I asked the Holy One, not once but time and time again, to tell me what is first and prime. The sound of silence breathed to me, “Grace. Grace is first, and last, and everything.”
I might have raised a voice in protest to the silent breath, to claim the privilege of suffering for faith, through faith, in faith. “Grace. Grace is first, and last, and everything.”
Have I not traveled farther in my span of years than Abraham in his? Might I not claim the mantle of such righteousness? “Grace. Grace is first, and last, and everything.”
But breathed the silent syllables: “Did you devise yourself, beloved child? Did you create the feet you set upon the road? Grace. Grace is first, and last, and everything.”
Blessed be the Holy One who makes to be the things that were and things that have not been. Blessed be the One whose sound of silence breathes: “Grace. Grace is first, and last, and everything.”
A poem/prayer based on Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year A, Second Sunday in Lent.
I don’t remember when I adopted the annual practice of a Lenten discipline. I’m pretty sure that it was after I’d begun serving as pastor of my first churches, though it might have been before seminary graduation. I tried on a number of ways to draw closer to God in those days.
For some years I mostly practiced a discipline of “giving something up for Lent.” Some have heard me tell the story of giving up anxiety for the season, and how delighted I was that I’d succeeded. Some have heard me tell the follow-up story. The next year I pledged to give up anxiety for Lent again… and failed.
I have never successfully repeated a Lenten discipline.
More recently, I have added an activity, practice, or creative effort to the season. I “take something on” as well as “giving something up.” I don’t announce my choices for the season. I recall Jesus’ stern warnings about praying so that other people could hear rather than that God could hear. Lenten practice should be about my relationship with God and with myself. It’s not to make me look pious to others.
This year, however, I have to make an exception. I think I will need help. I’ve decided to give up self-deprecation for Lent.
It’s a challenge.
I love humor. I love a sense of fun, games, and jokes. I do not, however, like to tell jokes at someone else’s expense. I don’t like to make fun of anyone’s appearance, background, personality, or challenges. I don’t like to make fun of anyone’s vulnerabilities or strengths. Sometimes these jests don’t hurt, but far too often they do. “It’s just a joke” doesn’t cut it. I’d rather not do it.
(By the way, this doesn’t mean I’m successful at this. I do poke fun at others from time to time – and I tell myself not to do it again.)
I’d rather poke fun at myself. That’s what I try to do. Truthfully, I’m the only person I have the right to poke fun of, and I do it pretty often.
Within a few hours of deciding I’d stop doing that for Lent, I caught myself doing it several times.
Self-deprecation might be a more comfortable frame for humor, but for me it is also a sign of insecurity and anxiety. Some of those jokes function to disguise those things, and some of those jokes function to invite comfort for them. Both the mask and the invitation to comfort are… problematic. Both allow me to avoid internal struggle by turning it outward. Both allow me to avoid the work to resolve or refresh what’s unsettled in my soul.
That’s a good reason to give it up, at least for a season.
But it’s going to be difficult, and I don’t think that’s self-deprecation. I invite your help as this season goes along, friends. If you detect me “putting myself down,” I invite you to call me on it – not comfort me, call me on it. “Eric, didn’t you give that up for Lent?” will do.
I didn’t want a divorce but I got one, Jesus. A broken relationship handed to a judge. No prison, but I’ve never been released.
So many gifts I’ve laid before your altar never certain whether there was someone I had hurt. But no, I lie. There was always someone whether I knew or not.
To reconcile, though – ah, there’s the rub. For now I’ll ask “On whose terms, precisely, Jesus? I have my injuries, my hurts. Who’ll make their peace with me? Who’ll listen to my terms?”
Don’t say it, Jesus. I know just what you’ll say to such a question; you’ve no need to say, “My terms.” Oh, go ahead. I’ll wait. Just say it… Oh. You did.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 5:21-37, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for Year A, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany.
Sometime toward the end of 2018, a Tweet (that I can no longer find) challenged weekly preachers like myself to include a quote from a non-white, non-male, non-straight person in every sermon of the coming year. Intrigued, I decided to do it.
I was a little worried about finding those quotes.
I wasn’t worried that the materials didn’t exist. I know very well that people of every gender identity and every race have done great work in theology, social commentary, and Biblical studies. That didn’t mean that I’d have success in finding it. My personal library’s authors are predominantly white and male (and presumably heterosexual). I’ve been using online commentaries as a research aid, but hadn’t deeply considered who the authors were. I knew I’d been quoting particular people fairly often, and that some of these were women or people of color, but in what proportion? I didn’t know.
As it happened, finding those quotes was quite easy. There are several solid websites around offering lectionary-based commentary to preachers. In some cases, the editors have intentionally sought diversity in their contributors. When a site has several years of commentary available (as Working Preacher does), it increased both the likelihood of finding strong quotes from non-white, -male, and -straight voices and widened the spectrum of perspectives I read about a text.
The remarkable aggregation site The Text This Week has the virtue of several years of material and also of casting a very large net. Even when its editor is behind on things because of life challenges, it remains a must-visit collection for its links to prior years’ commentaries.
Record-keeping was the bigger challenge.
I’m a geek (note the title of the blog). I decided that the best approach to a question like this was a database, so I built one. Each quote gets its own record. Each person quoted gets a record as well, and I record their gender identity, race, religious affiliation, time period, and some other information. Sometimes that information was not easy to find, by the way.
It was pretty easy in any week to see that I had or hadn’t met my objective. At the end of the year, a report confirmed that I had met the goal.
I’m quite grateful to the challenger (I just wish I could be certain who it was). They brought my attention to something I hadn’t thought about, and I plan to keep that attention. I’m also grateful because I rather like my quote-recording tool, and I’m thinking about ways to make it useful in other ways as well.
Thanks for the challenge. I’m pretty sure it made me a better preacher this past year.
Searching for hymns that used the Beatitudes as their inspiration, I was quite surprised to find very few of them. And, well, I decided to add one. It was first sung in worship at Church of the Holy Cross UCC, Hilo, Hawai’i, on February 2, 2020.
Upon the mountain, Jesus sat with all his friends about him, The crowds drew close and silence fell. He taught them without shouting. He spoke of blessings to the poor. He spoke of new creation. He spoke of a world overturned when mourners find their comfort.
You meek take hope, the earth is yours, though others pride to take it. The ones who thirst for righteousness will drink until they slake it. There will be mercy for the ones whose mercy flowed in rivers. The pure in heart will see our God in majesty forever.
You who make peace have always been the children of the Maker, And so are those who suffer for their holiness of labor. If you are caged and tortured for your witness to redemption The gates of heaven will open wide when you are present to them.
The hardships of the world are real, as human eyes keep weeping, But every tear that falls is held within the Savior’s keeping. Blessed are the humble, meek, and poor; the pure in heart, the peaceful. Yes, God embraces those who bear the burdens of earth’s evil.
The image of the Sermon on the Mount is an etching by Jan Luyken from the Phillip Medhurst Collection of Bible illustrations housed at Belgrave Hall, Leicester, England (The Kevin Victor Freestone Bequest). Photo by Philip De Vere. Credit: Phillip Medhurst – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20116195.
You can stop right there, Jesus, after beatitude/blessing/makarios (Hey! I can pray in Greek!) the first. You know as well as I the poverty of my spirit.
No mustard seeds to see, no pearls beyond appraisal, no fields a-hundred-fold to view for you. Just sighs and bluster nearly equal there.
So you might want to think again about this notion you would make the realm of heaven mine. I can’t conceive of an idea much worse despite the virtues of the thinker.
For you to give the realm of God to me is just as ludicrous as if you gave the keys of heaven to a fisherman named, “Rock.”
Oh. That’s right. You did.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 5:1-12, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for Year A, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.
“How can I do that? My hands are full with the lines of the net I just cast, Andrew. Haul it in yourself.”
“Must I do everything?”
“No. Just haul your own net in.”
Sigh. “Just give me one hand, Simon. This one’s heavy. First mine, then yours.”
Sigh. “All right then… Got my lines together. Here’s my hand. Give the call to pull.”
“Pull! Now pull again! OK, move your hand along; I’ve got it steady… PULL!”
“Well, you weren’t kidding. That’s a heavy net.”
“Thanks, Simon. Let’s do yours.”
“All right. Oh, look.”
“Look where?”
“Behind you, Andrew. There’s that Jesus coming back.”
“Did he leave?”
“I thought he did. He went down the Jordan, where that fellow John’s been preaching. I didn’t think that he’d be back.”
“He’s always been a funny one. Half a foot on earth and half in heaven.”
“Yeah. But here he comes.”
“It’ll be good to see him.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, here’s my hand. Let’s get your net hauled in, my brother.”
“Maybe Jesus will be impressed how good we are at catching fish.”
A dialogue based on Matthew 4:12-23, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
The image is The Calling of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew (Vocation de Saint Pierre et Saint André) by James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.56_PS1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10195832.
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