Tag Archives: Pastoral Care

Prayers among the people – Pentecost +13B

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13th Sunday after Pentecost; Year B

With reverence for the whole human family and all of creation, let us offer our prayers to God, saying “Let us pray,” and responding, “Have mercy, O God.”

For the family of God in the church, that you empower our inner lives and renew our minds, so that we may act boldly to invite others to church; and that we may trust the work of your Spirit in all that is good in our action. Let us pray … /R

For the family of God among nations’ leaders, that your Word gives life to those who are mal-treated and victimized by greed and self-serving leadership. We pray for those families affected by the gun-violence in the United States – in Chicago, New York and Colorado, recently. We pray also for justice, peace and restoration in Syria. Let us pray… /R

For the family of God in all of creation – the sparrows, swallows and birds of flight – that they may find home in safe and clean environments. We pray for the families affected by the oil refinery explosion in Venezuela yesterday. We pray also for those affected by the devastating earthquakes in Iran a few weeks ago, that lives and communities may be restored and needed help offered by those who have much. Let us pray … /R

For the family of God in our local congregation, especially parents and students travelling together to colleges and universities this week, that heartfelt farewell is expressed and new beginnings and empty-nesting be embraced. Let us pray … /R

For those in the family of God hurting, ill, distressed and despairing, that you deliver all in trouble, affliction, danger, or need; especially we pray for ….and those we name in the silence of our hearts or out loud……. May they be rooted and grounded in your love. Let us pray …/R

Receive our hopes and prayers, O God of mercy. Because we are a church that belongs to Christ Jesus our Lord, we all find a place in your home and at your table. Great is your faithfulness, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. 

Life under re-construction

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The re-construction of Victoria Street began in late June. This average-looking, common-place road in the heart of a small town in Ontario was undergoing a radical change for the better.

Something new was going to be constructed that would mean a better, safer and more reliable roadway, both for what is above and below the surface of the asphalt. In short, something good was going to come out of all the disruption, detours, noise and dirt in my neighborhood.

Perhaps your life reflects times of re-construction. These often disruptive experiences can shake us to the core and may initially feel unwanted, uncomfortable. They can also offer opportunities for growth, maturity and — at the end of it all — realizing a better place in your life.

But how do we get from the rough place to a better one? How can we see the work of re-construction not as a negative but as a positive?

Well, the first thing I observe about what’s happening on Victoria Street is that all the planning and organizing is done with the long view in mind. In other words, re-construction takes time. Though the shovel broke the earth in mid-June, it will likely be late Fall by the time the work of re-construction is completed.

To realize this vision of completion (the biblical definition of “perfection”), the workers need to implement intermediary measures. For example, for several weeks they need to ensure portable generators are in place to pump drainage water through long, large rubber hoses laid along the length of the street. Before any new permanent structures can be installed, time is needed to remove the old and ship in the new.

Life re-construction, if it is to be effective and enduring, requires the long view. It is seasonal, and experiences ups and downs, occasional setbacks, like taking two steps forward and one step backward. It may take some interesting twists and turns before you are done.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, he exhorts the people that in order to “speak the truth in love” they must “grow up” (Ephesians 4:15). The phrase “grow up” is often directed at misbehaving children. But this is an directive to adults as well. Growing up in Christ is a lifelong process.

When the prophet Nathan called King David out to confess his sins of adultery and murder, King David found himself at a milestone on his life’s journey (2 Samuel 11:26–12:13a). A significant indication of David’s desire to grow in faith and maturity in his relationship with God and others around him was his honesty; he did not deny his sin but confessed it immediately to Nathan. And it would take a lifetime for David to live out the consequences of his sin. His confession was but a step on this journey of healing and growth.

It is natural to be discouraged by setbacks on life’s journey. But stay on the path. Pray for the gifts of persistence, endurance and patience. Take the long view; transformation is a process not a one-time event.

Another aspect I notice in the re-construction of Victoria Street is the very reason the work had to be done in the first place. Yes, the surface of the road was getting full of pot-holes. But it was more the stuff deep below the roadway that needed a complete overhaul.

You see, Victoria Street runs along the bottom of a ravine. And the road is located in town; therefore this street is connected to all the municipal services, including water and sewer. After torrential downpours anyone living along that street would get sewer back-up and flooding in their basements. Why? Because the culverts and buried pipes constructed half a century ago are not adequate enough to deal with any overflows and demands of the present day.

Huge concrete casings, like giant cement vaults, need to be buried underneath that particular roadway to connect and drain sewer and storm runoff — to solve the problem.

No good talking about the piping and drains under streets up on top of the ravine. No use blaming the rain fall! The problems are on Victoria Street! It’s about the infrastructure underneath Victoria that is the source of the problem, and what needs to be exposed to the hard work. No where else.

In life, reconstruction is about YOUR stuff! No one else’s! In the famous Psalm of Confession (51) where David prays fervently to God for forgiveness and healing, he also confesses something I think we sometimes forget in all our confessing: David acknowledges the “truth deep within me” (v.6), a truth that reveals good things too: wisdom, for one. Confession is not just about opening up to the bad within, but acknowledging the good that is there too.

And we can experience the good when we take ownership of our own stuff. Positive change doesn’t happen until you accept the truth about yourself. As soon as you catch yourself blaming someone or something else for your problems, you are likely missing the opportunity for growth, renewal and transformation in your life.

And that is why it is so important to undertake the journey of reconstruction with others. Reconstruction involves a community. Paul follows his exhortation to “grow up” by offering that famous image of the body of Christ. Growing involves the whole body, “joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped …” (verse 16).

I believe what motivates the workers on Victoria Street over the long haul is that they can envision what it’s all going to look like one day. They can see in their minds eye the final result of all their labour. Therefore, hundreds of people are working on Victoria Street — traffic guides, contractors, town officials, engineers, workers — like busy bees all working together, interdependently.

Whether you see it or not, others can see in you a vision of the new thing God is doing in your life.

Life under reconstruction is not a solitary enterprise, even though our instinct may draw us to seclusion and isolation when bad things happen. Privacy and confidentiality are important to respect; nevertheless beware if these modern ideas provide instead an excuse to hide from others under the pretense of invulnerability. Be open and honest, like David was to Nathan for knowing his darkest secrets. Try trusting others. Find a confidant. Open yourself up to God.

God’s grace persists and perseveres. It may take a long time. Digging deep may even hurt. But the grace and the faithfulness of a loving God mediated through co-travelers will, in the end, bring us to that place of wholeness and healing.

It is also in the poetry of the Old Testament where we read over and over words that communicate what stands out in David’s life: God’s anger lasts but a moment; God’s steadfast love endures forever. The same is true for us.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

How is God Faithful? – Despite Us

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

House of Pain

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LutherHostel2012 visited the first residential school in Canada – Mohawk Institute – from 1831-1970 situated at Woodland Cultural Centre on Six Nations Reserve in Brantford Ontario. We continue to pray for truth and reconciliation, and courageous leadership among and with First Nations. We confess our sins, and we commit to telling the story for all to know what really happened.

Being Together AND Separate – Holy Trinity B

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My father was getting frustrated with me. And I was getting frustrated with my father. We were trying to explain to each other how to drive stick shift. I was sixteen and just got my license. I wanted to learn how to drive a standard transmission because my Dad had a cool, sporty looking VW sitting in the driveway.

The mutual explanations were literally driving us crazy. The words, interpretations, hand and foot demonstrations were getting us to a bad place in our relationship.

Finally, I had enough. I stomped out to the car, somehow managed to get it on the street in front of our house, and just did it. The only way I was going to learn was to do it. To try. To make mistakes, for sure. But experiencing the manual transmission what with the clutch-work and shifting was the only way I was going to learn. Not by talking about it till we were red in the face.

Living with my parents most days now as we wait to sell our house in Petawawa brings back many memories of growing up and learning new things in my youth.

Today is Trinity Sunday. I congratulate you for having the courage to come to church on Trinity Sunday. Because preachers are usually anxious about what to teach about the Holy Trinity; this is not an easy topic to explain.

Boiled down: We worship a God who self-discloses as three persons in one God. Beyond saying this, I believe we would be lost and get frustrated if all we did was acknowledge the Trinity as we do each time we confess our faith using the words of one of the traditional Creeds of Christianity. If left only to doctrinal abstractions and statements of belief, we would go in circles and play mind games with one another. Our questions could keep us perpetually stuck.

At some point the only thing left to do is just experience God. The Trinity exposes if anything the nature and function of our relational God. In other words the only way to learn about God is to enter into a relationship with God. To quote Henri Nouwen, “life [and God, I would add] is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be entered into.” (From his book Seeds of Hope in the chapter on “Presence and Absence”)

And what do we learn about this God we experience? Well, let’s begin by characterizing the way God self-relates and by implication how Christians are called upon to relate with one another.

For starters: We are not God and God is not us. There is this basic differentiation. I think life experiences teach us that no matter how hard we try or how far we progress or how good our technology or knowledge increases – we are not nor never can be God. There is a limit to our humanity. There are boundaries to be respected. To deny this is foolish. God is quite simply, beyond anything we humans on earth can ever be or imagine.

While the distinction is firm, that does not mean God is not in us, with us, around us in the fabric of creation. Using hefty theological language: God is immanent as well as transcendent. Our life reveals this both/and aspect of relationship with God. It IS a mystery to be entered, not solved nor explained with words alone.

The Trinity challenges us to be together while also being separate.

For example, I have related all my life with an identical twin brother – David. David and I have had to work very hard, especially in our youth, asserting our differences more so than our similarities. At one point our friends seemed to get the “how-similar-we-were” part more than our individualities.

I think in loving relationships, like marriage, we get the “together” part well. And certainly in healthy marriages there needs to be that sense of emotional connection and a desire to be together – to be sure.

But how do healthy relationships also exhibit a separateness, which is equally important? And Godly. Let there be spaces in our togetherness. Don’t blur relational boundaries. Don’t become enmeshed with another so much that individualities are denied, ignored, suppressed. Kahlil Gibran, who wrote the book “The Prophet”, is often quoted at weddings. He wrote this famous poem On Marriage:

Let there be spaces in your togetherness /And let the winds of the heavens dance between you … /Love one another but make not a [smothering] of love; /Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls … /Stand together yet not too near together …

By respecting our separateness we discover our unity. Unity is paradoxical. Because only by accepting our inherent diversity will we truly be able to celebrate our unity in the triune God. We sometimes, I think, assume that for the church to be unified we need to conform one to another. We have to be same-minded. We need to be uniform and march together in lock-step to the same tune on all doctrinal and liturgical issues.

But our differences are as important if not more in experiencing organizational health. Our unity is strengthened in Christ Jesus when, like a body, the parts are free to function as they are meant and not coerced or forced into some conforming imposition.

The one aspect of the famous David and Goliath story from the bible I love occurs when King Saul expects that the only way little shepherd boy David can defeat the giant Philistine warrior is by putting on all the armor trappings of a typical Israelite soldier. But David, thankfully, is able to recognize his own giftedness and shed the uniform and use the simple gifts given to him – some stones and a sling.

Healthy, relational love is not expressed just in warm fuzzies/feel good, go-along-to-get-along ways. But also needed is some tough love; that is, asserting one’s own wants and needs even if it might upset someone else that you love and care for.

When emotional distance is established in any relationship, when clarifying your stance, taking a stand, taking responsibility for your needs flavors the nature of the relationship, there will be health and healing. Thank God Martin Luther had the guts to stand up over 500 years ago and clarify his stance when he said, “Here I stand.” Those three words set a religious world in motion for centuries to come.

I quoted Dutch priest Henri Nouwen at the beginning of my sermon; Henri Nouwen lived a large portion of his life as pastor caring for the intelligently disabled people at L’Arche Daybreak Community inTorontosome decades ago. He wrote several books about the Christian life, spirituality and ministry before dying in the mid-90’s. He has been, for me, a mentor through his written word.

He writes often about the importance of a balance between a ministry of presence AND absence. While being present constitutes much of pastoral care work, he argues for the importance of also being absent. In other words, not always being with, but being apart from the one for whom you care.

God entered into intimacy with us not only by Christ’s coming but also by his leaving – in his dying an earthly death, in the ascension. In fact, the Gospels show that on the Cross where God’s absence was most loudly expressed by Jesus when he cried, “My God, My God, why have you deserted me…” (Psalm 22:1-15) God’s presence was then most profoundly revealed. When God through the humanity of Jesus freely chose to share our most painful experience of divine absence, then God became most present to us, in the Spirit our Comforter. Without a separateness in the relationship, we would not know God’s profound presence.

Thank God for the Trinity! In relating to a triune God we learn first hand in our life’s experience what it means in relationship to be both together and separate in holy love.

Amen.

Easter 7B – Christian Unity, in the End

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JOHN 17

When they were younger my children used to watch a children’s cartoon entitled “Busytown Mysteries” aired on CBC TV. It’s about these animal cartoon characters – among them a giraffe, a mouse, a pig – who are friends, and are called upon to solve mysteries in their town.

In one episode the bunch of sleuths were called upon to solve a rather peculiar mystery: A pair of ski-tracks in the snow followed an inexplicable course down the mountain – the pair of tracks circumvented a giant boulder, but one track on either side of the rock! Then, the pair of tracks travelled together, side-by-side through a hollowed-out, low-lying log. Who, or what, could have made those tracks? And how?

A tall-legged giraffe could have gone over the boulder easily enough, but how then could it have gone through the log? A mouse could have gotten through the log, but what about the tall boulder? The evidence didn’t add up. Not until the sleuths changed their assumptions – saw the problem through a different perspective altogether, was the mystery solved.

You see, they had assumed the skier was by themselves – one person. Everything made sense when they discovered that in fact there were two mice who were not skiing, but snow-boarding beside each other down the hill. The truth was revealed after they assumed the maker of those tracks was not alone.

Jesus, before he went to his suffering and death, prayed to his God, the Father. And he prayed that his followers on earth “might be one.” In other words, he didn’t want them to be alone – isolated, competing, independent individuals. He prayed for their unity. He prayed that harmony, cooperation, mutuality and collaboration would characterize the Church on earth.

But sometimes the evidence just does not add up. What we see on the surface is the opposite: We see division. And we can’t always and easily explain the “mystical”, invisible, spiritual union we claim we have whenever we celebrate the sacrament of unity during Holy Communion.

At the same time I suspect we would have a hard time making Christian unity a central aspect of our witness to the world, a world that dwells only it seems, on the schisms, controversies and in-fighting in Christianity.

How is this unity experienced in reality? Are we willing to change some of our pre-conceived assumptions about how the world works and how the church works? Like the Busytown buddies, would we be willing to solve the mystery by realizing unity means we are not alone in this world? How can we celebrate our unity “on the ground in our daily lives when the world wants to tell us we are on our own, competing, survival-of-the-fittest?

Or, do we even care? Are we satisfied and comfortable to remain entrenched and cocooned in our defensive posture?

Paul MacLean, highly esteemed and successful rookie head coach of the Ottawa Senators said after the Sens were eliminated from the playoffs a few weeks ago, “You win a Stanley Cup not by defending; you win a Stanley Cup by scoring goals.” How can our “offence” become our best “defence”? In other words, how being united in Christ become our best “offence” in the world bent on rugged individualism?

We advance Christian unity when the world sees that we care for one another in our weaknesses. In verse 11 of John 17 Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them … so that they may be one as we are one.” Jesus’ prayer for unity among his followers is linked to God’s protection and provision.

Now, the translation from Greek to the word, “protect”, may make us feel like God needs to protect us from all that is bad and evil and scary in the world – as is the case, literally, at the end of the passage (v.15) when Jesus in fact does pray for this.

But in verse 11 when unity is at stake, the Greek word for “protect” – tereo – carries overtones of “pay attention” to one another, or “attend to carefully”, or “take care of”, in the same way parents care for their children.

The truth is, we can’t do mission in the world effectively if we’re always fighting each other. But when the world sees how Christians care for one another in their needs – how a community of faith supports each other in the work of the Gospel – this leads to enhanced Christian unity.

Continuing the hockey analogy, this is called “puck support”; it’s not about only the star player going in to score, it’s about everyone “supporting” one another in moving the puck forward. It was only when Alex Ovechkin had less ice-time in the latter part of this season that the Washington Capitals experienced greater success as a team. When the level of play increases for all the players can the team be at its best.

God cares for us and will provide for our every need, no matter the circumstances of our lives. No matter how dire or conflicted or heavy the burdens of our lives and the challenges we face, listen to the promise of God, here: God will care for us. God will give us what we need to endure, to live, to prosper.

How did God the Father care for Jesus? How did God the Father care for Jesus? Even though Jesus endured suffering and brutal death on the cross, the Father held Christ through that terrible experience of death and brought him to new life and resurrection.

Resurrection is the end-game, the destination of all we experience. Not death. The power of death has no strangle-hold on our life, in Christ. Because baptized into the Body of Christ we know that nothing will separate us from the care, the love of God.

And God continues to care and protect us. We can therefore live confidently, caring for one another. We can live confidently and compassionately for others through it all, showing the world that in Christ we are united as we care for one another and the world that God so loved.

On one level our unity is a mystery, like the experience of Christ’s real and true presence in the Sacrament. But on another level, Christian unity is not a mystery. It is rock-solid, visible truth. We are not alone. We are not by ourselves on the journey. Just look around you. What unites us is greater than whatever may divide us.

Whenever we notice in another their unique gift and presence in the community – and tell them! – with a kind, generous and encouraging word, we affirm that what unites us is greater than whatever may divide us.

Whenever we work shoulder to shoulder in any outreach to the community as, for example, we will next week in the book sale & community BBQ for supporting LAMP,  we affirm that what unites us is greater than whatever may divide us.

Whenever we pray together, reflect on scripture together, and celebrate the Holy Meal together, we affirm that what unites us is greater than whatever may divide us.

Whenever we visit with one another and care for one another in the love and light of Christ Jesus within us, we affirm that what unites us is greater than whatever may divide us.

The living Lord Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

Amen.

 

Beyond Words? Who, then, Shall Lead Them?

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“No one was able to give Jesus an answer” (Matthew 22:46a).

The Pharisees are stumped again! The conversation with Jesus ends in silence. No one will dare ask him any more questions. When it comes to the big question of faith, words are not enough.

A prayer I often offer during worship at funerals is, “that we do not try to minimize our loss or seek refuge from it in words alone.” Indeed, words cannot do justice to our life and death. Have we stood with someone in grief and did not know what to say? I think we are often too hard on ourselves. Is the problem that we do not have the right words? Or, rather are we not aware of the value of being with another in silent love?

When called by God both Jeremiah and Moses protest, claiming that they “cannot speak”. Some have interpreted this as evidence that these famous prophets toiled under some kind of speech defect. I was surprised to find that in the development of early Christianity in Russia, stuttering was considered a sign of a true prophet. Then again, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that the priority of God’s witness is found in human weakness (Eberhard Bethge, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, New York: Harper & Row, 1985, p.374).

“Preach the Gospel always,” goes the proverb, “use words if necessary.”

Over time I am learning the value of non-verbal communication in getting a message across — my body-language, behavior, touch, presence and attitude.

Because faith is simply beyond words.

Have a little faith!

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The first thing is not to give up, and keep moving forward, even though it’s tough. When W.H. Murray led the famous Scottish Expedition to climb Mount Everest in the 1950s, he reflected afterward with his oft quoted piece of wisdom: “In the moment a commitment is made, then Providence moves too.” In other words, when you commit to doing something aware of all that is good in you and the world – even if it’s risky, scary – God goes with you and necessary resources are provided.

We don’t do reckless things and twist God’s arm into action; rather, when we are bold it’s like dropping a pebble into the sea of God’s grace: The ripples move outward creating more space for God’s grace to envelope, enfold and hold.

Take the risk. Make the commitment to a discipline of prayer, of study, of holy reading, of loving service – in a way that pushes you a bit out of your comfort zone, your routines, your familiar ways of being and doing: push the envelope. And don’t give up. You may be surprised by what God is doing for you!

Easter 3B – Farewell along the Caravan

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So much has changed over the past 10 years. When I think back to how things were at Zion in late 2001, to how things are in early 2012 – indeed a lot has changed!

Amid the continually changing realities of life, I have found comfort and hope in a prayer – popular among Lutherans – from Evening Prayer in the old, green book (yes, 10 years ago we had those LBWs in our pews!) – it goes like this:

Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

It is a beloved prayer. Christ indeed goes with us.

But do we go “by paths as yet untrodden”? Yes, in the sense that each of us experiences the journey uniquely; and yes, we can’t know exactly how we will experience that journey with sadness or with joy, or any and all of the emotions in-between.

Does our reaction to change, I wonder, come from a false belief about the nature of the journey itself? Do we not assume that in moving forward we go, as Captain Kirk said at the beginning of each Star Trek TV episode decades ago – “to go where no man [or woman] has gone before”?

Admittedly, the journey of life and faith for us carries a “frontier” mentality. We live and work in North America, after all. We are pioneers – this is our history! – clearing bush for the first time, forging paths never before trodden through the wilderness. And more often than not we are blazing this new path on our own. It’s up to us.

No wonder we are afraid. No wonder we shrink in our seats and cower from any prospect of change. Because if it means we must go it alone into paths as yet untrodden like stepping into a void, into oblivion …..

Where does faith come into it? The wisdom writer said it poetically and truthfully:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven … God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds” (Eccl 3:1,11).

How can we cope with this dual reality of both/and – both the past AND future, both being present AND embracing change? Is this even possible?

It is, I believe, when we REconsider our image for the journey. Not so much a “blazing a new path by ourselves”; not so much a “pioneering / frontier” mentality where WE create the path…

 …. But rather, going where a path has already been travelled; we are on a caravan journey.

What does the caravan journey look like? It is a pathway through the wilderness, to be sure. As one plods along its winding route, we follow the tracks of the carts and wagons etched into the roadway; therefore we know others have come this way before us. We know others will follow sometime soon behind us. It is a road dotted by intermittent markers along the way, directing its travellers. Finally, it is folly to travel alone, by oneself; one always journeys the caravan route together with others for mutual support, consolation and protection along the way.

We do not create the path. We are travellers along God’s caravan route through time and place. Someone besides us has forged the path through the desert. It is therefore a route already trodden by the saints before us. Wherever it leads we can be assured that Jesus Christ has travelled the route and beckons us forward to follow.

Today, both past and future converge in the present. On the caravan every moment of the journey is both an ending and a beginning. Every moment that begins something new also means something is ending. When something comes to an end, something new begins.

In my installation service in the Fall of 2001, you presented me, ritually, with the lectern Bible, water for baptism, elements for the Sacrament of the Altar – all symbols that define the unique role of a pastor. This ritual of giving me the “supplies” for the journey enabled me to perform my duties as Co-Pastor.

Today is a marker on that journey. Today marks an ending. We have to bring a relationship to a close. We have to say goodbye. The kind of relationship I have enjoyed with you changes from this point forward.

We mark this time of ending, too, with ritual. Today I read the Gospel; Today I make the sign of the cross using baptismal water; Today I hold the blessed Sacrament.

Yet God is helping us in this moment of ending. God is helping us envision the new beginning. I find great comfort in this image of “caravan” describing the movement forward in life and faith. Even as a pastor now taking leaving of Zion congregation after ten years of service:

  • We are assured that the Gospel will continue to be read and received in this place
  • We are assured that the Holy Communion will continue to be celebrated at this altar
  • We are assured that the waters will continue to be stirred in the font of baptism right here, in this place – of this I am certain and grateful.
  • You will still sing the hymns, pray together and enjoy one another’s company

Remember, the path ahead has already been forged. We go not alone, but together, on a path already trodden by Christ Jesus and all the saints in light.

But does God care for us on this caravan route God knows all too well? Now that Jesus is alive and sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven? You might think that the resurrection Jesus would not really care about earthly, human need anymore; you’d think the resurrected Jesus would ‘get outa Dodge’ for the trouble he endured while on earth and especially during his Passion and death.

The last chapter in the Gospel of Luke helps us, I believe, to understand at least a couple of “rules of the road” in believing the truth about our journey of life and faith:

  1. Jesus appears to his disciples after the resurrection and asks for something to eat. The Gospel writer is specific in mentioning it is broiled fish that Jesus eats in their presence (v.41-43). Why is that? Jesus DOES care for our journey, eats with us, is concerned about our blistered, dusty feet, our tears, sweat, joys and sorrows. He cares so much for every detail of our humanity that he STILL comes back in resurrected form and engages our human, physical, metabolic state to eat and digest real food. To this day, Jesus is willing to go there, to those places on the caravan route that reflect our own human need. He’s knows this route intimately. He’s not some removed, disembodied, disconnected, disinterested deity up there somewhere. He’s right here with us, today – in the Sacrament, in our fellowship of love.
  2. Jesus sends his disciples out on the journey to all nations (v.47). It is not a caravan that goes in circles around Jerusalem; rather, the route winds itself around the whole world! The Greek word for church is “ekklesia”; literally it translates – “a people called out”. Yes, the momentum of Christianity is centrifugal – the journey is an ever-expanding mission towards the places where Jesus will be. The Story is greater than you or me; it calls us beyond ourselves to go where Jesus beckons.

When asked about his success, Wayne Gretzky once said, “I skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been.” He explains why – and you have to imagine the fast-paced ebb-and-flow of the hockey game: Gretzky says, “Skating toward where the puck IS will always guarantee your arrival at a place where the puck HAS BEEN” – and that’s no good! By following the caravan route, it is possible to discover where the risen Jesus is going in our world and not just keep going back to the empty tomb. To be able to arrive with a caravan of Christ followers at a place where he has promised to meet us is the joy of Christian discipleship. As a popular American preacher wrote, “Vision is not about looking in tombs for a risen Jesus. It is about listening to where he says he is going to meet us and striking out for it.”

Our ways part today. But no matter where on that route we find ourselves, we are all still on the way. As we strike out in the Caravan, let us be blessed for the journey.

As a child I remember at the start of a long road trip my parents led us in brief prayer in the car. So, translated from the German blessing I gave a few weeks ago at the conclusion of the Good Friday German language service here at Zion, here is a blessing for us as we continue beyond today on our separate ways:

The Lord go before you, to show you the way.

The Lord go beside you, to hold you and protect you.

The Lord go behind you, to keep you safe from all harm.

 The Lord go beneath you, to catch you when you fall,

and show you the way up.

The Lord be within you, to comfort you when you’re sad.

The Lord be around you to guard you from attack.

The Lord be above you

To give you grace.

Such is the blessing of our God.

Amen.

“Lord Jesus, You Shall Be My Song”  EvLW#808

Marriage is Made in Heaven — So is Thunder and Lightning

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Please read Song of Solomon 8:6-7 and Ephesians 5:22-32

In my stocking this past Christmas Santa gave me a fridge magnet with the following printed on it: “Marriage is Made in Heaven … But so is Thunder and Lightning!”

I appreciate the positive implication of the humour: Marriage is not an idea born from a fairy tale dream of marrying a princess/prince. A healthy marriage is not approached in abstraction, but manifested in real time, in the real world, in real, honest relationships worked out “on the ground.”

And real, healthy relationships also include conflict.

Conflict can be bad, but conflict can be good too. In your vows you wrote a line that implies clearly the potential benefit of facing conflict in your marriage. I appreciate your heads-up, real approach to your marriage. You are not distorting a vision of your marriage by an idealism that denies these sometimes hard realities we all face in relationship.

If marriage and thunder and lightning come from the same place – God, then what can we say about a healthy marriage grounded in reality, not abstraction?

The scriptures you have chosen for your wedding reflect this bold, real approach to your marriage. The text from Ephesians is certainly one that causes much conversation in Christian circles. So, let’s take a brief look at this text. The critical verses in succession are 22, 25 and 31; and, in each let’s focus on the verbs therein:

22. Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands

25. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

31. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh

From a reading of this text I gather, first, that a healthy marriage is characterized by mutuality. What is “mutuality”? Strictly defined, mutuality is demonstrated when: What you want from the other is what you give to the other. A healthy marriage reflects this dynamic. A healthy marriage is mutual when both members have something to give.

As I said, you are bold to have chosen the text from Paul’s letter from Ephesians to be read at your wedding, especially in this day and age. Often in this text we zero in on is that line where wives must “submit” to their husbands. And we presume that if a marriage will last, it’s all on the woman’s shoulders to make it work; that is, she must always submit to her husband’s whims and wishes. In this case marriage feels more like a one-way street, does it not?

But we make a mistake if we stop there, not to mention creating a distorted image of a healthy marriage. Because later in this scripture Paul instructs the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church; that is, the husband is called to “give himself up” — sacrifice –himself for the sake of his wife.

In short, both wife and husband have something to give. Submission and Sacrifice are properly exercised in the context of mutuality. If you want your partner to submit and sacrifice to you, then you must also submit and sacrifice yourself to him or her. It’s the only way it will work.

An important life skill learned and practiced by many couples in healthy marriages is the ability to compromise. Let me define “compromise” as the ability to let go of — release your grip on — your total, perceived sense of rightness.

The ability of this giving is fueled by responding to the needs of the other rather than compulsively seeking self-centred solutions to problems – and it goes both ways of course. Both partners have to operate this way, so that both partner’s needs are met.

Perhaps another way of understanding how this is possible is through the process of detachment and attachment. You have to leave something before arriving at the new thing.

For example, imagine taking a ferry boat to cross a channel of water. In order to complete the journey, you first have to step off, leaving an old land, in order to step onto a new country, a new piece of land. It’s impossible to have one foot in the past and the other in the now and future. It’s impossible to demand a total agreement of your point of view in a dispute and still claim a fair marriage. It’s impossible to experience something new and better in your marriage without first letting go, or giving up, a way you normally respond; for example, reacting impulsively the same way to your spouse’s behaviour, every time.

What do you have to give up? To each their own …. is it pride, is it the need to be right all the time? “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” — another provocative proverb for marriage. In short, you can’t have healthy relationships — in marriage, in the church, at work, in families — unless ALL members learn how to compromise.

The Amish have a period of time, “rumspringa”, during adolescence when teenagers detach from their community for a time. Then most (80 percent) reattach. This experience speaks on the importance in the growth of someone as one leaves a phase of life and transitions ot the next. It also speaks of the need to “detach” from only thinking about your own interests, your own “world”, your own world views …. in order to embrace in love the other’s.

Detachment and attachment means loss, change, yes. It also leads to growth, personal development, and maturity in love. I heard from someone recently a wise comment: They said that we grow more from bad experiences than good experiences; we grow more from those challenging, difficult situations in life than the mountaintop experiences. Facing those hard times square-on makes us grow.

How than can we approach marriage with realism, but without getting mired in negativity and sulking in continuous despair?

Your selection of poetry from Song of Solomon presents a very real depiction of love, a love that is put alongside death. How bold! How real! Love can exist in full passion and strength without denying the hard realities of life.

Your choice to get married is such an expression. You could have chosen not to. But you chose life and love in the midst of all that assails you.

While the text from Song of Solomon at first appears to equate love and death, a further reading may give love the upper hand. The first part of the pericope says that love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave.

But then the latter part of the passage tips its hat to love: not even one of the strongest forces of nature on this planet — water — can overcome love. After all, the force of water can over time literally move mountains; water can pound boulders into sand. Not even the force and strength of water can, however, overcome the power of love.

And while in a real marriage our human love is imperfect, it still has great power for the good. And what is more, the power of God’s love for you and your family is greater than anything we can imagine on earth and in heaven. The power of God’s love assures us that what unites us in relationships is stronger, much stronger, than whatever divides us.

And that’s what we’re here today to celebrate and affirm in our coming together.

On the surface thunder and lightning can scare us. It certainly does me! But thunder and lightning also signifies a positive change in the air mass. Thunder and lightning often means that the air that was once heavy, humid and oppressive needs to change to a climate where the air is clean, light, fresh. And where we can all breathe once again.

Marriage is indeed made in heaven. Thank God so is thunder and lighthing!

Let’s sing together now, “Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling!”