Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Delivered on the First Sunday of Christmas, 2019 at the Church of the Advent, Louisville, KY Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. If you’ve been around children or raised your own, you know the following scenario. I was on my way out of the door when my 4 year old daughter asked me where I was going. I replied that I was going out to mow the lawn. She asked “Why?” I replied “Because the grass is growing and needs to be cut.” Pregnant pause. “Why does the grass grow?” “Because the sun shines on it, and the rain waters it, and it just grows.” Another pause. “Why does the sun shine?” and so on, and the questions keep coming until you throw your hands in the air and say “Just because.” At that point, you know you’ve lost the conversation. But that question “Why?” has an underestimated power to cut through all of the hows and whats and wherefores and lay open the central belief, or reason

Where is God? Ezekiel 37:1-14 , Psalm 130 , Romans 8:6-11 , John 11:1-45 I don’t think that there’s anyone who can’t relate to the first verse of today’s Psalm, 130. in the past weeks:      Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;      Lord, hear my voice; *let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication. We have prayed hard as we watch the coronavirus spread across the country. We have worked hard at trying to limit its damage to our bodies, our society, and our economy. We have looked to the government for help, and are confused when we see faces staring back at us. I follow a private COVID-19 healthcare provider board on FaceBook, participated mostly by nurses. The posts are at once humbling, heroic, poignant, and horrific. It is also a glimpse into what Italy has been facing for the past month. There are posts about the strain on healthcare workers of taking care of large numbers of patients, the emotional overload of being at risk and becoming a patient t

Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1-13 John 9:1-41 Nothing much happened to me this week in my new rhythm of life. I have been working from home, and will be for at least the next several weeks. I’ve gotten into a routine where I wake up at 6 AM, and am logging into work by 7, and finish up around 4 PM or so, depending on the urgency of requests that come to me. This new life is one where I feel disconnected from the pandemic, and distant from others around me yet still have things I must get done. It is difficult to do, but the internet, as much garbage as it contains, also contains ways in which we can connect and build a community. I regularly interact with people from Australia, England, and France in an on-line Facebook group, the kind of community that is impossible to have in the physical world. I am expanding that sense of community to people who live near me, or at least in the same country. Still, it is a strange feeling to be at home, away from the drama that the pandemic brings, sort o

Fear in the Viral Wilderness Based on the text Exodus 17:1-7 Moses has a problem. Through a series of events in Egypt, he found himself a leader that he didn’t want to be, leading his people out of slavery that they didn’t want, into a wilderness that no one knew about. And now, his people are complaining, holding him responsible for following God’s will for them. When we in North America read about the wilderness, we assume old-growth forests shading streams, animals lurking just beyond our sight, birds singing in the trees, and lush if not thorny undergrowth. But for the Hebrews, the wilderness was a desert, sparse of vegetation, animals, and water. The Sonoran or Painted Deserts outside of Las Vegas and in Arizona are closer to what the Hebrews found themselves in than forests. We find ourselves in our 21st Century version of a wilderness, defined by medical authorities, public health strategies, and personal and community hygiene, fleeing from a largely unknown disease-causing v