Prayer in the Tradition of the Saints, Part 03: Augustinian Meditation

Continuing our experiential examination of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, we turn this week to the great Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 AD) and the form of meditation that has developed in the Augustinian school. (It's quite similar to Ignatian contemplation, but rather than seeking to place ourselves - by active imagination - into a biblical scene of the past, Augustinian meditation seeks to bring the scene itself into the present. It'll make more sense as you listen!) As with the other episodes in this series, I highly encourage you actually engage in the meditation and not just listen while driving or dining or mowing the lawn. If you do, I think you'll find the experience very rewarding, mainly by having a moment or two of actual contact with God (and wouldn't that be cool)! In the intro I mention some previous series on the spiritual life, so here are some quick links to Loving God 101, Loving God 201, Loving God 301 and 401. And I really would love to hear if this series has been helpful (or not)! You can reach me anytime at jesusat2am.com, or send me email, chat with me on BlueSky, or come find me on Facebook or Instagram. I’d love to hear from you. And while you're at it, might you be up for supporting the podcast? You’re tax-deductible gift to Canvas is a major help. As are your prayers, your online reviews, telling a friend or two! And in case you'd like to follow along with the passage, you can find it here: Mark 1:29-39 (NRSV). Thanks so much for listening and blessings upon you!

“How can I hear God’s voice?” “Would I recognize God’s voice if I heard it?” “How do I know if a sense of call is really from God?” These are some of the key questions of Christian spirituality. And thankfully, they are some of the very questions St. Ignatius of Loyola sought to answer (and did). What we are really talking about is the practice of discernment – learning to distinguish the voice of the Lord from the countless other voices (internal and external) that fill our lives. It is to take it as a given (I believe very rightly) that God is consistently speaking – to us. And thus our work is to become skilled listeners. (This is in contrast to the common fear that God must be sought by heroic means – that God speaks only to those who have achieved some impressive measure of holiness, often by great sacrifice or spiritual rigor. It is not the case! Jesus – throughout the Gospels – is constantly seeking to be heard and understood by regular old  humans…) In many ways, the great task of Christian prayer is to quiet our mind as much as we can, to identify the voices that are likely not the Lord, and then to see if we can hear through the din the still, small, loving, compassionate voice of God. And for this work, the practice of Ignatian contemplation is excellent. In this episode we’ll take a brief look at the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola (it helps to understand how his method of contemplation developed) and then we’ll pray together with a guided contemplation. If you’ve not done it before, I hope you may find it quite a revolutionary experience! If you enjoy the guided Christian meditation, you can find more of them on the Canvas website . And if you’d like to read the passage yourself while we pray together, you can find it here: Mark 1:21-28 (NRSV) Up for supporting the podcast??? You’re tax-deductible gift to Canvas is a major help! As are your prayers, your online reviews, telling a friend or two and getting in touch! You can reach me easily at jesusat2am.com, or send me email, chat on BlueSky, or come find me on Facebook or Instagram (I'm slowly making my way back...), I’d love to hear from you!  

Prayer - as in abiding, personal contact with God - is the very heart of the Christian life. And yet for most of us, the practice of prayer is a struggle (it often is for me as well). Indeed, “How can I feel closer to God?” is probably one of the most asked questions in Christian history. And the good news is: there is an answer! Actually, there are many answers. And in this short series we will examine (and experience) three of the best: the Benedictine answer, the Ignatian answer and the Augustinian one. Today we begin with the Benedictine method of prayer, often know by its Latin name: lectio divina or “divine reading.” It is a very simple but very powerful process of praying the scriptures that can lead to us to a very intimate experience of God’s love and presence. In this episode, we’ll explore the process of lectio divina, but even more importantly, we’ll practice it together (a form of guided meditation/prayer).  (As an added bonus you’ll get a short explanation of what makes a Presbyterian a Presbyterian and why we would benefit greatly by adopting some very “Catholic” practices!) If you enjoy the guided Christian meditation, you can find more of them on the Canvas website . And if you’d like to read the passage yourself while we pray together, you can find it here: Mark 1:14-20 (NRSV) Up for supporting the podcast??? You’re tax-deductible gift to Canvas is a major help! As are your prayers, your online reviews, telling a friend or two and getting in touch! You can reach me easily at jesusat2am.com, or send me email, chat on BlueSky, or come find me on Facebook or Instagram (I'm slowly making my way back...), I’d love to hear from you!      

With this episode we conclude our short series on the abundant life – exploring what it means to live a fully human existence in a world that that can been very dehumanizing. It's a series that has taken us deep into the 10 commandments, as I’ve been doing my best to make the case that far from being a checklist of restrictions, the 10 commandments are actually divine instructions for freedom—freedom from slavery, freedom from fear, freedom from our worst impulses, and esp. freedom the false gods we are so inclined to make for ourselves (and then worship in vain!).  So today I want to go back to the beginning – to the story that started this whole endeavor: Jesus’ healing of the man born blind and to consider again what it means that God desires for us a life of abundance—full of breath, creativity, and joy. A life in which holiness not about repression, but as wholeness in love. The texts for this sermon can be found here: John 9:2-10:10 (NRSV) and Exodus 20:1-20 (NRSV) If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com, send me email, or come chat on BlueSky.

To put it bluntly, if it’s the abundant life we seek, then covetousness has to go. Mainly because yearning for the things of others turns life into a constant competition that we can never win. Whatever we possess or achieve, we can always find someone with "more." And the tragic result is a never-ending experience of deprivation and a fundamental dissatisfaction with our life (not to mention a sense of increasting tension with others). It's an important lesson brought to us by guest preacher Erika Karimi who started out as a Michigan based podcast listener and is now an ordained elder at Canvas and a regular part of our preaching rotation! (Maybe God has plans to use you at Canvas? Stranger things have happened!!) The text for this sermon can be found here: Exodus 20:17 (NRSV) If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com, send me email, or come chat on BlueSky.

In this episode we turn to – you guessed it – the 9th commandment: You shall not bear false witness. It’s instruction that – like all the commandments – seems, at first glance, very simple and straightforward: When you are called as a witness in a trial, do not give false testimony. But when we look a little deeper, we see that this commandment is filled with implications that I think are critical to explore if we are to live the abundant life – not the least of which is to recognize that in life, there will be conflict. Wrongs will be done. Harm will happen. There will be disputes that require adjudication. If life in the community of faith were easy, there’d be no need for a commandment about truth-telling. Indeed, it turns out that truth-telling is key for a healthy community. And in fact, can be very healing when wrongs have been committed. Sometimes the only justice that can be granted is an honest accounting of what has transpired. But owning wrongs goes a long way towards making repair. And yet there is another reason that the people of God are called to be honest brokers in all that we do – we bear witness to God himself, whom we believe raised Jesus from the dead! …a claim that strains credulity to its breaking point. If we want to be the least bit credible when it comes to bearing witness to Christ, we had best have a long reputation of integrity – intellectual and otherwise... The text for this sermon can be found here: Exodus 20:16 (NRSV) If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com, send me email, or come chat on BlueSky.

This is part 10 of our series on the abundant life as we try to figure out what it looks like – in practice – to live fully, to live richly as a human. It’s a search that has taken us deep into the 10 Commandments of all places - today to the 8th commandment and one of the most obvious lessons in life: You shall not steal. Seems clear enough: no robbing banks, no mugging anyone on the subway, go ahead pay for that pack of gum… And yet…, theft isn’t just about what we take with our hands—it’s about what we take with our power, with our privilege and sometimes what we acquire with our silence. It’s about the ways we allow systems to profit at the expense of others and about the trust we break when we misuse what’s been placed in our care. From corporations exploiting workers to governments selling out the public good, stealing is everywhere. And if we’re honest? It’s probably closer to home than we’d like to admit. But here’s the good news: we were never meant to live in scarcity, fighting for what we can get. God’s desire has always been for us to live fully, freely, abundantly—not by taking, but by giving. The lesson of this and all the “Commandments” isn’t mainly about checking moral boxes—it’s about stepping into the kind of life that brings wholeness, justice, and joy, both for ourselves and for others. The text for this sermon can be found here: Exodus 20:15 (NRSV) If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com or send me email here!

We continue our search for life and life abundantly, a search that has taken us to unexpected places, not least the 10 commandments – which has turned out to be far more than a list of religious rules, but a source of profound insight into what constitutes a fundamentally healthy life. Today we turn to the 7th commandment: "You shall not commit adultery." And by we I mean “not me,” in that you have here another sermon from Ian (who has really been helping share the preaching load with me, which is a huge help and a big part of my no-burnout strategy!). As you might expect, Ian’s first lesson is going to be: Don’t commit adultery. But there is much more to adultery than things sexual. I will let him explain the virtue of integrity... The texts for this sermon can be found here: Exodus 20:13 (NRSV) and John 8:1-11 (NRSV). If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com or send me email here!

Today we arrive at the 6th Commandment: “You shall not murder…”  That, at least, is how the NRSV translates it. But as you’ll see, there is much, much more to the 6th commandment than not murdering someone. (Though not murdering is a darn fine place to start!) The goal, however, is to go much farther than not taking life. Rather we are to honor the sacred gift of humanness and all the beauty that is inherent to human life. That is to say: if we want the abundant life, we begin by honoring humanity - our own and that and of everyone else. In this episode I highly recommend checking out the meditation app Happier. (They are not sponsors, I have no financial stake..., it's just an app I love and think you might, too!) If you'd like to check out the biblical text for this episode, you can find it here: Exodus 20:1-13 (NRSV). If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com or send me email here!

The 5th commandment tell us to "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." But what does "honor" truly mean? Is it obedience? Gratitude? Or something even deeper—a call to listen, to remember, and to carry forward the lessons of love and grace?  Our world often teaches us to move fast, to leave the past behind, and to define ourselves solely by individual achievement. But the truth is, none of us walk this journey alone. We are all part of a story much larger than ourselves, one woven together by the people who have come before us and those who will come after us. Today, we’ll reflect on what it means to give weight to the past—not as a burden, but as a gift—and how that can shape the way we build a future rooted in love, connection, and abundance. The text for this sermon can be found here: Exodus 20:12 (NRSV) If you value the podcast and are able to support the community from which it comes, you can make a tax-deductible  contribution to Canvas Presbyterian Church here! (Thank you!!!) For more sermon series, resources and means of contacting me, simply head to jesusat2am.com or send me email here!