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Recently, someone told me a heartbreaking story about someone they love deeply. The loved one has many problems and needs help but continues to refuse to see the issues and reach out for needed assistance. It pains us so to see our loved ones suffer and to feel powerless to be of help. We want to help but see no way to positively impact the situation.

My friend asked me, “What can I do?” What can we do? We can let the person know that s/he is loved. We can let the person know that we are available to help (if and when the time comes). We can pray for the person which certainly can help to soothe our pain. And we can take care of ourselves. We can cultivate our own health and well-being – spiritual and physical and economic. When we do this we make ourselves strong and courageous so that we can be helpful to others, so that we can offer ourselves in service, so that we can be co-creators with God and heal the earth.

Now, what does it mean to be healthy? Well, if I go by the Groupon ads that I get, it involves manicures, pedicures, liposuction, electrolysis, cosmetic surgery, hair treatments, and all manner of costly supposed beautification. Usually those things just mask our pain, our sense of loneliness, our lack of connection, our despair and denial, the absence of meaning. That’s hardly healthy.

In my opinion, health involves honest, mutually supportive relationships, spiritual practice or discipline, community, involvement in constructive service which betters the lives of others, regular exercise, healthy diet, connection to nature and Earth, productive work, engagement with the arts in some way. These things are all marks of health and taking care of ourselves in my view. What do you think it means to be healthy? What do you do to take care of yourself?

The point of self care is to keep ourselves ready and able and willing to serve to the best of our ability in ways that convey the love of God to the world. What can we do? We can take care of ourselves.

Lectionary readings for today:

Psalm 51:1-12
Exodus 30:1-10
Hebrews 4:14-5:4

Prayer: May we love ourselves as we hope to love others and show ourselves the care we wish for others. Amen.

Our creation myth tells us that God make the land and the sea, the night and the day, the stars and the planets, the plants and the animals, and then humans. Whew! It’s no wonder God needed a day of rest after all of that! Our story tells us that for one whole day, after everything was made, God rested. God did no work. God let creation carry on for one day.

The command is then given to humans to have one day of rest per week. One day out of seven humans are to do no work. We are to let the world carry on without our work for one day.

When is the last time you observed a Sabbath day? I know that for me, it has been a very long stretch. One day. With no work. No phone. No TV. No shopping in store or on line. No email. No Facebook. No errands. No cleaning. No paying bills. No mowing. No sweeping. One whole day.

In today’s world we see many the problems with this model. The world is different now. It is not practical. Patients in hospitals still need to be tended. Kids have activities. Elders need to be cared for. Our property and possessions need to be maintained. Our jobs take so much of our time we need to take care of other things when we are not at work.

Sabbath? A day of rest? One whole day a week? No, it’s not impossible. And, no, it’s not punishment. It is care. It is re-creation. We are called to be co-creators with God building the realm of justice and peace for all. It’s a taxing job. If God needs rest, then so do we. Lest we think we’re greater than God.

Our foundation myth tells us that the world could manage for one day without God; without the Creator, without the one keeping the planets in their courses. One day in seven. May Sabbath time be part of our Lenten discipline so that we can be faithful to our partnership with God.

Lectionary readings for today:

Psalm 51:1-12
Isaiah 30:15-18
Hebrews 4:1-13

Prayer: May we have the humility to rest. Amen.

My phone would not stop ringing on my computer. It’s not a typo. It’s what happened. My cell phone was ringing. The battery was low. I was working on my laptop and something popped up on my laptop screen indicating that I had a phone call and I could answer on my computer so I tried it. I was connected with the other party and we could see each other. But my laptop kept playing my phone ringer tune over and over. I tried everything I could think of on my laptop to stop it. No luck. Surely it would stop after a minute. No. After 5 minutes. No. After 15. No. The ringing just kept going and going. I turned off my phone completely. And my computer kept on ringing.

When I was finished with the call on my laptop, I called my daughter on my phone to find out how to prevent that problem in the future. She has a similar phone and laptop, so she is my tech consultant. She was in a coffee shop. I explained what happened. She was repeating it back to me. Somewhat in disbelief. Then she told me, “Mom, just a minute. A man here in the coffee shop is telling me about what went on with your phone.” She came back on and told me that it is a bug in the latest software update. It will be fixed in the next update. In the meantime, if it happens, hang up and call the person back. Then my phone/laptop won’t ring.

I thought this was amazing. A random stranger, over a thousand miles away, with no connection to the situation, and without being asked, constructively contributed to an understanding of my problem. Beautiful. This is how the world should work. People helping each other. Working together. Open to the needs around them. Constructively contributing.

But so often, this doesn’t happen because we are closed. We think we know what we need to know so don’t avail ourselves of new perspectives. We think it’s not our business so we don’t get involved. We decide our help is not wanted so we don’t offer. We cling to fixed ideas and are not open to new solutions or explanations.

If there is no opening, then peace cannot get in. Love cannot seep through. Justice cannot make any headway. Lent is a time to cultivate openness. To new possibilities. To new perspectives. To new approaches. To new futures. Maybe God is calling and the ringing won’t stop until there’s a connection.

Lectionary readings for today:

Psalm 107:1-16
Isaiah 60:15-22
John 8:12-20

Prayer: May we respond to God’s creative, constructive, connective universal love. Amen.

Amidst the shamrocks, corned beef and cabbage, leprechauns, and drinking, you may not hear much about St. Patrick on his feast day.

When he was a teen, living in Britain, Patrick was captured by pirates and taken as a slave to Ireland. There he was forced to tend sheep for six years. During that time, his faith in God grew and he felt that God led him to leave Ireland and return to Britain which he did. He was educated and trained to serve as a cleric in the church and then returned to Ireland voluntarily as a missionary to introduce the people there to Christianity.

While in Ireland, Patrick did not accept money from wealthy nobles or kings. Because of this, he was not under anyone’s protection. He did not want to be beholden to anyone. This made him extremely vulnerable. He was robbed, beaten and held captive. He certainly suffered for his service to the church in the name of Jesus Christ.

After learning more about St. Patrick, the feast day in his honor seems like it should be one of fasting and giving of alms rather than drinking and revelry.

How will you commemorate St. Patrick’s Day?

Lectionary readings for today:

Psalm 107:1-16
Numbers 20:1-13
1
Corinthians 10:6-13

A Prayer attributed to St. Patrick upon escaping an attack at Tara:

At Tara today in this fateful hour,
I place all heaven with its power,
and the sun with its brightness,
and the snow with its whiteness,
and fire with all the strength it hath,
and lightning with its rapid wrath,
and the winds with their swiftness along their path,
and the sea with its deepness,
and the rocks with their steepness,
and the earth with its starkness:
all these I place, by God’s almighty help and grace,
between myself and the powers of darkness.

From Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community, p. 350.

Many Christians believe that God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sin as human beings. The idea is that human beings are sinful. We cannot atone for that sin on our own. Nothing we can do is enough to make things right with God. So God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice that placates God for the sin of all humanity. Jesus pays the price that we cannot pay. And without that payment, humanity is consigned to eternal suffering and separation from God.

There are many problems with this construct. What about the story of Abraham and Isaac which is seen as God putting an end to human sacrifice? What about the testimony of the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures in which we are told that God does not want animal and grain sacrifices from humans but what God desires is our devotion to justice and compassion? What about the stories and teachings attributed to Jesus that completely undermine the image of God as an accountant or score keeper? And then there are all of the images and teachings that show us the generosity of God giving us far more than we could ever imagine. This just doesn’t seem like a God that would demand payment, compensation, restitution, or reparations.

In addition, this idea of paying God off must be mediated. If God needs to be appeased and Jesus made the sacrifice on our behalf this arrangement has to be overseen and implemented. Who is covered by this payment? How is it decided who qualifies to be saved under this arrangement? This gives the church an incredible amount of power. And the church is people. People who have to contend with self interest, and control issues, and the lure of power. This sacrifice for our sins concept has been used by the church to keep certain people within the good graces of God and to keep other people out of the good graces of God.

The payment for our sins arrangement is based on a God that is an account keeper. That has to be appeased. That wants the score settled. This system leads to people created in the image of that kind of God. People who keep accounts. People who expect to be appeased. People who want the score settled. That kind of model for humanity is absolutely at odds with the portrayal we have of Jesus in the New Testament and of God throughout the Bible.

God’s love is freely given and unconditional. We have only to accept it and let it have sway in our lives. And we will receive more that we could ever ask for or imagine.

Lectionary readings for today:

Psalm 107:1-16
Exodus 15:22-27
Hebrews 3:1-6

Prayer: May we accept that the Divine Love at the heart of reality has no strings attached. Amen.