Surrender

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood's son,

Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University.

“That’s enough! Now know that I am God!” 

Psalm 46:10 (Common English Bible)

Martin Luther was, to put it mildly, a busy man. Born of respectable middle class means, his parents instilled in him a dogged Teutonic work ethic that saw him beginning his college education at the University of Erfurt at only seventeen years old. Once there, he blitzed through a wearying curriculum of law (which dissatisfied him), philosophy (which frustrated him), and theology (which electrified him). After a near death experience during a lightning storm in 1505 where he promised Saint Anna he’d become a monk in exchange for his life, he abandoned his secular studies to enter an Augustinian monastery. Within two years he was ordained. In three, he was teaching theology in Wittenberg. In four, he’d earned two more bachelor’s degrees with a Doctor of Theology following in seven. In just a decade, this tireless young man became a provincial vicar charged with overseeing eleven monasteries in eastern Germany.

The rest of his story is one many of us are more familiar with. The Ninety-five Theses nailed to the church door. Justification by faith alone. Excommunication by Pope Leo X. Cross-examination at Worms. Flight to Wartburg Castle. Translation of the the New Testament into German vernacular. Peasant revolts and uprisings. The break with Catholicism, the founding of Lutherism, the birth of Protestantism. And through it all Luther maintained a steady, prolific output of catechisms, commentaries, pamphlets, treatises, masses, hymns, books, and sermons. By the end of his life he’d accumulated over 100 folio volumes of original writings. And all this while fleeing various authorities, both papal and secular, as the Turks ravaged Hungary and Austria, waves of plague swept England, and the Holy Roman Emperor’s own troops sacked Rome. The world was turning itself to ashes.

During his whirlwind life, Luther found himself time and again facing the darkest corners of doubt, sorrow, and exhaustion. According to various sources, Luther repeatedly turned towards the forty-sixth Psalm for comfort and respite. Stories go that he would ask his close friend and fellow reformer Philip Melanchthon to sing it with him: “Come, Philip, let us sing the forty-sixth Psalm.” Such was his love for the Psalm that opened with the triumphant declaration “God is our refuge and strength, a help always near in times of great trouble” that he officially set it to music to write one of the greatest hymns in Christendom: “A Might Fortress Is Our God.”

But it’s in the tenth verse that the psalmist’s triumphant bombast gets tempered by a proclamation from God, telling them to be quiet, be still, and know that God is God. This is a psalm for boasting in the strength of the Almighty, but it’s also a command for one of the hardest things man can do: surrender oneself. There comes a moment in the depths of adversity where one must remove oneself from trying to control the forces of fate and simply trust in our creator. To do otherwise would be to lose ourselves to our own neuroses and anxieties. It’s only in this quiet and stillness that we find our center, and it’s there—much like Moses in the desert, Elijah in the cave, or Paul on the road to Damascus—that we can finally find and know God. And it was in this emptiness inspired by reading the forty-sixth Psalm the night before his incendiary refusal to recant his beliefs at the Diet of Worms that Martin Luther found the courage to face his accusers and make one of the bravest stands in the history of Christendom: “I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”


Joy,

The Mark of Christian Character

“We love because God first loved us.”

1 John 4:19 (Common English Bible)

              There is a delightful – and poignant – cartoon currently circulating on Facebook. Jesus is teaching his disciples on the side of a mountain. Jesus teaches, “Love one another.” The disciples begin to question Jesus. “What if people don’t agree with our interpretation of scripture? What do we do if someone doesn’t share our political ideology or agree with us on the important issues of the day?” Jesus continues, “Let me try again. Love one another.” Located in this cartoon is a powerful message for us all. Something has happened in our public discourse. Once, people could disagree politically, debate the pressing issues of the day, and then share a meal and laughter together. I miss that day, now largely gone. If you are honest, you miss it as well.

              Recently, I sat in my office with someone who is both an elder of this church and a dear friend. He is a Republican and I am a Democrat. He has my highest admiration. Considerable wisdom and a kind and generous spirit mark his leadership on the church board. Occasionally we discuss with each other our differences in our political vision for our nation. The operative word here is, “discuss.” Civility, respect, and humility saturates our conversations. Both of us acknowledge that we could be wrong on any issue. Most importantly, we listen deeply to each other. We listen with anticipation that we may have our own thoughts made more expansive by a different viewpoint.

              We also share a lament. We are sadden by how little kindness we now see among those who disagree. One political party vilifies another party. Democrats are Socialist and Republicans lack compassion. People fear expressing any opinion lest they become caught-up in verbal warfare. Worse, it is common today to question someone’s fidelity to the Christian faith if there is failure to think as we think. Again, we are a nation divided on itself. Hurtful rhetoric often becomes hate crimes. Imagine what has happened in our nation. Some believe that killing those who are different is a responsible course. Jesus continues, “Let me try again. Love one another.”

              Perhaps, that is where we must begin. We begin by celebrating that, as Christians, what holds us together is our common confession that Jesus Christ is Lord. Bound together by faith in Jesus Christ, we recognize that none of us has grasped the whole truth. The Apostle Paul, speaking of faith in his first letter to the Corinthian Church, says that what we now understand is like looking in a dark mirror. We can see something, but not everything. Somethings remain out of focus. “Love one another,” teaches Jesus. That includes our enemies, those who persecute us, and those who disagree with us. Those are the words of Jesus. Obedience is the mark of Christian character.

Joy,

Living In the Present Tense

“Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:34 (Common English Bible)       

            It is the practice of the Eskimos never to carry the day’s evil experiences, its troubles and its quarrels, over into the next day. Two Eskimo hunters might become engaged in a violent dispute over the division of the game which they had taken, and heated words might even bring them to blows, but once the sun had set and they had retired to sleep, all memory of the quarrel would be erased from their spirits, and the next day they would greet each other as brothers. If you were to exclaim in surprise: “But I thought you were enemies. You were fighting yesterday!” they would answer: “Ah, but that was yesterday and we live only today.”[i] That is living in the present tense!

            Mark Twain, with his characteristic humor, once commented that he has suffered many things most of which never happened. Doctors tell us that much of our anxiety, which often results in physical, emotional, and spiritual unease, is located in tomorrow, a preoccupation with fears of the future. Consequently, our fears of tomorrow rob us of the opportunity to live fully and abundantly today. Naturally, wise and reasonable decisions and personal behavior must shepherd us in the present day. Careless spending today will result in debt tomorrow. A word carelessly spoken or a relationship betrayed may negatively impact all of our tomorrows. Not all of us have been nurtured in the Eskimo culture!

            Jesus’ invitation in this teaching is to locate our hearts in God. Worry and anxiety is all about trying to avoid something, about trying to get away from something. The strain of worry is indicative that we don’t trust the future. Jesus asks that we approach life from another perspective. Rather than fleeing what we fear most, Jesus asks that we run toward God. As Augustine once said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”[ii] Jesus asks that we live in the present tense, free from the regrets of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow. That is possible after we have accepted God’s forgiveness for the past and trust in God’s care for the future.

            Thomas Long writes that there is a kind of worry about the coming day that is normal, even healthy. “Tomorrow’s chemistry test or job interview is bound to provide concern, and this command ‘stop worrying about tomorrow’ is not an invitation to finesse the exam or to waltz into the interview unprepared. Rather, it speaks to the deeper, more basic fear that something is out there in the future that can destroy our basic worth as a human being, something finally stronger than God’s care, some silent killer shark swimming toward us from the future.”[iii] Jesus asks that we cling to God in such a manner that we can affirm that whatever tomorrow brings, it also brings God.

Joy,

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[i] Clayton E. Williams, “Living Today Forever,” Best Sermons: 1955 Edition, edited by G. Paul Butler (New York, London & Toronto: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1955) 106.

[ii] Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville & London: Westminster John Know Press, 1997) 76.

[iii] Long, 76.

When Christ Knocks

The following meditation is from Doug Hood's book,

Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ.

“Look! I’m standing at the door and knocking.

If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to be with them,

and will have dinner with them, and they will have dinner with me.”

Revelation 3:20 (Common English Bible)

     There comes the moment for each of us when we can no longer deny our inner darkness and weakness, our deficiency against the common struggles of daily life and we become weary. Exhausted, we surrender our grasping to be in control, to be strong and without need for anyone, and we seek something else – a union with some strength and purpose beyond ourselves. This verse from Revelation comes to us at such moments. Here we are told that Jesus stands at the door and is ready to come in, if we allow it, and to take possession of our lives, to recreate our inner life and fill it with light and strength. As we stop grasping and are, rather, grasped by Jesus, we are gradually lifted by him, in spite of ourselves, and, from degree to degree, changed into the likeness of Christ.

     For this to proceed in our own life we must first recognize the knock of Jesus. How is that done? It may not be immediately recognizable. It may only be a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the movement of your life; a growing discomfort with the hopes, desires and ambitions that have fueled your daily decisions. Perhaps the knock is found in protest, deep in your heart, about what others are saying to you about this, or that, or another person, and you sense that all of it is wrong. Something stirs within you for another conversation, one that is nobler, more loving, and lovelier. It may even be the Christ-like manner you witness in another and find that you desire to share in that behavior. The knock may simply be an impulse, a nudge, a longing of the heart.

     But to recognize the knock is insufficient. It is inconceivable that anyone would hear a knock on the front door of their home and simply ignore it. To ignore an unsettled heart is just as inconceivable. A knock demands to be answered, the door opened. What stands on the other side may be refused but it must be acknowledged. For a disciple, the door is opened and Christ is admitted at once. There should be no postponement. A postponement weakens the spirit and may result in missing Christ altogether, Christ possibly never returning again. To welcome Christ is to learn of him, to listen deeply to what he teaches and then to obey all that we understand of him. It is to acknowledge that life without Christ was failing us and to utterly reject any notion of negotiating with what Christ demands.

     What remains is a promise. The person, who hears the knock, opens the door and admits Christ into the inner place of their life discovers a deep and abiding communion with him, “and (I) will have dinner with them, and they will have dinner with me.” This is a relationship with Christ that moves way beyond simple obedience. It is the richest and most intimate of relationships; a relationship where one heart deeply shapes the heart of another and two are like one. Christ becomes more than a savior. Christ becomes one who makes us a better person and shares the journey of life as a contemporary, providing life with a peace and joy and adequacy that is simply unavailable without him.

Joy,

A Real and Vital Faith

“Happy are people who have pure hearts, because they will see God.”

Matthew 5:8 (Common English Bible)

              Jesus teaches, “Happy are people who have pure hearts, because they will see God.” The “pure heart” is a faith that is “backed up by convictions, whose outward deeds match their inner commitments.”[i]  What Jesus is saying is that those who have “pure hearts” will have a faith that is real and vital. It is a faith experienced in the deep recesses of the heart, a faith that influences every moment of our lives. Such a faith confronts the God of the Holy Bible as an inescapable reality. Vagueness and doubt dissipates, senses become alert as though biting into something hot and spicy, and confidently we know that God is right in the midst of the present moment.  

This is not a faith that simply believes in God or has opinions about God. The church has multitudes of people who do that. It is one thing to recite the creeds of the church and utter words of belief, as almost all of us do. It is quite another thing to say, “God is in this place! I feel God’s presence.” That experience is like taking notice of a beautiful piece of art, imagination stirred by the rich use of colors or the complexity of brush strokes or standing on a beach watching a sunrise as if you had never seen one before. No one argues with a beautiful piece of art or with a sunrise. It is simply experienced.

              The critical difference is awareness. Consider a conversation I had some years ago in Pasadena, California. During my graduate studies there, I commented to a resident what a joy it is to wake each morning, pour a cup of coffee, and enjoy the beautiful mountain range. At that comment, my friend looked-up at the mountains, with no discernable emotion, and said, “After living here for a while, you no longer notice them.” My friend acknowledged the presence of the mountains but they were not real to him. He had lost his capacity to notice them and have them move him deeply by the beauty that they generously shared day after day. His heart was not pure. Rather, his heart, muddied by the multitude of the small and large things that occupied his thoughts, fell numb.

              Anything real to us results in emotional vividness. If such emotion is absent, we may question if we are paying attention, eyes wide open expecting the unexpected and anticipating wonder. Belief can be a profound matter, even courageous when such statement of belief may result in marginalization or persecution. However, often our beliefs lie at the surface of our lives, very present but lacking any meaningful impact on us. Perhaps attention to responsibility, to fulfilling daily tasks, or simply cynicism and exhaustion of the daily grind has narrowed our focus. Experiencing the uncommon in the ordinary requires a pure heart, that is, a heart released on occasion from the urgent tasks always before us, and open to the nuances of the present moment. It is what the Bible speaks of as stillness before God. Such a heart sees God in a child playing, in nature, in ordinary situations, and in opportunities to be useful to others. 

Joy,

            

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[i] Thomas G. Long, Matthew. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Know Press, 1997) 50.

When God Seems Distant

The following meditation is from Doug Hood's book,

Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ,

“I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38a (Common English Bible)

Tommy Lasorda, former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, tells about an experience he had in church. One Sunday he was in Cincinnati for a ball game against the Reds. That morning he went to early morning Mass and happened to see the Red’s manger there. They were old friends and sat beside each other during Mass. Afterward, the Red’s manager said, “Tommy, I’ll see you at the ballpark. I’m going to hang around a little.” Lasorda said that when he reached the door, he glanced back over his shoulder. He noticed that his friend was praying at the altar and lighting a candle. He said, “I thought about that for a few moments. Then, since we needed a win very badly, I doubled back and blew out his candle.”ⁱ Though misguided, what a powerful demonstration of faith in God’s presence and activity!

Countless people today long for that deep confidence in God’s presence and activity in their lives. God seems distant to them. They plod through each day, fearful, anxious, and burdened with uncertainty. Some may remember once having a close relationship with God but that was a long time ago. Prayers seem to never rise higher than the ceiling – and that is when we even feel like praying! The good news is that this is not an uncommon experience in the Christian faith. Just as people can grow apart in relationships with one another, so we can drift away from God. As Thomas Tewell once said to me, the difference is that in human relationships, both parties contribute to the distance. But, in a relationship with God, the reality is that we drift away from God. God never drifts away from us.

In those moments when God seems distant, what are we to do? Perhaps an experience I had this past week will help. My daughter, Rachael, is in Norway – a studio photographer for the Holland America Cruise Lines. It’s not uncommon for Rachael to work twelve and fourteen hour days. Wi-Fi is limited and with her long hours it is difficult to “connect” with her by telephone or by other means in real time. Just this week, Rachael reached-out to me via Facebook Messenger. She said that for a limited time she was available to receive a phone call from me and that she really would like me to call. Immediately, I moved something that was already on my calendar to another time and placed the call. Do you see what happened? Suddenly, my greatest desire was to speak with my daughter. To do so, I had to make the time.

We reconnect with God the same way. We move beyond our desire to be close with God and carve-out time from our busy lives to simply be still in God’s presence. We open the Bible and read expectantly, asking God to speak powerfully through the words that we read on the page. We learn from our reading more about God, about God’s good desires for us, and we learn what God requires of us. We spend time together with God. And we listen; we listen deeply in the silence following our reading to the hunches, the promptings, and the direction we sense from God. As we respond positively, the distance we once felt from God begins to close. 

Joy,  

____________________

i William R. Bouknight, The Authoritative Word: Preaching Truth In A Skeptical Age. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001) 30.

Why?

The following meditation is from Doug Hood's book,

Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ.

“We can’t find goodness anywhere.”

Psalm 4:6 (Common English Bible)

It would seem that the one who wrote these words has been paying attention to our daily news. After skimming the headlines of the morning paper or turning off the nightly news these seem to be our words; “We can’t find goodness anywhere.” A plane crash that kills everyone on board, religious extremist who take innocent lives, and violence in our cities – is any of that good? There are many who are weary; many who would ask, isn’t there anything good for us to see?

The mood here is one of desperation. This is a plea for someone, anyone, to show us something good – to point to the light in the darkness. And the darkness seems vast. Yet, though we may seek a pile of ready-made answers, the Bible does not provide them. Snappy answers or smooth arguments to the agonizing question of human experience are absent. All that remains is this plea before God.  But that is something. A plea before God is an affirmation of faith that there is God. There may be darkness in the world. But God is also in the world.

We may ask, “Why God would let something like this happen?” I received that very question this week in my email box. Yet, we must know that this is not the first time this question has been seriously raised. This is a question that stretches forward to us from the beginning of human sin. And there is our best clue to our question; human sin. All of humanity participates in a rebellion against God’s good purposes. It is that rebellion – both individual and corporate – that results in brokenness and hurt to others. The cross of Jesus is the central symbol of our faith because it reminds us that much happens in our world that is outside of God’s good desire for us. But God is in the world, and through the cross, seeks to reclaim this world stained and broken by sin

The God of love is not absent in this world filled with bad news. The cross demonstrates that God is right in the middle of it. More, the cross powerfully reminds us that even in the midst of our active rebellion, even while we are sinners, God dies for us. Who does that? Who dies for someone who is hurling their worst behavior at you? This Holy Week we are given that answer once again.

Joy,