Leaning Into Lent: Day 31—with Hezekiah, the Righteous Rodent

Today I got to lead chapel with Hezekiah, the Righteous Rodent, at Medicine Hat Christian School. What a lovely bunch of children—all of them, from the grade niners trying to look as if they are too old for such whimsy, to the wide-eyed kindergarteners wriggling on the gym floor.

The school theme at this time is “Image Reflecting: being made in the image of God.” Hezekiah asked if there was anybody there made in God’s image. The kindergarten kids were the first to get their hands up, without hesitation, girls and boys, faces shining, absolutely convinced, obviously recipients of good teaching. Hezekiah thought, “Wow! God must have lots of faces.”

After talking a little about how girls and boys are made in God’s image and likeness (and how he is not, but a rather a cheese loving “creeping thing" —still loved and blessed but not human), Hezekiah went on to ask who is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1.3). Again, the answer came quickly—Jesus.

Growing up and growing older is hard on that childlike brightness, optimism and surety. Childhood’s wonder and natural, playful acceptance gets eroded by sin—my own and others’—peer pressure and making my way in the world.

Leaning into Lent helps. An obedient, childlike doing what I’m told in honest self examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and reading and meditating on the Word of God will reveal any of my oppressive grown-up inhibitions and temptations to

occupy myself with things
      too great and too marvelous for me. (Psalm 131:1 ESV)

Instead, the Lenten spiritual disciplines, faithfully worked, can calm and quiet my soul like a child’s (Ps 131.2) releasing a wide-eyed, shining faced and rejuvenated trust in Jesus.

Gene+

Where's Your Other Arm: for the "By the Way" column in The Medicine Hat News Saturday, August 3rd

This is a distillation of the homily I preached on Sunday, July 28th, at StB—see below.

I have a little friend who helps me on Sunday mornings from time to time. His name is Hezekiah, the Righteous Rodent, a church mouse. He’s a puppet who lives in an overnight bag and on my right arm. I’m not a ventriloquist, so he communicates by whispering in my ear and I share what he has to say.  

Once there was a young woman with Down Syndrome, I’ll call her Kristy, who came up with the children to meet with Hezekiah each Sunday. One day, after about a year of this, she realized that something was missing and spoke up, right there in the service, and said to me, "Hey! Where's your other arm?" Everyone laughed and I think I explained that I was using it to hold Hezekiah’s bag.  

It occurred to me recently that what she thought was missing was actually making what she enjoyed happen. It was my “other” arm, the one she couldn't see, that was making Hezekiah real to her and the children. 

And then I wondered about God having an “other” arm. Sometimes when I compare the mighty acts of God I read about in the Bible with the reality of life around me something appears to be missing for me, too. I can find myself questioning God much as Kristy questioned me: “God, you don’t seem to be doing anything here. Where’s your other arm? The powerful one. The one that’ll fix my problems, deliver the oppressed, clothe the naked, feed the hungry and sort the things that are wrong with the world?” 

The fact is, God’s “other” arm is there and is at work even (perhaps “especially”) when it seems to be missing. God’s strong arm is at work animating me, telling The Story of Jesus through me, enabling me to serve others in Jesus’ name and getting what our heavenly Father wants done, done.  

God’s arm is strong and everlasting. I can trust in its strength even when I can’t see it. So can you.