Genesis 15:1 Do not be afraid, I am your shield

Walking in fear

Leaves me trembling

In the bitter and the cold.

Stripped of even false bravado

I find myself frozen

Unable to retreat or advance.

In my own power

There is no safeguard;

Only exposure to my enemies.

I buckle, uncovered and empty.

Even if I win, I lose.

Despair my only companion.

I am empty,

Nothing left to give or keep.

Then I hear a whispered shout.

"Do not be afraid.

Be calm, Be fearless.

Have no regrets. Stop trembling.

"I am your shield."\

I will protect you.

I will cover and defend you.

"In this place, learn to kneel

And bow your head.

No sword can touch you.

"Accept whatever comes

I am your sure guardian

Your champion and holy hedge."

Herein is all the assurance,

The salvation, which allows me to

Accept whatever comes.

Lectionary October 11, 2015, Year B Proper 23 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Job 22:1-9; 16-17, Amos 5:6-7;10-15, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10-17-31

Our daughter received the diagnosis: breast cancer. She is the first baby I bathed in the kitchen sink even before I knew how. She is 43 and has two children aged ten and nine. It is not right. It is not fair. It makes me angry. Like Job I look everywhere for God, but cannot find him. Alternatively, perhaps I know what he might say, so I do not want to find him.

Amos reminds me “Raw truth is never popular.” That is true whether it comes from the mouth of a doctor or the Word of God.

Paul’s letter to the Hebrews tells me “What God says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.”

How often do I kneel and ask God to fix a situation, to heal a loved one, to give me what I want? Then I am surprised and taken aback when God does answer, but it requires more of me than I think I can give, much like the rich young ruler in Mark. Where is my humility? Where is my desire to be a living sacrifice? Where did I forget God is always God, and I am not?

So, I go from my knees to lying prone. My tears soak my pillow. I become still. I become quiet. I try to listen to God’s voice and silence my own. I remember Moses’s prayer recorded in the Psalms. “Teach us to live well,” I read the passages in the Gospel of Mark that record Jesus saying, “Go, let everything go. Come, follow me.”

I cannot change the diagnosis. I cannot change whatever the outcome will be. I can only let my child go into the arms of Jesus, into the care of others, from the bathtub to the surgical table, into God’s unfailing love.

Thought for the Day: Allow us, you and I, to listen and obey.

Prayer:
Eternal One, whose thoughts and ways are not ours, you alone are God, awesome, holy, and most high. School us in the ways of faith and wisdom that we may learn to truly see and hear, and in humility find blessing. Amen.

Pray for those who are grieving.

Lectionary Readings: Proper 23 – 20^th Sunday After Pentecost Year B – October 11, 2015 www.lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu [retrieved October 5, 2015].

Bible: verses adapted from The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Prayer: adapted from The Revised Common Lectionary and Prayers ©2002 Augsburg Fortress Press.

Art: Israëls, Jozef, 1824-1911. The Day before Parting, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=50323 [retrieved October 5, 2015]. Original source: http://www.mfa.org/.

Kintsugi, Kintsukuroi

Daily Readings, Friday, January 25, 2013

Psalms 31, 35 

Isaiah 45:18-25

Ephesians 6:1-9

Mark 4: 35-41

I heard a story of a master Japanese potter who asked his apprentices to bring to his studio the most perfect completed piece of pottery that came from their final kiln firing.

When the perfect piece was presented to the master, he asked the apprentice to break the piece by dropping it on the floor before the master. The master then with infinite care picked up the pieces, and using ceramic and gold dust, repaired the vessel. 

The pottery was no longer just a perfectly useable piece of pottery, but was now a useable perfect piece of art. 

Tami Travis-Groves says "The piece of pottery became more beautiful for having been broken. The true life of the bowl began the moment it was dropped. The proof of its fragility and its resilience is what makes it beautiful."*

Mended, Mended with Gold

Listen

He has called you by name

His perfect vessel formed

Before time began

Shattered

Not to be swept up and cast out

But to be carefully gathered

Shard by shard

To be reconstructed, reformed, restored to usefulness

Made more precious and of greater value

When healed and tightly secured

By molten veins of gold

Stand

Forbear and see the brokenness

As an offering of the Master Potter

Be still

So even the smallest sliver

Is not obscured or hidden

Perhaps especially the one you wish

Were not to be found

Suffer the fire that refines

That melts, that seals, that restores

Fear not the sanctification, the purification

The change of form

Made perfect in its remaking

Grow

Know the conscious need called humility

Encouraging you to be rather than to do

Gather the meekness and the hunger

This marks the birth of a renewed spirit

Clothe yourself in the mercy of the Spirit

That swaddles you with light and love

Hold tight the newly clarified heart and mind

That submits to the ingress of God’s dreams

Search for the Christ indwelling and inspiration

That calms the storms that shatter

See yourself as a holy, living sacrifice

Strengthened to reflect, to rejoice

To reach out to touch

His outstretched hand

Become

Learn that stillness contains not only the hand and voice of God

But the fallow seeds of creativity

Suppressed by doing rather than being

Embrace the journey

Fear not the desert

For it is there that winds can burnish and prepare

It is there that time stretches and bends

To reveal the shimmering mirage

That excites and reveals the Father’s great love

The Son’s great gift

The Spirit’s great power

The tomorrows that stand before you

To love, to live, to weep for joy

To be the perfect vessel He has created, broken and mended

For the new work that is within you

Begging to be born

Move

No drifting on fear’s vast ocean

No plummeting into pain’s limitless abyss

No disappearing into despair’s fierce vortex

No turning to see what is left behind

Instead

Reach out for the rope

Held by those who love you

Anchored in Him who formed you

Pull your way into lucidity and light

Praise, love, learn, create

Sparkle and shine in the light of the Son

So others might see

That brokenness is only perfection

Waiting for the Master Potter’s hand

© 2006 Jorja Davis

Psalms 31, 35 

Isaiah 45:18-25

Ephesians 6:1-9

Mark 4: 35-41

Daily Readings based on the Revised Book of Common Prayer, Year A. January 16, 2013. http://www.crivoice.org/epiphany1.html

Commentary and scripture verses based on:

The Wesley Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Abingdon, 2009.

Peterson, Eugene H. The Message//Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2003

Thompson, Frank Charles. The Thompson Chain-Reference® Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: 1983

* http://www.camiimac.com/1/post/2013/01/kintsukuroi-more-beautiful-for-having-been-broken.html