The Time Is Now

I often say that time is not my friend. I’m usually behind and often late for things. Or I’m so ridiculously early that I find something else to do to fill the time and then, you guessed it, I’m late. And there’s never enough time for the things that I need - or want! - to be doing.

Surely, I can’t be the only one who has that experience. I mean, “does anybody really know what time it is?”

You might, if you just recognized that I quoted the classic - timeless, even - hit from the 1970’s by the band Chicago. It’s a long time later, is what it is.

It’s the season of Advent. Christmas is coming and Advent is the season that prepares us for Christmas. Even if you’re someone who put their tree and decorations up weeks ago and you’re ready for Christmas to be today, please: don’t get ahead of things.

Christmas, itself, is kind of a time-less event. We’re celebrating an event of the distant past with a celebration in the present (and we might even be celebrating traditions of Christmas past in our own lives, too), while also acknowledging that Jesus said he’d be back, so we’re celebrating that promise, too. Thing is, we know when the first two happened and happen, but that last one, we’re not so sure of. What we do know is that the Bible makes it sound like he’s not going to be too nice about it.

And there’s a couple of things there that sure don’t sound like the Jesus I know.

First of all, the Jesus I know shows us how to love, not judge. The Jesus I know encourages, supports, even heals people from their brokenness and brings them back to a place of good, reconciling them with the world. God’s love, according to Jesus, is unconditional, grace-filled and, most importantly, for everyone. Everyone.

Second, that doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know who did everything he possibly could, including give his own very human life, to bring us back to a relationship with God that was right and true. That, after all, was always Jesus’ aim: that we would find the divine spirit that is is in each of us, reconcile it with the earthliness from which we come, and find that we are good, just as God intended. Living that into the world is what Jesus’ own life teaches.

And no, it doesn’t really matter how you know God, religiously or otherwise. However you know God, being in right relationship with that divine spirit and with all our relations is the very thing to which Jesus tried to lead us. Does he really need to come back to judge us for how we handled that, or didn’t? God’s love is for everyone, remember.

I think that God calls us to live for today and to expect Jesus in this moment and every moment. Not because the end is near, but because the next moment is a beginning, something new. We should expect to meet Jesus, not descending from on high in glory, but coming round a street corner. We should expect Jesus in the next person we meet. I think Jesus would surprise us by being least like what we expect and most like what we should be, so I think we should be open to finding Jesus where and when we don’t expect. We should look for Jesus, not in great churches or cathedrals, but in a stable or a barn.

When? Well, does anybody really know what time it is?  I think it’s now.

It's A Pretty Solid Idea

The church calendar is a seasonal one, so it’s perhaps not surprising the new year doesn’t begin with January 1, it begins with the season of Advent. It might seem like Christmas is already here in lots of ways, but Advent provides a time of reflection and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. It’s worth taking the time to pause and wonder as we journey towards the nativity.

Hang on, though, we’re not there yet. That’s next week.

One hundred years ago, Pope Pius XI had an idea that, given the state of the world, there should be a Sunday that reminds people that Jesus should “reign” in our hearts and minds, that bringing the kingdom of God here (as Jesus talks about) would mean living as if Jesus ruled our daily lives. So the day’s called Reign of Christ or Christ the King Sunday. It was originally earlier in the year, but then moved to the last Sunday before Advent as a timely reminder of the King’s power before the King comes.

Hmm. Again, hang on a minute.

I think the Pope’s idea is pretty solid, really. Jesus didn’t teach behaviour, he tried to show us how to live, recognizing and embracing the divine spirit that’s in each of us, the essential good that’s at the heart of our being. Living true to who we are means living true to that, being that and sharing that with the world. If that’s the kind of “rule” or “reign” we’re talking about, I’m on board.

But the images of kingship and reign were already kind of dated a hundred years ago. For me it conjures up the image of power over people - and the abuse of that power - and a sense of inequity and a hierarchy that I don’t think was on Jesus’ mind. I wasn’t there to ask him, but the life of Jesus was all about power with people, not over them, and empowering them to find that divine spirit within themselves, to love with equity, to serve others.

One might argue that Jesus breaks the traditional model of king and offers something new, or at least tried to remind people of their ideals around kingship, but I wonder if we’re capable of unpacking all its baggage and reframing it that way. Especially in a world with “No Kings” protests and leaders who claim absolute power or behave as if their “rule” can’t be challenged.

But maybe there’s other images that might bring us to a better understanding of how Jesus shows us to live the love in our hearts, the inherent good that’s in us, the life that comes from knowing that divine spirit that’s in all living things. Maybe king or queen or a regal image works for you. What about a teacher? We often hear Jesus called that in scripture. What about a mentor? Guide? Companion? Friend? Therapist, even? What about the most intimate, engaging, integrated, connected, loving, cherished, faithful, generous, deepest relationship you can possibly imagine, what about that one?

That’s how Jesus wants to be known and lived. Imagine that ruling the world.

Hear Me Out

It’s exhausting, Jesus. Sometimes, it’s just tiresome and exhausting.

Read the news, Jesus. Hurricanes, typhoons, floods, earthquakes. It seems like the earth’s angry. And why not. We don’t seem to be taking care of it any better than we take care of each other.

There’s war, Jesus, and threats of war. Not just nations fighting each other, either. Violence and conflict between individuals is everywhere. If it’s not physical, it’s verbal. The angry back and forth when people don’t agree, attacking people personally when we don’t like their ideas, saying whatever we want without any consideration or filter because we’re entitled to do so. People are persecuted. There’s hate. And bigotry. 

There’s disease, plagues and famine. People are sick and hungry and we could do more about that, but it costs money and where’s the profit? The rich are getting richer and poor even more so. Or dying. So many people are dying that it’s not “news” any more. One or two here, a dozen there, hundreds or thousands over there.

It’s exhausting, Jesus. Some days it feels like we’re in the End Times, Jesus, practically a biblical apocalypse. Kind of like you describe. (Luke 21:5-19)

Don’t be afraid, says Jesus. God is with you. “By your endurance you will gain your souls”

Yeah. That’s good to know, Jesus. And I know that should be enough because you’re Jesus and all, but sometimes you can be a little dark and we could use a little something more.

Let’s talk about it then, I imagine Jesus might say. Look at Isaiah. (We like Isaiah, not just for all his prophecies we think are about Jesus, but also because, for all the destruction and suffering that Isaiah prophesied, there are great words of hope and descriptions of what amazing things God is doing to create a better world.)

“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” God says through Isaiah. Im creating a world where there’ll be no more crying, no more distress, people will have homes and food and live long happy lives. It’s going to be different. Everyone and everything will get along and there’ll be peace. (Isaiah 65:17-25)

And the important part to notice there, Jesus might say, is that Isaiah says God is creating. Is, not just did or will, but is. We’re on the way there, but it’s a process. It’s a journey and we’re on the way.

There is light in the shadows, there’s good at work around the evil, look for it, be inspired by it and be it, Jesus might say. It’s a journey and there are challenges to walking the Good Road. That’s what I’m trying to show you, Jesus might say, a life that you can live true the divine spirit that’s in you, just like me, that creates good, that shares good, and makes a good world.

It’s still exhausting, sometimes. Let’s do it together.

What's Heaven Like, Exactly?

What’s next?

I find that seems to be on people’s minds at this time of year. What’s next, not on the daily schedule, but on the Big One, the life schedule.

November is the month of remembering, not just because of Remembrance Day but also All Saints Day and All Souls Day, the days following All Hallows’ Eve. It’s the time of year that Celtic tradition describes as being liminal, when the veil between this life and the next is thinnest. The seasons have changed and, in this part of the world at least, nature’s getting ready for winter. We see empty trees and brown fields and most of nature seems to have died.

Our remembering comes with a sense of loss, of lives ended, and wondering about what might come after this life. So. What’s next?

I don’t know exactly, but I do know some things for sure. 

I want to say that I don’t know because I haven’t been there. But that’s not accurate. I just don’t remember. I believe we come from God and we return to God. The divine spirit is in all living things - God’s the energy of life that powers us and connects us - but we’ve become disconnected from God, living into our earthiness, rather than in a balance with our spirit. That’s what Jesus is all about, showing us how to embrace and engage that spirit, reconnecting with God and with each other and creation.

I think that’s what Jesus means when he says that God is “God not of the dead, but of the living. To God all are alive” (Luke 20:38). In this life and the next. That’s the point of resurrection, the new life with God.

After this life, we return to God. Everyone. Every. One. So, yes, that means no one goes to a “hell,” we all go to God. God is grace and love. We find that when our spirit connects with God. That’s what Jesus means by “the kingdom of heaven is near.” Or here. It’s already in us. Created in the image of God, we are good. We are love, grace, compassion, all the things that Jesus lives to show us. That’s the heaven we can bring here.

But what’s that heaven like, exactly? That’s the part I don’t know, exactly. I’m pretty sure it’s not this, and I mean that in a good way. Going back again to the stories of our beginning, I believe that we already live in the “Eden” of the Bible, we just aren’t aware and connected enough to see it. We learned to have free will and make choices, we haven’t always made good ones and we’ve strayed from our job as good stewards of the garden. Maybe that’s why we tend to image heaven as the most beautiful place on earth.

So maybe that’s what heaven is like, being so intimately connected to God that it feels like the beginning of the creation story, in the garden. Maybe it’s whatever we can imagine that brings us into the fullness of knowing God, what the 16th century poet Edmund Spenser called the “endless perfectness.” From our vantage point here, that means we imagine it with what we know and understand in this life. A beautiful, sunny pastoral scene, perhaps, or a great family gathering, music or toys or animals or whatever brings us the most joy.

Because that’s one other thing I know. Whatever it will be, we will be what Jesus draws us to in this life: we will be one with God.

For All the Saints

Hallowe’en is a pretty big deal for lots of people. And why not? It’s fun, kids and adults dress up and have a good time. There’s pumpkin carving, candy, decorations, trick or treating, candy,  parties, fringe benefits like the littlest ones dressing up and visiting seniors, candy, Hallowe’en “parades” at school, stopping by the local Legion or community hall for hot chocolate or hot dogs while you’re out and about. And candy. Some people even make their own costumes. Did I mention candy?

Sure, some people object to it on religious grounds, citing the connection to pagan festivals, and how some have used the opportunity to promote horror (the bad kind) more than fun. But it is what we make it, and if that’s an enjoyable opportunity to meet people, share some kindness (and candy) and create community, then let’s make it that. After all, it may have become mostly secular and we can argue about its roots, but religion started it right? The clue is the apostrophe.

Hallowe’en comes from All Hallow’s Eve. Like Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, it’s the night before a big day, All Hallows or the more familiar All Saints. Formally, it’s actually the first day of three: All Hallow’s Eve, All Hallows (or All Saints) and All Souls. Basically - and please learn more about it - that covers the getting ready (Eve), all the formal saints (Saints) and everybody else (Souls). It’s really about remembering people that are important to us, the historically saintly and the personally saintly.

So, let’s take a moment and wonder about what makes a saint. 

I don’t think it has anything to do with being properly religious, whatever that might be - and there are a lot of opinions about that. I don’t think Jesus thought that, either. In fact, I think, Jesus had some really good ideas about that and lived a life that showed us.

One of the things that’s key to all of it, though, is wrapped up in that expression we commonly call The Golden Rule. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Jesus uses it and he’s not the first or only one to do so. It’s a principle that appears in almost every tradition and culture.

Thing is, I think we understand that to mean a certain mutuality, that there’s some reciprocity to the expression. In other words, do to others as you’d like them to do to you in order that they will do to you as you’d like them to do. That sounds convoluted, but essentially we do it with the expectation that we’ll get something in return. The better we treat them, the better they’ll treat us.

But I don’t think Jesus means it that way. In keeping with living God’s love into the world - Gods love which is unconditional - I think Jesus means for us to “do to others” the same way. It’s about how we live, not about the expectation of what we might get back. We should love because we love, not so that we’ll be loved. We should be kind because we are kind, not so that others will be kind to us.

I think we find it so challenging when Jesus says things like “love your enemies and do good to those who hate you” because we want our love to change them. We have an expectation of its effect on them. But that’s not what it’s about, Jesus would say, it’s about its effect on you.

Loving, caring, living the good that’s in us into the world, without an expectation of return. I think Jesus would say that’s saintly. 

Do You Know You?

Jesus tells a lot of stories. The Gospel of Luke has more of these stories, called parables, than the other gospels. Parables can seem simple, an obvious teaching tool, but they’re deeper than that and can invite us to wonder about so much more than that simple point they seem to make.

In Luke 18, Jesus tells a couple of stories to illustrate aspects of prayer. One, about an unjust judge facing off against a persistent widow, seems to be about being persistent - and consistent! - in prayer. But it raises the question of what prayer really is: that it’s inspiration and action, especially when it comes to justice and care for others. “Pray with your feet,” an African proverb says.

Then, Jesus tells a story about a pharisee, a leader of the temple, and a tax collector, pretty much a synonym for “sinner” in Jesus’ day, going to the temple to pray. The pharisee stands at the front by himself in his fancy ceremonial robes, raises his hands and loudly prays his thanks for not being like other people, listing the worst of the worst ending with “like that tax collector.” He performs all the right rituals and makes all the right donations, he says. The tax collector stands at a distance, head bowed, beating his chest. He simply and quietly asks for mercy because he’s a sinner. With these two contrasting examples, Jesus tells them that it’s the tax collector who goes home “justified,” or right with God: “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The story seems to have  a pretty simple point which Jesus states clearly at the end there. And the author of Luke sets it up, just in case it wasn’t clear enough: “he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”

But it just isn’t that simple. 

Despite our learned response that pharisees are dishonest, ungodly enemies of Jesus in the bible, that’s a generalization of a group of people who were often the most well respected holy men in the community, the guardians of the law, the keepers of the temple. That’s probably how most of the people hearing this story for the first time in the first century would have known them. And there doesn’t seem to be any indication in the story that the pharisee is saying anything that’s not true. Maybe he really is thankful not to be one of those “bad” people, maybe he does tithe and follow the letter of the ritual law.

Not tax collectors, though. They were mostly reviled and hated, known more for working with the occupying Romans and rich upper class to bleed the poor. They were often dishonest and corrupt. That’s how most of the people Jesus talked to, especially the poor, would have known them.

And that’s just it. We don’t know these characters beyond their stereotype. While that might illustrate a point about behaviour, I think it ought to raise some pretty big questions for us. Like, what is humility, and what does it mean to be authentic and true to who we are? Even, who am I?

To be truly humble is to speak from the heart and recognize who we are, beyond, or perhaps in spite of, our behaviour. God knows us for who we truly are, so when we come to God in prayer, we cannot make our relationship with God right unless we speak from the heart with honesty and sincerity. It’s the source of right relationships with each other and the world around us, too, because the same divine spirit of life that’s in us is in all creation.

And it’s not comparative, either.  I wonder how often we hear this story and think, well of course one wants to be like the tax collector. Thank goodness I’m not like that pharisee. But wait a minute.  Isn’t that just what the pharisee said?  It isn’t about the stereotype, or how he behaves or doesn’t. It’s about who we are and how we are, living out authentically and sincerely the love that’s in our heart. It’s about wondering: who am I?

Pray With Your Feet

According to the gospel of Luke, Jesus once told a story about a judge and a widow. The judge, Jesus says, “neither feared God nor had respect for people.” Not a good start if you’re looking for justice. And the widow was. The judge refused to help her, but the widow is persistent and keeps after him. In the end, the judge gives in, not because he thought her cause was just, but because she kept bothering him and she wore him down.

Pretty searing indictment of the system, right? Jesus frequently pointed out these kind of power dynamics in structures and how important it is to challenge them, condemn them and fix them.

Except, that doesn’t seem to be why he tells the story. “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” That’s how the gospel’s author introduces it. And it’s followed by another prayer story, the one where the religious leader prays all fancy for show and the tax collector stands off by themselves and prays humbly and honestly.

Be persistent in prayer and pray often, Jesus is saying, be authentic and sincere. Really good advice, especially coming from someone who should know. I imagine that after he told those stories, someone in the crowd probably said “yes, offering thoughts and prayers is so important.”

“Yes,” Jesus says. And then he’d pause. “No, wait. Let’s make sure we all understand what we’re talking about.”

Prayer can’t just be words.

We don’t know what the issue is for the widow, just that she is seeking justice, literally pursuing it. As a widow, she has little power or status and no influence, just her persistence, not just in words, but action. Perhaps she was alone because no one else would stand up for her. But I imagine her protesting in front of the judge’s office, perhaps talking to people, the media, rallying support for her cause. I know I’ve just brought that into a more contemporary context, but isn’t that what Jesus wants us to do, bring these stories into our own time and place?

How can we offer prayer for injustice without acting to change it? Can we pray for the hungry without offering food? Or the thirsty, without offering water? Can we pray for the homeless without offering shelter? Can we pray for those who haven’t coats for the winter, without offering them clothing? Or the sick and the shut-in, without offering care and comfort?

How can we pray for a better world - that “your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven” - if our prayer isn’t accompanied by intentional action to make it so? That action must be persistent, unyielding and determined, it must be authentic and sincere. Words aren’t enough. John Lewis, the civil rights leader and later member of the US Congress, frequently quoted the African proverb “pray with your feet.” He participated in sit-ins, marches and the Freedom Rides, organized and attended non-violent protests, standing up to injustice and challenging the political and social powers.

What can you do? Be persistent and pray with your feet.