Category Archives: Uncategorized

End of day, hope of new

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Okay, it goes without saying — I love sunsets.

This one was taken at Andrew Haydon Park in Ottawa one day last week.

And here’s the question for contemplation: What ‘sacred cow’ in your own life (a belief, point of view, opinion, stance, habit, spiritual practice) needs to shift, or even go down with the setting sun?

Because we know that the only way we get to see the sun of the new, coming day happens when the sun of the old disappears from our view.

I’ve found Isaiah 43:18-19 a particularly challenging and comforting text on which to reflect while watching the setting sun.

Prayer sustains acts of love

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It wasn’t until the tables were cleared that I noticed the large labyrinth painted on the floor.

For three hours the basement of St Luke’s Anglican Church located in the middle of Chinatown in downtown Ottawa was bustling with activity.

The daily soup kitchen and drop-in centre was the venue for three Anglican/Lutheran youth preparing for their Confirmation in the Christian faith. They serve their neighbor who is for whatever reason destitute.

And yet for several hours each weekday the large church basement becomes a safe place for companionship, laughter and support. We are learning the importance of relationship-building in the way of Christ. For “God so loved the world that he sent his Son Jesus…”(John 3:16).

I also was affirmed in my faith when the labyrinth was revealed to me on the floor. Because the Christian tradition of prayer undergirded, literally, all the outward acts of love, service and relationship-building going on above it.

I explained to the youth this ancient Christian form of walking prayer centering on Jesus — a path that one undertakes in faith, and which leads to loving union with God. One need only stay on the path and move forward.

We return to St Luke’s twice more this week. Only next time I will remember that in the faces of the people I serve is Christ himself.

Together we journey in the way of Christ. Though often fraught with danger, fear and want, the journey undertaken in the prayer of Jesus is one where the love and grace of God is experienced along the way.

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How is God Faithful? – in Covenant

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We are a Covenant people! — So announced the theme of the biennial Eastern Synod Assembly last week in Waterloo. What does it mean to be in a Covenant relationship with God? Certainly this word is not in common usage today. Perhaps ‘promise’ comes close.

Yet Covenant conveys more. First and foremost, to be in a Covenant relationship with God is to trust that God worries about the results. God brings it home. God’s action is the punctuation mark at the end of all our sentences. God finishes.

And we do not. That’s important.

Nevertheless, to assert God’s side of the bargain, what is presumed is our action as well. There’s no point in having punctuation marks at the end of sentences that aren’t written. And so to be in a Covenant relationship with God is to take the risk of faith, not knowing what the consequences may be. Without this element of faith we bring judgement upon ourselves in living and believing in “cheap grace.”

Indeed what we often need to start with — and that is why we being most acts of worship with confession — is seeking forgiveness for blocking God and locking ourselves in false ways of being church. How do we block God and lock ourselves in patterns of unfaithfulness? A worthy question worth exploring: How do we block God and lock ourselves in ways that keep us stuck?

Have you considered that being Christian is not just about going to church on Sunday? Have you considered that being Christian has just as much to do with what we do in our free time? — being Christian has just as much to do with Monday to Saturday as it does with Sunday? — being Christian has just as much to do with what we spend our money on? — being Christian has just as much to do with how we vote? — being Christian has just as much to do with how we relate with our spouse, our children, our extended family, our neighbours, our community? — being Christian has just as much to do with our behaviour as it does with the words we speak? “Preach the Gospel; use words, if necessary,” instructed Saint Francis.

Many of us, myself included, grew up in the church with the idea that faith was a private affair; and, therefore there were three topics good, pious Christians would never discuss openly, especially in the church. You know those three topics, right? — sex, religion, politics.

In looking recently over our annual Canada Revenue Agency charitable report that all churches are bound by law to complete and submit annually, I was surprised to find a question among a hundred other questions: The question was: “Did the charity carry on any political activities during the fiscal period?” The little note above the question clarified that churches indeed can be involved in politics, as long as that political activity is non-partisan and limited in extent.

I was also struck by the meaning of the Old Testament story optioned for this Sunday, from the book and prophet, Samuel. In this story, the Holy Ark of the Covenant — there’s that word again! — is brought triumphantly into Jerusalem. We read about that procession of King David dancing as the Ark is brought into Jerusalem and placed at the center of that great city. It is an image of uninhibited, unabashed glory, of joy and celebration (2 Samuel 6:1-5,12b-19).

Now, just for a moment, reflect with me on the meaning of this: The Ark of the Covenant in ancient Israel was at the time the most powerful and central image of Israel’s faith. And Jerusalem was (like Ottawa is for Canadians) the center of political power in the nation — the capital city.

And what does David do? He brings the two together: religion AND politics. And, perhaps more significantly, he does it not begrudgingly nor fearfully, but joyously!

At the Synod Assembly last week in Waterloo, we passed several motions that you could deem “political” in nature. Let me briefly review a few of these: a motion in support of non-violent solutions in pursuing justice in the world and in situations of conflict; a motion to call upon the government to re-instate full health care coverage to refugee claimants; motions to address affordable housing, poverty, racism and environmental action. These motions can be viewed on the Synod website; hard copies are also available from your delegates.

Faith is not exclusively ‘private’. It is ‘public’. It’s not just about me and Jesus; but about me and the world that God so loved. It’s more than just me. And as soon as we translate our faith into the public realm, it gets political. We have the biblical witness to this marriage between faith and politics:

When the seven perscuted churches in west Asia on the Aegian Sea coast (in present day Turkey) of the Book of Revelation are pressed to swear allegiance to Emperor Nero they are brought before the courts; and the encouragement of scripture is heard: Do not worry about what to say when called upon to testify to your faith in Christ as Lord. “For what you are to say will be given to you; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:19).

The beheading of John the Baptist, from our Gospel text for today (Mark 6:14-29), provides a gruesome image of what sometimes may happen when religion and politics meet in the same room.

And perhaps the most poignant image from the New Testament — the Cross — was a political symbol and practical means of Roman capital punishment. It’s like the electric chair or lethal injection would be for us today. For several centuries after Christ early Christians shied away from using the cross as a central symbol; you can’t find images of crosses anywhere in the archeological record of those first centuries. In fact, the fish was the first central symbol of Christianity. Did the early church find the cross too brutal — too political — an image? I wonder.

I know I need to confess my own fear of bringing my faith to bear on the public world around us. I know I need to confess my own fear of blocking what God wants to do and locking myself because of my fear of rejection, my fear of failure, my fear of sticking out my neck.

One of the speakers at last week’s Synod (I’ll want to talk more about Michael Harvey in the near future) said that fear is the socially acceptable sin of the church today. It is a sin of omission. This is the sin we need to confess. I don’t think it’s coincidence that the biblical injunction: “Do not be afraid/Do not fear/Fear not!” appears some 365 times throughout the bible. We need to hear that; I need to hear that, each day of the year.

Because on the other side of fear is the vision, the abundant life. On the other side of fear is new life. The thing we fear is actually God’s call on our lives. We need to accept and confess our fear. We need to go there.

And when we do, God finishes. God is faithful. God remains true and steadfast to the Covenant relationship. Because God loves us and wants us to love God and those around us. God wants to be in relationship with us, even though we so often miss the mark.

Listen to Paul’s words we often recite: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [notice the political words here]. No, in all these things we are conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).

Jesus goes there. Jesus has crossed the boundary between private and public, religion and politics. Jesus enters all aspects of our life together. There is no place Jesus does not go. Even to those places we fear most. Jesus goes there — into our hurt, pain, suffering, persecution, illness. It is not our job to be successful; it is our job only to be faithful, and do it. We are called only to follow, to follow in the way. And then “Jesus will bring to completion the good work begun in you” (Philippians 1:6).

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Sunset and Sunrise of the Church

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Today I took this photo during sunset at Andrew Haydon Park, Ottawa.
I guess you can’t tell from the photo whether it’s a sunset or sunrise. Unless you know the spot personally.
A sunset and sunrise stand as good metaphors for the institutional church. For many reasons. The image is full of meaning.
I reflect on the need for the people of God to surrender and let go of the good old days; the need to open our hands and release all the sentiments associated with those glory, golden decades of the church during the 20th century. It is a dying of sorts because the new thing can’t happen until we lay all that was on altar.
That lament is what stirs in my soul as I watch yet another sunset.
But there is beauty and hope in the experience, too. Not only do I witness and surrender the passing of a wonderful day. As I walk to the parking lot in near darkness, my back to the darkening sky behind me and the ball of flaming red long gone, I know the sun will rise again in the dawning light in a few hours.
Sunset. Sunrise. The promise of the new awaits as I sneak a glance towards the eastern sky. A smile on my lips.
But first I will sleep, and let the Lord, God of heaven and earth work the miracle of new life, resurrection, while I rest in grace and in peace.

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I snapped this photo during a glorious sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in July 2011. The start of a new day, full of promise.
Behold, the light of the world has come, and darkness has not overcome it.

Is it the end of the church as we know it?

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I took this photo today looking west over the Madawaska River in Arnprior, Ontario. The steeple above the tree line belongs to Saint John Chrysostom Catholic Parish.

After spending several days at a Lutheran (ELCIC) church-wide meeting, I’m beginning to wonder if the sun is indeed setting on the institutional structures of the church as we have known it.

And I ponder this question: What kind of leadership will be needed to see the church into the new thing God is doing in the world today?

Leadership stress; my problem, or yours?

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It didn’t dawn on me how serious and pervasive the problem was until I had car trouble.

Or so I thought.

Stuck in a big city rush hour jam, windows open, engines revving all around me, I first heard it: A loud, clanging sound emanating from somewhere beneath me. The sound followed me, inching along, pretty much down the entire block to the corner.

Even when I made the crawling turn at the intersection, it sounded like I was dragging and scraping my entire exhaust system on the tarmac below.

My hands gripped the steering wheel; was I suddenly going to lose a tire?Which appointments would I have to postpone or cancel for the potentially day-changing delay?

As the good grace of God would have it (and I didn’t even pray for it!) the dealership was right there. I immediately veered my ailing automobile into the garage half expecting my car immanently and literally to fall apart.

The technicians had my car on the hoist in minutes. After a quick check, they approached me slowly, their eyes searching me carefully. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your car, sir,” they reported.

If it wasn’t me then whose noise was it that followed me down the road? I so easily positioned myself to assume someone else’s problem was mine. Understandable, you might say, since they were so close to me their noise sounded like mine.

But that’s just the point. It is precisely those close to us — our family, spouse, close friends, those we lead and care about — where the temptation to be triangulated with someone else’s problem is most seductive.

Edwin Friedman in his book, “A Failure of Nerve; Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix”, suggests that this natural tendency to take on the emotional problems of others inhibits, even undermines, effective leadership –whether in families, marriages, or nation states.

It is not hard work — or even over-work — that causes stress. Stress in leaders is primarily caused by becoming responsible for something that rightly belongs in the purview of others.

Consider these brief citations from Friedman’s book:

“The stress on leaders … primarily has to do with the extent to which the leader has been caught in a responsible position for the relationship of two others” (220)

“Stress and burnout are … due primarily to getting caught in a responsible position for others and their problems” (202)

“Stress is due to becoming responsible for the relationships of others” (194)

Leaders will be wise to remain connected and engaged within the natural relationships of home, family and work. However, the effective leader will be able to self-regulate her/himself so as not to become enmeshed in the emotional reactivity of those relationships.

This may be particularly difficult for personalities who tend to over-function anyway, and compulsively step over the boundaries of others. They often do so on the pretense of care and love.

Especially in caregiving professions where this practice may even be expected and encouraged, the healthy leader will nevertheless take a stand and not lose nerve when asserting one’s stance and self-differentiating, despite the criticisms coming her or his way of being crass, uncaring and cold.

By the way, they did find something wrong with my car. But it had nothing to do with what I thought was my problem.

The only thing a leader can do is focus on his or her own self — to understand one’s position and function within marriage, family, and community.

And give thanks for the sometimes unexpected opportunities that arise to examine one’s self in context.

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How is God faithful? – In the Margins

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An elderly woman lived on a small farm in Manitoba, Canada – just yards away from the North Dakota border. Their land had been the subject of a minor dispute between the United States and Canada for years. The widowed woman lived on the farm with her son and three grandchildren.

One day, her son came into her room holding a letter. “I just got some news, Mom,” he said. “The government has come to an agreement with the people in North Dakota. They’ve decided that our land is really part of the United States. We have the right to approve or disapprove of the agreement. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” his mother said. “Sign it! Call them right now and tell them we accept! I don’t think I can stand another Canadian winter!”

Celebrating Canada Day is about celebrating who we are. And who we are is to a large extent defined by our borders. Indeed, boundaries are important. We need to be clear about the margins, the borders, of our country to understand the shape, size and very nature of our identity.

The margins are both bad and good places for us.

Often we think of the margins as places we don’t want to go to. Those are unknown, scary places full of tension. Margins are not desirable locales. They are places where danger lurks.

I visited this past week the Carlington neighborhood whose chaplaincy we support by our donations and, more significantly, our volunteer leaders. Here, in Ottawa, this area was established for “low income housing” where poor people live. People who call that neighborhood “home” live on the margins of society, so we say.

Jesus, of course, goes to those scary places – our Gospel text today (Mark 5:21-43) opens with a statement recognizing borders: “Jesus crossed in a boat to the other side.” For a rabbi to go to the margins, this is something extraordinary. Jesus is not afraid to go to those from whom we normally want to keep distant.

Jesus goes directly into the home of those whom he heals – Jairus’ daughter in this case. Jesus doesn’t heal from a distance; he goes right into the room and even touches the sick, the outcast and the marginalized. The Gospels are full of such examples. This is his practice – going to the margins. This defines his identity.

Jesus would make a good Canadian. It’s interesting we are living in a time of our history when Canadians are just starting to explore and establish our national presence in a largely unknown “margin” of our country – the Arctic in the Far North. We might find Jesus there. Or would we?

Because Christianity is not just about going to and debating geographic boundaries. Christianity is more than that. It is essentially about going to the social margins.

Notice the literary structure of the Gospel story. Interesting that scribes, translators and early redactors of the text maintained the “interrupted” nature of this text from scripture. They didn’t separate the two distinct healing stories into neat, successive stories. The healing of the woman with hemorrhaging interrupts the story of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. There is something important about preserving this interrupted structure of scripture.

Can going to the margins be good for us? Because, in truth, it describes our reality. Immigrants especially should understand this. Canada is full of immigrants. The nation state of Canada as we know it developed out of our immigrant identity. How can we describe our immigrant experience?

For one thing, immigrants are people betwixt and between two places; it is an interrupted reality, so to speak. As a first generation Canadian I have felt the residual effects of this reality, experienced more directly of course by my parents.

New immigrants often feel ‘marginalized’ in the dominant culture. They neither feel they belong fully to where they’ve come from; nor do they feel they belong fully to where they’ve landed. These are the margins as well; it is who we are, crossing both boundaries of national identities, and creating something new and unique.

Listen to the words of Mary Joy Philip who was one of the keynote speakers at the Luther Hostel last month inWaterloo. She said,

“What is home now? India? The United States? Most of my life has been spent in India; I was educated, married, had children, a career there. And now I have been in the U.S. for fifteen years. So, where is home now? Where do I belong? Having been away from India this long, do I belong there? And even though I have been in the U.S.for fifteen years, I definitely don’t have that feeling of belonging. I am an outsider and always will be. So, I don’t feel that I belong in India or in the U.S.; and yet, I belong in both … I belong in that in-between space, betwixt and between … you are neither there nor here but in both … [which] puts me in a unique position of being in beyond both, of being what you might call a hybrid.”

I would add that Canada is full of ‘hybrids’.

Yet what is truly remarkable about Jesus is that he doesn’t just go to the margins; he crosses the borders of social acceptability. He crosses the borders that we might deem fearful. He crosses the borders of any kind of stigma that separates people. He crosses the borders of theological correctness, doctrinal purity. He crosses the borders of ethnic segregation.

To be sure, the margins are places of tension, a tension between endings and beginnings. But it is precisely this tension that sustains life. Those margins, the borders, prove so necessary to our common life and growth together as a nation and people of God’s reign.

Let’s remember that, in a sense, Jesus was a hybrid: Fully human and fully divine. Both/And. Jesus, the God-man, lived at the margins, in theGalilee, where from, in the eyes of the others no good could come, but from whither and from whom the “good news” came. How can the margins NOT be the threshold to something new, something transformed, something good, in Christ Jesus.

Mary Joy Philip went on to assert that as an immigrant, she could draw out the uniqueness of both places she was and is now, and create a new space to be … which allowed her to have a distinct identity.”

Crossing over may not always be ideal nor perfect. But it is important to do, and good, too. As we venture into this new space we need only to hear Jesus’ words over and over again: “Do not fear, only believe.”

A small yet significant example from our Canadian history illustrates well this dynamic: Chiefswood is the name of the house of Canadian literary giant, Pauline Johnson. This stately house is situated on the Six Nations Reserve nearBrantford,Ontario. The house, literally, was built as a ‘cross-over’ for two distinct peoples sharing the land.

The house has identical entrances on opposite sides of the main floor, joined by a common foyer hall and staircase going up, in between. One entrance was designated for the Six Nations community to enter, and the other for the British side. The home served as the in-between space for both sides to co-exist. Their home provided a space where on equal footing – literally – interaction and dialogue could happen; and perhaps even transformation of BOTH sides in deep, meaningful ways. What a great image and model for Canada, moving forward!

I think we Canadians are well conditioned and poised by our history and our faith to be thankful and assert our unique identity in the world as a people whose social borders are crossed and mutually transformed into something more beautiful. That is to say: the ‘whole’ of what it means to be Canadian is larger than the sum of our individual parts.

Thank God for going to the margins of our lives!

Amen.

How is God Faithful? – Despite Us

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How do you like your water? Do like it rough? Or do you like it calm?

In the Bible one of the most popular images of water is from Psalm 23: “He leads me beside still waters.” We say that still waters run deep; and indeed, it is true. In baptism, we sprinkle a few, tiny drops of water; or, we pour a small, shell-full of lukewarm water on the infant.

And so we sometimes and naturally receive these images and rituals as prescriptive of a rosy, comfortable, and easy existence with God and the Church.

Therefore, we may come to expect and even crave an easy life, saying it is the will of God. Conversely, when bad things happen or life challenges us to the core, is it because God has abandoned us, or is punishing us? Has our faith been lacking?

In reality our lives our often marked by a rushing torrent of roiling, turbulent, frothing white-water. Being faithful to the baptismal life in Christ is often descriptive more of being in a full-blown hurricane on the ocean.

I love the image of Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat while the disciples get anxious and fearful (Mark 4:35-41). To me, Jesus’ response suggests that in all the storms of our lives, Jesus does not diminish in any way the normalcy of the stormy life as part and parcel of faithful living.

The implication of this is counter-intuitive: It is precisely when life gets unnerving that faith makes any sense at all. Faith isn’t faith until it’s all you’re hanging on to, when the storms of life rage close by.

So when everything is calm, enjoy the moment because there will be more white water soon to come (if we are being faithful, that is). Because when we know God to be near, what we think is reliable and safe is shaken up. Whatever we presume is unchanging, constant, safe …. Beware! If Jesus comes close to that, you may be in for a ride! Because in Jesus’ presence we realize we really cannot control or fix those seemingly stable, controllable things on our own. And this is admitedly a scary prospect.

I’m not a white-water kayaker. But I do enjoy paddling in our canoe or kayak on relatively calm waters. Last weekend I got out on the river for the first time this season. And I was reminded again of the “Rules for White-water Rafting” described by Bishop Pryse at the last Synod Assembly in Toronto a couple of years ago.

He had eight rules for white-water. But I just want to highlight a couple. One rule, which is actually a combination of two of them, is: Never stop paddling, even when it seems hopeless, even when the boat doesn’t go where you want it to go. Never stop paddling.

This is so very important! One of the biggest challenges we face today is that of not giving in to cynicism which Martin Luther reminds us should be counted among, “doubt, despair and other shameful sins.” We need to keep paddling. We need to keep believing. We can never give up.

What did the disciples lack? If anything, they didn’t believe Jesus could do anything, that Jesus could actually provide a way through the storm.

But just as much as we need to keep paddling even when things aren’t going our way, at another level and in other circumstances we also need to be able to let go and stop trying too hard.

I’ve discovered that when docking or pulling away from the dock, all efforts to overcome wind and current by simply trying harder generally do not work. Far better than fighting wind and current is to position myself so that those natural forces will in their own natural way aid rather than frustrate my intent (p.229, Edwin Friedman A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, 2006).

I know this especially to be true when solo-canoeing. Even when heading out onto the river, if I don’t have my canoe aligned at the right angle vis-à-vis the direction of the wind, no amount of paddling on my part will achieve anything except frustration.

Alignment. Positioning. This has everything to do with the relationships in which we find ourselves. When we discover a need to realign ourselves vis-à-vis others, ourselves and God, the first step is to “take off the tires” that need re-alignment. For a complete re-alignment job, all tires have to be detached from the vehicle, rotated and then re-attached and balanced. In other words, letting go of our emotional grip on things is the first step.

Another one of Bishop Pryse’s rules for white-water paddling is: If you go under – which is a normal occurrence when white-water paddling – let go of everything; eventually you will come back up. An essential quality of faith is the willingness to let go of anything that we’re holding onto tightly. What are you holding onto so tightly? Resentment? Impatience? The need to be right? The need to be needed? The need to be in control?

Golfers, table-tennis, baseball and hockey players can attest to the one indicator that they are in a slump – what are they doing? They’re holding onto their club, racket, paddle, stick or bat too tightly.

If you want to get out of your slump, one thing to consider is “loosening up”. This is risky and scary. The stress of doing that can be sharp, but short-lived. Because once you have the courage to let go we discover an amazing truth, one that David I believe experienced on the battle field (1Samuel 17).

David could have gone home. David could have used the armor Saul was intent on giving him to fight Goliath, the giant Philistine. Yet, David did neither “safe” option. He was determined to trust in God by trusting in his own gifts of a sling and pebble – even when the facts appeared to suggest he was doomed.

We already have everything we need. We have enough; we don’t need to toil and strive to be something we are not. God has already given to us what we need. All we need to do is trust that God will not let go of us, and that ‘resurrection’, so to speak, will take care of itself.

For me it puts things in right perspective knowing that, regardless of what happens, we will most certainly come back up when we let go.

It’s interesting Jesus, after stilling the storm and bringing peace and calm to the situation asks his disciples, “Why are you afraid?” (Mark 4: 40-41) His question doesn’t refer to their fear during the storm, but after it was over: Verse 41, where the NRSV translates that the disciples were filled with “great awe”, is literally translated they were “fearful with a great fear” for what Jesus did. Why were the disciples as afraid – if not more afraid – of what Jesus accomplished to bring calm to the water than when the storm was at its peak?

Was it because they knew now there was no longer an excuse for not acting in bold, nervy, trusting, faithful ways DESPITE their fear? Truth be told, sometimes people want to remain stuck, holding on too tightly to that which they know is not good. Better the devil you know, right? The unfortunate result, however, is remaining stuck, cowering in despair and using fear as an excuse not to do the right thing.

But it’s not about us. While Jesus doesn’t diminish the reality of the storm, Jesus also demonstrates an everlasting, unshakable commitment to his disciples. Despite their unbelief and fear, Jesus is faithful. Jesus’ faithfulness is NOT conditional on the strength of our faith. This is good news. Jesus doesn’t abandon us in the storm. Jesus is not punishing us on account of the storm – whatever the storm you face. Jesus believes in us, even when we don’t have the courage to believe in ourselves.

One of the most honest, authentic prayers and confessions in Christianity is from the Gospel of Mark: “Lord, I believe; Help my unbelief” (9:24). And so our prayer today may echo the great prayer of the father whose son was healed by Jesus: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” For your homework this week, I invite you to read that 9th chapter of Mark leading up to that father’s statement. And read Martin Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Apostle’s Creed in Luther’s Small Catechism, where he writes: “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ … or come to him ….. but by the Holy Spirit.”

Reflect on those words and examine your capacity to trust and wait for God’s Spirit. And examine your capacity to be decisive; to be decisive with honest awareness of your limitations and despite your fears. And in all that reflection, remember the most important thing – God is faithful!

Amen.

How is God Faithful? – Surprise!

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I don’t like surprises. Never have. I am impressed when families can pull off those surprise anniversary celebrations or birthday parties. Perhaps I’m even more impressed by those who are the recipient of the proverbial “Surprise!” How do they keep their composure? Especially when all of a sudden their day and plans are turned upside down – how do they go with the flow?

But maybe I need to open myself up more to being surprised. Because I suspect being surprised is a basic quality of faith. And maybe that’s what I like about that hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness. Since the first time I sung it, it always catches me and invites me to ponder – life is not about my faithfulness. I remember as a teenager believing mistakenly for a while that this hymn was about affirming the faithfulness of one another in the church. This hymn title suggested to me it was about my growth, my faith and the faith of those I admired in the church.

Anytime we encounter one of these parables about seeds and planting and growth (now that we’re in the season after Pentecost) the temptation is to dwell on and maybe even obsess about what we need to do, how we should respond in order to make things happen in our lives, in our church and in our world.

The Gospel text for today (Mark 4:26-34) nevertheless points to another reality we so easily miss in our striving and toiling, in our compulsions and in our hard work: God is faithful, despite all our efforts. My life is about God, and God’s ways. Not only that, it is the manner in which God is faithful that surprises me.

For fun I have been reading the trilogy of popular books about the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. During the first time the main character, Katniss Everdeen, competes in the deadly competition to survive she is saved by someone who no one expected to live long in the games, by someone no one really took notice of when the games began. In fact, no one even noticed her because she was the smallest, youngest girl, until….

One fateful night Katniss is trapped high in a tree while her enemies simply wait her out camping at the base of the tree. Before dawn she is wakened by some rustling of leaves and branches in a neighboring tree. Looking over she sees the little girl, Rue, who points to a large bee’s nest indicating a way out of her predicament. Acting on Rue’s cue, Katniss drops the entire nest on the unsuspecting group below, scattering them and giving Katniss opportunity to escape.

This seems to be God’s modus operandi: God chooses that which the world presumes unqualified, even undesirable, to accomplish God’s purposes. God will demonstrate God’s faithfulness by sticking by us, especially in our weakness and among those who are marginalized on account of their ‘unwanted’ qualities. When everyone else loses their faith in someone or something, watch out! It is precisely in those circumstances and with those people where God might be working to demonstrate God’s faithful, life-giving, gracious and powerful purposes. Echoes of Paul’s words in his letters to the Corinthian Church sound here: “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

I think we can see this operating in the choosing of the smallest, ruddiest shepherd boy David to be the next King of Israel (1 Samuel 16:1-13). The family doesn’t even have him around when all the boys of the family are lined up before the prophet Samuel who comes to appoint the heir to the throne. The older, taller, powerful brothers were exceptional candidates, right? That’s how little faith they had in David’s abilities and gifts. How can God choose such an inexperienced youth, after all? Someone we push around and give all the crappy farm-hand jobs to do?

And what about that tiny seed? A theme throughout the Gospel of Mark is ‘secrecy’ that is eventually unveiled. For example, often in Mark’s Gospel Jesus instructs those who witness a miracle not to tell anyone about it, for the truth about Jesus must be disclosed at the right time – at the cross and empty tomb.

The character of the kingdom of God emerges, comes out. And the kingdom of God matures and grows not because of our efforts but because that’s its job, like a seed. A seed is not forced to grow, or told to grow. It does what it has been created to do, naturally, and on its own timetable.

The nature and function of the kingdom of God on earth starts – covered, veiled, hidden, unsuspecting; but once it starts, you can’t stop it. Because a mustard plant is invasive, like a weed. Nobody wants a weed! Nobody would expect God’s truth, God’s power, God’s ways to come about from something like that, eh? Just like people in Jesus’ day never believed anyone or anything good would come from Nazareth, right?

Surprise! God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).

One way our toiling and striving can get in the way and get us stuck is our obsession with gathering more and more information. As if our salvation rests on more and more knowledge. We live in an age of data-obsession. For example, whenever we encounter a challenge or ambiguity or a question, what is the first thing we do? We collect data. We take surveys. We gather information so that we’ll have an answer to the question. The result, often: we get stuck –in the numbers, the facts.

Edwin Friedman in his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix discusses Europe’s rather sudden conversion from being depressed (Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493) and having a lack of hope and vision, to flowering in religious, artistic and scientific revival. The turning point? The discovery of the New World. And what characterized those who discovered the New World was that they had the nerve, the courage and spirit of adventure to go beyond the boundaries of the accepted data of the day.

The sanctioned cartography of the day described the Atlantic Ocean as the only ocean on earth; there were no land masses south of the equator; and, California was an island. If Columbus and other sea-faring adventures remained ‘bound’ by the data they would never have made their discoveries; Europe would have remained ‘stuck’ and ‘depressed’.

I suspect as important as data-collection can be to any vision, this approach can also only serve to squeeze out of our consciousness the vision of adventure, of the beyond- ourselves, including some ambiguity, including God’s ways, God’s power.

The parable of the mustard seed asks us not to close our imagination. This parable asks us not to close our sense of a vision beyond what is immediately apparent and measurable. In short, this parable invites us on a journey of life and faith in which we are open to be surprised by God’s grace. How can we be surprised if we know everything – or pretend to know everthing?

Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God! How can we practice being surprised by God’s unsuspecting faithfulness to us? Well, let’s first narrow our scope from New World discovery to our experience of worship: Ask yourself, why do I come to worship? Where do I expect to encounter God in the worship service?

And let me suggest that you are open to experiencing and encountering God not just where you might expect – the usual suspects: in the sermon or in the music, for example. Let me suggest that God may bless you and move your heart in another place in the service where you didn’t expect it – perhaps in the lifting of the bread and cup at the Eucharist, perhaps in one of the petitionary prayers, or merely one word in the prayer of the day, or in sharing a cup of coffee with another person following the service, or in one line of a hymn, the sound of a musical instrument, the voice of the choir, the reading of scripture. And that can change from week to week!

God is faithful. God can come to us not only in any and all of these parts of the liturgy but in any part of our day from Monday to Saturday where we least expect it. And God comes to us faithfully in order to sustain us, empower us and inspire us with His Spirit. On our way rejoicing!

Thanks be to God. Amen.