Guided into Truth

I’ve had a lot of people telling me stories about the spirit of the times recently, and the spirit of the times seems to be a spirit of grumpiness.  The spirit of grumpiness is so strong that we could even sing “Spirit, Spirit of grumpiness, blow through the wilderness, grumpy and mean”, but who wants to be singing hymns to that kind of spirit?  It does seem to be everywhere.  People are gossiping, or judging, people are complaining and on a tight fuse.  There’s so much fear and anger out there, it’s almost palpable. 

Now some of you might be saying, Monica, you are exaggerating, and you’d probably be right.  Except that there are signs that people are under stress.  The senior’s apartments in town had to lock their lobby entrances after the lobbies were used as bedrooms and bathrooms. We tensed up last week when the forest fire smoke returned, and we remembered how our summer last year was impacted by many days of poor air quality. And how horrible that some of Fort McMurray is once again evacuated because of fire. Although it’s not as bad as the one they called “The Beast” that they fled from 8 years ago, I’m sure they are having flashbacks and that is stressful.  8 years ago, we had people here from First United in Fort McMurray and my goodness, it was hard to celebrate Pentecost that year.

It's not just Athabasca or Fort Mac.  Cold Lake was in the news when they cracked down on vagrancy incidents. According to officials, the unhoused population has increased in two years from 10 local people to 195, including many arriving from surrounding areas.  The bakery here in town is no longer giving free meals to people in need because of angry incidents.

This is not the spirit that we want to have dominate this town, this province or even this world.  But it is incredibly contagious. Seems we are judging everyone for the littlest things.  We point fingers, we get indignant, and we get so self-righteous.

The metaphor I like to use is that it's like we are goldfish swimming in a goldfish bowl where we don't know what the waters taste like. And right now, whether we like it or not, people are tense and stressed, not knowing what the future holds. We can become addicted to snap judgements and prejudices. Interestingly enough, the word prejudice comes from pre and judge. We pre-judge people to be exactly like us, which means we're safe with them, or exactly opposite to us which means we're in danger from them. It's a fast way to make decisions that helped our ancestors escape from sabre-toothed tigers. But now we can see prejudices for what they are, distractions for us goldfish so we don't think about what is happening in the world. We can focus on our grievances and outrage and avoid how we ourselves contributed to the chaos and stress of our neighbors. One thing I don't miss is reading about the vitriol of town council, that had been a good change, and rumor has it that the Athabasca Inn has sold! So even in all the bleakness of both local and world chaos, there are glimmers of hope. We as Christians are called to be bringers of hope. We are called to be channels of God's creativity, God's healing and God's inspiration. 

Peter spoke against prejudice and judgement when he addressed the rumors directly, “People of Jerusalem, we are not drunk!” And Jesus said time and time again, the only judge is God.  The world is wrong about sin and justice and judgement, and the ruler of the world who does the judging, will be the one who is judged.  We are to be given the spirit of Truth, which is uncomfortable at times.  But the spirit of truth is that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to love the world.  And we are to love the world too.  Jesus said, “He who is without sin cast the first stone,” “judge not lest you be judged”, and “take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck of sawdust in another’s eye.” 

One of my counsellors said it in this way.  She would tap her nose then her cheek.  That was her reminder to keep her nose out of other people’s business and on her own face where it belonged.  It’s easier said than done.  There are times when the Spirit guides us into uncomfortable truths, and times when we avoid truth as much as possible.  But truth from God is supposed to build us up, not tear us down.  It’s supposed to fill our hearts with courage and inspiration. It’s supposed to improve our mental health not tear it down. The best truth is spoken in love.  It builds our confidence bit by bit.  Jesus spent a lot of time helping Peter and the other disciples develop their confidence and leadership skills and they didn’t even know he was doing it.  He tried to prepare them for his death and let them know they would have comfort from God with the spirit.  Little by little, he built them up.  Little by little, the Spirit would continue to build them up.  Little by little we are also built up by the Spirit.  Little by little, we are healed, one hymn at a time, one prayer at a time, one hug at a time.  Little by little, the Spirit gently grows and heals and inspires us.  I like to joke that we are growing our angel wings one feather at a time, and just like Peter and the rest didn’t realize how Jesus was healing them and forming them into community, we don’t always realize how we are being formed into community.  But we are indeed being continually formed and reformed into ever more loving communities of faith, just as God wants us to be.

Measuring up?

 How big does faith have to be?  Jesus told his disciples that they didn’t need a big amount of faith.  Size didn’t matter to him, and neither does it matter to God.  Which, I’m sorry, is a hard pill to swallow some days. 

I wish I could throw bushes around with my faith, but that would not make me a Christian.  It might make me a hurricane, hopefully much smaller than Fiona, but certainly a blowhard and a destroyer of forests.  If I want to know I have faith enough to do what God is calling me to, how do I measure up my faith and know I have enough?

I may be looking around at other people and saying – “oh, look at what they are doing, they must have a lot of faith.  I can’t do that because I don’t have enough faith.”  It’s a perfect excuse to get out of doing anything that I might be nervous about. 

Maybe that is what the disciples were doing.  They were realizing how difficult it would be to live out these new ideas Jesus was teaching them.  Ideas that were scary, outrageous, challenging and culture changing.  Ideas that pushed against what ‘everybody knows’ or what common sense told them.  Ideas that challenged the belief that insignificant people like them could have a profound difference on the world they lived in.  It challenged the belief that might is right, or he who has the most toys wins, that the person with the most money must have the best life.  That it’s a dog-eat-dog world, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, and might is right because only the strong will survive.

And those same fears and tensions that the disciples faced are the same fears and tensions we face.  Jeremiah too, struggled with fears and tensions from being a person of faith.  He was uncertain what was going to happen to him, or even that he had the ability to be a prophet to the people.  Certainly, his words of challenge and lament were not appreciated by his peers.  They got so angry at Jeremiah’s sermons that they threw him in the stocks to publicly humiliate him and to stop him preaching any more.  He continued to preach anyway.  He preached that the king’s actions were full of arrogance. He preached that the country’s leaders had lost touch with ordinary citizens.  He preached that the decisions being made by the politicians were trying to make them look more important and powerful than they really were.  And he preached that all these people and their choices would lead to disaster.  Their attempt to measure themselves in terms of wealth, power, and strength instead of measuring themselves by their faith would doom them.

So rather than support freedom of speech, they threw him in jail.  Not unlike the protesters in Russia who are being arrested and sent to jail or worse, Jeremiah’s arrest was designed to intimidate him and stop the unrest.  But it didn’t stop him, and it didn’t stop the Babylonian Army that circled the city. 

Jeremiah had the faith of more than a grain of mustard, then, when he bought a piece of land where the army was camped, not knowing if he would survive or if his family would once again grow crops on their land some day.  But he did it anyway, in a grand public gesture of faith and protest and hope.  In the face of war, in jail for being a dissident, on the brink of having the city invaded by foreign soldiers, he gave hope to everyone who witnessed to this ridiculous real estate deal.

We see similar acts of public faith.  Women in Iran burning their hijabs and cutting off their hair.  Russian men fleeing their homeland in droves.  Ukrainian refugees coming to Canada.  Other Ukrainian farmers and students, women and men doing their bit to protect their homeland.  Astronauts planning a return to the Moon.  Jesus dying on a cross, executed by the state.  We are not called to such outrageous, dramatic acts of faith.  Jesus said we didn’t need to do a huge song and dance to get our message across, to promote our faith, to counter the culture we see around us that hurts so many in the competition for success.  Instead, we can have the faith of a grain of mustard seed.  We may not be familiar with mustard seeds, but we all know sunflower seeds.  We know how they are not very big, but they are delicious when seasoned and cooked.  We know that it would take a lot of sunflower seeds to fill our stomachs, so they are too small to use as our only source of food.  But what a plant can grow from them!  They grow very easily in our climate – I have heard countless stories of people finding sunflowers growing under their bird feeders. 

Faith can be the size of a sunflower seed.  It is not something that needs to be big and strong, weighty and massive in order to grow something marvelous.  It can be as simple as deciding to ask questions at a forum on a proposed shelter for the Homeless in Athabasca or knitting a hat and mitts for the RCMP to give out to people in need.  It can be as small as helping write a grant that helps us sponsor the Blanket Exercise for the One Book One Community program.  It can be as simple as cooking hot dogs at a Pride picnic or being supportive of our new youth group and leaders.  It can be as quiet as cleaning the Lion’s Park up repeatedly after vandals. It can be as simple as coming forward to eat a small piece of bread and drink a small cup of juice in memory of Jesus.  Whatever the size of our acts of faith, Jesus says they are enough.  May we find the courage to live them in our daily lives.

Letting Go

Life changes.  Kids go back to school, hooray! Grownups retire, babies are born, teens get jobs and move out, new relationships are made, jobs are quit, people die, every day some new life change impacts someone.  And that’s just the natural progression of the aging process.  Our favorite car gets rear ended.  Our spouse gives us divorce papers.  We lose our cell phones.  Our jobs get downsized.  Our co-workers gossip about us behind our backs.  Covid hits. Our companies downsize.  Sometimes we make changes, sometimes changes make us. Life! 

Jesus was proposing a radical change.  He was talking about a cultural shift for his followers to help them become intentional in following God’s teachings.  He didn’t want them getting caught up in the hoopla and the excitement of the crowds, he didn’t want people to be joining his community because it was the newest bandwagon to be jumping on board.  He wanted people to slow down and really think things through.  He knew that crowds can one moment be calling out halleluiah and hosanna and the next moment can be calling out ‘Crucify him’!  He wanted people who would commit for the long haul, who would make measured, thoughtful decisions with the full knowledge that it wouldn’t be easy.  That message of careful choice during change is relevant especially today.

Mind you, there are not too many times and examples of modern people letting go all their possessions and family claims for the sake of their faith or.  I can’t imagine letting go of my microwave but leaving my dishwasher behind when I moved to Athabasca was an inconvenience rather than a painful sacrifice.  I don’t want to give up my cozy home, my family or all the yarn I’ve accumulated over the past twenty years, and no way I could live without my Blackberry as Lois reminds me often.

On the other hand, summer holidays had me leaving much behind, books, Wi-Fi, computer, grocery store down the hill in exchange for quiet walks, the occasional paddle to visit loons and time in my hammock.  35 years ago Tim and I left family, friends and our brand-new wedding presents for our honeymoon. Now most normal brides don’t pack much for their honeymoon, but I didn’t pack lacy lingerie; instead, I packed a sleeping bag, nesting pots, and matches while Tim added a tent and cookstove to his backpack.  It was an adventure – over seven months, just the two of us Down Under with no one we knew, backpacking across Australia and New Zealand.  I missed my cross stitching and my ukuleles, and we missed our parents and brothers even more. It was a wonderful time though it was primitive at times, camping where poisonous spiders and snakes lived, hitchhiking from dorm to dorm, and immersing ourselves in the culture.  We came away from that year profoundly shaped by the knowledge that even culture is a choice, not every Canadian has to say ‘eh’ and drink beer while wearing a toque and watching hockey, and not every Albertan has to be a Conservative party member to have a say in who is our premier, or is either a rig pig or a bronc rider with a John Deer hat and cowboy boots.

Culture can be challenged and changed. By a simple letter from one friend to another asking for something that the culture would say was impossible.  The story of Onesimus is such an example.  He was a slave who had run away from his owner and that is why Paul crafted such a careful and passionate letter.  This was more than a reference letter to an employer, this was an emotional appeal to Philemon that would challenge and shake the man’s understanding of his relationship with another human being.  And not just Philemon.  Everyone who read this in that ancient world who were striving to follow Jesus would have poured over this letter and shake their heads in astonishment.  Treat slaves like kinfolk not property?  What was Paul thinking? Throughout history, hearing this scripture in different times and places would have challenged its hearers.  How would George Washington, a slave owner, have felt hearing Paul’s letter asking Philemon to treat Onesimus like an equal instead of a possession? Culture shifting!

 Or how would today’s flood victims in Pakistan or refugees from Ukraine feel hearing Jesus’ drastic teaching about letting go of what we cherish?  Really?  Letting go of our stuff, our relationships, our strongly held beliefs?  They have to let go of all their stuff in order to survive.  Staying alive means not hanging on to material things when living through tragic changes.  Jesus knew more than Marie Kondo.  It’s not about what stuff gives us joy and toss out the rest.  It’s about what helps us live a purposeful, intentional life that helps us love ourselves, love God and love our neighbor.

This Labor Day weekend is a good time to think deeply about our relationships with each other.  How do we remember that everyone we meet is fearfully and wonderfully made?  How do we love the neighbor that plays loud rock music on the river front all day? The neighbor who believes in conspiracy theories?  The one that always beats us at golf or at canasta? The useful person that we think is useless because they messed up something we thought was important? The person who wronged us but now is coming back to make amends? The person we need to make amends to ourselves? We all have moments when we feel like change is overwhelming us, and is being done to us, but when we trust that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s own image, we can build resilient new family and community that is  grounded in the compassionate teachings Paul and Jesus.  It really works! Onesimus went back to Philemon who could have whipped, sold or executed him. And while we have no letter back from Philemon, the people in Ephesus tell that their first bishop of the Christian Church was named, guess what? Onesimus!  From slave to brother to bishop!  Change is possible, and we are part of that great history that challenges oppression and remembers we are all God’s beloved children!

Over, Under

 When I was a kid, the ultimate test of friendship was the teeter totter on the playground.  Unlike a swing that one person could power all by themselves, a teetertotter needed cooperation to make it work.  If you picked the right partner.

Too big and you would end up suspended up in the air, looking a little silly, and not able to pull your weight in the game of up and down.  Too small and you would end up on the ground and the other person would be the one looking silly. Then there were the extra long teetertotters that could accommodate more than one rider.  We didn’t know we were learning physics or even math in trying to end up with balanced sides.  And wasn’t it wonderful to have a kind teen or adult that would be at one end who could bring us up and down single-handedly?  Teamwork, co-operation, equality and trust were all required.  I remember feeling sad when I got to be too big for my dad to single-handedly lift me on the teetertotter, but by then he was introducing me to the mysteries of catching a ball in a big leather glove.

Teetertotters are often how we view our relationships with others.  Are we on top?  Are we higher than everyone else?  Who has got the power? Anti-bullying educators talk a lot about power and how there are a lot of people striving to have power over other people.  And there are a lot of people who are in situations where they feel like they have no power and feel bullied and depressed.  We know of children who die by suicide because the only power they feel they have left is the power to take their own lives.  Anorexia can be an attempt to find power and talking to addicts and alcoholics I hear the same kind of language, “no one is going to tell me what to do!”  There was a story this week of a Calgary Heart Surgeon who is retiring and has filed a complaint against Alberta Health Services. Why the complaint and why only once retirement is happening? Well, she is the only female heart surgeon in Alberta, and has faced microaggressions, gender bias and outright discrimination throughout her career simply because of her sexuality.  No wonder other female doctors are avoiding becoming heart surgeons!

It's easy to blame toxic masculinity for the competition over power that some say has been with us since the overthrow of mother goddess worship in ancient Europe.  Jean M. Auel, author of the Clan of the Cave Bear series, hypothesized that once men realized that they had something to do with the babies being born by women of the tribes, they became possessive and controlling over who had access to the women.  But I think it’s even more universal than that.  Women can be just as invested in the battle for power, and the worst bullies I had as a child were the girls who made some pretty cruel comments, or even worse, jumped off the bottom of the teetertotter when I was up high in the air.  I came crashing down, bruising my ego and my trust as well as my tailbone.

Toxic lust for power can be seen everywhere we look.  It’s at the heart of the invasion of Ukraine and the January 6 insurrection at the White House, and the Ottawa Convoy where protestors made noise and garbage for over three weeks.  It’s at the heart of the current run for party leadership of the United Conservatives in Alberta.  It’s at the heart of family violence, abusive relationships, racism and homophobia.  It is even at the heart of how we talk about the homeless in our community in Athabasca.

We want power over because we want to feel safe, to feel in control, to feel competent or important.  And we have historically done whatever we could to feel that power.  We put people like my great-grandmother in Bedlam under horrific conditions or locked them in chains in a graveyard to deal with their chaotic mental illness.  Is there a better, more humane way in which to address this toxic culture we live in?

Some folks have traditionally thought all that was needed would be to give power to the powerless, to give guns to victims or karate lessons to scrawny children.  Give a radioactive spider bite to a weak teenager, or a magic wand to a boy forced to live in a closet under the stairs.  From Spiderman to Karate Kid, the theory has been to give power to victims and that will fix society.  However, studies of bullying in classrooms show that when a bully and a victim are separated without any other interventions, the bully quickly finds another victim, but surprisingly the victim will often find another kid to become a bully!  Or the victim becomes a bully themselves, taking a turn on the teetertotter.

Jesus sidestepped the power over-power under teetertotter completely and frequently.  It’s seen very clearly in his approach to the Gerasene. He didn’t respond by bullying, putting more chains on the man, or responding like a victim, reacting with fear.  He connected with engagement and respect.  With questions to learn more.  And with authority and confidence.  But not with intimidating, controlling, blaming or shaming.  And he rid the man of the power that was bullying him, driving him to drastic behaviors. 

When people say that the world does not change, they are wrong.  I drove around Athabasca looking for a teetertotter in a playground and couldn’t find a single one at WHIPS, LTIS or the riverfront.  The world changes.  We can change too.  We may not send demons out of people as dramatically as Jesus did.  But we can face our own inner demons, the urges that demand we grab power over, or even the fears of being dominated by others power, and claim our identity as children of God who called to be freed from the tyranny of our own bullying and victim urges.  We can become sensitive to power dynamics at the root of sexism, toxic masculinity, racism and homophobia.  We can be healed and healer, committed to balancing the teetertotter of power with everyone we meet.  We do this with God’s grace and love; knowing that healing is real, change is possible and new life in Christ will make the world a better place for all!

That all may be one?

This week I got into a, shall we say, ‘intense’ discussion on Facebook.  Someone posted about how ‘those parasitical churches ought to pay taxes just like everyone else in the world,’ and I mentioned that churches have a large economic benefit for the community.  Of course, someone challenged that, and I dug for some research and statistics to back up that statement.  Which I found, by the way.

There were a lot of comments that started like “The church is” and described all the evils they had heard of.  Comments like “The Church destroyed indigenous people and their culture”.  That is true on the face of it, but Lutherans, Mennonites, Orthodox (Ukrainian and Russian), Baptists and other groups had nothing to do with residential schools. Should they be blamed for what the Anglicans, Catholics, Uniteds and Presbyterians did?  And other comments developed, I’m sure you can predict them, “All Christians are anti-abortionist,” or “science hates religion” despite the United Church having Nobel prize winning physicists in their congregations. Or my personal favorite “No progressive Christians spoke out against ‘fascist white brethren’s rants” to which I replied, “where were you when I was preaching ad nauseum against a certain red-haired president who didn’t even rule my country?”

And of course, we have the nauseating example this week of a young woman calling out her pastor for having sexually abused her when she was underage, the pastor tearfully confessing and the congregation rushing to forgive him and forgetting her.  And many folks in the states are saying that they are tired of prayers when it comes to school gun violence and racially motivated shootings.  “When do we do something?” they rightly ask.

Churches get blamed for witch hunts, crusades and patriarchy.  Case closed, churches are bad and the sooner we get rid of them, the better.  History proves it.

Or at least one very narrow way of looking at history. It ignores the history of ordinary people of faith whose daily living is shaped and sustained by their commitment to God. Ordinary people like Lydia who are transformed by a casual encounter by the river one day.

Do you remember Lydia?  Not the tattooed lady of Groucho Marx’s affections, but quiet Lydia in the town of Philippi? Not many people do.  There were no crusades in her name, and no cities named after her, no priests that ran inquisitions on her behalf.  But she points to a different kind of Christian history worthy of being followed.

She was a person of status, an independent businesswoman that was in the unusual position of being the leader of a household.  She was a seeker of meaning to life in general, and was looking for a God worth believing in.  She had gravitated to meeting on the Jewish Sabbath with other women, and the mere fact that they met outside the city meant that there were not enough Jewish men in the town to have a synagogue of their own.  It also meant that they were not comfortable discussing faith inside the city walls.  She was used to leading a household and dealing in valuable commodities like the rare dye to make royal purple, and she was a leader in a time and a culture that did not permit women to own things, and treated women as things to be owned.

Enter Paul.  He thought he was looking for a man from Macedonia.  He thought he was looking for a synagogue.  He thought he was looking for his fellow countrymen who were steeped in scripture and who already knew God through the covenantal love shown Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Leah and Rebecca, Moses and Miriam and Aaron, David, Ruth and Esther.  Instead, he found a seeker who was a gentile and a woman.  She also was the first European to be converted to the new message of love and hope. 

What a hope it was!  From being a seeker in the wilderness, she became a baptized member of a community.  From discussions outside the city, she became a hostess demonstrating unheard of generosity.  From being an entrepreneur, she became a leader of the church of Philippi.  From being an ordinary, non-descript woman, she became a saint!

Paul loved these people and took inspiration from them to continue his mission.  In his letter to the Philippians, he wrote, “As God is my witness, how I long for you with the compassion of Jesus.”  He also thanked them for their generosity, seen in Lydia’s offer of accommodation. Their generosity continued as he also wrote, “You Philippians know that in the early days of sharing the Good News, when I left Macedonia, no churched shared with me… except you alone.  Even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once… I have been paid in full and have more than enough.”

The city of Philippi is now a world heritage site after earthquakes and wars.  There is a lovely little church for baptisms nearby that is named after Lydia, the first person in Europe to be baptized into the Christian Faith.  At times like these where so many awful things are happening around the world and close to home, let us remember humble Lydia’s story.  Her love and hospitality laid the groundwork for a faith that would develop hospitals for the sick, hospices for the dying, schools for children whose parents could not afford private tutors, and compassion for those who were seen as unimportant.  Her faith survived plagues and wars, famines and natural disasters.  Her faith spoke to her neighbors, encouraging them and inspiring them, and transformed her whole household into a family of love.

When we remember the root principles of Christianity, love, hospitality, compassion and service, we strike a chord in the people we talk to.  The people on Facebook are shocked to hear that we care about the well-being of our community, and that we are compassionate to the powerless and the abandoned.  When we are united in love, we can make a difference that withstands the challenges of history and the tragedies that life can throw at us.  In life, in history, in life beyond history, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!

Homecoming

I’ll never forget the day I came back to church.  I had grown up going to church every week, but once I moved away to Edmonton after high school, I vowed never to step foot in a church again.  As far as I was concerned, church was for hypocrites and Pharisees, people more interested in telling us how bad and wrong we were.  I was done!

Just like the prodigal son, tired of the family dynamics, tired of his bossy older brother telling him what to do, one day up and told off his dad and high-tailing it out of town, leaving the father shocked, the older brother saying, “I told you so!” and the poor mother in tears, weeping and wailing as the yelling escalated until the young man stormed off, never to return.

The family conflict was very serious.  In the time of Jesus, his culture was steeped in honor and shame.  Families were very hierarchical and competitive. Men battled for status like chickens in a coop, constantly pecking at each other to prove their superiority.  Honor was the touchstone of every action, and when honor was diminished by a child, the whole family was judged.  Honor killings were real.  From the point of view of North American values, it is abhorrent, but in the days of Jesus, a breaking of honor could result in a family losing so much status that their very livelihoods were threatened.  Just as Joseph in our Christmas story had the responsibility to restore his family’s honor by sending Mary away, in this story, the father had the responsibility to discipline his son, and could even have his son stoned according to the law.  By demanding his share of the inheritance, the son had disgraced and dishonored his family in the eyes of the community.  By allowing his son to get away with it, the father had disgraced and dishonored himself in the community, proving that he was a weak man and a terrible leader.

That was compounded when the young man returned.  The father again disgraced himself in public by running to his son and welcoming him so lovingly.  Again, his emotional excess would have been condemned by all who saw it. 

Jesus used this shocking story to attack the honor system and the claims of superiority that the Pharisees were asserting when they criticized Jesus for socializing with dishonorable and shameful people.  He consistently connected with those who had been hurt and victimized by the high expectations and competitive toxic culture that left people feeling hopeless and excluded.

We may not be shaped by an honor culture the way the Pharisees are, but our culture still needs to return home to a healthier way of relating to one another.  Many of you have heard of the term ‘toxic masculinity’, which is when men feel the pressures of cultural expectation to be tough, to be unemotional and to seek power over others to gain status.  Even 5-year-old boys are told to not cry, to suck it up, not be a sissy.  Toxic masculinity encourages emotional detachment and in worst cases can lead to violence against women and children.  When world leaders start wars and don’t know how to stop them even when they are losing, that’s the ultimate in toxic masculinity.

We also still get caught up in the shame/blame dichotomy.  It’s very addictive.  If I don’t feel good about myself, I can blame others for my emotional dis-ease.  If I struggle with addictions to unhelpful habits or obsessions, if I feel that there’s a huge gap between who I want people to think I am and who I am in private, if I don’t want to admit that I make mistakes, and avoid taking ownership of my actions, I can get caught up in flip flopping between feeling shame about who I am, and blaming others for the life I am experiencing.  The shame-blame game can escalate until we drive off to Ottawa and deny that our constant honking and partying is not hurting the people around us. 

How do we come home?  How do we break the shame-blame flip flop?  How do we get the big party and the fattened calf and the bear hugs from someone so incredibly happy to see us return? 

The prodigal son hit bottom, feeding the pigs.  It was the worst job possible for a boy raised in a kosher household, unimaginable as far as the Pharisees were concerned.  But he realized that the only one who had landed him in the pigsty was himself.  He chose to admit that he had screwed up.  We practice that every Sunday when we say words like “When I kept silence, my body wasted away, while I groaned all day long.  Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I did not hide.” (Psalm 32) In church talk, that’s called confession, or in modern psychological jargon, accountability.  When we acknowledge where we’ve gone wrong, where we’ve missed the mark, we shift from shame and blame to accountability and vulnerability and that, my friends, frees us in so many beautiful ways!

Many of us have gone through turmoil and conflict these last few years, not knowing if or how we would have a chance to see family and friends.  Many of us have said goodbye to toxic relationships and wonder if they will ever be saved.  Lent is when we take time to become more accountable to ourselves and others so that we can experience the amazing love and healing that our loving parent God has for us.  The joy that can be ours for the asking, the healing of our deepest shames as we come home to a loving embrace and a party that never ends.  When I wandered back into that church so many years ago, I realized that the biggest hypocrite in the building was me.  As the tears streamed down my face, I had a sense that I was starting an amazing journey that would take me on many adventures with many wonderful people.  That there is always a way back home into love.  May it be so for us all!