Saturday, July 6, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Never waste a good crisis
People do not put new wine into old wineskins.
Greg said one Sunday in January: follow the crucified, not the America-fied Christ. Good plan, if I can figure out how.
First, let go of my script for success – and abandon the accomplishment-laden eulogy I’ve been writing for myself. Jesus wants to write my script.
Second, remember my childhood aspirations: “I want to be a fireman! I want to leap tall buildings!”
When I burned our farmhouse trash I imagined the fire and the fireman, who was me. Later when I mowed our lawn I talked to myself about the cleansing swaths I was making through all the old, dead world, leaving beautiful trimmed green grass underneath my feet.
When I was a child, I burned trash like a child. When I was a child, I mowed grass like a child. But now I have put away childish things.
Perhaps I’d better get them back out again.
The days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the vintner, him who sows the seed. The juice of grapes shall drip down the mountains, and all the hills shall run with it.
I could stop promising myself that my life will be good when … what? It’s already good. Instead I might ask Jesus, “Where are we going today?” Jesus has a pretty good idea of what I need and everyone else needs as well.
Of course I might not want to go into those places where Jesus goes. But he teaches me. “David! You do not need to avoid suffering. Suffering is the inheritance of the Fall. Enter the edges of death and trust me beyond and through that death.”
“Never waste a good crisis,” Greg told us, with a challenging smile on his face. Richard Rohr calls the downward path of Jesus “falling upward.” Hold on! The roller coaster will not hurt me, and I need not be afraid of being upside down.
Plant vineyards, drink the wine! Set out gardens and eat the fruits. Never again shall they be plucked from the land I have given them, says I, the LORD, your God.
Yesterday I wrote about my spiritual journey, through monasteries and temples and sanctuaries and churches.  So much singing on that journey – Gregorian chants echoing down dark halls, Buddhist and Hindu chants at sunrise, Taize choruses at sunset, Vineyard songs prayed straight to Jesus. And then there are all those Methodist and Baptist and Lutheran hymns.
Who am I that thou wouldst care for me?
Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord, to thee
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear
I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away.
Those last two were my father’s favorites, and he asked Margaret and I to sing “I’ll Fly Away” for him after he himself had flown, at his funeral, before they closed the casket. So we did, and then we waited for the new wine which he was already drinking.
The Lord proclaims peace to his people. Near indeed is his salvation, his glory dwelling in our land.
(Amos 9, Psalm 85, John 10, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
