One of my constant “growing edges” in life and faith is the negotiation of what is my responsibility and what is God’s. When I stop and take a look at what is happening around me, and through me, I am often surprised by how much I live as though everything depended upon me. This probably has as much to do with my own growing up as an oldest children, and the family systems of which I have inherited, as it does with my own “little” faith. Whatever the explanation(s) are for this behavior, I understand that intellectually that “it” (whatever it may be in any given situation) is not all up to me, and thankfully so. If it were really up to me, we’d be in trouble. De-Programming this as an orientation, however, is much easier said than done.

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This is the message I gave at Camas Friends Church on Sunday March 11, 2012

“The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing.” (John 2:13–23 NRSV)

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Here’s a passage from Jean Vanier’s “Befriending the Stranger” that I felt was worthy to post here:

Jesus came into the world to re-create it,
to give it back its full meaning
to take away our limited vision of life,
a vision which prevents the birth of hope
and which paralyses us in front of all that seems impossible.
Yet “nothing is impossible for God…”

Many of have been taught, for example,
that we should “do good to” the poor.
The gospel message tells us that it is the poor who do good to us.
A mother knows full well that her little child gives her life
just by the way he looks at her, smiles at her,
calls her, loves her and needs her. Continue reading →