Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 28

Thanks sometimes looks like crying.

More of Hannah’s story that we started yesterday.

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The tent of meeting was a big enclosure. You could stand by the entrance and see the altar, and see the Holy of Holies, a tent that represented the presence of God.

Hannah stood near the entrance and in her anguish, she prayed. All the pain, all the feelings. She talked to God. She poured out her soul.

After a bit of confusion, Eli, the priest, says “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

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Thanks isn’t always clear.

Thanksgiving is next week in the US. In the next couple days, I’m telling a story to help us think about the challenge of tables.

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I’m guessing that every family and every culture comes to holidays with expectations. And every culture that has holidays that are about being thankful, about giving thanks, has expectations that we need to be grateful.

It’s a little challenging to give thanks as you bow your head over food you don’t really like.

But it’s more challenging when you ...

A prayer for the thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

God. 

We talk about our challenges. To you and to others.
Not looking for fixes, always. Looking for a listener.

And then people tell us stories of how things work for other people. As if the story of Hannah finally having a son and giving him back to you means that we’ll get what we want if we promise to give it back to you. 

God.

We know that you work and walk with each of us differently. 
We know that you understand humans from the inside out. 
We sometimes forget that you work an...

Understandable grief. And sometimes delight.

The book of Ruth is a short story with deep pain and a happy ending. We love a happy ending. We assume happy endings are appropriate encouragement and meaning for the deep pain. Which is why, in moments of grief, we offer happy ending morals to people.

That’s often not helpful.

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Yesterday, I talked to you about a woman who named herself Mara. It meant bitter. It’s how she introduced herself to people she hadn’t seen in a decade.

“You used to call me loveable, Naomi. But now Go...

A woman named Mara.

Ruth is noble. Ruth is selfless. Ruth is mindful. Ruth is demure. Ruth is David’s grandmother.

I haven’t read her story thoughtfully for a long time.

I had to last week, because Ruth was in my Sunday lectionary readings. And so, after a couple shifts at the hospital with conversations with people moving toward dying, I read about Mara.

That’s Ruth’s mother-in-law. We know her as Naomi. But she called herself Mara for a few years. Bitter.

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The family wanted me to talk in the ...

Tandem

Rich Dixon invites us to go on a ride of trust.

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On FREEDOM TOUR 2016, our fourth year, a few things were different from previous rides.

Some were planned, some just happened. Following Jesus seems to be like that.

Demonstrating questionable theological discernment, we picked an orange/blue jersey color scheme to honor the Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl win.

We also decided to ask members of our team to lead nightly discussions. This choice generated some amazing interactions –...

Specifically good.

A woman named Dorcas died. She made clothes for widows in Joppa. Peter was nearby, so a couple people went to find him, to ask if he’d come and raise her from the dead.

They thought it a reasonable request. And Peter came.

When he walked into the house, there were widows. Their husbands had died, and with him went their reliable means of support. Until Dorcas started making them robes. And now she died.

When they came together to collectively mourn, they brought the robes she had ma...

Very little noise.

Jesus was sitting with his disciples after a day of teaching in the temple.

He’d just been talking with a Jewish teacher about the most important commandment. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” “And,” he said, “love your neighbor as yourself.”

When that conversation was over, and the crowd thinned out, Jesus and the disciples moved toward the entrance. There were receptacles for people to us...

A prayer for the thirty-second Sunday in ordinary time.

God.

Sometimes that’s as far as we can get.
We say your name; our hearts and knees collapse.

You know, we believe, the aches we are bearing:
broken bodies, broken hearts, broken dreams.

You know, we believe, our desires for restoration of every sort.

You know, we believe, our frail faith,
our fragile trust, in you, in others, in ourselves.

You know, God, because you saw this, Jesus.

Not from a distance. But with your own eyes, and your own ears.

You heard the grief in your m...

Less than an espresso cup of love.

The man was dying.

Not actively, as we say when we are confident that death will come in less than hundreds of minutes. We were talking. The dying wasn’t as quickly as he wanted.

He was thirsty. The medication and the pain were drying his mouth.

He gestured with his head to a plastic cup by the sink.

“Is it okay if I help?” I said. He nodded.

I used the little blue sponge on a tootsie pop stick to give him water. I refilled the song three times. It was much less than an espress...