Tag Archives: Christianity

Search for love – a wedding sermon

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There once was a little boy who decided he wanted to go find God. He knew it would probably be a long trip to find God, so he decided to pack a lunch, four packs of Twinkies and two cans of root beer.

He set out on his journey and went a few blocks until he came to a park. In this park on a bench, sat an old woman looking at the pigeons and feeding them.

The little boy had already walked quite a way, and thought it might be a good idea to sit down for a bit. So, he sat down on the park bench beside the old woman. And he watched the pigeons too. After a while he grew hungry and so he pulled out some Twinkies. As he ate, he noticed the woman watching him, so he offered her a Twinkie. The old woman gratefully accepted it and smiled at the boy.

There was something about her smile that fascinated the boy. He thought it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen, and he wanted to see it again. So he brought out the cans of root beer, opened one and offered the old woman the other one. Once again, she smiled that beautiful smile. For a long time, the two sat on that park bench eating Twinkies, drinking root beer, smiling at each other, and watching and feeding the pigeons. But neither said a word.

Finally, the little boy realized that it was getting late and that it was time to go home. He started to leave, took a few steps, then turned back and gave the old woman a big hug. The old woman’s smile was brighter than ever before.

When he arrived back home, the boy’s mother noticed that her son was happy, yet somehow strangely quiet. “What did you do today?” she asked, trying to figure out what was going on. “Oh, I had lunch in the park with God,” he said. Before his mother could reply, he added, “You know, she has the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.”

Meanwhile, the woman had left the park and returned to her home. Her daughter noticed something different about her mother. “What did you do today, Mom?” she asked. “Oh, I ate Twinkies and drank root beer in the park with God,” she said. And before her daughter could say anything, she added. “You know, he is a lot younger than I had imagined.”

Often when we set out on significant journeys of our lives we have big expectations. We set out to find love, to find something of the divine, fulfillment in life, maybe even God. We make choices, then, that are based on these larger-than-life expectations.

The problem is, that when we don’t, when other people and experiences don’t reflect our utopic visions, we are disappointed and may even despair. But what we have failed to do is find God, or true love, or our deepest needs in the mundane, ordinary, common life, day-to-day experiences.

In many ways this day for you, Katherine and Max, is perfect. It is certainly a day set apart for you in exquisite ways. A unique natural setting. You both look beautiful. You are surrounded by the people closest to you. This place is beautiful, being outside in God’s natural creation. What a day!

At the same time, I hope you remain open to being surprised on your journey, moving forward. I hope you keep your eyes open to those moments, perhaps, when no words are said, perhaps in the regular routines of day-in and day-out.

They say the spaces between the notes in music are part of the music. The pauses. The rests. When no sound is made. Those can be the most important moments in appreciating a musical piece.

Being so attuned to one another in marriage, when sometimes no words are necessary. Experiencing the divine while sitting on a park bench eating Twinkies and drinking root beer of all things. Finding simple delight in the moments of grace, in the least expected circumstances of life, when Life smiles at you. When Love embraces you.

“Love only endures when it moves like waves …” I think that’s my favourite line in the James Kavanaugh poem.[1]Like the waves on the lake behind us there is a rhythm in nature that I believe describes well the pattern and truth of love and life. That we find it not just in its full-on force expressed like when the wind blows and the waves crash on the shore and the music is played at its loudest. But also, just as real, when there is a pause, when the waves retreat. When there is a moment of silence. Who would have thought? Are we listening, and are we watching there, too?

On your marriage journey, Katherine and Max, may you find the way filled with park benches, Twinkies, root beers and wordless silence where you can experience in each other the loving presence of a faithful God who will always find us.

With a smile.

 

[1] James Kavanaugh, “To Love is not to Possess”

Humility

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The gospel story for today is about humility. And exercising humility means letting go of our privilege in this time and place.

Privilege is a state of mind we presume to have, vis-à-vis others. The source of our privilege may come from the country in which we happen to be born, when in history we were born, to whom we were born. Privilege comes from being offspring and inheritors of settlers in this land who made an empire and found great financial wealth here. The list can go on.

In the economy of God’s grace, however, all that doesn’t matter. Gone is the pecking order. We all stand on the same level playing field. In the story where he advises his followers to take the last seat at a large table of a prominent Pharisee (Luke 14:1,7-14), Jesus denounces our egoistic striving to be first in line. As if the good that we experience in life depends on us, and is all up to us.

Which leads us back to humility. An image I hold of this humble stance in life is a prayerful pose: bowed slightly, hands open both receiving and giving.

Since the truth of the Gospel is so often expressed in parables — stories — here follows a story about the most privileged trees on the slopes of the Canadian Rocky and Coastal Mountains.

At least twice during our road trip through western Canada we came across swaths of mountainsides devasted either by the mountain pine beetle or forest fires. Even the most prevalent of trees in these areas – the western red cedar or lodgepole pine—were not immune from the infestation.

 

We learned, in the case of the pine beetle, that it takes about ten years for the cycle of renewal. Right now, in the early stages, all we saw from the vantage of trams high in the air were carpets of brown trees—the green of life and growth stripped, absent. Like matchsticks in the dirt, their needles deadened, lifeless. Didn’t look so good.

Our guides assured that this cycle was necessary for the forest to renew itself. The problem with the way the pine forest was establishing itself over decades was the growth was becoming too dense and thick, thereby choking out other life. Once the dead trees fall over from the pine beetle infestation, space is made for sunlight and rain to penetrate the forest floor once again, thereby inciting new growth.

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From the barren, lifeless landscape come first the purple, mountain mallow which blooms close to the ground. Then, notably, aspen grows and finally again pioneer species such as the lodgepole pine—the provincial tree of Alberta.

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These trees, some of them privileged, native species of the region, bow to the larger movements and cycles of life. They are part of something bigger than themselves that is happening in the eco-system. Needs larger than their own are being addressed. Each of those trees bow to a greater scheme. They, if they had consciences, realize their lives are given and meant for a greater good.

So, for us, imagine a humility that is not false but true. Not a humility that in a backhanded way seeks attention or self-aggrandizement. But a humility that honestly reveres the greater good in which we participate and which we serve.

It is like someone has quietly deposited a million dollars in your checking account. Imagine that! And now it is secretly yours. Yet you always know it was a gift. It is yours to use and enjoy and expand. But you cannot say you earned it or you deserved it. Everybody thinks it is your money and may or may not admire you for it; it doesn’t matter. You know better and cannot take the credit. You just live in gratitude and confidence. And you try to let the flow continue through you. You know that love can be repaid by love alone.[i]

You can say as followers of  Christ we need to get over ourselves at some point on this path. Now, getting over ourselves doesn’t mean doing harm or denying our humanity of which our ego striving is very much a part. It does mean we learn to hold all of who we are—including the not-so-good-parts—in the light of the bigger picture of God’s initial and primary grace and gifting to us. We are part of something much larger than we think.

In the economy of God’s grace, how then do we live? How does this awareness translate into real life?

We live our days, each moment, drawing from another source. God is primary; we are derivative. God is the source of all energy, power, wisdom and wealth. [ii]

We see ourselves an instrument of the gift we have.

We don’t, therefore, need to promote ourselves.

We don’t need to take first nor final responsibility for our goodness, our gift whatever it is.

We meet other people where they are at, not where we are at.

And when we experience setback in life, we need not worry too much about our failures. In truth, it is often in the very experience of failure, limitation and loss where we find the seeds of new life.

Indeed, our life is not our own. Yet at some deep level we know that it has been given to us as a sacred trust.

Our best is not our own; it is borrowed.

We know Someone takes us seriously; we feel deeply respected and grateful.

We can bow, in gratitude and respect, with hands open, to the gift.

 

 

[i]Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return; The Five Promises of Male Initiation (New York: The Crossword Publishing Company, 2016),  p.157-158.

[ii] Michael Dowd, “The Nested Body” in The Mendicant Volume 9 Number 3 (Centre for Action and Contemplation: Summer 2019), p.3.

Home is where you’re wanted

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It’s Canada Day. It’s a day we celebrate our identity as Canadians and our beautiful home, in Canada.

They say the best part of travelling abroad is coming home. The first time that hit home for me was when in my late teens I visited southern Poland where my parents were born.

I recall being driven about the countryside there. And though there are gorgeous landscapes in the valleys and hills surrounding the Tatra mountains in the south, there were [and are, still] many coal mines in operation. We had a tour of one of these mines—its stark and dirty images still occupy my mind. There wasn’t a day being in Poland that I didn’t smell the pollution in the air.

Until I got off the homebound plane at Mirabel in the Laurentian hills between Ottawa and Montreal (when it was still an international airport during the 1980s.) Walking on the tarmac from the plane to the terminal, I felt the cool breeze coming down over the hills from the north, and breathed deeply the pristine air. And I recall being so thankful for living in a country where I could breathe that clean, natural air.

To this day when someone asks me why I love living in Canada, my immediate, visceral response is: “The air. I can breathe.”

We can all, I suppose, point to aspects of living in Canada for which we are grateful. Whatever we call home is so important to our sense of self. Indeed, our identity is formed out of however we define home. It’s usually some combination of family, relationships, personal history and place.

Often I hear the definition of home as ‘where you come from’. Where I come from includes relationships, family history, where my forbears settled and worked the land. This tie, this bond, can be very strong.

It’s ironic, maybe even disturbing, that we confront a gospel reading for this Sunday that challenges— to the core— our comfortable ideas of home. To those who first want to attend to family, Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Then, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”[1]In another Gospel, Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”[2]

He even warns those who want to follow him that they will have to do without. That the spiritual journey involves the way of material simplicity and letting go. It involves a poverty of sorts. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Jesus was a transient. As a baby—Emanuel, Son of God—he was a refugee.

But while he didn’t boast of a physical home on earth, he certainly had what it took to be at home in himself and with God. He was grounded within himself, quite distinct from any external, material ties to land and hearth. Jesus turns to his disciples and beckons, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

A Jesus-identity stands in sharp contrast to everything we want to focus on in our celebration of Canada Day—material prosperity, security, affluence and strong, traditional bonds of family.

Jesus’ lifestyle describes what ancient and contemporary wisdom teachers have called a spirituality of subtraction.[3]This way is counterintuitive. Our human nature gravitates towards a spirituality of addition. That is, we normally say the solution to all problems is to do more, to add on, to do better, to achieve greater heights, to impress, to work harder, etc. Add. Accumulate. Get bigger, faster, better. More, more, more.

However, Jesus tells us that the less we do and the less that we desperately try to be someone, the closer we come to this kingdom of God. This state of being is where there is no longer any need to struggle to protect ourselves and to survive. “It’s the way of subtraction, where less is not just more, but everything.”[4]

Canada Day, while not a festival in the church calendar, gives us nonetheless opportunity to be thankful and celebrate God’s good gifts in all that we have and are. It is also an opportunity to  reflect on our identity and our home as Christians:

Where do we land, at the end of the day? If we are the ones on the positive side of history, what is the state of our own inner life, distinct from the externals and the material wealth? What are our go-to beliefs and unacknowledged assumptions? Who are we, really, when all else is stripped away? And who are we becoming? What do we need to let go of? What do we need to embrace, anew?

The way of subtraction is a way of recognizing, acknowledging, even embracing what the normal ebb and flow of life brings to us all. Not just yahooing when good things happen. But also not turning a blind eye, ignoring or denying the suffering, the losses, the fear and the anxieties that serve a very important purpose in life: Because they point to the way of our healing and transformation.

We can start, on Canada Day, by acknowledging that not everyone is happy today. Not everybody would have reason to celebrate Canada Day. And who are these people? Do we see them? Do we care?

When by some injustice some people are excluded. When some people feel judged or discriminated against by the majority. When history exposes problems with the way we settled this land, the way we did things in the past. When our people used unjust means to achieve goals that breached ethical lines.

On a personal level, we pay attention to those difficult transitions in life, those that cause great stress. When who we thought we were, when our long-held identity, when the home of our conditioned self doesn’t work or make sense anymore:

For example, when divorce or separation breaks down our idea of being someone who is happily married …

When growing up means no longer being a dependent son or daughter but someone who is a responsible, self-actualized and an independent adult…

When ageing means we can no longer derive purpose from our physical abilities; that is, how we see ourselves can no longer depend on being able to dothings …

For men especially, when we are not the breadwinners of the household, or don’t have grandchildren to brag about, or can’t point to a list of worldly accomplishments …

When having children is not a possibility, despite the dreams of youth …

When we no longer can have or do what we want …

In all these cases, and there are more, when who we are—who we thought we were—no longer works. Then, who are we?

“What we’re really being invited to give up [when Jesus talks like this] is not our car, our house, our laptop and our multiple hand-held devices (although it would be healthier to have a much lighter grip on all of those things). The possessions that we are really fiercely attached to are much less tangible: our ideas about who we are, beliefs deeply hidden even—especially—from ourselves, the self-sustaining narratives that we run for reassurance over and over again.”[5]

What would it look like in our lives when our priorities would shift? When we would regard all that we have and our relationships through the prism of faith? When all the material things we possess, when our long-held, cherished assumptions, our stalwart beliefs were seen through the perspective of faith?

What if Jesus were calling us to re-align our inner compass so that Monday through Saturday had just as much to do with faith as Sunday morning did?

When I breathe in the refreshing, clean air blowing from the north, I reflect on the nature of breath. Breath is gift. I take it in. I need it for life. I delight in it.

But I also have to let it go, for life. I need to breath out. I can’t continue to inhale unless I also exhale. Give it away. Return it to the world. The gift continues to become a gift for someone else, over and over again. I don’t possess it.

As Hildegard of Bingen wrote in the 12th century, “I am a feather on the breath of God.”

I recently read a wonderful definition of home. It wasn’t so much a definition stated with absolute resolve, more a suggestion to consider. What if home was not so much ‘where we’re from’ but more ‘where we are wanted.’[6]

In God’s realm on earth and in heaven, you are wanted. God wants you. In that mutual desiring, that is where our home is. And, what is more, God wants the stranger, the outsider, too. The other. God wants all of us. The span of God’s love covers this land and the whole world. “For God so loved the world …”[7]

Home is where we are wanted. When we are in communion with God, when we affirm our connection with the living Lord, when we can live out of the power of God’s Spirit in whom we move, live, breathe and have our being.

 

 

[1]Luke 9:51-62

[2]Matthew 10:37-38

[3]Meister Eckhart, Richard Rohr, Jim Green—to name a few.

[4]Jim Green, Giving Up Without Giving Up (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019), p.67.

[5]Jim Green, p.68-69.

[6]Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone (Toronto: Random House, 2009)

[7]John 3:16

What brings you delight?

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The story is told of three-year-old Morgan and her mother Sarah driving in the car one day. Morgan is a little butterfly of a girl. She loves to talk—she chatters constantly—especially when she’s in her car seat. She’s always telling her mom, Sarah, to look at things. And Sarah will often respond rather absent-mindedly, “Yes, honey, I see!” or “Wow, Morgan, that’s great!”

One morning while Sarah was driving Morgan to pre-school, Morgan said, “Look, Mommy! Look what I have in my lap!” Without turning around Sarah replied, “Yes, honey, I see! That’s great!” Little Morgan didn’t miss a beat. “Mommy,” she said sternly, “we do not look with our mouths! Turn around and see me with your eyes!”[1]

Often we struggle to ‘see’ God in our lives. Especially during the dark moments when things aren’t going well, when we confront some significant challenge, or suffer pain and loss. In those experiences, we might simply give God ‘lip service’—we say we believe, but deep down, if we’re honest, we really doubt God’s interest or involvement in our lives.

Or, we might downright reject the notion that God is present. And we’re not afraid to say it. In fact, I suspect most people will not see God, will not hear God, and therefore will not believe in God. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ is a very powerful mantra in our society—even among those who may say, “I believe!”

In this text assigned from Proverbs for Holy Trinity Sunday, a main character who speaks here is Wisdom. And she is described in Christian tradition as the third member of the Trinity—the Holy Spirit. “Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth … then I was beside the Lord, like a master worker; and I was daily the Lord’s delight, rejoicing before the Lord always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”[2]

When you hear the word ‘wisdom’, what first comes to your mind? Like me, you might first imagine a stern, tight-lipped person, a killjoy, or a solemn judge in black robe. But that is not the picture of the Holy Spirit described here in the scripture. God is not dour drudgery. God is not about excessive seriousness. We do not worship a stingy God who grudgingly gives gifts and who grants forgiveness as a divine grump.

God, in the Holy Spirit, is joyous laughter, dance, and play. “When there were no depths I was brought forth …” The Hebrew word for ‘brought forth’ may also be translated as ‘whirl’ or ‘dance’. That’s why the Eastern Orthodox tradition emphasizes the Trinity in the word, ‘perichoresis’, which literally means “dancing around”.[4]The triune God is a joyous, dancing God who pours out overflowing gifts to humanity with gladness.

God’s invitation to walk, laugh, play and dance comes to us all in the light of each new day. To see is to pay attention to what brings delight to your heart. To see this is to pay attention to what rejoices in your spirit. Not all the answers to the deepest, important questions of our lives, not all the solutions to our biggest problems and challenges, are found in the act of furrowed brows, stern language and intense conversations.

When Jesus says to look at the children as a witness to following in the way of Christ,[3]I believe he does so because it is the delightful, freeing, playfulness that opens the heart to seeing God. The blocking—the unseeing—resides in our grown-up expectations, our stifled adult imagination, our narrowing vision.

God is right behind us, telling us to ‘Look what I have here!’ And we have to do more than say, ‘Yeah, I see’ and carry on in our serious, self-consumed busyness. We actually have to give that playful word validation and significance. And, we have to turn around to see it, and engage that playfulness.

Here’s a personalized version of Proverbs 8, a story of seeing and meeting God in everyday life:

“I was out shopping yesterday, and whom did I run into? Wisdom. Yeah, there she was. She called me over and we began talking. Wisdom and I. Then, I went down to the courthouse, and there she was again, making a plea for justice in some dingy courtroom where somebody had been unjustly accused. After that, I dropped by the school, and she had gotten there before me, calling for students and teachers alike always to seek truth. Then, I went for a walk in the woods, moving along the trail in quiet meditation. Wisdom snuck up on me and said …

“’Now that we are alone, I have something I want to share with you, a present I want you to enjoy. You know, I have been around a long time, really before the beginning of time. I have been whirling and dancing with God all along. I am God’s delight, laughing and playing. I want you to know the lightness of spirit and gladness that come when you welcome me. Will you set aside those thoughts, words, and deeds that make life heavy and sad for you and others? Will you come and laugh and play with me? Will you come and dance with me? Will you?’”[5]

The Spirit of the living God is everywhere. The goodness of God is right before our eyes if we are willing to see it. In Roland Bainton’s classic biography of Martin Luther, Bainton relays the story of a large bough of cherries which hung above the table in Luther’s busy and active household. The reason given was to remind everyone of the beauty and delight of the Lord.

Martin Luther responds, “All you need to do is to look down and around the table at all the children running about – and you will learn from them more than from a cherry bough about the delight of the Lord.”

May we learn to set our sights on what is right there before us, to see God.

 

[1]Sharon Garlough Brown, Sensible Shoes: A Story about the Spiritual Journey (Illinois: IVP Books, 2013), p.51

[2]Proverbs 8:25, 30-31

[3]Mark 10:13-16

[4]Jeff Paschal in David Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Volume 3 (Kentucky: WJK Press, 2010), p.27-31

[5]Paschal, ibid.

From spiritual childhood to adulthood

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It was in the 1980s and 1990s when the phrase “kids of all ages” came into vogue. When its usage skyrocketed. People attending circuses, entertainment and other public events would often hear the invitation and address to “kids of all ages!”

It was also during the 1980s and 90s when baby boomers became adults. And when these adults—like no adults before them but all who followed—started acting like children:

Half the buyers of comic books and tickets to superhero movies were adults. The majority of video game consoles, cartridges and discs at the end of the last century were bought by people in their 30s. Video games, originally sold to boys to pretend they were grown up action heroes were soon bought mainly by grown men who wanted to play like kids.[1]

This was the time when it became acceptable for adults to play video games and fantasy sports. This was the time when it became ok for the likes of me to dress like teens, to groom themselves and even get surgery to look thirty years younger. The “kids of all ages” phenomenon has had negative repercussions on men and women alike, especially around issues of self-esteem and body image.

Emotional immaturity, narcissism, co-dependency and not taking responsibility for one’s actions tend to be the psychological effects of the kids-of-all-ages era. And we live with these effects to this day.

You can understand, then, why some contemporary theologians have expressed concern over an uncritical and indiscriminate use of the term, “children of God”[2], which appears prominently in the short text from Romans today.[3]

It is popular in the church to identify with being “a child of God.” We gravitate to images of Jesus rocking children on his knee, telling his disciples that they are to become like children to enter the kingdom of God. At baptisms and confirmations, we remind the candidate and ourselves that each of us is a child of God.

We are held in the arms of God, close to the bosom of Jesus. Yes. Such comforting images can be helpful during times of trial and suffering, for sure. Yes. Our following Jesus and our endurance and resilience in the spiritual does not depend alone on cognitive, intellectual knowledge—usually the purview of adults—but on a simple childlike trust. Yes.

I also agree with Stuart Brown who, in his book, promoted the value of play. That, what might seem like a frivolous or even childish pursuit can be beneficial to our mental health. That, paradoxically, purpose-less, unproductive activity from time to time can make one enormously more productive and invigorated in other aspects of life.[4]These pursuits normally belong to children but are of benefit our whole life long. Yes.

At the same time, when Paul uses the term ‘children of God’ he associates our identity in Christ with anything but childish states of being. He talks about not being enslaved in fear. He talks about living with suffering. These are realities, not fantasies, born of a life lived and experienced and embraced with the good and the bad.

Being a child of God doesn’t give us license to behave childishly. Being a child of God doesn’t give us license to behave irresponsibly, shifting authority and blame for one’s actions to someone else.

Two aspects of being an adult in Christ I want to underscore. First, it is to pay attention to our own desires, not denying them. Paul writes that the Spirit of God speaks to our own spirit. “It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” We have a human spirit. And God speaks through the deep desires and longings of our hearts. Unfortunately, whether we realize it or not, we use the identity of ‘child of God’ to deny our very human needs and desires. When we do so, are we not blocking God’s way of speaking to our hearts?

Saint Irenaeus, second century bishop of Lyons,  France, said that the ‘glory of God is a human being fully alive.’ God speaks through our very humanity. What gives us joy. What causes us pain. What is good and right. Our small ‘s’ spirit within us is the very thing God’s big ‘S’ Spirit connects with. The Psalmist paints an image of how God communicates with creation: “Deep calls to deep”.[5]We are part of, and participate in, the divine equation.

This divine relationship, from deep to deep, needs containment nonetheless. This is the second aspect of being an adult in Christ. Here, we turn to the words of Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopalian Church in America. You might remember his famous sermon he preached at the royal wedding just over a year ago. In it, he talks about fire—the primary symbol of Pentecost—harnessing the incredible power of love.

He said that the harnessing of fire was one of the great scientific and technological discoveries in all of human history.

‘Fire to a great extent made human civilization possible. Fire made it possible to cook food and to provide sanitary ways of eating which reduced the spread of disease in its time.

‘Fire made it possible to heat environments and thereby made human migration around the world a possibility, even into colder climates.Fire made it possible—there was no Bronze Age without fire, no Iron Age without fire, no Industrial Revolution without fire.

‘The advances of fire and technology are greatly dependent on the human ability and capacity to take fire and use it for human good.

‘Anybody get here in a car today? Fire—the controlled, harnessed fire—made that possible.Controlled fire in a plane gets us across this world. Fire makes it possible for us to text and tweet and email and Instagram and Facebook, and socially be dysfunctional with each other’ and act like children!

Fire makes all of that possible. Indeed, fire was one of the greatest discoveries in all of human history. And then Bishop Curry concluded that if humanity ever harnesses the energy of fire again, if humanity ever captures the energy of love—it will be the second time in history that we have discovered fire.

The passion, the spirit, the fire of love coming from within us needs to be contained. For it to have effect it must work within limits. The damage of forest fires and bombs we have witnessed both literally and figuratively throughout history and in our own lives. The passion, the spirit, and the fire of love needs containment. Then when its boundaries are respected, we can discover its true and divine power.

Poet and spiritual writer Anne Lamott says it best in describing the maturing Christian, as we grow from child to adult: “Grace meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” In the implication there to ‘Grow up!’, we are challenged to continue to learn how to harness the energy, joy and passion of the Spirit within us, to use for the good of all.

The message of God’s love, the sending of the Spirit of God upon the church ever since that day long ago in Jerusalem, grows us into the adults that we are created and loved to be.

 

[1]Kurt Andersen, “Forever Young: Why Are Adults Acting Like Children?” The Saturday Evening Post (June 12, 2018).

[2]“As someone concerned with Christian moral practice, I lament the infantilizing of Christians as children, without the responsibilities of adult members of the household of God,” Jane Lancaster Patterson, Commentary on Romans 8:14-17 in www.workingpreacher.org

[3]Romans 8:14-17; a reading assigned for the Day of Pentecost, Year C, Revised Common Lectionary; in four short verses, Paul uses the term ‘children’ three times.

[4]Stuart M. Brown Jr. & Christopher Vaughan, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Avery Press, 2009), p.11

[5]Psalm 42:7

Kitchen vision

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During Mika’s confirmation last weekend, I was grateful to reconnect with folks from her past and present, and hopefully future. At Mika’s confirmation party on the Saturday, we had just over thirty people in our house. It was raining, so all of them were, physically, in our house. It was crowded. Loud. Noisy.

You know I am an introvert. And they say that if you want to starve an introvert to death, put a stranger right in the middle of their kitchen. Far from being strangers, these were all friends and family. And yet, to have someone ‘in your space’ who is not normally there, was challenging for me. Add to that stress, organizing food for all these people and making sure everyone had somewhere to sit …

I remember first meeting Mika’s godparents in rural southern Ontario in my first parish. In century old houses, the kitchen can be the largest room. The kitchen is also where most people enter the house—not the front entrance facing the road. But ‘out back’ where friends, family and neighbours know to go in, right into the kitchen.

The kitchen in our first home there even had an Elmira wood stove in it. It was flanked by arm chairs and a small settee right beside the long counter and ample room for the kitchen table. Lots of people could fit in there!

Times have changed, indeed. Today, in average-sized homes there isn’t a whole lot of room to manoeuvre about. And for introverts such as myself, when I’m cooking or washing up the dishes, it’s a real struggle for me to share the space. I have to work at that.

I suspect I am not alone on this! We guard our spaces, covet our ground. We justify our beliefs and behaviour by appealing to social norms: Of course, everyone feels this way! Right? Let’s just say, having so many people crammed into ‘my space’ was a growth opportunity for me!

Jesus’ last prayer before his death and resurrection was for the disciples to be “one”—one in each other, one in Christ, one in God—bound together in the love of God.[1]The vision of God is an ever-expanding community brought together in love. The vision of God is that everyone can come to the table, everyone who is thirty, hungry, yearning for deeper connection with God and the world. The vision of God is that the dividing lines be erased—the lines that divide, exclude, deny, keep away.

The problem is, Jesus’ prayer and vision has come on hard times. We cannot deny it: the church has been fractured and divided more than anything—especially after the Reformation which brought some good things nonetheless. History in the last five hundred years has taught us, if nothing else, that fighting about who believes the right things about God can keep faithful people entangled with words about God rather than walking in the ways of God.

When followers of Christ draw lines in the sand, exclude and divide, when we quarrel and argue about dogmas and creeds and doctrines, the world will not witness the peace and love of God in us. So, the challenge of living faithfully is not only a call to private goodness or a superficial ‘everyone likes each other’.

It is a call to let our lives invite others to follow Jesus. Our lives ought not solely be preoccupied with right or wrong, guilty or not, in or out but whether or not our actions and behaviour contribute to the good of the world. Whether or not our actions contribute to a loving witness of what God’s vision is all about.

And we discover this path by experiencing the living presence of God in our lives. Not just talking about faith, but living it. And so, we are called to grow. And even when good growth happens, there will be growing pains as we stretch and flex our spiritual muscles.

There are two things ‘growing pains’ are not: First, when we are invited to do something differently, it is not an indictment against your history. It is not saying what happened in the past was all wrong. It is not dismissing the way you did things were bad.

When we are invited to do something new, something differently, let me suggest it is a challenge. A challenge to grow. Growth means change. When a plant or flower grows from its place in the ground, it changes. It’s ok to change our minds, as we grow. We are adults. We gain new life experiences. We learn new things, consider fresh perspectives. We have to integrate those experiences as we try new things.

Second, this discomfort is also not persecution. Please don’t confuse growing pains with ‘being persecuted’. We often hear that. When Christians, especially, are not interested in growth, some will conveniently use that interpretation: ‘We are being persecuted’.

When all along this discomfort is more likely about giving up privilege. It is giving up some of our privilege. Being comfortable at all costs—even the cost of avoiding difficult, vulnerable conversations, even at the cost of staying comfortable—is the very definition of privilege.

Growth will make us feel uncomfortable. But following Jesus is not about our degree of comfort. There is always a cost.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran theologian in the last century, spent the last year of his life in a Nazi prison. And he was executed by the Nazis just before the end of the Second World War.

But in those last days of his life he reflected deeply on the meaning of Christianity in the world and Christian discipleship. One of his great books was called, “The Cost of Discipleship.” And in it he warns us in the modern world to beware of what he called ‘cheap grace’. He wrote that cheap grace was the mortal enemy of our church. What we need in the church today is a costly grace, a grace that costs us something.

What is ‘cheap grace’? It is the kind of grace we give ourselves. It is the kind we get when we use the church to satisfy ourselves. It is grace without really following, without really being a disciple. It is the kind of grace reflected by the Christian who says, “I like to stay as I am.” “I’m ok” “Leave me alone.” “Don’t ask me to grow.” “I am happy where I am.”

To grow. To go deeper. To expand. To overcome the divisions that separate, isolate, exclude—within ourselves, with others and the world around us. The twelve apostles each gave their lives for their discipleship. Theirs was indeed a costly discipleship.[2]

The cross stands at the centre of this process of growth and change. We are called, and we are challenged to grow. And to grow means to give things up: attitudes, attachments, ways of seeing things, our resources, whatever keeps us the same. This is the way of the cross.

“Lay down your life if you want to find it,” Jesus said. “Leave yourself behind if you want to find your true self.”[3]

John’s visionary writing in the Book of Revelation concludes the bible. It ends with a prayer that the grace of the Lord Jesus be with “all”.[4]The original Greek does not add the words “the saints” which some English translations do. Indeed, the grace, love and mercy of God is meant for all people. Everyone.

The Spirit of God says, “Come!” to everyone:

And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’

And let everyone who is thirsty come.

Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift …[5]

Divisions do not matter when people come to the table of good food aplenty. When people come forward to receive the gifts of God, differences do not really matter, do they? The bible’s climax is a marvelous image of countless people of all nationalities, ages, languages, sexes, classes—you name it!—drawing out water that is freely given as a gift to all.[6]

Differences do not matter in this climactic vision. What was of importance is the coming to the sacred waters, to the table. We come, to wash ourselves of prejudice and fear. We come to be challenged to grow. We come to receive grace. For everyone. Everyone is allowed in the kitchen. It’s not just mine, ours.

Come to the Table. It is for everyone.

 

[1]John 17:20-26; the Gospel for the 7thSunday of Easter, Year C in the Revised Common Lectionary.

[2]Laurence Freeman, “Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation: Discipleship” (Meditatio Talks Series 2019 A Jan-Mar), Discipleship 3, wccm.org/resources/audio/albums.

[3]Matthew 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33; John 12:25

[4]Revelation 22:21

[5]Revelation 22:17

[6]Paul ‘Skip’ Johnson in Feasting in the Word Year C Volume 2 (Kentucky: WJK Press, 2009), p.534-538.

Resurrection in community

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In the artwork of first centuries, for example, we see a striking difference between western and eastern portrayals of the resurrection of Christ. From western art we see pictures focusing almost exclusively on the risen Christ. Jesus emerges from the tomb alone as if to say, “Look at me! I made it!” Light glows from behind him. Whatever else there is in the painting, it is background material. Resurrection is primarily and exclusively about Jesus. And we declare “Jesus rose from the dead” as an individual.[3]

A good example is The Resurrection by Italian artist Andrea di Bonaiuto found in the Spanish Chapel, Florence, Italy.

Contrast this western artwork with the East. From eastern Christians, we see greater emphasis on the resurrection community. Resurrection is depicted more as a corporate event in the overcoming of death, evil and sin. Without denying the work of Christ in all of this, the implications are emphasized. So, it’s not so much about Jesus-the-individual conquering the grave as it is about all of creation rising from death to new life.

A good example is the painting outside the Church of St George in Romania.

The Eastern interpretation makes sense of challenging scriptures as one from the Gospel of Matthew; at the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection: The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After Jesus’ resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.[4]  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus has implications for the whole people of God. Including us.

Both our tradition and the bible challenge our western bias. Instead of focusing only on the individual, we can learn how to be, and embrace being, in community.

Being and remaining in community is not easy. Relationships are messy. We would rather avoid having a crucial conversation.[2]We would rather not commit to a community because it’s easier to just leave when it gets tough. Especially when we can fall back to our individual, autonomous, private lives and independence. We would rather escape the boiling cauldron of community life.

We need to come clean with our natural bias towards individuality. That we value it. Really value it.

Let’s look briefly at today’s scripture. The story we read from Acts, chapter eleven, is actually a repeat of the same story in the previous chapter ten in Acts. The story line remains consistent: Peter has a vision from God and then meets three emissaries from Cornelius. And the message in both is the same:

Peter is called by God to expand his vision and mission of the Gospel to include Gentiles. Peter is challenged to overcome his stereotypes and distinctions between the Jews and Gentiles, and see God’s mission in more universal terms. No issue was more important to the early church than whether their newfound faith was intended only for Jews, or whether it was to include Gentiles while allowing them to remain Gentiles.[5]

The same story, told twice, in successive chapters. In fact, some of the words in chapter eleven are taken verbatim from chapter ten. Why did the author repeat the same story? Obviously this story was very important to the early church that it was re-told. Maybe a way to understand why, is to note what is different between the two. What’s the difference?

What changes in chapter eleven is the confrontation with ‘the apostles and the believers’ in Jerusalem.[6]Peter has been called before them, has heard their criticism, and now responds to it by telling them the story first conveyed in chapter ten. The difference is the context; and that context is Peter being called to task for his eating profane foods with those uncircumcised Gentiles.

We learn from the early church that believers were not reluctant to voice their differences. Peter did not escape. He didn’t go hide in the anonymity of a large shopping mall, airport or Caribbean vacation. He didn’t jump in his fishing boat and disappear on Lake Galilee.

Peter entered Jerusalem and squarely faced his critics. Too often, we try to be ‘nice’ at church. We try not to be confrontational. We try to sidestep controversy. We closet our differences. We paint smiles on our Sunday-morning faces. Even as we know deep down there may be an elephant in our collective room, and even as we suspect in our hearts irreconcilable issues. And, if we can’t handle this posturing, we leave. Get out of dodge. Back to being individuals in our private lives.

This text reminds us that controversy and difference needs to be voiced, not avoided. Conflict needs to be transformed, not ignored and swept under the rug. Living in Christ does not mean putting our heads in the sand. It means looking each other in the eye. It means accepting the other is unique, different from you.

What does this mean for us? First, when we say that we participate in the resurrection of Christ, we begin to see with fresh eyes the whole world not as risk or threat but as gift, invitation and trust. There’s what we call a ‘mutuality’ that informs our relationships—the way we relate with one another and especially those whom we may dislike or are fearful of.

In other words, mutuality can be described this way: what I see in you I see in me; what I see in me I see in you; seeing myself both in those I love and those I dislike.

Jean Vanier, the creator of the L’Arche Communities around the world, died a couple of weeks ago. He was the founder of homes for the disabled after he realized that all people, especially those with severe disabilities, have something important to offer to the world. In his writing entitled, “Ten Rules for life to become more human”, he said:

“The big thing about being human is to meet people. We need to meet people who are different and discover that the other person is beautiful.”[7]

To make this discovery for ourselves, especially in people we dislike, we need to practice paying attention for the gift in others.

The disciples are commanded by Jesus to love one another.[8]The life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus means the focus will shift to the community. The spotlight of faith is now not on some heavenly, other-worldly reality. It is on the Body of Christ. The focus now is not so much the individual, historic Jesus. Jesus now lives in the Body of Christ—the church, the community, wherever the Spirit of the living God blows in all creation, in every time and every place. This is the expansive vision of being a follower of Christ today, in real time.

When we share the Peace of God—a tradition in our preparation for receiving Communion—we can practice paying attention to the diverse ways in which we communicate that Peace of Christ and participate in vastness of Christ’s presence. We practice how it is to love. An analogy, you might say. Because we are all different.

And just because some may wish not to share the Peace in the same way as you do—shaking hands, or giving/receiving a hug—doesn’t mean they don’t want to participate.

Our intention comes from the heart. The desire to participate emerges from inside of us. I suggest the first thing we pay attention to is eye contact. When we turn to the person beside us look them in the eye. These eyes of ours are windows into the soul. They reveal this good intention in our heart to communicate the love and peace of Christ. This is when you can say, “the Peace of Christ be with you.”

The second thing is, pay attention to what you do with your hands. When you open them outward and upward you are giving a cue that you are open for a hug. Mind what the other is doing with their hands after making eye contact. Are they also opening their arms? If not, they are giving you a cue not to hug. What else can you do?

Your hands can come palms together in a prayerful pose—the namaste. While keeping eye contact and bringing your hands together over your heart, you may bow slightly, saying, “Peace be with you.” You can also give a fist-pump/shoulder-pump if you do not wish to shake hands. Obviously if both of you are reaching to each other in a motion to shake hands, your cues are mutual.

Two assumptions to review: First, please do not assume everyone will do it the same way as you. That’s Community 101 and it applies to lots of things. Pay attention to body language. There’s more to this liturgical act than saying the words. Second, just because you receive different cues from the other doesn’t mean they don’t wish to participate in conveying the love and peace of  Christ to you. We just have to work harder at discovering and respecting their way.

There are various ways we can communicate to another that we participate in the life-giving activity of God in the world that God so loved. And continues to love, through us.

 

[2]Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzler, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High (Toronto: McGraw Hill, 2012), p.11-14

[3]Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Resurrection (Daily Meditations, www.cac.org), 21 April 2019.

[4]Matthew 27:52-53

[5]Stephen D. Jones in David L. Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word; Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Volume 2 (Louisville: WJK Press, 2009)  p.451-455.

[6]Acts 11:1-3

[7]Jean Vanier cited in Canada Lutheran Vol 34 No3 (April-May 2019), p.8

[8]John 13:31-35, the Gospel reading for Easter 5C, Revised Common Lectionary.

The raising of Love

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If I told you that during this past week I bumped into a bunch of little, green aliens that landed in my backyard in their saucer-shaped UFO, I doubt you would believe me.[1]  I also doubt anyone would believe it if you or I brought someone back from death to life.

Yet, that is what the story from Acts implies. Following the resurrection of Jesus, Peter raises from actual death the woman named Tabitha. It isn’t Jesus that is now raising dead people. It isn’t Jesus alone performing such miracles. These are common men and women, like you and me.

How can we accept the miracle of resurrection? How can we believe that ordinary human beings can experience such an incredible degree of change within themselves and others? Death to life is probably the most radical change we can imagine. And yet, this is the very proposition of the resurrection.

On the one hand, we know that nothing is the same forever. So says modern science: ninety-eight percent of our bodies’ atoms are replaced every year; Geologists can prove with good evidence that no landscape is permanent. And, apparently so do people of faith: In the introduction to a mainline liturgy for a funeral service it says: “Life is not ended but merely changed.”[2]

In the short term any change can look and feel like a death. Perhaps that is why we tend to be change-averse. What we really are is death-averse, even though dying must precede any kind of resurrection and new life. The challenge of the Easter message for us is to accept our part in the very natural yet incredible change that is happening in our lives.

Perhaps that is the miracle: to believe change to this degree is possible. And happening, already. So, we affirm the Easter proclamation: Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

How do we live Christ’s resurrection in our lives?

First of all, I believe we must confess the limits of words alone to describe the meaning of resurrection. We need to go beyond words to describe the truth surrounding the mystery of Christ’s resurrection. Apparently, it was too great a mystery for artists in the first centuries as well.

Until the 6thcentury, the moment of Jesus’ resurrection was deemed unpaintable or uncarvable.[3] Trying to capture, as we would today with a camera, how Jesus appeared and what resurrection looked like is a task too difficult to pin down in a one-time, concrete way. Understanding ‘resurrection’ is not easy but easily can bewilder us as it did those early Christians.

Eventually, certain symbols emerged as telltale signs identifying the Christ-like way and understanding. We know, for example, that before the cross became the central symbol for empire Christians, the fish identified followers of the Way[4] especially during times of persecution. These symbols helped non-literate early century people identify with the profound and ineffable meaning of Christ’s resurrection.

Another symbol that circulated among early Christians was the gazelle. Yes, the gazelle. The symbol of the gazelle became the all-inclusive mark of Christ-like love.

Where the early Christians struggled, for example, with how, or whether, to welcome Jewish people into the Way, the gazelle incorporated and communicated the love of God to do so. Should they include the circumcised? Or not? Could you be ritually impure, and still belong? The image of the gazelle communicated the emphatic ‘yes’ to the questions that Paul would later put in words.

The image of the gazelle pre-dates Christianity. In Jewish art the gazelle was used as a symbol for YAHWEH/God. Even more specifically, the gazelle was used to illustrate the life-giving character of YAHWEH. Why is this important for our discussion of the text from Acts?

Well, the author of this raising-to-life scripture story from Acts introduces the woman named Tabitha in both the Aramaic and Greek languages. That, in and of itself, is significant, in casting the message of the life-giving God to include more than just one group in early-century Palestine. At the same time, the bilingual reference may very well be a writing technique to draw our attention into the meaning of this woman’s name.

In Greek and Jewish culture, everything is in the name. So, let’s go with it. Back to Tabitha. Dorcas, in Greek, literally means ‘gazelle’. Now, bear with me, ‘gazelle’ is a word that literally comes from an older Arabic word for LOVE. We sometimes call this splendid creature an antelope.

I know that we don’t often encounter gazelles in Canada. But they are very common in the Middle East especially the variety that has become known as the Dorcas antelope, which literally means the “love love”. This is why in a culture where the majority could not read, images of the gazelle were used to represent the details of the faith and life-giving character of YAHWEH who is LOVE.

The woman—Tabitha/Dorcas—symbolizes something far greater than we can even begin to imagine at first. For she bears the name of YAHWEH who is LOVE. This story carries us beyond the physical resuscitation of the body of a first century woman. This story carries us beyond the mechanics of a resurrection ‘miracle.’

Clearly, the author here has set his listeners up for a story that expresses more than words can tell. Should we pay attention to it. And go there.

This is the story of the raising of love in the lives of those who follow Christ. This, alone, is a miracle when it happens. The life and love of Christ being raised in us and in the world around us! Can we see it? Can we perceive it? Can we hear the voice of Christ whispering in our hearts to ‘love love’?

Last year at this time when I spent a week in Algonquin Park, I didn’t meet any aliens. But I do recall talking to you about the ice on the lake. In the span of the few days I was there, the lake went from being ice-covered, to completely ice-free. It was incredible to witness such a significant change in the life of the lake, in such a short time frame. In fact, it came as a surprise.

You might call it, the resurrection of the lake. A couple warmer days strung together and a day of rain and wind, and … voilà! When I hiked out of the bush on the last day I could not detect one chunk of ice. If it weren’t for the budding leaves on trees around the lake and the still-cool temperatures you would think we were in the middle of summer the way the lake looked.

How different it was on the first day of that week! A sheet of white ice had locked the waters in its icy grip. It looked like that that ice wasn’t going anywhere for a long time! To suggest the ice would be completely gone in a few days — I wouldn’t believe it. The radical change was imperceptible. Or, was it?

I sat on the banks of the lake shore on the second day, surveying the field of drifting snow and glimmering ice stretching across the entire surface of the lake. It was quiet, except for the occasional chirping of a bird and the sound of the wind through the pines above. But when everything was still, I heard it.

First, it was subtle, barely detectible. A cracking, a knocking, a whining and groaning. Things were shifting below the surface. The ice was beginning to break up!

Although I couldn’t notice it with my eyes, I could hear it. Just. The change was happening. But only by hearing it, being open to it, paying attention to it. And giving myself a chance, in the first place, to be present to it.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice … and they follow me.”[5] It’s not easy nor always quick to recognize God’s call amid the cacophony of sounds and distractions in our world. It’s not easy to discern the will of God in a complex society with moral questions and conundrums that can leave us spinning with confusion and mental paralysis . The noise can be enough to burn us out and leave us despairing.

The noise of delusion, false aspiration, needless worry; the allure of addiction, distraction and material comfort. It’s hard to hear that “still, small voice” of God’s resurrection change in the world and in our life. To recognize it, we must practice and learn how to pay attention, again, to the melting of the ice in God’s love.

Maybe, now that Christ is alive, it’s about a power that permeates all things. Maybe that power is a love that includes Jesus as much as it includes Peter, Tabitha, you and me. Maybe resurrection is about experiencing God’s love in all my relationships.

What a wonder to behold! What a love to live into!

No wonder so many are seeking solace in the practice of meditation—a safe place being in silence and stillness to practice paying attention, and listening to the voice of Jesus. Christians have meditated together since the early church in the form of the “Jesus Prayer”, for example. I encourage you to try it if you haven’t already.[6]

We all need starting points. The melting ice on the lake needed to start melting and breaking apart. Prayer in this way is a good starting point from which to live into the resurrection we share with all people and all of creation in the risen Christ Jesus. This prayer involves me in the life of Christ in the world that God so loved. I don’t have to worry whether or not I have the power to do these things—it is the life of Christ who works these miracles in me and in the world!

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Thanks be to God!

 

[1]Please read the comprehensive and insightful sermon by the Rev. Dawn Hutchings, The Raising of LOVE: the ‘more-than-literal’ meaning of the Raising of Tabitha – a sermon on Acts 9:36-41 (www.pastordawn.wordpress.com). I gratefully draw on her alien illustration, her research on the meaning of Tabitha’s name, and the reference to the dorcas antelope/gazelle. Thank you, Dawn, for your words.

[2]Richard Rohr, Raised from the Dead; Jesus’ Resurrection(Daily Meditation, www.cac.org), April 24, 2019

[3]Richard Rohr, From Darkness to Light; Jesus’ Resurrection(Daily Meditation, www.cac.org), April 25, 2019

[4]Acts 18:26; 19:9; 24:14

[5]John 10:27

[6]Faith has a weekly Christian Meditation group, which meets at 5pm on Wednesdays. See www.faithottawa.ca/calendarfor details.

To see that we are seen

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Because of the devastating flooding in the Ottawa region since Easter weekend, many conversations have turned toward the unprecedented levels of water in the Spring run-off. In 2017, we surpassed the 100-year levels. And just two short years later in 2019 we surpassed even 2017 levels. What’s going on?

When 16-year-old Greta Thunberg began demonstrating last year at the Swedish Parliament about climate change she rapidly gained worldwide attention. Among others, she inspired a whole generation of girls to be politically active.[1]

In Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian federal government, we are never short of political talk. We engage in daily debates over backyard fences, at the hockey rink and in coffee shops about the goings on in and around Parliament Hill.

We’ve heard the story before. This is not new, we say — the issues, the players, the opinions, the debates, the conflict. It’s par for the course.

Even as politics has taken a nasty turn in recent decades. It has become intensely personal. Conversations about politics now start with degrading remarks about the person and their character. Election campaigns have become platforms for disputing a candidate’s moral character. Scandals thrive on mudslinging and disparaging the ‘likeability’ factor of the major players. Never mind the views represented by these political players.

And you know we are sinking into a deeper moral hole when teenagers like Greta Thunberg are bullied by those who don’t share her political views—not with arguments about climate change but because she has autism. Neuro-typical people opposed to her politics have seized upon autistic traits Thunberg exhibits, “such as her ‘monotone voice’ and forthright manner, to liken her to a ‘cult member’ in an attempt to delegitimise her message.”[2]

Yet, we’ve heard the story before, we say. It gets replayed in different times and places by different characters and situations in history, no? Human beings will behave this way. In this day and age especially when information is shared immediately and globally.

It’s not a new story to us. We experience it on a daily basis. We can’t help ourselves. It’s either a joke. Or, we despair. And then we turn away.

For one thing, why can’t we distinguish the person from the issue? Maybe we don’t want to. Why do we so easily walk into the minefield of legitimizing the truth of something based on whether or not we like whomever represents the vision, the values, the policy, the idea? When the medium is the message?

We’ve heard this story before. It’s not new. People haven’t changed. We haven’t changed, we say.

When Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection, they don’t recognize him. Mary thinks she sees a gardener at the empty tomb.[3]The disciples at first don’t know it’s Jesus standing on the shoreline calling out to them.[4]Their vision is clouded, myopic.

We’ve heard this story before. I’m not the only one, I am sure, who has experienced not seeing someone while walking in a crowd. You know, you are in the mall going past so many people. Then I happen to be ‘looking’ at someone I know, but I don’t really see them. The only way I do is when they see me and call my name. And then I become aware that I am seen by them. That’s when it changes.

So, if that ever happens between you and me, you could always just say you thought I was my identical twin brother whom you don’t know!

The recognition happens when I see that I have been seen.[5]That’s when relationship starts. When you know you are seen by the other. When Mary, Peter, Thomas, John and all the other witnesses of the resurrection know that they are seen by the resurrected Jesus and recognized for who they are. Then they know and appreciate that they are part of the resurrection story, not distant from it but very much involved in the story we know.

The resurrection of Jesus means that not only have we heard this story before, not only armchair, arm-length critics of the story. But we are participants of it. Ourselves. We see that we have been seen.

We are Greta Thunberg. We are Doug Ford. We are Justin Trudeau. We are Jody Wilson-Raybould. We are Jane Philpott. We are all those people –whomever you first like to scrutinize, criticize, even demean and disparage. Because the person you first point a finger at is really about you, about your woundedness. When we judge another, we need to be aware that this judgement only exposes our own moral disparity. What we judge in the other reveals something in our shadow side, our weakness that we want to hide, suppress and deny for some reason. A part of ourselves that we have not been able to come to terms with and accept.

And yet, despite that dis-arming truth, the resurrected Jesus does not ignore us and walk by us in the crowd. Just as Jesus called out to Mary at the tomb and said her name, “Mary.” Just as Jesus called out to the disciples to let them know that they are seen and recognized by the loving, penetrating, all-knowing gaze of a gracious God – Jesus calls out to you and to me.

The resurrection story from the bible is not just a story we know, or think we know. The resurrection story is not really just a story about believing in the fact of the resurrection. It is believing that someone, starting with Jesus but not ending with Jesus, could be wounded and also resurrected at the same time.[6]

Resurrection is not merely about some perfected, other-worldly state that only few people achieve by their own strength or moral righteousness. That is the story the world believes. Resurrection is not some fanciful state of being, occupied only by Jesus, the Son of God. But because of Jesus’ resurrection, we all now can be seen for who we are. Like Christ we are all ‘little Christs’ (Martin Luther’s term) – wounded and resurrected at the same time. When we see that we are seen by loving eyes looking on us despite the woundedness therein. Despite the scars, the hurts, the ongoing struggles.

There is the hope.

“Put your finger here,” Jesus invites Thomas to touch the wound in his side on his resurrected body.[7]“Come and see,” Jesus invites the first disciples.[8]  “Come, and have breakfast,” Jesus invites his post-resurrected disciples for a meal he offers to them on the lakeshore. Jesus turns to us, in our ordinary, broken, common lives, and sees us. Whether or not we at first see him.

That’s the miracle of Easter — not just a resuscitated body, but that this resurrection body still bears the marks of woundedness at the same time and in the same place!

We are seen, and are invited to follow Jesus. As we are. We need not be intimidated nor held back by our imperfections. Those first disciples bore the woundedness of their own lives: tax collectors (not a good job), fishers (lowest class), even political agitators like Simon the Zealot.[9]These were people on the fringes of mainstream, privileged society. Not perfect by any stretch.

The miracle of the resurrection is not saying that life in Christ is perfect, or should be, or should be for some others. The miracle of the resurrection is saying that new life can be experienced right in the middle of all the dying, suffering, and pain of our own lives. Now, because of the resurrection, we don’t have to wait for ideal circumstances before we can really live. We, too, can discover the grace, the joy and the life of God in us, and in the world around us. Now. And no matter what.

In the coming week, try turning off your cell phone for an hour each day—you determine the time. If you don’t have a cell phone, unplug your landline or turn the ringer off each day for a certain amount of time. Practice not being available to the distractions and expectations of others. Practice this uncomfortable state of not being attached to the latest gossip, the latest market fluctuation, breaking news or a friend’s reaction. Practice not responding right away to a message or text or call.

And, in that discomfort, close your eyes and breath. And remember that God sees you. And that, in the silence and uncomfortable disconnection you are fundamentally and eternally connected.

Perhaps, in that moment, you can see that you are seen by the living Lord.

 

 

[1]‘The Greta effect? Meet the schoolgirl climate warriors’,  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48114220

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/greta-thunberg-autism-spectrum-critics

[3]John 20:14-15

[4]John 21:4; forming part of the assigned Gospel text for the 3rdSunday of Easter, Year C, Revised Common Lectionary

[5]Laurence Freeman, “Discipleship” (Meditatio Talk Series 2019A, Jan-Mar), Track 1

[6]Richard Rohr, “Jesus’ Resurrection”, Daily Meditation 23 April 2019, http://www.cac.org

[7]John 20:27

[8]John 1:39

[9]Acts 1:13, Luke 6:15

The loved migrant: a ‘washing feet’ analogy

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The disciples need to have their feet washed.

It was not only customary in ancient times to wash the feet of guests into your home, but necessary. Calloused and muddy feet were the norm in an age of open-toed sandals and pedestrian highways. Providing this service was a kind and appreciated gesture offered to the weary pilgrim.

But no one else had volunteered to do it. The disciples had followed all the Lord’s instructions to prepare for a meal in the upper room. They had bought what they needed in preparation for the Passover. They had gathered the bread and wine. Check. Check. Check.

So, what made them miss this important act of hospitality, friendship and welcome? What blinders did they have on?

Perhaps, we can’t underestimate the state of affairs among the disciples. Recall, they were arguing about which one of them was the greatest.[1]And for any one of them to volunteer to wash feet would be to lose the argument. Because only servants and slaves washed the feet of their superiors.

So Jesus got up to do it—shocking them all by his disregard for social and cultural convention.[2]

And then, as if that wasn’t shock enough to the system, Jesus looks up at the disciples, looks them square in the eyes and says:

“If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (v.14)

How good are we at ‘washing one another’s feet’? We’re not doing it in worship tonight on Maundy Thursday. I don’t believe we’ve ever done it here at Faith. But maybe we need the practice.

Since my father’s death earlier this year, I’ve been reviewing his life story, going over certain details. Especially in his formative days when he migrated from Poland to London, England, in the mid-1960s, I see a pattern emerge.

The small town in southern Poland where he was born and raised was and has been the largest concentration of Lutherans in a predominantly Roman Catholic nation. They called themselves the Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession. And, the church whose bishop he assisted later in London was the Lutheran church ‘in exile’ from Poland. This church was taken care of by the Missouri Synod Lutheran church.

Even though commissioned to serve ELCIC congregations when he and my mother immigrated to Canada in 1967, Dad was still called upon to serve Polish-speaking Lutherans once a month in an independent Lutheran Church in Toronto during the 1980s. This congregation has since become part of the Missouri Synod.

When our long-time family friend from Toronto visited us here in Ottawa a couple weeks ago, I was reminded again of this pattern: My father had been, in the first part of his life certainly, born and bred in the culture and beliefs of the Missouri Synod/Confessional Lutheran Church, worldwide, you could say.

The question I’ve pondered is: What made him change his allegiance? Why not continue to remain serving the denomination and church culture of his childhood and youth—even in North America? Why did he change? What made the difference?

It wasn’t doctrinal, by and large. I remember several debates we had around the kitchen table over the hot button issues in the church during the past few decades. And he usually tended towards the more conservative stance. It wasn’t doctrinal. It wasn’t about beliefs and confessions of faith. It was something else.

When he was serving the Missouri Synod church in London, he met someone over lunch after worship one day. This man, William Dase, had been a pilot in the war. A Canadian flying with the British Airforce, he had made many runs over London. And, after the war, decided to make London his home.

He was also a major benefactor of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. In conversation over lunch, my Dad expressed a desire to learn English, and not anywhere people knew him. Somewhere far away from any Polish-speaking Lutherans, he felt he could master the English language. Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he also didn’t believe he could ever return to Poland a free person.

And so Dase posed a simple question, with significant consequence: Why not spend a study year at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary in Canada? Dase would sponsor my Dad’s study and booked passage for both my parents on the ocean liner, Maasdam, to set sail from Southampton to Quebec.

Before my parents landed in Waterloo, the Dean of the Seminary at the time, Professor Dr. Hauser, had already arranged an apartment in student housing and a job in the cafeteria kitchen for my mother which paid $75 a month. This was just enough to cover the rent for the apartment.

After completing his master’s degree at Waterloo, my Dad was appointed to serve a small rural parish north of Stratford, Ontario. He needed a car. So, Assistant to the Bishop, Dr. Berner, of the Eastern Canada Synod, went with my Dad to the bank to arrange a loan to buy a VW Beetle. Dr. Berner used his standing with the bank as collateral for the loan.

However, after the year was up, my parents’ temporary student and visitor VISAs were expiring. And so, the Dean of the Seminary, Dr. Hauser, promptly took my parents to the immigration office in Kitchener to vouch for an upgrade to landed immigrant status— ‘my parents would make excellent citizens in Canada’, he told the immigration officer without hesitation. They received their immigrant status on the spot.

When my brother and I came along a couple of years later—twin boys—thus creating an instant family that doubled in size literally overnight, my parents experienced a sudden strain on the household budget.

The bishop of the Eastern Canada Synod, then Bishop Lotz, immediately arranged for a changed call to the three-point parish in Maynooth, Raglan and Denbigh—because these parishes were able to offer a higher wage.

That was then, this is now. I understand. Nevertheless, I am impressed in reviewing this history how church people who were in a position to do so could make such a positive difference in the lives of those in need. No just once. But consistently. Over time. And in response to various needs.

I can say with certainty that it was the love shown in practical, simple, ordinary ways to my parents when they immigrated and settled into Canada, that made all the difference.

The disciples needed their feet washed, after all. Despite all their debating and power struggles and determining who was right and who was wrong. Jesus showed his disciples, and shows us, that to help another is to put oneself on the same level as the other. Not to ‘lord it over’ in a condescending manner, but to recognize the common humanity we all share.

Jesus shows us what it means to fulfill the ‘new commandment’ of love.[3]If the world will know that ‘you are my disciples’, it has nothing to do with agreeing on doctrine, creedal statements, confessions of faith. In fact, arguing about these things, as the disciples tended to do, hinder this expression of true discipleship.

In the Gospel of John, the disciples do not and cannot understand the significance of Jesus’ actions until after Easter.[4]Even then, their faith still falters.[5]In John, “the disciples’ divine election and sustenance do not depend on how much they understand. Their faith is perfected, not in knowledge, but in how much they love their fellow lambs (21:15-19; cf. 1 Cor 13:12-13).”[6]

Jesus tells his disciples after washing their feet, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”[7]

It’s about loving action, not knowledge/understanding.

St John of the Cross wrote: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” I concur. When all is said and done, at the end of the road, we will be asked: “How have you loved your neighbor?” not “Did you believe the right things?”

Just like washing one’s feet is messy, and uncomfortable, so at first it may feel out-of-sorts to be so vulnerable to one another. There are boundary issues when it comes to feet, to be sure.

We are not used to small and ordinary acts of self-giving for another. We need to practice. In an age when congregations and denominations are significantly divided over doctrinal, social, and other issues, and sometimes have difficulty even gathering at the same table for a meal with one another—what do we need? What do we really need?

More debate? More information? More knowledge? More convincing arguments? Really?

The disciples just needed their feet washed.

 

 

[1]Luke 22:24-27

[2]Jim Green Somerville in David L. Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C Volume 2 (Kentucky: WJK Press, 2008), p.276

[3]John 13:1-17,31-35, the Gospel text for Maundy Thursday, according to the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL).

[4]2:22; 7:39; 12:16; 14:26

[5]20:19-29; 21:20-23

[6]C. Clifton Black, Feasting on the Word., ibid., p.279

[7]John 13:17, emphasis mine.