​Proverbs 9:4-6
“You that are simple, turn in here!”
To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”
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To eat the bread and drink the wine that Wisdom offers in these verses one has to embrace the name tag: "HELLO, My name is Simple." I know plenty of people who have absolutely no difficulty embracing that label because to them it means they will not be responsible, that very little will be expected of them, that no one will ask them to do anything hard. But this invitation from Wisdom is not a free pass to Couch Potato Land. It is an invitation to see the world and ourselves as they really are. It is the red pill vs. the blue pill of the movie, Matrix. Live blissfully ignorant or see the truth and respond to it within the limits of the truth of our humanity. Ignorance is bliss. If it ceases to be bliss, we find deeper depths of our senselessness to anesthetize the pain. Wisdom's invitation is not to be taken lightly. We are being invited daily into a way of life that forces us to sit down at a table and eat the truth. 
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Holy One, I am listening. I am hungry for the truth. Amen.

​Psalm 34:13-14
Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
* * * * * * *
If the last couple years have taught me anything, it is how resilient the human spirit can be and what bottom-dwelling, bags of mutant pus pockets human beings can be. I include myself in this binary assessment of the human condition. When we don't get our switch stuck in the pus-pocket position, we actually manage to be people who are easy to be around, to laugh with, to hurt with, to serve with and to love. I am not a counter-puncher, though I have my moments when I gnash my teeth or totally let loose or run to my corner and hide. Living in a world that doesn't give a flip about how you are doing creates a self-feeding monster of tit for tat. You hit me. I will hit you back. You lie to me. I will lie to you. It is a cycle that must be broken. Breaking it takes courage. Courage these days looks like people who embrace the good of others and the things that make for peace and keep at it every day because they sleep better at night when they are alone inside their own skin. As one author said, "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage says, 'I will try again tomorrow.'"
* * * * * * *
Holy God, make me the instrument of your peace. Amen.

​Ephesians 5:20
...giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
* * * * * * *
Giving thanks is a full-time job, a way of life, a task that defies the laws of physics because thanksgiving produces more energy than it requires from us. It is a work that is not work but more like singing. Breathing, but more like an exhalation of joy. Thankfulness unleashed from wall plaques and platitudes rises on the first stir of morning air and defies to be caught or confined. No one perfects thankfulness. It is a dynamic movement that we can practice but never master and therein lies a freedom to just be thankful without measuring it. There is no thankful enough. There is just thankful today. When I feel utterly stuck, I am learning to be thankful. I get stuck a lot. Giving thanks at all times, for everything is silicone for my motionless soul. 
* * * * * * * *
Holy God, thank you for your shape-shifting presence. Amen.

​John 6:51-2
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 
* * * * * * *
Based on their agenda, the Jewish leaders in this story were not listening with ears to hear. They were listening for a reason to say, "No." Instead of opening their minds, asking questions to promote deeper understanding such as "What are you saying? What do you mean?" - They go for the jugular question of critique: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Do you have people in your life whose default answer to every question is "no?" Before they ask more questions, before they understand why it is important to you, before they consider anything, they say, "no." Perhaps you are such a person. Perhaps our default when anyone makes a statement is "No, you are wrong." or "Why would you think that way?" or some others words to immediately dismiss what is being said. We may intentionally or unintentionally cut people down at the knees with our default answer. Jesus persisted, but he didn't make it easy. The concept of bread of heaven was still abstract and floating above their heads and ours. We are not ready to hear better when we are throwing the verbal land mines of negativity on the road. Granted, we can't have a default answer of "YES" to everything either, but what if, our default was "Tell me more....help me to understand?" 
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There is so much I don't know, Lord. Amen.

​I Kings 19:4-8
But [Elijah] went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough;" Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
* * * * * *
Elijah felt miserable. Miserable enough that death seemed like a better option than what life was handing him. And then he was poked from his sleep of death to eat breakfast in bed. More sleep, another poke, another meal and the hint of a purpose - a journey ahead. The poke, the meal, the purpose fueled his journey. I am less enchanted by the possibility of celestial beings providing room service, than I am of the possibility that someone is paying attention to our lives. I believe in a God big enough to pay attention to us all - no matter where we are in our journey. My breakfast muffin was no less a miracle, no less delivered by a Godly spirit, no less food to sustain my journey through wilderness days. God is paying attention. And I ate the muffin. The journey continues not pointlessly but well-attended. 
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I am so grateful, Lord, Amen.

​Psalm 34:8
O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.
* * * * * * *
Jesus invites us to eat him. That thought is both deeply intimate and grossly disturbing. Ravenous lions leap on their prey to kill them and then to eat them. It is not personal. It is survival. But for another human being to extend the invitation to be eaten, subsequently killed, for the sake of our survival - THAT is personal. We are not animals. The divine spark within us makes us aware of more than an instinctual need for survival. God wants more for us than survival. God wants us to thrive with joy. God wants every morsel of this most blessed life to be slathered with flavor. God wants us to be protected and loved. So God says, "Eat me." Do we dare?
* * * * * * *
Holy God, may this day taste good. Amen.

​Ephesians 4:25
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.
* * * * * * * 
How can I speak the truth when I am not always sure what the truth is? I am arrogant enough to believe, at times, I know what the truth is for other people but fail to see it in myself. However, even when I think I am self-aware and speak the truth in love, more often than not, I am completely misunderstood or dead wrong. My reaction is to lean away and never do that again, never speak up with what my heart, head, gut are telling me to say. I am very good at isolating myself and very much a novice at being "member with one another." So the truth I need to speak today is that I really don't know what I am doing when it comes to being a part of other people's lives without bringing my own bundle of selfishness. Maybe living inside that simple truth of what we don't know is a place to start. 
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Lord, the more I know the more I know how much I don't know. Help me. Amen.

​Psalm 78: 25, 29
Mortals ate of the bread of angels; he sent them food in abundance....
And they ate and were well filled, for he gave them what they craved.
* * * * * * * 
The psalmist sings of the great story of God and God's people in the wilderness. God's people are hungry. God sends them manna to eat. God's people get tired of the manna. God sends them poultry. Food is an integral part of our survival, our ability to thrive, our relationships with one another and our relationship with God. Food brings us together to celebrate and to commiserate. Food is a reminder of our dependence on the earth and other laborers. God chose to be intimately connected to us through the provision of creation and relationship. When we view the food alone, looking only to our cravings and our emptiness, we miss a much bigger organic ecosystem of love and grace pouring through us, for us and from us for the sake of our lives together. The muffin I had for breakfast is made of wholesome and good ingredients specifically to feed me with deliciousness without doing me harm. The one who brought the ingredients together into a tasty morsel is a caring friend. The ingredients were provided by farmers and laborers and ranchers and factory workers and truckers and grocers. We eat the bread of angels unaware. God sits and eats with us to help us be....more aware. 
* * * * * * *
Body of Christ, bread of heaven, wake us up. Amen

Ephesians 4:11-13
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 
* * * * * * *
Leadership happens. No matter where we look, there is leadership to be seen and leadership that is needed for projects large and small. We, humans, get twisted up in what we value in leadership. We choose to value the ends over the means. We value effectiveness over ethical behavior. We value the bottom line over the quality of life. The greatest over the least. When we choose not to accept the responsibilities of leadership, we value throwing grenades from the bleachers and creating chaos. We play with power and then we become addicted to it. The Church through the centuries since the time Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians was susceptible to the vulnerability of poorly defined leadership. Jesus understood leadership as service and equipping others to do what he described as "even greater works than" what he was doing. Imagine that. Leaders of the Church were not the end game of Christ's purposes for the Church. Pastors and teacher and all were and continue to be the ones who are lift up others in the work of building up the body of Christ which extends God's grace to the world. Christ set the benchmark for leadership that the world could still learn from: No one wins until everyone does. 
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Help us to grow up into servants, Lord. Amen.
​

​John 6:24-25
So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 
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We humans have a great knack for asking the wrong question to get at the answer we really want and need. The crowds were looking for Jesus because they wanted and needed him. When they found him where they didn't expect him, they asked their first question that missed the mark: "When did you come here?" They were still trying to figure out HOW Jesus was doing what he was doing and HOW he was moving around with such stealth. Jesus has a knack for not answering the question as presented but answering the question that we need to ask. Through a series of wrong questions and better answers about living bread, Jesus leads the people finally to the right request: "Sir, give us this bread always. " To which Jesus responds "I am the bread of life." Jesus answers their request with what they really want and need - not an answer about HOW Jesus does what he does - but WHO he is: Bread that satisfies our deepest hunger to live. 
* * * * * *
Holy God, Help us to ask the questions that lead to life in you. Amen.