You're More Than Enough

There are some stories of Jesus that we tell so often, they can become familiar in a way that’s comfortable but not always helpful.

Take that story about Jesus walking on water, for example. It’s so familiar that we even started using the expression “walks on water” to mean someone who’s super holy or super human. It’s unfortunate that we use that to single someone out - often sarcastically, too - because we’re all super holy and we’re all super humans. Yes, yes you are. I think it’s actually the point of the story. Well, one of them at least. Depending on your perspective, there’s sure more than one.

Matthew, Mark and John all tell their version of the story. Matthew’s my favourite. It goes like this. After the famous potluck meal where five thousand people are fed by loaves and fish, Jesus sends the disciples across the lake in a boat while he takes some “me” time and prays. A storm comes up and the disciples’ boat’s in trouble. They’re afraid, although they’re fishermen so they might not have been that scared until they see this spectre walking across the water towards them. It’s Jesus and he shouts to them over the storm "take heart, it's me, don't be afraid." Then Peter says "if it's really you, then tell me to walk on the water towards you." Jesus tells him to, and Peter steps out of the boat and walks on the water. But he starts to be more aware of the storm around him and he starts to sink. He calls out to Jesus who pulls him back into the boat and says “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matt.14:31)

Couple of things I think are critical to this story. First, Jesus isn’t the only one who walks on the water. Peter does, too. But then he becomes afraid of the storm and the water, appears to become aware of the seeming impossibility of what he’s doing and sinks. Jesus saves him. Although, again, Peter’s a fisherman, you’d think he’d be more secure in the water, even in a storm. Still, remember that part about Peter taking a few steps on the water.

Second, when Jesus helps him and says the famous line “you of little faith, why did you doubt?” there is no indication of tone. Determining it to be criticism, disappointment or compassion is entirely up to interpretation. Historically, I think we’ve landed quite heavily on the side of how important it is to have faith in Jesus. I know I’ve sure heard it preached is we all have to have faith in Jesus. Jesus saves. And, after all, it’s a miracle story: Jesus walks on water and Peter can’t.

But he did. Very briefly, but he did. So what if we could hear the tone of Jesus' voice and see what’s in his eyes when he looks at Peter.

What if Jesus meant to congratulate him? What if Jesus really meant "wow, Peter, that was amazing! You’re awesome! Look what you did with just a little faith: you got out of the safety of the boat, took the risk, and came to me. And look what happened when you began to doubt yourself. It didn't turn out the way you thought it would, but I was there with you. The whole time, I was there with you."

What if this story is about reminding us that faith is about risk, not safety? Everyone else stayed in the boat - the place of safety - and Peter was the one with faith enough to step out. What if the story is reminding us that faith isn't about the successful completion of a task, but about making the effort in the first place. Maybe it wasn't enough faith to defeat the laws of physics, but it was enough to bring Peter closer to Jesus. What if faith isn't about blindly believing something because you were told to, but about thinking, discerning, risking, questioning, even doubting, because it brings you closer to God?

What if we’re all amazing, too? What if there's "a little faith" in each of us? A little faith that won't grow if we protect it and keep it safe. A little faith that will grow when we bring it out and use it, risk it, test it, question it and offer it because Jesus calls us to do so and offers his hand to us, no matter the outcome.

That's Gonna Leave A Mark

Did you wrestle with God today?

In the book of Genesis, Jacob - literally the father of Israel - wrestles during the night with someone who turns out to be God in human form. The wrestler Jacob meets can’t seem to defeat him, so they put his hip out of joint. Still Jacob won’t let go until the other figure blesses him. When they do, they say that Jacob has “striven with God and with humans” and Jacob realizes that he’s “seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” You can read this part of Jacob’s story in Genesis 32:22-31. The whole story of Jacob in chapters 25-49. It’s worth a read.

This story isn’t just about the moment and the reaffirmation of Jacob’s role in the bigger story of Israel, it’s about Jacob’s life and our lives, too.

Jacob’s life isn’t easy. There are struggles, sometimes with himself, sometimes with God. Sometimes of his own making and sometimes how others - and life in general - treat him. But it’s his life.

Sometimes, like in this moment, those struggles yield obvious blessings. Sometimes the blessing may simply be hidden in how his story is advanced. But these struggles leave a mark or an imprint, too, impacting Jacob in a way that he will carry with him forever. Here, an obvious limp from the sheer physicality of the struggle, but at other times, it may simply be a learning, a subtle impact on his personality or a nuance in the way he lives. This moment doesn’t create a dramatic change in Jacob, but he is changed, nonetheless.

Just like in the earlier story of Jacob’s dream of the stairway between heaven and earth, he names the place of this experience. Because he realizes it was God that he had faced, he calls it Peniel, which means “face of God.”

If only God were always that obvious.

I think we wrestle with God everyday. Not every moment is a Peniel moment and we might not recognize God right away, if at all. But I think we’re constantly encountering God in ways that challenge us as well as affirm and comfort us. There are blessings in those moments and those experiences change us in ways that are both obvious and subtle. 

One of the most important parts of the story is that Jacob won’t let go. I don’t think it’s really a question of the wrestling God can’t defeat Jacob, I think Jacob simply won’t give up and let go. I wonder if that isn’t the secret to the success of Jacob’s life story: Jacob simply won’t let go of God.

In our own stories, I wonder how tightly we might hold on to God, however we know God. As the traditional God of our faith traditions, as the spirit of life that’s in all things, as the love, grace, kindness or hope that’s in that living. Hold tight, it’s gonna leave a mark. And a blessing.

Where The Good Road Begins

From early in his ministry, Jesus told people that the kingdom of heaven was near. He didn’t mean the good place to which everyone wants to go after this life is done, he meant how the good place could be here. The important word there is good. The kingdom of heaven being here meant everyone living into the good that is in them, knowing the divine spirit in their heart and living that into the world. This world, not some other place.

The First Nations Version, an Indigenous Translation of the New Testament, translates that kingdom of heaven as “the good road from above.” I love that image. It implies the journey of life, the constant movement of how we experience it and reminds us that heaven isn’t just a destination at the other end of this life, but something we can actively live. This heaven isn’t just a moment, but a lifetime and more.

While living it every day as an example, describing how the kingdom works was a little tricky. So Jesus resorted to parables and he began with how all things begin, a seed.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed: the tiniest of seeds that grows into a bush so big that birds can nest in it. It’s a great metaphor for a common biblical theme, that greatness often comes from the smallest, or the least, of things. Plant the seed and it will grow into something much greater. Never underestimate the power of  planting a seed.

But, hang on, some of his listeners might have said. The mustard is small, that’s for sure, but it’s not the smallest seed. It doesn’t grow all that big, either, certainly not big enough for birds to nest in. And, worst of all, it’s a weed. Sure, some used it for flavouring and colouring things, and it was a medicinal herb, but really it was more of an intrusive annoyance than anything else.

What if the point of the mustard seed isn’t just about size, but “ordinariness?” Nothing unique or exotic, but something you might see anywhere, at anytime, even just by the side of the road. What if the point of growing into a great bush isn’t about what we know can happen, but about envisioning something far beyond what we expect, imagining something greater than our own limited experience would allow? What if the point of using a weed is to suggest that we need to look again at what really is valuable to us? We call something a weed because we don’t see its value compared to a more useful plant, but that doesn’t mean it has no value – we just don’t see it. Perhaps others do.

Our lives are full of little, ordinary, everyday things. Even acknowledging that is problematic, isn’t it? What’s little, ordinary or everyday may be different for each of us. But every step moves us somewhere and it’s worth pausing sometimes to wonder about the simplest things we do and where they are taking us. And not just ourselves, of course. The truth is that Jesus didn’t do anything super complicated. Jesus made time for people, especially those that others didn’t. Jesus listened to people, especially those that others didn’t. Jesus cared for people as best he could, especially those that others didn’t. Jesus loved people, especially those that others didn’t.

Even the miracle stories can be understood to be less a divine action in the physical realm and more a divine action of love. When the possessed were exorcized of their demons, it was a miracle that Jesus simply gave them time, understanding and respect that restored their dignity and sense of personhood. When the blind received sight, it was a miracle that Jesus simply made them visible to the world and restored their place in it. When the multitude was hungry, it was a miracle that Jesus inspired such generosity and sharing with a simple gesture of offering all that there was, that all could be fed. Simple, ordinary acts change things.

On Your Mark

I’ve been wrestling with a part of the story of Jacob this week.

Not the part where he wrestles with God, more the wrestles with himself part.

You can find his whole story in Genesis chapters 25-49, more or less. Jacob’s the father of Israel, literally, but he has quite the checkered life. He makes a very unfair deal to get his older brother’s birthright, steals their father’s blessing by pretending to be his brother, runs away to some less than stellar wheeling and dealing elsewhere, wrestles with God, plays favourites with his children and, oh yeah, is repeatedly blessed by God. For all his failings, God still works through him, he just never seems to realize it.

Early on in his story, he’s treated his older brother Esau so badly, he has to run away to his uncle. On the way there, he has a dream. He sees a ladder between earth and heaven “and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” God appears to reaffirm the promise made to Abraham and Isaac, of land and a great nation in the future, and Jacob will become the father of that nation. The ladder isn’t just a sign that heaven and earth are close, they’re connected. Angels travel between them. There is something of heaven here and Jacob realizes it. He wakes up and says to himself “surely God is in this place and I did not know it!” “How awesome is this place!” he says. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”And he marks the spot with a stone and calls it Bethel, which means house of God.

I wonder, though, if he didn’t mark the wrong place. What if God’s presence wasn’t just in some “thing,” a place or time. What if it was in Jacob himself and he didn’t realize it. He keeps on his deal making, even with God, and his life continues to be, well complicated by his behaviour. But would his life have been changed if he’d realized that divine presence was in him all along? What if he didn’t leave that experience of the divine behind at a place, but took it with him? His story may well have played out differently. Hmm. I wonder if things might have changed.

I wonder how often we have an experience of the divine spirit , of meeting God, and we celebrate the moment and then leave it behind or set it apart.

Would it be a different world if we could all see the divine in ourselves and each other and say “how awesome is that! Surely God is in me and you and now I know it?” Maybe it would be as if heaven is here, not just connected by a ladder that only angels - those that we see as special and set apart - can travel.

Later, much later, Jesus will try to do just that. He’ll provide an experience of the divine, a moment of engagement with God, and try to teach us that we are not just full of the divine spirit, but capable of knowing it, engaging it and living it. 

It’s challenging for us to see, though, and, like Jacob, we’d rather just commemorate the moment with something set in stone, than carry it with us. Maybe we need to wrestle with it some more.

Probably Not About Farming

Listen, said Jesus, have I got a story for you. A farmer went out to plant some seed.

You might know the rest of that well worn story, it’s in three of the four gospels. The farmer just chucks the seed around any and everywhere. Some lands on good soil where it grows amazingly well, but lots lands in less than hospitable conditions, on the path, on rocky ground, among the weeds. It’s a great parable.

In each account, it’s followed by the disciples asking Jesus why he teaches in parables. He says that not everyone will understand his teaching and goes on to explain the parable as representing that: the seed is the word and this is how people hear it.

I’m suspicious, though, and I’m not alone. I wonder if this question and answer about parables, and the explanation of this one in particular, might not have been added later. It explains how some people hear and follow Jesus and some don’t. It also makes it pretty clear where you should want to be and that’s good soil. That’s certainly helpful to church leaders.

But Jesus doesn’t explain parables. I think that’s part of the point. Parables allow for interpretation, for there being more than one way to hear the word.

Take this parable, for example. What if it’s not about the seed. What if it’s about the farmer and it’s not about the wastefulness of throwing the seed everywhere but about the generosity of spirit in the giving and the willingness to share with all. What if the farmer is Jesus and the seed is God’s love, shared abundantly with all creation.

What if the farmer is you and the seed is the love, grace and kindness that is offered to all around you with a generous, giving spirit.

What if then, we might take a different perspective of the places the seed lands. When it lands on the path, the birds eat it and they’re fed. When it lands on the rock, it might not take root this time, but eventually, over time, it might make a little pocket of earth in which something might take root. When it lands among the weeds, well, what is a weed anyway? It might just be a good salad.

What if where the seed lands isn’t as important as the seed being offered to all, without expectation of return, without prejudging the worthiness of where it lands. If we could offer love to the world like that, we’d be Jesus.

I’m not suggesting that the interpretation offered in scripture isn’t true, just that I think there can be more than one. I think that’s the reason Jesus uses parables: it’s not just about how it’s told, it’s about how it’s heard, wondered at, and understood.

You might have seen this quote: “We cannot force someone to hear a message they are not ready to receive. But we must never underestimate the power of planting a seed.” So many have said it, I’m not sure who to attribute that to, but it might as well have been Jesus. In a parable. About giving. And receiving. And probably not about farming.

It's A Heavy Load

Sometimes, I struggle with all the structures and traditions of being “church.” I grew up with traditions, but I seem to have shed many of them - in a good way. Traditions are only traditions as long as they’re meaningful. Optimistically, I think that’s one of the reasons there are so many different churches. We each come to God our own way and some things are meaningful to some and not to others. If it’s not meaningful, if it’s not supporting God’s love and grace, encouraging and inspiring us to live it, then it’s just doing something that way because we’ve always done it that way. Or because someone told us to. That’s not meaningful.

Jesus ran into that. I think he was a good Jew who attended synagogue and learned the laws and traditions. But he brought something new to it, something that challenged the religious authorities when the laws and traditions weren’t reflecting the life giving love that God is all about.

Jesus offers a simple message of love and grace, of finding room in our hearts for God's love, and so many seem caught up in laws and traditions, more interested in judging their neighbour for how they behaved than loving them for who they are.

Really connecting with his human side, Jesus has a little bit of a rant, I think, in chapter 11 of Matthew’s gospel. People don't want to listen to his cousin John's message because he was too wild and different, but they don't want to listen to Jesus because he was too ordinary and hung around with sinners. They're like children who won't play each other’s games, but only their own. Some of the cities in which he and the disciples have done great things have virtually ignored them. If that had been a place like Sodom, Jesus says, the people would have seen their work and the city would have been saved.

Wow. Even a place like Sodom. That's pretty damning.

But that's the challenge Jesus puts out there. To follow Jesus is to take into your heart this message of love and grace and to really  live it. 

At first, those Jesus seems to be chastising in this story are those who don't hear the message. But then he points to the religious leaders, the keepers of the law, the scholars and teachers who use their knowledge and the letter of the law to resist the message that threatens their power. That's why the message is so readily heard by the powerless, the weak, the marginalized, the excluded - like children, Jesus says, they have no barrier to a love that welcomes and includes them, that cares for them and values them.

I think that's what Jesus means when he says this: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). The weight of living up to the demands of society is heavy, the burden of following the letter of the law is exhausting. The hypocrisy of claiming the authority of the law and traditions but not living it an even greater burden.

But the "yoke" Jesus talks about binds your heart with God in living out this love he teaches. That is no heavy burden, but an enlightening of spirit. Learning to live that way is freeing and life-giving. It’s the heart of the law.

Hypocrisy is a lot of work. So is maintaining power over others, controlling them and judging all that they do. Jesus offers rest from that weight. Jesus offers the refreshing, enlivening, inspiring peace of God.

But What's Our Body Language Saying?

Not long after Jesus, the apostle Paul was travelling the Mediterranean helping to establish communities of faith that tried to live The Way of Jesus. Not anything like what we’d call “church” today, I don’t think (although, I wasn’t there so I don’t know for sure), but rather trying to build community, learning and living what Jesus taught and showed in his own life.

I know that sounds like what today’s church should be all about, but I imagine in those early days there was less form and structure around it, less “this is how we do that” and more “how shall we do that” when it came to how they met as a community. There was certainly less doctrine and dogma. There was no “we’ve always done it that way” because Jesus brings a new way and part of that new way is how we create community that’s true to its members. It’s not just about being welcoming to anyone that fits in, it’s about acknowledging and affirming what each member brings and how it helps to form the community with what’s true in each individual.

Yes, they struggled with that. We still do and will. It’s a challenge that requires openness to connection, vulnerability and empathy, and we’ve learned to not always be okay with that. But then, Jesus. 

Paul, in a very Jesus way, talked about that, one that was familiar, but that he turned on its head.

Paul said it’s like the body. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ ... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Paul didn’t come up with that. The community as a body with all its parts working together was an image that had been around for awhile. The way it was used helped to identify your “part” so that could determine your place in society. Some parts are more important than others, some aren’t even really needed and some, well, we just don’t talk about those.

But Paul says no! In order for the body to be whole, all parts of the body are important. In fact, there is an equity amongst all the parts of the body and when one part of the body hurts, the whole body suffers; when one part of the body is celebrated, all the body celebrates. In fact, the parts that are often dismissed or ignored, the parts that had been given the least honour, those are the ones that are most important for the health and wholeness of the body.

Which community are we? Are we one that sorts and stacks people according to their part, determining which are more valuable, which are more contributing, pushing out of sight the ones that we judge to be of less use to us. Or do welcome and affirm all, just as they are, treat them with equity, get to know them, build relationships with them, and embrace them as part of the whole.

In the kind of community Jesus and Paul envisioned, we’d honour all people, welcome all the gifts people bring and offer our care for those in need. Yes, that last part’s crucial. The wholeness of the body requires care of all its parts, not just demands of them.