Outreach

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

May 15, 2022 — Leave a comment

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

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

What a gift. 

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

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

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

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

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

And the invitation is just as real, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Do Love: Priority, Desire, Sacrifice

April 25, 2021 — Leave a comment

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us…” 1 John 3:16a

Love is a common theme for the Christian life.  The scriptures are brimming with instructions to love one another, to love God, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. 

Yet, as so often happens, when something becomes “common”, when something becomes routine or expected, before we know it we find ourselves sharing common misunderstandings; sometimes we need to step back and unpack those ideas that appear simple and which we’ve taken for granted, and when we do, we usually find there’s a lot more there than we thought.

Love is an action.

If I asked you “what is love?” – to give a definition of love – what would you come up with?  Think about that just for a second: what is love?

It’s a good exercise, taking something that is common and just assumed, and unpacking it to see if there’s more to the story. 

For most adults, if we were pressed into coming up with a definition of love, we’d waffle around with a few ideas and probably land somewhere in the realm of “a feeling of deep affection”, but, anyone who loves or has been loved would be quick to add “…but that definition doesn’t quite do it”.  What is love?

If I asked the kids, though, do you know what we’d get?  “Love is when Mom hugs me and makes me feel better when I cut my finger.”  “Love is when me and Dad made cookies together for Mommy”.  One kid – you can probably guess which one – told me “love is when you play on my Minecraft server with me, because I love Minecraft”.

But, you know what?  As limited as those children’s definitions might be, they understand something that almost every adult definition of love fundamentally misses: love is an action.

And this isn’t some lofty church idea: our language tells us that love isn’t a feeling or an emotion; love is a verb, an action word.  Think about it: we say “I love you”, or “you love me”.  We don’t say “I happy you” or “you sad me” – those are feelings; our language lets us say “I love you” because ‘love’ is a verb, an action word. 

The kids are right, you know: to love someone or something isn’t to feel something about them, though affection certainly has something to do with it.  Love isn’t a feeling we exchange.  To love is to do something; if love isn’t an action, we’ve slipped into a misunderstanding that is everywhere in our society today.

How to ‘do’ love.

So, if love is an action word – not a feeling or emotion – then how do we do it? 

Like any action, there are clear, definite, purposeful steps required: if it’s walking, I have to get up off my butt, pick a direction, lift up one foot, swing it forward, put it down, and repeat over and over, one step at a time, until my walk is done.  If the action is cleaning, I have to find a mess, get some cleaner, and put in some elbow grease.  …believe me, if walking or cleaning were just feelings, I’d be a whole lot healthier and my house would be a whole lot tidier!  But they’re actions, and so is love, so there are definite steps required to do that action.

I want to suggest that there are three components, three parts required to “do” love.  The action of love requires, first, making something your priority.  Second, to do love requires a desire.  And third, to make love happen requires sacrifice.  Priority.  Desire.  Sacrifice. 

Priority.

First: Priority.  We all know words are cheap.  It’s easy to say something, to throw a few words out there.  But actions speak louder than words not least because they require effort.  Or, to put it as St. James does, “faith without works is dead”.  There’s no life or lasting value to be found in merely saying, thinking, or feeling something without the effort to follow through to the best of our ability. 

To love someone or something – to take the action of loving them – means making them a priority in your life, and showing that in your actions.

It’s amazing: the kids know this, even if they don’t have the words for it.  “Love is when me and Dad made cookies together for Mommy”.  All of us adults would know from experience that, when Saturday afternoon rolls around after all week with both parents working, there are a dozen high-priority things that need to be done around the house.  Laundry to be washed, groceries to be picked up, a squeaky door to be fixed, a flat tire on a bike that needs to be fixed, online banking to be done – the endless list that goes with being responsible for a household.

But if love is more than a feeling – which it has be to – then the first thing love requires is Priority.  Loving you, loving my family, loving my neighbour, loving God means, first, prioritizing the one who is loved.  The kid knows that Mom or Dad is busy, but the kid sees that they are loved when they are bumped ahead of bills or laundry or things around the house, even for half-an-hour.  The first step in the action of love is priority.

Desire.

The next step, I want to suggest, is desire.  Now, when I say desire, I mean it in it’s broadest sense: love as an action requires a strong want or wish for something to happen.

Or, in other words, love requires a goal being worked towards, to love someone or something is to want it to become the best it can be, to picture that person as the best that they can be, and to want to get there together.

It’s not enough – it’s not really love – just to prioritize something.  If I prioritize someone or something because it makes me feel good, or I get something from it, that’s not love (that’s pleasure – another action word).  Love requires prioritizing someone because of the hope, the deep desire you have for their yet-more-glorious future.  If I love my wife just because she makes me laugh – or if I love God because He’s good to me, that really isn’t love; love is looking forward to being better together, having the hope for what you and them together can become, and desiring, deeply and strongly wanting it to happen.

Love as a verb, as an action, first takes priority and then desire for that more glorious future.

Sacrifice.

And then the action of love requires sacrifice.  It takes offering yourself to take the steps necessary to make that future a reality.

This is where the modern misunderstanding of love as an emotion throws us off the rails. 

It’s one thing for me to say “I like my dog, I should take her for a walk”.  I can even have that good desire for my dog’s future, that good desire for her to have a good life, for her – and me – to be fit and to enjoy that wonderful time out in the sun, out in the beauty of God’s creation, rejuvenated by the fresh air.  I can have the desire to be a good and responsible dog owner, to want to be in the sort of relationship you see on TV where the happy dog runs to the door with its tail wagging, leash in its mouth, asking to go for a walk together. 

I can think highly of my dog, prioritizing her; I can want to be a good dog owner who takes her for walks… but does that priority or desire produce any action?  No.

No, the priority and desire require follow-through with sacrifice.

Now, sacrifice takes different forms.  Some are very costly, and the greatest love that can ever be shown, scripture says, is the laying down – the sacrifice – of life itself.  But all love requires sacrifice, and not as a one-time thing.  The action of love, the action of loving someone or something, requires sacrifice.

And this is where we so often go wrong. 

You know 1 Corinthians 13, “the love chapter” read at almost every wedding?  For your homework this week, give that a read… but recognize that each of those descriptions of love is actually a description of sacrifice.  “Love is patient, love is kind; it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, … it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”  You know the list; but these aren’t feelings – they’re costly sacrifices, steps to be taken for one who is prioritized and for whom you have the hope of a more glorious future.  Patience is a sacrifice; kindness is a sacrifice; putting aside pride, biting your tongue when you have every right to be angry, giving second chances if and when the person recognizes they were wrong and turns from it: those aren’t feelings.  That’s what it takes to do love.  It might be as simple as a parent patiently trying to be interested in Minecraft on a rare day off; or it might be as humbling as helping a parent or an ailing spouse get to the bathroom and then get dressed again when they can no longer do it for themselves, but one thing is sure: it’s only love if we set that priority, have that desire, and work towards it with sacrifice.

On these two commandments…

Love is costly.  Love is involved.  Love is an action.  And yet, all of the commandments of God are summarized in these two greatest commandments (say it with me): you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.

So, let’s ask ourselves: do you love God?

Is God a priority, not just on Sunday, but every day that He gives you, and every night that He lets you sleep in safety and peace?  Is God your desire – do you desire a better future together with God, is that a goal that defines your life?  And then sacrifice: do you, will you take the steps to patiently, humbly make that love an action: as “the love chapter” says, love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres until the end.  If love is an action, do you love God?

And then, the other side of that commandment, and perhaps the more challenging of the two.  Do I love my neighbour?  And my neighbour isn’t just my family or my friends, but every single person made in God’s Image whom God has placed in my path; those who drive me nuts, those with whom I disagree on just about everything imaginable, and those who are just plain rude and make me feel like dirt.  Do I love them?

It’s not a feeling.  And let me tell you, that’s a good thing!  Because we all have plenty of people we don’t feel happy to be around.

But do I love my neighbour?  Whoever they are, good or bad, kind and generous people, or rude and ignorant people, do I love them?  Do I prioritize them? Huh.  Because that’s what God expects… will I put that rude man who doesn’t know how to speak to anyone ahead of myself and my own desires?  Talk is cheap.  And I can say all the words there are, but if I have not love, I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Do I desire my neighbour to have a yet-more-glorious future?  Do I want them to know true love, do I want them to experience true hope and mercy and forgiveness, do I want them to know God and to live with me forever, do I want them to be better for having known and lived alongside me, such as I am.  Think of the rudest, most grating neighbour you know.  Do you want him or her to know mercy?  Do you want them to know love, to be cleaned up by the grace of God just as we will be, and to spend eternity redeemed with you?  Because, if that’s not your desire for even your rudest neighbour, then no matter what we might tell ourselves, God says no, we don’t yet know love.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, love requires sacrifice.  Are you willing to take the steps so that your neighbour can have that yet-more-glorious future, both in this life, and in the life to come.

My friends, this is why the church isn’t a voluntary organization.  If anyone ever told you that Christians volunteer their time to teach Sunday School, or help at the food bank, or help people with their taxes and paperwork, or to teach young moms to cook for their families, or to visit those who are sick or alone, or to make the church building clean and ready to welcome those who come in, or to greet our brothers and sisters as they gather, they’re wrong.  Those are not good deeds, and they’re not optional.  They’re the sacrifices that love requires.

If you say you love your neighbour, but you won’t fill his belly; if you say you love your neighbour but you won’t share her pain and do your part to life them out of despair and set them on the path to glory, then we’re nothing but a noisy cymbal.

Love is action.

My friends, lets make this a church where everyone learns to love God, and learns to love their neighbour as themselves: not thinking good thoughts or feeling happy feelings about God and our neighbour, but making God and our neighbour a priority every day; having that earnest desire for a better future with God, and wanting our neighbours to share that hope; and then making the sacrifices that true love requires.  That’s a church that will grow, that’s a church that will change the world around us; but it’s got to start with love, and it’s got to start with each one of us, loving God, and loving our neighbour as ourselves.

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