What is Love?

December 24, 2023 — Leave a comment

May only the truth be spoken, and may only the truth be heard:
in the Name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Today our Advent journey comes to an end, as we have lit this fourth candle morning, but will return in just a few hours to celebrate the Eve of Christmas, the first coming of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us.

We began our Advent journey talking about Hope, as Bishop Joey reminded us that Christian hope isn’t the world’s shallow, warm, fuzzy version of hope.  We were reminded that Christian hope isn’t about wishing for something better; it’s about standing firm in the assurance that – as we heard this morning – the Word of God will never fail; God will keep his promises.

The second week of Advent, we talked about Peace.  Whitney reminded us that Christian peace isn’t the world’s shallow, warm, fuzzy version of peace.  The world talks about peace in terms of being relaxed and filled, being free from care, as though peace is the opposite of busyness.  But, as we were reminded, that’s not what the Bible means by peace: when the Bible speaks of being at peace, it’s talking about choosing our side in preparation for when we shall see Jesus once again: are we at peace with God – on His side – or will we continue to be rebels against God, siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil?

Last week, the third Sunday of Advent, Bishop Joey preached about joy – specifically the place of joy in a Christian’s life.  Again – and you might be seeing a pattern by now! – the message was that Christian joy isn’t the shallow, warm, fuzzy “happiness” that the world talks about.  Nothing wrong with happiness, but it’s just a feeling, and feelings come and go, changing quicker than the wind.  No, Christian joy runs much deeper; it’s a joy that springs up deep within, from that assurance that our faith will be made sight, that, even when tempests and the powers of wickedness and the consequences of human action are swirling around us, we can count it all joy; we can rejoice in all things; we can say “it is well with my soul” – why? Because “in Christ alone my hope is found”.

That’s hope, peace, and joy… which brings us to what this morning?
Love.  Hope, Peace, Joy… Love.

So my friends, what is Love?

(Lift)

In some ways this one should be the easiest.  After all, love is the most common, most used, most “normal” concept out of all of these words. 

On the drive here this morning, I was treated to such wonderful love songs as “Santa, Baby” followed by “All I want for Christmas is you”.  Not much about certain hope, lasting peace, or that deep and abiding joy… but love is easy, we all understand love, right?

No.  The truth is we don’t.

You see, the problem with love is that we think we know what it’s all about. 
But, as any teacher or coach would tell you, the hardest things to really learn are the things we think we already know. 

So, what is Love?

Not so warm and fuzzy…

Now, on the one hand, even the most secular person will recognize St. Paul’s famous “love chapter”, even if they don’t know where it’s from.  You know the one – you can probably recite it with me: love is… patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud…right, all of that. 

But want to know why I think even our secular world can cling to those couple of verses taken entirely out of context?

Because, read on their own, taken out of context, it’s just shallow “warm fuzzies”. 
“Oh yes, patience, kindness, no jealousy, no pride, wouldn’t it be nice, all you need is love.“

But that can’t be it.  We’ve seen the pattern.  The world always takes these deep concepts rooted in the heart of God and waters them down; makes them so shallow and sweet that the worldly versions of hope, peace, joy, and love go down easy, but conveniently never really call us to change.

Patience, kindness, all of that, yes that’s part of love.  But love isn’t a thing.  Love isn’t a concept.  Love isn’t a feeling or an emotion.  Love is an action to be lived out.

Kristina and I will spend our 22nd Christmas together.  I’ve loved Kristina since I was 14 years old.  But love is an action to be lived out, not a concept or feeling to reside in the mind or the heart.  That love we had at 15 or 16 years old was real, but it wouldn’t have gotten us through the challenges we faced at 20, or at 25, or at 35, or whatever the coming years will bring.

And, in fairness, many secular people would agree with that statement, that love is an action.

But here’s the part where the Bible flips its all on it’s head: just as hope isn’t about my wishful thinking, it’s about trust in who God is; just as peace isn’t about me feeling content and restful, it’s about giving up my rebellion against God and joining His side; just as joy isn’t about my happiness but rests in the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done; love isn’t about me… love is an action, but it isn’t my action.

True love is God’s action, springing forth eternally from the very heart of the Father.  Human love is only ever our response. 

Love is God’s action and human response.

The love a parent has for their child?  That doesn’t well up from within the torn and divided and scarred heart of a sinful parent raised in a weary and broken world. 
It can’t.  How can a parent love their child? 
Whether they know it or not, we love because (what does the Bible say?) He first loved us. (1 John 4:19).

Romans 13 and Galatians 5 both say that “love fulfils the law”.  When you or I make sacrifices and give of ourselves to truly love our neighbour and to truly count them as our equal – we’re not talking warm-fuzzies, we’re saying that our neighbour, or the stranger in need, or the person who will eventually benefit from that Salvation Army kettle has as much right to my money and my time and my possessions as I do, to truly love your neighbour as yourself; believe me, none of us can get there on our own, none of that can spring from the human heart.  “Love fulfils the law”, but it can only ever be God’s action, and our response.

Or if we look to that ultimate statement of love in scripture: the ultimate display of love, the ultimate sacrifice.  What does the Bible say?  Say it with me if you know it: “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Could that self-sacrificial love ever spring up for the first time from a human heart? 
No, impossible.  Because – whether or not people know it – human love can only ever be a response to God’s action.  Whether or not people know it, the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world; as we heard in Romans this morning, this was God’s plan from the beginning, for all time, for all people to freely respond to that all-surpassing self-sacrificial love of God that is baked in to the very fabric of the universe, because we can only ever respond to the love that God has first shown us.

And, in all of that, as we end our Advent journey, what is love?

1 John 4:9-11: This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  John says, This is love.  Yes, here’s a biblical definition of love, taken in context, full of action. John says, this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also must love one another.

This is love: God dwelling with people.

The love of God that we celebrate, the miracle of love that should fill our Christmas celebrations isn’t about a feeling or an emotion.  It’s about an action… God’s action, and it’s one that demands a response.

God, the Son of God, the very Light of the World stepped down into darkness for our sake; the glorious king of all heaven came humbly into the world he created, emptying himself of all but love, so that – though we could never deserve it – He would love us as Himself, He would live among us as equals, for our sake.

This is love: God dwelling with His people, stooping down, laying aside His glory, so that He could raise us up for His glory.

As we heard in the Old Testament this morning, God didn’t need a house; God didn’t need a temple.  Israel wanted a temple, and later we’ll find out they wanted a temple because it felt safer to try to keep God contained while they went their own way.  But God’s desire, from the beginning was to be with His people, setting up His tent in their neighbourhood, “tabernacling with them”, dwelling among us, as John 1 says. 

And God’s presence, God’s action of self-sacrificial love, totally transforms the ordinary when we respond.

That’s the truth of the Gospel: Mary’s an ordinary girl, given (by grace) a once-in-eternity opportunity; but God takes the action, stepping into our mess, laying aside His glory so that He can be “God-with-us”, Emmanuel.  And now the virgin womb of this ordinary Jewish girl has become, for 9 months, the very dwelling place of God.  An ordinary home in Nazareth becomes the dwelling place of God.  13 guys and their friends walking Galilee on a dusty road becomes the dwelling place of God. 

An ordinary meal – bread and wine – is transformed by this self-sacrificial love so that, in some way, by a holy mystery, it can become the dwelling place of God; and later this evening or tomorrow morning, your ordinary hands will form a little manger as you, too – by faith – become the dwelling place of God.

This is love: God dwelling with His people.

…but do you believe it?

Do you really believe, can you really accept, that the God of all creation, the One through whom all things were made really wants to be with you.  That God is willing to come and be with you in your mess; in your pain, in your grief, in your struggles, in your exhaustion; that God wants to be with you as you face the consequences of choices made, as your kids push you to the edge, as you and your spouse wrestle to figure out life together; as you make your way through a broken, hostile, and overwhelming world: can you accept that God, God Himself, wants to be with you in your mess? 

Can you accept that, if you were the only one, He would still leave His throne in heaven, give it all up, and lay down His life – for you.
You’re that precious.  You’re worth it.

That’s what we celebrate at Christmas.
This is no fairy tale; this is Gospel truth. 

…not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  That Jesus Christ came into the world to save people like you and me.

Love is God’s action that demands a human response. 

Will you receive him?

To God be the glory, now and forever more.  Amen.

Why did the Holy Spirit come?

May 28, 2023 — Leave a comment

Today we celebrate Pentecost, that ancient Jewish festival, 50 days after Passover, when the people of God celebrate that God keeps His promises, that His covenant is true, and that He does provide all that we need. 

And, as Christians, today we celebrate one very particular Feast of Pentecost, one that followed one very particular Passover.  50 days after Jesus – the true Lamb of God, that once true, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice was slain once and for all for the sin of the world, on that Great Passover we call Easter, we then had the Great Pentecost. 

Going back to the time of Moses, Passover was about salvation and Pentecost was about God’s faithfulness. And that’s still true today for all who put their faith in Jesus Christ: God does keep His promises; His covenant is true; and yes, God really does and will provide all that we need.

And how does He show that?  By sending God the Holy Spirit, not just to a select few, not just to the chosen and anointed king or the prophets like under the Old Covenant.  No, by doing just as he promised in Jeremiah 31, pouring out His Spirit on all who are willing to be His people, and allow Him to truly be their God.

This day, Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the beginning of the spread of the Gospel to all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations, is all about God keeping His promises, as God becomes present in the every believer by the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is Essential

Belief in the Holy Spirit is essential to what it means to be a Christian.

…But, I think it’s also fair to say that, for many of us, we’re not sure who God the Holy Spirit is, or what He’s all about. 

We know there are spiritual gifts, we know sometimes there are great revivals when all the people in a place sense the Holy Spirit in their presence, we know some people pray in tongues or feel God’s special anointing as they pray to know God’s will; we also know some false teachers in the Church today try to lead people astray with clever-sounding lines like “the Spirit is doing a new thing”, as though God’s plan wasn’t established from before the foundation of the world..

…so many good sermons in there, but they are all sermons for another day.

Because the fundamental question that you and I need to be able to answer as apprentices and ambassadors of Christ is this: why did the Holy Spirit come?

So let me ask you – because you arethe witnesses that Christ Himself has called to go and bring the good news to your friends and your neighbour and that co-worker who really drives you nuts, because you’re the one with that calling on your life, right?  Amen?

So why did the Holy Spirit come? 
Do we ourselves know the story well enough that we can tell it to another?

Well, for those of us who need a refresher, the good news is that, scripture and the life of Jesus make the answers clear.

The Holy Spirit does many things in our lives, He gives gifts, He calls, He guides and directs, He strengthens, He rebukes, He comforts, He empowers, but each and every one of these can be summarized in this one simple truth: The Holy Spirit makes us truly alive in Jesus.

Not that the Holy Spirit makes us alive in the bodily sense – no, there are plenty of people who are living and breathing without the Holy Spirit, and all of us will breath our last as the wages of live in a sinful world are paid and we stand before the judgement seat.

But as we know from scripture, a person can be living and breathing, and yet they find themselves dead in their sin, powerless to earn forgiveness, powerless on their own to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. 

But, my friends, the message of Pentecost is this: the Holy Spirit makes us truly alive in Jesus.

Sometimes we need to think about “How”

Our church calendar is organized to help us recognize this fact: after all, Pentecost is an ancient Jewish feast, always on that 50th day after Passover.  That’s on purpose, because the sending of the Holy Spirit is directly connected to the events of Holy Week. 

Why did the Holy Spirit come?  To make us truly alive.
But how?  By applying the work of Christ on Good Friday and Easter to our lives today.  That’s how!

Have you thought about that before?  How does the work of one man on a cross two thousand years ago actually make a difference in your life here and now?  How does the victory of one man over the grave at Easter get applied to you and lead you to eternal life?

It’s a thing that many life-long Christians take for granted and never pause to think about, but if you start doing your God-given work of sharing your faith with your neighbours, you’ll find that it’s only logical that people want to know how. 

And the answer, of course, is Pentecost: that, after we call on Christ as Lord, the Holy Spirit comes into each of us who are willing, and when our body and soul become infused with the Holy Spirit of God, then we become truly alive.  That’s how we share in the risen life of Jesus.  That’s how it’s no longer about “me”, but “Christ in me”.

Let’s walk through that, shall we?

Let’s pretend your neighbour comes to your house.  They’ve been watching and wondering for years.  They know there’s something different about you, that you go to church, and you have a hope and a faith that sustains you through the hardest of times.  And unbeknownst to you, the Holy Spirit has been knocking on the door of their heart, and now here they are, knocking on your door (knock, knock, knock).  They come in, you pour up a cup of tea, and here they are, out of the blue asking you “you know, your faith seems so much more real than the religion I learned back in school.  I was going to go to church, but you know, I just can’t get past the cruelty of an innocent man dying such a horrendous death.  I just don’t get it”.

Now, if this were me, this is where my stomach flips and I wish I could hide away… because, you might not know this, but I’m actually incredibly shy and nervous about speaking to anyone about anything (yes, I’m the sort of guy who sits and stares at the phone for 15 minutes to get the courage to pick it up and dial a number).

But, also for me, this is when I’ve learned to feel – actually feel – the Holy Spirit.  This is when I physically feel a tingle on my neck, a tingle that tells me: ‘you have an opportunity.  Now, are you going to be faithful?’ 

It can happen to you, too, a tingle, or a feeling in your gut, where God is saying “will you be faithful”.

So, imagine with me, your friend is there, sitting at your table with a cup of tea, and they brought up faith all out of nowhere.  They’ve been thinking about Christianity, but like they said “I just don’t get it”.

Now, you have a choice, don’t you. 

Option A: You can say, yes, well, it’s all hard to understand, you should call the minister.  What do you think about that? (I wish I had a buzzer for the wrong answer sound)

Option B: You can say, “yes my dear, it’s hard to understand, but it’s all ok, just think positive and be true to yourself because all paths lead to God”.  (anyone got that buzzer?)

Or, Option C: You can, very simply, use the events of Jesus’ life, from Holy Week to Pentecost, to explain how it is that the events of long ago change lives from then until now.

It might go like this:

(and for me, this is when I feel that tingle again, a sort of ‘push in the right direction’ from the Holy Spirit within).

Start with Good Friday: The crucifixion was a terrible thing, and the world was a violent place, the Romans crucified tens of thousands of people.  But the reason Jesus had to die is so He could do what we could never do for ourselves. 

A guilty person can’t undo their guilt.  No amount of money or time or making amends can undo the guilt.  No human could make themselves right with God, it takes God coming and doing that for us.

Then look to Easter:  It’s only because Jesus was an innocent man and fully God that his death wasn’t a defeat, it was a victory!  Death wanted to hold him down, but he’s alive forevermore.  He gives us hope for life beyond the grave.  The Bible calls him the “second Adam”, meaning he gives humanity a fresh start, he shows us humanity as it was originally intended, thriving with abundant life, not weighed down by death and decay.

Then look to the Ascension: My faith is not just a spiritual thing.  Positive thinking only gets us so far, as do other religions, because we’re not just souls stuck in a body.  Our bodies are who we are, we are physical.  We can’t just escape into our minds.  I have hope because, as ridiculous as it sounds, Jesus returned to heaven with his risen body to prepare a place for me, and I don’t fully understand all of that, but I know God will restore all things and make them new, and that means there is life beyond the grave.

And then Pentecost holds it all together: But for here and now, as you know, life can be a mess.  My life hasn’t been all rosy, I’ve messed up, I’ve got struggles and habits I can’t break, and life gets me down: people are sick, and we’re tired and exhausted, and sometimes the world looks like it’s going to hell in a handbasket.  But, I just trust that God says I don’t need to fix it myself.  The whole point of Good Friday is that Jesus did what I can’t do for myself.  A little bandage or a few good deeds can’t fix what’s wrong with us, we need new life, a fresh start.  I don’t know how it all works, but what I do know is that my life changed when it stopped being about me, my trying to be strong, my hiding from things, my body dealing with sickness, my soul and mind trying to process what happened in my life, when it stopped being about me, me, me, and instead, when it started to be about “we”.  God, and me, and all the other people in my church family – what a crazy bunch, and some you’d never expect to be hanging around with in a million years! – but everything changed when it stopped being about me, and when I let God come in and make it about “we” instead.  When bad things happen, I know it’s out of my control, so I bring it to God and to my church family, and I know that if Jesus can overcome death and make all things new, then whatever the mess my life is, it’s no match for him. 

The Holy Spirit at work in you… even today!

And my friends, if this is you at your dining room table, and your friend knocked on your door and brought this up on their own, you have a choice. 

Did Jesus do on the cross what you could never do for yourself?

Have your sins been forgiven? 

Did Jesus conquer death and the grave and rise to eternal life?

Is Jesus gone to prepare a place for you?

Is the Holy Spirit at work in you, to make you fully alive,
to let you share in that new life of Jesus?

Well, my friends, the best way you can grow into that new life, and take it from me, is to take a deep breath, get over that fear or shyness, and when you have an opportunity, when you feel that tingle, when you experience that weird thing that you now know is the Holy Spirit pushing you… go for it! 

Don’t take option A and leave it to the minister.  Don’t take option B, denying your faith and following the ways of the world.  No, if God can conquer the grave and forgive your sin, and make all things new, don’t you think He can give you the words to say to your neighbour over a cup of tea?  Of course he can!  …God can, but will you let him?

True Glory in Humility

December 24, 2022 — Leave a comment

I speak to you in the name of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
    proclaim his salvation day after day.
 Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous deeds among all peoples.Spirit.  Amen.

Since the beginning, people have looked up at the night sky and marvelled.

From time immemorial, every culture, every race, every people, language, tribe, and nation has looked at the universe around them and have come to the conclusion that there is a great Creator behind it all;

they look at the stars in the heavens or the might of a river breaking up; they look at the invisible power of love and anger, of desire and revenge, and, across history, every people come to the evident conclusion that there are great forces at work, far beyond our comprehension or control.

And, as Christians, this should not surprise us.

As we prayed tonight, all of creation declares God’s glory.   The heavens proclaim the glory of God: though they use no speech and have no words, all of creation proclaims the fundamental, universal truth that God is great, that He is worthy of worship.

We Strive for Glory

But, human nature being what it is, it’s also true that, from the beginning, rather than acknowledge God’s greatness, every people, language, and nation have set out to harness it, to lay claim to it for themselves. 

Throughout history, we see the greatness of God declared in creation itself, we see the mighty power of God at work in the world, and rather than bow down in worship, we try to puff ourselves up.

We build towers to reach up to heaven.

We place altars on the high mountains of the world.

We build sacred circles beside the mighty waterfalls, hoping some of that power will rub off on us.

From the beginning, humanity has seen and experienced the greatness of God, and our response, all too often, has been the struggle to make ourselves look great, too.  We see God’s greatness, and behind so much of human history lies the statement: “look at me, God.  Look at the name I’ve made for myself, I’m great too.”

And that’s why Christmas is so very different.

I don’t know if you’ve stopped to think about it, but the message of Christmas is a total reversal of everything human history would have us expect.  This night, if we let it, and the this baby in a manger, if we let him, flips everything on its’ head.

Humanity looked up at the vastness of the night sky or the strong forces of nature, and, all too often, came to the conclusion that glory comes from might.  Glory comes from making a name for yourself, from not being dependent on anyone, from winning the affection of others, and looking out for #1.

…And then we face the reality of Christmas.

God is great, he fulfilled the longings of a nation and the words of countless prophets, but he didn’t come as a mighty warrior.

He didn’t come in a great show of power guaranteed to win our adoration.

No.  Christmas proclaims the glory of humility. 

The earth-shattering, mind-blowing proclamation of this night is that true glory doesn’t depend on the adoration of others or a tight grasp on power.  True glory – the Glory of God – is such that God Himself can become weak, helpless, defenseless, taking on the fullness of humility, without feeling threatened. 

The proclamation of this night is that glory isn’t earned, and certainly not by puffing yourself up to make yourself appear worthy. 

The message of Jesus is that, if you want to share in the glory of God, learn the way of humility.  And if you want to learn that way, Jesus says, “come and follow me.”

A Glorious Invitation

Now I know there are all sorts of reasons why each of you have come here tonight. 

Some are here as an act of worship that they’ve been preparing for over the 4 weeks of the Advent season.  Some are here because it is a link to an important family tradition and brings to life many dear memories.

Some of you aren’t sure why you’re here: you, like all of humanity before you, feel drawn to acknowledge that universal and self-evident truth that ‘there must be more than this’, but maybe you’re just starting to grapple with what that means.

And, then lets be honest, some of you were dragged here – chances are it was your wife or your mother who said “come on, we’re going”, and you knew better than to put up a fight.

But however or whyever you’re here, I want you to hear that completely unexpected, perhaps even ridiculous-sounding message of this night: true glory isn’t found in puffing yourself up, in being independent, in bearing your own load, in keeping your head down and minding your own business, in piling up a few good deeds along the way. 

No, as you, like those shepherds long ago, like our ancestors in every nation, look up and marvel at the wonder of Creation, maybe not yet knowing who God, the Creator is, hear the message of the babe in the manger: true glory is found in humility.

And in that, we see that familiar, life-changing first step of the gospel truth: to finally give up all our striving and struggling and pretending and mask-wearing, and to admit that we are powerless.  To admit that, even if I do my best, I can’t add a single breath to the span of my life, I can’t hold back the forces of nature, I can’t guarantee that my children will continue on the path that is right: to end the denial, and, as we see the great power of God revealed around us, to acknowledge our need for help.

God could have come as the rightful king, but he came helpless and homeless.  

True glory is not threatened by riches, and cuts through appearances. 

The angels appeared in the glittering sky and announced not to the rich, but to shepherds, that the Son of God had come, and more glorious still, that he wasn’t far off, but was in their very neighbourhood, ready to meet poor, ragged, weary guys like them.

Men, hear that message here tonight: glory is not found in independence, in keeping everything to yourself, in not letting anyone share your load, in trying not to be a bother while you try to find your own way.  No, the good news of Jesus is that glory is found in admitting the need for help, in learning to follow; in learning to be an apprentice of Jesus, the Master.

Ladies, hear the message of the prophet: you don’t need to be weighed down by darkness as you try to hold it all together; daughters trying to hold together broken generations, trying to keep the family together and keep up appearances, all while losing yourself in the process.  No, “on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned”.  Jesus comes to offer a light yoke and an easy burden, and peace that passes understanding, but nothing changes until something changes: it requires that first step, ending that denial, and turning to God for help.

Maybe you know why you’re here tonight. 

Or maybe you’re one of those, like those shepherds, and like every people, language, tribe, and nation in history, marvelling at the greatness of God and wondering where you fit.   

In either case, hear this: I bring you good news of great joy.  To you is born the saviour, the wonderful counsellor, the prince of peace.  But he’s not far off; he’s not far away.  You don’t need to build a tower or puff yourself up.  No, the great message of this night is that Christ the Lord will come and meet you where you are, that His power is made perfect in weakness, and that He offers for you to share in that glory…

…but only if we’re willing to admit that true glory comes through humility.

To God be the glory, now and forevermore.  Amen.   

Agents of Christ’s Coming Kingdom

November 20, 2022 — Leave a comment

A Guest Sermon preached at Yellowknife Alliance Church.

It is a real privilege to be with you this morning.  My name is Alex Pryor, and I am a priest and pastor who works at the office of the Anglican diocese.  My job is to help oversee the mission, ministry, administration, and educational work for all 51 Anglican congregations across the NWT, Nunavut, and the Nunavik region of Quebec.  It’s great to be with you this morning to hear God speaking from his word together.

Our scripture passage this morning comes from St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Colossians, the first chapter, verses 13-23.  If you’re following along in a paper bible, Colossians is one of those shorter books in the New Testament, it comes towards the end, after the letters to the Corinthians, but before you get to Hebrews.

[Lesson]

Now, as I understand it, your in something of an in-between time.  Pastor Steve has been preaching through the primordial history of humanity, the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, the tower of Babel, the calling of Abraham – that grand narrative of Creation and disobedience, of the first empires as people sought to enslave and lord over their brothers and sisters, all culminating in God making a covenant with Abraham: God’s promise and declaration that He will set things right, that it won’t depend on Abraham’s might or cleverness, but that God would call out a people, a nation, through whom all the warring nations of the world would be blessed.  This was God’s plan to finally and ultimately accomplish what He said back in Genesis chapter 3: the Son of Man, a descendant of Eve, would crush the serpent’s snarling head.

You’ve been walking through this history week by week, but now the time has come to switch gears.  Next Sunday, if you can believe it, is the 4th Sunday before Christmas.  Time is just flying isn’t it?!

In many, even most, Christian churches around the world, those four weeks mark the season of Advent.  So that means it’s time to switch the focus, right?  Time to fast-forward from this ancient pre-history, and prepare our hearts to welcome the baby born in that little town of Bethlehem long ago and far away, right?

Or is it?

Or is it.

My task this morning is to, God-willing, suggest that there’s no shifting of gears required here at all.  We are in an in-between time between seasons, but what if that actually echoes the “in-between-ness” that we’re living in here and now? 

Some have described the Christian life, the Christian reality as one of “already” and “not yet”. 

Christ is already on the throne, but that reality has not yet been revealed.

Christ has already won the victory over death, and the grave, and the powers of darkness, but the present battle of this rebellious world is not yet done.

Christ is already reconciling all things to Himself, and we have a sure and certain hope of our share in that new and resurrected life, but our faith has not yet been made sight.

God has, from the earliest days of humanity, already revealed his plan to undo the disobedience in the Garden, to crush the serpent, to topple empires, and to partner with faithful people to rescue and bless a fallen world, but that eternal purpose is not yet accomplished, at least from our human perspective.

So we live in this in-between time.  We live as people expecting the Advent.

…So, just a little aside here:

What is the season of Advent all about?

Going back centuries, it’s been marked as a season of preparation.  But… preparation for what?

This is where we, as modern, consumeristic, Western Christians, as Christians who have the Amazon app and the Bible app side-by-side on our phones, really need to be careful.

Many would say that Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas.

But let’s stop to think about that for even a second.  What does the word “advent” actually mean? 

…the word means “coming”. 

So, yes, of course, we know that Christ came into the world, that he was born to Mary and laid in a manger in Bethlehem over two millennia ago, that he lived and died as one of us – but without sin – and was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again on the third day. 

So if Advent is a season of preparation, and the word itself means “coming”, what exactly are we preparing for?

How do you prepare – today – for last summer’s vacation? 

How do you prepare – in 2022 – for your high school graduation back in 2006 or 1996 or 1976?

You don’t! 

We don’t – we can’t – prepare for something that already happened.  Sure, we can reminisce about it, we can look back and evaluate and learn lessons, but let’s not fall into that modern, Western, consumeristic trap, and certainly not in our worship. 

Advent is not a season of preparation for Christmas.  It’s not a time of looking back.

Advent – which means “coming” – is a time of preparation, but it’s a time of looking forward. 

It’s a time of preparation because we know, it’s the Gospel truth, that the king is coming; that the Word through whom all things were made indeed became flesh and dwelt among us[1], but that the story didn’t end with the Resurrection, or his Ascension, nor even with the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the Church at Pentecost.  

No, Advent is a reminder that we are in this in-between time, that Christ is already on the throne, that the battle is already won, and, sure, it’s not yet revealed for all to see… but – and here’s the kicker – it will be.

Advent is a time of preparation for that coming, for that culmination of that great and awesome plan that God set into motion from the beginning of time, that although we sinned, in spite of human disobedience, God, through Christ, would show His preeminence, his supremacy over the world, the flesh, and the devil, by presenting a redeemed humanity, holy and blameless, without spot and free from accusation, by the blood of the Lamb who was slain; that Christ, the Son of Man who crushed the serpent’s head, who trampled down death by death, who – as death’s mighty jaws tried to swallow up God in the flesh, showed forth His glory and destroyed the power of the grave, would come again, yes, as a righteous judge, but as Paul writes to the Colossians, ‘to reconcile all things to himself’.  To set things right.  To bring back together that which was separated and divided by sin and pride and disobedience and empire. Amen?

But this is no new plan.  This, my friends, isn’t even a New Testament plan.  This is God’s eternal purpose, set in motion from before the foundation of the world.

All of scripture is united in this message: the rightful king is coming.

Think about it: God gives Adam and Eve a job to do, along with one pretty clear instruction.  Adam and Eve are to have dominion – they’re to rule – but they abdicate.  They hand their authority over to the serpent.  They’re supposed to rule over all creation, but, in their disobedience, they become enslaved.

But what’s God’s message.  Serpent, you’re cursed. Man and woman, you did this: life is going to be hard, and childbirth isn’t going to be pretty.  … But that’s not the end of the story. 

What is God’s message?  Don’t worry.  Have faith.  The world is a mess, but the rightful king is coming.

Or Noah: The whole world is evil, gone to hell in a handbasket as my grandmother would say.  God makes it clear that He alone can save, as one righteous man and his family are called out and carried over the rushing waters of judgment in the ark of salvation.  God makes His covenant with Noah, but, it’s so poetic: just to make it absolutely and perfectly clear that our hope is not in men, that our salvation is dependent on God’s grace alone, Noah gets off the ark and what’s the very first thing he does? 

He plants a vineyard. 

Seriously, man cannot live by bread alone… Noah is more interested in the grapes. 

He reaps his harvest, and, you can’t make this up, here we have the new patriarch of humanity, and what does he do?  He curses his own son.

And what’s God’s message in all of that?  Don’t worry.  Have faith.  Don’t put your hope in rulers or any mortal man.  The world is a mess, but the rightful king is coming.

Then what happens?  People start building empires, they start lording over one another, enslaving one another, building great monuments to themselves, a tower so they can reach up to God on their own terms.  Babel has set itself up as king.  And yes… the world is a mess.  But what’s God’s message?  The rightful king is coming.

And then God calls Abraham.  A man who walked by faith, and whose life is chock-full of proof that he didn’t earn his righteousness by his works.

And, as darkness had spread out over the face of the earth, as the dominion of darkness had spread out horizontally, like the serpent slithering across the ground, like the judgement of the waters of the flood spreading out to cover the land, as peoples and languages and nations vied for pre-eminence and supremacy over their brothers and sisters, God revealed his solution:

            “I will make you a great nation”. 

But you won’t be like any other nation.  You’re not building an empire.  You’re not to be enslaving your enemies, you’re not to be making a name for yourself.

No… “you will be a people to bless all nations”.

From this nation, from this family called out from within the dominion of darkness, comes the saviour of the world. 

But it’s not the solution we expect.  We see a horizontal problem: we see sin and darkness and despair and bondage spreading out like a thick fog over the face of the earth. 

We have a horizontal problem.  We’re mortal beings, we’re held down by gravity, we experience life from the perspective of five-and-a-half or six feet off the ground.  We expect a horizontal solution.

But here’s the thing: horizontal is predictable.

You roll a ball across a table, you know where it’s going to go.  You kick a soccer ball across the gym, it’s not going to take off, orbit the earth a few times, stop for a visit in Baghdad, and eventually make it’s way into the net.  No, horizontal is predictable: things roll forward in the direction we expect.

But God is not limited to that human, horizontal perspective. 

We have a horizontal problem – sin – spread out over the face of the earth… but God gives a vertical solution.

Remember: it’s throughout scripture, cover to cover.  The midst of the Garden isn’t a lawn or pasture, it’s a tree. 

When the poisonous snakes slither into the camp of the Israelites, the solution isn’t a horizontal one, to scatter.  It’s a vertical one: lift the snake up on a pole, and don’t run, don’t spread out, don’t scatter.  No, look up, and live.

When the Lamb of God is slain once and for all for the sins of the world, crushing the serpent’s head, taking the venomous sting out of death, that’s no horizontal movement.  No, “and I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people unto me”, the solution to a world covered with sin and death isn’t something to be repeated in every city and place, no it’s a once-and-for-all vertical solution, concentrated in one place, operating on a different plane, as God gives a vertical solution to a horizontal problem.  Seriously, there’s only two horizontal parts of the Easter story: a rolling stone set in motion, and those first joyful witnesses running to spread the good news to those who need to hear it.

And, where did Christ go when the 40 days were over?  Did he wander off into the sunset in the west?  No, he was lifted up, and “if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back…”

What’s the message of God? Yes, the world around you is a mess, but the rightful king is coming.

My friends, there’s no question, the world is dark.  Even when it looks its’ best, it’s built on empires that lift some up by pushing others down.  Even today – inflation side-by-side with record profits: even if you’re doing alright, we know the whole world is broken.  And if it’s not money that enslaves us, it’s something else: despair, illness, addictions, a history of trauma, broken relationships, or even just the devil’s tool of busyness, keeping us too distracted to devote any time to the things of God. 

The world is dark.

But the message in Colossians is exactly what we need to hear.  The rightful king is coming.

It’s not that Christ will be the head of the body, it’s not that Christ will have dominion over all things, it’s not that he will one day hold all things together, it’s not that he will one day, maybe after we’re long gone be pre-eminent.    

No, Christ is.

We’re stuck on this horizontal plane, shrouded by this low-hanging fog of sin. 

But, don’t be fooled – Christ is already reigning, and, to God be the glory, that reign is breaking in from above, and it will be revealed.

You’ll remember that, in Abraham, God had concentrated his solution to humanity’s problem.  That’s a very vertical thing to do.  Not to dilute and spread out the solution, but to choose one family, one nation, one people, from whom would come forth the one saviour of the world.

But Pentecost is part of that same story.

The glory of Pentecost is that, just as the Spirit of God rested on a few prophets priests, and kings in the Old Testament, you and I, ordinary people making our way through the dark fog that shrouds our human, horizontal perspective, are now called, like them, to be agents of that coming kingdom.

Not by any right or merit or righteousness of our own, but only according to God’s good pleasure, God’s plan is for his solution to be concentrated in us.  God isn’t rolling in over the horizon, guns blazing.  That’s what the Israelites were expecting with the Messiah; that’s the horizontal solution we’d come up with. 

No, God’s vertical solution is to be present, really present, to take up residence by the Holy Spirit in his faithful people.  Not to blast away the present darkness with an all-consuming blinding light – “O Lord, who could stand?” – but, as we await that coming, for each of us to be Spirit-filled points of light, not drawing people in to ourselves… but pointing people up.

The world, the flesh, and the devil enslave us by weighing us down, keeping our eyes fixed on a dark world full of problems.

But God’s solution is amazing.  It’s subversive.  It’s straight-up sabotage. 

In a world filled with empires, in a world built on strength and pride, God’s solution is to choose the humble and meek, and to win the world, “not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord”.

You and I are called to be agents of that coming kingdom.  We’re the agents of the rightful king, working behind the enemy’s lines, shrouded by the fog of war, but not losing hope, because in spite of whatever we see around us, we know the plan!  We might see gates of shame and addiction and despair and pain around us, but will they prevail?

No: gates are a horizontal problem.  Gates don’t stand a chance against a vertical solution!

You and I are agents of the coming kingdom, those who have pledged our faith to the rightful king, and although the land is dark, we know our citizenship in the coming Kingdom is secure.  That doesn’t make it easy.  No, as the Psalmist says, the earth reels and rocks, the mountains quake: but do we fear?  No… the rightful king is coming.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, and the mountain fall into the sea.  Why?  Because God is our refuge and our strength.  The Lord Almighty isn’t far off over the horizon, no, though the darkness is all around us, he’s with us.  He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, and the solution is entirely vertical: we don’t run and hide, we don’t scatter.  No, like the Israelites facing the snakes, we stand firm.  God’s solution is vertical: so be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations, says the Lord, I will be exalted in the earth.

So, my friends, in this in-between time, let’s remember that God’s story, the story begun in Genesis, is still playing out.  We know the ending, but our preparation isn’t to look back at the baby in the manger, in spite of how much the empires of the world want to bog us down with a consumeristic Christmas.  Let us prepare for the Advent, the coming of Christ as the rightful king.

May God give us the grace to live as his agents in this world.

May God give us the faith to reflect that glorious light from above out into the darkness around us.

And may God, by His Spirit, strengthen us to live into that calling to bring this good news to a world that so desperately needs to hear it, that they, too, might stop running, be still, look up and live.

To God be the glory now and forevermore.  Amen.

[1] John 1

Sharing burdens and carrying loads.

September 18, 2022 — Leave a comment

May only the truth be spoken, and may only the truth be heard,
In the Name of the One True and Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

For anyone who has been in the Church for any amount of time, the lessons assigned in the BCP lectionary for this morning will be familiar ones.

We all know, as Paul writes to the Galatians, that part of the calling on our lives as Christians is that we must bear one another’s burdens.  And many of us, I’m sure, are familiar with the healing of the 10 men with leprosy: they cry out to have their burden lifted, Christ hears and has mercy on them, all are healed, but only one returns to say “thank you”.

They’re familiar lessons, but as I sat down to read them this week, I was struck by something that, for how ever many times I’ve read it, I never really noticed before.

I was sitting at my desk, my Bible opened up to Galatians 6, where Paul writes “brothers [and sisters], if anyone is caught in any transgressions, you who are spiritual should restore them in a spirit of gentleness… bear one another’s burdens”…

“Oh good”, I thought.  “This is an easy one!” 

But then I kept reading.

“Bear one another’s burdens”, but then, two verses later, Paul writes “let each one test his own work… for each will have to bear his own load.”

Hold on…  What’s this about? 

He just told us that we have to bear each other’s burdens… and then, two sentences later, he’s telling us that we each have to bear them ourselves?  What’s up with that!?  That can’t be right, can it?

So naturally, like any student of scripture, I opened up every Bible translation I could find, reading them side-by-side.  And, amazingly, all agreed: “bear one another’s burdens, but, each one must bear his own load.” 

Then, being the nerd that I am, I left the office and ran home at lunch to get my Greek New Testament, just to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me.  And sure enough: yes, the scriptures are very clear: it is the solemn, God-given duty of every Christian to bear one another’s burdens, and, at the same time, each must bear their own load.

So what’s the difference?  What’s the difference between a burden and a load?

Calling out to God for what?

Every person who has ever lived knows what it is to have a burden.  A burden is something that weighs us down, that pushes us beyond our ability.

As I was thinking on it, a burden is something that causes our head to be cast down as we lean into the weight; it’s something that causes our eyes to be downcast and our bodies and attitudes to be come rigid and tense as we try to bear up against something that, in all reality, has the potential to crush us.

And yes, everyone know what it is to have a burden.  Your burden and my burden aren’t alike: something that might seem easy to you could be the very thing that is wearing me down, the thing that tempts me to go it alone, until finally, trusting only in myself, I find my soul crushed. A burden can be anything, but the thing they have in common is that they keep our heads down, they keep us from looking up and calling out to Christ, they make us rigid and tense as we try to brace ourselves against a weight that is too much for us to bear.

Everyone has a burden.  It could be an illness, a disease that we feel we have to battle alone as we become bitter in the process; it could be an addiction – drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography, gossip, or an addiction to creating drama in bad relationships – that keeps us from being who God wants us to be; it could be financial, stuck at the bottom of a pit of debt, or the reality that we live in a broken world where it’s cheaper to feed your kids chips and pepsi than milk and vegetables; or, our burden could be could be pride over how well we’re doing; or, it could be a burden of shyness that makes us sit back and feel insecure; it could be guilt over something that we’ve done that we feel is just too bad to really be forgiven; it could be the burden of our own life stories, as almost everyone has some traumatic hurt in their past which causes them to put on a mask, to put on a happy face as they try to bear the burden alone. 
Everyone has a burden.

But the Good News is that we, the Church, the Body of Christ, together bear one another’s burdens.

That Gospel way of life that Jesus invites us to live calls us to lift up our heads, lift up our eyes from those burdens that are too much for us to bear; and as we lift up our heads, we see Christ lifted up, we hear the Gospel that burdens are lifted at Calvary, and with our heads lifted and our eyes set upon the Lord, we notice our brothers and sisters around us to bear our burdens, knowing that – by God’s grace – what is impossible for me might not even be a temptation for you, and all of us together, with our eyes on the Lord, and filled with the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit will bear one another up so that we can do the work God has given us to do!  Amen?

But did you hear that last part?

Bear one another up so that we can do the work God has given us to do.

Bear one another’s burdens so that we can each carry our God-given load.

Everyone has a burden.  Everyone wants it lifted.  But, once it’s lifted, are we willing to carry our own load, to do the work God has given us to do?

One of the things I’ve learned over 18 years of one sort of pastoral ministry or another is that God never blesses us for our own sake.

Blessing, or healing, or the easing of a burden is never an end in itself.

If I say “Lord, heal me, so I can get back to living my own life my own way”, that’s not a prayer prayed in faith.  That’s a prayer prayed in selfishness.

If I say “Lord, this burden is too much for me; take it away so I can go back to relying on myself”, then we’ve missed the point.  No wonder the answer to that prayer is “no”.

God doesn’t bless us for our own sake.  He heals us, He blesses us, He strengthens us for His glory, so we can be part of His glorious story of salvation which we are called to bring to all people.

We, God’s people bound together by the Holy Spirit, bear one another’s burdens so that we can get back to doing that work that God has given us to do, so that we all can get back to bearing that easy yoke and light load of sharing the good news with others who need to hear it, of discipling, taking another Christian under your wing as an apprentice, as each person learns what it means to live as a Christian, to live as an apprentice learning to share the image and likeness of our Lord and Master.

Yes, we are to bear one another’s burdens so that each can carry their own load.  We bear one another’s burdens so that each can be a productive and fruitful member of the Body of Christ, the Church.

A Lesson from Lepers

I think we see a perfect example of all of this in the story of Christ healing the lepers.

Leprosy, as you know, was an incredible burden.  It was an all-consuming disease, there was no hiding it, but not only did it take your body, leprosy took away everything.

For those bearing the burden of leprosy, it meant they were fully banished from the life of the community.  Leprosy took away their work, it took away their families.  These 10 men in the Gospel, they were sons with elderly parents who needed caring for, they were husbands and fathers with wives and children who needed food and a roof over their head, they were men with real skill, bakers, carpenters, metal workers, leaders in the marketplace, leaders in their communities, each making a living with bills to be paid and work to do as they provided for themselves and for those they love.

Their burden, leprosy, took it all away. 

They couldn’t work, they couldn’t see their parents or wives or sons or daughters, they couldn’t provide for their families, as those they loved either relied on the goodness of their neighbours, or faced homelessness.

(You know, I can’t help but notice a similarity between these effects of leprosy in Jesus’ time, and the effects that addiction has in our own day)

They have this all-consuming burden.

And, turning to Christ, their burden is lifted.  But it’s a weird story!  They aren’t healed instantly and told to go on living the way they are. 

No, not at all.  How does Jesus heal them?  He says “go, show yourselves to the priest”.

Have you noticed this before?  He doesn’t wave His hand and say “your request has been granted, now go about your merry way”. 

No.  Jesus says “go back to town.  Present yourself to the leaders of your community.  Have them declare that you’re back, that the one who was lost has been found, have them declare that yes, you used to be a leper, but your burden has been lifted, so now you can get back to doing the work you have been given to do”.

Have you noticed that before?  In healing the lepers, Jesus doesn’t answer their prayer and leave them to go about their way.  Jesus answers their prayer by saying “go back to town”.  Jesus lifts their burden so that they can get back to carrying their load, so that they can get back to being sons, and husbands, and fathers, so that they can stop being outcasts and get on with being fruitful members of the community, so they can get back to using the gifts and skills God has given them, and as they get back, they carry with them this amazing, life-changing testimony of God’s fathomless mercy, as they now live lives to God’s glory in the world.

Friends, God doesn’t bless us for our own sake; God doesn’t lift our burdens so we can go back to living our own way. 

A Challenge for Ministry

My brothers and sisters, think about how the Church reaches out to those in need?

So often we as individuals, and together as the Church, will ease the burden of those who are weighed down. 

But are we sharing that burden as an end in itself?  Or are we inviting them to lift up their head, to see Christ lifted up, to recognize us standing around them as Brothers and Sisters, supporting and inviting them to bear their own proper load, to join us in that God-given work of being the Church, of being life-long apprentices of Jesus our Lord and Master, as those who were lost join their voices to the chorus of the redeemed in every age who proclaim the Good News of salvation?

My friends, we are to bear one another’s burdens; but we are to do it in a way that enables each, that teaches each, that supports each in doing the work we have been given to do, as many members knit together into one Body under one Head, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

May God Almighty guide us and lead us as we bear one another’s burdens, not as an end in itself, but so that, by His grace, as people who know what it is to have their burdens lifted, we can together sing “To God be the Glory, great things He has done…” now and forevermore.  Amen.

The God who is More

June 12, 2022 — Leave a comment

This is Trinity Sunday, the appointed day for us to celebrate, proclaim, and – on some level – try to explain to doctrine of the Trinity.  It’s a day dedicated to that central, crucial Christian belief that there is One God in Three Eternal Persons, that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but there are not three gods, but one; perfectly united, existing in a way far above and beyond anything in the created world.

Now, as it happens, it’s also my last Sunday as your rector… so naturally, I guess I have to take this morning to try and teach you everything I know about the Trinity, right!? 

…Or maybe I should just copy what Jesus said in the gospel today: (just look at it – how perfect)  “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now”.  That might be more accurate!

If there is one thing I believe we should take away from Trinity Sunday, it’s this:
our God is more. 

I could almost end it there.  That’s what Trinity Sunday is all about.  Whatever we wish God would be, however we would dream up a god in own image to meet our needs, the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is more.  It should really be no surprise that God more than we can easily comprehend.  A god you or I could figure out wouldn’t be much of a god at all. 

But that’s the fundamental truth of this day: our God is more.

God is more than we could imagine.

Lots of people long for a saviour.  Across all of human history, people have drempt up superhero stories, longing for a a messiah-figure to save them from the predicament they find themselves in.  It’s fallen human nature to look for help on our own terms, isn’t it?  To find a hero we can hide behind.  We want a solution that we can understand, and that doesn’t ask too much of us (it’s like me wanting to get fit but not wanting to do any exercise!). 

But one of the biggest proofs that the Trinity is real is, simply, it’s a description of God that is not self-serving.  It’s not God made in our image; it demands real humility on our part.  I mean, who in their right mind would cook up a plan to tell the world about a God whose nature we cannot accurately describe?  It’s either crazy… or it’s real.

And we know it’s real – because in God, in the person of Jesus the Son, we don’t just get the saviour humanity is longing for.  Our God is more: we find a saviour who calls us to be his apprentices, and expects us to learn from him and imitate him with our lives, to the point where the highest goal for each of us is to be like Jesus. 

But God is more.  In Jesus we don’t find a good teacher by human standards; no, when we fail we don’t get an angry note covered in red ink; when we act out we don’t get sent to the principal’s office: we get picked up and carried over his shoulder, as a good shepherd seeks out the smelly, stubborn sheep who wanders away.

A saviour who loves us; a teacher who calls us to be more; and a shepherd who picks us up and draws us back into the fold.  That alone is more than we could imagine.

But there’s more.  We don’t just have a saviour, teacher, and shepherd.  There’s a loving Father, above and beyond all the failings of human parents, who is more than everything we think a father could be… and he’s the king who owns it all. 

Lots of cultures, lots of people and nations since the beginning of time have drempt up a god who is a king, who demands their allegiance and service.  But who would dream up that the eternal king would send his only Son to save us by his sacrifice, not to demand anything from us, but so that all who were willing could be adopted into the royal family as sons and daughters?  You see, that’s the great message of this day: God is more. 

And He operates through his Holy Spirit, all-powerful, almighty, yet gentle and wanting to co-operate with us from within.  We serve a God who brought all of creation into being, and who will finally make all things new, and yet, scripture says, he won’t so much as blow out a smouldering wick or break a bent blade of grass; instead, he stands at the door and knocks; and if the door is opened, he moves in and starts renovating from the inside out.  And, from within, God the Spirit calls you to be more like Christ; in actions, in words, in keeping quiet when your words don’t bring life and justice.  Inspiring ordinary, broken people like you and me to do things that aren’t just pleasing to God, but which actually bring him glory. 

God is more.

But God isn’t just more than we can imagine…

God is more than we could ask for.

If there’s one thing I hope this parish remembers from our three years together, it’s this: you need to dream big, you need to be bold, you need to stop making all the right, logical, reasonable excuses, and you need to remember that, God, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.  You need to remember that, if you’re seeking and doing God’s will, you will have everything you need.  But if you want to wait until you rely on your on strength and rely on your own bank account, you’re guaranteed the opportunity God has in store will pass you by. 

Trinity Sunday tells us that the God we serve is more than we could ever ask for, so let’s not limit what he calls us to do.

If anyone is hungry – anyone – whether that’s a physical hunger, or it’s that deep spiritual hunger, that ache in the pit of the stomach for those who don’t know the purpose of life and don’t know where to find that daily bread, God is the answer, who does he call to be part of the solution?  You.

If anyone is thirsty – anyone – who is parched and dry and shrivelled up, who’s the answer?  God is.  And who does he call to be part of the solution?  You.

Who knows someone who is lonely?  Who knows someone where all they long for is not to have to do life alone?  Who is the answer to human loneliness?  God is.  And who does he call to be part of the solution?  You.

If anyone is wavering, wandering, flailing around making absolutely nothing of their life, going around without direction, having a great passion but nothing to invest it in except a bottle or worse, who will give us all the opportunities we ask for and more?  God.  But who does he call to share that message?  You.

Do you know someone confused about the purpose of life?  Confused about spiritual things, looking for something that makes sense?  Sure you do.  Who is the answer to all of those spiritual searchings and more?  God is.  And who does he call to be part of the solution?  You… he wants you to invite those people to Alpha (so don’t let God and your neighbour down – ‘cause we believe you’re the solution God has sent!).

When we’re facing our own mortality, when we’re dealing with the fact that, until it’s remade by God, creation won’t last forever, that our bodies will wear out, some sooner, some later, who is the answer to all our hopes, who can drive away our fears?  God.  And who does he call to share that hope?  You.

When we’re facing our failures and have to admit that we’ve missed the mark, that we can’t stand before God face-to-face and say “I did good, you owe me”, who is that source of boundless mercy and fathomless grace?  God is.  And to whom has he entrusted that message?  You.

When we’re unsure of the future, when we’re certain our plans won’t work because there’s no sensible human reason why the least and smallest and weakest should ever succeed, who is the one who chooses the last and the least to do His work?  God is.  And who is God calling to be those through whom his glory does absolutely remarkable, unimaginable things?  You.

And, my friends, when, like on Friday night, our cup is running over, we’re joyful, we’re feasting, we’re enjoying each other’s company, and we’re echoing the Gospel as we call out far and wide and invite any and everyone to come in and share in the feast, who’s the one providing the abundance?  God is.  And who does he want to experience that abundant life?  You.

My friends, God is more.  He’s more than we could ever imagine, and he gives more than we could ever ask. 

But, as I leave you this week, as you go out into the future as those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and who have heard, from my lips, time and time again, of the great opportunities that God has called you to, it’s time to take up the torch.

Be bold.  Be faithful.  Trust in God.  And don’t ever forget, that God, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. 

Do you believe that? 

…now keep living it… and all to God’s glory.  Amen.

The Holy Spirit’s Gifts: Awareness, Attunement, Ability

June 5, 2022 — Leave a comment

Come, Holy Ghost, who inspires our souls with your celestial brightness; teach us to know the Father and transform us into the image of the Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.

As Christians, as those faithful people of the New Covenant living after Pentecost, we believe and we know that God the Holy Spirit is with us and in us.  We believe and we know that the Holy Spirit is – as Jesus promised – our “Helper”.

That’s part of our core doctrine, one of those things we all agree to believe if we want to call ourselves Christians. 

But what does it mean to say that the Holy Spirit is your helper? 

If someone who was curious about the faith asked you, maybe someone whose parents never brought them to Sunday School, or someone who showed up at GriefShare or Alpha and started to explore these things for the first time, how would you explain what it means to have the Holy Spirit as your helper?

And, if it’s true that the Holy Spirit is not just with, but is actually in you – right now – could it be that you actually have access to more divine help than you realize?

What does it means to say that the Holy Spirit is your helper?

I want to suggest three ways, three words that all start with the letter ‘A’ to help us remember exactly how the Holy Spirit is at work inside of you, even here this morning.

And those words are Awareness, Attunement, and Ability. 

Awareness.

Throughout scripture, the biggest work of the Holy Spirit is making God’s people aware of their situation.  Whether it’s the Spirit inspiring prophets to open people’s eyes to the path they’re on, whether it’s the Spirit enlightening kings to accomplish what God has in store for his people, or whether it’s the Spirit at work in the Apostles to give them the words to say to bring the message of hope and healing and forgiveness in Jesus to many different peoples and nations and cultures, the constant thing the Holy Spirit is doing in you is making you aware of your situation, from God’s perspective.

You know, the human mind is a wonderful thing.  As the Bible says, we really are fearfully and wonderfully made: we have incredible power to shape the world around us, but the same hands and the same tongue that can create and build something beautiful can also be used to tear down and destroy.

But even the sharpest human mind can never be fully aware of our surroundings or the effects of our actions.  Our mind is dependent on our senses, and that’s where we are limited.  I only have one set of eyes – I can’t see all sides of a situation; and like it or not, my senses are often clouded.  Relationships, desires, passions, hurts, past failures, scars, lessons “learned the hard way” are like lenses that block our senses.  It’s like coming inside with your sunglasses still on and instinctively reaching over to turn on the lights.  Our minds are only as good as the information coming in, but the shields and scars and coping strategies that we put on to make our way through the world really do prevent us from seeing things as they really are.

This is where the Holy Spirit helps us – but only if we’re willing to listen.

We believe that, right here, right now, the Holy Spirit is in us, making us aware of the bigger picture; making us aware of how things really are from God’s perspective.

…ok, so that all sounds nice, but how does this “Awareness” actually help us? 

The Holy Spirit is at work in you when you have a great plan to put someone in their place, when you have a great plan (at least from your perspective) to show how you’re right and someone else is wrong… and then you get that feeling in your gut.  That feeling that makes you say “darn” (or perhaps something more colourful), that feeling that puts you in your place; that feeling that doesn’t come from your mind, and more often than not is the furthest thing from what your mind wants; that feeling that says, “hold on now, there’s more to the story.  Yeah, what they did was wrong, yes you’re right – at least partially.  But there’s a broken person behind that action, a person that God wants to build up, a person that enough people have already tried to tear down.  …So shut your mouth and say your prayers”.

That’s the work of the Holy Spirit.  To bring that awareness, and that stinging, frustrating gut feeling that you need to open your eyes, shut your mouth, get over yourself, and say your prayers. 

Have you ever thought about the work of the Holy Spirit in those terms?  You know, speaking in tongues might be pretty flashy, or having a tongue of fire appear over your head would be pretty cool, but I’m thankful for the Holy Spirit dwelling within me to say “…shut up, Alex.  There’s more to the story.  See things from God’s perspective.  See the brokenness in that person’s action… and see the brokenness in your reaction, so now get over yourself and trust in God.”  That’s the help of the Holy Spirit – the gift of Awareness of how things really are.

Attunement

The next way the Holy Spirit helps us is what I call “Attunement”.

Now if you know anything at all about music, you know the importance of being in tune.  You can be a star musician, you can have the best technique, the best instrument, the greatest skill, but if the strings aren’t in tune, it’s never going to turn out the way it was supposed to.

But, beyond that, an engineer would tell you that poor tuning is actually destructive.  If you build a bridge and you don’t take the vibration of the cables into account, what’s going to happen when a strong wind blows?  Same thing with a skyscraper or designing a car or anything else. 

All the beautiful sounds on earth are created by vibrations – but when things aren’t well-tuned, vibrations can bring down a building or a bridge, they become not just destructive, but self-destructive.

So how does the Holy Spirit help us with being attuned to God?

Well, remember as we read through the Old Testament, and even as we read through the Gospels, all the countless, countless times when people are heading in the wrong direction, missing the point, headed for their own destruction, making their bad situation worse than it was before, and we shake our heads and say “why are they so stubborn?”. 

…and then, maybe, we look at our own lives and wonder the same thing.

A big part of the Holy Spirit’s work is to be, more or less, a sort of built-in tuner.  As we gain awareness of how things really are, from God’s perspective, He also calls us to tune in to His will.  It’s that voice of God within that says “trust me to work all things together for good; come and be part of it, don’t get in my way”. 

And that’s a tall order.  God’s ways are not our ways, and when we look back and see God’s wisdom at work, it’s rarely the way any rational human would have guessed – I mean really, it’s Pentecost; we’re here today because God sent out some Galilean fishermen to change the world!  Not a great plan by human standards.  And, like it or not, God wants to use a couple of dozen, mostly grey-haired people in this room to bring hope and healing to Fort Smith.  Again, not a great plan by human standards.  But, if we allow the Holy Spirit within us to tune us in, when the wind of God blows, we’ll work together to create the most beautiful harmony.

That’s the attunement that the Holy Spirit provides, dwelling within us to point us and call us to tune in to God’s will, to align our own wills with His, so that rather than making a dangerous or destructive dissonance, we’re working with God to create something beyond what we can ask or imagine.

And when that happens, when we have Awareness and Attunement with God’s will, the Holy Spirit brings…

Ability.

I’ve known people who’ve been really frustrated.  They want the fruit of the Spirit, they pray for the fruit of the Spirit, asking God for joy and peace, for love and kindness and gentleness and self-control.  I’ve known people who have earnestly offered themselves to be pastors and teachers and evangelists… but they hadn’t opened their eyes to that awareness that the Holy Spirit brings, and their own will wasn’t attuned to God’s, so of course a loving God wouldn’t say yes to their prayers, since they’d only end up worse off than they were before.

But when we’re aware and attuned with God, that’s when he gives us the ability to rise to the occasion.  And sometimes it’s dramatic – there are those in this room who have seen real miracles in their lives.  But often it’s much more mundane.  It’s me, having a terrible speech impediment, stuttering and being too shy to speak, to the point where half of my teachers going through school never heard my voice. 

I was a musical kid, but ask my mother, how many times did I enter the music festival or be set to play in a year-end recital, only to be crippled by fear and an upset stomach.  But when I stepped up to lead the church in singing, when I became aware of a real need and tuned myself in to God’s will, even as a child of 12, that fear went away.  God gave the ability. 

I would actually skip school when there was public speaking to be done.  But when God, through the Church, said ‘I’m calling you to ordained ministry’, and I tuned in and said ‘I don’t know about this, but if it’s God’s will, then ok’, suddenly the fear was gone.

…And you know what?  In just the three years I’ve been here, there are at least a half a dozen others in this room who have had the same experience.  When we’re aware, when we’re attuned, God will give the ability to do more than we asked or imagined, and all for his glory.

So on this feast of Pentecost, store away those three “A”s.  If you’ve been baptized and have faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is already in you… let him make you aware of how things are from God’s perspective; let him tune you in to God’s will; and then don’t be surprised when God gives the ability to do the work you’ve been given to do. 

To God be the glory, now and forevermore.  Amen.

The 7 Pillars of Christian Unity

May 29, 2022 — Leave a comment

Lord Jesus, teach us to echo your prayer, and to live by the Spirit, that we may be one as you and the Father are one.  Amen.

This morning we hear again that second-most-famous prayer of Jesus: that we, the Church, may all be one, as He and the Father are one.

Unity is one of those things that looks great on paper, but the reality is something that requires a lot more work – and a lot more humility and sacrifice – than you’d ever think it would.

On paper, unity is easy: it’s the coming together of different parties to create something better than they could ever be on their own.  Yeah, sign me up!

The coming together is one thing.  Even here in this room, it’s not that we don’t like each other, but we have a great group of people who wouldn’t naturally be found in any other setting.  And that’s a good thing: any “church” that is only made up of people who share worldly interests or who look the same or vote the same isn’t much of a church at all.

Coming together is one thing, but coming together to create something better than they could ever be on their own – that’s another matter.

If you’ve ever found yourself working in a union, you know that unity by itself isn’t always productive; but when everyone can come together with the goal of working together, everyone benefits and some real progress can be made.

And certainly scripture uses the example of marriage as the image of unity within the Church – a man and woman coming together, not to lose themselves, but to really create something that goes beyond the individual – and as we all know, that, too, requires real work.

For any sort of unity to produce fruit, to create something better, we need both the willingness and the action.  It’s not enough just to want to be united – it’s not enough just to sign up or show up; we need to match that willingness with steps to carry it out. 

Unity, the creation of something better than we are on our own, requires both willingness and action.

The Unity of the Church

In Confirmation Class at some point you probably learned (I hope!) that as Christians we have 7 pillars of unity.  Jump in with me if you remember them:

We have one Body, one Spirit, one Hope of our eternal calling.
One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all.[1]

(What?  Well remedial confirmation classes start on Tuesday!
If these aren’t familiar you might want to take notes!!)

Those pillars, those 7, are the “willingness” side of Christian unity.  In a marriage you make vows to each other, stating your willingness to come together as one, to the exclusion of all others.  In a union, you have a collective agreement that both parties are willing to follow, to the exclusion of anything that violates the agreement. 

In the Church, we have 7 things that we are all willing to abide by for the sake of unity, to the exclusion of all else. 

We will to be one body.  Our purpose is to come together as one, throwing away all the worldly divisions that get in the way.  We have to actively work against the constant human temptation to break us up into groups based on one thing or another.

We agree to abide by the same Spirit, given at Pentecost.  That’s why, for instance, in today’s lesson from Acts 16, fortune-telling is forbidden, because it’s reliance on a different spirit.  That’s why in Revelation 22, “sorcerers” are among those who find themselves left outside of the eternal city, because turning to witchcraft is a refusal to rely on the Holy Spirit of God.

As the Church we have one hope.  That’s one we often forget, because there are as many reasons to go to church as there are people in the pews.  Some of us need peace and quiet, a break from the week; some of us need an opportunity to serve, while others need the support and friendship or to hear words of encouragement. But, beyond all that, to be a member of the church is to be willing to pin all your hope on Christ’s promises in the New Covenant – on his victory, and God’s provision, and that strength made perfect in weakness as we seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Then there are the four other things that we have to agree to, that we have to will if we want to be members of the Church: we agree to acknowledge Jesus as Lord.  We know He is the one true Lord, so we don’t fool around with any falsehoods about that.  We proclaim one Faith passed down from generation to generation and found in the Creeds, knowing there’s a lot of room for interpretation, and no one of us will ever ‘figure it all out’, but to be a member of the Church is to say that unity on these pillars is more important than you or me “figuring out” each tiny detail.  We agree to be united in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, recognizing that it’s God who saves us and cleans us up, but that anyone who wants to clean themselves up will find themselves left out.[2]

And that last pillar that we all agree to for the sake of unity is that we agree to have one Father of us all.  That’s huge.  It means that, anyone else who is living by these same 7 pillars is my brother or sister… whether I like it or not!  It means we may bitterly disagree on how to live our faith, or the church’s duty to transform the world around it… but if God’s my Father, than anyone else who calls God their Father has to be my brother or sister.  So I have to live like it.

That’s why Revelation 22 says the sexually immoral and murders and idolaters and everyone who loves falsehood is left outside of eternal life – not because they checked the wrong boxes in terms of sins.  No, not at all.  But because these are things that destroy the family of God.  To abuse a brother or sister, to lie to them, to kill them, or to go all out and refuse to recognize God as Father – they rip apart the fabric of the family, and we’re called to live as those with one Father of us all.

Those are the 7 things all Christians across time and space have agreed that it means to be part of the church.

But real unity, the creation of something better than we can be on our own, requires both willingness and action.

The Action of Unity

It’s not enough just to sign up, to consent to those 7 things.  That’d be like planning a wedding and making marriage vows and then thinking the hard work was over! 

The work of echoing our Lord’s prayer that we would be one means that we put that willingness into action. 

And for the Church, when we’re talking about the unity of the Church, that action shows up in three ways.  Unity of Identity, Unity of Purpose, Unity of Direction.

Unity of Identity

Identity is a bit of a buzzword these days, as it should be.  How do you identify?  Is it enough to say “oh yeah, I believe the creeds.  One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, that’s great”.  Is that enough?  Or do we need to make that faith our identity.

Or, in other words, is going to church something you do, or is being a member of the Church something you are?

If we ever want to see Christian unity in the world, we need to get serious about making our faith a key part of our identity… not an activity on the side.

Unity of Purpose

Have we gathered for the right reasons?  When one congregation only supports its’ own activities, when we don’t see ourselves as being on the same team, then the answer has to be “no”. 

You know, this was St. Paul’s message to the Corinthians… when they gathered, everyone had their own motives.  And, the first and easiest rule of biblical interpretation is, simply, don’t be like the Corinthians!  As a general rule, if the Corinthians did it – don’t!

When we gather, when we serve, when we fundraise, is it to achieve our own goals?  Or is every action – from washing pews to folding bulletins to shovelling snow to feeding the hungry and comforting those who grieve – is it all part of carrying out that mission to go and make disciples and share the good news?

Unity of Direction

You can have the same purpose but be headed in opposite directions.  The leaders of the Liberals, the NDP, and the Tories all have the same purpose: they want to win, but they’re headed in very different directions to get there.

If we want to put Christ’s second-most-famous prayer into action in our lives, if we want to finally know and see what it’s like for the church to come together to accomplish more than we could ever do on our own, more than we could even ask or imagine, we need to walk the same way. 

Thankfully, we don’t need to make that up – after all, we’re called to be followers, and when we get off track, we have a good shepherd who will put us gently over his shoulder, or put his crook around our neck and reel us in – one way or the other!

But it’s no good, either within our congregation, or amongst the three Christian churches in our town, or in the Church around the world, for us to be walking different directions.  Unity requires that we set the same goal and walk forwards with humility, trusting that there’s a job for each of us to do, and if it’s done to God’s glory and with even a little pinch of real faith, even the mighty mountains will hop out of our way.

My friends, think about these things.  And, this week, take a look and see if there’s an opportunity in your life to really echo Jesus’ prayer with action.  And may we always pray, with Him, that we may all be one, as He and the Father are one.  Amen.

[1] Ephesians 4:4-6

[2] This is the reference to the “dogs” in Revelation 22, being unclean.

Peace isn’t a thing to search. Peace is a lifestyle.

May 22, 2022 — Leave a comment

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid”.  John 14:27

We live in a world that is searching for peace. 

We want there to be peace on the earth – for wars and striving to cease between nations, and races, and peoples.

We want there to be peace at home – we all know homes that are less than peaceful, with partners who fight, with families that can’t be together around the table without full-blown fights, or perhaps worse, a slow-burning conflict that eats away over the years.

If you’re like me, you might just be looking for some peace and quiet; looking forward to those rare moments when you can unplug without having the next thing rattling around in your head.

For many whom you know, their search is to make peace with their situation: to get to a point of accepting all the things that are outside of their control – whether it’s sickness or an uncertain future, or the pains of the past – and get to the point of knowing peace rather than a struggle.

Some devote their lives to finding peace in a broken world, a world where things are rarely ever black and white, where, anytime people are involved, there’s bound to be good and bad mixed up together, as even the best of human intentions are still wrapped up in our brokenness.

And in those moments when we think about what happens next, the world we live in is obsessed but confused about finding peace with God.  Some bend over backwards trying to convince themselves that God doesn’t exist so they can put their minds at peace, while others resort to all sorts of bizarre practices in an effort to “find peace” with the Almighty.

Our world, at this point in history, is more obsessed with finding peace than we even realize.

But what if we’ve got it wrong?

Jesus said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

And we say “yes!  Give us some of that peace!  Bring it on, that’d be great”.

But this is where the world has it wrong.

Peace isn’t a thing. 

Peace isn’t a thing to be given and received.  Peace isn’t a thing to have or to hold onto.

People spend their lives searching for peace, but peace isn’t a thing to be found.

(Now stick with me, because this is so mind-blowing, but it’s also so obvious once we come to see it).

Let’s take the war in Ukraine as an example.  We all want peace in Ukraine.  We all want Russia to stop, to turn from it’s plans, and for there to be peace once more.

But how does that happen?  How does Ukraine get peace?  How does Russia give Ukraine peace?

Can Russia load some peace into a truck, drive it over the border, and say here you go, this is what you wanted, have a truckload of peace?  No, how silly, of course not.

But when we talk about God’s peace, we slip into that sort of “truckload” thinking.  Like God has a warehouse of peace out there, I wish he’d give me some.  When it comes to making peace with an illness, or a past hurt, or a strained relationship with a parent or your in-laws, we slip into thinking of peace as a thing.  Something to have, to be given by one party – maybe as part of a long-awaited for apology – to then be received and stored up by another.

But peace isn’t a thing.  It doesn’t come in truckloads.

No, and this is where the world goes wrong: peace is a state of being; peace is a status that exists between two people or things; or as my wife put it so wisely last weekend, peace isn’t a thing – it’s a lifestyle, it’s a way of living.

It’s not given or received; it’s achieved when the tension is set aside, when the two sides accept that they cannot control the other, when they choose to live at peace.

…and this is where we’d do well to remember that we’re all searching for peace, on every level of our lives, from our homes, to our families, to our situations, to our place in the brokenness of the world around us, to that ultimate peace at the last when we all meet the Lord face to face.

We need to stop asking God to “give us peace”, at least if we’re thinking of peace as a thing, something that He can drop off at our doorstep.

Instead, we need to pray that God will teach us His peace. 

Teach us, show us what it means to be at peace.  To live a lifestyle of peace, to move towards peace as a state of being; to look at a situation and say, “yes it’s broken… but I don’t want to be at war over this, I’m at peace”; to look at things outside of our control and say “I’m not going to be at war within myself over this, I’m going to be at peace with the things I cannot change.”

Peace is a lifestyle.  Peace is a state of being, a state to be achieved, not a thing to be received.

You see, this is where a plain reading of the scriptures is so important.

Now you might be thinking, ‘hold on… Jesus said “my peace I give to you”’. 

Right!  But Jesus didn’t then hand the disciples a little box of peace, did he? 
Peace is a status, peace is a way of life, peace is a lifestyle, as Kristina put it.

Jesus extends his status, his peaceful state of being to the disciples – and that includes you and me.  Is Jesus uncertain about the future?  No. Is Jesus upset about the past?  No.  Does Jesus feel powerless about a sad and broken world, waiting for that day when every tear and disease will be wiped away?  No.  Does Jesus feel like the temptations and evil in the world might get the better of him?  Not one bit.  Is Jesus worried about his place when he comes to stand before his Heavenly Father?  Never, certainly not.

That’s the status, that’s the state of being, that’s the lifestyle Jesus wants to give to you.

“My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives”… it’s not coming on a truck!  No, I bestow this peace upon you, now live into it.  “Let not your hearts be troubled, and neither let them be afraid”. 

And, my friends, it is a ridiculous peace – a peace that passes understanding.

Does it make any sense that I shouldn’t fear tomorrow?  No… except Jesus invited me to live into his peace.

Does it make any sense that I can take a step to restore a relationship, that I can admit when I’ve done something wrong, really ask for forgiveness, and then carry on instead of sitting and wallowing in that failure?  No… except Jesus invited me to live into his peace.

Does it make any sense that we can look at our bodies wearing out, we can look at the scars of sin and abuse and addiction in the world around us, and yet be at peace in spite of the world not being as we know it was meant to be?  No, that makes no sense, it passes all understanding, except when we enter into the peace of the one who promised He will restore all things.

Does it make any sense that I can live my life without any fear of the grave?  No, except I’ve been invited into that lifestyle of peace with God my Father; He looks at me as his child in need of healing and mercy, and like the prodigal son, I will live my life running toward Him to fall at his feet.

When God’s peace, like a river, rushes over us, we need to remember that the point isn’t to grab buckets and try to store up as much of that peace as we can.  Peace doesn’t work like that.

When peace, like a river, washes over us, the point is for us to get caught up in that current, to be washed away in that stream, as peace with God and with our neighbours becomes a way of life, carrying us along, not something to be dipped into when we need it.  Not because we’re happy with the way the world is, with the way things are, but because we’ve made God’s peace our lifestyle, we’ve entered into that status of being at peace, and because of that – whatever happens – my heart doesn’t need to be troubled, and I do not need to be afraid: I have that ridiculous, incomprehensible peace that comes from knowing ‘I am a child of God’.

The whole world is searching for peace.  But we need to remind ourselves, and often, that peace isn’t a thing to grasp at or cling to, it’s a way of life.  It’s a way of life we find when we pray for God to give us his grace, and the strength, and the mercy, and the understanding, to look at the world around us – broken as it is – and see it, and ourselves, through His eyes; to have the grace to say “it is well”… “I don’t like it, it’s not as it should be, but I am at peace with God, I will be at peace with my neighbor, so my heart won’t be troubled, I will not fear – not even the power of the grave – because it is well with my soul… now, and forevermore.  Amen.

There’s a gap in God’s story (and we’re in it!)

May 15, 2022 — Leave a comment

Well, after 31 weeks, today we come to the end of our walk through the Bible.  Since September, we’ve gone all the way from Genesis now to wrap things up in Revelation.

I won’t speak for everyone, but I know many of us have found this not just ‘worthwhile’, but completely eye-opening.  I’ve been reading and studying the Bible a long time, but I wish someone had given me a gift like this years ago – the gift of not getting lost in the weeds, but zooming out to see the big picture; the perspective-changing, mind-blowing gift of seeing how Adam, Eve, and the serpent connect to Moses lifting up the snake on the pole, and Jesus being lifted up on the cross; the gift of seeing how creation, the flood, Moses floating down the river in a basket, and the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan all relate to your own baptism; the gift of seeing why it was necessary for God to give the Law even though He knew we couldn’t keep it, and how the whole point of the new covenant is that God says “I will do it for you, you just need to trust me”; the life-changing, overarching gift of coming to see that, no, bad things don’t “happen for a reason”, but God can and will use the bad things of a broken world to bring about incredible good; the gift of learning that God does keep his promises, He does finish what He starts, whether that’s with us or in spite of us, and the quicker that we admit that He’s God, the quicker He can heal us, open our eyes to see ourselves as the beloved children that He wants us to be, and then offer ourselves to bring that good news to a hurting world.

What a gift. 

And it’s one of those things you won’t unlearn.  Once you’ve seen how the story fits together, how each character in the Bible has a part to play in God’s big plan, I think you can’t go back – and that’s a good thing.  It’s not a book of superheroes, but it’s also not a dry instruction manual: it’s a story; it’s a story of great love, of betrayal, of broken trust, but also of healing, and restoration, and victory over darkness.  And it’s eternal – it’s God inviting ordinary, broken, hurting people like you and me to trust Him, to learn to be apprentices of his son, to let the Holy Spirit move in and fix in us what we could never fix ourselves, and then to find ourselves doing things we wouldn’t ever dream of.

And the best part is that the story isn’t over.

There’s an incredible gap between chapter 30 and chapter 31, and it’s important we don’t miss it.  We’re living in that gap – the same Spirit who led the apostles to shake the world upside down, the same power that rose Jesus from the dead, the same Almighty God who can turn shipwrecks and imprisonments into victories, is at work in you and me, inviting us, in the same way that He invited Abraham and Moses and Ruth and Esther and the rest, to have our names written into the story. 

Think about that: the only thing that separates you from any one of these characters is time and place.  They’re ordinary men and women, caught up in the pain and circumstances of a broken world, facing doubts, carrying burdens, working through struggles and feelings of inadequacy, many with a past that haunts them, or with a point in their lives that made them want to give up.  Everyone in the story shares that struggle – even Jesus, because that’s what we mean when we say “he was made man”. 

But God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  His plan to break the curse, to restore humanity, to let us dwell in his presence and share in his glorious life is just as true for you today as it was for anyone we read in these pages.

And the invitation is just as real, too.

And have you noticed… the people around you are saying yes!

Look at our little church.  Look at the work we’ve done, not in our strength, but in our weakness!  You’d never imagine that this little group of people – less than 2% of our town – would be able to touch so many lives in so many ways.  We’ve got people who have never led a program before, and wouldn’t have ever dreamed of it, saying yes to God – “with God’s help”, I can lead GriefShare.  Listen to that: with God’s help, I can offer healing to those who are hurting!

With God’s help, I can be a lay leader, I can tell my story and help to lead my congregation.  We’ve got not one but two lay leaders who never dreamt of doing what they’re doing, but who said “ok… with God’s help, I can do it!”.

Over this summer you’re going to launch an ad campaign for Alpha; you’re going to run Alpha during a season without a Rector, and it’s going to be great!  And you’re not going to do it for yourselves – you already know the story.  You’re going to do it for your friends and neighbours and the strangers down the street, and you’re going to go beyond your comfort zone and you’re going to invite them in… why?  Because you’ve learned that it’s not about your strength or your words; it’s about trusting God through your weakness, and learning to simply say “ok… with God’s help, I can”.

I mean, seriously: a few of us were talking one day last fall about how to welcome seniors in, since the senior’s room in the rec centre is closed… and then what happened?  God said “here you go, do you trust me?” as the federal government handed over $23,000 to do a monthly seniors’ program.  Absolutely crazy, never in our wildest dreams.  But God invites us, and all we have to say is “ok… with God’s help, we can”.

We’ve learned – and are learning – to trust.  We’re not rich, but when’s the last time somebody stood at this lectern to worry about money.  No – we’re learning that God provides even more than we need, as long as we trust him to do it.  It’s like the manna in the wilderness, if we trust God to provide what we need for the moment, He will, but if we try to hoard it so we don’t need to trust anymore, it dries up. 

We’re learning to trust.  Going without a rector is hard, and we’re certainly sad to go, but we’re not going to worry about it – there’s no point!  We know God’s going to finish what He starts, so God will raise up people and equip them with the gifts we need.  We’re trusting, not worrying: and God provides.  Just this week, we got confirmation that we have a theological student coming as our full-time intern for July and August, and though I can’t share any details yet, there’s already a good application from an experienced priest who feels called to serve here.

You see, there’s a big gap between chapter 30 – the end of Paul’s life, and chapter 31.  And we’re living in that gap.

Each and every day God calls you individually and together as a church to be part of this incredible story that is still being written.

We know how the story ends.  It hasn’t happened yet, but the same God who kept His word and who empowered ordinary people to do the impossible has said it’s His plan.  We know God’s plan to dwell in paradise with redeemed humanity will be accomplished.

And, not to be harsh, but we should realize at this point that God’s plan doesn’t depend on me or you.  It doesn’t depend on St. John’s.  God will finish what He started with or without us.  But, He invites us to be part of it.  He says “do you trust me?  …Let’s do this!  Come, be part of my story.”

So the only question is whether we say “Lord, that’s crazy, I’m not qualified, I don’t have the answers… but, “I will, with God’s help”.

Or whether we say “no thanks”, and become one of those who stand in the way; whether God accomplishes his plan in spite of us.

My friends, the serpent’s head is crushed.  Death and the grave will be thrown away.  The curse will be ended, and humanity will finally be set free to reflect God’s glory instead of being bent inward on ourselves.  We will, one day, maybe soon, maybe long after we rest with our ancestors, be gathered before God to hear those wonderful words “well done, my good and faithful servant”, and welcomed into the land of love, peace, joy, and light that God had planned from the beginning.  You and I, if we’re willing, will live with all the redeemed in the light of God’s presence, with access to the tree of life itself.

But for now, we’re living in the gap in the Story.  And the characters, unlikely as it may seem, are me and you.

Will we be part of God’s story?  Let’s say yes.  Let’s continue to trust, more than we’ve ever trusted before.  Because you never know – it could be that, a couple generations from now, the story of this little church in this little town is the story that other Christians read for inspiration.  We know God uses the littlest and the least… but first, we have to say “yes”.

To God be the glory, now and forevermore.  Amen.