Called, Loved, Changed

Once in a while I stumble upon something interesting to watch.  This week it happened to be a 2014 movie starring Nicholas Cage.  Now, he’s no Meryl Streep, but he does some clever movies, and can be quite funny with his straight face and seriousness that can turn into teasing almost instantly.  I enjoyed him in National Treasure and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, so a movie he chose to be in would be a safe bet.

I should have been suspicious when I realized that it was free.  I don’t have Netflix, and so if it’s not on CBC or Youtube or CTV websites, I don’t see it.  And that usually means pay per view.  Not this one.  Especially when it’s only a few years old.  Normally the copywrite police are all over movie sites that show free movies, and those websites can be pretty sleezy.  New movies get taken off as fast as they get put on, but something like Gone with the Wind or Casa Blanca are usually safe. So this was very unusual.  And no wonder it was free. 

The movie was called “Left Behind”, based on the books of the same name, written about what would happen at Jesus’ second coming when all the people who are born again are taken up into heaven to save them from the coming end of the world.  The theology is dreadful, and some of the best lines are spoken by the atheists -what kind of a God would take children from their moms, airplane pilots out of their planes in mid flight, they ask, and I asked too.

At one point, the clue that the Nicholas Cage character finds which helps him figure out why all the people have disappeared is a slip of paper with the words “John 3:16” written on it.  That’s when he realizes his born-again wife was right to nag him, and that he could have spared himself and his daughter a lot of suffering.

But here’s the thing: what kind of God would break apart families, steal fire fighters, ambulance drivers, and airplane pilots regardless of what might happen to the people around them when they disappear?  Jesus tells Nicodemus that God loved the whole world, not just some of it, or a special few people who said the right words.  And that Jesus came not to judge the world, but to save it.  One thing that is very clear, Jesus constantly teaches people that they are not to judge.  Yet the God of Left Behind does exactly that, and the Christians are vindicated.

But if God is love, not judgement, we Christians are called to love and serve and be humble about it.  We are adopted into God’s family, not to be intolerant judgers, but to be compassionate servants who are not afraid of a little suffering.  Caring servants who don’t need to be first or special or recognized or famous.  Caring people who are working together at being part of God’s beloved family.

All our scriptures today are about a mysterious God who calls.  A God who is seen not just in the fleshy down-to-earth images of loving parent, but also in wild poetry of flashing eyes and wings and spirit and things too great for our human minds to understand.  A God who calls us into childlike faith then loves us, and sends us out.  That there is a time for admitting that we are lost, we live in a world of broken hurting people and are broken hurting humans ourselves.  That we need a live coal to burn our grumpy parts, our sour moods, our fearful and depressed moments, our wounded ways, a live coal to clean us out.  A spirit of newness, of rebirth into bravery, into hope, into love.  That we need help and guidance to figure out the next steps in our journey as a community of faith, as a people of God.

The one stark realization from watching Left Behind is that I can’t imagine a just God of love doing such a dreadful thing to the world that is beloved. 

There’s nothing loving in watching buildings exploding as planes fly into them, and decent humans struggling with the horrific loss of life because of the ripple effect of all these losses.  And as a mom, I know that if I was whisked off to Heaven and had to watch my young adult daughter and son go through what was depicted in that movie, you bet I would march up to that divine throne and give God a piece of my mind about the lack of love that showed.  And if my mother’s heart, flawed and human as it is, would do that, think about how much more a divine being however you like to poetically describe God as, would love those children too.  And those children swept into Heaven without a by your leave would be crying out for their moms and dads and brothers and sisters too.  So I reject that vision of God seen in Left Behind.

We humans are addicted to judging others, whether it’s based on clothes or jobs or race or nationality, and whenever we put judgement first, we do atrocious things.  The Japanese internment camps, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Auschwitz, and many other examples.  But when we remember that God wants us to put love at the core of all we do, noble and beautiful things result, public education regardless of gender, the overthrowing of apartheid and communism, the rise of the environmental movement, the work of truth and reconciliation.  Love always triumphs in the end. 

God calls us, loves us, empowers us and sends us forth to build up love wherever we find it and whatever it looks like.  May we know the spirit of love and it’s transforming power here in this place this very day, helping us to make brave and holy decisions based on God loving the whole world.  Amen.

What’s in a word?

I was surfing YouTube the other day and found Benedict Cumberbatch discussing an embarrassing moment on some British talk show.  He had done the narration on a documentary about the kinds of creatures found in South America.  Somehow it had been released before the producers had listened to Benedict’s voice, and the public had the experience of listening to this very smart and very famous actor pronounce the name of cute little black and white birds that waddle on the ice, can’t fly at all, but can swim up to 15 miles an hour.  What do you call them?  Well, poor Benedict pronounced them peng- uins, with a soft g.  Most words we learn first by hearing them, but sometimes we learn a word by reading it first.  I remember wondering why I never heard people talking about eating horse doo vers when they were in every magazine.  It wasn’t until I was in university that I heard that they were hors d'oeuvres. 

Our words can be used to communicate ideas and to clarify what we are thinking, but they can also lead to confusion.  We can use our words to mislead and hurt, sometimes without thinking.  Our words can have so many meanings too.  Let’s do an experiment with words.  Stand up, if you are able to, and put out your right hand. Now pull it back in. now put your right hand in again and shake it all about.  Put your hands up in the air and turn around, now clap three times.  Put your left hand in, take your left hand out, put your left hand in and shake it all about…

Doing the hokey pokey is a lot about words and a lot about faith and trust.  If I had told people that they were going to do the hokey pokey in church, some would have stayed in bed.  Some would have said, no way, that’s too hokey.  Some would have said, wow, I can’t wait.  Hokey is a word that means corny or trite or silly, and the hokey pokey is certainly a dance that can feel silly or trite, but did you know that hokey pokey is slang for hocus pocus, and this dance is over 200 years old?  Wow!  If we called it the hocus pocus dance instead of the hokey pokey, it would give us a totally different opinion of it.  Our words can shape our experiences, and the experiences others have.   

Peter and the disciples were transformed into joyful, dancing leaders whose words built up those who heard them.  Their words inspired everyone around them.  The people watching wanted to scoff and shame them and tell them to sit down, act their age and not be embarrassing in public. 

But the Spirit, the inspiration, the breath of God, filled their hearts with so much joy that they were transformed into brave, bold speakers whose words were meant to help us become brave, bold speakers too, speakers who build each other up with words of love, compassion, healing and courage.  Our words are the tools we use, and we can either shame or build up the people around us with those words.  I can’t explain how Peter and his friends were transformed from a group cowering in a room wondering who would be crucified next into brave bold dancers, but it was no hokey pokey or hocus pocus.  It was God encouraging and inspiring them.  That encouragement and inspiration keeps happening here and now.  Sometimes it can be as gentle as a breeze, or as fierce as a hurricane, as surprising as a flicker showing up at our birdfeeder, a hummingbird singing in our ear, or a bee eating our honey.  It can be as real as the hug we get from a friend or as nebulous as a dream that we wake up from one morning that encourages us to phone a friend or write a postcard.  At the wedding in Australia, they played a song called “Perfect”, and wouldn’t you know it but the instant we get back into Edmonton, get into our car and turn on the radio for the drive back to Athabasca, the first song we heard was that song.  God wants to sing it to us.  “You look perfect to me”.  Words of love and encouragement that we need to hear in our hearts that just as we are, we are beloved children of God and when we come together as a community ready to wait and listen for the spirit, we become not just any community, but God’s beloved community, that God will inspire and encourage with words and sighs and breath and love and hope.  We are not alone, in life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God.

Hero Worship!

Who’s your favorite hero?  When I was six, I was fascinated with a hero that was about social justice, surprisingly enough.  I didn’t learn about him in Sunday School or in the bible picture books that were in every waiting room and hospital in town.  No, I learned about him at my grandma’s house.  I would climb up the stairs to a dusty old bedroom, and pull down a book, probably as old as the ones here in the front of the church.  At first, I looked at the pictures, then when somehow the magic of reading became possible, I read the stories over and over again.  They were all about Robin Hood.  Some of you might not know who he was, because it’s been a long time since Disney turned him into a fox, or since Kevin Costner or Errol Flynn tried to make him seem more than a legend.  But the idea of a man wandering around in the bush, practising his aim and his political understanding of the world he lived in, and the compassion he had for people living in poverty, and how he tried to make a difference, well, all you can say to that is oh da lolly!  And in my grandmother’s old book, there was no doubt that he was a real man who pressured King John to sign the Magna Carta, a document enshrining the idea that everyone would have equal access to justice and a fair hearing.

I suppose there could be worse heroes to believe in, after all, he was robbing the rich to give to the poor.  And compared to some of the anti heroes we have now, like Deadpool, who seems more sarcastic than anything else, Robin Hood was an interesting study in morals, reminding me not to judge people by how big they were, like Little John, or what they wore to work, like Friar Tuck.  It was about how they cared for each other and their oppressed friends and neighbors.

That’s very different from our Easter story.  Jesus is no hero in many ways, he doesn’t wear a cape, he doesn’t have the strength to hold up huge buildings, he doesn’t have a little sister who manufactures amazing armor or weapons out of vibranium,

he doesn’t come from a hidden kingdom of amazon warrior women, and he can’t sling a web and catch thieves like flies.

He certainly doesn’t use weapons or get into fist fights or win a beautiful princess and live in a castle happily ever after.  And if we stay in Mark’s Gospel, the oldest gospel to try to put into words what happened that first Easter, well, it’s more than a little eerie, creepy, weird.  Dare I say it? Rather like an ugly April Fools day joke gone wrong.

The followers of Jesus are not expecting anything more than another dead body to take care of, to prepare for entombment in the rituals of the day.  The men are conspicuously absent.  It is the women, coming at dawn to work with the messy business of death.  The women, ready to confront the cause of their grief and pain and bathe the body with their tears of grief.

The plot twists unexpectedly.  That which they had planned for was not what they found.  Their morning of sadness was shattered by the unexpected, an unnamed stranger telling them something so impossible that all they could do was run away in fear.  Even the last command they were given, ‘go and tell the disciples of Good News’ they could not do.  They ran in terror.  How many times do we flee that which we cannot understand, and run from that which we have no words?

The story ends there and yet it doesn’t.  The ending isn’t really Easter Sunday morning.  It’s more than just a dead end of a would-be hero, conquered by politics and government.

It’s more because Something happened afterward and kept happening.  People kept experiencing the story in ways that felt more real than the dangers and fears they had come to accept as normal. 

People kept being surprised by this story’s power to touch them personally, and they handed down that story, just as the women had been commanded to do at the tomb.  Go back to where the story begins, remember it all, not just the Good Friday and Easter, but the new life and hope for a better way not just for the Marys and Salome, but for everyone.  A story that has been handed down for generations until now it is your turn to hear it.

This is not a story about which hero you like best, or even whether Jesus is better than Black Panther, Thor, Robin Hood or Wonder Woman, nor is it about being tough, or having super powers or beating up everyone that gets in your way of what you think you want. 

This is a story of how even when we are broken down, or maybe especially when we are broken down, when our world feels upside down and out of control, when we have no hope left in anything we can do, when we are too tired to keep on fighting, when we have given up, when we feel fooled by hope, that’s when God’s upside down call to us to hear good news can sink in.  That’s when hallelujahs can make a real, authentic difference in the world;

The story of Easter is about ordinary human beings like you and me empowered by something mysterious and unexplainable. The story of Easter calls us to make love the cornerstone of the next chapter in our own Easter story. Hear these words not as some ancient April Fools trick, but a promise of good news for all who continue to add to the story of Easter. Christ is Risen, he is Risen indeed, halleluiah!

God’s Great Love

There are days when I hear John 3:16 and I just cringe.  We see it at football games and hockey arenas, we see it on soapboxes and t-shirts, we hear it hollered at us on street corners and on our front doorsteps.  We see it on the letters tucked in our front doors that say, ‘neighbors, we are inviting you to come and celebrate the death of Jesus.’  Ick.  We hear it preached at funerals when the pastor stands up and says, ‘So and So is sitting at the foot of the throne of Heaven, and you will never see them again unless you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior.’  This scripture has been used and abused.  As the United Church’s Song of Faith puts it, “The Spirit judges us critically when we abuse scripture by interpreting it narrow-mindedly, using it as a tool of oppression, exclusion, or hatred.”

When we interpret scripture, when we come together to hear it and wrestle with it and hear it again, we in the United Church do our best to look at scripture in its context rather than an individual verse here or there.  How many times have you seen a poster that said John 3:17 on it? Or even John 3:14-21?

Context is important.  In this case Jesus is having a late-night debate with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus snuck over to visit Jesus and ended up staying a long time.  Just like when we have a visit with a friend or family member that we haven’t seen in a while and before you know it, the clock has struck midnight and it’s time to call it a day.  Nicodemus didn’t want to meet publicly with Jesus for fear of what his friends and co-workers might think.  He wanted to be anonymous.  Jesus told him that people who are afraid, who do things in secret, who hide their actions and their thoughts, well, they might just be following an unhealthy spirit that will get them in trouble.  Genuine God followers are brave, and they show up in broad daylight, following the God of Truth and light.  The God that sent Jesus, not to condemn the world, but to save it.

The God that wants to make a covenant of love with us, not a covenant of shame, fear and resentment.  The God that wants to liberate us into a life of freedom.  A life of forgiveness, hope, healing and even, dare I say it, happiness and community.  A life of amazing grace.

Too many of us are living lives that are dead, too many of us are the children of rebellion.  One translation of Paul’s words says the children of wrath, of anger.  How often do we let our anger, our jealousy, our resentment, our frustration and our fear get the best of us?  We say things and do things that cannot be undone, that destroy relationships, that hurt and diminish the lives we live and the community we have.  We forget to be servants to those who need healing.  Too often we live in hiding, afraid to tell the truth of who we are and what we’ve done.

But when we step up to be honest, when we stop hiding, amazing things happen.  I was at the Pride conference yesterday at the Seniors Center and talked from my heart about why I believe we need to stop judging our neighbors and start loving them no matter what their body parts are and how they use them.  I read some scripture from Isaiah that talked about blessing folks who are not heterosexual, who diverge from what we label as normal.  One person came up to me afterward and hugged me so hard that the cherry tomato I was holding got so squished the juices started running down my hand.  And afterwards, they were brave enough to give their name to the Advocate reporter who took their picture.  Talk about coming into the light and being full of truth.

We are saved not by magical incantations of special words, but by the abundant love, the grace that God showers us constantly, if we are only brave enough to accept it.  And this is no namby-pamby love that can teach the world to sing.  Oh no! It’s braver than the two ladies who walk down Whyte Avenue holding hands even though they know they will be insulted and whistled at and harassed by the people around them. 

It’s braver than the young people who have the hutzpah to ask for a Gay Straight alliance in their schools, and it’s more passionate than the horniest teenager ever to walk the face of the earth!  Kahlil Gibran wrote a much more realistic description of God who is Love in these stirring words:

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”

May we have the hutzpah, the courage and the honesty to step into the light and accept the great gift of God’s grace and love.