The Big Thaw

 Just a week ago I walked down to the river. for me it’s a short trip, but it was amazing to see that there was still a lot of ice.  It was just starting to show water in places here and there.  And now a week later, it’s all thawed with nary a speck of ice or snow.

And we can see how fast it runs now that the ice is gone.  It is moving swift and silently once again.  The geese are nesting, the fish are biting, the flies are hatching, the bulbs are sprouting, and the grass is greening.  The season is changing before our eyes and another winter is behind us.

When we still had snow and ice, it seemed like nothing would change and spring would never come. Saul was frozen into such an attitude.  He had built an ice jam of cold fury towards people he saw as a threat.  He would not be moved from that position that these new-fangled ideas were an abominable twisting of the Torah. The more he heard them, the more he listened to them, the more of a threat they seemed, and the more icy he became to their ideas.

He became so obsessed with the followers of ‘The Way” that he asked for special authority to deal with them.  He wanted that ‘double 0’ designation that gave him licence to arrest and kill.  And he was willing to walk all the way to Damascus in Syria!  That’s 275 km away.  At the average speed of most humans, Saul was willing to go on a two week journey to round up and arrest malcontents so they could be punished.

All he could see was the threat.  All he could think of was preserving the status quo.  All he wanted to do was hurt.  He was frozen in his attitude towards people he hadn’t even met in person, condemning them without a fair trial.  Even helping with their execution.  He was the one who held the coats of others while they executed Stephen, he was the one described as ‘ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both women and men to put them in jail’.

But he wasn’t the only one frozen into a particular opinion and attitude.  The real hero in this story, I think, is Ananias. He also was stuck in the attitude that Saul was a threat to his family, friends and his new faith.  He didn’t want to deal with this dangerous man.  He only saw the danger and not the opportunity that lay before him.  No way he wanted to go and be nice to Saul!

But Ananias was a follower of the Way and knew that Jesus taught them to pray for their enemies.  He knew that the resurrection had turned all their assumptions about the way the world worked upside down. He knew that he might not be the greatest at preaching the gospel to cynical people, but he was the ‘johnny on the spot’, the one God could connect with and send.  He was the one who healed Saul’s deep, frozen soul.  He was the one that started the river flowing, and what a river it was!

Saul who was so frozen in his ways and his attitudes and his hate, broke down in front of humble Ananias.  He realized his stubbornness and anger had been not only so unhealthy it impacted him physically, it also pushed him into behaving in ways counter to the faith he honored.  His extremist mindset pulled him into what today’s psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’.  Instead of honoring God and studying the Torah, he was persecuting people he didn’t know, breaking the Torah’s command to love God and love neighbor.

Who do we connect with?  Are we a Saul, stubbornly frozen in sure we know what is right and best for our neighbors, and willing to do whatever it takes to prove that we are right, and certain they deserve punishment?  Are we an Ananias, wondering how on earth we can talk to someone as angry and hurting as Saul?  Are we Saul’s companions, helping guide him to the support he needs?  Are we the followers of the Way, wondering what we can do to keep ourselves safe during the threat Saul is bringing?

If we are honest with ourselves, there are times when we are frozen in resistance to God’s message of compassion.  There are times when we are called to help someone in pain, and we feel like we don’t know where to start.  There are times when we can speak a word of comfort, not realizing how thawing simple words can be.  Ananias was not one of the twelve, and we don’t have letters in the bible from him to the other teachers.  This is the only sermon he preached.  This is the only story we have of him.  A simple man, following a simple message, speaking in faith and hope and courage to someone he never dreamed he could influence.

On this Christian Family Sunday, when we honor the many people in our lives who have been sources of love and healing, may we find the courage to speak out to the Sauls in our families who are frozen in cognitive dissonance and hurting enough to recognize their need to change.  May we find the honesty to face our own stubborn blindness and know it persecutes not just family and friends, but even and especially our Holy God.  May we help guide those who are in pain to safe places where they can thaw and find healing.  And may we find God’s healing presence taking the scales from our eyes and bringing us back our sight and energy to flow like a mighty river in God’s plan to end conflict and hate for all.  May we continue the story of ‘The Way’, one step at a time, one story at a time, one thawing river at a time. Amen.

Who’s got the power?

When I read Paul’s story, I immediately thought of that commercial with the pink energizer bunny, and the jingle, “I’ve got the Power”, resonating with the drum beating.  And on days like we’ve had, with the heat beating down on us like an everlasting drum, well, it’s hard to feel energized.  I remember a few years ago hearing that it was so hot in Italy, people were burning their hands when they went to touch their doorknobs.  Not so hard to imagine after this week.  The energy to work in such temperatures is hard to muster.  Even construction crews are working shorter shifts on the rigs and ending their days early to prevent heat exhaustion.  The power has gone out of us as we wait and pray for rain and a break from the sun.

Power is one of those things we don’t like to talk about much.  We are fine with talking about power in terms of electricity, and about power of politicians way over some place far away.  We’re much less comfortable with the power we might have.  Or might need.  Or might be abusing or might have abused in the past. Psychologists talk about three needs that every person has, competence, connection and autonomy.  Autonomy is the power to make decisions and choices for oneself.  But sometimes that power can step towards making decisions and choices for others.  Which is a good thing.  I don’t want to make decisions on where to build a generating station in the neighborhood, and I’m quite glad to delegate that to provincial and municipal leaders.  Where the danger lies is when the folks we delegate the power to make choices forget that they are to make choices for all and think only about the best choices for themselves.

We saw that in our previous town council.  I fear we are seeing that in our provincial leadership that ignores the call to have residential school history in our curriculum, public parks for people who can’t afford resorts, protected areas like our Rockies to stay safe from coal mining, accessible health care, fair dealings for health professionals and teachers and more.

But what does that have to do with us?  And more importantly, the scriptures?  Jesus had power to heal those who needed healing and yet when he was back home where he had grown up, in the midst of all the negative, critical, verbal attacks, his power was lessened.  The home crowd had power over him.  With their nitpicking, they exerted their power over Jesus.  They wanted to put him in his place.  They wanted him to remember he was nothing special, just a small-town boy with delusions of grandeur that he didn’t deserve and certainly shouldn’t inflict on them.

Can you imagine telling someone that they shouldn’t make the world a better place, or even worse, that they can’t and will never make the world a better place?  We would never do that, especially not to a loved one.  And yet, we often do.  I find something wrong in the way this person waters their plants or how that person drives their car.  I easily slip into judgement and when that judgement is spoken without any loving intentions, it robs the power from the person hearing it.

Judgement is addictive and judgement is easy.  It leaves me feeling more powerful than the person I am judging.  I meet my need for autonomy but in a way that competes with my neighbor and erodes my love for my neighbor.  Judgement is why the residential schools were so toxic for so many, and why the conversation about them is so hard today.

Paul talked about another way.  Instead of competing for power, he recognized that it was a competition he could never win.  And he would know.  As Saul, the persecutor of the Christians, he had a fierce reputation for being so judgmental and disparaging that the Temple authorities gave him a letter empowering him to go out and not just judge, but condemn any who were corrupting their faith with the teachings of Jesus.  They saw their faith as competing for power over people’s souls and sent Saul to stop it.  To say he was knocked off his high horse is putting it mildly.  Saul went blind and had to humbly ask for healing from the very people he had been sent to judge.  The people he thought he had power over, were the ones with the power over him.

He learned firsthand that it wasn’t his power, or the power of Ananias, his healer, that made him able to see again.  And it wasn’t a competition between him and Ananias over who had more power or more holiness.  It was God’s power that healed him.  This was the key.  

God used Paul more when Paul was weak, than when Paul tried to do it all himself.  God’s power flowed through Paul, transforming his weakness into a testimony for this different way of living that continues to inspire and transform.

There are days when I feel as weak and judgmental as Paul, and I wonder if I am making a difference.  There are days when I hear stories about the abuse of power that break my heart.  And then there are the stories that encourage and empower me.  The fellow who drove all the way from Edmonton and ended up coming back for seconds, buying 11 strawberry shortcakes!  The angel in our congregation who shared 8 shortcakes with her apartment complex, the neighbor who bought three to say thank you to friends despite being uncomfortable with this different way of doing our tea, the folks who paid so others could eat and the many saints who worked hard not just to serve up 80 desserts, but also to stay patient and calm despite the hustle and bustle and dreadful heat.  Especially them who worked hard to be nice to each other, apologize when necessary, and keep focused on loving and serving.

Jesus didn’t want power over his family and hometown.  He didn’t want power over his disciples.  He didn’t give up his power to the naysayers and complainers, and he didn’t punish them for their insolence.  He gave his power to all in the form of stories and healings.  He gave his power to his disciples, telling them to go out and share the power of love with everyone they met.  He told them that nothing could take that power of love from them, not even the dust of a judgmental community.  If you want to read a great article on the power of that love, and how it continues today, check out Wilma Derksen’s interview in this month’s Broadview Magazine.

And ask yourself, where do you get your power?  How are you doing with the struggle to not be competitive?  And who will you empower to go out and make a difference in the world?  God has sent you to the people, just as Jesus sent the 12, and just as Paul in his weakness was sent to empower all who heard or read his story.  May we find many opportunities to do just that.  Amen.