Your Light Shines

I liked to walk in the rain, being out in the rain was soothing, I was out in the world, a part of it, but also finding solitude. I have struggled most of my life with depression. In seminary, I was struggling with everything, especially wondering about my place in the world and if I was 'good enough.' One time I was out walking, and there was a tree that I would sometimes sit under to try to relax and slow down. It was raining so not a lot of people were around, they were inside staying dry. That evening, I poured my heart out to God, telling them how things didn't seem to be going well, how I felt inadequate, and my struggles. I don't know how long I did that but I was sobbing at the end. All of a sudden, I heard a twig snap behind me like someone was behind me and felt a presence. My head looked up and it had stopped raining and everything was perfectly still, no rain, no cars, no people. I felt all the emotions just drain away from me in that moment and I felt, really felt the peace that passes all understanding. It was amazing!! Amazing!!

The next couple weeks, I imagine my eyes were spinning and popping out of my head and I was telling everyone this great peace that I experienced. After a while it kind of faded, and my worries and all that came back. I had forgotten about it after a while, because it didn't last and all my problems didn't melt away.

We had a short story today and if you picked up the Bible and continued to read the story, you would hear that Jesus and the three would come down the mountain and find that the rest were struggling to heal a child and Jesus gets frustrated with them because of their unbelief and inability to help people. Jesus before this story tells them that he is the Messiah and that the Messiah has to be killed. Peter is like, "No Way! This is not the way." Jesus replies, "You are wrong Peter, this is the Way!"

Up on that mountain, Jesus is talking with Moses and Elijah, who represented the history of God's relationship with Israel. Peter, James, and John are there to represent the future of the church. The cloud descends on them, reminding all of when Moses led the people out of Egypt and slavery and God's presence descended on the Mount Sinai, the Ark of the Covenant, and out in the wilderness. A voice, God's voice speaks out, "This is my beloved! Listen to him!" And then, the disciples are alone with Jesus and it's time to descend and go back to the world.

You are loved! You are loved! What is our reaction to when you are told that? Some of us will respond with bravado, "Dang right I am loved!" believe we are entitled to the love, but scared that it can be lost. Some of us will respond with, "Yea, well, maybe, but you don't know..." thinking we aren't worthy or enough. Some of us will smile and maybe respond that I am love, all are loved, because we can trust in that and believe in that even when things aren't perfect, especially when they aren't perfect.

I have tried to get that peace that passes all understanding back. I have found it in small doses and in small ways, but the Spirit blows where it will. But as God tells the disciples, breathing in that peace, that mountaintop isn't our goal. My calling was not to sit under that tree. Peter, James, and John wanted to stay on that mountain, but were led away from it. Our goal is to listen and follow. It is to heal and love. It is to find our people, our community, and go together to transform the world. We start with our hearts, our minds, our souls, and our bodies, loving God, loving neighbors, and loving ourselves. We open ourselves to God's light by being still at times, then we set out to share it with the world. Amen.

Nothing Outside Contaminates

First we start with the human traditions, not all of humanity, but Western civilization under the Doctrine of Discovery that basically states that any European explorer (especially from countries that were still Roman Catholic) coming upon any land and people that weren't Christian were able to claim the land and people in the name of their king and country. This created human traditions of enslavement and taking what isn't theirs which is still happening today in Sudan with diamonds, the Congo with lithium, and Palestine with natural gas. We continue to the 1980's were the wealthy were given massive tax cuts and the unions were routinely broken up and laws were put in place to make it very hard to create one in the 'Right to Work' states. Our human traditions have created once again a wealthy class that if they lost 90% of their wealth, they would still be the most wealthy people in the world. It probably started with philosopher Francis Bacon who helped begin th...

Selling Out

Last Fall, I read a book called, "A History of Burning." It is a multi-generational story about a family that migrates from India to Uganda for hopes for a better future to help the British build a railroad, whose children through education secures a government job, but then Uganda throws off their colonial oppressors and gains independence and turns against the Indians who live there, and they have to migrate again and start all over in Toronto, Canada. It is a sad story of colonial power of the British Empire bringing in foreign cheap labor to build their infrastructure that leaves out the local population. And once Uganda gets independence, the corporations still control much of the economy and fosters division between the Ugandans and Indian to keep the country unstable. It is a triumphant story of human determination in the face of adversity, but only a few make it. One of the first paragraphs in a Wikipedia search about Africa told me that Africa is politically unstab...

You Will Be My Witnesses

The first time I served communion as a licensed minister in Fargo, ND, I picked up the tray of cups and proclaimed, "This is the cup of the new covenant!" And then I remembered we serve the bread first, panicked, and said, "Which comes after the bread!" The next time, months later, I served communion, I took the cover off the communion cups, and the altar table was stone, and I timed it perfectly, and purely accidentally, so the cover spun on the table, and you would hear it go, "whew, whew, whew" faster and faster. Sitting near the front was a couple that worked closely with me in the youth groups, each time when I began and messed up, they were bent over, hands covering their faces, taking great humor in my mistakes. In my first church in Walker, MN I messed up just about every baptism, including one time putting the head right on my lavaliere mike and the baby started crying into mike, and I almost dropped the baby when switching it around in my arms....

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