Seek and Ye Shall Find

This whole week we have been discussing how we are never ever truly alone. We have reflected, prayed about, and maybe even experienced how God will never leave us, through the Holy Spirit. We may have felt God’s abiding love and presence in the community we have formed together this week. We might have felt it in worship or bible study, gathered around a table of friends at meals, or even on a high rope course. However you might of found Jesus present this week, I hope you at least caught a glimpse of divine footsteps. I hope you experienced God’s love here at Asbury, and realize that every encounter you have with love, changes you. So what do we do now?

When we catch that subtle glimpse of God, we see things in their true reality. The way things will and ought to be.  This flash of the way God wants the world, should cause us to want to bring that love into our own strange little worlds, and then realizing, we all share one world. When we encounter God, we are changed, because love changes us. “You are never alone” can also mean that there is always someone to help nearby. That there is always light to bear and love to give to another.

A little over a year ago, I had the amazing gift and opportunity to be flown out to Washington DC for a national conference on Domestic poverty, organized by the Episcopal Church. We were given advocacy training for a day or two, and then we spent another day running around Capitol Hill trying to make our meetings with our NYS senator’s staff and local Representatives. We were there on behalf of those whose voices were not being heard.   I had a rough idea of what I was getting into. Little did I know my whole world was about to open wider that I could have ever imagined.

At one of the educational sessions of the conference, I vividly remember a young Navajo woman stand up with a microphone, speaking about what her particular issue she was going to lobby for. It was food. Food. Her people were hungry. Her people’s culture was being slowly suffocated as well as any hope they had left. She works at a day care where the children come in with stomach aches, because they haven’t eaten since they last saw her the day before. The conference room had food and drink lining the walls, with more available, if we even hinted at wanting more. She expressed how baffling it was, to be around such rich abundance. She broke down crying during that talk. She was seeking justice.

At another session I remember a really adorable couple from South Carolina. When they were asked what their particular focus was, they said it was education. They were there to lobby for a higher standard of education for their state, because it is one of the most underfunded and ignored institutions in their state. Basic education!? They wanted to make sure every child has an equal chance at succeeding, and living life to the fullest. They were seeking justice.

Others passionately spoke on topics like homelessness, modern day slavery, gun violence, mental illness awareness, and sexuality debates, proper distribution of food, accessible healthcare, the list goes on. Everyone that stood up and spoke had a fire behind their speech, a conviction I have never heard before. It was almost like their tongues were on fire. They were seeking justice.

Then, after we all stood up and shared, with a passion and palpable energy that hung in the air, a Bishop stood up in the back and said “In seeking justice, we seek the living Christ himself”.

Jesus opened up this vision of justice and reconciliation. Jesus, shattered what we think the world should be, and pointed us to a new reality. Where the last will be first, and first shall be last. Where the hungry are fed and the outcast and brought in. A world where the mighty are cast down from their thrones and the humble are raised up.  Now, it doesn’t have to be major acts of advocacy to bring forth the kingdom. It can be, as Mother Theresa said; “it is not about doing great things for God, but doing small things, with great love”.

I encourage you, if you have experienced the Holy Spirit this week, to seek Christ in the world around you. He is in the hungry, homeless, outcast, rejected, the lonely, the depressed and the joyful, the relaxed and the anxiety ridden, the young and old. What are some small things you can do with great love, to bring that new reality of love, into our own strange little worlds, every day? Seek, and you will find. Amen.

You are God's Beloved

"4 For we know, brothers and sisters[a] beloved by God, that he has chosen you,5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia."- 1 Thessalonians 1:4-7 (NRSV)

(Written for High School youth at Camp Asbury Summer 2015)

 As I went to write this little talk here, I went to sit down at my desk, with my study bible in hand, hoping that something intelligent would show up on my computer screen.  After some frustration and many mumbled grunts, I slumped back into my chair, defeated, and then a picture on my bookshelf caught my eye.

This picture is of me, on retreat two years ago, at an evening healing service. The man laying hands on my head is a good friend of mine, Father Lance.  This picture was taken moments after he anointed my forehead with a cross of oil. Those around me that are laying hands on my back and shoulders are some of the retreatants. I was simply there as a kind of counselor, not unlike what I do here at Camp Asbury. I keep this powerful picture on my shelf because what happened in that particular moment when this picture was snapped, has drastically changed my life.

The Holy Spirit was present at that moment in an extremely powerful way.

This picture shows the moment I finally saw myself as God’s beloved child. Not just in my head, but in the deepest parts of my heart. The six inch journey from my head to my heart was made for the first time. Something clicked. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget, but what I didn’t realize was that when Holy Spirit peaks into our life, she likes to shake things up. See, once I was able to see my own self as God’s beloved, I started to see everyone else as God’s beloved child too. Once I got up off my knees from that anointing, I saw others in a totally different light. I also saw the Holy Spirit coming in “full conviction” by seeing God use our brokenness as a whole offering. God’s strength is perfected in human weakness*. I saw emotional and spiritual walls brought down in those around me, so love could pour in. I saw forgiveness and healing. I saw restoration and grace. All because the Holy Spirit was present.

Now, I don’t mean to tell you this story in order to make it seem like I had some almost biblical encounter with the divine, but to let you know that God is with us in our faults and weakness. That he is with us even when we don’t like to think we deserve it. God uses our hurt for healing.

The God of universe has scars too. We may have physical or emotional scars, we all do, but so does God. The broken body of Christ on the hard wood of the cross is God on his throne. Not a golden throne sitting idly in the sky somewhere, but in love, on the cross and in the giving of oneself, in perfect self-offering. Christ is the wounded healer, who has always magnetized imperfect people to himself to bring the good news of love breaking into our world.

Don’t be afraid of your identity as God’s beloved. Because you exist, you are loved more than you can possibly imagine. You are loved exactly as God made you, with all the imperfections and flaws, with all that dirt and darkness you might feel you have inside you, AND with all your gifts, talents, abilities, light and goodness you hold.

You are loved, you are loved, you are so loved. You are loved as your true natural self. The Celtics would say; To be natural is to be holy. As John O’Donohue said “If you are outside yourself, always reaching beyond yourself, you avoid the call of your own mystery.” …Don’t avoid the call of your own unique mystery, that at the root, is your identity as God’s beloved child. 

*Paraphrased from Nadia Bolz-Weber