Through Stained Glass: A Flower Follow Up

“The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily
do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm.
If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.”
― St. Therese of Lisieux

 You all.

I made a goof.

 

If you noticed, there were no seeds in your Lent-In-a-Bag!

 

I'm sorry!

 

Here's what happened—not that any excuse is a good excuse.

 

When I was putting together our bags, I wanted to put in a seed of some sort we could enjoy by easter. One of the flowers that kept coming up in my searches were—crocuses. I then would search where to buy them and ran into the same answer—anywhere on the internets, but they wouldn't arrive in time for when we were to distribute our Lent-in-a-bag. At that point, I said, "Bummer! Oh well, I'll find something else."

 

And I didn't. I got busy, forgot about our flowers, and handed the bags out without seeds.

 

This happens when you try to do all the things and don't take time to double-check your work.

 

Yet, after my sermon yesterday [3/21], I had a few of you comment or send me messages about how you could relate to the squirrel story I told. In fact, one of you told me how you are anticipating the emergence of your flowers this spring … but the squirrel activity this last winter in your yard makes you a little skeptical.

 

I love hearing these stories. I know you love hearing stories from me, too. This is why I have this idea:

 

I want you to write me a story about your garden or what seeds you'll plant this spring or your favorite flower or the time when you were sure you planted the tulips by the fence, but they came up over near the garage.

 

If you don't want to write about your garden, flowers, or tell a story, please feel free to use the watercolor paints to create a picture of them! When you complete your art or story—send it to us at the church to share them on the bulletin board in the parlor. We've created a beautiful collage of our Lenten journey thus far, and I hope you make time to see it.

 

It is wild to think we are nearing the end of Lent. For five weeks now, we have read about God's covenant with God's people and the extremes God goes to save us! We've journeyed with Jesus as he proclaims the reign of God drawing near and that we can know the fullness of life with God here and now with each other. 

 

It is true, we are entering Lent's final days. Yet, we are still a resurrection people, which means we are Christ in the world now. Where we are – there Chris is, too. In and through us the glory—the heart of God—is revealed whenever we do justice, love kindness, and welcome the Risen Christ in everyone we meet!  

 

The good news is that the seed of Love has been planted already—and new life is soon to emerge! 

Through Stained Glass: Creating What's Happening

Salvation comes first, from God, for God's people. 

The Commandments are not God's way of controlling the people. Instead, they are gifts—instructions or teachings—that give birth to life in its fullest. The foundation of the commandments is God's grace. 

God is the God of all the things. In the Ancient Near East, the different levels of the universe and Earth were controlled by other gods. The God of the Hebrew people is the God of all. 

Remember, the Old Testament texts for Lent remind us of God's covenant. The covenant is a promise—and God promises the people of God to be their God, and they will be God's people. From the creation story, the flood story, and now Abraham's story, emerges the foundation of God's relationship to nature, to the people of God then, and to us today. Despite all the obstacles that stand in the way of God's covenant, promises to God's people are fulfilled. 

The giving of the Ten Commandments is an important moment in the life of the Hebrew people. It is known as "the time when our Torah was given," or zeman matan toratenus. The liberation of God's people out of Egypt and the giving of the Torah sets the God of the Hebrews apart from the other gods. These gods were involved only in nature, whereas the Hebrew people's God acts in history. These two events are essential in the development of the identity as God's people in that these acts display God's manifestation as Israel's redeemer—a God who is concerned with the redemption of the oppressed. 

What happens on Sinai is an important moment in the development of the identity of our Jewish siblings. The momentous encounter with God at Sinai is, for Judaism, the defining moment in Jewish history, the moment when God came down on earth and spoke to all the Jewish people, present and future, given them God's rules of life, which they embraced enthusiastically. 

The Ten Commandments are about life. The covenant God made to the Hebrew people leads them to a place of promise where they will know life abundant. Thus, we mustn't relegate the Ten Words to a 'set of rules' put forth by God to control us. Instead, we must see them in the context of covenant—God enunciates the terms for an enduring relationship with Israel. The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 is one more example—one more layer to the covenant relationship between God and God's people. The Hebrew people's God is wanting a covenantal community—which is quite unlike every conventional community of abuse, leverage, and exploitation. 

God wants to save God's people. Salvation is from God for God's people. God does this through covenant—in giving the Ten Commandments, teachings, or instructions of laws that enliven and enlighten humanity. The commandments [all 600+ of them] are gifts from God—sorry to be so redundant. They are a part of the Torah—together as a whole, they form patterns of respect and relationship that can shape all of life! 

And the Decalogue begins this way, "I am the Holy One your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Remember, God moves towards us. God creates, then liberates! God alone can do this for us. God is God—I AM who I AM—I AM WHAT'S HAPPENING!

And what's happening is God restoring us to God, creation, one another—and to ourselves. 

The Ten Commandments are to remind us of God's saving work in history! God took sides and responded to the cries of the oppressed by liberating them. As God's creative agents in the world now—this is our call! 

As you create your painting for the Ten Commandments, what images come to mind when you see them less as a means by which God controls and more as gifts that deepen relationships with God, creation, others, and yourselves? 

Through Stained Glass: Covenant Creation--Living Love

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
― Brene Brown

God loves you. 

Read that again.

God loves you. 

Not only that, but God keeps the oath God made to you. We may turn away from God, but God never turns away from us. 

Why? That's the mystery—especially to the text above. We don't get an answer—except that God loves God's people. 

Throughout Lent, the Old Testament lessons will focus on covenant. The God of our faith is not concerned with God's self—like the other gods. No, the God of our faith is concerned with creation—including us. God embraces all—wraps us in hugs of mercy and love. God moves towards us, not from a place of anger—which so many insist is the case. When we turn away from God, it grieves God. From this grief, God moves towards us to restore us to our relationship with God and all that is good and beautiful in life. 

We are transformed by God, and God is transformed through our embrace. The other gods are only interested in their own triumph. But the God in Scripture hears the cries of God's people and responds with their liberation. God wants us to live—to know God's glory and enjoy God forever. We do this—we are fully alive—when we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Or, to paraphrase Jesus, we are to love God and neighbor as ourselves. 

In living to love, we know God. We see God, experience God. In the songs we sing and the prayers we pray, we breathe God. In each note, we write or care we send or poem we pen—we write God. 

Take time now to listen. 

No, really. Listen. Turn off your TV. Put down the phone—mute all electronics. Listen. Do you hear it? Silence. Wind. Sunshine. Birds. Your breath. God. 

Are you sitting? Good. The covenant God makes with us—with you—is to never forsake or abandon us. 

Remember that flood story from the first week of Lent? What is it about? It isn't about the water or the animals or whether or not the unicorn was too stubborn to get on board—it is about something else. Something deeper. 

It discloses the nature of God—a God who chooses compassion…who sees us for what we really are and moves us towards renewal. In the Noah story, we see what pain and isolation, and separation do to humanity, creation, and God. 

Here is my take away from the flood: I can resist God all I want; I can ignore the invitation to co-create with God as long as I want; I can pursue all the small 'g' gods I want—but nothing will change the truth that God will still move towards me in mercy and love. 

Because the thing about the flood story is this—it is a narrative rooted not in anger but in grief. The crisis is not the water, but the grief we cause each other—and God. The narrative is centered on the grief of God, whose heart knows about our hearts. 

Our pain, our suffering, our grief impacts God. The theological significance of this is—the Holy One is not

static. 

Rather, the Holy One is Dynamic. God enters into our story because God loves us so much. 

How does order come from chaos? Not by some tyrannical, angry god who is a puppet master. It comes by way of the anguish and grief of God, who enters into the world's pain and fracture. God gifts us with creative love but does not force us to live into it. God longs for us to turn toward God, but God does not commandeer it. 

We mess up. When we do, we have to name how we mess up, address it, confess it even, and then return to God--this is what repentance means. We can recognize how we miss the mark while also embracing the new creation we are in God through Christ. Or, as Walter Brueggemann says, "The [flood] narrative concerns the grief of God and the emergence of new humanity amid the old, judged humanity." 

The story isn't about all that water, how all them animals got into that boat, or the scientific data surrounding this story. To focus on such things will miss the point of this covenant story.

Which is what?

Where we expect destruction by the hands of an angry God, we get new life from the heart of a tender God. In the end, we know this from the flood—God resolves that God will stay with, endure, and sustain God's world, notwithstanding the sorry state of humanity. We can do our best to anger God—but not even our worst attempts will sway God from God's grand dream for creation. 

Here's why I want us to paint rainbows—because it makes us deal with the truth that God loves us. In that first stroke of the paintbrush, we bear witness to the Creator's compassion and love for us. 

In the simple act of creating—dipping our brush in water and then dabbing it in the paint—we are taking our first step towards our own liberation. We become who we are at our core—creators! The invitation to paint is an invitation to embrace our wildness—to embrace the movement of the Spirit—to allow the Divine Creativity to intersect with our imagination. 

The essence of the flood story is that of vulnerability and possibility.

The essence of our story is that of creativity and hope. 

God is about goodness and creation, and love. 

At our core—in our image and likeness of the Wild—we are, too.