Shouting Stones - Luke 19:28–40 Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheering crowds

 What an image Jesus paints.  There is so much excitement and so much momentum that there is no containing the call for change.  That even killing him will not control the people hungry for hope.  Hungry for new ways of being in community.  Hungry for peace and freedom from fear and anxiety, tragedy and trauma.  That hunger was so strong they threw their coats down on the road and cheered a simple peasant riding a small untrained animal in public.  And so there was so much momentum that, like a snowball rolling downhill, picking up speed and size as it accumulates more snow, that it can ultimately flatten everything in its path, the crowd grew and cheered louder and louder.

No wonder some of the officials tried to silence the crowd.  His challenge to all in power was on full display.  And to be fair to the Pharisees who challenged him, they feared that this rally would degenerate into open rebellion and the Romans would slaughter everyone indiscriminately.  They were right to be afraid, as 30 years after Palm Sunday, the first Jewish-Roman war destroyed Israel as an independent nation until 1948.

They were right to attempt to dial down the rhetoric and the passion.  But Jesus was right to say that nothing would silence the people.

This is one of those stories that makes me wonder how one ordinary human being could be so clear on their purpose, so brave, and so determined to go through with what he felt called to do.  We are in awe of the sheer determination of the Ukrainian people right now to do what needs to be done for their country.  It’s like that, but I think it’s more.  Jesus had no hope that he would survive Good Friday.  His people didn’t understand that.  Even when Jesus bluntly told his disciples again and again, they denied it, scolded him, or tried to make him think in more positive terms.  They thought he was heading towards Jerusalem to replace Pilot and Herod, to create a political solution to their problems.

They were caught up in their small hungers, the hunger for power, the hunger for significance, the hunger for personal freedom.  Jesus was thinking of the larger hungers, of peace and healthy relationships, of accountability and authenticity and community.  Jesus had a sense of the historic, seeing that this was a time to push for radical change. 

Just as Moses saw his people enslaved in Egypt, being treated as tools to build pyramids and temples to stone Gods, or Jeremiah facing down the politics that had brought the Babylonians to the walls of Jerusalem, or Ezekiel having a vision of dead dry bones that needed to be preached at, or Isaiah guiding the exiles back to a devastated and destroyed city, Jesus saw that the situation was dire and people needed something fundamentally different.

Not unlike the times we are living in today.  At our Lenten Book chat on Wednesday, we talked about ethical dilemmas, and how many we face.  Even something as simple as which grocery store we walk into and whether we wear a mask when we go in, who do we sit next to, do we go for coffee, these many decisions become weighted with possibility and risk and challenge.

It’s exhausting to have so many decisions.  Sometimes it is downright depressing.  Some of us search for good news about Ukraine, some of us debate about who to vote for in the upcoming UCP leadership conference, some of us struggle to decide how to cast our ballots for our union recommendations, some of us celebrate the new union at Amazon, some of us lament the power of unions, some of us wonder about how to live more intentionally into the understanding that we are all treaty people.  And some of us wonder how we will get our kids to do their homework or how we will survive their brand-new school recorders.  And just like the ancient Hebrew people in Egypt, the exiles in Babylon, beleaguered Jerusalem, it’s too much; we need some hope.

So we call out “Hosanna” like the people watching Jesus on his colt.  Hosanna means help us or save us.  While it’s not mentioned in Luke, who was a Greek and wouldn’t necessarily know the Hebrew language, it is in all three of the other gospels.  Save us.  Help us.  And Jesus told the authorities that the need for help was so great that even the stones would cry out.

Not unlike now for many people around the world.  Afghanistan women crying out, first nations people, our young people who may never be able to afford their own homes, Koreans tired of war, Syrians struggling to get out of their country which is no longer in the media spotlight, people of color dealing with racism in Europe, and so on.  We call out for help even when it seems most helpless.

And while I would like to promise that all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well, we do need to call out for help in times like these.

Our faith story is full of communities asking for help.  The answer comes in unexpected ways.  Moses, a convicted murderer, leads the people on a forty-year hiking trip, Jeremiah starts a real estate company in the middle of a war, Isaiah inspires the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of the exile to return home and rebuild. Unexpected help still appears today.  I stumbled across a poem written in Cologne Germany in a basement during the Second World War.  It was scratched in the wall by refugees hiding from Nazis. It goes “I believe in the sun, though it be dark; I believe in God, though He be silent; I believe in neighborly love, though it be unable to reveal itself.”  When we are calling for help, it is a reminder that we all can still call for help, and help comes.

When amazon workers ask each other for help, unions start to form.  When people in war-torn countries ask for help, dictators get kicked off the UN Human Rights Council, and when friends of Lee and Kelsey Thunder ask for help so that their graves will not continue to be unmarked, it is answered with stunning speed and generosity!

Jesus encourages us to call for help to build a world of peace for everyone regardless of the language they speak, the God they follow, the temple they worship in, the dream that have for the future.  Let us cry out Hosanna and be ready for God’s surprising answers us in this time of need. May it be so for us all!

Two Sides to Every Story

 A one-act play with two characters based on Luke 7: 36-40, 44-48 and John 12:1–8 - To see our play, check out our Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGOciyyHXKzVL_yF27AXy3Q 

Setting: a press conference with reporters, cameras, microphones.  A disciple of Jesus approaches the podium, followed by a well-known lady who owns a perfume company in town.

Disciple: Welcome to today’s press conference, we wanted to clear up the misinformation around the incident last week in Bethany.  Get the story straight, as it were.  There are lots of rumors flying of conflict and division within the followers of Jesus and I’m here to tell you that we are not breaking up, we are a closely knit group who love and serve Jesus no matter what.  I’ve asked this lady here to clear up any misconceptions.  We’ll give you our statements and take questions at the end. 

Let me start by saying that the rumor that tempers flew and slapping occurred is completely wrong.  People lost their tempers, true enough, but nothing physical happened.  We had a disagreement over an impulsive action that we were concerned was sending the wrong message to our followers.   These things happen from time to time.  Really, it was a pleasant dinner with friends and nothing more than that.  Sure, discussions got a little intense, but you know what it’s like when you are sitting down at supper and there’s been a glass of wine or two.  We got relaxed and as always, we got into a debate about propriety and appropriateness.  Nothing more.  It’s the same kind of debate we have come to expect.  With Jesus, everything that happens becomes a teachable moment.  Am I right? (turns to lady beside him at the podium.)

Perfume seller:  A teachable moment? That’s one way to put it.  Many of you know me, I sell perfume and ointments in town.  Some folks think it’s scandalous for a woman to be the head of a business, especially one that sells smells for a variety of reasons.  Oils, perfumes, the usual stuff.  It’s nobody’s business what the buyer uses them for!  Sure, some folks look down at me because my customers include ladies of ill repute, but a tanner wants to smell nice when he goes home to his wife and kids.  Phew, that’s a stench anyone would want to cover up.  But I did not go to the dinner to start a fight.  I’ve been following Jesus, saw him a few times in person.  My heart went out to the guy.  He gives hope to everyone, and I got this feeling he needed someone to be generous to him.  That day I had a sense of foreboding that he’s in for rough times. He looked so tired too.  That story he told about the prodigal family last week had me in tears, and I just grabbed the most expensive stuff I had and crashed the dinner.  My favorite scent, used as a gift of love in times of need. Totally spur of the moment!

Disciple: a gift of love?  You got to be kidding!  More like a trauma trigger. Poor Judas really flipped out.  Last time he smelled that was when they buried his dad and brother.  It all came flooding back to him.  Some Roman soldiers didn’t like their looks and picked a fight with them.  Of course Judas’ dad didn’t have a chance and the brother was just a kid.  That’s why Judas hates Romans so much and wants a king to take over the country and chase them out.  He was not the only one.  (turns to perfume seller) Many of us felt upset with you popping the cork on a funeral oil and slathering it on Jesus, his head and feet. It’s ridiculous to walk around beside a living human being who smells like a funeral home.  And the cost of that stuff!  A year’s wages!  Judas wasn’t the only one to think that splurging on such an expensive product in such a bizarre way was a waste!  Ever since we’ve been following Jesus, we’ve heard, “Share this, be generous with that, take care of the poor, feed the hungry, be like the widow woman who tithes from what she has, give your clothes away, don’t store up treasures on earth.  Honestly, the only thing Jesus likes more than talking about money is physically healing people.  Curing blindness, leprosy, mental illness, bleeding, you name it, he’s healed it.

Perfume seller:  Well, your welcome wasn’t very healing or generous to me.  But I’ve felt the healing of Jesus firsthand.   There have been times when I haven’t been the nicest person in the world.  I have cared more for my business profits than for my customers.  I have cared more about making a quick buck out my back door when the officials or tax collectors weren’t looking.  I have cared more about my standing in society, even if no matter what I say or do, I’m still seen as lesser than some of the holier-than-thou scholars who don’t know how hard it is to make an honest living, okay mostly honest living as a female.  And I didn’t crash that dinner party to get anything from Jesus.  I crashed it because I felt that Jesus needed love and courage that day.  He is so kind, but he is so human, too.  And I lost it.  I cried for him, I cried for my own brokenness, and I cried for how blind we can be when someone so precious to us, worth more than all the perfume in the world, is taken for granted.  We need to listen to him, hear his stories, change our ways.  He’s onto something here, and he’s changed my life for the better! I’m sorry that it hurt Judas and you, I never thought of it that way.  I will think of how my actions might impact others next time. I want to be a better person, and what Jesus told me that night is helping me be that better person. Thanks for sharing your point of view!

Disciple: Well, it’s been eye-opening hearing your side too.  As a follower of Jesus, you’d think I would know by now that there are many viewpoints, many sides to every story.  And yours is just as valuable as mine. I need to be more generous in my welcome, and not jump to conclusions about peoples’ actions quite so fast.  On that note, I think that wraps up this press conference, folks.  Thanks for coming and hearing the two sides of this event!

End scene

Homecoming

I’ll never forget the day I came back to church.  I had grown up going to church every week, but once I moved away to Edmonton after high school, I vowed never to step foot in a church again.  As far as I was concerned, church was for hypocrites and Pharisees, people more interested in telling us how bad and wrong we were.  I was done!

Just like the prodigal son, tired of the family dynamics, tired of his bossy older brother telling him what to do, one day up and told off his dad and high-tailing it out of town, leaving the father shocked, the older brother saying, “I told you so!” and the poor mother in tears, weeping and wailing as the yelling escalated until the young man stormed off, never to return.

The family conflict was very serious.  In the time of Jesus, his culture was steeped in honor and shame.  Families were very hierarchical and competitive. Men battled for status like chickens in a coop, constantly pecking at each other to prove their superiority.  Honor was the touchstone of every action, and when honor was diminished by a child, the whole family was judged.  Honor killings were real.  From the point of view of North American values, it is abhorrent, but in the days of Jesus, a breaking of honor could result in a family losing so much status that their very livelihoods were threatened.  Just as Joseph in our Christmas story had the responsibility to restore his family’s honor by sending Mary away, in this story, the father had the responsibility to discipline his son, and could even have his son stoned according to the law.  By demanding his share of the inheritance, the son had disgraced and dishonored his family in the eyes of the community.  By allowing his son to get away with it, the father had disgraced and dishonored himself in the community, proving that he was a weak man and a terrible leader.

That was compounded when the young man returned.  The father again disgraced himself in public by running to his son and welcoming him so lovingly.  Again, his emotional excess would have been condemned by all who saw it. 

Jesus used this shocking story to attack the honor system and the claims of superiority that the Pharisees were asserting when they criticized Jesus for socializing with dishonorable and shameful people.  He consistently connected with those who had been hurt and victimized by the high expectations and competitive toxic culture that left people feeling hopeless and excluded.

We may not be shaped by an honor culture the way the Pharisees are, but our culture still needs to return home to a healthier way of relating to one another.  Many of you have heard of the term ‘toxic masculinity’, which is when men feel the pressures of cultural expectation to be tough, to be unemotional and to seek power over others to gain status.  Even 5-year-old boys are told to not cry, to suck it up, not be a sissy.  Toxic masculinity encourages emotional detachment and in worst cases can lead to violence against women and children.  When world leaders start wars and don’t know how to stop them even when they are losing, that’s the ultimate in toxic masculinity.

We also still get caught up in the shame/blame dichotomy.  It’s very addictive.  If I don’t feel good about myself, I can blame others for my emotional dis-ease.  If I struggle with addictions to unhelpful habits or obsessions, if I feel that there’s a huge gap between who I want people to think I am and who I am in private, if I don’t want to admit that I make mistakes, and avoid taking ownership of my actions, I can get caught up in flip flopping between feeling shame about who I am, and blaming others for the life I am experiencing.  The shame-blame game can escalate until we drive off to Ottawa and deny that our constant honking and partying is not hurting the people around us. 

How do we come home?  How do we break the shame-blame flip flop?  How do we get the big party and the fattened calf and the bear hugs from someone so incredibly happy to see us return? 

The prodigal son hit bottom, feeding the pigs.  It was the worst job possible for a boy raised in a kosher household, unimaginable as far as the Pharisees were concerned.  But he realized that the only one who had landed him in the pigsty was himself.  He chose to admit that he had screwed up.  We practice that every Sunday when we say words like “When I kept silence, my body wasted away, while I groaned all day long.  Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I did not hide.” (Psalm 32) In church talk, that’s called confession, or in modern psychological jargon, accountability.  When we acknowledge where we’ve gone wrong, where we’ve missed the mark, we shift from shame and blame to accountability and vulnerability and that, my friends, frees us in so many beautiful ways!

Many of us have gone through turmoil and conflict these last few years, not knowing if or how we would have a chance to see family and friends.  Many of us have said goodbye to toxic relationships and wonder if they will ever be saved.  Lent is when we take time to become more accountable to ourselves and others so that we can experience the amazing love and healing that our loving parent God has for us.  The joy that can be ours for the asking, the healing of our deepest shames as we come home to a loving embrace and a party that never ends.  When I wandered back into that church so many years ago, I realized that the biggest hypocrite in the building was me.  As the tears streamed down my face, I had a sense that I was starting an amazing journey that would take me on many adventures with many wonderful people.  That there is always a way back home into love.  May it be so for us all!

Whose Fault is it Anyway?

 

1 Corinthians 10:1–14 Flee from idols

Luke 13:1–9 The parable of the barren fig tree.

Can you imagine hearing these scriptures from the pulpit in a  church in L'viv or Mariupol?  I don’t know if these readings are in the Eastern Orthodox Church’s list of what to read in Lent, but it would be heard very differently again in Moscow.  Two different ways of hearing the scripture, when there’s a war going on.  And how might Syrian Christians hear this passage?  Or the tiny group of Afghanistan Christians whose very existence is illegal in that country?

It is easy to look for a simple interpretation of these passages, like Robbie our river dragon did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pn7aA0y_GM, but easy is not best.  Both passages struggle with one of the most difficult questions Humanity asks.  If God is so all powerful and good, why do bad things happen to good people?  There’s no easy answer to that question.  It assumes a duality of human nature, either a positive or a negative.  And while that might work with motivating soldiers and civilians, it does not work in the long run for the benefit of Humanity. 

Paul says in this scripture that worshiping false priorities brings disaster.  And I totally agree with him on that.  When we put our faith and trust in something other than God, whether it’s stocks or a union or big business or the shopping channel, our lives can get messy and our priorities mixed up.  We can lose the drive to care for each other, lose our ability to see another’s viewpoint, lose our courage, lose our commitment to building a better world, and be only focused on surviving as best as we can in the day-to-day struggle to pay our bills and have a little fun now and then.  We forget about old-fashioned values like kindness, respect, empathy, hope and so on.  But Paul goes on to say that God never gives us more than we can handle.  Tell that to the Ukrainians, the people in war-torn countries like Nigeria or Yemen who aren’t getting the media that Zelensky does.  Tell that to the Russians who woke up to find large ‘z’s painted on their doors to intimidate them into compliance.  Tell that to folks here who have lost a loved one.  This is not helpful, Paul, and despite it generating a lot of t-shirts and coffee mugs, when life gets messy, this scripture does not comfort and inspire those who are hurting and desperate.  They feel blamed and overwhelmed.

An easy interpretation that God hurts only the unfaithful causes more harm than good.  And it ignores something that we Canadian Christians have tended to ignore, even though it is also embedded in our scripture.  That is the fact that evil exists.  I’m not talking about a laughable cartoon character in red tights with horns, tail and pitchfork, or even a handsome bar owner who works with a detective when he’s not playing the piano and forcing confessions out of people.  Evil exists.  Putin’s hunger for power is evil.  Trump ‘s arrogant superiority complex is evil.  Black marketeers concocting chemicals that eat away people’s brains and leave them dying on Edmonton streets from overdoses is evil.  Angry djs’ plans to infect their community with outrage and devotion is evil.  Cyberhackers and scammers disruption of society, steal money from seniors and destroy banks and hospitals alike for their own gain is evil.  The actions of ultra right-wing conservatives challenging common sense protocols to protect people’s health, and people more interested in profit than caring for their neighbor, try to undermine our health and education.  Actions and attitudes like this are evil.

God may never give us more than we can handle, but evil can give us so much that we need to reach out to others for help.  And if we think that coming to church will spare us from the messiness of life and death, we are wrong.  I think Jesus was clever in his response.  He confronted that kind of easy thinking – ‘they died because they were bad’ or ‘they died because they weren’t religious enough’, by challenging the Galileans around him to mind their own spiritual business!  Rather than pointing fingers or claiming the lives lost were because of weak faith, he said, fertilize your own soul before you start judging the worth of other people’s devotion to God.

That is a helpful word in Lent.  We are called to fertilize our own souls, to add manure to our own faith journey, and let God sort out the rest.  Not as an insurance policy to protect us from messy deaths.  Jesus and Paul both, even Peter for that matter, had messy deaths, despite their devotion to God.  But as a motivation to build honorable, inspiring and trustworthy lives that can be a beacon for all to see.

An analogy can be seen in a simple electric plug.  It has two prongs, hot and neutral, and both must be used to turn on a light.  We need both the current and a place for the excess current to go, both positive and negative flowing through the two prongs to have light.  But when we add a grounding prong, we can handle a lot more.  We can be a bigger light, we can shine farther and stronger when that ground is plugged into the outlet.  It doesn’t mean we are protected from a lightening strike that hits the circuit, but it does mean that we will handle the normal fluctuations and challenges to come our way.  When  we are grounded in God’s love, we will light the world with hope.  Hope is not a simple solution or an easy fix, or an insurance policy.  Hope is doing the possible, leaving the impossible to God.  Hope is when we honestly see the world in its complexity, and trust that in the messiness, in the complexities and simplicities, in life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!

Transfiguring Freedom

 In 1925, the same year that the United Church was founded, a baby was born to immigrant parents in Montreal.  Not terribly unusual, it was a big family, and there were already three other children and there would soon be a fifth.  The baby’s father was a porter on the railways and would regularly travel from Montreal to Vancouver for the princely sum of $90 a month.  The mother earned $5 a month as a housemaid.  It was barely enough to make ends meet, and many times the children stayed in bed because their parents hoped they would sleep through their hunger.  They were one of the poorest families in the neighborhood.

But that poverty did not define who they were.   They were committed to two things; Union United Church, the oldest Black United Church in Canada, founded in 1907, and music.  Every Sunday they would go to church, sing the hymns and play in the community band.  The dad had taught himself to play the piano and to read music and he was determined to teach every child the same thing.  As soon as the older kids were good enough, they became the teachers of the younger ones.  Hymns and classical music were what they learned, and woe betide the child who didn’t practise their scales!  They started lessons when they were three years old and big enough to sit at the piano. The oldest daughter became so good at teaching her younger siblings that she eventually made a living as a piano teacher.  Music gave her the freedom to leave the hard work of being a maid, to the hard work of inspiring young people to make music.  But that fourth baby was very special.  He could play a song that his older brothers and sisters struggled with, just by hearing it once.  He didn’t even need to see sheet music to play it.  He loved playing trumpet in the band until he got so sick with tuberculosis that he spent more than a year in hospital.  He never played trumpet again.  But then he discovered jazz!  That not only transfigured his moods and his hopes but also set the stage for his future career.

And what a career.  When he was fifteen, his older sister took him to the CBC radio station without telling him why.  She had registered him in an audition for a contest which had performers much older than him trying out.  He passed the audition, and won the contest against not just all the Montreal performers, but all Canadian musicians as well!  By the time he was 20, he performed to a sold-out crowd in Toronto’s Massey Hall, and by the time he was 24, he performed in Carnegie Hall.

He also struggled.  Barbers in Hamilton refused to cut his hair because he was African Canadian.  A white teacher in his elementary school called him racist names.  One of the bands he played in was banned from a Montreal hotel because he was their pianist.  When he became famous after his Carnegie Hall debut, he went on tour in the United States, and discovered that in the southern states, restaurants wouldn’t serve him, hotels wouldn’t let him stay with the rest of the musicians, and once the room he slept in had no bathroom but only a bucket of sand for a toilet.  With so much hatred targeted at him, he delt with the stress as best he could, remaining the polite Canadian he had been taught to be by his family and his church.  It was while on one of those tours that he was encouraged to write a new piece of music with a bluesy feel to it.  He called it “Hymn to Freedom” and it became the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. A Canadian Song!

Now, I don’t know about you, but freedom has become an uncomfortable word in recent days.  It has been used to promote an extreme agenda, and equates temporary measures put in place for the common good of the community with oppression and dictatorship.  It was used to shut down awkward questions, and to accuse people who have differing opinions as being pawns in a supposedly increasingly totalitarian state.  It was being used to justify an individual’s desire to do whatever they want.  But freedom is not supposed to be a weapon to shut down dialogue, nor is it supposed to be a justification of behavior that ignores peace, order and good governance, our founding constitutional principles. 

Freedom means many things to many people.  Now we are reclaiming that meaning as we watch and pray over friends, relatives and kin in the Ukraine and surrounding Slavic countries.  Slovakia, the homeland of my grandparents, aunties and uncles, is also in danger as refugees stream across its borders.  When I visited as a child, there were secret police in every village, army soldiers in every street, and art of Lenin everywhere one looked.  Freedom was not part of the constitution.  Everything was controlled by the state and those in power.

Freedom, for our musician friend was seen as the precious and transforming principle for a whole nation.  He could have been targeted for vigilante violence by drinking at the wrong public water fountain, but his music inspired folks living with systemic, widespread and brutal racism to have hope.  His music transformed them as it had transformed him.  Just as God transformed Jesus on the mountaintop, revealing him as someone who was even more powerful and inspiring than the disciples guessed. Both men, Jesus and Oscar Peterson, knew that transforming the world so more people would know true freedom, would be hard work.  Both men worked hard for it even though they knew they wouldn’t see it come true in their lifetimes.  Both were determined to make a difference in this world, no matter the sacrifice, the personal cost.  For Jesus, it cost him his life, for Oscar, his personal life was a mess, and his physical health was not great either.  But he left an amazing legacy.  I found his piano course in a music store in New York, of all places.  He started music schools and taught the next generation how to play jazz and Bach both.  He challenged racist commercials on CBC.  He encouraged musicians to join AA and give up drugs.

And yet, when the top two jazz musicians in the world worthy of being mentioned in the Alberta government’s first draft music curriculum for Grade Six were announced, one was Glen Miller of “In the Mood” fame, and the other?  Not Oscar, not even local musician Tommy Banks, but Mart Kenny who didn’t even live in Alberta, and only recorded two records to Oscar’s 200 recordings spanning over 60 years, 7 Grammy awards and the first Canadian pianist to receive the Glenn Gould prize for music, not to mention the Order of Canada.  Mart Kenny’s biggest claim to fame other than the song “When I Get Back to Calgary” was being the grandfather of our current premier.  Both musicians were white, and we all know that many of the best jazz musicians were and are people of color.  So, racism is still here in Canada, sometimes subtly as in our curriculum, sometimes blatantly as demonstrated by some of the protesters in Ottawa, or regularly as related by Albertan United Church clergy of color.  And we are called to be as determined as Jesus, and as committed as Oscar Peterson, to use our privilege to challenge racism wherever we see it.  Black History month is a call to transfigure our awareness so that one day everyone will sing a song of freedom that will be true for all in the world.

Spilled Coffee

So I’m coming out of Paddymelon’s with a big coffee mug full to the brim.  Someone jogs my elbow and what spills out all over the sidewalk? Coffee? 

Well, those who know me really well will say anything but coffee unless I’m bringing a cup of joe to my husband Tim.  Tea possibly, chai latte or London fog, white hot chocolate, just about anything but not coffee.  Why?  Because what I put in my coffee mug is what will come spilling out. 

So too, what will come spilling out of my mouth may be any number of things.  Since I’m a Canadian, an apology.  “Sorry,” I will say, even if the person jostling my arm was the instigator of the spill.

If I’m at home and it’s been a long day, and Tim backs into me when I don’t expect it, there may be something far different than “sorry” spilling from my lips.  And if the coffee mug drops, splashing boiling beverage all over me then shatters to a million pieces, especially if it’s a favorite mug from a beloved aunt who has long since left this earth, well, even I don’t want to hear the words spilling out of my lips.  And if it’s been a really bad week, with a funeral that shouldn’t have happened to someone too young or too close, well, there just might be tears involved on top of it all, and a real honest to goodness grief burst!

What comes pouring out can be quite situational, and quite human.  Being human is a messy business, with emotions that hit us when we least expect it, sometimes right between the eyes, sometimes right in the stomach.  We find anger flaring up, resentment, frustration, jealousy, envy.

We pray, God, fill us good guys with good things, we’re on the right side, reward us please, and punish the evil doers.  Dry up their bank accounts, impound their trucks, put their kids in the foster care system, confiscate their weapons, and lock them up where they can’t threaten us anymore.  That too is human.  But thoughts like these can fill us up with evil emotions.

Scripture says “Be still before God and wait patiently.  Do not fret because some prosper in evil schemes.”  Easy to say, hard to do, especially when our nightly news is full of disturbing images of police in body armor, collections of guns being discovered horded by protestors, of politicians scolding each other, of racist flags, of children being taught to blockade legitimate traffic between two countries.  Be still before God, wait patiently.  Even harder, let go of anger, and recognize the damage fretting can do to the human soul.  Trust in God instead of imperfect, messy humanity.  One of the reasons I believe so many people were entrenched in Ottawa is because they put all their trust in themselves and no one else.  If the election brought in a government that they don’t like, they don’t trust the rest of Canadian voters.  If the medical community brought in restrictions that they don’t want, they sneer at the very people trying to keep them alive.  If the scientists make discoveries they don’t understand, they call them names and view them as part of a mass conspiracy.  If the media tries to communicate what the voters, the medical researchers and the scientists are discovering and they find it confusing, they turn to other sources that stoke their anger.  They only believe in themselves and the hope that they will get their own way.

They do not have hope in ideals, in principles, in due process or in the Golden Rule.  Do to others as you would have them do to you is not where they are at.  I suspect that they would not respond pleasantly if someone moved into their homes and started blaring air horns 24/7 for weeks on end.

Luke’s passage has Jesus recognizing that not everyone will be able to hear his words.  “I say to you that hear me”, or in other versions, “you that are still listening”, means that he too knew the messiness of what Jeremiah called the deceitful human heart.  Jesus knew that what he was teaching was so hard that folks were tuning out.  He had just told them about the beatitudes, the Blessed are those who the world think are cursed, and that was a conversation stopper for most of them.  Then he threw a real zinger at them.  "Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you."  Well, that is so against what human nature wants to do, that it would tune out a lot of his listeners.  No way would good Jewish people want to hear that they were to be loving to the Roman soldiers that oppressed them, the tax collectors that robbed them, the schemers and power brokers that bullied them.  But that is exactly what Jesus was trying to teach them.  And with his ‘Turn the other cheek’, he was laying the groundwork for nonviolent resistance.  As one internet pundit wrote, "Let me be very clear.  This was not a call to grit our teeth and be nice to bullies, to stay in abusive relationships or to be quiet in the face of injustice."  This was a call to make sure everyone could see the bullying for what it was, and by standing up to them to offer the other cheek, or giving them your shirt as well as your coat, was to show to everyone around that they were doing this shameful behavior but you still kept your dignity intact.  But how does that play out in real life, Jesus?

A good example is the Greensboro sit in back in February of  1960, where young black college students prepared themselves to go to a Woolworth’s lunch counter and sit there until they were served lunch.  They knew it wouldn’t be easy.  They practiced so that no matter what violence was thrown at them, they would stay calm and not retaliate.  They would not punch back, they would not fight, they would not bring in guns or weapons or horns or hot tubs or flags, they would just sit until they were offered a menu.  Four young college students sat waiting for food that did not come.  The next day they were back, and the news spread to other colleges in the Southern US.  At one point there were 300 students at that lunch counter, and it became one of the cornerstones of the Civil Rights Movement.  Segregation ended although the racism never did.  But that Woolworths counter now houses the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which includes the lunch counter where the Greensboro Four sat.

Coffee was served to anyone who wanted it, and tea and probably some iced teas and sodas.  And eventually the love that they had for their cause and for justice and equal rights for all spilled out on everyone around them.

What are you putting in your coffee mug?  What are you putting in your heart and mind?  Are you able to hear Jesus teach you to love your enemies and do good to those who hate you?  It’s not easy, of course, but I trust that this is what God is calling us to do.  Not to love the angry actions of the people who are hurting others by their noisy protests, but to look at them for the stunted shrubs in a dry desert, for the hopeless people that they are who don’t know how to trust in anyone but themselves.  Who put anger in their coffee cups and don’t drink anything other than that.  And to fill up our own coffee cups with stillness before God so that when the difficult times come and we are jostled by life, what will spill out will be peace and hope and compassion for all who struggle through these difficult times.

The Courage to Speak

Rather like going home to a big family reunion and people say, “oh, you’re little Nell, my how you’ve grown up” or they launch into a story of something we did when we were 8 and didn’t know any better.Preaching to the hometown crowd is a daunting task.  I have never preached in the church I grew up in.  There’s something about standing up in front of a congregation who remembers you when you were a little kid in Sunday School that is unnerving.    It would be hard to step into the preaching role in front of babysitters and teachers.

Yet that’s exactly what Jesus did.  He had the courage to speak to those old family friends, neighbors, matriarchs and patriarchs in the community.  He had courage because he knew his purpose, taken straight from one of the longest and most revered scrolls that are beloved by Jews and Christians alike.  Isaiah 61 became the core focus of his ministry and gave him courage to tell them what his purpose was. Even though he missed a phrase here and there.

Many students going into the ministry have a similar experience, a scripture that grabs them not just logically but also emotionally.  This one happens to be mine.  It was cemented in my head by the Strathdee Song, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”  In fact, it was around this time in 2007, in the season of Epiphany, when I went up to Rev. Dale Irving and said, “please stop reading these call scriptures and playing all these call hymns because they are making me cry.”  Hymns that have haunting words like, “Here I am Lord, is it I Lord, I have heard you calling in the night” that would have the tears streaming down my face.  Thank goodness wise and gentle Rev. Irving knew what to do with me, like a Hogwarts sorting hat!  But this scripture is not just for folks in ministry; if it was, Jesus would have only read it to his disciples, not the whole congregation in Nazareth.

Which is why we keep reading these scriptures – they are addressed to us all.  But how do we know when the Spirit is with us?  I think it comes through continual questioning and testing.  Jesus was tested in the wilderness.  We constantly are tested in our own wildernesses. And Jesus measured his decisions and actions by Isaiah 61.  We too can measure our decisions and actions by this scripture. 

What kind of testing are we facing right now?  I was struck by what David Staples wrote in the Edmonton Journal on Wednesday, “we all study COVID stats and listen to expert commentary, focusing on numbers and words that conform to our own basic needs and selfish desires.”  Basic needs and selfish desires are tests to our courage and our faith.  It is often hard to tell which is which.  Is a night out at a movie theatre a basic need or a selfish desire?  Is a trip to the pool if I’m not vaccinated a basic need or a selfish desire?

My head chaplain for K Division RCMP put it this way,

[Recently, I] realized the extra stresses that the pandemic has been putting on many... I think it’s the constant changing rules, the length of the pandemic, the insecurities it has brought, the feelings of social isolation and not being able to get away to recoup with family and friends.

The recent cold snap and not even wanting to go outside has also had an effect … These are just some of the things that are creating signs of depression and isolation that all of us are having to face.”

He spoke with courage about what we are all struggling with.  The mental health challenge of knowing where the dividing line between selfishness and need is.  The challenge of forgetting that we are called to respect and serve others.  The spirit was speaking through him just like Jesus. The Spirit was not on Jesus so he could have his best life ever, or to have wealth, influence and power.  The Spirit was on Jesus so he could help others find release from what imprisoned them.  We all want to be released from the imprisonment of Covid, but maybe what we really need is to be released from not questioning the difference between our wants and needs, from the difficulty of choosing what is right instead of what is easy.

Figuring out what is right instead of what is easy can be seen in the discussion of homelessness this week.  What is easy is finding a house people can live in and keep from freezing.  But homelessness is a complex issue that is not fixed by warehousing folks like Timothy Phillips.  What really is imprisoning them?  And how do we set them free from their imprisonment? 

Jesus spoke of truth and healing with courage.  We can do that by speaking our truths in ways that respect other people’s truth. Our views of reality may differ, but speaking our truth from wrestling with our own desires for easy solutions, and learning from the wrestling, is our way to connect to the Spirit.  We can’t free others from their imprisonment until we have freed ourselves.  And the way to do that is to check that we’re following the words that Isaiah gave us, reminding us that we are called to the same core purpose as Jesus, witnessing to the good news that freedom from oppression, fear, anxiety and selfishness is here in this, God’s year to act! May it be so for us all.