Out on a Limb

Have you ever wanted to do something crazy or impulsive?  Take a risk? Be adventurous?  Most people may enjoy adventure between the covers of a page, but in reality, it’s not much fun.

Christians tend to get into adventures rather like Bilbo or Frodo Baggins in the books by Tolkien, quietly because they have to, not because they want to.  They take after Zacchaeus, our hero in Luke 19.  Climbing out on a limb, because he just had to see Jesus.  His need for connection outweighed his common sense, and he did something outrageous and scandalous.  Men didn’t have a lot of garments to protect their modesty back then.  It’s one thing to be a child that climbs trees, it’s totally different to be an adult doing it.  Even now, the sight of an adult in a tree, unless they are a logger, would probably have people questioning the sanity of the climber.  It’s noble and daring to climb a mountain as an adult, a tree, not so much.

Zacchaeus was not in the tree because he was a flasher or an exhibitionist with great legs.  He was there because he couldn’t see over the crowd.  He also had the physical disadvantage of being short, but he also had a job that made him an outcast in his society.  He was called a traitor for working as a tax collector for the Roman Government.  People shunned him, ignored him, and turned their backs on him.  It must have been very lonely.

So Zacchaeus went out on a limb to see Jesus, but then he almost fell out of the tree with excitement.  Jesus saw him and invited himself over for dinner.  People muttered their disapproval, and Zacchaeus, like someone meeting Taylor Swift or Tom Cruise for the first time, started babbling with excitement.  “Oh Jesus, this is what I do” and rattled off a list of how he tried to collect taxes fairly.  For those of you who like bible words, the ancient Greek doesn’t have one word for “I did” and another for “I do”, so we don’t know if Zacchaeus did all these good things in the past and is telling Jesus about it, or if Zacchaeus is telling Jesus how he will change his life in the future.  Either way, his words would have surprised the crowd that scorned him.

Was Zacchaeus changing his ways, or was Zacchaeus spilling how he was secretly undermining the system of Roman oppression from within?  We’ll never know, but it does make me wonder what impact his actions had.  He was a leader of tax collectors, and going out on a limb to handle people’s taxes fairly was not just about being a nice guy, it was about being radically focused on abundance, something that Jesus preached a lot about.  It’s at the heart of loving our neighbors, trusting that there is enough so that we don’t have to cheat or steal or lie about money.

It wasn’t just Zacchaeus doing something different, it also challenged the townspeople of Jericho, the ones who excluded Zacchaeus.  The ones who chose to believe he wasn’t good enough or didn’t deserve the attention of someone as honored and respected as Jesus.  The ones who were outraged that Jesus would turn that nasty tax collector into his dinner host.  It would be like if Taylor Swift met up with her fans then asked some stranger who had never heard of her to go partying with her after the concert!

Jesus went out on a limb for Zacchaeus.  He showed with his words and actions that this slimy little traitor was worthy of respect.  And he respected that Zacchaeus wasn’t afraid to look silly to get what he needed.

Most of the people that made a lasting impression on us were not afraid to go out on a limb for what they cared about.  Artists do it all the time, and the braver they are, the more they are respected.  We respect the Group of Seven, for example, because they went out on a limb for their art.  Even though people called their paintings ‘hot mush’ and ridiculed their riotous use of color and their rejection of traditional European styles, the Group of Seven didn’t stop experimenting.  We remember their adventurous spirit that had them travelling all across Canada to explore different landscapes. We remember these pioneers of Canadian art more than we remember their critics.

It's not easy going out on a limb, but when we live in interesting times, we are called to do just that. And today we pay our respects to others we remember who also did just that.  A United Church minister wrote, “While our denomination might not have an official… definition of what constitutes a saint, it is a universal human experience to hold in our hearts and memories people who have… made a difference in our lives... They may be loved ones whom we knew intimately, or they may be public figures we never met. All Souls’ Day contains room for all of us, broken and blessed… they were flawed, complex, imperfect humans who noticed a particular need or issue with piercing clarity and then stubbornly followed that clarity in ways that were inconvenient and exasperating for the authorities of their time and dangerous to themselves. How might we be called to be these kinds of saints?”

We live in challenging times.  God calls us to rise to those challenges, to see our neighbors as potential saints, and to go out on a limb for justice when human rights are being trampled.  When storms rage, when people are hungry, when disasters happen, when people are struggling with fear and anxiety, we are called to be a church of bold, daring and loving disciples. May we hear the call to go out on a limb, and love those who go out on the limb for us, that we may build a more beautiful world for all.

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!

All Saints Sunday

 

Monica writes: Today we celebrate All Saints Day, a day where we remember all the people who have touched our lives, especially those whom we have loved and lost.  The scriptures remind us that saints are not super-hero Christians, but ordinary folks doing their best to follow Christ’s teachings.  They were blessed and were a blessing and we remember them flaws and all with love.  At this time of unprecedented change, our opportunities to mourn our losses have been curtailed as never before.  Today we share in an ancient tradition, of remembering and lamenting both our bereavements and our day to day losses of so much we took for granted.  The ability to hug.  To gather together in times of joy and sorrow.  To smile and laugh and sing.  We are in the midst of a great redefinition of what normal is, and part of that is remembering that we are not alone.  Today we share the words of Alan Wolfelt who penned this supportive wisdom for all who grieve and lament.

Dr. Alan Wolfelt is a specialist in grief support and  writer of the Mourner's Bill of Rights found here:  https://www.centerforloss.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/MBR.pdf  

These times we are living in mean that even if we have not lost a loved one this year, we are still having our lives turned upside down.  We may never go back to wha
t we remembered life being like, and just like our families who lived through immigration to a new land, the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, two world wars and more, we will live through this.  Even death cannot stop the good news of God’s redemptive love.  God is still at work, transforming and making new in the midst of tragedy.  This is Christianity’s greatest message, that God is with us in life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone, thanks be to God!