The petition from the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread”, is a prayer built on trust. Trust in God’s creation and God’s universe. Trust that it is all “tilted toward enough, toward abundance, and ultimately toward our flourishing.”[1]

That’s a grandiose dream, you might say. How is it that God’s universe is tilted toward enough, toward abundance, and ultimately toward our flourishing when life seems anything but? And yet, we continue to pray to God, week after week, “Give us today our daily bread.” And when we pray, “Give us today our daily bread” we expect that God will provide. “Give us this day our daily bread” is a prayer built on trust.

Today, the church commemorates Saint Patrick. “According to his Confessio, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish pirates as a youth and spent six years enslaved, tending sheep in the Irish wilderness. During this time of isolation and deprivation, Patrick writes that he often prayed hundreds of times a day, asking for God’s [provision and] protection.”[2] You don’t pray hundreds of times a day unless you expect God will somehow provide. Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, trusted God in moments of desperation.

How can we build this trust that God gives us enough? How do we get from deficit to surplus? This is a question that preoccupies many of us on Annual General Meeting Day. How do we get from scarcity thinking to an abundance mentality? This is a question that preoccupies those who want to grow spiritually and deepen their faith.

First we need to acknowledge how we have been conditioned by our early life experiences. And, acknowledge the powerful influence of current day media and marketplace messaging—that we always need more, and that we don’t ever have enough. ‘More’, of course, is a relative concept.

Most of us only need to look in our closets, garages and storage pods to recognize that we are a “stuff-drunk culture”[3]. Having acquired more than we can handle, our vision, our thinking, is so much formed by these crammed spaces in our minds and our homes.

In some ways, the people of Jesus’ day were no different. What is enough and what is more are, again, relative concepts.

And Jesus taught a reshaping of those stories, the narratives, the images and memories they told. Jesus taught a reshaping of the narrative to produce a vision of abundance for all. This is what Jesus was up to when he said, over and over again: “You have heard it said … but I say to you”![4]

“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus says in the Gospel for today, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”[5]

The picture Jesus paints, the narrative he is reshaping for his followers, suggests a pattern we have heard, as Christians, time and time again: Death and resurrection. Not death alone. Not resurrection alone. But, from the perspective of life on earth, both.

And by saying ‘death’, I mean little deaths and losses that you experience throughout life: divorce, job loss, migration, moving, leaving, losing, sickness, ill health, accidents, tragedy, death of loved ones, relationship break-downs – these are all little deaths.

The point is that Jesus, while not denying the pain associated with all these losses, frames them within the larger scheme of life. A life that we begin to see anew. A life that heralds new beginnings, new opportunities, and new-found hope. That’s the promise of resurrection.

In Psalm 27 (v. 13), the Psalmist expresses his faith: “I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” Not just after we die. Not just in heaven. But here! On earth! In this world, in the regular course of our lives crappy as it sometimes goes! “Give us today our daily bread” is a bold statement of faith and belief in tasting something good from God in our lives on earth.

So, is it deficit and scarcity? Or surplus and abundance? That is a question of faith. So, where do we begin in shifting, transforming, the way we understand what is enough and what is more? Where can we start?

Well, I am looking outside more these days, letting my eyes wander over the still-sleeping trees and breathing in that promising air. And it strikes me that creation is not anxious. It is content with its own place, function and possessions. It frets not over hoarding out of fear of not having enough. Some trees rest for hundreds of years in their own sustaining power, receiving and giving over time. The scrub grass doesn’t frantically pace back and forth, catastrophizing whether enough water will soak down to its roots.

We can learn something about enough by gazing at nature. Defining enough in the way of creation means seeing contentment as fluid and flowing: “Sometimes we will have more, and sometimes we will have less. There are winters, and there are springs.” The question is how we approach both seasons.

God’s vision operates in abundance, not scarcity. Life in Christ is rooted in the belief that there is always enough of whatever we need. The picture Jesus paints and the narrative he reshapes leads us to a non-anxious posture toward the world: A calm spirit, a tender heart, open both to receive and to give whatever God has in store. “God invites us to use calm energy and unhurried effort in our lives, fueled with thoughts about a universe where pine trees and sparrows never worry about what comes next.”[6]

Let us not be fish arguing about who owns the water they are all swimming in. Let us not be birds who draw lines in the sky separating who can fly where. Let us be people who share, who are generous—in some seasons of life receiving and in other seasons of life giving what God has first given to us all.

Give us today our daily bread. Amen.

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[1] Tygrett, C. (2023). The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons, p. 147. Broadleaf.

[2] Parker, S., Watters, M. (2022, March 17). Who Was Saint Patrick? Diocese of St. Augustine. https://www.dosafl.com/2022/03/17/who-was-st-patrick?

[3] Ibid., p. 74

[4] See, for example: Matthew 5:21,27,33,38,43.

[5] John 12:24

[6] Ibid., pp. 76-77

Would you count yourself among the half of all Americans—and I would presume Canadians as well—who say they are actively trying to “discover” themselves? And around 40% of adults say they are still searching for “purpose in life.”[1]

Regardless of how you may define purpose, let’s say that purpose is how you evaluate and measure your value in the world.[2] So, what is your purpose in the world?

I believe each one of us here has value and dignity, created lovingly in God’s image.[3] And perhaps our challenge today, personally and in community, is to focus our attention and centre on each other’s inherent worth, value and dignity, amidst all the challenges we face. So, why the confusion about purpose?

We may feel guilty we have this problem today because it wasn’t always like this. We often think fondly of the past. We remember when police officers and politicians apparently protected our interests. “We could rely on what the doctor told us, walk into a store and buy something without comparison shopping, and a handy person could repair their own car without an advanced degree. We feel that formerly we were more able to rely on things, on institutions, and on people in some greater or stronger way than we do today, whether or not that is actually true.”[4]

What may contribute to our confusion about our purpose today is that we are filled with apprehension and mistrust. Fear lurks beneath the lack of trust we feel today.

So, what do we fear? “Is it pain, loneliness, loss of position, loss of respect? Is it possible that underneath all of these fears, real as they are, lies one core dread: the fear of not having love? If we dig deeply enough, will we discover that our deepest fear is, What will I do if no one loves me?”[5]

“Let your kingdom come.” In this sermon series during Lent we look at various phrases from the Lord’s Prayer. Today, we reflect on the meaning of our petition to God: Let your kingdom come. Thy will be done. God’s will be done, in our lives and in the world. That is our prayer, indeed.

In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther in the 16^th century offered short explanations for all the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. He begins his explanation of this third petition by stating that God’s will is done even without our prayer, even without our specifically asking for it.[6] That’s because, for Luther, God’s will is about God’s grace, first and foremost, God’s good gift to us in the Holy Spirit.

And long before Martin Luther, Archbishop of Constantinople in the 5^th century—John Chrysostom—linked the will of God in us to God’s love in us.[7] From the original Greek, Thy Kingdom Come, therefore means: “Allow love to reign fully.”[8] That is our prayer, indeed.

When Jesus gives the greatest commandment—to love God, yourself, and others with every fibre of your being[9]—we find the singular purpose of humanity: We are loved, and we are here to love.[10] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth.

God is love[11]. And when we exercise love, the world on earth cannot be the same. The order of things is forced to change by virtue of a love that paints a different vision of reality.

When love reigns, we can trust others more, even those in authority never mind our closest family. When love reigns, we can find clarity of purpose for our lives. And it’s possible.

In answering the question about your purpose, did you think about what you did, or need to do? We often inquire into purpose with a task-focused mindset. But we can ask a far more probing question about purpose. What if the question of purpose isn’t at all about what we do but what we truly love? What do you truly love?

To ask the question, ‘What do I love?’ is to reconsider what matters most. When love is the driver, we think differently about money and accolades. Love shapes how we act toward our family, our friends, those we meet every day.[12] Love re-orders our priorities.

They recently renovated our local McDonalds in Arnprior. And, sure, it needed it. The restaurant is now refreshed, clean and all new and high-tech. But they still have to update the big sign outside. Because one important part of the McDonalds experience, from childhood, is no longer there: They removed the playplace.

I remember as a kid going for birthday parties to McDonalds. And parents had birthday parties there because of the playplace. We would all dive into the ball pit which we now know as the “multi-coloured petri dish where all forms of bacteria grow and thrive.”[13]

But as children we didn’t really care. We climbed the netting, followed the yellow-tinted tubing, and with arms up down the slide we went only to ascend again.

It was a joyful space, a particular world we pursued with love. But not just for children. It was a place for early risers grabbing a coffee and off to work. It was a place for those down on their luck in need of a cheap meal. And at the centre of this world was an elaborate playground to stoke the imaginations of the gathered children with hope and innocence. We loved it. When we played, we loved it all.

When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, I think he was painting a picture of what the world on earth could be like, as in heaven. He was giving us a dream of a place where “everyone knows why they are there.”[14] The purpose, then, is to live out the love of being a part of a joyful space: to play, to share, to laugh, to create.

I think for young people today especially, they need to know as we all do that the kingdom of God is a place of love and purpose for a wandering people. The kingdom of God a space that gathers anyone who wants to come and give energy and focus to what they love. Will we listen? Will we learn and grow? Will we play together?

The Israelites had to lift up the image of a snake, for their healing.[15] Jesus was lifted up on a cross, for the healing of the world.[16] Healing and salvation happen only because someone is loving, caring, acting out of compassion. Healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, renewed hearts and purpose cannot happen without love. Because God so loved the world, Jesus came to us.

Allow love to reign on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.

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[1] Tygrett, (2023). The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons, p. 54. Broadleaf.

[2] Tygrett, ibid., p. 54

[3] Genesis 1:27

[4] Shaia, A. J. (2021). Heart and Mind: The Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation, p. 412-413. Quadratos LLC.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Martin Luther. (2024). The Small Catechism: The Lord’s Prayer. The Book of Concord Online. https://bookofconcord.org

[7] Damian, T. (2010). St. John Chrysostom’s Teaching on Neighborly Love. Columbia University. https://academiccommons.columbia.edu

[8] Tygrett, ibid., p. 147.

[9] Matthew 22:34-40

[10] Tygrett, ibid., p. 55.

[11] 1 John 4:16-19

[12] Tygrett, ibid., 55-56.

[13] Tygrett, ibid., p. 56.

[14] Tygrett, ibid., p. 57.

[15] Numbers 21:4-9

[16] John 3:14-21

He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”[1]

Pastor and author, Casey Tygrett, tells the story about the difficulty he experienced with his dad.[2] He writes about the time he was driving on the freeway in the US to meet his father, to confront him with an issue that had divided them for a long time.

When Casey was driving to that meeting, he had gotten lost in his thoughts and almost missed an amazing, absurd sight: A car had pulled over, its hazard lights flashing. Even from a distance, the tilt of the car gave away the diagnosis: flat tire.

Flat tires are common. What was uncommon was that the person changing the tire was Hellboy. You know Hellboy? He was a comic book character from the 1990s. Hellboy was a large, red-skinned demon-man with a giant right hand made of stone and two horns protruding from his head, filed down into blunt circles.

And that’s what Casey witnessed that day on the side of the highway. Here was a grown man, dressed in cinema-grade costume and make-up, changing a flat tire. Hellboy was hard at work mending his world.

What struck Casey in that moment was that it felt far more believable that Hellboy would change a flat tire on the side of the highway than that he, Casey, would make peace with his dad.

The rift was so deep and had gone for so long. What chance was there of going back? What chance was there for forgiveness?

In this sermon series in Lent, we are looking at various lines from the Lord’s Prayer, and to reflect on their meaning and importance for us today. Today, we consider the line at the heart of the Our Father: “Forgive us our trespasses…”

To do the work of forgiveness, we live, as Casey realized, between our desire to see our relationships mended on the one hand, and the seemingly absurd belief that that mending is even possible.

In the Gospel for this Third Sunday in Lent, Jesus gets angry and cleanses the temple because, to put it one way, the religious leaders and money changers had sinned.[3] They had turned a holy place into a marketplace.

Jesus cries in anger, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

Because of Jesus’ display of anger, the Gospel pushes us to imagine Jesus entering our own sanctuaries. The Gospel pushes us to imagine Jesus entering a place within our own hearts and minds. And once there, the Gospel pushes us to imagine Jesus overturning our own cherished rationalizations about the world and the people in it.

And for what purpose does Jesus overturn our world? Why does Jesus create this disruption in our own lives? To drive us out into renewed relationships.

To imagine this is not easy. That’s why we receive this Gospel during Lent.

“Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

A marketplace is a place of exchange, of transaction.

And whenever religion gets into the business of buying and selling of God’s grace, requiring sacrifice to earn God’s love, we have a problem. Whenever we catch ourselves laying judgement on whether someone deserves a break, or forgiveness, or a second chance, we know we are fully immersed in the mentality of transaction.

Forgiveness is not a transaction. Forgiveness is not a mechanism you switch on or off in response to situations that you’d rather not have to deal with, because forgiveness is hard.

What kind of economy does Jesus operate in? When Jesus said, “Get these things out of here,” it’s a clue to the source of Jesus’ anger. He spoke those specific words directly to those selling the doves.

A little background on temple sacrifice: Ordinary people had to make sacrifices to be made right with the priesthood and the temple. They sacrificed oxen and sheep. But the very poor were allowed to offer doves.[4] Recall that Mary and Joseph had to give doves when they brought the infant Jesus to the temple.[5]

Jesus knows that his religion is not taking care of the poor. In fact, his religion is stealing from the poor, making money off the poor and making them give even the little they have, to feel they are right with God.

Jesus gets angry about that and overturns the economy of transaction. He overturns the mentality of exchange into the economy of grace, of forgiveness. And making that shift of thinking and of being and acting, is not easy. It’s not easy for us to receive forgiveness, nor is it to forgive. It doesn’t compute, to live in that unconditional way.

Maybe it is easier to believe you’ll run into Hellboy on the side of the road! Maybe it is easier to believe the fakest news possible, the most fantastical, absurd and improbable thing imaginable, just because someone on YouTube says it’s so. Maybe that’s easier to believe than in forgiveness, never mind with God, with one another.

And it does matter, with one another. Because in the Lord’s Prayer forgiveness is not something that’s validated just between you and Jesus. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Divine forgiveness hinges on the practice and posture of forgiveness between people on earth.

To forgive someone, in Casey Tygrett’s own words, “is to abide in a land of ache, beauty, and frequent disappointment. It is a place of work and persistence, not a one-time display of obedience. It is the place in between, the restless present tense.”

And when we take a mending posture toward our world, we are in the presence of grace well beyond what we could imagine. “Grace is oxygen to all of us, should we choose to inhale.”[6] It is given already. Will we open our hearts to receive the gift?

The Psalmist, who expresses our deepest longings as well as articulates our sharpest struggles, proclaims that while God’s anger lasts but for a moment, God’s compassion lasts a lifetime.[7] God’s grace overrides all the other ways of being in relationship, even when we mess up, and stumble from time to time in the lifestyle pursuit of forgiveness.

Healthy people are not purists in the sense that they never have faults or setbacks. They just get up and go after falling. That’s the forgiveness trait. They never give up trying because they believe and trust in God’s forgiveness.

And why will we get up renewed in our commitment and faithfulness to God? Why will we be honest, vulnerable, and expressive of the love of God in our lives? Because we believe nothing we do or don’t do will jeopardize God’s steadfast, unwavering, unending, unconditional love for us.

God forgives you. Believe it. Forgive yourself. Then, forgive others.

Repeat.

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[1] John 2:16

[2] Tygrett, C. (2023). The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons. Broadleaf Books. pp. 90-91, 146.

[3] John 2:13-22

[4] Rohr, R. (2024, February 25). Jesus’ Anger: Where Anger Meets Love. Daily Meditations. Center for Action and Contemplation. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/jesus-anger/

[5] Luke 2:22-24

[6] Tygrett, ibid., p.101-102.

[7] Psalm 30:5; see also Psalm 103:8-11

One of the most well-known prayers in the world and among all religions, even for non-practising Christians, is the Lord’s Prayer. The “Our Father” is a go-to prayer for anyone who wants to connect with their Christian roots. And, so, it is beloved for many.

One line in the prayer has achieved notoriety, especially since the English-language “contemporary” version of the Lord’s Prayer was introduced some decades ago now: Replacing “Lead us not into temptation” are the words: “Save us from the time of trial.” As you know I prefer and have promoted the newer words. But during Sundays in Lent this year, I invite us to reconsider and re-connect with the traditional version and focus today on that particular line, “Lead us not into temptation.”

In this Lenten Sunday sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, and on this First Sunday in Lent whose assigned Gospel is Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, I skip ahead to start with this line about temptation. Mark’s version, of course, is the shortest of all the Gospels.[1] Immediately after Jesus’ baptism, “the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness”. In other words, Jesus was led into a time of trial.

And that’s where I’d like us to pause and reflect, on the word, “led”. In the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us …”. Willing to be led, means to follow the leader, to trust the leader.

This version from the Gospel of Mark is first the story of Jesus’ life and journey to the cross. It is the story of his willing to be led. Right from his baptism Jesus was driven out into the wilderness.

To do so, Jesus trusted his “Father”. Trusting God meant Jesus needed to be vulnerable and open – which was the way to salvation in his moment of temptation in the wilderness. Because eventually he would experience the wilderness of the cross. For Christ, and for those who follow Jesus, wilderness experiences are the only way to resurrection and new life.

When we pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” it is also the story of our humanity. In praying those words, we are not saying we believe that God wants us to fail, that God’s purpose is malevolent and mean. When we pray, “Lead us not into temptation” we recognize our vulnerability and humanity. Our humanity naturally resists painful experience and suffering. We resist change because it will often disrupt our lives. We do not go willingly even where we know we need to go.

Life happens. And we have no choice but to endure the momentary affliction. And often those trials will reveal a momentary grace as well. Grace is often hidden. Grace often comes unbidden.

We cannot bypass suffering on the road to healing, wholeness, and new life. We cannot avoid pain in this life? And trying to avoid and resist it when it comes often causes even more suffering, usually for others. In those words–“Lead us not into temptation”–we pray a sort of confession, an honesty.

“Lead us not into temptation” is indeed a confession of faith. Because we confess our trust in God, that Jesus has been there, that Jesus is with us through our trials, that Jesus doesn’t abandon us, in our wilderness experiences and temptations where we often do fail and fall. What comfort it is to trust and know that our Divine leader is right there with us in our desert journeys.

What God would do this? In the end, we must wonder, and wonder, about this God, in Christ Jesus. What leader would do this, who empathizes and identifies with us in our suffering—whatever that suffering is?

During the first years of the German occupation of Denmark (1940-1943), Danish authorities insisted that Denmark had “no Jewish problem”. The so-called Nuremberg Laws from Nazi Germany had no hold on the Danes—those laws were not implemented in Denmark.[2] For example, there was no requirement that Jews had to wear the yellow star of David to identify themselves in public, as they were forced to do in other countries under the Nazis.

A story of the Danish King, Christian X, has achieved legendary status. German officials arriving in Denmark put pressure on the King to enact a law to have every one of the eight thousand Jews in Denmark wear a yellow star of David to identify them in public. This would be the start of the de-humanizing strategy of the Nazis in Denmark against the Jews.

The King, a Christian and a fervent supporter and ally of the Jews, was beloved by all Danes and respected internationally. But he was caught in a predicament between his moral stance and political pressure. What would he do?

The popular legend has it he appeared the next day riding his horse on the main street in Copenhagen wearing a star of David on his coat. His public defiance against Nazi discrimination caught fire. Soon all non-Jewish Danes were wearing a star of David whenever they went out, in show of support for their Jewish neighbours.

For whom among us does not deserve justice and equality? Any evil attempts to judge, segregate and punish people simply for being who they are is a temptation that undermines the freedom of all people. We cannot assert our own freedom without asserting everyone else’s freedom. Everyone else’s.

Otherwise, all we are doing is defending our privilege, which was not the choice King Christian X of Denmark made by donning the yellow star. He chose not to defend his stature and privilege as King. He chose to defend freedom for everyone, and consequently made himself vulnerable.

This legend helps me understand a little bit more about what Jesus did for us when he was led out into the wilderness. He was identifying with our broken humanity and took on our nature—in order to love us more.

What I love most about the Lord’s Prayer is that it is a force for unity and communion, in our congregation, in the church, and in the world today. It is a prayer that serves to remind Christians that we all participate in the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ. It serves to remind us that though we have differences, we don’t allow those differences to divide us. Rather, we can work together to ensure the freedom and inherent dignity of all people. In the name of Jesus.

Lead us, Lord, lead us. And may we follow, in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

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[1] Mark 1:9-15

[2] Kernberg, O. & Goldberger, L. (1987). The Rescue of the Danish Jews: Moral Courage Under Stress (L. Goldberger, Ed.). New York University Press, pp. 187-188, 200.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The annual meeting today reminds us that the clocks turn regardless of all that has happened in the past year. We do certain things at the same time every year. Anniversaries are like that. Every year, we will celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and occasions that call us to pause, and remember.

Remember, what happened a year ago. Two years ago. Ten years ago. Anniversaries signify, in the passage of time, the truth that our lives and the world has changed and will continue to do so. 

The prophet Jeremiah is born right into the middle of major changes in the lives of the ancient Israelites. Throughout Jeremiah’s life, much of the Middle East was at war. The situation in which Jeremiah spoke God’s messages was one of disaster and uncertainty. Those were not happy times. Observing anniversaries at that time would have been difficult events.

The passage from Jeremiah given to us this fifth Sunday in Lent in 2021 is nevertheless a word of hope. How so? What distinguishes, in our time, a posture of faith? What distinguishes, in our time, a people of faith? Because everyone will confess the many ways the pandemic has challenged our ways of life in the past year. But what sets the person of faith apart?

Two qualities of the spirit emerge from Jeremiah’s words: Memory and Promise. First, Jeremiah appeals to the people, to remember. Remember what God did to save God’s people: How God brought the people out of slavery in Egypt. How it was to try following the letter of God’s law in the wilderness and entering the Promised Land. How God led the people “by the hand” through challenging times in the past.

Some say that having faith is like looking in the rear view mirror when driving. People of faith today will pause to remember the gifts of the past. People of faith are grounded in the memory of good and bad times. They will hold and honour what has happened, and where they have been.

They understand that they are not just individuals living an episodic, disconnected experience today; rather people of faith are part of something larger. They are connected to a long lineage and history that continues to bear fruit, and bring value and meaning to their existence today. Even in the tough times. Memory.

The prophet also gives his words in the future tense. God will accomplish good things some day. “I will make a new covenant …”; “I will write my law on their hearts; “I will be their God …”; “I will forgive their sins …” 

The people of God trust the promises of God. Our faith looks up to Thee. We turn towards a future we cannot yet grasp. It’s just beyond our reach, on the horizon of our vision. Despite the difficulties we face, we continue to strive in the direction of the promise. We live and lean into the good that surely awaits.

The promise is true. People of faith know this. Not with their heads. Not with the calculating mind. But with their hearts. And hearts know love. The promise of God is given out of love, with love and for love. That’s why we can believe in the promise.

We hold our memories, in loving regard. We look to the future of God’s promise knowing that God looks past our failure, our sin, our fear and anxiety. God looks upon our hearts of love.

And because our memories and promises are held in hearts of love, we can live this moment. Because our past and our future have love as their genesis and final goal, we can rest inbetween memory and promise. We can be present and stay in touch with our actual situation and ourselves now, just as things are, and just as we are. Thanks be to God. Amen.

¹⁹Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ ²⁰The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’²¹But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.^[1]

When Jesus was visiting the temple in Jerusalem shortly before he died, he said the most curious thing. His listeners, of course, took his words literally, which was a problem. Because it took forty-six years to build that temple and it still wasn’t completely done. But Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They couldn’t believe him.

The disciples believed him only after he died and was raised to new life. They had to experience for themselves the loss and grief of their Lord’s death. They had to experience for themselves the joy of the resurrection. 

Neither literalism nor metaphor could ultimately help his disciples believe what he was talking about. Only experiencing—being there—in the moment of his dying on the cross and three days later rising to new life could they finally come to believe in Jesus.

It’s easier to deny and avoid the hard learning that comes from living and accepting the life we live, in this moment. It’s easier to say, “we just need to get through to the end of this pandemic, get our vaccines and get back to normal,” before we can be whole again, be true to ourselves and live life. As if what we experience now is too difficult a task, too confusing a time, too frustrating to accept as the moment to live and experience the grace of God. As if it doesn’t have anything of value to teach us, to show us.

A reading assigned for this Third Sunday in Lent comes from the Exodus version of the Ten Commandments.^[2] Maybe because it is the third Sunday in the Lenten season, I zeroed in on the third commandment about observing the Sabbath. But I really don’t know why this one especially jumped out at me. Maybe because it feels like COVID time has imposed sabbath for many of us. 

We have been forced—more difficult for some to accept than others—to stay at home, shelter in place, restrict gathering in places of social meeting. It has been more time alone, more time to reflect, more time to rest. We have had to experience what it means to pause the normally hectic pace of life.

Usually sabbath observance, as with all the ten commandments, is what we chose to do if we are wise. But this sabbath has not only been imposed on us, it may also be the longest sabbath ever. What do we do when sabbath never ends?

It may be scandalous for me to say I’m grateful for this last year. 

Yes, I know we still live under the threat of catching the virus or spreading it to vulnerable loved ones. Yes, many have gotten really sick and some have died. Yes, the anxiety levels are high all around, and so much in our work-a-day world remains uncertain. We still live, in many ways, on the precipice. 

And when under threat, our knee-jerk is to get busy, go somewhere, see someone, do something. Anything. But “Be still and know that I am Lord”^[3]? Don’t do anything productive? Just, be? Like I said, scandalous. 

So, why am I grateful? 

Last week our sixteen-year-old daughter Mika wasn’t sure what to do one evening. So, she said, out of the blue, “I’m going to make peanut butter cookies.” Eyebrows cocked all around. Silence fell like a huge question mark upon the scene. She hadn’t made cookies in months. In fact it had been a long time since she last baked anything let alone the king of all cookies – the peanut butter cookie.

“Ok! Go for it!” We encouraged her.

These cookies turned out to be the BEST peanut butter cookies EVER. The right balance between firm and soft. The flavour not too strong but peanut buttery enough.  And they were big! For Jessica and me, a bit of a temptation knowing that scoffing down a couple of these would ruin the day’s calorie count and throw off any weight loss plan.

Building on that positive experience, Mika announced a couple of days later that she was going to bake biscuits – a whole tray of them. Only four of us live in our house. What do you do with twenty biscuits? And they, too, turned out scrumptious. Nothing like the taste of some margarine dripping from hot biscuits fresh out of the oven.

Now, I know it’s pure conjecture, but I wonder if Mika would have been so affirmed in her gift of baking if not for this imposed sabbath time. In the past we all told her that she had some gifts for baking. But she either didn’t have time nor the space to develop and experience some sustained success with baking, with all the other things competing for her attention pre-COVID. 

They say that sabbath time is creative time. In order to learn and experience something new, we need to create some space and time for it to be birthed and nurtured. In that sabbath time a great gift of God, a grace, waits to be discovered anew.

For you, sabbath may reflect a different context and yield different fruit. But why is this pandemic and its restrictions taking so long? I don’t know for sure. But could God want each of us to learn something valuable during this time? I mean, really learn it. Have we not yet fully recognized and appreciated that which is ours to learn? There may be a gift waiting for us to accept, and practice. And God wants us to experience it for ourselves.

Because when this is over in the next year, we will no doubt be tantalized, stimulated, tempted and distracted again with all those compulsive activities and intrepid pace that drove our lives pre-COVID. But will we want or need to engage life in the same way again? Without  giving up on what is essential and most important in our lives, which must include social interaction of course, do we need that level of go-go intensity that overlooks our limitations and need for periodic sabbath rests?

God is in this moment. God’s light shines for us in all that is dark in our lives. We don’t have to wait until ‘later’ to discover or experience the fullness of God’s grace. Because Jesus is right in front of us now, trying to get our attention.

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^[1] John 2:19-22, NRSV; the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, Revised Common Lectionary (RCL)

^[2] Exodus 20:1-17

^[3] Psalm 46:10

Many of us grew up with the story of the Three Little Pigs who came across an untimely end when they encountered the Big Bad Wolf. The story was told from the perspective of, and with sympathy for, the pigs.

The original story portrays the wolf huffing and puffing and blowing down the straw and stick-made houses of the first two little pigs. The wolf was bad, and we didn’t like him by the end of the story. He deserved his comeuppance: In the original tale, the wolf dies trying to break into the third pig’s brick house.

But the story told from the perspective of the wolf, a retelling by children’s author Jon Scieszka^[1], shows an entirely different reason for the wolf’s aggressive actions. The wolf was making a cake for his granny. And he ran out of sugar. So, he decided to go and ask his neighbours for a little bit of sugar, just like anyone might do in a friendly neighbourhood, right?

Problem is, Mr. Wolf had a bad cold. And he was sneezing all the time. And basically, that’s what leads to the straw and stick homes being blown down. He eats the dead pigs not to be wasteful of good food and it is in his nature to eat, after all.

In the revised story, the third pig inside the brick house insults the wolf’s granny. And the wolf doesn’t stand for any disrespect for his elder. So the wolf wants to give the pig a piece of his mind. But things don’t turn out so well for the wolf, as we know. We may still not side with Mr. Wolf completely, yet the revised version gives us a more sympathetic understanding for the wolf’s actions.

Taking an old story that everyone knows and re-telling it from a different perspective can lead to new insights and a deeper understanding of the truth. 

In the Gospel story for today^[2], the narrative Peter believes is the one the world talks about. Jesus announces first that he will suffer and die. And the world’s narrative about suffering and death is that these things are to be denied and avoided at all costs. We deny suffering because it leads to meaningless despair, anguish, sorrow and a helpless, endless demise into nothingness. That’s the world’s perspective.

Peter, at first, only sees it from the world’s perspective. No wonder he “rebukes” Jesus. The notion that the Messiah should suffer and die – who would stand for that?!

The world cannot initially grasp this notion of faith amidst the suffering, the hope born out of death to new life. We kind of easily, even unwittingly, remain stuck in the negativity of it all. And that can only lead to despair. And keep us stuck there.

I think Lent is about critically looking at the narratives we believe – believe about ourselves, God, and others. Seeing it from a different perspective might help dislodge some of our unhelpful assumptions. So, Lent is first about grieving the past. It is about, first, the suffering and death parts of what Jesus said. We cannot deny nor avoid it. So we must confront our pain, losses and suffering. We must feel it and grieve it.

This year, we are accustomed very much so to the feeling of Lent. After all, the entire year has felt like Lent, so today is just another blurs-day, another “ashy day.”^[3]

In the words of Diana Butler Bass, “The point is that for more than a year now, that’s pretty much all I’ve done — reflect, pray, and read, mostly alone, all the while worried that I might die, someone I love might die, or I’d unwittingly contribute (by my own carelessness) to someone else dying. Every time I put on a mask, I think of death and dying.”^[4]

In a year where over twenty thousand Canadians have died from COVID and millions of people around the world, the Lenten discipline of contemplating mortality seems like one more painful day. Every single day, these days it seems, is an exercise in mortality, as we see our dusty illusions of existence coming at us like a wicked lake-effect blizzard.

But Jesus also then says that, after the suffering and death, he will rise again to new life. That promise undergirds all our suffering and dying. Jesus introduces a different perspective, a new narrative for life: Death has not the final word. We can endure what we must endure because of the promise of transformation, renewal and new life, in Christ Jesus.

A couple who postponed indefinitely their wedding date from last summer because of the social restrictions reflected on how they felt about the uncertainty of it all. Before COVID they knew their love was going to be publicly professed in a wedding on a specific date. Today, they still don’t have a wedding date despite their ongoing commitment to set one when the time is right.

What remains constant nevertheless is their love for each other. The groom said that there is a certain degree of growing anticipation and joy with each passing day, not knowing when that date will be, yet confident only that it will happen someday.

Perhaps there is a hope we can feel with that couple. Grounded in a steadfast love that pre-exists any crisis we face, can we live each day in the hope that one day we will come out of the pandemic intact? New life emerges from the dust heap of Lent. We continue on in this hope, this blessed promise.

And that’s a perspective worth believing in.

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^[1] Jon Scieszka, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (Toronto: Penguin/Scholastic, 1991)

^[2] For the Second Sunday in Lent, Year B – Mark 8:31-38

^[3] Diana Butler Bass, “Just Another Ashy Day” in The Cottage (dianabutlerbass@substack.com, 17 Feb 2021).

^[4] Ibid.

Adam Shoalts was hungry. For four months in the summer of 2017 during his four-thousand-kilometre adventure alone across Canada’s Arctic, he admitted that he was constantly hungry.^[1]

Even though he was able to consume over three thousand calories a day mainly by eating energy bars and freeze-dried meals on the fly, his extreme physical labour meant he was still losing weight and craving even more food. 

He had to learn to live with it.

Feverishly paddling his canoe sometimes seventy kilometres a day across Great Bear Lake, poling his canoe against the strong currents on the great Mackenzie or Coppermine Rivers in the far north, hauling his canoe over giant rapids, or carrying all his gear through muddy swamps for up to forty-kilometre portages burned every calorie and more that his body stored. 

And he had to keep moving. Most of the Far North is encased in ice and snow for nine months of the year. He had only a narrow window of time in which to make this impossible trek. Once he had to pass on fishing for seventy-pound lake trout off the north shore of Great Bear Lake in order to keep his torrid, exhausting pace to make it across in time.

But it was even before his journey began where he shows his discipline to learn to live with and accept his hunger. Friends were driving him and his gear up the Dempster Highway in the Yukon towards Fort McPherson. They stopped at an old inn on the gravel roadway near the Arctic Circle. The hosts offered to cook up anything on the menu. His friends ordered the chili. They encouraged Shoalts to eat the chili as well, since in the next four months his staple would consist of a more meagre fare.

Instead, Shoalts calmly chose one oatmeal cookie, without thinking more of it. He knew that should he pig-out on his last meal he would not wisely manage his stomach for success, for the long grind ahead.

While reading again the traditional Gospel story for this First Sunday in Lent – Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness – I paused at the part where the devil tempts Jesus to eat.^[2]“He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.” So, this was quite a temptation Jesus overcame when he denied the devil’s baiting.

In order to walk in the way of Jesus, it’s also traditional in Lent to give something up – a favourite food or other unhealthy habits. Why do we do this? One reason, is we want positive change in our lives. Eating less chocolate, watching less TV or abstaining from meat will make us better, healthier people, we believe. Transformation is another word for it. 

Transformation in the way of Christ often comes from first letting go of something. The changes we yearn for – the new thing which we envision and to which we aspire – can’t happen without first loosening our controls, certitudes and compulsions.^[3]And living with the pangs of hunger for a while.

Our ego will resist. Because on the surface we don’t want to go without. We don’t want to be uncertain about the outcome of our labour. We don’t want to confront our cravings, and ‘feel’ hungry. We compulsively want more and more, instant gratification. 

It almost feels scandalous to say – especially to privileged people that we are – that God created us to know hunger, to know this yearning for food, material and spiritual. What is the good about feeling this hunger?

Being hungry exposes what we really believe, deep down, what we really think. This awareness can lead to a re-consideration and revision of long held assumptions. Going without also forces us into a deeper listening to what is going on around us. As we suffer the pangs of any kind of hunger, our egos have less energy to get in the way, and we listen more, we receive more and we accept more. We learn what it’s like to let go. 

That’s why fasting has been a common tradition in Lent. It is at this point in the experience of the journey where the seed of transformation is born and out of which true growth emerges.

The kind of Lenten discipline that attracts my attention are those commitments that connect doing without with giving more. So, for example, when people eat less and the difference from what they would normally have consumed they donate or give in some way to others in need. The inner discipline of letting go is inextricably linked to an outer discipline of blessing the world.

There are almost a billion people on this planet who go to bed hungry every night. There are around thirty thousand Canadians who don’t have their own ‘home’ and sleep on the street. During this COVID winter we are advised to ‘stay home’; but, indeed, what if you don’t have a home? Jesus identifies with those who go hungry. God knows how it feels, in our humanity, to be hungry, to have no home and be without.

In the end, the story about Jesus’ temptation in the desert is a story about God’s intention to be human and identify fully with our humanity. God will go the distance, will experience what it’s like to do without, will feel the pangs of hunger – a hunger for us, a hunger for relationship, a hunger to be in communion with everyone and everything. 

God will identify not just with the part of ourselves that we wish everyone will see, but also with that part of us that hungers, that is lacking in us. God’s vision of love is set on the hungering stomach and the hungering soul. That’s where God goes, into the desert wildernesses of our lives. Will we?

I haven’t yet finished reading the book about Adam Shoalts’ incredible journey. But I assume he survived and reached his end goal on the shores of Hudson Bay, since he lived to write about it. And I suspect he is all the better a person for reaching his goal, and grateful, for having paid the price of being hungry for a while.

God bless you on your journey of Lent.

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^[1]Adam Shoalts, Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada’s Arctic (Toronto: Penguin, 2020).

^[2]Mark 1:13; though Matthew and Luke provide more detailed descriptions of the Temptation of Jesus. See Luke 4:2 and Matthew 4:2. 

^[3]Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder (Cincinnati: Franciscan Media), p.84.