Tag Archives: love

The Fox and the Hen: Who’s running scared?

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Richard Rohr claims that “If you or the group to which you belong cannot laugh at yourself, then you are in trouble” (p.197, “On the Threshold of Transformation”). No better time to laugh a little than during Lent and especially on Annual General Meeting Day in the church, don’t you think?

So here’s one that will hopefully introduce us suitably to the animal imagery in the Gospel text today. It’s a chicken joke, but it’s not crossing the road!

Q: Why is it that chickens can’t talk? A: Because God doesn’t like fowl language!

The power of the imagery is indeed not in what is said, but what the mother hen in the Gospel text today (Luke 13:31-35) will do – even in the face of fear and adversity. Actions, in the life of faith, always speak louder than words.

The image of Jesus as a mother hen gathering her chicks reminds me of a common experience I see on the water described very well in the words of Canadian writer, humorist and preacher, Ralph Milton; he writes (in ‘Rumors: Sermon Helps for Preachers with a Sense of Humor’):

“I remember the image in Luke 13:34 every spring as I walk with my wife Bev along our creek, and delight in the clutches of fuzzy ducklings feeding along the edge of the water under the steady eye of the mama duck.

Sometimes at dusk we’d see mama duck tucking her babies under her wings where they will be as warm and safe as it is possible for wild ducks to be.

It is heartbreaking sometimes when a single duckling becomes separated from the clutch and goes whistling frantically for mama who is nowhere in sight. And when it spies Bev and me on the pathway, it goes skimming along the water in a desperate attempt to escape.

We always want to re-unite it with its mother. But mostly that’s impossible because we don’t know where mother duck is either. When we’ve been successful, it is by scaring the little bird to run away from us in the direction of the mother.”

Indeed, sometimes fear will motivate us – like the duckling – to run straight into the arms of a loving God.

But not Jesus. Jesus does not run in fear from Herod – the fox. Personified as a predatory fox, Herod is after Jesus. The Pharisees warn Jesus, tell him to “get away”. When you think about it, of all the artwork and creative depictions of Jesus over the centuries, have you ever seen Jesus “running away”? I certainly haven’t.

In the words of blogger Nancy Rockwell: “In Scripture and in art there are images of Jesus doing so many things – praying, walking, knocking on doors, gathering crowds, climbing hills, calling disciples, writing in the sand with his finger, sharing bread, preaching, weeping – but never running.” (in ‘Bite in the Apple’ 2013)

Because that is not what a mother hen does. Even under duress. Even when threatened by a fox. Rockwell continues: “The homely hen, who has lived in the backyards of humans for thousands of years, is selfless in her devotion to her little ones, even more defenseless than she. She has no defenses against the arts and wiles of foxes except her courage and commitment. She will rush to their sharp teeth and long claws, their looming shadow, their fierce bloodlust, throwing herself upon the bodies of her chicks, extending her wings over them, letting herself be devoured in the hope that they may be spared. She does not run from her fears.”

This is the God we worship today, on the day we review the ‘business’ of the church. We worship a God who is fearless, on account of a great, sacrificial love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). God’s love in Jesus, Christ’s protective grace and fierce loyalty, these are unmatched in all of creation. Incredible, especially when Jesus rebukes Jerusalem for its misguided ways – and then still (and again!) offers his unconditional love.

Above all, let us remember who is the God of this church. Not a fox, out to get us, out to scare us. But a God who wraps loving arms to hold us up, and be our strength, no matter what.

Learning to be Real: A Children’s Sermon

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Invite the children to sit on the steps of the chancel. Bring a stuffed, toy rabbit and your old teddy bear to place facing each other on a railing or chair, for all to see.

Adapted from an extract from the ‘Velveteen Rabbit’, by Margery Williams (1881-1944) ….

Good morning. Let’s listen in on a conversation between the rabbit and bear. It sounds to me like the rabbit has come to the bear for some advice.

Have you ever gone to someone when something bad has happened between you and a friend? Or, you didn’t understand something about growing up? And you want some help in figuring out what to do?

Let’s listen ….

“What is Real?” asked the Rabbit one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and always make you happy?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Bear. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Because your hair looks worn out, and there are patches missing.”

“Sometimes,” said the Bear, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you know that you’ll sometimes get hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Bear. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Bear only smiled. “Someone made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

When I was born, my parents gave me this teddy bear. And all the while I was growing up, this bear stayed close to me. I’ve hugged it lots over the years! I know to be loved by me wasn’t always easy for my bear: he lost hair, once one of his ears fell off, and his eyes popped out — and had to be re-attached; his blue ribbon faded. But he sure was loved!

God loves you for always. But that doesn’t mean life will always be easy. The important thing to remember is that God will forever hold you close to his heart, no matter what. And in the meantime, you will become Real — a real strong and loveable person!

 

Driving into the sunrise: an ISS with a view

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Following Canadian Astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield’s twitter feed (@Cmdr_Hadfield), I along with over a quarter million other people are fed with a steady diet of inspiring photography from space.

And these photos, nothing short of amazing, are shots of cities and notable geography on our planet. Maybe it’s the perspective, and the real time nature of the photography.

These weren’t photos taken by a satellite a year ago or more you can find on Google Earth. Chris Hadfield takes these photos, and then moments later posts them on the internet: So, I’ve seen the bush fires in Australia as well as the flooding there as it recently happened.

His perspective from 400 kilometres up flying at 8 km/ second challenges my opinion on the way things are on the ground. For example, I may feel completely inundated and overwhelmed by the depth of winter in which we find ourselves now, in the southern parts of Canada. From my perspective six feet off the ground, the snow banks are high; flurries stream in daily from the heavens; the white stuff piles up and covers so much of my world.

And yet, I get a different feel when I view Chris Hadfield’s photos from space. When he’s posted live photos of Ottawa, Montreal, even Edmonton in January of 2013 — you can tell it’s winter from up there, to be sure.

But the photo isn’t completely white, as I would imagine with all this snow. Depending on the Canadian city, white may not even be the half of it. There are dark patches all over the place — sections of lakes and rivers not frozen, glades of forests, exposed rocks — that have thrown off the blanket of snow.

I watched the interview between Commander Hadfield and CBC’s Peter Mansbridge on TV last week. And I discovered Chris Hadfield to be quite philosophical and eloquent about his incredible experience. A veritable Renaissance Man, he is.

I must confess I have caught the bug of inspiration that he is sharing openly with the whole world. He says that his experience has taught him to think more globally and wonder about his place on the planet in relation to other places. When people respond to his twitter feed about the photos he posts, Hadfield is inspired by comments that suggest these places mean something more for people, places that were up until now for many just words on a page, found in an atlas. Therefore, what motivates him in his work is that because of what he does people’s vision of the world is slightly expanded.

Mansbridge asked whether what Hadfield is experiencing, given his awe-inspiring perspective of earth, can be described religious or spiritual. In response, Hadfield spoke of the night in which they were flying eastward over Canada in the dark, north of the Great Lakes towards the Maritimes. He was just able to see the lights of Quebec City and then over the Gaspe, and finally screaming at high speeds towards Newfoundland and Labrador. And just as St Johns came into view, the sun burst over the horizon.

Not just the sudden brightness, explosion of colours or heat of the sun, but the profound beauty of it, he said, brings tears to his eyes. He went on to say that “driving into the sunrise” — which happens 16 times a day for him — is a powerful experience because it is “a magnificent way to understand our planet, and to see our country as one place.”

Valentine’s Day is just over a week from now. And the red hearts, balloons and chocolates in the stores remind us of that great theme in life — love. Saint Paul’s famous speech about the greatest gift (1 Corinthians 13) echoes in our minds as we yearn for the warm fuzzies and relational peace amongst ourselves.

This kind of perspective seems almost out of reach on account of the enduring divisions, both within ourselves, and in the world. We may even have considered “love” as something reserved only for our dreams and fantasies, something expressed only in the fictional world of princesses and princes and childhood aspirations.

When Mansbridge asked Hadfield about the response he got from people after posting photos of Syria where there is much trouble and conflict, he responded: “Trouble and conflict is a basic component of the human experience, unfortunately.” He admitted that it’s not going to get solved by space travel.

But he went on to say that he thinks that if people in conflict could see the world from his visual perspective — “to be able to cross Africa in the time it takes to finish this sentence, to be able to see the whole world repeatedly over and over as one succinct, distinct place where we all live — that view would do a lot of people a lot of good.”

He also said that the ISS is visible from the earth. “If you get up early in the morning, or just before you go to bed, and we happen to be flying overhead, we are still in the light while it’s getting dark on the surface of the earth. There’s a visible example of something going on that is truly international, that is cooperative, that is leading edge that is right there overhead — the brightest star in the sky going around and around the world reminding people of what we can do when we do things right and when we do things together. And hopefully that combination will help to influence at least some people: the combination of understanding how we truly all exist together on a planet and the understanding of what we can do when we work together.”

You know what happens after Jesus announces to the people what his purpose in life is, after reading the holy scripture to the people in the Nazarene synagogue (Luke 4: 21-30). You know the response. It is violent. They want to throw their home boy off a cliff!

We may forget that when the church in Corinth first heard Paul’s words about love, those words didn’t spark the warm fuzzies in them. Paul was addressing a church in conflict, with people’s selfish, compulsive egos getting the better of them. Everything Paul says love is not, they are. Everything that Paul says love is, they are not. They reacted. They must have been angry at Paul for his challenge, his offense, his prophetic, cutting-edge preaching.

In short, both the Gospel story and this famous, idyllic passage about love from Paul tells us that Christianity even with its emphasis on love and grace doesn’t mean it’s all nice and easy and comforting.

Love is not just a feeling. It is action. It is risk-taking. It is going beyond our comfort zones in the same sense that Chris Hadfield risks all to propel his body to the edge of space in a tin can. Love ain’t easy. But the benefit, the outcome, is wonderful, inspiring.

Love exercised with determination, and motivated out of a sense of the greater, common good, for the sake of others; Love demonstrated in acts of courage and principled clarity — this is who we are. This is the Gospel character.

How does Jesus escape almost certain death by the mob who wants to kill him? Right at the end of the Gospel passage, we read that he merely “passes right through them”. Biblical scholars suggest this rather cryptic climax to the story points to the resurrection of Jesus.

As Hadfiled admitted, space travel will not solve the human experience of being in conflict and trouble. But the visual reminders will inspire Canadians, indeed all earthlings, to something better, something cutting edge, something more, something possible that we can do together. Just as small acts of true, meaningful, self-giving acts of love between individuals, families, communities, countries, will not solve all human conflict for all time. But they will stand as constant reminders of what God has called us, ultimately into: new life, resurrection, new beginnings.

We are, after all, all driving into the sunrise.

Paying faith forward

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David Wilkerson is known most for writing the story, The Cross and the Switchblade. At a meeting I attended recently, a church leader read for our opening devotions the true story about David Wilkerson when he was involved in an outreach ministry in New York in the 1960s:

When a mortgage payment came due on a youth center in Brooklyn, David needed fifteen thousand dollars. The ministry’s bank account only held fourteen. Fourteen dollars, that is.

The “impossible” mortgage payment was due August 28. As the date drew near, Wilkerson expected God to do something huge and wonderful to save the center. But nothing happened.

The deadline arrived, and they still lacked the money. The bankers were ready to foreclose on the Teen Challenge operation. Wilkerson worried that he had run out of miracles.

But he pushed on, nevertheless. He asked his lawyer to seek an extension from the bank. Which was granted; the new date was September 10th. But that date was final. The lawyer asked David about his plan to raise the money. “I’m going to pray about it,” Wilkerson responded.

Then he decided to call together the staff and all the young people in the center – former drug addicts and gang members – and he told them that the center … had been saved.

Cheering rocked the place. “Let’s go to the chapel and thank God!” he urged. They did, praising the Lord for the money. Someone finally asked him where the money had come from.

Wilkerson shook his head. “Oh, it hasn’t come in yet, but by September 10th it will come. I just thought we ought to thank God ahead of time.” (William Petersen, 100 Amazing Answers to Prayer, Baker Publishing 2009, p.181-184).

To make a long story short – the ministry center did receive enough money to cover the mortgage payment by the due date, in dramatic fashion nonetheless.

But what strikes me in this story was not so much that the exact amount needed was actually delivered at the 11th hour, so to speak, as an answer to prayer. Because rarely does effective prayer result in exactly what we wish for. In prayer, we do not manipulate God.

Rather, what stands out for me in that story was that the celebration and commitment to praise God came before the money was fully realized. In other words they didn’t wait until after they raised all the money to praise and thank God: they offered their thanksgiving, truly, in faith, as an act of unconditional love for God. Their relationship with God was not contingent on things going the way they wanted – on answered prayer, as such. Their positive act of giving thanks to God was expressed like “paying it forward”; that is, paying faith forward.

Such examples of believing in the power of prayer can seem otherworldly and irrational to us. And understandably so.

In the world we normally have to earn our way to glory; we have to prove ourselves before the reward comes. And only if others prove themselves worthy in some way will we return the favor. It was only after my neighbor shoveled my half of the driveway early in the winter season before I was moved to do the same for him since. Tit for tat – even in being gracious.

This kind of ‘conditional culture’ – which operates at so many levels of our relational, economic, political, social and even religious lives – is really based on a negative, self regard. Our media’s emphasis on ‘perfection’ – you know, perfect bodies, beautiful-looking people, the most expensive cars, gadgets, and properties splashed continually on our TV screens and magazine covers – results in a lot of personal let down, if not downright self-rejection and hatred: “I’m not good enough”; “I’m ugly”; “I’m an awful person”; “I’m not worth it”; “I don’t matter to anyone.”

Have you ever listened to your own self-talk? When you are by yourself, what do you say (maybe even out loud) under your breath when something doesn’t work, or you’re stumped, or something breaks? Might be a helpful exercise. Because it would reveal a lot about how you relate to yourself. And how you relate to yourself will translate and project into your relationships with others, and God.

Even though in Luke’s Gospel, his version of Jesus’ baptism is very short (compared to Matthew, Mark, and Johns’ versions of the same story) – only 2 verses – Luke does not hold back the words God the Father has for Jesus: “You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased” – echoing the words from Isaiah: “You are precious in my sight, and I love you!” Of all the details Luke could have mentioned (in comparison to the other Gospel accounts) about this story, he definitely sounds loudly this theme of God “paying it forward” to Jesus.

Maybe, from the world’s perspective, God should have waited until after Jesus defeated the devil by dying on the cross and rising from the dead … before praising him.

Maybe, from the world’s perspective, God should have waited until Jesus actually accomplished that which he had been called, baptized and ordained to do on earth … before offering him his due accolades.

Maybe, from the world’s perspective, God ought to have waited until Jesus returned to sit at the right hand of God in heavenly glory … before offering him his just deserts. After all, to receive grace and compassion and love and adoration one must first be deserving of it, right?

Not God; God doesn’t wait for anything. God speaks those gracious, affirming, empowering, unconditionally-loving words long before Jesus takes his first step towards Jerusalem and the Cross.

And that’s how God and Jesus are with us. Call it, if you will, shooting first and asking questions later; and God ‘shoots’ with grace not with bullets!

Let me quote John Leith, a Presbyterian professor and theologian, who said that every human life is rooted in the will and intention of God. I quote him: “In baptism the child’s name is called because our faith is that God thought of this child before the child was, that God gave to this child an identity, an individuality, a name, and a dignity that no one should dare abuse. Human existence has its origin not in the accidents of history and biology, but in the will and the intention of the Lord God, creator of heaven and earth” (“An Awareness of Destiny” in Pilgrimage of a Presbyterian, Louisville KY, Geneva Press, 2001, p.126-127)

The truth is, we need to hear this affirmation from one another. We need to hear it from God. And we need to speak it to ourselves. Long before we prove anything. Long before we have all the money. Long before we earn it. These are life-giving words that each person on earth should hear, unconditionally: “You are my child, whom I love and with you I am well pleased!”

When Jesus hears those words, his life changes forever. He is empowered by those words to go forth and do what he must do and be who he is called to be, for the sake of the world.

Those words will do the same for us, for our children, our neighbors, our spouses, our church members, and even, as Jesus promised, our enemies. You DO matter. You ARE worth it. You ARE beloved and beautiful. You ARE precious, and God loves you. And I pray you know that kind of unconditional love from others in your life as well.

Because the unconditional affirmation and love of God and of one another is the source of our true identity and purpose in life. And these affirmations are the most enduring joys of the abundant life Jesus wants for each one of us.

Christmas – to earth below

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In humor columns, parenting blogs and popular print media, much has been made of the adventure – often toil – of getting your children to sleep at night.

For parents this can be the epitome of frustration as children are often reluctant and sometimes fearful about the prospect of falling asleep.

Perhaps no harder a task than the night before Christmas.

I can imagine Martin Luther’s wife, Katherine von Bora, giving bedtime duty to Martin on Christmas Eve in 1535. What should he do to get the children settled down and to sleep?

Well, why not sing a familiar tune – one they would likely have heard around town – to words that tell the Christmas story? And he wouldn’t just sing it once through. After all, it takes time to get the rowdy’s settled down.

For the longest time I had wondered why Luther had to write not three or four verses – the usual for a hymn, right? – but fourteen! Well, now it makes sense to me.

Nothing like a sweet lullaby – fourteen verses long! – to put anyone to sleep, let alone children. And not just at bedtime.

Indeed, falling asleep can be the most difficult thing, and not only for children, in a dark time of year when anxiety levels run high.

Because falling asleep requires trust. You know, to fall asleep one needs to let go into a belief in the sweet goodness of life. You can’t fall asleep whilst fretting about this or that. When the gift of sleep finally comes, there’s a peace that descends on the heart and mind.

How difficult that can be, these days especially, in the heightened fervor over doomsday predictions and mass shootings that have left the soul of our collective identity tarnished if not shattered.

And we ask, how can God preside over this mayhem and downright evil in the world?

Martin Luther’s hymn, From Heaven Above describes a God who does not remain distant nor disconnected from earthly realities. It describes a God who descends and enters our humanity. And not just into the places of power, privilege and prestige — into the glorious aspects of life. But especially God descends into the earth below.

From heaven above, God comes, to earth below. Into the dark tragedies. Into the fearful realities of life.

When the Word – that is, the full capacity of God’s being – entered human flesh, God was saying something about how God would relate forever more with us.

A great and wonderful and joyful promise was issued from God in the incarnation of God in Jesus: that new life is ours. That out of the deepest, darkest tragedies, from the pit of despair, through the vice grip of fear, out of the fires of anger and from the shame of sin – there is hope.

This is good news: On Christmas Day God proclaims a new beginning for us and for the world. We are offered the power of God to make things right, to reach beyond self-preoccupations to a larger reality governed by God and empowered by God’s love.

This is good news, even though the reality of evil still persists. Perhaps the form and length of Martin Luther’s hymn can suggest one more thing:

There aren’t any easy answers to the difficult questions of life and sometimes senseless, tragic death. Just as there aren’t any simple answers to explain the depth and mystery of the incarnation of God in the baby Jesus, so too we cannot explain away the tragedies of life with simple statements.

Even fourteen verses cannot say it all! Martin Luther tried! Perhaps motivated by a desire to get his kids to sleep, Luther could never describe God as a monster who is out to punish us.

God comes to us a baby from whom and for whom nothing but love, gentleness and compassion entered the darkest night.