Resistance: The Joy of Conviction in a Culture of Compromise, that helps give a framework for how the church can be faithful in the changing cultural moment we find ourselves in. The interview starts at 48:26 if you want to skip the opening banter.
• A classic Henri Nouwen quote just because we all need a positive call to action in this season: 
  • “Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions.”

“Today is the day the Lord has made. Let us Rejoice and be Glad in it!” Psalm 118:24

My family loves this verse and we use it quite often when greeting each other. The verse in the photo was made for me by my wife Mia and sits on a small easel on my desk and I reflect on it daily. And that is a good thing! This psalm is special to me as it reminds me that every day is special as it is a gift from God – who made that day specially for us. And it reminds me to REJOICE and BE GLAD in the day. Celebrate each day. Be Joyful.

You may know that Mia & I love to go to the beach. Sitting under an umbrella, listening to the crash of the waves and reading a book is one of my “happy places”. Mia and I also like to walk along the shore and look for shells.

Recently, while walking along the beach I saw a half-buried shell and, deciding it wasn’t a “keeper”, I kept walking. But then something made me stop. I went back and picked it out of the sand and cleaned it off in the water. I was stunned to find a beautiful shell – the nicest that I had found in quite a while.

Finding that shell made me think. Do I take the time to look at all the half-buried shells in my life? Do I take the time to see the goodness in everything? In everyone? What was I missing?

And then I wondered whether others who are living through these challenging times during a pandemic and unrest seeing just a half-buried shell. It makes you wonder.

There is a quote from the movie Evan Almighty that I really like:

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for their family to be closer, you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings? Or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

Are the struggles our Country, our Community and our church face an issue – a half-buried shell? Or is this time an “opportunity” for all of us to shine? To care for others? To make the extra effort?

We are directed quite clearly in John 13:34-35 – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

So … Is today the day you look again and see that beautiful shell?

Is today the day you truly love your neighbor?

Is today the day that you make a difference in someone’s life that REALLY needs it?

I know that I am going to try. I am going to look at every shell. I pray that you do to.

Today IS the day the Lord has made! I hope that you Rejoice and be Glad in it.

I’m not much of a fisherwoman. My grandfather taught me to fish on the Withlacoochee River when I was a little girl. He was a patient man that quite frankly did most of the “fishing work” for me. He drove his boat to the best fishing spots, he baited my line (every time), he told me when to wait it out and when to slowly reel it in, he took the fish off the hook (on the rare occasion I caught one) and then he would do the yucky part; the cleaning. He was born and raised in Mississippi so I won’t tell you just how he cleaned the catfish I caught, but you can use your imagination.

Jesus talks a lot about fishing. He hung out with fishermen, he performed miracles with fish, and he used fishing as a metaphor for evangelism and sharing our story. As I reflected again on my trip to the Holy Land 6 months ago, I thought a lot about fishing and the bodies of water that Jesus used in his storytelling. Six months ago, I had just gone across the Sea of Galilee with my friends and clergy colleagues. It was a holy day. It had started out rainy, as a lot of Tiberias mornings do, and it was cold. We were bundled up next to each other (something I miss in this COVID world) and we were singing and praying and worshipping God together. Our Bishop, Ken Carter stood up, just like Jesus might have, and began to teach.  Bishop Carter reminded us about the miracles on the water when Peter tried to walk on the water towards Jesus. Then the story about how Jesus calmed the storm when the disciples feared for their life and how our anxiety can take our eyes off of the one who is in control of everything because we are afraid. But the re-told story that stood out most that day was the story of when Jesus called his disciples.

What I didn’t know in Sunday School or youth group or even in seminary, was the context of that story. I really didn’t get it until I was actually in the boat, on the Sea of Galilee, and going from one side of the lake to the other. You see, in Jesus day, this story (Luke 5:1-11) would have resonated with all people, not just fishermen. I’m convinced that Jesus was an introvert, because when “the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,” Jesus found two boats and went out in a smaller group heading for the other side. In other words, he got the heck out of the crowded space to just be with a few friends. Those few that he chose to get in the boat would begin to understand the real cost of discipleship and what sacrifice is needed to faithfully fish. Now the other side wasn’t a friendly place to go. It was full of “those” kinds of people. The people that the righteous and law-abiding Jews did not talk to or interact with, and yet, that is where Jesus’ boat was heading. You see, the “other side” was Gentile land, in other words, full of people not like us; with differing theological expressions, socio-economic statuses, lifestyles or priorities. But regardless of the uncomfortable reality of what the “other side” has or doesn’t have, Jesus’ boat is going there anyways.

While on the journey from one end of the Sea of Galilee to the next, Jesus had the fisherman row the boat a little way from the shore. It was here that he began teaching and convicting his soon to be disciples about what it means to fish in deep water. In the case with my grandfather, the shallow marshes were the best places to catch yummy catfish. Water so shallow and clear, you could see to the bottom. But we aren’t fishing in shallow waters as followers of Jesus, because that is where the water is calm and easy. Jesus takes His disciples out into deep water, water that is unreliable and could become dangerous very quickly and it is here where so many fish are caught. So many, Scripture says, that the nets were filled so abundantly that the boat started to sink. And it was in this miracle, after a long hard night of trying to fish ‘the way it had always been done’, that the disciples realized that Jesus was the Lord and so they left everything and followed him.

As I listened to the retelling of this well-known story again on the Sea of Galilee, I began praying that God would lead me to more deep waters, for more uncomfortable situations and more opportunities to go to the “other side.” We can always fish where it is shallow, yes. We can fish for people where it is easy, amongst people that are like us so that nothing they do or say will challenge us or “rock our boats.” But that isn’t where Jesus’ boat is headed. Jesus’ boat goes to the other side, to the unfamiliar places where it is uncomfortable and where we are stretched. That day I realized, after already 9 years in the ministry, that ministry is really about going across to the other side to people that are strangers to us.

And on the way to the other side, we don’t know how God might use us. But we do know that we have been called to fish in deep water. And then once the fish are caught, God will do the rest. But somewhere in the history of Christendom we got it into our heads that the fish have to be cleaned BEFORE they can be caught, but that understanding is wrong. Instead, just like with my Grandpa, we don’t do the yucky work of cleaning the fish; that is the job of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit alone. God will do the hard work; we get to do the fishing, so long as we are open to fishing in deep water and remaining on Jesus’ boat. We might not all be great fisher-people, but we’ve got our Lord and Savior helping us figure it all out.

AMEN

Story as Medicine by Tonya L. Tolson

Some years ago, while I was undergoing my own personal transformation out of childhood traumas and through divorce, I had the privilege to attend a lecture with the clinical psychoanalyst and author Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.  She’s a prominent storyteller who specializes in stripping down to the bone and sharing the real meaning of fairy tales.  Estés highlights such stories in her two extraordinary books entitled, “Women Who Run with the Wolves” and “Untie the Strong Woman.”

Estés was also one of the many clinical psychologists who went to Littleton, Colorado in 1999 to support the community of Columbine H.S., where two students gunned down and killed twelve fellow students and one teacher.

Estés knows that stories are medicine, which provide us with the blueprints to heal and the tools to navigate our lives.  Estés writes, “[Stories] have such power; they do not require that we do, be, or act anything – we need only listen.  The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive are contained in stories.  Stories engender excitement, sadness, questions, longings, and understandings…

“Stories are embedded with instructions which guide us about the complexities of life.  Stories enable us to understand the need for and the ways to raise a submerged archetype.”

Estés’ work in story-telling does not only comes from being a writer, poet, and psychoanalyst, but from the experience of being an American, an immigrant, and from her Mexican and Hungarian lineages of family storytellers.  Estés wrote: “The healing medicine of story does not exist in a vacuum.  It cannot exist divorced from its spiritual source.  It cannot be taken on as a mix-and-match project.  There is an integrity to story that comes from a real life lived in it.”

Of the many stories Estés archived is one Christians know well:

Once long ago, a man who had been wayfaring alone with no protective guide, was attacked, beaten black and bloody, and he lay bleeding to death on the side of the road.

Various travelers passed by. They all saw the broken soul, but hurriedly stepped over his dying body so they could keep their own appointments.

Two priests in flowing robes from two different religious groups saw the man suffering in broad daylight, but even the anointed literally crossed to the other side of the road to avoid having to engage with or touch the poor man’s wounds.

Recognize the story? It’s the Good Samaritan, one of Jesus’ thought-provoking, heart-shifting, and soul-transforming parables.  In these timeless stories, The Wisdom Jesus is pushing each of us out of our comfort zones; calling us to drill down deep not for only the answers, but for additional questions and meaning.

In her analysis of this important parable, Dr. Estés also challenges us with these questions: “Who will tell the stories so that others can know how to kneel to help those who are hurt?  Who will tell the stories about how those who did not see before, can seek insight now, and offer meaningful and heartfelt solace now?  Who will tell the stories so truths can be told, so the ways of full acknowledgement of what occurred and full mercy can be made known to all?  Who will tell the stories so the injured can be healed and rise again, scarred but gradually restored.”

One of the principles of the Diversity Committee’s ministry, along with prayer and devotion, is to tell our stories, those that are individualized and unique, in hope of facilitating healing, empathy, compassion, and love.

Holy Land, Part I

Exactly six months ago today, I was in the Holy Land. I was there with about 350 other Florida United Methodists and my sweet husband Ryan and I found myself reflecting on this spiritual pilgrimage this past week. Thanks to generous churches like this one, a newly ordained elder had a 10 Day pilgrimage to the Holy Land given to them as an ordination gift. Luckily, as Ryan and I were ordained two years apart, he was also offered this amazing trip at no cost so in this case, being a Clergy Couple was in fact a DOUBLE BONUS!

We flew out of Fort Lauderdale on February 4^th and returned the day before Valentine’s Day. I remember being in the airport about to board our flight to Israel when a few people were being taken out of line because they had traveled to China in the last 14 days. I didn’t know then what I know now and I am so thankful that we travelled the week we did. When we arrived back to the United States, it wasn’t long before Israel closed its borders. Only 6 months ago, I was in Israel and Palestine, walking the footsteps of the patriarchs, of the disciples and yes of course, of Jesus. This trip was profoundly formidable for my faith and formation and I plan to share more in next week’s devotion too. But since that trip, I have never been the same.

There are many experiences and sites we visited that I could share, and I hope one day to teach a class on all that I learned and discovered, but the moment I felt God closest to me was in the city of Magdala. This place, as the name might suggest, was the city where Mary Magdalene presided. Mary Magdalene, one of the first female disciples and by all four Gospel accounts, the premiere witness to the resurrection, this is where she lived before leaving everything to follow Jesus. The city was only excavated in this millennium and is located in Lower Galilee which is in Northern Israel. The ancient Synagogue was the first of the excavations and as it dates back to 15-20 AD, it would have been a place where Jesus gathered and taught. Maybe this was where Mary first heard the life-giving words of Jesus, where she saw his posture of grace, where she felt more than herself and called to be more than she ever thought she could be. I don’t know, but I do know that the place we walked that day was holy and as we toured the grounds of the Duc In Altum (which draws its name from Luke 5:4 where Jesus tells Peter to “launch into the deep”) it was a place like no other. When we entered the Main Boat Chapel that day and saw the Women’s Atrium which was held up by pillars named for the women disciples and women leaders of our faith, I knew I was experiencing something marvelous. And if that wasn’t enough, we traveled down into the Encounter Chapel for a time of singing and praying, and for me a lot of tears were shed.

What I remembered in that moment, gathered with my brothers and sisters of the faith is that God uses all of us. Male or Female, rich or poor, educated or not, the doubter or the model Christian; God has a place for us all. But over and over again, we see the story of God in the most unlikely of places and lived out through the most unlikely of people. Mary Magdalene was not one that the Pharisees would have even given a second glance to, except maybe to judge, and yet she became the first preacher; the first proclaimer of the Gospel.  As I sat, weeping in the back of that holy space, I could only whisper my prayer and sing a very inaudible song of praise. Because I knew in that moment, just how much God loves the underdog, reaches for the one cast aside, and gives purpose to the person that society has said is unworthy. In Jesus’ day, it was the women that were forgotten about but today, others fit this category. What is so countercultural about the Kingdom of God is that those without power are given new purpose, those without a voice are entrusted with the first preaching opportunities, those considered unclean, irreligious or bad influencers are in fact the movers and shakers of the faith.

As a woman, who has watched women pastors, teachers and leaders struggle to be taken seriously, to be listened to and to be valued in the same way as men, I am so thankful that God visited me that day in the Chapel of Magdala. I am thankful that God continues to use those on the fringes to impact the Kingdom and to grow the church. But I am also thankful for the men that walk beside me: my father and husband, my male colleagues and friends, my sweet little boy Charlie who is learning that strong women run in our family. What a gift we all are to God’s Kingdom and what a task we have before us.

Six months ago, as I was experiencing God’s presence in the Chapel of Magdala, I had no idea how much was about to change. How our world was about to be flipped upside down and how we were going to be grappling with the question, “What’s next?” I believe one thing that hasn’t changed in this world of uncertainty, is God’s love for us; for ALL OF US. What hasn’t changed is that men and women together will change this world for good and side by side will help bring about God’s Heavenly Kingdom to earth. What hasn’t changed is that God loves all of us equally, but is especially willing to bring those who feel most unworthy and unnoticed, into the all-encompassing arms of grace. A lot has changed, but the life-giving words of Jesus that remind us of our sacred worth, never change.

 

As I write devotional my devotional for a couple of weeks, I am working on a new format which I am excited to share soon. We will look at the principles of the book “When Helping Hurts” to examine what kind of church God is calling us to be, not just in this season, but in the years to come. 

---

This week I will be participating in a seminar for pastors on the theology and thought of the early church. Like numerous other things in this season, this was initially to be in person and has now shifted to online. The topic was close to Wesley’s heart. He was an avid reader of the early church fathers and cited them frequently in his writing. Wesley had this to say about reading the work of those early Christians:

“I exceedingly reverence them, as well as their writings, and esteem them very highly in love… [they are] the most authentic commentators on scriptures, as being both nearest the fountain, and eminently endued with that spirit by whom all scripture was given… [their work is as] golden remains.”

One of the books assigned for this seminar was written by Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 A.D.) on the life of Moses. The work is an examination of the life of Moses, a devotional work that shares an example of what a faithful life with God looks like. It is a strange feeling to read something so old, reflecting on the same scripture that we use in our worship and devotional life today, and still strikingly relevant almost seventeen hundred years later. It is hard to overstate how thoroughly different the world is today, yet, as we follow the same God, we struggle with the same questions of faith and practice. Gregory states the clear purpose of his book in the prologue, “we shall seek out the spiritual understanding which corresponds to the history [of Moses] in order to obtain suggestions of virtue. Through such understanding, we may come to know the perfect life for men.” Additionally, he calls readers to remember Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This the same verse I cited last week as a personal favorite of Wesley. We see this theme of the Christian life as one of continuously increasing virtue. One might summarize this as Wesley did, that we are to be “going onto perfection.” 

Gregory posits, “true religion is the death and destruction of idolatry.” The tricky thing about idolatry is that its roots go deep, often pressing into the foundation of our identity. Tim Keller in his fantastic book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power and the Only Hope That Matters, argues that this personal work is difficult because often, our idolatry is not of ‘bad’ things, but rather ‘good’ things (such as family, work, and love) wrongly ordered. Its why Jesus’ call in Luke 14:25-27 that following him requires even the love of children to be ordered after our love of Jesus, strikes us so hard. Uprooting the idolatry in our lives, as Moses forcefully did as he came down Mount Sinai to find the golden calf, allows us to live ever-increasing lives of virtue. Alternatively, if we do not do this work, Gregory gives us the image of living lives akin to the Israelites in slavery in Egypt. Like Sisyphus, a life with the wrong desires, resembles the Israelites making bricks perpetually staring at an “empty and vacant container,” as these false desires like Pharaoh demanding ever more bricks, a task never completed.

In conclusion, Gregory gives a hopeful call to his audience. As we look at the life of Moses in the Scriptures, we see that he is the “friend of God,” (Exodus 33:11). This ought to be our focus day by day, that we grow in our friendship to God. I offer this from his closing paragraph as a prayer for all of us this week, that we all may:

“Be known by God and to become his friend. This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because, like slaves, we servilely fear punishment, nor to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some businesslike and contractural arrangement. On the contrary… we consider becoming God’s friend the only think worthy of honor and desire.”

---

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”  – D.A. Carson

I grew up in Musical Theater. I loved singing, performing, dancing, but of course, the makeup and the costumes…oh the costumes, those were my favorite. I had the chance to do professional theater, community theater, and both high school and college theater as well. I loved the stories that were told, the characters I could become, and am, still to this day a sucker for an exuberant dance number. Ryan and I have already noticed this love of performance in both of our children, but most especially our 4 ½-year-old, Emmaline.

But one thing I disliked most was between the scenes when the stage lights were down and pieces of the set had to be rolled on or carried off and then the giant heavy backdrops were moved into place. This happened all under the cover of darkness, all while the orchestra played, and all as quiet and as invisible as we could be, as we changed the set for the next scene, for the next part of the story. This is most easily accomplished with glow in the dark tape that marked the spot of each piece of the set. Sometimes we would use flashlights and more than one time there were accidents and rolled over toes, especially in High School Theater. But, as they say, the show must go on and the pieces got moved into place in the dark and then we, the performers would move back to the wings and wait for the big reveal.

As much as God is a God of the light, God is very accustomed, even comfortable I would say with working in the dark. Think about the big moments of the Biblical narrative for a moment. Jacob wrestles with the angel all night long. The Exodus narrative and the freeing of the Israelites happened at night, Baby Jesus was born and the angels lite up the night sky, and many other examples remind us how good God is working and redeeming and putting the pieces into place IN THE DARK.

I know I just got here, and I will be learning the history of this church for a while; but if it is like every other church I have served or worked out over the last 20 years, there have been and will be some dark moments at this church, especially as we transition together. Maybe caused by this pandemic, or a change in leadership and vision, a struggle of finances or the pride of a few individuals. As followers of Jesus, living out our faith journey connected to the Church, there are moments of darkness and a lack of clarity. And when we don’t always see what God is doing in the dark, we might be tempted to lose hope if we can’t see it or understand it. Maybe we even grow weary and worn out as we wait, as we fumble around in the dark of our current situation.

And so Scriptures like this one from 1 Corinthians 13 bring me hope and remind me that especially in the hard moments of life and ministry there is more going on behind the scenes. The God of light sometimes does the best work in the dark and we get to participate in the big reveal as members of the Kingdom of God.

“Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 NRSV

AMEN