"Given" Midweek Reflection (Week 6)

Mark 14:22

John 12:24-26

Throughout our study of Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, we have been learning how to receive the gift of God naming us “beloved.”

Nouwen uses four words to describe the movement of the Spirit among us: taken or chosen, blessed, broken, and given. Tonight, my reflection is focused on this last word: given.

When I introduced these words, I shared that they echo the words used when we describe the Eucharist. At the Table, the bread - that is the Body of Christ - is taken, blessed, broken and given. And in our Christian lives, where we too are a part of the Body of Christ,
we are given.

Nouwen writes about the joy found in giving our lives and ourselves to others, saying that “our lives find fulfillment in giving ourselves to others.” (108) And not only fulfillment, but Nouwen says, “true joy, happiness, and inner peace.” (109)

He emphasizes that he is not talking about giving from what we have, or even what we can do, but making a gift of our presence.

When the North Carolina Synod had our leaders’ convocation last week, the keynote speaker told the story of having spent a year in Ethiopia where she learned to prioritize relationships over timetables and schedules. If she encountered a student on her way to class, they stopped and visited, and if that made her late, that was a cost she was willing to pay. It sounds foreign to many of us who may have heard as children, “If you arrive on time, you’re already late.”

But what would happen if we decided to prioritize our relationships ahead of the next task, appointment or meeting? What if we live as if we believe our presence is a gift, and the person in front of us is the recipient?

Nouwen writes, “When I ask myself, “Who helps me the most?” I must answer, “The one who is willing to share his or her life with me.” (113)

The second point Nouwen makes is that not only are our lives gifts, but also our deaths. It’s a startling claim at first, but he illustrates his point with the example of St. Francis, whose influence continues more than eight centuries after his death. “His life goes on bearing new fruit around the world. His spirit keeps descending upon us.” (121)

Listening to Nouwen and to John’s gospel, we are reminded that the fruitfulness of our own lives, the harvest of the fruit we bear, will likely be realized after our deaths.

Could we trust that our gifts are multiplied when we give them away? (123)

Like Elisha giving twenty loaves of barley to a crowd of more than one hundred and then gathering the leftovers (2 Kings 4:42-44) or the feeding of the five thousand that we hear in all four gospels (Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:31–44; Luke 9:12–17; John 6:1–14), God multiplies and God uses what we offer.

May we respond to the call to give ourselves for the sake of the world around us, and to give joyfully, without reluctance or hesitation.

"Broken" Midweek Reflection (Week 5)

Romans8:26-28

Hebrews 4:15-16

Throughout our study of Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, we have been learning how to receive the gift of God naming us “beloved.”

We have reflected on two of the four words that Nouwen uses to describe the movement of the Spirit among us. We are “taken” or “chosen” by God and God calls us “blessed”.

The next word Nouwen uses is broken.

Some twenty years before writing Life of the Beloved, Nouwen wrote The Wounded Healer. In that book his premise was that one who is ministering to others must look after one’s own wounds but at the same time be prepared to heal the wounds of others. He recognizes that we all bear wounds and we all are broken.

In this book, he writes,

Our sufferings and pains are not simply bothersome interruptions of our lives; they touch us in our uniqueness and our most intimate individuality. (87)

He continues, writing,

The way I am broken tells you something unique about me.
The way you are broken tells me something about you. (87)

And he urges us not to be afraid of our brokenness,
but to accept our brokenness as readily
as we accept our chosen-ness and blessedness.

One of the first ways we can accept our brokenness is to name it.

“Loneliness, isolation, insecurity, frustration, confusion…all these are forms of brokenness.” (Week 5, Study Guide) And I wonder,
what kind of brokenness feels most present or challenging for you right now? (pause)

Writing this book to his friend, Nouwen says choosing to share our brokenness with each other, to share our deep struggles, is a sign of deep friendship or relationship. (86)

I think one of the beautiful parts of friendship is when we can sit with another person and listen to them share their brokenness without denying it or trying to fix it.

Once we accept our brokenness Nouwen suggests two practices for us to respond to it: befriending it
and putting it under the blessing. (92)

Ignoring or hiding pain or suffering doesn’t erase it or reduce its effects. When we are fearful, our fear magnifies the obstacles and the challenges we face seem even larger.

Nouwen suggests instead that we need to step toward our pain and live through it. (95)

There’s no way to go around it. But we do not face it alone.

[We] need someone to keep us standing in it, to assure [us] that there is peace beyond anguish, life beyond death, and love beyond fear. (95)

As siblings in Christ, we help each other transform our suffering.

And when we do that, we also bring that suffering out of the shadows and bring it to God.

The shadows or what Nouwen calls “the curse” is our temptation to understand the brokenness we experience as confirmation of our un-worthiness.

It is what happens when we forget we are God’s beloved,
when we forget we are chosen by God as God’s children,
and when we forget we are blessed by God
for the sake of the world God loves.

I think of Adam and Eve in Eden in Genesis, when they hide from God.  Genesis 3, verses 8 and 9 say:

⁸ They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

I wonder how often we hide among the trees, hoping to hide something about ourselves from the God who created and loves us? (pause)

Nouwen urges us instead to put our brokenness under the blessing of God, trusting God to use our experiences to strengthen us and to see the pruning or winnowing as a natural part of our growth as disciples. (98)

Like joy, sorrow “becomes [part of our] desire to grow to the fullness of the Beloved.” (99)

That reminds me of Peter after the crucifixion.

John 21 tells the story of Jesus and the disciples cooking breakfast on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, and Simon Peter and Jesus are having a conversation where three times Jesus asks Simon Peter whether he loves Jesus. And each time, Peter insists, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus does know. And he knows Peter faltered and denied him three times before his crucifixion. And he forgives him.

Truly, nothing is hidden from God and nothing, not even our brokenness, separates us from the love of God and our lives as God’s beloved.

"Blessed" Midweek Reflection (Week 4)

Galatians5:22-26 

Matthew 5:1-12

Throughout our study of Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, we have been learning how to receive the gift of God naming us “beloved.”

Last week we reflected on the first of four words that Nouwen uses to describe the movement of the Spirit among us. We heard we are “taken” or “chosen” by God.

The next word Nouwen is blessed.

When he talks about “Blessed-ness” he isn’t talking about the kinds of material or superficial blessing that we might see in pop culture and in the world around us.

Nouwen describes blessing as hearing God speaking with “a small intimate voice saying, “You are my Beloved Child, on you my favor rests.” (77)

God has spoken these words before.

In Genesis 12, Scripture tells us that God says to Abram, ² I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

And in tonight’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount, we hear Jesus declaring the blessed-ness of all different peoples.

But even as we remember how God blessed our spiritual ancestors, Nouwen acknowledges how often in our lives today, that voice can be drowned out by competing claims, by condemnation and by blame or shame. (69,73)

And then he suggests two practices for us to learn to receive the gift of our blessed-ness: prayer and presence.

We often define prayer as a conversation with God.

Nouwen challenges us that “the real “work” of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.” - not to be self-indulgent but to be disciplined enough to push aside the “many voices that question my goodness” and trust God’s voice. (75-76)

I have taught the contemplative practice of centering prayer and sitting in stillness to listen to God. Sometimes it’s maddening because your mind wanders, and you can feel like you are wasting time. But teachers will tell you that the distractions are part of the practice. You learn to let the random thoughts float by and let them go, without grasping at them and engaging them.

Nouwen describes how he uses the prayer of Saint Francis, whose feast day was just last Saturday, as a sacred word or prayer to return his attention to God. Others might use a single word or phrase or recite the 23rd Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer. Finding words to repeat slowly helps ground you in the silence and prepare you to “listen to the voice of love” that is God. (78)

The second suggestion he makes is a practice of presence. Mary Oliver has a poem where she said, “Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.” (“It was Early”, Evidence.)

When our lives are busy or we are distracted, we may not notice what is right in front of us.

An easy example for me is how I sometimes forget to really take in the beauty of this sanctuary; it can become a backdrop for whatever activity is taking place, but I don’t really see it. But take a minute to look around and to notice, the stained-glass windows, the vaulted ceiling and the soaring cross, just to begin to name the ways that this space is especially adorned for worship. 

Along the same lines, when our hands are full, we cannot receive anything more. I wonder what we might set down to be open to receiving what God offers? How can we change our posture to be open to the blessing that others may offer, and to learn to bless others in turn? Nouwen tells the story of being asked for a blessing by someone just before a prayer gathering, so he began to automatically make the sign of the cross, but the person stopped him. She said she wanted “a real blessing”, so he took time in their gathering to embrace her and call her by name, saying,

“I want you to know you are God’s beloved daughter. You are precious in God’s eyes. Your beautiful smile, your kindness and your actions show what a beautiful human you are. When you have sadness, I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God, and all the people here. (71)

And then there was a cascade of people who witnessed that blessing who asked to receive a blessing.

We ache to know we are loved, and when we can receive the gift of our blessing, we can then bless others.

As I reflected on Nouwen’s words, I thought of just the past ten days or so, and the many blessings I have witnessed. Several of us went to Bat Cave for a house blessing for a house that was built for a family whose house was destroyed in the hurricane last year. And then Jill and I talked with a couple of preschool families about faith practices that include teaching their children simple blessings. And on Saturday, a friend gifted Ada with a blessing bowl at Denny’s memorial service and guests wrote out their memories of Denny to share with his family. At Sunday’s worship, Rita gave our benediction in German, and later that day, I led a blessing of the animals outside.

It makes me wonder if we can practice this attentiveness to God’s movement in our lives, through prayer and presence.

Would you experiment with praying in stillness and quiet? I’ve printed the words from 1 John 4:7-8 for you; try reading them slowly and letting them sink into your heart as you listen for God’s blessing for you.

Could you find one person whom you can bless? It can be as simple as telling them, “God loves you.” Or “It is good that you exist.”

And then let’s see what’s different when we’re together again.

"Taken" Midweek Reflection (Week 3)

John15:12-17

Romans 8:12-17

In Life of the Beloved Nouwen urges us to receive the proclamation that each of us is God’s Beloved and then he acknowledges that “becoming the beloved” means embodying God’s love in our words and actions,
a task that isn’t accomplished in a day or a week or even a single season of our lives, but is an ongoing process.

Nouwen uses four words to describe the movement of the Spirit among us: taken, blessed, broken and given and we’re going to reflect on one word each week, beginning with “Taken”.

Concerned that “taken” can be heard as “cold and brittle”, Nouwen quickly replaces it with “chosen”, writing,
“As children of God, we are God’s chosen ones.” (51)

We hear this same language in our readings tonight from John’s gospel and from Paul’s letter to the Romans. I often say, “God gets all the verbs.” Tonight, we hear:

God chooses us.
God adopts us, and
God makes us heirs to God’s kingdom.

God does that, FOR US.

Nouwen continues, writing, “From all eternity, long before you were born and became a part of history, you existed in God’s heart.” (53-54)

I remember the first time I heard someone describe Jesus’ prayer in the high priestly prayer in John 17. There Jesus is praying  and he says, “⁹ I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.”

Jesus prays for us because he knows how much God loves us, because God has claimed us as God’s own.

Nouwen writes because he wants us to understand that in the gaze of Christ, or as he writes, “the eyes of love”, we are seen as precious. (56)

God has chosen us with an everlasting love. (58)

Chosen. Precious. Beloved.

These are the words God uses for us, even when our world says otherwise. When we hear words that tear down or diminish, or when we experience rejection or humiliation, those words are not of God. For that matter, when we inflict suffering on others with our words, that is not of God either.

Choose whose voice you will heed.

And then celebrate with gratitude to God and to every person who reminds you of your chosen-ness. As Nouwen writes, “When we keep claiming the light, we will find ourselves becoming more and more radiant.” (62) That is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

And as we live with gratitude, we also cultivate the desire for others to know that they too are chosen by God and beloved.

Nouwen writes, “It is impossible to compete for God’s love.” (64) My being chosen doesn’t mean someone else is excluded or rejected. Instead, as he says, we call forth “each other’s chosen-ness and a mutual affirmation of being precious in God’s eyes.” (65)

This is how we live as God’s Chosen.