On the Way to Wonder

“When she heard…. (Ruth 1:6).”  The context of our lives so impacts our care-giving strategies.  Our family at the start of the book of Ruth, flees Bethlehem for Moab due to a famine.  In Moab, the father dies, the two sons marry women from Moab and they die.  Ten years have passed and the wife, bereft of family and responsible for two daughter-in-laws is again T-boned by the reality of her circumstances.  Naomi hears that God has blessed her homeland and remembers.

         This morning we awake to the news media debating the meaning and potential outcome of our presidential elections.  We hear and reflect what life will look like from now on?  Perhaps we reflect back on past debated elections, perhaps we pack our bags, but definitely we ponder.

         As a young adult I worked in Hollywood on a suicide crisis phone line several nights a week. One principle I remember is that people in crisis develop tunnel vision and suicide appears the only way to resolve conditions pressing on lives.  My job was to talk to them, help them hear, open thinking to forgotten resources and other potential avenues to deal with crisis.  I did not talk with Naomi but talk was going on.  I want to label this reflective process in the midst of pressing circumstances, self-care.         Facing overwhelming external circumstances, we are not only needing to deal with life but we also need to deal with self.  Exhausted care-givers who are stretched to their limits face themselves and make decisions.  Perhaps medical assistance to care for a loved one lingering or perhaps application for government aid to bridge a time of financial crisis or perhaps it is time to call the sister and have a “heart to heart.”  Naomi evaluates her plight, hears the news from Bethlehem, and decides to care for herself and her two daughter-in-laws by returning to Bethlehem.

         All coping strategies have a price and returning to Bethlehem as an older woman, widowed, with immigrants sounds scary.  Will anyone remember her?  Will she be seen as a weakling for fleeing during the famine?  She will be starting over and all her former friends will be well established – oh the social embarrassment.  In the face of swirling thoughts, Naomi makes the decision to return and the women pack their bags.

         We too balance self-care with care for others in the face of contextual stress.  We did not rise today to a clear cut victory by either political candidate with implications of either’s victory to be lived into.  How will we care for ourselves?  Perhaps we are living with the restrictions of age and illness.  Perhaps we continue balance working from home with children schooling from home.  As we live into our circumstances, I love Psalm 121 where the psalmist writes:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 He who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time on and forevermore.”

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a question that is often generated because of the larger context in which we live.  Today Americans finish going to the polls and certainly an issue is how our chosen leaders’ policies will impact the quality of life for ourselves and those around us.  Choices will impact issues like health care, immigration, and economic agenda.  Ruth 1 opens during a time of political volatility, the time of the judges.  There was yet no king and we are told, “everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes.”  Added to the political leadership dilemma, it was a time of famine in Bethlehem.  An ordinary man impacted by these events decided to take his wife and two sons to the neighboring country of Moab.  I hear families talking today of moving to Canada or perhaps New Zealand.  Our context challenges our coping strategies for caring for those who are dependent on us or upon whom we depend.  Perhaps the question of caring is a question of how to remain safe in the circumstances surrounding myself and those I care about.

         Our man chooses flight as his coping strategy, crossing the Dead Sea to Moab, with wife and sons.  When I worked with refugees, their status was determined to some degree by the number of borders crossed, i.e. a person was labeled “refugee” if they fled across one country border but an “immigrant” if they crossed more.  “Help” is probably the bottom line and a plea for mercy even today as we debate immigration.    Moab, historically the son of Lot, the nephew of Abraham, made the territory of Moab not only near but also culturally a bit familiar.  Moab, now in modern day Jordon, and Israel were not the best of cousins but it was a solution that worked and which sets the stage for the book of Ruth.

         We can only imagine how difficult life was for this fleeing family trying to care for each other.  We see pictures of refugee camps, read the stories or perhaps hear tales from our elders.  Our man dies attempting to care for his family, leaving his wife and two sons to grow up in a foreign culture.  The sons grow and marry but we are told of no children.  The sons too die.  The wife now is confronted with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and “How?”

         Flight is a legitimate response to social, contextual “famine.”  Famine comes in many forms: political isolation, physical isolation, social isolation, or emotional isolation.  We will follow all these in the book of Ruth.  But today the question calling to us is to reflect on how we flee during times of stress.  For some it may be television stories carrying us to distant times and places.  It may be flight into drugs or eating, using substances that numb the pain of the famine we are facing.  Malls and entertainment centers with the social activity and glitter call to us to immerse ourselves in their places. Famine of some form comes to all of us because we live in a broken world as broken people, needing help and depending on our neighbor. Perhaps as we travel through the book of Ruth, keeping a small journal about the challenges facing us these days and how we might be tempted to flee, might be insightful.  I find hope in Psalm 34: 18, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” As we are challenged with care-giving, let us not forget we are facing problems common to many, we are not alone, and there is a God who wants to walk with us.  Blessings.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is the question rambling around in our hearts as we deal with reality right now – elections, pandemic, racial tension, immigration plus…. You name it and we debate it.  But this question has rung out from the beginning of recorded Christian history.  God created a beautiful world that is “good” in Genesis 1 and 2 and created a couple, human beings to care for it.  But in Genesis 3 he has to confront them about their personal choices, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”  And so we start passing the buck for our wrong choices.  The “other” has influenced me.  Personal failure in our first story with the need to return to the God who created us and knows what’s best for us, is shortly followed in chapter 4 with God again talking to us about our social responsibility, how we care for those we live with.

         Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel, who like all brothers have different talents.  One likes farming and one likes animals.  When Abel’s offering is more pleasing, Cain senses favoritism, anger fills his heart, his “face falls” and ooops, one day he kills his brother.  God sees and confronts Cain, “Where is your brother?”  Cain, perhaps bitterly, responds to God’s honest confrontation with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  So begins a second theme we will see running through out scripture and running through open debate even today in our modern society and our lives.  How do we make society, interpersonal relationships, care for each other in a way that promotes all of us?

         This month we will reflect on this theme as seen in the book of Ruth.  I picked this book as it is a short, touching story of real personal dynamics involving families, death, racial tension, poverty and ultimately redemption as faith grows and unfolds in a God who leads and guides.  To prepare our hearts, let’s reflect today on relationships where we are involved in care-giving, either giving or receiving.  It might help to take a piece of paper and briefly jot down the advantages and disadvantages, highs and lows.  Perhaps spend a couple minutes thinking of important people who have been care-givers in your life.  Let’s not forget as we go to the polls tomorrow our government reps whom we will elect to care for our country.  Lord have mercy.

Tomorrow is Halloween, “Trick or Treat!”  How this holiday has evolved in my lifetime, and through out history!  Halloween is a story of how traditions grow:

• May 13, 609 A. D. Pope Boniface dedicated the Partheon in Rome to honor Christian martyrs.
• Pope Gregory III moved the celebration from May 13 to November 1,
• Meanwhile in 43 A. D. the Roman Empire had conquered Celtic lands which included Ireland, England, parts of France and involved people of the Druid tradition.  For 400 years these cultures mixed.
• Celts celebrated Samhain on November 1 by lighting big bonfires to scare away ghosts and the spirits of the dead.  The end of summer and the start of the dark, cold time of the year when people died was a “thin space” in time when spirits of the dead could cross over and pester the living.  It was during this time that Druid priests could make predictions about the future.  Costumes were worn to deceive spirits intent on harming those who hurt them in life.  Gifts were given to appease these spirits.

Even as we have included “tacos” into standard English and celebrate Cinco de Mayo and honor Muslim traditions, the Catholic traditions wove together with Celtic traditions to honor our departed, the harvest and the beginning of the cold season.  As Europeans migrated to the USA, so did their traditions and have evolved to what we have today.

• In the late 1800s there was a movement in the USA to mold Halloween away from the focus on appeasing the dead to a more communal experience with community activity – parties, parades, movies to watch are all common now as we try to avoid vandalism or Covid today.
• Many other aspects of Halloween have interesting stories of origin – witches on brooms or candy corn.

Halloween touches our deep beliefs about the seen and the unseen world and how they relate.  Those beliefs and superstitions are woven together with social traditions and economic practices that permeate our culture.       “Christ Alone” is the foundational assurance that it is only through Christ, and not through the saints, that our salvation is determined.  Saints, living and dead, are important to our spiritual life and support us but it is through Christ that salvation and eternal life is given.  We believe as read in Ephesians 2:8 and 9 that it is a gift given to us not because of works we do to treat departed spirits or improve life for the living, but salvation comes through faith, through relationship to the eternal God through faith as a gift.  Our good works spring from that foundation.  They do not earn salvation.

         Halloween traditions will look a different this year because of Covid but the sales of candy will tempt us dieters, scary movies with entertain the interested, and pumpkins will call forth our creative talents.  Some things change and grow with history but the truth of Christ Alone is a rock we can build our life on.  Blessings as you celebrate.

A story of opposites. Matthew, Mark and Luke all were impressed by the same event.  Jairus, a ruler in a synagogue, comes to Jesus because his 12 year old daughter is close to death, “Help!”  On the way to the house an unnamed woman who has been bleeding for 12 years, hence “unclean,” reaches out and touches the hem of Jesus’ garment and is healed.  We have the events involving two people with many observers.  One is named and important and one is unnamed and outcast, unclean.  One is male with access to power while the other is female and avoidable.  Both are at the end of their ropes and desperate.  Perhaps the ruler had tried the sacrificial system when his daughter first became ill and perhaps he had contacted the priests to come but we do not know.  We do know that the woman had spent all her money on doctors who could not cure.  Both turn to “Christ Alone” as their hope and salvation from situations leading to death.

         I share the story because it exemplifies Luther’s point of Sola Cristus, only through Christ do we have direct access to God for salvation.  The two people did not receive healing because of their good lives.  That’s not mentioned.  They were not healed in response to gifts to the temple, because of gender, because of wealth but only because they turned to Christ. 

         So what about prayer?  When I ask friends to pray for me or saints, is that not helpful?  When we have lots of people praying about the politics of our country, about the salvation of the lost, or about any issue, does it not help?  The subtle assumption is that the more the merrier.  More wealth means more happiness.  More doctors opinions means more clarity on the path ahead.  More prayers means more power.  More smearing of the other candidate means more votes for me.  Popularity moves mountains but in this scenario, the woman is outcast.

         I had fraternal twin boys.  As they grew we went through phases. 
“Might makes right” and I’m stronger than you so…   “Height makes right” and I’m taller so….  Chronology makes right and I’m 20 minutes older….  Sola Cristus reminds us that God makes right because he is wise and he is powerful.  I am not saved by my popularity or goodness but by his grace through my faith.  Jairus and the woman did not receive help because of who they were but because of who Jesus is and their faith in him.

         Perhaps today your concern is the World Series.  Who will win? Perhaps you are concerned about the political outcome and the future after the elections.  How will I handle health care, or, or, or…?  Perhaps you or a loved one is struggling with the virus or another health issue.  We cry out with Jairus and the woman who was bleeding, “Help!”  He holds our lives.  He hears.  He cares.  Thank you Lord.  Blessings.

“Mom, you drink your Kool-Aid and I’ll drink mine.”  Youth often throw this quip at parents to affirm the realization that the parent sees an issue one way but to remind the parent that there are other points of view.  Sola Cristus spoke into the different ideas in the Middle-Ages, and today, on how a person accesses the spiritual world.  Must we take our chicken to the median and sacrifice to gain the healing we so desperately need?  Perhaps if we do penance and pray without ceasing, we can purify our souls and understand the divine.  Giving bribes often opens doors and giving to the church might impress God with our sincerity.  So many flavors of Kool-Aid.

         One of the most common responses to the overwhelming confusion of modern day pluralism, the multiple options of ways to approach the divine, is to adopt the philosophy – God is good and I try to be nice to everyone so God will decide.  It is a kind of passive fatalism, trusting in my efforts to do the best I can.  Christ Alone shifts the emphasis from my efforts to Christ’s work, from human mediators to a heavenly representative.  Jesus told a parable of two men building a house.  One built on sand and one built on rock.  When the rains came, the trials of life came, the house on the sand washed away.  Both men built.  Both men built houses.  Their expertise is not in question nor their character.  The issue is the foundation.  Relationship with God is the issue, not correct theology, not correct behavior. 

         Edward Mote, a Baptist preacher, in 1834 wrote the beloved hymn, On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand based on parable of the two builders. That was the only song he ever wrote.  He came from an unchurched home and an ordinary trade to become a beloved pastor. May we ponder the foundations of our faith today as we face a world demanding so many things to make the “good life,” the tasty Kool-Aid.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-peLojtKDrU

“All roads lead to Rome,” so the saying goes that originated in the Middle Ages.  There is some truth in the saying as roads radiated out of Rome all through Italy and Europe.  Additionally, researchers found that there are ten cities called Rome in the USA and there is a Rome on every continent.  That’s a popular city name.  The saying, though, is a way of saying that there are many routes to a given goal.  Choice permeates our thinking.

         We have looked at “scripture alone,” “faith alone,” and “grace alone” during October.  This week we will look at “Christ Alone.”  A rather generalization would be that at the time of Luther, European Christianity was dominated by the Roman Catholic church and there were not Protestant denominations.  People did not “choose” if and where to go to church on Sunday morning.  All roads led to Rome as there was only one accepted road.  A local priest was called for life’s transitions like birth, weddings, deaths, and illness.  So what was the problem?  The worldview at the time was hierarchical, meaning that grace was dispensed by the more powerful to the less powerful.  There was a system going from the Pope to cardinals to bishops to priests to husbands to wives.  One appeased all the layers above oneself to find peace.  It is hard for us to imagine today.  We live in a world much closer to the pluralistic New Testament world of Paul.

     Does it matter, really, as we all live within systems?  For Luther, “systemic evil” was as big a reality as that term congers up today.  The systemic evil did not involve job inequality, gender bias, ethnic profiling which probably all existed but Luther focused on the control and manipulation of the ordinary person through religious doctrines about eternal life.  God was distant, at the top of a long list of authorities.  Luther famously struggled with a belief in a distant, angry God who had to be appeased by ritual, by penance, by indulgences.  Luther read 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”  Through relationship with Jesus Christ, the ordinary person could go directly through prayer to God, could himself read and interpret Scripture, and could come to the sacraments without a penance system.  It was a revolutionary change in thinking that challenged an existing power system.

         As we go to the polls next week, we are aware of all the cries about systemic evil in our world and the swirl of debate about how to deal with the resulting problems.  We are reminded that we live in the Kingdom of this World that is corrupt, is powerful, and bias.  The Christian faces that systemic evil armed with the belief that there is direct access to a God who cares about all, listens to all, values all and fights for all in the Kingdom of Heaven.  It’s hard to grasp with our human minds as our bodies face trials but each of us has a mediator and can call on God in Christ’s name.  Thank you.  Blessings as you face your challenges today.  You are not alone.

We started the week of Sola Gratia, grace alone, with the song “Amazing Grace” by John Newton, the former slave trader turned preacher in the 1700s.  “Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!  I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see.”  People still love that song and sing it in times of distress as we acknowledge our helplessness and need for a God to come to us.

         I would like to end this week of reflections with a modern day hymn by Casting Crowns.  Who Am I”,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rT8Re1EIQc

Lyrics

“Who am I, that the lord of all the earth, Would care to know my name, Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the bright and morning star, Would choose to light the way, For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am, But because of what you’ve done, Not because of what I’ve done, But because of who you are

I am a flower quickly fading, Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean, A vapor in the wind
Still you hear me when I’m calling
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling
And you’ve told me who I am, I am yours.

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin, Would look on me with love
And watch me rise again?
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea, Would call out through the rain, And calm the storm in me?

Not because of who I am, But because of what you’ve done
Not because of what I’ve done, But because of who you are

I am a flower quickly fading, Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean, A vapor in the wind
Still you hear me when I’m calling
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling, And you’ve told me who I am
I am yours

Not because of who I am, But because of what you’ve done
Not because of what I’ve done, But because of who you are

I am a flower quickly fading, Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean, A vapor in the wind
Still you hear me when I’m calling
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling, And you’ve told me who I am
I am yours, I am yours, I am yours
Whom shall I fear, whom shall I fear? ‘Cause I am yours, I am yours”

The song writer Mark Hall was driving through Alabama one day and suddenly realized, had an “aha” moment.  He, a sinful human could talk to the God of the universe because of God’s grace!  We believe in a God who invites us into relationship with him through faith, and not because of who we are.  It is a gift and not because of our works.  Praise to him.  May you live in that awareness today that your heavenly cell phone is always charged!  Blessings.

“Attitude of gratitude” is a cliché we hear and perhaps a gauge for measuring our responses.  As we face the elections, there may be gratitude for a fine opponents that forces someone to define themselves more clearly but often the gratitude is masked by the competition.  Halloween is coming next week and we are creatively thinking of ways to show gratitude for our children.  Thanksgiving is the big holiday in November when we remember with gratitude those who helped us come thus far.  We gather in families, share food and fellowship, even in the midst of disease.  Gratitude is a word with the same root as “grace,” receiving a blessing that perhaps is undeserved and often under appreciated.  I suspect grace appears in the face of trials. It makes me think of James, that we just studied, telling us to consider it joy when we encounter trials for at those times we grow, develop perseverance and cry out to God for wisdom.

         One of the big stories in the New Testament is the story of Saul, a focused defender of his faith, searching out heretics for death.  Traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus in the early days of Christianity, he encounters a bright light, is blinded, and hears the voice of Jesus, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  Meanwhile in Damascus, Ananais, an obedient follower of “the Way” is in prayer.  One man persecuting while one man prays.  Both trying to be obedient.  God steps into both lives, confronting one about his misdirection and presenting the other with a frightening task, talk to Saul the persecutor.  Neither man is particularly encountered because of their wonderfulness and yet God graciously steps into both lives and history is changed.  Saul could have continued in his hate.  Ananais could have clung to fear.  But both responded to God’s initiative in their lives.

         “Grace Alone” is the reformation tenant that we have a God who comes to us in our sinfulness, in our blindness, in our everyday lives because that is his character, not because of our wonderfulness, or our good works.  We are saved by his grace.  So as we look out on our world of politics, disease, economic challenge, global tensions, environmental changes…and masking, may we reflect an attitude of gratitude where we find ourselves today for we are being accompanied by a God of grace who walks with us through the challenges to a better future.  Blessings.

“What story in the Bible would come to your mind when you think about grace?” I asked my physical therapist yesterday.  She hails from abroad in childhood and is a Christian.  She often gives me some little biblical comment about persevering, ie with exercises, so I was curious what would come to her mind.  She thought and the story of Ruth came to her mind.

         During a time of drought in Bethlehem, Naomi fled with her husband and two sons to Moab.  Moab is ancient Palestine, now west-central Jordon.  Moab was named after Lot’s son by his daughter after the Sodom and Gomorrah flight.  Moab and Israel were not “kissing cousins” but often rivals.  Naomi and family found refuge there, raised their family, and the sons married.  But alas, father and two sons died, leaving Naomi and two daughter-in-laws destitute.  Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem that is now prospering and Ruth pleads to go with her.  Ruth’s words to Naomi are often recited at weddings, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.  Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God…”

         Interesting.  I asked my friend how that spoke to her of “grace”.  She reflected, Naomi did not have to allow Ruth to go with her as returning to Bethlehem with a “foreign” woman was probably not the first choice for a re-entry strategy.  Naomi including Ruth in her life story was an act of grace.  Grace is receiving an undeserved gift (God’s riches) at the other’s expense (at Christ’s expense).  Ruth not only went with Naomi but Naomi was the cultural broker to help Ruth fit in to her new home.  Ruth is befriended by Boaz as she goes to glean in the fields to prevent starvation and Boaz marries Ruth, the foreigner – more grace.  Ruth becomes the great grandmother of king David and is listed in the lineage of Jesus.  GRACE.

         As we reflect on our life journey, like Ruth and Naomi, there have been the ups and downs, the famines and the weddings.  At the moment we may not understand the turn of events but as we look back and the pieces fall in place, many of us realize it is Grace Alone that has led us, upheld us, and comforted us on our journey.  God deserves the credit.  Blessings, may you see his hand of grace.