On the Way to Wonder

Whoopi Goldberg belts out the song “I Will Follow Him” at the end of the movie “Sister Act I,” 1992, as we see the Pope sitting in the church balcony clapping in time to the music.  The song first appeared in France as an instrumental in 1961 but was recorded by Percy Faith in 1963 earning him a gold record.  Petula Clark released a French version in 1962 that was popular in Europe.  But it was Little Peggy March, age 15, the youngest female artist in the U.S. to do a chart-topping single, brought the song to fame in the U.S. and she was nominated for the Grammy Awards in 1964.  This is a world wide song translated into multiple languages!  Back to Whoopi, disguised as a “nun” in a San Francisco convent who leads a choir that brings music that “speaks” to the young people into church.  What a beautiful example of taking a fisher-woman and making her into a fisher of people.  I love it.  The lyrics, “I will follow him, wherever he may go, there isn’t an ocean too deep, a mountain too high to keep me away from his love…” give voice to the devotion and dedication of the nuns Sister Mary Clarence is staying with.

         Two weeks ago Jesus called four disciples in Mark 1, Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John, and invites them to be fishers of men.  “Follow me!” is the invite.  Mark’s first “event” that he shares to open his gospel is these followers first Sabbath with Jesus.  In the morning at the synagogue a man with an “unclean spirit” interrupts Jesus preaching.  Jesus casts out the spirit and silences it.  After church they go home to find the hostess, Peter’s mother-in-law, sick in bed with a fever and Jesus immediately extends his hand, lifts her up and restores her to serve.  By evening the sick and demon possessed from town have gathered to be helped.  By the end of this Sabbath day, the invitation to “follow” has seen the mountains of joy at restoration and the ocean of tears filled with despair.  Whew!

         But perhaps more amazing is that we too are invited to be followers, to sing the song with Whoopi, “I will follow him wherever he may go.”  How comforting to know that we go with him to experience those mountain tops and he is with us as we walk through the low times.  Please enjoy the Whoopi Goldberg version of this song and think of the invitation to follow Jesus.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=VPpd-6X3tEo&feature=youtube_gdata   

“Where does the power come to run the race?”  Eric Liddell asks his audience of workers at a factory after winning a track race.  Liddell is the Scottish son of a missionary, studying at Oxford, preparing for the Olympics in the 20s.  Harold Abrams, a Jewish student at Cambridge is also preparing for this race of his lifetime.  This question rings in the background of the movie, “Where does power come from?”  One man is driven by ethnic pride and the help of an excellent trainer while the other by his conviction that he is using his God given talent to its ultimate.  Most, if not all, of us will never run in the Olympics but we often draw in our breath and ponder – where will the power come from to do the task at hand?

         Today’s world looks to money, to vaccines, to training, to fame but it seems to me that the question confronts us all.  Where do I find power to live my life successfully – as defined by me, not by society?  Liddell’s answer is that it comes from within, from the heart, from faith.  Sunday we will see Jesus, after a busy day and evening of healing and casting out demons, arise and go to a lonely place to pray.  What was that about?  He was God wasn’t he?  And yet we know he was man and was tempted in all ways we are.  He understands our exhaustion, our confusion, and our questions.  So perhaps he too needed to go to a lonely place to focus himself and “recharge his batteries.”  I know I do.  After a draining experience, I often sit in my chair, and close my eyes for ten minutes and relax.

         So where does the power from come for you?  How do you recharge your batteries after exhausting experiences or refocus after intense creativity?  Again I offer you Isaiah 40: 31, “Those that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  Perhaps you will wait in silence and prayer, perhaps in quiet study, perhaps a cup of coffee with a friend or at a café, but however you recharge your batteries today, may you remember your power source, God.  Blessings.

True confessions.  I love the ocean and going to the beach.  As a young adult, I supervised the beach trips to the ocean with our youth group.  I spent those years in the Los Angeles basin and a trip to the beach to watch the ocean could be done in a half hour – fewer people!  Coming home blistered was a badge of beauty from the goddess of youth.  Sun block cream had not been invented nor touted.  Watching the waves swell on the horizon and predicting which one would peak when and estimating if I was in the right position to body surf in to shore was so much fun.  I admired those who waited further out on surfboards and who could ride the crest down the coast.  Many times I waited too long and the wave crashed on me or I went over the top and came up with a mouth full of sand or glided over the top to see the wave peak behind me.  So much fun!  Wonderful memories!

         Last Sunday the wave peaked in the story of the man with the unclean spirit confronting Jesus on the Sabbath, in the synagogue.  That must have been a sight.  The unclean spirit caught the wave, for sure as it crashed on him and he was sent flying – silenced and without a home.  But others watching spread the word and Jesus’ fame spread.  This week, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, not with a huge dramatic wave but a gentle swell that carried her safely to shore.  The result is she arose and was energized to serve.  Not only that, the whole town gathered at her doorstep that evening bringing their sick and demon possessed.  That was a busy day at the beach! 

         My point?  Our experiences with Jesus not only affect our lives but others watching are impacted, children, neighbors, grandchildren, and friends.  It is important how we respond to crisis, how we call on God, how we tend for our souls as the pressure of the wave mounts. It is a limited analogy but it does remind me as I read the text and face the challenges of life that I need to face challenges and not turn my back in denial, I need to depend on Jesus to carry me through, and afterwards there is purpose that add life and memories for me but also encourages others to ride the wave of faith.

         Perhaps today the waters look calm and glisten with the reflection of the sun and clouds.  But perhaps you are trying to ride the waves crashing on our shores today – waves of illness and political questioning and economic challenges.  It is good to look up and remember the God who is with you at the beach, see the swimmers who are facing the same challenges and realize this too will pass.  The sick woman took Jesus’ hand, felt his arm raise her up, the fever left and she went forth to serve.  Thank you Lord for being with us in the ups and downs of life.

When was the last time you were in bed with a fever? “Fever” is a scary word these days of the virus.  When we worked in Kenya, it almost always was associated with malaria.  Malaria meant the whole body ached, the head throbbed and it was impossible to carry on normal tasks.  Today fever is associated with chest, breathing, coughing and contagion.  Illness can lead to separation from family by going to a place of care or at least staying in bed and it can mean we cannot carry out our normal duties.

         In our text for Sunday, Peter’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever as the house fills with company – Jesus who was the preacher at church, her son-in-law, his brother and two friends and how many others is not mentioned.  She and her daughter would be expected to be hostesses.  She must have felt horrible. I have heard it said that the title “mother-in-law” is about the least respectful title.  There are many cruel jokes.  It is ok to be a grandmother because they are loved but the title “mother-in-law” carries the sense of tension.  Peter’s wife is not even mentioned.  What’s that about?  Today I am pondering that feeling of being inadequate to fulfill my social responsibilities and no longer needed in my role as…mother, or??, and isolated by illness.  The adjectives that come to mind are lonely and helpless.

         It is this emotional, physical and psychological fog that Jesus steps into.  He takes her hand, not afraid of touch.  He raises her up, perhaps putting arms around her shoulder in a kind of hug, and the fever leaves.  We are hesitant to talk about areas in our lives where we feel weak and vulnerable but Jesus is not afraid to take our hand.  He is able to raise us up.  As he does, the illness leaves, the fog lifts, strength to serve returns.  I find that comforting.  When I am afraid, Jesus is not afraid to approach.  When I am weak, he is strong.  I love the song made famous, “You Raise Me Up.”  May it lift your spirits to face today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13_nXuJ6dX8

What’s your favorite coping strategy after a full day?  I ran all day yesterday and finally came home about 3 pm from taking my husband to a routine doctor visit and all I wanted to do was have that cup of coffee I had not had time for in the morning, to sit down and unwind.  Some days are like that.  After the exhaustion of work and the drain of supervising family and the worry of setting up for tomorrow, I am tempted to fall back and relax with a cup of warmth, a TV episode, or a phone call to a friend. 

         Last week our text told of Jesus speaking in the synagogue on the Sabbath and in the middle of his talk being interrupted with a man with an unclean spirit who challenged his authority.  Can you feel the tension of the confrontation?  Jesus silences and casts out the spirit and frees the man from the oppression that drives him from within.  Can you feel the drain of energy caused by this use of his personal strength?  Whew, that was a big day at the synagogue.  It was definitely food for thought and debriefing around the lunch table!  Jesus heads off to the home of one of his newest disciples, Simon Peter, with Simon’s brother Andrew and their friends James and John.  I’m sure the disciples would love to debrief Jesus as they enjoyed a warm drink and a midday meal.  I would have had questions!

         Instead we find Jesus now confronted with a different kind of debilitating problem, not a evil spirit but Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever.  We don’t know where the daughter/wife was, perhaps at the drug store or perhaps caring for the mother.  I suspect the drink was not warm, there was tension in the air and the strategy of “isolation” was probably not practiced.  How would you respond?  Sorry, this is not a good time to visit.  Perhaps let’s go somewhere else less contaminated?  Sunday we will see how Jesus handles the situation but the point of reflection today might be to ask ourselves how we unwind from a tense event?

         Gathering around the “meal” to talk over the sermon or the crisis or the news or to celebrate the event is a common cultural way that we “debrief” and celebrate.  For some that may be to turn on the radio and listen to the news commentator’s debate.  For others it is a social gathering.  It could be picking up the phone and calling a trusted friend.  How do you “debrief”? 

         Spiritual disciplines for debriefing do include fellowship and worship.  We can also add the discipline of journaling, prayer, and reading.  Artistic outlets like writing, painting and music are ways we debrief and detox our soul.  As we go through the events of our lives today, may we take time to process and not just go from one task to the next.  Jesus walks with us and is always available for a chat!  Blessings.

“Chariots of Fire” has a touching scene near the end of the movie.  As Eric Liddell who refused to run on Sunday in the Olympics preaches the following verses from Isaiah, Harold Abrahams is running his entries seeking that gold medal.  Liddell reads Isaiah 40:28-31,

²⁸Have you not known? Have you not heard?
 The Lord is the everlasting God,
  the Creator of the ends of the earth.
 He does not faint or grow weary;
  his understanding is unsearchable.
 ²⁹He gives power to the faint,
  and strengthens the powerless.
 ³⁰Even youths will faint and be weary,
  and the young will fall exhausted;
 ³¹but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
  they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
 they shall run and not be weary,
  they shall walk and not faint.

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We have about two and a half weeks and it will be Ash Wednesday, introducing Lent, when we switch focus to the death of Christ.  Do we not know and have we not heard, the writer asks us about our Epiphany ponderings.  What might be characteristics that we have seen during these weeks?

         The Lord is everlasting God, present at creation, never tiring and still active today.  As I watch the sun rise early in the morning, the untiring rhythms of nature meet my eyes.  Each day is a clean slate that will unfold, maybe predictably but maybe with surprises, all in the presence of an everlasting God who scripture says never tires or grows weary as I do.  God understands the factors that drive my decisions and the weaknesses of my character and yet tomorrow comes and he is still there.  Like those cloudy, misty mornings, many days I have trouble seeing his hand and feeling his presence but it does not mean I am abandoned.  I rejoice in the bright sunny events and withdraw into myself to find him on those cloudy dreary days.

         Even youth grow weary and faint and need the strength that comes from God and the inner resources we have from that relationship.  Interestingly we must “wait for the Lord.”  Ah, true, as I want now! And have trouble waiting.  As an elder it is easier to sit and savor life more than when I was chasing children, chasing work, going from one thing to another but still the struggles of the soul draw me to the everlasting God who does not tire.  Through prayer I turn over the events of my children and grandchildren’s lives, the worries of the next doctor appointment, and the chaos of the world I live in.  How comforting to see that sunrise and be reminded of God’s consistency and presence as I wait.

         The verses end with a promise of strength to walk and not faint in our lives.  That may not mean victory, as we would like victory to look like – winning a gold medal.  That may not mean that there were be no struggles that make us weary.  But it does mean we are not alone and God sees and cares and walks with us.  That is a comfort to start a new month, a new week, and unfolding adventures of life.  Blessings as you draw comfort and strength from these verses for the decisions you will make today and the races you choose to be involved in.  Blessings!

Saturdays are good days for sitting back, getting the wash done and all those jobs you don’t have time to do all week.  For many this is their Sabbath and others will celebrate tomorrow.  On weekends we take time to focus on our spiritual self, our better self, for at least an hour in many cases.  I tend to think that my spiritual self is not a separate entity as the Enlightenment thought, body-mind-spirit but rather an integral part of my whole being.  Narrative theory that enlightened my chaplaincy studies taught that the body needs the spirit to live and the spirit needs the body to express itself.  Made sense to me.  Only feeding my soul on Sundays seem to me to be like watering my plants when I see that they begin to droop.  May I suggest we take a minute today, sit in our favorite chair, take a deep breath, place hands palm up on our legs in an open receptive stance and listen to the link to the hymn “Lord, Speak to Me.”

         Frances Ridley Havergal, the author of the hymn, was an English poetess and hymn writer.  This text appeared in 1872 under the title, “A Worker’s Prayer.”  She has been called the “consecration poet” because of her deep love for the Lord.  As you listen to the verses, you will note the call to repentance and renewal that has been the theme of our prophets and prophetess this week.  Sit back and enjoy.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxeUE-9dQLI.

Jesus appears on the scene four to five hundred years after the last acknowledged prophet, Malachi.  Malachi is the last book in the Christian Old Testament.  Four hundred years is like us looking back to Martin Luther or Charles Wesley for a word from God without the benefit of a stable Bible to help us evaluate truth.  Malachi means “messenger” and may not have been his proper name but we know that at this time the Jews had returned from captivity, the temple had been rebuilt and lethargy had set in.  The people were not experiencing the blessings they expected from “God.”  I think we can identify with that kind of discouragement.  Life is not fair.  The benefits of being American are not available to all.  We demonstrate and demand justice and equality.  We can imagine the scene Malachi is called to speak into.

         Malachi has six sections.  The first three start with a question presenting the problem:  blindness to how has God loved ,them blindness to how have the priests failed to honor God, and blindness to how they as God’s people have failed him.  The last three sections focuses on how God is going to intervene and restore the covenant – the call to repentance.  Justice is explained, repentance is called for and the results of serving God explained.  It is a short book that might be worth reading.  Malachi ends, chapter 4: 5-6, “See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”  So ends the Old Testament.  Ouch. No happy ever after here. 

         Elijah is prophesied to return and so at the time of Jesus, the people were looking for Elijah.  Today we ponder if Elijah will come as one of the predicted prophets in Revelation before “end times.”  We started the week with Moses telling the Jews as Moses was about to die that God would raise up prophets. We end the Old Testament and this week with Malachi saying God will send a prophet.  Sunday we will read Mark’s account of Jesus stepping into a social scene not that different from today – political struggles, oppressed people, economic challenges, and injustice. Are we like the people in Malachi’s time, whining about what God is not doing to make life work the way we want it to or are we able to stop and evaluate that perhaps we are not being the people he would have us to be?  Prophets call us to repent, to return to God as our source of life.  Let’s take a few minutes today to reflect on how we might open our ears to hear this message and how we might draw our hearts closer to each other.  Blessings as you prepare for Sunday.

Prophets can be females and are known as prophetesses.  The jewishvirtuallibrary.org lists seven with Deborah being outstanding.  Deborah is not the wife of a famous man, not the sister, and not the mother of someone famous.  She stands on her own merits as a judge and prophetess.  Judges 4 tells her story and Judges 5 sings her praise.  She brought a message from God, rescuing the Jewish people from the hand of the Canaanite King Jabin about a century after they entered the Promised Land.  Deborah sends reluctant General Barak (not of our Presidents) into battle against Jabin’s commander Sisera who had 900 iron chariots.  Technology was against Barak.  He insisted Deborah go with him.  A woman went into battle!  That is unique also.  The bad guys are defeated, the Jews return to God and Sisera flees on foot.  He finds a nomad, enters the tent, and the wife, Jael, and puts a tent peg through his head while he sleeps.  Whew.  Two female heroines and a new song of praise!  A fun story but does it throw light on the question of Jesus speaking in the tradition of prophets?

         God seems to be acting “out of the box” when he chooses a woman.  The appearance of Jesus and his story was also “out of the box” and demanding investigation.  Just because someone claims to speak for God, does not mean they do.  Today, with technology, people in the United States can tune into sermons any time of the day on radio or TV, even with Covid.  On Sunday because of Zoom and Live Streaming, I can go to church almost anywhere in the world.  Who do I listen to for wisdom?  Sometimes God uses the unlikely to touch our hearts, a female judge or the son of a carpenter.  As we listen to their message we must see if it is congruent with revealed knowledge or truth and leads us to God.  Sunday we will ponder how Jesus spoke with “authority.”  Who are the authorities, the prophets that you listen to for direction and why?

         A ninety year old lady was scammed where I live as a “Christian lawyer” called to ask her for money for her granddaughter – but don’t tell!  Telemarkers ring our phones daily saying we have won a prize or need to sign something.  Scams have made us into doubters and it is hard to trust.  It is comforting to know God’s prophets do not lead us astray.  “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Psm 119:105)”  Blessings as you seek to obey today.

Was Jesus a prophet, one in the line of prophets or was he something else?  Sunday we will read that Jesus spoke with “authority.”  When the prophets of the Old Testament spoke, things began to happen.  They spoke God’s word, an important message.  Yesterday we looked at Abraham from whom nations emerged even in his old age and by whom nations were blessed.  Today we will ponder Elijah.  At the time of Jesus people wondered if he, Jesus, was Elijah returned.

         Elijah lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, at the same time as King Ahab and his famous wife Queen Jezebel.  Jezebel came from the coastal people, the Sidonians, and worshipped a different god, Baal.  Two major religions were embraced by political leadership and it is not surprising that tensions impacted the common person.  Does that sound a bit like today?  It seems it is hard for different philosophies of government or religion or medicine or… to coexist peacefully.  The people often are hurt in the debate.

         Elijah’s disciple was Elisha and it is easy to get the two men mixed up.  Elijah performed big miracles and Elisha was more on the people’s level.  Elijah raised the dead woman’s son, brought fire down from heaven on Mt. Carmel in the confrontation with the prophets of Baal, and ascended to heaven in a whirlwind of fire, not dying and predicted to return.  Whew.  This Elijah prayed and it didn’t rain for three years, confronted Ahab, and called the people of Israel back to worship Jehovah.

         My favorite story, though, is after Elijah called down fire on Mt. Carmel, proving his god was God. Jezebel threatened to kill Elijah and he ran.  After the high, came the low.  Elijah ran for 40 days to Mt. Sinai.  In his discouragement and flight, God sent an angel to give Elijah food.  Elijah arrived and went into a cave.  The next morning God spoke with Elijah not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire but in a “gentle whisper (1 King 19:10-18)” In his exhaustion, God comes to Elijah with food and council.  Things begin to happen.

         Often we think that the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, the spectacular mean God is speaking and blessing.  Sometimes but often, I find that God speaks in that quiet, gentle voice.  It is in those spiritual moments that often things begin to happen and give direction to our ponderings. Always, though, that voice from God and from the prophet, calls us back to God and his “authority” in our lives.  Are we listening today?