How do our lives reflect God? How do we give witness to God? How do our lives show that we are “sanctified in the truth”, as Jesus prayed for us?^[1]

On my phone I have at least three different map apps. When I am in a place for the first time – a new city, a new trail – and trying to get from point A to point B I make sure to consult all three different digital maps in my hand. I take these maps to be fairly reliable because all three use location services to show me where I am in relation to the map that I’m looking at. 

However, not only are there slight discrepancies between the maps themselves. More troubling is a frequent inconsistency between the displayed configuration of streets, trails, roadways on the map, and the actual reality in front of me. There isn’t a roadway where the map says there is, for example. There are discrepancies all over the place, literally. And if I depend only on the maps to guide my way, I will often spend a lot of time on a street corner trying to make sense of it all before going anywhere.

Jesus, in his final prayer for his disciples, acknowledged the discrepencies we experience living in this world. He prayed that, like him, his disciples “do not belong to this world”.^[2] I take this to mean that often our world will challenge a life of faith. The pandemic is such an experience. When the way we have practiced our faith is no longer possible and we have to find other ways, we can feel lost and disoriented. And our impulse is to consult our ‘maps’. And even escape into the ‘map world’.

When Adam Shoalts made his famous canoe trek across the Canadian Arctic a few years ago, he memorized his route, based on the maps he studied beforehand. Blessed with a photographic memory and spatial cognition, he could visualize in his mind all the lakes, rivers, bays and portage routes even before he entered each stage of his planned route. And with success. Shoalts rarely got lost.

He memorized the way primarily to save time, despite having these maps on hand. If he had taken the time needed to consult his maps and satellite tracking each time he entered every lake, river or portage route on the four thousand kilometre journey, he could have jeopardized getting to his destination in time before winter.^[3]

When we experience significant challenges in our lives in this world, it’s important not to stick our heads in the sand. It’s important that we don’t stick our heads in the pages of books alone to escape our experience of reality now. We can’t afford to lose time doing that. I think our faith is less than it can be when we see the movement of our finger on a map as making the journey itself.^[4]

We may not have memorized all the pages of the bible. We may feel, consequently, not strong enough in our faith to make the journey. But the pages of the bible are not where we live our faith. Our witness is strongest when we do not hide our vulnerability but takes risks in faith. Our testimony is strongest when we are authentic, when we are honest with who and where we are – lost, making mistakes, or still finding our way. 

The good news is that God’s greatness speaks in word and deed, through imperfect individuals and efforts.

Jesus Christ, the Gospel shows, lived our human weakness. Jesus shows the “greater witness”^[5] in the lowliness and humiliation of the cross.^[6] Jesus lived and died our human weakness. And from the reality of our very humanity he prayed for us.

What does this mean? It means our lives participate in the truth of Jesus’ life today, and for all time and in every place. We make God “a liar”^[7] – in the words of the scripture writer—when we don’t believe in God’s very life in and through us, when we don’t believe that Jesus Christ lives and breathes through and in our very own experiences, our very own human lives.

In a few weeks we will have the confirmation of three young people who will affirm their baptism and their trust in God for life. The service will not look like any other confirmation service of the past. Believe me.

But confirmation services are not just about repeating back the ‘beliefs’ of the church. Confirmation services are not just about packing the church building to spectate young people confess some doctrine in robotic fashion. 

Rather, to affirm one’s faith is to bring something of your own heart into it. It is to express, in some simple, unique way, the connection you and your life are making with God in this time and place. And whenever that happens in the experience of living, it is the work of the Spirit of the living God, bringing it all together into the shared humanity—and therefore, unity—we have in Christ Jesus.

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^[1] John 17:19

^[2] John 17:14

^[3] Adam Shoalts, Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada’s Arctic (Allen Lane, 2019).

^[4] The metaphor of the map I adapt from Han F. De Wit, The Great Within: The Transformative Power and Psychology of the Spiritual Path (Boulder: Shambala Press, 2019), p.146,191.

^[5] 1 John 5:9

^[6] Willie James Jennings, “Theological Perspective 1 John 5:9-13” in David L. Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville: WJK Press, 2008)    p.538-542.

^[7] 1 John 5:10

It goes without saying that we have come to depend heavily on our smartphones and social media connections. Especially when physical connections are limited in pandemic public health guidelines, much of our socializing happens on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube and the like. As a result, our social media behaviour—good and bad—has been amplified in a year of coping with more alone-time and cocooning in our homes.

In the comic strip, “Agnus Day”, two sheep friends stand side-by-side. The first reflects on Jesus’ commandment to love in the way Jesus loves—laying down one’s life for the other. “I don’t think I can love like this,” she says. Her friend replies, “It’s hard work but your calling is to love like Jesus loved.”

Reflecting some more, the first sheep says, “What if I just ‘liked’  the way Jesus loves?”^[1]

I don’t think I’m alone by confessing how good it feels when whatever I post receives many ‘likes’. Even church attendance has recently been tracked simply by the number of hits or visits our YouTube services get. Relationships in our virtual world can operate on the thin surface of this kind of interaction.

And then the irony of it: Research in recent years has suggested a direct correlation between social media use and feelings of social isolation.^[2]How can we be loving in this digitized environment? How can we love others in the way of Jesus?

The pandemic is causing us to re-evaluate and re-imagine what the love of Christ looks like. COVID has shocked us into considering anew what love (‘agape’ in Greek) means in our day.

In the life of Christ which Christians celebrate during this Easter season, we renew our relationship with God, with ourselves, with others and with creation. What is at stake, it seems to me, is the quality of those fundamental relationships. What we renew is the way in which our relationships transpire and grow in the love of God.

And it takes a little bit more than clicking on the ‘like’ button.

Last week Jessica and I were walking through the Grove in Arnprior. And we found a rare woodland flower amidst the stand of old growth Alders, Pines and Hemlock trees. Red trilliums are hard to find and spot. They take a long time in the ground—five to seven years—to germinate before producing the rich, dark-red flower.

To grow red trilliums requires a multi-year commitment before the fruits of creation’s labour are realized and enjoyed by others.

I thought about how these flowers can serve as a reminder of how God’s love in Christ grows in us and in the world. The trilliums need the warmth and light of early Spring to trigger a verdant flowering. They do best when the ground in which they are planted can receive direct sunlight before their competitors can take hold. 

Their growth is dependent on many factors. Their flowering is truly a gift. A miracle, you could say.

On Mother’s Day we give thanks and pray for all who offer mothering love. Our prayer aspires to a kind of love that extends beyond her own needs alone for the sake of another—even one who is not yet born! Of course, this love is not gender exclusive. And this kind of love does not render the giver a doormat whose own needs are shucked. 

Rather, love happens when our goals will aim beyond our own lifetime. Loving, in Christ, is a long-term commitment that reaches past our own self-interests and pre-occupations. Unlike social media which can keep us locked in self-centred narcissism, the love of Jesus expands beyond the preoccupations of any one individual of any one time. This love is a gifting for all people of every time and every place to behold.

And when we feel overwhelmed and incapable of this kind of loving, as poor Agnus the sheep confessed, let’s remember we are not Christian because of anything we do, but because of what Jesus did and who God is. “You did not choose me,” Jesus says, “I chose you …”^[3]

The love that grows from our heart is a gift from God. In the final say, we are not Christians because of our words or deeds, our actions or inactions. We are Christians because in our baptism, God said that we are. Our delight is to live into that calling to love others—devotedly, humbly and as we are.^[4]

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^[1]www.agnusday.org (John 15:9-17)

^[2]https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316206

^[3]John 15:16

^[4]Sarah Ciavarri, Finding Our Way to the Truth (Minneapolis: Fotress Press, 2020), p.112-113

What’s going to happen after the pandemic? This question comes to mind these days. What’s going to happen when public health guidelines eventually relax and we can meet face-to-face again? How will things feel and look like in our gatherings?

Jesus often uses images from nature to articulate truth about God and our world. In today’s Gospel, it’s the image of a vine.^[1]In that imagery we have a description of what is– which is comforting:

Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. This is a wonderful image of how we are in Christ, that Christ is in us. This natural-world metaphor of a vine suggests that we grow from Christ, our source, in an organic, gracious sort of way. Feels good.

But not everything in this image is easy and comfortable. We also hear echos of what may sound threatening.

There are moments, yes even seasons of time where we feel dislocated, disrupted and even disposed of. We feel like we are being pruned, ripped off and maybe even thrown away—thrown into the fire and burned. 

Isn’t COVID one of those times? Just like Jesus says, when we feel like we bear no more fruit in our lives, or the world bears no more fruit, the doom-and-gloom messages threaten to overwhelm and overtake us in grief and despair.

What’s going to happen after the pandemic? Truth is, no one knows what the future holds. No one ever did. The only thing we know is what we’ve been through in the past fourteen months, and how we continue to struggle with COVID’s effects on our collective life today.

One thing the natural world from which Jesus took many of his stories can teach us is how to appreciate the natural rhythms of time passing through the seasons. In marking time through this pandemic, we experience what has changed and what we’ve lost. The extraordinary changes have come alongside all the ‘normal’ griefs and losses of life. It’s just that these natural pains and struggles are felt more intensely in COVID times.

There is also such a thing as sacred time. Sacred time operates similarly to nature’s timing which grounds us, literally, in the present moment. In this sacred perspective, “there is no past, present or future. God holds time without reference to what has been and what will be.”^[2]When we put our hands in the soil, there is only that moment that matters. The implication of seeing time in this sacred way is that the most fruitful course to engage the difficult questions of our time, is to focus on now.

Both the good and the bad. Now. Where is God speaking to us, now? Not for some distant future. Not from some pre-COVID past reality. But now, amdistall that has changed and continues to change around us, what is God up to?

How can we come to appreciate the grace in the present moment? Well, the way we pray and the way we read the bible is the way we live our life. So, wherever in the Gospels we encounter vivid imagery of end times or firey  descriptions similar to what we read in today’s Gospel, let me ecourage you to examine your response. 

For example, when we read about wars, earthquakes and famines in the New Testament, what do you first feel? I suspect most of us regard this message as a threat. True, anything that upsets our normalcy may be a threat to our egos. But in the Big Picture, it really isn’t. 

Hidden often in this imagery is the assertion that those times are just the beginning. In Matthew 24:8 it says, “All this is only the beginning of the birth pangs.” Perhaps the best way to understand this time is that “we are nearing the end of the beginning.”^[3]

In other words, this language in the bible is for the sake of birth not death. 

In Luke 21, Jesus says right in the middle of a catastrophic description: “Your endurance will win you your souls.” When we acknowledge and feel the pain of our dislocation and disruption from the pandemic, it is for the sake of renewal, not punishment. We know what it feels like when things fall apart around us and in us. But what if it’s for a good purpose? When Jesus says, “Stay awake”, what he means is: “Learn the lesson that this time has to teach you.”^[4]

The point of these scriptures that feel threatening is not to strike fear in us as much as rearrange our imagination for the new, good thing God is doing right now. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not a threat. It’s an invitation to depth. It may be what it takes to wake us up to the real, to the lasting, to what matters.

Our best response, I believe, is to see with the mind’s eye, the heart’s eye, reality-as-it-is. What if we dove into this sacred time positively, preemptively, praying, “Come, what is; teach me your good lessons”?  What if we said yes to “What is” rather than getting trapped in the negative past year, or escaping into a fanciful future?

Abide in Christ. The life Jesus gives is the life we draw from now. Saying yes to “What is” brings us into that divine space where God finds us, and renews us.

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^[1]John 15:1-8

^[2]Diana Butler Bass, “Religion after Pandemic” in The Cottage (blog accessed on 26 April 2021)

^[3]Ibid.

^[4]Richard Rohr, “This Is an Apocalypse” in Daily Meditation (www.cac.org, accessed 26 April 2021)

After the resurrection of Jesus not only are we confirmed siblings of Jesus—we learned last week—but Jesus redefines what it means to be a friend in Christ.

Good, healthy religion helps us recognize and recover God’s image^[1]in everything. It is to mirror things correctly, deeply, and fully until all things know who they truly are.^[2]Whenever I hold up a mirror to myself there’s no hiding the image of myself that I see. The mirror conveys truth, whether it makes me feel good or not.

Christ the Shepherd Sunday—normally recognized on the Fourth Sunday of Easter every year—is about our image of Jesus, indeed our image of God. What is our image of God? How do we envision, imagine, God, in Christ Jesus?

One way we understand our image of God is to hold up a mirror to ourselves, and the church. Not that we are God. But we reflect God’s image, as the creation story from Genesis declares. We might not be altogether and always pleased by what we see.

Well, what image does the Gospel reveal about the ‘Good Shepherd’? Let’s start there. The first thing I’d point out is what the image of ‘Good Shepherd’ doesn’t suggest.

Often we fall into the trap of romanticizing our friendships in the church or as Christians. The Good Shepherd image can indeed lead us astray when it blurs the boundaries in caring relationships. That is, we strive to be ‘nice’ at the expense of being truthful. When caring means avoiding difficult yet necessary conversations. When caring means overstepping emotional boundaries and forgetting how responsibility is shared in a healthy relationship. When caring means side-stepping a challenge because we are pre-occupied by pleasing others at all cost.

Unfortuanately the ‘Good Shepherd’ image of God can keep the church stuck in this romanticized picture of Christian relationships.

And who are these sheep? “I just wanna be a sheep Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba” we like to sing with the children. The image of sheep, on the surface, suggests that the sheep are all alike. That the church ought to be populated with like-minded individuals who all conform to the same beliefs and behaviour. To be part of the sheep pen, you all need to be the same.

Yet, the truth is far from this idealistic, romanticized view. The truth is that no individual creature on this earth – whether animal, plant, human, geological – is perfectly identical to another. Each of the sheep under the care of the shepherd has unique attributes unlike any other.

What is more, from the stories of the Gospels about sheep and Jesus the Shepherd, we see that Jesus will go after the one sheep who does not conform.^[3]We have called this story, “The Lost Sheep”. But I would see this story as part of the larger Gospel theme pointing to the resurrected Christ who honours and celebrates the wonderful differences in our humanity. It’s our uniqueness that reflects a healthy religion and community, not the pressure to conform. In recognizing our diversity, then, we can truly celebrate our unity in Christ.

In the Gospel for today, Jesus says, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep … I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also.”^[4]The Good Shepherd is all about including others who for whatever reason are different.

Brian McLaren, Christian writer, theologian and pastor, shares a story about making true friendships in Christ – not a utilitarian friendship (what’s in it for me?) nor the religious version of ‘network marketing’ (how can I peddle my wares?). He writes about making a genuine friendship, friendship that translates love for neighbours into knowing, appreciating, being curious about, liking and enjoying another person in all their uniqueness. One of the most dramatic of these friendships began in the aftermath of 9/11/2001:

“Like a lot of churches,” Mclaren writes, “our little congregation held a prayer service. While praying, I felt a voice speaking, as it were, in my chest: Your Muslim neighbours are in danger of reprisals. You must try to protect them.The next morning, I wrote and made copies of a letter extending, belatedly, friendship toward Muslim communities in my area, and offering solidarity and help if simmering anti-Muslim sentiments should be translated into action. I drove to the three mosques nearby—I had never visited them before—and tried to deliver my letter in person. . . .

“[At the third mosque,] I clumsily introduced myself [to the imam] as the pastor from down the street . . . I then handed him my letter, which he opened and read as I stood there awkwardly. I remember the imam, a man short in stature, slowly looking down at the letter in the bright September sun, then up into my face, then down, then up, and each time he looked up, his eyes were more moist. 

“Suddenly, he threw his arms around me—a perfect stranger. . . . I still remember the feeling of his head pressed against my chest, squeezing me as if I were his long-lost brother. . . . My host welcomed me not with hostility or even suspicion, but with the open heart of a friend. And so that day a friendship began between an Evangelical pastor named Brian and a Muslim imam we’ll call Ahmad. . . .”^[5]

Our enemies and friends, where do they exist? The fact and truth that Ahmad—or anyone— is a friend to one person and an enemy to another should make us think. Where is the enemy? Where is the friend? In our own lives—what’s inside of us—has more to do with the answer to those questions. And maybe it takes a lifetime of struggling with that question to come finally to the throne of grace, where the Good Shepherd welcomes and affirms not only you and your kind, but all who have been shown the love of God in Christ Jesus.

On earth, our task is to reach out in loving friendship. This year, again, Multfaith Housing Initiative in Ottawa is holding its annual Tulipathon walk.^[6]As a patron of MHI, I have participated in this annaul event which raises needed funds to provide safe, affordable housing for newcomers to Canada, the vulnerable and homeless. I invite you to support me and Jessica walk three kilometres on May 30 as we walk as Christians in loving solidaridity with all people of faith.

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^[1]Genesis 1:27

^[2]Richard Rohr, “God Is Not Only ‘Over There’”, Daily Meditation (www.cac.org, 18 April 2021).

^[3]Matthew 18:10-14

^[4]John 10:11,16-18

^[5]Cited in Richard Rohr, “Making New Friends”, ibid., 15 April 2021.

^[6]www.multifaithhousing.ca

We did a poll in our confirmation class last week over Zoom. From a multiple choice list, the confirmands were asked to identify what made them happy during this pandemic. Several of them, about half of the class, chose being with family or a close friend.

Family indeed has becoming forefront in our experience of life during this difficult time for us all. Some of us live alone and our yearning for connection with loved ones may be acute. Some have experienced this time of isolation with family as stressful. Others have deepened their relationships with family members making good use of video and phone calls, or just spending more time with a spouse, child, or parent.

Before Jesus death and resurrection, the Gospels make reference to Jesus’ family. In addition to his parents, Mary and Joseph, Jesus had brothers and sisters.^[1]

But, interesting, afterhis resurrection the Gospels of Matthew and John record Jesus’ special instructions to the women at the empty tomb. He tells them to go tell his ‘adelphoi’^[2]to meet him in Galilee.^[3]Here, Jesus directs this word reserved normally for members of a household family, now to include his disciples, his friends, his followers.

After the resurrection a new relationship of intimacy with Jesus has been made possible. After his resurrection, Jesus expands the circle of whom he considers his ‘adelphoi’ – his siblings, his family – to include those not just connected by blood but by faith. Because of the resurrection, you and I are not just his followers, or even his friends. More than that, we are all now Christ’s siblings. We’re of one flesh! And that is quite stunning news.^[4]

In the Spirit, Jesus has a deep and intimate connection with us. We’re not just soldiers with marching orders to follow someone far ahead of us. We’re not just cogs in a wheelhouse of incessant activity called the church’s mission. We’re not just detached parts of some mechanism running on its own power far removed from us. No, we are of one flesh with Christ. Christ in us. Christ through us. The power of the resurrection lies within us and all the faithful. And that is, indeed, quite stunningly good news!

In the Gospel for today,^[5]Jesus shows his disciples that faith in Christ is an embodied faith. Having a personal relationship with God now is not disconnected from human flesh. Jesus says, “A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Then, in front of them he eats some fish.

A meal, shared together with his siblings constitutes the faith. The embodied presence of God in Christ, in us, is the power of the resurrection that expands outward “from Jerusalem” to include the whole world and all people. And that is why eating the Holy Meal, the Holy Communion, is so integral to our life together as Christians. For every time we celebrate this Holy Meal we participate, our very bodies, in the very life of the living Lord Jesus. The body – the Life – of Christ, given to you!

The confirmands have some homework to do for our next class: They have to consider something that represents hope, love, life in their lives now, and ‘place’ it in the empty egg. After all, the Easter egg symbolizes new life.

In the Zoom poll, there were listed other things that bring joy to us, even in COVID-time: In addition to family and friends, the good weather that beckons us outdoors, a new hobby, pets and learning new skills, to name a few more. 

Especially these days, you might have to work a bit harder to uncover that awareness of new life, because the egg shell can be discouraging. The egg shell looks lifeless from the outside. Like a stone, the shell is cool to the touch and feels hard.

New life is, at first, hidden and buried, like Christ in the tomb. Yet behind the shell a small gift of life is just waiting to come out, to be seen, to grow, to be lifted up and celebrated. How is the presence of the living Lord manifested in yourlife?

After the polling, the confirmands practiced writing prayers in the class last week. Let me close with the words of a couple of young women in the family of God who offered these words of prayer:

The first writes:

Dear God,

I have been anxious lately about school and everything that is happening in the world right now. It seems as if nothing is going right. But thank you for giving me hope and a reason to smile everyday by seeing by best friend at school and being around loving and caring family. Thank you for all the good things that have come with the bad things. Amen.

And another:

Dear God, 

This year hasn’t been the best year there have been ups and downs but I am so grateful to still have a roof over my head, food to eat and everything I have. Please just watch out for and take care of the people that have been struggling and that have lost their jobs.  

Amen.

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^[1]Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55-56

^[2]in Greek, translated most often into English as ‘brothers’ but meaning siblings of a household family; see Bronwyn Lea, “Scripture Says, ‘Sisters, I’m Talking to All Y’all’” in Christianity Today (April 9, 2019).

^[3]Matthew 28:10; John 20:17

^[4]Br. Geoffrey Tristram, “Intimacy” Brother, Give Us A Word (Society of Saint John the Evangelist, www.ssje.org, April 8, 2021)

^[5]Luke 24:36-48