Bragging Rights and Power Trips

Have you ever read an autobiography of a famous person simply because it promises to deliver all kinds of dirty little secrets about other people?  Some of them almost delight in bragging about their crazy stunts and bizarre, outrageous behaviors.  They go from one scandal to the next.  You can read all about Prince Harry’s life and resentments of his family, the media, his school and anyone else in too much detail.  His oversharing has not been appreciated by royal watchers who have been watching him live in royal splendor since he was born.  There’s not a lot of sympathy for someone you’ve watched all their life who decides to tell you how rough life really is.

Maybe that’s why Jesus had such a tough reception in Nazareth. The hometown crowd was too cynical.  Here he was back again, after a long absence where he disappeared into the wilderness for a long while, and when he came back, he brought strangers, city folk, tax collectors and stinking fishermen, as his best buddies.  It was obvious he had gotten too big for his britches and needed to be taken down a peg. There are many tales of the young city slicker coming back home after an education and being snubbed for their highfaluting ways.

This was surprising to Jesus, and his efforts to heal people fell flat in front of people who could tell stories of when he was in diapers.  And they snidely insulted him, “Is this Mary’s son, coming here thinking he can impress us?” Calling Jesus “Mary’s son” instead of “Joseph’s son” hinted at him being illegitimate without directly coming out and insulting him to his face.  Being called a carpenter wasn’t much better. The Greek word used here for "carpenter" was a handyman that could be called on to do the typical tiny jobs around a household, replace the hinges, get the hair clog out of the sink drain, that kind of thing.  Not the kind of person who would carefully craft a beautiful piece of mahogany into a one-of-a-kind coffee table for a wealthy patron and post the time-lapse video on TicToc to drum up likes.  There’s a different Greek word for that kind of carpenter.

The fact that this story doesn’t show Jesus in a good light after building him up as doing amazing things, is one of those signposts that Jesus was a living, breathing human being, and that the disciples around him often were as confused by what he taught as we are.  The trip to Nazareth has all the hallmarks of a failed trip.  Not quite as bad as a disastrous political debate broadcast around the world, but close.  The astounding thing was that Jesus didn’t let it shake his confidence.  He didn’t come up with a new marketing plan, a better advertising campaign, a new strategic vision. Instead, he sent his disciples out to go and practice what he had shown them.  He gave them authority to care for the people they met on their travels.  That authority was not shaken by Nazareth.  It wasn’t disrupted.  Jesus just carried on and said to his followers to remember to focus on the loving and healing part of the message.

The message Jesus was sharing wasn’t to get him elected to take over the Roman Empire and free the Hebrew people from their oppressors. Or how he was hard done by his family growing up.  It was to proclaim that God was in their midst, bringing new hope and new healing to their broken culture.

Paul also was clear that his preaching was not about him either. He wasn’t trying to impress people with his superpowers as a great disciple.  He wasn’t bragging about his debating skills or his mental sharpness.  He was writing to remind them about the teachings Jesus shared.  The teachings of caring for one’s neighbors, of being a community of equals, of working together, of looking after people whom the culture regarded as worthless and unimportant.

Our world today still struggles with these teachings.  We like to focus on people who are glamorous and powerful.  We idolize characters like Ironman, set aside as special, showing off how important they are for the survival of the world.  They are the only ones who can stand between the average joe and the powers of corruption.  Paul rejected that kind of hero worship.  He would have been the last person to build a Crystal Palace kind of church and plunk himself in the middle of it and bask in the power and adoration he felt entitled to.  Instead, Paul chose humbleness and caring, just as Jesus had.

We too have choices. Do we talk about ourselves and how great we are, or do we talk about how God shows up in our lives despite our weaknesses and challenges?  When Christianity is at its best when it remembers to be a channel of God’s love.  When it’s at it’s worst, selling $60 bibles to promote a political party or inflicting the 10 commandments in every classroom, or controlling women’s bodies or setting up cult-like mega churches with charismatic personalities, it degrades the message that God loves us all.  We think that we can’t talk about our faith unless we are smooth and practiced like a great political debater, but Paul and Jesus remind us that we can share that God is stronger than our weaknesses, and shines through our imperfections.  When we focus on caring for our neighbors, reaching out to those who are seen as insignificant, when we volunteer on Canada Day to serve our community, we are, like the disciples, living into God’s plan in amazing and beautiful ways.  The disciples never thought that they would teach millions of people about Christ, Paul never thought his humble words of compassion would topple an empire and last for centuries.  We never know when our simple small acts of kindness might do the same.  May we be inspired as Paul and the 12 were, to live our lives bragging about God’s love for us all. Amen.

Handing off Power

 

Ever seen a politician working the crowd, shaking hands, trying to have that personal touch to win your vote? Or maybe a celebrity on a book tour when they know they only have a limited amount of time to be in that spot and want to meet as many of their fans as possible? 

I had the privilege of sitting down beside Douglas Cardinal, famous architect and recipient of the Order of Canada last week.  He loved having an audience to tell the story of how he wasn’t allowed to study architecture in Canada but had to go to a university in Texas instead.  The interesting thing is that his assistant was watching the time so he didn’t have to.  Important people usually have someone along who is watching the time, keeping them moving so they can get to their next appointment on their very packed schedule. 

Just like the disciples hustling Jesus to get to the house of Jairus in time to save the life of his daughter.  There wasn’t a moment to spare.  This was an important person, and the fact that he came humbly to fetch Jesus, had boosted Jesus’ importance in the eyes of the crowds surrounding him.  Jesus had hit the big time!

Welcome to one of the longest stories Mark wrote about Jesus.  Usually, Mark kept his writing simple, straightforward and a bit blunt.  But in this passage, Mark went into great detail.  He described the emotional state of Jairus as well as the woman desperate for healing, and the family members who had started the funeral rites for Jairus’ daughter. Mark quoted what the woman with the hemorrhage said to herself, and even quoted Jesus speaking in Aramaic!  This story made quite an impression on Mark.  

It highlights a contrast between the high-ranking, powerful religious authority and the nameless, poverty-stricken woman.  But there’s also the similarity between them, they both are looking for healing, the woman for herself, Jairus for his daughter.

Both the woman and the girl were considered unimportant in a patriarchal society.  Girls were only potential brides to carry on their future husband’s line, and often had no choice in whom they married. If they couldn’t produce babies, and a woman who was constantly bleeding would not be able to have a baby, they also would be seen as a burden on society.  The woman would be seen as untouchable by both her husband and the rest of society.  That meant solitary confinement, and if she was going to go out in public, she had to stay away from all men, not easy when living in a bustling town. She certainly would not be allowed in a synagogue, nor would she be allowed in the presence of a popular Rabbi or Jairus either, for that matter.  Yet she dared do the unthinkable, leave her house and sneak into the crowd, hoping she could figure out a way to get him to heal her on the sly.  It would not have been easy in the hustle to not get bumped or stepped on, and having the courage to work her way into the crowd to grab the hem of his robe would have taken some effort!

It’s fascinating to note that despite the urgency of Jesus getting to Jairus’ home, he stopped immediately to figure out what had happened.  The disciples, just like assistants to politicians, tried to get him moving, but he wasn’t going to budge.  His priority was not their priority.  He wanted to talk to the desperate person who reached down in the dust to touch his robe.  Much to her surprise, he did not condemn her, he commended her, admiring her faith.  Then and only then did he take off and heal Jairus’ daughter.

All well and good to have lofty priorities and to take time to really care for the people his culture thought were insignificant, but what would that look like here today in Canada?  Do we know anyone who lives or lived by those principles?

As a matter of fact, there was at least one person who we all know of.  He was the son of a United Church minister, grew up in the church, and spent his life caring about the people of Canada who were not necessarily wealthy or powerful.  He became a diplomat and an ambassador for Canada.  He worked for the United Nations in their early days, and his efforts to set up UN Peace Keepers to go to conflict zones netted him the first Nobel Prize Canada had ever been awarded, and it was for Peace.  He came home after being the president of the UN General Assembly, and entered politics.  Sometimes it went well, and he established the Canada Pension Plan; a universal Medicare system; a unified Armed Forces; and a new national flag which took 6 months of nasty arguing and debating before our current flag was accepted by both Conservatives and Liberals.  He also championed women’s rights, bilingualism, immigration, minimum wage and multiculturalism.  Four years after he resigned as the 14^th Prime Minister of Canada, his funeral was presided over by the United Church Moderator.  His friends and family called him Mike, but the world knew him as Lester B. Pearson, and The United Church knew him as a man who could be both conciliatory and dictatorial, but who did his best to live up to the values Jesus taught.

We don’t have to be politicians or famous architects to live out the values that Jesus taught.  Many of us will be volunteering on Canada Day, flipping pancakes, serving popcorn, pouring tea or coffee, riding in parades, and helping our neighbors find a good spot to see the fireworks.  There will be opportunities to make time for someone like the woman touching Jesus’ robe or the little girl.  May we notice when we bring Christ’s healing love to those we meet, through the strength of Jesus, the love of God and inspiration of the Spirit.  Amen

The Power of Words

Words can make such a difference in how we hear a story. “Peace, be still!” Jesus says to the storm, then “why are you so afraid?” to the disciples, some of whom had only recently joined the hand-picked team that Jesus had selected.  Jesus sounds so calm, so pastoral in these words.  So kind, so comforting.  Except that’s just a little bit of a disservice to the original Greek language that Mark was struggling to write his gospel in.  Unlike Matthew, Luke and John, his Greek was not smooth,  flowery or poetic. Mark didn’t use big words, and he didn’t get into fancy descriptions.  He was the kind of writer who would say, “The dog bit the man who tried to take away his bone.” Whereas the others might write “The tiny brown dachshund snarled and snapped when the robber tried to grab his meaty bone away from him”.  They paint a picture, but Mark is a plain-spoken, blunt man.

The Greek words he used wasn’t “Peace be with you”, expecting the storm to respond, “and also with you”.  No, the words he chose were much more like a rebuke you’d give to a barking dachshund, “Shut up! Be Quiet”.  Then he turned to his disciples and bluntly said, “Why are you such cowards still?”  And some versions translate their response as ‘great awe’, while other translate it as ‘great fear’.  It would be very easy to be fearful if one minute I’m feeling like I’m going to drown in a storm, then the next thing I know, Jesus yells at the storm to chill out, and then yells at us for our cowardly attitude.  I’m not sure which would be more unnerving, almost drowning, or the unnatural stillness that follows, or the scolding afterwards.  And why did they still struggle to have faith, as Jesus presumed?

Good question.  We’re only in Chapter 4, and yet the disciples have seen healings like Peter’s Mother-in-law, a withered hand, and someone with mental illness.  They’ve watched crowds be healed and heard stories that were inspiring.  But they still waffled in their faith.

They were still new in their roles of being disciples, the 12 that were singled out for special teaching, and yet they waited to wake Jesus until the last minute.  They were still like us, one moment rock solid in their excitement about being the chosen ones caught up in a wave of enthusiasm, like a 5-year-old watching their first Oiler’s game, not really understanding what all the hype was but happy to cheer like everyone else.  Then they try skating for the first time and discover that while the big men make it look easy, it’s not.  It takes practice, discipline, patience and a lot of courage.  It’s not easy.  And coaches that bark at kids, using words like “Why are you such cowards?” are likely to lose their potential recruits before they are even starting out.  Words matter. 

Faith matters too.  When times are good, when everyone around us is happy, it’s easy to feel certain that we can trust God.  But when we’re away from the crowd, when the storms of life come roaring into our lives, fierce and unexpected, it’s natural to feel scared.  The disciples were no fools, they were experienced fishermen, and they knew how dangerous the sea of Galilee was.  They turned to Jesus for support.

Interesting words there.  “Do you not care that we are dying?” they cried.  They had accepted their fate.  Fishermen knew what it meant when a boat started filling up with water.  Death was certain, so certain for people who used boats for a living that even up to the 18^th century, many sailors and naval officers did not know how to swim, partly because of Europe’s cold and dirty waters on land, and  some believed it was better to drown fast rather than try to fight to survive.  They didn’t cry out asking Jesus to spare their lives, they couldn’t imagine that he could do that.  They cried out for Jesus to care about them as they faced death together.

Does someone care about us when we are in the middle of the storms we are facing?  Does someone support us, and calm the situations we find ourselves in, time and time again?  Now, I’m not saying that praying to God will cure our cancers, and protect us from disasters large and small, but something happens when we take our deepest fears and anxieties to the Holy Mystery, however we understand it.  Scientific researchers have often studied the power of prayer. Interestingly, there’s growing evidence that prayer works on us and our relationships!  When we pray that love be in our hearts towards another person, that can have real results on how we relate to them.

Words matter.  We often hear that Perfect Love casts out Fear.  If we turn it around, Perfect Fear casts out Love too.  And that’s what happened to the disciples.  They were in perfect fear.  “Don’t you care that we’re about to die” may have been tinged with anger, often the product of fear.

And of course he did care.  Turning to Jesus, even when we feel swamped by the storms of life, is the way of courage and faith.  It’s not easy, but it is the only thing that calms the trials we face.  We all wrestle with their last words to each other, “Who is this man?” That is the crux, who is Jesus?  For us, Jesus can be the man who inspires us to continue to grow our love for one another in the face of stormy times.  When we choose the word love over the word fear, God over chaos, hope over despair, our faith grows and strengthens in amazing ways. May we all practice such faith until we too are as brave as the disciples became, brave enough to face all our fears with a calm and certain faith in Jesus, our Christ, who always has the last word, love.  Amen.

Surprising Seeds

 Ever wonder why Jesus talked about gardening metaphors to fishermen who knew more about ropes than they did plows?  Why did he talk about seeds to tax collectors and prostitutes?  And did he throw in a wink and a laugh with these stories to keep them from being too dry, too dull?    These stories seem simple and yet they still leave us scratching our heads centuries later.  This particular parable is perfect for us to wrestle with in June.  Many of us are digging in our gardens, pulling weeds that got a good head start from all the rain we’ve had recently, or throwing seeds in the ground so we can eat lettuce, spinach or radishes in a few weeks.  You don’t know which ones will live and which ones won’t. You don’t know which ones will grow fast and which will grow slowly.  Which ones will thrive this year, and which won’t. 

The saskatoons have already set berries, but will they produce fruit?  God knows.  We throw in marigold seeds from last year’s bedding plants, but many won’t germinate at all.  Then there’s sunflowers seeds that can produce massive plants taller than people, and my goodness the birds love them!

And other than weeding, watering, fertilizing, picking bugs off, and covering our prize petunias with netting, (at least here in Athabasca where the deer love to nibble on our bedding plants and everything except crabgrass and dandelions), there’s not much we can do to help the process along.  Sure, some folks start bedding plants indoors with grow lights, or test the soil to figure out what will grow where or read up on everything from companion planting to square foot gardening, but once the seed is in the ground, as many a farmer knows, it is out of our control.  That’s hard for those of us who like to be always doing. Like the kid who wonders when the warm weather will finally arrive so he can go have fun at the spray park, we wait impatiently for the seeds to sprout, the new potatoes to form, the fresh peas and corn to be harvested.  But sometimes, no matter how hard we try, the peas get washed away, the carrots don’t come up, and the raspberry canes don’t root.  It’s out of our hands.

Relax, Jesus said, God is taking care of the growing.  Hard to believe that in times like these.  And yet there are signs of hope we see here and there.  Perth Australia has so many solar panels installed in that city that city officials are asking people to use their appliances during the day to use up that excess power. And this is in their winter season!  The kids who survived the Sandy Lake school massacre are avid gun control lobbists and they graduated high school this month, determined to make a difference.  The British Isles are seeing storks fly overhead again after 600 years of extinction, thanks to careful wildlife rehabilitation efforts, farmers are finding crops like spinach that love growing under solar panels, not to mention sheep grow more wool when they graze on solar farms, and Norwegian researchers are heating homes with renewable energy stored in beach sand of all things.  Times are shifting, attitudes are shifting.  People are living into what Paul described as cheerfully pleasing God. 

Today we please God with a special day of prayer.  Back in 1971, someone somewhere came up with the idea to have an indigenous day of prayer.  There’s very little known about who had the idea, but the United Church formally recognized it at the 24th General Council and the Anglican Church of Canada also passed it in their court that same year. Eleven years later what later became the Assembly of First Nations called for the creation of a National Aboriginal Solidarity Day. Around that time the Sacred Assembly, a national conference chaired by Elijah Harper, also had a similar call for a national holiday to celebrate the contributions of Indigenous Peoples. And the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1995) recommended the designation of a National First Peoples Day. More recently, on June 21, 2017, Prime Minister Trudeau issued an intention to rename this day National Indigenous Peoples Day.

The United Church has traditionally referred to the Sunday before National Indigenous Peoples Day as Aboriginal Sunday. As part of acknowledging National Indigenous Peoples Day, communities of faith are invited to focus on prayer, as it was originally intended in 1971. 1971 was the same year that the Anglican Church closed its last residential school (as an aside, we closed our last one in 1968) and that might have been the reason for it.  

As a side note of interest, Elijah Harper who helped organize this, who is also the famous politician who helped block the Meech Lake Accord, went to school in Norway House, a residential school in northern Manitoba that was run by the United Church of Canada until it was closed in 1965.  So there’s a United Church connection on several levels to this date.

Seeds sprout up from a 1971 prayer request.  They seem small and innocuous, but they can grow into a national inquiry into truth and reconciliation.  Seeds sprout up from the frustration and heartbreak of being educated in a foreign language in a school far away from one’s family and parents into the courageous resolve to stand against the political machinery that forgot to consult first nations people.  Seeds sprout up from a simple time of prayer into a National Day of Remembrance.  What seeds are sprouting up even now in this time and place?

When we live lives focused on hopeful intentional values, as describe by Paul, we can find ourselves partnering with God in surprising and wonderful ways.  We can watch for God at work in the world.  And we can focus on living God-centred lives.  We do that best by setting aside time to pray intentionally and regularly, watching for those seeds to sprout up.  They will bloom in ways we may not imagine, but they will bloom because God is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God!

Power Play

Wow, Jesus was throwing his weight around in the temple that morning!  He got a little hot under the collar, and when the Pharisees tried to blow the whistle and tell Jesus he was icing, he told them in no uncertain terms that what he did fell within the regulations, then skated off and scored a winning goal!  Except that the Pharisees decided to eject him from the league for unsportsmanlike conduct but recognized that they would need to get more people to back their decision.  Everyone to the Penalty Box!

There are three things going on in this gospel story.  First there’s the issue of leadership and who is following whom.  Then there’s the conversation around why the 7^th day is special, the Sabbath.  And lastly, there’s the decision point that is made by the person who the fuss is about.

First, what’s happening with leadership in this story?  Jesus is leading his disciples into the sanctuary where he sees a man with a withered hand.  The Pharisees react to his interest and see it as a threat to their authority.  Now it’s important that we acknowledge that this is not all the Pharisees as there were Pharisees like Nicodemus who are recorded as hosting Jesus for dinner, or having conversations with him.  In light of what is going on in the Middle East, we have to remember that these were some of the leaders, and make sure we do not encourage or imply any kind of antisemitism that could be used to fuel attacks like the one we saw at a Toronto Jewish school this week.  That being said, the leaders are confronting Jesus during a worship service like hockey players getting ready for a face off.  They are determined to control the play and get the puck away from Jesus.  They are calling him out in front of his disciples in a blatant attempt to shift the momentum away from Jesus and back onto themselves where they feel it belongs.  How dare this upstart disrupt worship? How dare he take on the authority that is rightfully theirs?  How dare he defy and defile the Sabbath? 

Then we have the theological debate.  This is the lens through which everyone is looking at the Sabbath.  It’s like if one team has helmets with yellow plexiglass visors, and the other one has helmets with pink visors.  What colors are the referee’s stripes? What color is the ice?  Those visors will shape how the players look at their rink and the other people on it. These particular Pharisees see the Sabbath as something that is honored by abstaining from work.  It is a reminder that no one is to be treated like a slave.  The Sabbath is a gift from God and is kept by following many laws to the letter to show respect to God. That’s something Jesus agrees with, it’s a gift from God to the people of God, but he also sees it as a time to experience God’s presence.  One of the highest principles of the laws protecting the Sabbath as a sacred time, that even these particular Pharisees would agree with, is that the laws can be suspended in order to save a life.  That the sacredness of the Sabbath is not as important as helping someone survive whatever ordeal they are facing. It’s a pragmatic and sensible boundary to the powers of temple regulations.  No high sticking allowed in your attempt to get control of the puck. 

Lastly, we have the person who is at the centre of this debate.  Poor guy must have felt like he was the puck about to be dropped into the face off.  I wouldn’t have envied him for the world.  Can you see it?  The Pharisees staring at him, Jesus looking at him too, and then all the spectators in the stands following the play, wondering where he will end up.

But here’s an interesting thing.  Jesus doesn’t touch the man or pray over him or forgive his sins or tell a parable.  Jesus simply invites the man to stretch out his hand.  The man has to make a choice of how to react to that invitation.  How will he keep the Sabbath?  Will he honor it in the narrow legalistic way that the Pharisees define it?  Or will he see it in the focus Jesus highlights? Not as a tool of oppression but a freedom from oppression, and an invitation to full and generous life.  He chooses life.

There are people who still feel oppressed by prejudice, discrimination, and hatred.  They feel crippled by fear and conspiracies.  They wither under the stated and unstated expectations that the world has of them.  There are people who will hate them in the abstract who might not hate them as long as they live their withered lives.  As long as they stay quiet.  As long as they follow the rules that they may be neither seen nor heard, as long as they hide their differences and pretend to be something they’re not.  But Jesus invites them to stretch out their withered hands to receive the love God has for them.  They are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Who are we to judge?  If we stick to rules for their own sake, we may block people from the healing they need.  If we, like the disciples, can wait to see what happens, we may see the miraculous happen right in front of us.  If we, like the Pharisees, find ourselves challenged, can we let go of what we know should happen to see what God is making happen?  And what is happening is as sweet and simple and beautiful as a team working smoothly to pass the puck and shoot a winning goal, or a rainbow shining in the sky after a storm, a sign that we are to make space for God’s healing love.  That is a great goal to have for our sabbath days together.  May we make space for all to experience God’s healing love!

Holy Seraphims Batman!

Have you ever woken up from an intense dream that left you shaken and sweating?

Or maybe the glimpse of an idea that surprised you, or a daydream over a cup of coffee?  I imagine that’s what Isaiah was experiencing when in the middle of the church service, the sermon and incense was putting him to sleep. He had a daydream, a vision that would have made Stephen Spielberg or George Lucas or Peter Jackson green with envy.  Winged creatures, not quite angels, and definitely not human.  And a God that is so big, just the hem of God’s robe filled the whole temple.  Even Kate Middleton’s train on her wedding dress was not long enough to do that.  And the temple is tended by seraphim, odd looking creatures with many wings. Some biblical scholars remind us that the word seraph comes from the Hebrew root word for snake, sarap, like the word Serpent, so maybe Isaiah was foreseeing an episode of Game of Thrones with flying dragons, snake-like creatures covered in feathers?   Either way, Isaiah was confused, overwhelmed and astonished at the sight of so much bewildering imagery, the immensity of his God experience that day.  And he was in despair.  Who could look at such a vision without recognizing that they were not worthy for such a thing?  Isaiah experienced profound doubt and shame being in the presence of the Holy. How could he see this when he was so flawed and uncertain, so acutely aware of his imperfections and his faults?  In other words, he was human and he struggled with imposter syndrome.  And he was in deep pain.  Woe is me, I am lost and live with people who are lost like me, in a world that is imperfect.

Can you relate? How many of you are feeling lost?  How many of you struggled with flashbacks when you heard that once again you might evacuate?  How many of you looked around your homes wondering what to pack, what to leave behind?  How many of you waited for that call, that knock on the door?  How many of you felt a lump in your throats or a tightened stomach at the thought of that long drive?  I can’t begin to imagine reliving that potential trauma. 

There are times when we find ourselves up against things over which we have no control.  Fires, floods, viruses and bacteria can disrupt our lives in unexplained ways.  We don’t know where to turn, how to respond, where we can go when we feel at a loss.  One of the hardest things to admit to ourselves is that we are not God.  Despite our best efforts, things happen.  We come to realize that we are not God, and that we don’t always know what’s best.  We say, “Oh Woe is me, I am lost.  I am not God and God is more than I can logically understand.  How can I be in the presence of the Holy?”

That is the question for us frail humans.  We are not God, we are not perfect or pure or almighty.  We have flaws, we make mistakes, we have failures from time to time.  We get hurt, and sometimes we hurt others.  How can we approach God?

Isaiah showed us how.  Just like an AA meeting, he named his vulnerability, and his flaws.  He recognized and confessed his pain.  “Hi, I’m Isaiah, and I’m a broken, imperfect human.”  And just like in AA, he found himself freed from all that self-centred concern and angst.  Just like in AA, he found himself accepted just as he was.  Just like in AA, he turned his life over and found he had a clean slate, not from any action he had taken, but by the action of God through the strange beings that worshiped God, saying Holy, holy holy.  And just like in AA, he found that he was called to help and serve others.  By being honest and vulnerable in front of the holy mystery that was above and beyond perfect description, he found healing and a new purpose.  Which is what Jesus may have been getting at when he was talking to Nicodemus.  Nicodemus was a man of high standing and influence in his community.  He was a public figure.  He had a lot of power and authority, and yet he was troubled and uncertain.  He came to Jesus for answers and Jesus searched for a metaphor that Nicodemus would understand.  Both scriptures point to the same thing. That the Holy is hard to approach when we are in pain or in trouble, but the Holy is always full of grace and healing for us.  And when we are ready to be as vulnerable as a child, as truthful and honest as Isaiah, we will be approached by God’s healing, purifying love.  It may burn and hurt like a red-hot coal to our lips, but it leaves us able to say, “Send me!” with joy and enthusiasm. 

Our Song of Faith describes God in ways that Isaiah would have loved: 

God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description.

Yet, in love, the one eternal God seeks relationship.

So God creates the universe and with it the possibility of being and relating.

God tends the universe, mending the broken and reconciling the estranged.

God enlivens the universe, guiding all things toward harmony with their Source.

With the Church through the ages, we speak of God as one and three:

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We also speak of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, God, Christ, and Spirit, Mother, Friend, and Comforter, Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love, and in other ways that speak faithfully of the One on whom our hearts rely, the fully shared life at the heart of the universe.

May we have the courage to be vulnerable to the Holy Mystery, and may we find deep healing and purpose in God’s loving action. Amen

Guided into Truth

I’ve had a lot of people telling me stories about the spirit of the times recently, and the spirit of the times seems to be a spirit of grumpiness.  The spirit of grumpiness is so strong that we could even sing “Spirit, Spirit of grumpiness, blow through the wilderness, grumpy and mean”, but who wants to be singing hymns to that kind of spirit?  It does seem to be everywhere.  People are gossiping, or judging, people are complaining and on a tight fuse.  There’s so much fear and anger out there, it’s almost palpable. 

Now some of you might be saying, Monica, you are exaggerating, and you’d probably be right.  Except that there are signs that people are under stress.  The senior’s apartments in town had to lock their lobby entrances after the lobbies were used as bedrooms and bathrooms. We tensed up last week when the forest fire smoke returned, and we remembered how our summer last year was impacted by many days of poor air quality. And how horrible that some of Fort McMurray is once again evacuated because of fire. Although it’s not as bad as the one they called “The Beast” that they fled from 8 years ago, I’m sure they are having flashbacks and that is stressful.  8 years ago, we had people here from First United in Fort McMurray and my goodness, it was hard to celebrate Pentecost that year.

It's not just Athabasca or Fort Mac.  Cold Lake was in the news when they cracked down on vagrancy incidents. According to officials, the unhoused population has increased in two years from 10 local people to 195, including many arriving from surrounding areas.  The bakery here in town is no longer giving free meals to people in need because of angry incidents.

This is not the spirit that we want to have dominate this town, this province or even this world.  But it is incredibly contagious. Seems we are judging everyone for the littlest things.  We point fingers, we get indignant, and we get so self-righteous.

The metaphor I like to use is that it's like we are goldfish swimming in a goldfish bowl where we don't know what the waters taste like. And right now, whether we like it or not, people are tense and stressed, not knowing what the future holds. We can become addicted to snap judgements and prejudices. Interestingly enough, the word prejudice comes from pre and judge. We pre-judge people to be exactly like us, which means we're safe with them, or exactly opposite to us which means we're in danger from them. It's a fast way to make decisions that helped our ancestors escape from sabre-toothed tigers. But now we can see prejudices for what they are, distractions for us goldfish so we don't think about what is happening in the world. We can focus on our grievances and outrage and avoid how we ourselves contributed to the chaos and stress of our neighbors. One thing I don't miss is reading about the vitriol of town council, that had been a good change, and rumor has it that the Athabasca Inn has sold! So even in all the bleakness of both local and world chaos, there are glimmers of hope. We as Christians are called to be bringers of hope. We are called to be channels of God's creativity, God's healing and God's inspiration. 

Peter spoke against prejudice and judgement when he addressed the rumors directly, “People of Jerusalem, we are not drunk!” And Jesus said time and time again, the only judge is God.  The world is wrong about sin and justice and judgement, and the ruler of the world who does the judging, will be the one who is judged.  We are to be given the spirit of Truth, which is uncomfortable at times.  But the spirit of truth is that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to love the world.  And we are to love the world too.  Jesus said, “He who is without sin cast the first stone,” “judge not lest you be judged”, and “take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck of sawdust in another’s eye.” 

One of my counsellors said it in this way.  She would tap her nose then her cheek.  That was her reminder to keep her nose out of other people’s business and on her own face where it belonged.  It’s easier said than done.  There are times when the Spirit guides us into uncomfortable truths, and times when we avoid truth as much as possible.  But truth from God is supposed to build us up, not tear us down.  It’s supposed to fill our hearts with courage and inspiration. It’s supposed to improve our mental health not tear it down. The best truth is spoken in love.  It builds our confidence bit by bit.  Jesus spent a lot of time helping Peter and the other disciples develop their confidence and leadership skills and they didn’t even know he was doing it.  He tried to prepare them for his death and let them know they would have comfort from God with the spirit.  Little by little, he built them up.  Little by little, the Spirit would continue to build them up.  Little by little we are also built up by the Spirit.  Little by little, we are healed, one hymn at a time, one prayer at a time, one hug at a time.  Little by little, the Spirit gently grows and heals and inspires us.  I like to joke that we are growing our angel wings one feather at a time, and just like Peter and the rest didn’t realize how Jesus was healing them and forming them into community, we don’t always realize how we are being formed into community.  But we are indeed being continually formed and reformed into ever more loving communities of faith, just as God wants us to be.