One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.  [from Acts 16]

It is hard to read a story about a girl in slavery without thinking of the three young women in Cleveland who were just freed after years of horrible captivity by a depraved man and his two brothers.

Though we find it impossible to imagine what they’ve been through, the heart of every decent person breaks at hearing just a few details of their story, and of those who rescued them.  We all want the best for them as they try to put their lives back together.  They will need every resource they can get.

Stories like this make us wonder:  how many other people are there in similar situations?  Held against their will by a stranger or by someone they should be able to trust (a parent, spouse, lover)?  Caught up in human trafficking?

Or how about those who are simply fearful to speak their minds because they live with a controlling person?  Who are unable to live their own lives because someone else tells them how it must be lived?

What of those who live in places where their civil liberties and basic human freedoms are denied by those with political power?  Or who are wrongly imprisoned?  Or people who are afraid to observe their own religion?  Or those who are reluctant to walk down the street or to send their children to school because of violence?

When frightening stories make the news, they sometimes rock our world, because we just can’t imagine how one person can commit such evil against another.

The girl in the biblical story was set free from her internal prison, and she was no longer a pawn her “masters” could use.

Like Paul and the others, it’s our task to set the captives free, both from their internal and external prisons.

We have to keep our eyes open, and be ready to act.

 

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2013

I’ve been doing some worship planning for the summer, and working with some themes of spirituality, discernment, and especially prayer.  Then I came back to this week’s lectionary gospel reading.  It’s again from the section of John that takes place at the last supper—a discourse from Jesus that is 5 chapters long!  The writer has collected all these sayings that he considers to be vitally important to a church that will live on after Jesus has gone, including this:

          Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ [from John 14]

These words hit me:  “I am going away, and I am coming to you.”

As I’ve been pondering our inner, personal spiritual lives, it occurs to me that this is exactly our experience of God.  The going and the coming.

Often, we are overjoyed at the coming of God in a bright spring day in Kentucky, in a meal eaten with a loved one, in a sense of peace.

Perhaps just as often we are confused and dismayed by the going of God.  What happened to God’s presence when the diagnosis came, or the loved one has gone, or the joy has gone out of living, or we watch the news about one more horrible act or tragic accident?

I think John wants the Jesus followers to know that, even in our sense of the grave absence of God, there is still the possibility of inner peace.

Peace may be found in presence, in the coming of God.  But it may also be found in absence, in God’s going.

It may be found in waiting, hoping, longing, desire.  It may even be found in anxiety, fear, and loss.

Peace is found in the faith that going is not the final act of a Christ who has promised to come to us yet again.

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2013

Just about everyone in America with access to a television has kept up with the stories and images of the bombing in Boston and its aftermath.  Fear, death, injury, help, courage, manhunt, chaos, lockdown, relief, end.

The stories have been riveting. They have been moving.  They have been frightening.

They have also expressed deep love.

In the seconds after the explosion, people responded with first aid.

Residents and businesses along the marathon route welcomed complete strangers in, providing a place for runners to rest and rehydrate, lending cell phones and computers for them to contact their families and friends.

Hospitals that had prepared for running injuries had to open trauma centers.  They saved lives, kept loved ones informed.

Neighbors checked on each other during the lockdown and shared what they had.

When life comes to a standstill, opportunities open.

Whether it is a horrific accident in Texas, an earthquake in China, or a bomb in Baghdad or Boston, love is what’s called for.

Jesus, only hours before his arrest and execution, saw terror looming on the horizon.  At the meal he shared with his friends, he could have told them all sorts of things about being careful, staying away from danger.  Instead, he said this:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As we are still living into our Easter faith, may it be so with all of us.

 

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2013

          When I travel to Mexico after a long absence, I’m always surprised and happy to see street vendors again.

There are the ones who set up their carts on the plaza at night, selling ice cream or fruit with salt and spices.  My favorites are those who make marquesitas, sweet, crispy crepes filled with a goat’s milk caramel.

Then there are the water vendors.  Usually they are guys with bicycle-powered carts who come by in the early mornings just as people are waking and cooking breakfast, before the car traffic is too heavy.

Agua! they shout as they pedal slowly enough down the street so people have time to hear them and wave them down.  Water!

And everyone whose supply of safe drinking water is drawing low comes out on the street.  They buy the heavy 5 gallon bottles and haul them into their homes, their thirst satisfied for a few days.

In the readings for this Sunday, there are two that refer to water:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! [Isaiah 55]

…and

God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. [Psalm 63]

Why water?  Because water, of course, quenches thirst, and in Lent it is helpful to be reminded that not all our thirsts are physical.

The longings we have for depth of meaning, for companionship, for truth, for relief from things that burden us, for help when we feel helpless—all these longings find a home in us at some point or other.  During the season of Lent we’re encouraged to pay attention to them.  To allow them to come to the surface.  To let our inner needs see the daylight of our own contemplation.  To recognize how they influence us, help us, harm us.  To remember they are a part of who we are.

Then, once we’ve really looked at those longings and needs, we remember that God also sees them.  And we are invited to come out of our hidden selves and find water that soothes our souls, that quenches our needs, that makes us want to sit down under a shade tree and take a rest in God’s presence.

 

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2013

When Paul talks about love, it sounds a bit lofty.  Elevated, really.  Almost perfection.

Which is odd, because he’s talking to a church that is anything but perfect.  Those Corinthians could argue!  About food, about worship, about… well, everything.  I’m sure no one today would argue about anything trivial.  Nooooo.

Paul has had about enough of their arguing, so he writes this poem.  Or maybe he’s quoting a poem or song familiar to the Corinthians.  That doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that it’s about love.  Love described in idealistic terms.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

If I were writing about love, expressed in community, it wouldn’t be so idealistic.  I’d probably say things like:  Love is hard; love is complicated and messy; sometimes love is almost impossible.

But Paul is wiser than I.  He gives us a lofty, aerial view, so that when we get back on the ground we remember not just what love is, but what love is supposed to be.

Above the clouds of conflict and stress, we imagine the beauty, the simplicity, of loving each other despite our conflicts and differences.  So that when our feet hit the dirt again, we have the ideal in mind as we attempt to put love into action.

The aerial view.

Love on the ground.

Maybe someday they’ll actually be the same thing.

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2013

Have you seen the movie Lincoln?  It focuses on a brief time period, mostly January of 1865, and the difficult but ultimately successful passage in congress of the 14^th amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting slavery.

One might have thought slavery was ended a few years earlier, with this document:

By the President of the United States of America, A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”

This Emancipation Proclamation was not recognized by the Confederate States, of course, and it would require the 14^th amendment and the end of the Civil War to end slavery.

Today, though we celebrate deep progress, hardly anyone would say that equal civil rights have been achieved 100% by every person and group.

When Jesus spoke in his hometown synagogue, he quoted these 500-year-old words from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [from Luke 4]  Then, says Luke, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In both of these cases there is talk of fulfillment. And the results?  Well, progress was huge.  In Jesus’ case, we have a church that grew out of those words and kept them for all subsequent generations, signaling their importance.

The point is that each of our generations—whether we’re talking about Americans reaching for freedom and equality after the example of Lincoln, or people of faith reaching for the same things after the example of Jesus—each generation must continue the work.  Yes, great things have already occurred.  Yes, great things are occurring every day.  And finally, yes, there is still work to be done.

We continue to reach, continue to point the way, continue to open doors, continue to free the oppressed.

The future of what has yet to come is already foreshadowed in the progress we’ve made.

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2013

John (the Baptist) said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”  [from Luke 3]

So, all these people were coming to hear John and he called them a bunch of snakes.  Not very welcoming.  I have no idea why they didn’t just slither back to their homes to get away from his venomous rantings.

There had to be something in his words that appealed to them, though, or they wouldn’t have kept coming in droves.

His metaphor is so very striking.  I’ve seen ONE snake rushing from danger (the danger was me, squealing and rushing in the opposite direction, having just seen a snake).  John’s speech makes me imagine something more along the lines of a horror movie—hordes of snakes shooting along the ground in every direction to escape something.

Maybe John is—in his wildly dramatic fashion—trying to get people to stop fleeing.  To turn around and pay attention to the thing they’re running from.  And then to move forward.

What are we trying to escape this Advent?  Too much to do, maybe?  A sense of emptiness in a culture that celebrates self-actualization, always reaching for more, never being satisfied?  A bland spirituality?  A hurt that is too painful to examine?  A need that is too deep to name?

John’s fleeing listeners, afraid of the meaning of his words, asked him what they should do to fulfill their needs.  He didn’t tell them to pray (though I’m sure he thought prayer was a good thing).  He didn’t tell them to believe (though he certainly had strong beliefs).  He told them to share.

          In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”

Whatever we fear and need to escape, the answer is often in the sharing of possessions, time, energy, attention, self.

The thing we’re running from probably won’t disappear, but it may seem smaller in the rear view mirror when we focus on what we’re moving toward.

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2012

(Yes, I know it’s the title of a vampire movie.  Thank goodness titles can’t be copyrighted…)

 

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  [from Luke 1]

This time of year in Kentucky, most of us rise before dawn because the sun comes up pretty late.  One morning last week I peeked out the window while it was still dark, and thought it had snowed.  It was, I am pretty sure, the heaviest frost I’ve ever seen.  Just the right combination of temperature and moisture had conspired to create a freezing fog.  Ice crystals formed on every surface.  Even in the dark fog, it was beautiful.

Hopeful (and correct, for once) that the rising sun would burn off the fog, I took out my camera and started to line up some photos as I awaited daybreak.  The frost crystals were attached to each other in long threads, amazing to contemplate while I waited.

It was wild to watch, as I turned my attention to the sky, then back to the frost.  Foggy black atmosphere began to turn to foggy white, then opaque with just a hint of blue.  Eventually there was more blue than opaqueness, and finally the fog had fully been overwhelmed by the warming sun.  The whole process took at least half an hour, though I was too mesmerized to check my watch.

As the sky brightened, the long crystalline ice threads glowed their  hearts out, literally.  Within just a few minutes after the fog burned off, the frost began to melt.  Before long, things were back to normal.

In one of the readings for this second week of Advent, we have the song of Zechariah. (He was father of John the Baptist, husband of Elizabeth who was Mary’s cousin—Mary being the mother of Jesus.  Whew.)  Zechariah, a priest, had become mute after a visit by a heavenly messenger who told him he and his wife would have a son.  His first spoken words after the birth of John and the restoration of speech include these:  “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

This is always the hope of humanity, isn’t it?  That whatever bad thing is occurring now won’t last forever.  That the fog that obscures our vision of the future will be dissolved by the light of hope.  That the freezing darkness and death that seem so near—especially, for many, this time of year—will begin to melt from the warmth of peace.

May the Advent of hope and peace be yours.

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2012

          “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  [from Luke 21]

These words of Jesus for the first Sunday of Advent are strange and scary.  Cosmic signs in the heavens.  Danger.  Fear.  Look out!

Not exactly the words we’d choose to hear on the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new church year, but there they are.

“People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming…”  It’s enough to make you want to crawl into a cave and hide.

There’s certainly enough to make one worry:  “the roaring of the sea” fell recently upon our shores in the Northeast, and cleanup continues; Israel and Gaza have a tenuous cease fire, but only after over 100 people have been killed in bombings and rocket fire; individuals and families are struggling financially and every other way, trying to hold things together during the holiday season.  And then there is our nation’s “fiscal cliff.”

Fear and foreboding.

Luke, having taken us down his metaphorical road of danger and fright, tells us that even as we are looking up into all that turmoil in the heavens, we see the “Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and glory.”  God is on the way, bringing justice and peace.  Tomorrow.

It’s a common biblical theme from both testaments:  no matter how bad things seem, no matter how bad things are, God is there.  Hope isn’t lost.

We needn’t keep our heads down in worry and fear.

These ancient writers tell us that the story of the world is not yet finished.  It is a work in progress.  This place we inhabit often looks so bleak.  Yet, behind the scenes, God is at work– in individuals and in systems, in families, in churches and communities, and even in governments – to do away with injustice and to bring about goodness.

We stand on tiptoe, we people entering Advent, and we peer through the lens of our scriptures into a world of hope and peace.

Then we turn around and look at what’s already here.  At the strides we’ve made through the centuries in the areas of justice and peace.  At the very long way we have to go.

God will make all things new someday.  Someday the wrongs will be made right and justice and fairness will rule.  Someday – the Day of the Lord – will dawn with no one hungry, or weary, or poor.  And God will touch our cheeks where tears have streaked their way down, and will gently wipe those tears away.  Someday.

In the meantime, we touch the cheeks of others.  In the name of God, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can help to make things new.

We turn the page to start the new calendar of our church year, whisper a prayer of thanks and hope, roll up our sleeves and get back to work.  Tomorrow is already on the way, with God’s hope.  Raise up your heads.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

© Melissa Bane Sevier, 2012

 

          The gospel reading for this week (Christ the King Sunday) is this:

 

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  [From John 18]

           If you’d been present for this conversation, you’d have witnessed something very odd. 

          Pilate nearly laughs at a man who is called “King” by some.  The man standing before him has a bruised face from being punched a few hours before.  He’s exhausted from staying up all night.  His friends have betrayed or deserted him.  After this encounter, Pilate, the Roman governor, has the man flogged.  The next day he’ll be executed.  Pilate holds all the power.  Not much of a king, that other one.

          So it seems.

          But looks can be deceiving.  We know the end of this story, which is about the turning of the tide in favor of the wrongly imprisoned, the poor, the ill-treated. King?  Well, not in the usual way.  But still, one who testifies to the truth.

          Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S.  People will sit down, alone or together, to feast or famine.  Meals will be eaten in the company of loved ones, or on the go at work.  Some will eat in the hospital, while others will be in their home or someone else’s.  Many will dine on turkey and all the fixings, some will drive through a fast food restaurant, some will eat whatever they can find and afford.

          It can all be deceiving, can’t it?  It should go without saying that the circumstances and menu of the Thanksgiving Day meal are not determined by nor do they define how happy you are.  It’s impossible for anyone else to know the truth about your heart, because looks can be deceiving.  The truth of the day is in gratitude, sharing, peace, joy.  Sometimes in difficult circumstances, those things are hard to come by.  Sometimes in easy circumstances, those things are hard to come by. 

          If you are a stranger to peace, joy, and gratitude this year, may those who are lucky enough to have them befriend you.

          And if you are among the lucky and blessed, may sharing be one of the truths you live by.

          For if looks can be deceiving, shared grace is transparent.

 © Melissa Bane Sevier, 2012