Thanksgiving – Coming Home to the Banquet Feast of God

Today is one of the busiest travel days of the year here in the U.S. as families move across the country and sometimes even around the world to be together for Thanksgiving.  Tom & I are heading up to Camano Island this afternoon and will be giving ourselves an extra hour for the trip because we are expecting a traffic jam on the way up.

Thanksgiving is a time for reunion and sometimes for reconciliation.  It is a time when families try to embrace all those who have felt excluded or rejected over the past year.  It is a time when everyone is invited to sit down together at table and forget or forgive their differences.

As I reflected on this early this morning I could not help but relate it to the Great Homecoming of God when we will all come together in God’s kingdom for that great Thanksgiving feast – the kingdom eucharistic feast that ushers in God’s eternal world.  And the prelude to the feast will be a great time of travel as people from every tribe and nation stream home to the mountain of God to celebrate together in an environment of peace and reconciliation.  ((Isaiah 2: 2 – 4).

This too will be a homecoming feast of magnificent proportions – with the richest of food and the finest of wine for everyone.  (Isaiah 25: 6 – 9) It will be a feast that welcomes those who have been excluded and rejected – the homeless, the poor, the disabled, those that look and think differently from us – and seats them in the places of honour.  (Matthew 14: 15 – 24).  And Jesus will be there turning water into wine, dancing with those who had been lame, laughing with those who were mourned and celebrating with all of us the joy of kingdom life.  But he will also be there as a servant – washing our feet and serving the banquet feast as he fills our plates with good things – just as he was at that last passover mean, the first eucharistic meal he shared together with his followers.

As we journey to join our families and share in the feasts that been prepared for Thanksgiving , I pray that we will all be reminded on the great thanksgiving feast of God that is to come.  Above all may we remember those who are still excluded from our feasting and feel excluded from our tables.

Giving Thanks When We Are Struggling

American Thanksgiving Day is on Thursday and many of my friends are preparing to get together with friends and family to celebrate and give thanks.  Some are struggling because they feel they have  very little to give thanks for this year – they have lost jobs and homes or loved ones.  Many more are fearful that they will lose jobs or homes before the recession is over.  The numbers coming to food banks are unprecedented and more people will spend this winter on the streets than has happened for many years.  Anxiety robs many of us of our sleep and snuffs out our joy.

How shall we give thanks this year? The Pilgrims would say that coming through their first fierce winter made them more aware of their blessings. Hard times often open our eyes to appreciate more deeply those relationships we have that are strengthened not weakened because of shared adversity. In the midst of struggle we see more clearly how much we need each other. People become more important than things, and life together becomes a source of joy that a lot of stuff can’t provide.

It seems that the more we have the less likely we are to appreciate the truly valuable things in our lives. Possessions often make us more focused on ourselves, our security and our comfort.  But does having less lead to more gratitude or to more enjoyment of life?  The research says no.  In fact no matter what we have, enough always seems just beyond the horizon.  But when we focus on relationships rather than possessions our cups overflow with good things.

Tomorrow night Tom & I will give the homily for the Thanksgiving service at St Aidan’s Episcopal church on Camano Island.  We will take the Eucharist together, a very appropriate part of the thanksgiving celebration as Eucharist comes from a Greek word meaning “to give thanks.”  In fact Holy Communion is often referred to as “The Great Thanksgiving”.

But in the midst of taking communion I am reminded that I cannot fully enter into the great thanksgiving when people are without a place to live, nourishing food and adequate medical care.

In the midst of our own thanksgiving we should be doing all that we can to make sure that no one in our society or indeed in our world is hungry, cold or sick.   And of course many churches and faith communities do reach out at this season with meals for the homeless and the marginalized.  Unfortunately this is often only a transitory response, quickly forgotten as we focus on the hectic preparations for Christmas.

We will only be able truly to celebrate an American Thanksgiving when all the world’s people are able to share in the bounty of God’s world together not just for a day but for the rest of eternity.  Let me finish this morning with another beautiful quote from Danielle Shroyer’s The Boundary Breaking God

Injustice and violence happen when we limit our view of what is possible and resign ourselves to accept that the world”is what it is.”  They happen when our horizons get obscured, or when they cease to be God’s horizons… Utilizing our own powerful sense of hope, grounded in the very real promises of God, is to imagine and therefore bring into being a life of freedom.

Maybe what we should all be giving thanks for this Thanksgiving Day is the new found freedoms we have discovered in the midst of difficult times, freedoms which really do enable us to ground out lives more deeply in the eternal promises of God rather than in the transitory promises of this world.

Monasticism Remix: Traditional & Neo-Monastic Spirituality in the 21st Century

Monasticism Remix: Traditional & Neo-Monastic Spirituality in the 21st Century

Mustard Seed Associates invites you to an evening of prayers and explorations of Traditional & Neo-Monastic spirituality.

In this event neo-monastic practitioners and traditional monastic sisters and brothers will come together for a generative conversation about living monastic spirituality in the 21st century.

The evening will include a light meal, prayers, conversation, and a compline service at the end.

You are welcome (and we encourage you) to come to the 5:00 PM service at Church of the Apostles beforehand as well.

When? Dec. 13 – 7:00 PM

Where? Fremont Abbey Arts Center – 4272 Fremont Ave N, Seattle
We will gather in the downstairs cafe area of the Abbey. The worship service takes place in the Great Hall upstairs.

Suggested donation: $5-10; no one will be turned away for lack of money

Register Online

Feel free to contact us at mail@msainfo.org / 206-524-2112 with your questions.

We are looking for volunteers to help us set up and clean up afterward. Contact us if you are interested in volunteer.

This is event is hosted by Mustard Seed Associates in partnership with Church of the Apostlesand The Fremont Abbey Arts Center.

Boundary Breaking Books

Thanksgiving and Christmas are fast approaching and there is much to do & much that I want to say over this next week.  One thing I realized is that I have not blogged much about the books that I am reading at the moment, partly because there are so many that I get a little behind with writing them up.  However I realize that this is the time that most of us are putting together our Christmas lists (unless you are determined to make this a buy nothing Christmas)  so I thought I would give you my suggestions.

The approach of Christmas seems a good time however to reflect on some the boundary breaking books that I am reading – those books that push my thinking outside the boundaries of the usual ways I think about faith

Top of the list is The Boundary Breaking God: An Unfolding Story of Hope and Promise, by Danielle Shroyer.  I think that this is a must read for all of us who are grappling with what it really means to be a follower of Christ in today’s world.  God’s people were always those being pushed to the margins – the outsiders who are moving towards an unknown yet hopeful future.  I love the way that Danielle stretches our thinking beyond the familiar ways of interpreting bible stories.

I love her telling of the story of the Magi – “these very un-Jewish, pagan astrologers” far from home yet acknowledging Christ as king.  Danielle’s comments seem very appropriate at this season.

“Though God’s activity in the world began with one family, Jesus’ kingship begins with one world.  Christ’s birth marks the beginning of the promised Kingdom of God on earth.  And that Kingdom as we see in Epiphany reaches far beyond Jerusalem.

From the very beginning of jesus life on earth, God makes it clear this Messiah is going to muddy the lines between who is in and who is out.  The story of the astrologers is the story of God’s expanding love from the viewpoint of the unexpected outsiders.

The second book I want to recommend is a new bible that arrived in the mail a few days ago.  It is called Mosaic and combines the New Living Translation with reflections for the seasons of the church year.  Tyndale has drawn together authors from a rich array of backgrounds and cultures to share reflections, poetry and art.  The trouble is that I wanted to read all the reflections on the first day.

I love the New Living Translation – it is very readable but as a translation not a paraphrase which is great.  I also love that proceeds from the bible go to support the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators.  So again this is a gift that I would heartily recommend – and with that feel good sense that you are doing something to spread the word of God into other cultures too.

The third book I want to recommend is one that I actually have not read as yet (I am expecting to receive a review copy in the next couple of days).  It is Samir Selmanovic’s: It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian. Even the title is enough to make my mouth water. I will probably blog more about this after I get into the book but here are some reviews that are definitely enticing me to want more.

His aim is to embrace the diversities and even the mutually exclusive mysteries of the three Abrahamic faiths and atheism to gain a new perspective that is not about ourselves but about God.  Read the entire review here

Through his personal stories and engagement with the stories of  Christians, Muslims, Pagans, Atheists and more, author Samir Selmanovic points the way to a life with God and each other that is bigger and better than most of us have ever dared to dream.  Read the entire review

A Thanksgiving Prayer

American Thanksgiving is less than a week away and we are all looking forward to what is fondly called Turkey Day.  It is my favourite American custom which I have embraced with great enthusiasm not just because I love good food and good fellowship but because I love the opportunity to think about what I am grateful for and what I have to thank God for.  It is a custom which is not celebrated in Australia but I am sure that it will be celebrated over and over in the Kingdom of God.

Wednesday evening Tom & I will be speaking at the Thanksgiving service at St Aidans Episcopal church on Camano Island.  A couple of days ago I received a request from a friend for a thanksgiving liturgy.  Last night we celebrated a pre-thanksgiving turkey meal with students at the Purple Door.  All of these opportunities have focused my attention on the coming of thanksgiving and the fact that I have so much to be grateful for – good, health, good marriage, good community, shelter, food, a job that I enjoy – the list goes on and on.  Most of all I am grateful for the gift of Christ and all that he has meant in my life.  That is the theme that I have used in this Thanksgiving liturgy.

God we gather to thank you for the many blessings in our lives,

And to praise you for your generous goodness which is new every day,

To you God we offer our praise and thanksgiving.

God to you who created the earth and the heavens,

To you who are always merciful and forgiving,

To you God we offer our praise and thanksgiving.

God to you who call us into relationship with yourself,

And give us the gift of family and friends,

To you God we offer our praise and thanksgiving.

(Pause to remind yourself of all you have to be thankful for)

For the universe immense and unknown

For the earth on which we live

For humankind made in your image

Thanks and praise to God our creator

For entering human history as one of us

For the sacrifice you made for all of us

For dying that we might live

Thanks and praise to Christ our redeemer

For the wonder of your indwelling presence

For the comfort of your guidance and direction

For drawing us together as one body

Thanks and praise to the Holy Spirit our enabler

Through your will we are made whole,

Through your love we are renewed in body, mind and spirit

Through you we become one community from every tribe and nation.

Thanks and praise to Father, Son and Spirit through all eternity.

Psalm 92 or Psalm 105

The Word of the Lord.     Thanks be to God.

1 Chronicles 16: 7 – 34

The Word of the Lord.     Thanks be to God.

Colossians 1: 3-6

The Word of the Lord.     Thanks be to God.

A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew.

Glory to you, O Lord.

Luke 10: 21 – 24

The Gospel of the Lord.   Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray together now in the words Jesus taught us.

Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed by your name.  Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever.  Amen

Gracious and generous God we give you thanks

For the gift of life for we are made in your image,

We think of all those in whom your divine image is still distorted

We pray for your mercy and love to rest upon them

God in your mercy be with them

caring and providing God we give you thanks

For our homes that shelter and protect us,

We think of those without shelter and water and protection today

We pray for your provision to be poured out upon them

God in your mercy be with them

Abundant and giving God we give you thanks

For our food that nourishes and strengthens us,

We thing of those without food and nourishment today

We pray that you will feed them with the bread of life

God in your mercy be with them

Loving and compassionate God we give you thanks

For our friends and family who love and comfort us in times of need

We think of those who are alone and feel abandoned

God comfort and surround them that they may sense your presence

God in your be with them

Gracious and generous God

We remember all the gifts you have given us,

We remember how lavishly you have provided,

We remember how lovingly you have cared,

We remember especially that greatest gift of all,

Jesus Christ our Saviour,

And we give you thanks.

Amen

Today was World Toilet Day

Did you know that today was World Toilet Day.  It sounds to most of us as though someone is cracking a joke, but the lack of toilets is no joke for the 2.5 billion people in our world who lack adequate sanitation

The World Toilet Organisation themselves are encouraging website visitors to head over to EndWaterPoverty.org and help improve sanitation and water quality where it’s needed most.  This leads to 1.8 million preventable deaths a year from diarrhea, dysentery, and other infections.

This means that diarrheal disease is even more of a contributor to child fatality rates in the developing world than the HIV/AIDS virus.

For areas of the world that do have a toilet system, the World Toilet Organisation campaigns for cleanliness of restrooms and water supply, parity of access for women, and the public availability of free toileting facilities.

For more information visit the World Toilet Day website

As I read this today I was reminded of one of the reflections that I wrote in my garden manual To Garden With God.

Water is the lifeblood of the garden and in fact of all creation.  Without water, not only would our gardens die but we would too.  Water is also the element of baptism.  It symbolizes our death, burial and resurrection with Christ and offers the possibility of rebirth and the hope of a renewed creation.  As Christians we commit ourselves through the water of baptism to resist evil and affirm our new life in Christ.  Vigen Guoian in his beautiful book Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening, suggests that each time we water the garden, we should recognize that “we tend not only the garden that we call nature but also the garden that is ourselves, insofar as we are constituted of water and are born anew of it.”

I wonder what difference it would make if each time we went outside on a dry and thirsty day to water we were reminded of our baptism and of the resurrection of Christ who is the water of life.  Perhaps it would make us more mindful of those in our world who are as thirsty as our plants.  Or perhaps, more profoundly, each act of watering would become a sacred act that connected us to the wonder of Christ’s life and the power of the resurrection.

Living into God’s Time – The Story Formed Calendar

My friend Tara Malouf has just produced an extraordinary calendar – not like your ordinary calendars that begin in January and go through the twelve months of the year as we know them but one that flows to the rhythm of the liturgical year.  It begins in Advent and follows the seasons of the year.  I love it and would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a way to connect the rhythm of their days to God’s rhythm.

Tara calls her calendar The Story Formed Calendar because it has been formed by the story of God rather than by the story of our world.

This calendar is a tool to help us live a different story. It is a calendar for those who call themselves followers of Jesus because it reorients our lives to the work and life of Jesus in history. It re-tells the narrative of the gospel and encourages us to live—to work, go to school, parent, shop, play—all within God’s story.

Each season encourages something in us and from us. Some seasons call us to a listening quietness, others to celebration and still others to working in intentional ways.

Advent is a season of expectation
Christmas is a season of celebration
Epiphany, a season of illumination
Lent, a season of listening
Holy Week, is a time to remember
Easter is a season of “halleluiahs” and the
Season after Pentecost becomes a season of intentional living in our churches, in our families, in love, in justice and mercy, and in praise and gratitude.

Walking with God – Why Is It So Hard?

Several months ago I wrote a post in which I commented on the fact that in order for people to move from communities of poverty to the middle class they need to be willing to give up relationships for accomplishment and efficiency.  I have thought about this a lot over the last few months – first as I read through the posts for the summer blog series What is a Spiritual Practice and secondly as I travelled in Australia and conducted Rhythms of Grace seminars in which participants discussed the different ways in which they developed deeper relationships with God.

The comment of one participant particularly grabbed my imagination.  ”We take what should be a relationship developing experience and make it into a task she said.  Hospitality, social justice, evangelism and even bible study all become things we do in order to feel like good Christians.”  She is right.  And as a result they add busyness and pressure to our lives without making us feel closer to God or to each other.

I think that one of the reasons that many followers of Christ are disconnecting from traditional faith practices like reading the bible daily and praying regularly is because they have recognized this fact but don’t know how to change a task into a relationship deepening experience.

Christianity is all about relationships.  God created humankind to live in relationship – with God, with each other and with God’s good creation.  Primarily the Fall broke relationship – it disconnected us from God, distorted our mutually caring relationships with each other and destroyed our stewardship of the earth.

We live in a world that still has a very distorted idea of relationships and we often accept this without a murmur because our lives too are a series of tasks to accomplish rather than a relationship deepening experience.

Our world majors on disposable relationships.  We move, we change jobs, or we change churches and we disconnect from the relationships that under girded our previous life.  Even our involvement in issues of social justice become tasks to accomplish that result in few if any relationships.  No wonder we can swing from passionate concern about tsunamis in Samoa to child trafficking in Thailand without any concern for the impact of our swinging concerns.

And it is easy for us to justify our disconnect… especially when our relationships are seen as tasks to accomplish rather than as opportunities to both experience and represent the God who cares so passionately for our world that he sent his son to live amongst us.

So how do we change our focus?  First we must be willing to take time.  The journey into intimacy in relationship begins not in busyness and doing activity but in quietness and solitude.  Here is a great quote from Eugene Peterson from Earth and Altar that expresses this.

The difference between privacy and solitude is profound.  Privacy is our attempt to insulate the self from interference; solitude leaves the company of others for a time in order to listen to them more deeply, be aware of them, serve them.

Here it seems is another of the great paradoxes of God.  Developing deeper relationships does not begin with more time spent with people but with more time spent in solitude.  It doesn’t begin with getting out into the crowds and the multitudes but with drawing aside into a quiet place to pray.  And in that quiet place prayer is not about us doing something before God, it is about listening.  It is not about prayers that express our concern for the world, it is about opening up the doors and the windows of our souls to the presence of a God who is never more than a breath away.  It is about allowing God to fill every fiber of our being so that all that we are and do flows out of a deeply rooted relationship with the God of all creation.

No wonder Jesus could be so attentive to the crowds that followed him.  No wonder he had such wisdom and insights into the behaviour of his disciples.  No wonder he had such confidence in what God was and wasn’t asking him to do.  His life was lived amongst the crowds but was grounded in solitude.  His kingdom building work of healing, releasing the oppressed and preaching the good news to the poor flowed out of a confident and intimate relationship with God not out of a need to respond to the demands of the broken world around him.

Advent is a great time to get away for retreat and quiet.  It is an essential time to focus on deepening our relationship to God in solitude and reflection so that we are able to move into more intimate relationship with the world in which God has placed us.  It is this kind of deep centeredness that should form the core of our lives.  Only then can we learn to relax, enjoy life and become the loving and compassionate people that God intends us to be.

The Coming Of the Lord is Near – Advent Meditation Video 2009

Here is my Advent meditation video for 2009.  I have really enjoyed putting this one together as I have been meditating on What Am I Waiting for this Advent?

The music is Gloria – Remember from the CD Standing Still by Jeff Johnson Used by permission. All rights reserved.

A high quality version for use in large groups and churches can be purchased and downloaded here. You can see my videos from the last few years here

The coming of our Lord is near,

New light dawning in the midst of darkness

New hope reigning beyond death and despair

New life sprouting for all creation

The coming of our Lord draws near

And we wait in eager expectation

We wait for the one who grieves

When tsunamis hit and bushfires rage

We wait for the one who bears our sorrows

When earthquakes shake and droughts parch

We wait for the one who shares our anguish

When wars kill and disease destroys

The coming of our Lord draws near

And we wait in joy and hopefulness

For the one who pours out love on all creation

The one who formed us in our mother’s wombs

We wait for the One who fills every fiber of our being

The coming of the Lord draws near

And we wait yearning for God’s redeeming child

We wait for the One who transfigures our world with the spirit of life

And transforms our lives with the wonder of love

We wait for our Saviour, for Jesus Christ our Lord.

Come Lord Jesus come – transfigure the world with your love

Waiting for Advent – A Prayer from the liturgy of Malabar

Tomorrow I am hoping to upload my Advent 2009 meditation video.  It has taken me a little longer this year because I moved to using a Mac a few months ago and have been on a steep learning curve as I have grappled with Imovie.  At first i thought of giving this year a miss but as I started thinking about Advent I found that prayers and responses were revolving in my mind and I also realized how relaxing I find this process.

I was rereading this prayer adapted from the Liturgy of the Malabar Syrian Church and thought that I would share it as a preparation for the coming season.  I find that anything that helps me slow down and refocus on Christ and the wonder of his coming to us as a helpless babe is helpful at this season.  While researching the liturgy I also came across this cool site which gives access to Anglican liturgies from many different traditions.

God today our hands have touched what you created in love and holiness.  Strengthen them that they may daily bring forth fruit to your glory

God today our lips have sung your praise and our voices have rejoiced in your sanctuary.  May the words of our mouths and the songs of our hearts glorify you forever.

God today we have relaxed together in the presence of your loving faithfulness.  Walk with us into the blessed hope of your eternal community.  May the souls and bodies that have tasted of your living body and blood be renewed.  May we ever be restored and journey with you into the newness of life

Amen