Epiphany 6A "A Life Immersed in Grace"

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Emeril Lagasse.  Upon hearing his name some of you immediately thought of one of his famous sayings.  Either you saw the image of him tossing spices into a pot and saying, “BAM!” or you thought of “I’m gonna kick it up a little” or “I’m gonna kick it up a notch.”  There is the way the recipe is written, and then there is the way Emeril makes it.

When I read or hear the passages from the Sermon on the Mount, which we will hear more from next week, I have to force myself to remember two things that Jesus said in the passage you heard last week.  These teachings of Jesus are framed by the statements, “I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets” and “”Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees.” Meaning he’s come to kick it up a notch.  There is the way the Law is written, and then there is the way that Jesus calls us to live it.

The Greek word behind “fulfill” means to fill to the full, to complete, to bring to realization, or to accomplish. 

So Jesus is saying, “I have come to make the letter of the Law complete…to show you how it works in day to day.”

Because here’s the truth.  We are creatures of rationalization.  We love the loophole. What do I mean by the loophole?

There’s a light hearted jab that goes back and forth between Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians when it comes to fasting. It was something I learned during the couple of years I spent in the Orthodox Church.  During seasons of fasting, like Great Lent, Orthodox Christians refrain from All Meat, All Dairy, Eggs, Wine and Oil.  The joke is that the Greeks say “No wine means no alcohol at all; no oil means no olive oil but canola, corn, peanut, etc. are okay.”  But the Russians say, “No oil means no oil at all; but no wine means no wine, vodka, on the other hand…vodka is okay.”  

Rationalization sounds like this statement: “I quit smoking in June 1996 and I haven’t smoked a cigarette ever since.  That being said, I have been known to enjoy a cigar from time to time…but since I don’t inhale, I’m not really smoking, right?”

We are creatures of rationalization.  We are lovers of the loophole.  In these teachings Jesus says, “No more loopholes; stop rationalizing your behavior.”  

John Wesley challenged his societies and class meeting to live by Three Rules.  The first two fit this fairly well.  Wesley said, “First of all, do no harm. Secondly, do all the good you can to all the people you can, in all the ways that you can, as long as ever you can.”  

Do no harm is pretty easy for most of us.  Don’t hurt people.  Don’t rob, don’t murder, don’t rape.  For a great portion of the population those are easy.  Do no harm.  But when you add the second rule of do good, it takes it up a notch.  Don’t just refrain from harming others, do good deeds for people.  Do good deeds to all of them.  Do as much good as you can, and do it as frequently as you can.  See the difference between do no harm and do good?

So what Jesus says is, “don’t just be satisfied with not killing your neighbor who upsets you…don’t even be angry.  In fact, if you think you may have caused someone else to be upset with you, seek that person out and be reconciled.” 

Think about that one for just a minute. How many people do you think you may have made upset with you in a given day?  Depending on the person, it may not take much to make them upset.  Not actually stopping to see how they respond to the greeting, “How are you doing?”  That upsets some people.  Cutting people off in traffic, that upsets some people.  Having a cartload of groceries in the express line, that upsets some people.  Having a different opinion from someone is cause for making people mad anymore.  But when we think of anger, usually what we’re most concerned with are those we’re upset with, not those we may have harmed—intentionally or otherwise.

I had a parishioner come up to me once, because in a statement I had made in a small group study where I thought I was complimenting her faith walk, she was under the impression that I had mocked her.  I had no idea that I had hurt her feelings until she came to me, but I also wasn’t in place where I was thinking about whether what I said could cause pain to others.  How many of people out there have been harmed by our words, even if we didn’t mean it?

Ultimately what Jesus is teaching us, is that our outward actions are guided by what goes on in our hearts.  And just living in the realm of “I didn’t actually do the deed” doesn’t really cut it.  He addresses the contentious issues of his time, but I would say that there are other issues that could be included beyond just the “hot topics” of his day.  

One scholar points out, “By collapsing the distinction between thought and action, this extension of the law against adultery to include lust suggests that no one should be regarded as a sex object. The burden here is placed on the man: women are not responsible for enticing men into sexual misadventures.”*  The following references (of cutting off arms and gouging out eyes) “are hyperbole used by Jesus to emphasize the need for integrity of self in terms of the relationship between intent and action, between attitude and practice.”**

Other people, women or men, are not meant to be objects of sexuality, or objects of wrath, or objects to be conquered on our pathway to success. The more we objectify the easier it becomes to dehumanize, the easier it becomes to dismiss sacred worth.

Some colleagues of mine back in the U.S. were recently discussing on Facebook whether or not we could/should rank sins.  There were a variety of responses, as I’m sure there are a number of different thoughts happening right now about ranking sin.  I won’t ask you to raise your hands or identify one way or the other, so don’t worry. But what our discussion had me thinking about again was the idea of justification and rationalization.  I haven’t killed anyone…even though your anger may have reached a point of killing your relationship with that person or you are completely disinterested in seeking reconciliation with someone.  

One of my favorite passages from the gospels is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisee is living a life of comparative piety.  I am not like “those people”…whereas the Tax Collector is only aware of how much he is in need of mercy and grace.

In the end, perhaps this is exactly where Jesus is calling us to land, spiritually speaking: aware of how much we still need mercy and grace. One pastor says that Jesus “is not just giving moral commands. He is veiling a new way of being human.”***

 So there is some danger in taking what Jesus says here and making it into a new form legalism; after all, legalism just means more loopholes.  Jesus doesn’t want legalism, and he is even less interested in loopholes; he wants us to explore what living with love, and a life immersed in grace, looks like.

* Amy Jill Levine “Matthew,” in The Women’s Bible Commentary quoted by Marcia Y. Riggs in the Theological Perspective of Sixith Sunday after the Epiphany in Feasting on the Word.

** Marcia Y Riggs. “Theological Perspective: Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration.

*** Edwin Chr. Van Driel “Exegetical Perspective: Sixth Sunday after Epiphany.” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration.

Post Run Ponderings

I was walking home after finishing my run this morning and as I crossed a street a thought rolled through my head: "I miss the days of being able to run six or seven miles like it was no big deal."

A few months ago--close to six months ago now that I really think about it--we were living in Sasebo and if I said, "I'm going for a quick run" that meant I was going for a three-ish mile run.  Tuesday lunch runs were quick runs squeezed into a 90-minute lunch hour.  Normal runs were anywhere from four to six miles.  Long runs on the weekend were six to eight miles, occasionally longer.

Now I live in the 5k range on a regular basis and there are days where that reality just totally kicks my emotional ass.  Today was one of those days.

I was on the brink of saying, "I shouldn't even think of myself as a runner anymore" when my inner counselor told my inner sad sack to knock that shit off.

What is it about labels?  There was a time when I didn't consider myself "a runner." I was someone who had to run to meet certain physical standards to keep my job and be vital in my work and ministry, but "a runner?" Psh.  Not me!

Then one day I found out I really was "a runner" and it was liberating and kind of frightening all at the same time.  "When did I begin thinking of myself as 'a runner'?"

Of course, maybe I'm just a little too "in my own head."

But I realized that we do this thing with labels in other aspects of our lives as well.  I have seen in first hand in the church.  People hit spiritual rough spots and spend some time away from the church and if you ask them, they would not say they really don't identify with the label "Christian."

What I am learning as I get acclimatized to running in a new location is that I have to take each run as its own experience and its own gift: learn from it, and then get back out there again tomorrow.  The run may not be pretty, and I may not feel "unstoppable" as I suck wind and gasp through my bronchial issues, but it's a run.  Or, as I like to say on my daily mile posts, "at least I got miles."

One of my spiritual mentors once said, "There are times when the daily office will feel like sand in your mouth as you pray it, but by showing up you make yourself available to the Spirit."  That's why I keep lacing up, even when I don't know if it's going to be pretty, even though I'm not where I was one year ago.  By lacing up, I am making myself available to today's run, and today's lesson, what ever that may be.

A Holly Jolly Christmas?

In a Sunday school class, during a study of the book of Genesis, a member asked, “Why are we reading this?  These people are so messed up! Why are they even in the Bible?”  And, while it is true that the families in the book of Genesis are incredibly dysfunctional, their stories are important.  If the Bible was full of families with no issues, who had perfect lives, I’m not sure what we would have to relate to.  

And as I looked at the text for this Sunday, Matthew’s account of the mass murder of the male infants of Bethlehem, my first thought was to pull a Monty Python and shout, “Run Away! Run Away!”  Because why would we include a text like this in the days right after Christmas?  Maybe you’re wondering why in the world we’re dealing with this text, what place this text has in the Bible, or what it has to do with our Celebration of Christmas?  Aren’t we in the most wonderful time of the year, after all?

Of course there are plenty of theological reasons for this particular text: Matthew’s purpose of portraying Jesus as the “New Moses” hence the flight to Egypt and the calling forth from Egypt; Jesus is the new and final lawgiver says one scholar.  Jesus, like Moses, will be at odds with the political powers of his time; Moses at odds with Pharaoh, Jesus at odds with both Herod (father and son) and representatives of Caesar.  There is the meaning behind power striking out at perceived threats to that power, which is why Herod kills all the male children who might be the one boy born under the star.  Jesus’ birth isn’t received as Good News by everyone.  There are plenty of academic and theological reasons for us to have this text in front of us, but they don’t really deal with why this is an important reading shortly after Christmas.

So, why then did I not run screaming from this text?  I did not run screaming because there are plenty of folks who are in places of pain during the holidays.  For some of us, the holidays are simply reminders of what used to be, but isn’t any more, and that’s just plain painful.  Celebration is difficult if not downright impossible for those who are working through divorce, for those who are celebrating their first Christmas without a loved one, for those who are facing financial burdens or loss of a job during a time when so much emphasis is placed on buying the perfect gift (after all, every kiss begins with Kay, unless of course he went to Jerad).

There is a growing recognition among congregations that some folks struggle in the season between Thanksgiving and the beginning of the New Year. As a way of recognizing and responding to this struggle, a variety of “Longest Night” or “Blue Christmas” services have been offered.

Taylor Burton-Edwards, director of worship resources for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, said the movement has picked up steam in recent years — perhaps due in part to the economic downturn.

“Part of it is a recognition that both the culture and even the church, at this time of year, can tend to completely overlook suffering,” Burton-Edwards said. “Everybody is supposed to be cheery and happy and all of that, and yet that isn’t the case for some people.”*

This text that reminds us that it is okay to not be okay during the Christmas season.

“There is nothing sentimental about Matthew’s ‘Christmas story,’ however. It is set in the turbulence and terror of a violent history. Tyrants kill children, and families flee in the middle of the night…Matthew dares to see things as they are and still affirm that God is working, even in the worst that we can do.”**

The Christmas story is not about undefeated happiness entering our world.  The Christmas story is about God becoming wrapped in the fragile flesh that we ourselves are wrapped in and embodying, literally, the identity of Emmanuel.  And Emmanuel is God with us—in everything, in every moment.

Mike Yaconelli, was a pastor and minister to youth for forty-two years before losing his life in a traffic accident ten years ago.  He is the author of one of my favorite books, Messy Spirituality.  He says:

“Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God’s being present in the mess of our unfixedness. (emphasis mine).”***

As challenging as it may be for us to hear texts like this one from Matthew’s gospel on the heels of our candlelight celebrations of the birth of Jesus, this is an important text for us to hear, because the real gift of Christmas isn’t happiness or a Mr Clean Magic Eraser for all of our life’s pain and suffering—the gift of Christmas is not Our Best Life Now with perfect hair, perfect teeth, or perfect lives—the gift of Christmas is Emmanuel, God with us.

One church I served used to have a live Nativity in the days leading up to Christmas.  A member of the community would let us use her live animals, and members of the congregation would dress us as characters to create tableaus of the nativity.  One year, as I knelt there in the parking lot in the hay, dressed as a shepherd visiting the young adults dressed as Joseph and Mary, the wind was blowing and I was cold; I was painfully cold.  And then the goat in the stable began trying to eat Mary’s hair, and the donkey started biting at the wood of the stables back wall.  The blessed pastoral scene was falling to pieces as I knelt there.  I could see Mary losing patience with goat, the slapping of wood as the donkey pulled against the back wall over and over and over again was making us all crazy.  And that’s when it hit me…

Christmas is not perfect pastoral moments, sanitized Precious Moments figurines, Christmas is the nearness of God in seasons of messiness, in seasons of pain.  What makes this the ‘most wonderful time of the year’ is not our happiness in life that goes according to plan, but the presence and nearness of God as we hold our life in our hands and say, this is not what I had planned.

* http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/12/25/world/churches-offer-blue-christmas-for-those-in-need/

** R.Alan Culpepper, “Exegetical Perspective” of Matthew 2:13-23, Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.

*** Michael Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality. Zondervan, 2002, 2007.  22. 

Advent 3A: Are You For Real?

The phone call went something like this: “She’s a nice girl,” I said. “She says we’re soul mates.”  “You’re not soul mates,” said my friend. “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sure.”   A couple of years later, another phone call with my friend: “She dumped me,” I said. “I thought she was the one…I was fairly certain she was the one.”  By the way, this one, that I thought was the one, isn’t the one who said she was my soul mate.  The friend I was talking to, the one I was pouring my heart out to,  turns out she was The One.

There had been a long line of would be Messiahs, revolutionaries, and prophets before Jesus, the most famous and perhaps the most disheartening was Judas the Galilean.  Most of them preached liberation from Rome and the coming Kingdom of God (as a political and ethnic reality); all of them ended up imprisoned or dead.  The people were crying out for their soul mate to arrive; they were looking for The One who would finally set things right, but in each case they walked away thinking, “I thought he was the One…I was almost certain he was the One.”  And so John and his disciples look to Jesus as possibly being the One, but his actual signs look different from the signs they want, so they wrestle with these questions and bring them to Jesus: “Is he the One?” “Are you the One…the One we’ve been waiting for? The One we’ve been expecting? Or do we keep waiting?”  

And if you think about it, most of the people walking into churches these days are asking the same questions.  In the pluralistic world we live in, people are looking to have their questions answered.  Is Jesus The One?  As much as I am not a fan of the idea of a religious marketplace, we have to come to terms with the reality that people are looking for something that works as much as they are for something that feels right.  In the years I’ve spent leading congregations, so much of how we spend our time is marketing one congregation against another or one style of worship against another…and what we’re missing are the questions, the deep and searching questions, that people are bringing with them—even if they’ve been in the church for years—some of you probably have them today.  So many people are wondering if Jesus is the One that is worth giving up everything for, if he’s the one they’ve been waiting for.

Sometimes the questions about Jesus really being who he says don’t occur until a crisis, though.  When John sends the questions--something has changed.  Something has changed between the baptism of Jesus and now, when John begins asking questions.  Now John is in prison.  As one pastor says, “It’s easy to believe in God int he bright sunlight when all is joyful and free, but let the iron doors of difficulty slam shut, and doubt is there in the darkness. ‘Are you for real, Jesus?’ ‘Can religion matter in my case, in my condition, with my concerns, or has it reached the end of its usefulness?’”

I was talking with someone this week who said to me, “I wish I could believe in religion or God because then, at least, there would be something stable in my life.”  

These questions are real.  And, sometimes, these questions are a matter of life and death, a matter of clinging to hope rather than giving in to despair.

When the disciples of John come, asking those questions, listen to what Jesus has to say to John’s disciples.  “What do you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.”  Jesus invites John’s disciples, and us, to look at the way he is touching and changing lives, especially the lives of those who are on the margins.  Look for the proof; listen for the testimony of those who have been made whole.

My Christmas hope, my prayer, is that Jesus will be better reflected in my life each day in the coming year, that he will be more visible in your lives in the year to come.  My hope, my prayer, is that through the Church, Jesus will open more eyes, set free people who are paralyzed by guilt, shame, fear and sin, that more of the “poor” (in material, and in spirit) will experience good news.

Because, really, what do we come to Advent and Christmas hoping to see?  Do we come so we can stand at the manger and think, “Aww, look at the beautiful baby…so cute…so precious…”  Or do we come looking for the God who has come to proclaim that we are free, we are beloved, we, who were once no people, are now royalty.  

Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah one more time…the words that Jesus is referring to when he talks to the disciples of John:

1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 

3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." 

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 

8 A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

This message from Isaiah, that Jesus says he embodies, that I know he does! This is a message for the hurting and for the broken.  This is a message for people who are weary from carrying heavy burdens, for a people whose feet are blistered from burning sand and rough wilderness wanderings.  

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.  And the proof of Jesus being the one, is that those who have met him, and have allowed themselves to be known by him, they are free. Free to love and to be loved. Free to forgive and be forgiven.  We leap like a deer and our voices go up with shouts and songs of joy.  And not only is the proof in us—it’s in the ones we help get to freedom, in the ones we help to sing songs of joy, whose blistered feet we tend, whose parched thirst we allow to be quenched.  

Again, my hope, my prayer is that in the Church and through the Church, Jesus will open more eyes, heal more lives, may this be our prayer together. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

A post for Today...

Dear Friends, Family, Colleagues…

I have to stop being silent.  I have wrestled with "making a statement" but have finally come to the realization that silence truly is culpability.  It is all too easy to like someone else's status and call that standing in support. And I can't be quiet any more.

On Twitter I have been reading comments related to the hashtag "#reasonsIstay" - one which hit me very hard said, "I stay because I am a person NOT an issue." Another said, "I stay because: it is harder to call me 'incompatible' if you have a relationship with me."

I have contemplated walking away. Really, I have.  I have thought about moving over to any of the other inclusive "brands" of mainline churches, but as I recently told one friend, I just can't shake the Wesley in me.  I CHOSE to become United Methodist because I believe in how we do theology.   I believe in the "Three Simple Rules"-I believe in our "Duty of Constant Communion" - I love our officially unofficial Open Table.  I love what it means to be United Methodist.

So much so that I leaned on the "we have to keep the covenant until the covenant is changed" stance for a very long time.  I said, "We must work to change the rules, but until that happens, it is only right to abide by them."
Now I have a problem with that because too many people are being kept from participating in the covenant. My friends who are LGBTQ cannot enjoy the fullness of what it means to be United Methodist because our covenant prevents them from the fullness of the ministries of the Church.  To keep the covenant is no longer just.  

(And part of what it means to be United Methodist is to know that we are founded-as a church--on Ecclesiastical disobedience.what else does one call a priest who ordains others without being given the authority? Especially considering that those ordinations happened to include "identified revolutionaries" in the full ministries of the Church.)

I do not believe that sexual identity is a choice.  I do not believe that my friends who identify as LGBTQ are making a "lifestyle choice."  I do not believe that their identity is a sin.

I do believe that heaping guilt and shame upon a person based on biology that cannot be changed is a sin, though.  And I believe that all the time I have spent sitting in "silent support" is a sin, and I repent.

Please forgive me for being silent.   I cannot, I will not, be silent any more.  For those of you who make a choice to "de-friend" me or "unfollow" me because of this, and as much as I don't want that, I accept that.   I am sure that for some of you this will be a surprise, maybe even a disappointment; others not so much. 

But please know that this is not a debate.  This is not a dialogue.  This is where I stand.

"That's What Dreams Are Made Of…"

You know the song. It starts out with this great uplifting synth keyboard riff.  If you were lucky enough to see the music video when MTV actually still played music videos, you may remember that the Blue Angels were featured fairly prominently.  That's right, we're talking Van Halen's (or Van Hagar depending on how you felt about the group…) "Dreams" off of 5150.

Back in the early 90s--when MTV was still playing music videos--I had this wild dream of being a DJ. Now please understand that when I wanted to be a DJ it wasn't the person in dance clubs spinning mixes of thumping bumping twerkable music.  I'm talking about wanting to be the person in the booth, behind the glass, with headphones and stack of records at my disposal to blast out over the airwaves.

Maybe I have to blame Christian Slater and Pump Up the Volume for planting this seed of a dream in my heart or maybe I can trace it all the way back to WKRP in Cincinnati.  I certainly have to give props to all the great DJs (and VJs) I've heard over the years on so many radio stations: KGB_FM and 91x in San Diego, KXGO on the North Coast of California (Hey, Burly Man!)  Regardless of where the seed came from the seed was planted.

Maybe you also remember, before our music files were digitized, the phenomenon of the Mix Tape.  Mix Tapes came from a variety of sources, our own music selections, tape to tape dubbing or vinyl to tape dubbing, or there were the excruciating hours spent sitting in front of the stereo listening to the local radio station, waiting for THE SONG to play so you could capture it on tape.  If you made mix tapes, you also know that there were the tapes you made for yourself and then there were the tapes you made for other people; as in, "significant other" other people.  There was no greater sign of devotion than spending hours and hours creating the perfect mix of music for the one you love.

("This one goes out to the one I love…")

All of this brings me to the "point" of this whole little bit of writing. 

When I was still nurturing my dream of being a DJ, when mix tapes were still a thing, there was the series of mix tapes called "KDnT Presents: The Dan & Thom Show." This series of tapes were created by my brother and I across the miles of my first tour in the Navy.  This series of tapes helped me keep the dream alive and it introduced me to new music via my brother's collection before the days of Pandora and now iTunes Radio.

It was fun blending songs and editing intros and outros.  I also learned something very important.  Our lives have a soundtrack.  If you think I'm crazy, listen to a song from 20 or 30 years ago, if you are old enough to do that, and wait for the memories to start bubbling up.  I won't say they are good memories, because they won't all be good.  But there are memories connected to music, and all the music we have heard makes up the soundtrack to our lives.

I don't make mix tapes any more--I'm not even sure if you can get cassettes anymore--but the dream lives on.  Maybe now it will get expressed through podcasting--depending on music rights and all that interesting copyright stuff.  But for now there is the dream, and there is all the music on YouTube, and there is my Google+ profile (and "This Is My Jam") where I get to let my life's soundtrack get blasted into the 'verse.

Party on Wayne!

Keeping the Hours

The Twitter account for the Episcopal Church recently offered the following:

“Watch over those who work while others sleeps, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends on each other’s toil.”

As one who lives on the other side of the International Dateline from most of my family, friends, and colleagues, I found this prayer very comforting and inclusive.  Usually, I get tad lonely when Renovare, Weavings, or other spiritual formation accounts send out prayers of the daily office because it reminds me of how many Twitter accounts cater to the “other hemisphere.”  As if the silence my social networking sites offer in my afternoon and evening isn’t isolating enough, I have prayers of the day coming through at the wrong hours for me.

I’m not whining, nor am I asking for special favors of scheduled tweets to help me mark the divine hours…I do very well with my prayer books, thank you.

What I am offering is a reflection on a broader vision of what it means to pray for those who work while others sleep and remembering that our common life depends on each other’s toil.

I have prayed similar prayers on board ship at evening prayer “watch with those who work or watch or weep this night.”  It is an important reminder to ship’s company that while some of us “rack out,” others are steering the course, keeping the ship from running aground or colliding with another vessel or being attacked.  So much is going on while we sleep.

This prayer makes so much sense for military folks, or when we remember that while we slumber in our homes there are members of the police department patrolling our cities, or standing ready to respond from the stations.  There are nurses checking up on sleeping patients in hospitals, EMTs responding to emergencies.  Clerks at 24 hour convenience stores and gas stations.  While we sleep (if we have a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job) there is so much going on that keeps our communities going.  There are laborers in factories making our stuff. 

Our common life, people keep it going at all hours.

And while you sleep in the “other hemisphere” there are soldiers and Sailors and Marines and airmen in my hemisphere who keep that watch in a different way.  (Along with all of the folks in manufacturing plants in small corners of the world toiling over the tiny little gizmos that make our tech toys that help us stay connected.) Likewise, while all of us in “this hemisphere” sleep, you take care of us.

And now I am reminded of a lyric by U2: “We get to carry each other.”  While some of us sleep, others pray the morning office, and some of us are praying compline while others are praying the dawn office…and while some of us pray to the Triune God, others are contemplating the teachings of Buddha, and others are just trying to live in a way that proves “kindness is magic” (thank you Derek).

Regardless of which time zone or hemisphere, regardless of spirituality, we depend on one another for a decent common life.  So thank you @iamepiscopalian for honoring me with your prayer, for prompting me reflect on how we get to carry each other.  May we live in such a way that we are the answer to our prayers.