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Religious

A Christian’s Strength

“I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:13 (Common English Bible)

What is so remarkable about these words is that they are spoken by a man in chains. Paul is a prisoner in Rome. In a life dedicated to serving Christ, Paul has endured much – shipwreck, ridicule, hunger, and excruciating poverty. Now he sits in a Roman prison and writes that whatever the circumstances, Paul has learned the secret of inner strength and contentment. Perhaps even more remarkable, Paul lays aside his own needs and concerns to write a deeply personal letter to the Philippians to encourage them in their faith. Despite his imprisonment and impending trial, Paul’s one desire is to share with the church in Philippi that joy and strength does not come from outward circumstances but from an intimate relationship with Jesus. That power is so tremendous and so available that Paul feels he can face anything knowing that nothing can diminish his spirit. His spirit was invulnerable. Paul wants the Philippians to utilize that same power.

The interesting thing about the New Testament is that we find that same power animating most of the early Christians. A profession of faith in Jesus usually pushed people to the margins of their communities. Families were torn apart – mothers and daughters, fathers and sons no longer in relationship with one another because one or the other decided to become a follower of Jesus. Worship services were conducted in secret and often disrupted by Jewish leaders eager to destroy the Jesus movement. The worst tortures that could be imagined were invented and performed to discourage participation in the new Christian faith. There was every reason for ignoring the swelling growth of the Christian Church, keeping your head down and simply avoiding trouble. Yet, for all the compelling reasons to remain separate from those following Jesus, men and women who risked believing in Jesus made one dominating impression wherever they went, the impression of uncommon power.

That power has not been withdrawn. It is not a closely guarded secret. Where men and women continue to take Christ’s attitude of loving others and serving others that same power is unmistakable. What is troubling is that few would say that the Church today impresses the world with the same power as it once did. Somehow those who claim discipleship to Jesus Christ show little evidence of a changed life, a life of uncommon power. Absent in many Christians today is a sense of adequacy for meeting challenge and adversity. Membership and attendance decline of the Christian Church has been tracked and documented for many years now. This has resulted is the publication of resources to perfect the church’s hospitality, increase the vitality of its worship, and harness the power of technology. However valuable these may be, the most urgent need is for followers of Jesus Christ to get back to that power which is possessed by the daily nurture of a personal fellowship with Jesus.

Return for a moment to the first two words above, “I can.” Some years ago I was working with a personal trainer, Michael Bishop. One particular day he had me on my back, bench pressing what seemed to be an incredible weight for me. After pushing the bar above my head several times I did a controlled drop of the bar to my chest. I was depleted. I delivered an eye message to him to remove the bar from my chest. I will never forget his response, “That’s not my bar. You place it back on the upright supports.” Then he did what his training taught him to do. He placed his hands around the bar with my own. That was simply to ensure that I didn’t hurt myself. But the lifting belonged to me. I pushed with everything in me; I summoned all the power I could to lift the bar back onto the supports. As my strength began to fail, he matched the loss of my strength with his own until the bar had returned to rest on the support. Paul writes, “I can, through the power who gives me strength.” If you are depressed or in trouble say, “I can in Him” and you will find God’s strength come alongside your own. If you struggle with passions or addictions that frighten you, or if you feel that you are losing your grip on life, say, “I can in Him” and you will discover an unseen hand on the bar with your own, matching your strength. The Christian’s strength begins with, “I can.”

Joy,

The above meditation was taken from Dr. Doug Hood’s new book, Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ, volume 2, coming to your favorite online book seller in early September.
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Religious

The Fear of Insignificance

“Jesus told them, ‘When you pray, say:

“Father, uphold the holiness of your name. Bring in your kingdom.”’”

Luke 11:2 (Common English Bible)

Whether anything happens in prayer largely depends upon what kind of person we are. Many of us want to live a life of significance – a life that impacts our world in a large or small way. Such a life is rarely achieved without preparation, hard work, and the perseverance to move forward in the midst of challenges and difficulties. The road to significance is often hard. Yet, to recall a well-spoken line of wisdom from a movie some years ago, A League of Their Own, “It’s the hard that makes it great!” The question is one of orientation. Some seek to define for themselves what significance looks like and then to move toward that vision. Others seek to know God’s will and then move toward that.

Regardless of our beginning place – fashioning our own desired future or seeking God’s future for us – we want to take full advantage of the years we are given on this earth. Robert Cohn, a character in Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, comments to his friend, “ ‘Listen Jake,’ he leaned forward on the bar. ‘Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?’”[1] Urgency has grasped Robert Cohn. Urgency grasps us. Looking back we make a judgment, an evaluation of where we have come. Life is going by and the question presses, “Are we taking full advantage of it? Are we making a difference?”

If we are the kind of person that lives as we please, as we have fashioned our future, our aspirations, our will, the prayers we make will lack power. Prayers are rarely made unless our plans get into a snarl. That is the occasion we pray. We ask God to get us out of it, God reduced to our celestial office assistant. Then we move forward with our own small plans. We remain unchanged. Ignoring God for a long time until our plans become jammed-up is little different from a grasping child. The child asks the parent for unreasonable and selfish things. The parent may give what the child asks on occasion when it seems there is no other way to communicate love. But, as the child matures, parents help the child to think reasonably.

Those who seek to find God’s mind and will experience greater power in prayer. Principally, such persons pray because they love God and God’s will. Prayer is a communion between two who seek increasingly to know the other, to please the other. We pay close attention to a spouse or a dear friend to learn of them, to know what they like and dislike. Then we turn the orientation of our life over to causing the other joy. Loving and caring for the other is not separated from life. It becomes our way of life. In the final analysis, prayer implies a conversion, a new orientation to live not solely for oneself but for the other. It is a decision to turn our wills over to the will of God. There, our lives find their significance.

Joy,

[1] Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (New York, NY: Scribner Classics, 1954) 18.

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Religious

The Sound of God

“After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord wasn’t in the fire.

After the fire, there was a sound. Thin. Quiet.”

1 Kings 19:12 (Common English Bible)

My first trip into Washington D.C. was in 1988, attending the College of Preachers located in the National Cathedral. Driving into the city my eyes fell upon the Pentagon – something I had previously seen only in pictures. Looming large out the right side of my windshield, the impressive structure accomplished the intention of the architect – communicate the presence of the most powerful military force in the world. Though I am proud to be a U.S. citizen, I am a Christian first. And this military center of our nation represented values contrary to the purposes of Christ. A chill gripped me and I was momentarily shaken. Not because our nation had a military force. Even Israel has such a force to protect its freedoms. I was shaken by the enormity of its power.

I prayed – eyes wide open, watching the highway that stretched out in front of me. My prayer wasn’t clear. My head wasn’t clear. I simply didn’t know how to process the unsettledness tumbling within. My father served proudly in the U.S. Navy, as did my father-in-law. Regularly I thank women and men who are in the military or who have served. I thank them for their sacrifice, their service. My prayers for our troops mark my daily prayers. Yet, I was shaken, uncomfortable with the large footprint of our nation’s military might. My prayer was not uncommon. Many times I have inquired of God how to pray. I am troubled by this and that and simply do not know how to pray. “Lord, what do I do with this fear, this uneasiness within?”

I turned off of the highway and onto a surface street, navigating my way to the National Cathedral. My speed reduced along a beautifully landscaped avenue, I noticed a public park, also out the right side of my windshield. This pleasant, bucolic escape from my anxiety was welcomed. This park now occupied the space that was once filled with the enormity of the Pentagon building. The churning, troubled spirit within remained but no longer at the same intensity, no longer causing a death grip on the innocent steering wheel of my car. My prayer continued, thanking God for the change of view from the driver’s seat, thanking God that my unsettledness was easing, though only a little.

Traffic dropped my speed to a crawl. More time could safely be given to gazing at the park. Suddenly, God’s hand was on my shoulder. Located in the same trajectory as the Pentagon from my driver’s seat was a park bench. Seated on the bench was a young woman – approximately my age – in prayer. In her hand was a rosary – a helpful prayer tool used by Roman Catholics. In that moment I was calm, all unsettledness now dissipated. Of the two images – the Pentagon and the exercise of prayer – I was quite certain in which of the two real power dwelt. Each day you and I must choose between the clamor of human strength and power and the silent consecration to God in prayer, between the world’s display of self-assurance and the thin, quiet presence of God.

Joy,

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Religious

A Call to Prayer

“Early in the morning, well before sunrise, Jesus rose and went to a deserted place where he could be alone in prayer.”

Mark 1:35 (Common English Bible)

My grandmother kept a large, white, faux leather cover Bible prominently in her home – usually on a coffee table, though she would occasionally move it about her home as though it was a traveling exhibit. Embossed into the cover was a full color picture of Jesus kneeling by a great rock in the wilderness. Each time my eyes fell upon that Bible I felt as though it was a call to prayer. The face of Jesus was not anxious, not desperate as my own on those occasions I did pray. His face portrayed a confidence, a radiance one has in the company of loved ones who care deeply about us.  Absent was worry, or doubt, or any trace of anxiety that threaten to consume. Yes, a call to prayer was evident in this picture of Jesus. However, that call made me uncomfortable – uncomfortable because I would experience a lack of spiritual power. With the disciples, I heard my own heart say, “Lord, teach us to pray like that.”

In this scripture, Jesus had just finished a hard, demanding day. Another day of similar demands stretched before him. How could Jesus be ready for it? Mark’s Gospel gives us the answer and with it an important insight to Jesus’ power, “Early in the morning, well before sunrise, Jesus rose and went to a deserted place where he could be alone in prayer.” Jesus was intentional with prayer. Jesus wove into the fabric of each day a time to be alone with God. Jesus regarded this time a vital part of the human experience, however one may attempt to define or understand prayer. Prayer was an opportunity to link his life with the purposes of God and cultivate a friendship with God. This friendship produced the confidence that Jesus would not face any of life’s demands alone. That would be the source of Jesus’ spiritual power.

My lack of spiritual power as a child was from an inadequate view of prayer. I had reduced prayer to those occasions when I would ask God for a favor or for help with a difficulty. Consequently, days without prayer would pass – I simply did not have any request to make of God. Yet, as I matured, I continued to pay attention to that picture on my grandmother’s Bible, that picture of Jesus at prayer. It grew upon my consciousness that prayer is the same as time spent with a friend or loved one. I may not have anything to ask of my friend but I did enjoy their company. I felt valued by them, loved by them, strengthen because of their friendship. The same happens with prayer. A strong hand upon the shoulder, a confidence to face each day swelling within. Power comes as we find ourselves surrounded by God’s love, and guidance, and strength.   

With this refreshing surge of power that flows from regular time in prayer it is very strange then that we should be content with so little prayer. The weakest, most fearful individual can experience greater strength by the regular rhythm of prayer each day. As this passage of scripture demonstrates, prayer each day for Jesus was as ordinary as enjoying a meal. Jesus prayed often. Jesus prayed for himself and for others. Jesus prayed when he faced a crisis and Jesus prayed simply to be alone with God. Jesus urged his disciples to pray and Jesus taught prayer by example. What the disciples discovered is that regular prayer did not only sustain Jesus’ ministry, it gave direction. Immediately after Jesus rose from prayer this particular morning, Jesus knew what he must do that day. He was not to return to the previous day’s work. Jesus was to head in the other direction. God had new work for him there.         

Joy,

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Religious

When Faith Is Not Enough

The following meditation is from Doug Hood’s upcoming book, Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ, vol. 2.

“My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say that they have faith but do nothing to show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it?”

James 2:14

Someone once declared that promised prayer has no power, only practiced prayer. That same observation can be applied to faith; profession of faith has no power, only practiced faith. Evidence of this unfolded one Sunday morning during my graduate studies. Sitting in a Sunday school class for young adults at the North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a young man asked permission to address the class. His intention was to make a simple observation and ask the class for help. Then the instructor would proceed to teach the lesson he had prepared for the morning. Yet, the young man’s comment became the lesson for that day.

This man began his comments by sharing that some years earlier he made a profession of faith in Jesus as his personal Lord and was baptized in that church. But, he was a graduate student, busy with not only the demanding rigor of his studies, but also working a part-time job to help sustain him as a student. Then, there was also this girl. He was “madly in love with her” as he put it and that, naturally, required some of his attention and time. In the economy of a twenty-four hour day, there simply was no time remaining for the regular reading of the Bible and prayer.

Now, this man has found himself in the middle of a weighty life crisis, one that was causing him to unravel. He turned to his faith. It was then he made a comment that has shaped my own understanding of faith, something that has given more texture, and depth, and color to my own relationship to Jesus than anything I found in the classroom. “I turned to my faith and found that I had done nothing with my faith and now my faith could do nothing for me.” Then, a long lingering silence draped the room. Wisdom of such depth rarely can be met with words. The instructor then, with a deliberate and careful movement, placed his lesson upon an empty chair and asked, “What can we do for you?”

The only help the student asked for was accountability. “Beginning today, I am no longer neglecting my faith. Hold me accountable. Call me each day and ask what I have read in the Bible and how I am responding. What I need more than anything at this moment is a faith that will sustain me. Hold me accountable. I cannot move forward without God.” Here was a young man who discovered the profound truth that merely professing faith in Jesus lacked power. Vital, life-giving faith that sustains us requires practice. This is precisely what James would have us hear, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?”

Joy,

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Religious

Does Prayer Work?

The following meditation is from Doug Hood’s upcoming book, Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ, vol. 2.

“While Peter was held in prison, the church offered earnest prayer to God for him. The night before Herod was going to bring Peter’s case forward, Peter was asleep between two soldiers and bound with two chains, with soldiers guarding the prison entrance.”

Acts 12:5, 6 (Common English Bible)

Albert Einstein once said that to continue to do something in the same way and to expect different results is the definition of insanity. I suspect the difficulty so many people have with prayer is that it doesn’t seem to work – at least not to their expectations. To continue to practice prayer with apparent little effect leads to discouragement and disillusionment. Eventually, they draw the same conclusion as Einstein – continuing to do something the same way and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. An English author once wrote of his prayers to God at an early age. He prayed hard for something to happen. It didn’t. Concluding that prayer doesn’t work he offered one final prayer, “All right, Mr. God. I won’t bother you again.”

That English author’s story is often our story. We pray for something to happen. It doesn’t. We stop trying. Perhaps we are not as blunt with God as the English author but that is what happens. Some of us may persist at prayer longer than another, praying always in the same manner, “God, please heal my friend,” or “God, help me with my finances,” or “God, give back to the Miami Dolphins a winning season,” and nothing happens. The friend doesn’t get better, finances remain a difficulty, and the Miami Dolphins repeat another losing season. The result is that we quietly stop praying. Why bother God any further? The problem is we have misunderstood Einstein. He doesn’t suggest we stop trying. Einstein is telling us to try another approach.

A recent episode of Law & Order presents a family torn apart by a husband and father who abandoned his family. He simply doesn’t want the responsibility a family will demand. The son grows up to be a professional baseball player who is quite good with a handsome salary. The father reenters the son’s life with excuses for why he abandoned the family. They are, naturally, unconvincing. Yet, the son is grateful to have a father in his life. Grateful, that is, until the son learns that the father has a gambling problem and needs rather large sums of money to cover gambling debts. In a heart-wrenching series of events we learn that the father is too busy to accept an invitation to the son’s home for dinner and to meet his daughter-in-law and grandchild, too busy to attend one of his son’s ballgames, too busy to remember his son’s birthday. Yet, the father is never too busy to “drop-in” on his son for a handout to cover gambling debts.

Often, that is our approach to God. Our lives are simply too busy to spend time with God in any meaningful manner. Nevertheless, we find the time to “drop-in” on God when we have a need. The disciple, Peter, shows us another approach. Peter has been arrested and placed in prison. Herod had James put to death and Peter knows that this is Herod’s intention again. Placed in chains and guarded by sixteen soldiers, Peter goes to sleep. How can anyone sleep when there is a death sentence on his or her head? Peter can. That is because he has lived so deeply into a relationship with Jesus that nothing frightens him anymore. Peter is changed by an approach to prayer that is more about growing intimate with God than receiving anything. Prayer’s ultimate goal is to lead us into the presence of God where we are changed. It is then we find peace, even when chained in a prison cell.

Joy,

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Religious

The Plain and Simple Gospel

The following meditation is from Doug Hood’s upcoming book, Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ, vol. 2.

“‘Come, follow me,’ he said, ‘and I’ll show you how to fish for people.'”

Matthew 4:19 (Common English Bible)

We are all living a deeply entangled, complex life. As complexity increases, so does our exhaustion. We run faster, master complex planning calendars that were designed to make life less cumbersome, and come to the end of many days feeling that we have been defeated. Present is a growing nostalgia for a simpler world – a desire for a plainer, clearer path forward. This general desire includes the spiritual realm. The hope is that the church would provide a rediscovery of God, a reclaiming of God’s strength for daily living, and direction for a larger purpose for which we may attach our lives. Unfortunately, what many find are cumbersome requirements for membership and multiple invitations to serve on committees that multiple our exhaustion. With church participation we discover that there are now more oars in the water that requires our attention.

How can we return to a simpler time? Jesus is instructive. Notice that Jesus does not invite people to register for a six-week member class. Jesus does not make committee assignments. Jesus does not examine doctrinal purity or demand conformity to creedal statements. Jesus quite simply asks that we follow him. To follow Jesus is to share life with Jesus in the fullest sense: to go where he goes, to listen to what he taught, and to participate in practices and disciplines that were important to him. An invitation to follow is the suggestion that there is something of value to be found. Naturally, to accept such an invitation begins with an acknowledgement that the present life isn’t working anymore. Unless we really believe that another approach to life is required, we will continue trying to make the present one work.

The one other thing that Jesus asks is a posture of humility, a desire to learn, and willingness to participate in Jesus’ work: “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” All the work of Jesus is about one thing – looking for those who have wandered far from God and bringing them back home to the Father. As with any great work, there are multiple functions that must be accomplished. None of us are asked – or equipped – to do them all. Some of us are to be teachers, some will show hospitality, and others will be administrators, caregivers, and evangelists. Others will provide care and comfort to the broken. The various jobs to be done are many. But one goal remains: “to fish for people” that they may return to God. Jesus will show us the way.

None of this suggests that boards and committees are without value to Jesus. Leadership boards must be populated with those who have demonstrated the capacity to respond to the promptings of God, to show people where Jesus is moving and call them to follow. Committees provide a responsible means for organizing a great work force for accomplishing all that Jesus seeks to do in a particular community. But, in this over complicated world, the church must not add unnecessary complexity to the simple call of Jesus to follow him and to participate with him in his grand redemptive purposes: a cup of cold water to the thirsty, a helping hand on the roadside, an encouraging word softly spoken. There are will within our reach. Nor are we called to carry the whole world on our backs. Our chief function is to point to the one who does, Jesus Christ. That is the Gospel, plain and simple.

Joy,

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Religious

Once Upon a Time in Denmark …

The following meditation is written by Doug Hood’s son, Nathanael Hood, a seminary student at Princeton Theological Seminary.

“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:7, 8(NRSV)

There once was a man from Denmark who told a story about a mighty king. The king, said the Dane, was the mightiest in the world. No other prince or leader, knight or peasant dared oppose his will. He clothed his body with rich jewels and lavish robes, and whenever he toured his kingdom he rode in a royal carriage with an armed escort. The king wanted for nothing—no earthly good or luxury escaped him. Yet the king, the Dane explained, was lonely. Then one day, he fell in love. But not with a queen or princess of a faraway kingdom. Not a rich merchant or skilled artist. The king fell in love with a poor maiden from an even poorer village.

Now, the king knew he could have anything he wanted. There were none with his wealth, none with his power, none with his strength in battle or conflict. Yet his love left him paralyzed with uncertainty. If he arrived in her village with his rich jewels, his lavish robes, his royal carriage and armed escort, the maiden would surely accept his hand. But would it be for love or fear? Would she spend her life resenting or hating him for giving her no choice? What if she only agreed to marry him because she wanted his wealth, his power, his palace? Yes, the Dane sighed, he could never truly know her love if he came to her as a king. So this threw off his finery and abandoned his entourage. He clothed himself in rags and went to her village alone. It was there, as a powerless, penniless beggar, that he managed to woo the maiden and win her heart.

Cherish Christ

This story was told hundreds of years ago by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, a man whose name tends to glaze over the eyes of laypeople who know nothing about him other than his notoriety as a Philosopher with a capital “P.” But Kierkegaard was one of the oddest philosophers of his age, a gloomy, death-obsessed man who juxtaposed the increasing secularization of Europe’s intelligentsia with a fervent yet unusual faith. He passionately loved Jesus yet passionately detested organized religion, particularly the Danish church of his day and age. In the above parable of “The King and the Maiden” he provides a bold explanation for one of the central scandals of Christianity: God’s choosing to be born human and live and die as one. For Kierkegaard, it was only by approaching humanity as a “beggar” that God could truly win its love and devotion. If God had demanded fealty of all creation—not just God’s covenant people the Jews—as a conquering king, it would require fearful surrender instead of joyful acceptance. Only by exercising free will could humanity establish a relationship with God that truly mattered.

But there’s a different reading to this story, one that Kierkegaard perhaps didn’t intend. What if humanity—with all its egotism and excess, selfishness and pride—is the king and Christ the maiden? We certainly see this idea reflected in the story of Paul, a dogmatic Pharisee who abandoned his fundamentalist insistence on rules and regulations after an encounter with Jesus. After finding Christ, he cast off all his wealth and love of legalism for a closer, truer relationship with God. Everything he once held dear in his life he “regarded as rubbish” after his conversion, casting them off as Kierkegaard’s king did his wealth and finery to court his beloved maiden. So too must we all reassess and reevaluate what we cherish in our own lives. Is our quest for wealth and power keeping us from loving our neighbors as we do ourselves? Is our desire for material luxuries or sex preventing us from living the kind of simple, righteous lives Jesus called us to? Are we too busy living as kings to remember that we’ve been called to live as beloved children of the Almighty?

Joy,

Categories
Religious

Not Waiting for Happiness

The following meditation is from Doug Hood’s upcoming book, Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ, vol. 2

“I’m not saying this because I need anything, for I have learned how to be content in any circumstance. I know the experience of being in need and of having more than enough; I have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:11-13 (Common English Bible)

Have you noticed how many people have delayed their happiness? They seem to believe that if they can achieve a little more success, acquire a little more wealth, or marry the right person then they will possess happiness. Happiness, they believe, is what follows effort, and time, and, perhaps, a little luck. It is as though happiness is somewhere out in front of everyone who is industrious enough to pursue it. Happiness is something to grasp, they believe, and their minds remain fixed upon it until they have taken ownership of it. Striving day upon day toward the possession of happiness, what they miss is that the secret of happiness is already present in the lives of those who long for it.

Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church provides the secret of happiness – as God’s people, we are to live in humility, looking out for others more than for ourselves. That is a great reversal of the commonly accepted formula for happiness. Essentially, Paul teaches that if we are always chasing after happiness, happiness always remains beyond our grasp. On the other hand, if we occupy ourselves with looking out for others, adding value to other people and promoting their welfare, happiness quietly joins God’s people and takes-up residence in them. Paul is urging God’s people to break free of the tiny little world of themselves and join the great enterprise of God’s work in the world.

Here, in the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church, Paul further develops the secret to happiness. Having shared the secret of happiness, disclosed in the activity of Jesus who accepted humility to become like us, for the purposes of restoring us to God, Paul points to a mysterious strength that converges in our service to one another. That strength comes not from any person – or from the community of God’s people – but from the outside. It is God’s strength. There is far more going on when God’s people join with one another for the promotion of the welfare of others. The same Christ who became human to serve now empowers and enables God’s people in their service to one another.

Shortly following the death of his wife, J. R. Carmichael entered a nursing home. Yet, if you inquired about him, you learned that he is never in his room. It seems that each morning Mr. Carmichael would shower, dress, eat breakfast, and then move from one residential room to another. In each room, Mr. Carmichael spoke with the resident about their family, read the Bible to them, prayed with them, and told them that he loved them. Then it was off to the next room to do the same thing. Mr. Carmichael missed his wife every day but he never waited for happiness. Happiness found him, as he loved others deeply.

 Joy,

Categories
Religious

Leavening Faith

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood’s son, Nathanael Hood,

a seminary student at Princeton Theological Seminary

And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?

It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”  Luke 13:20, 21 (English Standard Version)

For the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic, I lived in a part of Brooklyn near one of the worst viral hotspots in the entire country. Not too far from my apartment were hospitals that had to bring refrigerated trucks in to store the bodies of pandemic victims because they were literally running out of space to put them. The entire city shut down and was ordered to shelter in place. These were some of the hardest months of my life, not only because I knew I was risking it every time I went out for essentials like groceries and medicine, but because I found myself unemployed after barely a week of quarantine. With no job and nowhere to go other than my phone for distraction, time began to lose its meaning. Every day and every week was just like the one before. With no end in sight, my emotions began spinning out of control.

But then my roommate made a suggestion: let’s make a sourdough starter. To make one, all you need is flour and water. You soak some flour, let it sit somewhere stuffy overnight, add more flour and water the next day, and repeat the process until you have a richly sour and runny paste you can use as leaven to make bread with. It sounds easy, but it isn’t. Any number of things can wreck a starter: using the wrong amount of water or flour, exposing it to too much oxygen, exposing it to too little oxygen, letting it get too hot or too cold, not “feeding” it with fresh flour on schedule, and many more. The point is, making a starter required a level of attention and discipline that cut through the fog of my boredom and despair. It gave me a purpose to set my alarm every morning.

 One of the most controversial of Jesus’ parables is when he compares the Kingdom of God to yeast—or more accurately sourdough starter in the text’s original cultural context. In addition to being one of Jesus’ shortest parables, it’s also one of his most obscure. Scholars have spent millennia trying to parse out what exactly he meant. Some argue it means that a little faith can transform an individual life or whole community. Others suggest that we Christians are the yeast and we’re called to “leaven” the world around us. And still others point out that in typical fashion Jesus inverts something perceived as negative in ancient Israel—while crucial to baking, leaven was frequently viewed back then as something potentially putrid and rotten—into something positive that inherits the Kingdom.

 

But as someone who has now dabbled in amateur baking, I see this parable differently. Note that “three measures” of flour in ancient Israel would be roughly equivalent to forty to sixty pounds. Whoever this woman is, she’s preparing a feast. But before she can feed the masses, she must first make enough leaven, a process that must’ve taken literal weeks, if not months, of patient, diligent work. Our walk with God is no different. It too takes tireless commitment and effort for it to properly ferment into something we can use. Regular worship, Bible study, personal reflection…these are all tools we can use to work the flour of our faith into the living water of God (John 4:10). Only then, after the work has been done, can we find a faith we can use to leaven both ourselves and others. And the results, like my first sourdough loaf in Brooklyn, will be delicious.

Joy,