Monthly Archives: October 2021

Reformation-Murmuration

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audio version of sermon, “Reformation-Murmuration” by Martin Malina

“…you will know the truth …”[1]

I stopped there. How will we know the truth? Is ‘truth’ even possible? When we don’t believe someone – a family member, a politician, the media, a friend – when we don’t believe what they say is true, how can we believe what was written down thousands of years ago to be true? How can we believe anything?

When Jesus says these promising, affirming words to his disciples two thousand years ago – “…you will know the truth …” – I’m not sure we do.

Maybe because our post-Enlightment mind regards truth exclusively as doctrinal, contractive, individualistic and competitive rather than something more intuitive, collective and freeing in our nature.

In the post-Reformation era, we have become like chickens, scrapping and scraping only for ourselves, ruffling another person’s feathers, or another church’s, so we feel better or superior. That truth is what I have, but you don’t.

And it’s not even what Martin Luther wanted—a separate, autonomous denomination. He wanted to reform the church, not split it into what is today some 30,000 Protestant denominations worldwide.

Maybe we need to look upward. Rather than be like the chickens, maybe the birds can show us the truth. Have you heard what the birds do when they fly together?

It rhymes with Reformation … Murmuration. So, whenever you hear the word ‘reformation’ from now on, I hope you think of ‘murmuration.’. What is ‘murmuration’?

Murmuration happens when the flock of birds—specifically starlings—move like synchronized swimmers or a well-choreographed dance troupe. Like bird ballet, they fly dark flowing against the white clouds. 

And when they fly together and swirl in a repeating, coordinated ever-changing pattern they seem to be connected somehow. They twist and turn and change direction at a moment’s notice.

Wired Magazine described murmuration like this:

“Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. 

When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.

 When a neighbor moves, so do you.

At the individual level, the rules guiding this are relatively simple.

 Depending on the flock’s size and speed and its members’ flight physiologies, the large-scale pattern changes. 

What’s complicated, or at least unknown, is how criticality it is created and maintained.” 

How does the murmuration begin? Often the starlings gather as night approaches. In the twilight, the dance begins with a few birds, but gradually other starlings arrive, then more and more, until they all join together in one massive flock. Their movements create patterns, streams, circles, and trails. Suddenly they plunge downward then swoop and sail skyward. As they twist and turn in tight formation, amazingly they swirl but never collide.

“What music do they hear? Who leads them? Who taught them such grace? …Maybe God is dancing with them and that is unknown, there, and unseen.”[2]

“I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.”[3]

So, to God, each starling is important to creating the murmuration. The result, however, is a whole that is greater than the sum of individual parts. It’s the story of the bible.

Recall, then:

God was saving Israel, not just Abraham.

God was saving Israel, the nation, not just Joseph, Isaac, or Jacob.

God was always saving people, not just individuals. And, in the last two thousand years,

God was saving the church, not just Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, or Henry the VIII’s marriage.

God was saving the church for all time—the people as a whole—and not just individuals of the 16th century. Nor just individuals today.

Reformation is “historical and social, and not just individual.”[4]

Martin Luther, the individual, was important in God’s story. Martin Luther inaugurated the Protestant Reformation on October 31, 1517—exactly 504 years ago today—by pinning up a sheet of paper on the large, wooden doors of the Wittenberg Castle Church in Germany. That piece of paper contained some 95 arguments against what Martin Luther believed were abuses in the religious practices and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church at the time.

Fuelled by geo-political forces and social unrest in Europe. Power struggles between Pope and Princes, Emperor and economies — all these helped shape the course of what happened with the church, far beyond what Martin Luther was essentially all about. Because Reformation, in the end, is a movement in history and a movement of Spirit in the hearts of people continually changing and transforming, and going somewhere. Reformation was and is a gift—reforms in the 16th century were needed and good. But Reformation is also given to us as a calling—something we continue to work at and move towards. Never perfect, yet aspiring towards the vision of God.

Not negative. Not stuck, static. Not fixated, nor constricted. Not divided, autonomous nor conflicted out of some sentimental view of the past. But dynamic, transformative, unitive and flowing towards God’s vision, God’s future.

What is truth, then? Christ is the truth.[5] And Reformation, like murmuration, is participation in Christ. Each of us is a character inside of a story that is being written in cooperation with God and the rest of humanity. Christ in, and through us.

God is not ‘out there’. We don’t look at reality, we look from reality. We’re in the middle of it now; we’re a part of it. The murmuration. We are being chosen. We are being led. We are an instance in both the agony and ecstasy of God that is already happening inside you and inside of me.[6]

“You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” This is the language of the bible. It describes what already is happening in us and around us. We already know it. And maybe now, only intuitively. But God is there. God is here.

And all you can do is say yes to it. And join in the never-ending dance.

[1] The Gospel for Reformation Day, from John 8:31-36.

[2] Jean Wise, “Mystical Murmuration” (www.healthyspirituality.org, 6 February 2014), https://healthyspirituality.org/mystical-murmuration/

[3] Psalm 50:11

[4] Richard Rohr, “Participation is the only way” Life as Participation (Daily Meditations, http://www.cac.org), 10 Sept 2021

[5] “I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus said. (John 14:6)

[6] Richard Rohr, “Being Instruments of God”, ibid., 5 Sept 2021

Where two or three are gathered

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audio for “Where two or three are gathered” by Martin Malina
Where we gather to worship & serve, photo by Martin Malina

When sitting in a living room with family, playing a game or in a sports team or when joining a club online or in person, we instinctively want everyone to participate. The church is no different. We want everyone to participate!

But participation is not domination. This is one of the main rules for healthy group dynamics: ‘Participation is not domination’. 

When I work with small group leaders, I usually start with this theme, because while we want everyone to feel free to participate, any one person cannot dominate the conversation. Domination will undermine the group process by only one individual’s opinion, concern, worldview and blow-by-blow telling of the book they read over the weekend, or the menu planned for Thanksgiving.

There is an exception to this rule. When someone who participates regularly in the group suffers a person crisis, a crisis that in some form is common to all of us. Then everyone, almost by intuition, wants to give that person the floor for as much time and as many words as they need to tell their story. Telling your story is integral to the healing process.

Bartimaeus has been suffering a personal crisis most of his life, it seems. He is visually impaired. He has carried and lived through the challenges facing a person who cannot see. How does he process his suffering?

What strikes me in this reading is that he does not hide. He does not squirrel away his pain by staying on the outskirts of Jericho in the desert under a proverbial rock. The Gospel text opens by locating him “on the roadside.”[1] Because “large crowds” travelled along this road from Jericho, we can say this was the main road from Jericho leading up to Jerusalem.

In other words, Bartimaeus shows us how to lament. In times of suffering that may feel like a lifetime, a suffering that doesn’t end – we all know this feeling when it comes to the pandemic – he does not take his spirituality and hide it under a rock. His faith journey, his relationship with God, is not privately dealt. He takes it out into the open— into the public— and sits himself by the main road where large crowds will pass him by.

Psalm 126 is entitled “A Harvest of Joy” and is a song of ascent – one of those Psalms sung by the ancient Israelites to lift their sights upward. 

Blind Bartimaeus, when Jesus heals him, is on the road up to Jerusalem. There is quite an elevation gain, topographically, between Jericho and Jerusalem. Like the ancient Israelites returning from exile, Bartimaeus, now freed from his suffering was heading in an upward direction, literally. Like the ancient Israelites, freed from exile, Bartimaeus was one of “those who go out [leaving Jericho] weeping” and “will come again [into Jerusalem] with joy.”[2]

But in a Psalm that is supposed to lift our spirits and be about restoration, there’s enough weeping and tears here to make me want to skip over those words. We need, though, to come to terms with the parts that do not feel like they belong — the weeping and tears part.

When circumstances bring cause for weeping – all the disruption, isolation, social restrictions, mental anguish and loss of jobs, health and stability—what do we do? How do we live into the post-pandemic reality? Do we ignore the difficult realities, the realities that instinctively make us want to turn away? The Gospel suggests we embrace both states of our heart. Both are important:

Both weeping and lamenting, dreaming and rejoicing. We tend to want to go either/or, don’t we? Either we are sad, or we are happy. Problem is, doing only one or the other all the time leads to despair on the one hand, delusion and denial on the other.

We may be tempted to think we need to be either/or in the church. COVID times have tempted us to entrench in this dualistic thinking, either/or: Either we sing or we don’t sing; either we meet in person or watch on YouTube; either it’s ‘perfect’ the way it used to be, or it’s not worth going to at all.

It’s an extraordinary challenge in life to balance all these tensions:

Because at one moment we are like those who dream, our mouths full of laughter and tongues with shouts of joy when things go well; and then, we are also those who sow in tears, those who go out weeping when things don’t. 

God has something to say to a people torn in two, a people who go out weeping and crying but who also dream of restoration, a people who are tempted to fall into despair but are also presented with a promising vision of God.

God has something to say to a people who are tempted to believe in cut and dry answers, who are tempted to believe that truth only comes in certain and sure ways, either/or.

Today, more than ever, I believe what we need in the church is less “either/or” and more “both/and.”

“Both/And” thinking means that when it is tough going, and we don’t deny that, people of faith don’t just give up meeting together. Like Bartimaeus we don’t hide our faith under a rock, o no! We may go out weeping but we still bear the seed for sowing. We still keep on, keeping on. We still do our work faithfully, whatever it may be, however small. Bit by bit, we still go out. Even though it’s not perfect. Even though it’s not like it used to be.

God says, where two or three are gathered, there is Christ with them (Matthew 18:20). Where two or three are gathered, our voice is heard, others hear us and pay attention. 

Where two or three are gathered, other people are not either/or. Where two or three are gathered, there is “no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are … heirs according to the promise.”[3] Where two or three gathered, we are are not either/or people, we are all children of God.

Where two or three are gathered, Jesus hears our calls for help. And with an unconditional love, mercy and grace, Christ comes to us and opens the eyes of our heart. Christ hears us and gives us vision, purpose and courage for the long road ahead.

The big challenge now in the church, I believe, as we do both/and – both online and onsite meetings— is particularly to restore confidence in meeting together, in person, again. That doing so is safe, a public act of faith, and an act that will lead us on the road to our healing and restoration.

[1] Mark 10:46-52

[2] Psalm 126:6

[3] Galatians 3:27-29

We are about life, not the other way around

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“By the River”, painting and frame by Lois O’Brien
sermon audio “We are about life, not the other way around” by Martin Malina

The NHL season began this past week. And the Ottawa Senators hope not to repeat last year’s start, which saw them losing all but two of their first fifteen games. Even though they ended the regular season last Spring one of the hottest teams in the league—winning ten of their last fifteen games—they still didn’t have enough points to make it into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

They say teams can lose the Stanley Cup in the first month of the season, meaning those first few games are crucial to the team’s prospect of making the playoffs. So, there’s a lot riding on each game, especially early on.

Yet the opposite is also very true: You can’t win the Stanley Cup in the first few games of the season either. Many teams have to build resiliency and overcome adversity on the road to ultimate success. And that means losing some games and surviving those slumps which inevitably come to all successful teams at some point in the season.

In other words, accepting our limits and checking our ambitions is very much integral to the overall arc of one’s life. Not just for professional sports teams.

In the Gospel text for today,[1] James and John go for it. To run this race, they are out of the starting blocks at full gallop. Believing they need to compete on the ladder of success with the other disciples, believing they need to vy for a privileged seat in some hierarchy of God’s reign, believing they’ll get ahead only by denying the other disciples this privilege—they demand from Jesus “to do for us whatever we ask of you …grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

No wonder the other disciples were angry with James and John.

I was being opportunistic. I knew the market was hot for used canoes. So I went for it. I sold my favourite canoe for a good price. With the money from the sale I decided to buy a new kayak. They would have to build one because – you guessed it – there were none in stock. That was July 1st.

Originally they said it would take two months until I could pick it up. Ok. In September I could still get out on the water several times. In retrospect, I could have been out on the water every day this past week with the warm, summer-like temperatures we have enjoyed to date.

But in mid-August I received a letter from the owner of the canoe company apologizing and advising that my kayak’s production was running behind schedule about six-weeks. There was now very little if any chance I would be in the water in my new kayak before winter. I would likely have to wait until Spring to enjoy my new toy.

My ambition ran into a brick wall. What started out as a great plan to maximize my enjoyment of paddling, and take advantage of the resources at my disposal, ended in disappointment, you could say. I’d have to gain some perspective to keep from slipping into regret and ingratitude.

Gus, the main character in David James Duncan’s bestselling novel, The River Why, reflects on his passion and calling to be on the river and to be the best fly-fisher he could be. As you get to know this character, you very quickly realize how much his life is defined and motivated by fishing and spending time on the river.

But he soon also realizes that immersing himself fully into his passion without boundaries and without limits, and pursuing his ambition unchecked, was actually driving him mad. He had to find balance in his life. He had to find other activities and build relationships with neighbours. He had to take care of himself.

Gus muses, “The once-monthly fisherman adores his rare day on the river, imagining that ten times the trips would yield ten times the pleasure. But … I learned that not fishing is crucial to the enjoyment of fishing: fishing is a good thing, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing.”[2]

Jesus turns the tables on James and John. They expected that their ambition would be rewarded. Well, it often is in the world of purusing self-gratification, what’s-in-it-for-me lifestyles and me-first relationships. Indeed we are often rewarded by a world that values going-for-it, and looking-out-for-oneself and one’s-own, a world motivated by uninhibited, individual ambitions.

Jesus suggests another strategy, one that realizes peace and contentment through acknowledging one’s limits, a lifestyle that finds meaning and purpose by respecting one’s place in the larger scheme of things.

When Jesus talks about giving his life, what he means is that we are part of a much bigger whole. Jesus asserts not just by his words but by what he does that “life is not about us, but we are about life.” 

We are not our own. We are an instance of something much bigger than us. Life is living itself in us. This thinking is revolutionary to our brains which have been trained to believe otherwise. As Richard Rohr confesses, Jesus’ message is “an earthquake in the brain, a hurricane in the heart.”[3]

As it was, and as I waited, I still got out on the water a handful of times this summer in our other, older fifteen-footer canoe and by borrowing demo models at lakeside outfitters in Algonquin Park.  Paddling on the water a couple of times was pure joy. And enough. 

I learned that regardless of how many times I’m on the water doesn’t gaurantee a ‘perfect’ experience every time: bad weather, faulty gear, unexpected high winds. So, I discovered that not paddling is crucial to the enjoyment of paddling: paddling is a good thing, but too much of a good thing can also be a bad thing.

In the want, in the suffering, in embracing the lack of things, we learn to live in the moment, a moment still infused by God’s grace. We learn to pay attention, even in the want, to what God is bringing to you this very day, and at this very moment. Even amidst the pain, we more readily bind our hearts with others and look beyond our present circumstances.

One of the main turning points in The River Why happens when Gus, a miserable and unhealthy man, begins to emerge from his self-consumed life. He decides to meet his neighbours living along the river. 

And that is when his life changes for the better.

[1] Mark 10:35-45

[2] David James Duncan, The River Why (New York: Back Bay Books, 2016), p.75-76

[3] “Your Life Is Not About You” Reality Initiating Us: Part One  (Daily Meditations, www.cac.org, 1 April 2020)

True thanksgiving

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Oxtongue Lake, Algonquin Highlands, 24 Sept 2021, photo by Martin Malina
“True Thanksgiving” audio sermon by Martin Malina

“Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? … Look at the birds of the air …

Are you not of more value than they?” 

(Jesus, Matthew 6:25-26) 

This text is the Gospel assigned for Thanksgiving Day.[1] What I find curious is that on Thanksgiving we give thanks, normally, for the material things we have – shelter, food, and the abundance of physical blessings …

And I don’t hear Jesus saying that food and clothing are unimportant to people of faith. Jesus isn’t downplaying our material world. Jesus isn’t saying we should not pay attention to the ‘stuff’ of this world. 

Yet, Jesus seems to be saying more, here. That true thanksgiving goes beyond being grateful for what we have; that true thanksgiving is celebrating who we are: Look at the birds of the air … Are you not of more value than they?” 

In this text, Jesus draws attention to our hearts and seeks to build us up as beloved children of God, created in God’s very own image. We have, if anything, value in who we are and the faith we express “genuinely”; who we are is “more precious than gold.”[2]

I was reading about one of the quietest rooms on earth at Orfield Labs in Minneapolis. Originally these ‘dead rooms’ were built in the Second World War to test communications systems. Basically, you step into one of these rooms and it’s much more, or less literally, than getting a bit of peace and quiet away from a hectic, noisy day in the city.

A typical room you sleep in at night that is quiet measures about 30 decibels. Even when we perceive it to be quiet, there is still sound bouncing off walls and surfaces around us. But the ‘dead room’ in Minneapolis measures at negative (-) 9 decibels. In this room there is absolutely no echo as the walls of the chamber absorb any and all sound. The effect on a human being is startling, to say the least.

The longest anyone has ever lasted in this room is 45 minutes. All you will hear inside this room are your organs—your heart beating, air and blood rushing through your system. After about 30 minutes of only hearing your body normally functioning and nothing else, you will begin to hallucinate. The negative silence can drive you, literally, crazy.

When you remove any external source of sound, and only hear what’s coming from within you, it’s too much for us to handle. It’s like we cannot bear for long facing, confronting and dealing with what comes from inside of us when there is nothing coming at us from without.

It’s like at best we feel uncomfortable facing ourselves; at worst, we only see bad things inside of us—our sin. At worst, we would do harm by the negative and judgemental words we tell ourselves, and the habits we fall into that are often unhealthy. If it’s only about what’s inside of us would God take delight in us?

Living in a world where so much of who we are is defined and determined by our external circumstances presents a real challenge to our faith. Jesus knows this. If there is anything in the New Testament about which Jesus speaks harshly, or dualistically (either-or), it’s about money. “You cannot serve both God and wealth; you cannot serve two masters,” Jesus says in the verse immediately preceding the Gospel text for today. 

Jesus speaks absolutely about money because he knows what we are going to do. He already knows our natural inclination to place most of our worth and value on those external things. He already knows that we are primarily motivated by counting, weighing, measuring and deserving – these are activities whose motivation comes from outside of us. And he already knows that as long as we ally ourselves with this world of earning and losing, we’ll always be comparing, competing, envying, or climbing.[3] We will continue to be driven from without. And be continually restless and discontented. 

So, he says: 

“Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? … Look at the birds of the air …Are you not of more value than they?”

Our value, our worth, is based not on what we have, but who we are. Not on bank accounts, investments, clothes and financial portfolios. And Jesus says this not only that we would love ourselves first, but so that we would confer the same value on others. So, our love and care for others is not based on what they have earned but on who they are in God’s eyes.

So, Jesus is about re-calibrating the engine of our hearts. Contrary to the lure of material wealth, success and meritocracy, the generating motor that keeps us going in this life is inside of us, where God’s Spirit indwells. The primary engine is neither a lure or a threat from outside us. Rather, we are drawn from within, where the Spirit nudges us and strengthens us.

We are of more value than the birds of the air. God does take delight in us, as we are. We are of more value without needing to store up riches on earth. Because we know we have an inherent dignity within, a dignity shared with all human beings.

“Deep calls to deep”, the Psalmist sings.[4] Our inner source is not to be feared nor tolerated nor ignored in our externally over-stimulated lives. And if ever you find yourself twisting in the winds of material concerns and worries, just stop to listen to your heart beat. Do you hear it now? Stop to listen to the involuntary rush of air, breathing into your lungs and breathing out. Do you feel it?

Our hearts continue to beat and pump blood, faithfully, even when we don’t notice. Our lungs continue to draw air, faithfully. We don’t need quiet rooms to appreciate that. Our inner source is beloved. And it is a gift. It is at this deeper level where we find our place and our true connection with others in this world.

A cause for humble and true thanksgiving.

[1] Matthew 6:24,25-34

[2] 1 Peter 1:7

[3] Richard Rohr, “We Cannot Serve Two Masters” in What Do We Do With Money? (Daily Meditations, www.cac.org, 20 September 2021)

[4] Psalm 42:7