Catch God on the Whisper (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

There's an old joke that keeps hanging around about a man stranded in a flood. Some of the details have changed over the decades, but it is essentially this:

As flood waters began to rise around a man's house, people in a row boat came by and implored the homeowner to climb in. The man refused, saying, "I've prayed about this. God will save me." The row boat moved on. Next, as the rising waters forced the man to the second story of his home, people in a motorboat came by and implored the man to climb in. The man refused, repeating, "I've prayed about this. God will save me." The motorboat moved on. As the flood waters continued their inexorable rise, the man was forced out onto his roof. While he clung to the chimney, a helicopter came and hovered above the man. They implored him to climb up the rope ladder to safety. As he had done twice before, the man again said, "I've prayed about this. God will save me." The helicopter moved on. Soon the flood overtook the man and swept him to his death.

Upon arriving in Heaven, the man demanded an audience with God. At the meeting, the man, recounting that he had placed his faith in God to save him, demanded to know why God allowed him to drown. In response, God said, "I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat, and helicopter. What more did you expect?"

-=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=- -=*=-

To be fair, any of us, weighed down with real problems, can lose the ability to recognize when actual help has arrived. It's almost endemic to the human condition. Consider the man in this week's Lectionary selection from John 5. Having been disabled for decades, he has joined many others who await a miraculous healing in the waters of Bethesda. Notice how he never answers when Jesus asks, "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:6 NRSV). The guy can only talk about missed opportunities, not having anyone to help him with his problem, and how others seem to get all the breaks. The solution to his problem (Jesus) is right in front of him, but he is looking beyond, to something more complicated, perhaps something grander. In this case, Jesus took immediate action, not waiting for the man's perceptions to catch up.

But what do we do in our lives?

Some years ago, Oprah was invited to make the Commencement address at Wellesley College. In part, she recounted the experience of the Prophet Elijah on the Mountain of the Lord (1Kings 19). At first, there is a wind so strong it breaks the rocks on the mountainside (think hurricane). But God is not in the mighty wind. Next, there is an devastating earthquake that shakes the mountain. But God is not in the earthquake. This is followed by a powerful fire that sweeps across the mountainside. But God is not in the fire. Finally, Elijah hears "a still, small voice," a whisper. And there, in the whisper, is God.

Oprah went on to exhort the graduates to not wait for, nor expect, the grand spectacles, but rather, "to catch God on the whisper."

I thought it was a lovely way to launch those young women out onto the rest of their lives. And I think it's excellent advice for any of us. Why should we need the miraculous? Why not just tune our senses to perceive God's original, and simplest, approach? We don't need to skip the rowboat, the motorboat, and the helicopter while awaiting something grander. There is no need to look beyond what may appear to be just ordinary circumstance. Consider what (and who) is right in front you.

Catch God on the whisper.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 1, 2016)
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

First reading
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm
Psalm 67
Second reading
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
Gospel
John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9

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Please join us for Lectionary Breakfast Friday morning. We meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. The hour we meet includes breakfasts we order from the menu, scriptures we read aloud, and unfettered discussion. We say what we think and we grow from listening to each other. Nothing fancy.

We're all hoping to "catch God on the whisper."

Enjoy your week!
Steve

The Monster Words (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

"Monsters, stay out of this room!
You have no business here.
N0 monsters under the bed!
You can't fit under there.
No monsters hiding in the closet!
It's too small in there.
No monsters outside of the windows!
You can't hold on out there.
No vampires, no werewolves, no things that bite.
You have no business here.
Nothing will touch you, or hurt you, all this night.
You have no business here."

-------- Stephen King's Cujo


The "monster words" are what Vic (the father) chants at bedtime so Tad (his very young son) will stop worrying about the monsters he believes are in his closet. It's a loving thing for a father to do.

If he believes the evil is not real.

When Vic needs to go on a business trip, he writes the incantation down on a piece of paper so Donna (the mother) can read it to Tad while Vic is gone. Eventually, Tad begins carrying the folded piece of paper in his pocket. He touches it whenever he feels afraid. Doing that gives him a little relief.

Of course, being a Stephen King novel, Cujo delivers a lot for Tad to fear. And I don't think I'm giving anything away when I tell you that the "monster words" are not wholly successful as the talisman against evil Tad wants them to be.

The same is true for us.

In Jacqueline Bussie's book, Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the Rules, she plows right into our tendency to use our own "monster words" to shield us from the harsh realities of our lives. Sure, there are times of joy and wonderment. But there are also times when things are so bad we wish we could "explain away evil and suffering with a theo-magical slight of hand."

When faced with betrayal, suffering, fear, terror, and death (ours or anyone else's), we armor ourselves with the "marshmallow armor" of religious platitudes, pious clichés, scriptures taken out of context, misquoted and/or misapplied theology: our monster words. We draw temporary (and truly unsatisfactory) relief from just having them near; being able to speak them into any terrible event.

When asked for whom her book was written, Bussie said, "If you are a person who has ever loved someone, lost them, and then heard the hidden question why blacksmith your heart so hard it felt like your ears bled, this book was written with you at heart."

If you are struggling with such hard things, then you may find some (true) relief in knowing that others are, too. Whether we can admit it or not, we all struggle with realigning our old ways of thinking with the dynamic new ways we are called to by Jesus.

Witness the "circumcised believers" in this week's Lectionary selection from Acts. They cannot seem to move past the requirements of the Law. After Peter returns from preaching to and baptizing Cornelius and his household (none of whom were Jewish), these "circumcised believers" interrogate Peter, saying, "Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?!"

You can read the story, yourself, and you should. The point is well made by Peter, and it's one we need to roll forward into our own faith-walk: when God points us in another direction, we can faithfully move in that direction. We are not enslaved to the old ways just because they are the comfort zone. In fact, if there's an ultimate point to the Book of Acts, it is that God is doing something new, something true and authentic, something that does not hide from the bad parts of life.

In real life, we are rarely removed from the hard bits. We must go through them. We don't need "monster words" on which to rely. We have the Holy Spirit and the promise that, regardless of how bad it gets, God is in it with us.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fifth Sunday of Easter (April 24, 2016)
First reading
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm
Psalm 148
Second reading
Revelation 21:1-6
Gospel
John 13:31-35
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Join us Friday mornings? We still meet at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. Lectionary Breakfast starts at 8:00 and is an hour when a lot of truth is spoken.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

"It's only a milkshake." (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Some quotes become staples of life advice. For example, "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (Mahatma Gandhi), "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game" (Babe Ruth), and "Never pay full price for late pizza" (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

Often, when someone speaks or writes a quote, the very words are noteworthy; they remain illuminated in the mind long after the moment when they were heard or read. But there's nothing special about the words in the title quote, above. Standing alone like that, there is no particular import, no life-changing impact, no world-enhancing philosophy in them. Milkshakes, for the most part, are not momentous. Most of the things people say in this life, even the quotable stuff, must be understood in a context. And that is the case with the milkshake quote.

Fans of the TV show, Mad Men, likely recognized it, immediately. In the scene, a young woman is sitting in a restaurant with a man and his three children. While roughhousing, one of the kids knocks over a milkshake which begins to rapidly spread across the table. Everyone at the table appears horrified and frightened ... except the young woman. She gathers some napkins and kindly says, "It's OK. It's only a milkshake." *

As the last syllable of "milkshake" is still wafting through the air, the faces of the man and his children undergo a startling transformation; horror and fright become stunned wonder and a kind of hope-filled awe.

All of this comes at a watershed moment in the series, one of those pivot points where, to understand the full impact of the words, the viewer must have seen all the story that has gone before. Even describing the scene cannot convey its full meaning. Without the preceding four seasons, the viewer cannot fully understand and appreciate the true value of the words the young woman speaks, nor why they make such a powerful impact on the man and his children.

That brings us to this week's Lectionary reading from the Gospel of John. When pressed by the leaders of the Jews to "...tell us plainly" whether he is the Messiah, Jesus responds, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me...." Jesus is telling them that he has been revealing himself for the entire three years of His ministry. No mere words, at this point, are going to convey the full and correct answer to their question. They have ignored all that has gone before, not understanding that He has been communicating with them through his actions and through his words; that, taken together, the two form the answer to their question.

Jesus could give them a direct answer. But like the milkshake quote, His words could not be understood without all that has gone before. What they would carry away from the conversation would be, at best, a superficial understanding. They wanted to segment Jesus, separate his words from his deeds, remove him from the context of His story, and then judge Him based on what they perceived as blasphemous statements.

Sometimes, a milkshake is just a milkshake. But sometimes, when it comes at the end of a long line of words and actions, it transforms into hope and wonder right before our eyes.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fourth Sunday of Easter (April 17, 2016)
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

First reading
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm
Psalm 23
Second reading
Revelation 7:9-17
Gospel
John 10:22-30
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We're gathering Friday mornings at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for Lectionary Breakfast, which is just a fancy way of saying we're going to talk about the Bible while we eat breakfast. We start at 8:00, and we enjoy an hour of discussion about one or more of the week's Lectionary passages. And we laugh. A lot.

But if you want a milkshake, you'll have to bring your own.

Enjoy the week!
Steve
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* "It's OK. It's only a milkshake."
Character: Megan Calvet
Madmen
Season 4, Episode 13: "Tomorrowland"
First aired October 17, 2010

A Satin Pillow in the Armory (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

My mother slept on a satin pillow.

Mama was one of six children born to a stay-at-home mother and a father who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. Grandaddy's paycheck didn't go very far, since he wasted a lot of it on drink and "riotous living" (to borrow from the King James).

The short of it: there was little money for the family. In the early years, they lived in one of the hovels that fronted on the train yard. Granddaddy could walk to work, but that's about all you could say in favor of the arrangement.

The arrival of the Great Depression did nothing to improve the situation.

Having grown up with little, my mother became motivated at a very young age to have something of her own, to gather enough resources to run her own life. And that meant having a paying job.

Mom went to work at age 11. She worked through the balance of her school years, and left high school one credit shy of graduation so she could work. That paycheck was important to her. It meant a kind of freedom, an independence, an assurance of not having to return to deprivation.

And that brings us to the satin pillow.

It was part of her regimen. Each working day, my mother rose from her bed to go do "battle" in a world run by men. Having started in a job only filled by women, she worked for years to improve her position in the company. Being savvy, she could see that management was the path upward.

In those days, for women, such jobs were rare.

But she persevered. A part of that was diligence, hard work, good work; but a big part of that, as anyone in management can tell you, is looking the part.

My mother had a standing, weekly appointment at the "Beauty Shop." It was more than just hair in those days. I think we might say "spa," today. In any case, this was where a significant part of her "look" was accomplished. Part of the way she maintained that look between appointments was to sleep on a satin pillow. Somehow, that pillow surface helped her maintain that all important coiffure from one Monday to the next.

My mother was focused. She had a plan. And she used everything at her disposal to pursue her objective . . . even going so far as to rest her head each night on a satin pillow.

But, here's the thing; though she achieved some successes in her career, she never believed she had "arrived," never came to a point where she felt it was time to "rest on her laurels." She continued to pursue her objective of ever improving accomplishment, continued moving in the direction of her goal.

In this week's Lectionary scriptures, Paul's letter to the Philippians sets the same example for us in the pursuit of our relationship with the Lord. We must press on. We must not assume we have "arrived." Sure, our "battle armor" differs from what my mother used to pursue her career. But, like her, we are to bring every bit of ourselves to the process.

We are expected to actively pursue spiritual maturity, pressing on until the day we are finally told, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fifth Sunday in Lent (March 13, 2016)
First reading
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm
Psalm 126
Second reading
Philippians 3:4b-14
Gospel
John 12:1-8
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Each week, we have an opportunity to visit with friends at Lectionary Breakfast. It's an hour that fills us with some of what we need so we can keep "pressing on" our spiritual journey. Join us Friday mornings at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant. We start at 8:00. There's food, God's word, and fellowship well sprinkled with guffaws 😇

Enjoy your week!
Steve

The Coming Bad Years (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Except for some narrow aisles, every cubic inch of my neighbor's garage was packed. The floor-to-ceiling shelving held such necessities as barrels and boxes of dried foods, bottles of water, vitamins, first aid kits, over-the-counter medicines, camp stoves, cots, and toilet paper.

What brought us to this impromptu garage tour was a question I had asked him just minutes earlier. Glancing over my fence, I had asked, "Hey Dave, why are you plowing up your back yard?" The answer, which in retrospect seemed obvious, was "To plant corn, a grape arbor, and other fruits and vegetables to supplement the dried foods."

You can see, now, how one thing led to another.

Eventually, I got around to asking what this was all about. Dave, a serious guy, a scientist in fact, studied me for a few moments, and then stepped into a corner of the garage. He handed out a well-thumbed paperback copy of Howard Ruff's How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years. "Here," he said. "You need to read this."

I read it. The book was filled with lots of convincing information supporting Mr. Ruff's contention that we were on the cusp of a global meltdown. Not the end of civilization, exactly, but close enough that we would all want to have our garages filled with survival necessities ... at least until order was restored.

The year was 1982.

As you no doubt have noticed, we're still here. Sure, there were some bad years. Those were followed by some good years. And those were followed by some bad ones. Our local, state, national, and global economies have been up and they've been down, but none of them has been out. Now, I'm not downplaying the very real possibility of economic bad times. I, too, believe in being prepared. I just have a somewhat different definition of "prepared" than my neighbor did.

But he did get something right.

My neighbor was employing the "Joseph Model" of preparedness: store up during the fat years because the lean years are coming. It's the model we use when we add to our savings accounts, when we invest some of our paychecks so we can retire someday, when we lay in a supply of tissues in preparation for allergy season. When you've got it, save some of it. It worked for Joseph and it will work for anyone who can do the same.

Elsewhere in scripture, we learn that for four decades God provided the daily needs of the Israelites, and Manna was the central nutrient. Five days a week, they arose each morning and gathered the coming day's bread, and it had to be eaten that day. On the sixth day, they received a double portion so they could prepare the meals for the Sabbath before sundown.

Then, one day, it came to a full stop.

In this week's Lectionary selection from Joshua, we learn that "The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year" (Joshua 5:12 NRSV). On the very day they no longer had need of it, God's provision of Manna ended. But don't misunderstand this scripture: God's provision did not end, just the provision of Manna. When God brought them into the abundant harvest awaiting them in the Promised Land, there was no longer a need for Manna.

My neighbor was not wrong to stockpile in his attempt to ensure the safety and security of his family. His actions did not indicate a lack of faith. Out of his abundance, he set aside what he thought would be needed. And even though society did not come apart at the seams, Dave's storehouse may have supported his family through a personal crisis. He was being prudent based on the information he had available. Joseph would approve.

God provided the Manna, and God provided the abundance of the Promised Land. We don't always need "miracle food." Usually, we just need to recognize that God is providing and not get too hung up on the source. And if, in abundant times, we set aside some of the abundance to get ready for leaner times ... well, that's in the Bible, too.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Fourth Sunday in Lent (March 6, 2016)
First reading
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm
Psalm 32
Second reading
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Gospel
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
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We have abundance every Friday morning at Lectionary Breakfast. Can you carve out an hour to meet with us at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant? We start at 8:00 and spend the next hour enjoying abundant food, abundant fellowship, abundant spiritual food for scripture, and, quite often, an overabundance of laughter.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

A Moveable Feast (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

In 1956, after the better part of three decades, Ernest Hemingway finally found his treasure.

According to A. E. Hotchner, Hemingway's friend and biographer, the two of them had been invited to lunch at the Paris Ritz by the Hotel's Chairman, Charley Ritz. While they ate, Ritz wondered if Hemingway knew he had a trunk stored in the hotel's basement, noting that it had been there since 1930. Hemingway was both surprised and pleased by the news. His friend, Louis Vuitton, had specially made that trunk for Hemingway in the 1920's, but the writer had lost track of it.

After lunch, Ritz had the trunk brought up to his office. Hemingway sifted through clothes, menus, receipts, memos, hunting and fishing paraphernalia, skiing equipment, racing forms, and correspondence. Then, at the bottom, he found the treasure: two stacks of notebooks, the kind school children used in the 1920's.

The notebooks were filled with his commentary on the places, the people, and the events of his life during his time in Paris. He had lived in near poverty in 1920's Paris, but he had known the people whose ideas and artistic expressions changed the world of "the lost generation." Among those described in his commentaries were F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Aleister Crowley, to name only a few.

If you want to get a sense of this heady period, watch the film, Midnight in Paris.

Hemingway eventually had his notebooks transcribed and then organized them into a book entitled, A Moveable Feast. The book was his memoir of those years and those people as he knew them. The title of the book comes from a comment Hemingway made to a friend n 1950: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast."

After carefully preserving his thoughts, writing almost daily his observations of his life and those who shared it, Hemingway lost them all. He searched for those notebooks for years, decades.

This week's Lectionary scriptures are about a different kind of moveable feast. Using such phrases as "delight yourselves in rich food (Isaiah 55:2)," and "My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast (Psalm 63:5)," this week's scriptures capture the reality of eating the spiritual food God has prepared for us. We are enjoined to not lose our way; to not partake of the "same spiritual food" and the "same spiritual drink" as the Israelites in the wilderness (I Corinthians 10:3-4) while yet forgetting their true source. And finally, we are warned of the perils of not producing our portion of that moveable feast in the parable of the fruitless fig tree (Luke 13:6-9).

Hemingway lost his moveable feast for a time. And then one day, as with most lost things, he found them right where he had left them. Our moveable feast is right where it's been all our lives. We need only return to it.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/
Third Sunday in Lent (February 28, 2016)
First reading
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm
Psalm 63:1-8
Second reading
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Gospel
Luke 13:1-9
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Join us for a feast Friday mornings at Lectionary Breakfast. As usual, we meet at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant at 8:00 for an hour like no other. We feast on food, we feast on God's word, and we feast on fellowship. And when we leave, part of those feasts moves with us, out into the day, the week, and the lives of those we meet.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

Strike While the Iron is Hot (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

We were walking through the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum when I realized I had no idea what "strike while the iron is hot" actually meant.

The Permian Basin is a sizable chunk of west Texas that used to be under an ocean. Hence the "basin" part of the name. That ocean was there during the Permian period, a portion of the Paleolithic era occurring from about 280 to 230 million years ago. It's a geologic gem.

But for today's purposes: it's oil country, a landscape dotted with drilling rigs and pump jacks. And it's an ideal location for a museum dedicated to the history of petroleum and the industry that sprang up around it.

Before that moment of revelation, my understanding of "strike while the iron is hot" was equivalent to "make hay while the sun shines." Yours too, probably. I thought it was a call to quickly take action, to end the waiting, to "get cracking!" And I thought that action was this: using a hot iron to hit something.

You can imagine what I thought every time I passed an ironing board as a child.

What changed my mind that day was one of the dioramas in the museum. There before us were a couple of men looking at the glowing end of a long piece of iron drilling pipe. One of the men was holding something like a sledge hammer. The recording that started up as we approached explained what we were seeing. In the early days of oil exploration, the part of the iron shaft that did the actual cutting (the drill bit) had to be shaped by hand, so to speak.

In other words, they had to heat up the iron until the drill bit end of it could be beaten with the hammer, shaped so it would actually cut through earth and rock. They could only do this when the heat had softened the iron to the point that it was malleable. They had to strike it, repeatedly, with the sledge until the desired shape was achieved. Without this process, the iron was not useful for getting oil out of the ground.

And there was a time factor to consider. Once the heat was removed, the iron started to cool. The cooler it was, the less malleable it was, and the less useful to the desired purpose. So, they had to strike it while the iron was hot.

If you've never read Max Lucado's On the Anvil, I recommend it. He compares us to implements in God's workshop. Some of the implements are off in a corner, cold and of little use. Some of the implements are near at hand, well within reach, available. And some are on the anvil, hot, glowing, and ready to be shaped to a useful purpose by the smithy of creation.

The next time you hear the phrase, "strike while the iron is hot," consider that you may be the iron. And when you do, think on Psalm 27, one of this week's Lectionary scriptures, and particularly: "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!" (Psalm 27:14 NRSV)

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Second Sunday in Lent (February 21, 2016)
First reading
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm
Psalm 27
Second reading
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Gospel
Luke 13:31-35 or Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

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We're still in the beginning of our six weeks of Lent. Join us Friday mornings at Lectionary Breakfast. We take a fresh look at familiar scriptures and prepare our hearts for the coming of Easter. We still meet at 8:00 at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant for an hour like to no other. Strike while the iron is hot.

Enjoy the week!
Steve