Tag Archives: grace

Prayer power; moving from dilemma to choice

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It may seem strange to hear this Gospel (Luke 23:33-43) for the Festival of Christ the King. At first glance, this traditional Good Friday text at the end of November seems as odd to me as Christmas in July.

So, right off the bat, we are faced with a paradox on at least a couple of levels. First, the demonstration of the kind of God we follow flies in the face of everything the world values as powerful; a king who suffers for us and becomes vulnerable in a self-giving sacrifice?! He was an object of sport and scorn. No wonder the people around the cross laughed at him: A naked, nailed-down Jesus was scarcely a powerful king.

He was, instead, a sign of failure, weakness and incompetence. This is just not the way the game is played today in the echelons of power, right?

And yet, we Christians believe that the crucifixion of Jesus is actually his moment of greatest power. To lend weight to this truth, the placement of this text a month before Christmas invites us – indeed, prods us – to reflect again on the meaning of our discipleship.

Perhaps those who devised the lectionary were wise. Because the crucifixion of Jesus is not only a record of history to be read and remembered during Holy Week when we recall Jesus last, tortured days on earth. The crucifixion of Jesus demonstrates the whole point of our identity and mission as followers of Christ. In other words, Jesus’ reign reveals values of a kingdom relevant to us today. Jesus preached, “The kingdom of God is near!” (Luke 21:31); and, “The kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21). This is a recognition that dramatically turns our reality upside down, if we choose to live it so.

Ultimately, should we follow this king we say we worship, this paradox must be resolved. But how do we resolve this strange juxtaposition of heavenly value of power reflecting vulnerability, surrender and mercy on the one hand; and on the other, the earthly value of power reflecting competition, judgment and comparisons? I believe this paradox must resolve itself not merely in a dilemma to be thought and talked about, but a choice that leads to behavior and action.

I remember a story my mom told me once when I was younger that helped me when I had questions about how to follow Jesus in this world: “There once was a great king,” she said, “that decided to share his wealth with his subjects. The king had a spacious compound right in front of his castle and marked it off with a large stone wall. In the compound he placed all his treasures and at its centre he positioned his throne.

“Then he sat down, called his subjects together and announced, ‘I am about to share all of my treasures with you. Choose whatever you wish in this compound — and it is yours. Choose wisely, and do not leave the area until I have dismissed you.’

“So his subjects began to scramble over his possessions, taking whatever they wished. In the hubbub, an elderly woman, small in stature and great in years, approached the king to ask, ‘ Your majesty, have I understood you correctly? If I choose anything in this compound, it will be mine?’ ‘Yes,’ the king assured her that she had understood correctly and he invited her, again, to choose wisely.

“The woman paused for a moment deep in thought. Then she looked hard at the king and said, ‘Your majesty, I choose you!‘ The crowd grew silent at her words, waiting to hear the king’s response. The king smiled at the woman and said, ‘You have chosen most wisely. And because you chose me, all my kingdom will be yours as well.’ There was abundant joy in the land that day, because the woman was much loved, and everyone shared in the king’s treasure.”

Not only are we invited this Christ the King Sunday to reflect on what kind of king and reign Jesus is and represents, we have a choice to make. Will we be the hands and feet of Jesus today in a world that suffers? Will we go to the highways and byways of our city, our country and our neighborhood to see the face of Christ in those we serve and those in need? Is this Jesus – the one who hangs on the cross – the God we follow, the Lord of our time, the Lord of our use of material wealth and our talents? Is Jesus the king in whose service we daily engage and rejoice? We know who rules the heavens. But does Christ rule our hearts?

We can choose: to play the game according to the world’s rules — competition, aggression, judgment and comparison; or, we can make choices based in compassionate justice, generosity, confidence, intentionality and trust. How do we do that?

Prayer. Prayer will move us from dilemma to choice.

I have the proud distinction this year to be the first in my extended family to produce my Christmas wish list. In fact, I had it ready last weekend, and copies to give to my rather shocked family.

Prayer at its best is not about presenting our wish list to God. Because prayer doesn’t start with us; it starts with God. Origen from the second century wrote that prayer is not about trying to get benefits from God; rather, it is about becoming united with God; about reflecting God’s gaze upon us.

We are told today that in the first few years of life, infants see themselves entirely mirrored in their parents’ eyes, especially the mother’s (p.67, Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs); “What her eyes tell about ourselves, we believe and we become … Prayer is much the same: we receive and return the divine gaze.” In other words, we know ourselves and our purpose in life in the security of the living God in Christ who holds us and continues to gaze upon our lives.

All forms of prayer are good and right and true. But without also giving time in prayer to be simply silent and still, to contemplate this knowing that is neither a mental activity nor a mere ‘good work’ on our part, is necessary. I invite each and every one of you to join our group on Wednesday evenings to learn more about this form of prayer called “Christian Meditation.” It is a form of prayer that propels us to reflect and engage the nature and mission of God in us and in the world.

But a warning: Christian Meditation is a way of prayer that exercises a surrendering, a letting go, a powerlessness that echoes the values of the Cross of Christ. It is seemingly unproductive use of time, so contrary to the values of the world of glamour, achievement and progress. But, in its very form, contemplative prayer is thus fundamentally Christian.

Because, in the end, it’s not about us, it’s about the kingdom of God – a topic Jesus spent more time talking about in the Gospels than any other topic or issue, values that continue to challenge us to the core of our being. We are more like the thieves who hung next to Jesus than we are like Jesus: it is hard for us to believe in the gracious God, in the forgiving God, in the God who would love us even when we disappoint and sin. Yet, Jesus last words to another human being before his death and resurrection were words of forgiveness, words consistent with the ministry of Jesus’ short life.

Thank God our salvation is not dependent on us, but on a loving, grace-giving, self-giving, merciful God. We may not be able to do things rightly. We may not be able. But God is. That’s why we are who we are and do what we do: Christ crucified; Christ risen.

 

Your Word is true, on letting go

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When I spent a year in Germany during my seminary days, I struggled in the first half of that year with feelings of being lost, without guidance, and without my usual supports in place. I was lonely: For the first time in my life, I wasn’t able to rely on my parents, and I didn’t have my twin brother close by to share a life experience. I felt depressed, rudderless, cut off, a ship floating aimlessly in the stormy ocean.

I was reminded of this turbulent time in my life after reading the Gospel text (Luke 21:5-19) for today. Jesus points to those external ‘structures’ in the lives of his disciples, structures that they have come to depend on for guidance, for a sense of purpose and identity – and tells them basically that they will crumble, that they will have to learn to do without the usual dependencies, that they will have to ‘lose’ these. They will be no more.

First, it’s the massive and impressive temple that Herod was building, adorned with decorations; the temple presented a glorious architectural masterpiece to the world. At the end of the text, Jesus mentions family – even those closest to us will be cut off from the path we are on. There is a profound losing that imbues this scripture today, not unlike what the Israelites had to experience when they were exiled from their land, their homes, their precious Jerusalem temple, some five hundred years before Christ. It is a pattern that is repeating again.

The first part in the path of faith – of true spirituality – is one of letting go, of releasing, of surrendering. If anyone has experienced even a margin of what that means, it’s never easy. It’s hard, especially when for most of your life you’ve placed so much energy and invested your emotions and stability in a building, a place, a person, a family – and then you have lose it.

Luke wrote this story in the Gospel some forty years after the life of Jesus. Remember, all of what we read in the Bible was for the longest time first shared by word of mouth – stories told to the community and from generation to generation. In the latter half of the first century A.D. these told stories about Jesus began to be written down in the form we see them today.

It’s important for me to mention this because Jesus’ prediction that the temple would be destroyed actually happened. In about 70 A.D. the Roman armies laid siege to Jerusalem to try to subdue the radical Jewish insurrection who were rebelling against Roman occupation of their land. The victorious Romans eventually toppled the impressive stone walls of the temple, leaving only what we see today – the famous western wall, or the “Wailing Wall”.

All this is to say, that Luke wrote these words of Jesus at a time when the rebellion was reaching its peak: “… the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” These written words carried extra emotional weight, it would seem to me, to those who first received them in the late first century. Because it was actually happening.

Early Christians were encouraged to trust Jesus, because what Jesus says is true! What Jesus promises will come to pass. This truth is consistent with the tradition of earlier scriptures, first echoed in the poetry emerging from the exile – “The grass withers, the flower fades – but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:7-8).

Though the path is full of suffering, one thing remains: the presence and purpose of God. This may give us a clue as to the meaning of Jesus’ closing words in the text: “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” Some translations have it, “by your patience”.

Since I opened with a personal story from my seminary days, I’ll bring here another story I heard from a seminary class studying ‘the end times’. For you to get this story, I need to remind you of how a liturgical church, such as ours, organizes our reading of the Bible. We follow a lectionary, which means that there are assigned readings not only for every Sunday of the year but for every day, even. You can find these assigned readings at the front of our worship books. The point is, after a three year cycle of following this ‘lectionary’, we will have basically read through the whole Bible.

So, these seminary students were engaged in a discussion of what Bible text they would choose if they had reason to believe that this was the Final Day. Some suggested John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” Others suggested Psalm 23 – “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil …” Still others suggested the very last verses of the Bible from Revelation 22:20-21 – “The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon. Amen! Come, Lord Jesus (Maranatha). The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the Saints. Amen!’”

But, the winning suggestion was – “I would preach on whatever Bible lesson was appointed as the Gospel for the day.”

A homeowner hired a gardener to plant a certain kind of tree. “But that kind of tree takes many years to mature,” the gardener protested. “Then get started with the planting,” the homeowner replied. “You do not have a moment to lose.”

If the first difficult part of the path of faith is surrendering, letting go, not identifying any longer with those structures on which we have come to depend heavily, the second part is the motivation to endure in the regular, daily task. It is full of promise, and new life.

Because those endings and beginnings in Christ are not our doing. We do not control our destiny, contrary to what so much of our culture preaches. We are called only to be faithful in our daily service, doing that which is set before us this day. We don’t know exactly how things will turn out. But we can take the risk and take the first step because we have the true promise of God:

Being aware of God’s faithfulness to us, being assured in the Word that what Jesus promises is true, we can be buoyed by a vibrant hope on the stormy ocean of life. We live every day as if it were the last, doing all that we can, doing the right thing, in the moment. And we cling to the assurance that God will not only do the rest, but much, much more!

In the last few months of my year abroad in Germany, I finally found my stride. Maybe it was because I knew ‘the end’ was coming; my time in Germany was coming to an end, and soon and very soon I would be returning home. Being aware of and confident in my returning home coming closer with each passing day, I was able to enjoy and fully enter each moment: I travelled with my friends, visited my families in Poland and Germany, breathed the air deeply, and went about finishing the tasks set before me.

In engaging my life fully, doing what I was called to do there – even though it wasn’t always easy – I now remember that time as one of those crucial, pivotal and cherished learning moments of my life. For, a true letting go yielded a wondrous new beginning.

Remember hope

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In “Saintly Connections” I wrote of how playing Scrabble with my brother was often derailed by arguments over whether or not a word one of us placed was in fact a real word. We were distracted – taken off course – in our gaming by these time-and-energy consuming debates. We spent more effort, it seemed, in proving ourselves ‘right’ instead of focusing on the essence of the game – using most of our letters to maximize the points in a single move.

Our readings today put these ‘distractions’ in proper perspective. Jesus’ response to the Sadducees’ questions about the resurrection – which they did not believe in – suggests we are lost when not grounded in the present moment. “Now, he is God not of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38). Indeed, the Gospel focuses on what directly concerns us, now. Everything is focused on today, as the acceptable time – in the present moment.

In Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian church, the people are encouraged “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed” (2 Thess 2:2) by claims of the end times. Paul is doing here what authorities in October of 1938 had to do; police logs across the United States chronicle the chaos of people who had heard the Orson Welles radio program “War of the Worlds” – and thought it was a true news story! A tremendous amount of energy and damage control had to go into calming people down.

Indeed, we are a people easily distracted. Consider this fact alone: Let’s presume the amount of information available to the ordinary person at the time of Jesus as one unit; it took until the year 1500 (around the Reformation) for that to double. After the invention of the printing press at that time, the amount of information available to the ordinary person doubled every hundred years, then every fifty. Then, in the 1900s every ten years. At the turn of the second millennium the amount of information available to the ordinary person has doubled every seven months (p.39, Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs). Our problem is not that we need more information. We may feel overburdened with so much information that we are understandably confused and conflicted! Any wonder we are anxious and distracted?

Is it any wonder that we struggle to find meaning in our short existence? There was a movie some decades ago called “Amadeus”. It chronicled, in a creative and entertaining way, the life of music great, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was by any standard, a genius, who started at age four playing several instruments and created at least 528 musical compositions over the course of his life. His music is still enjoyed the world over centuries after his death.

The film ends showing Mozart’s undignified funeral: The scene is dark and dreary, and his composition, The Requiem Mass in D Minor, provides the sweeping, emotionally dense yet majestic background music. He is carted to his grave in a blizzard. Only the grave digger and wagon driver attend, mindlessly going about their jobs. There is a trap door at one end of his plain, wooden casket, and they dump his body through that trap door into a giant hole in which there are several other bodies. And then they quickly depart. He was only thirty-five years of age – a prodigy.

What a waste, we might think, that he should have died so young. Imagine if he had the years most of us enjoy – what he might have accomplished! And it makes us wonder, does it not – is this life all there is? In our information-over-loaded age we can see real-time images of starving children, millions displaced by civil war, political corruption even in our own country. What a waste of precious resources, energy, stress and life! Or, remember as we do these days the many military service men and women who have died in the wars of the last century – people so young and healthy. And we think of those who still die today in senseless killings, wars and accidents.

Is this life all there is? What a waste! What is the purpose of it all?

As the father of theologian Adolf Schlatter lay dying, pious friends stood around his bed trying to comfort him with reassuring and edifying thoughts such as: “Soon you will be in the golden halls of Zion gazing across the crystal sea. Soon the radiance will surround you.” And so they talked and talked and talked, mainly comforting themselves, it seemed. Finally, the dying man raised himself up and snapped: “Shut up! Don’t bother me with all that talk! Just show me a picture of the Father embracing his prodigal Son. I only want to embrace my God.”

Even on the darkest day of our lives, may our focus be God’s loving embrace reaching out to us. Everything we do and are in this world stems from what God has done and is doing for us.

The story is told that one day back in early Puritan New England a couple of centuries ago there was a major eclipse. The sun was blotted out, the day turned dark, and people were terrified. “The world is going to end. What shall we do?” One insightful man replied, “Let us be found doing our duty” (p.282, Neta Pringle, Feasting on the Word Year C Vol 4).

Questions about the after-life and end times may understandably consume our imagination and get us thinking about so many things. People have written and talked and speculated about how things are going to be and to watch for the signs of the times. We have so much information about all this. But underlying and motivating all of this chatter, is there not a lot of fear and anxiety?

The Gospel resists this kind of distraction. The bible is hardly ever really clear on all the details anyway. We are called, instead, to focus on God’s abiding presence, God’s promise and grace, and God’s mission. “Give thanks,” Paul instructs the fearful Thessalonians (2 Thess 2: 13-17). See the big picture.

If our remembering this Remembrance Day causes us to be afraid, disturbed and anxious about the ways of the world, remember above all whose we are! “God chose you for salvation!” Paul exhorts the church. “Stand firm in faith” and remember that God “loved us and through grace gives us eternal comfort and good hope.” So, “comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.”

Our job, it seems, is simply to keep on keeping on. No matter what.

And leave the rest in God’s hands. That is all.

Saintly connections

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Celebrating my birthday last weekend with my twin brother accentuated the fact that we rarely see each other, let alone on our common birthday. He and his family live in Kitchener; he’s a pastor, and so, too, works on weekends and holidays. If we see each other twice a year – and usually in the summer – we’re doing very well.

I’m probably not alone having this sentiment, since in this mobile day and age, many people experience the geographic fracturing of family ties. Even in good relationships, physical distance becomes an obstacle to regular contact.

Until Scrabble. Yes, I’m talking about the internet and all the benefits of online gaming. Growing up, we used to play Scrabble on a board with real letter blocks. And playing board games was one way we enjoyed each other.

Now, we can still play Scrabble in a virtual world on our mobile phones wherever we are! And even though we are separated by six hundred kilometers. What I find particularly enjoyable is the fact that my phone notifies me whenever he makes a move. In real time. Wherever he is.

That little, red marker appearing on my phone’s screen reminds me that David is there, making a move. Even though I can’t see him, or talk to him face-to-face, we are connected in that moment. And that connection is real. It’s in the heart. And every time I make another move and tap on ‘send’ I know he is receiving it immediately and reacting either with a disapproving grunt or a fist-pump ‘yessss!’

That connection we have with those whom we cannot see in this moment is not something easily appreciated, understood and celebrated. I suspect that is why our contemporary culture in the West has turned the celebration of ‘all the saints in heaven and on earth’ into something scary and gory at Halloween. It’s not easy to appreciate the real yet mysterious connection we share.

It’s easier to retreat comfortably into our own individual, materialistically-driven private worlds. Indeed, one of the both good and bad results of the Reformation in the 16th century was to emphasize making faith a personal thing, which was good.

But I think we also slipped into embracing an individualistic faith that lost this strong sense of communal ties. The community of faith matters; a corporate body of faith whose head is Jesus. We’ve become fragmented as Christians; often the only response to any difficulty, it seems, was to blame the community and leave it.

There was once a brother in a monastery who had a rather turbulent temperament; he often became angry. So he said to himself, “I will go and live on my own. If I have nothing to do with anyone else, I will live in peace and my passions will be soothed.” Off he went to live in solitude in a cave. One day when he had filled his jug with water, he put it on the ground and it tipped over. So he picked it up and filled it again – and again it tipped over. He filled it a third time, put it down, and over it went again. He was furious: he grabbed the jug and smashed it. And then came to his senses and realized that he had been tricked by the devil. He said, “Since I have been defeated, even in solitude, I’d better go back to the monastery. Conflict is to be met everywhere, but so is patience and so is the help of God.” So he got up and went back where he came from. (p.69, Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers)

Though you may have found some ‘distance’ with the church over the years, though you may harbor some real ‘disconnects’ with the life of faith, though you may feel distant from God and the saints of heaven – be encouraged, today. Be encouraged to know that the connection you have with your loved ones now in heaven is real. Be encouraged to know that the loving and forgiving connection you have with God in Christ Jesus is real – this is what the Holy Communion communicates to us week after week.

And be challenged to know that the saints on earth may very well be those who do not appear to us at first sight ‘saintly’ – a distant relative, a homeless person, the poor, the rejected, the marginalized, biker gangs, First Nations, immigrants, youth ….. There is a deeper connection we share in our communities, a connection that calls forth from us loving attention and action.

In our opening Litany of Remembering for All Saints Sunday, we read together that “the links of life are broken [with those who have died] but the links of love and longing cannot break.” How true!

When my brother and I played Scrabble on a board, we often argued about whether or not a word was legitimate. Often these kinds of disagreements distracted us and left us feeling frustrated, tricked and unsure.

Thankfully, playing the virtual, online game now means we don’t have these distractions anymore because the computer determines whether or not a word is real. Fortunately, even though we cannot see each other face to face, at least we can now focus on the essence of the game – strategically placing letters to maximize points and using as many of our letters as possible. This is the fun part of Scrabble.

Biblical scholars and theologians claim that the Sermon on the Mount, and specifically these Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-31), reveals the essence of Jesus’ teaching. I suspect we can all think of everything else in the church that can so easily distract us, and about which we argue. Not that those other things aren’t important. 

But placed in a proper perspective, they need not cause the acrimony nor dissension often associated with attending church. Because when we, especially as Lutherans, focus on the grace and love of God and the teachings of Jesus who says, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” we may truly experience grace and enjoy belonging to the sainthood on earth.

And relish in the promise of our ultimate link with God and the saints of heaven, a connection of love that will never break.

Thanks be to God!

Thanksgiving: an act of graceful resistance

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“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”—John 6:35

When Jessica and I were married some sixteen years ago, we received as a wedding present – a bread-maker. For sixteen years it served us well. Jessica has enjoyed baking bread with it.

And then, just last week, it died. It made a very loud and scary noise … and refused to work. What to do? Despite our best intentions, we could only think of throwing it out.

I understand there are e-waste organizations out there now that will collect electrical appliances for a proper recycling. Apparently these outfits will disassemble the appliance and dispose or recycle each separate part appropriately and carefully.

So as not to waste any piece. To gather the fragments, that nothing may be lost.

At the heart of John’s story of the feeding of the multitude, which is the context of our Gospel reading for Thanksgiving Day (John 6) is Jesus’ thanksgiving over the loaves. After the crowd had been fed, John adds a word not found in the other gospels: Jesus says to the disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost” (verse 12).

In God’s kingdom, the fragments are precious. Broken life is precious. Jesus declares this a little further on in the chapter: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (verse 39).  We give thanks that the broken life in us is cared for and mended, redeemed by the one who is bread of life for us.

Jesus’ birth took place in Bethlehem, in the town whose name means “house of bread.” And he was laid in a manger, a feeding place. Right from the beginning, Jesus came as bread. God knew how hungry the world was. And continues tobe.

It is a dark and hostile world, where only the winners are recognized. It is a dark and hostile world, where the survival of the fittest is the mantra for ‘success’. It is a dark and hostile world, where those who do not measure up are easily forgotten. In this dark and hostile world, it is easy to get lost, overlooked, misunderstood and dismissed as irrelevant. In this dark and hostile world, there is no room for everyone, where some are expendable.

In the dark and hostile place where we live, a loving God offered the bread of life. It is a great wonder that we are offered such bread. When we seek to follow him, we discover that our following takes us into every broken place where people are hungry for bread, for peace, for freedom, for affirmation, for acceptance, for spirit. Our giving of thanks is lived out when, with those early disciples, we gather up the fragments of life and offer the living bread that is in us.

The poetry of Wendell Berry, an American farmer-poet, shows a beautiful understanding that this offering stands at the heart of faithful living. In a three-line poem entitled February 2, 1968, he wrote this:

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,

war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,

I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.

I think only a profoundly grateful person can face the darkness this way. What hope is there of life rising in such conditions? Many would say, “Wait for more suitable weather, wait for a favourable season, wait until the conditions are perfect when all is well … then we can be thankful, then we can share with the world…”

But one who trusts God to make whole what is broken approaches all life in gratitude, and offers back an open heart and open hands. Thanksgiving is an act of graceful resistance that allows us to admit to the fragility of life, but also realizes that every fragment is of infinite worth. Jesus speaks to us again: “Gather up what is left, that nothing may be lost.”  

This Thanksgiving, remember that in Christ you are living bread. Remember, too, the fragments. Love finds a way on the rocky hillsides of our lives, gathers us in and holds us forever in God’s hands. As a favourite hymn puts it: “For the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us, most of all, that love has found us, thanks be to God” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship #679 “For the Fruit of All Creation, verse 3).

Thank you to Gordon Light, writing many of these words in the Anglican Journal, “Gather up what is left, that nothing may be lost” (the full text can be read at m.anglicanjournal.com/articles/-gather-up-what-is-left-that-nothing-may-be-lost)

Death & Thanksgiving

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I read of a pastor who got a phone call from a woman who told him that “there had been a death.” She went on to say that her dog, Pepper, had accidentally gotten out of the fenced-in back yard and had been killed by a car.

Her children were very upset. She was upset for them, because they were foster care children, and losing a dog brought up all those feelings of abandonment that these children had already known all too often.

A day later at the pet cemetery, when all the prayers were said, the mom gave each child a rose. One by one they walked up to the edge of the grave and put a rose on top of the blanket wrapped around Pepper’s body.

When it came for little Jack’s turn, Jack placed the rose on Pepper and then looked up into the sky, and with tears streaming down his sad face, he cried out, “Thank you, God, for giving us Pepper as long as you did!”

“Thank you, God, for giving us Pepper as long as you did!” Pure gratitude. Pure thanksgiving.

It is Thanksgiving weekend, and the death of your beloved father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend may make you feel not very thankful at all this year.

In fact, the loss of someone we’ve loved leaves us feeling angry, hurt, profoundly at a loss. Considering the loss of your father is the third death of a close loved one this year, you have every right to put ‘thanksgiving’ on hold.

But, I suspect, little Jack grieving the death of his dog, Pepper, hints at something truthful. For we who knew and loved …. can also, I believe, express a feeling deep down in our hearts: “Thank you, God, for giving us Grampa, Dad, as long as you did!”

Thank you, God, for his life. Thank you God for his love. His humour. His good-natured love for friends and community. Thank you God, for his commitment to not only surviving but seeing the good in an otherwise difficult year o fhis life. We thank you, God, for giving us …. for as long as you did.

Like in the scripture from that obscure prophet in the Old Testament – Habakkuk: That though everything that could possibly go wrong HAS gone wrong, though the fig tree has not blossomed, even though the olive tree never developed, even though the flock and the herd have suffered and met tragedy …. YET I will rejoice. YET, I will rejoice.

Why? Even though everything has gone against us, our loved one has died, and we can never be the same without him, even though the worst has happened … we will give thanks. We will exult in the God of our salvation. Because God, the Lord, is our strength.

I appreciate very much what is written on the bottom of the obituary for your Dad. I don’t know where this quote comes from, but it is profound: “A dad is someone who wants to catch you before you fall but instead picks you up, brushes you off, and lets you try again.”

Perceptive. Loving. Truthful. You see, a full life is not about avoiding mishaps and mistakes. If our Dad always protected us from getting hurt (which is what dads want to do, nonetheless), we would never learn how to live. A good life is not descriptive of somehow being able to deny and hide yourself from risk, from failure and from disappointment. The greatest successes come from the greatest failures. Wise people know this.

I believe your loving father knew this. If that statement you chose even comes close to describing him – then indeed he was wise: He knew, even for himself, life was more than the down times. Each of us has to learn how get up after we fall.

This description of a “Dad” is godly. I’m sure God WANTS to catch us each time we fall. I don’t believe God WANTS bad things to happen to us.

But God is sure there to shed a tear when you do fall. God is sure there to pick you up, brush you off, and let you try again at life.

It’s about what you do after you fall. It’s how you navigate and live through (not deny) this grief during this most difficult year.

And, you have each other. You can help each other get back up. You don’t have your father to help ‘pick you up’ this time. But now you have each other, to help you through this time.

This is a most profound expression of God’s grace. In the love of God we find strength to carry on. In the compassion shared amongst yourselves you will find courage to face tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And so, we can say: In God we are able to give thanks. Today we are here to say to God, “The Lord is our strength, yet we will rejoice; thank you, God, for giving us Dad for as long as you did!”

The Life of Christ and the Death of a Loved One, p.101-102

What ought we do?

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In the Gospel text from Luke 17:5-10, the disciples are likened in the parable to “worthless slaves”. Yet, this is a misleading translation, since a servant who will work all day ploughing or tending sheep in the field, and then make supper, don an apron and serve the meal – is hardly worthless! Better those translations that render the word to mean “unprofitable”.

Because in our relationship with God, we can toil and do good works – for God and for the church. We may expect reward or at least recognition for our good works. Yet, Jesus reminds the disciples this kind of approach is like a servant doing what is expected of a servant – and then the servant feeling they deserve a profit, an extra bonus.

“Teach us simply to do what we ought, Lord” – a relevant prayer today. When facing a crisis or stress, either personal or institutional, our impulse may be to do something – anything! Last week someone at the Christian Meditation seminar in Arnprior told me that their father taught him as a young person: “When you don’t know what to do, do something, anything!” This impulse to action is so inbred in our cultural and economic psyche. NOT to do anything is foreign territory. NOT to buy something new. NOT to jump into the newest, latest fad. To refrain from activity is at very least, counter-intuitive.

Admittedly, it would take some self-discipline to hold back. And be silent. Be still. And wait upon God.

Paul’s words to young, active Timothy in our second reading today (2 Timothy 1:1-14) may help us in understanding this complex Gospel text: “For God …[gave] us a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline… [so] join with me … relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.”

We so easily get wrapped up in what we need to do in our lives of faith – to make it better, to save ourselves, to save the church, to save the world, to save our friends and family. I suspect that is what has been so challenging – for me, anyway – in inviting someone to church. Because we so naturally think that if they do come, it’s our success. Conversely, if they don’t come, we have failed.

But haven’t we crossed the line there – falsely taking on more than is our calling? Our job is simply to issue the invitation – and not just for “Back to Church Sunday” – but for every successive Sunday after that. Those first-timers who came last week – how many of them were invited to come back again? We certainly do have a job to do; are we focusing on the right thing?

The response of those whom we invite, however, is God’s job – not according to our works but according to God’s own purpose and grace.

“Teach us, Lord, what we ought to do.” It’s not a question of not ever doing anything. It’s not about staying stuck in a rut. Being still, waiting on God, is not passive complacency. Rather, it’s about growing a discernment about when to act, and when not to. When to wait, and when to move.

I suspect God is ready to show us something beautiful and what we need, should we simply get out of the way for a moment, stop, and be still – just for a moment.

“Teach us, Lord, what we ought to do.” Amen.

Joy -erism

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Last week an online article cited a new study that suggests “religious” people are more depressed than atheists. The study was published in the October issue of Psychological Medicine.  The researchers surveyed thousands of rural and urban people from seven countries over the course of a year to arrive at their conclusions.

Apparently those who claim to be religious tend to respond to life’s challenges, disappointments, failures and tragedies no differently than atheists — those who claim no belief in a God. Apparently, if we take this study for what it’s worth, Christians are just as prone to depression — if not more so — than those who have no faith.

Does this surprise you? After all, aren’t we believers supposed to live the ‘better’ life? Didn’t Jesus come to save us from sin so that we can live life “abundantly” (John 10:10)? Isn’t a life of prayer supposed to bring peace to our life? When we confess our sin, and receive the assurance of forgiveness — aren’t we supposed to be happy for that?

What is more, we often hear from those popular preachers on TV and in our local mega-churches a prosperity-gospel; basically promising the sweet, successful and affluent life if you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

The prosperity preachers line their sermons with conditional promises — a self-help type of message — if you confess your sins, if you turn your life around, if you make better choices — then Jesus will come into your heart and make everything better. In other words, it’s all about us. Our salvation really hinges on our action, first.

But what happens if we do accept Jesus, and life still seems hard for us? What happens if we do confess our sin — day in and day out — but we still feel burdened by
temptation? What happens if we do express faith in a loving God, but we continue to fail — fail in our relationships, fail in our work, fail in our health? What if we do not prosper, even though we say we believe?

Have we done something wrong? Is our faith not strong enough? Are we not trying hard enough? Now, will we feel guilty? No wonder Christians are depressed!

I do not mean to make light of the clinical depression with which so many good people suffer. But I wonder why it should come as shocking that Christians, among those of other faiths, should be denied their humanity by implying that if religion was to be so good for us, religious people shouldn’t suffer like the rest of the world?

In the Gospel for today (Luke 10:17-20 St Michael and All Angels), Jesus draws a distinction between what can distract us from the most important thing. Jesus, while not denying the abilities of the missionaries to perform great acts “in his name”, cautions them not to lose focus and clarity in their faith.

We could interpret that news article from Psychological Medicine as yet another attack by secular society on the Church. But in our self-righteous defensiveness do we continue to look away? Is there not some truth here? I take an article like that more as an opportunity to do a reality check. If society is holding up a mirror in front of us, what do we see?

A joy -erism that is kinda fake? An artifice joy-mask that we put on just on Sunday mornings when we go to church, saying everything is hunky-dory when deep down we are feeling deep pain? A set-up-for-failure message that pretends I’m okay-you’re okay because it’s all up to us to make things right, if only we tried harder?

What is the ‘joy’ our faith speaks of? Haven’t we lost our focus?

A fourteen year-old told me this past week about her family’s annual summer trip to the property they own overseas. It is a beautiful spot to which she looks forward going every year.

This year, however, the trip had extra special meaning: her ninety-year-old grandma was coming with them, likely making the long trip for the last time. As this girl described to me the joy of seeing her grandma walk in the places where she was born, grew up and lived most of her life — a tear welled in her eyes.

True joy is not far removed from the painful realities of life.

Julian of Norwich, living during the so-called “dark” ages in Europe, gave people who came to her cloister window these simple words: All will be well. And this ‘wellness’ of which she spoke, I believe, was not based on being lucky or shrewd in avoiding the mishaps and dangers of life. “All is well with my soul” is a confidence that we are not alone amidst the mishaps and dangers of life.

The truth is, we are already saved. In the Gospel text, Jesus tells the seventy missionaries to “rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (v.20).

The truth is, I’m-okay-you’re-okay not because we are good at pretense. The truth is, I’m-okay-you’re-okay not because we have somehow conquered the demons in our lives, once and for all. The truth is, I’m-okay-you’re -okay not because we are super-Christians with an incredible faith to overcome everything bad in our lives. The truth is, I’m okay-you’re-okay not because everything is perfect in our lives and therefore we can always be happy and never sad.

The truth is, Jesus did all those things we delude ourselves into thinking we must do in order to be saved. Jesus saved us “while we are sinners” (Romans 5:8). Jesus loves us and saves us not in spite of our sin, but because we are sinners.

This is good news: We have an eternal relationship with the God of all creation because of who God is, and not because of anything we have done. This is cause not only for meaning, inspiration and motivation in a life of faithful service “in his name”, but of unspeakable joy.

Jesus was clear in his admonition: Don’t rejoice in what you have done — defeating demons, stepping on snakes and scorpions without getting hurt. This will only lead to a self-centered disappointment and depression. Because while our successes may give us a temporary high, what we do is ultimately not the point of Christian Faith.

The joy I have discovered in a life of faith is this: I’m not alone on this journey called life. My life is connected to something much larger than me and beyond what I can do. My life belongs — to the community of faith with whom I share opportunities to grow, to learn, to serve, to shed tears, to have fun, to find meaning in life; and, to God who holds all of creation ultimately with loving intention and purpose. I’m an important part of that whole; but it’s not just about ‘random’ me and what I make of it.

There’s this integrity to all of life that gives me profound joy, a confidence that our names are already written in heaven.

I thank you, God, for the gift of faith.

 

Not a prize to win but a gift to celebrate

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When the lost sheep is found, and the lost coin is recovered, there is much rejoicing in heaven (Luke 15:1-10). God celebrates. God is pleased. God is honoured. And all are invited to the party.

The shepherd’s friends and neighbours are invited to the celebration. The woman calls her friends over to rejoice together. For what has been found is so precious to the one who finds.

A couple of months after I was married, my wife and I raced to the beach in Goderich Ontario at the end of the workday. Because the bluffs overlooking Lake Huron there are high, you can watch the sunset twice. First at the beach level; then, as soon as the sun sets you run up the stairs some fifty feet to the top of the bluff, turn around and see the sun go down again.

That evening, we arrived too late to watch it twice. The sun was setting from atop the bluff when we got there. But we didn’t drive all the way there not take a short walk along the beach. So, after the sun set, we descended the steps and walked onto the sand as the day’s light quickly dissipated.

Because it was getting dark, we decided not to walk far, but just to sit down on the sand and watch the amazing array of yellows, blues, reds, and orange in the sky. Not only was it getting dark, but the late summer temperatures quickly plummeted. And it was getting cold.

And when our hands get cold, the blood vessels restrict and our fingers narrow somewhat. After about 10 minutes of sky-gazing, we went to get up to go, and with shock and horror I realized my wedding band was no longer on my finger. It had slipped off.

At first we froze in indecision. What do we do? Give up? Accept the loss? After all, to find a ring in a 25 square foot area buried in soft sand full of pebbles and wood chips in the waning light of day seemed impossible. Despair began to creep into my heart.

We said to each other that rather than just give up, we should at least try. So with a stick we drew a square in the sand, and on our hands and knees raked with our fingers every square inch of that boxed area.

It was nearing pitch black as we approached the last corner of our ‘fenced’ area. Suddenly the tips of my fingers felt something cold and metallic. I scooped up my ring and we darted up those steps feeling giddy and light on our feet. The joy, the relief! All was not lost!

In Luke 15, Jesus responds to the Pharisees with stories whose climax is a party, a rejoicing, a celebration. The upshot of the these parables is an invitation to all people, including the sinners and the tax collectors to join together in the celebration of God’s kingdom.

But what about the Pharisees? Are they included, too? I wonder about the 99 sheep left behind.

I wonder what the 99 sheep must have felt, when the shepherd leaves them alone to go after the one who has broken all the rules? What is the shepherd thinking? A crazy risk, wouldn’t you say? 99% of the shepherd’s assets are left unprotected, vulnerable. And, for what? One, lost, misguided, rebellious lamb?

I see a similar dynamic here to the elder son in the story of the Prodigal Son which immediately follows these ones in Luke 15. The elder son who has faithfully remained and worked on his father’s land resents his brother who is shown so much love and attention. And, for what? For running away, squandering his father’s inheritance, shaming the family only to return to the biggest party ever thrown? For him? How fair is that?

We see here that God’s economy is not based on merit, but on mercy. God’s economy is upside down. While our culture is built on merit, God’s kingdom is built on grace. For, God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103:8).

What Jesus is saying to the Pharisees is that the sheepfold – the family of God – exists primarily for those who are not yet members of it – especially those we would consider ‘lost’.

Here we see some values that emerge from a focus on God’s character, values that we would do well to consider in the church.

Let’s say we are the sheepfold, the flock whose Savior is Jesus, the great Shepherd. Where do you think Jesus will be found? Based on this scripture, I’m thinking the attention of our Lord is focused, relentlessly, on those who are not yet here.

By implication then, whatever we decide to do in the church, we would do well to ask this question: Whose purposes does a certain action serve? Ourselves? Whom are we serving, in all our work in the church? Do we make decisions on programs and worship practices that serve our needs? Or, do we see things from the perspective of those who are not here every Sunday? — who are on the fringes of the community, who are somehow distant? What would benefit them?

Because that’s where Jesus is. He’s out there. Looking. Searching. And we know the end of the story: He invites everyone to the table for a celebration. Even the religious types.

When Jesus leaves the 99 in order to search out the one, when you think about it, the shepherd must be putting a whole lot of trust and faith in those 99. He wouldn’t leave them for a while without believing in his flock, believing they had the ability and the resources to do what they had to do during his absence.

God has faith in us all. God believes in each one of us. And God will have faith in anyone who returns home to live in loving relationship with Jesus – whether the sinners, the tax collectors, the Pharisees …. [complete the list]

Because it is a gathering for everyone to celebrate not a prize won, but a gift given by an all-inclusive God whose sights are set beyond the pen, beyond the borders of safety, beyond the walls of any church.

Mistakes transformed not avoided

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“Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel …” (Jeremiah 18: 6)

Entering the lab, I was panting even though I had not climbed steps or walked very far. I used the usual tactics to calm down — deep breathing, focusing my mind on something else, concentrating on an image of peace, paying attention to the gentleman sitting beside me in the waiting room.

It wasn’t working.

When my number was called out, I stood on wobbly legs and approached the chair, the arm band, making the fist …. the foot-long syringe.

Yup. I suffer from what they call ‘white-coat syndrome’. That’s the polite way of putting it. Neurotic and spineless is another. I would rather avoid any situation that involves needles or other instruments of bodily invasion being employed on me.

No matter how hard I try to control — okay, suppress — those feelings of fear, no matter how much praying, contemplating and meditating I do ….

Friends and family might press me on this: “What is the worst case scenario? What is the absolute worst thing that would happen in those institutionally-sterile situations about which I am always anxious (besides dying!)?”

Well, that I would pass out, lose control, collapse in a heap upon the cold laminate flooring of the windowless, basement lab. That I would make a fool of myself in front of others. Ah — being vulnerable to others I hardly know. Showing the very less-than-perfect side of me. Revealing that I am not always the ‘finished’ and ‘polished’ Martin. That I, too, may join the human race and literally fall and stumble.

Figuratively, as well.

We are told, as God spoke through Jeremiah to the people of Israel, that the faithful life is not about mistakes avoided, but mistakes transformed.

In some sense, the warning we get from the prophets of the Old Testament is to avoid messing up. Otherwise God will punish us.

But then, I wonder, why God would have us hear a story about a potter forming a spoiled piece of clay if the message of the bible was simply to get rid of (read, ‘deny’ or ‘avoid’) our mistakes? There’s more to the life of faith then avoiding sin out of fear of punishment.

Because the truth is, we are not Jesus, nor God for that matter. The truth is, we continue to sin even though we are saved by the cross of Jesus. So, what’s the point of a saved, redeemed life? I wonder if what God is doing here is giving Jeremiah a way to understand the paradox of life in relationship with God. God is preparing Jeremiah for what Judah and Israel were heading into … exile, loss, banishment …. and then salvation. This pattern of death and resurrection is already imprinted on the life of God’s people.

Being a hope-filled and faithful Christian is not about avoiding mistakes we will make, but about seeing those mistakes transformed into God’s purposes. In this pattern of death and resurrection we fall and we rise. We don’t just fall, and stay there, as people of Faith. We rise, too. How so?

First, it’s about a changed and changing life.

Clay in a potter’s hand is not static. It is continually being formed in rhythmic motion. Faithful living is movement, growth, transformation. It is marked by a yearning for deeper communion with God and with others in love, compassion and grace.

Second, it’s about owning your mistakes, not denying them or pretending them away in fits of self-rejection, despair, even self-hatred. The vessel which the potter used in Jeremiah’s experience started as a “spoiled” piece of clay. The beauty into which it became started out “a mistake”.

We don’t often think of the places of pain, imperfection and failure as the fodder for our salvation, do we? But it’s true.

We give God glory when we offer our whole selves to God, not the perfection of it. In all our vulnerability and weakness, God is glorified. When we have the courage to expose our weakness and confess honestly within the Body of Christ – the church – then the Spirit of God draws us to God’s purposes, God’s mission, for others most effectively.

As Christ’s body was broken in love for us — what we give thanks for in the Holy Communion — so the Spirit of Jesus shines through us as we offer our brokenness to “go in peace to serve the Lord” in the world.

Again, counter-intuitive. I think we’ve gotten so used to the un-Christian idea that the only thing worthy of giving to God and showing to the world is what we pretend to be our ‘perfect’ selves — untainted, unblemished being and acting of moral purity. Only when we’ve finally gotten rid of our sin. Only when we can prove our worthiness, achieve some moral standard, then God is glorified. Then we can belong in the church.

But this is not biblical. Stories from the bible of men (especially) with tragic flaws — despairing, backtracking, blind spots, denials, and betrayals fill the Scriptures; As Richard Rohr writes, “they are the norm” (p.360, On the Threshold of Transformation). Think about Adam, Abraham, Jacob and Esau, Moses, David, Solomon, Peter and Paul, etc., etc. And yet these overtly flawed people were used by God to convey the truth.

Truth-telling is indeed the purview of the prophet. As unpopular a role it is. I’ve heard of many churches named “Christ the King” but tell me if you’ve heard of a “Christ the Prophet” church, even though Jesus never rejected or denied, and even claimed as his dishonored position (Mark 6:4). The New Testament twice lists ‘prophet’ as the second most important role for building up the church (Ephesians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:28) (p.328, Rohr). A prophet tells the truth.

The Gospel text for today (Luke 14:25-33) truly takes a punch at what many Christians in North America identify with ‘family values’. A prophetic word, perhaps.

Jesus is not calling us to reject relationships characterized by compassion and grace, especially within families. But Jesus adds an essential and often sorely-missed ingredient into the mix of what we could describe as ‘Christian values’ in relationship: courage.

Courage reflects truth-telling in relationships. The root of the word, courage, is the Latin word for ‘heart’; courage originally meant: “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart” (Brene Brown, Gifts of Imperfection, p.12).

To tell one’s heart is an act of vulnerability, isn’t it? And when we make ourselves vulnerable in telling the truth, especially to those we love, we need to be prepared to reveal not only our good points, but even our flaws.

“To take up one’s cross” as Jesus instructs in this Gospel text, is to courageously embrace one’s vulnerability, and give it to God. “Spirituality in the best sense,” writes Richard Rohr, “is about what you do with your pain” (@RichardRohrOFM). Will you hide it from others, pretend that you are okay when you are not? I can’t imagine healing can happen when you close yourself off to others.

Healing doesn’t happen if we try to avoid those sources of fear, imperfection, vulnerability and shame in our lives. Only by leaning into those feelings of fear and anxiety, by courageously going to those places of brokenness with love, compassion and honesty will we begin to experience the dew drops of transformation in our lives.

Just as fear can be a contagion, a virus spread from one to another, so is courage and compassion. More so.

Even the resurrected Jesus — the victorious one — he showed the scars from his wounds he bore. Jesus didn’t hide them from his disciples. The resurrection of the crucified Jesus was God’s promise to humanity that the final word on all human ‘crucifixions’ — the crosses we bear — will also be resurrection.

I think the nurse sensed my anxiety in the basement lab, as she held my hand drawing blood from my arm. There really was no hiding my elevated everything. But there was something about the way she spoke to me and respected me that, in the end, got me through it with flying colours.

I couldn’t do it on my own, wrapped up in my own anxiety. But being in the presence of a compassionate, gracious person, however, made all the difference.

Amazing grace. Thanks be to God.