Signs of the Times

Last month we had a new addition to our congregation.  Agnes had been living in a decommissioned United Church in Collinton for several decades. She is currently 109 years old.  She was a wedding gift to Gina Payzant, the movie director who did a documentary on George Riga, author of “The Ecstasy of Rita Joe”. Agnes was gifted to Gina in 1976. The plant was sixty four years old, at that time, which means it was born in 1912.  Wow.  It must be happy here despite the indignity of being moved from its home, because it is already blooming!

Jesus might have appreciated Christmas cacti, although he would never have seen one in his homeland.  But they like to bloom every Christmas and Easter.  How do they know it’s time to get ready to do that?  Like the Fig Tree in the parable Jesus taught, (Luke 21:25–36) they know the signs of the times.  They know when the days get short and the days lengthen again.  They know what time it is.  They get ready.

The disciples were living in uncertain times, where there were no insurance companies to rebuild homes, no armies who could bring in helicopters, no way of distributing feed to livestock stranded in floods, no governments who could step in with emergency funding and infrastructure dollars.  Their time of challenge was a daily lived experience.  So it must have been confusing to hear that when the signs were troubling, nations were in turmoil and when danger was imminent, they were to stand up straight and raise their heads.

Why? Because Jesus would return for them, and return in love amidst the violence, the troubles, the signs.  They could be comforted in the knowledge that they could stand secure.  Unlike their neighbors and friends, they would be able to rise above the worry and the indulgences, staying calm and resourceful, being patient and brave.

How?  By remembering that God was with them.  If someone like Paul, who was flawed and bad-tempered, impulsive and antagonistic, could write so lovingly to the Thessalonians, how much more assured would the disciples have been by what Jesus said?

The signs of our times have been dire.  I feel for the churches in BC preaching on this scripture.  Between fires, floods, heat bubbles, mudslides and Covid, they must feel like the end times are real and are here and now.  People ask me if I think the end of the World is at hand, and if the second coming is near.  But if we read the scriptures carefully, we hear that Jesus taught the end was happening in his follower’s lives.  “This generation will not pass away,” he said, and we see echoes of that immediate expectation in Paul’s writings as well as in the other gospels.  In fact one of the hard things the early church had to wrestle with was that Jesus didn’t appear on schedule and people started dying before the Second Coming.  They had to change and adapt their expectations while they waited.  It’s one thing to sell all your possessions and share what you have with your neighbors when you think there’s only weeks left, but another thing when the weeks turn into months and the months turn into years.  Paul wrote a lot about that, and the transition was hard.  That’s why the gospels were written down, as the first witnesses to Jesus were executed or died.  Our scriptures that we read every Sunday morning are the legacy of that shift in thinking.  The end times did not come when they were expected, but the people changed their focus from waiting for immediate results to waiting with alert readiness.

Our world ends all the time.  My world first ended when I was 10 and my 4-year-old sister died about a month before Christmas.  My world ended when I gave up on church, deciding that God was dead and worship was meaningless.  My world ended when the cute boy told me he was not interested in me as anything more than a friend, and I knew I would never get married or have kids.  My world ended when I got the phone call from the hospital that my dad finally died from cancer.  My world ended when I heard the words, “your son has been in a motorcycle accident.”

But our world begins anew all the time too.  When I was twelve and the day after my birthday, I had a new baby brother to love.  When I heard the words, “welcome to our church, we hope you find God as you worship with us.” When Tim asked me to marry him.  When I twice had a new baby put in my arms and I marvelled at their tiny little toes and fingers.  When I watched them graduate.  When the phone call about the motorcycle accident added, “but he’s okay and is very lucky.”  When I graduated first from Education then from ministry.  When I was welcomed here and told, “we’re happy to have you!”

When our worlds end, we are to stand up straight, lift up our heads and rejoice because our salvation has come.  Remember Gandolf when he faced the monster in the mines of Moria?  He stood up tall, made a  cross with his sword and staff, looked the fiery Balrog in the eye and said, “You Shall Not Pass” with a blaze of light!  

When we see signs around us that we live in troubled times, let us not look for hope, let us be the hope!  Like Agnes here who lived through the War to end all Wars, the Spanish Flu, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Y2K, the Twin Towers and more, yet keeps blooming as a sign of hope and beauty.

Usually the first Sunday of Advent, I tell stories of where to find hope, but not this year.  Together, let us be signs of hope that the world so desperately needs.  Stand tall, look trouble in the eye, and shine your light of Christ so all can see! We can do this because we are blessed with the love that binds us together in one great community of saints that traces back to the disciples and Thessalonians who stood tall for us so we can stand tall for others!  And may God be our blessing and our salvation in these times.  Amen. 

When dreams are in ruins

Doomsday.  It’s like a car crash on the Anthony Henday freeway.  We slow down to watch the disaster or because the emergency response vehicles are flashing their lights, and it’s hard not to rubberneck as we crawl by.  Or it’s like hearing about a tornado and power outage in Vancouver.  I immediately texted my son only to find out he had not even known that the power was out for some of his coworkers.  Or like the time we were on our honeymoon in Queensland in 1987 and heard that Mill Woods, where our brothers lived and our wedding presents awaited our return, had been destroyed by a tornado!  Time stands still for a moment, disbelief is expressed, adrenalin kicks in and we do what we can to connect with our family and friends.  Our home in Mill Woods didn’t even lose a leaf off a tree that day.  But the anxiety that we endured while we scrambled to find out what had happened took a while to wear off, and we were lucky compared to some folks in the trailer park.

Now we are in times that have left many feeling anxious and isolated.  It feels like we are all holding our breaths waiting for things to go back to the way they were.  Yet so much has happened and is still happening that it is hard to picture what back to normal, or forward to new normal, will look like.

Mark was writing his gospel at a similar time of great change.  He remembered the ‘good old days’ when Jesus was teaching the disciples, inspiring, empowering and engaging them.  The times Jesus comforted them, the times Jesus provoked them.  When we hear Mark’s story, there is a lot of Jesus provoking and challenging everyone he met.  The scribes and Pharisees, the temple officials, the keepers of the status quo.  And he provoked his disciples too, much to their discomfort.  Imagine standing in a beautiful, awe-inspiring building that was the centre of the faith, and Jesus saying, eh, it’s not so great.  And Jesus was right to warn them not to worship the building.  Only 30 or so years later, it was destroyed so badly by the besieging Roman army that it would never be rebuilt and the western wall is all that’s left of what was once a glorious symbol of Herod’s ambitions.

The trauma of having the temple, with the holy of holies destroyed alongside much of the city, was devastating for the faithful.  They struggled to understand why God had allowed it to be destroyed.  Leading up to this, charismatic leaders were recruiting people to wage war on the Romans.  They had some success and wiped out 6000 Roman Centurions in one ambush.  But as the Romans started taking the insurrection more seriously, pushing the various groups into Jerusalem, the leaders started fighting amongst each other in a bloody civil war.  Jerusalem was destroyed, with a death toll of over a million, according to the Roman Historian Josephus.  So Jesus warning his people of the different leaders who would be vying for their loyalty was making an important point.  Jumping on a bandwagon because it’s led by a charismatic speaker is not what God is calling us to do.  It can lead to death and destruction.  The world is full of earthquakes and wars and famine, but we are not to be dismayed.  We are to stay focused on our purpose.

I am proud of this congregation.  We have been very steady in our focus.  When DJs urged us to protest public health legislation, we did not jump on that bandwagon.  When friends and family started sharing conspiracy theories or recommended veterinarian medication for Covid, we resisted.  When people thought it was okay to make racist comments in public and talk about making Alberta great again, we challenged those attitudes.  We wore orange feathers and orange t-shirts, we wrote letters to the editors, we started petitions to save parks, and other initiatives.  We started saying a land acknowledgement long before it was popular to do so.  I was surprised and impressed that the Remembrance Day ceremony this week started with a land acknowledgement.

Here are two stories from this week of how we  make a difference when we stick to our vision of God’s Community.  One was a family of four who came because the Friendship Centre thought we might have some winter coats to give them.  There was an eight-year-old, a mum, an auntie and a kookum, and they told me that Covid had been a real struggle for them.  They saw our basket of socks and their eyes opened wide and they were so happy to know that they could take some home.  They also took some of the food and clothes from our donation baskets.  Next time they come they will take our Jiggs Dinner that we froze for families in need.  There were other people who were treated to new socks and food this week.  People struggling with mental health or with developmental challenges.  But I will not forget the look on the RCMP officer’s face who came to collect socks for the Detachment.  I told him we had a lot, but I don’t think he believed me; he told me he’d take as many as we could spare.  Boy, was he surprised with the basket filled to overflowing!  He said that socks would go out in the squad cars so that if they had to deal with someone who was in the bush, they would have warm dry feet because of us.  And he wanted me to thank you for your generosity.

We may help prevent frostbite, gangrene, or even death amongst people who have lost hope that they deserve to be treated with care and respect.  Paul wrote, “provoke one another to love and good deeds”, and we have done just that.  Having a vision that stays the course, inspires generosity, empowers our community and engages the ones who are seen as least among us, is what we as Christians are called to do.  When we keep that vision in mind, walls are broken down, chains are thrown aside, and we all live in Christ’s vision of freedom and liberty for all.

Rules vs love

There’s nothing more annoying some days than losing my poppy.  It’s gotten to be a bit of an obsession with me.  I keep my poppies from year to year, stuck to a cork board so I won’t go without.  I have tried bending the pin.  I have horded poppies.  I have checked as I’m leaving a place to make sure I haven’t lost them.  All because I fear the censure and judgement of people who assume that my lost poppy is a sign of disrespect to veterans, that it is unpatriotic or unCanadian. And it’s not all in my imagination either.  There have been times when people who are normally nice, kind people have let loose a diatribe or scathing remark about my empty collar without asking if I lost it.  They assumed bad intentions and they judged my character and they let me have it.

I’m sure they, like the religious scholars Jesus was talking about, had good intentions.  We do need to remember the dreadful cost of war, the dreadful consequences when totalitarian dictators brainwash voters with us vs them rhetoric.  But I think we do need to be careful when we hear people put rules ahead of love.

There’s a house in Edmonton that was set up for moms who wanted to get off the streets and get sober.  Some were fleeing the drug trade, some were running away from a toxic childhood home, or bad boyfriends.  Some had lived under bridges, and some had couch surfed.  The ones who had children under 5 had nowhere to turn.  If they went to a homeless shelter, they would lose their children to the system.  And they all had to be sober for three months before they could access social service programs and treatment centres.  Three months can be a long time when you don’t know where to find a safe haven.  When I first visited, I was told that the residents might be afraid of me.  Because I was white, I looked like a social worker.  And social workers took children and babies away.  They would even show up in the maternity wards before the moms were released!  The rules were more important than love but the group home made love more important than rules.  Whatever happened, everyone was committed to keeping the children safe.  That was their mission, their purpose, and they were committed to that rule of love.

Generosity is the same.  If we are being told to be generous because of the rules, instead of love, it, as Paul says, it’s extortion.  That is what Jesus was pointing out when he showed the poor widow giving her two cents.  She was giving for love, but the hypocritical leaders of the church were pushing her to such giving because of the rules.  We learned last week that you can’t get to heaven in a rocking chair.  Well, a visa card or fat check book won’t do it either.

It’s important to be intentional and loving with our money, just as we are called to be intentional and loving with our words and our actions.  When we think things through carefully with intention, there’s a fancy word for that, discernment, which is a spiritual practice.  It’s when we choose how we use money and where we use money.  Society doesn’t want us to take time to think about purchases, they want us to spend emotionally.  They want us to grab that extra chocolate bar at the till, become addicted to the shopping channel, spend money on the latest eye-catching gismo we see on the internet, or the coolest thing out of the latest Hammacher catalogue.  I have just got to get that glow in the dark motion sensor toilet seat that doubles as a nightlight!  Really?

We are called to remember that we can’t get to heaven on such an amazing throne, available for the low price of 16.99, with free gift wrap included, even if we do qualify for free shipping.  That is not about love of God, love of neighbor, love of self.  On the other hand I don’t think we should be like Elon Musk, who when the U.N. claimed that 2% of his wealth would solve world hunger, retorted that he didn’t believe the U.N. could save millions of lives with such a donation.  His cynicism is a way of justifying his $311 billion dollars.  And what about folks who spend 250 to 300 thousand dollars to get a ride into space?  So maybe we can get to the heavens with a big enough bank account, but where’s our love, our ministry, our mission, our caring for God’s neighbor in that?

Compared to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, we may feel more like the poor widow who only has two cents to rub together.  But we do have a false sense of our own economic status when we only compare ourselves to millionaires or billionaires.  Compared to many around the world who live on $5 a day, we are wealthy too.  So how do we find a healthy relationship with money that falls into our Christian ethic without either giving away everything we own in guilt or hording everything we have in fear?

Nathan Duncan teaches church goers that most of us fall into one of three categories: we are savers or spenders or sharers.  He encourages us to think about where we need to save more, where we could spend more, and how we could share more in a healthy balance.  We should never be like the Widow woman giving her last coins to the church, nor should we be like the hypocrites who demand money from people so they can wear their fancy outfits and show off in church.  When we share, let us do so with careful discernment and love.  When we save, let us do so with careful discernment and love.  When we spend, let us do so with love. Love, not rules.

Intentions matter.  I intend no disrespect to veterans when my poppy slips off my coat.  The social workers I’m sure didn’t intend to traumatize the moms but make sure the babies were safe. But let’s err on the side of love in all that we do, because we are loved and called to love in everything we do.  Rules can be loving and health-giving, but ultimately, God calls us to healthy relationships and balance, even healthy relationships with money.  By discerning and loving, we can make healthy choices that benefit both ourselves and our neighbors, and helps bring God’s heaven a step closer to earth for us all.  May we work together to build Heaven on Earth for all God’s children.  Amen.

Oh You Can’t Get to Heaven in a Rocking Chair!

Do you know that folksong?  It’s one that is good for campfires and small kids.  It teaches about rhyming and improvising and is a playful reminder of what the Reformation is all about!  500 or so years ago, Martin Luther got so fed up that he nailed a poster to a church door asking uncomfortable questions about how the church taught people to get to Heaven.  At that time, the Roman Catholic Church had a long list of dos and don’ts for getting into heaven.  Do buy indulgences, which were free tickets to heaven for family and friends.  Don’t read the bible too closely in your own language, especially passages like the two we heard this morning.  Do send your money to Rome, don’t ask too many questions of your priest.  And don’t hold priests or popes accountable for their bad behavior.  They are in the job because God gave it to them, and therefore they and especially the Pope are infallible.  They are the final authority between you and God, they know what’s best for you, and they are your holy Father on earth that you have to answer to.  Back then, one could get to heaven on a rocking chair if it was handcrafted especially for the Pope as a gift.

I don’t think that was what the scribe intended when asking Jesus the ‘big question’.  What is the most important thing?  Now often scribes were lumped in with the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the temple officials as the hypocrites, the challengers, the cynical ones who eventually crucified Jesus instead of listening to him. But this scribe was really listening and didn’t come with a chip on their shoulder or with an agenda or as part of the clique determined to undermine Jesus in front of his followers.  The scribe was open to change.  Big change. He didn’t side with the people in power, he sided with curiosity and a genuine hunger to know God better. He didn’t come with a political agenda. He wasn’t playing a game of passive aggression, asking questions as a way of supposedly being nice to Jesus but looking for an opportunity to attack or discredit him in front of his followers.  The scribe was focused on getting to know God and serve God first and foremost, and politics was not what was important to him.

Nor was politics and passive aggression what Paul was encouraging and supporting.  He called a spade a spade.  He told the Romans to close their mouths and be accountable for what they said and did.  He told them that they shouldn’t be quarrelsome and stop competing to see who was holiest.  Then he said the words that would inspire Luther to start the Reformation.  People are justified by faith, by God’s actions, not people’s score cards.  We can’t get to heaven by swapping the rocking chair for roller blades or rocket ships, or anything else.  We get to heaven because of God.  God’s love, God’s ticket, God’s action not ours.  Not by our smarts, our actions, our attention to the law, our checklists, or our good deeds.  Because God loves.  Full stop, end of discussion. 

That doesn’t mean we can sit back in our rocking chairs and do nothing.  We are still supposed to be accountable to each other for our words and our actions.

This is easier said than done.  I have been at several United Church workshops on growing congregations this month.  There are over 200 United Churches that are not just growing but thriving, even during Covid.  We can become one of those! The chief characteristic of congregations that die is how the members practice accountability with each other.  The more toxic the communication, the quicker the congregation dies.  Especially in small towns.  Millennials are very sensitive to toxic congregations will not join organizations where people are practicing politics or gossip or bullying.  This is not unique to churches.  Many Toastmaster clubs closed because of Covid.  Our own region went from five to two clubs.

Toxic communication is such a problem that the United Church has policies in place to call for accountability from congregations and ministers alike. The policy states:

Harassment includes improper and unwanted comment or conduct when such conduct might reasonably be expected to cause insecurity, discomfort, offence, or humiliation to another person. Harassment is a form of discrimination… [that] can include jokes, verbal abuse, hazing… comments about appearance or clothing… setting impossible expectations, constant negativity, and/or undermining behaviour [etc.].  (Workplace Discrimination, Harassment, and Violence Prevention and Response Policy (united-church.ca) accessed October 29, 2021)

Some churches that are growing and thriving have a behavior policy posted on their front doors to remind people every time they come in to be accountable to each other for their behaviors, their words, and their attitudes towards others.

Ironic that churches are often uncomfortable talking about this, because we have heard stories of bad customers being told they weren’t welcome, or seen signs on stores with harassment policies, or heard reports of worker shortages because people don’t want to be yelled at any more.  We’ve seen angry protesters in front of hospitals and nasty letters to the editor or irate comments on social media.  We are struggling to deal with an outbreak of negativity, put downs, and verbal abuse.

Church needs to be a sanctuary from such negativity. Our church has been learning about how to be that sanctuary and to be more accountable.  We have been using the teachings of Parker Palmer before every council meeting and most committee meetings.  Palmer says,

Our views of reality may differ but speaking one’s truth in a circle of trust does not mean interpreting, correcting or debating what others say. Turn from reaction and judgment to wonder and compassionate inquiry. Ask yourself, “I wonder why they feel/think this way?” or “I wonder what my reaction teaches me about myself?” Set aside judgment to listen to others—and to yourself—more deeply.

The good news is that we are called to love our God and our neighbors as we love ourselves, but the great news is that God loves us so much that even when we stumble and falter in our attempts to do that, God still justifies us through love and grace, no matter what.  God shows mercy on us in our struggles to become more accountable and more loving with everyone we meet, in this sanctuary and out.  Whether we have a rocking chair or a rocket ship, God will help us make the trip!  Thanks be to God!

Priorities not politics

Someone very wise once told me that there was nothing we can’t do if we really want it badly enough.  He said that there was always enough time, energy and money for what was truly important.  No matter how tired I was, how broke, or how busy, I could muster my reserves.  I, naturally, was skeptical, but even I had to admit, that if someone came by with two tickets and a backstage pass to meet ABBA live and in person, even if I had just given birth to my first baby, I would probably find the energy to jump on a plane to England to attend their new virtual reality concert next month.  I might not do it for Prince, Michael Jackson, Elvis or even the Beetles, but ABBA?  I have to admit I would dig up all my record albums, jump on a plane and get them to autograph every single one.

ABBA was the music of my teens, and with John Denver, provided many memories of happiness, dancing and joy. Which is what teen age life is supposed to be about.  Finding out what is most important in life is, of course, more than just rock concerts and dancing queens.  But the music we like, the heroes we looked up to in our teenage years, can point to our core values.  

Our scriptures this morning can be seen through the lens of looking at core values.  James and John Zebedee were squabbling for the best seats of power once Jesus dethroned Herod and took his place in the castle and Temple.  They wanted to be the ones whispering into his ear when people came to the foot of the throne and petitioned for Jesus to solve their problems. The two brothers were stuck in a traditional idea of change, that society could only transform through a violent take over, a coup.  They thought about politics first and theology second.

I like the definition of politics I recently stumbled on, “Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”  James and John wanted Jesus to treat them as better than the others.  “We want you to grant our request.  See to it!”  Pretty pushy.  We also see politics in 1 Kings reading of the two women arguing over a baby.  One described herself as a loyal citizen, pointing to the other as the evil doer.  Solomon played politics with the women too, manipulating them to reveal which one really cared about the baby.  Note that the passage does not say which woman was the one who cared the most, the one claiming to be the loyal subject or the one first accused.  One subtle nuance to this story is that the women were living in a household without a man as patriarch to arbitrate, and to witness.  Women were not allowed to be witnesses, only men.  So there was no one Solomon could turn to whose testimony would hold up in the court. Solomon had to think outside the box to solve the problem. Solomon tricked them into showing their true intentions, their real values.  One wanted equality and fairness seeing the baby as an object to fight over.  And if both babies were dead, equality would have been re-established. The other simply wanted her baby to live and was willing to sacrifice her right to the baby to guarantee its safety.  When a sword is hovering over something we cherish, our values come to the forefront very quickly.

That’s a good time to look at our values and really examine them, see if they are aligned with the Gospel, or can be tweaked to be lived out in healthier ways. Having a clear focus on why we do what we do is something we need to do intentionally.  So many people talk about the importance of putting first things first, knowing why we do what we do.  Whether it’s Steven Covey’s Seven Habits, Barack Obama’s campaign on hope, Martin Luther King’s dream, Mother Theresa’s ministry, Gandhi’s march for salt, Greta Thunberg sailing to North America, all great people with clear purposes and a focus that they continually remind themselves of.  Movies like “City Slicker” or “Bucket List” or “Last Holiday” tell stories of people who clarify their values when faced with the equivalent of a sword threatening to cut a baby in half.

There are times when our values need to be challenged, re-evaluated, and shaken up.  What we believed in as teen-agers can seem shallow now.  If I had a choice between an Abba Concert and eliminating Global Warming when I was a teen, I would probably have chosen ABBA.  Now, as much as it would be hard, I would let go my craving for hedonism in exchange for saving the whole world.

Jesus clarified the values he expected from his followers.  They were to serve and to avoid politics, not to bully or grab power.  There was to be no competition amongst them, no hierarchy, and definitely no politics.  No arguing over who gets the baby.  Keep the big picture in mind.  

What’s your big picture?  My values that are important to me are being part of a thriving congregation that practices radical hospitality and is a safe, trustworthy space for all who want to learn more about this radical way of thinking.  I also value spirituality, being connected with something bigger than myself, a big dream, a purpose, an intention to be a healing presence in the world.  And I value creativity, whether it’s through drama, scrapbooking, music, dance or art.

Our congregation picked out inspiration, empowerment and engagement, which are amazing words to guide us.  They help remind us that we are to be servants to one another and also the world.  We are to work together to build a better, more loving world.  That is needed today as much as it was 5 years ago, 100 years ago and in the times of Jesus and Solomon.  Thanks be to God for the scriptures that remind us who we are and how we live out God’s purpose in this world.  Amen.

Did you know that you can watch the service live on Facebook, or join us on Zoom?  I send out a weekly e-mail with the prayers, hymns and scriptures.  E-mail me at revatauc@telus.net to get our worship resources.

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!

Turning to Love

 

How do we adults hear Jesus calling us to become as little children?  It’s one thing to talk about the command to practice radical hospitality to families, but in these days of Covid, that seems to be a moot point.  But what about the idea he gave us of becoming as children ourselves?

I don’t think he meant that we should go back to wearing diapers or to hitting each other when we are fighting over toys or spending our days in sandboxes making castles.  But I do think he wanted us to look at our attitudes towards life.  Children, especially the preschoolers, aren’t interested in politics, they don’t have lofty ambitions, and for the most part, they are open to new things.  Watching a three-year old at the playground with a parent is like watching a yoyo, they slowly go farther and farther from the adult, and then run back to the safety of the adult.  Maybe for a snack or a hug or just the reassurance that they haven’t disappeared.  Then they move away a little further.  This will happen again and again as they balance their need for independence and their curiosity with the security and safety of a grown-up being nearby.  They can also be very creative.  How many times have we heard the story of a Christmas or birthday party with lots of presents where the best toy is an empty box?  I remember my brother when he was two years old, loving climbing into the pots and pans cupboard, closing the door and then bursting out with a ‘ta dah’!  Surprise!  Mom had to take all the pots and pans out until he got tired of the game.  They can be incredibly courageous too, oblivious to the consequences of their actions.  My daughter at the same age watched her 5-year-old brother navigate to the top of a very tall and rickety slide in a neighbor’s back yard.  I never thought she would try to climb it, as the rungs were quite narrow and slippery.  Turn my back for a moment, and the three-year-old was at the top of the 5-foot ladder! 

Curious, creative, courageous are just some of the gifts of childhood that we may have lost as adults, but they are something we can recapture, for both our own mental and physical health and also the health of our institutions.

Kairos Canada sent us a prayer that reminds us of the power of children:

The Great Spirit gave life in a circle, from childhood to childhood. Our children are there to teach us and for us to teach them. Our children were taken out of our Sacred Hoop and our hoop has been broken.

For decades we mourned the loss of our children. They never completely returned home. 

Even today, children are often missing.  Stats Canada data from 2016 reports that of the children in Alberta in foster care, 76% are indigenous.  The circle is still broken.  How do we support the calls for healing that circle?  Even here we can remember to be curious, creative and courageous in asking questions of our church, our province, our institutions that challenge not just what they do for children but how they do it.  From the new education curriculum which has been condemned by parents, teachers and professors alike for removing residential school history, to the upsurge of cases of infections in children under the age of 12, we need to challenge our politicians, our systems and our institutions .

 Paul wrote that our institutions need to be genuinely loving, and hospitable.  Whatever we do should be looked at through those two lenses.  We are being called to re-envision how our society must own up to the damage done to children today.  The times they are in abusive situations, the times they are neglected, abused and bullied by both individuals and systems.  The times when parents are not able to be there to help their children and the times when parents are part of the problem, not the solution.  The times when parents get angry that the schools are rumored to be forcing children to get vaccinations, the times when parents lose their children to easily preventable diseases like measles because they refused to have their children vaccinated.  The times parents have had to hear their children’s’ surgeries have been postponed, the times parents have had to help their children get educated at home. 

It is time to demand accountability from the systems we have.  When we write letters to support our universities, when we wear orange t-shirts, when we put out shoes to represent the thousands of children that never came home from residential school, when we text our local town and county candidates, we are challenging our institutions to live up to Jesus’ high standards.

Here in Athabasca United Church, we have cared for the children in the community for a long time.  There is an article in the town archives that told about Nancy Applebee and Alice Donahue rolling up their sleeves in this church’s basement to make sandwiches for the children’s school lunches before lunch programs existed.  This very building was used as overflow classroom space when the Brick Schoolhouse had no more room for the children.  We helped start the “Food for Thought” thanks to Cam Dierker, to make sure that high school students never had to learn on an empty stomach.  When Covid is over, we have plans for cooking classes with the CAVE outreach school so that every junior high and senior high student will graduate with basic food literacy and nutrition skills, and our cooking circle program is targeted to low income moms who struggle to stretch their food dollars to feed their little ones.

What more can we do?  Keep texting, keep writing letters, keep hoping and praying for the children in foster care, and keep loving hospitality at the core of everything we do.  When we do that, and keep having courageous, curious and creative conversations with our friends and neighbors, we will inspire, empower and engage our community to truly welcome these little ones into the circle of God’s love.  May it be so for us all!