Michael Seiler

Month: October 2023

  • Live a Little

    And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you — a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord. If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Come to a sober and right mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. With what kind of body? But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

    1 Corinthians 15:30-41

    This passage from the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, part of the “Resurrection Chapter,” builds upon the previous verses, where Paul tells us that if people do not rise from the dead, then neither does Christ, and therefore, all preaching is futile and so is our faith (v. 14). He goes on and says that if we only have hope in Christ in this life – as in, we won’t rise from the dead ourselves – then “we are of all people most to be pitied” (v. 19). Finally, he reiterates that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, and then we get to this passage, where he again he talks about hope.

    How could Paul have fought wild animals in Ephesus if he didn’t believe in a resurrection? How could he have suffered through the trials and persecutions he did, the imprisonments, unless he believed in a resurrection? This is exactly why Paul said we should be pitied if we follow this hope in Christ without any hope of a future beyond this world. Why are we subjecting ourselves to persecution, ridicule, imprisonment and torture, if there is nothing beyond this life of ours? If this life is all there is, then by all means, we should “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

    That quote comes from Isaiah 22:13, and the prophet there was chastising the Israelites for failing to repent of their evil, and instead, choosing to make merry in the face of impending doom. God had called upon them to repent and wear sackcloth (v. 12), and instead, they decided to throw their hands up in the air, and say, “Well, tomorrow we die, so let’s just enjoy our last day.” Forget about repenting, let’s live for the moment.

    And so, Paul is admonishing believers in Corinth for living with the same mindset: “This life is all we have, so let’s live a little! We aren’t going to be resurrected, so let’s make this life all that it should be!” And, because of this mindset, they were spending time with those of “bad company,” which was clearly corrupting their morals. The rend result was that the witness of their faith in Christ was indistinguishable from those with whom they were spending time.

    Both the challenge of impending invasion facing the Israelites in Isaiah, and the view in Corinth that the resurrection was a pipe dream spoke to a lack of faith. Is God the great provider? Is God mighty and capable of turning away invaders? Is God mighty and capable of raising the dead, and therefore raising us to new life – one that brims with meaning and fulfillment? Or is God merely the purveyor of a new moral code, one that promises peace, tranquility, an abundant life and resurrection after death – but can’t really deliver?

    In some ways, choosing to live this life to the fullest is an admirable one. It chooses to make the best out of what most would consider a finite existence. But it neglects the truth that our existence is not here merely for our pleasure, nor is this life here for our own sake. We are here because God has freed us from sin and granted us new life. God has given us the tools to live our lives, and live them abundantly.

    Some focus on the hedonistic pleasures of this world because of our eventual death. Others, at times, focus too heavily on our eventual death and fail to live at all. But if there is a resurrection of the dead, then what do we really have to fear? Wild animals in Ephesus? Imprisonment? Ridicule for our beliefs? Torture? Or can we boldly go, with a “sober and right mind” into the world, proclaiming the Love of God by word and action, and live a little?

  • Seeing the Unseen

    A friend of mine turned me on to Lectio 365 and one particular week, they were working through the Questions of Jesus. On the Thursday of that week, I think, the question was all about Jesus asking his disciples: “Do you Trust Me?” The meditation ended with the call to action to ask what question God might have of us.

    So I did just that.

    And what should happen but God asked me the very same question: “Do you trust me?”

    Immediately, I knew exactly what that question was about, and what exactly I was supposed to trust God with. And, more to the point, I immediately knew my answer:

    “Yes. I do trust you. Just not as much as I want to. … Don’t you see what’s happening?”

    Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

    Hebrews 11:1
    Foggy Morning at St. Mary’s Episcopal Convent

    This past Easter Weekend, Holy Saturday to be exact, I was sitting on my patio at the convent where I was staying. The sisters had graciously agreed to let me stay there for a longer period, after an abrupt need to move out of my housing situation. I had been there a little over a week at that point, and on that foggy Saturday morning, drinking a cup of coffee, I was reflecting on how peaceful life had been that past week, and how relaxed I felt.

    And at that very moment, God said, “Now that you’ve had a chance to collect your thoughts, and remove all your distractions, I have some things I need to show you.” 

    Some things. What an understatement. From that Saturday morning, until Monday afternoon, I wrote a full 45 pages of college lined note paper. And it continued after that, though not with the same intensity, for another month. During that time, I told a few of my friends that I saw a transformation happening; or rather, that God had a transformation in store for me, and that I could vaguely see the end result, but that it frightened me, because I knew that who I would be was radically different from who I was.

    And those changes came, step by step. Graciously, with a few weeks, or even a month of reprieve in between them, until we came to this question of trust.

    Until this question where I had to say, “I do trust you, but not as much as I want.” When what I really meant was: “I trust you, as long as you let me stay in the boat. Those waves look frightening.”

    Several years ago, in the process toward ordination, I had a set back, which left me shocked and confused. The next day I sat on the patio of the church, and spoke to God, asking, “I thought you wanted me to do this?” By which I meant ordination. God replied, “I did want you to do this. And I do want you to do this.” To which I had to reply, “Were you not paying attention? Did you not see what just happened?” And a smiling God replied, “Trust me. You will do this. Just not right now.”

    Hope. Hope of things to come, but as yet unseen. 

    So many years later, the path is coming to completion. But not without being tossed around by the waves of doubt and uncertainty in the process. My friends could tell you stories about my ranting and raving, my confusion and doubts, my questioning, and ultimately my repeated return to the promise. Until I learned to walk in it, unwavering, seeing only the hope, and not the waves.

    I am gifted with a great imagination, and an analytical mind, and getting out of the boat, like Peter, to walk on the water toward a promise God has given me, makes me realize just how big those waves of doubt and uncertainty can be. Like a heads up display, I see every possible scenario, both good and bad, with its probability firmly floating above the wave, either granting hope, or threatening impending doom. 

    Just like Peter, I focus on the waves and their clear probabilities so proudly displayed above them to indicate how much credence I should give them. I see the unseen, the imagined, and grant them more confidence than they deserve.

    Until I find a thin sliver of a thread that glistens with divine mercy in the spraying mist of this emotional ocean. And when I focus on the thread, I follow it through the waves until I see a smiling God standing at the other end, reminding me: “This is my promise.” And suddenly the waves of unreal, probable scenarios are gone, and the sea is calm; I see only the promise, not the imagined tidal waves of destruction.

    And this lasts sometimes a day, sometimes three, sometimes a week. Until I focus on the probability waves again, and lose sight of the unseen promise represented in that glowing thread of hope that leads directly to the sacred heart of Jesus.

    Though it feels like it, this cyclical, emotional buffeting on the unseen waves of doubt and uncertainty is not insanity.

    It is merely the process of developing my water walking legs.

    Different seas require different legs. And no sea, no area of my life, will be entirely without the waves of doubt and uncertainty, but the more often I am willing to get out of that boat to walk on the water toward the open arms of God, the easier it will be to keep my balance and my direction when next I am confronted with ambiguity and unbelief.

  • I am a Rock? I am an Island?

    I had the sudden realization, some time past, that every life choice that I have come to regret, or to later see as unhealthy or unwise, was somehow fueled by loneliness, or my perceived lack of social connection.

    Some were clearly decisions born out of a lonely state of being, while others were more subtle, and I had to track them down, by investigating the motivations behind each and every choice that I had made, questioning my motivations behind these choices.

    We are social beings, and we want to connect with others, we want to be a part of something, and we want to know how we fit into the grand scheme of things – what our role is. Every adult has probably had a conversation with a younger human about wanting to fit in, and about the need to make wise choices about friends. And every adult has probably watched as that younger human has seemingly ignored that advice, because despite the good intentions of those who have traveled that path before, they need to find their own identity in order to know what they do and do not agree with.

    And while this example of kids finding their own way is an obvious one, as adults we often don’t realize just how many of our decisions are based on similar attempts at fitting in, at defining our identity, at finding our role within our social context. Did I come to this church because it provides the best theological teaching, or because it offers the best programs, or the best adult groups? Did I take this job because I love doing it, or because this type of job pays more money than one that I love to do – and by extrapolation, more money will allow me to get what I really crave? Did I buy this object because it serves a practical purpose, or because it is an object that shows my relevance and role within this social infrastructure?

    If we are bold enough, and honest enough with ourselves, we can usually trace every purchase beyond the necessities, every life choice beyond survival, every job choice beyond meeting our needs down to a simple motivation. These decisions are not inherently healthy or unhealthy, but more often than not, we will find that we pick these friends, do these jobs, buy these objects because they are fueling a need to place ourselves within our social context. And while we might make healthy choices – which is, after all, why we tell kids to sped time with good friends – we most often recognize our motivations when things have turned out poorly. These choices don’t necessarily fill an immediate practical need, but they offer a hope of what we really crave, which is meaning and true and authentic connections.

    Dr. Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, put out an advisory titled, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” partly in response to the isolation that people felt during the pandemic, but also to show how the perception of loneliness has increased over the years, despite living in a society that has ever more technology to promote communication.1 The problem doesn’t lie in our communication options, but rather in the collective lack of knowledge on how to communicate.

    Social isolation is a physical state of being, though that physical isolation can lead to loneliness, which is “the painful subjective experience of feeling isolated or feeling that one’s relationships are in some ways unsatisfying or deficient (either in quality or quantity).”2 And this painful, subjective feeling of deficiency leads to an ever increasing state of fear/anxiety, despair, and rage.

    If rage is an outgrowth of loneliness, then it is clear why the surgeon general believes that social isolation and loneliness are an epidemic that must find a solution in our communities, because that rage has fueled too much division within this country, and threatens to widen the gap between those who have entrenched themselves in various political or social ideological camps. 

    It is in this division along ideological lines where people often find connection. Loneliness is related to our social identity, because not a single one of us defines ourselves merely by who we are, but by which groups we belong to.3 As adults, as hard as we might try to warn those younger people about the need to carefully choose their friends, we do the same thing, and align ourselves with those with whom we agree. And only with those we agree.

    Arthur C. Brooks, who teaches Happiness at the Harvard Business School, said in a 2022 talk, that one of the necessities for happiness is to get rid of our attachments. Quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, he says that some of our strongest attachments are to our opinions. What Brooks realized is that he was holding on to some very strong political opinions, and that he would only talk with those who agreed with him. “I was stepping over $100 bills, for the sake of a nickel,” he says, and that when he disengaged from his opinions, when he detached from tying his identity to those opinions, then it opened up his connections, because it was no longer about trying to convince people to join his camp, but instead became, “Tell me why you think this.” The conversation became interesting, rather than divisive.

    The church is just a microcosm of this same cultural phenomena. Our people are socially isolated, sometimes physically, and other times emotionally. Some people feel lonely because they are unwilling to detach from their strong opinions, and others feel lonely because they are not able to find a common ground with those around them. We might be tempted to say that people simply need to do more church shopping to find the right fit, but what we are really saying with that is, find the right tribe, so that you can align yourself with those who think like you. This is why researchers list over 45,000 separate church denominations worldwide. It is because we often look to forge spiritual connection based on cultural and social identity, rather than kingdom identity.

    There’s been a lot of talk over the years about how to make the Gospel relevant, which is to say, how to make the Gospel meaningful to people in a world that craves real and authentic connection. The way to make the Gospel relevant is the same way that we build a community that unites, rather than a community that divides: we detach ourselves from our strongly held opinions and beliefs, and focus instead on inclusion and compassion; we focus on understanding what motivates others, rather than telling them what motivates us; we educate people on how to love their neighbor as they love themselves, rather than educating them on scriptures that will score points and convince others to their way of thinking; we build up communities that prove that God loves and welcomes everyone, and not just those who think like us. If we do this, we may quit stepping over $100 bills for the sake of a nickel, and find that those who are already a part of our communities come to life in a way that gives them wings, and those who do not yet belong find themselves drawn to us because of the love and acceptance we show each other.

    1. Our Epidemic of Loneliness, pp. 19-21 ↩︎
    2. Psychology Today, New Research Identifies Two Major Causes of Loneliness. ↩︎
    3. Ibid.

      Simon and Garfunkel – I am a Rock ↩︎

  • The Way Home

    One of the phrases that’s popped up in conversation for me over the last several years is people referring to themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” This phrase has always caused me to scratch my chin and ask, “What do you mean by that?” 

    The reason for my confusion is that by our very nature as humans, we are spiritual beings. Every person has an inherent spirituality. Spirituality is merely our attempts at making sense of the nonsensical, or of taking the mystery out of the mystical; it is our attempt at bringing order to the chaos that is our existence. Sometimes we take the random things that happen in our lives and we ascribe meaning to them, and other times we assign meaning to the coincidences and near misses in our lives. It’s been going on for centuries. Look at the goddess Fortuna, or the Fates, or the Norse god Freyr. Making sense of the nonsensical is what we do as humans.

    So, to me, for someone to say that they are “spiritual, but not religious,” means that they are saying something to the effect of “I’m a human being.” 

    Of course, I’m being deliberately obtuse with my own question, because what people generally want to convey with that statement is that they simply do not subscribe to any form of organized religion, and prefer to find their own method of making sense of the world; that they do not find any meaning in the structures others have created, but prefer to create their own order within the chaos.

    John O’Donohue says that spirituality is “the art of homecoming,” by which he means that we are all trying to find a place within our own lives where we find peace, comfort, and serenity, if even for a moment. A place where we are comfortable to be ourselves; a place where we are not pushed around by the hurts, the mistrust, the urgent requirements, the oughts, and shoulds, our past regrets, or future worries. Spirituality is a way of finding in us the beauty that is ourselves. When we enter into that place, then we have come home, and from that place of peace we are able to gather the energy needed to find the love, the patience, and the joy to make positive changes in our lives. This has nothing to do with religion, though O’Donohue himself was a practicing Christian, and former Catholic priest.

    Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and teacher, says something very similar. The task of meditation and mindfulness is to bring us to the present moment, where all of our past regrets, future worries, the mistrust, the hurt, the anger is put aside; it is, in a sense, coming home to the body, to ourselves. Then, when we have attained that moment of presence within ourselves, we can bring those things to mind that need further examination, and can deal with them out of a sense of tranquility, so that when we leave that space within ourselves and enter into the world outside, we can engage with others with more peace, with more confidence, and with more tranquility. Though he was a practicing Buddhist, this too had not much to do with organized religion, and focused more on finding that space within that gave us the energy to confront the space without.

    And this, of course, is what most people wish to convey with the phrase, “Spiritual but not religious.” They hope to convey that they have found that space within themselves that affords them this sense of peace and tranquility.

    I had a conversation with someone this past year, in which the person told me that they are in a state of constant anxiety. They blamed their upbringing, they blamed their parents, their job, their relationships. They even blamed people like me – religious types who have “gone all in” for our religion, flawed though that religion might be in their judgment. When I said that I had found a measure of peace and tranquility in my religion, and that they should give it a shot, I was told that they had already tried my religion, and that it didn’t work. 

    In fact, this person had tried almost every major religion; they had tried various retreats and philosophies; they had tried meditation practices, treatments based on the latest scientific studies, and even therapy. Nothing had worked. To which I mentioned that in my time of knowing them, I had seen them dabble in many things, but never pick one and follow through with commitment and determination. I said that each religion and philosophical practice (including therapy), offers at least the hope of enlightenment, and so they ought to pick one, follow it with determination and commitment until they reach the end, and see if enlightenment is waiting for them there.

    Then came an odd sort of confession. Apparently, they had been told the same thing by a monk at a retreat center almost thirty years ago. And, they claimed, they had done just that in the years since. My response was brief: if I’m saying the same thing to you now, thirty years later, then it’s obvious that you have not followed a path to its conclusion; instead, you’ve continued in your path of dabbling.  

    We dabble in what can bring healing and wholeness, by choosing only what feels good, avoiding those things that don’t feel good, and spending time in this space until we determine that the promise of a more complete wholeness has not materialized – generally when that promise of wholeness involves dealing with things we find unpleasant. We dabble in spiritual niceties, and avoid stepping over the threshold of the difficult and painful. 

    In an interview with Krista Tippett, John O’Donohue speaks very deliberately about thresholds in our lives, places where we begin to look at ourselves more critically, where we begin to understand ourselves more deeply, and where we enter into the beauty of wholeness. But it takes a willingness to allow ourselves to be “threshed,” to be separated from our past patterns and behaviors in such a way that a new wholeness and beauty emerges from the depths of our being. In other words, it is not an easy choice, and it needs to be a deliberate one.

    And this is where those who practice Christianity can be dabblers as well. We can be so focused on living up to the standards that those in our communities have set, that we focus on the “looking good,” rather than on the “becoming.” Because “becoming” involves “threshing” and becoming involves pain and suffering; becoming involves looking into the void, the depth of our regrets and the lengths of our errors, and finding meaning where there appears to be none. We dabble when we try to live up to the things our religion seems to demand but avoid the prompting of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.

    There are those who are religious and not spiritual, just like there are those who are spiritual but not religious.

    And there are those, both practitioners of a particular religion, as well as those who are spiritual but not religious, that examine their lives, sit with these painful, embarrassing, or unhappy memories, and allow those moments to sprout forth new meaning and joy.

    Our tendency as humans is to avoid suffering, and that means that we even avoid thinking about painful things, about embarrassing things, about things that cause inner turmoil. But our nature as humans is also to make errors, to say things that are hurtful to others, to do things that are not beneficial to ourselves, and, in general, to just foul up good things.

    We should not cover up the pain. We take care of it. To ignore or suppress the pain would be doing violence to ourselves. Mindfulness is us, but the painful feeling is also us. There’s no fighting. This is the view of nonduality.

    When we avoid going home to ourselves, we allow our pain to grow.

    Thich Nhat Hanh1

    To truly find peace, we must accept that we are flawed, we must consider ourselves as “whole” and acceptable, just as we are, warts and all; we are not merely good, or just plain bad; we are a muddy whole. And when we have accepted that we are not the super heroes we make ourselves out to be, then we must allow those painful memories, those regrets and failures to “thresh” us, we must allow them to enter into our minds and into our lives where we can examine them, and allow them to till the soil of our being so that they produce that promised wholeness. 

    When we do, that is when our lives begin to double, and failure and defeat produce peace and joy, rather than pain and anxiety.

    1. Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child, Thich Nhat Hanh, p. 148 (Kindle Edition), Parallax Press, 2006 (The link to this book is an Amazon Associates link. I receive a few pennies from Amazon if you purchase this book.)

  • Do Be Do

    This summer, as part of my requirements for ordination, I spent time as a chaplain in a hospital. One of the things that all of the staff, from doctors, nurses, social workers, and even our team of chaplains, hoped to determine, for all the patients, regardless of their diagnosis, was their Advanced Directives. That is, if their health took a sudden turn, we wanted the doctors and nurses to know the patient’s will regarding how much effort to put into life-saving tactics. With these documents, the hospital is able to put to rest any discussion by the family, especially those who claim to know what the patient would have wanted. With these Advanced Directives, the doctors can make decisions about patient care under the authority of the patient themselves.

    There’s a reason that the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus under whose authority he was teaching. Just like the idea of Advanced Directives, there is a certain authority that comes from knowing which voice has the last say. And so, a question about authority is really a battle of wills. Is Jesus doing what the scribes and Pharisees want? No. So under whose authority – whose will – is he doing what he does? This is the reason why Jesus responded with a question about John the Baptist’s authority, and with the story of the two sons who had different reactions to their father’s requests. The question about John the Baptist’s authority was intended to confront the scribes and Pharisees with their own motivations and claims to authority. And, the story of the two sons was intended to hit that idea home. Because it too, is intended to make all the listeners rethink their own claims to righteousness. 

    I say, “claims to righteousness,” but what I really mean is that this story, on the surface, seems to be a simple judgment about which son did the will of the father. We are able to make this judgment because Jesus gives us a glimpse into the minds of each of the sons, and explains their actions and motivations to us. By extension, this story demands that we look into our own minds and review our motivations, so that we might judge ourselves by asking the questions, “Am I doing the will of God?” “How do I know?” and “By whose authority do I do what I do?”

    When an Advanced Directive is not available, we sometimes find that families begin to argue about who knows the will of the patient best. And often, these arguments about the patient’s choices are guided less by the patient’s will, and more by the desires of the family member making the claim. It’s human nature. We all have desires that can cloud our judgments.

    We can do the same with God. We can lay claim to knowing God’s will so well, that we begin to judge others, and question them about where their authority comes from, simply because we do not like what they are doing.. Sound familiar? And from that moment of laying claim to knowing God’s will, it becomes easy to justify ourselves and our actions, whether they are truly God’s will – or not.

    Justification can only come from God, but self-justification comes from a place of pride.

    This is why Paul, in his letter to the church in Philippi, exhorted the people there to be of the same mind, to have the same love, and to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but that they should regard others as better than themselves, in all humility, and look to the interests of others.

    In humility. 

    Just like Christ humbled himself and obediently did the will of the Father who sent him. 

    Paul wants the believers in Philippi to live in that same humility, and to do the will of the Father who sent Christ Jesus as the model of our faith.

    Do the will of the Father. …  Do. 

    Recently I had an incident in which I discovered that someone had been deliberately lying to me, withholding information about what they had done and were continuing to do. And they asked me, “Who knows about this? I need to know how much damage control I need to do.” To which I responded, “No one knows, but the fact that you are more concerned about looking good than about apologizing for or changing your behavior tells me a lot about you.” 

    Paul Tillich, former professor at Union Theological Seminary, had this to say about the will of God:

    People who call themselves Christian – parents, teachers, preachers – tell us that we should be “good” and obey the will of God. For many of them the will of God is not very different from the will of those socially correct people whose conventions they ask us to accept. If we only willed such goodness, they say, we could achieve it, and would be rewarded in time and eternity – but first of all, in time.

    It is entirely possible to do the will of the Father without being moved by what we are doing. We can follow all the requirements of a good and just society, without caring about the interests of others. We can do all of these things, but care only about looking good, which is precisely the opposite of what Paul was asking of the believers in Philippi.

    If we merely do the things that we have been told is God’s will, but do it only so that we might look good in a society that values looking good, then what we have done is bent God, and God’s will, to serve our own needs.

    This is not at all a new phenomenon in human history. The French writer Voltaire made the statement: “If God has made man in his own image, we have returned him the favor.”

    It is this tendency in ourselves to use God as a means to an end, to use God as a tool for our own purposes, or at its worst, to weaponize the name of God, that Paul is confronting in his letter to the people at Philippi. 

    Do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility, look to the interests of others.

    It is humility that changed the heart of the first son, who at first told his father that he would not do what he was asked, but then looked to his father’s interests. And it is humility that will change our own hearts, and look to the interests of God and God’s kingdom, rather than our own. 

    Any of us who have been in a relationship know that the only way to truly know the heart and mind of another is to spend time with them, and to be vulnerable, honest, and humble. 

    And so it is with God.

    The more time we spend with God in humility, in vulnerability, and in honesty, the more the image of God that we have created in our minds begins to fade away and disintegrate. And the more that our image of God disintegrates, the more it is replaced by who God is. 

    That is, the more time we spend with God, the more God becomes less and less of what we say God is, and we come face to face with the reality of a boundless, infinite presence, unfathomable in its greatness and depth.

    And when we do, we are overcome with awe and wonder – fear and trembling – and we wish to do the will of God, not because we are afraid, but because we see the majesty and might of an endless being who, in great mercy and love, has chosen to spend time… with us.

    Humility allows God to shape us, to move in us, and mold us, to make changes in our hearts and minds. Humility brings us to the point of awe and wonder in the presence of the boundless love that is our God.

    And it is in this space of fear and trembling, this space of awe and wonder, this space of humility, that God is able to transform us, enabling us to will and to work for God’s own pleasure, so that just like the first son, we may find that what we formerly ignored, or thought of as unimportant suddenly takes on new meaning.It is less about doing the will of God, and more about drawing so close to God that God’s will becomes our will, and that God’s work becomes our work. And we do this by spending our time in this space of humility, in this space of awe and wonder, resting in the presence of the unfathomable beauty and love that has chosen to spend time with us.

    1.  Paul Tillich, The Good That I Will, I Do Not, in The Eternal Now, 1963, Scribner, New York. pp 49
    2. Voltaire, “Si Dieu nous a faits à son image, nous le lui avons bien rendu.” Notebooks, c.1735-1750

    Note: Normally there would be a video of today’s service right here. Unfortunately, the internet was not working today, so we were unable to upload the service to YouTube and I am not able to offer a video of the sermon.

    [This sermon was delivered at The Episcopal Church of St. Matthew in Tucson, AZ on October 1, 2023.]