| p1. January 1-8 Epiphany: "Happy New Year" Jan 1. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God�s love is perfected in us�God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. See John 4:12, 16. In a PBS series and the book based on the series The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell said, �You have the three great Western religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The three of them have different names for the same biblical God and yet they can not get along. They are stuck with their metaphor and don�t realize its reference.� Ultimately, as 1 John declared, it�s all about love, for God is love. May we know you more by loving others more, God of love. Jan 2. Jesus said, �If you�had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!� See Luke 19:41-44. At a children�s museum, a tour guide shows two very different brain scan images. At age three, the scan shows an undeveloped brain. It is a tangled web of neural pathways lighting up as the child explores a variety of ways to learn. By age thirteen the brain has become more developed. There are only a few well-worn paths that light up as the teenage brain settles into favored ways of exploring the world. Our faith may follow a similar growth process. We develop ways of encountering God and expressing our faith. The Gospel of Luke reports that many Jews failed to recognize Jesus as the presence of God. His ministry upset and defied their well-established expectations. It did not meet their developed mental maps. Their vision had become too narrow to experience the radical transformation made possible through the life of Jesus. Thankfully, God continues to work beyond the boundaries of our expectations. The Spirit leads us to new encounters with unlimited ways God is working to transform our lives. Spirit of life, expand my faith so that I might experience a greater vision of your love. Amen. Jan 3. SYMBOLS OF SHAME. �Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut�Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.� See Revelation 3:8, 13. The open door of our closet cannot be shut. One like Christ told the visionary John to say this to the church in Philadelphia of Asia Minor, the city of brotherly and sisterly love. �I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name,� Christ adds. �I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have. When Jews were forced to wear yellow stars by the Nazis, Etty Hillesum wrote of a man on a bicycle who glorified in his Jewish identity: �He was wearing a huge golden star, wearing it triumphantly on his chest. He was a procession and a demonstration all by himself as he cycled along so happily. Today, we proudly wear the pink triangle-what the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear. And we wear it with the cross, another intended symbol of shame transformed by God to a symbol of pride. We have little power, and yet we have kept God�s word and have not denied God�s Word. Our �patient endurance� will be rewarded with a place in the temple of God, and we will hear God�s name and Christ�s name. We are lesbian, gay, and bisexual Christians! Thanks be to God! Jan 4. Then I saw a new heaven and a new Earth. See Revelation 21:1. A well-known Christian educator from the South, who was not gay, used an unintended double-entendre in a letter to a gay friend. The writer awe-fully mentioned �the glory holes of God� through which blessings had come. In my own life God has worked through people I�ve met. God has given me solutions when I least expected them. At times God has arranged circumstances in my favor so that things would work out. God has opened my mind. What �glory holes from God� have sustained you? Thank you, God, for opening me to a new heaven and a new earth! Jan 5. Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt. See Matthew 2:13-23. Imagine the feeling of loss in Bethlehem after Herod sent his army into the streets and they killed all of the children. In their grief, the people wandered aimlessly in their own towns. Many people get lost in familiar places. A parent stands in the empty room of a child who has moved away. A displaced worker drives past the deserted parking lot of a closed factory (That happens a lot in New York State), A family returns to visit the old neighborhood. God, my protector, guide me through this day and bring me closer to your promise of new life. Amen. Jan 6. May he grant you your heart�s desire, and fulfill all your plans. See Psalm 20:4. Do you please God by gratefully seeking what god is anxious to give? Or do you ask impatiently for more of the things that keep you from experiencing the fullness of God�s desire for your life? I have done both J God of love, fill me with an appetite for the wonderful life you desire to give me. Amen. Jan 7. In the beginning�God created the Heavens and the earth�And God saw that it was good. See Genesis 1:1, 25. Our religious upbringing may have emphasized the holiness of Heaven over the holiness of Earth. Yet God created both. This earth and our earthly lives have as much sacred worth as any life that is to come. Help me to recognize my sacred worth, Divine Creator; and the sacred worth of others. Jan 8. Then God�formed a human creature of dust from the ground, and breathed into the creature�s nostrils the breath of life; and the human creature became a living being. See Genesis 2:7. God went on to create a partner so that the human would not be alone. Both were �naked, and were not ashamed.� This story proclaims God�s valuing of both our bodies and our need for relationship. If God values our bodies enough to shape each and every part, then we may value our bodies-each and every part. We need not be ashamed of our bodies. And, since God values our need for intimate relationship, then we need not deny ourselves a lover. We need not be ashamed of our sexuality. Thank you for the glory of our bodies, and the glory of the bodies of our lovers, Sacred Sculptor. |
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