Peculiarly God’s Own: That’s Us!

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distinctive, Lent, Moses, peculiar, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

So here we are at the end of the first week of Lent. How are you doing with your practices? Do you even remember what you said this year’s season would be like? The Scriptures continue to pound out the message to us, providing new prompts every day. The first reading for today is pretty clear, with Moses telling us once again that we belong to God and what that means regarding agreements and statutes to follow. There’s just one stand-out word—one that I wouldn’t expect. Moses says to the people: Today the Lord is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own...

That struck me as, well, rather peculiar! I wouldn’t have used that word which I always knew to mean something strange or odd. That is one of the ways the dictionary tells us it’s used. That is the second listing however. The first definition for peculiarly is: more than usually; especially. Webster has it as “characteristic of only one person, group or thing, (and in big letters) DISTINCTIVE.

So I ask you today: How do you see yourself as peculiarly God’s own? How would other people recognize you that way? What is it about you that is so special that it warrants the descriptive PECULIAR?

Perseverance

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Amalek, Hebrews, Joshua, judgment, Moses, patience, Paul, perseverance, prayer, psalm 121, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Timothy

The lectionary readings for this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time seem like a chain whose links build a good argument for “stick-to-itiveness” (Can that really be a word?!)

First we have Moses and the Israelites in a battle with Amalek which seems rather outrageous. Moses is up at the top of a hill watching the battle led by Joshua. His staff in hand, Moses watches and directs the fight. (Here’s the part that seems rather strange.) “As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight but when he grew tired Amalek got the advantage.” Happily, Moses had a rock to sit on when his legs got tired and two men to hold up his arms when his arms were giving out, so Israel won the fight. (Perseverance with a little help: yes?)

Next we have Psalm 121 (1-8) with all kinds of encouragement about how “our help is from the Lord,” followed by Paul’s challenge to Timothy (TM 4: 1-2) to “be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient,” advising him specifically to “convince, reprimand and encourage through all patience and teaching.” (That last part — patience and teaching — seems to me the most likely to be effective.)

Finally we have the story of the unjust judge who rendered a decision in favor of the woman whose presence and bothering would not let him rest. His reasoning is weak but the point of the woman’s perseverance is made and drives home the point of all the elements in the chain. Moreover, it seems to me that it all can be summed up by the verse before the gospel that assures us: “The word of God is living and active, discerning reflections and thoughts of the heart.” (HEB 4:12)

Transfiguration

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Elijah, faith, Hebrews, James, Jesus, John, Moses, Mount Tabor, Peter, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, transfiguration

Today is a feast in Christianity that is difficult to explain. The word itself: transfiguration, if broken apart, speaks of a change from something into something else, a change in figure or form. What we know from each of the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) is a similar recounting of the same event that took place on Mount Tabor. Jesus had taken his friends Peter, James and John to that mountain for a time of prayer and something inexplicable happened. Jesus appeared to change into a “being of light” – as if from another realm. It seemed that the space-time continuum had been breached because he was seen by his friends to be in conversation with Moses and Elijah the prophet, both Old Testament figures.

Clearly, this event was something “other-worldly” for the three disciples of Jesus, something that they wanted to hold onto. (“Let us set up three tents here, Master, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah…”) but that was not to be. The vision disappeared as quickly as it had come and they were left in the presence of “only Jesus” again.

Why was this gift given to these three and not all twelve of the apostles? What did it mean for their lives? How are we to interpret the story? These questions and more can only be answered as conjecture. Perhaps our experiences of meeting Jesus are not as real in this physical realm. Perhaps we meet him in imaginal space or simply in our deepest moments of prayer. Perhaps we have yet to trust ourselves to some holiness in ourselves that might allow a deeper understanding of our connection to the divine.

Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews (11:1) tells us that ” faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…” Perhaps we might benefit on this day from sitting quietly and putting ourselves in the gospel story of the Transfiguration (LK 9:28-36) to see what cannot be seen with our physical eyes but which might be grasped through the eyes of faith.

Summer Heat

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God, hear the message, heatwave, holy ground, hope, Moses, open heart, plan, pray, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I am sitting in an air-conditioned bubble, knowing about the dangerous heat index only because there is a large television on the wall in front of me constantly running today’s temperatures across the screen as the biggest news of the day. It is scheduled to reach 99 degrees F. by noon in St. Louis where I am and the headline right now is that the heat index across the country will reach 100F. for over a million people and will shatter heat records – over 150 of them – this week. It’s not just the 100 but the 111 in Virginia and elsewhere that makes me want to corral all the poor or aged people and bring them to our climate-controlled conference venue where we will need to remember to bring our shawls or sweaters to our session.

As I turn to the Scriptures for comforting news I hear God calling to Moses, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground…I will be with you…” I can usually twist and turn and fit the messages I find to my daily circumstances. Today I wish only to note for myself that God was speaking all those centuries ago and I am here now to hear the message. I can do nothing about the heat or the storms except to trust the generosity of people and local governments to open places of safety for their citizens.

So with that hope and the knowledge that I am privileged to stand this day on holy ground to pray and plan with my Sisters from near and far (see recent posts), I go about the work that is mine to do asking only for an open heart.

A Day Late

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determination, Deuteronomy, hearts open, Moses, present, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is Monday and I am still swimming in the confidence of yesterday’s first reading from Deuteronomy (30: 10-14). I’m in St. Louis, Missouri, far from home but in the company of over 100 women who have pledged themselves to live and work “for the life of the world.” The energy was high yesterday as we greeted one another after long absences or for the first time, hoping that we will find ourselves of one heart as we move toward an agenda that will likely need every one of the fourteen days ahead. You see, we are plotting our future here. As we diminish in number while welcoming one or two new members each year instead of the 45 of us who came in 1966 to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (a tiny location in St. Louis where we first settled in 1836), we need to be attentive to the particularity of our call to God’s service.

Yesterday in an opening ritual we stood one by one as our names were called and responded “Present!” Today we begin to understand the gravity of what that might mean for us going forward. In all of it we have the words that Moses spoke to the people to keep our hearts open and our determination strong, knowing that there are many people who hold us up in prayer. Won’t you join in the effort?

For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky, that you should say, “Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?” Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?” No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.”

I Am Holy

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God, holiness, I am the Lord, Leviticus, Moses, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, we are all one

Leviticus has never been my favorite book of the Bible. I am beginning to wonder if that’s because I never gave it a chance. Today’s first lectionary reading (www.usccb.org) is LV 19: 1-2, 11-18. The two introductory verses are a call from God through Moses about holiness. It’s easy for me to read those two verses and say something like, “Okay, that’s easy. It’s an often repeated theme” and then read the rest, i.e. the explicit content of the message, while allowing my mind to start a list of tasks for the day.

While I could probably guess most of what follows and be done with it, today I paid more attention and saw something old yet new to my consciousness. The key was in verse two which is not only God’s command for people to “be holy” but also gives the reason why they should make that the basis of all their actions: “for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.”

After that instruction, everything talks about things we should not do or be with or to other people: stealing, slandering, cheating, cursing, judging unjustly, hating & holding grudges. The reason, however, for all these strictures, is simply repeated at the end of each paragraph: “I am the Lord.”

My conclusion, then, about all of this is clear. What we do to others, we do to God. This leads me to a place that is fast becoming the most essential truth for me: We are all one – really and truly, all one. It means you are me and I am you and the reason and reality is because God is God.

The words on the page don’t seem revolutionary because I have heard them all before. In my heart, however, and hopefully in my life, I know them to be true in a new way that cannot (at least by me at this moment) be explained in any other way. And so I leave us all with what is.

The Choice

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choose life, Deuteronomy, life, Moses, risk, Sister Helen Kelley, ten commandments, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today Moses takes the podium with a clear choice for the people. (DEUT 30: 15-20) “Today I set before you,” he says, “life and prosperity, death and doom.” Who wouldn’t choose the first option? Oh, but there are conditions: obeying the commandments, statutes and decrees he sets down, walking in God’s ways rather than adoring their other gods… Not so simple when I start reflecting on the everyday experience of my living…(What “other gods” are still pulling me in the wrong direction? I ask myself.)

Moses is persistent, repeating his charge again and urging them toward the correct choice, saying, “Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him…” (Sounds like a choice that would be hard to resist, but then I think of the habits that are so persistent, especially in the down, difficult days of winter…)

A more evocative version of the challenge, perhaps, came to me long ago from Sister Helen Kelley, whose name remains anonymous to me but whose words always return when I listen to the speech of Moses in Deuteronomy.

Choose life, only that and always, and at whatever risk. To let life leak out, to let is wear away by the mere passage of time, to withhold giving it and spreading it is to choose nothing. (See berkana.org)

Everything Speaks

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desert, God's Word, listen, Moses, tell, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, word of life

I went out ten minutes ago (6:10 a.m.) to get my morning coffee and was greeted with the clearest sky possible, darkly shining in the moonlight with the morning star as brilliant as a huge diamond. I thought of a quote learned long ago: “The morning star shines clear in the sky, offering it the word of life.” After a glorious display, the light spreads quickly and the day begins again. I must not dawdle if I am to catch the show.

Yesterday, our “desert day” confirmed the truth of the desert Abba Moses in the following “word.”

“A certain brother went to Abba Moses in Scete and asked him for a good word. And the elder said to him: Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will tell you everything.”

I now know that if my cell is the night sky, or the glory of a rising sun, or just my morning coffee time on my bed, the word will be heard if, of course, I am listening well.

Our Lord

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Adonai, Come O God, Jews, Moses, O Antiphons, redeem us, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Torah

On this second day of the O Antiphons, we see the paradox of the Christmas event. The word used to name the one who is to come is the title used by the Jews when reading the Torah to avoid using the proper name of God. Saint Paul uses it to speak of the one “who did not deem equality with God something to be grasped, but rather he emptied himself” to come as a child and be with us as one of us. And yet we have come to know him also as Lord.

O Adonai, Leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

Love Is (Still and Always) the Answer

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heart, love, love God, love your neighbor as yourself, Mark, mind, Moses, neighbor, soul, strength, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

From the mouth of Moses to the gospel of Mark the Scriptures repeat the same message about how we are to live. We hear it today, not in a long diatribe but rather a brief directive about love. When asked what is the first and greatest commandment, we can all likely reply – at least with the short form of “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” The deep impact of what that effort calls out from us, however, is in the almost staccato list of capacities that follows. We are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength. In other words: Give it all you’ve got!

What occurred to me as I typed those last two sentences was that if we are to give ourselves so completely in loving God, what can be left for our neighbor whom we are supposed to love as ourselves? But that, it seems, is the mystery, the wonderful truth of this life of loving. In the love of God, everything gets transformed so that there is always enough love to go around – for ourselves and the neighbors everywhere who have become our other selves. Love begets love wherever it is found. That’s just the way it is. And it’s up to us to prove it.