Towards a real world Peaceable Kingdom

The second candle we’ll light on the Advent wreath is for peace.

Like hope, the first candle, we could say that this is another term that means something different in the context of Jesus than how we might use it “in the real world.”  (There’s a reason for those quotation marks, and I’ll come back to that.)

The peace of Jesus is something different, alright.  In the Gospel of John, we even hear Jesus say “peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27).  Truly.  This peace isn’t just about an absence of conflict, chaos or trouble, it’s about the presence of God.  It’s the next link on the Advent wreath: when we live into the hope of God’s presence in our lives, we can also find the peace of God within us, that peace which is then lived out in the love that Jesus teaches us to share.

Jesus didn’t offer the disciples just a sense of inner peace, but the realization that inner peace lived out creates peace - and shares peace - with the world around us.  Loving our neighbour as ourselves and loving the world around us as Jesus teaches us to love, brings the prospect of peace without as well as within. 

Let’s go back to Isaiah for a minute.  I’ve mentioned before, I think, how much the followers of Jesus love Isaiah.  Isaiah’s the most frequently quoted Hebrew scripture prophet in Christian scripture and for good reason: Isaiah’s hope-filled prophecies of a messiah are heard as being fulfilled in Jesus.  Isaiah 11:1-10, for example, describes the shoot that will come from the root of Jesse - that the messiah will be from the house of David - and how “the spirit of the Lord shall rest on him.”  He will have all the traditional God-given attributes of a great king, but also “he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”  I don’t hear an army in that or force, in fact, for me, the breath that can “kill the wicked” conjures up the image of the breath of the spirit, of Jesus sharing peace and the spirit with the disciples.

And that’s the thing about “the peaceable kingdom” that Isaiah then describes as the result of the messiah’s reign.  “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.”  This isn’t a negotiated truce or an enforced cessation of violence, this is predators and prey living together and children, innocent and unknowing, kept safe from harm.  This is a fundamental shift in the relationships of all living things: “they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” 

Edward Hicks: Peaceable Kingdom (1826)

This messiah will lead the world to be so fully aware of God that we will return to that Eden-like paradise of all things being in right relationship with each other, that we will know we are all children of God, that love and grace will rule all hearts and lives and that we won’t hurt each other.

Wait, though.  That’s certainly not our world, is it?  So does that mean Jesus failed or that Jesus isn’t the messiah?  Or does it mean that Jesus, alive in us, calls us to live into that peace and strive for that world in this life, even as we know we’ll return to God?

Hence my quotations, “in the real world.”  The peace of God isn’t a concept to talk about for an hour in musty old churches or even in hip cool churches, it has real world application.  It did with John the Baptist, too, remember?  He called people to repent because the kingdom of heaven was near.  To repent means to turn, literally, away from sin, to make a fundamental change to a new way of living, of living into a relationship right with God and with each other.

If we want to make peace happen, it starts within us and is lived out with others.  It starts with the light of hope to guide us and the presence of God’s peace on the journey.  Jesus teaches us to do, to love and care and build our own peaceable kingdom.

God of the Living

I would usually write about the lectionary readings for the Sunday coming up, but I went off lectionary for our final service in Mirror last week.  So this week’s post reflects the passages from Luke for last week and this week.  Besides ... it seems appropriate.

“He is God not of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38).

It’s usually about this time of year that I get two or three letters telling me that the end of the world is imminent and I’m going to burn in the very fires of hell.

I should clarify that a bit: the letters - they’re often pamphlets really - aren’t addressed to me personally, although the “you” they address feels pretty personal.  They also tell me that my safety during the coming armageddon and protection from the subsequent judgement can be easily assured by me supporting their very important ministry with a donation.

Sometimes I read them just to see what new and novel ways indicate that the end is near: the writer had a vision of a great beast devouring the earth; nature is fighting back and trying to destroy us; terrorists could get their hands on advanced weapons of mass destruction; the various conflicts around the world are getting progressively out of hand; the right is killing the country, or the left, take your pick; the Oilers are winning, for real this time.  All signs of the impending end of the world.

Okay, I’m making light of something that’s pretty serious.  In fact, some of those scenarios are very current and very real.  But are they signs of “the end?”  Or are they being used to make you afraid so you’ll believe in something?  Fear is a pretty powerful motivator.

Jesus talks about there being an “end time,” as do prophets in the Bible, and there’s the whole book of Revelation.  But Jesus also has a warning, that we should be wary of false prophets and those that would use fear to control and hurt the world.  Jesus has another message, too.

Don’t panic.

Really.  Don’t panic.  Don’t be afraid, first of all, because God is with us in this life and in the next: the end of this life is the beginning of a new life with God.  Secondly, God calls us to living in this life, to love boldly, to engage this life with all the enthusiasm, creativity and wisdom we possess - to use our capacity to make change happen.  Fear is death, not life.  Love is life.  Fear doesn’t empower us to learn and grow and change.  Love does that.  Fear holds us back from living boldly into the next moment.    Love moves us to embrace the world and step fearlessly forward.  And Jesus reminds us that our God “is God not of the dead, but of the living,” in living out this life and living into the next.

I suspect that the reason we see more of this kind of “literature” at this time of year, and hear bible stories about it, is because we’re coming to some endings.  The church calendar begins with Advent, so the end of the church year is this coming week.  The calendar year ends soon, too.  Oh, and it’s often election time.  How’d that go recently?

But those endings are also beginnings of something new, aren’t they?  They’re signs that something is coming, Christmas for one thing.  That, too, is a beginning.  The birth of Jesus shouldn’t be something that we acknowledge every year just because it’s marked on the calendar from last year.  We celebrate it because it reminds us of new life, shows us the wonder of our selves and our relationships with each other and God, and inspires us to live better in those relationships.

Even when it seems like the new beginning brings an even greater struggle, a setback or a defeat, Jesus reminds us that God goes with us and love is still the heart of life.  Choose to love.  With all due respect to George R.R. Martin, it’s not winter that’s coming, it’s summer.

And by the way, what made me think of this wasn’t elections or conflicts or change and upheaval, it was that I didn’t get any of those “letters” this year.  Not one.  Maybe that’s a good sign.

So don’t panic, Jesus says.  Stuff happens and, with God, we’ll live into those challenges as they come.  I certainly don’t want to be worried that the Oilers have started winning again.  For now.

A New Thing Ahead

On Sunday, November 6, 2016, the congregation of Mirror United Church will hold their last service after 112 years of serving the communities of Lamerton and Mirror.  It’s not a new or unique story: like many rural churches, the congregation has become small and tired and not financially able to sustain its ministry.  That’s happening a lot, and not just with small rural churches.

It’s a sad day and we grieve the loss of a unique church family, a place of worship and a building that was once at the heart of the community for many people.  There will be memories to share and stories to tell.  The life of the congregation comes to an end much like the life of an old, close friend.  There is a long life to celebrate, but it seems like the best years are past and it’s time for this life to be done.

After the few remaining members made the decision to disband, we sat and talked about what will happen next and what might be in the closing service.  One of them pushed a bible across the table to me, open to Isaiah, and pointed to these verses: “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

These were prophetic words of hope for the Hebrew people.  Conquered by the Assyrians and many exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon, this is the part of Isaiah that foretells that things are about to change for them: a messiah will come and Jerusalem will be renewed.  For the Hebrews, that was Darius and the Persians who defeated the Assyrians and liberated the Hebrews (kind of) and restored Jerusalem (mostly).   It’s also the part of Isaiah that Christians hear and love the most as foretelling the coming of Jesus.  It’s the most quoted part of Hebrew scripture in the gospels, not just for its prophecy, but for its message of hope in making a new world.

But I don’t think that the writer means for God to say forget the past entirely.  I think it means let go.  Let go of the past, don’t cling to it.  Let the past do what the past should do: inform your present and move you forward.  Let the past inspire your vision, not cloud it.  How else will you perceive the new thing that’s happening?

I think there’s different contexts for that letting go.  It’s not just about the hardship, struggle or conflict.  Every life has its share of that.  It’s also about letting go of the things we celebrate, in a way.  What we bring forward from all our experiences is what we’ve learned that can inform the new present, otherwise we’re simply repeating things, both destructively and because “we’ve always done it that way” (a classic church dilemma).  Both bind us to the past.  While we may find comfort and safety there, our ability to envision the future and see possibility and potential in it comes with holding the past where it belongs: in the past.

And Isaiah offers something else.  Right before these verses, he reminds the people that their God that promises them “a new thing” is the God of Exodus, the God who freed the people from bondage once before (Isaiah 16-17).  Let go of that past, says God, I’m doing a new thing.  And then, in the verses following, the new world of that new thing: a way through the wilderness, rivers in the desert, wild animals will be grateful and refreshment for God’s people (Isaiah 43:19-21).

Words of promise and hope.  Let go the past to be the past and step boldly into the future knowing that God goes with you to make a new thing.

We will celebrate with gratitude and appreciation the work of the Mirror congregation over many years.  The members that now move on to another congregation take their wisdom, experience, hopes and dreams there, looking forward to the new thing that is happening in their lives, knowing that God is with them.  The Mirror community, too, can look forward to a new thing happening with the legacy which is the church building.  We all can look forward to the newness of our lives with God.  Do you perceive it?

Living Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving this week.  At least, in Canada.  And I mean the holiday named Thanksgiving, of course, not actual thanksgiving, itself.  That should happen every day.  I think it’s the point of a “holy-day,” to commemorate something we should be living out the other 364.

So go and be thankful, every day.  That could be the message of many a Thanksgiving sermon.  We might ask people what they’re thankful for or who they’re thankful for, maybe even in a creative and interactive way (yes, we’ll be doing that) and remind them to give thanks, to each other, to farmers for the harvest and workers for all they create, to friends and family and, of course, the Creator.  And not just this holiday weekend, but everyday.

You can’t command people to be thankful, though, or even to express their thanks.  Sure, from a young age we teach that one should say “thank you” when we are given something.  It’s a sign of politeness and respect to do so.  But just saying it doesn’t make you thankful.  Haven’t you ever said thank you when you weren’t really feeling thankful?

Our sense of gratitude is so easily impacted by expectation and entitlement.  It wasn’t what was expected or we expected better or we deserve it because it’s our right or it’s your job to provide that to me anyway.  And then there’s the things that we’re definitely not thankful for, like hate, war, violence, sickness, famine - that’s a long list, too.

But doesn’t that make it even more important that we be thankful for life?

Let go of the expectations and entitlement for a minute, please, and recognize the gifts that we are truly thankful for, the gifts that are deeper than those that we can be distracted from.  We know them, we do, because they feed us and they are life giving and life changing.  They may be large or small.  It may take a moment to discern them, to move aside all the other “stuff” that can get in the way, but choose to make that moment.  And not just one day, but everyday.

When I was little, we always said grace before meals.  This grace: “For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful.  Amen.”  I’m pretty sure that there were some meals I wasn’t too thrilled with.  I may not have eaten all my vegetables and sometimes there may have been beets, even.  But I remember “truly thankful.”  I may not always have seen it at the time, but I know it meant more than what was on the plate.  It meant that I was fed and cared for, had a place to be and people who cared for me and loved me.  It meant there was something greater.

I wonder if that grace isn’t for more than meals.  Maybe it’s for each new day, each new experience, each new moment that feeds our lives.

The gospel story for Thanksgiving this year is Jesus telling his followers that he’s “the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  (John 6:25-35)  I’m truly thankful for that, not perfectly, but truly.  And because Jesus feeds us, we should feed others.  Not perfectly, perhaps, but truly.  That’s living thanksgiving.  Truly.

Just a scratch behind the ear

We have a new puppy in our lives.  He’s a merle coloured chihuahua named Yoda.  We named him that in the hopes that he would be a small wise man with big ears.  You know, just like Yoda.

He’s not, of course.  Not yet, anyway.  Right now he’s a five month old puppy, so a whole lot of training has been happening at our house.  And here’s a few things he’s taught us: if you put it near me, I will chew it; I like to eat anything that’s on the ground - anything - but I’ll be a little fussy about when, or if, I’ll eat what’s in my bowl; the living room rug is a good place to do my business; I have no intention of doing as you say and, by the way - catch me; you better keep your eyes on the ground, cause I go where I want; I love my mommy and will cuddle and sleep in her lap, but that guy’s only good for being a bigger chew toy.

We’re learning, but I’m pretty sure he thinks we could do better.

Of course, I think he could do better.  He can be uncooperative, frustrating, time consuming, needy and annoying.  And super cute.  And friendly and fun and loving.  And did I mention super cute?  One minute he’ll be a rotten little so-and-so and the next minute he’ll be licking your hand and curl up next to you the couch.

He’s like a three year old boy.  Or a thirty year old.  Or a fifty year old.

Yeah, that’s where I’m going with this.  If you have a pet or a farm animal, you likely know that you can’t just expect them to be and do exactly what you want all the time.  Sooner or later there are moments when those creatures can behave in a way that's more than a little trying.  Then, a short while later, you'll be giving them an affectionate little scratch behind the ear and a smile like everything's fine and all is forgiven.

Wouldn't it be great if we could learn to give that much grace to people?  Wouldn't it be great if, the next time you saw someone on the street that you didn't like much or that you'd been having a disagreement with, wouldn't it be great if you just walked up to them and gave them a little scratch behind the ear.  Metaphorically, of course.

I know, you want to say "but it's not that simple for us.  We're much more complicated and sophisticated than animals."  Sure we are.  Mostly.  But why can't we be that simple - not simplistic - just simple?  Why can’t we be that childlike - not childish - about it?  That's the kind of simple grace God has for us.  And the kind of grace God would like us to have for each other, for all creatures and for the earth itself.

For the past few years, we’ve celebrated the last Sunday of September with a Blessing of the Animals at the Ag Grounds.  We’ve had many dogs and cats, kittens and puppies, a goat, a bearded dragon, chickens and bunnies.  We’d love to have horses, sheep, cattle and pretty much anyone.  Yoda will be there for the first time, sharing in the blessing that we are all a part of.

God's blessing rests on all creation.  Sharing that sense of blessing with each other, the other creatures who share this earth, and the earth itself, connects us.  “The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.  All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.  We do not weave this web of life.  We are merely a strand of it.  Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."  (Attributed to Chief Seattle, 1854.)

What do you see in a rainbow?

Our church has a rainbow.  Actually, now that I think about it, it has several.  But this new one’s a little different in scope.  It covers the entire walkway from the sidewalk to the front door.

Photo by Kerri Aucoin

It’s been an interesting couple of days painting it.  We made no announcement that we were doing it.  The church Board approved it and then we just did it.  Surprise.

People going by while it was being painted seemed quite happy with it.  Lots of smiles and compliments on how it looks and, interestingly, only an occasional “why?”  Or “what’s it for?”

I know that we did it as a statement about welcome.  Last June, the congregation voted to participate in the United Church’s Affirming Program, an educational and discernment process that reflects on what it means to be inclusive and evaluates our congregation’s openness to including all in the life and work of our ministry.  That’s ALL, including age, gender, race, ability, class, economic status and, in particular to the Affirming Ministry, sexual orientation and gender identity.

So, yes, we hope that people will recognize the LGBTQ+ rainbow and we hope they know they’re welcome and safe here.

We also hope that people who’ve seen our hand painted sign that says “We’ll take anyone” will find this a more eye-catching way of saying that and know that when we say anyone, we mean anyone, even “all the colours of the rainbow” anyone.  Not only are you welcome here, but appreciated for your differences and loved for who you are.

We hope that children will laugh and be inspired by it and know that the church is a happy and safe place for them, too.

We hope that people will be reminded of the ancient story of the Great Flood and remember that the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant of life with us.

We hope that people will see that it’s creative and colourful and so are we.

We hope that people will see it and smile and be reminded of the sense of wonder and beauty that we experience when we see a rainbow in the sky.

The point is, we hope that you will see something that is welcoming, heart warming, friendly and inspiring that speaks to you.  See?

Mary Ellen loves this hymn

“Come in, come in and sit down, you are a part of the family.  We are lost and we are found, and we are a part of the family.”  That’s the chorus of Jim Manley’s hymn that many folks think is the unofficial theme song of the United Church of Canada.  Mary Ellen loves this hymn and every church should have a Mary Ellen.  There are other favourites, I’m sure, probably as many as there are congregations, but this is one that hits home with lots of people with its recurring motif of “we are a part of the family.”

The “family” image isn’t exclusive to the United Church, of course.  Our “church family” is a popular way to describe any congregation or community of faith.  We’ve probably heard it used in other places, too, anywhere that people work or play together in a close enough way to form a relationship: work, school, clubs, communities.  The key is the relationship part, isn’t it?

Yes, says Jesus, yes it is.

And we have some struggle with that.  It wasn’t that long ago that the structure of a “conventional” family was as set in stone as it was in Jesus day: father and mother, 2.5 children, dog or cat and a reliable automobile.  What society had established as the structure was the only structure and the emphasis was on the positions and how we perceived them rather than the relationships between.  You knew your place in the hierarchy and who you were expected to be.  Lots of these “conventional” families were happy and healthy, but when you looked beyond the required structure and the expectations, there was lots of dysfunction, too. 

Our understanding of family structures has been changing for some time now.  I’m going to say evolving and growing, because I believe that, but many still struggle to hold to the familiar system they know.  I think what makes the difference is respect for the relationship of individuals and awareness of the importance of everyone’s uniqueness in developing community.

In the church family, too. 

Jesus is all about relationships and about how we engage each other with respect and openness.  When Jesus talks about loving and caring, it’s not something you do to someone, but with someone.  Good stewardship is not about benevolent control over, but care with.  Peace and harmony isn’t about everyone being the same, but about respecting differences and engaging the richness of those differences.  This, of course, is the kind of church family we’d like to have.  But are we there yet?

We’re accustomed to hearing stories about Jesus that show us how important it is to love and care, about peace and unity.  But in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we also hear Jesus saying that he comes to bring division, to pit father against son, son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, essentially to divide a household.  Jesus challenges the “conventional” family of his day, saying that place and status need to be broken down when they aren’t working.  And they aren’t working in the synagogue, either.  Family is important, but family is about being in relationship.

“Unity in diversity” is a key theme in many churches, especially the United Church, and it could be a family motto.  But it has to be more than words.  To truly mean it, it must be the real family: one where people are able to love and respect difference as well as similarity, to learn from each other, to fight and then forgive, and to embrace and to recognize the time to part.  Yes, relationships change and sometimes have to end, but they can do so with respect and integrity.  New beginnings require an ending, new directions a change in the path.