Oh be Joyful

There are not many things worse than getting a phone call from a child who says, “Mom, I’ve got a problem with the car.”  It sucks the joy right out of my day! I can go from feeling fine, even optimistic to having a hard time breathing.

Thank goodness my child is smart and sensible.  Thank goodness it was something AMA could deal with easily.  Keys locked in a car is standard fare and something they deal with regularly.  Thank goodness for telephones and computers and call displays and credit cards that can sort things out in record time.

It got me thinking about how AMA is like Jesus.  It’s a bit of a stretch, I know, but bear with me on this.

John the Baptist has gone from the heights of fame and fortune, pulling in crowds that would have even modern-day politicians jealous.  Even temple leaders went to hear the prophet speak, and to be baptised by him.  But in today’s passage John is locked up, no chance of parole, wondering and waiting with no trial date, no defence lawyer and nothing to do with his time except overthink everything that is happening.  I can’t imagine that the jail back then was a nice place either, no Amnesty International to make sure he was getting decent treatment.

But he still has the ability to cut through the propaganda, the social niceties and ask the only question that mattered, not “when are you unlocking my prison cell”, but “are you the one we are waiting for or should we keep looking for another?”

Jesus doesn’t launch into some high-faluting explanation of how he was going to be crucified, buried and resurrected to prove he was the messiah to John or even tell John to repent and be saved, nope, he just said “Look around you and see that lives are changing for the better, that the people are continuing to be healed and transformed with new vision, new enthusiasm and new openness to hear what needs to be heard.”

In essence, Jesus told John that his efforts were not wasted, that the mission and ministry John had started was continuing, and his current suffering was not in vain.  He had prepared a way so that the people were ready for real transformation, and Jesus was taking it to the next level.

So how is Jesus like AMA?  AMA is very clear on its purpose.  The first thing you hear when you call is “are you safe?”  Their sole purpose is to make driving safer for everyone, not just their clients.  Even with a complicated problem like my kid being locked out of her car on a chilly Saturday evening somewhere near a Boston Pizza in Edmonton with the temperature in the minus teens and they stay calm and friendly.  They help with a few suggestions and tell you it’s probably a two hour wait and twenty minutes later, the car is unlocked, and your child is heading safely home.  That’s focus on their purpose in life, and they let their actions speak louder than words.

Jesus too knew his purpose and it was not to rescue people or enable them.  It was to empower them.  Because if he had just been wanting to rescue folks, he would have said, “John, I’ve been healing people and teaching people.  My record of success is great and I’m getting big crowds.”  He said, “People are seeing, moving and hearing, rejoice!”

Certainly, there’s a fine line between rescuing and empowering and I feel joy when I see people transformed and empowered as they come here.  Even in one week there have been great stories connected to this congregation.  Folks learning to stretch their food dollars and learn new recipes; folks struggling to find meaning and hope in life coming and having someone support them and listen to their story. 

People taking brave steps to break out of unhealthy thinking patterns or destructive lifestyles, government employees reaching out to us to ask about homeless individuals that are struggling with the cold snap, people working as a team to help refugees and addicted human beings.  And people struggling with the hardest thing of all, changing the way they look at the world and think about the world.

Yes it’s a tough time of year with cutbacks looming, self-serving politicians and global environment crisis, but there are also signs of hope!  Children calling for change and action beyond lip service.  New technologies developing to reduce our dependency on oil, paper straws in every grocery store, reusable beeswax cloths instead of saran wrap for food for sale at our farmer’s market, generous people donating some of their stocks to help with our congregation’s cash flow, dozens of scarves being churned out for our homeless population, people donating to Santa’s Anonymous and helping with community dinners, and people entering into treatment programs or getting the mental health counselling they need to deal with complex issues.  And people understanding the difference between enabling and empowering those they support.

What do we need to see with new eyes?  What are the things that make us limp along that we could deal with better?  What words of transformation do we need to hear that we’ve been avoiding hearing?  What are we waiting for?  Who are we waiting for?  Are we ready to see the changes and healings that are happening under this roof?  Are we ready to feel the joy of knowing that we are part of something larger than ourselves?  Are we ready to be part of a big mission of empowering people and the world?  May we wait this Advent with hope, peace and joy for that transforming new life that Christ opens in us!

Be prepared!

So it’s the first Sunday in December and instead of cute angels and shepherds, we get Jesus talking about Doomsday.  Fun?  Not likely, where’s the tinsel and shopping? Or maybe it fits more with the Black Friday student protests against excessive shopping?

Every time we come to Year A, the Matthew year, we don’t have a lot of stories of Mary and Joseph and there are no shepherds watching over their flocks by night.

It’s a reminder that we as Christians spend our weeks leading up to Christmas reflecting on what it means to prepare our hearts and minds for the Coming of Christ.  And this scripture is about being prepared for the tough stuff, the times when disaster strikes, when one will be taken as suddenly as the flood took Noah’s neighbors, and another will remain still doing their daily chores, work as usual, but in the twinkling of an eye, their whole world will be turned upside down. 

Interestingly enough, Jesus doesn’t say that his followers will be taken up while unbelievers will be left behind or even that his followers will be the ones left behind.  No bumper stickers here needed – you know, the ones that read, ‘in case of rapture, this car will be driverless’.  No certainty, no knowledge of when, even Jesus doesn’t know when. The focus is not on how to be saved or how to save others, it is only on being prepared.  Jesus doesn’t even tell us what to be prepared for.  He even, in the previous verse, said it would happen in his disciple’s lifetime, and woe to folks if it happened in the winter or to pregnant moms to be.  The key message for Jesus was to be ready, vigilant and alert at all times. 

What does that mean?  The only thing I can think of is to be ready to live out our Christian witness boldly when the going gets rough. 

I saw a play in New York last month, “Comes From Away’ that shows a good example of this.  It was based on real people, interviews two Canadian theatre students had with folks who had been in Gander Newfoundland on 9/11.  One moment it was a small town having casual chats in Tim Horton’s about the schoolbus strike.  Everyone knew everyone, and the police officer knew who would be speeding and where they worked.  The next moment everyone had the news on and were watching in shocked silence.  It brought back memories of my own moment, driving home after dropping off the kids, turning the radio on and sitting in disbelief thinking I was listening to a radio play. Like War of the Worlds.  I remember phoning Tim and saying I would meet him at the university Blood Donor Clinic as we both have O Positive blood.  Even the blood donor clinic didn’t know when I called to book the appointment and I told them to be prepared for an influx of people.  Sure enough, the place was bustling and crowded and there were even television cameras there to interview us donors.  What a hectic time.  But we went into action as did Gander, and we all helped where we could.  Just like the bystanders on the London Bridge who ran to stop a terrorist, we all did what we could to help our fellow humans.  We were prepared to care and help.

Or maybe an even better example is of the folks who helped take care of AIDS patients when everyone else was treating them like they were carriers of Bubonic Plague.  The name calling, the hatred, the fear, and the sense that ‘those kinds of people deserved such a terrible fate’.  And how it was a death sentence for anyone who came in contact with them.  But nurses, doctors and volunteers chose not to be afraid but to comfort and care for these people, some even contacting the disease themselves before we knew enough to have everyone wear gloves.

Thank goodness it’s not like that every day.  But I wonder what we need to be prepared for next. 

Whether it’s job lay offs of nurses and lawyers or protests by children or sightings of Canada Geese heading back to Baptiste Lake because of the snow storms in the states, we see signs that change is around us and we must be ready to act in Christian ways. 

Ways of courage and hope, that dream of a better world, where God’s will is done here on earth, where swords are beaten into garden tools and humans will give up waging war on each other.  I found myself watching the fireworks here on Friday and wishing that all the gunpowder in all the world could for once and for all be rounded up and only ever used again for fireworks and not for shooting humans.

Chances are I and hopefully you will never use a gun on another human, but instead we will be prepared to live in hope that every person will experience peace with their neighbor.  It’s hard work but it is doable.  People do change.  AIDS is now treatable and people who were first diagnosed are now able to live normal lives, if they get the medication in time.  We don’t treat them like criminals any more.  And the passengers in Gander thought they’d have a terrible time and ended up making lasting deep friendships.  The schoolbus drivers and the mayor didn’t solve their conflict overnight, but they worked together side by side for the common good.  The Muslims were treated with dignity, the foreigners with respect.  And the gratitude of people around the world keeps pouring into that little town, helping provide scholarships and inspiration the more their story is shared.  That kind of inspiration continues to grow and spread and help us all be a little more prepared, come what may, to respond to life’s challenges with courage and compassion, just as Jesus would have hoped.   This Advent let us prepare to love a little deeper and go the extra mile to be a community of hope and love.

Backflips for Jesus?

So I was at a party a week ago and someone started to sing one of the songs from Jesus Christ Superstar.  I was quite surprised as she’s not a church goer, and hasn’t particularly shown a lot of interest in what I would call a big theological debate or conversation.  Yet here she was singing her favourite song – the song of Simon the Zealot ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3bZqqe_s84&list=PLWMIGF70kAjtnE-NGrqrErtycIh4OHp3u&index=3&t=0s ) “Christ you know I love you, did you see I waved? I believe in you and God so tell me that I’m saved.”  It’s a perfect example of how we do a real disservice to Jesus as mere humans.  We think it’s all about power, military or political power.  Again and again we try different ways of understanding who Jesus is for us.  What kind of king was he and more importantly, is he? 

In the movie version, the zealots want Jesus to manipulate the people into choosing violence to deal with their oppressors from Rome.  They want Jesus to twist his message to one of hate and anger.  They want him to incite riots and start a war.  They understand power to be solely political, us versus them.  A black and white world where only the strong have the right to survive and all opponents will be crushed in their crusade.  The movie shows the followers doing back flips in their excitement in hopes that Jesus will notice them.

How different that is from the scripture we read this morning.  It reads like an intimate report by someone close enough to have heard that last small conversation between three criminals executed in the most shameful, embarrassing way possible for Jewish men.  It was meant to be a deterrent, to promote obedience and quell any thoughts of rebellion.  This is what they did to traitors and other enemies of the state. Hanging on the cross in the hot sun, even their robes taken from them so all could witness that they were just scrawny weaklings.  How humiliating and disgraceful it must have felt to be treated so. 

I can imagine some soldier there listening idly to the thieves and Jesus as they waited the long hours it took for the crucifixions to kill the men.  And the thieves reacted like humans have done ever since to the idea of Jesus being someone special, someone inspiring, someone holy.  One mocks Jesus, happy perhaps to have someone to lash out against with his last dying breath.  I may be in pain, I won’t get out of it, but at least I’m not as ridiculous as you with all your talk of holiness and a new kingdom of God all touchy-feelie, lovey-dovey nonsense.

The other recognizes something different about Jesus.  Maybe it was his dignity, or his manner, or how his followers wept and witnessed to his final hours.  We don’t know.  But something about Jesus made the other thief pay attention and offer allegiance to Jesus, a dying man who had nothing to offer, no power, no control, no strength to save his own life.

I think we all face the same struggle.  Who is Jesus for us?  When I started going to church after my angry atheist stage, the last thing I wanted to think about was some weird stuff about Jesus having magical super powers, being special, being so exciting that I would want to do cartwheels and back flips.  I didn’t want some over the top, rolling on the ground experience that would leave me all open to emotional manipulation.  Not my style, and far too threatening.  The Jesus Seminar came out and some scholars tried to make Jesus just an ordinary person, only human, nothing special, just a particularly good man.  But the more I heard the stories and the more I learned and listened, the more I realized that Jesus was not just a nice man who loved people.  He had to have been a very strong man to resist over and over the temptation to become a war leader, a rebel, a politician leading a coup, a new king taking over the country by passion and propaganda and maybe even a few little secret back room deals here and there. 

He constantly resisted the temptation to save himself from his fate.  And he constantly pointed to something more powerful than Rome, more lasting than the Temple of Jerusalem, more enduring than vast armies at his beck and call.

The thief said, “Save yourself” and he resisted that.  It wasn’t about him at all.  It was about God first and foremost.  Even today we are faced with the temptation to do it all ourselves, to be strong, be tough and never ask for help.  Be independent, be full of the right answers.  This is the age of “Do it yourself” psychotherapy and spirituality.  Jesus didn’t do that.  He asked for God’s help to do what he must, to do what needed to be done, even to die on the cross.  To die as an example, a witness to a different kind of power, the kind recognized by the second thief.  The kind of power that doesn’t transform through violence or manipulation, threats or bullying, but the kind of power that gently transforms cultures and attitudes and opinions with gentleness, patience, endurance, joy and forgiveness.  The kind of power that challenges us to say to each other and ourselves words of hope and encouragement, love and forgiveness.  That kind of power transformed the Roman Empire, and transformed the way we take care of each other, the way we shape our society.  It continues to transform us, to hold us accountable to a higher standard, and to guide us into ever more loving ways of being in community.  The kind of power that never ends and continually inspires us to greater and greater deeds.  Okay, maybe not cartwheels and backflips, but something even harder, the transformation of our hearts until we can say “Jesus Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom.”