We are coming to the end of Lent and in a matter of days chocolate, coffee or whatever it was that we gave up for Lent will be returned to us. That's assuming that we paid any attention to Lent at all, which is becoming a risky assumption.
In these days of increasingly aggressive secularization, living our faith on a daily basis instead of limiting it to an hour a week is a difficult task. Yet if we follow Jesus through the three years of his ministry depicted by the Gospels we will find a person who lived his faith day to day. Here was a person who was so close to God that he called him "Daddy" (a better translation of Abba than Father.) He spent as much time in prayer as he did doing the work of preaching and healing. In a very real way Jesus was the embodiment of his message.
The message that Jesus preached was the immanent Dominion of God. This was a way of being that demanded radical obedience to God and the ideals of God's justice. The first will be last, the poor will be uplifted.
What do we embody? It is easy to pick on the consumer society, but it is so easy to define ourselves by what we own or what we do to own it that God gets lost in the clutter.
If someone looks at our lives will they immediately sense our close and loving relationship with God?
How do we need to live for that to be true?
Are we prepared to live our lives that way?
These are the real questions we need to ponder during the season of Lent
Friday, April 15, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Spirit blows
It is 12:50 on Friday and the Spirit has been fairly brisk this week with the possibility of gale force winds in the near future...
The essential thing is that for the past number of years the reaction to gale force Holy Spirit has been to batten down the hatches and make sure that we stick to the United Church agenda. Even if we have forgotten what that is. Money is down, people are down (both in numbers and mood), the possibility of saving the church seems to be more down everyday.
At a recent meeting of Presbytery we spent 90 minutes looking at Creative Ministries, of which 30 minutes was actual discussion. We spent almost six hours talking about Creation and Empire, the idea of hiring a bus to take us to Conference was turned into a suggestion that a resolution be drafted asking Conference to hire the bus.
I am not saying that Creation and Empire is not an interesting and timely discussion, but it is one with which we are familiar. Creative Ministries less so. The United Church Manual pretty much suggests that a church is a group with a minister and a building. That limits us. There are congregations with no minister and no immediate hope of affording one. There are other with no buildings. Depending on circumstance these are both valid propositions.
Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night to ask about this Dominion of God thing that Jesus kept talking about. Jesus told him to look to the Spirit. "There's no telling what the Spirit will do." Jesus suggested that all Nicodemus' knowledge was useless in the face of God's action in the world. Nicodemus needed to start all over again with what is called "beginner's mind".
I think we need to come to our churches and our church meetings with beginner's mind. We need to see them like we have never done this before; then ask "How is this serving God?"
Asking that question may help us to refocus the discussion.
But I bet it won't make you popular at church meetings.
The essential thing is that for the past number of years the reaction to gale force Holy Spirit has been to batten down the hatches and make sure that we stick to the United Church agenda. Even if we have forgotten what that is. Money is down, people are down (both in numbers and mood), the possibility of saving the church seems to be more down everyday.
At a recent meeting of Presbytery we spent 90 minutes looking at Creative Ministries, of which 30 minutes was actual discussion. We spent almost six hours talking about Creation and Empire, the idea of hiring a bus to take us to Conference was turned into a suggestion that a resolution be drafted asking Conference to hire the bus.
I am not saying that Creation and Empire is not an interesting and timely discussion, but it is one with which we are familiar. Creative Ministries less so. The United Church Manual pretty much suggests that a church is a group with a minister and a building. That limits us. There are congregations with no minister and no immediate hope of affording one. There are other with no buildings. Depending on circumstance these are both valid propositions.
Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night to ask about this Dominion of God thing that Jesus kept talking about. Jesus told him to look to the Spirit. "There's no telling what the Spirit will do." Jesus suggested that all Nicodemus' knowledge was useless in the face of God's action in the world. Nicodemus needed to start all over again with what is called "beginner's mind".
I think we need to come to our churches and our church meetings with beginner's mind. We need to see them like we have never done this before; then ask "How is this serving God?"
Asking that question may help us to refocus the discussion.
But I bet it won't make you popular at church meetings.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Light and loss
I am not preaching this week and I didn't get a post up last week. I am looking at the readings anyways and thought, what a change in mood in one week. Transfiguration has us up on the mountaintop with this Jesus, who the disciples are understanding is somehow the Son of God, even if they have no understanding of what that means. God tells them to "Listen to him", then they go back down the mountain and spend the next few chapters completely lost because they aren't hearing what they want from Jesus.
They want, like the crowd that is following them, a final earthly solution to this problem of the Romans. The return of the Golden Age of Israel, when they were more than a minor province of a massive empire.
We still look for those final earthly solutions. We want that glowing Jesus to wave a hand and make all those people who aren't like us to change. If only everyone was like us the world would be perfect.
Only it wouldn't be. The story of the Fall in the Garden is, for me, about how each person doesn't take responsibility for their action. They point their finger and cry "It's their fault, your fault, anything but my fault!" What the story shows is that we as humans don't want to accept responsibility for the mess we make of things. Whether it is global warming or the gap between the rich and poor, it is always someone else's fault.
The light of Christ shines to reveal our need for God. Why? So we can move into relationship with God and the world and take up our responsibility for each other and Creation. Look at Jesus, he goes into the desert and is tempted.
He is tempted to do good. Make stones into bread, not just for himself but for the world. He can feed everyone! How cool is that. Only he would spend all his time making stones into bread and nothing would change.
He could give into the world and go the path of power. Become King/Emperor, supreme ruler. Make good laws, enforce the Dominion of God. Only people have tried that and failed. The Dominion of God can only be entered by choice. Empire cannot defeat Empire.
He could prove with miracles and wonders that he is God's Son. Only he would have to come up with ever more spectacular wonders and people would still not believe. Because believing would mean they would have to take responsibility for their lives and that it too hard.
The light of revelation is meant for the mountain tops. It is the experience that defies language. We can't explain it, we can only live it. The temptation will be to try to translate it into something that is useful in this world, but that doesn't work.
All we can do is go down the mountain and try to listen, listen, listen for that whisper of the Spirit that tells us that we, and they, need to choose love for ourselves.
They want, like the crowd that is following them, a final earthly solution to this problem of the Romans. The return of the Golden Age of Israel, when they were more than a minor province of a massive empire.
We still look for those final earthly solutions. We want that glowing Jesus to wave a hand and make all those people who aren't like us to change. If only everyone was like us the world would be perfect.
Only it wouldn't be. The story of the Fall in the Garden is, for me, about how each person doesn't take responsibility for their action. They point their finger and cry "It's their fault, your fault, anything but my fault!" What the story shows is that we as humans don't want to accept responsibility for the mess we make of things. Whether it is global warming or the gap between the rich and poor, it is always someone else's fault.
The light of Christ shines to reveal our need for God. Why? So we can move into relationship with God and the world and take up our responsibility for each other and Creation. Look at Jesus, he goes into the desert and is tempted.
He is tempted to do good. Make stones into bread, not just for himself but for the world. He can feed everyone! How cool is that. Only he would spend all his time making stones into bread and nothing would change.
He could give into the world and go the path of power. Become King/Emperor, supreme ruler. Make good laws, enforce the Dominion of God. Only people have tried that and failed. The Dominion of God can only be entered by choice. Empire cannot defeat Empire.
He could prove with miracles and wonders that he is God's Son. Only he would have to come up with ever more spectacular wonders and people would still not believe. Because believing would mean they would have to take responsibility for their lives and that it too hard.
The light of revelation is meant for the mountain tops. It is the experience that defies language. We can't explain it, we can only live it. The temptation will be to try to translate it into something that is useful in this world, but that doesn't work.
All we can do is go down the mountain and try to listen, listen, listen for that whisper of the Spirit that tells us that we, and they, need to choose love for ourselves.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Singing Traditionally
We are singing through the service this Sunday. I spent a few weeks collecting lists of people's favourite hymns. They range from "As the Deer" to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". It is always a fascinating exercise for me to wander through the hymns that the congregation choose as their favourite.
The hymns we will be singing range from lyrical melodies to the tunes that we think of as hymn tunes, but were the bar tunes of the day. The words express a wide range of understanding of who we are in relation to God.
This exercise of singing through Sunday reminds me of a discussion about tradition I was part of at a recent course. The people in the churches think of hymns as "traditional" particularly if they were written pre-1920. Folks like singing the traditional hymns even as they struggle with their political correctness conscience. The contemporary hymns are a challenge with tunes that aren't always easy to sing and words that strive for unfamiliar concepts.
Yet neither the old hymns or the new are traditional in the sense of being part of Wesley's quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Revelation. The tradition here has less to do with the exact words or hymns we sing than the fact that from the days of Moses the people have sung to God.
So it is so much about what we sing as to whom we sing our songs. As long as we sing to God's glory, the hymns we sing are part of a grand tradition, even if it is the first time we sing that hymn.
The hymns we will be singing range from lyrical melodies to the tunes that we think of as hymn tunes, but were the bar tunes of the day. The words express a wide range of understanding of who we are in relation to God.
This exercise of singing through Sunday reminds me of a discussion about tradition I was part of at a recent course. The people in the churches think of hymns as "traditional" particularly if they were written pre-1920. Folks like singing the traditional hymns even as they struggle with their political correctness conscience. The contemporary hymns are a challenge with tunes that aren't always easy to sing and words that strive for unfamiliar concepts.
Yet neither the old hymns or the new are traditional in the sense of being part of Wesley's quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Revelation. The tradition here has less to do with the exact words or hymns we sing than the fact that from the days of Moses the people have sung to God.
So it is so much about what we sing as to whom we sing our songs. As long as we sing to God's glory, the hymns we sing are part of a grand tradition, even if it is the first time we sing that hymn.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Being Salt, Being Light
Whenever I look at Jesus telling us that we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world I think of this anthem based on Psalm 34:8.
Jesus is telling that it is our work as his followers to bring out the complexity of the flavours of life. We tend to over use salt these days. It is cheap and easy to get. In Jesus' time it was a precious commodity. It would have been used sparingly to enhance the meal.
The trouble with salt is that if you overuse it, all other flavours are overwhelmed and all you taste is salt. I often order meals in restaurants without salt because I want to taste the food not the salt.
What has this to do with being the salt of the earth?
After centuries of being the religion of the establishment we often still think in terms of making everyone around us in Christians. We want to fill our churches, we would like our neighbours to think like us. Life would be so much easier. But that isn't what we are supposed to do. We are to be the Gospel and be ready to tell people about Jesus. But we aren't supposed to convert them. That, Paul says, is the work of the Holy Spirit. Our living and telling the story of our faith helps to bring out the flavour of the people around us.
Being the light of the world is very much the same thing. We shine the light of God into hidden places. We cry out for justice and peace. We illuminate what the world might be like if all followed the way of love. But if everyone is Light the same we we are Light, then we wouldn't be able to see anything.
Art needs a wide range of values both light and shadow. In our Western, white culture we unthinkingly associate light/white with goodness and shadow/darkness with evil. This is a tremendous injustice. God made both the night and the day. Our light will produce both light and shadow. It isn't our job to proclaim our notion of good and evil, but to proclaim God in Christ crucified. That is a hard thing since Christ crucified doesn't lend itself to creating empires and being a power in the word.
So I'm back to the beginning. We are to be salt and light so that people may taste and see how good God is.
Jesus is telling that it is our work as his followers to bring out the complexity of the flavours of life. We tend to over use salt these days. It is cheap and easy to get. In Jesus' time it was a precious commodity. It would have been used sparingly to enhance the meal.
The trouble with salt is that if you overuse it, all other flavours are overwhelmed and all you taste is salt. I often order meals in restaurants without salt because I want to taste the food not the salt.
What has this to do with being the salt of the earth?
After centuries of being the religion of the establishment we often still think in terms of making everyone around us in Christians. We want to fill our churches, we would like our neighbours to think like us. Life would be so much easier. But that isn't what we are supposed to do. We are to be the Gospel and be ready to tell people about Jesus. But we aren't supposed to convert them. That, Paul says, is the work of the Holy Spirit. Our living and telling the story of our faith helps to bring out the flavour of the people around us.
Being the light of the world is very much the same thing. We shine the light of God into hidden places. We cry out for justice and peace. We illuminate what the world might be like if all followed the way of love. But if everyone is Light the same we we are Light, then we wouldn't be able to see anything.
Art needs a wide range of values both light and shadow. In our Western, white culture we unthinkingly associate light/white with goodness and shadow/darkness with evil. This is a tremendous injustice. God made both the night and the day. Our light will produce both light and shadow. It isn't our job to proclaim our notion of good and evil, but to proclaim God in Christ crucified. That is a hard thing since Christ crucified doesn't lend itself to creating empires and being a power in the word.
So I'm back to the beginning. We are to be salt and light so that people may taste and see how good God is.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Strange Blessings
I was looking at the readings for the week and wondering how I was going to approach the Beatitudes this time. I happened to glance at the opening lines of Working Preacher WorkingPreacher.org and the comment that the blessings are not a prescription of what we need to do to be blessed, but rather descriptions of people who are already blessed.
We are already blessed. What a concept! We don't need to add "hunger and thirst after righteousness" to our calendars after all. The point that Jesus is making is that we are blessed in our lives right now. We don't need to add anything more to attract God's loving grace. It is here and now.
From people who mourn to people who are persecuted, probably even including people whose calendars are too full, all of us can experience God by just looking around for a moment. The blessings are there.
All that is left to us is to be grateful for God's blessings to us. That lead us to the next interesting truth. Gratitude makes us happier. The more we give thanks the happier we are about our lives. We don't need more stuff, we don't need better lives, we just need to be grateful for the gifts we have in our lives and we will find joy.
We're blessed. Really.
We are already blessed. What a concept! We don't need to add "hunger and thirst after righteousness" to our calendars after all. The point that Jesus is making is that we are blessed in our lives right now. We don't need to add anything more to attract God's loving grace. It is here and now.
From people who mourn to people who are persecuted, probably even including people whose calendars are too full, all of us can experience God by just looking around for a moment. The blessings are there.
All that is left to us is to be grateful for God's blessings to us. That lead us to the next interesting truth. Gratitude makes us happier. The more we give thanks the happier we are about our lives. We don't need more stuff, we don't need better lives, we just need to be grateful for the gifts we have in our lives and we will find joy.
We're blessed. Really.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The sins of the world
The John reading this week has John the Baptist looking out over the crowd and seeing Jesus. "Look there," he says, "there is the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world."
For those who favour the idea that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb whose blood sponges away the blot of our sin, there isn't much more to say. We sin. Jesus dies. We're forgiven. Repeat as necessary. I don't mean to make light of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, but there has to be more to it than that.
It seems to me that the sins of the world are not retreating in the face of the cross. In fact, all too often, people's attachment to the cross just adds to the burden. The more we claim exclusive rights to heaven, where finally only the good people like us will be allowed in, the more damage we do to the Dominion of God here on earth. Our sin is that we would rather wait until we die and go to be with God to be reconciled to our brothers and sisters. In doing so we waste our living.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He forgave people on the spot. There was no quiz to find out if they were truly repentant. Sometimes he didn't even ask; he just forgave them. His harshest words were reserved for the people who insisted that the world continue to be divided into sinner and non sinner. One of the many reasons for Jesus' death was that he challenged the understood categories that separated people.
Sin is what separates us. Sin isn't the stuff we do, it is why we do the stuff we do. Taking away the sin will take away the things that divide us. The funny thing is that Jesus left us here to continue his work. We are to be Jesus in the world. Somehow we got it turned around and began separating the people into good and bad, our kind of people and the other kind, us and them.
We need to be taking away the sin of the world. We need to be forgiving people, even before they ask, even before they know they need it.
We need to start with ourselves.
For those who favour the idea that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb whose blood sponges away the blot of our sin, there isn't much more to say. We sin. Jesus dies. We're forgiven. Repeat as necessary. I don't mean to make light of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, but there has to be more to it than that.
It seems to me that the sins of the world are not retreating in the face of the cross. In fact, all too often, people's attachment to the cross just adds to the burden. The more we claim exclusive rights to heaven, where finally only the good people like us will be allowed in, the more damage we do to the Dominion of God here on earth. Our sin is that we would rather wait until we die and go to be with God to be reconciled to our brothers and sisters. In doing so we waste our living.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He forgave people on the spot. There was no quiz to find out if they were truly repentant. Sometimes he didn't even ask; he just forgave them. His harshest words were reserved for the people who insisted that the world continue to be divided into sinner and non sinner. One of the many reasons for Jesus' death was that he challenged the understood categories that separated people.
Sin is what separates us. Sin isn't the stuff we do, it is why we do the stuff we do. Taking away the sin will take away the things that divide us. The funny thing is that Jesus left us here to continue his work. We are to be Jesus in the world. Somehow we got it turned around and began separating the people into good and bad, our kind of people and the other kind, us and them.
We need to be taking away the sin of the world. We need to be forgiving people, even before they ask, even before they know they need it.
We need to start with ourselves.
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