Journeying to hope

Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand.  Strike that, most of the time the Bible is hard to understand.  It’s hard because we don’t really know what kind of book it is.  A history book?  A novel? A fairy tale?  A newspaper report? A bunch of lies and exaggerations?  We scratch our heads and try to force the bible to fit into a category that we are comfortable with.  And many people assume it is an inflexible collection of facts and absolutes, while others throw it out of their libraries and lives.  It’s not to be read like a conventional book from cover to cover.

I often assume that United Church folks try reading with the intention of starting at Genesis and plowing all the way through to Revelation, then give up the first time they hit the begats.  The only time we read our bible is in church but that’s another extreme for sure.

Case in point, today’s reading from Isaiah.  Many would be excited to see the reference to gold and frankincense, and say that this is all about Jesus because Isaiah was predicting Jesus and the wise men on the first Epiphany.  Except, of course, it’s missing the myrrh.  But the bible is inerrant, right?  It can’t have mistakes as glaring as forgetting the third wise man’s gift to Jesus?

This shows up the huge gulf between what we read in the bible and what we think is in the bible.  We often think, for example, that Isaiah and the other prophets were like the stereotypical gypsy fortune teller, using tea leaves, tarot cards or stars in the sky to tell us mere ignorant mortals what would happen in the future.  Isaiah stares into his God-given Crystal Ball and predicts the birth of Jesus.

It’s a shame when we do this.  The Bible is not meant to be a Crystal Ball, and while it is often used as such, I don’t think God wants us to use it that way.  Our pattern of taking chunks of scripture every Sunday can add to that misunderstanding.  The United Church’s “Song of Faith” says that Scripture is our living word passed on from generation to generation to guide and inspire, that we might wrestle a holy revelation for our time and place from the human experiences and cultural assumptions of another era.

It also says the Bible is a library of songs, poetry, stories, memories, sermons and letters where generations of people record their best understandings and experiences with God. Sometimes the understandings clash – is God with us in our suffering or punishing us by sending our suffering?  Is God in history or is God in my life?  Does God care about foreigners or only care about the descendants of Abraham, Jacob and Moses?  And because the bible is a conversation, we see people claiming both views.  Isaiah’s passage today is such a view of Israel’s place in God’s vision, an inspiring beacon of hope for the whole world to gather around. A grand family reunion that also has all the neighbors wanting to join in the party.  So many camels coming that there is a dust storm covering the roads to Jerusalem.  Hope is a magnet for all humanity to gather around!

And Matthew remembered that scripture.  He sprinkled his gospel with many quotes from Isaiah and other prophets.  He referred to them 40 times, connecting what he knew of Jesus with what he knew of his sacred story.  Scholars see these quotes and the style he uses as signs that Matthew was a scribe, trained in scriptures, Jewish traditions and a deep understanding of the heritage of Jesus.  He was also on the cusp of separating from the synagogue institution, like an ancient Luther, John Knox or Charles Wesley, still connected to the faith of his childhood yet absorbing new understandings of scripture inspired by the teachings of Jesus.  He is the only one to talk about wise magi and stars in the sky, which again help him connect his ancient scriptures to the modern understanding he was sharing, the understanding Jesus had taught him.  On one hand, he was making those connections to the Moses story, the Isaiah story, but on the other hand, he was making connections to people who were not part of his ethnic group.  And when he has these images of royalty come from the east, the first thing he has them do is throw themselves down in the humble home in Bethlehem where they found him – no inn here, no manger, just a home – and give their deepest respects.  Only after that moment of worship did they hand over their presents.  That moment of worship which must have confused everyone who saw it, also changed them.  They saw through Herod’s evil plot, and they changed their direction home. 

Their only guide, other than, wait for it, consulting the scripture scholars in Herod’s palace, scribes like Matthew in fact, was the star in the sky. It too has a million explanations and rationalizations.  Even scientists join in the conversation of whether it was a conjunction, a comet, a horoscope event or a plot device by Matthew. In one theory, in 6 BC, Jupiter and Venus shone together like a single star, and Jupiter as the king star or planet shining with Venus, the love star, would have looked like one very bright new star.  The King of Love indeed! For six nights it shone in the early morning twilight, leading the magi forward into mystery. 

I think the Bible can be a star that lights our way, but like the magi, it is best seen through teamwork.  Isaiah and Matthew and all the other writers worked separately on their understandings of God, then church and synagogue leaders put it together like a conjunction of stars and planets. When we gather together to hear these words week after week, we are being like the wise magi, thinking and pondering and asking for directions. This can help us find bible wisdom for our time, hope for our journey, faith and inspiration for our lives. May it be a guiding light for our Epiphany season.

Changing hearts and minds

I love pears!  I think that they are my favorite fruit.  But I hate pears, there’s nothing I turn up my nose up more, they are so disgusting.  “Wait a minute, Monica!” you may be thinking, “How can pears be both your favorite fruit and your least favorite fruit at the same time?” Easy!  Pears that are fresh and ripe and just at their peak are incredibly sweet and juicy, their skin is nice and thin, and their flesh is soft and easy to bite into.  What better fruit can there be?  You can’t take a bite out of a coconut or pineapple or watermelon without a lot of work first.  But when we were kids, fresh fruit was very seasonal.  Mandarines at this time of year, apples and pears in the fall if we were lucky, and berries in the summer.  The rest of the year, it was canned fruit.  There was nothing worse, in my humble opinion, than the dreaded can of fruit cocktail that we had for dessert far too often.  The maraschino cherries were fine, the peaches were a little slimy, the oranges were okay, the grapes often were split and mushy but the pears?  They tasted like chunks of jello that had sand sprinkled throughout.  It was like eating a mushy bit of beachfront property, and Mom always knew which bowl of fruit cocktail was mine as I would assiduously eat around every single piece of pear in the bowl.  No amount of persuasion could convince me to eat those little cubes! They were the worst fruit in the world as far as my 10-year-old self was concerned, and even today I will do anything I can to avoid canned pear.  Yuck!

I’m sure other people have similar opinions around fruit, maybe even pears, that might echo either my love for this fruit or my loathing.  Strong opinions are easy to find on a variety of topics.  In fact, to be human is to have strong opinions on a variety of topics, right?

One of the complaints I hear is about how polarized we have become.  That we have such different opinions from our neighbors that we can’t have a civil conversation any more.  Whether it’s vaccine mandates or the causes of earthquakes in Alberta, it is hard to talk about what is weighing on our hearts and minds.  We want to think in binary absolutes – either something is good or something is bad.  Just like pears, are they my favorite or are they my least favorite, make up my mind and stop sitting on the fence, Monica! Take a side, join the club, cheer on the right team!

Isaiah dreamed of a time when this kind of division ended.  The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the wild will coexist with the tame, the carnivore with the herbivore, the poisonous with the helpless.  There will be no more villains and heroes but one creation where all will coexist.  The Green Party and the Wildrose Party will find things they can agree on, and oil workers and environmentalists will be friends. The warmongers and the peacemakers will live calmly side by side in safety and security.  It’s quite the utopian vision and Isaiah sees it as a real possibility worth working towards.

Matthew’s story of John the Baptizer is a similar message.  “Change your hearts and minds,” he preached.  Start looking at the world with different eyes.  John calls us to examine how we think of the world around us, our community, our neighbors, our family and our friends.  Just as he called out the religious leaders who came to see him, he calls us to challenge our assumptions.  How do we see ourselves?  How do we see others?  Are we caught up in either or thinking, us vs them, winners and losers, bad guys and good guys?

John calls us to think in new ways: we are to have a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, to stop judging based on appearances, or make decisions because of gossip and rumor. 

What is wisdom, then and how do we think in these new ways?  Some theologians say that wisdom is about changing how we think and act, whereas knowledge is solely about gathering information and data.  Data is easy.  With google, in seconds we know that the experience we had of the earth shifting under our feet wasn’t imaginary, and we can even put a number onto it, 5.8.  That’s data.  Knowledge.  Wisdom is when we stay calm and don’t buy into alarmist theories or wild speculation about why the earthquake happened.

How do we grow in wisdom?  Two things are helping me – reminding myself that an issue might be a ‘both and’ topic like pears.  I can like them and dislike them, it doesn’t have to be ‘either or’.  What if I am right and you are too?  That is helping me stay calmer in the midst of conflict, not perfectly but slowly better.  Another thing I do is a mantra many life coaches encourage their clients to use.  “I tell myself the truth and frequently ask myself what I’m pretending not to know”. I think that is the ultimate wisdom, when we ask deep and honest questions of ourselves and our own opinions.  John sensed that the religious leaders were coming for baptism because they had deep questions of themselves that they didn’t even knew they had.  By visiting John, they challenged their own thinking.  Some may have even joined the Jesus movement, like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who buried Jesus in the Tomb on Good Friday.  By asking questions of ourselves, looking for both and, and listening to the call of prophets to work towards God’s vision of Peace on Earth, we can follow the path of wisdom God wishes for us all.  And when that happens, fruit of the spirit come to us, especially Peace, a gift of the Creator for us all.

Eyes on the Stars

There’s something so inspiring in the story of the Magi.  Following a star on a long journey that must have taken years to complete, one step ahead of another without a map or invitation.  On a hunch that they got from staring up at the sky.  Pretty amazing.  There must have been times when they felt tired, discouraged, maybe even doubtful or depressed, and yet they continued on. 

I felt discouraged this week, as Council discussed closing the church to in person worship again.  We have always put the health of the congregation as our top priority and been prudent and cautious.  But there was a part of me that selfishly wanted to keep seeing people in the sanctuary to talk to and worship with.  Thank goodness that we work together to come up with the difficult decisions that are for the greatest good of the community.  I imagine that the magi also faced similar conversations and conundrums, especially when debating how to return home.  It would have been easier to take a familiar path back, be treated like royalty in Herod’s palace, perhaps soaking in a hot tub to get rid of the smell of the manger and the sheep and cows.  Instead, they heeded that niggling voice that suggested they turn off the beaten path and skip Jerusalem on the way home.

It’s hard to know when to heed that niggling voice and when to ignore that voice.  Christians call this discernment, and it’s not easy.  We sometimes talk ourselves into doing something we shouldn’t, or talk ourselves out of doing something we should, and it’s hard to tell what is ego talking and what is God talking.  There have been times when we talk ourselves into doing things and regret it, and other times when we discover that our hunches have been very helpful.

I once got a gift of a simple notebook that someone had taken the time to fill with inspirational quotes but left plenty of room to add my own quotes to it as I found them.  She doodled and copied and scrapbooked probably 30-40 quotes into it and I have added some every time I find a quote I want to remember.  I also started to give notebooks of quotes to folks I knew that were getting ordained.  I now have a file of quotes and prayers for ministers on my computer, so I can print them off, glue them into the notebook, hand copy the shorter ones and send it on.  Last May someone from AST was getting ordained and I got another notebook out, but for whatever reason, I kept procrastinating on putting the quotes in.  Life was busy, it went to the bottom of my to do list, and I never got around to sending it.  Last November, I finally made time to put it together and sent it off to the new minister.  Imagine my surprise when I got a hand-written card back thanking me for the perfect timing.  It had arrived in the mail just when the minister needed a little encouragement.  The quotes hit home and inspired them to remember that they were not alone.  We all need a little inspiration once in a while, and we all find inspiration from each other.  I think it’s not a coincidence that the magi traveled in a group.  Jesus said, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there”, and whenever I am struggling to know what is wise, I know that gathering two or three, talking to our church council or one of our committees, is the best way to come up with new solutions or ideas.  New ways of working through challenging decisions, new inspirations, new hopes and dreams.

Scripture can be like a third person in the conversation, the wise words of experience that can guide us into new paths.  It can form and shape and inspire us.  It can surprise us when we least expect it to.  I was quite surprised to see that Psalm 148, the reading we started our service with, mentioned snow and frost, for example.  I struggle with the idea that God controls the weather, as I think this cold snap is no more caused by God than the floods in BC or the heat bubbles in Alberta last summer.  If God so loved the world, it doesn’t make sense for God to punish the world, or at least Western Canada with these huge temperature swings.  Much more likely for us to be experiencing the natural consequences of global warming from too much carbon in the air than an angry God micromanaging the polar vortex.

So while we treat scripture with respect, we also recognize and wrestle with its shortcomings.  Scripture didn’t understand bacteria or viruses, scripture didn’t know about oil and gas or machines or factories.  Scripture couldn’t see through telescopes to realized that Mars and Jupiter weren’t stars but planets.  Scripture is one of our partners in the discernment conversation, but not a voice that shouts to drown out the other voices.  John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, firmly believed that such conversations needed to include scripture, and community wisdom, but also logic and emotion. That can be a pretty crowded conversation, to weave all these aspects into decisions.

Yet decisions made together this way can lead to great wisdom, just like the wise men taking a different route home.  Wisdom speaks to us and helps guide us into decisions that might not be popular or easy but most loving.  Wisdom can inspire wonderful new ideas and creative solutions.  Wisdom can discover new opportunities that we didn’t know about.  When we look to wisdom to inspire us, and discover wisdom among us, we can find God leading us in new exciting directions.  Our Song of Faith puts it this way, “In and with God, we can direct our lives toward right relationship with each other and with God.  We can discover our place as one strand in the web of life. We can grow in wisdom and compassion. We can recognize all people as kin. We can accept our mortality and finitude, not as a curse, but as a challenge to make our lives and choices matter.”  May we find words of wisdom and choices through discernment to make our lives matter in new and inspiring ways this year.  Amen.

Step Away from the Whip!

Lent is a good time for confession and self-reflection.  Stories like our scriptures today remind us to stop a moment and take a good deep look at what we are doing in our lives.  Is it Christian?  Is it Faithful?  Is it Holy?

Jesus comes storming into the Temple on one of the most holy holidays of the year, Passover. He picks up his whip and gets going.  He threatens to destroy the Temple. What a public relations disaster!  Can you imagine what would happen if I waltzed into a basilica or the legislature and tried to do something similar?  Jesus got off pretty easy, he didn’t get tazered or tackled or even arrested. 

I felt a similar surge of anger, or what I imagine was a similar anger last week when someone quoted C. S. Lewis to bolster their message that masks and curfews and vaccines are destroying their right to a turkey dinner in a restaurant with 30 of their closest friends and family.  I felt anger not because their message has changed or that they are completely disregarding the science or dismissing human suffering.  The straw that broke my camel back was that they dared quote C. S. Lewis to justify all this conspiracy spreading!

So naturally, I dived into my collection of Lewis, looking for the passage where he talks about doing what’s best for the neighbor, so if a Catholic and a Protestant worship together, the Catholic would not make the sign of the cross out of respect and consideration for the Protestant, and the Protestant would make the sign of the cross out of respect and consideration for the Catholic.

I didn’t find it.  But I did find a lot about what Lewis says is the deadliest, most tempting sin of all, Pride.  If I go out to do righteous battle with folks who are carrying tiki torches, and I feel a sense of pride in my skill at arguing, or I feel good about how smart I am or even more subtly, I feel happy in how right I am, I am slipping into the sin of Pride.  Who am I to think I can charge in like Jesus did, whip in hand and change the world with my passionate facts thrown at their heads, hoping they will flee like the money changers and make the Internet safe for logic and common sense?  Sure Jesus did that, but I’m no Jesus!

When we set ourselves up as the experts, as the ones with the right answers, and even worse, we pick up our whips made up of facts and opinions and research and set off to beat people over the head in hopes of purifying them, we set ourselves up for the temptation of becoming Proud and Arrogant.  That sounds distinctly unChristlike.  But it’s so tempting to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong.  That I have the right to whip and beat you until you agree that you are bad.

Some of us use big whips, we argue and bluster when there is a crowd listening to us, we have a microphone and a DJ music system to make sure everyone knows what we are saying.  Some of us use small whips, little digs, little criticisms, little put-downs, little complaints and we do it more often.  Someone called it ‘nibbled to death by ducks’, another called it the 5 emotional cancers that can destroy a community slowly from the inside out: 

Criticizing, Complaining, Comparing, Competing, and Contending.

These whips come from a sense of my own inadequacies, my own lack of confidence and are not what God wants for me.  That is what Paul would call the wisdom of the world.  The world believes that we live in a dog-eat-dog society, that we have to be the wisest, smartest, richest, toughest people in order to survive and criticizing others, complaining about them, comparing our possessions or our children’s accomplishments somehow makes us better than our neighbors, that’s the wisdom of the world and Paul says it’s the kind of wisdom that leads to ruin, it destroys lives and even civilizations.

The foolish wisdom of the cross is the real power of God, that God’s wisdom is not in competing to be the best or the smartest person in the room but to be found in small acts of kindness, love and sacrifice.  We are called, in fact, to put down our whips lest we also lose our way.

Sure, Jesus whipped the Temple clean, but it didn’t last long.  There was a system in place that had evolved out of the people’s need to find a guaranteed connection to God.  Pure sacrifices, safe coins without blasphemic images of Caesar on them, anything that would help people feel connected to God.  That system snapped back as soon as he left the building.  

Jesus picked up the whip because he truly loved his community and he loved God and he loved his disciples, but it wasn’t enough.  It would take something more dramatic than the whip to shake up people’s addictions to purity and encourage them to rethink their relationship with God.  It would take the cross.

We are called to reflect very carefully before we pick up a whip.  As Jesus said later in this same gospel, “you who are without sin may throw the first stone.” Too often we think we have the right to change our churches but while the passion may be appropriate, the whip wielding can lead to spreading the cancer, not healing the congregation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.” 

Jesus transformed the community through the cross, not the whip.  We too, are called to lay down our whips and our pride, and open ourselves humbly to the power of God working in us in love.  Love in the end, is the only power to clean the temples of our lives.  

Help us God as we build a community of thriving, loving and courageous people of faith, filled with your foolish wisdom.  Amen.

When I’m Calling You

When I was in university back in the 80’s, I would walk to class from my Grandma’s house in the McKernan neighborhood.  One day a couple came by and called out, “Lisa! What are you doing back in town? Why didn’t you call us?”  I tried to tell them that I wasn’t Lisa, and they got quite indignant.  They honestly thought I was pulling a prank on them.  I should have asked for their name and try to contact my doppelganger, but I didn’t think of that, and found the whole incident rather disturbing.

Then a few years ago, I got a pile of e-mail resumes sent to me for a daycare down in Texas.  Turns out there are several Monica Rosboroughs on Linked In, one of which is a daycare manager in Marshall, Texas! So someone can look like me and not be me, and someone can look nothing like me yet have my name.  It’s a confusing world out there at times.

Jesus seems to know not just Nathaniel’s name but also his face, and more than that, his character.  He recognized Nathaniel as a faithful and honest man.  In some ways, that is the hardest to understand of all.  We humans struggle with knowing when we can trust someone.  Con artists abound, a testimony to our innate desire to trust people, and we often choose wrong.  We also trust too broadly and when someone loses our trust, we can become very judgemental.  We can even overreact.  If someone like Bill Cosby does what he does, of course he should go to jail.  But if someone is late for a meeting or gets angry at something we do, it doesn’t mean that we should automatically convict them as untrustworthy.  

Don’t trust me to put together a budget on time and accurately, it won’t happen!  But do trust that I will care about how we set priorities and how we worship together.  We all have strengths that we are trustworthy with, and wise is the person who knows what they can be trusted to do and what they can’t.

Also wise is Jesus who can see to the heart of someone and call them into discipleship with such clarity and trust. And of course, God is the source of all wisdom, and calls a diverse group of people into service. Last week we learned about John Wesley and his heart being as he put it, strangely warmed.  That was his personal call story, how he found himself called into ministry.  Today we also hear the story of Samuel, called when he was a child.

Doesn’t Samuel sound like a spoiled kid who won’t go to sleep? Eli was an old man who hadn’t been a great parent for his own sons, but now was stuck raising this kid to be a holy preacher.  Sounds more like a holy terror.  Kid, get to sleep!  Go back to bed! Let me get some shut eye! Eli didn’t trust the boy to know God’s voice, and God shouldn’t have trusted Eli to raise Samuel to be the next religious leader of the people after messing up his sons.  But God gives second chances and calls young and old into new lives and new adventures.  Sometimes it’s with words, sometimes it’s with feelings, sometimes it’s just the logical thing to do.

Everyone is called to different tasks, and everyone’s call is unique.  It doesn’t matter if they look similar to someone else or share someone else’s name, their call is unique to them.  Hearing the call is one thing, understanding it is another.  Many are called but not all answer.  Some folks don’t recognize that tug on their heartstring as a call, some find it too scary to contemplate and they give up.  Some feel crippled by their lack of self-esteem.  Moses almost walked away from the burning bush because he felt so inadequate, Jeremiah almost quit because he felt too young even though he was older than Samuel. I often hear people apologizing for not having the gifts they feel they should have.

“I should know how to knit”, they say “so I could also make prayer shawls”, or “I wish I could speak in front of people” when they really don’t want to do such a thing.  Sometimes God calls us to do things that are hard and take a good deal of fortitude, but more often God calls us to do something which gives us great joy!  And it may be something we already enjoy doing!  One little boy was so inspired by Samuel that he and his grandma collected enough bottles to buy a ghetto blaster for his grandma’s Sunday School class.  That’s hearing the call!

Maybe it’s phoning people who are living alone, maybe it’s being a walking buddy for someone who needs encouragement.  Maybe it’s starting a petition for our parks.  Maybe it’s a letter-writing campaign to a government official.  Maybe it’s going back to school or taking lessons on something that has been haunting you for a while.  Maybe it’s sharing the Zoom link or YouTube video to our church service with a friend who talks to you about faith.  Maybe it’s finally calling a mental health hotline and getting support for yourself in these difficult times.  Test it with the Wesley test – is it logical, does it fit my experience, does it resonate with my faith and does it feel right emotionally?  Share it with a wise friend whose advice you have found to be helpful in the past, then take even a tiny step towards that action. Whatever you are feeling called to do, be it big or small, old or new, scary or joyful, take time to pray about it, then trust that God will guide you and call you into a new and renewed sense of your own discipleship.  May it be so for us all!

Spare Change?

I saw some amazing sculptures the other day called Open Mind by an artist named Johnson Tsang.  They show people’s heads with a variety of expressions from happiness to confusion, and hands coming from inside the head making openings of different sizes and shapes. 

(https://johnsontsang.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/open-mind-series/ )

 It reminds me of how difficult it can be to change.  I have spent the last two weeks changing where I work, sometimes from home, sometimes from the office, doing my best to respect the law, and as some of you have found, working from home calls for a lot of adaptation.  The fridge is an easy commute, and family is always there to chat with.  But it’s just one more change in a year that has seen more than our fair share of changes.

It would be nice to think that 2021 would be a year where we can get back to normal, and where we can undo all the changes that have been made from necessity.  There is something deeply unsettling about change that comes from outside ourselves, that we have little choice over.  It’s one thing to make a new year’s resolution to get up half an hour earlier, it’s another thing to have someone else or something else force change on us.  Even change that’s necessary is still hard to endure.

The magi had a reason to change, they chose to leave their families, their way of life and journey into an unknown land.  They were scholars and dignitaries who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.  And we have no way of knowing whether this is history or myth story, but I wonder just how wise they were.  They obviously didn’t realize that they were blundering into the court of one of the most corrupt, power-hungry and paranoid kings of the land.  

They could have benefitted with checking into their embassy if they had one, before showing up at the King’s fortress asking embarrassing questions.  You know, questions like, ‘where’s your successor? We hear he’s going to be amazing, and so blessed that even the stars are predicting his birth!’

Herod was more than a little paranoid about losing power.  According to the historians of his day, he murdered so many of his family including wives and sons that Augustus reportedly said that it was better to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son because at least Herod, as a Jew, would not eat his pig.  He had his heir killed only a few days before he himself died.  Not a nice man!

And here the Magi blunder in, asking politically uncomfortable questions that no one wanted to answer.  Not so wise after all.  And it turned out they were off by 9 km! They had to make some changes for themselves.  Stop looking in the palace for a king, stop looking in the capital of the nation for a king, but travel to where the poorest of the poor were living on the outskirts.  Stop eating at a king’s table and visit a family who may not know where their next meal is coming.  Stop visiting with people who know the proper protocol for dealing with foreign dignitaries and go to a place where they may not be treated with the reverence and respect they were used to.  And stop trusting the ruler who has all the answers and all the advisors; instead turn to a nebulous way of making a decision.  They chose to follow an inspiration and avoided returning to Herod.

We can no more return to the so-called glory days of pre-Covid life than the Magi could return to Herod.  We have learned too much and experienced too much to do so.  People in heavily populated countries have seen the stars at night, free from the smog that was their constant experience.  Why would they want to return?  We have seen the inherent injustices of people struggling with inadequate health care, unfair labor practices and inadequate employment.  

We have seen the heartbreaking impact on immigrants working two or three jobs, struggling to get home or to stay healthy.  

We have learned of the systemic racism that permeates every aspect of North American Society.  We have struggled to retain our parks from loosing their protected status in a province that values profit over preservation.  We have discovered how fragile our economy is and how important our connections to other people are, who really is essential.  And we have discovered how our faith has strengthened us to adapt to change, to care for our neighbors and to fight against injustice. 

We cannot and must not go back to Herod.  That means more change will happen.  More people will continue to work from home and drive less.  More people will recognize the power of community.  More people will discover the joy of living with respect in creation.  More people will chose a different lifestyle than the frantic and frenetic ways of the past.

2021 will not be the same as 2020, nor will it be the same as 2019.  Change will happen.  But as children of God, adopted as God’s heirs, we are free to live in glorious holy ways that benefit everyone and not just ourselves.  We are inspired to live with courage and hope as we face each new day.  We are called to live with generosity, to share what we can of our time, our talents and our abundance with those who are struggling.  We are strengthened by our faith to live with fortitude, especially in times such as these.  And we are gifted with wisdom that helps us make wise choices for a future where justice and love prevail. Our sacred story points the way for everyone whether they live in palaces or hovels.  And our God who loves us so much that we are adopted into grace-filled community, will guide and sustain us as we follow the Magi into 2021.  May it be so for us all!