Thursday, April 7: Karen Haig

I have grown weary with my crying. - Psalm 69:1-23

The despair in these words is difficult for me to take in. Drowning in suffering and sorrow, sinking into the muck with nothing to cling to, utterly overwhelmed by wave after wave of heartache and no relief in sight. Yet there have been times in my life – not many, thank God – but there have been times in my life when these feelings were my own. Utter devastation. Shock and fear and hopelessness and loss… loss so excruciating that I had no idea how I would survive. I know what it is to be weary with crying, unable to speak for all the wailing I’d done. I know what it is to search and search and search for comfort, and all in vain. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Just as the psalmist suffered and as we have suffered, God in Jesus suffered too. And as strange as it may seem, this is the place we will find comfort and hope – right there on the cross. After all, if Jesus had not suffered like that, would we trust God to know what it’s like to endure excruciating pain, and to suffer with us? Would we feel the love of God envelop us in the midst of our grief? Would we count on God to know our own indescribable ache? Would we turn to God in our own suffering?

Hanging there on the cross, Jesus kept company with two mere mortals who hung on crosses too – just like He keeps company with us when we hang on our own. That is indeed Good News! Not that God wills us to suffer – suffering is not God’s will. But that when we do suffer – in those times of utter devastation that we fear we will never survive – the God who knows our suffering, experiences that suffering deeply. And taking it all in, God transforms our suffering – redeeming and resurrecting and turning it all into ever more love.

—The Rev Karen Haig

Wednesday, April 6: Dwight Russell

"The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him." - Jeremiah 18:1-11

Paraphrasing Augustine of Hippo: “Sin is anything that displaces or gets in the way of our relationship with God.” I’ve always liked this definition because it is inclusive, as opposed to the Old Testament enumeration of things to do, or not to do (as in Leviticus), in order to avoid the wrath of God.

In the book of Jeremiah, God makes it very clear: “I have given you free will. Trust in man and flesh and you are cursed; trust in the Lord, you are blessed. Straighten out your lives!” The Hebrews, of course, don’t get it and they say: “Why should we? What’s the point? We’ll live just the way we’ve always lived, doom or no doom!”

At this point God sends Jeremiah to a potter’s house, where he reports the following: “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he re-worked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.” At first, Jeremiah was puzzled, but then he heard God’s message: “Can’t I do just as the potter does, people of Israel? …watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you…at any moment I may decide to pull up a people by the roots and get rid of them. But if they repent…I will think twice and start over with them.” Sounds pretty draconian, doesn’t it? But the thread of a miracle exists in this passage. Nowhere in the story does it say that the clay is destroyed; it still exists and is re-workable, as are we if we only listen for God’s word.

The season of Lent, for me, is a reflective time of examination. Where do I need to change my life? What have I been doing or thinking that gets in the way of my relationship with God? I pray that I may seek repentance and renewal, and once again accept God’s grace and love. “Give thanks to the Lord, for his mercy endures forever.”

—Dwight Russell

Tuesday, April 5: Josh Hosler

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? - Romans 7:13-25

I remember hearing this passage in church when I was a kid. My best friend Trav and I sat in the front row and giggled throughout, much to the annoyance of my parents. At home, we got out a Bible and read it again. We challenged each other to read it five times fast. We couldn’t make head nor tails of it, but we knew it sounded hilarious. We wanted to shout, “Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this convoluted sentence structure?”

The passage continued to elicit giggles from me well into high school. One night at summer camp, each of the campers was asked to share a passage of scripture that was meaningful to us. I thought I’d lighten the mood a bit, so I read this passage and received, to my delight, many more chuckles from my fellow campers. But Father Phil, the head of the camp, smiled knowingly: “You may think it’s funny now, but once you understand it, you won’t find it funny at all.”

When we’ve lived long enough, we do understand it. No matter how hard we try, we can’t “be good.” We continue to do things wrong. We continue to mess up—not only by accident, but even willfully—all the time. We justify our actions one way or another, and then we feel awful when we suffer the consequences. Are we sorrier for the action, or for the consequences?

Yet the most important line in the passage is this one: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We have nothing to fear, because Jesus knows our hearts and understands our struggles. Each time we fall down, we can get back up again, not with groveling, but with dignity … because we are God’s beloved children.

—Josh Hosler

Monday, April 4: The Rev. Hollis Williams

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and truth go before your face. - Psalm 89:1-18

I am very fond of the Central Branch of the Seattle Public Library at 1000 Fourth Avenue. The iconic building, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus, has an outside skin of glass. The 9,994 windows set in twelve-inch steel I-beams make the building transparent. Standing outside, one can see in; standing inside, one can enjoy the urban landscape; also, from within as one looks up or down, you can see through parts of the building to other floors. The library is transparent.

When something is transparent, light is able to pass without distortion and one sees more clearly. Transparency is a word heard more frequently in social discourse today. Often it refers to government or institutional processes. People are more comfortable if the components of decisions are more public.

In the faith journey we are in a process, allowing the light of Christ to illumine the shadow places in our life with forgiveness, grace and truth. Thereby, we become more transparent, more complete, and more authentic. I like the phrase, “love and truth go before your face.”

In this season of preparing to take in the transforming power of the Resurrection at Easter, one might allow the light and truth of Christ engage one of your shadow spots. In so doing, you take another step toward wholeness and enhanced transparency.

—The Rev Hollis Williams

Sunday, April 3: The Fourth Sunday in Lent

One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. - John 9:1-41

As a parent, I’ve expended a fair amount of energy anxiously worrying about the health, well-being and “normalcy” of my children. I spent many moments during the nine months I was pregnant with my son worrying about questions like: Will my child be born with a disability or be afflicted with a disease? In this as with many other things in life, I often find myself troubled and anxious over that which is out of my control.

How can God’s glory be revealed in an innocent child’s disability or illness? Jesus rejects the traditional thinking of the time, that illness and disability were the product of sin. Jesus states something that must have been quite surprising to the disciples. And Jesus challenges our own self-absorbed anxiety as well: God’s greatness is revealed in the one who we think is afflicted. God’s greatness is revealed when we think the worst possible thing has happened to us.

I am reminded yet again that if I can step back from trying to control that which is not in my control, then I can glimpse God at work in my life. If I can let go of the anxiety, the fear, and the attempts to control the big and small of my life, God’s works are revealed. Even as God’s glory was revealed in the blind man who was made to see, the scales can fall from my own eyes, that I may see God’s works revealed in the everyday experiences of my life.

—Andrea Sato Borgmann

Saturday, April 2: Bob Simeone

So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. - John 8:47-59

Moses said “I am who I am” long before Jesus. Jesus said the same words at the temple when surrounded and under duress. Shakespeare gave very similar words to us via Polonius: “This above all: to thine own self be true,” and Popeye said it plenty of times to Olive Oyl and Wimpy: “I Yam what I Yam.”

They are all very different characters from different times. But they all teach us the value in being our most authentic self. Being who you are is always the best way to live. For Jesus it was the only way to live. While he knew he would have to drink from a bitter cup and be surrounded by people he could not depend on when the chips were down, he had to be who he was, faithful to his Holy Father and true to himself.

The same applies to each of us in our daily lives. The shortcuts, the quick fixes, the cover stories don’t improve our situation. We are our best selves when we are who we are, warts, foibles, shortcomings and all. And like Jesus, we are desired, loved, and beloved by our Holy Father who art in Heaven. —Bob Simeone

Friday, April 1: Zonnie Breckinridge

Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. - John 8:33-47

Carl Jung once wrote that we cannot solve a problem in the same state of consciousness in which it was conceived. Jung must certainly have been familiar with this passage from John. Here, Jesus calls us to step out of that old, familiar place where we have been conditioned to act (or more often, react) by our fragile egos and emotional programs for happiness (power, control, safety, security, approval, esteem). Jesus tells us that when we act from these conditioned patterns learned from the external world, we become a “slave to sin.” From this place, we cannot know the truth, because the truth comes from another place altogether.

Jesus points us in a new direction – toward that interior place where the Divine Indwelling rests and where all truth exists. By opening ourselves to that Divine life force, we open ourselves to God’s unconditional love for us. Only then can we “hear the words of God” and know the truth, which will “set us free” – free of the conditioned patterns of our ego.

The only path I know to this place is through the practice of prayer, most especially through “silent prayer.” By setting aside a regular time of quiet where we empty ourselves of the constant chatter in our head and sit in silence with the sole intention of resting with the Divine Love that lives within us, we will surely be set free.

—Zonnie Breckinridge