Ignatius – Page 3 – Jesus @ 2 am blogs and podcast

Loving God 101, Part 11: “Contemplation” Explained

August 7, 2015August 4, 2015Kirk WinslowLeave a comment

“Contemplation” is one of the most transformational practices I was ever taught. While the word carries connotations of abstract pondering, for St. Ignatius it describes a very active method of reading the Bible (more on why we care about St. Ignatius is found here.)

What Ignatius reminds us is that Jesus is truly risen. That is to say, Jesus is – here and now – carrying on the work that we read about in the gospels. Jesus’s ministry of healing the sick, calming storms, forgiving sinners, declaring “good news” of God’s victory…did not end on Good Friday. No, Jesus is risen! And in his resurrection he continues his ministry of bringing all creation to shalom.

This awareness, then, brings us to a very different way of approaching the Bible – particularly the gospels. Surely we ought to continue to read them as historical records of historical events, and apply our best scholarship to their interpretation in this manner (Ignatius was devoted to academic study). But the Bible – “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” is more than a narration of history. It is also a narration of the present. Jesus is still doing what Jesus does. He may not be – at this very moment – calming a literal storm on the Sea of Galilee (though he might be!). But he is forever exercising his power to bring storms to cease – physical storms, emotional storms, relational storms, political storms…

In this episode we examine Ignatius’s understanding of scripture as a window into God’s immediate presence and how the practice of contemplation can bring us into direct contact with Jesus right now.

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), March 22, 2015. To learn more about Canvas, click here!

Loving God 101, Part 7: So Many Voices in My Head! (Discernment Cont’d)

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015Kirk WinslowLeave a comment

Learning to “hear” God’s voice (i.e., “discernment”) actually begins by learning what is not God’s voice.

That is to say, each of us arrives to our relationship with God with many voices in our head – the voices of our family, our culture, our friends…the voice of Reason, of our deepest hopes, our deepest fears. Indeed, our inner stage is crowded with actors repeating their lines, each calling us in a different directions.

Ignatius (of Loyola) reminds us that one of those voices is God. God is actively trying to engage with us, not hiding afar off until we prove ourselves worthy. But God’s voice is often drown out by the clamor of all the others making demands upon our will.

As we seek to discern God’s voice from the crowd, we do best to first identify as many of the others as we can. Not to judge or dismiss them outright (our families and friends and intellects and passions can have many good things to say). Rather, we simply want to become aware of who is saying what. When a voice calls me strongly, which voice is it? And does God have an alternative word to offer?

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), February 22, 2015. To learn more about Canvas, click here!

To receive future episodes automatically, simply subscribe by clicking below:

Loving God 101, Part 6: Freedom (Really!) in Confession and Repentance

June 27, 2015July 21, 2015Kirk WinslowLeave a comment

For most of us “confession” does not sound like a very liberating idea. For me it used to conjure images of self-loathing, as I enumerated my sins with with heaps of guilt on the side. (Martin Luther was plagued by such feelings early in his life – often returning to confession right after he left in the belief he wasn’t quite contrite enough the first 10 times…) How tragic!

The truth – from a biblical perspective – is that confession is meant to be a source of liberation and new life! God does not need to hear our sins so as to forgive them (as though the omniscient God is unaware). And, as we’ve seen, atonement comes not from our confessions, but by means of the cross. (It is not our efforts that accomplish our welcome before God or the forgiveness of sin, but the redeeming work of Jesus.)

What, then, is the purpose of confession? And what does it mean to repent? And how does the process of confession and repentance bring us to new health, vitality and joy in the life of faith?

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), February 15, 2015. To learn more about Canvas, click here!

To receive future episodes automatically, simply subscribe by clicking below: