Posts Tagged ‘Children’
Welcome Child – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
What were you arguing about? Jesus asked. Perhaps best scout for new outreach and lodging sites. Expert at crowd control. Food and goods purveyor. Scripture knowledge. Who is Jesus’ favorite. The greatest disciple.
Playful jostling can turn to comparing power and privilege, background, connection, and status. We wrestle and worry over: what am I worth? Am I enough? What do I have? What if Jesus asked you and me: What were you so anxious about?
Jesus said: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Servants were last, and the servant of all was the servant at the bottom with the least. This upends us seeking power, access, security, and more than we need.
Jesus “took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, and [Jesus] said to them ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’” Like servants, children had no status or power. Let go of ego. Don’t cling to gifts, abilities, or background. Read More
Joseph’s Yes – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
St. Joseph
We frequently remember Mary for saying “yes” to God’s invitation. Joseph also said “yes” though none of his words are recorded in scripture. His life is his word. Joseph’s actions speak loudly.
Joseph was a righteous man. Quiet Joseph resolved to do the right thing, to dismiss Mary quietly, to save her from disgrace. Then God told Joseph to do something different, to take Mary as his wife and name their child Jesus. Joseph listened and followed.
The righteous are attentive to listen, with a detachment and freedom to change their ideas—even, especially, of what they understand to be right—and being righteous means action, doing God’s will. Through the gospels, Jesus continually confronts those who cling tight to what they sense is right including who to eat with and how to worship.
When God spoke, Joseph listened and changed his plans. He took Mary as his wife. Later God told him to flee to Egypt with his family, and Joseph did. Further on, God told him to return to Galilee, and Joseph did. Read More
The Scripture of Your Life – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
Mark 7:24-30
This is a very old story. For more than 2,000 years people have heard this same Gospel story endlessly. Nothing changed. The same story. Quite boring, irrelevant… except for one thing. The only thing new or different is what’s going on for us, the hearers of the story. We, the hearer, are in a new space, like never before.
In our Rule of Life we say, “These hearts of ours are not empty vessels but inner worlds alive with images, memories, experiences and desires.”[i] God’s revelation to us will be a kind of synergy between what is going on with a very old scriptural story, and what is going on today in our own heart and imagination[ii]. And that creates a whole new story.
So we have Jesus in the region of Tyre, a town on the Mediterranean coast of southern Lebanon. A woman comes up to him. She is from Syrophoenicia, the Roman province of Syria. She is a long way from her homeland. Is she without a country? We don’t know. She may be without hope. She is certainly a person vulnerable and desperate or she would never, never alone have approached a man, a Jewish man, especially as she is a Gentile woman and a foreigner. Read More
Shamelessly Free – Br. Lain Wilson
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Malachi 3:13-4:2a
Luke 11:5-13
If you’ve been around children for more than about five minutes, I’m sure you’ve gotten frustrated. They interrupt and question when you just want to have a nice conversation. They run ahead, or behind, or zigzag, or sit down when you just want to have a nice walk. Think about that behavior. Now imagine yourself doing it. Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you think about what other people may think about your doing or asking? Name that uncomfortable emotion. Is it embarrassment or, perhaps, shame?
The word in our Gospel reading translated as “persistence” literally means “shamelessness.” Your friend knocks at the door late at night, and knocks, and keeps knocking, without regard for what you think about him. He needs something. Like a child, he is unashamed of his need, unashamed to ask, unashamed to persist.
Children appear in both our readings this morning, and imagining a particularly shameless child helps us to understand not only what it means to persist in prayer, as Jesus exhorts us, but to persevere in a relationship with God. God, Malachi tells us, will have compassion on those who serve God, as parents have compassion on “children who serve them” (Mal 3:17). I imagine this group not just as obedient children, but as shameless children, unembarrassed to revere God, unconcerned by what others, who see no profit in serving God, may think about them. This is the shamelessness of the psalmist, who persists in giving thanks to God despite those who mock him. This is the shamelessness of Saint Paul, who is unashamed of the Gospel (Rom 1:16).
This is difficult. We face enormous personal and social pressures to care about what others think, to conform, to grow up. But when we apply this to God, how easily we complicate our relationship with God. What childlike shamelessness gives us, I think, is single-minded freedom. Think back to that child. How would she express her need, how would she pray, how would she relate to God? Where do you feel resistance in doing likewise? What would it take for you to turn to God like her—unencumbered, unembarrassed, unashamed? Ask Jesus to give you that freedom—the freedom to ask, to search, to knock . . . the freedom to be shameless.
Amen.