Roots Hold Me Close

In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes himself with a number of statements that begin “I am” something. I like that he doesn’t say “I’m like” this or that, he says “I am.” It just feels like he’s being more direct, more connected to the thing and then I feel more connected to the thing. Sure, it’s a metaphor, but I just feel a deeper connection - “I am” is just more powerful than “I’m like.” To me, anyway.

Maybe it’s because it reminds me of God talking to Moses back in Exodus. Remember the burning bush conversation? Moses asks God for a name to tell the people who sent him and God says “I am who I am … tell them, ‘I am’ has sent me to you.” Maybe that’s the deeper connection. And connection is the point of Jesus saying that. 

One that I always think of at this time of year is when Jesus says “I am the true vine … I am the vine; you are the branches.” (John 15:1,5) It's multilayered and not without its challenges, but to me, that just reminds me of how vines work: long stems, busy tendrils, clingy roots, dense leaves. It speaks to an intimate relationship, a connectedness that is deeply rooted, nurturing and mutually beneficial. Health and wholeness in this image is a dense, complicated, bushy plant.

That might seem a less than appropriate image at this time of year: where we live, it’s almost winter. Those dense, bushy vines with their long stems and clingy tendrils are now hard, brown, leafless - and lifeless - stems, curled up and frozen. Their time is done. They seem dead.

But they’re not. They’re waiting. Those roots, hidden in the ground, are just waiting to spring back to life again. Those roots that anchor the vine, that draw nourishment from the soil and feed the vine, those roots that connect the vine to the earth are just waiting to bring life to the vine. And they will: spring will come.

We don’t have any control of when winter comes to our lives. Sometimes it’s seasonal, sometimes it’s grief, the cold of loneliness or hurt. Sometimes maybe it’s a blizzard of busy that threatens to overwhelm us, wear us out or disconnect us from the world around us.

But. We are part of the vine. We have roots. And when those roots dig deep into love, they bring us life. When we remember that they connect us to the earth and to each other, they bring us life. Even when cold winds blow or frost tries to break us, roots anchor us and hold us up. Even when it feels as though winter is never-ending, it will, and spring will come and roots will find the water and nourishment we need for new life. Not to return to the old life, but to grow and thrive in a new day.

Dig deep. Reach out. Roots hold us close to the earth, close to each other. Roots hold us close to God, the spirit of life in all things.

Moses Had a Choice

I wonder what Moses was really thinking when God spoke to him through the burning bush and told him he had to go back to Egypt. He certainly didn’t seem keen.

Moses was born into a Hebrew family in Egypt, the son of slaves. You might know the story from Sunday School, of how Moses was hidden in a basket on the river and the daughter of the pharaoh finds him. If not, check out the book of Exodus for his life story.

Pharaoh’s daughter decides to raise him in the palace as her own. He lived a privileged life of luxury while the Hebrew people - his people - were oppressed, working as slave labour. As an adult, he sees an Egyptian beating a slave and responds with anger, killing him. Fearing the pharaoh, he runs away, wandering for awhile, lost and alone until he finds himself in Midian. He settles down there, meets his wife, builds a family, caring for sheep for his father-in-law. It’s a good life, a comfortable life far from Egypt, far from the suffering of Hebrew slaves or fear of punishment for his actions. Thank goodness he could leave that all behind.

And then, God says “I have a job for you. I need you to go and lead the Hebrew people  out of Egypt and into freedom.” 

I imagine Moses first response was more likely “me and what army?” But God says nope, just you. And me, I’ll be with you. Moses comes up with a few reasons why he shouldn’t go. But God has answers and God’s sending him on a mission. Why wouldn’t he want to go?

Well, life was good for Moses. It was peaceful and prosperous and all that other stuff was far in the past. Midian was a long way from Egypt and Moses didn’t seem to hear the cries of his people as clearly as God did. Why would Moses want to give up his new life to go back there? And how’s this going to work again? I’m just going to tell Pharaoh to let them leave and the people will follow me? I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.

It isn’t. It’s going to be dangerous, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be a struggle. And Moses has no idea how it’s all going to work out.

But I wonder if, in that moment, Moses realized that the peace he thought he’d found wasn’t whole. I wonder if he didn’t begin to think that true wholeness isn’t just in the self, but in how one offers oneself to the peace of others. And sometimes that’s a struggle.

Martin Luther King Jr. is often credited with saying that true peace isn’t the absence of tension and conflict, but the presence of justice. I think that’s what God was calling Moses to, to bring justice and freedom, to bring equity and opportunity.

Moses had a choice and he could have said no. His life was peaceful and prosperous, but he chose to give that up in order to help others find that promise as well.

Remembrance Day reminds us of those who sacrificed in war for that same reason. And in today’s world, we’re surrounded by so many people in need of justice and peace. What will we choose to do?

A Trinity of Wondering

I wonder sometimes at our ability to take some living, breathing thing and cast it in stone or print and thereby suck the life out of it. That sounds awfully dark and Halloween inspired, but it’s actually the celebration of the next day that’s inspiring my wonder.

November 1 is All Saints Day on the church calendar. We made being a "saint" something to achieve with a lifetime of righteousness, a miracle or two, and most certainly something in the distant past. We put "St." in front of their names, built churches we named after them, and built statues. We literally cast them in stone. And, don't get me wrong, when we hold up those stories as examples of living as Jesus taught, as examples of living well with God and the world, that's great, but what about that saint you work with, or live with, or go to church with or play hockey with?

I’ve said it before: I think we're surrounded by saints. I think every one of us is "saint material." We are each blessed with God's presence and the capacity to love.  We can be saints in this moment and inspire saintliness in others, here and now. We don't have to wait. Nor do we have to be famous or provide a grand gesture, act or example of our sainthood. Nor do we need someone else’s stamp of approval. We can each do it right now in this moment.

Try this: look around you. I bet you know some saints. Get to know some living, breathing examples of good. Be a living, breathing example of good.

I keep wondering. I wonder about the Bible, too. It should be a living thing whose stories speak to us about what is true and right. It should be teaching us how to live together and build positive relationships with God, the world and each other right now. But sometimes it's just a book. (It's literally not, by the way, it's more of a collection of books.  Like a library.) Sometimes it's a book that's held up as some kind of powerful icon wielded by people who tell you what's in it. It seems that, while more Bibles are being purchased, in more forms and languages than ever before, less and less people are actually reading it. So the Word has become more accessible, but we're reading it less. 

Try this: read the Bible. Think about how it speaks to you. Then see what others have to say about it. You'd do that with other books, or movies, even tv shows. Why not the Bible?

Or how about the church itself. It's become such an institution, with structures and doctrines and forms and traditions, that we often have to fight to keep it the living, breathing community it's meant to be. It ought to be about people, loving and caring for people, gracefully and compassionately building relationships, helping each other and gratefully sharing each moment of living. No, it's not a building, but sometimes we need a place to gather and support our community. No, it's not a stodgy, stuck in the past remnant of something whose time is done, but sometimes stories and traditions from the past speak to us in the present in ways which have meaning. We worry that this thing we know is dying, but we also believe in new life and the beginning and ending of things.

Try this: go to church. Maybe more than one. See if the experience speaks to you, see if you share something with the people there. See if you feel you belong there. Maybe you don't. But how will you know unless you try? I wonder.

All Dressed Up

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I was a devil for Halloween when I was little. I was three or four years old, I think, and there’s photographic evidence of me walking down the street in my little red costume, plastic pitchfork in hand, swinging my tail. My parents no doubt thought it was appropriate. One of my brothers was a bat that year and the other was a clown. It was the sixties.

Things have changed a bit. There’s far less DIY costumes, for starters. That’s a shame because you can’t beat a good made-by-my-mom-or-dad costume. I was an astronaut the year they landed on the moon and, one time - just one time, I was Robin to my older brother’s Batman. Now there’s lots of store bought ones, which is fine, although they’re of varying degrees of quality. Most popular this year (according to Google) includes Shrunken Head Bob from the Beetlejuice movies, Beetlejuice himself, Taylor Swift, Barbie and Ken, Tinkerbell, clowns, witches, skeletons and, of course, favourite action figures. There’s no politicians on anyone’s list, so that’s one less scary thing to watch out for.

The point is, whoever or whatever we dress up as, it’s not who we really are. 

That’s in the old pagan origins of Halloween. It’s tied to the ancient celtic festival of Samhain - and various other ancient pagan festivals, too - when people believed that the boundary between this and the “otherworld” was thin. Spirits, harmless and harmful, were able to pass through, and families honoured their ancestors and warded off past enemies and evil spirits. That’s the origin of wearing masks and costumes, to hide one’s identity from the harmful spirits.

But the name Hallowe’en comes from All Hallow’s Eve, the night before All Hallows Day or, as we know it now, All Saints Day.  That’s the day the church celebrates “saints,” those people that have been historically held up as examples of living well as a follower of Jesus, of living as Jesus taught us to live.

It would be great to see some saints out at Halloween. Maybe that would remind us to look for them the other 364 days of the year.

In the spirit and fun of All Hallow’s Eve, don’t lose sight of the day after. Honouring our ancestors, honouring historical saints, honouring biblical characters is important and we can learn from them. But don’t let your sight rest solely on the past. Look around you. I bet you know a few saints, real, living, breathing saints. Of course you do. Saints don’t have to be long dead, dusty statues in an old church. The ones that will have the most meaning in our lives are the ones that are in our lives.

It might be someone who has a specific role that helps people or just someone who volunteers, someone who cares, someone who’s there when you need them. It could be someone whose courage inspires you, or their creativity or their commitment. Or it could just be someone making their way through the day.

Keep your eyes open. They’re everywhere. Sometimes they might even be disguised or be hiding in plain sight or in an unlikely place. Sometimes they might even look a little devilish, but look closely. Look for what’s true.

Two Journeys

Do you ever wonder which animals got to go where on the ark? Maybe it’s just me.

The story of the flood in Genesis has some interesting detail and some great opportunities to wonder about things that are missing. So I wonder about some of those and what we might learn from expanding the story a bit. It’s a little bit of midrash, I suppose, the Jewish tradition of telling stories about the scriptural texts that illuminate what the text is about or might explore the text from a different perspective. 

For example, God tells Noah how to build the ark with some detail about size and construction, including that it have a roof, a door in the side and “a lower, second and third decks.” So how’d they decide who went where? (I also wonder about how they all got along while they were on the ark, but lets focus on ones thing at a time.)

Traditionally, steerage is the lowest part of the ship. And the cheapest. I don’t think it’s called that anymore, but the cheapest “state rooms” on a cruise ship are still lower deck and in the interior. Not that any of Noah’s cabins had a view. 

But there’s a hierarchy. Worst cabins in the bottom, better ones in the top. So who went where. Did the lions get the penthouse because they’re king and queen of the beasts? What about tigers? Or bears, they’re pretty strong. Monkeys can climb, so maybe they should be up top, too. Dung beetles could definitely go in the basement.

If I were telling the story, I might have the animals all talking to each other and working it out. It wouldn’t be based on any artificial hierarchy or who was the strongest. It would be more about where they felt they belonged, practicality and comfort, and the animals would be concerned for each other. The elephants and the hippos might say, hey we’re pretty heavy, it’d be good to have that weight in the bottom for ballast. The more nocturnal animals would probably want to be further down, too. I’d have the lions, very dignified, offering their spot to the sheep and taking a more cramped space for themselves. The quieter animals who sleep a lot would have their own section and the busy, noisy ones would be somewhere else, probably another deck, even. The birds would be everywhere, controlling the traffic and keeping things running smoothly, keeping a watchful eye out for anyone who needed help or even just a little attention. The dogs and cats would end up being with Noah and the family because that’s just where they belong. And none of the other animals would be envious at all.

I think there’d be a good lesson it that story. A lesson Jesus’ disciples might have learned.

Mark tells the story of James and John one day asking Jesus if they could sit either side of him in his “glory,” you know, in heaven. Jesus, of course, says that’s not for him to say. The other disciples hear about this and are instantly envious. I don’t think that James and John thought that they were better than anyone else, they were just asking because they wanted to be with Jesus. But the other disciples see it differently. Maybe they already thought there was a hierarchy among them. Who was called first or came from the better background, who did the best miracles or preached the best, who was the smartest or who had money, who knew the right people or was physically the strongest. That’s the kind of criteria we’d use today, isn’t it?

But Jesus has another way of looking at it. The greatest, says Jesus, are those who serve others with love, respect and equity. Jesus came to serve, he says, not to be served. Jesus is about serving the world around him.

That’s what the animals on the ark do in my little story. There’s no envy, there’s no hierarchy, there’s only love and care for each other. How else would you make it through a forty day journey at sea? Or a lifetime on earth?

What Are You Thankful For?

There’s a lot going on in the world right now. I don’t suppose that’s anything new. Even for people who remember “simpler times” or “better days,” there were moments even then that weren’t so simple and certainly weren’t better for everyone.

Things sure seem bigger now and harder to get away from. We’re more global, there’s more news being reported. That news isn’t always reliable or factual, either, and it’s easier to manipulate the truth today with social media. The more we can connect with technology, the more disconnected we seem to be. 

Anxiety, worry, a lack of confidence in ourselves or the world around us, many - and real - are our fears.

So. Happy Thanksgiving.  

I don’t mean that to be sarcastic or cynical. A holiday to remind us to be thankful when we can feel overwhelmed with reasons to not be is a great thing. Tie that to harvest time and the beautiful change in season, throw in some great traditions around family and friends, add a turkey or some festive feast on the table and we really got something.

Still, there's lots of people who struggle to find something to be thankful for. And some who won't succeed. Their table might not be full. And for those whose table is, they may find that things to be thankful for come more readily to mind. If they really try.

And, sure, there may be some people who find it easy to be thankful because gratitude comes easily to them. They aren't as anxious and fearful, but readily embrace the world as it comes, looking for the goodness they know is in all life. I know these people exist because I live with one. It's a gift that not many have. It’s the gift of seeing good. Thank goodness they share it.

Jesus knows that so many of us are afraid. He says “don't be afraid" more than anything else in his ministry. He says don’t be anxious, too. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has some words during the famous Sermon on the Mount for those who struggle with fear and anxiety, worry and confidence. He says, "don't worry about your life … look at the birds of the air … consider the lilies, how they grow" (Matt. 6:25-29).  If God takes care of  these, then you must know that God will take care of you, too. Life is about so much more than just stuff, he says.

Those are very comforting words. Just don’t think that means you don’t have to do anything and you’ll be taken care of. See, the birds are doing what birds do, the lilies, the grass, all the creation around us is doing what it does: it’s engaged in just living, living without the worry of stuff.

All of this "don't worry" business comes after Jesus reminds us that we can't have two masters. Choose what will govern your life, God or stuff (Matt. 6:24). Wealth, riches, money - the King James bible calls it a wonderful word: mammon, the desire for material things.

I don't think that Jesus is saying that having wealth, money or things is inherently bad. But when material things rule our lives, we value all things in that context and our lives become an endless quest to meet a need for more stuff that we can never achieve. We begin to see life in the context of what we don't have, rather than what we do, what we want, rather than need, and what we fear losing, rather than what we're willing to share. The fear of scarcity overwhelms the joy of abundance and we seek to acquire more and protect what we have.

When we choose God, we choose love. We value our selves more than our stuff, and love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We choose compassion and care and we share that with others. And when we all share love, we create a world in which all that we need is shared. We feed and care for each other, we nurture confidence and we encourage and inspire creativity and, most important of all, we’re not afraid to engage others in a relationship based in that love.

I know that might feel impossible in today’s world, but I bet Jesus would say "don't worry. That love is already in you. Stuff is not. Don’t be afraid to share that love that's in you." Be thankful for that.

What is Love?

There was a time when 1 Corinthians 13 was the “go to” scripture reading to hear at weddings. That’s Paul’s beautiful description of love that begins “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” You’ve probably heard it. “The greatest of these is love,” it concludes.

I’m not sure if it’s still as common. There are so many non-biblical things read now, and weddings are far less likely to be “churchy” these days.

Still, give it a read - reading all of Paul’s first letter to the people at Corinth is a good idea, too - and you can easily see why this would be appropriate, and popular, for a wedding. In that beautiful moment of affirming your love and committing to each other surrounded by loved ones, what more could you ask for than an eloquent description of the love that you celebrate together?

Except … Paul didn’t write these words to people who were happy and doing well and celebrating a loving relationship. He wrote them to people who were struggling, and finding that being in relationship as a community was a challenge, full of differences and disagreements. It seems Jesus’ commandment to ”love one another” wasn’t as easy as they thought and they weren’t being too successful at it.

Paul’s just finished telling the Corinthians that being in community is like being a body. We’re each different and unique parts, but we need all the parts, working together, for the body to be whole. At the end of that discourse about being in relationship, Paul writes “I will show you a still more excellent way.” His next words are this practical description of  love, what it means to love and how, unlike all these other things, love is eternal.

Long before the Gospel of John told how Jesus commanded the disciples (and us) that they should love one another as Jesus had shown them to do (John 13), here’s Paul distilling the stories and teaching what he knows of Jesus into his own words. And, just like Jesus, he’s speaking to the troubled, the broken and hurting. First of all, love is at the heart of all things. Have all the gifts of language, prophecy, wisdom and faith, and everything else, but they are meaningless without being grounded in love.

And what is love? Well, it’s an action word: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

Keep love at the heart of things and put it into action like this, says Paul, and it never fails. All of the other things in life have an ending when this life ends. Even faith and hope will be fulfilled when we return home to God. But love doesn’t end because God is love and the love that gives us life here is the love that fulfills us when this life is done.

These aren’t just words for those who’ve found love, who are prepared to commit to a relationship. It’s for those who struggle to love, who find it difficult, who are challenged by the world around them. Love one another the way I showed you, says Jesus. Here’s a practical description, says Paul.

Imagine that kind of love in action. Don’t just make noise. Make a difference. Go and love.