Monday 30 April 2012

A Thought For The Week Of April 30

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." The third Beatitude - and a very interestng one. Meekness is not something valued in our society. We tend to equate meekness with weakness. It's the strong who get ahead; those with brute strength who are willing to use brute force who succeed. And now Jesus turns our thinking upside down, as He often does. What's so great about "meekness?" That's what I find myself asking. But maybe that's it - maybe it has to do with the idea of turning our thinking upside down. Those who are meek know they have to rely on God. They can't do it alone. Those who depend on their strength and their abiliity to force others to give them their way aren't depending on God at all. They think they can do it all for themselves. They may gain "power" of some sort, but in the process they may also lose their souls. The truth is - I can't do it all for myself. Neither can you. Sometimes all of us simply have to embrace "meekness" and realize that, in fact, there's great strength to be found in being meek - not the strength of brute force, but the strength of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to do the impossible. Have a great week!

Sunday 29 April 2012

April 29 2012 sermon - An Abundance Of Abundance


Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers , but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:7-10)

     I have to challenge an increasingly prevailing viewpoint right from the start: sometimes newer is not better! I remember many years ago watching an episode of the old TV series “All In The Family” in which Mike and Gloria are unpacking a bag of groceries. As they do so, Mike pulls a can out of the bag and looks at it and then he looks at Gloria and says, “Look at this can. It say 'new and improved.' Everything you buy these days says 'new and improved.' What were we using before? 'Old and lousy?'” You sometimes get that feeling don't you? If you don't have the newest, most up to date of every single thing then you're behind the times. You may even be running the risk of becoming “old and lousy!” Apple started taking pre-orders for their first I-Pad on March 12, 2010. On March 7of this year (a little less than two years after Apple started taking pre-orders for the I-Pad 1, the I-Pad 3 went on sale. And people started scrapping their I-Pad 2's because now they were old and outdated. It's a little bit crazy. Just because something's newer doesn't mean it's always better. In today's Scripture reading, Jesus says “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Those are nice words, but they don't quite capture what Jesus was saying. Newer isn't better in this case. I want you to hear the version of those words that comes from the King James Bible: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” I want to draw your attention to the word “abundantly.” It's pretty important.

     I don't want to bore you with a lot of New Testament Greek, but this really is important if we're going to understand the passage the way John wrote it. The Greek word he used is perisson. I checked the word out, and to make a long story short basically it means “beyond.” It means to go above and beyond something. It means something that is “excessive.” Although I usually shy away from the King James Bible because of its dated English, in this particular case older is better, and “abundantly” is right! John in this passage isn't talking about something that's merely full, he's talking about something that's full to overflowing and yet is still being filled. That's how John is choosing to describe the life we gain from Christ, and here's where the King James Bible gets it right. Having life “more abundantly” means something a bit different than simply having life “to the full.” John is saying not just that God meets our needs but that God goes beyond our needs. It means that God gives and gives and gives to excess – of the things we really need to live life as God wants us to live life. That's why I've entitled my comments today “An Abundance Of Abundance” - because God doesn't just give, and God doesn't even just give abundantly. God gives us an abundance of the things He gives – and God gives that abundance abundantly!

     But what is it that we gain abundantly from God? Maybe we have to eliminate some of the alternatives first. Usually, we make our own decisions about what we need, and then we devote ourselves to the pursuit of whatever it is that we've decided upon. When we do that, in a way we're playing God with our own lives; we've made ourselves our own god. We've decided that we know better, and the end result is that we enslave ourselves to the pursuit of these other things. I want to share another Gospel passage with you. This comes from Matthew's Gospel: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So Jesus challenges His followers to decide what it is that's important to them. So many people make the wrong decision. There are so many things that people believe will make their life worth living or at least barely live-able if they can only have those things in abundance. But neither “worth living” nor “barely live-able” are abundant living. What earthly things do we “store up” - or at least depend on, in the wrong-headed belief that these are the things we need? If the name of the demon who inhabited the man who lived among the tombs in Mark's Gospel was “legion,” then there may be a demonic element to this, because there are a legion of things we depend on that aren't God!

     Let me say that I don't throw around words like “demon” and “demonic” lightly – nor do I intend them as a joke. I'm quite serious. I have an open mind to what the New Testament means when it refers to demons – whether they're actual supernatural entities with an independent existence or whether it's a way of referring to those often everday things which by their very nature get in the way of our relationship with God. What I can't deny is that the New Testament refers to them – over and over and over again, and in a number of ways; not always with the word “demons.” When Paul speaks in Ephesians of the “principalities and powers” he's referring to the same things. And, in today's passage from John (echoed in that passage from Matthew that I shared with you), the “thief” Jesus referred to is, I believe, the same sort of thing. We may not know exactly what a demon is, but we know from all these references what a demon does. A demon steals from you. If something takes away your freedom rather than enhancing it, it's demonic. If something ties you to the service of a “cause” (however noble the cause may be) so that your identity revolves around the cause, rather than freeing you to be a disciple of Jesus and a child of God, it's demonic. If something restricts your life rather than allowing you to live it, it's demonic. And so many things do that - so many everyday things.

     How many things are there that can control us and enslave us? Countless – or, dare I say it – legion! How many people depend on money to the point of serving it? Greed is a demon. What about health? By all means eat right and exercise properly, but some people become so fearful about their health that they lose their enjoyment of life because they're so afraid of losing their life or their quality of life. Hypochondria is a demon. Some people depend on food. For some, food becomes the only thing that calms them – we all know the phrase “comfort food.” And for others, food becomes a deadly enemy, and they do everything possible to lose more and more weight by avoiding it. At either extreme, both gluttony and anorexia are demons. Some people are totally dependent on drugs or alcohol to find their way through life and to ease some sort of pain from their past or their present. Addiction is a demon. Some people are obsessed with the pursuit of power and they'll go to almost any ends to achieve it, regardless of what those ends might be. Corruption is a demon. Some are dependent on numbers. We put our faith in numbers. We need numbers. We measure success by numbers. The church is especially guilty of that – almost obsessive about how many members we have, how many attend services. The “number” becomes a demon. They all become demons because they all draw us away from God; they all disfigure and defile our lives rather than enhancing them. They're all things that may make life more live-able, but they don't give us life to abundance. The only way to satisfy ourselves with them is to be enslaved to them - or at least to their pursuit, so that our entire life revolves around them. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” By enslaving us to the pursuit of things that will never truly satisfy and that can never be a guarantee of anything, that's exactly what happens. But the good news is that there is a choice. We don't have to surrender to these demonic forces that are all around us, whatever they may be for each of us individually. We don't have to, because we can choose Jesus, and Jesus gives life and freedom.

     “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. ” Or, as the King James Bible puts it: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Jesus offers us an abundance – and an abundance of that abundance. And what does He offers us an abundance of abundance of? Himself! He's the One Who frees us, Who liberates us, Who enhances our lives, Who gives us and dignity and respect. Anything that takes away from those things is the work of “the thief,” and if we find that our lives lack those fundamental qualities – then we're victims of “the thief” and if we seek to take away those things from others, then we're in league with “the thief.” But no more! It doesn't have to be that way! We live as children of God. God has given us Jesus. He fills us with His life and He releases us from the power of “the thief,” who only takes away from us and leaves us unimaginably and desperately needy. Jesus on the other hand fills us to overflowing with goodness and mercy and love and compassion and joy and peace and hope. Jesus grants us an abundance of dignity and respect – and He does it abundantly. This is life as God wants it lived – with an abundance of abundance of all the things that really matter and that set us free from all that steals and kills and destroys.

Friday 27 April 2012

Today I Will Be Adam - A Poem


Call me crazy, but today I was inspired to write a poem. I've never written poetry. I rarely read poetry. But, for what it's worth, here it is:

TODAY I WILL BE ADAM

Today, I will be Adam -
At the beginning, alive but never having lived,
Open to all possibilities, amazed by all things.
For nothing has ever existed to me.
I see the sky: blues and whites and greys.
Clouds floating, birds soaring.
I see the ground: greens and browns and yellows.
Grass growing, ants crawling.
I see it all in wondrous tones of being.
I hear the sounds around me;
I feel - everything: wind, sun, hot, cold, pleasure, pain.
I feel in my heart: love, joy, hurt, pain, fear - perhaps even hate.
And all (again) for the first time.
All new, all exciting, all disturbing.
Today I experience my God again -
The One Who brought me forth:
Who walks with me; Who talks with me; Who never lets me go,
Though I may sometimes wander.
Today I am part of everything.
And everything is a part of me.
It is for me, and I am for it.
God is for me, and I am for God.
Today, I will be Adam -
And not just today,
But every day.

The Worst Thing

In some reading I'm doing for my DMin residency this summer I came across this quote from David F. Ford that seemed relevant to a lot of people - myself included. "It is not true that the worst thing that can happen to us is being wronged, wounded, or even killed: The worst thing is to do wrong." Sometimes we let the wrongs that have been done to us be an excuse for us to wrong others either in thought or in deed. We aren't responsible for what others do to us. But we are responsible for what we do to others.The Holy Spirit can heal us from what others do to us, but what we do to others can cut us off from the Holy Spirit.

Monday 23 April 2012

A Thought For The Week Of April 23

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." (Matthew 5:4) The second Beatitude. That may be the one verse of Scripture I use more often than any other in my ministry. It's a regular at funerals - usually part of the interment or committal service. And why not? It's a reminder to those who are mourning the loss of a loved one that God is with them and that they will make it through. But I think it's talking about more than just the death of a loved one. I think it's talking about grief, despair, hopelessness - the greatest pain you can imagine; the greatest loss you can suffer. Whatever that might be. In the midst of it all (in the midst of any trouble or sickness or trial - or anything else) you have the assurance that you never face it alone. God is there. God will lift you up. God will comfort you. Those who face no trials or troubles can easily forget about God. But when they come up, God is there. Maybe it's our times of mourning that remind us of God's presence and love. If you're facing some terrible hardship this week - God's there. Whatever the next few days hold in store for any of us, God will walk with us all the way. Have a great week!

Sunday 22 April 2012

April 22 2012 sermon - Christ Is Risen So We Are Rising


This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens – and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground – the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:4-7)


     Since – as the children know - this is, indeed, Earth Day, this passage – which speaks of the creation of the earth and all things on it, including us – seems appropriate. This passage is about life – it's about God creating life, sustaining life, nurturing life. The passage is a reminder to us that life itself comes from God, and therefore it's a reminder to us that we're supposed to celebrate life in all its diversity – with both its promise and its challenge – and that we're supposed to live life in such a way that we also celebrate the God who's given life to us. We're also meeting here today two weeks after Easter Sunday and now in the midst of the Easter season – which is perhaps the greatest celebration of life there is. Easter is not just a celebration of life, and it's not even just the celebration of Jesus' resurrection (although it's certainly that.) Easter is a celebration of victory. Easter celebrates hope's victory over despair and life's triumph over death. Easter is the promise of eternity given to all of us because Jesus' resurrection was for all of us. Jesus' resurrection demonstrates to us that God chooses life. Long ago, the Book of Deuteronomy tells us that a choice was placed before the people of Israel by Joshua: “... I have set before you life and death ... Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord Your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life ...” The good news that we celebrate today as followers of Jesus is that this choice is no longer before us. Why is that good news? Because the choice has been made for us – by God! In the resurrection of Jesus, God chooses life for His people. That's what resurrection is about. “Because I live, you also will live,” Jesus said. There's no choice there. We don't have to wonder. We don't have to be unsure. Assurance doesn't have to be an elusive thing. “Because I live, you also will live.” Sounds pretty definite to me! And it's supposed to sound pretty definite to us all! The choice has been made. It's been made by God. There's no doubt about it. Life wins! Every single time. It never goes to overtime and there are no seven game series in this. Life simply wins – because God chose life for us by raising Jesus from the dead! That's why proclaiming that “Christ is risen” is so important – because if Christ is risen, then so will we be raised – not just to eternal life (although I believe that's also assured to us) but to a new quality of life and a new way of life right now. Rising to that new life is both our challenge – because we're the ones who have to live it, after all – but it's also our destiny – because it is, in some way, God's will for us. It's always been God's will for us. That's why, in this morning's reading, I took us all the way back to the Bible's beginning, where we learn that it's always been God's will to raise us to life.

     a-dam . That's the Hebrew word. It can mean a lot of things. In English we think of it as a name – Adam – which has caused us perhaps to misinterpret what the passage has been trying to tell us for thousands of years. In Hebrew, it's not commonly used as a name. I did a bit of research and discovered that it's really not in use in Israel, for example, as a name – because in Hebrew it's a word. It means broadly “mankind” or “humanity.” If we think of the word in that way, we start to see that the story we read isn't about the creation of a specific person; it's about the creation of all humanity – it reveals truths about humanity (about our nature, our origins and even our destiny.) It also tells us about ourselves and about how to live this life God has given us.

     a-dam comes from the earth. We – humanity – are essentially of the same stuff as the earth. That's  basic science these days, and it's revealed here to be true as well. The word a-dam comes from another Hebrew word “a-dam-ah” which means “earth.” We are of the earth. We have a kinship of sorts with the planet and with all the creatures on the planet. We're all of God. When the United Church's New Creed tells us to “live with respect in creation,” that's presumably a part of what's meant – if we can't live with respect in creation, we can't really live with respect with one another because we are all of the same stuff. And if we can't live with respect with one another, then there's no real relationship, and that's what God seeks to create – relationship. We were created to be in relationship – with God and with one another. That's our destiny. Relationship with God. That's our present reality – the relationship with God guaranteed us by the resurrection of Jesus, which promises that Jesus wasn't only “God with us” at the manger in Matthew 2, but that He remains “God with us” long after the empty tomb – because He's still with us. God desires relationship with us. If life is about living with respect and right relationship how do we do it? How do we achieve it? The creation story is rich with advice.

     Of course, literally Adam is brought out of the earth (formed out of the earth; one with creation) but it seems at first that nothing happens. The story in that sense is pretty bare bones. It seems as if Adam's body is formed but it lies lifeless in the dust; little more than a corpse – until something happens. God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” point here is that our life comes from God. There is no life until God's breath enters us. This isn't God's Spirit, although it's a similar concept. The word for God's Spirit in the Old Testament carries the idea of an uncontrollable wind. This word means a controlled breath. The point is that God's work in creating Adam and all humanity is deliberate and planned and purposeful. There is a point to our existence, and right from the start that point revolves around relationship with God. Think about the imagery. How do you breathe life into someone else? “Mouth to mouth!” What an intimate portrayal of the connection between God and humanity! And the end result is not just that Adam and humanity is formed out of the earth – we're lifted from the earth and granted special status as those with authority over the earth – a word that means we have responsibility and accountability for how we live out our relationship with the rest of creation, because we really are of one stuff with the animals, the plants and the earth and with one another. No true spirituality can promote mere exploitation of anything. Real spirituality acknowledges the connections and ensures that we care for each other and for the earth from which we came. The earth is for us. It feeds us and nourishes us and provides us with a home. But we are also for the earth. We have to take care of it, because God has entrusted it to us. But there are so many things that can get in the way of the relationships we enjoy with God and with all that's around us. 

     Remember that Adam had to be lifted out of the earth; in a way placed above it by the very breath of God. We're still in the process of being lifted; of rising with Christ from death into life. One of our problems is that we get stuck in so much muck and mire in our every day lives that we often miss out on every day life! We become so consumed by the details of what's happening at any given moment that we miss the big picture. Sometimes – too often in my own life, I admit - we even let those details get in the way of God. Think about this. a-dam had to be lifted out of the earth - and not just formed from the earth - by the very breath of God in order to become a living being. If we want to extend this concept to our own time and circumstance, does the Spirit of God in a way not have to lift us out of the earth and set us apart (not above) for a very special purpose? Is it in this purpose that we find meaning in life. What is the purpose of life – in simple terms? "The chief end of man is to glorify God" says the Westminster Catechism. We are called to enjoy a relationship with God; we were created for that very purpose. We cannot enjoy that relationship as long as we are stuck in the mud and mire around us, as a-dam was before the breath of life came from God. In the same way, God gives us life; God lifts us above the everyday problems and trials and challenges (not freeing us from them, but lifting us above them) to be able to see God in the midst of it all and to be able to proclaim God to all who need to be freed from that which enchains and imprisons them - everything from actual human oppression to the simple but powerful demands of the time clock which often keep us too busy to really enjoy our relationship with God, instead demanding that we be constantly moving on to something else, some higher purpose, some more meaningful activity than fellowship with God and God's people. This breath of life that God breathes into us frees us to focus on our real purpose - to be in relationship with God, and when we do that we find ourselves also in relationship of one sort or another with all that God has created, seeking to liberate it as well - fellow humans, animals, plants, the land itself - to glorify God rather than to simply serve us.

     That's called life. That's life as God intended it to be – at peace, at liberty. It's we who choose to be enchained and imprisoned and reduced to mere existence by what goes on around us. The Spirit of God wants to enter into us, just as the breath of God entered into a-dam. The Spirit of God wants to free us from mere existence and raise us to actual life. God brought a-dam forth from the earth into life, where he found himself with God. God raised Jesus from the tomb into life where He found Himself with God. God raises us from whatever holds us in bondage and oppression and into life where we find ourselves with God. That's life. That's life as God intended it to be. Freed from mere existence to enjoy life with God. It's one of the lessons of creation – we are one with all that exists and called to relationship with all that exists. It's one of the lessons of Easter – that Christ is risen, and as a result, we are rising!

Monday 16 April 2012

Who Represents Christianity?

"... there are legions of folks out there yearning for a spiritual community and thinking they know enough about being a Christian not to want to be one. And who can blame them when everything they know about what Jesus taught is what Jerry Falwell said or Pat Robertson preached." (Rev. Susan Russell, Episcopal priest, Pasadena, California)


Susan Russell and I would have some differences of opinion. Her focus is too much on the inclusion of the LGBT community in the church. It's not that I have anything against that principle, but it should simply happen because we proclaim Jesus and live according to his teachings. When we make it a cause, it seems to me that we actually undermine what Jesus would have wanted by making that cause, rather than God and neighbour, our central focus.


But in general terms, I love those words. It raises the question: who represents Christianity? The secular world does seem convinced - it's the Falwells and Robertsons  and those in sympthy with them, because they get the publicity of the media, I assume because the media knows that these folks are controversial and will generate interest. Setting aside - not out of disinterest, just to look at it from another angle - the LGBT issue, isn't it more provocative to talk about someone who thinks Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake because they made a deal with the devil 200 years ago than to hear the voices of the many well meaning people of faith who actually want to get down in the dirt and help Haitians rebuild. Those folks are more representative of the Christianity I know than are those who think the Haitians are guilty of dealing with the devil.


So - who speaks for Christianity? To me, as someone who knows the Gospels fairly well, I'd say it's simple. Those who represent Christianity are those who love God and their neighbours as themselves. If someone's words or actions are inconsistent with those two things, I don't see how they can represent Christianity to the world. And, frankly, if all I knew of Christianity was the Falwell or Robertson kind, I'm not sure I'd want to be a Christian either.

A Thought For The Week Of April 16

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3) The first Beatitude, and it starts on a puzzling note. The poor in spirit? What's so great about them? Isn't the goal to be filled with the Spirit? To be filled with overflowing? To be spiritually rich? But Jesus tells us that to be spiritually poverty stricken was a good - indeed, a blessed - thing? Something seems not right. And yet. To be poor is not to have enough of something, or to have less than others - and I've known a lot of people who are (or who've been) poor in a material sense, and yet their lives are filled to abundance with the things that really count. Maybe the only way to actually be filled with the Spirit of God is to be poor in spirit. That's no upper case "s" after all. Maybe Jesus means that the only way to truly gain the "Spirit" - and all the blessings God wants us to have - is to acknowledge the spiritual poverty we have without God. Only when we acknowledge our spiritual poverty - that without God we can never have enough of anything - can we truly have "the kingdom of heaven" within us, because acknowledging our spiritual poverty opens the door for the Holy Spirit - the Giver of Life - to begin working on us. Let's all acknowledge our need for what only God can give. Then we'll begin to see the kingdom of heaven today. Have a great week!

Sunday 15 April 2012

Confronting The Principalities And Powers By Being A Visitor In Church

I was relieved of preaching responsibilities today. The last week has been a sort of quasi-vacation. No sermon to write, no service to prepare, no meetings to attend, no groups to lead. I was available for funerals or other pastoral emergencies, but - fortunately - none came up. So, in the sense of the week being a break from church and ministry, it was enjoyable. I had the Holy Spirit gnawing at me most of the week, though. It was about - attending church.

Like many of my ministry colleagues, when I have a Sunday off, I usually don't attend church. There's no real reason. I just don't. All week the Holy Spirit has been telling me to go to church - not in words, but in feelings and thoughts and reflections that I've had. In some reading I've been doing, I came across the thought that it's the principalities and powers who create reasons for us not to worship by giving us "something else" to do, because the one thing the principalities and powers don't want us doing is worshiping God, since that takes away from our worship of them! This morning - even after a week of the Holy Spirit nudging me - I woke up rebellious; still in the hands of the principalities and powers. I puttered around, finding things to do, letting the clock slide and slide, almost as if I wanted to make it too late to attend a morning service anywhere. But the Holy Spirit didn't let me off the hook, and continued to push me - so that, at about 10:20 - I left for First Presbyterian Church here in town for their 10:30 service. I enjoyed it. I overcame the principalities and powers that tried to keep me away from worship. But they'll gnaw away at me in other ways. It's an ongoing battle, isn't it.

As I said, I have many ministry colleagues who treat a Sunday off not as a Sunday off of ministry but as a Sunday off of worship, and so they don't go. And, as I confessed, I most often do that too. But it's worth going to worship - just as a way of expressing faith and trust and thanks to God. I'd highly recommend to my ministry colleagues that you make a concerted effort to attend a worship service somewhere when you're off. It not only defeats the principalities and powers, it gives you the opportunity to embrace the role of "visitor" in an unfamiliar congregation, perhaps giving you insights into how visitors feel in your own.

I enjoyed today's worship. I was really only familiar with one of the hymns, and I'm not really into responsive psalms, and I didn't know exactly when to stand and when to sit - but that's life as a visitor, isn't it. The sermon by Rev. Adam Bartha (in only his third week in the congregation) was on a pretty typical post-Easter subject: doubting Thomas. But I really liked this line: "sometimes asking to see isn't doubt, sometimes asking to see is love." I often tell people that if they take even one thing away from my sermons to gnaw on, then the sermon is a success. There's the one thing I can gnaw on after attending worship today. Take that, principalities and powers!

Thanks be to God!

Monday 9 April 2012

A Thought For The Week Of April 9

Thought for the week: "As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, 'Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.'" (Matthew 17:9) Easter can seem to be a mountain top experience. Packed churches, happy children. The excitement, the joy, the sheer fun of it all. But the point is that Easter isn't just for our enjoyment. It's both our great hope (that death has been defeated) and it's our great calling (to share that news with a world that will find it hard to believe.) But hard to believe or not - Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Easter Sunday is over. It all begins anew. Let's not wait. Let's start spreading this wonderful gospel of love, peace and hope right now. Have a great week!

Sunday 8 April 2012

April 8 2012 sermon - Because Death Could Not Hold Him


Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:1-9)

     Easter's tough on a preacher! I mean, think about this with me for a moment - what do you say that hasn't already been said? What can you say that hasn't already been said? And when I contemplate that dilemma, I find myself finally wondering - is it even necessary to say something that hasn't been said, or should the principle, in the words of an old hymn we sing from time to time, be simply "tell me the old, old story"? The church desperately engages in an ongoing quest for new and exciting and contemporary things but I wonder if perhaps freshness and originality are over-rated concepts – at least on Easter Sunday! At the very least they're probably unrealistic expectations on Easter Sunday, and maybe trying to find something new and original to offer isn't even a good approach. The truth is that maybe the basic old, old story is enough. So it's about the resurrection. Jesus overcame death. Maybe what we do today needs to be nothing more complicated than proclaiming and celebrating that – because, after all, the idea of someone being raised from the dead is probably complicated enough as it is. But still, we're here – and I do have something to say! We heard one of the traditional Gospel passages about the resurrection earlier. I deliberately chose Mark's version to go along wth my “keep it simple” philosophy this year, because Mark's version of the resurrection is the simplest and the shortest. He keeps it simple – so simple that some years after the Gospel of Mark was written, somebody decided to add on a few more verses because it must have seemed too bare-boned, and perhaps it left too much hanging, but we don't really need to discuss that right now. Mark isn't the focus for my comments today anyway. I want instead to move into a later part of the New Testament – the Epistles, we call them; the letters that were written to various communities of early Christians in the years after the Easter event (some of them written even before the Gospels) in an attempt to put flesh on spirit – to give practical advice about the teachings of Jesus and the implications of the story of Jesus. So for today? Resurrection, yes, obviously - but a practical application of the resurrection. The Gospel is what we believe; the Epistles are how we put what we believe into practice and they describe the effect it should have on our day to day lives. Today I ask - how should the resurrection change us? Why does it make a difference? I think that we are different, and I think that the world is different – and all because death could not hold Him!

     Truthfully, there aren't that many single events over the course of history that have really changed history dramatically. Great wars get fought, but often the issues that caused the great wars just keep going on and on and on and lead to more great wars. Great people come and go, but their legacies are usually short-lived, often restricted to their own time and place. Huge disasters happen, but the effects are generally temporary. These things are remembered as curiosities. They give jobs to university professors who make a living off lecturing about them, but they don't necessarily impact our day to day lives very much. But then there's the resurrection of Jesus. The effects of that haven't been restricted to one time or one place or one people. Still today, two thousand years after the event, people have their lives changed and their way of looking at life changed by the resurrection of Jesus. You may believe in the resurrection or you may not – but the world you live in is a different world than it would have been had the story never been told, or had it been forgotten; tossed into the dustbin of history; hopelessly mythologized. You see, I don't believe that the resurrection of Jesus is a myth. I believe it happened. I believe there may be mythic components to it (myth being understood as stories that form a way for us to understand the world around us and to organize what we see around us into those understandable bits) but I also believe that the resurrection of Jesus was a real event in history. I believe it happened. I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The Roman Empire executed many of Jesus' original disciples because they insisted on proclaiming the resurrection, and I simply don't believe that not a single one of them would have cracked in the face of death – but none did, and you can be quite sure that if even one had it would have been remembered by history. But those original disciples died, because they had seen death defeated with their own eyes. They had seen Jesus die, and they had seen Him alive after. All else aside, that's why I believe in the resurrection. The story of Jesus and the growth of the movement that had sprung up around Him doesn't make sense unless there was a real resurrection connected with it. And the world has been changed. I admit that the Jesus movement hasn't always changed the world for the better. The church has done a lot of bad things over the centuries – and still does sometimes, basically because we might be Christians, but we're still humans, and – like all humans – we're not perfect. But as I've said to many people, on balance, I believe that the church (the Jesus movement, if you will) has done far more good than evil and I for one wouldn't want to live in a world where the hope contained in the gospel and in the resurrection wasn't being offered by someone. And that's our job. You see, we offer hope to the world – and to the many people in the world who all too often live without hope, either because they have so little that they can't imagine anything better; or because they have so much that they can't imagine actually having enough. But we as disciples of Jesus who proclaim Him as both crucified and risen offer hope to this sometimes hopeless world. As bad as it might seem, something good is rising out of it. As tightly sealed as the tomb was, the tomb was still empty. As dead as Jesus was, He was still seen alive. A dark as life might sometimes seem, there's always light – because there's always Jesus, who said He was “the light of the world” and who asked us who dare to be His disciples, to be “the light of the world.” And we take up that challenge and that mission. Why? Because death could not hold Him! And if death could not hold Him nothing should be able to hold us back!

     But that's history. In practical terms – what about us? What difference does this make to you and me in our every day lives. Peter, I thought, got to the heart of that question in his letter. He addresses his comments to all those who belong to God – not just those who attend church, or to those who pray every day, or to those who do all sorts of good deeds – but to all those who belong to God, and he sums up the power of the resurrection in our individual lives in this way: “in His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you ...”

     Peter tells us that God is a merciful and kind and loving God who has given us a completely new life – a new birth as he describes it – which lifts us out of hopelessness or despair or grief and which gives us a “living hope” - a hope that will never die or be taken away from us. This hope frees us from fear or uncertainty; this hopes frees us from the power of death itself because it is a hope founded on “the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” which is the sign and the promise of death's ultimate powerlessness. And if we can claim the promise that death has been defeated as our own, what else is there that could possibly hold us back?

     This is “salvation.” That word has acquired a bit of a negative connotation in recent years – partly because the church hasn't always proclaimed it properly. Often the concept is used as a tool to instill fear: “look what's going to happen to you unless you get saved,” or it's used as an excuse for arrogant pride: “look what I have and you don't!” But it's really just a gift of God. I say “just” a gift from God not because it's not important, but because it's really so simple. God has given it to me, and it's intimately connected with the resurrection of Jesus. If we trust that He was raised from death, then we know the power of God to save us from anything. That's “salvation.” Because death could not hold Him, life and all its challenges cannot hold me – and neither can it hold you. You've been set free – not simply to do as you wish, but to live as God desires – in love and at peace and with grace to be extended to all whom we encounter – friends or enemies, rich or poor, black or white, Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Jew, male or female, young or old – because Jesus died for them all. And because death could not hold Him!

April 8 2012 (Easter Sunrise) sermon - Surprise!


Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to their homes,  but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb  and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”  At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:1-18)

     I love all of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, of course. Each have their own spin and tell the story in different ways. Mark is short and to the point – the whole story of  the resurrection in 8 verses. Just the facts, you might say. Matthew and Luke focus on the empty tomb itself and the stone being rolled away and the angel who brings news of this great event to those who arrived. And then there's John. John focusses on the unexpectedness of the event – on the sheer surprise of it all. There's the women confronted by the unexpected and who have no clue what to make of it, and who run to tell the disciples that Jesus' body is gone. There's Peter and John who race to them tomb and look inside and see the mysterious sight of grave clothes neatly folded and who walk away scratching their head, because they cant make sense of it. And there's Mary Magdalene, who stayed at the tomb in despair, and who sees Jesus. But not being able to make sense of it, she doesn't recongize him, and assuming that he must be the gardener, she says “Where is he? Where did you put him?” Then he speaks one word - “Mary!” And her eyes were open, and she knew. It was as if Jesus had looked at her with a smile and said “Surprise!” A gloomy morning had turned happy and joyous! Jesus had risen!

Welcome, happy morning! Age to age shall say:
Hell today is vanquished, heaven is won today!

     Those are the opening words of one of our traditional Easter hymns – actually, it's the hymn we're going to open our 10:00 service with this morning. It's a hymn of victory. Hell today is vanquished! Heaven is won today! Indeed. Easter is victory over all that would oppress us and hold us down and drain the joy out of the lives God has given us. As much as we now – after 2000 years – anticipate its arrival on an annual basis, at its core, Easter is about surprise – because the things over which Easter is victorious are the things that we think shouldn't be beaten.  They're the things we can't overcome – ultimately, it's about victory over death itself - which awaits us all, but which has no victory over any of us, because we are in Christ, and the Christ who died lives again – defying all expectations, beating the odds, making possible the impossible. “Surprise” is a great Easter word!

     Our God is the God of surprises. Our God is the God who can do the most unexpected things. Our God is the God who can't be held hostage to our expectations. Our God is the God Who can't be contained in the little “God-boxes” we build in our minds to restrict what God is to what we want God to be. So often we doubt, because the things God does in such abundance are the very things that we ourselves can't do, and so they surprise us. God surprises us! There are so many chains that entangle and imprison us that we can't escape from – but God has a way of setting us free, even though we think freedom is impossible. I once heard someone say that if God had a last name, God's last name would be "Surprise." Early on Easter morning, that works!

     Today we mark the surprise of the early morning at the tomb on that very first Easter morning. We're a small gathering – but that's appropriate, because it was only a few who could face the prospect of travelling to the tomb that morning. Most were so defeated by the events of the preceding couple of days that it was probably all they could do to open their eyes. How often do the mornings beckon us that way. The day to come holds the unknown; we don't know what to expect; maybe we expect the worst; maybe it's hard to get out of bed. Early morning can be the most ominous time of all, because we have an idea of what the day ahead might hold, just as those who travelled to the tomb probably walked slowly, dreading the duty they were going to perform of ritually anointing the dead body of someone they loved with oil and spices. But sometimes the early morning holds the most wonderful surprise of all.

     Early morning held a surprise for the women who went to the tomb. They didn't discover what they thought they would discover. The darkness of night suddenly lifted, and the light that replaced it with the sunrise revealed the most amazing thing – the most unexpected thing of all. They found life where there should have been no life. They found hope where there should have been only despair. They found joy where there should have been only grief. Those are the surprising things still today about the early morning encounters we have with God when we awaken and once again face whatever fears or concerns or apprehensions we have about the day ahead. God suddenly comes to us and drives away our fears and calms our troubled hearts and says “do I ever have a surprise for you!”

     Maybe there's not much more than that to be said. After all, it's a Sunrise Service. The light of the sun has replaced the darkness of the night, and we travel on with hope, with joy and with faith, no matter what else might be happening around us. Why? Because Christ died, but now Christ is risen! Surprise!

Friday 6 April 2012

April 6 2012 (Good Friday) sermon - What A Gift!


For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.  (2 Corinthians 5:14-21)


     It seems a bit strange to talk about Good Friday as a gift, doesn't it.  What sort of gift is a rugged wooden cross that was basically used as an intrument of torture and death?  This certainly isn't the Christmas story, and if it were I doubt that we'd want to find a rugged wooden cross - the sort on which Jesus was crucified - under our tree, in the same way that we likely wouldn't want to see an electric chair (perhaps the closest modern relative to the cross) under our tree. No, really, the  cross is a hard sell. Good Friday is a hard sell. Why bother? Most people just want to get to the good stuff - Easter Sunday - and even then, most people in the world are content  to mark it with bunnies and eggs and chocolate rather than with thoughts of resurrection - because resurrection implies death. You don't need to be raised unless you've first fallen. So, where's the gift of Good Friday? What's so “good” about Good Friday?

     I'm very taken with the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians, when he wrties that “one died for all.” The loose theme that's been holding our services together throughout Lent has been “building healthy relationships.” The last couple of weeks I've talked about our relationship with God, and even more specifically, about reconciliation. Good Friday is the culmination of that theme. On the cross – as gruesome as the image might be for us (although, unfortunately, it isn't really, because the modern world has sanitized the cross and turned it into a wardrobe accessory rather than a sign of sacrifice) – we see reconciliation taking place at its most powerful. Christ is the concrete sign of reconciliation. In His death, he breaks the barrier between ourselves and God. I remember an image that I was taught by one of my professors when I was in theological college - the image of the cross as a bridge extending across a wide chasm from God to us. A few days ago I saw a news report about the opening of one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. It's in the province of Hunan, in China. It spans a huge canyon between two very tall mountains. The bridge is about a mile and a half long and it's several hundred feet high. The news report took us partway across the bridge with a camera – perhaps we only got partway across because the cameraman couldn't take it anymore. The pictures I saw were terrifying, as one looked over the side of the bridge into what could only be described as an abyss. Sometimes that seems to be a way of defining our own relationship with God. The distance between us can be so deep and dark and the chasm can seem so wide that it seems almost impossible to overcome – until we encounter the cross. And the cross can be terrifying as well – just as that suspension bridge in Hunan is terrifying. It's terrifying because of its sheer ugliness. As I said, we miss that. Even most of our hymns about the cross miss that. So the cross becomes “wondrous” or it's just “an old rugged cross” - something to be lifted “high.” It's as if we don't want to acknowledge its reality; its gruesomeness.  And when someone tries to remind us of the sheer brutality of the cross, we shy away in horror. We don't want to see it. Think of some of the reactions to Mel Gibson's movie “The Passion Of The Christ.”  I had ministry colleagues who condemned that movie without even seeing it. They wouldn't watch it – it was too violent, too bloody, too gruesome – which was the point. It's about a crucifixion. It's not a nice piece of business. But, ultimately, it really is that terrifying bridge that crosses the gap; it really is where the divine meets the human - because what's both more human and less divine than death? But in the cross of Jesus (perhaps even more than in His birth) we see the divine and the human come together, with all the differences between that which is human and that which is divine set aside and done away with. On the cross, we see God experience as gruesome a fate as any of us could possibly imagine – so that there's nothing left for us to experience that God can't understand, can't relate to and can't walk through with us. That reinforces my own theology of the cross – that the cross isn't so much a sacrifice for sin (although sin is clearly involved with the cross as this passage points out) but rather that the cross is the final sign of divine-human solidarity. God (in Christ) submits to that most human of experiences that God had no need to experience. It's only through the cross (with divine incarnation in Jesus as a prerequisite) that God can finally and fully understand what it is to be us. This is a sign of love beyond our ability to fully comprehend – not so much that Jesus died for us, but that God experienced death with us!

     So, as Paul said, “one died for all.” There's reconciliation right there. The world had a need that Jesus could meet, and Jesus met it. It's not my intention to introduce something rather flippant into our Good Friday reflections, but I can't help when I read Paul's words but to think about Mr. Spock's death scene in Star Trek II. Having sacrificed himself to save the good starship Enterprise and its crew, in some closing words with Captain Kirk before his death, Spock says “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And Kirk replies, “or the one.” “... Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them ...” That “one died for all” is a sign of love, and it teaches us that a real love is that which reconciles us to one another and to God, because as followers of the One Who “died for all,” we also are called to walk that walk of sacrifice for each other. This is why the cross is a gift. As ugly as it is, it brings us together and it overcomes the walls of separation and division that have been built up between us. For all the ugliness of the cross, this is the gift of the cross.

    So here (in and through the cross) we find reconciliation - and here (in and through the cross) we find the challenge of Good Friday. In the cross (which is the ultimate sign of Jesus' ministry) we are reconciled to God. And as Paul tells us, as the Body of Christ we are now the ones to whom the ministry of reconciliation has been entrusted. “And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

     Ambassadors have to present credentials before they can begin the job of representing those who have sent them. If we are Christ's ambassadors, then we also have to be able to present our credentials to the world. Our credentials are the new life that the cross has opened for us. “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The cross – by its very example of selfless sacrifice – is our example of what that new creation should look like as it shines forth from us. It should be that which reconciles; that which reaches out; that which loves; that which does not count the cost. It should be that which gives true life and dignity to all and that saps the life and dignity from none. That is the gift revealed on the cross; the gift that has been given to us by God; the gift we are called to offer on behalf of God. What a gift it is!

Thursday 5 April 2012

Ethos And Faith


I belong to a denomination  - the United Church of Canada - that places a great deal of emphasis on its “ethos.” We're not, it seems, entirely sure of exactly what that “ethos” is, but we believe in it pretty strongly. In fact, it's one of the guiding principles (perhaps THE defining principle) of our denominational life. For example, I rarely see a posting for any position within the church bureaucracy (as opposed to we who are mere pastors of local churches) that doesn't include as one of its requirements “general agreement with” or “sympathy with” or at least “understanding of” our “ethos” - or words to that effect. Considering that the word doesn't appear in any of our formal denominational documents, that's a bit tricky. What is our “ethos” and who - in the absence of any formal definition - gets to define it?

“Ethos” is a Greek word that means “character.” So we're talking about the “character” of the United Church. I also assume that we take the word “ethics” from the same root. So, by combining those two concepts together, I come to the conclusion that our “ethos” is our ethical character. Although undefined, I think the United Church “ethos” would revolve (for those who claim adherence to it) around (1) inclusiveness, (2) justice and (3) humility. We strive to be inclusive - to invite all to the table or into the community - usually emphasizing being inclusive of those who are otherwise to some extent marginalized. So we seek to be inclusive of the poor, of homosexuals, of women - you get the point. This, of course, raises the problem that by being inclusive of some groups we run the risk of being exclusive of others. We strive to promote justice - which I think would mean that we stand for the inherent dignity and worth of all people and for their right to be treated accordingly. That I have no issue with. We strive to be humble. No doubt that is an appropriate characteristic for a Christian, although at times it leads to a sort of wishy-washiness. It sometimes seems as if we don't want to take strong stands on matters of faith because if we actually claim to be convinced of something that could be taken as arrogance. There's the rub.

Our “ethos” needs to flow from and be an outgrowth of our faith, but if we become too “humble” to want to proclaim anything with very much certainty, then our “ethos” has no foundation on which to stand, and too often it's the “ethos” that has taken over our public witness and proclamation. It seems to me that too often we proclaim the “ethos” and not the faith. So sermons from United Church pulpits often become little more than encouragement to do all sorts of good things in the name of justice and inclusion and humility, but there's no particular grounding in why those good things should be done, except for the arbitrary decision that they're good things. Faith is that which teaches us what is good. Faith in Jesus, based on the particular words Jesus speaks in the pages of the Gospels, based on the application and interpretation of those words by Paul and others in the later New Testament, based on broad principles laid down in the Old Testament, gives us the solid foundation for our ethos. But when “ethos” stands alone - as it seems to do all too often - it's quite powerless, subject to being dismissed when something more convincing comes up.

“Ethos” isn't something to be proclaimed. It's something to be lived. What we proclaim (to ourselves and others as encouragement) is our faith - our faith in Jesus; a faith summed up by the wonderful words of the Communion liturgy: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” If our “ethos” displaces faith in Christ at the centre of who and what we are, then we're in trouble. I certainly don’t mean that we can’t preach about social justice or social issues – but we have to do so from the perspective of faith (and, from our point of view, especially faith in Jesus Christ) and not simply because it’s our “ethos.” I deliberately entitled this “Ethos and Faith” rather than “Ethos or Faith” or “Ethos vs. Faith” because I see the two standing in partnership, working collaboratively. “Ethos” is the practical living out of faith. If faith is the soul, then “ethos” is the body. But if “ethos” doesn't flow from faith, or becomes isolated from faith, then it has no soul, and no real power to make a difference in the world. Then, it is at best an ideology - something that divides rather than unites; something that sets people against one another rather than bringing people together in common cause. Then, it becomes an excuse for us vs. them thinking. Christ would not approve.

I'm not sure what the plural of the word “ethos” is. In any event, I think within a Christian paradigm, there are broadly 4 of them. There's the “ethos” of victory - which basically says “we've got it and you don't and so we're better than you and too bad.” It's based on an attitude of superiority. There's the “ethos” of evangelism, which is based on the idea that our most important job is to convert people to the Christian faith. It's based on an attitude of love - I really believe something terrible is going to happen to you if you don’t believe this, and I don’t want something terrible to happen to you, so please believe it.” There’s the “ethos” of justice, which is based on an attitude of compassion – “I see the downtrodden and I want to help them.” There’s the “ethos” of relationship – “I believe we need to bring people together and accept our diversity by building a relationship of respect in spite of our differences.”

I probably operate out of the fourth. “Relationship” is the key to my preaching and teaching and personal faith. For Scriptural justification I look to the prayer of Jesus in  John 17 “that they might be one,” or to the Christmas story, where Jesus, we are told, will be “God With Us,” or the Genesis story of creation, which tells us that when all was in its perfect state there was no shame between people and God walked with us or to the Book of Revelation, which promises that one day the dwelling of God will be with us and  God will live with us. I don’t deny that the other three perspectives can be argued from Scripture (although I choose the fourth because I think the first can only be argued from a misinterpretation and misapplication of Scripture, the second divides us rather than brings us together and the third can easily become an anonymous way of helping – so I give to charity but never actually encounter a needy person.) My denomination, I think, operates mostly out of the third – and I see the problem I identify above with that position in congregations I know. I’ve pastored congregations that will offer a lot of help to the poor, for example, but put a poor person in their midst and they’re not quite sure what to do, and they tend to shy away from the person.

To be a follower of Jesus is to have far more than an “ethos” – an ethical character which governs how we approach life. To be a follower of Jesus is to have faith in Jesus, and to build your ethos around him and his teachings and his example. That’s why it has to be ethos and faith. It’s always a both/and. It’s never an either/or.

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Fear Has No Place As A Spiritual Weapon

I had the opportunity this morning to listen to a half hour sermon preached some years ago by Bill Hybels, the senior pastor of the Willow Creek Community Church. I confess that I don't know much about Bill Hybels, nor am I in particular a disciple of Willow Creek, although I do like some of the music that they've popularized. I also can't deny their success - at least in terms of their numbers. They're the quintessential mega-church and they've certainly reached a lot of people. The sermon I heard this morning though disappointed me. Essentially, it was a classic example of trying to scare people into the Kingdom. To me, the Willow Creek image had always been a much more positive message than that. It raises the question of whether you actually can scare people into the Kingdom.

The sermon focussed on the after-life and in particular on hell. It was a classic example of "you better be prepared or God is gonna get you for it!" type of message. I thought it included some very questionable theology and some very questionable scriptural interpretation. I was amused when Hybels characterized those who believe that a loving God could never send anyone to an eternity in hell as having an "arrogant spirit" when he himself had no hesitation in playing God and sentencing all those he disagreed with to an eternity in hell. Is that not also displaying an arrogant spirit? Very disappointing. And yet - it works, at least in the context of filling the church. I don't think it really is a fair approach to the message of Jesus. It's not that Jesus didn't suggest that there were consequences to unbelief (there are consequences to everything, so why wouldn't there be consequences for unbelief?) but it certainly wasn't the centrepiece of his teachings, at least as I understand them, and I'm not at all convinced that Jesus ever delegated to us the power to decide the consequences and who would face them. And if we go beyond the Gospels, Paul has very interesting things to say about judgment and who might be in and who might be out. Even Jesus acknowledged that there would be surprises. So it seems to me that anyone who speaks about such things with the certainty that Hybels displayed in this particular sermon is running the risk of experiencing a big surprise. But why does it work? Why do so many people seem to respond to threats and fear?

They do, of course. In almost every aspect of life (faith, politics, etc.) if you can make people afraid you can influence them, manipulate them and control them. I wonder if it isn't a rather overt appeal to those with low self esteem - "I can't be good enough, and so I'm willing to believe in this fire-breathing God who's ready to smite me if I slip up even a little bit." But churches that do this seem guilty (to me) of preaching a gospel other than that which Jesus preached. Jesus' gospel focused on love and grace. Consequences to be sure if one chose to live apart from such things, but the overwhelming message I hear in Jesus' words is of God reaching out in love and not anger. I see Jesus saying that "perfect love casts out fear." If that's the case then why is a church that supposedly follows Jesus using fear as a weapon to basically scare people into the Kingdom? It's not right, because it's not consistent. It might "work" in that it might appeal to people's baser instincts, but a faith nurtured on fear of hell is essentially, at its root, a selfish faith which is seeking the reward (or that is at least trying to avoid the punishment) rather than a selfless faith that's pouring itself out in the service of God and others for the sake of God and others. By that I don't mean that people motivated by fear of hell don't necessarily pour themselves out in such ways; only that their motivation for doing so is wrong. They pour themselves out for God and for others in order to gain a benefit for themselves. This is not the living out of the gospel as I understand it. Is it sincere? Undoubtedly. Does it serve others? Yes, it can. But I wonder what it does to the spirit of the person motivated by fear rather than love to do such things?

Can you scare people into the Kingdom? I suppose you can, at least in the sense that you have people who are motivated by fear and by the selfish desire to gain a reward for themselves (or at least to escape punishment for themselves) who are calling themselves Christians, and who am I to judge their confession of faith? It just strikes me as off balance. Fear has no place in a Christian life. Threats have no place in a Christian life. We are to be motivated by love to offer love. I'm not sure that our calling is extended to proclaiming such things as hell and the wrath of God for unbelievers.

Paul says that we (by which he means Christians) get to judge the world, and even the angels. But Jesus said we are not to judge, and at the very least that we aren't competent to take even this present life - never mind eternal life. So our "judgment" cannot be a condemning or threatening judgment. It is the judgement of grace; it is the judgement of God reaching out with open and loving arms; it is the judgment of compassion; it is the judgement that's motivated by the knowledge that we ourselves have been judged and shown a compassion and offered a forgiveness that we don't deserve. How could we be less generous and compassionate to others than God has been to us?

Monday 2 April 2012

A Thought For The Week Of April 2

"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility ..." (Ephesians 2:14) Paul is speaking here specifically about the separation between Jews and Gentiles, but it seems to me that the principle applies wherever we see barriers erected between any people. Jesus came to tear down walls, but we rather like walls. They come in handy. They help ensure that we don't have to deal with people who are different or who make us uncomfortable. In The Message, Eugene Peterson gets it: "He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance." We use the walls of division; Jesus breaks them down and forms a community of all people who truly love God and love their neighbours, regardless of their differences. May we be part of such a community. May we break down some walls between people. May we break down some walls in our own lives. Have a great week!

Sunday 1 April 2012

Beware the "Isms"

I began reading a book this afternoon by Charles L. Campbell. It's called "The Word Before The Powers: An Ethic Of Preaching." It's actually required reading for the Doctor of Ministry program I'm in. His primary thesis is that essentially the world is full of principalities and powers that seek to draw us away from God, and that the purpose of all preaching is nonviolent resistance to those principalities and powers. Reading the first chapter of his book this afternoon got me thinking about a problem I've long been aware of - the problem of "isms" in our culture, and the danger of our various "isms" drawing us away from Christ.

What do I mean by "isms"? I think it's fairly self-explanatory. We have "isms" for everything. Capitalism and socialism. Patriotism and globalism and internationalism. Marxism and fascism and liberalism. Environmentalism. Feminism. Existentialism. Consumerism. There's theism and atheism and agnosticism. Monotheism and polytheism. There's Catholicism and Anglicanism and Islamism and Hinduism and Buddhism. I belong to the United Church of Canada. We're a mix of Presbyterianism, Methodism and Congregationalism. There's geocentrism, and scientism and absolutism. "Isms" abound. They're a way we have of identifying ourselves with a point of view, a way of life, a belief system or a cause. Some are obviously evil - there's little to commend Nazism or neo-nazism to most people. In and of themselves, though, they may seem quite benign. What's the objection to environmentalism? Or to activism of any kind for a good cause? The problem is that all our "isms" are ways of dividing ourselves up into different, distinct and often competing and sometimes hostile groups. Even the benign and positive and forward thinking "isms" are set up to be in opposition to those who disagree with them. The problem becomes not so much that we identify with the cause represented by the "ism" but that we ourselves become identified with the "ism." The particular cause becomes who we are and what we're about - and woe to anyone whose own pet cause isn't in lockstep with ours. We begin to view the world and everything in it through the lens of the cause. So we not only believe in environmentalism, we become an environmentalist and everything we encounter is filtered through that perspective. You can substitute any "ism" for environmentalism and it still works. And it strikes me that that's exactly the opposite of what Jesus was trying to promote.

Jesus came that all may be one. That was a part of his prayer in John 17. That all may be one. The "isms" have become one of the principalities and powers that Charles Campbell writes about - things that take over our lives and drain us of our essential humanity by making us servants of a particular cause rather than allowing us to be those who seek to love our God and love our neighbour as ourself. In fact, those two commandments that Jesus identified as the greatest seem to pale in comparison with the "cause" - whatever the cause may be.

I try to commit myself to living outside the "isms." It's not that there are no causes that I believe in. It's because I don't want my essential humanity to be reduced to standing for a single cause or even multiple causes. I want my essential humanity lifted up by being a follower of Jesus, who then leads me to works that will create and enhance community and respect and dignity among all people - to lift up the essential humanity of all those I see around me. That's largely why I don't like "isms." I don't think Jesus was any sort of "ist." He came to set us free from all those things that entangle and imprison us. He set us free to live abundant lives and to offer abundant life to others.

April 1 2012 Sermon - Great Expectations


Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. (Revelation 21:1-6)

     I'm a great fan of Charles Dickens. As a lot of people probably were, I was first exposed to his work through the movie “A Christmas Carol.” That went on to reading the novel of the same name, then moved on to some of his other Christmas stories, and then to some of his novels. I'm no expert on Dickens, and I haven't read everything he wrote, but I have been fairly widely exposed to his work over the years, and so I want to begin my remarks today with an apology to Charles Dickens. Yes. I stole my sermon title from him. (Well, borrowed is probably a friendlier way of putting it. Or, I could say that I'm honouring Charles Dickens by adopting the title of his great novel “Great Expectation” as the title for my sermon today.) But it does fit, so I would hope that he would – if he were with us – find it in his heart to forgive me. “Great Expectations” - the novel by Charles Dickens – revolved around the character of Pip, an English orphan who, in a whirlwind of a life, rises to wealth, and then ultimately is humbled by his own arrogance. Pip is a complex character in the novel. He's really hard to sympathize with most of the time. He's an arrogant snob who often behaves badly and isn't very nice even to those who have been nice to him.  The title refers to Pip’s own "great expectations" which are constantly changing depending on his circumstances at any given point in his life. Primarily, his great expectations are met first by the arrival of his fortune which gives him the hope that he might achieve another great expectation of becoming a gentleman. His expectations also revolve around his longing for Estella, the adopted daughter of the colourful Miss Havisham. As Pip deals with the various great expectations he has for his life, the reader watches him change in the face of his changing expectations.

     Great expectations. Those words are at the crux of the matter any time we remember the events of what we now call Palm Sunday. Great expectations. The Palm Sunday story, as you know, follows Jesus as He arrives at and enters Jerusalem for the last time, just a few days before He would be crucified – executed as a common criminal. He enters the city, and the people wave palm branches at him and spread them on the ground before him in the typical greeting that in that era was reserved for a king. Those people had great expectations of this man Jesus – a humble soul, perhaps, but one who had touched their hearts and stirred their imaginations; one who had lifted them beyond the rather grimy reality that they were confronted with all around them, and who had given them something to believe in, something to hope for, a reason to believe that things could get better – that not everything has to be the way it was; that the future was a place of promise and not a place of foreboding. The people had great expectations of this man Jesus. But, very much like Pip's great expectations, those of the people of Jerusalem were fluid and changing. They tended to be very much “today” oriented, with no consistent thought to where everything was leading. So you had the disciples of Jesus, who believed he was the Messiah and had committed their lives to Him, you had the cheering crowds, who believed he had come to lead them in a rebellion against Rome, you had the religious leaders of the people who saw him as a threat to their status and position because of his popularity and his new and different teachings about God, and you had the Romans, whose basic desire was to keep order by whatever means necessary – and who saw the maelstrom of activity around this somewhat obscure travelling preacher as a threat to that order. Jesus Himself had great expectations. His words had made clear that He knew what would happen. He would be arrested, tried and crucified and then he would rise from the dead. But few really believed him. They saw what they wanted to see; they saw what they chose to see. The crowds were, indeed, very much like Pip – always with some dream or expectation, but not really too sure what end result they were hoping for. Those crowds are not unlike us. We have great expectations of Jesus – and each of us in some ways have different expectations of Jesus and of what He can do in and for our lives. Charles Dickens seems to have understood ambiguity. The novel “Great Expectations” actually has two endings – in the original ending, Pip returns to London and spies his beloved Estella, who has lived a hard life with an abusive husband and has descended into poverty. In the rewritten ending, which most people are familiar with, Pip meets a still beautiful and unmarried Estella who regrets their separation, and the suggestion is a fairy tale like ending – they will live happily ever after!

     There are also in a way two endings to the story of Palm Sunday: one is a nasty bit of business, the other is a hopeful and hope filled vision.

     The nasty bit of business is something we're quite familiar with. It revolves around all those different and competing groups I spoke of in the city, each with their own goals, which often intersect and which often contradict, and which ultimately work together, finally leading to a  couple of pieces of wood, made into the shape of a cross. It was an instrument of gruesome execution used by the Romans for the lowest of the low, the most despised criminals of all, the greatest threats to the Empire, to make of them an example for everyone else. And when the nasty bit of business was done, when the deed was accomplished, when the execution was over, things could return to normal – well, for a few days anyway. But what would ultimately happen was the development of a new normal – a sudden realization that maybe there was more to this story than met the eye; a sudden realization that this story couldn't be understood just by the obvious things. Maybe this had to do with more than just this itinerant preacher who had gotten himself in such trouble. Maybe – just maybe – these events had something to do with God, and with God's people, and with how God had chosen to reach out and offer a new way of life, a new hope, a new blessing.

     As oppressed people anywhere must surely be tempted to feel, the people of Jerusalem – occupied by the mighty Roman Empire – must have felt forgotten by God, and after that brief flurry of excitement upon Jesus' arrival, their disappointment about Him is perhaps understandable. “He didn't do for us what we wanted Him to do for us.” That was the lament, I'm quite certain. But a realization suddenly dawned. How did it happen? I'm not sure, except to say that somehow the Holy Spirit touched the minds and hearts and souls of the people and made them understand – this wasn't about freedom from Roman oppression, this was about God's presence in the midst of Roman oppression. And this wasn't just about the here and now – while it was a promise of God being with the people now, it was also the great expectation that the people would be with God in the future.

     That's why I shared the passage from Revelation today. It's not a Palm Sunday reading – but in a way it is, because Palm Sunday was the beginning of the strange series of events that eventually convinced everyone that in Jesus God had come, and God's presence is the centrepiece of what would be the culmination of that strange, mysterious, frightening and hopeful vision John would later have, which we call the Revelation, and in that passage what we see is the breaking down of the divine-human barrier. Palm Sunday leads us to the mystery that is the eternal presence of God; the great expectation that finally, one day, there will be no separation between us and God – that we will be at one with our God. In celebrating Holy Communion today, we celebrate the New Covenant which is represented by the Cup – true Communion with God and with each other.

     Great expectations can lead to shattered dreams or they can lead to indescribable joy – just as there are two endings to Dickens' story. Sometimes, shattered dreams can even become indescribable joy. For the crowds of Jerusalem, their great expectations began with shattered dreams, but for those with the vision to watch and wait, shattered dreams became indescribable joy in a matter of days. All of us deal with shattered dreams sometimes – with lives that perhaps don't always turn out as we want them, with hardships we never expected to face or with grief that seems to overwhelm us. Palm Sunday reminds us to watch and wait – because while our expectations may sometimes be disappointed, Jesus Himself will never disappoint us. God is with us, and we will be with God – and all shall be well!