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.

Christmas Day – Let the Light In

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Please read John 1:1-14

Recently I’ve been wearing these new “progressive lens” eye-glasses to help my vision. It’s taken some getting used to. For one thing, I can’t simply walk around looking at things in the same way anymore. There are a few things I’ve had to practice doing differently.

I’m grateful for these lenses. The glass functions to direct the rays of light in a certain way as to heighten clarity and focus. The glass lets the light refract through the lens to give me the best possible vision. Although it’s something I’ve had to get used to, it is a gift to have the opportunity to see better.

Learning to wear glasses for the first time is very much like learning how to “wear” the faith. After all, Saint Paul casts the image in his letter to the Galatians of learning to be “clothed with Christ”, to “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). How do we “wear” our faith in Jesus the newborn king?

The first thing I’ve had to learn to do wearing my new glasses, is to look through a specific point on the glass, depending on whether I’m looking at something close to me or far away. I have to be intentional about where I look through the glass if I want clarity. I have to focus my sight.

I can’t just indiscriminately look at everything in my vision and expect to see all things clearly; these lenses don’t work that way. I have to prioritize my vision. And that means, I have to think about what I’m doing; and then I have to make choices.

At Christmas we proclaim that the “light of the world has now come” (John 1:9). Do I see this Light? God spoke through the prophet Isaiah as much to our world as his: “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not see it?” (Isaiah 43:19) Do you see the Light of the world in your life and around you?

If at first I cannot see God in my life, I have to ask myself, “Am I looking in the right place?” Am I making choices, prioritizing what is important in my life, doing things that contribute to health and wholeness, accepting my limitations that I can’t “look at everything” and do everything?

The truth is, Jesus is called “Emmanuel” (Matthew 1:23), which means “God is with us.” The Light has come into the dark world, yet the darkness has not overcome it. If I can’t see clearly the Light of the world in my life, perhaps I’m not looking in the right place.

For one thing, Jesus is more likely to be found in the least expected places and people. Not just in the happy, successful places of pleasure, glory, comfort and joys of life. But especially in the unexpected places of our need, want, brokeness, failure and pain. The Christian God is not afraid to go into the dark places, after all.

Jesus was born in a dirty manger in a barn for animals in the middle of the night. Jesus – the Light of the world – was born surrounded by people of ill repute (those shepherds!) and foreigners from the East (those Magi – folks from other religions!) These are the people and places in whose midst Jesus first came.

Do you see Jesus in your life? Part of the answer to that question, I believe, depends on where you’re looking and the choices you make.

The second thing I’ve had to learn to wear my glasses well is: Don’t hide behind the glasses. Given my personality especially, I can easily fall into the trap of hiding behind my glasses and not looking at what is before me; either I want to deny the truth of what is before me, or I am afraid to engage it, or pretend it’s something that it is not.

For example, at first when I’ve been wearing my glasses and talking to people, I’ve had to force myself like never before to actually look in people’s eyes. It was easy wearing glasses to “stay within myself” – behind the rims. I think it’s sometimes easy wearing our faith to “stay within ourselves” and either ignore or deny the truth of what is beyond the church.

Wearing glasses, I need especially now to look beyond the boundaries of my world into the vast realm of God’s world. “For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16) – the message of Christmas in a nutshell. God sent Jesus into a dark world – to unsuspecting shepherds, a teenage couple, foreigners from the East. It’s not just about me. It’s just as much about God’s love for others who may not be like me at all.

Finally, I need to trust my peripheral vision. Sometimes I need to take off my glasses, especially when I’m walking in the dark. And when I find myself in darkness, if I’m to see anything, find my way – the path before me, and allow whatever light there is to help me, I then need to trust what I see at the periphery of my sight – what seems to be just outside my grasp. I need to trust in my God-given, innate ability to see without seeing. Let me explain:

On a moonlit night, the amount of light washed over the land is only about 10% of full sunlight. Imagine also the effect of one candle burning in a large, dark room: it doesn’t illuminate the whole room, just a part of it.

When you are trying to move in the dark, if you try too hard to see, it won’t work. If you look directly on the path or at that which you want to see, you’ll start imagining things! Rather, you have to look to the side a bit and let your peripheral vision guide you and allow you to see something of what in truth is there. You’ll get a truer picture of what’s ahead by letting go of the compulsion to manage directly your sight or assuming the only way forward is to wait until noon-time on a bright, cloud-free, sunny day. Admitedly, it takes some practice to walk well in semi-darkness.

Saint Paul wrote, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7), and again: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). In other words, we move forward not so much by exercising our own effort to see, or expecting to see everything crystal-clearly.

Often faith will mean trusting. Martin Luther’s definition of faith included the centrality of trust in a power greater than what I can do alone. The effect of faith is to see beyond what I can grasp with the full effort of my will.

Listen to the words of Jesus, who speaks to us today: “You did not choose me, I chose you” (John 15:16). Saint Paul reinforces this message when he writes, “Our justification depends not on human will or exertion, but on God …” (Romans 9:16) I need to appreciate the truth of God’s wondrous mystery.

Employing all these strategies of “wearing our faith” well is irrelevant unless we appreciate first and foremost the critical and foundational connerstone of belief in Christianity: The Light first comes to us. Focusing our energy, Engaging others, Learning to let go and trust — none of these work unless our eyes are first open to receive the light. “Sight” only happens as a gift to us.

This is good news: The light has come into the world! The Light has come!

Let the eyes of our heart be open to receive the light and love of One who has already come into the world, and continues to come to each one of us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Advent 2B – Waiting to Give

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Please read Isaiah 40 and Mark 1

A six-year old girl asked her father, the pastor, why before preaching a sermon he always bowed his head in a moment of silence.

“Well, my dear,” the pastor answered his daughter, “before I preach I ask God to help me preach a good sermon.”

“But Daddy,” the daughter responded, “You’ve been praying that prayer for a long time already. Why hasn’t God answered it?”

Indeed, why do we pray? What kind of answer are we looking for? Praying is often what we do when there’s nothing left for us to do. When we have to wait.

Advent is about watching and waiting. During this season of anticipation, we say we wait for Christmas to come. If you’d ask a child, this means looking forward to presents, toys and the fun of getting more stuff wrapped up under the Christmas tree.

I suspect to a large extent even we adults never really outgrow this kind of waiting. We look forward to the next thing we can get for ourselves — an education, a job, a spouse, a child, a house, a vacation, more stuff. As we age we wait to be rewarded, to receive accolades, fame, the latest toy, whatever it may be …. Waiting is basically motivated by self-gratification; that is, obtaining something more for ourselves.

But time soon runs out on us. Our lives progress to a point where if we are going to wait, and wait well, waiting must soon become something else. Our waiting needs to be transformed into a self-giving motif rather than a selfish one. If it isn’t our natural ageing and nearing prospect of our death that propels us towards this maturity, than it must be the grace of God, regardless of our age.

So, why will we wait? Perhaps the answer to this question lies in response to another question that may be a tad easier to answer: For what do we ask this Advent time in which we wait for the coming celebration of “God with us” — Emmanuel?

When I was about ten years old my parents asked my brother and me to think about a special request to bring to the manger, to the baby Jesus. I was instructed NOT to ask Jesus for a toy or any “stuff”. It was a challenge for me to think of a prayer that was a bit more substantial than asking for some ‘thing’ for myself.

For what do we ask from our Lord this coming season? More stuff? More money? More material blessings? Or, are our prayers more focused on our health, protection and safety? Whatever it is, our prayers are key to understanding the true desire of our hearts.

The Lord’s Prayer is a good place to start for guidance on how to pray, for what to ask, and how to wait. When the disciples didn’t know how to pray, they asked Jesus to teach them. And he taught them. If you look carefully at all the petitions of the Our Father, most of the verses have to do with who God is, what God will do, or what we ask of God. Except for one line.

In the most beloved prayer of Christianity, the only thing we say we will do, is forgive others. “…. as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Of all the things we want to do, of all the things we think we need or must do as Christians, forgiveness is fundamental here. Forgiveness is what we wait for. Forgiveness is what we do. Forgiveness is what we give.

Why will we wait this Advent? We are given this time to contemplate the state of our hearts. Because forgiveness starts as a quality of the inner life. We are given this time to reflect, affirm and practice our God-given capacity to give forgiveness, to receive it, to be generous with our lives, in the love and grace of God. Especially where there is need.

The Attawapiskat community on the shores of James Bay in northern Ontario has been in the news recently when the town government declared a state of emergency. The deplorable conditions in which the people there live look a lot like what we see in the developing world, and would never at first think this could happen in our own backyard — in Canada!

We’ve heard much analysis and argument about how this came to be. So many reasons that only justify our inaction: the government is at fault since they knew about this for a long time; the first nations people can’t take care of themselves and modern infrastructure; the economy does not support their way of life and vice versa; cultural disconnects; ongoing abuses — you name it. We can sit here and argue about it while human beings hundreds of miles north of this very place will die this winter.

The only real solution right now, is grace. We need to give. Our relatively rich society in southern Canada needs to give so that they in the north will not suffer any more.

A quality of forgiveness and grace — indeed the Christian life — is “letting go”, releasing the other person from your anger, releasing yourself from whatever binds you. The quality of letting go of controlling the outcomes of our efforts to manage life for our own benefit, on our own terms.

Richard Rohr writes about the Cherokee chiefs who said to their young braves, “Why do you spend your time in brooding? Don’t you know you are being driven by great winds across the sky?” Rohr continues to write: Don’t you know you’re part of a much bigger pattern? But you’re not in control of it, any more than you would be of great winds. You and I are a small part of a much bigger mystery. (Everything Belongs, page 120)

Father Jack Costello, a Jesuit priest and President of Regis College in Toronto said about the work of the Holy Spirit — often described as a great wind — “the Holy Spirit gives us freedom, peace, and makes us courageous and reckless people.”

I often imagine John the Baptist an exemplar of the above description of someone “reckless” in God’s grace and Spirit. John the Baptist came announcing the coming Lord and repentence for the forgiveness of sin (Mark 1:4). He came proclaiming that he and the powers of the world were not in charge. Our lives are not governed by human history. What we experience in our lives – good and bad – is not the work of our hands alone.

Rather, our lives are part of God’s history, God’s story of salvation. The world and history is governed by God, who will make in “the rough places a plain”, the “uneven ground level” who will “lift up every valley” and make “every mountain and hill low” (Isaiah 40). Our lives are in God’s hands.

The true message of Advent is a shock to the system: The message of Advent is about God’s decision to let go. God decided to release His Son into the world. God decided to self-disclose. God decided to make God-self vulnerable by becoming fully human. What a huge risk! What a divine letting-go!

What if waiting this Advent was NOT motivated by the prospect and illusion of what more I can get for myself? What if waiting this Advent was about what I would let go of this Christmas. What can I give of myself and let go of? — for the sake of my family, my community, my church, my nation, my world?

After all, it is God’s church, God’s community, God’s nation and God’s world to begin with!

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Candle-light: An Enduring Symbol for Prayer

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“Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.”

(Psalm 141:2)

In the middle ages, places of worship depended on candlelight so that worshippers could see what was going on around the altar, reading desk and font.

Of course today lighted candles in worship spaces fulfill a more symbolic rather than functional role. Thanks to electrical power we don’t need the candle to ‘shed light’ in a literal, but more a symbolic sense.

Symbols are important in our worship practice not as the goal or ultimate meaning of worship (i.e. we don’t worship the candle) but as an aid to help focus our often distracted minds on what is truly important in what we do and are in the church.

The vision statement for Zion Lutheran Church, “Celebrating God As We Serve Others”, presumes that the church’s central activity is worshipping God. While the other groups, ministries, committees and services in which the church engages are all important, fundamentally our job is to worship God and serve others in a worshipful and prayerful way. That’s how we celebrate … in worshipful service.

To be prayerful or worshipful in our service suggests that in our action we are mindful and aware of God’s presence with us and those whom we serve. In whatever circumstance of life in which we find ourselves we acknowledge – and if possible observe moments of silence and prayer – the presence of the Holy Spirit in and around us.

Light a candle during the Advent & Christmas seasons. Observe the single flame. Reflect on the flame and its invisible emanations as symbol of our prayers rising to the heavens in the Spirit of God. The Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Christianity said that their fingers entwined in prayer became fingers of fire and flame; hence the meaningful tradition of placing lighted candles on the altar during worship and prayer services.

May our prayers rise to God and spread outward to include others in the warmth of God’s love. In our lives the light of Christ shines outward, reaching into the dark world. Even in the darkness of our own lives shines the light of Christ, reflected in and through us.

Thanks be to God, for this candlelight can never be snuffed out.

(Work consulted: Anselm Gruen, “Weihnachten – Einen Neuen Anfang Feiern” Herder, 2001, p.45-47)

Proper 28 Season after Pentecost – Remember who you are

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Matthew 25:14-30

I remember reading this story as a youth feeling for the first time that I was in big trouble. In trouble, for the life of faith I was embarking on. In trouble, because it wasn’t going to be easy; being a Christian wasn’t just going to be “nice”. With fear and trepidation I came to realize that a life of faith was going to challenge me to the core of my personality and my basic human instint.

You see, until Jesus explained to his disciples, basically, which of the servants did well and which didn’t, I was — and on some level still am – completely sympathetic with the third servant who hid his talent and didn’t do anything with it. And, impressed by those who took a risk with the gift they were given. From that time on, I realized that a life of faith would often go against my way of thinking often prone to suspicion, self-preservation and basic conservatism.

The easy way would be to do nothing. Doing nothing would cut down on vulnerability and exposure to an unknown climate for investment in a scary world. The easy way would be to do nothing.

Because the easy way is based on fear. The servant who acted out of fear even admits it: “I was afraid,” he says, trying to justifiy his inaction. Yet, does his position not describe a valid approach to living in a scary world: hunker down, conserve what you already have (don’t lose it!), play it safe, a best offence is the best defence …? I think we know those arguments all too well, arguments which are all based on a fundamental fear of our failure, demise and death.

On Remembrance Day the community gathered to remember the fallen in war. Death can put perspective on any life: the life of our nation, our church, our community, our very own lives.

Fast forward our lives to our deathbeds. From the perspective of our end time, how would we look upon the way we lived? Were our lives in the church, in our families, in our work — lives based on fear?

Or were they characterized by boldness, by commitments made against all odds, against the prevailing notions of “common sense”, by commitments and actions made in faith and trust in the God of our lives, a God who calls us to ventures unkown? Those are the values, by the way, we admire and remember in our soldiers, aren’t they? The history of the battle at Vimy Ridge tells that story the best.

I like the humour in the story of Jesus stringing a high wire over Niagara Falls. He was going to ride his bicycle across it. Jesus asked his disciples, “Do you believe I can ride across and back?”

“Oh yes,” they replied, “you can do it.” So, Jesus rode over and back. When he got back, the jubilant disciples reaffirmed their confidence. They were now absolutely positive and told Jesus so. He had proven it.

So, Jesus asked them again, “Do you think I can do it again?” This time they were even more confident and they assured him it was, in theological language, a piece of cake.

“Okay,” Jesus said, pointing to the handlebars, “Get on.”

The feeling we get when we imagine getting on those handlebars relates directly to faith. We’re very happy to see Jesus do it. And he did already, in a manner of speaking. But that’s not faith. Faith is trusting that Jesus will carry you over while you sit on the handlebars. Jesus isn’t asking you to do it alone; just that you trust that he will carry you over and through the fearful situations of our lives. (This wonderful story is found in Clarence Thomson’s ‘Parables and the Enneagram’, p.98)

How can we live faithfully so that fear does not hold us in its grip?

In preparation for flying out to Saskatoon last summer for the church convention, I read some articles on how to conquer a fear of flying. Among many tips to do so, this one stood out for me. The advice given by Katharine Watts was: “Develop a clear motivation for overcoming that fear.”

I think this would apply to any fear we might have: To assert the reason WHY you are doing something fearful. In the example of flying, Watts writes, “In order to conquer fears, there needs to be a good incentive … Develop a very specific reason why overcoming your fear of flying is important. Just wanting to travel is a little bit vague. Instead, say ‘every winter I need to go down south’ or ‘I want to adopt a child in China.'” When the good motivation is strong in your mind and in your heart, it’ll be harder to let fear get in the way. But if the reasoning is weak, or vague, or unclear — fear can take over.

In other words, “Remember why we’re doing it in the first place!” Put in front of us the main thing of what it is we’re all about. I think this applies directly to being and doing church.

Remembrance Day is about remembering the bigger picture. Remembering the sacrifice our soldiers made to win us freedom in our public lives — the freedom to vote, for example, which is a civic duty and privilege bought by their blood. Remembering the big picture; the WHY.

When I was young, leaving the house for school my mother reminded me: Remember your bus number, remember your telephone number, remember your address, remember your name, your teacher’s name, your parents’ names. In other words, remember the facts.

While remembering facts is important in their own right, Remembrance Day is not just about remembering history from the point of view of “information” about the past. In truth, we live in a day and age that can be described as “information overload”. Our brains are simply not wired to be able to take in all the information and facts that come flying at us at high speed. At a click of a button we can find out anything we want to on any subject matter you can imagine.

By the time I was in my early twenties, my mother had changed her message about “remembering” — no longer remember the facts, so much. Rather, Martin, remember who you are.

The remembering, the knowing, is so much more than information, facts, particularities in history and doctrinal statements of belief, etc. — as interesting and as important as this information is. The knowing and remembering must go deeper. Remember who you are, why we are, whose we are. I think this is the kind of remembering our society and especially the church needs to engage in more these days.

Remember who we are and whose we are. Remember who we are as the people of God, sitting in those pews. All Saints Sunday last week cued us to a truth in answer to who we are and whose we are: We are beloved creations of God, created to be loved and to love and serve others with the gifts we have and out of that generous love of God. We are already blessed before we do anything!

I wonder if that fearful servant had remembered not all the possible places he could hide his penny, not his position in the ranks of servants and how he could exploit it to his advantage, not his bank account number.

Rather, I wonder if he but remembered who his boss was, the kind of person he was, and got it right (his logic is faulty!); if he remembered to whom he belonged in the first place. If he had remembered that his boss was not the kind of guy who would punish him for taking a risk with his talent, if he had remembered the reason why — and explored more those bigger questions — I wonder whether he would have been so fearful.

I wish there was someone in that story who could have coached him and reminded him of this before he buried his talent out of fear.

If the passage we read today says anything about our God, is that God is generous to those who step it up and step it out.

And though our memories may sometimes be faulty, though we may struggle to remember who and whose we are, we can be certain that God will remember us and never forget us. He holds us in the palm of his hand. We have nothing to lose for trying, for taking a risk, for stepping outside our comfort zone, for putting fear in its proper place; not denying our fear, but subjecting it to a greater truth: the love and generosity of God that will never, never waver, no matter what.

Let us be confident then that when we do anything for the sake of God’s glory, God’s mission, God’s good purposes, then that gift will not be wasted; it will increase! And each of us has been given a gift. Why not use it?

To God alone be glory and honour forever and ever. Amen.

Love Makes Work Easy

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“When anything is done from realized love, it is easy.” So claims Clarence Thomson in his book ‘Parables and the Enneagram’ (p.61).
These are words worth pondering, especially for leaders who struggle with the demands, burdens and daily vicissitudes of their work. He goes on to share his experience of watching a group of boys play ball – lest “love” seem too sublime an answer to the challenge of a leader’s work: “What they [the boys] want most is to exert themselves because they love the game. A musician will play, not work, a difficult piece of music. Anything done out of love, regardless of effort, becomes easy. Without love, all is work.” With love, work – whatever that work is – becomes a joyful and easy expression of your self. Love negates the false dichotomy between effort and ease.

Thanksgiving from the Church – Day of Thanksgiving-A

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Please read Luke 17:11-19

Once upon a time, there was an orchestra. This orchestra was, in some ways, quite ordinary. It was a regular kind of orchestra; you might know there are four main types of instruments in any full orchestra:

  1. The string section – with violins, cellos and
    string bass
  2. The woodwind section – with oboes, flutes and
    piccolos
  3. The brass section – with trumpets, horns and
    tubas
  4. And, the percussion section – with timpani
    drums, harps and cymbals

But at a concert that they were giving for the Queen, the entire percussion section didn’t show up for the rehearsal scheduled right before their performance. All the other members were there, so they tried anyways to play their pieces for practice.

But, as you may know, one of the purposes of the percussion section is to help everyone else keep the beat. Because the percussion section wasn’t there, and the rest of the orchestra didn’t have the beat to keep them in sync, their rehearsal flopped – they sounded terrible because everyone was playing their parts to different rhythms.

Everyone was quite worried. How would they sound for the Queen without the percussion section? Would they even be able to perform? In the moments before their performance when the percussion section still hadn’t showed up, the conductor seriously considered cancelling their performance, which would have effectively ruined their reputation as one of the best orchestras in the country.

Thankfully, just before the conductor went to tell the bad news to the Queen, all the members of the percussion section rushed through the door. How grateful everyone else in the orchestra felt to see their friends from the percussion section!

I think the church is like that orchestra. In baptism we become members of the church. Each of us has a specific and vital role to play in the healthy functioning of the church. Each of us has specific gifts of offer, so that under the direction of the conductor – Jesus – when we play together we make a beautiful sound to the world around us.

The moral of the story is: we need everyone’s input in order to be healthy as a church. Everyone has to do their part for us to be effective in our ministry. And, basically, how
our parts get played out — if it’s good and healthy — is from an attitude of gratitude for being included in God’s church and God’s mission.

When Jesus healed the sick people – the ten lepers – in the story from the bible, he was blessing them. When Jesus healed them, he effectively invited them into the family of God, welcoming them to belong.

When we belong to the family of God, Jesus promises to bless us with his grace and love forever. This belonging is a wonderful thing because no matter what happens in our lives, no matter where we go or who we’re with, God will always be there for us.

It’s a cause for thanksgiving, is it not? To be thankful? One of those who was healed came back to thank Jesus.

And that’s what the church is all about. In all that we do and are, we give thanks to God by giving our gifts – our gifts of music, song, words, love, money, help, service – whatever. We give thanks.

Lukas asked to sing a song at his baptism, I believe as a gesture of thanksgiving to God, for inviting him and welcoming him into the family of God. Thank you, Lukas, for your witness and expression today of thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Turn-Around God

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When at the beginning of September the Tampa Bay Rays were some half-a-dozen or more games behind the Boston Red Sox for the American League wild card spot, the die was cast as far as I was concerned: The Red Sox would once again meet their Eastern Division rivals — the famed New York Yankees — in the post-season. It was a foregone conclusion.

On the last night of the regular season at the end of September, I can’t think of a more nail-biting finish to determine the wild card. Not only were the Sox and Rays tied for the wild card going into the last game — the Rays had mounted an incredible come back throughout September and the Red Sox lost more games than they won — the way those games went into extra innings was epic, to say the least.

For seven innings in both games (Boston vs. Baltimore and New York vs. Tampa Bay) my “foregone” conclusions were indeed coming to pass: Boston was winning by several runs, and so was New York. Therefore, September was going to go down as an anomaly in the eventual placing of the Sox in the wild card position.

But alas! Baltimore tied the game by the ninth, sending the game into extra innings; Tampa Bay tied its game by the ninth to force extra innings as well. And Surprise!  When all was said and done, Tampa Bay won its game …. and the Red Sox lost theirs.

I guess what may appear to be a foregone conclusion was not the way to go. It isn’t the way to go when “guessing” winners and losers. It isn’t the way to go in life.

And it certainly isn’t the way to go, with God.

The Christian God is a turn-around God. Always surprising us with grace. Always rising out of the dust. Never a foregone conclusion based on the “evidence”.

I realize I’ve thrown in a heap of superlatives. Yet I can’t think of a better way to describe “God”!

When death appears to be a foregone conclusion, the end game, based on the evidence of deteriorating bodies and physical capacities of our human existence, what do we say about the nature and activity of God?

Standing by the graveside of a loved one recently inurned, death seems so final. So does God.

Nevertheless, I don’t want to underestimate God. Because my hunch is that it is in God’s nature to mount an incredible comeback and surprise everyone at the end of it all.

It is called: Resurrection. New life out of death.

Thanksgiving is a Spiritual Discipline

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“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Thanksgiving is a choice. Because if we wait until the time is right, if we believe that thanksgiving is only expressed in prosperous times, when enjoying perfect health, budget surpluses, and when peace on earth reigns — I’d guess thanksgiving wouldn’t apply to our practice of faith at all, would it?

Saint Paul encouraged the people of Thessalonica to “give thanks ALWAYS”. He was writing to a fledgling church bowing under the pressures of the culture. Early Christians there were targeted for unpatriotic behavior and often called to testify their loyalty (or not) to Julius Caesar and Emperor Octavian, considered widely as “God” and “son of God” respectively.

Under these oppressive cultural and political circumstances, why would you give thanks? When likely suffering from some form of persecution, for what would those Christians be thankful?

Saint Paul wasn’t naive. But he was wise. Because a heart oriented in faith in Christ, is a heart that instinctively seeks to emphasize the good, the positive, the hopeful, the silver-lining. Otherwise, why have faith? There is bad, to be sure. But there is always also some good. What is the good, even in a bad situation?

A loving phone call. Someone’s smile. A grandchild’s laugh. A note in the mail from a friend. Warm, sunny weather in Fall-time, a restful night, a few pain-free hours, etc., etc., etc.

A heart of thanksgiving does not live in denial of the harsh realities of life. It only holds those harsh realities in the larger perspective of faith. And our very lives are held always in the hands of a loving God. The end of history is the triumphal God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. Despite all that is bad in our world, we ARE heading toward that end where the Lord stands victorious!

Thanksgiving is a discipline because we have to be intentional about it. It isn’t always easy. We are called to make the time to remember the blessings of each day, no matter how tough it can get.

In an article written to the “Canada Lutheran” magazine this past summer (Vol.26,No.6,p.31), Bishop Michael Pryse of the Eastern Synod – Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada relates what someone once suggested to him: “Life is not just a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow, what a ride!’ That’s the kind of spirit,” concludes Bishop Pryse, “I’d like to see more of in our churches.”

It’s the spirit of celebration and thanksgiving, despite the circumstances.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Pastor Martin

Pentecost 15A – Less is More

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please read Philippians 2:5-13

Earlier this month I read in the news that Air Canada will now be charging a modest fee for checked luggage on flights to the U.S. The move is intended to raise more revenue for the cash-strapped airline. But travellers are now deterred from taking lots of baggage on their journey.

With the threat of a so-called double-dip recession looming, the catch word now is “austerity.” You might have heard of European governments, such as Italy and Greece, implementing austerity measures to curb debt and get a grip on their government finances which are adversely affecting world markets. Austerity basically means cutting back, doing with less or without, simplifying. You could imagine, austerity is not very popular.

Whether it is a flight you are taking on a journey somewhere, or the journey of daily living, or even the spiritual journey – the journey of faith – it nevertheless seems we are being called to reconsider our limits – limits on spending, limits on self-gratification, limits on our ego desires and wants.

Indeed, can we but see the silver lining in doing with less, the healing and wholeness it could bring to our complex and material-rich lives? What could happen should we embrace the more “simplified” life?

Our egos, certainly, get in the way. Our human nature doesn’t like this. We compulsively want more. We have a built-in ‘inflationary’ tendency, bent on incessant action, accomplishment, acquisition. We don’t want to hear the advice that counsels: “The sky won’t fall down if you stop trying to hold it up for a little while.” The markets, experts say, need to periodically correct themselves, because the bubble will burst if self-regulation on the parts of governments, businesses and individual households doesn’t happen. And I would add – in our personal and faith journeys as well.

The scripture from Philippians written by Saint Paul is one of the oldest texts from the New Testament. It is a poem, a hymn, yes even a creed, sung and read by early Christians whenever they met to affirm their faith in a God who chose to self-limit, to be humbled. The hymn can be divided into two sections, with two very distinct movements in each.

The first movement is downward. A very baptismal image of being immersed in the waters, of being submerged, “drowned”, going under. No wonder this hymn was often sung in early Christianity at baptisms. This movement is of a God who chose to go from glory to downright humility and death.

                                … Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the form of God,   did not regard

                                equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself,

                                taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness … he humbled

                                himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

 It is this movement that Christians today are being called to follow.

Whether it is a call to simplify a lifestyle overdrawn on itself; whether it is a call to reassess our appetites for more; whether it is a call to slow down in a hectic life; whether it is a call to understand anew the true meaning of “success” in God’s eyes – whatever the case may be, we are called to follow in the WAY of Jesus.

In fact the early Christians weren’t identified as “Christians” until much later; in the first decades after Jesus ascended to heaven, they were called “followers of the WAY” (Acts 22:4). Which WAY, or whose WAY, you might ask? The way of Jesus, of course. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the truth, and the life …” (John 14:6)

The word, the WAY, implies a journey. And on this journey we need to “travel light” – such was the great theme title of a recent Canadian Lutheran Anglican Youth (CLAY) gathering; “travel light”. Followers of the WAY, the journey we are on, necessitates that we follow Jesus best by travelling lightly – not hectically, not burned-out, not wanting always more and more and more – but by acknowledging our limitations, respecting them, divesting our lives of everything that is unhealthy – and we know what those things are for each of us, deep down, I believe.

We can’t begin to move up, unless we first go down. What goes up, must first have moved down, right? Easter can’t happen without Good Friday. The journey, the WAY, of Jesus – life in him – reflects this cycle of dying and rebirth, of going down and coming up.

A journey defined by the WAY of Jesus implies movement. On the other hand: inertia, remaining stuck in OUR way, when we remain intransigent, when we insist on our OWN way – doesn’t track with this. The new thing we so desperately want for our lives, the answer to the question, the way out of a difficult situation, whatever, doesn’t happen unless we take the risk and move in some direction, to begin with. If we decide not to do anything, it ain’t gonna work.

The car can’t be guided by the steering wheel unless it is first moving; the car can’t turn unless the wheels are rolling. God can guide us only when we are rolling, at least a little. Whatever the context of our lives, we must acknowledge the change that IS happening already.

Because in order for something good to happen, something first must die. In order for us to move on in a direction that IS healthy, life-giving and life-promoting, something has to stop. The prophet Isaiah

                                Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.

                                I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

                                I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

 

The promise of God, as the Psalmist in our reading today emphasizes, comes to us anew. The grace of God, the mercy and power and guidance comes to us once we have reached this vulnerable, honest, transparent, true “bottom” point – this desert place – in the rhythm, movement and journey of our lives.

                                God guides the humble in doing right and teaches his ways to the lowly.

                                (Psalm 25:8)

 

The first of all the beatitudes that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount is,

                                Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

Poverty is a word closely associated with “austerity” – a place in the desert of our lives when we have but no other option than to fall on our knees at the throne of grace and mercy, at ground zero, divested of all our ego pride and pretention and persona and bravado … and wait upon the Lord.

 The second section from verses 9 through 11 in the Philippians text – the early hymn/creed of the Followers of the WAY – then announces the glorious movement upward out of the ashes.

 In the movement upward, Jesus is celebrated as who he truly is – the exalted One, the Son of the Living God, to whom “every knee should bend” (v.10). In the movement upward out of death and in rebirth Jesus is glorified for his true identity, something he never really was without, truth be told, even in and during the downward cycle to the cross. Jesus was always Jesus. And it is the action of God the Father to re-instate him, so to speak.

 This is the encouragement of Saint Paul to us who choose to follow in the WAY of Jesus: to be who we are. Not to be who we are not. Not to imitate someone else whom we may admire or be jealous of or compare ourselves to or covet for whatever reason. Not to go beyond the limitations of our being. “Let the same mind be in you that you have in Christ Jesus … who did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself …”

 Who are we, then? Beloved children of God, loveable and loving, created each of us in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27).  So, be bold in who you are in Christ!

 Be who you are. The approach, however, can be summarized in the phrase: Less is More. By the spiritual practices of praying release, of forgiving, of showing mercy, of letting go of anger, guilt and fear – less is more. Not popular. Not easy. It is truly the “narrow way” to enter the kingdom (Matthew 7:13-14).

Nevertheless, in this movement of the WAY of Jesus we discover less will be more. We will discover that indeed, as Saint Paul writes earlier in Philippians –

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you

WILL bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ (1:6).

Not our way, not our work – but God’s. The good work you do in Christ’s service IS the very work of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Parable of a Good Leader

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What makes a good leader?

Listen:

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a king in Ireland. Ireland had lots of small kingdoms in those days, and this king’s kingdom was one among many. Both king and kingdom were quite ordinary and nobody paid much attention to either of them.

“But one day, the king received a huge beautiful diamond from a relative who had died. It was the largest diamond anyone had ever seen. It dazzled everyone. The other kings began to pay attention to him for if he had a dimaond like this he must be special. The people, too, came from far and wide to see the diamond. The king had it on constant display in a glass box so that all who wished could come to see and admire it. Of course, armed guards kept a constant vigil. Both king and kingdom prospered, and the king attributed all his good fortune to the diamond.

“One day a nervous guard asked to see him. The guard was visibly shaken. He told the king terrible news: the diamond had developed a flaw! A crack right down the middle! The king was horrified and ran to the glass box to see for himself. It was true. The diamond was now flawed terribly.

“He called all the jewelers in the land to ask their advice. They gave him only bad news. The flaw was so deep, they said, that if they were to try to sand it down, they would grind it to practically nothing, and if they tried to split it into two still substantial stones, it easily might shatter into a million fragments.

“As the king was pondering these terrible options, an old jeweler who had arrived late came to him and said, ‘If you will give me a week with that stone, I think I can fix it.’ The king didn’t believe him at first because the other jewelers were so sure it couldn’t be fixed, but the old man was insistent. Finally the king relented, but said he couldn’t let the diamond out of his castle. The old man said that would be all right: He could work there and the guards could stand outside the room where he was working.

“The king, having no better solution, agreed to let the old man work. For a week he and the guards hovered about, hearing scratching and gentle pounding and grinding. They wondered what he was doing and what would happen if the old man were tricking them.

“Finally, the week was up and the old man came out of the room. King and guards rushed in to see the old man’s work, and the king burst into tears of joy. It was better! The old man had carved a perfect rose on the top of the diamond, and the crack that ran down inside now was the stem of the rose.”

Every leader has a special gift visible for all to see and even admire. Effective and genuine leadership, however, does not deny fault and flaw in self, pretending perfection and fueling delusions of righteousness. A good leader does not hide her weakness, which is the other side of the gift, but confesses it unabashadly.

A good leader grants permission to self and others for the work of transformation, turning the very weakness into its corresponding strength: fear to courage, pride to self-respect, perfectionism to patience, anger to generosity, etc.

Finally, a good leader is not embarrassed by the process of healing. By being openly vulnerable to another’s healing and help, the good leader allows something beautiful and unexpected to emerge out of the flaw. A rose grows with the thorn.

The story of the king’s diamond comes from Clarence Thomson, in his book “Parables and the Enneagram” p.1-2 Metamorphous Press, Portland OR, 1996