June 21, 2019

Transformation


The caterpillars have disappeared!  In their place are little blobby teardrops of shiny cream.  They are going through metamorphosis now, a messy process, according to biologists, where their insides are broken down and reconstituted into something quite different than what they used to be.  Not all will make it through this stage, and quite frankly, it sounds quite painful.  I bet if a caterpillar Jesus had spoken to them, or even Robbie for that matter, they would have said, “Too Much Information! I don’t want to know!  Thanks but no thanks, I don’t want to be a butterfly, I’m quite content to remain a caterpillar.”
The first time I remember someone giving me too much information about who I was and what I could become was in vacation bible school when I was about 10.  Every year, my parents would send us to camp at the big Baptist Church out by the highway and we’d happily play games, make crafts and sing songs.  It was the first time I ever saw a guitar played in church, which was a little scandalous for the times.  It was also the first time that I discovered that not all Christians think alike.  That summer I had to make a string art fish with the bible verse, “In God I trust, I am not afraid.  What can mere man do to me?”.  That, combined with some rather vivid descriptions of Hell where everyone who wasn’t a good Christian would go, gave me the message that I was missing a key to a safer life.  The grownups were constantly reminding that we had to let Jesus become our personal lord and savior and open our sin-filled hearts to be saved.  I’m not sure I understood all this saved business, but I let a grown-up tell me the magic words to recite to save me from Hell.  I desperately wanted the bravery and certainty the grown-ups promised.  I thought that if I recited the words, God would protect me from the kids who bullied me at school and I would never be afraid of them again.  Unfortunately, my new-found smugness at being saved did not help me make friends or calm my enemies.
There were other things I learned in camp.  How God was in control of everything and we would get whatever we prayed for, but the beautiful pony never did show up in my family’s back yard.  How the world was only 6,000 years old and dinosaurs were a lie made up by Satan.  That was hard because I loved coloring the left-over hand outs of ankylosaurus and brontosaurus that my dad brought home from his science classes.  I struggled with the idea that I could love God or dinosaurs but not both.
In the end the trips to Drumheller and the love I had for my dad won out over a God that promised miracles but couldn’t even muster up one decent pony.  I gave up on the bible and on the idea that God could help me feel brave when facing scary people.
Thank goodness for my United Church Sunday School teachers who didn’t see the Bible and Science as enemies or force me to pretend pterodactyls didn’t exist.  They encouraged me to see the bible as a place of great wisdom, especially in verses that suggest God is still teaching us, that Jesus couldn’t teach everything we needed to know, but would send the Spirit to keep educating us about our beautiful world.
We do ourselves and God a great disservice when we close our hearts and minds to new learnings and new guidance.  When we think we have all the answers.  When we quote scriptures to show our spiritual superiority.
Now, I don’t think there’s anyone here who does that.  Some of us are more likely to avoid the Bible for fear of being seen as old-fashioned, stodgy or judgmental, but that’s not necessarily good either.  Bouncing from one extreme to another isn’t the answer.
Truth be told, there are a lot of people who have been hurt by folks who told them how to think and what to think about God and the Bible, who don’t hear the idea that there is more to be learned about God.  They are afraid to come to church because they will be judged and shamed or taught something that seems completely archaic or superstitious or even irrelevant.
Yet I wonder if we buy into that discomfort too easily, not wanting to offend our friends and neighbors.  That’s where I hear a challenge in Paul’s letter reminding us that our faith and openness to God’s real presence in our lives does make a difference for us.  Paul talks about us having peace with God, being calm in times of misfortune, and knowing that our trials and suffering are not something to be ashamed of, but they can become times of transformation.
Twice I put a caterpillar on my desk trying to watch it spin a cocoon, but they just hung there.  The moment I left for lunch, they got to work and when I got back, voila, they were transformed.  In fact, I think there was no spinning involved, but maybe their skin shrank or something.  No idea how it happened, where their spiky black hairs went or their little feet.  It’s still a mystery to me. 
Paul sees our suffering the same way.  A transforming mystery.  There are certainly times where we need to walk away from suffering, when we are in an abusive relationship or tell the teacher when we are being bullied or ask for help if we realize we are bullying.  But it’s comforting to hear Paul tell us that we are also being transformed into brave, faith-filled loving souls capable of great things.  Such great things in fact that we too will share in the glory of God.  Wow!
Until then, let us keep learning as bravely as we can to listen to the voice of truth gradually transforming us into the very image of God.

June 10, 2019

Show me God!


Show me God!
How many of us can relate to that question?  If only I could see God, maybe I would understand why this happened in my life, or that happened in my life.  If only I could know that God was real, maybe I wouldn’t worry so much about what the future holds.  If only I could talk to God, maybe I could convince God that my life should become easier than it is.  If only I could show God how unfair my life has been, maybe God would fix it for me.  And so on.  The questions are never-ending and is a natural a part of being human.  We all have questions.
The Bible is full of stories of humans asking questions, from Eve saying ‘why shouldn’t I have a taste of an apple’ to the builders of the tower of Babel asking ‘why can’t we build all the way to where God lives so we can see for ourselves.  And the story of God creating ever more diversity.  Diversity of shapes, diversity of creatures, diversity of languages.
God could have just made a world full of butterflies and flowers.  Evolution could have stopped there.  We could have all had an easy life as a caterpillar.  Eat and eat and eat until we sleep, spin our cocoons, have a deep sleep of about a week or so and turn into something beautiful that can fly through the skies.  But the diversity was somehow an important part of the plan.
Peter and the disciples were unsure of whether there was a plan anymore.  They had lost their beloved leader and kept meeting in the same room time after time where they gathered to remember the night before he died.  They were stuck in that ‘remember when’ and ‘back in the good old days’ thinking. They were caught in a rut, only talking to each other and sharing the stories that were no longer new.  They felt tied up, constrained by the oppressive government and the religious system that Jesus had challenged and loved so much.  They were not expecting anything different.  They were in a cocoon time of their lives, wrestling with the old but not knowing what the new would bring.  They were no longer caterpillars, but they were certainly not butterflies yet.
Enter the Spirit!  It doesn’t want anyone to live their life in a rut of egotism or shame or guilt or arrogance.  It blows newness into the dustiest soul and shines light in the darkest corners of our minds and hearts. It calls out for us to take Jesus’ words seriously.
Jesus knew that his message of equality, justice and love was not easy for people to learn or hear or put into practise.  He knew that it would take a great deal of courage, commitment and honesty on the part of his followers to make his teachings more than just a conversation on a summer morning.  He knew that they thought of themselves as lowly caterpillars.  He could see that their grief would spin tight cocoons of fear and sadness and inadequacy around them.  He knew that they would need something more if they were ever going to fly.  They would be stuck in the past, afraid of the present and with no hope for the future.
Not unlike many of us who have tried new things again and again only to crash or see our hopes dashed or find our plans going awry until we too feel like we are in tight cocoons.  Someone said to me this week that the thought “I can do it myself” is a great predictor of failure.
We see that happening over and over.  In AA, the first step of recovery is to recognize when we can’t do it all by ourselves.  We hear stories of folks living with severe shame or guilt or depression or mental illness who are sure that reaching out for help is impossible for them to do.  They will go to the doctor if they have a broken leg, the dentist if they have a broken tooth, but they won’t do a thing if they have a broken heart or ill mind, obsessing on unhealthy thoughts, beating themselves up with negative thoughts of blame or resentment.  Some folks, and I have been there, treat themselves in downright bullying ways, yelling at themselves in ways that they would be ashamed to be caught doing to a child.  Why do we persist in treating ourselves in ways that we would never treat others?  And we get caught up in a tight web of our own making.
The spirit comes into our lives, sometimes like a flame, like a windstorm or like a gentle breeze.  We have the dramatic story in our scriptures, but John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, talked about his heart being strangely warmed one night in a small worship service.  And the spirit does not come into our lives just to release our cocoons or rescue us from our ruts, although that is great when it happens, but to transform our lives into joyful experiences that reach out to others.
If the Spirit had wanted Peter and the others to take over the Temple in Jerusalem, there would be no need for the different languages.  But the Spirit wanted them to reach out to the whole world.  The Spirit gave gifts that would break them out of their self-centered pity parties, and become ambassadors to a more beautiful vision of what the world could be like for everyone.
A world where all are treated with dignity and respect, a world where people living lives of pain could see hope for healing, where they wouldn’t feel ashamed for asking for help, and would get the help they needed.  A world where bullying was non-existant, where racism had come to and end, a world where we respect the beautiful diversity of God’s creation.  A world where we have all been transformed from lowly worms to beautiful flying butterflies able to ride the winds of change to co-create God’s heaven here on Earth.  May it be so for us all one day.