Gratitude Journey: History and Heritage

Over the past week, we’ve looked at ways Nature reminds us to be Grateful to God for God’s action in our lives. I hope you’ve had a chance to glance at some of the Facebook images that inspired me to think about God in Nature and to give thanks.

We also celebrated the Feast of All Saints, and on Saturday the church remembered ‘All the Faithful Departed’ (those who haven’t been made saints, but who are dear to us). It made me think about my mother, who would have turned 89 last month. Even though she died 24 years ago, her life still impacts me. This week, I suggest looking at your Heritage and your History (personal or corporate) for ways to be Grateful. Join me on Facebook and post words, images, or insights of your History or Heritage that remind you to be grateful 

We are all inter-related, and so my history and heritage make a difference to me, and to those I encounter and relate to. In the same way, their history and heritage effects how they relate to me. If we took time to learn one another’s stories, we would discover that we have similarities, as well as differences. Despite religious differences, skin color, nationality, or politics we are made in the image of God and every one is called ‘beloved’ by God.

As you look at your History and Heritage, you may want to think about ways that your past has made you God’s “servant and the child of your handmaid.” (Psalm 116) In my own case, my mother was instrumental in my being baptized and ultimately identifying as an ‘Episcopalian’ when fellow High School students asked me what my religion was. In my youthful naivete, because I was baptized in the Episcopal church, that’s where I belonged. Looking back, there were, of course, other options. I could have made my paternal grandmother joyful by becoming a Seventh Day Adventist. I might have joined the Baptist church because a couple of friends went there. Instead I began attending, and was welcomed into, the Episcopal church.

The Psalm for the Remembrance of All the Faithful Departed is Psalm 116:10-17. It fits into our theme of Gratitude this month. The Psalm asks, “How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me?” The Psalmist’s answer is “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord...I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon the Name of the Lord.” As you consider what in your Heritage or history makes you feel thankful, ask yourself in what way you can make a ‘sacrifice of thanksgiving’.

As you think about what parts of your Heritage make you grateful, you may want to remember those ‘faithful departed’ in your own life. As the Psalm reminds us, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his servants.” Think about the ways those of your family in the near or distant past have made you who you are, and perhaps even formed the way you think about God.

For instance, my paternal grandmother gave me the grounding in Bible stories that eventually led me to teaching Sunday School and writing. My maternal great-grandfather was a Methodist pastor. Even though I never knew the man, just the knowledge that he was a pastor was important to my formation as a Christian. In the same way, his wife was a music teacher and I have always wondered if my love of music came from her.

When thinking about the Heritage we each leave it’s important to remember this quote from Mother Teresa. It is a good reminder that we cannot live the lives of those we love. We can, as someone else said, give our children ‘roots and wings’. And then we must let each person live their own life.

What is your History on a-personal, religious, or family level?

Who has impacted how your History has been written in each of those areas?

The Epistle for All Faithful Departed calls us to “be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

What Heritage are you leaving for those who come after?

Who do you impact on in your personal, religious, or family relationships?

If you need Biblical inspiration about ways your history and heritage are important, consider the readings for All the Faithful departed (Isaiah 25:6-9, I Corinthians 15:50-58, John 5:24-27), or some of these Bible verses.

Ps 127

Hebrews 12:1

Deuteronomy 6:5-7 

Pentecost: Not Alone

We’ve been looking at how God is working in and through us to make us diamonds and masterpieces. As we noted last week, it’s not necessarily the big and grand things that make the most difference. It can be the small things we do because we are women and men of faith.

At the Daughters of the King Assembly I spoke about last week; the keynote speaker was Deborah Smith Douglas. She is an author, speaker, spiritual advisor, and deeply faith-filled woman. Her topic was Deepening Prayer. Douglas reminded us all that in our faith journey, we are never alone.

She said, we are always in the company of the saints who have gone before. Some of these are well known women or men. Others are the everyday people who lived a life of faith and in doing so, changed their corner of the world. In fact, many of those considered saints, like Julian of Norwich or Mother Teresa had no aspirations for sainthood.

Mother Teresa, it has been learned from her letters, even doubted her own faith. She wrote, “Where is my faith? – even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. – My God – how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. – I have no faith. – I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me – I am afraid to uncover them – because of the blasphemy – If there be God, - please forgive me.” - Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

A long list of others who doubted their faith could be compiled. The Psalms are full of David’s wavering faith and fears. Psalm 42 is just one of many.

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
   so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
   the face of God?
My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’

These things I remember,
   as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,*    and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
   a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
   therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
   from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
   at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
   have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
   and at night his song is with me,
   a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
   ‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
   because the enemy oppresses me?’
As with a deadly wound in my body,
   my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my help and my God.

David feels like he has been abandoned by God. People are even asking, “Where is your God?” He says “My tears have been my food day and night” and “my soul is cast down within me”. Yet ultimately, he is able to say that he will, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

Doubt doesn’t make our spiritual ancestors, or ourselves, any less suited to act on God’s call in our lives. Deborah Smith Douglas told the women at the recent retreat that we are part of the company of those who walk with and act for God now and in the past. She reminded the women that God rarely choses those with ‘clean hands’ or ‘pure blood’ to “come follow me”. Jesus chose fishermen and women to be his disciples. Over the centuries, God has used harlots, adulterers, murderers, cowards, and other widely assorted men and women. God uses you and me, too. 

This coming weekend, I will be leading a retreat that will look at 5 women of the Bible. Mary (Mother of Jesus), Mary Magdalene, Esther, Ruth, and Judith have been maligned, glorified, or ignored by history. We’ll see who they really were and what their lives can teach us about our lives of faith in the 21^st Century.

If Mother Teresa, John of the Cross, 'Doubting' Thomas, and many others throughout the centuries can wonder about their faith and calling, we do not need to lose heart when we have our own questions. As Douglas noted last weekend, we are not alone. We can find community with our fore-bearers through gratitude, intercession, drawing near to God, and simply loving God and our neighbor.

Do you ever think you are unworthy because you have doubts?

What do you do when you feel alone and far from God?

Next week, we’ll start a series based on the women we will discuss at the Aug. 17-18 weekend. For those readers who might be at the meeting, this will be a chance for further learning. Others may find it interesting to discuss with friends in book or Bible study groups. 

Empathy and Tolerance

We are almost at the end of this series that has been looking at Romans 12:9-16 as a way to live Pentecost lives that proclaim the presence of God. According to John Stott these 7 verses are guidelines to living just that sort of life.

Last week we noted that “Mother Teresa’s Prescription” included 10 tenets that followed St. Paul’s advice rather closely. Tolerance was number 7. Paul says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” This implies not only tolerance but empathy toward one another.

Jesus tells us “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). The New Living Translation of verse 12 says we should not “curse [our enemies, instead]; pray that God will bless them.” It is hard to pray a blessing on those who are mistreating us and even harder to pray for those who are killing those we care about. We have only to read the headlines of wars and atrocities to find plenty of opportunity for praying for our enemies.

It is not easy to look beyond the death and destruction caused by so many, too often in the name of religion, and to pray for them. Not easy, but part of our life as Pentecost people. I Peter 3:9 offers this advice: “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

Peter and Paul are both reiterating our Lord’s mandate to “love one another, as I have loved you”. Jesus loved us to the giving up of His life. As followers of the One, we too are called to pray blessings on all of God’s children. Like it or not, that means every man, woman, and child on this planet! I wonder what the world would be like if we really tried praying for those who ‘persecute’ us-whether in physical or mental ways. Might it not be worth a try?

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary notes that we cannot make distinctions about when and how we pray and bless others. “Bless, and curse not. It means thorough good will; not, bless them when at prayer, and curse them at other times; but bless them always, and curse not at all. True Christian love will make us take part in the sorrows and joys of each other.”

The second part of this citation is really part of the same theme. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” says Paul to the Romans. If we really have empathy and tolerance, then we not only pray blessings for them, but we understand their joys and sorrows. As the old saying goes, we “walk a mile in their shoes” in order to see the world through their eyes. We might then feel the deep hurt that causes a teenager to brutally murder a homeless man. Perhaps we would get a glimpse of the devastating emptiness that makes a person take their own life. With empathy we might see through the eyes of the fanatic who believes that killing is the only way to cleanse the world. In trying to rejoice and weep with the joys and sorrows of others, we might discover that those we name ‘different’ really aren’t so very different from us.

It is easy to take up stones to throw at someone. Then Jesus looks at us and says, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone”. We hesitate and realize that we are not without fault. Like the men who wanted to stone the adulterous woman (John 8), we go “away, one by one.” Then Jesus is left with the offender. In love we hear Him say “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” And He says the same to me and to you and to the murderer and fanatic and thief.

With Christ on the Cross we can and must pray “Father forgive, for they know not what they do.” And we must pray for the courage, wisdom, empathy and tolerance to do so and to pray blessings on those we fear and even hate.

Next time we'll take a look at Harmony and end the series with Humility.

 Let love be genuine (sincere, honest); hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are

Hospitality and Service

Earlier in this series we saw that the basis for our lives is love: genuine, pure, brotherly love offered in service to God. Last time we looked at 3 key ingredients to living into our Christian call of genuine love as found in Romans 12. According to Paul these are: joy, patience, and prayer. The final 4 marks of a Christian teach us to look outward and actively share Christ’s love.

In Romans 12:13, St. Paul says, “When God's people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.” (NLT) That is a seemingly simple concept, isn’t it? Help those in need and practice hospitality. Hospitality encompasses a sense of welcome, warmth, openness, friendliness, and generosity. How hard can that be?

In the RSV translation, we are urged to go a step further with our hospitality and offer it “to strangers”. We are to reach out beyond our comfort zone to welcome those who we may not know, and even those who might be ‘different’. Sometimes that’s a little harder.

This past weekend, I heard a speaker talk about how we offer ‘service’, a type of hospitality. She noted that there are studies that have shown that serving one another is good for our health! Service can raises our self-esteem and self-confidence. She noted that Mother Teresa was interviewed by Paul Wright for his book Mother Teresa’s Prescription. He wanted to know how she kept on giving and giving of herself. She finally granted an interview and shared her “prescription” of 10 things*.

1.      Commitment to community
2.      Reverence for all human life
3.      Compassion and love
4.      Contentment and gratitude
5.      Faith
6.      Humility
7.      Tolerance
8.      Patience
9.      Forgiveness
10.   Honesty

These are, perhaps not surprisingly, similar to what Paul is telling the Roman community. In verse 13 he encourages helping ‘the saints’ (those in the community). When he says ‘extend hospitality to strangers’, he is asking us to show a reverence for all humanity. Earlier Paul’s words about holding fast to the good and honoring each other fulfill Mother Teresa’s guideline of compassion and love. He says to ‘rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, ardent in prayer’ (as we looked at last week). Mother Teresa suggests that an attitude of contentment and gratitude along with faith must be the hallmark of a servant leader.

We will get to humility, tolerance, and forgiveness over the next couple of weeks. Mother Teresa and Paul both wrap up all their instructions in genuine or honest love.

How then do we find what fits us as a way to ‘contribute to the needs of the saints [and] extend hospitality’? Not all of us are wealthy and can support the cause of our choice with mounds of money and not everyone is equipped or able to go out into the community to ‘do’ service.

The speaker last weekend suggested we should each start in the areas we feel most connected. Are you interested in helping children, or the aged, or the ill, or… (fill in the blank). There is information in your community and maybe even your church to help you get connected. Schools, shelters, and nearly all volunteer programs are looking for help. She did note that many now require background checks, so don’t be offended by that.

If you cannot get out and actively help, even a couple of dollars is helpful to nearly every charity and church, so don’t think that because you cannot fund a hospital wing that you cannot ‘contribute to the needs’. I’m sure many, if not all, who read this are already active in helping in your community and I commend you for it. If you are looking for something new, consider Paul’s and Mother Teresa’s guidelines as you look around.

Next time, we’ll consider empathy toward all-what Mother Teresa labeled as tolerance.

* You can see the entire section of the talk about Mother Teresa here.

 Let love be genuine (sincere, honest); hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are