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When We Speak in the Silence

June 18, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

Psalm 37:7
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Things are whirling about me… tensions, concerns, fears. The woes of our economy have reached into my personal life as our organization faces lay-offs, furloughs, and a branch closing. Lives will be changed; dreams will be shattered; hope will be challenged.

I am a little ashamed that I have found myself talking and talking and talking about what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen in the days ahead. Talking, talking, talking. Mostly. Not really praying.

I have not been listening… at least, I haven’t been listening in the quiet place, the secret place. I have been just a “sounding gong and clanging cymbal” [I Corinthians 13:1]. I have given my opinion, my interpretations, my gut feel, my take, my understanding, my inside information, and so on…

Today, I heard only one thing in my prayer time: Be Quiet!

When we speak in the silence unnecessarily, we cannot hear. And if we cannot hear, we cannot act in God’s will, only our own.

In Ecclesiastes, there is a long list about the timing of everything including speaking: (vs. 7b) “…a time to be silent and a time to speak, …”

Oh, may the remaining part of this day be transformed. Keep me mindful of these words: “He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.” [Proverbs 21:23]

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Eating and Drinking Christ

June 17, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

John 6:53
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…”

In chapter 6 of John, Jesus says, at least five times, “I tell you the truth…” Now, I have always been taught that anything repeated several times in scripture is important. And so, this morning, I have been meditating and dozing on this (I am trying to follow His lead here and tell the truth: meditating can be a sleepy business).

Why does Jesus keep saying this? Clearly, it’s because he suspects they don’t/won’t believe him. What he is saying is too fantastic or difficult to comprehend. He’s expecting their reaction to be, “You,re kidding, right?” No, He says, “I’m telling you the truth.”

By the end of this chapter, we are told that many of his disciples (the unnamed ones who followed him around for awhile and got a few free meals along the way), left him after this instruction. Apparently, He convinced them that he meant what he said. And, because He convinced them that He was telling the truth, they rejected his message… intentionally.

And what was the hullabaloo about? Eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Since there has never been a tradition of cannibalism in Judaism, He wasn’t talking about a barbecued ribs. But He was talking about consuming the life force of Christ. There is something to be said for cannibalism as a sacred practice. In primitive tribes, to eat someone was to become one with them. They ate the bodies to take in a person’s essence, strength, and soul.

Accepting Christ is serious business. It’s not just an idea. It’s a process. It’s breathing in. It’s consuming. It’s transforming. It’s energy. It’s eating. It’s nourishing. It’s life-sustaining.

And without Christ, we die.

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Taste the Best Wine

June 16, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

John 2:9b-10
…Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

Jesus transformed the water into the “best wine” at the wedding in Cana. But, who noticed? The “master of the banquet” noticed and commented, but what about the rest of the guests? They were probably several “sheets to the wind” already. They probably missed the wonderful aroma, the nuance, the color, the details. They just got more of what they wanted. For them, wine was wine.

Do we do the same thing? Are we so caught up in our day-to-day that we miss the best wine, we miss the transformed moment, the transformed person? Do we allow our expectations and assumptions to lull us asleep?

As I continue writing these meditations, I am so often driven back to the same message about opening the self to the world. These messages are for me… for my heart, for my mind: Wake up! I hear Him say!

O, taste and see, the Lord is Good! [Ps 34:8]

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Fish Not Figs

June 15, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

John 6:8-9
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

What would have happened if the boy would have had figs instead of fish? I think they would have feasted on lots of figs. God uses what we have and works the miracle with us. We are part of the miracle.

In Rob Bell’s Jesus Wants to Save Christians (p.32), he pulls this same idea from the 2nd of the ten commandments. The second commandment prohibits the creation of an image in the form of anything to represent God. This was primarily in contrast with the norm of that day of having “idols” that would help the people understand “what their god was and what their god was like.” But our God is seen through the people, his followers, the believers, his priests.

In I Peter 2:5, it says, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” And in I Corinthians 12:12, it is written, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” We are Christ on earth now.

We are the ones who collect the fish, the bread, even the figs, and multiply them. We distribute them to those who don’t have what we have. We touch and our touch is healing. By telling our story, we are telling His story, because we are His.

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Bread of Heaven

June 13, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

John 6:41
At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

The Jews of that time understood this image and didn’t like it because Jesus referred to himself metaphorically as manna [Exodus 16]. While the Jews wandered in the desert, manna appeared each morning with the dew and was only enough for that one day (except on Friday when enough was collected and lasted 2 days over the Sabbath). The message is a simple one for us then: we are to eat the Bread of Heaven daily. We are to participate and partake of Him daily.

In Matthew 6:34, Jesus is recorded as saying “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Each day is different and each day has different challenges.

It makes me want to return to a more Catholic tradition of communion each day. I can see the power of that imagery. I can feel the power of that act.

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Way of a Sinner

June 12, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

Psalm 1:1
Blessed is the man [or woman]
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

Lately, it has become popular to use the phrase, “way of Jesus,” but here is the “other” way… the way of a sinner. Contemporary Christians don’t like using this term much. It somehow feels too old-fashioned. After all, what is a sinner anyway?

Most people envision a criminal who has broken the law, someone worthy of punishment like jail or public humiliation. A sinner is that other guy or gal who is an evildoer, a villain, a reprobate. In fact, if you look up sinner in a thesaurus, most of the synonyms are similar in nature… baddest of the bad, worst of the worse and so on. And so our natural tendency is to say to ourselves, “I’m not THAT bad.”

But on the way to becoming the baddest of the bad are the little things we overlook.

This morning I have been quite convicted. Here’s a list of my sins between 6 and 9 am: anger, impatience, pride, indulgence, lying, exaggeration, cataloging of my children’s wrongs, disillusionment, unkindness, and procrastination [see I Corinthians 13]. Pretty amazing for only 3 hours into a day.

The point is that all of us have a tendency to take the way of a sinner. It’s the wide road, not the narrow road [see Matthew 7:13-14]. It’s the path of least resistance. To go the way of Jesus is to step out of that other way. (If we don’t literally step out, we’ll be pulled along by all the others… you see, it’s crowded on the wider path.)

I believe if I can just take one or two steps off this wider way… even if I can’t find the narrow path at first, the Lord will help me. If I can just stop and wait before I speak… for it’s my mouth that gets me in trouble first [Proverbs 11:12]. If I can just trust God enough and tolerate the “unknown zone,” a way will be illumined.

OK, here goes. I’m stepping out. Who wants to come with me? [Matthew 18:20]

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First We Must Choose

June 11, 2009 by Irmgarde Brown

John 6:28b-29
“…What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Before we can change, we must choose to make the change. Before we can believe, we must choose to believe. Before we can follow, we must choose to go. Before we can “work for God,” we must choose to believe in the plan which has been outlined in the scriptures.

Ultimately, before anything can happen, there is that moment of personal choice: go, stay, believe, reject, yes, no, wait… these are the simple words that are transmitted from our inner self to the mind. The more connected we are within, the more likely we will make authentic choices. Unfortunately, we are so bombarded in our world by opinions, information, media, images, teaching, etc … we often don’t even know what is our idea or the choice we feel compelled by others to make .

So many times, believing people say, “If you don’t know what to do, ask God and you will get your answer.” I don’t doubt this is true, but I do struggle with hearing that answer. My guess is, I don’t know in the first place because I’m disconnected inside. I’m not hearing God. It’s too noisy in there.

Now that graduations are over, guests are gone and life is slowing down a little, I’m going to start looking for the quiet place…. what I used to call the secret place. This is where hearing takes place. This is where choice is born.

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