Priorities not politics

Someone very wise once told me that there was nothing we can’t do if we really want it badly enough.  He said that there was always enough time, energy and money for what was truly important.  No matter how tired I was, how broke, or how busy, I could muster my reserves.  I, naturally, was skeptical, but even I had to admit, that if someone came by with two tickets and a backstage pass to meet ABBA live and in person, even if I had just given birth to my first baby, I would probably find the energy to jump on a plane to England to attend their new virtual reality concert next month.  I might not do it for Prince, Michael Jackson, Elvis or even the Beetles, but ABBA?  I have to admit I would dig up all my record albums, jump on a plane and get them to autograph every single one.

ABBA was the music of my teens, and with John Denver, provided many memories of happiness, dancing and joy. Which is what teen age life is supposed to be about.  Finding out what is most important in life is, of course, more than just rock concerts and dancing queens.  But the music we like, the heroes we looked up to in our teenage years, can point to our core values.  

Our scriptures this morning can be seen through the lens of looking at core values.  James and John Zebedee were squabbling for the best seats of power once Jesus dethroned Herod and took his place in the castle and Temple.  They wanted to be the ones whispering into his ear when people came to the foot of the throne and petitioned for Jesus to solve their problems. The two brothers were stuck in a traditional idea of change, that society could only transform through a violent take over, a coup.  They thought about politics first and theology second.

I like the definition of politics I recently stumbled on, “Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”  James and John wanted Jesus to treat them as better than the others.  “We want you to grant our request.  See to it!”  Pretty pushy.  We also see politics in 1 Kings reading of the two women arguing over a baby.  One described herself as a loyal citizen, pointing to the other as the evil doer.  Solomon played politics with the women too, manipulating them to reveal which one really cared about the baby.  Note that the passage does not say which woman was the one who cared the most, the one claiming to be the loyal subject or the one first accused.  One subtle nuance to this story is that the women were living in a household without a man as patriarch to arbitrate, and to witness.  Women were not allowed to be witnesses, only men.  So there was no one Solomon could turn to whose testimony would hold up in the court. Solomon had to think outside the box to solve the problem. Solomon tricked them into showing their true intentions, their real values.  One wanted equality and fairness seeing the baby as an object to fight over.  And if both babies were dead, equality would have been re-established. The other simply wanted her baby to live and was willing to sacrifice her right to the baby to guarantee its safety.  When a sword is hovering over something we cherish, our values come to the forefront very quickly.

That’s a good time to look at our values and really examine them, see if they are aligned with the Gospel, or can be tweaked to be lived out in healthier ways. Having a clear focus on why we do what we do is something we need to do intentionally.  So many people talk about the importance of putting first things first, knowing why we do what we do.  Whether it’s Steven Covey’s Seven Habits, Barack Obama’s campaign on hope, Martin Luther King’s dream, Mother Theresa’s ministry, Gandhi’s march for salt, Greta Thunberg sailing to North America, all great people with clear purposes and a focus that they continually remind themselves of.  Movies like “City Slicker” or “Bucket List” or “Last Holiday” tell stories of people who clarify their values when faced with the equivalent of a sword threatening to cut a baby in half.

There are times when our values need to be challenged, re-evaluated, and shaken up.  What we believed in as teen-agers can seem shallow now.  If I had a choice between an Abba Concert and eliminating Global Warming when I was a teen, I would probably have chosen ABBA.  Now, as much as it would be hard, I would let go my craving for hedonism in exchange for saving the whole world.

Jesus clarified the values he expected from his followers.  They were to serve and to avoid politics, not to bully or grab power.  There was to be no competition amongst them, no hierarchy, and definitely no politics.  No arguing over who gets the baby.  Keep the big picture in mind.  

What’s your big picture?  My values that are important to me are being part of a thriving congregation that practices radical hospitality and is a safe, trustworthy space for all who want to learn more about this radical way of thinking.  I also value spirituality, being connected with something bigger than myself, a big dream, a purpose, an intention to be a healing presence in the world.  And I value creativity, whether it’s through drama, scrapbooking, music, dance or art.

Our congregation picked out inspiration, empowerment and engagement, which are amazing words to guide us.  They help remind us that we are to be servants to one another and also the world.  We are to work together to build a better, more loving world.  That is needed today as much as it was 5 years ago, 100 years ago and in the times of Jesus and Solomon.  Thanks be to God for the scriptures that remind us who we are and how we live out God’s purpose in this world.  Amen.

Did you know that you can watch the service live on Facebook, or join us on Zoom?  I send out a weekly e-mail with the prayers, hymns and scriptures.  E-mail me at revatauc@telus.net to get our worship resources.

What’s Cooking?

 

Another Thanksgiving is here, and another year of having to hold off on the big family gatherings, the huge turkeys, the pumpkin pies and my personal favorite, the mounds of stuffing full of seasoning and steam and flavor.  Thanksgiving has traditionally been a time to celebrate the harvest and the abundance of food.  It’s the time of year when I like to joke that people in small towns lock their car doors;  they don’t want to come back from shopping to find some freeloading zucchinis in the passenger seat!

I wonder how people managed their thanksgiving celebrations during the Spanish Flu epidemic, when for 3 years, the virus decimated the world’s population in the worst pandemic since the Bubonic Plague.  The Spanish Flu happened in the midst of a world war as well, and it killed more young people than the war did.  And guess when the Anti-mask League of San Francisco was established?  1919!  History is repeating itself.

In the midst of such challenging times, I am hearing more and more stories of anxiety and discomfort.  But not, surprisingly enough, from everyone.  Even here, we have quiet saints in our congregation who are staying calm and centered as people around them worry, debate and fret.  There are folks raising babies or opening new restaurants, there are people exploring bible verses with word search puzzles from the dollar store (who knew there were bible word search books?), there are people sending checks to help the garage sale out and people packing up garage sale items to go from the church to Riddles and Lollypop.

One secret I am noticing with our quiet saints, and you who are those quiet saints probably don’t even recognize that you are one, is that they practice gratitude quite regularly.  In fact, one of my mentors recently challenged my group of ministers to keep track of the times when we are not thinking grateful thoughts and do our best to turn them around.  When we are thinking about our neighbor’s negativity, or our politicians and their latest foibles, or agonizing over what that person really meant when they said that thing at coffee time last week, we are not thinking about God.  And the mentors and saints are thinking about God or gratitude or blessings rather than or as much as they think about their pains and their fears.  One saint comes through the office door so cheerfully you would think that their life is a bed of roses. But they are not hiding the fact that arthritis is frustrating or that their body is not as agile and healthy as it used to be.  They are not denying reality, they are just accepting reality then focussing on the positives they see. 

This is not the magical thinking I see that some folks are using – if only they have the right crystals in the right order or have the right herbal tea or the perfect mantra, their lives will become a steady state of bliss.  This is a different kind of thinking, a Christian kind of thinking.

That kind of thinking, known as “the Way” has had powerful effects over the centuries.  My favorite book describes it this way:

“People converted initially, not because they found Christianity philosophically persuasive but because… it worked. During the… Plague of Galen in 165-180 in which hundreds of thousands of people died in the streets, Christians proved their spiritual mettle by tending to the sick…  Because they did not fear death, Christians stayed behind in plague-ravaged cities while others fled.  Their acts of mercy extended to all the suffering regardless of class, tribe, or religion and created the conditions in which others accepted their faith… on the basis of Jesus’ Great Command to love God and to love one’s neighbor, a quality that was … often missing in Roman pagan religions.” (Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity, p 59-60).

Dare I suggest that quality is often missing today in contemporary pagan religions?  Missing in some varieties of current Atheism as well?  And when we are living in times where anxiety is rampant, that quality is always needed. 

In 1920, in this very pulpit, a new minister stood here and looked at his congregation who had survived the Great Fire, the resulting near bankruptcy of the town, the exodus of residents, the end of the Great War and Spanish Flu, to speak these words to your ancestors in the faith: “The world in general is now at probably the most critical period it has ever known; unrest and change are the order of the day.  This spirit of unrest, however , is a good omen and not a bad one, … caused by a spiritual yearning, and a looking forward to something higher and better…” (Athabasca Archives, retrieved October 7, 2021)

Every generation struggles with its spiritual unrest, but there is hope.  The scriptures today remind us that anxiety is not the great commandment Jesus told us to obey.  Quite the contrary!  Worry, fretting, obsessing about what other people might think, none of these lead to the life Jesus is calling us to. 

Jesus said, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s justice, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  What does that look like?  What does a healthy, thriving community of God look like?  It has spiritual markers such as vision, radical hospitality, joy, accountability, humbleness, open-heartedness, risk-taking, prayerful, missional, generous, witnessing and innovative.  One might even dare sum it up with PIE – Public, Intentional and Explicit, from our affirming education, or even one step further, Public, Intentional, Prayerful and Explicit.  Whether it’s thriving churches or quiet saints, they all take prayer very seriously. They take Paul’s teaching “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” and they do their best to do just that.  Think realistically but act prayerfully.  Focus on God, and we can weather any storm, survive any plague, endure any challenge, face down any fear.  Even if all we can do is remember the prayer, “Be Still and Know that I am God” or the other centering prayers we have been using in our worship, we will grow in our faith.

So cook up some prayer.  Cook up some peacefulness practices.  Cook up some moments of random generosity.  Cook up a big pot of gratefulness and gratitude, and sip on it as often as possible.  It’s what grows us in our faith and helps our community and our town thrive.  It’s what has been working for two thousand years, and will continue to work long into the future.  May it be so for us all.  Amen!

Turning to Love

 

How do we adults hear Jesus calling us to become as little children?  It’s one thing to talk about the command to practice radical hospitality to families, but in these days of Covid, that seems to be a moot point.  But what about the idea he gave us of becoming as children ourselves?

I don’t think he meant that we should go back to wearing diapers or to hitting each other when we are fighting over toys or spending our days in sandboxes making castles.  But I do think he wanted us to look at our attitudes towards life.  Children, especially the preschoolers, aren’t interested in politics, they don’t have lofty ambitions, and for the most part, they are open to new things.  Watching a three-year old at the playground with a parent is like watching a yoyo, they slowly go farther and farther from the adult, and then run back to the safety of the adult.  Maybe for a snack or a hug or just the reassurance that they haven’t disappeared.  Then they move away a little further.  This will happen again and again as they balance their need for independence and their curiosity with the security and safety of a grown-up being nearby.  They can also be very creative.  How many times have we heard the story of a Christmas or birthday party with lots of presents where the best toy is an empty box?  I remember my brother when he was two years old, loving climbing into the pots and pans cupboard, closing the door and then bursting out with a ‘ta dah’!  Surprise!  Mom had to take all the pots and pans out until he got tired of the game.  They can be incredibly courageous too, oblivious to the consequences of their actions.  My daughter at the same age watched her 5-year-old brother navigate to the top of a very tall and rickety slide in a neighbor’s back yard.  I never thought she would try to climb it, as the rungs were quite narrow and slippery.  Turn my back for a moment, and the three-year-old was at the top of the 5-foot ladder! 

Curious, creative, courageous are just some of the gifts of childhood that we may have lost as adults, but they are something we can recapture, for both our own mental and physical health and also the health of our institutions.

Kairos Canada sent us a prayer that reminds us of the power of children:

The Great Spirit gave life in a circle, from childhood to childhood. Our children are there to teach us and for us to teach them. Our children were taken out of our Sacred Hoop and our hoop has been broken.

For decades we mourned the loss of our children. They never completely returned home. 

Even today, children are often missing.  Stats Canada data from 2016 reports that of the children in Alberta in foster care, 76% are indigenous.  The circle is still broken.  How do we support the calls for healing that circle?  Even here we can remember to be curious, creative and courageous in asking questions of our church, our province, our institutions that challenge not just what they do for children but how they do it.  From the new education curriculum which has been condemned by parents, teachers and professors alike for removing residential school history, to the upsurge of cases of infections in children under the age of 12, we need to challenge our politicians, our systems and our institutions .

 Paul wrote that our institutions need to be genuinely loving, and hospitable.  Whatever we do should be looked at through those two lenses.  We are being called to re-envision how our society must own up to the damage done to children today.  The times they are in abusive situations, the times they are neglected, abused and bullied by both individuals and systems.  The times when parents are not able to be there to help their children and the times when parents are part of the problem, not the solution.  The times when parents get angry that the schools are rumored to be forcing children to get vaccinations, the times when parents lose their children to easily preventable diseases like measles because they refused to have their children vaccinated.  The times parents have had to hear their children’s’ surgeries have been postponed, the times parents have had to help their children get educated at home. 

It is time to demand accountability from the systems we have.  When we write letters to support our universities, when we wear orange t-shirts, when we put out shoes to represent the thousands of children that never came home from residential school, when we text our local town and county candidates, we are challenging our institutions to live up to Jesus’ high standards.

Here in Athabasca United Church, we have cared for the children in the community for a long time.  There is an article in the town archives that told about Nancy Applebee and Alice Donahue rolling up their sleeves in this church’s basement to make sandwiches for the children’s school lunches before lunch programs existed.  This very building was used as overflow classroom space when the Brick Schoolhouse had no more room for the children.  We helped start the “Food for Thought” thanks to Cam Dierker, to make sure that high school students never had to learn on an empty stomach.  When Covid is over, we have plans for cooking classes with the CAVE outreach school so that every junior high and senior high student will graduate with basic food literacy and nutrition skills, and our cooking circle program is targeted to low income moms who struggle to stretch their food dollars to feed their little ones.

What more can we do?  Keep texting, keep writing letters, keep hoping and praying for the children in foster care, and keep loving hospitality at the core of everything we do.  When we do that, and keep having courageous, curious and creative conversations with our friends and neighbors, we will inspire, empower and engage our community to truly welcome these little ones into the circle of God’s love.  May it be so for us all!