Weekly Update

Join us this coming Thursday as we continue our series “Praying the Psalms” with a closer look at the royal psalms. We meet at 7:30p CDT via Zoom. You can access the study here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/564427274?pwd=WnhETHQ2Rzltc1A2SXFmTnU0ODkwUT09

Meeting ID: 564 427 274
Password: 318652

You can also phone in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same meeting ID and password.

Our Stories Tell a Bigger Story

“Thank God I don’t look like what I’ve been through!”

The first time I heard it I laughed out loud. I was driving to Sunday worship with the radio cranked up full-volume to the local gospel music station. The host, a fierce woman with the on-air persona of a warrior, shouted it in agreement with a caller who was giving God thanks for always making a way and bringing him out of trouble.

I laughed because I immediately understood what she meant. I shouted “Amen!” out loud to no one in particular. And then tears began to flow. Thank God I don’t look like what I’ve been through!

Sparing you the gory details, there’s no telling what I would look like. But I promise it would not be pretty. One thing I’ll say without hesitation: once that seed was planted, it has continued to produce a profound sense of thanksgiving in me—the kind of thanksgiving that provokes awe and humility and jubilation and effusiveness.

Biblical psalms of thanksgiving pivot on similar emotions. The poets are shamelessly grateful they don’t look like what they’ve been through. In some cases, their poems are hymns intended for the entire community to sing together. In others, they express personal gratitude for God’s mercy and goodness. Some of the thankful psalms are longwinded and rather exaggerated (even melodramatic) in their enthusiasm. Others border on gut-wrenching in their raw recognition of how saving grace and deliverance changed their lives.

All thanksgiving psalms testify. They describe a singular journey from lamentable life seasons of disorientation and despair and resolve in recognition of divine help. Yet they touch common nerves and resound with common themes. These accounts are shaped for sharing. The psalmists realize their stories take shape and accrue power when they’re told… or prayed… or sung.

“Thank God I don’t look like what I’ve been through” presumes others are getting a good look at you and seeing beauty, composure, confidence, health—all the things that belie the struggles behind your testimony. It assumes folks are interested in your story because they either a) have their own stories to tell or b) need to hear stories from folks lived to tell the tale.

Our course, our gratitude pleases God. But it also reaches us in ways that only testimony can. We are living proof of divine grace. Our personal stories tell a bigger, shared story. We belong to God and one another and whatever details may give our thanksgiving unique features and texture, our gratitude resounds with the same theme: Thank God we don’t look like what we’ve been through. Amen and ashé!

Don’t miss this week’s conversation about thanksgiving as we continue our series, Praying the Psalms. We meet live online every Thursday at 7:30p CDT via Zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/564427274?pwd=WnhETHQ2Rzltc1A2SXFmTnU0ODkwUT09

Meeting ID: 564 427 274

Password: 318652

You can also phone in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same meeting ID and password.

Beyond Language

The preacher approaches the pulpit. The people’s spirits haven’t yet entered the worship; the Spirit of God hovers, waiting to be recognized. The preacher realizes the people need an extra nudge and she reaches for a golden oldie: “God is good all the time!” she calls out and immediately the congregation erupts: “All the time God is good!”

For some—possibly many—it’s an answer that comes as quickly as “You’re welcome” follows “Thank you.” But if we scanned the faces, we might see who’s declaring God’s unfailing goodness with full intention and who’s running on autopilot. And we could discern a fresh touch of Spirit entering their beings (and room), a surge of awe and joy and trust.

God is good all the time. All the time God is good. – This is what we call a “praise trope,” a phrase handed down from generation to generation that touches nerves and demands attention. There is power in praise, something the biblical poets understood all too well. That’s why, although their psalms are predominated by laments, they named the poetry collection Praises (Tehelim in biblical Hebrew).

When a biblical poet crafts a hymn of praise, it’s a breathtaking work. God takes center stage as a source of wonder and jubilation. The praise Psalms declare God’s glory writ large across the universe and brought down to size in human-like attributes. In Psalms the language of praise is remarkably elastic. God is a tower of refuge (61:3), but also a mother hen (36:7); God leads us like a shepherd (23:1) and reigns like a king (97:1). We are awestruck before God and yet we are at ease to speak our minds.

There are moments when psalms swing between these two polarities with such bravado we almost get whiplash. Try to track all the praise set loose in this justifiably famous verse from Psalm 8: “When I look up at your skies, at what your fingers made—the moon and the stars that you set firmly in place—what are human beings that you think about them; what are human beings that you pay attention to them?” The Divine Creator is also the Cosmic Keeper who is also the Caring Attendant.

The tension in moments like this arises from inadequacy of language. God is all of those things. And yet, strictly speaking, God is none of tem, because God is always more than we can convey in speech. Indeed, Psalm 19 lets the heavens and sky proclaim God’s handiwork because there aren’t words to capture its vastness.

So speech is futile. But praise is fertile, because in proclaiming God’s greatness we reach for words that hold tremendous personal meaning. Who is God to you? Proclaim that. (There are no right or wrong answers because there aren’t good enough words for the task.) When we praise we declare and define our faith. When I say, “God is good,” it means something very personal to me. When you say the same, it can mean something very different. Yet we can say it together because inadequacy of language gives rise to perfect—yet distinctive—praise.

We’ll dig deeper into this idea of praise and how it works at our weekly study at Gather. Join us this Thursday evening at 7:30p CDT via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/564427274?pwd=WnhETHQ2Rzltc1A2SXFmTnU0ODkwUT09

Meeting ID: 564 427 274

Password: 318652

You can also phone in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same meeting ID and password.

Don’t Edit Yourself Out of Your Testimony

Do you remember the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), when folks who’d gone missing are reunited with their loved ones? It’s one of Spielberg’s finest moments—so utterly full of joy it makes us cry. I have similar feelings when I read about the great witness reunion in the Revelation. In this vision, survivors come from “every nation, tribe, people, and language” (Rev. 7:9). They wear white robes and hold palms. Christ-like suffering has purified them. They carry peace signs.

“Who are these people?” someone asks. The same person answers: “They’ve come out of great hardship.” God will be their shelter. They’ll no longer hunger or thirst. They’ll be protected from blazing heat. Their tears will be wiped away. We later learn they survived by “the word of their witness” (Rev. 12:11). Not even death could end their story. They’re martyrs.

While we often associate “martyrs” with dying for a higher cause, it actually means “witnesses”—i.e., survivors who lived to tell their stories. Many of us are martyrs and don’t even know it. We’ve survived all kinds of struggles. We’ve come out of great hardship. We’ve been to Calvary (many of us many times). We’ve found peace. And we’ve discovered the power in our witness. Our stories empower and embolden and sustain us. What’s more they inspire and assure others.

COVID-19 is calling for martyr testimony. Even as we pray for stamina to outlast the virus, we should think about our story. How are we being changed? What has this brush with death done to us? How has this experience brought us to closer to God and one another? What will our stories be?

Telling our truth means acknowledging how ugly and demoralizing this has been. How will we tell that story? We have great examples in the Psalms, where lament surfaces on nearly every page. The poets were unabashed about voicing frustrations, doubts, and despairs, impatience with God, and anger with arrogant kings and greedy, faithless neighbors. Cleaning up their stories would distort their witness into fairy tales. To deny their misgivings about God would erase God from the story. And they were having none of that.

As you consider your coronavirus testimony, tell your whole truth. Don’t edit yourself out. Write your lament. Complain about how hard this has been. Wonder where God went and why our leaders ignored obvious warning signs that death was knocking at every border (and no wall on earth was high enough keep COVID-19 out). Rail at neighbors who cared more about their social lives and investments than rampant loss of life. Go ahead. It’s part of your story.

But, like the psalmists and Revelation witnesses, know what waits beyond the complaint. Truthfully telling our story moves us forward, to the throne of Grace, where we find shelter and shepherding, where conflict and tears become useless because the I AM who makes All Things Well is right where God has always been: with us.

This week we look at lament in the Psalms. It’s raw, even shocking. But it’s also life giving. Join us this Thursday at 7:30a CDT via Zoom.

Join the study at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/564427274?pwd=WnhETHQ2Rzltc1A2SXFmTnU0ODkwUT09

Meeting ID: 564 427 274

Password: 318652

You can also phone in at 1-312-626-6799, using the same meeting ID and password.

Following Our Ancestors

During the past weeks, I’ve been thinking about my elders, meaning the wise older folks I grew up around in church. As a Boomer, I grew up around people who’d been through quite a bit: a devastating Depression, widespread material insecurity, a global war and ripple-effect conflicts in Asia, very real threats of nuclear attack, cultural upheaval, outbreaks of polio and other infectious diseases, presidential scandals, and terrorist attacks by homegrown villains—and that’s just the short list. It also doesn’t include many personal disasters that were no less devastating.

But I’ve not been dwelling on their tribulations so much as recalling how they responded to crisis in a surprisingly consistent, intuitive way. When trouble came, they quoted the Psalms, usually in the florid “biblical” language of the King James Version.

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust… Lead me to the rock that is higher than I… In the time of trouble he shall hide me… God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble…

How did they know these verses so well to have them in ready reach? Their parents and grandparents quoted them, and their parents and grandparents quoted them, going all the way back to the ancients who sang these songs and prayed these prayers.

The Psalms are, in many ways, our ancestral legacy. They rejoice in God’s beauty and power and care, even as they paint compelling portraits of human lives and communities. The psalms often tell ugly and disturbing stories: wars and famines and widespread disease visited on communities while doubt and unfaithfulness and profound (in some cases nearly neurotic) anxieties tear at the writers’ hearts and minds. Danger and distress are all around in the Psalms. But that’s not all. God is there too.

That’s why it’s wisest, I think, to consider the Psalms as much more than a hymnal. It’s a prayer primer, a priceless example of how to pray in time of peril. In fact, it’s commonly assumed the Psalms’ durability is rooted in their prayerfulness. The majority of the poems are either laments or supplications, and even those of “praise song” variety regularly turn their hearts toward prayer.

Maybe the reason our ancestors loved the Psalms so much had less to do with their poetic beauty and more to do with their prayerful pragmatism.

In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard me, one of the psalmists wrote. In times of peril—even today—that’s a wonderful and necessary reassurance.

Join us this coming Thursday at 7:30p CDT as we being a new, life-giving series called “Praying the Psalms.” We will meet each week via Zoom. You can access the study at

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/564427274?pwd=WnhETHQ2Rzltc1A2SXFmTnU0ODkwUT09

Meeting ID: 564 427 274, Password: 318652

Or you can dial in at:

1-312-626-6799 and then enter the ID and password information when prompted.

Love is the Answer

It’s a Thursday evening, around the holidays. People are pouring into the city to visit relatives and honor ancient traditions. The markets are packed. A lot of last-minute planning—so much to do! Things feel especially tense, tenser than usual. But holidays always bring out the troublemakers and crazies and would-be messiahs.

Just a few days back some northerner staged a crazy parade that lampooned Roman power by doing everything on the cheap. No impressive stallions; just a young donkey. No royal carpets stretched along the route; just a bunch of threadbare coats and a few palm branches. No trumpets and cheers; just a chorus of tone-deaf provincials croaking, “Hosanna! Save us!” It was a bold move. But few noticed, given the chaotic crowds and heightened police presence.

Apparently, the self-appointed savior didn’t get the attention he needed. The next morning he turned the Temple market upside down. Called the merchants and religious leaders “thieves.” It got real ugly. And if he makes it through the week alive if will be a miracle. All it takes is one troublemaker to mess things up for everybody.

With all of this swirling around Jesus of Nazareth, it’s an odd time for a wanted man to host an intimate dinner party, maybe not the smartest move given tensions surfacing inside hiscircle. Friendships are cracking.

There’s a bounty on the Jesus’s head, a lot of cash, about $200 worth, which can feed a lot of people, fund a lot of projects. Something to consider. Then there’s guilt by association. If Jesus gets arrested, who’s next? These folks have families to think of, businesses to run, lives to live. They didn’t come all this way to land in jail!

Maybe this dinner isn’t such a good idea.

But they go and immediately everything turns upside down. (Doesn’t it always, though?) The guest of honor insists on washing their feet, a task so menial it’s usually relegated to a servant girl. Then Jesus reveals there’s a traitor and liar among them. Does he send either away? No! He shares his food with the traitor and lets the liar stay for the entire meal.

It’s all very strange. But not as strange as the topic Jesus keeps returning to. And that’s love. Jesus knows the storm isn’t lifting any time soon. He knows forces at work in the world will continue to captivate the minds and fears of millions. He knows the public is fickle and can’t be counted on to do what’s best for them. He knows the disciples are going to spend a lot of long days and nights hunkered down behind closed doors, keeping their distance from danger that walks the streets. Jesus knows the only thing to sustain them will be unshakable faith in the power of love—God’s love, his love, the shared love of his beloved friends.

Love is the commandment because love carries us through the storm, whether it’s a political firestorm in first century Jerusalem or a 21st-century pandemic that viciously preys on theplanet’s weakest and poorest. The broken governments of both eras are fueled by untrammeled greed, power plays, and brutal disregard for the truly needy. Both governments have no realsolutions and reliable answers for their problems.

Yet the word for us this Holy Week is not “fear.” It’s “love.” Love is how we ride out this storm. Love is our assurance that life ultimately overpowers death. Love is the core message that causes us to proclaim, “This is not the end of us!” Easter is coming. Amen.

Join us this week as Gather revisits Jesus’s farewell dinner with his friends. We will meet virtually via Zoom on Thursday, April 9, at 7:30p CDT. Join the conversation by going to https://us04web.zoom.us/j/998881155?pwd=NExiTTl6eUhmck85V0lUMWpZNWswQT09. Meeting ID: 998 881 155; Password: 031850

An agnostic friend texted me the other day:

“When this is all over, you’ll have something in common with literally every other inhabitant of the planet: ‘What did you do during the Pandemic?’ Maybe we’ll find we have more in common than we previously thought. That comforts me.”

There can be no doubt that what we’re going through is life altering. We’re confronting how little we actually control and we’re being called to accountability for the things we can manage. We’re suddenly and strangely aware of our personal space. We recognize that recklessness on our part holds serious implications for those around us. We’re learning the true meaning of patience, as another friend who survived COVID-19 recently told me.

We’re changing, and our choices in this crisis insist we do better. Our instincts for self-preservation extend beyond us to include everyone around us. If we are careless with ourselves, we are uncaring about others. That’s transformative thinking in a world that has habitually sacrificed community for individualism, ethical principals for economic profits, compassion for self-righteousness. The invisible space between “I” and “we” has narrowed dramatically, even though we’re keeping our physical distance. We are changing.

Nearly all transformation—real transformation, that is—comes with fear, anxiety, and trepidation attached. It ushers us into of uncertainty. It puts before us open roads with no discernable destination. To change is to become something other than, hopefully better than, maybe more than. Yet when our Maker and the planet force transformation on us, we should expect something good to emerge in what we’re becoming. News reports whisk us around the globe and the stories are all the same because (as my friend reminds us) we are the same. That will lead to comfort, even if we’ll likely travel through much grief and despair.

The Franciscan mystic, Sister Ilia Delio, is a wonderful hybrid—a theologian and scientist whose embrace of evolutionary theory yields a powerfully enlightened view of spirituality. We’re constantly changing, she tells us. “Chaos really is a saving grace… We emerge out of this long, cosmic process we call evolution. But evolution is about deep relationality. We are created for love, and that’s what keeps pulling us onward.”

As we wander through this COVID-19 desert, may we be increasingly mindful of what we’re becoming—of how we’re evolving—of what God is doing to bring forth transformation. May we never forget that love keeps pulling us onward. Its claim cannot be shaken. It calls us into, through, and out of the dangers that currently encompass us.

We are changing. We are becoming. Love is drawing us to new ways of being.

This week we’ll explore Sr. Ilio Delio in more depth as the final voice in our “Into the Mystic” Lenten series. Join us Thursday evening at 7:30p CDT as we learn more about the mystical aspects of living in an ever-changing world.

NOTE: We will meet via Zoom to enable better interactivity. It will be an exciting time together! The study can be accessed here: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/935975182. (No password is necessary.) You can also join by phone at 312-626-6799. The meeting number is 935 975 5182#.

Renewal in a Stable

No one paid much attention as William Seymour boarded the train from Houston to Los Angeles. It was 1906. He was an African-American of modest means. Although he’d made many friends during his travels as a seminarian and minister, he was by no means famous or esteemed. He was just a man going west because he heard something unusual was taking place out there and he felt drawn to be part of it.

After he got to L.A., he quickly joined a home prayer meeting that met in the city’s working class neighborhood. From the first, Seymour sensed an extraordinary event was taking shape. People with no formal training were sharing scripture and uniting in deep prayer. Their hearts blazed with conviction that God wanted to do great things. They felt a huge shift was coming and knew they would be crucial to it. In short, their earthly credentials weren’t exceptional. But their spiritual IQs were off the charts. And, unlike the upper-class society that haughtily dismissed them, they were undaunted by racial, class, gender, and religious diversity. People of every color and identity began to crowd the Bonnie Brae cottage. Soon they had to find another place to pray.

Someone recalled an old church on the rougher side of town that had been turned into a stable. It sat on Azusa Street, a narrow lane few people knew by name. With Seymour serving as their leader, they moved prayer meetings there and no sooner did they get settled than a full-on phenomenon exploded. A “second Pentecost” fell on the place and people began to worship in ways that echoed the first Pentecost in Acts. There were prophecies and visions. People were unable to stand upright in the divine presence that saturated the atmosphere. And many of them spoke in unknown tongues, ecstatically receiving the gift of a miraculously provided language of prayer, praise, and soul-stirring intercession.

There was an irony that couldn’t be ignored: a faith that began 2000 years ago in a borrowed stable had found renewal in another barn 7500 miles from Bethlehem.

The keepers of conventional Christianity were outraged at what they heard and saw at Azusa Street. It was too unseemly—especially the mixing of races and classes and genders and ethnicities. Spanish-speaking folks were rejoicing alongside English-speaking folks. Men and women, clergy and laity were preaching and prophesying. Black men caught white women who toppled backward when they “slain” in the Spirit. All of it made for sensational newspaper copy, to the distress of the traditional churches and professional clergy, who denounced Seymour and the Azusa Revival as heresy.

In the end, Seymour stood tall. The revelations he gathered as a prophet and mystic turned modern Christianity on its head. The Pentecostal movement was born and continues to be the fastest growing form of Christian faith in the modern world.

What was Seymour all about? Why was he chosen? We’ll look into that this week as Gather continues its Lenten study series, “Into the Mystic.”

Join us this Thursday via Facebook Live at 7:30p CDT as we explore the Seymour story and its impact on contemporary faith. It will be an exciting—and unusual—story!

When Shea Watts and I planned our Lenten series on Christian mystics, we had no way of knowing the week dedicated to St. John of the Cross would coincide with the national onset of COVID-19. St. John, a 16^th-century Spanish priest, poet, and contemplative is perhaps best remembered for his poem The Dark Night, which later would be called The Dark Night of the Soul. And here we are.

Without prompting, two different friends have recently described their current anxieties about the pandemic as a “dark night of the soul.” The phrase evokes an impenetrable void—a dangerous and desolate place that must be traversed, an experience akin to trudging through a seemingly endless tunnel.

For St. John, however, the dark night is the contemplative’s path to God. Darkness is not a sign of evil or sinfulness. It’s a symptom of inadequacies that can only be remedied by embarking on the journey. This concept didn’t originate with him. The notion of a dangerous, even painful move toward the Divine had been around since Aristotle, most famously in The Cloud of Unknowing, a 14^th century, anonymously written treatise about contemplative life. Yet St. John was without equal in his conviction that knowledge of God is beyond human capacity.

John envisions the journey to God in two forays, one of senses, followed by one of spirit. In both, God’s radiant presence is so intensely experienced it thrusts everything else into sharp relief. Much like brilliant light blinds the eyes, the unknowable presence of God creates a darkness that reduces sensation to ash and spiritual pride to embers.

It’s a fascinating premise that retains remarkable currency. In the 1960s, the great Howard Thurman echoed St. John’s thoughts when he wrote The Luminous Darkness, a book about racial segregation that saw sacred splendor in black skin and culture—a divine presence so radiant it creates light in darkness and binds the many lives of humankind to the Life we call God. One might almost say the idea has become a motif in modern popular culture, ranging from the work of T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stephen King to the music of Van Morrison and Depeche Mode.

This is the heavy week in our “Into the Mystic” series and it comes at a perfect time. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore a powerful concept that will give you plenty to ponder while we all wait out the viral storm we’re surviving together.

Gather will meet virtually via FB Live until further notice. Join us each Thursday at 7:30pm CDT as we explore the thoughts and practices of some of Christianity’s most influential mystics.

Healing Power and Singing Life

Hildegard of Bingen was a 12^th-century nun who broke every rule. When women were personae non grata in Western Christianity, Hildegard oversaw a community of nuns and monks. When pulpit was confined to the (all-male) priesthood, galvanized congregations all over southern Germany with her preaching. When sacred music was limited to chanting, Hildegard believed melodic song was the soul’s purest way to express the life of God. When the idea of a female theologian was taboo, she maintained a prolific correspondence conveying her ideas of faith with male superiors. Pope Eugene III, a frequent recipient of her letters, would undertake widespread clerical reforms at her urging.

Even though revelation was regarded a thing of the past, Hildegard told of visions and supernatural insights. While the church grew increasingly subject to superstitions, she excelled in medicine and herbal remedies. She was many things: prayer warrior, teacher, mentor, musician, playwright, theologian, healer, preacher, scientist, and, most significantly, mystic.

Hildegard thought in ways that challenged, inspired, and unnerved religious standard-keepers. She envisioned the natural world through in ways that brought new meaning to everything around her. Although she wasn’t a formally trained scholar, she used a Latin word, viriditas, to flag her signature idea about God and faith. Strictly translated, the word means “greenness.” But its essence points to a richer understanding more akin to “lushness.” This core concept is perhaps more relevant today than it has ever been.

 Viriditas was very pliable in Hildegard’s hands. She applied it to the divine nature, ascribing to God a fundamental healing power that encourages growth and wellness. In this sense she melded the notion of God’s will with an environmentalist’s passion. Because God is “lush”— always creating and generating growth—Hildegard wrote the best place to find God isn’t in a stone-cold cathedral or a silent monastery. God is best encountered in thick forests and verdant fields, in places where life erupts and disrupts. In these places where the “green force” of the divine is most obviously manifested we also find plants and flowers that enable healing. It was all of a piece in her mind.

The greenness of God doesn’t start and stop with nature walks, however. Hildegard also viewed singing as the way the Spirit makes its breath felt in worship and devotion. Singing is what divine lushness sounds like—a human expression that joins the harmonies of nature as non-verbal witness to God’s power. Her compositions are still sung and recorded to this day, with perhaps the most famous being Canticles of Ecstasy, which you can hear below

When I began this post, I was going to connect all the dots. But as I reread this, I believe no help is needed. Hildegard is someone you want to know more about. And you can learn more about her this week at third installment of “Into the Mystic,” our Lenten study series. Don’t miss this wonderful discussion. You can join in person at Pilgrim Congregational Church, 460 Lake Street, Oak Park. Or you can catch us online via Facebook Live. We start at 7:30pm CDT. See you there!