Psalm 69 “O God, you know my foolishness, and my faults are not hidden from you.”

One of the Native Youth with whom I work has just moved out of state for a job. He chats with me on line. “Everything is really good. I like it here and I have already saved money for a car. It is going so great.”

It was an upbeat conversation and we ended by saying the usual “later.” Before I could sign off, he sends another message.

“There is one thing I am worried about,” he writes. “I am praying that everything continues to go well. What I am afraid of is that some of the things I’ve done in the past are going to kick me in the face. I’m afraid that one day will be payback time from God and everything will come crashing down.”

Thankful that I had time to think before I respond, I finally write down, “God already knows all about it. He doesn’t do payback time. You are his beloved child. Even if you have some hidden stuff you think no one knows about, Grandfather God knows and cherishes you anyway. He doesn’t do revenge. The way it works is that when we face up to all our foolishness, God’s forgiveness is a done deal. Until then, we are totally loved as we are, regardless of how much we mess up or run away.”

After we disconnect, I look at the four basic faith issues that keep coming up in this youth ministry. This is the story out of which these at risk youth make decisions. “I can’t have value because I am basically a bad person who has been in trouble all my life. Life can’t be good because I can’t trust anything that happens to me to be without pitfalls. My past cannot be forgiven because guilt and shame weighs me down. My future is closed because I can’t trust that good change is possible.” This is the story for those who have been crushed by indifference, by curtailed promises, by reprisal, and by contempt.

Since they have been interacting with the Church, that destructive story has been eroding along with the behaviors that go with it.

Sometimes they have had a brief moment in which they realize that they are truly children of a forgiving God and start to make choices in reference to that moment. And when that happens, even if they, like all of us, start to slip back into old behaviors... When that happens, they and we are healed.

"Christ is the light of the nations." With these majestic words the Second Vatican Council began the greatest of its documents, the "Constitution on the Church." Fundamental to everything else that came forth from the council were the reaffirmation of the missionary character of the church, the recognition of the unfinished task which that implies, the confession that the church is a pilgrim people on its way to the ends of the earth and the end of time, and the acknowledgment of a new openness to the world.
~Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Revised Edition. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 1.

As I reflect on the themes of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple and Candlemas, I am reminded that the Blessed Virgin, along with the prophets Simeon and Anna, lift up Christ within the Temple as a kind of first fruits and sacrifice. We ourselves are the Temple built of living stones, the Body of Christ, which the Spirit binds together in faith, hope, and love. In every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we are presented to the Father, along with the other gifts, by, with, and in Christ. We are
the ones who have come to know the blessings of his light long expected. We rejoice with God's prophets and the poor in the gift of the Savior. We find ourselves in communion with all those who pour their hearts out night and day to God.

Whatever one thinks of the present state of ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic Church, it would be hard to find a student of the history and mission of the Church who did not see the Second Vatican Council and in particular the document Lumen Gentium as an amazing step forward, not just for the Roman Catholic Church but for all Christians everywhere. The document, like several others, bears the stamp of the great Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner. For the Council, the Church is missionary of its very nature and a kind of sacramental reality that makes Christ present in every time and place. And, as Newbigin rightly insists, there is an acknowledgment of a new openness to the world.

There are aspects of Lumen Gentium that I suspect many of us who are not Roman Catholic would find hard to swallow, but the basic perspective has long influenced ecumenical reflection on mission in all communions. Truly the Church is called and sent by the One who is light and truth for all people and nations, namely Jesus Christ, God's definitive offer of mercy for the world, especially the "least of these" and those who have God alone for their helper.

Truly, we are the Temple and the pilgrim People of God, present in all times and places, bearing witness by what we do and say, by how we suffer and struggle and forgive and watch and love and pray. And wherever we are, in all our frailty and brokenness, there also is Christ himself.

Truly, he is the light of the world.

Truly, every flame has become a sign of his Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, the one who spoke by the prophets.

Truly, the many lights--and there are many--now bear witness to the one true Light.

Truly, all truth, all goodness, and all beauty, wherever they are found, have their source and find their goal in Him.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is here

Psalm 72
Genesis 22:1-8
Hebrews 11:23-31
John 6:52-59

Leaving the counselor’s office the youth walking beside me is fuming. He has spent an hour by the court’s order to attend a session with an addiction counselor. She spent the hour interrogating him and berating him for his behaviors. If her intent was to cause a change, she failed spectacularly. “She treats me like dirt,” he says. “She doesn’t believe I can change.”

“I believe that you have the capacity for change,” I announce. “And I also have faith in you.”

“What is the difference?” he rejoins.

“When I believe, I think with my mind of all the things that are possible,” I say slowly hoping that the difference will come to me quickly. “Faith is more difficult. Faith changes us. Faith implies that I trust the promise. My faith in you is that you will change, not that you can change” I say tentatively. “I believe that you can stop drinking. I have faith that you will stop when you so choose.”

He nods, “So what is this faith in God thing?”

I sigh a little, “I trust that God keeps his promises that I can be healed, and that I am never alone. What do you have faith in that changes your life?”

He thinks for a long time. Finally he says, “I have faith that God doesn’t think that I am dirt.”

With that pronouncement, I begin to see a long line of defeated people who never believed that they are valued and cherished. Without this fundamental faith understanding, change is not possible. And faith requires trusting, which is tough on those whose days are overflowing with fractured promises.

I look again. It’s another distinct line of those we count in the community of saints with Moses and maybe Abraham and Sarah who took the risk of trusting God’s promise. Yes, I even see my grandmother marching along.
I am so glad we are in this rich tradition of those who lived ‘by faith.’ Perhaps we can write about this young man one day -- By faith, he went beyond racial insults. By faith, he gave up alcohol. By faith, he was restored to wholeness. By faith, he chose a different path. By faith, he lived in joy. By faith, he led his people.

Thanks be to our God who keeps his promises.

Kaze Gadway has worked with the emerging leaders of the Episcopal Church within the Native American community of Northern Arizona as a volunteer for eleven years. They are youth of promise from ages twelve to twenty-four. The Spirit Journey Youth is an outreach program of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona with forty young people. She is on Facebook and blogs at infaith's posterous

The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, ‘God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.’ And she said, ‘Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.’ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. -- Genesis 21:1-21 (NRSV)

A tale of two mothers, each fiercely devoted to their children, one the owner and the other the slave, one old and barren and the other young and fertile. The younger slept with the owner's husband, as her owner wanted her to do, and a son was born of that union. The elder also slept with her husband also bore a son of their union. Suddenly, instead of no heir for the husband, now there were two, which was one too many, at least for the elder. She had the younger woman and her child sent out to the desert to live or die, it didn't really matter which, so long as the woman and her son were not in her camp and claiming the normal inheritance rights of the first-born. So out they went and, at the point of death, were saved by God. The two women never met again, although the two boys met as adults.

It sounds almost like a soap opera with twists and turns and improbabilities by the score. Of course, improbabilities in the Bible were pretty much the norm, so it's hard to be surprised at anything that happens. What could be more improbable than a 90-year-old woman getting pregnant and not only surviving the pregnancy and birth but having a live child. Sarah certainly beat the odds on that score. Still, now there was a problem of making sure her son, Isaac, would be Abraham's heir, not just a second son, probably dependent on the generosity of his older half brother, Ishmael. Even though it was the second time Hagar found herself in the desert (the first being when she ran away from the camp before Ishmael was born), it didn't make it any easier. This time she had another person, not just a promise, to give her concern.

I wonder how many Hagars there are in the world today, women cast off and left to sink or swim on their own and with their children to be cared for, fed, clothed, housed and educated? There are literally millions of women, single, divorced, or widowed, who are responsible for caring for themselves and their children only on the salaries they make at whatever job they can find and hold. In these times, jobs are scarce and even women with higher education often have trouble finding something that pays more than minimum wage. Programs that supported many of these women -- school lunch programs for their kids and access to reasonable cost day care or medical care -- are being stripped away in the name of "balancing the budget" of the country. Should the woman not be able to earn a living, she is forced onto welfare and labeled as lazy, unwilling to work, a government sponge, and taking benefits to which she is not entitled (in the minds of many). Meanwhile, those who have jobs, have good incomes and a lot of power to toss around, slash government programs that would benefit these daughters of Hagar and their children while enjoying all the benefits themselves.

I don't know what Hagar really did after God showed her the well that day in the desert. Did she have to become a servant to someone in a tribe nearby? Did she go to Egypt in a caravan or find a husband somewhere who would accept a woman not only not a virgin but with a child in tow? I can only hope that her life was at least halfway comfortable and pleasant, although I can imagine that it might not have been.

The question remains, though, who are the daughters of Hagar in our world? Perhaps they are not daughters by blood but certainly daughters by circumstance. Hagar is a single mother finding herself struggling to survive and provide for her kids, however the situation came about. What are our responsibilities to them as human beings and as Christians? Are we keeping them within the camp, supporting them and their children, or are we casting them out to fend for themselves? Some of the fault may lie with the women themselves and some of it may have been circumstance, but what about the children? What is our responsibility for them? What do we risk by ignoring or isolating them? What is a generation worth?

I have to remember my days as a Hagar in the desert with a child to support. I had help, and without it things would not have worked out well at all. What then do I owe to today's Hagars and Ishmaels? Will it be to be just a memory or will it be a suggestion (or even spur) to action? What can I do?

It's easy for me to see the story of the good Samaritan in this, only this time we see it from a woman's perspective and seeing the back story rather than the result. Looking at it that way, I can put myself in that story because I've been there.

I got help from strangers, as I hope and believe Hagar did. Now what do I need to do to pass it on to a younger generation? What do any of us need to do? And what can we do, individually and collectively?
I think the world might be a better place if we did something instead of dismantling the already threadbare safety net. I think God would heartily endorse the effort to strengthen and support it. That in itself should be encouragement enough.

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Psalms 56, 57 (58) (Morning)
Psalm 64, 65 (Evening)
Genesis 19:1-17, (18-23), 24-29
Hebrews 11:1-12
John 6:27-40

When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. When they had brought them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one? —and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled. ~Genesis 19:15-29 (NRSV)

In the Sodom and Gomorrah story, Lot manages to eke out one last-minute deal with the angels--to spare the city of Zoar from impending destruction and allow him and his family to take refuge there. Of particular interest is the name of the town itself--Zoar--literally, in Hebrew, "insignificant." Out of the five cities on the plain of what is now Jordan, the most insignificant one was spared.

Those of us who grew up or live in small town America are pretty well acquainted with the meaning of "an insignificant town." In fact, we often brag in the most colorful phraseology we can think of to tell others how small our town is, such as, "My town's so small, we have the "Welcome to" and the "You are now leaving" signs on the same signpost." We call it "a wide spot in the road," or say the sum total of the town is a gas station and a tavern. My all time favorite is the one used by a friend of mine who grew up in a little town in the southeast Missouri bootheel--"My home town? Two stores, two whores, and a cotton gin."

Well, my guess is Zoar, in comparison to the other four cities, was about that speed--except the cotton gin hadn't been invented yet. Excepting, of course, the unfortunate demise of Lot's wife, the salvation of Lot's family was destined to be in an insignificant place.

Our human judgmental tendency is to always belittle the smaller of the two. People in St. Louis make fun of Kirksville, people in Kirksville make fun of Macon, and people in Macon make fun of people in Bevier. Most of us from small towns, when we hear the line in John 1:46 of "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" we are usually mentally plugging in the name of our small town.

However, as we study the Bible, we discover God makes fairly good use of insignificant places, right down to using an insignificant place for the birth of the Savior. By all accounts, Bethlehem was somewhere between a berg and a shtetl on the significance scale, and Nazareth wasn't much better. But as it turns out, in the upside down world of God's Economic Scale, bigger is almost never better.

Instead, God works mystery in the world of insignificance--a dazzling alchemy, indeed, and it calls us to look at the insignificant places in our lives with a new wonder and a new awe if we are willing to accept, as John Calvin called it, "a teachable spirit." From the Lot story we learn that too much longing for the big significant things in life will petrify us as surely as Lot's wife was stiffened into a pillar of salt, and our salvation rests in not just journeying to, but fleeing to the insignificant places.

Maybe it's best summed up by Arundhati Roy, in "The God of Small Things:" “Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”

Where are the insignificant places where you've fled, that became the skeletal frame of who you find yourself becoming, as a fully-fleshed out child of God?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Psalm 62:6-9
Genesis 28:10-17
2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Matthew 6:19-23

Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” ~Genesis 28:10-17 (NRSV)

Just as Jacob saw a window into Heaven and a means to provide a means for a flow of traffic between the realm of God and the realm of humanity via "Jacob's Ladder," Andrei Rublev devoted his life to creating a ladder between those two realms via iconography. His process for writing icons is outlined in Holy Women, Holy Men, page 196:

For Andrei, writing an icon was a spiritual exercise. It involved the ritual of preparing the surface, applying the painted and precious metal background and then creating the image, first outlining it in red. Throughout he would repeatedly say the “Jesus Prayer” (“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me”). He was creating a window into the Divine which he knew was always before him but which was invisible to the human eye. He knew he was able to create such an image of God because he himself was made in the image of God. His object was to be totally focused on receiving God’s love and loving in return.

In 2010, I decided I needed an icon for my prayer corner in my house, so I turned to a modern iconographer, Luiz Coelho, to make that happen. What I had discovered by pondering many famous icons, including those of Rublev, was that sometimes the iconographer hooked the viewer to the icon via renditions of cities or places at the time the icon would have been written--creating a ladder between antiquity and the present. I was stunned that Luiz was able to do this by means of my Facebook™ photos, linking Mary as Theotokos, and the image of the young Christ as teacher, with iconic renditions of vast pasture, my church, and my red pickup truck drawing nearer to Mary and Christ on a ribbon of U.S. Highway 63. (click to enlarge icon)

What I've come to realize via using this icon as a window into the Divine, is that icons demand of us the same painstaking process Rublev used to create his icons. First, we are asked to strip ourselves to our barest wood and to imagine ourselves in divine terms--to imagine God's view of us as part of God's good creation, and to allow God the Iconographer create that image in the setting of a discipline of regular prayer. The hardest part, however, is to allow that image to be viewed by others, and to trust that they will see what they need to see when they view us. When we are icons of the Body of Christ, we aren't allowed the luxury of projecting what we wish others to see--it requires being comfortable enough to trust that the scratches and misplaced brush strokes are part and parcel of this divine icon. We don't get to force the image we wish, upon the hearts and minds of others. Instead, we are invited to trust that the image is a sufficient window, and allow others to make their own choices about that window.

What is God telling you, when you feel brave enough to pray through the holy icon of you, as God sees you in Divine Creation?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, ‘My lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.’ So they said, ‘Do as you have said.’ And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.’ Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’ And he said, ‘There, in the tent.’ Then one said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.’ And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’ The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.’ But Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid. He said, ‘Oh yes, you did laugh.’
Then the men set out from there, and they looked towards Sodom; and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. -- Genesis 18:1-16 NRSV

Hospitality was one of the hallmarks of desert living in the days of Abraham. Even if your worst enemy showed up at your tent flap, it was beholden of you to take him in, treat him royally for three days and then see him on his way in peace. Abraham found three strangers showed up at Mamre and Abraham practiced the tradition of hospitality as his culture had taught him. He had no idea that these strangers were key to his future.
Sarah, of course, was behind a nearby tent wall. It would be unthinkable for her to take part in the conversation or the meal with strangers, even with Abraham present, but that didn't mean she couldn't hear everything that was said. Her ears must have pricked up when one of the strangers mentioned her by name and asked where she was. Abraham told them and suddenly everything changed for her. This stranger was actually saying he would be back and that she, Sarah the barren, would become pregnant. She and Abraham had tried for years to have a child, in vitro fertilization was several millennia in the future, and Sarah could remember when her menses ended quite a long time ago, so how was this going to happen? She had Hagar's son by Abraham through adoption, but actually bearing a child herself at her age? She did what any reasonable person would do when hearing something totally outrageous, unbelievable, incomprehensible and ridiculous -- she laughed.
The words "laugh" or "laughter" are mentioned a number of times in the Bible; add in "laughingstock" and it comes out to more than 60 times (per my Bible software), including 4 times in just this passage. In almost every mention of the word, the laugh/laughter context is that of scorn or derision. Even God laughs, but always at those who were due for punishment, unbelieving, at enmity with the chosen people, sinning or the like. Abraham laughed when, in the previous chapter, God told him that that he would be the father of of a son at 100 years of age. Is it any wonder Sarah laughed as well? Was it the laughter of derision or scorn, or the laugh of disbelief in the promise of something too incredible to be believed?
I think about how I use laughter. I know I laugh when there is a funny joke or story (although I do have standards as to what I feel is funny). I laugh when I'm embarrassed, when I meet a friend unexpectedly, or to communicate the idea that what I am saying or just said were not meant to be taken personally or seriously. If I'm honest, though, I have to remember that I also laugh at the discomfiture of others when they say, write or do something that is clumsy, ridiculous (to my mind, anyway), or inane. I'm not always kind with my laughter, and I don't like it when people laugh at me for the same reasons I may laugh at them. If God showed up at my front door and told me I would become pregnant at my age, or that I'd won Publisher's Clearing House or written a book that had won a Pulitzer or become best-seller of the year, I'd probably do more than give a quiet giggle or ladylike snort. Still, there would be a modicum of hope that this time, jut this time, there might be truth in the announcement. I have a feeling Sarah had a similar feeling.
There's an old joke that states, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans." The intimation is that God will be highly amused but somewhat derisive or scornful of the feeble ideas I have for myself, my duties and my future. But what if I get it right and the laughter of God is of delight and encouragement? I wonder.
Sarah had her baby, a son she named Isaac ("laughter"), and rejoiced that others around her would laugh with her. The laughter of disbelief had become the laughter of delight, like the winning of the Clearinghouse and the Pulitzer and more all at once.
Perhaps I should remember the other positive mentions of laughter in the Bible, "...a time to weep and a time to laugh," (Eccl. 3:4) and " Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh" (Luke 6:21c). No derision or scorn there, just encouragement to see beyond the immediate and the promise of joy to come. And the reminder that nothing is too great for God, whether it is an elder woman bearing a live child (which is more and more common today), or winning a prize.
Next time when someone tells me something that seems too improbable, maybe I should check for barely discernible wings before I laugh too loudly?

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her." Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, "Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" Genesis 17:15-27 (NRSV)

“No way!” a youth says emphatically. “That’s not going to happen.”

We were just talking about forgiveness and how we can start over again with a clean slate. We are in a holding room at the Juvenile Detention Center with the guard sitting at the desk five feet away. He looks up when he hears the youth’s outburst.

We lower our voices. He continues, “You don’t even know all that I have done. You think God will have anything to do with me if he knows me. I’ve been there. My girl said she forgave me and then she tells everyone what I did and she still holds it over me when I see her.”

At this point, I know that I am not going to question why he is still going with the girl or what image of God he carries in his head. Since he is a Native, I go with a story.

“Abraham laughs in the face of God,” I begin. God tells him that he would give him a son when Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90. He promises something impossible and unbelievable.”

“What happened?” the teen asks.

“They had a son, as unbelievable as it is,” I reply. "Most of the stories about God are about unbelievable promises that come true. And one of them is that when you are honest before him, he forgives you and turns you around giving you a new direction. Every time.”

“Let me think about this,” he says. “I would like that but I don’t think it is possible. I’m not sure I believe in God.”

“That’s okay. God is patient. When you pray, ask for forgiveness and tell me what happens,” I reply.

The guard tells us our hour is up and I leave.

This is not a complete story. But Abraham’s story is so basic to these youth. They come from an environment where promises are never kept, where they are never given a second chance. Come to think of it, this is a story for me too. Grace has always been unbelievable.

Kaze Gadway has worked with the emerging leaders of the Episcopal Church within the Native American community of Northern Arizona as a volunteer for eleven years. They are youth of promise from ages twelve to twenty-four. The Spirit Journey Youth is an outreach program of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona with forty young people. She is on Facebook and blogs at infaith's posterous

Approached in a prayerful manner, the Bible is found to be always contemporary--not just writings composed in the distant past but a message addressed directly to me here and now. "He who is humble in his thoughts and engaged in spiritual work," says St. Mark the Monk, "when he reads the Holy Scriptures will apply everything to himself and not to someone else." As a book uniquely inspired by God and addressed to each of the faithful personally, the Bible possesses sacramental power, transmitting grace to the reader, bringing him to a point of meeting and decisive encounter. Critical scholarship is by no means excluded, but the true meaning of the Bible will only be apparent to those who study it with their spiritual intellect as well as their reasoning brain. ~Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, Revised edition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladamir's Seminary Press, 2001), p. 111.

According to the Catechism, we call the Holy Scriptures the "Word of God," because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible. Both halves of this statement are important. The first, because it acknowledges the full humanity of the authors of the text and thereby authorizes our full engagement with relevant critical scholarship. Nevertheless, it is the second part that captures my attention. The Scriptures, it suggests, can anticipate the situation of any possible reader and convey God's sovereign living Word of Truth. Truly they are the place of a sacramental, objective encounter with the living God for all who would engage with them. They are a means of grace and "addressed to each of the faithful personally," and indeed to the whole world.

We need critical scholarship and traditional practices of wrestling with Scripture, both to get ourselves out of the way of God's Word and because teachers mishandle the Word to support their personal agenda or buy into oppressive ideologies present in the text. We need a reverence for the Word, because God still speaks to us through the Bible, strong to judge, heal, and save.

Because they are a means of encounter with the living God, prayer provides a necessary key to opening the Scriptures. So too does participating in the sacraments and in the common life of the Church.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

Psalm 19 (Morning)
Psalm 119:89-112 (Evening)
Isaiah 45:18-25
Philippians 3:4b-11
Ecclesiasticus 39:1-10
Acts 9:1-22

"Saul/Paul and the road to Damascus" is very likely etched indelibly on the brains of most Christians, and honestly, there is very little I can say about this archetype of the Christian conversion experience that hasn't already been said, and by people far more erudite than me. In fact, the story of Saul/Paul's conversion, for many of us, is the polar opposite of our own experience of "encountering Jesus." It's probably the decided minority of us that have ever heard God actually speak to us and lead us to repent and change our attitudes and behaviors towards Jesus.

Really, the only conversion I know very much about at all, has to do with another of my passions--college football. In college football, one of the most exciting things (especially in the fourth quarter of a close game) is that a kicked point after touchdown is worth one point, and one that is run or passed across the goal line is worth two points. In fact, in the NCAA overtime format, once two teams have reached triple overtime, it's mandatory that the two point conversion be employed.

Various sources attribute the success rate of a two point conversion between 40 and 55 percent. The two point conversion, in college football, creates a risk/reward between the win and the tie, or the win and the loss. It has been so extensively statistically studied that in the 1970's, when Dick Vermeil was coach at UCLA, he actually developed a formula of when to "go for two" that is still cited and used in college coaching today.

Perhaps that is really the crux of the Christian conversion experience--when in our lives do we simply take the easy near-sure thing and "kick for one" rather than "run it for two?"

I'm afraid in the world of spreading The Good News In Christ, the institutional church in the past century, has been too complacent to "kick for one"--and the result is declining membership in the mainline denominations. The non-denominational megachurches, however, "run for two" at a rate far more than their mainline counterparts. The result is often increased membership. However, the flip side of that is recent studies show that this "increased membership" is often the result of shifting alliances rather than new converts. Megachurch attendees shop--and when they are no longer entertained, they move on.

Of more concern is the data in recent Gallup polls that show the numbers of people who attend church hovers at 30 percent year after year, but the number of people who never attend church continues to increase.

This is just a guess on my part, but it seems to me that a worthwhile strategy to explore in sharing The Good News In Christ and teaching people to desire that as a lifelong proposition is to first examine our own lives. When are the times in our lives in Christ that we risked "going for two?" What did we learn as a result of both our failures and successes? Did we use our two point conversion attempt wisely or foolishly?

Likewise, when are the times we really needed to kick for the relatively safe point after touchdown? Did we do that, or did we get impatient, risk going for two, and fail?

Perhaps then, we should extrapolate it into the lives of our parishes in terms of outreach and evangelism.

When is the last time your parish took a decided risk in "going for two" in terms of reaching out to the disaffected, the lonely, and the marginalized?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid