Day 059: A Healing Faith

When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment.  For she said, "If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well."         Mark 5:27-28

Here we have a great image representing how we are to live out our faith.  Jesus came to the world and preached and left us with lots to think about.  Now, through his words and through the Holy Spirit, he continues to move around everywhere before us.  There is a movement that has been going on since his ministry.

Our faith involved our own decision to act.  In order to proclaim our faith, we have to begin with, "I believe."  We have to make the effort, and we have to take the steps forward.  In this story above, we see a woman who was unclean because of her bleeding come forward to touch the clothes of Jesus.  However, Jesus did not condemn her as an unclean person stepping out of line.  Just as Jesus had been doing with many of the oppressed in those days, he healed her and told her that her faith had made her well.

Jesus is walking before us all the time, but we don't always take the first step.  Many times, we use our own constructs as excuses.  I can't go before Jesus because I'm a woman.  I'm too far into sin to be healed.  I'm hopeless because my pastor says so.  Rather than wallow in a bout of self-guilt, run to Jesus.  Jesus is ready to turn our faith into healing.  Jesus is ready to transform us.  He radiates with so much power, and all we need to do is reach out and touch him.  Make Lent be a time where you take one step closer to Jesus.

Day 058: Edification

"How is it then, brethren?  Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.  Let all things be done for edification."  1 Corinthians 14:26

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about how I personally like to worship.  In sum, my preferred style is traditional but not impractical.

However, when I talk to other people around me, even those closest to me, we all have different preferences.  Some love the organ while others loathe it.  Some love modern language and others find it sacrilegious.  I have friends of different denominations: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopalian, and even non-denominational.  And, yet, each person has her own preference for her worship.

As I've been reading 1 Corinthians more carefully, I've been thinking a lot more about how we need to be aware that everybody will worship a little differently, and that's okay.  The root of the message, though, is that all worship should be to edify those who are participating - those who are involved should feel closer to each other as they observe their worship.

But then I'll see other people bash on different practices.  I guess since I'm a musician I've seen most of the bashing occur around the idea of what music is best or the most appropriate.  The only answer I can bring to the question is this: whatever works.  Not everybody is going to respond to the same kind of music in the same way.  Look back on history, how things have changed so much.  The earliest Byzantine chants must have resembled their Jewish counterparts.  Many hymns that were written throughout the second millennium were based on popular songs of the day.  Of course, now we probably wouldn't recognize the songs as such anymore, especially since they've become elevated under the cover of hymnals.  Contemporary Christian music, which is a blanket term for a great variety of music today, usually draws on different musical traditions, pointing them to God.

And that's the point.  We are called to direct our lives to God.  If an organ and hymnals brings you there, do it.  If a five piece band with projected lyrics and unison singing get you there, do it.  However, through the different styles of worship, we all report to one God.  So, be sure to respect how someone's traditions bring her closer to God.  In reality, your preferred traditions were probably considered wild and sacrilegious in their early days.

Day 057: Instruments

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."  1 Corinthians 13:1

After reading this article, I have come to understand this verse a little differently.  Basically, the sounding brass and the clanging cymbal are both tools to help one's voice project in a hall.

Here are two more modern examples that might help to explain the metaphor a little further:

The grand piano is indeed quite grand.  It's a large wooden instrument that can look like an obscenely large table, especially if you put a tablecloth on it rather than an actual cover.  It makes no sound when it's all closed up.  However, when you look at it, you can think about all the different possibilities, from Bach and Beethoven to Thelonious Monk to Queen.  Still, it makes no sound without a player.  If you want to think even further about it, the instrument could be significantly lighter and smaller if you did not have a large resonating chamber built into the instrument.  Again, that whole chamber, the big black box holding all the keys and strings, can't make any sound on its own.  It needs the soul of music and of the musician to make it come alive.

Another example is of a church building.  You can design it with all the fancy windows, parallel walls, wood, marble, arches, or gold you want, but it's just a building.  It's something that can be used for any number of purposes besides being a worship space.  In Boston, there are many church buildings that were converted to apartments because they no longer had congregations.  Imagine that: a condo with a bell tower all for yourself, or play tennis in the sanctuary, or have your king sized bed where many a Eucharist were celebrated.  Closer to my house, there was a large grocery store that moved to another location before being bought out entirely by another company.  In the building left behind, half was converted to a gym, and the other half was converted into a church.  It's the congregation, the Holy Spirit moving, that makes the church.

When we understand that we can recite bible verses, recite prayers, keep our mouth shut for about five minutes with our eyes closed, or even sit in a church for about an hour and come out without having been transformed, we can see that we can become mere resonating chambers.  When we go about our lives without love, we are nothing more than vessels on the sides of the room, doing absolutely nothing but standing there.  It's when we start to spread the love, both to ourselves and to all those around us that we can begin to make the music, to resound with the Gospel.

Make this Lent count.  Make this Lent be the one where everything you do has a purpose: love.

Day 056: Recognizing and Using Spiritual Gifts

"There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.  And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.  But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all."  1 Corinthians 12:4-7

Isn't it interesting that in nearly two thousand years of the ministry there still looms the same problem?  I find that this issue has been growing from two different angles: a failure to recognize spiritual gifts, and a failure to accept our own gifts.

What I have come across quite a bit lately (and this is probably an offshoot the collective frustration and anger with the political landscape in the USA) is people talking down other people or other practices as not being good enough or not being "correct".  A church that uses an iPad for the Gospel is unholy.  This kind of singing is detrimental to the congregation.  The use of this language deters a certain population.  This liturgical activity is not liturgical.  I could go on, but that would bring much more negativity into this post than there needs to be (if you haven't figured it out yet, there is plenty negativity out there to satisfy your needs).  But what does Paul say?  He explains that there are so many different gifts out there, and that they are all out there for the benefit of all.  And that's how we can understand what is a spiritual gift and what isn't.

Think about this: if a congregation does the Eucharist in Rite II with Prayer C every Sunday, and the entire congregation is participating, how does that affect you, who come from a different congregation where you use the 1920 BCP?  Obviously, one prayer works for one group, and another for the other.  On the contrary: if a worship team has an organ and a choir of six singers where you can only hear the six voices during a congregational hymn, there might be a slight discrepancy.  The same can be said for the converse, with a worship band of soloists and no participation from the congregation.  In the end, though, the things that benefit the congregation are the ones that are bringing more and more people to God.

The other issue is that there are many of us who are too lazy to recognize our own gifts.  In the Episcopal Church, especially, we like to use the formula, "I'm discerning..." as an excuse not to put our gifts to work.  Even more of us like to complain that we aren't good enough to bring forth our fruits to the altar.  We like to compare ourselves to many saints who we say have lived perfect lives.  But, what does Jesus say?  Does the phrase "Follow me" ring a bell?  Jesus is ready to use us.  God is ready to work all in all.  The Spirit is burning within us in a way that will drive us to do great things.

Make Lent be a season where you can use your gifts.  If you have any fears our doubts about your gifts, practice them, and do it sincerely.  It is one thing to show off the same riff on the guitar that you've played for ten years, but it is another to listen to more music, practice diligently, and cultivate your musical skills.  If you have doubts about how you could use your gifts, consult your priest, or any other outside opinion.  The main thing, though, is to go out and do.

Day 055: Traditions

And He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."  Mark 2:27-28

This verse bears an important message that gets lost many times in the Church.  We like to get caught up in our traditions and customs many times, making sure that everybody around us takes part in them, but we often forget what they're there for.  Just as the Sabbath was made for humankind, so are the fasts, the feasts, and traditions.

Don't get me wrong, I love traditional worship - the older, the better.  But, we do have a problem with how we ostracize those who don't always celebrate the way that we do.  I remember when I was a part of certain Facebook groups, people used them as grounds merely to complain about how terrible modern worship is, how music is falling apart in the Church and how liturgical worship is being desecrated by Father X and Mother Y.  Yet, what does Jesus have to say about this?

We like to point our fingers when we have nothing else to do, and that's a big issue in our spiritual life.  When we come to church, we have to remember that it is not we who are in control, but God.  Yet, that seems to be a problem for many, if not all, of us at some point.  We may be used to running things at home, at our jobs, at school, in our ensembles, our troops, our businesses, but when we come to church, we are no longer in control.  We come together to worship God, not to worship ourselves.  Just look at the politicians who are running all over this country if you want to find an example of self worship.  Follow only them if that's all you want to do.

We as a church need to start acknowledging that we worship the triune, living God, the God who moves all of us in many different ways.  Maybe we can't behold everything that is God at the moment, but through God's grace in the form of revelations, we can learn a little more every single day.  During this season of Lent, ask your fellow Christians about what they are doing, if they are willing to share.  Let this season be one where you will do much more observing and listening than forcing.

Day 54: God Is Faithful

"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."  1 Corinthians 10:13

This is one of my top five favorite verses from the bible.  Reading it in context caused the verse to have extra resonance with me.  If you can, I recommend you committing some verses to memory, at least enough so that you can come across it and speak the words before they appear on the page/screen in your reading.

This verse is very powerful because it comes at the end of a summary of the unfaithfulness of many of the Israelites during the period of time covered in the Pentateuch.  Paul even makes it a point to say that it was some of the Israelites who strayed, not all.

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man

This statement can hurt a little, because it makes any situation you're in sound quite diminished.  But that's the point.  We like to bring our troubles to our neighbors, while they have just as many issues to deal with as we do.  However, this statement is also there to help us, because we can then look for how other people dealt with our problems.  We can consult our parents, grandparents, priests, teachers, friends, and so many other people.

But God is faithful

If you're struggling with a specific situation, you need to look no further than the bible.  In 1 Corinthians 10, you can find the different temptations that came about.  But, you can also see that God delivered the entire nation of Israel from destruction time and time again.  Read Exodus to see one story of deliverance.  Read Joshua for yet another story.  Read Kings and Chronicles for so many more stories of deliverance.  And, most definitely, read the gospels, any of the four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.  You'll understand that God has been faithful to us throughout all our troubles and tests.

[God] will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape

Here is our safeguard.  Times are going to get tough, but they will never get impossible.  Even at the point of death, God is there to save our soul, and when our time comes, God is in control.  Our legacy will last as an example for all those who are struggling.  The great thing about living as Christians is that we have one great escape: the church.  We can go and refresh ourselves with prayers we pray or from those of our fellow Christians.  We can talk to many more faithful people to learn about how great God is.

That you may be able to bear it

Here is an important distinction.  It is one thing to have a way out of our problems.  The easiest way out of any problem is just by doing nothing at all.  We can stay in the comfort of our bed all day unto eternity, allowing our bodies to waste away, let away our minds, our dreams, our talents.  But that's not what God wants.  God is sending us out there into the world as sheep against wolves.  God will guide us through all the difficult parts, but it will all be for our personal growth.  This last clause implies that we weren't able to bear our challenges to begin with.  What's the only way to bear a heavy weight?  Get stronger!  God is guiding us through our difficult times so that we can become stronger beings.

During this Lent, let God guide you through your discipline, whether it's giving up sweets, reading more of the bible, saying a prayer every once in a while, or even just to step foot in church just once this season.  God is faithful, and will guide us through all of our trials.

Day 053: Producing Good

There are those who sow their own things and produce more things, and there are those who gather but have less.  Proverbs 11:23

This proverb reminds me of Jesus' parable of the talents, for the lesson in the parable was about putting the talents to good use.  Both speak to me about how we should grow in our faith.

God gives us so many things in our lives.  Those things come in the form of material things and wealth.  Others, though, come in the form of our abilities, our talents.  Whatever they are, though, we have an obligation to put them to some form of use.  That's where faith comes in.

On the one hand, we could just hide the gifts that we have from God, but, just as the parable shows, that will just leave us with less.  If we aren't putting any of what we have to good use, we are turning ourselves away from avenues that could connect us with more people in the world.  We could be turning ourselves away from many who want to hear the Gospel but can't just because of our selfishness.

On the other hand, we can put our gifts to good use, for God.  Of course, at first, it might be scary.  Sometimes that means investing our gifts into things that may or may not be successful.  It is always difficult to make an investment of any kind.  However, God's grace is there just for this reason.  God wants to help us, to make us successful, when we bring our offerings to God.  God the provider, is all loving and will help us in our endeavors.  All we need to do is to make the first step in the right direction.  Allow for this Lent to be a time for bringing your offerings to God, so that God can make them grow into greater things than we could ever have imagined.

Day 052: A Call to Love

"Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.  And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.  But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him."  1 Corinthians 8:1-3

This statement is at the core of Christianity: that to love is to have a connection with God.

Just imagine this: we can wander all over the place with our books, our fancy language, our writings, our pens and pencils, our markers, our gilded pages, but we cannot be faithful without being loving.  And, just as Paul explains a little further down this chapter, we need to show our love not only to God, but also to all those around us.

We are currently living in the aftermath of schism after schism, dogmatic disagreement after another.  As humans, we have made great strides in fracturing the body of Christ.  The only way we can bring it all together is by acting in God, acting in Love.  And that's exactly what love does: edify.

Politicians, out of fear of losing votes, separate themselves from their fellow politicians by using hateful rhetoric.  Even in the United States, where two parties dominate the political landscape, different candidates for different offices will attack each other in very nasty ways just to bring in more votes, or to take away votes from another person in the same party.  Hate divides us.

Let Lent be a season for reflection on how to bring love back into the church, because God only knows how much we need it.  We need to reach across the aisles, as some churches do during the Lord's prayer or during the peace.  We need to be the embodiment of God's love in this present world.

Day 051: Holiness

"For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God.  You shall therefore be holy, for I, the Lord, am holy."  Leviticus 11:45

Over thousands of years, we have learned more ways to become holy before the Lord.  According to the Old Testament, there was a pretty quick and easy way to achieve this, although today we can look at it as being a backwards method.  Perhaps I could explain this with a parallel image from my personal experience.

Back in high school, I was approaching my unhealthiest state of being, with my years of refusal to perform any physical activity (I'd found a loophole out of it in middle school, and my high school had no physical education class) or to eat healthily.  So, starting around my second year in high school, I started to exercise regularly.  I made some great progress in terms of weight loss.  At the end of my third and final year, I finally learned how to cook, which was a skill that I worked on immensely in my freshman year in college.  During that freshman year, I began counting calories, following guidelines from my own research, and made even more leaps and bounds down the scale.  However, I was quite compulsive with my counting that it was a sort of distraction (mind you, this was in a journal I carried around everywhere).  It was annoying to have to look up every detail about different food that I would eat.  So, after a few months of doing that, I switched over to cutting carbohydrates entirely from my diet (save a cheat day once a week), and I sped down to my final weight (although somewhat far from my unhealthy goal).  In fact, I still must say that cutting carbs entirely is the easiest thing to do since I'm not responsible for portioning things out and keeping track of them.

That's how I see these food laws from the Old Testament: a quick and easy path to sanctification.  It's one thing to keep track of different fasts, prayers, goals, feasts, and traditions, which can seem to be overwhelming to almost anybody.  It's another, though, to paint things in black and white, which makes a complicated thing to be very simple.  It may sound rough, but still simple.

Paul, though, gives us many examples about how we can live out our faith, our holiness, in the New Covenant through Jesus Christ.  We read that we can become teachers, preachers, healers, speakers, evangelists, interpreters, and servants.  We can live a dynamic faith now.  However, that's where we know that we have a large responsibility to God.  God has given us so many ways to be holy, so what is our issue?  We turn away from God.  We need to come back to God.  We need to start taking care of ourselves, sanctifying ourselves through our talents, through our time, through our treasures.  We need to start preparing ourselves to become perfect offerings before God.  Lastly, we need to become the unified body of Christ, with all the many different parts, working for our corporal sanctification.

Day 050: Focus on the Beneficial

"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.  All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."  1 Corinthians 6:12

Imagine being in a buffet.  There are so many foods all around you, with steam rising from under their trays.  There are lots of trays displayed, some with lots of care given to their presentation: a pristine white bowl, a colorful assortment of vegetables and fruits, the heaps of meat.  When you walk into the main dining hall, your waiter encourages you to walk straight to all the food, not even giving you a second to sit down.  You grab a plate, and you pick whatever food you'd like.

That's how this above passage speaks to me.  We are placed on this earth with so many things available for us.  Yet, not everything is good for us.  In the buffet, there are lots of fried foods and sweets that might taste good for the moment but give you health issues later on down the line - a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.  There are also lots of vegetables spread out, some in delicious salads, all of which would help us be more awake, aware, and lean.  In the same way, there are so many conflicting ideologies out there, some of which are helpful for us (such as by encouraging us to become better people) and others which are detrimental for us (opinion columns about lives that wouldn't affect us at all).

I think that Lent can be a time to try to focus ourselves on the things that are beneficial for us.  In the long run, they will help us - some for this lifetime, and others for the life to come. 

Day 049: Control

"Your glorying is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.  For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."                          1 Corinthians 5:6-7

As some of you may know, one of my favorite cuisines is Indian, and I have tried to learn more recipes over the years.  One recipe that I spent a lot of time on was naan, because it was a great accompaniment to many dishes, alongside being a great bread to eat on its own.

Luckily, in this day and age, we have many videos on YouTube from which we can learn how to do so many things.  I found a good video on how to make naan, and I would follow the recipe exactly.  Except, after the first two or three times of doing it, I noticed that my bread wasn't doing much else than just being flatter than flat.  I had the right amount of yeast and yogurt and flower and other ingredients, but the bread would never puff up into a ball like the video.  My first solution: add more yeast.  I'd learned that yeast is what makes bread rise, so it should have made everything better.  The next time I made the bread, though, I saw that the lumps of dough became biscuits instead: alright in flavor, but way too far away from the correct fluffy texture.

Very frustrated, I decided to watch the video in full once more, but this time making sure that I paid attention to every detail.  I learned that there were two things that I did not do.  The first thing was making sure to activate the yeast in water before adding it to the dough.  The second thing was making sure that I left the dough to rise on its own for a few hours.  The next batch of naan I made was exactly what I'd had in the restaurants: fluffy, hollow, and delicious.

Whenever I come across passages from the bible about dough and leavening, they bring me back to my experience of learning how to make naan.  It took me a while to learn that a very little bit of yeast can cause bread to puff up to such a great size.  Paul warns that the same thing happens when we allow sin to grow within us.  Sure, we can create anecdotes of people who live in so much sin that they no longer seem to be living life, such as the dough that has too much leavening in it.  But, we can also start to look at our own lives, where we think that we can start ignoring our own problems.  It's just a white lie.  It's just a dollar from her pocket.  It's just a fantasy.  Then it grows.  The small bit of leavening of sinful nature can overtake us until we are filled with so much sin that we are about to burst.

How do we fix this then?  We first need try to think of ourselves as the ones who prepare the dough, for how else can we purge out the leavening of malice?  Then we need to know that there are so many tempting ingredients in our pantry, but God is also there with us, offering to demonstrate what to do. The lumps of dough are our lives, but they do not have to be the final product.  God gives us many chances to get it right, but it is only by our own efforts that we can truly receive what God wants to give us.

Day 048: Servants of Faith

"Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.  Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful."  1 Corinthians 4:1-2

 I know that I definitely fall short as a Christian to fulfill my duties.

These two verses make me think about going to a fancy restaurant.  Usually, I'll be dressed up so much, in at least church clothes, in order not to stick out of the rest, particularly the waiters, who are in crisp, white shirts and slacks.  In fact, it is usually how the host and the waiters are dressed that determine the attire of the restaurant.  I expect good food when I go to a restaurant with people in such attire.  When I look at the menu, there are many things that I have never heard of, so I decide to ask the waiter.  However, when I ask, the waiter doesn't really know what the foods are, and he even admits to hating the restaurant.

How does that even make sense?  Why would such a waiter be allowed to work at that restaurant?  That's where the notion of a faithful steward comes in.  We are walking all over the earth, whether with a bible in hand, a cross tied around our neck, or a bible verse inked onto our arms, representing Christ.  How will we live up to what we are showing around?  Are we sure that we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good?  Are we sure that we are not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes?

The people we meet along the way will be asking us questions about our faith, especially if we deem ourselves Christians.  Is this meant to scare anybody away?  Not at all, for we have the ability to learn more because of our faith in Christ.  However, we need to be sure to serve faithfully.  We need to be ready to spread the good news when the occasion arises.  We also need to be ready to serve in all the ways that Jesus has taught us to at all times.

Our redemption is one where Jesus finds us, cleans us, and then sends us on our way, our new way, to expand the community, the church, the body of the faithful, the body of Christ.  

When we received ashes on Ash Wednesday, we showed the world that we are ready to suffer with Christ.  The season of Lent is the time for us to follow up on our statement.  We need to read the bible, pray, and turn away from our old selves so that we can follow Jesus.  We need to tend to the house that Jesus has built up.  We need to be faithful stewards of the Gospel.

 

Day 047: Spiritual Wisdom

"Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.  For it is written 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness'."                          1 Corinthians 3:18-19

How can this be?  Don't we want to have the best thinkers in the Church?

That's kind of my first reaction to this advice and to the quoted text.  We have enough trouble these days with people misleading masses of people because of their lack of discernment and knowledge and wisdom.  At the same time, some of the theologians that I respect the most, from ancient to modern times, were wise in both Scripture and philosophy.

However, the beginning of this advice gives the whole message away.  One can consider himself to be wise if he truly wants to.  Eventually, there will be someone out there who will believe him.  In the same way, it shows that there are so many wise people out there today who constantly take steps deeper and deeper into admitting their ignorance before God.  They allow themselves to become empty vessels, blank canvases, so that they may receive more and more revelations of God. 

Throughout the history of our spiritual tradition, God became known through revelations over time.  In the bible, we have many examples of people receiving the revelations, but we probably have just as many of people refusing them.  Of course, the stories of those who received the revelations end well, and those of those who refused the revelations end terribly.

How, then, do we make ourselves fools before God?  The first thing is to understand that we will never know more than the all-knowing and omnipresent God.  The next step is to let God take care of us.  We should start to listen to God for guidance in all of our questions.  Obviously, the only way we can accept a revelation is by opening our eyes.  As Job said, "But now, my eyes see you," when he received an astonishing revelation of God, so should we as we receive revelations from God each day.

We can open up our spiritual eyes by coming into communication with God.  When we read the bible, we can start to understand more about who God is.  When we pray, we have a conversation with God, where we can hear the answers to our questions.

Day 046: Proclaiming the Good News

"And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." 1 Corinthians 2:4-5

This message is one of substantial courage for me, because I am not a theology student.  I love the Lord.  I enjoy my growing spirituality, but sometimes I feel silenced in front of others who spent their time studying in seminary.  I feel afraid to speak what I believe in front of the educated.

But this message here is what I need.  Paul shows that the Gospel doesn't always need fancy words or discourse.  The Gospel is amazing just because it is amazing: God loves us, and Jesus, God's incarnation, lived a life of purity, suffered death, and rose again, so that we can have eternal life.  That's a message of amazing love.

I hear many of my Christian friends say that they can't preach or can't write about their faith because they aren't educated or because they don't know how to say things like a preacher would.  Just remember, the Gospel has been transmitted by whatever means necessary: the evangelists did not have the most refined Greek, but they still wrote; the early apostles weren't the richest people in the world, but they traveled around with what they had; the Jews were oppressed in the times of Jesus, but they still proclaimed their faith in the face of death.

Make Lent be a time to celebrate your faith and to share your story.  All of us need more of these stories, for that's how our faith grows.  We read the bible to encounter more stories of faith, and a community that shares its stories of faith will only continue to grow.  God has been revealed to so many different people, so let's listen and share. 

Day 045: Devotion with Faith

"God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."  1 Corinthians 1:9

This was probably originally written directly to some church leaders, but it applies to all of the faithful, for we are all called to some form of work.

Sometimes, when we look at the different things we are supposed to be doing as Christians, it may seem to be too much for us to handle.  Read the Bible, attend church, volunteer, give all your time over to Jesus, pray, fast, and so on.  It gets worse once you look at how long the Bible is, or how bad it feels to be hungry, or how eloquently other people pray.

The thing is, though, that God is in it for the long run.  God created us so that God can have an intimate relationship with each and every one of us.  God is faithful to us.  When we were baptized, we were invited into the family of Christ, where we are called to grow in him.  We were baptized into the name of the faithful God.

Just as we were into the fellowship with Jesus, we are called into a faithful relationship with God.  God gives us so many chances and so many blessings.  God indeed is faithful.  We need to be more faithful on our part.  During this Lent, let's make each day an opportunity to practice our faith.  It can start as simply as saying a short prayer or reading a few verses from the Bible.  It can be as simple as walking through the church doors - purification is just on the other side.  It can be as simple as sitting in the silence for a moment, in order to catch the slightest glimpse of the presence of God all around us.  Just as God acts towards us each day, we need to act in return.

Day 044: Outreach

"And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'"  Matthew 25:40

This parable reminds me of one of my favorite church songs, "Pequeñas Aclaraciones," which has the refrain, "Va Dios mismo en nuestro mismo caminar." (God himself walks alongside us)

I feel that Lent is a season where we can really explore this idea of God, because God is always around us, whether we're aware of it or not.  Lent is a time for us to reach out our hands to the many different outstretched hands that God shows us along our way.

Jesus teaches us, in this parable, that we cannot just believe with our lips.  We can't just call ourselves Christians without living a life in Christ.  In the same way, we can't say we're students if we're not studying in school.  If we don't do the assignments and tests and requirements for school, we won't get the degree.  If we don't work diligently in our jobs, we won't get our paycheck, let alone keep the job.  So why does being a Christian have to be any different?

All throughout the Bible, we can see examples of people who didn't seem like they were right for the job, but who worked very hard to accomplish what God needed to have happen.  Moses had trouble speaking in public, but strove to make it work and sought the right kind of help.  Jeremiah was afraid to prophesy because he was young, but he continued to work.  Paul persecuted the early Christians, but he had a change of heart and continued to work out a new theology out of his own understanding.

To follow Christ means to work for him.  We can't just sit around, posting about how holy our lives are on Facebook or proclaiming to all our friends that we are righteous beings.  We need to be out there, helping out the less fortunate, loving those who are outcast, spreading the Gospel to all those who may never have heard it before.  We need to go around the mansion that was built for us by the long line of saints before us and make sure that everything is tidy.

Day 043: Reliance

"A king is not saved by his large army, and a giant shall not be saved by his immense strength; a horse is a false hope for salvation, and it shall not be saved by its enormous power." Psalm 32:16-17 (33:16-17)

Today, we have fashioned ourselves to become reliant on just ourselves and our own tools.  We utilize all that we do, but we are accustomed to putting our own names on the results.  Yet, with this mindset, a simple shortcoming can deal us a major blow in our personalities, because we have nothing to fall back on.

A great example of God's love and support for us is at the Eucharistic table.  During the Eucharist, there are many items that are heavily symbolic, the greatest of which are the bread and the wine.  God reaches out to us each time we take the communion, reaching out to us by means of foodstuff.  Imagine that: God makes the very normal things from life into the body and blood of Christ.  If God already does that for us, how much more is God doing?

God is using us as mere instruments in God's master plan.  God has a goal set for each and every one of us.  We can build ourselves in any way that we want to, but it is only when God moves through us that we can accomplish anything.  Machines can have all the programming in the world, but without the supervision of a technician, they can't accomplish anything.  In the same way, when we wander around on our own, we can only get so far.  It is when we put our lives into God's hands that we accomplish great things.

Another side to this is about how we hold our opinions very closely.  Our opinions can be very divisive and deceptive to others - even more so to ourselves.  Once again, when we put our lives into God's hands, God will purify us, including our thoughts, so that we can become unified with God and the church all around us.  God is reaching to us every day, so there is no excuse for us not to submit our lives to God. 

Day 042: Customs

"Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another.  Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.  All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense."  Romans 14:19-20

The history of the Church is quite dismal, to say the very least.  On the one hand, it has spread beyond the borders of the Holy Land to most of the earth; but on the other hand, it has seen so many fractures that we can't keep track of all the different traditions and factions.  There are some that claim to have heritage all the way to the first days of the apostolic church, denouncing all other traditions as simple heresies.  But, in reality, all of our denominations can be traced back to the apostolic church.

Of course, this dispute can be taken to the secular world as well, where we are constantly afraid of those who speak a different language, or those who are a different color, or those who wear different clothes.  But even this secular worldly fear breaks into our churches as well, for such a denial or dismissal of the others is a way that we destroy the work of God.

God is the only one who has constantly been bringing all of creation together.  God called people to join in the family by living holy lives.  God sent Jesus to unite people with a common message of faith and love.  But our taking of the reigns has been our downfall.

So much of the Church's history is riddled with grudges, some held for over a thousand years.  But we are called to turn away from all of that.  We are called to unity.  Unity is something that we can achieve only if we put aside our prejudices and start trying to learn more about and understand the others around us.

During this Lent, we should remember to reach out to the world around us, so that many more can understand our relationship with God.  We also should go out of our way to learn about new traditions.  There are many denominations that observe Lent, and there are some which are observing it starting next month.  There is so much we can learn around us, and that brings up the central point of our faith: that Jesus is revealing himself to us in so many different ways.  If we learn to accept that Jesus is not reserved for just one kind of person, we can learn so much more about Jesus and strengthen our relationship with him.

Day 041: Walking in the Light

"See, I have told you beforehand." Matthew 24:25

Some of the eschatological passages in the Gospels (or anywhere in the Bible, really) can sound quite harsh because of their idea of eternal destruction and/or death to all the unfaithful.  I know I have trouble accepting many of their messages, but at the same time, there are messages like this one above, in the middle of all the images.

As Christians, I am sure that we feel entitled, many times, to a smooth and good life.  We feel entitled to a grace that means that we will just float around in this world and not have to do a single thing.  Of course, when we encounter tough times, we then blame God for all the issues.  We feel entitled to all of our own petty wishes, and we feel damned when we don't have them our way.  In our selfishness, we see ourselves as not being blessed enough.

But we are blessed.  We have an entire earth given to us.  We are given a life where we can do whatever we want.  We are blessed enough to have the will to deny everything that God has given us and all that God offers.  We are blessed with the free will to decide whether we will accept the message that Jesus has told us beforehand or not!

During Lent, we have the opportunity to celebrate our relationship with Jesus.  We have the opportunity to invest even more into our relationship.  We have the opportunity to draw closer to God.  The Bible is right there for us.  We have all the information we need in order to live a good life.  It is our choice, though, whether we will accept it as a gift - a glorious revelation - or push it away as an unwanted burden on our lives.  However, our decision whether we accept it or not will not affect the turn of events.  Jesus has told us beforehand all that is going to happen.  A long line of prophets has also revealed so much more than we can imagine about what events are supposed to happen.  We must accept the grace that God gives us in this life.  Make today the start of a journey in the light. 

Day 040: Transformation

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:1-2

This message speaks to me so much for today, for it is about to be Lent.

Lent is a time for us to transform so that we can become a wholesome offering to God.  In the Old Testament, there are so many specifications about how perfect an animal has to be in order to be sacrificed.  Alongside that, we know that Jesus is the most perfect sacrifice to renew all of us.

But we can't get bogged down in all of the customs and traditions of the world.  Although we might like to think that if we purchase the right amount of candles and icons we would be saved, that's not what God wants from us.  We can't let things become stumbling blocks for us.  We need to follow Jesus and allow him to transform us.  We need to make everything in our lives things that will bring us closer to him.  We need to attach ourselves to spiritual things so that we may grow in the best way possible.

And so, as we prepare ourselves for Lent, ridding our surroundings of every temptation and purifying ourselves just before we go in to receive our ashes for Ash Wednesday, let these verses be our prayer, that God may take us and transform us into something that is pleasing and acceptable before God.  When our own desire is for God, then we can start to become more godlike - perfect.

Day 039: Sustenance

"Do not boast against the branches.  But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you." Romans 10:18

Through Paul's harsh wording, I see an image that is very telling: God is a master gardener.  This also reminds me of one of my own gardening feats.

Perhaps my favorite kinds of plants are succulents, particularly cacti, because of their relative simplicity for care (in terms of watering) and their sheer, alien beauty.  Among my favorites is the Ruby Ball Cactus because of the fact that it's a red cactus.  However, the interesting thing about the plant is that it can't really grow on its own.  It doesn't get all the necessary nutrients, so it needs to be grafted onto another plant, which is why the cactus can normally be found grafted on top of another cactus.

One time, when I had one of these plants, the bottom plant was dying.  So, I took another cactus that I had and attempted to graft the Ruby Ball onto another plant.  I have so many books about how to grow and tend these plants, so I figured it shouldn't be so difficult.  After having the two plants attached with yarn holding the two together, I was sure that the plant would grow.  Unfortunately, both of the plants died very soon after.

Grafting one plant onto another is quite difficult to do.  But God can do it, and you better believe that God has done it among our communities this day.  God is the one who goes around, helping attach new members onto this growing olive tree of faith.  Alongside that, God is the one who makes us shine our brightest, making us bear the best of fruits, so they can be used for greater things.  God is the reason why we succeed.

However, we like to take all the credit for our successes.  We like to deem ourselves as the sole purpose behind everything we do, when, in reality, it is God's grace that allows us to shine.  We think that just because we have the red glow and the perfectly trimmed white spines we are the greatest of plants, but, in reality, we are dead plants without the stability that God provides in our life.

God gives us life.  Let us continue to live it in a godly way.

Day 038: Humility

"But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.  And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Matthew 23:11-12

These verses come after an explanation from Jesus about the order of things, but their order is a little difficult for us to understand, since they go against what we think about higher positions.

I think it is safe to say that some of the most powerful people in this country and in the world are the ones with the most money.  Praise be to God that we actually have some of these rich people who are philanthropists, who give so much of their wealth to those who are in dire situations.  But, at the same time, there are many of the wealthy who like to make sure that we all know that they are well off.  Even worse, still, is that we have many in our churches who hoard wealth and do the bare minimum for the less fortunate.

But Jesus shows us a different way of doing this, both in his words and in his actions.  He has shown that he, the greatest being ever to have walked on this earth, took the time to heal the sick, tend to the poor, and speak to the outcast.  Jesus has given us an example that we need to follow.  Alongside that, Jesus shows that it is not for our personal worth that we do these things, for if that's what we have in our heart - our pride, our position in the food chain - then we will be humiliated.

To follow this teaching means that we need to work.  We need to give not only our treasure, but our time and our talent as well.  It's one thing to write a small check and call it done.  We need to go out there, to volunteer, to teach, to evangelize, to help.  As Presiding Bishop Curry said, we are not called to stay in our place, but we are called to follow Jesus wherever he leads us.  And, as we approach Lent, it is time to prepare ourselves for the journey that leads us through the Passion of Jesus.  Let today be that preparation.

Day 037: Mob Mentality

"You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor join with them, so as to turn aside with the majority to pervert justice."  Exodus 23:2

The law sections in the Pentateuch paint a picture of life in the early days of the nation of Israel.  Sure, the prose of prohibitions and specifications can be quite dry and boring after a while (let's say three and a half books' worth), but they can also reveal what was going on.  As one of my teachers told me, referring to treatises of the 18th century, teachers have to write down their rules because people were already doing the things that were being written against.

This law here shows us that the mob mentality has been around for a long time, and it doesn't seem to get any better.  We can have so many political gatherings today, where people spew out so many messages about hate, and it seems that just because there are so many people there, that the people start to agree and subscribe to these messages.  Throughout modern history, we know that mobs can be powerfully destructive, such as the denunciation ceremonies in Maoist China, or the Nazi rallies.

In this chapter, the different laws circle around one idea: don't pervert justice. We can pervert justice not only with mobs, but with money or even intentional inaction.  I'm sure we can all relate to these issues today, where the poor get misrepresented in the justice system, or where the needs of those in distress are ignored by some of the richest and most powerful in the world.

So what are we supposed to do, if we don't have power over the masses?

We are called to circulate truth.  We are called to circulate the Gospel, the Good News, so that everyone may be saved.  We are being called to care for those around us, to understand those who are in difficult situations, to help those who don't have all that we have.  We are being called to love.

Will this be easy?  Of course not.  If it were easy, I'm sure it would already have been done after over 3,000 years of this having been written.  We need to face the mobs and continue to spread the truth, for that is what this world needs.  The world around us needs the love preached in the Gospel.  The world needs our good faith to God, to ourselves, and to our neighbors.

Day 036: Preparation

"But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment.  So he said to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless."  Matthew 22:11-12

This parable has given me some trouble in the past because of how it seems to be on the surface.  My reaction is usually: if the king invited all these people and the guest actually arrived, why is he being punished?  Didn't he come from the street anyways?

But, I have been thinking that this parable might be a bit more about preparation.  Indeed, at the very end, Jesus says, "For many are called, but few are chosen."  One thing is that the guest may have been called from the street, but he might have had time to go home in between walking around and arriving at the feast.  He could have gotten dressed by then.  Another thing is that maybe the king was not talking explicitly about the outward appearance of the outfit, speaking more about how well dressed the man was relative to his social stature - as in, he didn't care to give the slightest thought to the grandeur of the feast.

Whatever the case was, though, it ended with the same issue: the king asks, "Why?" and the guest is speechless.  This reminds me of the many times my mom has asked me about why I didn't do what I was supposed to do.  Why didn't I do my homework?  Why didn't I do the dishes?  Why did I lie?

We have so much of an opportunity to live life the way we want to.  I mean, we truly have an entire lifetime to live it, but we will face ultimate judgment after death.  Of course, there are also times when we will have God coming to us asking "Why?".  We can't be speechless at these times.  We need to be prepared for these moments.

God has reached out to us so many times and in so many ways.  God still reaches out to us every day. Sometimes, we decide to accept what God has.  Other times, not so much.  God reaches out to us with peace, love, glory, and eternal life.  But, we look at it in a way that is filled with so much pride - I can do so much better.  Sure, maybe the curtains in the banquet hall aren't the color that you like, or maybe they're serving a food that doesn't have the exact taste you're looking for, but the opportunity is there.  We are given so much, but we like to pick apart what we don't like, removing the whole intention from the action.

I find that the guest in the parable thought that he could do so much better.  The man, who seemingly had no power, dared to curse the invitation by going to the wedding without his wedding garments.  But, we find that the king didn't flinch at this.  He resolved to punish the man.  I pray that we may never have to deal with the harsh punishments for our moments of pride, but we need to take the example.  We will find so many opportunities, but it will be our mindset that will determine what happens with each one.

Day 035: Tests

So they answered Jesus and said, "We do not know."  And He said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."  Matthew 21:27

This is one of those passages where I say to myself, Jesus was pretty sassy.  The neat thing, though, is that there is no malice behind what Jesus says or does here.  The leaders are trying to test him, and Jesus makes them think anew.

Today, we have an issue with our pride.  With the availability of so many resources, we start to appoint ourselves as great leaders.  Some of us will just go far enough to answer questions during lunch or during down time at work or even before or after the youth group meeting.  However, some will go as far as becoming self appointed/ordained ministers.  We will take all of the matters into our own hands.

Yet, things start to fall apart when times get tough.  Jesus is there to keep us in check when we are going crazy.  Jesus, the man with all the wisdom and the most impeccable timing as an orator, is speaking to us constantly, always to encourage us.  However, Jesus encourages us to go in his direction.  He has a ministry that he has established a long time ago, and he is calling all of us to join him.  Through his earthly ministry, he taught us all that we need to know in order to be initiated in this journey.  However, just as he described in the Gospels, sometimes the journey isn't exactly what we want it to be.

We want for things to go just our way.  We want to have our names in big letters, removing the cross or Christ from our storefronts or billboards.  We want all the credit to go to us.  But, then Jesus will ask us, "Is this your goal, or ours?"  Indeed, we can pursue whatever we want to, but if we are not doing what Jesus is calling us to do, we will end up destroying ourselves.

So, what's the best way to ensure that we know what we are doing during the test?  Study!  The issue with the leaders in the above passage is that they were asked a question where they could only answer "we don't know" so they could keep up with their own beliefs.  We have the textbook, we have the methods, and we definitely have the means to pass our spiritual tests.  We just need to keep in constant conversation with our instructor, Jesus Christ.

Day 034: Following

"So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes.  And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him."  Matthew 20:34

Here's an example of where the blind were being led by one who is able to see.  However, after they are led, they also lead us, for they now see, and we, sometimes, are blind.

These two men called out to Jesus to have mercy, and Jesus had mercy.  But, the story doesn't end just there.  The men follow Jesus.  Jesus is working in our lives in so many different ways, but are we ready to follow him?

Probably something that we do is pray only whenever times seem to be very tough.  Sure, we do need God's grace to get us through difficult exams, tests, or events in our lives.  But, we are also supposed to praise God in our prayers and in our lives.  We need to give God credit.

Just think about the times that you've been at a restaurant.  The waiter is doing just what he needs to do, coming by to serve you, taking your order, giving you your food and drink.  Then, at the end, you find that the waiter wasn't anything super spectacular, but you still give him a 15% tip, since it is customary (if not impulsive because of their low wages).

Now think about God.  God has given you the job so that you can have money to spend at a restaurant.  God has given you the time to spend in that place.  God has even provided you with an environment where you can go anywhere with quite a degree of safety.  What does God get in return?

I know that I can't say that I give God everything.  I don't even think that I have enough to give God in return for all that God has done in my life.  Yet, I know that I need to follow.  Sure, God doesn't work as a worker for us, living on the wages that we give, but imagine this: if God can do so much for us when we are wandering away from God, how much more can God do when we are actively seeking God in all of our aspects of our lives?

God is the one who is walking by the streets, listening for our calls.  But, when God fulfills what we need, God continues to walk down the way to hear more of the cries.  Are we going to follow God along the way?  Are we going to serve God with our devotion to bringing God's kingdom on earth?

Day 033: Peace in War

"The Lord brings wars to nothing; the Lord is His name." Exodus 15:3

In the different songs of praise that we find in the bible, we find many different traits of God that help us understand God's grandeur.  I found this particular praise to be quite amazing, for it speaks to us just as loudly today as it probably did during the exodus from Egypt.

War brings about so much destruction.  It results in the loss of lives from all involved.  Some lives are terminated immediately on the battlefield, but others are terminated in terms of physical and mental injuries.  Whenever we use war as a metaphor for a process in our minds, we refer to ourselves as being in the middle of turmoil, where things just don't seem to make sense anymore.

But God brings about so much good change into our lives.  God ends the wars that are all around us, whether physical ones or mental ones.  God is a God of peace and of love.  We choose many times to hate one another, but God steps into our lives to bring about peace, for we can accomplish so much more whenever we are working together with all those around us.  Through a connection via prayer with God, we can achieve true peace of mind.

When the Israelites turned to God, they were delivered from all their hardships and troubles.  God provided for them every step of the way, even whenever they fell away and spoke out against God.  In the same way, God is reaching out a hand so that God can take us along the way.  God knows our struggles and can make them times when we witness the glory of God.  When we turn to God, God will end all the spiritual warfare that might be reaping ultimate destruction within our souls.  God will walk us down the paths that are eternally peaceful.

Today's Readings:
Exodus 15-16
Psalm 26:1-6 (27:1-6)
Matthew 20:1-28
Romans 5

 

Day 032: Signs

"And Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also."  Romans 4:11

One of the defense mechanisms that we have evolved to have is one of classification.  We can classify those who are with us and those who aren't in order to maintain our own safety.  However, we have allowed this classification to go too far, where we are considering other human beings, other people who are living the same life with all its challenges, to be the other.

Even worse so, we isolate people from our faith communities.  We turn our churches into social clubs, where people have to come in with a set of prerequisites in order to participate, but they can only participate with a certain set of ideas.

But Paul is telling us about something else.  Despite the fact that the Jews of the time discriminated against those men who were uncircumcised, calling them faithless or heathens, Paul says that the Gospel was not restricted by that specific ritual.  In fact, faith itself transcends all signs.  He states that there were those who were circumcised who were faithless and/or wicked.  In the same way, there are many out there today who are baptized who are wicked; and, there are those who are not baptized who are faithful.

God doesn't require signs from us.  God gave us these signs so that we would have something tangible to represent a difficult concept.  Faith is not that easy to grasp, but it is something that we can grow.  And what's the only way to grow a good plant than to take care of it?

We need to tend to our faith so that it may grow and prosper.  God calls us to live our faith, that all things we do are in good faith, living the Gospel at all times.  We need our faith to become something so great that we no longer need a sign to represent it.