Faith Venture

I heard a message on hope yesterday. Right now I am hoping that a Lyft driver picks up my request for a ride to the airport. It’s amazing how a bit of uncertainty can affect your attitude. I have two alternatives if one doesn’t in the next 20 minutes. But still, I hope.

2,024 years ago, people in the greater Palestine area and perhaps the entire Mediterranean rim were hoping for something better. Acute spiritual hunger lodged in the hearts and minds of many people. But as always in times of change, there was no clear agreement about the form any change would take.

Jesus was born into that time of hope. But the pregnancy was unique. Word spreading that a new King was born caused fear and loathing in the heart of the current King. Jesus spent his infant and toddler years in Egypt as his parents hid out from the King.

Hardly the peace for which people hoped.

But it came. Patience plus hope wins.

Oh, and I never received confirmation that I had a Lyft driver. That company’s Website needs great improvement. I cancelled and got an Uber. I’m at the Terminal 1 Concourse C United Club en route to Florida. Although this week it will hit 60 degrees F in Illinois. Go figure.

Let me geek out for a moment. During the late 1990s and early 2000s I played with and wrote about a software application for PCs called Think and Do. This software was loaded on a PC which then controlled the actions of a machine.

The innovation was that you thought through all the actions the machine must do to produce its products using a simple flow chart interface and then the machine would perform the required actions. Think and Do.

An unfortunate (to my way of thinking) byproduct of “reformed” thinking in the Christian tradition was that everything begins and ends with faith. Luther famously was reading in the letter to the Romans and saw the verse, “By faith are you saved…” Evidently he stopped reading at this point.

That may be a bit unfair, but too many of his followers did. I have come across far too many examples of people who think that you only need to agree with a statement, with a proposition, with them, and then everything is alright. You are done.

Reading through Matthew 5-7, for example, I don’t hear Jesus telling us to sit on our butts. Nor when Luke records the actions we should take toward a neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus didn’t come and preach, “I believe.” No, he healed people. He set people free from their sins so that they could enter God’s Kingdom.

Reflecting on my spiritual and intellectual and social development, I think I have always subscribed to the the invitation to a way of life that includes pursuing the depth of faith while also living out Jesus’ teachings regarding serving other people.

It’s both faith and do.

Common greeting during December in America. Instead of “Hi” or “Bye”, we might say “Merry Christmas.” In some cultures the phrase is Happy Christmas, which may mean about the same thing.

I was thinking of “merry” and “happy” and what does that mean. Maybe it means something like an often-heard parting “Have a good day.” Just a simple wish.

Paul, the Apostle, wrote about a way of life once to his friends in Galatia. He tried to describe how you could tell if you or someone you met was living in the spirit. He said that their life would exhibit, “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Could happiness, eudaimonia, also have fit?

I’m thinking about bringing the phrase we utter as a greeting into our self. That maybe we exhibit “having a merry Christmas” with a smile and an acknowledgement of the other person. That people can observe us and think, even if just briefly, “there is someone at peace and enjoying the season.”

So, I wish all of you a merry Christmas season. And if once or twice you exhibit the other meaning of merry, as in perhaps one wee nip of whiskey or whisky too much, well, so be it.

Beg our Lord to grant you perfect love for your neighbor, and leave the rest to Him. He will give you far more than you know how to desire…

Teresa of Ávila

Teresa is one of my favorite mystics. She has much to teach us.

Jesus taught us that we must love our neighbor. He didn’t qualify it. We are to just do it.

We may seek to escape the work by asking how will we know when to act or how to act.

Teresa answers. We can ask God for openness to his leading. And trust that he will lead us to someone who needs assistance and he will also give us the tools we need to show the love, be it words or money or presence.

We have sayings and proverbs, such as “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” or “that gift is really a white elephant”.

Seth Godin recently talked about gifts explaining the origin of the white elephant idea and how it has come to mean a gift that you don’t need or want. He suggests that if it is a gift, you can always decline it if it is something you can’t get rid of and is expensive to keep—like a white elephant.

Sometimes a gift is not a benefit.

Seneca wrote about 3,000 words (in English translation, of course, I don’t know how many Latin words) about balancing the ledger if someone gives you a benefit and later injures you. How do you figure out if you are indebted for the benefit or need retribution for the injury? He suggests ignoring the injury and acknowledging the benefit.

This may be Advent, but it is also the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. You may be contemplating the appropriate gift for family and friends. You may also be anticipating a nice gift from someone special.

Practice giving thoughtful experiences as gifts and graciously accepting what is given to you—unless, of course, you find a large stock truck parked in front of the house on Christmas.