ELCA Approval Part 1: Person(s) in Ministry

Yesterday I met with my synod's candidacy committee for the final piece of my candidacy journey - approval.  One of the major pieces of the approval process includes writing a large essay following prompts offered by the ELCA.  You can find the prompts here.  I was approved, and have been asked by multiple colleagues and friends to read my essay.  So I will post it here in portions.  The prompts are set up in 3 sections - Person(s) in Ministry, Core Theological Concepts, and Proclamation and Content, which is how I will break the posts up.  I welcome comments and constructive criticism (no bullying or mean-spirited comments please).

Part 1: Person(s) in Ministry

I am an intentionally engaged member of two formative faith communities that are not traditional church.   One is the Deaconess Community, and the other is the ELCA Organizing for Mission Cohort (OFM from here on).  The Deaconess Community (known as sisters) is a collective of women who are called and rostered by the ELCA/ELCIC to bear witness to the world and the church about what diakonia is and how the priesthood of all believers is called and equipped to engage God’s creation as co-creators of peace and justice, through servant leadership.  If you and I have had any conversation at all, you likely understand the draw this has for me!  The sisters engage in deep communal reflection on the Scriptures and how they connect and compel us to engage issues of injustice, marginalization, poverty, suffering, and advocacy around us because of God’s call in our lives individually and as a community.  Sisters actively believe in a theology that connects the context of scripture with the context of culture, and prayerfully discern as a community how we can be a support to neighbors because of our freedom in Christ. 

As a formative community, the Deaconesses equip one another with opportunities for continuing education, active dialogue about global/local issues, and generally support the varied and various ministries to which we as individuals are called as a part of this bigger vocation from within the church.  A big piece of what the Deaconess Community does is equip and send disciples into the world to live out their baptismal call fully and accompanied.  Sisters are accompanied by the community in their ministries of servant leadership, and the sisters accompany and equip the laity in their baptismal calling to diaconal ministry.  

The OFM cohort is a group of mission developers, redevelopers, and community organizers from in and around the ELCA who practice the arts of community organizing and support one another in active reflection and agitation around how we best theologically and contextually do that as church.  OFM has been a deeply formative community for me because we all see the future of church as a hopeful, living, engaged place for wonder and change.  Every single member of the cohort is a missional leader in their own context.  For, the formative understanding of the cohort is that Jesus himself was a community organizer, unafraid to speak truth into context and break boundaries of fear for the sake of justice.  A rich and well-articulated theology of the cross informs the cohort’s deep engagement with the issues of justice and advocacy issues that plague our communities and church, helping us to understand our calling to form leaders and communities that are aware of the uses of power that both hinder and assist the kingdom of God. 

As a woman called to ministry, I feel a strong yearning for intentional community.  With the sisters, I have been given a place to be challenged into quiet reflection on the scriptures as the source and soul of the strength and fire that rise out of me when I engage the terrors of this broken world.  What makes the missional nature of the Deaconess Community so unique is that we don’t shy away from heartache, but also, choose not to be defined by it. Rather, our trust in the mercy of Christ’s prophetically humble accompanying leadership is salve to a missional soul like mine.  What OFM offers me is a place to practice claiming my power as a leader, to practice using my prophetic voice, and to be accountable to the affirmation and agitation we give one another as educated leaders in and for the future of church.  I am challenged to identify individual and institutional realities on both the micro and macro scale that affect my ministry of praxis, and am renewed with a hopeful fire in my spirit that Jesus is with me in the ministry to which I’m called as a Deaconess community organizer.  

I believe that, through our baptisms, God calls us to live lives of participation.   God calls each and every one of us to be co-workers in the healing and creation of the world.  Often times, we as a church struggle to know who should be doing it, and how it should be done.  Accompaniment, service, community, and truth-telling are all ways by which the priesthood of all believers can affirm their baptismal vocation to diakonia - active service and engagement in the world. Each and every one of us is called to diaconal service, no matter what else you are called to do.  A hairdresser is called to diaconal service, and he lives that service out in the listening and caring for person after person sitting in his salon chair.  A lawyer lives her call to diaconal service in the ways she challenges the system to value the rights of her clients.  A pastor lives her call to diaconal service in her encouragement of the congregation to serve on committees to plan ways the community will be nourished and needs will be met.  A baker lives his call to diaconal service when he donates the day’s unsold goods to the food bank down the street.  Every single one of us is called to diaconal servant leadership, but every single one of us struggles to know or believe that we are actually doing God’s work when we are simply doing that which we love.  Yet these things we do, these things we love are ways God calls us into our greater vocation of diaconal service.  

My working definition of vocation is that which we simply cannot avoid doing.  It is what gives us life and sustenance in whatever we do wherever we are.  I like to think of vocation as a mission statement that is unchangeable for my life, that always fits into whatever I am doing - it is always true.  What changes is the call and the way I fulfill that vocation within it.  We all have two vocations - a vocation of diakonia, and a vocation unique to us.  The baker above is called to be a baker, because while he might not always be a baker, his vocation might be to feed people.  He could live that out as a teacher, a story teller, an entrepreneur, a bakery owner, or a delivery truck driver.  Yet he is called to live it out as a baker now.  His diaconal vocation is being lived out as he donates his unsold goods daily.  See the difference between vocation and call?

My personal vocation is to be an equipper to service.  As one who is called to the  Roster of Word and Service, my call is to the diaconate - those who are gifted with this vocation of equipping the church in the ways they live out their individual and communal diaconal vocations of servant leadership.  My vocation is to help others live out their vocations!  One way I am feeling called to do this is as a community organizer.  The church is full of people who are burdened by issues needing advocacy and change.  Being called to be an organizer fulfills my vocation because through it, I can help equip individuals, communities, and congregations to find ways that they can accompany others and meet their needs.  An organizer listens to, gathers together, facilitates, and equips communities to advocate for their own needs and make positive changes in the way things are.  As a diaconal organizer in the church, I can assist congregations in listening to their neighbors, and finding ways to meet and serve their communities - fulfilling their communal diaconal vocations, and growing the reach of the church as a loving, compassionate, advocating, accompanying presence.  

Sermon on Mary and Martha

Here is the text from the Sermon I preached for the Deaconess Community of the ELCA/ELCIC's Annual Assembly today.  The text was Luke 10:38-32

I promise to be quick - we have Bible Study after this ;-)

I’m a Martha.  Seriously and completely. 

As a Martha, I have spent way too much time trying to be a Mary.  To figure out how to sit still and listen.  To be completely attentive and engaged in the moment.  I  yearn for the chance to linger in my thoughts and deeply discern things that might matter to others, God, or myself.  To give myself over to spiritual practices and prayer that feels full and real.  I want that.   This time in preparing my sermon and being in the midst of assembly, the tension that I’m noticing in this text this time is my own gut  reaction to Martha’s question, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work?”.  Truthfully, what I hear is  Martha whining for her giftedness to be acknowledged, and my brain says, huh?

For those of you who have been in conversation with me, you know that I have 2 spirited and slightly feral young children, I own a home and a medium sized business with my partner James, and my internship year which is about to end at the end of this month hasn’t been at one site, or even two.  But three innovative ministry sites that span various distances from my home up to about 50 miles away.  And I did these sites simultaneously.  Teaching college courses at one, community organizing with another, and building creative liturgies at the third.  And I had thyroid cancer this year right smack in the middle of it all.  I am one who goes so fast that I often don’t notice what I just passed by, because I’m so focused on what’s next.  

Also, not to preach from my wounds, but I’m scared to slow down.  To stop networking and advocating for myself and my community and my call.  What if I miss a chance to do something, be somewhere that is exactly the moment or place where God will connect me to my first call?!  I know that I have gifts for the church, but I have to be present for them to accept them, right?!

This text is hard for women.  We tend to be the hardest on ourselves and on one another.  We crave so deeply to be validated.  Women have been required to work hard for the acknowledgement of who we are and what we do.  As deaconesses, yes, but as women in the world, too.  Women struggled deeply for equal rights, fair pay, the vote, and so many other basic things.  And while many of you have done great things for the benefit of my daughter and myself for which we are grateful, the work is not yet done.     There are so many places where we are unappreciated, misunderstood, and undervalued.  We know what it feels like to be Martha here because we all have been in that place of needing to know that we are worthy and justified in the choices we have made - in the calls we are following.  

But even though Martha is doing what she said she would, and hosting Christ and his buddies, she isn’t present in it, is she?  Her service is her gift, we see that across the gospel stories of her hospitality.  But she’s not engaged or present in her hostess giftedness this time.  She’s too worried about Mary and what she’s NOT doing.  I see Jesus here not dismissing Martha’s service, rather calling her out on not being engaged in her own call to ministry in the moment.  She’s tattling on her sister, and seeking validation for the work she knows she should be doing and even wants to do. I don’t know about you, but I totally do this.  I get jealous of others whose gifts are being noticed, and try to either puff myself up to become more noticeable, or whine about it to my poor self and some chocolates later.  It’s hard feeling like you aren’t being recognized!  

But let me remind you of what Paul says in Romans 5:Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Hear that?  We don’t need to justify ourselves, or be justified by anyone other than Christ who has already done it! Who could need more than that?!

I feel compelled to say that today, for us, this text isn’t about being more like Mary, or Mary choosing the right path in being at the feet of Jesus.  Neither is it a devaluation of Martha’s call to service from Jesus himself.  What I want you to hear from this text today is that when we are able to focus on what Jesus asks of us, we need less validation from others because we are being truthful to our call.  Sometimes it will be to education.  Sometimes it will be to stillness.  Sometimes it will be to busy-ness.  Sometimes it will be to chaos or service or hospitality or solitude.  

The Deaconess Assembly has power, and gift, and a deep calling to be who we are.  That’s why we have survived through these years.  I truly believe that there is truth to knowing that we don’t need pastors, or bishops, or whomever else is in power to validate us because Christ validates us in all we do through Grace.  When we can stop worrying about who knows who we are, and how they define us, and instead define ourselves as called and compelled by Christ - we will be healed and we can change the world - because that’s what we’re called to do!!  Stop worrying about who knows who we are and what we do and DO IT!

But to be present to your call in the moment and confident in your justification is what nourishes you and fill you up to nourish others. Trust Sisters and friends, in the call that your creator has given you, for that is an Irrevocable gift of love.  And remember, we are all in this together, in every moment, in prayer and in Spirit, as part of a greater family of God.  Amen.

Sermon from 8/3/14

This is the text of the sermon I preached for Catacomb Churches last week on Matthew 14:13-21

over the past few weeks, the gospel texts have been these parables of Jesus telling us, or more often than not confusing us, about what the kingdom of God is like.  The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, a fine pearl, a very small amount of yeast in too much flour, buried treasure, even a widely cast net that catches fish regardless of what good they might be only to be sorted good and bad - captured or dismissed.  

I am unclear where I stand in my faith in miracles.  While I can’t deny that many people claim to have experienced real and true miracles in their lives and witness, what constitutes a miracle, and validity does it have are regular skeptical themes running through my mind.  It doesn’t help that I’m super analytical about the magicians/illusionists of our day - Chris Angel, David Copperfield, etc - when I see their stunts/performances, whatever you want to call them, I can’t hardly sleep for thinking about them and how they managed whatever feat they pulled over on me.  I also am not a very great biblical scholar - likely for similar reasons, I can’t help but be overly analytical about what others might think about these stories - do people really believe that craziness happened?  (with a tiny ‘did it?’ in the back of my mind).  

I have found myself wondering this week is this miracle of feeding the 5,000 first, actually happened, next, does it even matter, and finally, what if it’s simply a parable-like telling by Matthew of how Jesus interacted with people as a real-life example of this list of references to the kingdom of God Jesus has just passed on to us in Matthews gospel.  

And, I’m an organizer. So I see this miracle-tale in a different way, also.  

I have a little story that my partner James shared with me a few months ago that seems to come up again and again in my mind when I’m prepping sermons.  It goes like this.  Three boys were assigned the parts of the 2 wise men, or magi, in their churches nativity pageant for xmas eve.  When it came time for them to say their lines, the first said, “I bring gifts of gold to the child king.” the second says, “Myhrr is what I have to offer the babe.”  The third boy gets up and opens his mouth to say his expected line.  Yet he pauses a moment, bites his lip in thought, and then blurts out, “Frank sends this!” with a grin on his face for his good, old fashioned try.  Though the line wasn’t accurate - he fearlessly dove in with the “wrong” line because trying and saying something was better than saying nothing at all!

What if the miracle wasn’t that 5000 were fed with 5 loaves and 2 fish.  What if we re-image the miracle to be the fact that this little child, not mentioned in this particular gospel, but bear with me, heard these disciples talking about how there wasn’t enough to offer, and everyone should be sent home.  He looked down, noticed that he had something, and wasn’t afraid to share it - believing that he could make a difference in the hunger of this massive crowd with the little he had to offer.  

What could the world be like if we were all willing to offer the little bits we had abundance of?  Or if we could be just bold enough to trust that God’s plan is better than whatever we might imagine it could be, and just offer what we can in crazy, bold trust?  In a particularly familiar and over-used Lutheran liturgy, there is a sung offering response that has the community singing words that challenge us to recognize that we have more to offer than we might realize.  Listen to these lyrics:

“what have we to offer, what have we to share?  Coins from the coffer,  hearts filled with care.  God will not falter, so let us dare.  Lay it at the alter there.

what have we to offer, what have we to bring?  Love, ripe with laughter, hope that we can sing.  Dreams of what we’re after, promises of when.  Lay it at the alter then.  

What have we to offer, what have we to give?  Eyes that are wide open, lies that we won’t life.  Truth that must be spoken, justice somehow.  lay it at the alter now. 

What have we to offer, what have we to give? Lives, we will live.”

In true community organizing fashion, we as the catacomb churches have been engaged in a few conversation groups around the problem of wage theft and living wage.  These problems are so massive, so oppressive, so systemic and engorged at macro levels that change seems impossible.  But here, in this parable-ic miracle story, we see that with Jesus as our motivator, no action is too small to prove miraculous.  If we are willing to be just crazy enough, and give just what we have to offer - not too much, not too little, Jesus can take that gift and change the lives of many.  One  personal testimony of wage theft can shift how someone else sees value in another.  One pamphlet faithfully translated into spanish and posted with a thumbtack on the market wall could spark a breath of hope in the mind of an invisible, undocumented, terrorized worker who didn’t otherwise have the means to learn about how to get help.  We are not unlike the disciples in this story who say, “we don’t have what these people need, Jesus.  Send them away.”  But in the very same moment, we are called to notice and call attention to the fact that the kingdom of God is here and now - in the meals we are willing to share with one another, in the moments it might take us to translate a pamphlet, or read about how to foster parent refugees, or pass a $5 bill out the window to the woman with a sign on the corner, or sign a moveon.org petition during our lunch break.  

Perhaps I’m wrong about miracles.  Perhaps they are happening every day around me in the small movements of the kingdom of god in the midst of my everyday existence.  Maybe Jesus is waiting right here among us to feed 5,000 more people with our offerings today, or heal hoards of wounded in the prayers we will speak, or nourish the (X number) of us here with this bread and wine we are about to receive.  I don’t really know.  But one thing I do know is that God is acting in healing the world with or without me, so I might as well join in what what gifts I’ve got.  

Amen.

RAI-131

Last Friday, I went in to Nuclear Medicine and took a tracer dose of RAI-131 (Radioactive Iodine) that would leave markers on all the thyroid cells in my body so that the specialists would be able to determine the correct full dosage of RAI-131 to give me Monday.  Yesterday, James and I went in for my scan and full dosage.  While I was immobile on the scanning bed, James (brilliant man that he is!)  took this picture of what was appearing on the scan image.  This star is coming from my neck - where my thyroid used to be, and is showing us where the tracer dose settled in my body.  It also tells us that there were no floating cancer cells that moved to other places (that lighter comma mark in the image is my stomach - RAI leeches out in saliva, and you swallow that so the stomach typically glows, too).   This is very kind news.

As I left the Nuclear Medicine wing of the hospital, a number of alarms went off and people popped their heads out of their doors.  I was officially radioactive.  Woah.  This is what I look like.  Pretty gnarly, huh?

My parents fixed up a room for me to stay in while I need to be away from my kiddos for the next week.  Across the room is a TV with On Demand.  I'm making good use of that ;-)

My sister took this picture of the kiddos this morning.  I miss these two, even though they are crazy and wild and loud.  Maybe also because they are so crazy and wild and loud.  I love these bright shiny lovelies.  They have enjoyed talking to me on the phone (S:  I'm in the truck mom!  H: Sorry we're eating dipped ice cream cones without you!), and H has requested a Skype call this evening.  

So far, I'm feeling alright.  I went on a 2.5 mile walk last night with my dad (with him 5 feet in front of me, speaking back over his shoulder! LOL!), and fell asleep at 9:15pm.  Today I feel a bit nauseous, so I took a provided med and will need to begin sucking on 1 lemon drop candy an hour after lunch for the next 24 hours - oh it's a hard job...

Perhaps I will get to my approval essay and a stack of knitting, too - we shall wait and see!  I do have until Saturday in here!!

joyfully,

sr liz

Final Sermon for 7/6/14

Grace and Peace to you, my friends, sisters and brothers in Christ, in the name of Jesus who guides and accompanies us all on this day.  Amen. 

My partner James was listening to a Ted Talk on education a few months ago and heard this story.  One Christmas season, a church was putting on a play for the community using their children and youth to play the Bible story characters of the Nativity.  Three young boys were asked to play the three magi or wise men.  When their turn came to speak the first one said, “I have come to offer gifts of Gold to the child king.”  The second one, as the story goes, said, “I have come bearing myhrr for the child.”  But when time came for the third boy to share his gift, he paused, bit his lip in thought, and finally said, “Frank sends this gift I bring.”

As I reflected on what I wanted to share with you from these texts, I was reminded of this story of a boy who, in an uncertain circumstance, couldn’t remember the “right” thing to say during his part in the christmas play.  I remember this first because it’s sweet, and we all know that a cute antidotal story at the beginning of a sermon can be a piece of good news to those who are too tired to listen to the whole sermon.  But also because it is a fantastic example of what the faith of a child can teach us.  This boy forgot his line, paused to think deeply about what it might be, and without checking for certainty, he followed his gut and said what he hoped was the closest sounding thing to the actual line of “frankincense is the gift I bring,”  by saying “frank sends this gift I bring.”  He didn’t run scared from the stage and hide.  He didn’t ask his neighbor, or his director in a hurried whisper.  He didn’t even say, “I can’t do this!” and storm from the stage in a huff.  He knew there was a risk he could be wrong, and went for it.  

Our Gospel text this morning begins with this message from Matthew, where Christ compares his generation to children bickering on the steps of the town - a lame game of he said, she said being played by whiney grown-up babies.  Just as some refused to repent when challenged by John, so, too, they refuse to join the celebrations of Jesus -- “a man, a glutton and a drunkard.” The  whiners all just sit, hurling their bitter words against one another. This becomes the new game. Sound familiar?

Contemporary politics has made us very familiar indeed with the game of reducing complex issues to ideals and platitudes, picking a side, and yelling at one another.  A whole lot of words and less and less action for any single issue. 

Children have much less fear about getting things right than we do.  In the story I told earlier, the boy knew that he has a responsibility to act - I mean, he had a key role in this play - a well known character, with a good costume and a very specific and important line!  And in the effort to do so, he denied his own human fear to be wrong and said something!  Really, while it gifts us all with a few chuckles, he has also gifted us with an example of childish - child-LIKE faith in action.  

Now think of your own life, and the ways you have stopped yourself from acting because you weren’t sure you could do that thing correctly, or that the issue was just so much bigger than you could imagine, that you remained inactive by default.

Have you ever decided that you want to be a more ethical consumer, shopping for organic local produce, and homemade community sourced soap only to realize that your old navy sweater was made by children and women in slavery in Indonesia?  

Or tried to be more green and just thought composting would be too hard for you to try?

Or wanted to help those in need on the street corners with signs, but didn’t know how so you simply avoided eye contact for the time being?

Paul gives clear voice to this flaw in our Second lesson.  The problem with all our human ideas about how to be religious is not that they are failures of logic, or are inconsistent systems of ethics, or that they even ask to much of us.  The problem is, we are our own enabler and enemy. 

When Paul says in Romans; “I don’t understand my own actions.  For I don’t do what I want,  but I do the very thing I hate.” and again “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it;” we are all forced to nod with sad and rueful recognition.  Our behaviors big and small are very seldom completely consistent with our desires, and we, like Paul, long to know not only why, but how will we ever get off this endless cycle of failure and guilt?

It’s impossible to get this right.  We have all failed, and will continue to do so.  Which makes it so easy to go back and note the behavior of the people in the first half of our Gospel text.  The whiners and complainers who couldn’t give John the baptizer or Jesus the Christ the validity they deserved.  It was too hard to say yes to someone, someTHING so big and fearfully different.

However, the second part of our Gospel text has a strong message to speak to us in the midst of this.  Jesus reminds us that we are offered a place to remove our burdens and take on the gentle, caring, lighter burden of Christ’s own yoke.  What could this mean of the fear that leads us to inaction?  Our own burden is one of seeing injustice in our world, and being so internally aware of it that we ignore it, cover it or hide from it, pretend that the injustices we are clearly seeing aren’t really there.   We are called to carry the burden of freedom and the weight of seeking justice and mercy and equity for all who have yet to receive it, while knowing full well that we can’t do this at all!!  Our burden is H-U-G-E.

But if we choose to accept this yoke as Christ offers it, the yoke of Christ that calls us to action, any action, no matter how big or little, will ALWAYS be less burdensome than our previous yoke of inaction.  The gospel message I have found here is this:

Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  The way of Jesus will always seem hard, until we take the yoke upon us and find its ease and lightness.  

amen and amen.

many thanks to lectionarylab.com for such great inspiration and directive genius!  It's hard not to just preach their sermons!

church and empire vs vulnerability

I'm preaching/presiding at a local congregation next week and the texts are rough.  They are the Romans passage where Paul goes on and on about doing what he doesn't want to do, and not doing what he wants to.  He says that nothing good dwells within him.  Then the gospel text is from Matthew where Jesus says that no one can know (God) except through the Son, and we who are burdened should come to him, for Jesus' yoke is easy and the burden is light.

Man.

I've been struggling with finding the right connection and gospel proclamation that isn't trite from this.  But I have an idea....

Jesus yoke is not the kind of burden less freedom that sends us trolloping through fields of wildflowers.  Following Jesus, taking up his yoke, is acknowledging we have a freedom from empire in Christ, and we are called to bear the burden of joining in justice seeking, peace making, servant leadership, empire resisting discipleship.

And this is HARD.

seriously.  Have you ever decided that you want to be an ethical consumer, shopping for organic local produce, and homemade community sourced soap only to realize that your old navy sweater was made by children and women in slavery in Indonesia?  "I do not do what I want to do, and and I do what I don't want to."

Or, that time you said I'm finally fully aware of my addiction to sugar, and I'm going to stop eating it at all - right after I finish the ice cream I bought this morning...  "I do what I hate, not what I want."

and joining in the community of christ which bears the yoke of justice communally, we are recognizing that our struggles won't be gone, yet they won't be as pertinent to our desire for bringing the kingdom here and now.

and that's how I  start a sermon...

Holy Trinity Devotion

James is serving his last night on our Church's council tonight, and asked me to write his devotion for him.  This is what I wrote:

This coming Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday.  In the gospel Jesus sends his disciples forth to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. More than a doctrine, the Trinity expresses the heart of our faith: we have experienced the God of creation made known in Jesus Christ and with us always through the Holy Spirit. 

Sister Liz and I have a friend who is currently writing a story about the Trinity reimagined as a whole and perfect family.  God is the Father, Spirit is the Mother, and Jesus is the child.  In her imagining, she tells a story where throughout the Gospels, whenever Jesus goes off to pray, he is really reuniting with him mom and dad, to gather around a meal and have a conversation around discernment.  Our favorite part of this newly imagined story is around when Jesus is 12 and goes missing while hanging out in the Temple.  

Our friend writes that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are journeying with a crowd of friends and family to Jerusalem.  Jesus is an older boy, and is so excited because during this trip, he will be allowed to sleep in the tent with all the other boys - not in the same old boring tent with his parents.  After all the campfire stories and jokes are spent, Jesus climbs into his blankets to get some rest.  But his dad, God the Father, sneaks in and silently draws Jesus outside.  They quietly walk about a mile away where mom the Spirit has laid out a lovely picnic of so many of Jesus' favorite foods.  And they all sit to eat.  While they are eating, God and Spirit tell Jesus all about the history of these people, and the plans that they have to adopt all of them into the holiest of families when them.  Jesus will get millions of brothers and sisters to enjoy!  They talked and shared and laughed and engaged all aspects of family life all night together. Just before the sun came up, Jesus was sent back into camp to tuck back under his blankets like the other boys.  While walking home, Jesus passed a group of Priests discussing Scripture on their way into town to the temple.  For the first time, Jesus really understood what they were talking about.  He was brimming with insight and information that he could share with them that he excitedly ran to walk with them and began telling them everything he knew.  They were so intrigued that they pulled him with them into the temple to share all day and all night.  Best thing to ever happen to a 12 year old boy, right?  And we all know the rest of the story - Mary and Joseph, his foster parents, left Jerusalem, thinking Jesus was still off galavanting with the other boys and noticed he was missing later the next day...

This imagining about the Trinity is really all we have.  Scripture doesn't define it for us, we are simply told that these three entities exist.  So my question for you tonight is this:  what aspects of the Trinitarian family would you like to spend more time engaging in your living and your prayers?  Do you want to notice the movements of the Spirit more in your listening?  Is it hard for you to embrace the playfulness or boldness of Jesus?  How would it feel to talk to God like you talk to your Mother?  or Father?  Think on that for a moment and I will end our devotion in prayer.

God of One and God of Three. Your Holy Trinity celebrates the wonder of relationship with you while leaving us distinctly dissatisfied with our limited understanding of what you are.  But we know that you have welcomed us into your holy family through the waters of baptism.  Grant us the grace to know that is enough, and the imagination to see the possibilities and truth of what that means.  In your Holy name, Amen.