The Beginning of Life as we Know It

September 19, 2021 — Leave a comment

The Story Chapter 1: Genesis 1-8.
Lessons read in worship:
Genesis 1:1-4, 26, 31a
Romans 8:19-25
John 1:1-14

Well today, obviously, we’re starting at the beginning – not just the beginning of The Story, but the beginning of everything: the creation of the universe.

And this is where we first have to come to terms with a few things.  First, we have to realize – we have to be ready to accept – that God’s revelation of himself in scripture was given to us for a purpose.  Scripture, God’s Word written, is a love story, and it has to be, because God is love. 

That means, right off the bat, we have to accept that the Bible was never intended to be a science textbook, nor a history report, nor even a straightforward instruction manual for how to live – in fact, in the first chapters, we learn more about how not to live, rather than finding any examples to follow.

No – it’s the story of the overflowing love of the Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who together say “let us create”.

Now, there are faithful Christians who say “yes, and all that happened in one week” – and sure, God could have created it all in one week or one day or one in instant if he wanted.  But there are also faithful believers, in every age, going right back to ancient Israel who said ‘the point here isn’t about time’ – after all, the Church has always been quick to point out that you can’t have a 24-hour day if you don’t have the sun and moon to keep track of time. 

No, the point is that in an ongoing fashion, in phases, God’s Will unfolded to create the entire universe out of infinite nothingness, and it starts with a spark, with a flash of light – heat, energy – as the universe begins to spring into being.

And as this grand “Upper Story” is unfolding, what’s the first thing that we can say?

God created, and it was good.

Creation is a positive thing; it is a constructive thing; it is a process that gives life, that shares life, that encourages life, that values life, as the one overflowing Source of Life creates out of love.

It’s good. It’s life-giving.  But then what happens?

…We could say “sin happened”.  That’s the easy, expected answer – and yes, sin changes everything.  But you read it yourself: what changes everything?  The knowledge of evil.

Everything was good when we only knew good.  But once we have an alternative, once we have a reason to doubt, it all goes down the drain, because we become obsessed. 

We question God’s motives.  We become jealous and ashamed and suspicious and play the blame game, as our knowledge of evil, our choice and desire and appetite to know what is bad, and destructive, and life-sucking brings those things into being. 

We were created in God’s image, with the ability to shape the world around us, to take part in that work of creating; but we chose to invoke God’s curse, to know death instead of life, to know work instead of freedom, to know pain instead of joy.

But did you pick up on the biggest change of all?  Sin destroyed relationships.

Once we know manipulation and jealousy and doubt, the relationships that we were created to enjoy are broken.  Our relationship with God is severed: we want to hide from God in our shame rather than walk in his presence.  Our relationship with each other is crushed, as we can no longer trust each other, and have to devote our energy to work and toil rather than the joy of life.  And our relationship with creation is broken, as we experience the hostility of nature, and find ourselves unable to live in harmony with the world around us.

God created, and it was good, but we wanted to know evil too; we wanted to test and make sure that ‘good’ really was good, and so we knew evil.  And just like light and darkness can’t be in the same place, we became obsessed – consumed – with that evil.

But God had a plan.

God, the Holy Trinity, was unwilling for us to know their eternal life in such a sad and sorry state.  Could you imagine – an eternity of this?  It’s hard for us to fathom, but God knew that once we’ve rejected the good, once we’ve turned down the offer to share in God’s creative, life-giving work, once we’ve rejected life, death is the only alternative. 

But, as you’ve read, for God the Source of Life, death doesn’t have to be the end of the story.  With God, death can be redemptive; death can be the path to life.

When those first people went astray, they found themselves ashamed.  It’s a funny image really – people who have never had to work for anything in their lives playing with leaves trying to put together some clothes because they were ashamed of their own bodies.  But leaves aren’t going to cut it.  No, God himself kills – sacrifices – the first animal, as that animal’s skin covers their shame, and becomes the protection they need for life in a hostile world.

So, through all these details in this Lower Story of the beginning of humanity, we see the big picture, Upper Story plan hinted at: God hasn’t given up.  God’s will was to create humanity in his image that we might finally share in the overflowing love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And, in spite of us, he’s going to do that.

But, eternal life, when you’re obsessed with evil, would be an awful, heinous thing.  It takes death – the shedding of blood – to hit reset and open the path to make a new choice, to choose life instead.  But God’s love is such that He’s willing.  God wants us to spend eternity with him so much that even when we choose to hide from him, he’ll pitch his tent and move in among us.  If we choose death, if we choose the path that destroys relationships with God, each other, and creation, He will seek us out to offer us, once more, while there’s breath in our lungs, the opportunity to rebuild those relationships – to be made right in God’s eyes, to learn to live together as brothers and sisters, and to live in hope of re-creation shared by everything that God has made.

God created and it was good.  But we wanted to know evil, and choose evil, even though it leads to death.  But, from the start, God had a plan: that through death, he would offer us the chance at redemption.

And the last point we need to take away from Chapter 1 is this: when, in what you read, did God finish his work?  He didn’t.  No, when things were good, before we chose evil, he rested.  But from that day until this, God hasn’t stopped working.  God the Creator isn’t finished – no my friends, he’s just started!  He’s still equipping and providing and creating the opportunities for us to choose life through death, for us and all creation to be restored in his image.

In your bulletin, I put (in red) the words of William de Witt Hyde that we’ll sing later today:

Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal may ever shine afar —
the will to win it makes us free.

-William de Witt Hyde

“Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal” – God’s will that we should be redeemed and restored, to know and share in his life and love – that goal “may ever shine afar –”

And what makes us free?  “the will to win it makes us free”. 

God’s not done, He, through all of human history, is working towards the same goal that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit set at creation, but because you can’t force a relationship, we have to want – we have to will – to reach that goal, with God’s help.

Finding our place in God’s Story

And so, we find ourselves, our own lower stories in God’s grand Upper Story.  And, my brother and sisters – for that is what we were meant to be – our task, the key to “reverse the curse” is simply to align our will to God’s will.  God has a purpose, God has a plan; we chose the broken relationships, but He chose a path, a plan, a story that leads to redemption.  All we have to do is find our place in that story, and trust in the one who is the source of it all: the One God to whom be all glory, now and forevermore. Amen.

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, of who you are, into something a little different from what it was before. With all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a man that is in harmony with God, and with others, or else into one that is in a state of war with God, and with others. 

To be the one kind of creature is joy and peace; to be the other means madness, rage and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

–C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Story Begins

September 16, 2021 — Leave a comment

Today, as you know, we begin something new.  This is the start of The Story.  Now, I know you’ve been hearing bits and pieces about The Story for months, but here it is: beginning today, this whole church – and, in fact, a few of our friends from the other churches in town – are going to spend the next 31 weeks learning the story of God’s redemption, the story of God’s unchanging, unshakable love for us.

Now I know some are thinking, “oh that’s nice.  Yes, that’ll be good for those people who are newer to church, who didn’t have Sunday School when they were little.”  But this really is something for everyone.

You see, stories are important.  Humans were made to tell stories – you don’t see a mama dog sitting down her pups to tell them about how it felt when she saw you for the first time at the animal shelter.  It’s a nice thought, but telling stories is one of those things that make us unique.  And, of course, we know and we believe that the reason people aren’t quite like other animals is that we are made in the Image of God. 

Storytelling isn’t just something for children.  No, we tell stories every day so that we can make sense of the world.  Stories help us know other people’s character, as we learn how our family, friends, and neighbours acted in a situation.  Far more often than we might even like, we’re bombarded by news stories.  And they are stories – even the barest of facts are strung together so that we can make sense of them, so that we can make up our minds about who was right and who was wrong, as we learn how actions and decisions and events in other places have an effect on us.  If you watched the debate the other night, what you saw there in it’s grandest form is this act of human storytelling, with each party leader narrating their version of how our nation got here, who the good guys and bad guys are, and where they’d like the next chapter to go.

Stories are essential to being human.  Each family has a story, and we’re wired to share it.

So why do we – who are already in church – need to take 31 weeks to learn the Church’s story? 
Isn’t that preaching to the choir?

Maybe not.

Why we need The Story: The Facts

Play along with me… if you have a Bible in your house, raise your hand.

            Great – now, who has two Bibles in their house?  Three?  Four?

Now, who here – either as a child in Sunday School, or as an adult on your own – learned about Adam and Eve?  Who knows the story of Abraham?  What about Moses?  Ok, what about Rahab?  And Ruth?  King David?  Solomon? 

Who knows about Mary and Joseph riding to Bethlehem?  Who’s heard of Pentecost?  Who has heard that Jesus will come again?

Alright… that’s great.  Now: who knows how it all fits together? 


What’s Abraham’s role in the Christmas story? (He has a big one!)
What does Rahab hiding Jewish spies on her roof have to do with Pentecost?

Right. 

So the most recent statistics show that 41% of practicing Christians who have 4 or more Bibles in their homes confessed to researchers that they never read them.  41% — and that’s those who told the truth!

As we’ve been saying for two years now, our job is to reach out – to let people, our family, friends, and neighbours, know about the love and mercy and healing found in Jesus.  But the main reason we’re all so hesitant to do that is, simply, we don’t know what to say.  We’re all able to speak about our families, we all have opinions and some of us could go on all day about politics or what’s happening in our world, but along with that, we need to learn The Story – our story – so that we know our place in it, and just as importantly, so we can invite others to find theirs.

The Unchanging Story of God’s Redemption

Now, there’s another problem worth thinking about.

Yes, the Bible is the story of God’s redemption of the world.  But… isn’t it old? 
Like, very old?  Sure, there’s stuff we can learn, but is it really fair to say that this book from long ago is my story or your story or our story? 

And, that, my friends, is one of the key issues: we’ve been taught to read the Bible in chunks, like it’s a newspaper, where you can read the headlines that catch your attention, but skip over the others, learning a bit along the way. But the Bible isn’t meant to be a history book, a raw collection of facts.  No, the Bible is… a love story, one unfolding account of the Creator of the Universe overflowing with love so that God creates everything that is so that he can invite us into relationship with Himself.  It’s the story of the source of life being so abundant and gracious and merciful that He’ll do what it takes to let us share in that abundant life, if only we’ll choose it.

And, the amazing part that too many of us weren’t taught is that your Bible has a gap. 

The Bible isn’t just long ago and far away – we’ve come this far (the last of the Pastoral Epistles), but we haven’t yet reached the end.  We’re still living the story, it’s still playing out around us.

So there’s a crucial reason that these ancient words still matter.  Yes, the story started long ago; yes, we come and go, like the grass; yes, kingdoms rise and wane; but what about God? 

(Maybe the kids can help us with their memory verse today:  Does Jesus or his love for us change?  “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. Hebrews 14:8) 

That’s the amazing message of The Story.  The times change, the characters change, the locations change, but through it all, in every time and place, God doesn’t change, and his purpose to invite us to share in his abundant life hasn’t changed from the moment that first atom sparked into being. 

Today’s lessons are the perfect example.  Numbers 21: God’s people wandering in the desert, having a hard time trusting him.  Just a chapter earlier God had provided food and water for them, and here they are grumbling because the food is worthless – who cares it filled their bellies and didn’t cost them anything, they just weren’t satisfied.  They start to curse God, who removes his protection from them, and the realities of desert life set in – poisonous snakes crawling everywhere.  But what’s the solution?  To lift up the thing they’re afraid of, face it head on, and trust in God.  Or, as Paul wrote in First Corinthians 1:18-24, or Jesus said in today’s Gospel (John 3:13-17), the solution is… the cross. 

You see, the times, the places, the characters change; but God remains the same.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

As we go through this year together, what we’ll find is that there are two “levels” to the story that we share.  To keep things straight, we’re going to call them the “Upper Story” and the “Lower Story”. 

The Upper Story is the overarching narrative tying it all together.  It’s those things we miss when we’re caught up in the weeds, but where we see God working all things together for good in the big picture.  The Upper Story is where we learn that God is revealing himself to us, and his one plan since the beginning of creation is, simply, to create an eternal people to live with him forever.  That’s the overarching story that we’re living in, because we’re still in that gap.

The Lower Story, then, is how we see God working in ordinary people’s lives.   One of the challenges for us this year is perhaps to undo some of what you learned in Sunday School.  We’re not looking at scripture to find heroes doing incredible things – that’s to miss the point.  No, scripture shows us the stories of ordinary people, people who make bad decisions, get angry, have doubts, but many of whom decide in faith to become part of God’s great plan.  And, as we see God at work in those lower stories of ordinary people, I know for sure that we’ll be better equipped to see God at work in our own lives.

Stories are important. 

We need to know this story, because what God’s doing in your life might seem mysterious, but guess what – it’s no mystery!  God doesn’t change! His desire for you is the same as it is for all people, to invite you to a relationship with him, to learn to reflect his love, to stand in the face of the things that scare us – whether it’s a snake or a lifeless body on a cross – and acknowledge that our only hope is to trust in the one who never changes.

At the same time, I know – I’m absolutely sure – that you’re going to discover something as we walk together through the lower stories.  Guess what: we’re not all that different.  You, me, the annoying neighbour, people around the world, and the people on the pages of scripture.  There really isn’t anything new under the sun, and there’s great encouragement and freedom that comes with learning that no, whatever you and your family are going through isn’t new, you’re not alone, and more importantly, whatever you’re facing won’t thwart God’s plan, if only we learn to trust in his big picture.

We’re made to tell stories.  This year, we’ll tell ours.  May God give us the grace to see how we fit into His, for he’s the same, one God, yesterday, today, and forever.  Amen.

Radical Generosity: I choose to see you as my equal.

September 5, 2021 — Leave a comment

James writes: “What good is it, my friends, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed or hungry, and you say “go in peace, be warm and filled”, without giving them what they need, what good is that?”

Today’s Lessons: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

We’ve all heard and know that faith without works is dead – it’s not enough to believe that Jesus is Lord, to believe that we’re all made in the Image of God and that we have a story of freedom and mercy to bring to all the world, if we’re not going to turn that into real action.

We all know that.

But have you ever thought about the fact that works aren’t just physical things we do: they’re not just deeds done – like feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, or offering a word of encouragement or a listening ear when someone is lost and lonely.  Works are more than that.  There’s a reason that, when we confess our sins, we’re taught to ask for forgiveness not just for things done or left undone, or for the words we’ve said: no, we ask forgiveness for thoughts, words, and deeds.

The big idea for today is that, as much as faith without works is dead, one of those necessary works is changing how we think about and see each other.

God’s Generous Perspective

We all know that God is good and God is generous.  He provides for all people – the good and the bad, the faithful and the self-righteous.  What does anyone of us have that doesn’t boil down to a gift from God?

But as we read in today’s lessons, one of the great gifts of God that we rarely think about is the gift of his generous perspective.  God’s gifts to us aren’t just stuff or talents or health and strength; one of the greatest gifts he gives us is the way he chooses to see us.

In Proverbs today, we’re reminded that, unlike the way the world works, God doesn’t see rich or poor. As James teaches, God doesn’t see well-dressed or shabby, and he doesn’t see worldly power or the many distinctions we make between people.  Jesus shows us today in the Gospel that he doesn’t respect the boundaries we set up about race or language or inequality.

No: the great gift of God’s perspective is that He looks past all of that.  He looks at us, in the moment, as men and women made in His Image, and looks only to see if we’re reflecting that Image back.  He looks past all the distinctions and divisions we make to see if we’ve unpacked – or at least opened – that gift of faith, and whether we’re allowing his love, mercy, joy, peace, and abundant life to shine, reflected back – to His Glory, and for all the world to see.

Reflecting God’s Glory

Now, we’ve spoken before about the fact that we are created to reflect the glory of God.

But it’s important for us to remember that isn’t just about the warm, fuzzy ideas of reflecting God’s love and light.  Faith without works is dead, but one of those works is choosing to look at others as God looks at us, the work of choosing to share God’s perspective both for ourselves and for those around us.  And let me say: that’s a far more difficult task than donating some time, talent, or treasure.  Learning to share God’s perspective is the life-long task of allowing your mind to be transformed, renewed by being an apprentice, a disciple, of Christ Jesus.

Radical Generosity?

It’s easy for us to limit generosity.  The world thinks only of charity, giving from what you have to someone who has less, whether it’s a millionaire generously building a wing on a hospital with their name written over the door, or someone making a donation to support the food bank or PWRDF.  But like so many other things, God’s definition goes deeper, and asks more of us.

Now don’t get me wrong – that charitable sort of generosity is great.  In fact, James says it’s essential.  You can’t get emptier words than looking at a hungry person and saying “oh, feel full!  Think happy thoughts!  Don’t be hungry any more” and walking away! 

But, at the same time, we all know giving great gifts doesn’t mean you have a generous spirit.

So as James says, yes, we’re to fill and clothe those in need, but reflecting God’s generosity means we’re also going to look at them from God’s perspective.

Whether rich or poor, regardless of any of those distinctions or lines we draw based on   race, or gender, or addictions, or whether they’re unemployed, or whether they live in housing, or struggling against a mental illness, or fighting the demons of childhood trauma and broken families, or whether we disagree with how they raise their kids, or even whether they smell and just don’t appear to take pride in what they’ve been given, or even if they’ve earned a reputation for taking advantage of the system – regardless of all of that, God’s perspective is to look at that person and say “yeah, I know what you’ve done, but I love you, and I want you to be my child; I’ll always give you another chance as long as you live – take it, don’t trust yourself, trust in me”.

That’s God’s radical generosity.  And that’s the sort of incredibly hard work, without which our faith is simply dead, little more than empty words saying “be well, be full, be happy”.

Are we willing to look past all those lines that we draw and reflect God’s generous perspective back to a world that divides and enslaves and weighs people down?

Faith in Practice

Faith without works is dead, but the matter of putting faith into action is always a hard one.  God’s not saying “go, be taken advantage of”; after all, it was Jesus who said we’re to be shrewd as serpents but innocent as doves!  And we all know Jesus was making a point when he told the rich young man to sell everything if he wanted to be a disciple: it wasn’t that his stuff kept him from the Kingdom of God, it was the fact that his heart was attached, weighed down by that stuff.

But the point is, when it comes to reflecting God’s generosity, putting faith into action it’s not a matter of just writing a cheque, buying a meal, or spending an hour chatting with one who is sick or lonely. 

God generously looks at each person and says “I love you as much as I love my own Son; I want you to be my child”, so we’re to look at each person – no matter who they are, where they’re from, or what they did[1] – and change our thinking, to do that work of looking at that person and thinking “I want you to be my brother or sister”, of seeing that person, in whatever condition they might be, and honestly saying to yourself “I would love nothing better than if this person, right here, would come to church, put their faith in God, and be my brother or sister in Christ, so we can work together, learn to live together, and bear one-another’s burdens”.

That’s radical generosity.  Anyone – even the most selfish – can put in a few dollars for the Christmas food and toy drive.  But God’s generosity, the one we’re called to share, is to allow your mind to be transformed so that your honest desire is to welcome that hungry, or lonely, or annoying, or lazy, or sly, or mean person into your family of faith, trusting that God can do the same work of forgiving, healing, and changing their heart as he’s done for each of us.

What does the law of God require?

That you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and that you love your neighbour as yourself.

– The Summary of the Law

Yes, that’s our faith.  But the trick is turning faith into action, adopting the perspective, allowing your mind to be trained to think “I don’t see rich or poor.  I don’t see you as powerful, or unemployed. I don’t see you as anything greater or less than my equal, and as God looks at me, I’m going to choose to love you as myself.”

It’s a tall order.  But that’s the kind of faith-in-action that changes lives, and changes communities, and changes the world.  That’s the kind of radical generosity that God is calling us to live.  My God give us his grace to say “ok, here I am, I’m willing, send me.” 

[1] Yes, I guess that is a Backstreet Boys reference.  It just happened… sorry, I grew up in the 90s!

God says, “I would walk 500 miles; and I would walk 500 more!”

August 29, 2021 — Leave a comment

(Ok, maybe that’s a slight paraphrase!)

The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me:

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.”

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

That lesson this morning has to be one of the weirdest in the whole lectionary.   It’s so strange that the BAS offers an alternative just in case we’d rather not deal with it.  But, you should know me well enough by now to know that, if there’s something weird in the Bible, that’s what I’m going to preach a sermon on!

The Song of Solomon is a full-on love poem… or maybe it’s more like a steamy romance novel.  The lectionary, kindly, has given us a pretty PG section – but even here, look at what’s being said: there’s an eager, muscular stag of a lover, leaping over mountains and bounding over hills, and here he is peeking through the windows and poking his face in through the garden lattice just to ask his beloved to run off with him into flowery meadows filled with turtledoves, figs, and vines of juicy grapes.  …And believe me, that’s just the start!

God is… lover?

Now, your whole life, you’ve heard and known that God is love.  “Jesus loves me, this I know”; “God is so good, he cares for me”, and “the King of Love my shepherd is”.  We know that God loves us, that his perfect Fatherly love is far beyond what we could imagine from our earthly parents. He’s one who patiently waits, who sent his own son to seek us out and pay the price of our redemption, and who runs to throw his arms around the prodigal who returns. 

But in the messiness of this world – and if you’ve listened to even 5 minutes of news this week, you’re well aware of the messiness – in all of that, we tend to reduce God’s love to a concept or an idea.  But it’s more than that.  God’s love is action.

Now, this lesson is all one big metaphor, but metaphors and poetry are meant to help us wrap our heads around ideas that are too hard to see and understand on their own.

You know God is love, that he loves you, but did you know that his love is like this?

Nowhere in scripture do we find God pictured as a stern old guy with a long beard, watching from a distance, waiting for an opportunity to scold and punish.  If that’s the image of God you’ve been given – then, on behalf of the Church, I’m sorry, because that’s not what we find anywhere in scripture.

No, this is what we find!

God loves you, God wants to be with you so much that he’s prancing over mountains to get to you!  You’ve heard the song “I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more…”.  Yeah – God loves you like that!

The type of love that God has for you is the love that leads him to climb mountains and valleys, wade across rivers, and cross deserts just to be in a relationship with you; he’ll relentlessly and energetically seek you out just to meet you where you are and say “my love, come away!”.

And, as the metaphor continues, when God gets near us, what does he find?  A wall.  Of course.  (We’re good at building walls, aren’t we?).  But does that keep God from the love he has for us? 

No, as we read in that weird lesson this morning, God becomes a bit of a peeping tom!  But he’s not watching, making a list, checking it twice, trying to find out if you’re naughty or nice – that’s not God!  No, whenever we put up a wall, we know God gave us free will and respects our decision, but God’s going to be there peering in through the windows, trying to get your attention.  If you’ve got a fence made of lattice, he’s going to be calling out through the openings “come away, I love you, you don’t have to stay in there!  There’s a feast, and flowery meadows, and streams of living water!  I love you, come with me!  Let me show you!”

When we say God is love, when we sing about love divine, it’s that sort of love: a love that seeks us out, a love that will not let me go, and even if I’ve put up a wall, he’s peeking in through the windows and calling out over the fence saying “come”, you don’t have to stay in there, let me show you how much you are loved; let my glory be revealed in you – redeemed, restored, and being made fully alive![1]

Requited Love?

If that’s how God loves us – not something earned, not something conditional – then what’s our part in that?

We just need to be responsive to God’s love.

It’s as easy as that; this isn’t an over-simplification.

When you hear that faint “come away!  Trust me!  Let me show you what I’ve got planned!  It doesn’t have to be like this!  Come with me!”, well, you know what?  It’s in those moments that we need to be doers of the word, and not hearers only.  God loves us, he just wants us to respond.

When you’ve got that knot in your gut, when a situation just isn’t sitting well, when you can’t rest, and you’re anxious, and you just can’t find any peace, that tension is because the one who offers peace that passes understanding is peering in through the window in the wall you built, calling out “come away, it doesn’t have to be like this, let’s do it my way, I’ll show you how good it can be!”.

But what does James say?[2]

God loves us, he thinks we’re beautiful, he sees our potential and wants to be with us so that we can see all that he has in store for us. 

But we hear that, and James says we’re like those who look in a mirror but just can’t accept what we’re seeing.  We know God loves us, but then we start to say “no, I don’t know what God sees in me.  How could God love me?”

And rather than answering God’s call, we dismiss his voice, and draw the blinds so we don’t see him waving outside the window.

But what God wants is for us to listen.  He’s already made all the effort.

He wants to lift us up and lead us on.  And yeah, it will lead back over those mountains and through those valleys that he crossed to find us, but he’ll be with us, to comfort, guide, direct, and provide along the way.

He’s calling.  Each of us can hear him faintly through the walls we’ve built.  Each of us can feel him in our gut when we’re apart from his peace.  But, when we hear or feel that Word, the right response is to just do it: to see ourselves as God sees us, to love those whom God loves; to bridle our tongues – and I think that’s as much about the lies we tell ourselves as what we say to each other; and to keep our hearts open, making room for God to purify them; as Jesus said today, it’s not what comes in that makes us a mess, it’s what resides in our heart that makes us a mess.[3]

“Behold, here God comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills! He’s like a gazelle, or a stag!  God is here, calling out over your wall, gazing in through your windows, saying, “I love you.  Trust in me!  Come away.”

We hear and feel that Word every day.  He’s made that effort.  Now, may we have the grace to respond.  Amen.

[1] St. Irenaeus, in arguing against those said God’s favour had to be earned, famously summarized scripture in saying “the Glory of God is a human person made fully alive” by beholding the likeness of God in Christ Jesus, face to face.  As James 1:17-18 and the whole design of worship under the Old Covenant shows, God’s glory isn’t a thing for us to look at, as though he’s lacking if his glory goes unnoticed; God’s glory is revealed through the act of broken, sinful people like us being brought in, cleaned up, healed, restored, and made to share his overflowing and abundant life!

[2] James 1:17-27

[3] Mark 7:21-23

God in a box? The problem of perspective.

August 22, 2021 — Leave a comment

As human beings, one of our biggest skills is putting things into boxes.

No, I don’t mean physically packing things away in boxes.  But one of the things that sets us apart from animals, one of the ways we show this God-given gift of reason is our ability to categorize things, to understand what something does, and to give it a proper place.

If you give a dog a nice big ham bone after Sunday dinner, that dog has no problem taking that juicy, dripping bone and running to her soft bed or, if you’re not watching, taking that wet bone up on the couch.  And if your dog gets wet, he has no problem shaking that water off wherever he is, throwing that water in every direction.  People are different – at least we can be; we’re built to organize and categorize our lives.  We have one room for cooking, another area for eating, one room for showering, and unlike that dog, we had better dry off before tracking that water through the hall back to the bedroom!

That ability to distinguish between things, to compare and contrast things that have no obvious connection in nature is part of the Image of God given to us. 

Yet, as we read today in the book of Kings, we have to acknowledge the limits of our ability to categorize things, to put things in neat little boxes.  We have to remember that our experience is limited by our experience, that our perspective is limited by the position in which we find ourselves, and our ability to imagine what is possible is limited by the weakness of our own power to change the world around us.

God in a box.

All of us know in our heads that God is present everywhere.  ‘Where can I go to escape your presence?  If I go to the highest mountain or the deepest depths of the sea, even if I go to the grave, you are there.’ (Psalm 139). 

And maybe you’ve never thought of it this way before, but as we’ll see this year as we read The Story together, God’s singular desire is for us to live with Him; all of scripture is God showing the lengths to which the Trinity will go to bring us into their life and presence. 

But as we come to our Old Testament lesson today, we see God being put into a box.

Now, throughout the history of God’s people, He’s been with them, revealed in different ways at different times.  In dreams and visions, in the visitation of angels; the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire that led from captivity to freedom, as a smoky cloud of power and presence that hovered over the Ark of the Covenant in the tent of meeting as Israel wandered the wilderness.  But now, having come to peace in the promised land, King David had been hard at work building up the city of Jerusalem, erecting strong walls and gates, and a lofty palace to rival the homes of neighbouring kingdoms.  And then he asks the question: is it right that I, the king, live in a palace, while God is worshipped in a tent? (2 Samuel 7:2).  God refuses to let David build the house of God, because he had shed too much human blood in battle; instead, God appoints Solomon, David’s son, to build the temple where God’s presence would reside.

Solomon does that.  Construction takes 7 years.  It’s an big structure, even by modern standards.  The holy of holies – the dwelling place of God – is at the centre, a windowless box with 40-foot ceilings, surrounded by an inner courtyard for sacrifice and thanksgiving, and an enormous outer courtyard for teaching and worship and public festivals. 

But here’s the amazing thing: God, who is present everywhere, whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain, actually moves in.  God’s desire for us to live with him is so great that the Creator will move into – take up residence in – the creation.

The question, though, is why does God do that?

Did God need a house?  Was he lacking in wood and marble, in silver and gold, in incense and offerings?  No, not at all. 

God takes up residence in the temple, just as he takes up residence here, in this holy house of worship, for our sake.  God knows we were created with the gift and curiosity to try and understand the world – after all, that’s God’s Image in us.  God chooses to be present and worshipped in visible, physical ways because he knows we have trouble perceiving what we cannot see; he knows that our perspective is limited to what is right there, in front of our eyes.

You may have heard it preached before that the good news of the new covenant is that God is not contained in a temple far away in Jerusalem.  And that’s true – God is not contained in any box made by human hands.  But the amazing truth we read in scripture is that God is willing to take up residence among us. 

God is not a philosophy; God is not a feeling; God is not a theology or rules or a set of right answers to rhyme off.  God is alive; God is someone we can know; God wants us to live with him, and he’s willing to do what it takes to make that happen – even taking up residence within four walls if that’s what it takes for us to experience the reality of His presence.

The Problem of Perspective

But even God moving in and being really present in a house in each neighbourhood is not enough for many to see and accept his presence.

Remember back in the Garden of Eden?  The temptation offered by the serpent wasn’t to disobey God – that’s not enticing at all.  The temptation that got Eve to eat that fruit was the temptation to trust her own perspective.  That’s enticing.  The serpent didn’t say “go ahead, disobey God!”.  The serpent said “that fruit looks nice, doesn’t it?”  “Looks like a good fruit, don’t you think?”  “God said it would kill you, but it doesn’t look like it would kill you, does it?”  “Maybe it’s so good, God just doesn’t want you to have it”. 

The temptation that led to sin invading the world was the temptation to limit the truth to our own perspective.  The temptation to think that we have all the facts instead of trusting that God knows the big picture and, even when it doesn’t make much sense to us, He is working things together for the good of those who love him.

God took up residence in Solomon’s temple, to be the crowning glory of His people, now established in the promised land.  God moved into those four walls, not that they contained him, but so that his people would have a place to come to be assured of his presence; just as we have a bedroom for sleeping and a kitchen for eating, so too the faithful would have a place of prayer, a place where, each year, each month, each week, they could gather, choose to see things from God’s perspective, repent of all the times we did and said or acted – or made excuses – based on our own perspectives, and in that place know the truth that God wants us to live with him so much that he makes himself present even in our messy, complicated lives.

But the temptation to trust our own perspective is always there, the temptation to falsely believe that our understanding, our point of view is the full story, rather than trusting in God’s big picture.

It’s an attractive temptation, and closer to home than we like to admit.  In the Gospel today, Jesus says that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood abides in him.  At the last supper Jesus says ‘this bread is my body; this cup is my blood; when you gather, do this to recall my covenant with you’.  Once again, God’s desire is to be with us in a tangible way, for us to know he is present with us around the table in the act of taking our daily bread.  But how much ink and energy has been wasted; how much blood and how many lives were lost in the wars at the Reformation because we look from our perspectives and say “how can God fit in a piece of bread?”.

But the point of the temple or the Eucharist was never to contain God, to mark his limits.  It’s the total opposite; if we see it from God’s perspective, the point is that God loves you so much that he wants to live in these four walls for you to come and visit; he wants to sit with you at the table; and he wants to take up residence in you, to guide and direct and comfort you from the inside out.

Discipleship and “Checking Boxes”

I’ve had lots of conversations lately about the day-to-day actions of our faith.  Since that discipleship training day back in June, a number of you have been experimenting with morning or evening prayer, with spending a few minutes reading scripture each day, or taking on a new role in outreach and caring for one another, or even reframing your care for those around you as an act of obedience to the Lord.

As we prepare to embark on a parish-wide year of bible reading with The Story, it’s important for us to remember that, when we see things from God’s perspective, even little actions will have ripple effect far bigger than we can imagine from our point of view.

Solomon preaches at the dedication of the temple that if a foreigner – that is, someone outside of God’s covenant – even turns toward God’s house, God will hear and act.  If one of the faithful – you or I – comes to seek God’s mercy and comfort, it is given. 

Now think about that.  A stranger, walking down the other side of the street, depressed and anxious on the way to work, hears the bell at 8am, sees the church and says “if there’s even a God, I need help.”  That’s an act of faith – yes, a tiny one – but it’s one that God hears as he continues his work of helping her to align her will with his.

It’s just as Paul tells us today to do the work of putting on the armour of faith.  Not fall into it, not wake up and magically find yourself fully dressed, but do the action, put it on.  Wear the truth, strap on righteousness, know the peace that comes from being ready to trust God’s big picture rather than your own perspective, and faithfully pick up the gift of faith as it is strengthened by the Spirit dwelling in you and the Word of God going into your eyes and ears each day.

My friends, God can’t be contained in a box… or a temple, or a church, or a set of rules, or a piece of bread, or a theology book, or a plan for discipleship.  But God wills to dwell with us in real and visible ways.  We’re not checking boxes or doing empty rituals; we’re taking God at his word!  When he says “gather in my presence”, gather in his presence.  When he says “read my Word”, let’s do it.  When he says “if you serve one of the least of these, you’ve served me”, let’s serve him.  When he says “repent, and agree to see things as they really are”, confess and change your way. When he says “go out and invite them in”, let’s roll out the welcome mat, and when he says “trust me, I’m with you always”, let’s learn to take him at his word, even when we can’t – no, especially when we can’t see what he’s doing, or where he’s leading, or what he has in store.  It’s in those moments, standing on the promises of God, that we truly learn that God’s will is to be with us here and now, so that we can be with Him forever.

To God be the glory.  Amen.

The Virgin Mary: Someone we can relate to!

August 15, 2021 — Leave a comment

Today the Church invites us to remember, celebrate, and learn from the life and witness of St. Mary the Virgin, the mother of the Lord.  Now I suspect, as in most Anglican circles, some of us come with a strong affection for the blessed virgin, while others are perhaps even a little uncomfortable with the mention of her name, as it brings to mind all the reasons why Christians need to be careful not to become obsessed with saints to the point that it gets in the way of worshipping God and serving our neighbours.

But, you should know me well enough by now to know that I believe there’s always real value in digging in, getting underneath those assumptions, those things that we bring with us when we hear scripture, and instead open our ears and our hearts to hear what God is saying in his Word.

If Jesus is born a man like us, his mother must be a woman like us.

The fundamental reason that we celebrate this day is the simple-yet-mind-blowing fact that we believe that Mary, an ordinary, faithful woman growing up in an ordinary home, going about her business of loving God and loving her neighbour, became the God bearer, became the one who bore Jesus Christ, the one though whom all things were made.  God – supreme over all the universe – loved us so much that he entered into a young woman’s belly for our sake; not unlike the way he continues to be present among us, becoming our heavenly food and drink for our sake (but that’s another sermon for another day).

The point is, I think we need to strip away some of the ‘hype’ about the virgin Mary, so that our eyes can be open to the shocking extent of God’s love for us.

As Christians, we believe that God became man; he became one of us.  He didn’t become like one of us.  He became one of us, except – being God – he was able to do what we could not, and resist the power of sin, and forge a new path for us to follow.

If we strip away the pious romanticism about Mary and the holy family, I believe we’ll find great comfort.  We’ll find a saviour who doesn’t just know about our griefs and burdens and struggles,[1] but who knows them, who has seen them first hand, not just from his throne in glory, but in the dusty streets and in the joy and tears in the faces of those around him.

Mary’s Messy Life

If we stick to the words of scripture, we’ll see that Mary isn’t all that different than any of us.  And that’s the point – God didn’t choose some super-human heroine to rub our messy lives in our faces; not at all!  No, Jesus came to share our lives, to walk alongside us, to give us an example, and to reach out in love to lift our heavy burdens as we learn to take them off our worn-down shoulders, and share our yoke with the one who holds it all together and offers to lift us up if we’ll follow where he leads.

As we look at Mary from the pages of scripture, we see someone who looks familiar.

She’s a young woman who loves God, who trusts in His promises, but like any of us, is still shocked to find out that she has a role to play in God’s plan.

She finds herself saying “yes” to God in a difficult situation – a situation that throws everything that she and her parents have planned for her into a tailspin.  As much as Christmas pageants tend to gloss over the situation, she finds herself as the talk of the town, pushing her fiancé’s patience to the limit as he tries to distance himself from the scandal.  And it’s no small thing – we usually skip over those verses in Luke 1 where, after Mary conceives the Lord (and, as Matthew tells us, after word gets out), she leaves town in a hurry, leaves her parents’ house and Joseph’s family, and this pregnant woman travels 160 km by foot to her cousin’s house in Hebron.[2]  She makes that hard journey home three months later, just in time to head out with Joseph once more to Bethlehem to do paperwork for the census when she’s nearly full term.

Mary’s life wasn’t the romanticized one of Christmas cards and the soft, flowing fabrics of statues and artwork.

She was a busy mother of what might have been a blended family.  The gospels tell us that Jesus has at least 6 siblings, four brothers and at least two sisters.  Unlike most people in that era, Mary didn’t always have the support of her extended family.  We know they moved around: they moved all the way to Egypt with a toddler before returning to Nazareth.  And, as much as 17th century art work has given us the image of Joseph and Jesus working in a woodshop making furniture, what we do know from the actual words of scripture is that Mary’s husband has a skilled trade working in construction.  We know from historical sources that there was a shortage of construction workers in the early first century because of all the Roman construction in the area, so for Joseph to earn that reputation, chances are that he was like so many working in the mines, or the oil patch, or foreign workers harvesting in our fields today, leaving home for work during the construction season, and leaving Mary home with the kids to make ends meet until the next payday. 

Jesus knows what it is to grow up in a working home, where parents are making costly and painful sacrifices, facing loneliness and difficult decisions.

I also feel for Mary because I know what it is to have a son who speaks his mind, who tends to see things as they really are, and who is discontent with the simple, expected answers to life’s questions.  We know, from age 12, Jesus was teaching others to read the scriptures properly.  I can only imagine what that was like at home, or what sort of reports got sent home from Sabbath School at the synagogue.  And, of course, we know from John 7 that Jesus and his brothers didn’t always get along as adults, so we can well imagine what Mary went through when they were growing up.

And then it would seem, too, that somewhere along the way, by the time Jesus is ministering publicly, Mary is widowed, standing alone with the other women at the cross watching, helpless, as her own son dies, having pushed the limits of love, having done what is right rather than what is expected, as He finally accomplished that purpose as Messiah that she had secretly carried in her heart since the day the angel visited over three decades before.

Jesus knows what it’s like to test a parents’ patience; to see a family struggling to hold it together; to see relationships strained; to know real heartbreak, and the pain of loss.

Scripture paints a picture of Mary that isn’t extraordinary or super-human, but instead looks a lot like us.  And that’s good news, because God didn’t come for those who have their lives all put together; he came to save those who were perishing, to lift up those who were worn down, to carry the burdens and heal those who are willing to be honest and ask for the help that Christ offers to all.

Mary, full of grace.

Mary needs to be like us, so that her Son, Jesus, can be like us.

And yet the angel says “Hail, favoured one”, “Hail, full-of-grace”, “Hail, you who are blessed among women”.[3]

And, so I ask, is that grace, that favour in the Lord’s sight earned because of any special thing that Mary has done?

No. The good news about Mary’s life and witness is that it could be any of us.  Like all of the saints throughout history, Mary did nothing to deserve her part in God’s plan.  Mary certainly wasn’t full of her own grace; she received the grace of her saviour as much as anyone else.

Rather, Mary finds favour in God’s sight, she’s blessed among women because, as God calls, her heart is open, she trusts His promises, and she says yes.

She’s one of only two people named in the Creed – Mary says “yes” to God, Pontius Pilate says “no”. 

Called to be saints.

And so, whatever mess or stress or pain we find ourselves in – and let’s be honest, we’ve all got stress, and we’ve all got a bit of a mess – Jesus knows what it’s all about.  He’s been in a small town, he’s been in a messy family, nothing you’ve got is going to surprise Him.  So put your trust in him, and take him at his word.  Let him carry your burden with you; put his yoke around your neck and let his strong back pull you along when you’re at the end of your rope. 

Because, as the body of Christ gathered here, we too are called to be saints.

Like Mary, we’re not saints because our lives are perfect; the saints are those who say yes to God even when they’re not. 

So, my friends, whatever you’re facing and whatever you’re carrying, as we come to pray, as we confess things done and left undone, as we approach the Lord’s table to say “Amen” – “so be it” – and take the Lord’s body into our bellies, let’s take this opportunity to say “yes”, to hand it over, and to trust in the one who has been there, and who reaches out in love – even Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

[1] Isaiah 53

[2] Luke 1:39-40 says Mary went with haste to see Zechariah and Elizabeth in the hill country of Judah.  Zechariah was a priest (Luke 1:5-7).  Joshua 21:10-11 identifies “Hebron, in the hill country of Judah” as the city of the priests.

[3] Luke 1:28

The dangerous lie of self-reliance

August 1, 2021 — Leave a comment

We live in a world based on personal choices.  Our society is based on the freedom to choose: we can decide what we want to be when we grow up, and work towards it; we can choose who we want to marry; more than ever before, we can choose where we want to live, as families are spread out across the world; we can choose our leaders at the ballot box; we can choose which church we attend, or not to attend at all.  Modern society is founded on the idea of choice.  Even when it comes to controversial topics, the virtue we hear spread far and wide is the ‘virtue’ of minding your own business.

Now don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot of benefits that come from our freedom to make decisions.  As Kristina and I celebrate 10 years of marriage this week, I’m reminded that even 60 years ago, our marriage would have been practically impossible: she was raised a Roman Catholic, and I’m an Anglican; it’s not that long ago in Newfoundland that the idea of ‘intermarriage’ would have been completely unthinkable.  Or, even my freedom to answer God’s call to ministry: it wasn’t that long ago that the son of a fisherman simply couldn’t choose to attend university, let alone find himself kneeling before a bishop to present himself for ordination.  There’s a lot of good that comes with the ability to choose.

But there’s a flipside to that, one that we rarely think about.

As “mind your business” has been drilled into us by the world, we’ve learned along the way that my life is my business.  We’ve learned that, just as we’re free to make choices, we’re supposed to depend on ourselves to carry them out.  And, when things don’t work out, what are we taught to do?  Forge ahead, making lemonade out of lemons.

The flipside of the freedom to choose is the lie that life is meant to be every person for themselves.

Building one another up.

One of the most radical – and, sadly, under-emphasized – ideas of Christianity is that it’s not each to his own, come hell or high water.  The radical truth that we proclaim is that your efforts won’t secure your success; that it isn’t up to us to pull ourselves up and dust ourselves off; that the most important choice we can make is to surrender our supposed freedom to the Lord and accept the shared life of the Body of Christ.

But it’s a hard lesson, isn’t it? The best choice we can ever make is to stop relying on ourselves alone.

This lie of self-reliance, the flip-side of everyone having to mind their own business, is truly heartbreaking.  If our eyes are open, we see the effects even here in our little church.

Every week… no, closer to every day that I walk around town ‘in uniform’, I run into hurting people who come straight out and say “oh, you’re the minister?  I can’t come to church until I get my life back together”, or, “you wouldn’t want someone like me in your church”.

It’s gut-wrenching.  There’s all sorts of explanations, but a big part of it is the lie that we have to put ourselves back together.  It’s the downside of a world that tells us to “mind your own business”.

Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself: what’s the instinct when you’ve had a bad week, when something embarrassing or sensitive has happened, or when word gets out that your marriage is in a rough place, or money is too tight, or you had too much to drink and made a fool of yourself, or it turns out that your child isn’t a model of good character?  Our instinct – taught over and over again by a society built on self-sufficiency – is to hide away.

At those very moments when God has provided the Church, the Body of Christ, and instructed us very plainly that we are to carry one another’s burdens, not just to rejoice with those who rejoice, but to weep with those who are hurting and, when someone finds themselves beat up and lying in the ditch of life, to bind them up and nurse them back to health. The twin lies of minding your own business and relying on no one but yourself lead us to reject the fellowship and ministry of the Church… at least, we say, until we straighten ourselves out first.

As we read this morning in Ephesians, the message of the Gospel is the exact opposite, almost uncomfortably so.

“walk… with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” (It’s as if Paul knows it’s going to be messy!)  “… There is one body and one Spirit…” and the work of the ministry that we offer to each other isn’t from a place of ‘having it all together’.  No, what does Paul write?  He says that on our own, we’re immature, “tossed two and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” and by craftiness and deceit.[1] 

On the one hand: ouch!  That’s pretty harsh, especially as those raised to fend for ourselves: Paul says we’re immature and easily tossed around.  But if we can get away from that lie of self-reliance, we’ll find that the message of the Gospel, that God’s plan, is for us to be knit together, a family where every person – broken though we may be – has a place and the opportunity to both build one-another up and to be built up by the ministry of God through others.

Just look at that last line from today’s epistle: “when each part is working properly” – joined to Christ, the head – it “makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love”.

Do we build ourselves up?  Do we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps?  Does the person lying beaten in the ditch have to clean himself up first and take a shower before the Samaritan can bring him to hospital?  Does the family carrying the burdens of life need to get their act together before they come to  my office?  Does the drunk on the bench at the four-way need to get sober before she’s welcome at a recovery meeting?  No!

Sure, it’s insulting, but Paul’s pretty clear: you can’t build yourself up, you’ll only be tossed about and blown around by lies.  What we need is to come together, all of us as imperfect followers of Jesus, and the result is that we’ll all be built up together, better than we could ever be alone.

It takes that harsh realization that yes, all I once held dear, and everything I’ve tried, everything I’ve built my life upon, at worst it backfired; at best, it’s going to be worthless because I can’t take it with me.  It takes the bold move to go against everything the world teaches, and instead of putting on a brave face and listing the things that make you a “good person”, admitting that the greatest thing you can do is make the choice to surrender, to proclaim not yourself – successes and failures – but proclaim the love of Jesus, and to say together with all the Body that Christ alone is the sure foundation, our only strength and stay amid the waves and winds of life.

Just imagine if word got out that the Church was the place to go when life is rough, not the place to hide away from until you get your life together or make yourself “good enough”.  Just imagine if word got out that the Church was a hospital for sinners, where our business isn’t “minding your business”, but carrying one another, lifting one another up, working together as apprentices of Jesus our Master, as we are built up together.

It’s a choice.

As great as it is to live in a world of choices, a world where we can choose to be what we want to be, it means we have to be honest about the shocking message of the Gospel. 

More than ever before, we’re told to seek what makes us happy; we’re told to find fulfilment and to find our purpose; to be mindful and seek our well-being, to satisfy that inner hunger.  We’re not unlike that crowd in the Gospel, who had their bellies filled with loaves and fishes, so they showed up the next day looking to get their bellies filled again.[2]

But the choice of turning to Jesus, the choice of coming into the embrace of the Church isn’t one of choosing what fills you up or makes you feel good.  It’s the stunning act of saying “yes, I’m free to choose; I’m free to go it alone.  But, I choose to come as I am – not as I hope to be, I choose to surrender, I choose to give up chasing what fills me up or makes me happy, and instead I offer myself as a servant, to begin the work of being built up by the Body of Christ, as I also let myself be used by Christ to build up others.

That’s the key to growing into maturity as followers of Jesus, of becoming all that God wants us to be to do the work he has given us to do.  And, in a world of choices, yes it starts with a choice: the earth-shattering, life-changing choice to stop going it alone, to admit that, yes, as harsh as it sounds, left to my own devices, I will be blown around by the lies of the world, so I choose the sure foundation that is faith in Jesus.

Relying on ourselves and following our bellies will leave us tossed about and empty.  But whoever turns to Jesus will never hunger or thirst, and will find themselves built into something greater than we could ever ask or imagine. To God be the glory. Amen.

[1] Ephesians 4:1-16

[2] Luke 6:24-35

Our National Inheritance: a mess.

July 4, 2021 — 1 Comment

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

On this Sunday closest to Canada Day, we’re right to notice the difference in tone as our nation begins to recognize the human cost of securing worldly power.  As Christians, we’re to acknowledge the authority of government,[1] and should rightly be thankful for the widespread peace, freedom, and prosperity that we enjoy as Canadians – things that so many of our brothers and sisters around the world can only dream of. 

Yet, our Christian duty requires us to flee from any blind patriotism.  As St. Paul instructs the Church, we’re to see ourselves as dual-citizens or even ‘resident aliens’; we proclaim in the Creed that even our own country of Canada won’t last forever, but like everything else will come under the judgement of Christ, where the question isn’t whether or not we stood proudly and waved this or that flag, but whether we understood ourselves as needing the mercy that only God can give, whether we sought to be faithful with what we’ve been given, and when we fell short, whether we admitted it, stood back and looked at the situation from God’s perspective, and did our part to change course. 

Our National Inheritance.

Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation had this to say when the bodies of 781 children were found on their territory.

“You know, in 2021, we all inherited this.  Nobody today created residential schools. Nobody today created the Indian Act.  Nobody today created the Sixties Scoop.[2] But we all inherited this.  And if we want to say we’re proud Canadians, then we will accept the beautiful country we have today, and we will accept what we all inherited…”

Chief Cadmus Delorme, Cowessess First Nation

While the truth is very uncomfortable, as Christians, we should be familiar with the idea that yes, the effects of sin can be inherited – as pain, suffering, disadvantage, worldly wealth and power are passed from generation to generation.  We believe that even the most beautiful, innocent-looking baby isn’t born neutral, with a blank slate to choose their future; but we’re all bent inward and – left to our own devices – will seek our own glory and our own good at the expense of others.

No, we don’t bear the guilt for the sins of those who have gone before; but we do inherit the mess.  And if one thing should be absolutely clear from scripture, it’s that if we try to cling to things of the past in order to change them, we’ll lose sight of the present and future; we can’t undo the past.  No, rather, our task is to be faithful to the Lord’s calling to imitate Him as His disciples – to be faithful with the mess we’ve inherited.

An Inherited Mess.

On first glance, if you flip back to your lesson from 2 Samuel 5,[3] it might look as though this lesson displays a day of national pride.  It’s the coronation of a new king, a king beloved by the people and confirmed by the word of the Lord.  A wonderful record of the triumphant history of a king who restored and rebuilt the capital at Jerusalem, rebuilding its walls and restoring its glory.

But this is where knowledge of the whole story of scripture is important.  David, my friends, inherited a mess.

When God led his people out of Egypt and into the promised land, He never intended for them to have a king like other nations.  Kings make laws; kings decide a nation’s destiny.  No, the Lord would be Israel’s king, and instead, they would be led by judges, those men and women who had the task of reading God’s Word and interpreting it faithfully to the situation the people found themselves in.  Whether it was a war, a property dispute, a case of divorce, or the building of a new city, the judges’ role was to decide whether the actions of those involved showed love for God and love for each neighbour as yourself, as illustrated by all of God’s instructions.

But the people grew tired of that pretty quickly.  You see, it’s hard to become powerful in the sight of your enemies when you’re loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  It’s hard to amass a goodly inheritance for your children when you’re also concerned with loving your neighbour’s children and seeking their best interests too.  By the time Moses’ grandson was judge over Israel, the people north of Jerusalem had realized they could do better with trade if they worshipped the idols of the Canaanites instead.  From there, the people spiraled away from seeking the Lord’s will, until finally, with the people divided, worshipping whatever they wanted, and forgetting the calling to love God and neighbour, they find themselves facing a hostile enemy.

They remember the old stories about God strengthening their great-great-grandfathers in their time of need, so they go to the house of the Lord and take the ark of the covenant – the ark containing the Law of God which they’ve neglected to read, and containing the bread of the Lord’s provision, which they’ve long since given up for favour of trusting in their own strength.  And, without seeking the Lord’s will or help, they take that central symbol of God’s love, mercy, care, and provision and march it out as a triumphant sign on the field of battle, as they conveniently claimed to be acting in the name of the Lord.  And then, much to their surprise, the Lord doesn’t come to their aid, but allows them to experience the consequences of their faithlessness.  The ark – the very symbol of the people of Israel and God’s leading them out of Egypt and into the promised land – is captured by their enemies, and they return home broken and bruised.

So, having forgotten the law and lost what they thought was a symbol of power, they chose a king – Saul, a man known for his impatience, his bravery, and his jealous – even murderous – protection of what is his.  They seek out a prophet to anoint him as king over the people of God; they don’t want someone to interpret God’s law, they want a strong man who can make new laws as he wants.  The Lord is furious, and yet, he bears patiently with those faithful few who call upon him and seek his will.  Ultimately, Saul disobeys the word of God given through the prophets, loses his faith, becomes unable to trust anyone around him, falls into despair, and takes his own life without an heir to take the throne.

David, the young shepherd that God called and equipped to serve him, inherited a real mess.  God never intended that Israel would have a human king in the first place, and yet, because of the effects of the sins of those who went before, here we are.  God never abandons us even in the worst mess that human sin can create, but rather reaches out his hand, calls us to cling to him not to whisp us away, but to give us the strength to be faithful in and through the mess, knowing that faithfulness is not just personal, but is intended to bring the good news of hope and restoration and mercy and healing and peace to our neighbours or even those who would be our enemies. 

Reconciliation: A task best done in weakness.

Being faithful in the mess is a tall order, not least because each of us are the product of part of that mess, and carry the baggage.  Though it’s not what God intended, your skin, your language, and your last name bear the weight of one side or the other of a long and complex history, a tangled web of injustice and oppression.  We bear that as our inheritance, even as we seek to be faithful.  But, you know, it’s not unlike our Lord, or any faithful prophet, who is looked at suspiciously in their hometown.  We bear the weight of that family history – they look at Jesus, the one who had healed thousands and preached at every village around, but all they wanted to see was the carpenter’s son.  Even the Lord won’t open the eyes of those who don’t want to see – but that doesn’t change the call to be faithful and do what God requires.

Rather, when it comes to reconciliation, when it comes to both the mess and the freedom, peace, and prosperity that we have inherited as Canadians, like Paul, we can say that weakness is a gift.

When we’re strong, when we’re in the spotlight, when we’re on top of the world, we could boast – no let’s be honest, we would boast in ourselves.  But, it’s in the mess; it’s in opening our eyes to the pain and disadvantage inherited by our neighbours and fellow-Canadians; it’s in experiencing not the guilt, but the weight that comes with being those who inherited one side or the other of this mess of injustice; it’s there that we learn to depend not on strength, but on grace.

“’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me”

No, not just weaknesses, but “I am content with insults, hardships, persecutions,” and, as we look at the violence that pain and anger bring on, even “calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

My fellow Canadians; my brothers and sisters in Christ; let us not look to worldly power, or prestige, or ways to quiet and bottle up pain by easy words and federal dollar signs.  We have inherited a mess; God reaches out to us – He calls out to us – where we are; and our task as dual-citizens of the Kingdom of God is to be faithful, accepting weakness as the pathway to healing and peace, as worldly power is replaced by the power of Christ, to heal and to save, as God seeks to draw all people to himself.

Love God.  Love your neighbour.  Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.  Amen.

[1] Romans 13

[2] Sixties Scoop | The Canadian Encyclopedia

[3] As it happens, a typo on a chart two months ago led to this lesson being read instead of the one actually appointed for this morning.  Never dismiss a coincidence that may be God’s providence!

God’s presence is life.

June 27, 2021 — Leave a comment

Mark 5:21-43

Once upon a time there was a freshly-ordained deacon.  She had been a convert to Christianity while she was in university, one who really dug in to understand the richness of the traditions that had been passed down through the ages, as the rich symbolism and language and ritual became tools which helped her understand the good news and the Christian life. 

One Sunday at her new parish, she was assisting the priest in getting ready for the service when a life-long member of the congregation burst in through the sacristy door.  “Is that incense?!” the older woman said.

The young deacon, having first met Jesus when she was enthralled by the rich sights, sounds, and smells of Christian worship looked up.  She was always happy to dive in and point out the many aspects of our worship tradition that draw directly upon the scriptures and shape, form, and re-focus us towards the things of eternity.  “Yes,” she said, “it’s a major feast of the church’s year, and we’ll offer incense to God at the altar, as the smoke purifies ourselves as an offering to God!”.

“I don’t care what day it is”, the parishioner said.  “I have bad asthma, and I just can’t sit up front – in my pew – if there’s going to be smoke!”

The eager young deacon heard pain and frustration in the woman’s voice.  She reached into her pocket, reaching for her stock of anointing oil.

“That must be so hard,” the young deacon said.  “But we know God still heals, and he’ll do more than we can even ask or imagine.  If it’s alright, I’d love to pray with you and anoint you, that God would heal you of your asthma.”

The parishioner turned beet red.  “No!”, she snorted.  “I don’t want to be healed – I just want you to put that smoke away so I can sit in my pew!”.

Do you want to be well?

We all need healing.  We all will need healing as, by God’s grace, the scars, pain, and trauma of broken people in a broken world are bound up, anointed, and brought back to life as both our bodies and our hearts are made more fully alive, better able to receive and reflect the life and light that God desires to share with each of us.

But, no matter what sort of healing we require, step 1 is always acknowledging that we need it.  Whether the ailment is physical, mental, spiritual, or in our relationships, we first need to realize when something isn’t as it ought to be, we need to realize that we need a power greater than ourselves to fix it, but most importantly, whether we want to heal our broken relationships, whether we want to soften and heal the calloused wounds of the past, or whether we need strength to deal with broken bodies, we have to want to be well, and be willing to make the necessary changes as we become more like God wants us to be, as even the worst afflictions that the world, the flesh, and the devil can dream up can be worked together for good, as we are conformed to the image and likeness of Christ.

Each of us here today are broken in one way or another, and the good news of Jesus is that the Church is meant to be a hospital for the afflicted, where imperfect people learn to trust in God to do what they could never do for themselves, and, where we learn to see ourselves, each other, and the world around us as they really are – creatures of God who are wholly dependent on grace.

God is not the source of our problems.

As our first lesson puts it today, and as scripture reminds us again and again, part of acknowledging our need for healing is remembering that God is not the author of death and decay. 

I think the biggest lie, the biggest deception that keeps people from accepting the healing that God offers is the lie that says “your pain is part of God’s plan”.

Don’t believe it.  “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.[1] 

Anyone who says that the awful things of this life are God’s will has been deceived, and it’s the worst kind of lie because it keeps you from what God actually has in store.

“God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living.”  He does not take any pleasure in the death of a sinner, but in his unsearchable patience calls all people to repentance.[2]

God doesn’t make you sick; God doesn’t desire for people to hurt one another; God doesn’t send calamities out of nowhere to leave you scratching your head.  Just as science – and common sense – tell us that “darkness” doesn’t exist (it’s just the absence of the energy of light), and “cold” doesn’t exist (it’s just the absence of the energy of heat), death and decay are the absence of the life-giving power of God.  And while the realities of life in a sinful world mean that our bodies will die, we proclaim each and every week that even that is not the end.  Our bodies – the flesh and bone sitting there in those pews, the faithful dead planted in the resurrection garden over there, even those lost to the deep or those innocent children buried without names or markers at the hands of too many unrepentant, proud sinners preaching the hopelessly twisted gospel of power and empire – all will have new life breathed into them at the day of resurrection, as the absence of God’s life-giving presence is overcome, and we stand before him, either humbly as our friend and Father or, full of pride, we meet him as our judge. And while our bodies await that day, the faithful rest in God’s presence.

God’s presence is life.  God is not the author of death and disease; death and disease are the product of a world, of humanity that has found itself absent from God’s presence.

The Righteous One comes to the unrighteous.

The good news we read this morning is that God is not content to let us walk away.  Rather, he comes and walks among us, the Creator among the creation, patiently reaching out to those who, often through no fault of their own, are suffering as victims of a world bent on removing itself from the care of the only one who can sustain it.

I don’t know if you noticed, but Jesus, in today’s gospel, breaks the law for the sake of those he came to save. 

It was illegal for anyone to touch a woman who was discharging blood.  For 12 years this woman had to live outside the city, and her own family, her own children could not come near to hug her or hold her hand, or they would be impure until the following day.  Imagine the pain – imagine 12 years knowing not just the physical discomfort, but the mental anguish of knowing that anyone who comes near you risks becoming unclean, forbidden to worship, forbidden to take part in the life of the community.  12 years of feeling she’s worthless.  12 years of being forbidden to go to the synagogue or the temple, 12 years of being unable to go and pray with the priest and offer a sacrifice to God.

But Jesus, the fulfilment of the law, doesn’t come to bless the righteous, but to redeem the sinner.  Jesus, the Holy One, is grabbed by that desperate woman.  And does He become unclean?  No, her faith makes her well. 

And then there’s Jairus’s daughter.  It’s illegal to touch a dead body – that’s the whole point of the Good Samaritan story: it’s not that the priest and Levite were being jerks, it’s that if he wasdead, they wouldn’t be allowed into the temple.  Does Jesus leave the girl for fear of being unclean?  No – if death and decay are the absence of God, His touch brings life – even in the midst of hopeless situations.

Healing pushes us out of our comfortable places.

But, though He comes to meet us, we need to seek Him out.

Notice from the lesson where these people meet the Lord.  This woman has spent a dozen years condemned to the outskirts of town, certainly crying out to God for mercy.  But does God meet her in that place of shame?  No.  In faith, she had to step out, to come boldly into the Lord’s presence, falling on her knees to reach out in hope.  The Lord was near, but she had to leave what had become a comfortable place of coping and pity in order to receive the healing and new life that God could give.

And Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue.  He was a big deal, living in a mansion, with servants to do his bidding; not the sort of guy who came into the marketplace.  Jesus didn’t come into his comfortable house and make an appointment on this man’s busy schedule. Rather, Jairus had to leave his mansion and meet the Lord among the common people – which, I’m sure, was costly and turned some heads.

My friends: God still heals, and deep down, each and everyone of us knows something is broken, we’re not yet as we ought to be.

The Lord, the giver of life, is seeking us out.  But as comfortable – perhaps even as proud – as we sometimes become with our ailments, the first step is always acknowledging that there’s a problem, and wanting to be made well.

And then, unlike that dear woman with her asthma, we need to learn not to be comfortable with – or even proud of – the disease, death, and decay around us. We need to be willing to seek the Lord while and where he wills to be found, ready to take that humbling, costly step of faith to fall down before Jesus, knowing that His very presence – the same presence that burst the power of death and that the gates of hell could not contain – is like a candle dispelling darkness and the cold: going out to meet him isto invite life itself to overcome the power of death.

My friends, God still heals.  The Lord comes to meet us, but not in our comfortable places.  The question still is: do we want to be well?

[1] Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Jeremiah 29:11

[2] Ezekiel 18:23; 2 Peter 3:9

Sleeping through a storm.

June 20, 2021 — Leave a comment

And Jesus was in the stern of the boat, asleep on a cushion.  Mark 4:38

Today we learn what trust looks like from God’s perspective.

This is an amazing scene.  Jesus has been travelling the countryside with his disciples, teaching in parables, healing the sick, bringing hope and mercy to those who are lost.  All along the way, we’re told, he goes into greater detail with the Twelve, sitting quietly with them in the morning or evening and answering their questions about how the parables apply to life.  And then, one night after teaching about faith – you’ll remember the parable from last week, about the gardener who spread his seeds and then did what?  …went to bed, and got up, and faithfully went about his day, and went to bed again, and kept on faithfully going about his days until one day, without him knowing how or even really when, the seed of faith had sprouted.

So it’s evening, Jesus has just shared this last parable, and then he says “guys, it’s time for us to go to the other side of the lake”.  The ‘lake’ we’re talking about here is the Sea of Galilee, 13 km across, the same lake where Peter and Andrew and James and John had fished for years.  So they hop in a sail boat and head out into the dark night, along with the other boats also catching the evening wind as it changes direction. 

So there they are, bobbing about in a little lboat on the dark waters when the gentle breeze becomes a mighty storm, so big that the waves are crashing up over the side, as they start to notice the water gathering around their sandals.  And having just been taught about faith, what do the disciples do?  They freak out.  They’re anxious.  I imagine them calling to each other, passing around buckets or basins.  Having grown up around opinionated fishermen, I imagine them calling to each other in pretty salty language about whether or not they should turn back.  We know it wasn’t their boat, so I imagine Andrew or John, one of the guys who had called in a favour from an old fishing buddy, worrying how they’re going to pay for the damage to the boat since Jesus already had them give up fishing, so it’s not like they were earning any income.

The wind is howling, the waves are crashing as chilly water creeps up over their feet, they’re yelling, they’re worried, they’re scared and probably fighting amongst themselves. 

…and where was Jesus?

Mark 4, verse 38: “and Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion”.

(Isn’t this fun?  The Bible is full of surprises!)

Now this might seem a little shocking.  It might even seem offensive, or wrong when we first think about it.  Our Lord’s closest friends aren’t just anxious – they’re fearful.  They’re scared to death: they yell at Jesus, “don’t you care that we’re going to die?!”  They’re scurrying about, talking about turning around, wondering about the damage that could be done, maybe even wishing that Jesus would get off his cushion and give them a hand bailing out the boat.

What’s going on here – in their moment of life and death anxiety, hearts pounding, wind howling, waves crashing, the Lord’s asleep! 

I think the disciples’ question is a fair one: does Jesus not care that they’re perishing?  It’s like the Israelites in the desert with Moses: “have you brought us here to die?  There were plenty of graves back where we came from!”

Yet, even through all these difficult questions, this is where we find an incredible lesson.

Faith is a gift; it’s not something we can drum up within ourselves. Like the gardener, our task is to faithfully rise and go about our day while God gives the growth.

But trust… well, that’s a different story.

Trusting God in the Storm.

Trust isn’t a gift – it’s something that must be exercised, it’s something that increases with use, just as we know that being found trustworthy with something small results in being entrusted with more.

Are the disciples’ worries and concerns and fears legitimate?  If you’re out at sea in a sailboat at night in a windstorm, you don’t have a lifeboat or any lifejackets, and your boat is taking on water, is it fair to be worried?  Yes.  The concerns are all legitimate.

But this is where trust comes in.

Whose idea was it to get into the boat this night?  Was it Peter?  Andrew?  Matthew?  No, Jesus set the course.  Jesus knew the starting point, he set the destination, and he knew the way to get there.

And, did Jesus send them off alone to fend for themselves?  No.  Now, you might say it doesn’t look like he’s very actively involved – he’s asleep on a cushion, after all.  But the question can’t be “do I see exactly how God is involved in this situation?”.  No, the question of faith is simply “is Jesus with me?”.  The same Jesus who said that when we go forth on his mission, he is with us always.  The same Jesus who said that wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he’s in their midst.  So maybe you can’t see what he’s doing – maybe it looks like Jesus is taking a nap – but is Jesus in the boat?  Yes.

So, out on the dark, stormy sea, is it right for those disciples to take action, to grab buckets, to bail out the water?  Yes, absolutely. 

Is it right for them to call out to Jesus and say ‘Lord, we need you!’.  Yes. 

Is it right for them to say ‘maybe we should turn back.’  ‘Maybe the cost is too high, who will fix the boat if this doesn’t work’.  Is it right for them to say ‘I can’t see a way out of this, this will be the death of me.’  No. 

Even when the storms are swirling around us, that’s where trust teaches us to draw the line.  My friends, hear this –

            If Jesus sets the course
            and Jesus is in the boat
            we will make it to our destination.

It’s far better to be in the raging storm with Jesus, following faithfully where he leads, headed with him and with our brothers and sisters towards the destination that our mission requires, than home, safe asleep in our beds, but going nowhere.

It’s an odd sort of encouragement, isn’t it?

How much easier it would be if, by having Jesus in the boat, we could just avoid the storms altogether.  But that’s not how it works. 

Jesus didn’t create the storm – the storm is just part of life in this fallen world, and we know Jesus didn’t purposefully make a storm come up to teach them a lesson or any other pious foolishness; after all, Jesus rebukes the storm – he wouldn’t rebuke it if it was doing what He wanted. 

But I believe Jesus knew the storm was there, he knew it was coming.  But can the storms of life separate us from the plans God has, from the destination to which he’s asking us to follow?  No, never. 

Jesus set the course.
Jesus is in the boat.
They’re going to make it to their destination.

But it requires trust.  Here’s the hard lesson: it’s not the storm that’s going to keep them from their destination.  The one who created wind and waves is with them, and He’s at peace.  The only thing going to keep them from their destination is if they give in to their fears. 

If they say “I know Jesus wanted to cross over, but this was a bad idea, lets go back”, they might try to blame it on the storm, but the decision to turn back was theirs.

If they say “I know He can walk on water; I know he can heal the sick and feed the hungry and raise the dead, but I’m scared, I’m running around franticly, and he won’t run around franticly with me”, we might blame it on the storm, but the decision to turn back is ours.

Rather, the question we can ask is: “are we going where Jesus leads?”  Did He set the course, or was this my plan?  If it’s my plan, turn back! 

The question we can ask is, simply, “is Jesus with us?”.  Am I going my own way?  Do I have the body of Christ, my brothers and sisters, carrying this burden, facing this storm with me?  Have I invited my brothers or sisters in Christ to walk with me, knowing that when two or three are together, Jesus is there; or, am I trying to face this alone, with no room for Jesus or anyone else?  If the only one you can trust is yourself, then yes, turn back.

You see, trust is knowing that the one who set the destination and is going with you on the way will complete the good work that has begun.  He will guard us, guide us, keep us, and feed us; he will guide the future as he has the past – because, really, no matter how anxiously we flail about, who else can be our helper?  If the waves are going to crash through the side of your boat, your little bucket isn’t worth trusting in.  Our only hope – in life and in death – is that we are not our own, but belong to God; and if we’re in the boat that he chose, on the course that he set, and he’s journeying with us, we don’t need to fear the storm.

Not just forgetting fear.

But this is not just about ignoring the storm, or bottling up our fears.  We are disciples.  We are the apprentices learning from our Master. 
And what is the goal of the Christian life?  The imitation of Christ.

“Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  He said to them, ‘Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

As we grow into the image and likeness of Christ, as our anxious mind is transformed by following God’s will, as our hard hearts are replaced with tender hearts of flesh, we not only trust God’s destination, but we, too, will learn to be at peace – maybe even able to sleep through! – the storms life throws at us.  Even more, when we trust the course He has set and are sure of his presence with us, we will learn, with Christ, to simply echo his voice which settles the storm and brings peace.

Have you met those people?  People facing incredible hardship, real pain, maybe even those for whom the dark clouds of death are closing in.  Yet, through a life of faith, they’re not afraid.  They know that Jesus set the course they’re following; they know that Jesus is with them; they trust they’ll make it safely to their destination, and that, my friends, opens the door to the peace that passes all understanding – peace that makes no human sense, apart from the sure and certain faith that God will complete the good work that he has started.

And Jesus was asleep on a cushion.  Should we fear?  No.  Put your trust in God, and remember:

If Jesus sets the course
and Jesus is in the boat
we will make it to our destination.