By Deb Grant

ELOGOS for Thursday

9/20/2018

Psalm 54:4-7
But surely, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.
He will repay my enemies for their evil. In your faithfulness, put an end to them.
With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.
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Okay, today, the psalm is an ancient echo of what humanity has always understood as justice = Good people helped. Bad people punished. But this God started messing with our heads very early on. Today as I read this psalm some voice changed the punctuation that we insist upon. The sentences that sound so defiant and faithful with a period change dramatically when they morph into question marks. Go ahead, try it...read the psalm again with question marks. I'll wait. Told ya. The psalm that speaks the only form of justice that humanity has ever been able to produce suddenly hits quicksand. We understand justice as God helping us but we like the extra helping of our enemies getting squashed. When we hear these ancient voices through Gospel sounds, we cannot reconcile the voice of Jesus saying "Love your enemies." So the question marks float up from simple dots of punctuation like smoke from a fire. God's justice is merciful beyond our desire for revenge. We may never completely understand that until we break the plane between earth and heaven and discover who we are sitting next to at the table.
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Holy God, you certainly make life interesting. Amen.

ELOGOS for Wednesday

9/19/2018

James 3:13-14
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.
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I read an essay this morning filled with wisdom and understanding, goodness and gentleness. After reading it, I took comfort in knowing that, at least, I can recognize wisdom when I see and hear it. There is a line in a poem by Amy Lowell that says, "it is like a chord we knew existed but so seldom hear the tone that we laugh at the half-forgotten sound. The world is full of rude awakenings and heaven-born castles shattered to the ground and yet, our human longing vainly clings to a belief in beauty through all wrong. Oh, stay your hand and leave my heart its songs." I am drawn to gentle souls for their wisdom and cannot force it out myself without a constipated strain. I can, however, recognize it when I see and hear it and that is worth something.
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Open me to your wisdom, Holy Spirit. Amen.

ELOGOS for Monday

9/17/2018

Mark 9: 33-37
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
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By their silence, the disciples already knew that that conversation about who was the greatest among them would not be pleasing to Jesus. Jesus responds by sitting down. This is what a teaching moment looks like especially in the rabbinic tradition. SItting down begins the teaching. Today the gesture is more equivalent to taking the person's face with both hands cupped firmly on either side and lifting their heads to make eye contact. Jesus doesn't attack their desire for greatness. In fact, he doesn't attack them at all. Jesus simply teaches a different definition for the greatness they seek. Greatness is measured in the manner in which we treat the most vulnerable among us - that includes not judging them for what made them vulnerable. It is always been the only metric that matters in how history will judge us. It is the only metric that matters in how our children will judge us. It is the only metric that matters when we are trying to find peace inside our own skin.
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Holy God, for welcoming me, may I be keenly aware of those in need of your embrace. Amen.

ELOGOS for Wednesday

9/12/2018

Psalm 19:1-4
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
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"Look up." In a book I read recently about disaster recovery and the psychological effects that linger months and years, I was struck by the simplicity of one tool offered when we get in a funk, stuck, wading into the deeper waters of depression. Go outside and look up. Today I am worried about the people in harm's way of a hurricane in the Carolinas. I know the awful waves of rescue, recovery, rebuilding that is ahead. I am understandably more anxious about local flooding in my own area. I took my dog out in a break in the weather and looked up. Yes, sometimes when you look up you get a mouthful of rain. I looked up and it helped me to ignore the hordes of mosquitos chomping on my legs. I looked up and remembered that with the mosquitos come the dragonflies who snack on them and then ran inside away from their bites and the rain, laughing a little bit. Sometimes the heavens tell the glory of God in unexpected ways. It helps to look up and it when no words come - laughing is good.
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Holy God, Let us look up and even with a mouthful of rain, find a way to laugh especially in the face of sadness. Amen.

ELOGOS for Tuesday

9/11/2018

James 3:2-6
For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire.
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Our tongues are useful. They can stir people to act. They can express love. They can lift people up. They can testify to what is seen and heard. They can shout out an injustice. And they can be incendiary toys for the pyromaniacs. There are those who flick words like cigarettes into a parched landscape just for the sport of watching the flames lick us to death. Even as a person who values words as a substantial force in our relationships, I know that sometimes the better part of valor is to hold one's tongue not to be simply silent but to shove aside the foolish word until the better word finds its way through the maelstrom.
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Hey Lord, tell James he had good words. Amen.

ELOGOS for Monday

9/10/2018

Mark 8:27-29
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”
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"What is the main struggle?" a friend asked me recently in the midst of conversation. As I searched for the answer I realized what the main struggle at the moment was needing to be asked a good question. "What is the main struggle?" was a good question. I am a person who has relied on good questions since the curious days of childhood to be a tether to learning and discovery and self-awareness. I don't consider myself particularly skilled at advice-giving, non-professional pastoral counseling but I do value and craft good questions hoping that God will use one to strike a chord the other needs to find the answers that only they can find for themselves. Sometimes I can't form my own questions, I need help. I cherish being asked good questions because it tells me that the other cares about my struggle and that they want to help me discover the tools I have within me to help myself. Jesus asked good questions. In this case, he asked an easy one first and then one that went much deeper. Who do you say that Jesus is? It is the good question. Good questions help us to reach beneath the clutter for the answer that is real for us at that moment....it gives us a touchstone to truth, a stillpoint on which to stand to find our bearings, to learn, to take the next bold step.
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Christ, you are a very good question. Love is always a very good answer. Amen.

ELOGOS for Thursday

9/6/2018

Proverbs 22: 1-2
A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and favor is better than silver or gold.
The rich and the poor have this in common:
the Lord is the maker of them all.
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Do you ever wonder what your friends say about you to other people? Not the folks who don't know you well, but the ones who do. Do they speak well of you? Do they defend you against unkindness or injustice? Do they adjust for their own purposes what they say about you depending on who they are speaking with? Does this sound more than a bit paranoid? Perhaps. I try not to lose sleep over it, but I do from time to time because trust matters. I hope I never forget what I overheard a friend from long ago say to their friends. He said that I could be trusted, that he would trust me with his children and that they could trust me with theirs. That good name was not something I could find on Amazon. It was given to me the same way everyone else is given their reputation - regardless of all the other human status labels - I was endowed by my Creator with the status of being a human, a creation, a child of God. Over the years, that good name was and is mine to ignore or tarnish or cherish. The fact that it still has any shiny spots at all is the stuff of wonder and miracles.
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Holy God, may I each day value the trust of those with whom I live and work. Amen.

ELOGOS for Wednesday

9/5/2018

James 2:15-17
If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
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Dismiss. We all do it and we all have been on the receiving end of it. If we haven't, then we haven't been paying attention. Even worse, we do it often and do not notice the wreckage we leave it our wake with a quick dismissal. A person told me recently that even the fear of being dismissed over something that truly matters can be so traumatizing that it feels as though one is slowly being tortured. The rhetoric that clutters our days is filled with dismissal. "Go away. Don't bother me. I don't have time for you. Stop feeling that way. Go take a chill pill. God helps those who help themselves." We will continue to dismiss one another and be dismissed. But they will always be wasted moments at best and memories of pain at worst. We can do better. We can. It just takes paying attention and offering what we have that another might lack.
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Lord, I cannot even fathom the number of times that you have been dismissed...by me....and here you are still listening. Amen.

ELOGOS for Monday

9/4/2018

Mark 7:34-37
Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
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Plumber came to the house to deal with a water leak underneath the kitchen sink. Turned out it was caused by a clog. A clog that had been there for some time. A clog that did not happen suddenly but over time until it was a solid mass of whatever I had thrown down the drain assuming it was gone. It was surprisingly embarrassing to be told this by this paid interloper into my living space. I tried to make it less embarrassing by saying, "Well, it could be worse! It could be a toilet clog!" Plumber philosopher then said, "Actually, the toilet clogs don't surprise me because, with few exceptions, the stuff that gets thrown into them are not our fault. A kitchen clog is usually our fault because we should know better." It made me ponder what else in me that was clogged and needed to have the Ephphatha treatment. Did I need to hear better, more quickly.....speak more often, more quickly? Some are the result of too much stuff being thrown at me. Some the result of my own poor stewardship of my soul. There are clogs. There is a plumber.
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Clear the way, Lord, for us all. Amen.

ELOGOS for Thursday

8/30/2018

Deuteronomy 4:9
But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life
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There are some things I want to forget. This week is the anniversary of Hurricane Harvey parking itself over my community and causing home-wrecking floods. I want to forget the fear for lives that some people lived with for days. I want to forget the smell of fast-growing mold in flood-soaked buildings. I want to forget the bureaucratic minefield that people have walked and are still walking to get assistance to return to fix their homes. I want to forget that many of the homes in our neighborhoods look perfectly fine on the outside but families are camping inside with walls stripped to the studs, basic plumbing, concrete floors - some with no air conditioning. However, I do not want to forget heroic efforts to rescue, feed, clean, donate, heal and rebuild. I do not ever want to forget the people who embraced one another. I will not forget the new life and the sheer joy I experienced every day since the storm because of friends of took care of me. I will not forget the grace I have been given because I am changed forever because of it.
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Holy God, be ever mindful of those hidden from our eyes but not from yours. Amen.