Rivers in the Desert

This week's newsletter provides commentary on Isaiah 43, the First Reading for the Fifth Sunday in Lent; an invitation to celebrate mystery; and a blessing to our Muslim neighbors who begin their holy month of fasting this week.

A New Thing

This passage (Isaiah 43:16-21) speaks into the dismal and frightening space of exile for the ancient people of Israel. They have experienced the loss of their foundational faith tenets: land, kingship, and Temple. They must have felt destitute and bewildered – exiled – wondering if God was truly able to see them and rescue them. How will they ever be able to respond to such catastrophe?

The passage begins then by recounting the Exodus event - that central moment in Israel's past when God did indeed rescue them from the bondage.

Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick.

God makes a way, a way of liberation, a way in the sea.

Then, the author, whom scholars call Second Isaiah, pivots to the present moment of despair and speaks of another new way, a way in the wilderness.

"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

The Creator God who is always creating new things is going to do a new thing yet again. The question becomes: do we perceive it? God is making another way in the desert, a way back from exile, a way forward.

How are you finding a way in your Lenten journey?  

What new thing is God doing in your community? Do you perceive it?

Let us look this week for rivers in the desert.

Invited into the Mystery

I feel like sometimes our churches are turned into explanation factories, pumping out advice and information. As an educator, I, of course, value explication. This very newsletter testifies to my deep desire to explain and educate.

Churches, however, are more than places for explanations. We are, after all, talking about God. We must be diligent that our explanations do not lead to certainty. Explanations are not the church's product.

We need our ministers to hold up before us the mystery that is God and the mystery that is our life in God, and let us breathe in that mystery.

Might the church whisper to its saints “There is so much we do not know. Behold the Mystery.”

The Beginning of Ramadan

The ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Ramadan, begins the evening of Saturday, April 2 and ends the evening of Monday, May 2. Many Muslims around the world will fast from dawn to sunset as a spiritual discipline. Here's an article from last year that provides information about this holy month.

Ramadan Mubarak. Have a blessed Ramadan.

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

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