Reflection: Blessing - PG# 5202 (2008/2009)
by Joy Rogers
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; . . . (not) peace, but a sword.
A harsh note from Jesus as he journeys to Jerusalem. But a Risen Lord returns to say to his friends, “Peace be with you. My own Peace, I give you -- not as the world gives.”
Jesus wields a cross shaped sword – it pierces the barriers between earth and heaven, between humanity and God, between sin and forgiveness, between death and life.
The Peace of Christ pours through the tear in time, moving among us as power and passion, harder and heavier than mere serenity, more extravagant, more elusive, more poignant than simple contentment.
Jesus’ Peace comes as courage to stand fast in violent times, to stay free in the face of oppression, to stay open to love, to life, to others and to God in a turbulent world. Peace – not as the world gives.
Reflection: Kindness - PG# 5208 (2008/2009)
by Joy Rogers
A man fell among thieves on the Jericho road and was left for dead. Who was neighbor to him, asks Jesus?
Not proper religious types, but the unlikely passer by—the despised, outcast Samaritan who acknowledged the real human plight that bound him to a stranger, rather than being bound by ancient hatreds that separated them.
Thomas Cahill asks a stunning “what if?” What if—right from the beginning—Christians had put kindness ahead of devotion to good order, theological correctness and our own justifications? What if kindness was the first measure of faith—not sentimental gestures or self righteous pious deeds, but a costly tending to the stranger, the other, to a neighbor in need who is my neighbor simply because another human being needs me.
What if? What kind of world would this be?
Reflection: Heaven - PG# 5213 (2008/2009)
by Joy Rogers
To stay faithful in the face of the hurt of the world, the brokenness in myself, beset by doubt, by loneliness, by fear – in those times of testing when I cannot find God, or feel God, I can only retreat to a shadowy place deep inside of me and wait for more.
Then, like Jacob, alone and guilty, wrestling with an angel, I too must grapple fiercely with the mystery and refuse to let go – staying with the struggle, demanding something, anything, to lift the darkness and open my soul.
Until at last, the blessing comes -- and once again, I limp into a future as yet unknown, but named anew for promise and purpose and for God – until the next time.
Reflection: Patience - PG# 5217 (2008/2009)
by Joy Rogers
Patience: a virtue I pretend I have, until I own that patience is not the same as procrastination – putting off a call to act, to love, to risk, is not the same as waiting upon God.
Patience is not apathy – not caring is not the same as staying open to an elusive Spirit and impossible newness.
Not passivity – not paralysis of hope or will or vision – rather a capacity to persist, to endure, to embrace brokenness in one self, in others, in the world and still believe more is possible.
Let it be, says Jesus, to those who would cut down the useless fig tree.
Let it alone, says Jesus, to those who would ruin the growing grain to root out noxious weeds.
Patience sounds now like a costly way to forgive, to trust that God is still at work, and God will harvest a Gospel crop in God’s own time.
_____________________________________________________________________