“The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
“The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.”
Psalm 145:8-9
Julien: that verse might calm you down…
Granny Carm:……and be our inspiration to meet this challenge in ALL our interactions today, and this week.
-Carmen Maria Austin and her precious granddaughter Julien
Matt. 4:8-11. Then the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world… “All this I will give you … if you kneel down and worship me.”
That was an easy one, I’d say. First question, who ever said it was part of the devil’s portfolio to ‘own’ all those kingdoms. Second question: Devil, how do you ‘give’ a kingdom? Jesus called his bluff. Yes, the kingdoms were riddled with greed and corruption, self-serving civil servants, big people whose only purpose was to get more money, influence, power. I wonder sometimes what it would have looked like if the devil did have that portfolio. People would probably believe the only way to change their existence was by force of arms. They would seek to overthrow their rulers. But the outfit that took power would turn out to be half again as corrupt as the guys they threw out.
On second thought, maybe the devil did/does have charge over all the nations. I hate to think so but just maybe what we see as normal in our world, what we call ‘the way things are,’ is a world Jesus should have taken over back there in that desert temptation. But this is just the problem, isn’t it?
If God had willed us to live perfect lives of love and selflessness, probably it could have been. Ant colonies are full of workers who never even think of being disobedient (I suppose). But God didn’t it. God made Adam and Eve and first thing you know they were off and running counter clockwise. God expects us to struggle in the world, I guess. Maybe the whole question of our lives is how do we react when things are unfair, life is a bummer, when our hopes are dashed to bits, our dreams denied. Maybe the world we live in is meant to test us, to press us to become strong minded. Maybe the whole point of living is to discover we need to turn to God and wait on her. Maybe the whole business of living is to turn our hearts to God and hear what God is willing for us.
God, we are so willful so much of the time, thinking what we make of the world is Your will. Teach us to listen, to trust you and to do your will. Amen.
-Dick Sales
Lent is a time to reflect, so for the second year, Beloved Community Church offers daily Lenten Reflections. One source of inspiration is the daily lectionary – scripture readings assigned for each day of the year (gamc.pcusa.org/devotion).
Take today’s lectionary readings. First of all, I noticed the sheer diversity of the readings. They begin with morning Psalm 22, which jerked me from ” I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people” to “Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.” Hmmm.
Then I moved on to the absolute promises of Deuteronomy 7 that if you diligently observe the commandments, the LORD your God “will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock; you shall be the most blessed of peoples, with neither sterility nor barrenness among you or your livestock. The LORD will turn away from you every illness.” Wow.
The next reading in Titus 2 had a long list of instructions of how older men, younger men, older women, younger women, and slaves should behave, in response to the grace of God given to all. Okay.
Next, we have John’s version of Jesus calling his disciples. They immediately recognize him as the Lamb of God, Rabbi, and Messiah– in the first chapter! They are much quicker than the guys you meet in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Interesting.
Finally, the evening Psalm – 105, a thanksgiving, or 130, a lament. Depending on your day.
I was struck that there are five readings every day. Five. What if we read one of the daily readings at a different time every day? We would be like the monks who pray the daily offices – how could we help but be closer to God if we took the time to do that? It made me think of the Muslims who stop wherever they are to kneel and bow toward the east and pray five times every day. Can you imagine how your spirit might change if you stopped each day, five times a day, for five minutes to pray? What if you interrupted whatever you were doing, no matter what it was or who was with you, to pray? What if your boss was just telling you that you really need to focus more on your work and you said, ‘excuse me, but I need to take 5 minutes to pray, I’ll be right back with you?’ What if you turned the TV off in the middle of your favorite show (and you didn’t have TIVO)? Five readings, five times a day. Five minutes of prayer, five times a day. A Lenten practice that might change everything.
Rev. Angie Wright
As I was preparing for Lent, I read about one of the first bills to be introduced in this year’s session of the Alabama Legislature. The bill proposes that any illegal immigrant can be found guilty of trespassing and sentenced to a year in prison simply for being in Alabama. You and I can be found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison for knowingly taking an illegal immigrant to the doctor or the grocery store – or their immigration hearing.
The language used to justify this kind of action is so hateful. “We have been invaded, and the invasion continues to this day,” said a retired teacher from Montgomery. The campaign is so dehumanizing. The people pushing the cause are so judgmental. If only they could hear themselves.
If only I could hear myself.
I sound like the Pharisee in Luke 18, who stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people-robbers, evildoers, adulterers [fill in the blank]-or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ In other words, I can be so judgmental of the judgmental. I can be so inhospitable toward the inhospitable. I can be so self-righteous toward the self-righteous!
Lent is often looked at as a ball and chain to be dragged about for 40 days, but it’s really a gift. We’re invited to remove the veils that we’ve draped between ourselves and our God. We’re invited, in the words of Joel 2, to “rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.”
So I’m going to give up something for Lent. I’m going to give up my hostility towards those who are hostile to undocumented residents in our state. That doesn’t mean I’m going to give up. I’m still going to stand up for justice & mercy. But I’m going to try to do it how Jesus did. I’m going to try to do it how Martin Luther King did – I’m going to try to win them over with love.
-Rev. Angie Wright
Above: Denyse Thornley-Brown (second from left) with other Beloveds at an Immigrants’ Rights Demonstration
Many roads lead into and out of the sweet spirit that resides at Beloved Community Church. A long-time church leader, Dr. Denyse Thornley-Brown, is a perfect example.
Denyse, a native of Montreal, Canada, is a citizen of the world and sees her mission at Beloved as a way to serve people from all cultures. Her parents were Jamaican immigrants and her childhood in the melting pot of Montreal made her interested in cultures from all over the world. Her education took her from McGill University to medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She furthered her training with her residency in Atlanta and ultimately ended up in Birmingham at UAB Medical School. She is a nephrologist (kidney specialist) treating patients throughout the UAB system.
Not only has Denyse lived in many places, but she has an insatiable travel bug. Among other places, she has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, Mexico and Nepal. She even ran a marathon in Paris last year.
Denyse also comes from a diverse religious experience. Her parents were conservative Presbyterians who attended church every Sunday. Denyse was searching for a less formal worship and even visited fundamentalist protestant churches. Ultimately, she left seeking a theology that was less “harsh and judgmental.”
Denyse was among the first members of Beloved. A friend of hers who attended First Congregational Church, told her about Beloved. She visited and, as she says, she “never looked back.” Denyse found her home in a church we all know is the epitome of human diversity. Denyse explains, “At Beloved, there is a group of people whose paths would not ordinarily cross, but when we get together, it works so well. You find all walks of life, diversity of class, education, and life experience. That’s the beauty of Beloved – its diversity. You lose out when you just associate with people like yourself.”
Since she came to Beloved ten years ago, Denyse has served the church in many roles. She has served as Church Moderator. She presently volunteers with the church’s language class (Denyse is fluent in Spanish and French). She attends the “Race Matters” book club and “Spiritual Cinema.” She assists every Sunday in running the sound system during worship service.
Denyse would like more people to discover Beloved like she did. “I would like more people to know about the church. It is a well-kept secret. And I would like to see more children and youth active in the church.”
Yes, Denyse has traveled many roads on her way to Beloved. Since she arrived, she’s been paving the way for others.
I’ve seen a lot of angel dust around here lately. Angels have been swooping down all over the place and believe you me, these angels are not like the ones you’ve seen on the front of all those Christmas cards. These angels, they’ll take your breath away. When you are in their presence you can tell they are like something you have never seen, something radiant, something shimmering with the spirit of God. You may wish all your life to meet an angel, but it’s true what they say — be careful what you wish for. Because if you are one of the people God sends an angel to visit, your life will never be the same. Not that that’s a bad thing, but believe you me, your life will be turned every which way but loose. I mean that literally — once God gets hold of you, God will never turn you loose!
The first thing an angel will say to you is, “you need not fear.” That’s what they say but it’s not really true, because they’re about to ask you to be a part of something truly frightening. Even so, somehow you know that they’re not here to hurt you but to hurl you into the thrilling drama that is God.
If you are one of those nobodies who turns out to be one of those somebodies that God sends one of those angels to visit, well, it will leave you speechless. And I do mean that literally — take the case of that old couple Elizabeth and Zechariah. An angel told Elizabeth that even though she was old as dirt, she was finally going to have a baby. Just like the angel promised, God had taken away the disgrace that she had endured her entire married life.
Her husband Zechariah was a preacher and you know what that means – a big talker. So when the angel came to him, he asked impertinent questions and took issue with what the angel said – how brazen is that? Because Zachariah didn’t believe the unbelievably good news, the angel struck him speechless, and I do mean that literally — he didn’t speak from that day until the baby was born. That must have been the second miracle God sent to Elizabeth that day!
That same angel visited Mary and told her not to fear. How could she not be scared to death about the prospect of being stoned to death? The angel also told Mary that she had found favor with the Lord. She must have been frightened, I know I would have been. But in the end, she said, here I am, let it be.
So many angels, so much angel dust . . . what are these angels up to?
The angels aren’t through, you know, they are still doing God’s bidding. They are messengers and some of them look just like us. Angels bring the good news that God is taking away that which brings us disgrace among our own people. The angels clasp their hands over our mouths so that we will stop talking and listen until we find our own true voice and recognize the true voice of God. The angels bid us to do God’s work, to birth God’s new world into being, to embody God’s spirit, to protect God’s precious ones.
Sometimes we are the nobodies who turn out to be the somebodies who God sends angels to visit. And sometimes, sometimes, we are the angels, the messengers, the ones sent to the nobodies who really are somebodies who need to hear a good word from God.
-Rev. Angie
A Divine Morning
I walked out on the balcony this morning
to douse the thirsty yaupon holly.
I stood gaping in surprise for there you were
covering the pear tree, all white and fluffy.
Is it time for your blossoming glory?
There again you are doing your slow pirouettes on the telephone wire,
with no thought of falling.
I turned and looked down the alley
in time to see you creeping on your precious little paws, surveying a piece of your world with slow leisure steps. I want to go down and scoop you up in my arms,
cradling you like a baby. I feel You
want to cradle me too.
One day, in the by and by…
One day
-Marianne Dreyspring
Psalm 31 says in part: “… I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God. My times are in your hand.'”
It reminds me of my first year in seminary. I had gone not because I was on fire for God, but because in college I had lost my faith and I determined to spend a year testing whether a God existed and if so whether I needed to do something about it. Come spring semester and I hadn’t seen any sign of God at all. I decided I would go to every church service of every sort around the University of Chicago campus and it was marvelous how many there were. By mid April I felt exhausted emotionally without having solved anything. I realized I truly wanted God to exist, desperately so.
The Methodist Campus group was putting on a vesper service on the Lord’s Prayer and I went, reluctantly. I’d stopped expecting anything after weeks of worship. I sat with a Quaker friend and discovered the service consisted of black robed damsels writhing while somebody intoned the Lord’s Prayer and somebody else played the organ. I was defeated. I simply folded and wanted to cry. All I had seen was flesh when I thought I’d come for spirit. My Quaker buddy noted my anguish and thought me ill. I shook my head. I wasn’t ill that way. Well, would I go with him to Sunday supper at Quaker House. It only cost a quarter. I had a quarter, just exactly, and he took me.
You guessed it. In the midst of silent prayer I heard the words of Psalm 100:3: “Know that the Lord is God, He made you and you are His.”
I knew then and know now this moment represented wish fulfillment and was very psychologically explainable. I had a long way to go over more than fifty five years on two continents. But from that day, while I’ve anguished over a lot of other stuff, I haven’t doubted that ‘my times were in God’s hand.’
-Dick Sales
Oh, how I love Lent,
My time to get close to Jesus,
Reading scripture, praying.
The intimacy of his embrace
during centering prayer
and holy communion.
Walking the path through his life,
leading to Calvary.
Knowing the profound love that led
my Creator to do the unthinkable,
To become the son of man, joining us
In the suffering of this veil of tears,
when He could have stayed in the eternal light.
When the reality of this enters my soul,
I weep.
In holy week, I take the part of someone
in Christ’s life.
My favorites are Peter, John, and Mary Magdalene.
Choose someone that there is adequate scripture about.
That gives you more to work with.
If I have the courage, I want to be the angel
In the Garden of Gethsemane this Holy Week.
(Luke’s gospel, Chapter 22)
I will have the opportunity to comfort Jesus
in his difficult hours before he is taken
into custody.
Depressed people, do not do this.
I do this kind of meditation to feel Christ’s humanity.
It does bring me close to Jesus, the comfort of His love,
His accepting embrace,
the assurance that our God knows well
what we go through here.
-Marianne Dreyspring
Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through deep waters I will be with you; your troubles will not overwhelm you.”
It’s funny how many vivid impressions come with early encounters in new situations. Some First Church people will remember I spoke about this occasion some years back. Deep water indeed. We talk about floods but there were times in South Africa during my first ears there when bridges were washed out to the north and the south and we were to all intents and purposes on an island. It was during one such three day rain that I was scheduled to lead a service in an outstation of the Dweshula Church on the top of an escarpment.
Alan Paton once said Natal Province was like fingers reaching for the sea. Well,this church lay atop a swollen knuckle. I was proud of the fact that I kept my appointments so early in the rain that Sunday I drove south on the coastal road until I came to the road leading to the church. The rain, now in its second day, was heavy as I reached the foot of the escarpment and began to drive up on a graveled road toward the top. I neither met nor expected to meet another vehicle and while my car slipped and spun a bit it managed the mountainside road to the top. I don’t mind admitting that I was deeply relieved to have made it to the top and the outstation. Sure enough people came though the downpour continued unabated. Inside the sheet iron roof and I had to shout to be heard. The rain, if anything, got heavier and as the service ended I was glad I would be going down from the escarpment, not up it.
I learned early to drive in snow and mud so it shifted into second gear and made sure I didn’t do anything sudden as I descended. Then it happened! As I rounded a bend in a very precipitous place there was a car that had ended up against the mountainside. But worse there were half a dozen people on the sheer side waving at me to stop and help them. I trod on the brake before I thought of what I was doing because although I doubted i could stop the distance between the vehicle and the people was little more than the width of my car. Immediately the car lost traction and turned sideways. I turned the wheel the other way and it swung about almost sideways the other way and those people were getting close. I didn’t touch the brake but turned into the skid and my car straightened out just as it reached the people. It slid between them and their vehicle and continued to slide down the hill until, some yards beyond it once more gained traction and took me to the foot of the escarpment. Then I sat and shook for some minutes. Then I had the wit to give thanks.
