Author Archives: raspberryman

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About raspberryman

I am a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, serving a parish in Ottawa Ontario. I am a husband, father, and admirer of the Ottawa Valley. I enjoy beaches, sunsets and waterways. I like to write, reflect theologically and meditate in the Christian tradition.

Mixing it up: a funeral sermon at Christmas

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My first impression of Maurine, when I met her over ten years ago, was that she was a grumpy person. She was 88 at the time. Honestly, I was afraid of her because of the way she looked at me. She had that piercing look that bore deeply into my soul.

But that impression did a full 360-degree turn-around. How? After I got to know her a bit more, she seemed to be having way too much fun to be a grumpy old person. Ten years have passed, and I have grown in my admiration of Maurine to have fun and look at the bright side of things, despite the challenges we have all faced especially during the pandemic.

I had resolved to figure it out: What made someone so resilient and live so long? What gave Maurine this incredible determination to live? And I suspected that most if not all folks living into their late 90s share a similar characteristic.

A long, long time ago, Maurine volunteered at the Ottawa Jazz festival, so she liked jazz. She may have even heard the story of the jazz musician who kept playing on. Even though the show he was playing in had ended, he kept playing well into the night after the doors had been locked, because he was still in search of ‘the note’. That it was out there somewhere, and he kept going to reach it. [1]

And perhaps that story gives us a clue as to why Maurine kept going. Was it in the hopes that she’d one day experience something that would satisfy her deepest desire? That she was still looking for ‘the note’? And she wouldn’t give up until she found it.

One of the last times I visited Maurine she pointed on the wall in her bedroom where prominently hanging right by the door to her room was a painting. The painting depicted the profile of a horse’s head. The horse’s name was Brett. Brett was a beloved horse belonging to the friend who had pulled Maurine’s name out of the hat during a Christmas gift exchange when the Evangelical Lutheran Women still met monthly—a long time ago.

I could tell Maurine had cherished that gift. It was homemade. It was from the heart. It was deeply personal. It probably reminded her of the two Clydesdale horses that lived in her backyard growing up on Flora Street when the family owned a city snow removal company—when horses were still used for that sort of thing. That’s a long, long time ago.

Maurine welcomed this gift, and I suspect many other gifts throughout her long life. She never turned down a kind deed offered her. She never refused help; she welcomed it.

For me, she modelled how to receive the blessings of others, which isn’t any easy practice for many of us who are more into offering help, doing the kind deed, being in charge. But Maurine expressed no quibbles at receiving and enjoying the gifts of others. She prized them, in fact.

We gather during the season of Advent—a time when we prepare to give and receive gifts as a reflection of the greatest gift of divine birth and presence in our lives.

Christmas isn’t just about giving, important as that is. It’s also about receiving and being good about that. We gather during Advent, waiting to receive Christ’s presence. It is therefore the season of hope.

But we gather as people who mourn. We use the term, a “Blue” Christmas, to acknowledge our experience of loss during a time of year when the world wants to party. When we grieve, when we are sad, it is especially hard to join with others in singing a heartfelt “Joy to the World!”.

No words, no upbeat songs, no cheery hellos can lift our moods tangled in the thickets of grief and loss. It’s hard to receive kindness and grace when we are down.

Blue, at the same time, is the colour of hope, the colour of the pre-dawn sky just before the sun rises at the start of a new day. Blue is the colour of water reflecting the light and giving life to all that lives.

I think when we can hold both sadness and hope, we live a balanced life and therefore a healthy life. Giving and receiving. Feeling grief deeply as well as truly enjoying the gifts and pleasures of life.

Maurine was able to embrace both. She held the suffering in her life—and tragedies she did experience. Yet she was also open to feel moments of joy without excuse, self-denial, or a false sense of humility. I believe this contributed to the longevity and resilience of her spirit, if not physically as well.

After she pointed at the painting of Brett the horse on the wall, I could still see the twinkle in her eye. The conversation turned to what she’d like to drink. And for some reason we joked about drinking something with a little bit more panache to it. We veered completely away from straight up drinks—that wasn’t even in the cards. No, we talked about cocktails, and mixing drinks.

While we agreed that a gin and tonic was the drink of choice for both of us, what she wanted was another mixed drink that I had never, ever heard of. And it sounded disgusting to me. Ready for it? Beer mixed with … clamato juice! Really?!!! Yuck.

But the nurse attending to her while I was there and who was part of that conversation agreed that mixing beer and clamato juice was really good. Ok. Maybe it’s a thing. And then we laughed.

Now, I don’t want you to remember Maurine primarily with this picture in mind. But that conversation did remind me of something important that we are doing here today.

If we expect perfection or purity—from us, from our celebration of life, our experience of life—if we expect perfection in how we go about our traditions and important events in life—how we celebrate Christmas, for example, and live through this holiday time of year …

If we expect these occasions to be perfect (“If it’s not done a certain way, then it can’t be Christmas!”—if that’s our attitude), then we won’t be in a position of heart to receive the gifts of God which are always, always being offered to us, even in our grief. We’d be resentful, closed up, and feeling sorry for ourselves. The problem is not God. It is us.

When Jesus tells his disciples, “Be awake. Be alert. You do not know when the Lord is coming”[2], we may hear such a passage as if it were threatening or punitive, as if Jesus is saying, “You’d better do it right, or I’m going to get you.”

But Jesus is not talking about a judgement. He’s not threatening us or talking about death. No. Instead, he’s talking about the forever coming of Christ, the eternal coming of Christ … now … and now … and now.[3]

Christ is always coming; God is always present. Even into the messy, mixed up and miserable times of our lives. That is the promise of Christmas, in truth.

Maurine was present to this truth, even in the last days of her life. In the hospital when it was really bad for Maurine and she wasn’t really saying much of anything, we still knew she could hear every word spoken from the scriptures, prayers and our conversations. Her eyelids would flutter, and before I left, she managed a word—a word of hope that sounded the right ‘note’ which I believe she had finally found.

“I am not alone,” she declared. “I am not alone.” She repeated it a few times, barely but perceptibly audible over shallow breath. “I am not alone.”

If there ever were a ‘note’ for which to strive, to find, and to capture the essence of hope—even at death’s door—it would be those words: “I am not alone.”

The witness that Maurine gave to her faith, her resilience to keep going despite the setbacks, her longing to find that ‘note’ encourages me, and I hope you, too, to keep going, to keep striving for an experience of God who comes to you, in love. Even this Christmas.

[1] Neil Gaiman, The View From the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2017), p.293.

[2] Mark 13:33-35

[3] Richard Rohr, Just This: Prompts and Practices for Contemplation (New Mexico: CAC Publishing, 2017), p.37-38.

‘Will we be friends?’ Friendship and conflict – Pt2

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Pushing Back (photo by Martin Malina, 5 Dec 2023)

Last Sunday in the first of the series of sermons this Advent on friendship, we reflected on the enduring nature of true, spiritual friendship.

Well, we can’t talk about true friendship without also talking about feelings. We may initially associate feelings of peace, joy, love with friendship. But sooner or later conflict arises in all relationships. The conflict arises from strong feelings in our hearts, including anger.

And often underneath the anger lies a deep sadness, a grief, from a sense of injustice. So, lots of strong feelings flow through us often clashing and erupting all around us like a surf pounding on the shore in high winds.

How do we grow in relationship where we can express honestly our feelings to another? Do we have friends with whom we can lament, who will listen and who will engage our feelings with us? How can we learn acceptance of what is, in the context of a trusting relationship, and move forward?

John the Baptist was one of the most colourful characters in the New Testament. He is mentioned in all the Gospels as the one who prepares the way for the Lord. But he’s a pretty rough, messy kind of guy. We might know him to be piercingly direct if not unrefined in his communication style.

In Matthew’s account, he yells at the Pharisees calling them “a brood of vipers”.[1] His insults thrown aggressively, John the Baptist was definitely not a people-pleaser. He was not afraid of confrontation.

Reflecting on John the Baptist, I wonder if good friends only appease one another all of the time? Or, will a friend also challenge you from time to time, speak the hard truth? I wonder if deep down what we seek in a lasting friendship is authenticity. What are some of his characteristics that made John the Baptist authentic in how he came across?

Two characteristics stand out: First, he was not attractive in a worldly sense. For example, he did not dress according to the norms. The gospel writer goes to some detail to show this. John the Baptist did not conform to the expectations of one who would herald the Messiah. One could even question, on that basis alone, his credibility for that messenger role.

It’s not how he appeared on the surface; rather it’s what he did and what he said that attracted others. It was his heart, his mind, unfiltered and real.

It is not about what makes us attractive to the world that forms the basis of our faithfulness. God wants our hearts to shine. God wants us to be authentic, “Just as I am” goes the gospel song.

And if we will talk about attracting people, we need to remember another characteristic of John the Baptist that comes through in this gospel: Not only did he know his role, he knew and respected his limits. People aren’t attracted to control freaks who over-function. People aren’t attracted to those who make it all about themselves all of the time.

John the Baptist knew, using modern day parlance, his ‘boundaries’—where he began and where another ended; and, where he ended and another began. He understood it wasn’t all about him. He had an important job, to be sure; he had a part in the great odyssey of God’s story.

But he understood that life wasn’t about him; rather, he was about Life. He was about something bigger than him. Therefore, he knew when to stop, and hand over the torch.

Being authentic is not about people-pleasing and trying to do it all. It is about being true to yourself, and about knowing and behaving in ways that communicate you are part of something bigger than yourself.

This past summer when I attended the Christian Meditation retreat in France, at Bonnevaux Centre for Peace, I went with a group of Canadian Meditators from all across our country. However, the Canadian community ran into some problems after the first day at Bonnevaux.

You see, there was one sacred rule: Silence. There were scheduled times and designated places for silence during the retreat: At the noon hour meal, and coming to and going from the main hall, for example.

But we were so excited to be in person together after only seeing each other online for many years. So, as you can imagine, there was much talking and laughter even during times we were asked to be silent—we obviously broke the sacred rule.

The leaders of the core community challenged us. I could tell early on they were upset, even angry, that we continued to talk during silent times. We had to work through our feelings on both sides, justified positions. But we did. Our relationships grew deeper as a result. We knew, by the end of the experience, that holy silence introduced us and connected us to something important together, something much bigger than our private, individual desires even when we weren’t always good at it.

Friendship is more than coziness and warm fuzzies and like-mindedness. A friend gives what is hard to give, does what is hard to do, endures what is hard to endure. A friend doesn’t abandon you nor looks down on you when you make mistakes, when you open your heart in all honesty and vulnerability.

The disciple, Peter, is another colourful character in the New Testament. Peter and Jesus endured a lot together. Yet, at one point in their friendship, sparks flew. Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me!”[2] It’s hard to believe, just reading this one verse on its own, that Jesus and Peter were friends.

But true friends they were. Not only did their friendship endure over time, but their friendship was forged on the anvil of healthy conflict, of getting through the rough patches, together.

Peter, even though he had a falling out with the Lord, was given the “keys of the kingdom”. Peter, even though Jesus called him “Satan” for misunderstanding the Lord, is the person on whom Jesus would “build my church”.[3] Jesus and Peter are good models for us.

Christianity, because it is founded on relationships, is a social religion. You can’t do Christianity by yourself. Practising our faith in a group is essential to personal growth. In community, the holy space that we share and hold together in prayer and song, word and sacrament, opens up regions of our hearts previously unexplored. Friendships in faith don’t endure because they are always ‘nice’, and no one ever fights.

A point of clarification: Conflict, disagreement, differing points of view do not, in the end, define the relationship. Because there is an underlying faithfulness and commitment to the friendship, to the community and to God.

Nevertheless, difference and disagreement don’t need always lead to division and break-up. Sometimes it does. But I think in the church just as big a problem we have are these assumptions that everyone needs to agree all of the time and always be the same type of people and always be nice to each other in order to belong.

There is room in a community of faith and healthy friendships to experience moments of conflict. And working through those disagreements is a hallmark of friendship from faith’s perspective.

“Will we be friends?”, even though we are not alike, even though we don’t come from the same ethnic background, or grew up in the same country or share the same skin colour? “Will we be friends?”, even though we disagree over politics and our favourite things. “Will we be friends?” Again, admittedly a rhetorical question. Of course, we can.

But rather than see conflict as an obstacle to true friendship, let’s see conflict as a tool to deepen and grow not only our friendship but each of us in our personal lives. Because sometimes the Lord comes to us in situations rife with conflict, as Jesus did the first time, in Bethlehem. God’s not afraid of conflict. Jesus didn’t deny nor avoid it.

In the coming weeks as we ponder Jesus’ birth and the coming of the Savior to the world, let’s not forget the context. It was a pretty messy 1st century Palestine. But Jesus will come into those spaces and places of unrest and disruption, even in our own lives today.

[1] Matthew 3:7-12

[2] Matthew 16:23

[3] Matthew 16:17-20

‘Will we be friends?’ Friendship is for life – Pt1

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31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (Mark 13)

If this Gospel was depicted in images on the big screen, you would get the sense that time is passing in an odyssey linking events and characters over days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. The video would speed up, showing clouds careening through the sky, daytime and nighttime running through several 24-hour cycles in a few seconds, a flower blooming from seed in a few, short frames.

The passage of time frames this Gospel text.[1] This story is told in a broad sweep encompassing all of history and eternity. Jesus says that life is like going on a journey whose way is not certain, but one thing is: God comes to us somewhere along the way. Somewhere in a particular situation, surprise! You can count on it. God comes to us, even where and when we least expect.

Have you had the experience of meeting an old friend after a long absence or being apart, someone you haven’t seen for years even decades? And then, whether by chance or by design your paths cross? Some confess it feels like a day hadn’t passed since the last time they met. You just pick up where you left off. It’s a delightful experience. And it serves to strengthen the relationship, doesn’t it?

That’s a taste of who a true friend of yours is. In this Advent sermon series, I want to explore important aspects of a friendship that endures. And the first such building block of spiritual friendship is that it is for life, and beyond!

Jesus said, “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”[2]

Spring-fed stream giving life (photo by Martin Malina at Bonnevaux, Centre for Peace, France, July 2023)

When I was on retreat in France this past summer, I visited three ancient springs found on the expansive grounds of the Bonnevaux Centre for Peace.[3] After centuries, these springs still bring forth water from deep in the earth and were probably the reason people originally gathered together in this pristine valley near the town of Marçay. In fact at least one of those springs has been flowing from the earth there for over a thousand years.

It is natural for humans to gather around sources for life. And we share in the blessings of the nourishment and growth that water provides. But human beings are not the only creatures these springs fed. Giant, sycamore maples trees hundreds of years old dot the landscape in that valley in France.

Green leaf, Sycamore life (photo by Martin Malina at Bonnevaux, Centre for Peace, France, July 2023)

The maple leaves hanging from these enormous trees reminded me of the symbol on the Canadian flag. Even though I was in France, far away from home, the maple leaf served to remind me of the many maple trees populating landscapes near my home (near Ottawa, Canada).

You don’t need to be in constant physical proximity for a friendship to endure over the years. Though it may certainly help, physical closeness is not the defining ingredient for lasting friendship.

In Christ, God calls us “friends”.[4] Yet, there may be times in our lives, even long stretches of time, when we don’t feel close to God. Our friendship may be blocked on our part, for whatever reason. But the water can only be dammed up for so long before it finds a way. Even another way. And water will find a way, like those ancient springs found a way to bubble up to the surface and flow to where the nurturing of all those trees could happen.

Because though we may be apart and not see each other for a while, we are still joined in a mystical union with one another as friends. The bond of unity runs deep and draws from the source of life, the living Christ, our eternal Friend.

I visited France in the summertime. The leaves I saw were not the colour we normally associate with the one on our Canadian flag. They definitely weren’t blue! But neither were they red, nor orange nor yellow. They were green. Green is the colour of life, life that continues and grows.

Friendship is for life. True, spiritual friendship never dries up. It is like an eternal spring that flows forever. It is full of life that continues to give and provide nourishment for all other creatures.

That is what we do in baptism today. Mikayla receives the water of life. And Christ Jesus comes to her today in the water and the word. In the bread of Communion. But not just today. Today is just the beginning, the beginning of a friendship with God and the church that will last a lifetime, and beyond!

“Will We Be Friends?” is the question I ask in this sermon series. It’s rhetorical, admittedly. Because the answer is an unequivocal, “Yes!”

Somehow, somewhere, sometime God comes to us: In a word, in a song, beholding a moment of nature’s beauty, and in actions of love and care from and for others.  God is near, even now, in this time. Thanks be to God!

[1] Mark 13:24-37

[2] John 4:14

[3] Bonnevaux Retreat Centre

[4] John 15:15

It matters who, and it doesn’t matter who.

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For the Lord is our God,
  and we are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand.         (Psalm 95:7)

Unfortunately, not every one of God’s creatures has a home. In Ottawa alone, there are 12,000 families who are without safe and affordable housing. 12,000 households—not individuals—households. Newcomers to Canada are literally getting off the plane in Ottawa looking to find housing that is not available to them. The Mission downtown is where many of these refugees first end up.

By the Fall of this year, a record 74% of all new intakes at the Mission were newcomers to Canada. And, for the first time in history the shelter system in Ottawa—comprising mainly of the Salvation Army, Shepherds of Good Hope and the Mission—was at full capacity in the summer. The shelters were never before at capacity in the summer when sleeping outdoors is an option. Today, 450 families use the shelter system at a cost to the city of $3000/month for each family. A dire situation is looming this winter when already some 260 people live on the street. An alarming housing crisis is only growing.

Last Sunday on National Housing Day in Canada, as a patron of Multifaith-Housing-Initiative I attended an event hosted by MHI. Speakers, including Ottawa Mayor, Mark Sutcliffe, mentioned how important it is to work together to help those in need who don’t have a home.

I have a comfortable, safe home to live in. I suspect most of you here and watching at home do. And I ask, as followers of Christ, how do we respond to the needs around us, in light of the Gospel? Do we just focus on helping our own? Is that our mission? What is God’s mission? What does God call us to do?

On the one hand, I believe it matters whom we help.

Patrons of Multifaith Housing Initiative together on National Housing Day in Canada, 19 Nov 2023

In the Gospel text for today, Jesus describes the activity of the sheep who are the good guys in this story.[1]

So, it also matters who we are, as followers of Christ.

But what I find curious is that both the sheep—the good guys—and the goats—the bad guys—share the same problem. Both of them ask the King the same question which exposes the failure of their initial perception. “When did we feed, clothe, visit, you?” and “When did we not …?” Both sheep and goats had a break-down in recognizing, being aware, being conscious of doing good, or not doing good.

In the end, it matters what we do, as followers of Christ.

While their perceptive abilities failed all of them, the good news is at least half of them got their activity right. That should indicate what the main gist of this Gospel story is about. Because it’s not ultimately about knowing who’s in and who’s out. It’s not about us making the final judgement about who’s going to heaven and who is going to hell. It’s not about making doctrinal statements about eternity and predestination.

If anything, let’s avoid these red-herring interpretations and extrapolations of the story. Because the main point is not the knowing but the doing. It is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned regardless of who they are.

One of the attractions of Multi-Faith-Housing Initiative for me is the multi-faith part. Because where religion has been and still is used as a tool for division and war, MHI bears witness in concrete ways to how faith unites people of different religions. Faith is a way of unity rather than division.

On National Housing Day, MHI had to adjust to a last-minute change in venue. That’s because originally, we were going to have the meeting at City Hall, downtown. But because of the weekly Sunday demonstrations about the ongoing war in Palestine clogging up the downtown core, security officials deemed the City Hall area unsafe for us to meet. And so they were going to cancel the event outright.

Fortunately, through some back-room advocacy on MHI’s part, the city was able to provide us with the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park instead. For me this was a powerful statement showing our commitment to religious unity, where Jews and Muslims, Protestants and Catholics, Baha’i’s and Hindus, sat shoulder to shoulder in one room to witness to the power of religious unity by participating in a common divine mission to meet a growing need in our city, our province and in our nation. As one of the speakers at the MHI event said, “Never waste a crisis” for the opportunity it creates.

When we want to introduce Christianity to others, especially younger people, sometimes the language of our faith and the words we use are not good starting places. Getting cerebral with definitions of salvation and hell and judgement don’t help as much in witnessing to our faith as it is to do something good together, simply and concretely, to make a positive difference in our world.

It doesn’t matter, who. I think that is the point of the Gospel. There are differences, to be sure, between sheep and goats. But it’s difficult sometimes to tell the difference between sheep and goats, honestly. In the larger scheme of all of creation, those differences are not as great as we often make them out to be.

If we can’t know really who’s in and who’s out, if we fail in our perceptive capability, then perhaps we should leave that part of it alone. Leave the final judgement to God. Judging is not our primary job. Ours is simply to act and help no matter who it is, no matter where they come from, no matter the colour of their skin, the clothes they wear, the language they speak or the creed they follow. It doesn’t matter, who.

In conclusion, let’s turn the clock back to the 13th century. I’d like you to meet Mechthild of Magdeburg, a religious who lived her final years in a monastery of Cistercian nuns. She gradually lost her physical abilities, and this affected her faith. Not only did she go blind and not only could she not do anything for herself, but she felt God’s love had abandoned her. She came to the end of her life in a state of powerlessness which left her feeling bereft of God. A crisis of faith, you might say.

And yet in this state of powerlessness, she rediscovered God in a new way. She began to express deep gratitude for the nuns and the way they cared for her. She began to understand that the way they cared for her was the way she experienced God’s love for her, in her powerlessness.

And she talked to God, that though she had lost her pride in possession of things, “You now clothe and feed me through the goodness of others.” Though she was blind, she prayed, “You serve me through the eyes of others.” Though she had lost the strength of her hands and the strength of her heart, she prayed, “You now serve me with the hands and hearts of others”.[2]

Maybe in seasons of our lives when we experience our own powerlessness, our own weakness and are open to others with our own vulnerabilities and needs, therein lies the way to finding God’s presence, God’s love and God’s power: serving another’s needs, receiving another’s care. And whether we are the one serving, or the one receiving the help, both experience a divine connection.

In the end, it doesn’t matter who. In the end, it is the quality of the relationship that grows and endures: The relationship between people, our relationship with the world and all that is, including the tensions in between—that is what is important in living our faith.

Could it be that in relationships of trust and loving action, it can all belong? And nothing and no one is lost? Indeed,

The Lord is our God,
  and we are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand.         (Psalm 95:7)

[1] Matthew 25:31-46

[2] Cited in James Finley, “Unraveled by Love” (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation: www.cac.org) 27 October 2023.

Learning to let go

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Normally at this time of year, there is already a thin layer of snow covering the ground, in these parts.

When I was walking in the Arnprior Grove last week – a protected conversation area which boasts Ontario’s tallest Eastern White Pine tree – it dawned on me that by now I should be hearing the crunch of snow underfoot. I also would not be scrambling down the steep ravine to the banks of the Ottawa River. The snow and ice on the hill would prohibit such a daring descent.

So, I counted my blessings at being able still to enjoy where my feet were taking me, stepping directly on the ground. With this awareness I noticed the thick layer of fallen leaves blanketing the trail in spots—usually not far from the base of a bare, skeletal frame of a maple, walnut or oak tree.

I reflected again on how these trees must have felt, doing what they do. They are alive, after all, even without leaves on branches. They are alive, after all, creatures like you and me designed by the Creator’s imagination and love.

Something very normal was happening again in the cyclical rhythms of the seasons. Once again, they had to let go of their leaves—the leaves which had been such an important part of their identity, their purpose and function. Their leaves had provided other creatures around them with pleasure to behold their colourful beauty and offer protection and comfort.

The trees had to let go of them. And not just once in a lifetime, but every year.

Letting go of something important is part of the normal rhythm of life on earth. Similarly, it is something important for people of faith, as Christ-followers especially, to learn how to let go as we grow and mature over the years.

What must we learn to let go of, as we age? For each of us, it will be different, as unique as each leaf is to each tree: Certain ideas, attitudes and beliefs that once made sense but no longer help, now; certain goals, dreams, aspirations, desires; certain relationships, social status, privilege; material wealth, employment, security; physical health; etc. Not bad things in and of themselves, even good.

Good news and bad news. Good news is that today we receive the last parable of Jesus from Matthew this church year! (It’s good news because these parables from Matthew are tough! They are hard work). The bad news is that we still have to wrestle with this one, today.

The good news is that again, like last week, there really is some good news in this parable, but not from what appears on the surface. The bad news is that in order to uncover the good news we need to let go of some familiar and easy explanations associated with this parable of the talents.[1] We have to practice letting go, even in our reading of the bible.

To begin, the parables of Jesus, in general, are not easy-to-read policy manuals or employee handbooks on ‘how to live your life of faith’. They are not instructions for good living. It’s easy, admittedly, from a policy-instruction-manual-approach to take-away from this parable that we are to invest aggressively in the markets of our lives to yield a maximum return. Just like the two servants did with their talents.

Those who risk it all and participate fully in the economy of competition and profit-making will be rewarded. And that’s our three-step stewardship program for the year!

But would you be shocked to learn that the parable of the talents is not a lesson in stewardship?[2] So, you ask: If parables aren’t meant to be dissected and decoded for a moral lesson, what is their purpose?

Any interpretation falls short when it overlooks the context of this Gospel, and its Christ-centred meaning. I’m taking my cue from 16th century reformer Martin Luther who advocated an approach that first seeks Christ in the reading of any scripture.

And I found that this parable of the talents happens to be the last parable Jesus tells, in Matthew’s Gospel, before being arrested and put on trial. The largest section of each of the Gospels for that matter—Mathew, Mark, Luke and John—is the passion narrative. The suffering of Jesus is the longest and most developed plotline in the entire Gospel. Christ’s passion demands our attention in reading the Gospels.

We need to read this parable from the perspective of Jesus’ passion.

In telling this parable, Jesus is first naming the truth that salvation is not about a transaction that takes place in the market economy of our lives. Just hours before the crowds will turn on him, just before Jesus will be arrested, tried and executed, Jesus tells his disciples that faith is not about proving our value to God by our efforts alone, our own good works.

Let’s admit it, money is a powerful symbol of our efforts, our deserving, our reward, our work. Money is a powerful symbol for defining our self-worth, our value.

And Jesus turns this symbol on its head.

Faith isn’t about material accumulation and earning your way to heaven. Faith isn’t about a prosperity gospel that says the measure of our faith is how much money you have. The quality of your faith is not equated with the size of your nest egg.

Faith is about the trees. Living a faithful life is learning, season after season, how to let go of what is important, a letting go whose natural outcome is experiencing the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God. It is God who gives freely, who is abundant in generosity and grace. Before a beautiful, new thing can happen in our lives, we need to let go of that ‘something’ that once gave us much joy and meaning.

So, the second thing Jesus is doing here was preparing his disciples, and us, for letting go. It was the passion and death of Jesus where he let go of all the security and defenses, where he became fully vulnerable to the pain of the human condition which was his. Here, on the cross, Jesus introduced his disciples to embrace a life of what it means to let go[3]—a life of practising forgiveness, a life of sacrifice. Jesus was preparing his disciples, and us, to embrace a God of mercy and faithfulness instead of a God of wrath.

Looking at the world can lead us every easily to embrace a false image and perception of God. The master in this parable is not God. The master demonstrates what the world values and how the world operates. So, who does the master represent, specifically?

This parable was written to the Messianic Jews after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70AD. The Christian minority was being persecuted by the Roman Emperor Vespasian. They were violently forced to let go of all the symbols of their religion and literally the building blocks of their identity.

This parable displays for its original listeners in the first century how destructive and wrathful the “master” of the Roman Empire was, where there was indeed “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

And in Matthew’s Gospel this wrathful image is set alongside the image of a suffering Christ. Early Christians had to make difficult decisions. Who were they going to trust? Who were they going to follow? The master of the world, or the suffering servant? They were encouraged to embrace the new reality with hope, trusting that as Christ suffered loss and found new life, so too their loss would lead to a joyful new beginning.

Which is it, for you? Which image and perception of God dominates your imagination? Because how you perceive God is very likely how you respond in your life of faith.

If God is vengeful and retributive in judgement, then we will, like the servant, “be afraid”. If, on the other hand, we know God to be a God of compassion who is faithful to the end even through all the letting go, how will our actions demonstrate this quality?

In the Epistle for today from First Thessalonians, we read “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing!”[4]

Jesus showed us to let go, and trust God to do the work of salvation for us. Our job, in every season of life, is to learn and practise letting go as painful and difficult as it is. Because on the other side, there is a great promise. On the other side, there is joy indescribable. Even during our lives on earth, as it is in heaven.

[1] Matthew 25:14-30

[2] Erik Parker, The Millennial Pastor blog (2017)

[3] See Philippians 2:6-11; and, Joyce Rupp, Praying our Goodbyes; A Spiritual Companion through Life’s Losses and Sorrows (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 2009), p.34-35.

[4] 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

Blessed be what we need

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September evening in Krakow (photo by Martin Malina, 12 Sept 2023)

For me, the parable of the “foolish bridesmaids” sounds almost like an anxiety dream I’d wake up from in a panic.[1]

It feels like Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God is like a bad dream where I’m supposed to go pick up someone famous at the airport, like … Keanu Reeves.

But, in this nightmare, I forget to fill my gas tank and then I’m idling in the cell phone parking lot for so long I doze off and then when Keanu Reeves finally texts that he’s arrived, my car starts beeping that it’s nearly out of gas.

But then I realize the guy beside me has a gas tank strapped in the back of his monster truck and I ask if he can help me out but he just points to the overpriced gas station outside the airport. And in a panic I use the fumes to get there.

But then when I’m filling up my Volkswagen I see Keanu Reeves drive off in the passenger side of that guy’s F150 and he doesn’t even return my wave—like he doesn’t even know me.

So, stay alert! The kingdom of God is like that. So, where is the good news in this parable?

We receive this story nearing the end of the church year. We are also approaching the end of 2023. I don’t think I’m alone in saying 2023 was a tough year, to say the least. For many, personally, dealing with losses; and, in the world—all the wildfires, floods, droughts, the wars in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza with millions fleeing and dying from brutal violence.

We are like those bridesmaids waiting for the groom to come. Perhaps we can feel their desperation. Waiting is hard and is often tinged with uncertainty and anxiety.[2] We all have to do it.

We may even be praying for the Lord to come. And come now. We may feel that there isn’t enough oil in the world can keep our lamps lighted in this long, dark night. No matter how hard we try, we may not feel we have enough proverbial gas in the tank to endure it all.

We need some good news.

The usual interpretation is not good news. The “wise” bridesmaids, though I’m not sure “wise” is the word, refuse to help those without enough oil. Are we to conclude that we should not rely on others? That we should not give to those who ask of us?

I mean, that would be strange wouldn’t it, if Jesus just suddenly took back everything he said about generosity and self-giving and instead gave us a parable about how we should be stingy and self-reliant?

This parable doesn’t sound like most of the other stuff Jesus said. Here is a smattering of three other sayings of Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel:

“Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:42)

“If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor.” (Matthew 19:21)

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces!” (Matthew 23:13)

No, the good news in this parable isn’t about reiterating a Boy Scout sentiment of always being prepared. Because I think if we peel off another layer of meaning, there is some really good news hidden underneath all the surface drama going on in this parable, good news that actually helps us claim who we truly are in relationship with God.

So, what is the good news that Jesus has hidden for us in this parable?

Sometimes in approaching a difficult biblical text, we need other stories from scripture to release for us the good news.

Three, I want to relate to this parable: First, the snake in the Garden of Eden; Second, the Light in Book of Revelation; Third, The Feeding of the 5000.

First, remember that wily snake—the devil—in the Garden of Eden, from Genesis? The snake tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of life. Consequently, Adam and Eve became self-consciously ashamed.

Filled with shame, they tried to hide from God. When God finds them, they say they are naked and afraid. And God says, “Wait, who told you that you were naked?”

My money is on the snake.[3] Adam and Eve listened to the false voice of the snake. They believed that voice more than they believed God’s voice.

Which brings us back to the bridesmaids. The foolish bridesmaids weren’t foolish because they didn’t bring extra oil. Or because they fell asleep. I think they were foolish for listening to the other bridesmaids tell them what to do.

And they were certainly foolish for doing it. I think they were foolish in the exact same way we are foolish. They were foolish because they listened when voices other than God’s tried to tell them who they were. They listened to those whispering voices telling them that they can only approach the groom if they have already met all their own needs first.

Because in the last book of the bible, Revelation, we read: “In the city of God, they will not need the light of a lamp, for the Lord God will give them light.”[4]

Think about it. If at midnight the guy who was on watch said, “Hey, wake up, the groom is coming!” the groom must have had a lamp or torch of some kind, right? How else could the groom have been seen coming from a distance at midnight?

The foolish bridesmaids weren’t foolish because they didn’t bring back-up oil. They were foolish because instead of trusting that the light of Christ was enough to shine the way, they wasted all that time and energy and money trying to get their own. Someone shamed them into thinking they could never approach the Lord with what they lacked.

Rather than just trusting that the light of those around them and the light of the groom was enough, they assumed they had to provide their own—and then they were so consumed by the shame of not having and being enough, they busied themselves trying to fix it—so much so that they missed the wedding banquet, altogether!

They missed everything.

Of course, the bridegroom said, “I don’t know you” because they hadn’t come to him in their need and lack and want. But Jesus knows us not by our independence from him, Jesus knows us not by showing our resourcefulness. No. Jesus knows us by our need of him, for which we should never be ashamed.

They, perhaps not unlike us, mistakenly assumed that all God is interested in is our strength, our preparedness, our exceptionality. When what God really asks of us is to know our need for him.

When Jesus asks the disciples on the remote mountainside what they have with them to feed the crowd—do you remember? He asked, “What do you have?” and they said, “Nothing – nothing but a couple loaves and a few fish.” They said it like it was a problem.[5]

But do we not have a God who created the universe out of ‘nothing’?[6] Do we not have a God who can put flesh on dry bones ‘nothing’?[7] Do we not have a God who can put life in a dusty womb ‘nothing’?[8]

‘Nothing’ is God’s favourite raw material to work with! God looks upon that which we dismiss as ‘nothing’, ‘insignificant’, ‘worthless’, and says, “Ha! Now that I can do something with.”

So, all that is to say, the Kingdom of God is not like an existential anxiety dream.

Maybe you are sitting here today having listened to a voice other than God’s: That we have to be better than others. Our church has to be bigger and more entertaining and attractive. Maybe you are thinking, “I have to bring my best to the Lord for God to take notice, etc., etc.” And maybe the story that voice says is so familiar that you think it’s the truth.

But consider that maybe you’ve been listening to the wrong voices all along. Listen and maybe you can hear God saying, “Wait, who told you that you were naked? Who told you that you have to lie to be loved? Who told you your body is not beautiful? Who told you that your only value is in your excellence, and how much you have accomplished in life? Who told you that what you have done (good or bad) is actually who you are? Who told you that you don’t have enough? Who told you all that?

My money is on the snake. And he’s a damned liar. Always has been.

So, when snakes and well-prepared bridesmaids start talking blasphemy, don’t listen. You don’t have to show up with everything you need. The light of Christ is bright enough. Always has been.

And always will.

[1] Thank you, to Nadia Bolz-Weber, for her brilliant take on this Gospel. It’s her sermon I basically preach here. Read it in its original:  “Listening to Snakes and Bridesmaids: A Sermon on How Self-Reliance is Overrated” (Substack: The Corners, 26 February 2023). Read also Matthew 25:1-13.

[2] David Lose, “Pentecost 22A: Hope and Help for Foolish Bridesmaids” in Dear Partner (www.davidlose.net) 3 November 2014.

[3] Genesis 3.

[4] Revelation 22:5.

[5] Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:31-44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:1-14.

[6] Genesis 1:1-2.

[7] Ezekiel 37.

[8] Genesis 15-17, Luke 1:7-24

10,001 smiles: a sermon for All Saints

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The war continues in the middle east, in lands long considered ‘holy’. The violence there today has confounded us, saddened us, grieved us to the core. Even though many here may not have close connections to the region, we nevertheless feel a great and unresolvable human travesty continues to happen in a place that feels anything but holy.

Even pithy old sayings don’t seem to make sense anymore. Have you ever used this one: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”?[1] As if the problem can be solved merely by knowing more facts about history.

We are coming to realize, however, that the solution is not just knowing more. Rather, we need to learn how to know. What version of history? Whose history are we listening to? There is more that needs to happen than defending a certain point of view, right or wrong, if this conflict will ever end.

This is probably why Albert Einstein, the greatest mind of the 20th century, said decades before the current conflicts in the Middle East first erupted: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”[2]

Jesus’ preaching doesn’t satisfy the analytical, rational mind. The Beatitudes are not easy to understand from a rational perspective.[3] How can the poor be blessed? How can the reviled have their reward? How can the peacemakers lead the way to the kingdom of God? Our rational world is at complete odds with the meaning of blessing and saintliness.

If you asked someone today to describe people who are saintly, they probably wouldn’t respond by quoting the Beatitudes. More to the point, we have a pretty good idea of what makes a blessed life: Blessed are the rich … Blessed are the sexy and glamorous … Blessed are the powerful … Blessed are those who get everything they want … Blessed are those who are famous …[4]

The paradoxical style of Jesus’ teaching instead activates another part of our minds and hearts— the intuitive, imaginative mind. It’s a knowing that the heart knows full well even if the left brain can’t contain it. You have to experience the love of God yourself. The solution is having a change of heart.

Today is the festival of All Saints. The Protestant reformation made the bold claim that we are all saints. Martin Luther said this is possible because at the same time we are all sinners.[5] Maybe it’s not easy to understand this. But at the heart level, it is because all the saints in history were also all human beings living a very human life. They made mistakes. They weren’t always faithful. They were afraid, anxious and angry at times. They had their passions and desires.

Yet the truth is, despite their sin, even because of their sin, these saints were beloved by God. It is a simple truth when before we engage our minds, we open our hearts to it.

Saint Bonaventure taught that we are each “loved by God in a particular and incomparable manner …”[6] Other saints of old, such as Francis of Assisi, taught that the love of God for each soul is unique and made to order. And that is why any “saved” person feels beloved, chosen, and even ‘God’s favourite’. God’s love is always and precisely particular, and thus intimate.

Many people in the bible also knew and experienced this specialness. Yes, ‘secret’, or even ‘hidden secret’ is what King David[7] and other saints of old—such as Saint Paul—called this special, particular love of God for them. The love of God is not something you can explain. It must be personally experienced: Because God seeks and desires intimacy with each human being.

And once we experience such intimacy, we forgive ourselves. We know our sin, our shortcomings. We have failed. Yet, at the same time, we are unconditionally loved. Once we experience such intimacy, we recognize it in the other. It is not a selfish love, not a what’s-in-it-for-me mentality; that’s the calculating left-brain, analytical side, again.

Rather, it’s a generous, giving kind of love based on the vision, the expansive imagination, of God’s love for all people regardless their skin colour, their religion, their political ideology, etc.

Today we not only name the new saints, baptized in the last year, we also remember our beloved saints of old. An important part of marking All Saints is recalling to our imagination those who have made a difference in our lives, people who took the time to teach us and show us—maybe even from childhood—that we are deeply loved by God.[8]

How do we remember someone? What is their legacy? More importantly, how does their legacy affect your behaviour, your being, in life today? So, I ask you to bring to your mind a vision of your loved one. What do you see?

The late American writer Brian Doyle wrote a poem about his sister. And her smile is what he remembers about her—seen in his mind’s eye. He writes a poem entitled, “Ten Thousand Smiles”:

“I was just calculating that my sister, whom I have known for 700 months, which is nearly three thousand weeks, which is nearly twenty thousand days (which is a remarkable number of days when you think about it; I mean, that’s a stunning heap of pain and laughter), has smiled at me roughly 10,000 times, give or take a few thousand. Now, did she also occasionally snarl and shriek? O yes she did.

But ten thousand smiles, that’s a remarkable number of smiles, and I want to stay with the smiles here. Q: what are the cumulative effects of so many smiles? Can you get smile burns? Can your interior warmth go up a point after so many smiles? Does each smile register somehow permanently in you, like a scar? Can you get smiling scars?

We can see the effect of smiles on faces, the cheerful lines that smiles cut in skin after years of use; do smiles also get cut into people who have been smiled upon? If everything we know about everything is hardly anything, could smiles be food?”[9]

God smiles at each of us. That’s the vision of God we must hold on to. God’s face turns to us in Christ and we are welcomed with arms outstretched. When our hearts find their home in the love of God for each of us, we are indeed, all of us, saints in Christ.

Pastor Ted told me of an “accident” that happened during the worship service one All Saint’s Sunday service in a former parish of his years ago. The white pillar candles were all lighted in a row on the altar—remembering each one of the saints.

As the candles burned down during the service, he realized with growing concern the problem: There was a draft coming across the altar. And the candles were too close to each other. It had been a busy year. The flames from the candles, therefore, conspired to melt the wax in an accelerated, agitated fashion. By the end of the service the melted wax pooled quickly into one amorphous blob covering most of the altar.

All of it belongs to the One. It may be hard to believe. But God’s love overcomes whatever is between us, whatever separates and divides us. In our common humanity, like all the wax pooling together on the altar, we find our unity in the Creator who lovingly made us all in God’s image.

[1] The quote is attributed to writer and philosopher George Santayana.

[2] “What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck,” The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929: 117.

[3] Matthew 5:1-12; the Gospel for All Saints Sunday, Year A (Revised Common Lectionary).

[4] Diana Butler Bass, “Unexpected Saintliness” Sunday Musings (Substack: The Cottage /Diana Butler Bass), 5 November 2023.

[5] simul justus et peccator; simultaneously saint and sinner.

[6] Cited in Richard Rohr, “God’s Passionate Love” (Daily Meditation: http://www.cac.org, 22 October 2023).

[7] Psalm 25:14

[8] Lindsey Jorgensen-Skakum, “Blessed Saints” Eternity for Today (Winnipeg: ELCIC, 1 November 2023).

[9] Brian Doyle, “Ten Thousand Smiles” The Kind of Brave You Want To Be (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2016), p.52.

Hold the middle, hold the tension

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A Pentecostal minister, an Orthodox priest, an Anglican reverend, a Methodist pastor, a Mennonite leader, a Roman Catholic Cardinal and a Lutheran walked into a … sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Or a good one!

No joke. They all walked together into an auditorium in front of hundreds of Lutherans at the 13th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation last month in Krakow Poland. I was there. And I listened carefully as each leader from their respective church reflected on the meaning of grace – a bedrock theme for Lutherans, especially.

Today is Reformation Sunday. Traditionally this day has been celebrated by Lutherans as a victory day for the triumph of Lutheranism, the history of Martin Luther and the reformers, against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church in 16th century.

In my youth especially this celebration heightened for me the divisions between Christian denominations, especially vis-à-vis the Roman Catholics. We were the winners. We were right. They were wrong. We had the truth. They did not.

In this culture of divisiveness, often leading to violence, the Protestant Reformation unfortunately fanned the flames of hatred even among Christians, to this day. We only have the historical record in Europe to prove that, as well as local Ottawa Valley stories to expose the depth of the division between Protestants and Catholics.[1]

But we’ve come a long way in over five hundred years, including vis-à-vis Roman Catholics. Are there still differences? Yes, to be sure. But theologically, the doctrine of justification by grace is something most Christians agree on today. The Lutheran Church has matured greatly over the centuries—and I would argue for the better. We are no longer a 16th century church.

All the ecumenical guests at the LWF Assembly last month—the Mennonite, Methodist, Anglican, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Pentecostal—spoke passionately about grace, and God’s relationship with us. What did the General Secretary[2] of the Lutheran World Federation—a PhD scholar herself—say?

She began by citing one of Martin Luther’s famous paradoxes. It is found in On the Freedom of a Christian (1520. Luther wrote, “A Christian is utterly free, lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is utterly dutiful, servant of all, subject to all.” This paradox holds the tension, and joins “lord” and “servant” in one person.

In other words, it’s not just one side of it. It’s not just being “utterly free, lord of all, subject to none” – which is the popular understanding of freedom in this land today, is it not? Freedom in Christ, and in a life of faith, involves holding the tension between “utterly free” on the one hand and “servant of all” on the other. The paradox asks us to consider both/and. And not just slip into an easy either/or fix.

How can we live out this paradox, this tension, in a life of faith today? Recently, Lutheran bishops and leaders made public statements on the war in the Middle East.

In her letter, presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America wrote,

“Dear church, As Lutherans, we are accustomed to holding tension between two truths. Thus the ELCA denounces the egregious acts of Hamas, acts that have led to unspeakable loss of life and hope. At the same time the ELCA denounces the indiscriminate retaliation of Israel against the Palestinian people, both Christian and Muslim.”[3]

A few days ago, our Canadian Lutheran bishops also issued a statement on the Israel-Hamas war. Again, listen to the language of both/and: “We are concerned about the rise in antisemitic and anti-Islamic words and actions in our communities and across the world. We pray that all people of faith may embody peace rather than incite hate. 

They continue, “Please join us in prayer and concern for the region. For those who mourn their dead on both sides of the conflict. For the hostages and their families, afraid for their lives. For those who have been maimed and injured. For those who have lost their homes. For those who have not been able to move to safety. For the opening of a humanitarian corridor into Gaza. For a peaceful solution to this war. That the war may not escalate into neighbouring countries.”[4]

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”[5] St Paul later taught that “Everyone has sinned.”[6] No one is 100% right in any dispute. And no one is 100% wrong in any dispute. The way forward is learning to hold the tension inside of us, in the world outside of us. And finding a middle ground. Both/And.

Another theme emphasized throughout the LWF Assembly in Poland last month was the Cross of Christ—a central image in Luther’s theology. The cross has two beams, holds the middle between two directions.

Being human and living by faith is neither perfectly consistent—something many of us sitting here likely want—nor is living by faith total chaos—a stance describing much of post-modernism and even atheism.[7] To be a Christian today is to hold the contradictions with God, with Jesus, who held the tension on the cross and thereby showed us the way to new life.

The cross is holding the middle. The cross holds the tension. The world, reality, is neither perfectly consistent nor totally chaotic. We can therefore forgive reality in the world, in humanity, for being what it is. And work for what is right and loving.

There is a cost for holding the contradictions within yourself, to be sure. Things are not always, easily, nor quickly resolved. But the gift, the grace is that nothing is lost. No one is left behind. Nothing is wasted. You belong. They all belong. It all belongs, in the arms of God’s mercy.

In this short Gospel text for Reformation, Jesus says, “continue in my word”. [8]  Other translations—the New King James, among others—have it: “abide in my word”. I like that, too.

“Word” and “Truth”. What are we to make of these loaded statements by Jesus? Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the truth.”[9] Then, in the first chapter of John’s Gospel—one we will hear in full at Christmas: “The Word became flesh and lived among us … full of grace and truth.”[10] Therefore, as Martin Luther himself emphasized, the “Word” is Jesus. And he is also the “Truth”. Now, read the Gospel for today again substituting “Jesus” wherever the words “truth” and “word” appear.

It’s good to compare translations of the bible. I referred to the New King James Version earlier in comparison to the New Revised Standard Version. Sometimes inspiring insights emerge when you do this. In a recent Indigenous translation of the New Testament, verse 35 is truly illuminating for me: “A slave is not a member of the family and will not always live with the family. But a son of the family always has a home.”[11]

Even when you leave, for whatever reason. Even, on many levels, when life takes you away from home. Even when the journey of faith means going away, far away. You belong.

In Christ, you always have a home. There is always a place for you at the table. No matter your denomination, your religious background, or lack thereof, no matter your starting point—you can always come back and find your home, in Christ Jesus.

[1] In Eganville, Ontario, most Protestants lived on one side of the Bonnechere River and Catholics on the other side. Curiously, and tragically, both Grace Lutheran Church and St James Catholic Church buildings burned down in the 1990s.

[2] The Rev. Dr. Anne Burghardt

[3] Bishop Eaton issues statement on Israel-Hamas war , emphasis mine.

[4] ELCIC bishops issue statement on Israel-Hamas war , emphases mine.

[5] Matthew 9:13

[6] Romans 5:12

[7] Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Cincinnati Ohio: St Anthony Messenger Press, 2008), p.204.

[8] John 8:31-36, NRSV

[9] John 14:6

[10] John 1:14

[11] John 8:35, First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2021), p.183

Hold the middle, hold the tension — a sermon for Reformation Sunday 2023 (Rev. Martin Malina)

Church in the trees

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Into relationship (photo by Judith Kierschke, 22 October 2023)

Gathering Song: For the Beauty of the Earth 1                                                                     

  1. For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies, for the love which from our birth, over and around us lies: Christ our God, to thee we raise, this our sacrifice of praise.
  2. For the beauty of each hour, of the day and of the night, hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light: Christ, our God, to thee we raise, This our sacrifice of praise.

Welcome & Instruction

As we begin this morning, I welcome you into a moment of silence …. Listen to your breath as you breathe in, And breathe out …. Listen to the wind …. We are connected through the breath of God. Slowly allow yourself to relax into this welcoming place. You belong here with the birches, aspens, pines, spruces, maples, oaks.

When you walk, also listen for the water that nourishes the trees and all that grows in this place. Even though the water is still, it moves mirroring the arteries of blood flowing through your own body.

The trees and the water welcome us because they have not forgotten that we are related, that we come from the same dust and return to the same dust. Take another deep breath of gratitude to acknowledge that our lives are fully dependent on the healthy functioning of these trees, these waters.

We aren’t just meeting in nature; we are entering into relationship with nature. We are already very much part of nature. We are creatures of (not simply in) the natural world.

We are here today to re-member ourselves back where we belong. We are here as an expression of “religion”, which means re (again) and ligio (connection).2

Scriptures about Trees:

“Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9)

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like the cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap, showing that the Lord is upright …” (Psalm 92:12-15)

“Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! …” (Isaiah 44:23)

“On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:2)

Song: All Things Bright and Beautiful3                                                                         

Refrain:           All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.

  1. Each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings, God made their glowing colors, God made their tiny wings.        Refrain
  2. The purple-headed mountains, the river running by, the sunset and the morning that brightens up the sky.                                    Refrain
  3. The cold wind in the winter, the pleasant summer sun, the ripe fruits in the garden, God made them every one.               Refrain
  4. God gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell, how great is God Almighty, who has made all things well.     Refrain

Prayer for the journey:

Forgive our arrogance, Creator God, when we place ourselves at the center of your universe. Forgive us when we forget our place in creation. Renew your creation, O God. Sustain the earth and seas, the trees and all that lives in them. Kindle in us a reverent awe for all creatures great and small, so we may, in your mercy, love your creatures and care for life in all its forms. Amen.

Questions for the journey:

  1. What other stories or poems from the bible mention trees? What message do the trees convey from God? In the teaching of Jesus?
  2. Are the trees singing? What song are they singing – Praise? Lament? What do the trees tell you, today, as you walk in this wetland forest?
  3. Who makes home among the branches of the trees? How do the trees provide for the needs of other living creatures?
  4. What word do you hear in your own life as you pray and walk among the trees today: An invitation to begin a journey of faith? A word that challenges your beliefs? A call to confession? A word of encouragement along life’s journey?
  5. How does the bad weather today represent or reflect the way you sometimes respond to the storms in your life? Do you ‘weather the storm’, embrace it, go into it? To what degree do you seek to avoid and hide from the storms? What is better?

Rules for the path:

  1. You might be walking near someone you do not know. We are meeting friends from another congregation on this walk. If appropriate, introduce your name and remember to look in their eyes.
  2. Respect another’s physical space and need for silence. Our journey of faith is ours to make. We aren’t walking someone else’s path. Other’s may be on a similar journey but walking at their own pace and in their own way. Pay attention to the physical cues others give for what they need on this walk.
  3. Follow the leaders and listen to instructions they give.

Closing Prayer: (Our Father ….) In the words Jesus taught us, and in the many languages of our hearts, let us pray ….

On the Jack Pine Trail, Ottawa (photos by Judith Kierschke, 22 October 2023)
  1. Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Pew Edition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006) Hymn #879 ↩︎
  2. Victoria Loorz, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021), p.206 ↩︎
  3. With One Voice: A Lutheran Resource for Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995) Hymn #767 ↩︎

Is grace too much?

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A feast of grace (photo by Martin Malina 23 September 2023, Mikołow, Poland)

A couple invited some people to dinner. At the table, the wife turned to their six-year old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”

“I wouldn’t know what to say,” the girl replied.

“Just say what you hear Mommy say,”, the wife answered.

The daughter bowed her head and said, “Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”

In Matthew’s version of the Gospel story about the wedding banquet, the invited guests don’t come.[1] Why not? Who wouldn’t want to go to a wedding reception that includes a five-star dining experience? The King even sends out his staff to cajole those invited to show up. But to no avail.

They make excuses not to come. In our terms, they’re about being married, being busy, having a job or occupation. You can fill in the blanks. These are not bad things, but just “busyness with many things.”[2] Things we can control, direct and of which we can manage outcomes. Things we might prefer, actually, compared to the ambiguous uncertainties in the realm of grace.

Could it be the invited guests know deep down that when they respond to the King’s invitation, they will have to change? Could it be that when we enter the realm of grace, we also enter the realm of risk-taking, vulnerability? Could it be that grace is too much? Too hard?

The Gospel story of the wedding banquet throws all kinds of theological conundrums onto our path. Even when the King shifts gears and invites everybody and anybody, “good and bad”, we encounter an unwelcomed plot twist: One unfortunate guest who accepts the invitation, makes a mistake. He doesn’t put on the appropriate coat for the occasion and suffers the dire consequence.

Can grace, freely given, be too much for us to handle? And, so, it’s easier to say ‘no’.

The marvelous short story, “Babette’s Feast”, was made into an award-winning foreign film. It is set in a tiny village on the coast of Denmark. The people there are good people, but they’re living inside an isolated and lonely town, a sort of “sparse and sour” place.[3]

It’s a little world of laws and pettiness and religious rigor where the main characters—two elderly, spinster daughters of a deceased Lutheran minister—live a pretty Spartan lifestyle. They eat the same food every day, the same bowl of soup and the same codfish. They dutifully share their food with the disadvantaged, carrying on a ministry of their father. In fact, ‘joyless duty’ might be the key theme in their lives.

The movie version depicts a dark and cloudy, not-so-inviting environment. The place is bland, the food is bland, and it’s all in service of some sense of obligation. They’re not bad people. It’s just that you get the sense that deep down there is something important missing. They live a not-so-desirable life, not referring to material things so much as their spirit, their attitude.

Into this village comes Babette, a French woman, a cook, it turns out, who has lost her family in the revolutionary war in France. She runs away from France to save her own life and is sent by a friend to these sisters. She offers to be the sisters’ cook, in return for room and board. For fourteen years she dutifully cooks ale-bread soup and codfish, every day, just as the sisters wish. Because that’s what they like.

Then, Babette wins the lottery, ten thousand francs! After some negotiation, she talks the sisters into allowing her to prepare a fine banquet to celebrate their deceased father’s one hundredth anniversary. First, the sisters ask what kind of food she would serve. Babette replies that she wants to give them a French dinner, the way they eat in France.

They have a major meeting, among the remnants of their father’s Puritanical flock, to see whether they even want a French dinner. There’s also a lot of talk about whether or not they can allow alcohol, and the sisters, to humour their faithful Babette, go along with it. But they resolve to themselves only to fake their enjoyment of it. “It will be as if we did not taste it,” they promise.

Course after course, Babette lays on the table an enormous, beautiful, sumptuous feast. The guests’ eyes just widen, but as they drink a little bit more and more of the wine, they loosen up.

One of the guests, a general, is visiting his aunt, a member of the congregation. The general, who had eaten at the finest tables, knows better than anyone present the quality of the feast that he is experiencing.

The general is a man who has seen the larger world. He has been hurt, has gone through success and failure. He had obtained everything that he had striven for in life at this point. He was admired and envied by everyone. The general was a moral person, a good person, loyal to the king, loyal to his wife and friends. He was a good example to everyone in the village.

But as the conversations open up, he confesses that he was not altogether happy. Something was wrong somewhere. During his stay in the village, he is carefully feeling his mental self all over as one feels a finger to determine the place of a deep-seated, invisible thorn. And still, he had not yet put his proverbial finger on it.

Now, after the sixth course all the guests are starting to forgive one another, for in the years since the pastor’s death they have degraded into petty rivalries. Into the fourth glass of wine, they actually start enjoying it all, laughing and relaxing even into the unsolvable mysteries of life. They take pleasure in the gift of the feast despite all that has troubled them. They learn, finally, to enjoy this banquet that they never thought they could possibly enjoy. It was a world into which no one had ever before invited them.

“Babette’s Feast” first describes religion without grace. Of course, Lutherans are supposed to be the very ones who championed grace – but even those pious, Norwegian Lutherans could forget. Just prior to Babette’s feast, their Christianity had been a resented banquet, where as Christians “they were more afraid of the Risen Christ than even the crucified one.”

Grace is always too much.

At the end of Babette’s feast, the general stands up to give a speech. He begins by quoting the Psalms, “Mercy and truth have met, righteousness and bliss have kissed.”[4] Notice that often we would consider mercy and truth as opposites. Righteousness and bliss are supposed to be opposites, too, no?

What the general is getting at is acknowledging something beautiful that happened during the feast—great opposites overcoming their opposition and kissing one another, embracing one another. By love and grace, the world full of contradiction, tension and opposites is made one.

Grace is a free gift from God, yes. Yet, the gift places upon us a choice, a choice to respond and live through that gift. We will not resolve anything, ever. In the end, it is the King in the Gospel story who makes the final judgements.

In the end, it is God’s mercy and God’s truth that come together, in Christ’s love for us all. God invites each of us into a life of grace, abundance and joy. And no matter how we respond—since responding somehow, we will—God will continue to send, won’t stop sending, us invitations to attend a gracious meal, praying us to accept.

[1] Matthew 22:1-14

[2] Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Ohio: St Anthony Messenger Press, 2008), p.175.

[3] Rohr, ibid., p.180-183.

[4] Psalm 85:10 King James Version

Is Grace Too Much? (A sermon for Pentecost 20A by Rev. Martin Malina