Born to be church

The story of Pentecost is the story of the birth of the church.  Not the building or the institution that we call church, but the whole idea of church.  There is the rushing mighty wind that fills everything - I see the spirit filling every nook and cranny of life; there are tongues of fire - I see the energy of the spirit animating our every action; and words spoken  that are heard and clearly understood in any language - I hear the spirit helping us connect with each other in ways that bring us together.  (Acts 2:1-21)

That’s church, isn’t it?  For everyone, everywhere, isn’t it?

Is it?

We want it to be.  So I imagine, in many churches this Pentecost Sunday, we’ll want to be as hip and relevant as we can: the balloons and streamers will come out, and the big fans for that rushing wind, we’ll sing really energetic songs and there’ll be cake.  Birthday cake for the church.  With one big candle to represent all those years.  And we’ll tell the story with as much energy and enthusiasm as we can muster.   ‘Cause we’re hip and cool.

Which is fine if you really are hip and cool.  But not everyone is, not like that, anyway.  For some it’s going to be solemn plainsong, candles and incense and still others gospel songs and fire and brimstone preaching.  Some will gather in great cathedrals, others in plain little wooden buildings and still others in theatres or hockey arenas.

For some, this year, the images of wind and fire will resonate more with fear and destruction than joy and celebration.  It will be difficult to see those images as a positive and inspiring reflection of the power of God at work in the world.

Isn’t that all part of the third piece, though?  Once the wind and fire - the special effects - had settled down, they began to communicate in a way that each person could understand.  No amount of energy overcomes faulty communication.  As I just suggested, even the images we use to communicate energy and enthusiasm might not do the job for everyone.

So how do you do that third piece, then?  How does the church share the story of God and Jesus, of what is true and right about how we should live together and, as we’ve been talking about for several weeks now, teach - and learn - how to love one another.  It sounds like a pretty lofty and idealistic goal, but just how do you do that?

I think that’s the answer right there.  How do you do that - you and me and each of us?  If we mean what we say when we say things like the church is a living thing, the church is people, the church is about community, the church is about relationships and, ultimately, our relationship with God and all creation, then shouldn’t we be more of a living, breathing being that interacts with others?

Just ponder that for a minute and ask yourself a few questions.  Like, if church were a person, would you want to know them?  And how would you go about that?  If church were you, would you want people to know you?  (Seriously, think about that.)  And how would you go about getting to know people?

It seems to me that’s how church got started.  The disciples shared the story in a way people could understand.  Paul built communities by bringing people together on common ground.  We had to figure out how to be together.  But then we thought we knew how and we cast it in stone and told people what they had to be in order to belong.   And soon it was about excluding those who didn’t meet the criteria.

But that’s counter to both the story of Pentecost and the story of Jesus.  The Spirit moved the disciples to communicate in a way that connected with people, loving and living with everyone, even those who thought they were drunk and “filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13).  Jesus met people where they were, physically, educationally and emotionally, he healed the broken and restored them, he challenged the structures of society that confined and excluded people.  That’s what church was born to be.

Ut omnes unum sint

On the night he was arrested, according to John’s gospel, Jesus talked to the disciples at length, something referred to by bible scholars as the Farewell Discourse.  Knowing what was to happen next, “that his hour had come to depart from this world” (John 13:1), Jesus tells the disciples - and us - some really important things.  It’s long, the Farewell Discourse, and full.  At the end of it Jesus prays to God for the disciples.  And us.

I’ll just repeat that.  At the end of a lot of important teaching, Jesus prays.  For the disciples.  And us.

And it ends with something huge: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  (John 17:20-23)

That they may all be one.  Maybe I’m a little biased, because those words, in latin and French, are on the United Church crest, but I think that’s huge.  Not Donald Trump huge - really huge.

I wonder, though how we hear that.  In the United Church, I think we’ve always tried to understand that as meaning we are both united and uniting, that it’s an ongoing process, this unity thing.  It means that we recognize the uniqueness of the individual and that we are all different, but we respect those differences and welcome everyone for who they are.  That, in itself, is a unifying thing, as is our unity in being followers of Jesus, as is our unity in being children of God.

Of course, that’s just my opinion.  There may be others.  And I respect that.

The thing is, people are a lot of work.  Relationships are a lot of work.  And sometimes we stop there.  But it’s bigger than that.  Jesus said “all” and “one.”

A few years ago, the church added another line to the crest in recognition of our First Nations heritage.  In Mohawk, it means “all my relations.”  That’s not just about people, it’s about the interconnectedness of all things, a sense of harmony with all forms of life.  It reminds us of our place in the web of life.  All life.

That’s huge.  Overwhelmingly huge, even.  When Jesus says “all” it’s not selective, it’s truly all.  Just as the love Jesus lives and shares isn’t selective, it’s for all.  All our relations.

And so is the “one.”  There is a power in that “all”  - it’s the “one.”  God.  That’s what all that “you’re in me, I’m in you, they’re in us” is all about.  That’s what adds “completely” to “all” and “one:” it’s our relationship with God.  Jesus prays that we may all be one in relationship with each other, all of creation and with God, recognizing that that very interconnectedness of life we talk about, the relationships we know are there, the harmony with all living things, the thread that weaves the fabric of life - this is the power of God: love.

What's next?

What’s next?

I don’t know.  Truly, I don’t know the answer to that question, not exactly.  And neither do you.  Not exactly.  Because what’s next hasn’t happened yet.  That’s why it’s called “next.”

I’m not trying to be flippant, just precise.  We can, sometimes, predict what’s going to happen in a general way.  We may even feel the confidence of knowing that things seemed to have happened they way we thought they would, good or bad.  But the fact is, given the universe full of variables in each and every moment of time as we experience it, things never happen exactly as we predicted, do they?  Because the moment, in the linear way in which we perceive time, hasn’t happened yet.

That’s not to say we don’t try to make things happen a certain way, of course we do.  That’s how we go forward on our life journey.  Simply put, we “do.”  And sometimes we embrace the journey forward with joy and sometimes we fear it.  Sometimes, maybe a little of both.  But one of those things is life-giving and the other isn’t.

I’m pondering that this week while I sit in a meeting of the local region of my church.  We’re discussing - and voting on - the steps our national church is taking to restructure and re-energize this institution we call the church.  There’s a lot of anxiety.  People are worried about the future.

You’ll know the feeling.  Maybe not about the church, but you’ll know the feeling.  Who hasn’t, at some point, worried about what was going to happen next?  And especially if you fear that something that’s important to you, something or someone you love, something that you’ve been a part of, is threatened or might come to an end, you know this feeling.

Well that’s the scene in John’s gospel when the disciples are all gathered around Jesus for the Passover meal that last night before he died.  It begins in John 13:1 with “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world.”  It includes that moment Jesus washes the disciples feet to show them how important it is to serve others: “for I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.  Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.”  It includes that last supper Jesus shared with a diverse group of disciples, with both Judas, his betrayer, and Peter, the one who promises to follow, but who will soon deny knowing him.

It includes that moment I talked about last week when Jesus challenges the disciples to love one another just as he has shown them to do.  Those aren’t words of comfort, they’re a call to action.  This is how you follow me, he says.  And I think Jesus knew exactly how hard that was going to be for them to do and how hard the world was going to make it for them to do.  And the same goes for us.  Like I said before, let’s acknowledge that’s hard and that we fail often but we are always and forever called to try.

And if Jesus had left it right there, we - and the disciples - might be tempted to say “gosh, thanks Jesus for dropping that on us and leaving.”  But Jesus doesn’t.

There are words of comfort and inspiration and a promise of support.  When I’m gone, Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will come and be with you and will teach you and lead you and remind you of all that I taught you.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

I don’t know what’s next for the church but I believe that we are not alone.  We should love each other as Jesus showed us and whatever happens, the Spirit will be with us and we should not be afraid.

I don’t know what’s next for the world or for my little corner of it or for me or you.  But whatever happens, I believe that we are not alone.  As complex and challenging as life may be, it is only life-giving if it’s lived well.  The Spirit will be with us and we should not be afraid.

We all have doubt

We do.  We all have doubt.

So maybe we should stop calling him “Doubting Thomas.”  Remember the disciple that wasn’t there?  In John’s Gospel, Jesus appears to all the disciples in a room on the evening of the resurrection, all the disciples except Thomas.  When the others tell Thomas, he doesn’t believe them.  And he won’t believe them until he sees the evidence for himself.  He does, of course, and believes.  “Blessed are those,” says Jesus, “who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29).

Doubt seems to be a constant in the Easter narrative.  I wonder how many of the disciples heard Jesus, at supper, say that one of them will betray him and thought “will it be me?”  When Jesus is arrested, I wonder how many of the disciples went home thinking “that’s that, then.”  Only Peter seems to have followed.  And he denies knowing Jesus.  After Jesus’ death, I wonder if the disciples simply stayed together to mourn, wondering what they’ll do, now that it was over.  It certainly doesn’t seem like they anticipated what would happen next.  And when it does, even Mary wonders first where other may have taken him.  She doesn’t even recognize Jesus when she sees him, at first thinking he’s the gardener, because she didn’t expect to see him.  The disciples sure seem to doubt her story.

They believe Jesus is alive as they see him, all of them.  Thomas is simply the only one who voices his doubt.

I think he’s a hero.  He should be “Brave Thomas,” the only one bold enough and honest enough to voice his doubt.

I used to think that we’re all Thomas in this story.  I’m pretty sure that we’ve all found ourselves with doubts and questions, right?  But we’re not all Thomas.  We wish, maybe, that we were.  But so many people are more inclined to be like the others, afraid and in hiding, unwilling to ask the questions that will lead us to belief and understanding.  Or worse, living a blind faith that’s willing to accept whatever we’re told and rigidly adhering to a system of belief that we’ve never even thought about.

I want to be Thomas.  I want to doubt and ask the questions that will bring me closer to seeing the truth, to understanding what Jesus was all about, what God means in and for my life.  I want to know what is true because it is, not just because someone else said so.  Don’t you?

Jesus isn’t angry with Thomas, or any of the others, for doubting.  He’s reassuring and encouraging.  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he says to them all (John 20:21).  Go and tell others, go and teach and love and forgive, just like I showed you.  And they will show others, and they will show more.

I wonder if that isn’t what the author of John’s gospel is getting at here.  In response to Thomas, he writes that Jesus says “have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." But he goes on, and writes that “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  (John 20:29-31)

The stories of Jesus lead us to wonder and question, to take our uncertainty about life and learn to experience love.  They lead us to take our doubts and say “look around you.”  And when we do, we just might see Jesus.

I see the Lord

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (John 20:18).

That right there is the best Easter sermon ever.  I agree with Karoline Lewis in her blog Dear Working Preacher, a weekly letter to preachers suggesting themes and ideas for a sermon each week based on the suggested scripture readings.  “There’s your sermon, Working Preachers. It’s hard to imagine a better sermon than Mary Magdalene’s on that first Easter morning. Short and memorable and to the point.”

Right.  Done, then.  Saves me a lot of work.  Thank you, Mary.

Except.  She might have said just a little bit more.  And John says she does, she tells them about meeting Jesus by the tomb and how she thought he was the gardener and then he said her name and she recognized him and she said “Rabbouni!” (which means teacher) and he said to go and tell the other disciples (John 20:14-17).

You can just imagine her breathlessly, excitedly, telling them.  And soon, they will also get to say it.  “We have seen the Lord.”

But the eternal message of hope isn’t that Jesus was alive.  It’s that Jesus is alive.  And in order to know that, we also need to be able to say “I have seen the Lord” for ourselves.  Today.  In this moment.  It cannot be just a story we learn to believe.  It must be a personal reality.

There’s our struggle.  The world seems full of hurt and hate, violence and abuse, racism and prejudice, deceit and mistrust.   Someone’s understanding - or misunderstanding - of religion is often part of it.  Or power, always power.  And if not selfishness, then certainly self-centredness.  We seem content to be surrounded by signs of all kinds of death.

But I see the Lord.  Don’t you?

When love is shared as Jesus did, freely and without condition.  When people refuse to hate or judge.  When dominance gives way to community.  When religions stop arguing the authority of their traditions and embrace the common ground of grace.  When we act in any way that brings life into places where death has been too long.

And when we see where others can’t, we proclaim it and live it as loudly and extravagantly as we can, I have seen the Lord!

I wonder if our vision is sometimes impaired by our preconceived idea of what we should see.  “The Lord” is the language of structure and institution.  It may be what Mary says to the disciples, but it’s not her first reaction to seeing Jesus.  In that very first moment of realization in the garden by the tomb, Mary says “Rabbouni.”  She calls Jesus “teacher,” a word that describes the personal, one-to-one relationship that she has with Jesus.

Maybe if we looked less for “the Lord” of dogma and tradition and more for the personal way Jesus comes into our lives, we might better recognize Jesus is there.  Teacher, gardener, friend, lover, beloved, child, servant, revolutionary, maybe even a minister now and then.  How Jesus comes to us is reflected in how we see Jesus around us.

I have seen.  I see.  And you?

Can we talk about Friday for a minute

Well, this is a little awkward.

I try to post this blog Thursday night and I see it as early reflections on the upcoming Sunday.  That’s awkward in Holy Week.  It just doesn’t feel right to post thoughts of Easter before saying something about Friday at least.  Especially since I mentioned last time how important the story of the whole week is.

But I’ll be honest.  I’m not really comfortable talking about Friday.

When I was younger, and a musician, I appreciated the beautiful and moving music and liturgy of the Friday story.  I think I still do, as I know many do.  But something’s changed for me.  Maybe I thought about it too much or wondered about things that just raised questions for me about traditional church thinking.  There are a lot more shadows now.

Mind if I share some of those shadowy thoughts?  It won’t be too in depth (deep, perhaps, but not in depth), just talking points really.

Like “Good” Friday.  I don’t know if I can call it “good” anymore.  I know, there’s a variety of explanations for the term, like it could be a corruption of “God’s Friday” or that good used to also mean holy (some traditions still call it Holy Friday).  But I think most people still understand the “good” part as being that Jesus’ death, while brutal, was required for our redemption from sin.

I have some thoughts about that.

In the gospel narratives, Jesus’ death was not “good” in any way.  I’m not sure that I can accept a death as “good” to begin with.  I know that “a good death” has become a way of describing the care and compassion, comfort and relief that can be brought to surround someone’s end of life, and I honour that.  But there is still loss and grief.  It’s not “good,” perhaps, so much as “the best that we can do” and that is, indeed, a wonderful gift.

But in that moment, for all the family, disciples, friends and enemies, even people that had no idea what was going on, Jesus is dead.  There is pain and grief.

Jesus died in a horribly brutal way after being physically and mentally abused.  It wasn’t “good” in that respect, either, it was suffering.

And just because we know what happens next, I don’t think we get to call it “good” in hindsight, either.  Shouldn’t it still be Horrific Friday and Good Easter?

That’s very “in the moment” of the narrative, perhaps, so let’s look at the bigger picture.  Jesus died to save us, atonement for our sin, even for our original sin.  But, as I’ve said elsewhere at other times, I believe that, created in the image of God, our default setting - our birth setting, if you like - is good.  We may choose a different path - to sin - based on our experiences, but we begin from good.  From the very beginning.  I’ve long wondered if the story of Eve and Adam, the fruit and leaving Eden was really about sin, especially an original one.  The original act was choice, the first act of the precious gift of freewill.

There’s been lots of choice since then, both good and bad.  And sin.  If sin is the thing that drives us further and further away from God, then there’s been a lot.  A lot.  But not just before Jesus, after Jesus as well.

An act of atonement?  I don’t know that I can reconcile a God who requires payment for our sins with a God who’s love is for all, freely and unconditionally given, with grace and forgiveness equally so.  I think I go with the latter.

I believe that the life of Jesus is the way to follow: to love as he showed us how to love.  I think powerful people, feeling threatened by Jesus’ revolutionary and counter-cultural teaching about love and grace for all, had him killed.  They tried to end him without seeing that, as the embodiment of love, as the Word made flesh, you can’t kill that.  You’ll only - sorry to sound like Obi-Wan Kenobi - make it “more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Jesus brought a world of love, compassion and grace for all.  In doing that, he sought to bring us back to God, closer to the source of love and life.  We resisted - brutally - and still do.  But Jesus continues to live in you and me.  Crucifixions of all kinds continue to happen every day and Jesus stands there with us to remind us: this is not the end.  There is new life in this world and in the world to come.  In the midst of our deepest suffering, our enormous capacity for the harshest cruelty and weakness for the simplest of temptations, Jesus is there to help us shoulder our own crosses.

The Return of the King

I’m back at the church this week.  I’ve been on sabbatical since Christmas and I’m very grateful for the members of the congregation who’ve taken a leadership role in our faith community during that time.  They’ve inspired others with a variety of ideas and experiences, taken care of the administration and the week to week busy-ness of the church community.  Including changing the sign out front each week.

RETURN OF THE KING.

That’s what the sign reads right now.  Thanks for the welcome back pun, Ben, and for the wisdom and insight.  It’s all capital letters, though, so I’m not really sure if it says “the return of the king,” “the King” or “The King.”  And I don’t think they’re all the same thing.

What the church calendar calls Holy Week is a daily chronology of events which begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter, though Easter isn’t part of Holy Week.  After all, it’s “the first day of the week” after the sabbath, that’s why Mary and the others can come to the tomb (Mark 16:1-2).  It’s a “new day” all round.

There was a time when we’d all be going to church each day (some still do) in order to hear the story as it’s told, day by day.  We do things a little differently now.  At our church, we still have services Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as well as the Sundays,  but many often bundle everything but the resurrection into Palm Sunday.  Oh, the resurrection, yes, sorry, spoiler alert: Jesus lives.

I wonder if that’s part of our problem.  We know what happens, so, rather than make time for the story, we cut to the chase: one week Jesus is being celebrated, the next thing you know, his enemies have had him killed, but he’s not dead, he’s alive.

Read the story.  Please.  Read. The.  Story.  Imagine each day as if it were happening and what it might mean: the bewilderment of his followers through the week and their despair at his death, the anger of those that feared him, the disdain of the Romans, the surprise and joy of the disciples that the tomb was empty.  New life can only come with a death and death comes only after a journey.

Part of that journey is wondering about kingship.  It’s old language, perhaps, to refer to Jesus as King, but consider how the resurrected Jesus rules: the power of love, a love so great as to be worth dying for.  When love rules our hearts and our lives, it’s not a power over others, but with others.  It’s not about conflict, military might, control or dominance, it’s about grace, care and compassion.  It’s not about geography, it’s about life.

I don’t think that was the kind of king that people were expecting, coming into Jerusalem the week before.  Unarmed and riding a donkey (a sign of peace and humility), they celebrated his arrival waving palm branches and shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” because they still expected a king who would overthrow the Romans and restore the glory of Israel.  Jesus did not ever mean to be that kind of king.

It might well have seemed to his followers, in those last few days, that Jesus was no king, anymore than Pilate believed he was.  Where was his power?

And then Easter happened.

Take a moment this week to reflect on how we move from greeting a king on Palm Sunday to The King of Easter morning.  The journey is through judgement and death and a tomb overcome by love.  It’s a whole new kingdom.