Learning to Walk on Water at the Living School
They Do Not Need To Go Away
God's Wisdom for Solomon and Us
In today’s Old Testament lesson we heard the story that is referred to as The Wisdom of Solomon or Solomon’s Dream. In it, Solomon goes to the Holy Mountain, spends a day in prayer and sacrifice, and then that night he has a dream. God appears to him in the dream and says, Solomon, I will grant you one wish. Solomon says, thank you, God, for making my father David king before me, and thank you for making me king following my father, even though I am but a lad and do not know my way in and out of doors. This is a large and very challenging group of people to govern, and so I ask for one thing: wisdom. Some translations say a discerning mind,
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Seeking the Creator in Creation
For centuries, for millennia, people have been looking at nature, looking at the creation and being inspired by it. Many people have described the feeling that in seeing something of the creation they are seeing something of the creator. In seeing the creation and understanding how it works they are seeing how God works. The early scientists all understood themselves as doing holy work, of trying to understand the creator better by understanding the creation better. It’s an ancient concept. We go back to the book of Amos that has the beautiful line “seek the one who made the Pleiades and Orion.” The constellations are remarkable, the stars are remarkable and behind that creation is a creator who made them. We have been looking to the heavens, we have been looking to creation in order to see the creator. That is good, and that is holy work.
The Parable as an Icon
As I hear the parable of the sower, I think about God’s love and how abundant God’s love is, that God is willing to waste it. God is so utterly inefficient. God would not get through Business School because God is willing to waste seeds, is willing to waste love on paths and on rocks and on thorny places, even though it is not necessarily going to take root and thrive.
The Holiness of Rest
How are you holding up right now? My usual question is, how are you, but that seems like such an inappropriate question right now. Stressed? Yes. Is it hard? Is it challenging? Difficult? Saying how are you holding up seems to acknowledge that I know this is difficult, I know this is stressful. But, within that context, how are you holding up under the weight of the burdens of this time?
