Devotions

These are devotionals about random thoughts related to life and theology.

Practice Transformed

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Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look! I’m making all things new.” He also said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Revelation 21:5 (CEB)

At the church I currently serve, I developed relationships with two members named Luke and Gerritt. One of the things I most enjoyed about them was that we’d play guitar and sing together. For a long spell, we got together almost weekly to jam. Sometimes, we simply played. Sometimes, we were prepping for opportunities to share our musical fun with others (i.e. a wedding; a fundraiser for Imagine No Malaria; sharing music in worship), but most of the time we were just playing music. This consistent practice of making music with others made me more consistent in playing on my own to learn parts of songs we were working on. To me, this was a real spiritual practice (even though we seldom did “Christian” music) that enlivened me, helped put me in a better place, and helped me to connect with our creative God.

First, Gerritt and and his wife, Melanie, accepted an opportunity to move to California. Then Luke and his wife, Abby, got the chance to move back to North Carolina. Then, I was at a loss. I just couldn’t find a reason to play guitar as I no longer had something to practice towards. So, I seldom picked up my guitar.

Then COVID hit. I had seen some friends and family doing virtual “concerts,” so I decided to do that. I did about three, and then Facebook declared, “Unless you have the rights to perform a song, don’t perform it on Facebook,” thus ending that. But something had changed. Suddenly just the music itself was reason enough to play. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss playing music with others; there is real creative joy in being able to feed off of other musicians’ licks and phrasings. But suddenly, I just wanted to play.

For years, I had wanted to try to play jazzy fills like Oscar Moore did in the Nat King Cole Trio, so I worked on that. I’m a big T-Bone Walker fan (many of Chuck Berry’s iconic licks find their genesis in Walker’s licks), so I started trying my hand at some of his takes on the Blues. I’ve long been enamored with the way session guitarist Reggie Young played (he played guitar on Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” and Billy Swan’s “I Can Help” to name a few of the 150+ cross-genre hits he played on), which led to trying to learn some of his phrasings. I’m a long way from mastering their styles, but it has added to my repertoire and reinvigorated an important spiritual practice for me.

One of my seminary professors, M. Eugene Boring, brought home an important distinction about the above verse. It says, “Look! I’m making all things new.” It does not say, “I’m making all new things.” That’s the thing about resurrection. God doesn’t simply make new things. God transforms what is existing. And resurrection is more than something that happened to Jesus in the past or something we hope for in the future; it is a daily occurrence with God.

I do believe that there are times that spiritual practices have run their course, and it is perfectly fine to find something new. But on this day of celebrating resurrection, could it be that a spiritual practice that you’ve found meaningful in the past simply needs to be transformed or re-envisioned, not replaced? My hope is that you will take on or transform meaningful spiritual practices – or maybe realize you already have one.

Keep on practicing, because practice makes possible. Happy Easter!

A Dream of Messengers

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How beautiful upon the mountains
   are the feet of a messenger
   who proclaims peace,
   who brings good news,
   who proclaims salvation,
   who says to Zion, “Your God rules!”

Isaiah 52:7 (CEB)

I lay there in amazement for a few moments thinking, “Wow! I can fly! I can really fly! I want to do that again!” And suddenly sadness set in. I had been dreaming.

It was a rare Sunday afternoon that I got to take a nap – an actual, intentional nap on our bed, not the dose off in the chair nap where I wake up with a neck ache. It was not more than an hour and a half, but it was enough to experience what is probably the most vivid dream I have ever had with an exhilarating sense of flying. Actually it was more like skating through the air as that was the motion I was making to fly high above and around the hospital where Micah had been born with a birds-eye view. But I awoke grounded.

Today we continue a celebration that started last night, a celebration: of angels appearing, speaking, and directing lowly shepherds to witness a child’s birth; of shepherds finding their voice and joyfully telling of this birth; of a bright star in the sky directing foreigners to find that child when so many of his own people failed to notice.

But we wake up and wonder, “Was it all a dream?” Though we are told that the world has changed, the world really doesn’t seem all that different than before. There is still meanness, hatred, fighting, ignoring, obscuring, greed – just to name a few of our ills. It’s all so short lived. Even an Elvis Christmas song asks, “Oh, why can’t every day be like Christmas?” Things seem so cheery and perfect for a fleeting moment, and then it’s back to normal. Where is the good news?

   “How beautiful . . . are the feet of a messenger. . . .”

On this day, we tend to focus on the birth of a child. We focus on God’s gift to us. But how often do we focus on the gift of invitation to us that comes from this birth, this gift? Do we realize we are invited to be messengers as the angels, shepherds, and magi were? Do we see that Jesus came not simply do to things for us but to invite us to into a way of life in which we follow him with our cross (Luke 9:23), doing the same works that he did (John 14:12)? Jesus offers us the Cup of the Covenant, and covenants always place obligations on all parties.

One of my favorite songs by blues singer Lowell Fulson (sometimes credited as Fulsom) is “Sleeper.” “Nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream,” he sings. It’s time to wake up and get to work. It’s time to live into God’s dream for the world. God invites us into the work of making God’s dream come to fruition, working with God so we all become the people – as individuals and communities – that God created us to be. I believe that it is in this beautiful work that we find our joy, joy that can last all year long.

Merry Christmas!

Time to Pull Up the Carpet?
by Rev. Jim Taylor

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I sold my house of 23 years in the District of Columbia last year. In preparation, I took up the carpets and rolled up the rugs. And there it was: 23 years of dirt and debris. What? I assumed I am a reasonably good housekeeper. I had vacuumed regularly. I shampooed periodically. On the outside and on the surface, my house was clean and tidy in appearance. Who knew? It took years for that dirt to become deeply hidden. Actually, my house was built in 1904, so much of that dirt was shaken loose from within the very structure of the house. It wasn’t my dirt . . . or was it?

My life is like that too. Racism is like that too. For white people like me it became easy to think there is no problem. “I am not a racist.” I was taught to respect others, so what is the problem? Racism may not be intentionally in my heart and mind, but it planted itself there regardless because society had made certain:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught

Little by little I learned implicit racism. I lived in a white neighborhood. I went to a white school. We had a housekeeper who came everyday to take care of me while my parents were working in the family business. Her name was Ruby. She taught me my ABCs and “Jesus love me this I know. . . .” I was an adult before I wondered how her own children were being cared for across the tracks. I was kept ignorant by the system to the legacy of slavery. My history book literally said “When the slaves came to America …” That was not a Carnival cruise! I’ve since understood that “history is the fable agreed upon.”

The COVID pandemic and the resulting stay at home orders forced most of us inside. It also gave us the opportunity to look inside ourselves in a fresh way if we chose to do so. Recent events have reminded me of the importance to pull up the carpets of my heart and mind and examine the dirt that has accumulated. I may not have put all that dirt there, but it is my responsibility to clean it up before I (and the world) can move on.

I’m still cleaning up. How about you?
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Rev. Jim Taylor, retired

Before retirement, Jim was pastor of Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church (UMC) in Baltimore, Maryland from 2006-2010. Before that, he served as the Associate General Secretary of the General Commission on Religion and Race of the UMC in Washington, DC from 1992-2006.

Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, he now resides in Rio Vista, California.

Standing on Holy Ground

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Where could I go to get away from your spirit?
Where could I go to escape your presence?
If I went up to heaven, you would be there.
If I went down to the grave, you would be there too!

Psalm 139:7-8 (CEB)

It was not supposed to go like that.

The day before, the senior pastor had talked to the terminally ill church member on the phone. She was weak and knew the end was near, and she wanted the pastor to drop by for a visit.

This person was a dedicated wife, mother, and church member who truly inspired us all. Though I couldn’t know what was going on internally, on the exterior she faced down her cancer diagnosis as if it were just one more step on the journey. If she had doubts she’d survive, she didn’t show the majority of the church. In fact, she tried to have fun with it, turning up week after week with wildly different wigs on her chemo-induced bald head. None of us expected cancer winning.

I had literally only been on a church staff for about 2 weeks, my newly minted title being “Ministerial Assistant.” As such, I had never even done a pastoral hospital visit before; so, the senior pastor thought it would be a good learning experience for me and the youth director to tag along. When we arrived the morning after the phone call, we realized that her prognosis had gone from a few days left to minutes.

I remember the pastor asking the husband and daughter if they would like us to leave, but we were invited to stay. We joined hands around her while each of us staff members said part of a short prayer, then we stepped back for the family to be close.

Not only had I never done a pastoral hospital visit before, I had never been in the room of a dying person. Let me just begin by saying it was surreal. For some reason, I felt a deep sense of joy that I truly could not explain and for which I was feeling guilty. How could I dare feel joy in such a sad happening? I remember looking at the pastor and seeing a gentle smile on his face and wondered why he had that.

Now, had he still just been my pastor (I had attended this church for a few years before they created this position for me), I probably could have talked to him about this strange feeling, but now he was my boss. I simply couldn’t go there. So, I meandered around for weeks in this strange, silent guilt for feeling joy.

Then, one day in my pastoral care class in my first semester of seminary, a hospital chaplain was visiting. I’ll never forget these words he said, “When you are in the room of a dying person, you are standing on holy ground for Christ is in that room.” In that instant, I knew the source of the joy I was feeling – a joy that I suspect the family couldn’t quite feel – but I knew without a doubt that God in Christ in the Holy Spirit had showed up for them, for us as the pastoral staff, and for this dedicated woman.

As I have struggled with feelings of guilt for not being with my Dad when he passed (and anger for not knowing he was that near the end), I take comfort in knowing that God was there. Dad was not alone. The God who never leaves us shows up in just the way we need God. God always shows up.

Palpable

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For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit,
and I rejoice to see your morale and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
Colossians 2:5 (NRSV)


It was the Thursday before the Washington DC Metro Area blizzard of January 2016. I had led Covenant Bible Study at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church, and afterwards, I was going to my friend Luke’s house to play a little guitar. It had started snowing shortly before I left the church, but no one had predicted more than a dusting. So, I made my way over to jam for an hour or so. When I left Luke’s, it was clear that the predictions were off. The ground and roads were totally covered and, as I was soon to discover, very slick.

As soon as I noticed how slick the roads were, I decided I’d take Bladensburg Road to Highway 50 to avoid a few overpasses, but soon realized there had been an accident as traffic was backed up near Benning Road and not moving. So, I took back streets, slipping and sliding along the way. I eventually made it to Highway 295 where I crawled along at about 25-30 mph to Highway 50 where I continued the quite slow pace while crazy people continued to fly by – some of which slid off the road.

Just east of Landover Road on US-50 (just outside of DC), there is an S-curve before reaching the Beltway. Even though I was taking my time, all of a sudden, I found myself going sideways, headed towards the concrete pillar holding up an overpass with nothing I did making a bit of difference.

“Oh, expletive!” I shouted out loud and in fear, and in that moment, it literally felt like Dad, who had died almost a year before, was sitting in the passenger seat. I heard him say, “Pop it up into neutral,” which I did. My car immediately straightened out. I incredulously said out loud, “Thanks, Pop!”

Now, some hearing this story will say, “Your dad is your guardian angel! That’s so cool,” which honestly, I don’t know that I buy as I really don’t know that I believe in angels like that. Others will say, “No, you just remembered what your Dad had said to you in a similar situation years ago,” which he definitely said to me when driving around on sleet-covered roads while I was in high school. And yet, the palpable sense that Dad was right there with me was way more than just a memory.

But my point is not to argue the mechanics of what happened. My belief is that the angels we have loved and lost are still somehow with us. Whether in some spiritual way or vividly in our memories, they are never far away. And though I would prefer being able to play music with him again or sit and talk with him again the way we used to, I’m thankful for these occasional moments when I still feel Dad and other loved and lost angels with me.

My hope and prayer is that, for each of you who have also loved and lost an angel, you can find moments of their ongoing presence and that this will bring you comfort, peace, and hope.

Destinations

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As they came near the village to which they were going, Jesus [whom they did not recognize] walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem. . . .

Luke 24:28-33a (NRSV)

We made it!

Throughout Lent, we were journeying toward this destination – Easter! Doesn’t it feel good to have finally arrived? We can now get back to all those things we gave up for Lent. Thank God!

I think the two disciples of Jesus in the passage from Luke above are dealing with destinations, too. It seems they were expecting a destination in which Jesus was a kick-butt-take-names kind of Messiah who would kick out the Romans and restore the Jewish monarchy of David. But that was not the destination they saw; what they saw was a dead end. So, as we often do when things don’t go our way, they packed up their things and went home.

On the way, they met a stranger who, in response to their disappointment, talked to them about the Bible, warming their hearts. But as they reached their destination, they did what they must have seen many times before as disciples: inviting in a total stranger to break and share bread with together. Suddenly they saw Jesus in the stranger who disappeared, and their destination changed. They no longer saw a dead end, but they also weren’t given a destination. Rather, they were given a new beginning on their journey of faith.

This is my favorite Easter story. The Scriptures, as explained to these disciples along the road, warmed their hearts, but it was the act of living their faith – the way of life Jesus had taught them – in which Jesus was revealed. Biblical scholar, John Dominic Crossan, has said that Jesus started a franchise. He wasn’t a sole proprietor who did it all himself. Jesus setup a system where we work together to do the very same things he did. He says as much when he invites any would-be followers to take up their cross daily to follow him (Luke 9:23). He shows it when he sends the disciples out in pairs to do the same work he’s been doing (see Luke 9:1-6 and 10:1-20).

So, even though we have “arrived” at Easter, I hope we don’t approach it as a destination but a new beginning. I’ve come to believe that the Christian life is about new beginnings each day. Each day, there’s a cross, which must be taken up, but we don’t take it up alone. We do it with one another, and the Holy Spirit empowers us through Christ’s example. So may you be inspired to leave the dead ends and false hopes behind for the new way of life that only God can provide.