Rule #6

 

Boy did Jesus ask hard questions!  Who am I?  And he had a new answer for who Simon was, who just two chapters ago, was caught sinking like a stone during a storm.  I suspect that after that event, there may have been some teasing by the other disciples, “Simon, oh he’s great, but whenever he gets in a tight spot, he sinks like a stone!”  Maybe Jesus decided to flip that teasing on its head and give Simon the nickname of The Rock, the cornerstone of the new community of love that Jesus hoped to build.  The new name stuck, and Simon made it a big part of who he was.  As Christians, we too are called to define and redefine who we are, and who Jesus is for us.  We are called to continually renew and explore our faith and our commitment to the teachings of Jesus.  We are to be like the ancient Christ followers who called themselves the People of the Way.  People on a journey.  People learning more and more about their relationship with God and their relationship with their neighbor, which are to be rooted and grounded in love.

One of the first workshops we did as part of the FAB Collab with Fort McMurray, Athabasca, and  Barrhead was where we explored who Jesus was for us.  We looked at a variety of artist’s images of Jesus, traditional ones, new ones, outrageous ones and comforting ones.  We reminded ourselves and each other of what our favorite Jesus story was, that had influenced our lives the most. Just like Jesus prodding his disciples, we were prodded to remember and share how Jesus and his teachings had influenced us.  And we made art to connect us in ever deepening ways to the story of Jesus.  Art about Jesus keeps us getting into ruts.  Humans like ruts.  We like them so much, sometimes I think we decorate them.  But when we get into ruts of who we are, or who we think Jesus is, we can get bogged down into narrow and inflexible ways of thinking.  Our Christianity goes from being a journey of exploration and growth to an institution where the status quo is focusing on maintenance rather than mission.  One person described it this way:

Institutions are driven by sustainability and survivability- neither of which should be a major focus of the church. Churches should not be led by institutional viability but rather inspirational viability. Inspiration means- to be filled with the spirit, always changing, moving, evolving and transforming. Christians are also called to be transforming and renewing constantly discerning what is good, acceptable and perfect.[1]

In other words, we are to keep learning and trying new ways of living our mission to love God and love others.  Easier said than done.  That’s where Rule 6 comes in.  It’s simple, straightforward, and helps us choose intentional love in times of conflict.  What is Rule 6, you might ask?  Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, described Rule 6 this way:

Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: "Peter," he says, "kindly remember Rule Number 6," whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by a hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: "Marie, please remember Rule Number 6." Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?" "Very simple," replies the resident prime minister. "Rule Number 6 is 'Don't take yourself so g-damn seriously." "Ah," says his visitor, "that is a fine rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what, may I ask, are the other rules?"

"There aren't any."[2]

Of course, as Christians, our first rule is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.  But Rule 6 reminds us of Paul’s scripture that asks us to stop measuring ourselves against others:  “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” That sounds like Rule 6 in theological language.

What happens when we do that? Great things! Naramata Centre [where Monica was until August 1] found neighbors knocking on their doorstep at midnight August 6.  They suddenly had evacuees, 15 of them, from just across the Okanagan Lake.  The evacuees were from Peachland and Summerland.  The staff didn’t hesitate despite knowing that they would lose all the revenue from the next two weeks, they cancelled all the reservations and became a residence for Evacuee families, finding food, shelter and even activities for kids.  They chose Christian hospitality over budget, no questions.  Naramata Center is one of many United Church Communities which when faced with challenges, have remembered to put love as their main priority.  We do that here too when we provide food for the hungry and comfort for the grieving.  We do that when we open our doors to strangers and feed the hungry.  We do that when we act courageously and renew and explore our faith.  We define and redefine who we are, and who Jesus is for us.  By remembering Rule 6, and following the teachings of Jesus and Paul, we can learn humbly to live lives of action, faith and spirituality.  And Jesus will give us new names too, names like “Beloved, friend, and disciple.  May it be so for us all.

Please check out Naramata Centre's video of their pivot to support evacuees here: (2) Facebook

---

[1] Pulpit Fiction, accessed August 19, 2026

[2] Zander, Benjamin and Rosamund, The Art of Possibility, Penguin Books, 2000, p 79

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.