Monday, January 2, 2006

Here it is, the beginning of a new year.  I would really like to make strides this year in the area of personal growth, and I have gotten off to a pretty good start.  Yesterday, January 1, I read in its entirety the book by Robert A. Johnson entitled Lying with the Heavenly Woman.  I also started Transformations and then finished it today.  After that, I began working on his volume entitled Owning Your Own Shadow. I am not quite through it yet.  Johnson is a Jungian analyst, and I find Jung's theory of individuation promising for my own journey.

I don't really know what I expect.  I am plagued by a pervasive, low-grade anxiety, and I feel that too much of my life has passed for me to be at the point of growth at which I find myself.  So...we'll see.

Yesterday, I completed a two-day program with the Southwest Ministry Development Center in Dallas. It was an intense experience, and I was pretty much exhausted by the time I returned home last night. Despite the fatigue, however, I have a restored sense of hope. I learned some things about myself, some of which I liked and some of which I didn't. But I am ready to "own" both sets of characteristics, and I am ready to work on what needs changing.

Sensing a need to ground this feeling of renewed hopefulness, I turned again this morning to lectio divina. Unsure where to start in the pages of Scripture, I simply used one of the readings from the daily lectionary. There is something about this prescribed set of texts that seems to allow for the initiative of the Spirit in addressing me on any given day.

And God did speak to me today! The reading was Zechariah 8:9-17.  Its context is one in which the prophet is urging the people to rebuild the temple of God which has lain in ruins for a generation.  It occured to me that my task now is to build a habitation for God -- a temple, if you will -- in my heart, a place where God may dwell within.

The text then seemed to speak to me about the qualities of soul that I would need in working on this great project. The words that presented themselves to me were from verse 9: "Let your hands be strong so that the temple may be built" (NIV).  Immediately, I saw two soul qualities in this verse, namely, resolve ["let your hands be strong"] and direction ["that the temple may be built"].

The passage as a whole seemed to suggest other qualities. I would need vision, and the vision of the text was to be found in verse 13:  "You will be a blessing.

Faith, too, would be needed -- a settled trust that God accomplish in and through me the task to which he was calling me.  Verse 12 provided the promise that would fuel my faith:  "The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew.  I will give all these things as an inheritance to" you. What more assurance would I need from God than this, that my efforts would prove to be fruitful?

Finally, I would need courage.  The Lord said through his prophet to his ancient people, not once but twice, "Do not be afraid" (vv. 13, 15).

As I meditated, I was working with the notion that these are qualities that I need, as though they are lacking.  But then I thought, "What if these are qualities that I already have?"  So, I affirmed this in my own mind and before the Lord.

In order to rebuild in my own life a holy habitation for God, a place for Spirit to do the great work of transformation in my life, I will draw on these qualities about which God says, "I will give all these things..." (v. 12):

• Direction: "That the temple may be built" (v. 9).


• Resolve: "Let your hands be strong" (v. 9).


• Vision: "You will be a blessing" (v. 13).


• Faith: "I will give all these things..." (v. 12).


• Courage: "Do not be afraid" (vv. 13, 15).

I am excited about this new start. What a great goal it is to think of "building the temple," or, to put it in my own words, to create within a dwelling place for Spirit.

Matthew 1:18-25 (NIV)

We all know the story of Joseph.  We know the drudgery of the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem with a pregnant woman and one beast of burden between them.  We know the pitiable circumstance of arriving at the city of Joseph’s ancestry only to find that all the hotels were full and that there was no room in the inn.  We know the indignity and yet the rustic charm of the birth of Mary’s baby – not even Joseph’s child – in a stable amid noisy – and, most likely, smelly -- animals.

But these are not the details I want us to focus on tonight.  I want us to go back a ways, before all these events.  I want us to go back to that crisis moment Joseph faced when he first found out that Mary was pregnant.

His whole world fell apart in that moment.  He knew that he could not be the father of the child, and, therefore, someone else would have to be.  He knew some other things, too.  He knew that he would be considered the topic of everyone’s conversation in the little village of Nazareth and the source of many a laugh among his neighbors.  He knew that he would lose everyone’s respect, maybe even their business.

He knew his dreams were over.  He and Mary would never have the future of which he had dreamed.  He may, in fact, never marry at all.  He may be consigned to a life of loneliness and despair.

He could, of course, have a made a public spectacle of Mary.  It’s doubtful that anyone would have blamed him, and he might even buy some degree of respect for himself.  At the very least, he would show that no one could wrong him and just get away with it.

But he didn’t do that.  He could have, but he didn’t.  Matthew tells us that he was a good man, and, in his goodness, he decided to handle the whole matter privately.  He would call of the engagement, an act which, in those days, was more like having a marriage annulled.  And that would be that.

Now, before we go any further, here is one more thing I want you to think about.  Joseph had this trip in his future.  There was no getting out of it.  It was necessitated by imperial decree.  Every man – and I mean every man, not every woman – was being required to go to the home of his ancestors to register for a tax to be levied by Rome.  Joseph would go.  The man next door would go.  The man down the street, the one around the corner, the man across town and all the men in the next town – in every town – would have to go.  Wherever their ancestors claimed their origin, they would have to make the trip.  Apparently, there were many in the lineage of David, because, by the time Joseph got there, every room was taken.  Still in all, it was a “must” trip.

Women did not have to go.  Women were not taxed.  They could go, and, likely, those men who were married took their wives with them.  But the women had no cause to go.

Just as well, Joseph must have thought.  Mary would not be going anyway, at least, not now.  Mary wouldn’t be going anywhere – not with him.  That was all over, done with, ruined by Mary’s apparent indiscretion.

Then Joseph had a dream.  It was a dream, the Scripture says.  And in it an angel appeared to Joseph and told him something outlandish.  The child Mary was carrying was not the result of any natural process; he was the Son of God, the Most High.  What is more, he would be the promised Savior of the world.

Now, I don’t know how you regard your dreams.  Maybe you remember them, maybe you don’t.  Maybe you put credence in them, maybe you don’t.  But, whatever the case with you, can you put yourself for just a moment in Joseph’s shoes?  What is he to do with this dream?  Is he to believe it?  Is he to disregard it? Consign it to the realm of the fantastic?  What is he to make of it?

What about you and the Christmas dreams you have?  Doubtless, they don’t occur in your sleep.  But you have them.  Maybe you don’t call them dreams.  Maybe you call them hopes or even yearnings.  But there’s something that Christmas has hinted at in your life that promises something.  A loss restored.  A sin covered.  A relationship healed.  A future made more sure.  A needed boost in fortune.  Something.  Something that makes even you – the sophisticated, thinking person  that you are – want to believe in the magic of Christmas, in its power to change things for the better.

But will you believe?  Or, have you been so disappointed by life that you can’t bring yourself to believe that Christmas can make any difference?  You’ve become jaded, or, if not, at least skeptical; or, if not that, then perhaps suspicious.  Christmas – with all its talk of the eternal breaking into history, with its message of God become man – it leaves you cold.  Or, empty.  Or, doubtful.

Like Joseph and his dream.  Would he dare put any stock in it?  Could he bring himself to believe in the stark reality of the daylight what came to him in the misty shadows of fitful sleep?  Well might you and I want him to – and hope he was right.  It could mean so much.

It could mean that enemies can be reconciled.  It could mean that circumstance can be overcome.  It could mean that love will triumph.  It could mean that peace would reign.  It could mean that joy and hope may replace sorrow and despair.  It could mean all that and more.

But what will Joseph do with his dream?

Remember the journey he will be required to take?  Watch his doorway early on the morning of his departure from Nazareth to go to Bethlehem.  Position yourself across the lane, if there is one.  Wait nearby so that nothing may block your view.  The door is closed now, but presently it will open.  It looks as though no one is home, but I promise there is movement inside.  Joseph is making the last minute preparations for the trip he cannot refuse.  He has to go.  The question is, Will he go alone? Or, will he believe the dream and take Mary?

The door is opening.  Someone is emerging.  What do you see?  How many feet step across that threshold into the still morning air to begin the journey?  Two or four?  It makes all the difference in the world.  Watch carefully and see.  Does Joseph take Christmas with him after all, or not?

And now, more importantly, will you?

In this account, we are told that Jesus returns again to Jerusalem, where there is a pool called Bethesda.  There is a man there, an "invalid" (verse 5), who has been waiting thirty-eight years to be healed.  Jesus approaches the man and asks him, "Do you want to get well?"  From that point on, we get a picture of what this man is like, a picture that may help us determine where some changes need to take place in our own lives.

This man...

I.     Perceives himself to be helpless (5:1-9a).

    & nbsp;  When Jesus asks him, "Do you want to get well?" the man immediately begins to make excuses.  "'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.  While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me'" (5:7).

    & nbsp;  This man fails in this instance to be responsible.  I may at times forfeit a full life because of my failure to be  responsible.  Denial, blame, rationalization, and minimization are ways of avoiding responsibility.

II.    Presents himself to be clueless (5:9b-13)

    & nbsp;  Jesus heals this man, and the man is walking around in public, carrying his mat.  Some religious authorities see him doing this and become upset because it is the Sabbath and the law forbids people from carrying much of anything, including their mats.  The authorities confront this man, and he tells them that he was instructed to carry his mat.  "Who is this fellow who told you" to do this, the authorities asked.  Of course, he doesn't know.  John writes, "The man who was healed had no idea who it was" (5:13).  He is clueless about the law.  He is clueless about Jesus.

    & nbsp;  This man fails in this instance to be mindful.  Being ignorant of things I need to know is a fault I can sometimes fall into.

III.   Permits himself to be careless (5:14-15)

    & nbsp;  Jesus finds the man and urges him to accept some responsibility for his life.  "See, you are well again.  Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" (5:14).

    & nbsp;  Something worse does happen. He carelessly fingers the one man who has been his benefactor.  He identifies Jesus to the hostile authorities.

    & nbsp;  This man fails in this instance to be loyal.  I, too, sometimes fail to exhibit loyalty to those who have earned it.

    & nbsp;  This passage highlights three virtures by showing us their opposites.  Relying on God's grace, we need to develop...

• 
  
  responsibility


• 
  
  mindfulness


• 
  
  loyalty