A Seat at the Table

Wednesday 2/19/20 6:10 AM

We had the grandkids over the weekend and I spent yesterday recuperating. While they were here we spent time playing outside and going for walks. Whenever I am with them I act excited about everything. I am perhaps best known for my celebration of water meters and water valves as we walk  the sidewalks through the neighborhood.

The theme of my devotions this week is wonder, a fitting theme given my attempts to inspire wonder in my grandkids this weekend. My psalm this week is Psalm 113, which includes these verses, “(God) raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people.” The God who created this universe is concerned about the poor and needy. That is a wonder indeed. The society in which I live idolizes riches and power, the opposite end of the spectrum. God’s desire is that the poor and needy have a place at the table of the leaders of our society and the leaders of the church.

Today is trash pickup day in my neighborhood. While I was walking I saw three different people picking through the trash cans, looking for recyclable material. I imagine those three people were either homeless or poor. God does not want people to have to pick through trash to survive. He wants them to have a place at the table where decisions are made and community is practiced. The very people despised by our society and who are often seen as a scourge, or as parasites, are loved by God and should be accepted by and loved by his church.

The community around our church is comprised of a large number of poor, disenfranchised people. I believe we need to give them a place of honor in our church where they can lead and show the great transforming power of God in their lives. Those of us currently in charge need to step back and give them a place at the table.

You Smell

Sunday 2/9/20 5:44 AM

Before I left for my walk this morning I checked the weather app on my phone. There is a chance of rain today and I wanted to know if it was going to start before I could finish my walk. The app showed the first possibility of rain at 9:00, so I left for my walk. About fifteen minutes into the walk I could smell rain in the air. Sometimes you can smell the rain before it begins and I began to silently curse the app on my phone for giving me misleading information. But the smell of rain soon ceased, and it remained dry. I started to think about how one can smell the rain before it comes and I wished I could do the same thing with the movement of God in my life. It would be nice if I could use one of my senses to determine what God wants me to do, or to determine when he is about to work in or through me.

I continued walking and about ten minutes later I walked past the water feature near city hall. As I went past I could smell chlorine emanating from the cascading water. I immediately had memories of my childhood. We had friends with swimming pools when I lived in Phoenix. During the hot summer days I spent many hours at their house enjoying the refreshing water. Sometimes my friend’s parents had added chlorine to the water and, if you swam shortly after they did that, your eyes and the lining of your nose would burn. When I got out of the pool my eyes would be red and the mucus membranes of my nose irritated.

I kept walking and a few minutes later 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 came to my mind. “But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.” I thought about the two aromas I experienced during my walk, the aroma of rain, which brings refreshment and life, and the aroma of chlorine, a poisonous gas that kills microorganisms in the water and also people and animals when exposed to larger doses.

For the rest of my walk I wondered what kind of aroma I exude to those I meet. Am I someone that brings refreshment and life to those with whom I interact or do I cause irritation or discomfort? After my walk I sat down for my regular time of meditation and reflection. The first passage of scripture assigned for my reading today was Isaiah 58:9-12, “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called the Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” The image of a well-watered garden and a spring that never fails reminded me of the promise of rain later today. I want to be the person described by Isaiah, one who repairs and restores. The instructions for how to be that person are pretty clear. I need to strive to be one who fights to get rid of oppression and malicious talk, and to expend my energy and resources in behalf of the hungry and the oppressed.

I am always exuding an aroma. Today I have a choice in the way I live and interact with others. Will others smell the aroma that brings life, or the aroma that brings death?

A Great Day

Thursday 2/6/20 6:17 AM

I decided to go on a little longer walk this morning. When I left the house around 4:30 I purposely left my memory verses and headphones at home, and I asked God to join me on my walk. About a half mile into my walk Psalm 139:5 came to mind where it says that God hems me in, behind and before. The image I had was of God walking ahead of me and behind me and it brought me comfort and a great sense of security despite the early hour, and the darkness. I continued to walk in silence listening for God’s voice but hearing nothing. When I neared the police station my nose was running so I went inside to blow my nose. On my way to the restroom there was a homeless man sitting on the floor who looked up at me. He appeared to be a young white man, disheveled, dirty, and with eyes glazed over like someone who was either drunk or impaired by drugs. I greeted him with a good morning and he responded with an unintelligible grunt. I continued on my walk and when I got to the corner of Norwalk Boulevard and Imperial Highway, where I normally turn right, there was a young man crossing Norwalk Blvd. I turned the corner first and he was about five steps behind me. I immediately thought of God going behind me and offered a prayer of thanksgiving that he decided to join me in my walk. I normally turn south after only one block, but because I had decided to walk a little longer I continued down Imperial Highway. The young man continued behind me, matching me step for step. Just past the library the light turned red and I stopped. The young man caught up and as we waited for the light to change we started up a conversation. He spoke with a Latino accent and he told me he is a truck driver. He was walking to work and we walked together for about a mile, continuing our conversation, until he arrived at his workplace. During the course of our conversation I discovered that he works six days a week, ten to twelve hours a day, he is married, and has two sons ages 7 and 3. We also talked about how hard it is to afford to live in Southern California, especially to buy a house, hence the need for him to work such long hours. As we parted we said our goodbyes and he told me his name was Miguel. I looked further down the sidewalk and there was another man walking toward me about fifty yards away. He also appeared to be on his way to work. As he walked past I noted that he was African American and he said to me, “It is a great day.” I responded with, “It certainly is.” and continued on my walk.

I realized that God had decided to join me join me this morning in the persons of the homeless man, Miguel, and the man who reminded me it was a great day. None of those I met were men of great importance, wealth, or power. They were simply people going about their business, like the multitude of average people I see every day. The Bible reminds me that God makes his home with the fatherless, the widow, and the outcasts of society but I seldom have eyes to see him walking next to me in all the differing forms he takes upon himself. I’m too busy thinking about myself or looking for some great, supernatural experience where I can experience his presence, although those experiences are few and far between.

In his essay Simple Places, Stephen Doughty writes, “Christian community, like beauty, often presents itself in the intimate, the common, the close at hand. It comes to bud and flower in the simplest of places. Race by, and we miss it. Wait to see it in some idealized state and we pass without knowing it was there. … As Jesus’ followers, if we are to find true community with one another and with him, then we should look not just to the massive throng or dramatic moment. We should look as well to the simplest instance of one life brushing up against another. We should open ourselves to the small and intimate moments when persons draw together in their joys and in their needs. If love flows among us, even briefly, God is there – in traffic jams, in places of staggering beauty, in the realms of the darkest communal pain. If we find ourselves bound together even momentarily, God is present. We taste with our spirits the community God longs to build.”

This morning I was privileged to walk with God. When my life brushed up against the lives of the homeless man, Miguel, and the man on the way to work I got a taste of the community God wants us to experience as a society at large. It is a great day indeed.