A Thought For The Week Of April 29

"It’s a mark of good character to avert quarrels, but fools love to pick fights." (Proverbs 20:3, The Message) The Book of Proverbs is full of little nuggets of wisdom. It's a shame we don't make more use of it, actually, because the life lessons are pretty good ones. I really like what Eugene Peterson has done with this verse in The Message, for example. I think he's getting to the heart of what's being talked about. Getting into disagreements or conflicts is not a bad thing in and of itself. In a way that's actually positive. If you disagree and have conflict it means that there's something you believe in, something that you care about, something that you're willing to take a stand for. That's an honourable thing to do, in my opinion. Sometimes, perhaps, in the hopes of not causing offence, we choose to stand for nothing. That doesn't make us inoffensive. It just makes us bland and boring. Standing for something may lead to conflict, but conflict can be talked out and can be a growing edge for everyone involved. But Eugene Peterson understands what the author of Proverbs meant. If some people go out of their way to avoid disagreement, and by doing so become simply dull, others go out of their way to take issue with every little thing. They argue every point. It doesn't matter how minor the issues are - they have to have their way. That's both immature and foolish. That's what the verse is saying. Don't go out of your way to pick fights over every little thing. By all means, there are times when you have to take a stand, when you have to disagree, when you have to stand out and maybe when you'll even cause offence to someone by doing so. Some things are important enough to risk that. But not everything. Simply picking fights with everyone over everything is foolish, and gives no honour to Christ. So, this week, figure out what's really important to you. Take a stand on those things if you must. But also figure out what doesn't really matter all that much - and let it go. After all, fighting over things that don't really matter is what fools do! Have a great week!

April 28 sermon - Resurrection As Restlessness

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. (John 21:1-7)

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     Do you ever find yourself at a loss for something - anything - to do, because something big has happened in your life, and everything has changed, and you’re just not sure how to proceed? I remember that after the 9/11 attacks in New York City a new phrase entered the English language - “the new normal.” It expressed the belief that people and society had to get back to normal but no one knew what that normal was going to be, and so everyone walked around in a daze for a while afterward; trying to figure out what to do. Some would say that we’ve yet come to grips with the changes in the world since that event. On a more mundane level, I’ve been searching for a new normal recently. For three years my life seems to have been a continual rotation of reading books, writing papers, attending classes in Chicago, etc., etc. with hardly ever a break in the schedule and the last few months especially having been intense in terms of workload. And all of a sudden I’m done. I have no more books to read. I have no more papers to write. I have no more classes to attend. And from time to time my wife has been telling me that I look a bit lost puttering around the house because I’m so used to sitting at the computer writing or sitting in my recliner with a book in front of me that I feel I should be doing that. Sometimes you just feel a little lost, a little disoriented, a little discombobulated, if I might use a word I used to hear a lot. I think that’s a bit like Peter and the disciples in today’s Gospel reading.

     Think about it. These men were followers of Jesus. They had been through a lot. They had seen Jesus die; they had seen Jesus alive again; Jesus had appeared to them; He had convinced them that He was still alive. And knowing that, they were convinced that there must be something they were being called to do; some mission that they were being called to undertake. And as I read this passage, here’s where I start to see the restlessness of the resurrection - the restlessness that being convinced that Jesus is alive actually should place within the hearts of believers. You want to do something with this wonderful knowledge, but you’re not sure what it is you should do. So you putter. You pass the time. You wait for a sign. You look for fillers. "'I’m going out to fish,' Simon Peter told them, and they said, 'We’ll go with you.'” In a way - with everything that these men had experienced in just a few days - doesn’t this seem like a strange thing to do? “Yup. Jesus is alive. No doubt about that. It’s great news. The best news ever. It’s unbelievable. So. ... Let’s go fishing.”

     Let me ask you. Can you ever been confronted by something that’s so big - so gigantic - so momentous - that you just don’t know what to do? Can you literally be paralyzed by good news so that you don’t know what to do with it? Can something just seem so unbelievably good that it hardly seems worth mentioning because no one will believe it? You know the old saying - “it’s too good to be true.” And so we sit on whatever it is, increasingly restless because we know we should be doing something with whatever it is, but just not sure how to proceed. I wonder if that’s not where the church is right at this moment in history. We have something so good and so beautiful and so life giving that even to us at times it seems impossible, and we’re almost paralyzed by it, and so what do we do? We drift. We try this and we try that. We tinker with how we worship. We do stewardship campaigns and we wonder how to raise money. We know we have something, but we don’t know what to do with it. And so, in a way - like Peter and the disciples - we just decide to “go fishing” because we can’t think of anything better to do. We want to get out there and change the world. We lament what we see going on around us. But we’re a little lost, and so we putter around with the unimportant “church stuff” while we wait for Jesus to give us some sort of direction.

     As Peter and the disciples puttered around without accomplishing much of anything, suddenly something happened. Jesus appeared. Fish abounded. Peter cried out “it is the Lord!” and he jumped into the water. Jesus’ appearance reminded them of what they were about - proclaiming to the world that Jesus was alive. That’s still our calling. When you strip away everything else, that’s still what we’re about - proclaiming good news to a world that sometimes seems to get way too fixated on the bad or on the evil. Sometimes we fall into that trap as well. That’s when we get restless. “Come on Jesus. The world’s falling apart. Isn’t there something we should be doing? Isn’t there something you should be doing? So. I don’t know. Let’s talk about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”

     I hope we’re restless. We should be. We should be wanting to get out there and do something with and for the risen Jesus that might make a difference in the lives of those we encounter. Offering hope to those who have no hope or love to those who know no love wouldn’t be a bad way to start!

Understanding Inspiration And Scripture

(Every now and then I want to write and share my thoughts on topics of interest that people - often but not always parishioners - have raised with me.) 

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How do we know if something is inspired or not? It's a really good question. And what do we mean by "inspired." Another really good question. They're good questions because for a lot of people of faith, when they're confronted with a question about their faith the default position to fall back on is "the Bible says ..." I've often cautioned people to be suspicious whenever they hear the words, "the Bible says ..." - especially if the person can't cite where the Bible says it, but especially because you know that someone else is going to be able to turn to some other part of the Bible that seems to say something completely different, and they'll say in return "the Bible says ..." Stalemate. So. What do we make of that. What is inspiration, anyway?

It's pretty easy for Christians to simply say "the Bible's inspired," and to leave it at that. But that doesn't solve all the problems, because different Christians believe in different inspired writings. So, as a Protestant, I believe the 66 books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation to be "inspired." Now, that particular number has never been a given. One of the questions in the early church was whether the 39 books of what we now call the Old Testament were "inspired" (ie, were they canonical?) Some Christians, like a man named Marcion (who was a second century bishop), wanted the Old Testament excluded completely from the Bible. He wanted only the epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke - carefully excised to remove references to the Old Testament. Martin Luther had serious questions about the inspiration of certain books of the Bible, especially Revelation and Esther. Thomas Jefferson of all people once published his own version of the New Testament, again carefully edited to suit his purposes and his understanding of God. So my 66 books are a lot more than some wanted - and they're a lot less than some have. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches have additional books in their version of the Bible referred to as "The Apocrypha." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has the Book of Mormon. And there are all sorts of writings rejected as canonical by everyone - but can they be dismissed as inspired? Inspiration is complicated.

I hate after all this to say "the Bible says," but at least in part it does! There are a variety of Old Testament writings that are sometimes appealed to in order to support the concept of the inerrancy of Scripture (which some believe is what inspiration means.) But those writings generally refer to "the law" (which means not even the writing making the declaration qualifies) or "the word of God" - which is more than just the Bible. From a Christian perspective in fact, the word of God is Jesus - the Word Made Flesh. His life (yes, discerned largely from the Gospels) is the ultimate revelation of God. I want to deal, though, with the New Testament as a whole. I know that atheists and skeptics are loathe to accept the Bible's testimony about itself, but on the other hand the passage I'm about to cite isn't really about the Bible; it's about inspiration. It's the usual proof text used to support the idea that the Bible is inspired by God and therefore inerrant. It's 2 Timothy 3:16:

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness ..."

This passage is often used to lend support to the idea of the direct, divine authorship of the Bible. So, in other words, people wrote the words - but under the supervision and control of God, as if God were actually holding their hand. So there is neither error nor contradiction possible, because this is not the writing of an imperfect human; it is the writing of a perfect God. I won't even deal with the idea of biblical inerrancy or whether there are contradictions in the Bible, except to say that, as I read these words, I realize that the verse doesn't say that Scripture is perfect. It says that it is "useful." That's interesting. To say that something "is God-breathed" is to say, essentially, that it comes from the Spirit - because, of course, God's Spirit is always at work inside us, and many of us are constantly "inspired" to write or speak what we feel God calling us to write or speak. I believe my sermons are "inspired." I believe I write them under the guidance of God's Spirit, but I also believe that I am an imperfect agent at best. Thus, I would make no claim to my sermons being perfect. Perhaps useful - to some anyway. Am I comparing my sermons to Scripture? No. I'm only using them as an illustration of what it must have been like for the biblical authors - struggling to discern what God had called them to say or write, struggling to find the right word or the right phrase or the right image. I don't believe God sat on their shoulders and dictated the Bible word for word into their ears. I believe that the Holy Spirit gnawed at them, so to speak, fighting through the everyday clutter of the normal human mind and trying to be heard - which isn't always easy. God can be easily drowned out. God often "speaks" quietly, and maybe we're not always sure what we heard. And so we listen, and we pray, and we try to filter out the noise of the world to let us focus on what God is telling us. And that's hard to do, so I have to assume that the composition of the books of the Bible was a normal example of human writing.

The passage above also doesn't define what "Scripture" is. At the time the verse was written there was no New Testament, so the author may have been referring to the Old Testament, or to whichever of the competing collections of post-Jesus writings his own community had chosen. The final decision about what was in and what was out was still a few centuries away, and actually - as I noted above - it's not really over. There hasn't been a final decision. Even Christians can't agree. So is the First Book of Maccabbees Scripture? Or the Book of Judith? Or Psalm 151? I say no; but some Christians say yes. (You could ask the same questions about the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, etc.) Or could they all be inspired? Nothing in 2 Timothy 3:16 restricts inspiration to what we call the Bible. "All Scripture is God breathed" isn't the same as saying that everything God-breathed is Scripture. It's sort of like all poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles. I believe there is inspired writing that is not Scripture. I believe it because I have felt inspired when writing sermons or other things, but I would certainly never claim for them the authoritative place of Scripture in the life of the community to which I preach. So inspiration cannot be restricted to just a few writings written over a handful of centuries of human history. Inspiration cannot have stopped 1900 years ago. Has God truly stopped speaking to us? Does God not speak to us directly today? Does not God continue to be revealed today? I believe God does; therefore I believe in ongoing inspiration, because some are moved to write what they feel God has revealed to them and to share those writings with others.

"Scripture" is the collection of writings that one's faith community has decided to be not just "inspired" but also "sacred." I accept the 66 books of the Old Testament and the New Testament as both inspired and sacred. I believe the authors wrote under the influence of God; that God moved them to write what they believed about God. I believe the church (at least my part of it) has been inspired to accept these 66 books (and only these 66 books) as Scripture - both inspired and sacred. But that is a human decision, and as with all human decisions it has to be put forward with a degree of humility. Scripture (in whatever form) is not God; God is not Scripture. Scripture witnesses to God. It is "inspired" by God - but God is other than Scripture. God is more than Scripture. If we believe that Scripture and God are essentially the same thing then we have limited who God is and how God can relate to us. If we believe that God and Scripture are an exact one to one equivalence, then we have turned Scripture into an idol which limits our understanding of God, rather than an inspired writing that encourages us to grow in our understanding of God.  So "Scripture" is time tested, and it is tested by the wider community. Scripture is, as 2 Timothy suggests, that which we have decided is useful in guiding our corporate life as a church. It is therefore authoritative within our own faith community. It is the basis for who we are within our faith community and for how we relate to the world around us. But we err, I think, if we make it an absolute standard for all. The inspiration of Scripture rests on the idea that the community itself was inspired to choose these particular writings as their authoritative guide. But if "inspiration" can go beyond Scripture - which, again, I believe it must - then how do we determine what is inspired?

Deciding what's inspired is, I suppose, a part of inspiration. I feel the pull of the Holy Spirit, leading me in certain directions. There are two basic tests I would apply. If something declares the love of God (since I do believe the scriptural witness that "God is love") then I believe it is inspired. I am equally convinced of the divinity of Jesus, and of his life, death and resurrection. Anything which declares otherwise I cannot consider inspired. Writings don't have to do both of those things for me to consider them inspired by God, but they have to do at least one - and they can't contradict the other. So to say "God is love but Jesus never lived" (or wasn't resurrected, or wasn't divine) to me negates inspiration. Or to say that "Jesus is the divine Son of God - and God hates everyone who doesn't believe that" to me negates inspiration. Thus, inspiration can be found outside the Bible (I have no problem with that) but if it's found outside the Bible it has no authority over the community founded on the Bible, and it may just be meaningful to me - and/or to whoever wrote it. Certainly a part of the work of a divinely inspired writing is that inspires me to go deeper - constantly deeper.

I end by saying that I am passionately in love with the Bible. I began reading it in my mid 20's. I found in the Bible a source of strength, and a power that made it different from any other book I had ever read. I find it a source of comfort in times of trouble. I find it a source of hope when everything seems to be going wrong. I find that every time I read it (or a part of it) it has something new to say to me; some new insight to give me; a deeper love for God to instill within me. None of what I've written is intended to say that the Bible isn't important. It is. It's the most important "thing" in the world as far as I'm concerned. It is "God-breathed." It is inspired. Of those things I have no doubt. But it is a "thing." It isn't God, and God can't be restricted by the Bible; God's actions can't be dictated by the Bible and God's sovereignty can't be compromised by the Bible. God is God. The Bible is the Bible. The Bible is a reliable and useful witness. Inspiration is real. And God still speaks to us all. We just have to listen.

A Thought For the Week of April 22

Thought for the week: "They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated ..." (Hebrews 11:37) This past week has been a week in which fear won, unfortunately. I'm talking, of course, about the bombings in Boston - terrorism it's called, which emphasis on "terror." Those who commit such acts have one primary goal - to spread as much fear as possible, to terrorize people, to make us afraid and to make us see enemies around every corner. Suspect everyone - especially those who look different or believe differently or who dare to disagree with you. That's living in fear - and, unfortunately, while living in fear might be living, it's not life - certainly not as Jesus wants it lived. I thought of the words above over the course of the last week. They are a part of a passage describing the hardships faced by the first disciples of Jesus. Those were courageous people who stood for their faith against terrible opposition. They were people who should have been terrorized into silence by the forces arrayed against them. But they weren't! Nothing could terrorize them, simply because they believed in Jesus, and they took to heart Jesus' words: "Do not be afraid." Don't let the events of last week change you. Don't let those who promote terror actually terrorize you, because if you let fear take over, that's how they win. Have the courage a disciple of Jesus should be filled with. Live a joyful, abundant life in such a way that the world will see the difference Jesus makes to you. Have a great week.

April 21 sermon - Resurrection As Life

Jesus said ... “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

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     When I think about the little passage of Scripture that Hannah shared with us a few minutes ago, I always find my attention drawn to the last four words. Somehow, they often  get forgotten. These two verses of Scripture get used a fair bit - often at funerals or interments; often in the context of Easter. And one thing I’ve noticed (and one thing I have myself been “guilty” of - to the extent that there’s guilt attached) is that the last four words often get left out. “Do you believe this?” I understand why. Certainly, I understand why I leave them out at a funeral or an interment. Those aren’t the hopeful words. Those aren’t the comforting words. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” There’s the comfort. The assurance of life. The promise that because Jesus lives, we’re going to live. The last four words are not comfort. The last four words are challenge: “Do you believe this?” I’m in the midst of a few sermons about the impact of the resurrection right now. We’ve talked about the resurrection as promise and as victory. Today is life. And what we’ve talked about - and what’s coming up in the next 3 weeks as we look at the resurrection as restlessness, journey and completion - is meaningless unless we can come to grips with the last four words in today’s passage. “Do you believe this?” Because, if you don’t, then the resurrection doesn’t mean a lot. So, today, I’m making a bit of a shift from comfort and assurance to challenge. Today, I’m talking about “Resurrection As Life” - and that’s a challenge. To actually believe in life in the face of death - that’s a challenge. To actually believe that Jesus lives even though He died - that’s a challenge. To actually believe that we are going to live - even though we’re also going to die - that’s a challenge. “Resurrection as life.” That’s a challenge. Do you believe it?

     I suppose that to know whether we believe it or not we have to know what we mean by “life.” We’re not talking biology. Biologically, I suppose life basically means the ability to reproduce. But, really, it means a lot more than just that. Jesus refers to “life” constantly and he’s not talking about biology. “I have come that they may have life.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.” “Life” - in its fullest and broadest and most meaningful sense is about Jesus. It revolves around Jesus. I’m not talking here in terms of doctrines - believe this or that and you go to heaven, don’t believe it and you go to hell. Jesus isn’t talking in terms of right belief or proper doctrine or acceptable liturgy. He’s talking about more intangible things - the things that truly give life. Last week I talked a bit about the things that take away life - things like fears and possessions and addictions and all the various kinds of demons (however you want to define that word) that swirl around us and sometimes possess us through no fault of our own. I said that the promise of the resurrection is that all those things that take away life have been defeated - and so they have. But what replaces them? What fills the void? If we get rid of the things that take life away, then what is the life that we fill the empty space with? What’s the life that Jesus offers?

     Jesus says “He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” The life that Jesus offers us, plain and simple, is His life. It’s a new life, it’s a new nature, it’s new priorities, it’s new desires, it’s a new way of seeing the world, it’s a new way of seeing others. It’s basically living a life of freedom. There are so many things in the world that can take our freedom away. We saw that displayed this past week in Boston, as an entire city found itself cowering in fear. In the circumstances perhaps that was understandable but as always it got taken to far. So a state senator in New York could say, "let's torture the kid. No one will care." Or a radio host could say, before we even knew who was responsible, "we should kill all the Muslims." And the thing that truly bothers me is that if I were to look into the backgrounds of those two men, I suspect I would find that they call themselves Christians but really they have simply been enslaved by fear that has led to hatred.  Wouldn't God be proud? Here’s 2 Corinthians 4:9-10: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.” We carry both the death and the life of Jesus in us and with us because in Jesus life came out on top. All the oppression and persecution that the mightiest empire in the world could throw at him couldn’t hold him. He overcame them - and so this life that’s freed is now what’s at work in us. “You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” Jesus said. Freed from fear, but freed for what? Not freed to do whatever we want, because that isn’t freedom. That just enslaves us to our desires and to our wants and to the pursuit of more - always more. No. We’re not freed to do whatever we want. We’re freed for God! We’re freed to create the Kingdom! We, as a people, live with so much worry and with so much fear. As a people, I think we too easily fall into the trap of thinking we’re afraid that we might not be good enough, and so we need the rules laid out for us. Either way, we don’t live in freedom. But Jesus wants us to have life, and so Jesus sets us free.

     “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” Now there’s the source of life - life freed from fear; life freed to serve God; life freed to love others; life freed to stand with those who have no one else to stand for them. And we have that freedom because we have nothing to fear, because if the resurrection is true then life is more powerful than death, and if even death offers us nothing to be afraid of - then we are free! Then we are alive! Then we can be the church!

     “Do you believe this?” That’s the key question isn’t it. “Jesus said ... ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’’ I hope, for all of us, that the answer to that question is “yes,” because a “yes” brings you into the life Jesus wants you to lead.

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For a link to a video of the entire service, you can visit

http://niagaraonlineworship.churchcastonline.com/our-live-feed-and-archived-videos/

Once there, go to "Archives" and then "Sunday 04/21/13 10:00 am"

A Thought For The Week Of April 15

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." (1 John 3:16) Say what you will about the whole doctrine of substitutionary atonement - which is the idea, basically, that in his death Jesus paid a price that we would have otherwise had to pay. There are different ideas about what the doctrine means, and some Christians don't believe in it at all. Having said that, the death of Jesus clearly means something. The biggest part of the Gospel stories revolves around his passion and death, and the crucifixion and its results are constantly reflected upon throughout the New Testament. Without getting into all that controversy, let's acknowledge this: Jesus' death (certainly in combination with the resurrection) has had an impact on the world, and certainly on those who are Christians. And if nothing else, it serves as an example of unselfish self-giving. Jesus, even in death according to the Gospels, focused not on himself but on others, to the point of ensuring that his mother would be cared for, assuring a repentant thief of his salvation, and offering forgiveness to his persecutors. That's quite an example. And John, in this passage, makes the death of Jesus an example: "we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." That may not mean having to die for others, but it does mean making ourselves available for the service and well-being of others, whatever the cost might be to ourselves. If we could all focus on the well-being of others, think what a wonderful world we'd have, and how many of the world's problems we could solve. Have a great week!

April 14 sermon - Resurrection As Victory

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which He has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony.Whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:1-13)

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     There’s an old gospel hymn, written in 1939 by Eugene Monroe Bartlett, which includes the following words: “... victory in Jesus, my Saviour forever.” The question, I suppose, is: victory over what? And - victory by what means? Grantland Rice was a sports writer. He was also something of a philosopher. He’s often given credit for the old saying “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” A lot of people have made fun of his words, and called them into question. Martina Navratilova, for example - the great tennis player - once said that “whoever said ‘It’s not whether you win or lose,' probably lost.” I think Navratilova’s quote probably sums up the thinking of the world. She would have probably agreed with Vince Lombardi - the great coach of the Green Bay Packers, who said, “winning isn’t everything - it’s the only thing.” We have this desire to create winners and losers in our society - and not just in sports. We do it in all aspects of life. Love, business - in so many things, it tends to come down to who wins and who loses doesn’t it. Even in church - as I've noted before - we tend to take votes to decide who wins and who loses rather than take the time to pray and discern the will of God. So, I want to go back to Rice’s words for a moment. You see, he didn’t actually write “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” The words actually come from a poem he wrote in 1908 called “Alumnus Football,” and it actually says:

For when the One Great Scorer comes

To mark against your name,

He writes - not that you won or lost -

But how you played the Game.

     “The One Great Scorer” in this poem, of course, is God. I don’t know anything about Grantland Rice’s religious beliefs, but I believe he did get this right. From a Christian perspective, you see, victory isn’t a matter of winning or losing. Victory is about being faithful to God. We don’t (or at least we shouldn't) have winners or losers in the church. What we have in the church, among the community of believers, are people who are victorious - not because they have outrun or outfought or outscored anyone else. We are victorious because we have lived as God has asked us to live. Victory is not about winning. Victory is about persevering. In 2 Timothy, Paul writes not about winning. He writes, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race” - but he never says that he won either the fight or the race. He does go on to declare victory, though, not because he “won” - but because “I have kept the faith.” In other words, he has held on to that which God has given him - the assurance that in Jesus there is victory. And John, in the passage we read today, also speaks not of winning, but of “victory” - “This is the victory that has overcome the world ...”

     So what is the victory? And how is the victory won? For Jesus, victory was about both crucifixion and resurrection - because both were tied up in being faithful to God's call. For us? That's true as well. We can be victorious even when we seem to be obviously beaten. But since we’re in the season of Easter let's think about the resurrection as the victory. The resurrection of Jesus is God saying that even the worst thing that can possibly happen to any of us is already beaten. The thing that none of us can beat God has already beaten. It’s why, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul can say “where, O death, is your victory,” and then he concludes the passage by saying, “thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So what is the victory? The victory is the resurrection. How is the victory won? The victory is won by the resurrection. But there was a third question. What’s the victory over? Is it over death? Well, yes. But is it only over death? I would say no. In John’s words, it’s the “victory that overcomes the world.” It’s a victory over death, but it’s a victory over more than death - the resurrection is a victory over anything that takes away life - and so many things beside death can take away life. So many things can hold us hostage. So many things can hold us in bondage. So many things can turn life into drudgery. Or into meaninglessness. Or into a nightmare. So many things. I think of simple things. I remember a television commercial a few years ago, in which a young man puts a desk lamp out at the curbside for the garbage pickup the next day and then spends the night wistfully gazing at it, worrying that it’s lonely; wondering if he can give it up. And there are people like that. They’re controlled by their possessions. I think of hopeless things. People who have to turn to drugs or alcohol or whatever it might be just to get themselves through another day because their lives have become so meaningless and they can’t find anything else to make themselves feel better. They’re controlled by their addictions. Or I think of tragic things. Like a 17 year old girl in Nova Scotia who takes her own life because of something that happened that was out of her control but whose consequences she couldn’t escape from, and she just couldn’t find the strength to keep battling the demons that had invaded her soul through no fault of her own and wouldn’t let her go. All of these are the things of the world that sometimes we just can’t defeat. But God can defeat them. God can defeat them because God has defeated death - and if God can defeat death, God can defeat anything. This victory won by God - this  “victory that overcomes the world” - is a victory that overcomes anything that takes life from us. This is a victory that promises us not only that God will not be defeated, but that we will not be defeated.

     Now the whole verse, of course, says “this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” Does that mean that victory is only for the faithful? Does it mean that those without faith are condemned to defeat? I don’t believe we can be bold enough to say that. John is simply writing to assure those with faith that a victory has been won by God, and God is perfectly loving and perfectly merciful and perfectly just all at the same time. We can’t understand that kind of perfection, which is probably why we’re told not to judge. Our calling is simply to proclaim the goodness and the salvation of God. Once again, in the word of Grantland Rice.

For when the One Great Scorer comes

To mark against your name,

He writes - not that you won or lost -

But how you played the Game.

     Each one of us can be responsible only for how we play the game, and not for how others play the game. Claim the victory, and live life to the full, as Jesus asked - which means living a life of love; love extended in all directions; love withheld from no one.

A Thought For The Week Of April 8

"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ..." (Matthew 5:44) Here's where living by the Gospel gets tough. When we think about the love that Jesus wants us to show for those around us, we generally choose the far less challenging words "love your neighbours," don't we. That we can handle, although even that isn't necessarily easy. I remember once having neighbours whose teenage son insisted on banging on drums at all hours of the day or night - and they wouldn't stop him. Loving them would have been tough. At the time, I wasn't a Christian, so I can let myself off the hook for some of my thoughts! But if one is going to be a follower of Jesus Christ then we can't just pick and choose who we'll love, or who we'll pray for. We can't just love and pray for those we like or for those we agree with or for those who have done something nice for us. We have to do the same even for everyone. We have to love those we find unlovable. We have to pray (nice things!) for those who seek to do us harm. How can we do that? Well, let's remember that love for Jesus wasn't an emotion - it was an action. It was something you did, whether you felt it or not. Prayer is similar. You do it. You call blessings upon those who wouldn't even thinking of doing the same for you. Love or prayer or both - as a Christian you just do it! And that's where it gets hard. No one ever said being a Christian was easy. If we actually try to do it we'll find the challenges are great. But loving and praying for those who seem undeserving is the way of Christ! Have a great week!

April 7 sermon - Resurrection As Promise

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead - since he was about a hundred years old - and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness - for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. (Romans 4:18-24)

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     Let me begin this morning with a question: when is a promise not a promise? It sounds like a strange question, but I have a reason for asking it. After all, the world is full of unfulfilled promises. The world is even full of promises that are never intended to be kept. “Promise” has become one of those words that are used so often, and that are often used so poorly, that they lose their power to mean anything. I’ve talked before about how modern society has somewhat cheapened the word “love” by applying it to basically anything we like. So in the same breath I can say “I love ice cream” and “I love my wife.” Is it the same. No. But it kind of cheapens the word. The advent of Facebook has cheapened the idea of friendship. Your “friends” used to be the people you enjoyed spending time with and who you had some sort of real and personal relationship with. A lot of Facebook “friends” are people we never have and never will meet. Some people collect “Facebook friends” as a badge of honour just to see how many “friends” they can collect. But it cheapens the idea of friendship. And promises that are made with no intention of being kept, and when the person making the promise doesn’t have the ability to keep it, empty the word “promise” of its meaning. How many people pay any real attention at all to political “promises” during election campaigns? Most people that I talk to just assume that they’re nothing more than attempts to buy votes - and that they’ll be forgotten the moment the votes are counted. How many people make the promise to love and to cherish “in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, as long as we both shall live” - only to file for divorce when “irreconcilable differences” come up. I should think such differences are covered somewhere in the promise. I’m not suggesting, by the way, that all marriages should stay together forever. Some relationships are unhealthy and even toxic and need to be ended. I’m just saying that in a lot of cases, there isn’t even really an attempt to put the promises into practice. There's an old saying from a bygone day that says that “a man's word is his bond” - but that sounds so naive now doesn’t it. We no longer trust a man's word. We no longer trust people to keep their promises.

     I began with the question, “when is a promise not a promise.” The answer is actually pretty easy. A promise isn’t a promise when we make promises we know we can't keep and when others know we can't keep them. But there’s another question. When is a promise reliable? When can we trust the promises someone makes to us? Well, a promise is reliable when the person making it has demonstrated their faithfulness. A long time ago, a seemingly ridiculous promise was made to a man named Abraham. God promised him many descendants - descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. This in spite of the fact that Abraham was 100 years old, and his wife Sarah was 90. The promise made no sense. It sounds a little bit like a political promise. “Let me be your God and look what I’ll do for you!” It would have been an easy promise to sneer at because it was so outlandish. But Abraham didn’t sneer. As far as Abraham was concerned, God had proven His faithfulness in many and varied ways since that first call came to a man whose name at the time was Abram, calling him to leave behind everything he had known to journey to a far off land. And Abraham (as he became) had seen the signs of God’s presence with him and had experienced the power of God’s love and the faithfulness of God’s word. And so, in spite of what reason told him, “he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.”

     Today, we are at least the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and we’ve gathered to celebrate a promise. In faith terms, a promise is a covenant. A covenant by definition involves God. Without God you have an agreement or a contract, but once God gets involved you have a covenant. Covenants are important to a life of faith. We make a lot of personal covenants with God - and many of them go unfulfilled (not by God but by those who enter into them on the human side of the equation.) For a lot of people covenants become either a game (as in, God, I’ll go to church every week if you let me win the lottery) or they become a last gasp act of desperate piety (as in, God, I’ll give everything I have to the poor if you’ll heal me or someone I love.) In neither event are they serious on our part, if only because they’re conditional. God has to do something for us to earn the right to be in a covenant with us. But the covenants God initiates are different - because they’re based on grace. They’re freely given. Nothing is demanded in return. They’re given out of complete and unselfish love. They start with the rainbow covenant of the Book of Genesis, they continue with the covenant God made with Abraham to make of him a great nation, and to the covenant with David that one of his descendants would rule. And that brings us to Jesus.

     Today, we are honouring a covenant. That’s what Communion is. The celebration of “the cup of the New Covenant in My blood, which is given for you all for the forgiveness of sin.” The blood language is off-putting for some, but all it really needs is some understanding. Jesus gives His life in order that humanity and divinity might meet fully, and that the walls that divide us from God might be broken down. That’s what Jesus has accomplished - the breaking down of the barriers between ourselves and God. And the guarantee of the New Covenant is the resurrection.

     Paul says that in Communion we honour the Lord’s death until He comes. But crucifixion needs resurrection in order to be a covenant, because the resurrection is God’s guarantee that the covenant can be and will be fulfilled. A God Who can raise the dead can presumably do anything. Why would we doubt God? What reason do we have to doubt God? Today we're celebrating a covenant which means that today we are celebrating a promise. The promise was made by God, it was confirmed by God by the resurrection and it’s lived out today through the resurrection. Communion celebrates that New Covenant in the blood of Jesus which is given for all for the forgiveness of sin. Communion celebrates a covenant of new life and of new beginnings. Communion is a promise that the old has gone and the new has come. Communion is a promise that the disappointments of the past are now replaced by hope for tomorrow. Communion is a promise that the worries and fears of the past are now today's peace.

     Communion is the commemoration of the Lord’s death, but it is celebrated only because we are a people who can also proclaim with no hesitation that “the Lord is risen!” The resurrection of Jesus is a promise to us all!

A Thought For The Week Of April 1

"...if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain." (1 Corinthians 15:14) There's somehow something so appropriate about the fact that the day after Easter Sunday this year is April Fool's Day. I wonder how many Christians have thought today (even lightheartedly) about how it would feel if God suddenly shouted "April Fool's." As if - "gotcha! There really was no resurrection." It would call everything into question wouldn't it? Our faith, how we view the world, what we think about eternity. All of a sudden, none of that would have any foundation, because without the resurrection our faith and our views on life and death and eternity are suddenly all called into question, because so much of them are focussed on the resurrection. Could we hold on to our faith without the resurrection? We could perhaps commit ourselves to trying our best to live up to the ethical demands of our faith, but that isn't quite the same as having faith. Our faith teaches us not only how to live, but how to die as well.  Our faith teaches us that things are never so dark as to be hopeless. And that's based on the resurrection. A God who can bring life from death can help me through anything. I don't believe we'll ever have to test what our faith without the resurrection would look like. I believe in the resurrection. I'm convinced of it. I may not fully understand it, but I also have no doubt about it. Death is not the end. And a faith that assures us that life triumphs over death is not and can never be in vain. Hold fast to the resurrection, claim it for yourself and proclaim it as hope for the world! Have a great week!