in a hidden cave of my heart
crouches a little girl
battered, scared
she sits in fear
humiliation has taught her
she is unworthy of love … success
better to hide …
to stay silent
a light shines at her feet
a hand reaches out
“come, it is safe”
“come, you are loved”
hope grows …
maybe …
“can I really believe”
“are you tricking me … again”
“come,” says the light
a hand takes a small hand
one step at a time
out of the dark
Ruth Jewell, ©January 18, 2013
Sermon preached at Queen Anne Christian Church, January 13, 2013
Acts 8:14-17 14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit 16(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). 17Then Peter and John* laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Luke 3:15-22 15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with* the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19But Herod the ruler,* who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
As I was reading the many different stories of Jesus’ baptism this past week I was reminded of my own baptism and the story surrounding it. I was 10 years old when I attended the class that would prepare me, and my entire Sunday school class, for baptism. While I had attended church all my young life, for me, this baptism was more about how cool it would be to suddenly become “Holy” and have all my sins forgiven. I mean my thoughts were, “Wow all of my sins were going to be forgiven, even the ones mom and dad didn’t know about, how cool was that.”
I wasn’t disappointed when the sky didn’t open up and I didn’t hear a voice or see a dove, but I was disappointed that I didn’t “feel” any different. I didn’t feel as if I had been forgiven. However, knowing, at the wise age of 10, that I should feel something I was afraid to say anything because everyone else seemed so darned happy. It would be another 20 years before I felt I was beginning to understand what baptism meant and felt a tug to renew that commitment and asked to be re-baptized. This time I knew that something was different; I just didn’t know what it was. It would take another 20 years of trying to live a good life, failing most times, but, sometimes coming close before I experienced what I call an intervention by the Holy Spirit and had a new enlightenment about what it meant to be part of a faith community.
At the time this happened I was at a very difficult place in my life and my “ah-ha” moment was the most dramatic event to ever happen to me. It changed how I viewed myself and everyone and everything around me in relation to how I envisioned my life with God, Spirit and Christ. Now, events like that do not happen every day or for every person. But, I am grateful for what I experienced and feel blessed to have been given something I feel is special and I try to live into the promise given me that day.
You are probably calculating in your mind “let see 10+20+20=50, she was fifty when baptism finally made sense!” All I can say is I’m a really slow learner. But yes, I didn’t I understand what it meant to be baptized until I was well into my adult years. Your own stories may say you understood before, during or right after you entered and exited the waters of baptism. Every person is different and the Spirit picks the time it will act, we don’t tell the Holy Spirit. Nor do we pick the moment when all of it comes together. In my tradition of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Baptism is believer’s baptism by immersion, just as it was for Jesus. That means we are supposed to know why we do it and for most part I think most of us do, for some of us it just takes a little longer. As Luke tells the story it didn’t come together even for Jesus until after he was baptized and in prayer.
You know we have heard the stories of Jesus’ baptism so often we don’t actually ‘hear’ it when it is read. It is actually only in Mark and Matthew where we have a retelling of John baptizing Jesus. How many of you unconsciously substituted Mark’s or Matthew’s story in the above Luke scripture when you read it and missed the focus of Luke’s telling of the story?
First of all Luke does tell us Jesus was baptized. He doesn’t actually say it was John the Baptist, although most likely it was. But in Verse 3:21, Luke’s story of Jesus’ baptism is almost an afterthought. Jesus was baptized with all of those who came to the Jordan River. He was baptized just like any other person seeking repentance and forgiveness. Nothing special, it was an act of commitment and faith just like every person coming to John at the Jordan River. What is highlighted is that sometime after the baptism when Jesus was in prayer the Spirit descends upon him “like a dove” and he hears God’s voice say “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Luke doesn’t focus much on the commitment, repentance and forgiveness of the act of baptism. Instead his focus is on the baptism of the Spirit, just as John tells his audience in Verse 16; “… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Jesus’ baptism is with the Holy Spirit and the Spirit decides when that will happen, and, for Luke prayer plays a huge role in when the Holy Spirit comes.
In the first scripture reading from Acts we read that a Samaritan Community had been baptized but “the Spirit had not yet come upon … them,” so Peter and John travel to Samaria pray for the Holy Spirit and lay “their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” Jesus was in prayer, Peter and John prayed and the Holy Spirit came. Does this mean that the Spirit will always come in response to prayer … ah … probably not? As I said the Spirit picks the moment when it gives enlightenment, not us.
But Luke’s focus on the act of prayer is the key to our spiritual doors; prayer has a special place in Luke’s Gospel. The Evangelist tells us Jesus is constantly going away to be in prayer, he prays with his disciples, he prays for the sick, the lame, and the possessed. Jesus prays in the garden and on the cross. Jesus’ entire life is a model of a life lived in prayer and the relationship with his Abba that prayer fostered. For Luke the most important thing Jesus taught his disciples was prayer. The way to talk to and build relationship with God is in prayer.
Luke continues his theme of prayer in his second book, the Acts of the Apostles. Following Jesus’ ascension the disciples returned to Jerusalem and devoted their time to prayer. They prayed when they replaced Judas with Matthias. When the Holy Spirit descends on them they were all sitting together, my guess is they were praying, as that would have been their practice. The first converts were taught by the Apostles to pray and when the community became too great to lead by themselves, they appointed Stephen and Philip to do community management, so they, the Apostles, could devote themselves to teaching, baptizing and prayer.
I am not saying that Luke ranked baptism as second to prayer, for he doesn’t. Baptism is and will always be the first sacrament. For us Disciples baptism is one of only two sacraments we have, the other being the Lord’s Supper. However, Luke is explaining to his community of Gentile converts that it takes the two together, baptism plus prayer, to fully understand the commitment made in Christ’s name. He is also trying to explain to his community that the Holy Spirit does not always come in direct response to baptism. Sometimes it comes before or after baptism, it is the Spirits choice. Paul experiences Christ and the Spirit on the road to Damascus and is baptized after that dramatic event. As Luke describes Paul and as Paul writes in his letters the act of prayer is an important part of being in a Christian Faith Community. Baptism is the commitment to God and community often in response to prayer. Baptism plus prayer is the key that opens the door of our heart, into that inner place of the Spirit and shows us the way to live a life that is Christ filled, God filled and Spirit filled.
One isn’t more important than the other, in fact, we need both for the key to work, but some of us have locks where the Spirit connects with us first and then we are baptized, sometimes it’s the other way around and sometimes it’s all at the same moment. It is a little like an analogy I picked up from my biologist research days using DNA, RNA and enzymes in comparing how they work in our bodies to how our spiritual DNA, RNA and enzymes might work in our spiritual bodies.
Our Spiritual DNA determines the shape of the RNA and how it will fit together with the enzymes in our bodies. Each has to be a specific shape in order for both to fit together like a lock and key. The enzyme only fits one way in each person and when it does the two together create something new and important to keep us living. I don’t know which of the two, baptism or pray, is the RNA and which the enzyme. I do know that how they fit together in each of us is a specific characteristic for each individual. Both parts are needed in order for the spiritual life to come awake.
Luke knows baptism is important; everyone who comes to Christ is baptized. Everyone who is baptized will have their own experience of Spirit, often whether they recognize it as such or not. The Holy Spirit often speaks so quietly that only a quiet new awareness begins to guide us without our knowing why. Prayer is the tool used by the Spirit to teach us the meaning of baptism and how to be in relationship with God, Christ and Holy Spirit.
How we respond to baptism will be an individual act, how the Spirit guides us is the result of prayer. We can’t have one without the other if we are to live into a Faith Filled Community of God. Baptism is the recognition of our humanness, our humanity and our commitment to something greater than who we are. Prayer is the part that leads to our understanding of what our humanity and commitment means. The two together are the Key that unlocks the door to the Kingdom.
Ruth Jewell, ©January 13, 2013
Revelation 3:20- “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door; I will come in to you and eat with you and you with me.”
For the last four months I have been on an inward journey. I don’t know where this journey will lead me, although I am hoping it will help me come to some conclusions about ministry. Beginning in September I did mostly silent prayer or, depending on the day and moment, contemplative prayer. I would sit for 30 minutes to an hour in silence up to three times a day. I discovered that I was developing a very quiet place somewhere inside and all of the stress and disappointment of the last year were beginning to slip away. As I felt the need I started adding other practices, a bible study, a new interplay class, and a book study.
Through all of this I wrote in my Journal and added to my blog and one of the repeating themes is I am looking at scripture and readings from a very different perspective and the above scripture from Revelation is a good example.
I am fairly confident that all of you have seen the iconic picture of Jesus standing at a door knocking. Have you looked closely there is no door handle; the door must be opened from the inside. This passage from Revelation has been bugging me lately so I started taking it apart and trying to visualize it from a different angle. The one perspective that seems to intrigue me is what if the door is the one into my heart and the person standing on the outside is me, not Jesus. The door is ajar but I have to make the effort to push it open and walk in and in my meditations I seem to be standing at the entrance unable to move toward the door. Sort of like the rodent in one of Rudyard Kipling books where it won’t go into the center of the room but always creeps around the edges.
The reason this perspective seems to be so important is 1) I have always believed part of the creator already resides within me, and for that matter within all of creation; 2) the place behind the door to my heart, or hearts door, represents for me my deepest level of spirituality. It is the place that knows me best, the good and the bad, and offers forgiveness and grace even when I do not acknowledge it. So, to me, it makes perfect sense that in the room behind the hearts door I will find G-d because G-d is the root, or grounding, of my very being and where I want to be. But I am afraid to cross the threshold.
So what does it mean if I am the one outside of my hearts door? First of all it means that
G-d/Jesus/Holy Spirit is waiting for me to acknowledge the Divine Presence and that that recognition means I am giving up some of the control of my life over to the true being within. The acknowledging part is fairly easy, but, crossing the threshold and entering into full communion with the Divine is a lot harder. There are risks to crossing into that sacred place, for one thing I would have to let go of my ego, and many of my desires, such asto always be at the top of everything. Sometimes the Holy Spirit wants me to be second, third or even last at some task because it challenges me to look deeper at who I am and who I want to be. Because of my unwillingness to let go of my ego, I have spent most of my 65 years standing outside the chamber behind my hearts door and it has resulted in a life where hard lessons are learned and travels on rocky roads are my only choices. I had to hit rock bottom before I could accept that I could not live this life alone, I needed help; I needed love, grace, and forgiveness in order to become who I am.
Fourteen years ago I was at that rock bottom place and my path choices weren’t looking all that appealing. I have always wondered why we have to be at the worst possible crossroad in order to recognize the grace and forgiveness of G-d, but it does and I am no exception. Just like John of the Cross I was having my own “dark night of the soul.” It wasn’t until all light in my life had disappeared that I called out to G-d, crossed the threshold and entered into the arms of the Divine.
One result of my turning this scripture around so I stand at the door instead of Jesus is that I become the one to initiate contact with G-d. G-d, Holy Spirit, Jesus becomes the force that waits for me to decide how, and when I will respond to their call. I choose to cross the threshold or walk away. Granted I have had a great deal of preparation for that moment in my life but a willingness to risk everything on an invisible (and to some non-existent) entity does not make the choice any easier. Maybe that is why it takes those “dark nights” for us to make the choice to let our lives be lead by the Divine. Unless we have only two choices, life or death, before us we won’t choose life. We will continue to walk without the guidance of G‑d because that path seems easier to walk than the one G-d and there are so of those distractions to choose from. But that is an illusion.
I must admit to a lot of darting out the door only to return with bowed head asking for forgiveness. I am always amazed at the joy the Divine exhibits at the return of this wayward child. I know I am blessed by grace because I can fail G-ds expectations over and over again and return over and over again and I will be welcomed home just as the prodigal son was, with fatted calf and celebration.
See G-d wants us to be inside that sacred room and whenever we leave, the Divine keeps the fires burning for our return. I like to think that hot chocolate and double chocolate chip cookies are waiting for me to communion with the ground of my being. All I have to do is cross the threshold.
Ruth Jewell, ©December 29, 2012
Jacob was in a delighted panic, there were more people in his Inn than he had ever had before. While giving thanks to the Romans would be condemned by the Temple authorities he was certainly thankful for this emperor’s whim. Now if only he could find time to sit down to enjoy all of those shekels he was collecting. Sara, his wife, was busy in the kitchen cooking a meal for their paying guests and for their own abundant family who weren’t paying because his wife wouldn’t let him charge them. Family, sometimes you can’t live without them but tonight he would like to try.
Now Jacob loved his kind and gentle Sara, but sometimes her kindness was irritating. After all Jacob had to provide for his family. His son, Isaiah, had only just reached manhood, although he was a big help to him tonight. Isaiah was carrying water to all of the paying guests (let his relatives get their own) and taking care of the animals. Jacob’s two girls were busy in the kitchen with their mother and while Elizabeth was still a little small she was working just as hard as her older sister, Rebecca. Over all Jacob was very happy, his Inn was full and he had a box full of money. He should not only be able to pay the tax collector (May YHWH rain fire down on his head!) but also have sufficient money for the next several months. There might even be enough left over to put a little aside for his daughters dowries.
Jacob was suddenly shaken out of his revere by a call from his son.
“Father, there are two more in the courtyard.”
Jacob threw up his hands and ran out to tell them that he had no more room and that they should move on. When Jacob opened the door a tall man greeted him. A very pregnant young woman was perched on a donkey behind him. Jacob had to admit she looked very tired and uncomfortable.
“Excuse me, my wife and I would like a room to spend the night. If you don’t have a room a corner would do. Mary, my wife, is expecting and she is very tired. We have money to pay and I will take care of the donkey myself.”
“I’m sorry we don’t have any rooms,’ Jacob said, “and to be honest with you I don’t think there are rooms free anywhere else in Bethlehem right now. This mandated census has filled all the Inns. My suggestion would be that you go up into the hills above the city and find a cave. At least it would be out of the wind. Good night to you.”
“Jaaa…cob, Isaiah tells me there is a woman with child out there”.
Jacob turned around and groaned as he faced his wife Sara. “Sara we don’t have any room! Where would we put them?” Taking one look at his wife’s face he said “Oh no! I am not giving up my bed! I am tired and will need to get some sleep tonight if I am to deal with all of these people tomorrow!”
Sara patiently looked at her red-faced husband; she knew he wasn’t as hard-hearted as some thought he was, he just had to be nudged once in a while. “Well we can’t turn out a pregnant woman (may the LORD bless her child!), she looks like she is going to deliver any time now! This census is bringing people out on the roads that shouldn’t be there! Don’t you dare send them to the caves! She’s pregnant Jacob, there are thieves up there and they will be robbed or worse! Do you really want that on your hands? Jacob, money isn’t everything.”
Jacob groaned again. “Well, where do you propose we put them?”
“Isaiah”, Sara called, “get me some blankets and a lamp. Jacob, the stable has a corner that is warm and dry, and you won’t charge them either!”
The man at the door had been looking on as the Innkeeper and his wife argued and now said, “Please, we will be glad to pay, we have some of our own supplies, we just need a place to rest.”
“No,” Jacob sighed, “Sara’s right, we can’t charge you for a night in the stable. Isaiah will take you around the back and help his mother get you settled.” Isaiah ran up with the bedding. “Take them around to the stable and fix the stall on the west wall, it’s the driest and warmest. Then come back and help Rebecca take some warm food and wine out to our guests.”
The gentlemen started to protest, “No, sir, it is the least we can do. If you need anything during the night just knock on the door at the back, Isaiah will be sleeping there tonight and he will do what he can.”
The man looked very relieved, “thank you all so very much, you are very kind. This is Mary’s first child and we have traveled so very far today. My name is Joseph and I am a carpenter, if you need anything repaired or need any work done while we are here I will be glad to do it.” Talking softly to his young wife, who turns and smiles her thanks at the innkeeper, Joseph turns, takes the donkey’s lead and follows Isaiah.
Sara looks lovingly at her husband. “You old softy, I knew you couldn’t turn them away.”
“Go, woman, and prepare some food for these people. At least I’ll be able to get that back room lintel fixed. Oh yes, I’ll take him up on his offer, he is an honorable man and I won’t embarrass him, go, go!” Jacob looks outside as he turns to close the door, “my goodness it is bright outside, almost like daylight, there must be a full moon.”
©Ruth Jewell, November 29, 2009
Blessings and Peace to all this Christmastide!
This story was written for the 2009 Christmas Eve Service and I offer it here to all of you as my Christmas Gift.
A Quiet Walk 