“Are We There Yet?”

Summer time and the living is easy!  Fish are jumping and the river is high.  It’s a time to pull out the kayaks and canoes, the fishing rods and hammocks, jump in the lake, take a road trip and read a good book. 

Do you remember those family vacations when you were a child, being excited to get into the car, but then the road went on and on?  How when we were seven we discovered the power to enrage adults with the simple question, “Are we there yet?”

How many of us, much to our chagrin, later found our kids or our nieces or nephews doing the same thing to us that we did as children?

How many of us never had that experience, maybe family outings were not something we grew up with or maybe some of us grew up without families, or spent time in group homes or residential schools?  Some of us might have spent so much time in hospitals or refugee camps that trips like these didn’t happen.  But we may all have a memory of longing for something better, for some time when we hoped the cancer went into remission, the visas to Canada finally showed up, the summer holidays started, or the destination reached.

We longed for something different, something better, something more.  We didn’t want to wait, we didn’t want to play another game of “I Spy”, or spend another minute strapped in our seatbelts!

Paul was no stranger to waiting for destinations to arrive.  He grew up in Turkey, went to school in Jerusalem, traveled to Greece, Cyprus, back to Turkey, to Syria, and was planning his next trip to Spain when he wrote this letter to the Romans.  He also knew the disappointment of travel plans going awry - ship wrecked on Malta, thrown in prison multiple times, chased out of towns by angry mobs.  More importantly, he knew that he wanted to bring hope to the Romans, a group of Christians he had not met before.  He wanted his letter to show his good intentions and his amazing trust of hope in Jesus Christ’s teachings.  He did that through an amazing demonstration of vulnerability.

A lot of people, when they are trying to persuade others will pile on the praise of both the listeners and themselves.  Paul had moments when he did just that.  The beginning of Romans is a big celebration of how famous the Roman Christian community had become.  And Paul said he couldn’t wait to meet them as he hoped he would be as inspiring to them as they had already been to him.  But then we get this deeply honest and vulnerable passage that sounds like someone in despair because they have an addiction they can’t beat.  Paul had strong will power, but that was not enough.  Like many of the alcoholics that have met in the basement of churches over the years, Paul had to admit he was powerless over his addiction, which he called sin.

Sin had control over his life, and the struggle was hard.  Just like today, our struggle with addictions is alsohard.  Addictions have become very polarizing.  We hear about the growth in tent cities, the increasing number of deaths from overdoses and wonder why people don’t stop living like that.  Why can’t street people be more like us?  A modern-day prophet, Dr. Gabor Maté, says that the only way we will ever address this is when we recognize the addictive nature of our very society and how almost all humans have addictions to something at some time in their lives.  His work in East Vancouver where he treated many addicts was improved when he began to recognize his own addiction.  Maté had an obsession that cost him hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month.  He would feel an adrenalin rush and excitement and deny that he had a problem.  He made lots of money and could afford his addiction, even though his mind was obsessed with the hunt for his next fix.  The addiction that cost thousands of dollars was not to drugs or cigarettes or alcohol, but of all things, music. While it might seem laughable, at one point he wrote that it affected his relationship with his wife, his children, even his job as a doctor.  He had to go to an AA meeting to get help with his obsessive pursuit of cds. 

The first step was acknowledging he had a problem.  Just like Paul, he had to be truthful to himself and others that he was helpless to conquer his addiction on his own.  The second step, the hardest one, was asking for help.

What are we addicted to?  Video games?  Netflix? Investments in volatile stocks? Fast driving? The shopping channels?  Clutter?  Cleaning?  Food?  Control?  Gossip, judging other people, arguing with them online?  What gives us that unhealthy adrenaline rush that maybe just maybe we’re too hungry for?  I heard the phrase ‘rage farming’ the other day, and I think that there are people who are addicted to the adrenaline rush they get from feeling self-righteous about people who think differently than them.  Some politicians nurture outrage deliberately to get more votes, others pass around petitions that target minorities and share outrageous conspiracy theories.

Addictions are beaten by a higher purpose.  It’s interesting that Paul described the first two steps of an 12 step program in this scripture, admitting that there’s a problem, and turning it over to a higher power as we understand it.  Whether its drugs or classical cd’s the solution is the same.

Community and truth telling are essential.  Brene Brown says it only takes one or two people to help us feel connected.  Hate does not build true community.  Hate does not break down addictions.  Hate does not destroy loneliness, despair, or hopelessness.  Only love does that.  Jesus asked us to trust the truth about our addictions to him and to God.  That when we make that choice, take that step, when we experiment with a higher purpose, a nobler cause than just our day-to-day survival, empathy instead of judgement, then we will find rest for our souls.  Are we there yet? No, but that’s what faith is for.  Practicing the patience to know that while we may not be there yet, we are on our way to God’s good dream for us.  May our lives be so filled with our higher purpose that the journey becomes filled with the joy of living into God’s purpose for us.  Amen.

Thirsty anyone?

In the ruins of the ancient City of Rome a few short blocks from the Colosseum, there is a small drinking fountain that dribbles out a thin stream of water.

In Rome on a hot day in September of 2017, the street vendors brought out bottles of water to unsuspecting tourists who paid upward of 8 dollars for a bottle, which can mean a hefty profit for the vendors.  Unbeknownst to the tourists, the fountain on the Paladine Hill was a short walk away from the Colosseum and brings fresh water through a Roman aqueduct built before Christ was born.  Getting a drink of water was as simple as filling up water bottles at this ancient tap.  It was free too.  The tour guide didn't push the water at us like the street vendors loudly did, just gave a gentle invitation to fill up our water bottles and be quenched.

This month we have become very sensitive to the importance of water to our existence.  One moment we were struggling with the smoke of forest fires and praying for rain, the next we were facing flood warnings. Last week in Athabasca, the downtown gazebo had its own moat and the skate park looked like a small swimming pool.  The Athabasca River was filled with large trees speeding down to the Arctic Ocean in a great hurry.  There are still communities in the north hoping and praying for more rain to end the forest fire season for good this year.

Water is easy to take for granted in our climate where snow is plentiful, the glaciers are clean, and the rivers and lakes abundant.  For Jesus, it was another matter entirely. So much of Israel is surrounded by harsh dry land.  A group of United Church friends went on a tour of Egypt, Petra and Israel some 20 years ago, and came back with stories of small towns having their water systems bought up by large corporations.  The corporations would bottle all the water and then sell it back to the townsfolk.  They lost their access to their water supply, and not only that, watched the growth of plastic pollution accumulate in the town as there was no recycling plant for the empty bottles.  Water became a political weapon, and the Jordan River became a source of wealth that everyone wanted to control.

In our own country, clean drinking water is not a given for many Canadians. As of two weeks ago, the Government of Canada reported that 142 long term drinking water advisories had been lifted since 2015, but there are still 28 long term drinking water advisories in effect in 26 communities across Canada.  And as anyone knows who has been to Banff or Jasper lately, the great glaciers that feed the Athabasca and North Saskatchewan rivers, are receding rapidly.  We cannot presume that our water supply is secure and unchanging. Nor should we assume that our experience with water is universal.

According to the World Health Authority, in 2020, 5.8 billion people used safe drinking-water. The remaining 2 billion people had to travel at least 30 minutes or more to get water that was safe or drank untreated water, or even had deliveries of a few cups of water once or twice a week.

Jesus knew the value of water in a way that we who have taps don’t.  He knew that a gift of water was more than a nice thing to do, it could mean the difference between life and death.  Interesting that in this scripture, Jesus is giving instructions to his followers on how they will need to depend on others to survive.  This is part of his long lecture in Matthew on how to be a disciple preaching to an indifferent world.  In some ways, this is not about what we should do, ie give hospitality, although I would never suggest we shouldn’t give hospitality, but more about how we should receive hospitality when we are working on sharing God’s mission.  We like to think that we are the ones to hand out the water and give people what they are thirsty for, but do we ever think what it takes to receive the water we need so we can continue to carry out God’s mission?

In a world where someone thinks its okay to stab a professor and students in broad daylight for the ‘sin’ if I can use that word, for discussing the complexities of sexuality, in a world where we are afraid to go to a party celebrating the courage of youth asking to paint a crosswalk, in a world where for a moment it looked like Russia would have another civil war, we need to take care of ourselves and not be too proud to accept offers of hospitality.  I have seen too many people post online that they are struggling with depression and anxiety and fear.  We hear too many stories of overdoses in Alberta.  There are a lot of thirsty people looking for something they can trust, but who will they hear it from?  If we don’t take care of ourselves, how will we help others?  Being brave enough to look at our lives with the honesty that Paul demands is not easy.  Are we living in the freedom of God?  Are we able to look at what we do and whether it waters our souls or not?  A purposeful life that brings meaning and hope and healing to others.  Living a purposeful life takes time and wisdom and prayer and the humbleness to accept hospitality when it is offered.  To be both aware of our thirst and humble enough to accept help when we need it means that we are able to continue to be disciples and messengers that carry good news into the world.  We can also offer living water like the street vendors, pushing prices ever higher, yelling to all around them, or we can simply and kindly point out a free fountain of unending water to those in need.

Now more than ever, people need to know that there is a freedom from the tyranny of despair, a freedom from the tyranny of the many addictions that our consumer society offers up.  Whether we are addicted to dangerous habits like street drugs or small habits like too many computer games, we can hear the invitation to live lives of freedom.  We can accept God’s gift of whole-hearted, brave lives.  That is what Jesus showed us, and is the life we are called to.  May we know the wisdom and the humbleness to accept the living waters that keep our mission and ministry alive and thriving.