How do you know it?

I love the 23rd Psalm, I really do.  Always have.

People have favourite bible verses or things they memorized in Sunday School, back in the day, or even just stories or quotes they’ve heard that they like, but I bet the most familiar for many are those opening words, “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Or perhaps the fourth verse, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”  How many times have you heard that in a story or a movie?  And always the King James Version of the Bible, right?  Just try saying “I lack nothing” instead of “I shall not want” or “the darkest valley” instead of “the valley of the shadow of death.”  It’s how we know it.

And there’s the thing: how we know it.

At a bible study the other day, I asked people why Psalm 23 was so important to them.  The answers were things like how comforting it is, or the images of green pastures and still waters or the promise of God’s care when we’re in the valley or the understanding that it reassures us of God’s presence in all life’s situations or that we can look forward to dwelling “in the house of the Lord forever” when the time comes.

All great - and true - answers.

But, with all due respect to shepherds, sheep farmers and keepers of sheep, not one person said that they really identify with the image of God as a shepherd.

When we talked about that, we began to realize that our understanding of God - and Jesus - as a shepherd came from what we have learned about shepherds in the ancient world of King David and, later, Jesus, information mostly imparted in sermons and bible studies.  No one knew a shepherd.  One person used to have sheep on their farm.  But no one really knew what the life or responsibilities of a shepherd were like, especially long ago.  That didn’t seem to lessen their appreciation and love for the psalm, but it opened a door on how we know God.

The person who wrote this song of trust and assurance did so confident in their understanding of God’s constant presence, care and love when things are comfortable and safe as well as when they’re not, confident that God protects and gives in a way that leaves us wanting for nothing, confident that, in the end, we will be with God always.  And the person who wrote this song framed that understanding with an image they knew personally and deeply, that was intimately a part of their identity in a way that there could be no mistaking the significance of the connection established by using it: a shepherd.

But that was ancient times when the relationship between shepherd and flock was understood by everyone as a metaphor for kingship.  And now?  Who’s our “shepherd” now?  Well, we wondered about that in the bible study the other day, too, and there were a few ideas.  There were probably as many ideas as people there, in fact.

And that’s just the point.  I think this psalm was meant to be personal.  It was meant to be more than a collection of images that affirm how God loves and cares for us.  That’s easily said.  This psalm says “like this” in a way that expresses the deepest trust that it is true.

“The Lord is …”  How would you begin?

Fresh from the tap

We need water.

It’s a fundamental building block of life.  All life (well, carbon based life forms, anyway, as Star Trek fans know).  Almost sixty percent of the average human body is water.  It’s essential to the proper functioning of all our organs, from the skin to the brain, and we’re shedding it constantly, in a variety of ways.  So we need to replenish it.

And it’s worth noting that we’re often not very good at that.   Health care professionals suggest that we need to take in somewhere between two and three litres a day.  Or there’s the “8x8 Rule” - that’s eight 8-ounce glasses a day.  I heard someone say the other day that another good rule of thumb is to take half your body weight and make that the number of ounces you need each day (they didn’t say whether that was pounds or kilograms).  Of course, if you’re physically active, like an athlete for instance, or you have health issues or you’re a certain age, you’ll need more.

Those numbers - and I’m sure there’s lots of other ideas about how much we should drink - are all a little different.  But the point is that, whichever one you choose, it’s a lot.  A lot more than we probably do drink.  Certainly a lot more than if we only drink when we’re feeling thirsty.  Yes, you’re probably not getting enough water to be healthy if you only drink when you’re thirsty.

Okay, so there’s a few conflicting studies lately, some suggesting that you should actually only drink when thirsty because, well, your body knows, right?  Others say that you definitely need this much (insert number here) each day.  But the more important point is the need to keep your fluid level balanced.  You shouldn’t just slam down a few glasses when you’re thirsty and you shouldn’t just have a couple of mouthfuls after working out.  Your body needs water consistently, not just when you feel like it.

That can be a little problematic for those who don’t really like water much.  And some people prefer their liquids in the from of other beverages, from juice to soft drinks, tea and coffee, and other, um, adult beverages.  We might think that at least we’re drinking something, right?  But a lot of those have other things in them that can be unhealthy or dehydrating.  Read the label.  No matter how you dress it up, water, just water, is still the best thing for you.

Your spirit needs water, too.  Not just when you’re thirsty and you can oh so desperately feel it.  Not just when you feel like it because it’s convenient or handy.  Not dressed up and made pretty and entertaining.  Not flavoured with the fear and hate which can dehydrate your spirit.

The water that refreshes the spirit, the living water that Jesus offers is God’s love.  It’s a gift offered with no price or condition.  It’s refreshing, empowering and life giving.  It comes with a Spirit of its own, flowing freely and enthusiastically through all creation, available to all.  And it’s readily available - from the tap, so to speak.

There’s a story in John’s gospel about Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman at a well (John 4:1-42).  There’s a multitude of really good 1st century reasons why Jesus shouldn’t be talking to this person, but let’s just concede that, once again, here’s Jesus talking to the marginalized and broken.

Jesus is thirsty from walking all morning and he comes to the well.  He doesn’t have a pail and it’s noon (hottest part of the day) so there’s no one around.  He needs help to get the water that will refresh and sustain him.  Here’s the Samaritan woman.  She probably comes to the well everyday at that time to get water.  Jesus asks her for some, they have a conversation and Jesus tells her about “the living water” he brings.  She asks him to give her this living water, their conversation continues and Jesus reveals to her that he is the promised one.  “I am,” says Jesus.  And there it is.  The well - the tap - from which the living water flows.

I think the living water Jesus brings is God’s love and the well from which we draw it is the encounter, the relationship that we have with Jesus.  In that relationship, that dialogue, that “back and forth” with Jesus, we find love revealed and we are refreshed and inspired to live that love with others.  Perhaps it’s only in our thirstiest moments that we seek it out, but the well is always available for us to return, again and again, to be filled.

It's not a noun, it's a verb

William Paul Young’s novel ‘The Shack’ came up in our bible study this week.  The movie did, too, but I haven’t seen that yet, so I better stick to the book.

We were talking about the story of Nicodemus, the pharisee who comes to see Jesus at night and acknowledges that Jesus must be from God because of all the great things he’s been doing, miracles and healings and such.  Jesus replies that no one comes to the kingdom of God without they are born “from above” (or, again).  Nicodemus seems to think he means a human birth and doesn’t understand.  Jesus explains his meaning as being born again in spirit and describes the spirit as being like the wind.  Still Nicodemus doesn’t understand.  Jesus continues to explain that God sent his Son to show us the way to live, to lead us back to God.

It doesn’t say so in the gospel, but I like to think that Jesus and Nicodemus talked all night and that Nicodemus did come to understand, even if he did remain a pharisee.  He arrived in the dark but left in the light.  I like that image.

But ‘The Shack’ came up when we were talking about Jesus’ explanation of the Spirit.  “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).  In his book, Young describes the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman who shimmers in the light, but “his eyes had to work to see her at all.”  He describes her appearance, but his character Mack has to concede that he only “knew all this as more an impression of her than from actually seeing her, as she seemed to phase in and out of his vision.”

I wondered out loud whether Young made her a “person” so that Mack would meet the “three persons” of the Trinity: God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Or, did he concede our inability to understand the Spirit as being something not like us.  Just like Nicodemus.

See, I think Nicodemus’ problem is our problem, too.  He's not a stupid man.   He’s a pharisee (a keeper of the law) and a member of the Sanhedrin (the governing assembly of the Jews).  He would have been well educated and, from later references in John, we’ll learn that he might have been influential and wealthy.  In this story, I agree with someone else in that bible study who suggested that Nicodemus was an “everyman” character.  In other words, Nicodemus is us.

And just like us, Nicodemus just can’t wrap his head around the idea that the Spirit isn’t something you can see.  It’s not of the flesh or earthly.  It’s something else.  It’s action.

Just like the wind, you can’t see the wind itself except through how it acts on other things.  Similarly, it’s like light: you don’t see the light itself but rather what it illuminates.

The Spirit is the action that inspires and empowers us.

So, rather than see Nicodemus as “that guy,” put yourself in his place for a minute.  You’re smart, you know what you’ve been taught, you know “the rules.”  In fact, keeping things exactly as they are is part of your job.  And then there’s this guy.  He does things no one should be able to do.  He says things and does things that are so different.  He talks about grace and love and what’s in your heart in a way no one else does.  How do you usually feel when confronted with something so radically different that you can’t really see how to get there from where you are?  It seems like a leap of faith is required.

Yes, it is, and that’s what Jesus asks of Nicodemus and us.  Jesus wants us to take that leap knowing that we’ll be caught in the updraft of the Spirit.

I wonder if Nicodemus didn’t leave at dawn realizing that one can’t gradually transition to the world Jesus brings, the Kingdom of Heaven that he proclaims is now here.  I wonder if he didn’t realize that a leap of faith is necessary and that’s just the beginning of a fundamental change that is required - what we’d now call a paradigm shift - a radical foundational change, one that puts love at the heart of everything.

It’s not an easy change.  It’s messy and it’s challenging.  After all, the Spirit blows where it will and letting the Spirit lead can be positively scary.  That’s why Jesus reminds us - through Nicodemus - that God so loved the world that he gave Jesus to lead us back to God.  And Jesus, by the way, can be a verb, too.  Go with the Spirit.  Go and Jesus.

Going boldly where you haven't gone before

If I asked you “does the season of Lent have a geography?” you might say, “sure, it’s the wilderness.”  Of course, that makes sense because the story that begins Lent and inspires our journey through its forty days is about Jesus being “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1).

But think about that for a minute.  Imagine Jesus going into the wilderness.  What does that look like?  An arid, barren desert, probably, hot and dusty, with the sun beating down on a solitary figure walking away from you.  Perfectly reasonable, I guess, given the part of the world where Jesus lived.  It’s all barren desert in the Middle East, right?

Is it, really?  I don’t know, I’ve never been there.  It sure seems to be, in the movies and on the news.  But I don’t know for sure and I wonder how relevant that is to me.  To me, a wilderness could just as easily be in northern Alberta or southern Saskatchewan, it could be north of the Arctic Circle or the parking lot at West Edmonton Mall when the mall’s closed.  A wilderness doesn’t have to be a barren wasteland (except that last one), it could be a place of great beauty.

In fact, it seems like the best way to describe a natural wilderness is to say that it’s been undisturbed by human activity.  That might make it a very attractive place for us to go, wouldn’t it?  There would be things to see that we hadn’t seen before, perhaps, beautiful and interesting things that we would wonder at.  There’d be opportunities to do things we’d not done before, things that might challenge us as well as comfort us, things that might lead us to discover new things about the world and about ourselves.

That doesn’t sound much like the Lenten wilderness we’re familiar with, does it?  We know it as a dark place, the devil’s there and there’s temptations and we’re supposed to fast, giving up things we enjoy.  That doesn’t sound very inviting.  I’m not sure that I’d want to go there unless I had a very good reason.

That’s why I’d like to reframe Lent, though.  There is a good reason to go there, to go into the wilderness.  In each of the gospel accounts, Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River, he goes into the wilderness and then begins his ministry.  I think Jesus went into the wilderness for the same reason we might: to discover.  He went to learn about himself, to consider opportunities as well as temptations and how he might handle them, to wonder about how he might proceed with his life and, most importantly, to boldly go where he hadn’t gone before.

Yeah, I stole that from Star Trek, but it’s nonetheless true here - and for us - also.  Jesus, Matthew says, was led by the Spirit.  I bet the Spirit inspired Jesus with those same words Jesus will use so often in his ministry: don’t be afraid.  He went with the Spirit, as we all can.  You can go in fear or in curiosity, looking for problems or opportunities, hurt or joy, despair or hope, doubt or faith.  You can engage what you find with hate or love.  Go with love and go boldly.

If you’d like to keep an old tradition and give up something for Lent, how about giving up fear?  

A Different Light

The season of Epiphany is ending this week in a blaze of glory.  Literally.

The last Sunday before Lent begins brings us the story of the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-9), a mountain top moment when Peter, James and John witness Jesus transfigured - “his face shone like the sun” - and see him talk to Moses and Elijah.  The disciples are overjoyed to be there until they hear a voice from a cloud say “this is my son, whom I love - listen to him.”  Now they’re afraid, but Jesus tells them to get up and follow him down the mountain, asking them to keep to themselves what’s happened until after the resurrection.  As a closing story for the season of epiphany, it’s a grand moment of revealing, epic even.  From here on, these disciples will see Jesus in a different light.

I guess.  I mean, I wasn’t there but I can’t imagine that you’d have an experience like that and not see things a little differently.  A moment of joy, a moment of fear, all enshrouded in a mystical cloud on a mountain top, a truly sacred place in the bible.  That’s a spectacular moment.

Perhaps that’s the problem, though.  It doesn’t take a mountain top moment to see people in a different light.  What it takes is engagement.

I was thinking the other day about the journey of our church community.  It’s probably more familiar than not, but I think it went something like this.

There was a time, back in the day, when people around here homesteaded.  When they gathered for “church,” it was in a home and it was family, maybe a few nearby neighbours, if there were any, and the pastor came to them, probably on a horse.  People saw each other in a certain light.

And as there were more people, and people were closer together and there were towns, they built a little church.  Everyone contributed to it, either with materials or labour or money.  Most certainly everyone contributed their opinion and maybe that didn’t always mean agreement, but things got done and people gathered together for church.  And they began to see each other in a different light.

The community grew and soon they needed more than an itinerant preacher.  Not everyone agreed, to be sure, but they looked for someone and they hired their first minister to live in the town.  A house was built, the minister arrived and things were good.  Mostly.  Sometimes the minister didn’t always say what people wanted to hear and they did use more coal than most people thought they should, but the found a way to keep things going.  And people began to see each other in a different light.

Soon the church wasn’t big enough.  Or it needed its own Sunday School room and hall.  You can’t have everyone always going to the minister’s house for classes or bible study.  So a new building was needed.  Somehow they found the money for more land and people chipped in and they got a foundation in the ground and then a nice new church above it.  There were differences of opinion on what should go where, whether to spend money on actual stained glass and if those pew cushions were really needed.  But, in the end, it was done and people began to see each other in a different light.

The little local church weathered many a storm brought on by the decisions of the national church and there were times people came and went and there were celebrations and there were conflicts.  And each time, people learned to see each other in a different light.

Here we are now with two churches in two different communities, Bashaw and Ponoka, coming together to create a new thing called Rising Spirit Ministry.  And when they met, they didn’t negotiate, they didn’t argue or demand or defend, they created.  And they found a way to share in providing ministry to each of their communities with the help of technology and create something else, an online community that could reach out and connect with people who couldn’t - or wouldn’t - sit in a church building.  It’s not perfect, the tech is sometimes a problem and there are different opinions, but it seems to be working.  And I think we begin to see each other in a different light.

The thing is, right from the beginning, it isn’t just each other we begin to see in a different light.  The moment that shines a new light on our lives and helps us to see the world a little differently might not be on a mystical, cloud enshrouded mountain top.  It might be in a valley or on a plain, in a garden or a wilderness, with a crowd or just one other, in a living room or a church hall.

And it’s more than a moment, it’s the future.  That’s a key part of the Transfiguration story: they went with Jesus down from the mountain and out into the world.  They didn’t remain in that moment of engagement, they used it to move forward.  Tempted as they were to stay there, wrapped up in the moment, they didn’t.  Jesus pushes them - and us - to move forward, to take our experience and share it.

Snidely Whiplash is my Friend

You might have to google that.  Snidely Whiplash, I mean.  He’s an old character.  (Is 1959 old?)  He’s the arch-enemy of Dudley Do-Right, the Mountie on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.  He’s also described as a stereotypical villain, the antagonist, the bad guy, the foe, the adversary and a host of other things that we’d recognize simply as “the enemy.”

So what is an enemy, really?

Really.  Think about that.  I have a feeling that we throw that word around a lot and use it when we don’t need to.  And I don’t think it’s just a “who,” but a “what,” also.

I often say that time is my enemy.  Not just because there never seems to be enough time or that it passes too quickly (or too slowly, as the case may be), but because it seems to me that time is doing it on purpose.  Yes, that’s right, it feels like it’s intentional, like time is speeding up or slowing down in order to mess with me.

Yes, I know what that sounds like, but haven’t you ever had that feeling about something that couldn’t possibly be real, but it sure seems that way to you?  Like the weather.  You make plans for something  and then the weather changes and suddenly it’s raining on your bbq or snowing on your baseball game and it just feels like the weather’s out to get you.  It couldn’t possibly, could it?  But it sure feels like it.

Exactly.  It’s your perception.

So what informs your perception that someone is your enemy?  Is it personal experience, interaction, conversation, engagement and discernment?  Or is it what others say, media reports, word of mouth, gossip, innuendo and the inevitable assumptions?

Please don’t think I’m your enemy now because I said that.  If we’re honest, we’re all guilty of it at some time or another.  And we’re especially susceptible to the fear that comes with ignorance of culture and nationality and we can be guilty of huge assumptions then.

What is an enemy, really?

The word’s derived from inimicus, a latin word meaning “not friend.”  And that sounds sad to me.  But it does remind me that “enemy” is a loaded word.  It’s not just about an opponent or someone who disagrees or stands against what you stand for, we imbue an enemy with all sorts of negativity and make them the villain.  After all, we’re right and they’re not.  There’s enmity between us, in fact.  That’s why we’re enemies.

But wait a minute.  Let’s go back to “not friend.”  Don’t you think it’s worthwhile going to the trouble to be someone’s friend so that they won’t be your “not friend?”  We could get to know them better, understand them better and support them in being who they are.  We could also, because we’re friends remember to share us with them and challenge them when necessary.  After all, true friends speak truth to their friends.

Yes, yes, you might say, that all sounds very warm and fuzzy but it’s just not that simple.  And I’d say, yes it is and that’s why it’s so difficult.  We’ve learned to identify an enemy and then respond appropriately - or, more often, entirely inappropriately - to an enemy.   But “you cannot inject new ideas into a man’s head by chopping it off; neither will you infuse a new spirit into his heart by piercing it with a dagger,” Gandhi said.

You need to love them, Jesus said.  Love your enemy (Matt. 5:44).  Don’t fear them, don’t fight them, love them.  And, says Jesus, look, I’ll show you how.  Engage them and get to know them, try to understand them and help them understand you.  Jesus knows that’s not easy, but when you build a relationship with love, you don’t see an enemy, you see a person, a child of God worthy of love, just like you.

Some are more difficult to love than others.  Friends are easy, “not friends” are more challenging.  But loving them isn’t about the response you get, it’s about you loving them.  Jesus doesn’t love us with the expectation of changing us.  Jesus shows us how to love others because that’s what changes us.

Ya Gotta Have Heart

We’re making our way through the first part of The Sermon on the Mount right now, a little piece each Sunday.  That’s the big chunk of Matthew’s gospel that recounts some of Jesus’ significant teachings early in his ministry.  There was a crowd, Jesus sat down on the hillside where everyone could see and hear, and he preached.  For quite some time, I would guess, because there’s some big stuff in there and it goes on a bit.  And since I doubt the author of Matthew was writing it all down in the moment, it could just be the highlights anyway, everything they could remember later or that was shared orally before it was written down.  It’s the gist of it, basically.

At least, that’s how the author of Matthew framed it.  It could be that the one sermon package is just a literary device, a way of presenting a bunch of teachings over a period of time in different places all in one block. 

Either way, a debate on the construction of what we call The Sermon on the Mount isn’t my point.  It’s just that I can’t help but think that it was formatted this way for a reason.  Hard to tell if you’re a church goer, because, like everything else, in a church setting, we hear a bit each week so we can dissect it, analyze it, expound on it and, yes, interpret it.  Each little fragment.

That’s important and has its place, but I wonder if that doesn’t lead us to miss “the forest for the trees” a bit.  And it’s a big forest, huge even.  It seems to me that all the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount connect to the theme that Jesus brings new life to a world that’s lost sight of what real life is about: a love that empowers, nurtures and grows both the individual and the world to which they’re inextricably connected.  Seeking - and finding - wholeness and fulfilment, with ourselves, each other and God, are part of this real life.

So let’s take that forest-like idea and focus on a tree for a minute.  Dropped into a spot right between the teaching on how we’re like salt to season the world and a light to enlighten it, and the teaching that we should love our enemy, are a few words about The Law.

Don’t think that I’m teaching something other than the law, says Jesus.  “I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17).  That fulfillment, I think, is to bring people back to the understanding that it’s not about legality or the letter of the law, it’s about what’s at the heart of the law: living right with ourselves and others.  And he has some examples:  you know it’s wrong to murder, but it’s also wrong to be angry or hateful to another person because you can kill a relationship, too; there are laws about adultery and divorce, but behaviour and legality aren’t the end of it, it’s about being in right relationship, both with yourself and others; and don’t be dishonest about what you’re saying with oaths or promises, say yes or no and mean it because honesty is at the heart of a relationship.  And that’s just the point.  It’s what’s at the heart of the law, not the words, that brings us to loving God, loving ourselves and loving our neighbours.

Let’s jump back out to the big picture again.  Here’s how I see it.  There was a time when the Hebrew people were lost and had no sense of direction, no sense of community or how to live with each other.  They’d been slaves in Egypt for so long, they only knew how to be slaves.  And here they were in a wilderness, not only geographically, but as a people.  So Moses asked God for some direction and I think the conversation went something like this.  God said okay, Moses, here’s a Top Ten List of important rules that will help people live right, for themselves and with each other.  Great, said Moses, Ten Commandments.  Well, said God, they’re not really commands so much as Foundational Principals for Nurturing Wholeness in People and Building Community.  Hmm, said Moses, I’m just going to go with commandments.  So the people welcomed the commandments and began to live by them.  And then there were more laws and more laws.  And legality became more important than justice and behaviour more important than relationships and power over others more desirable than sharing with them.  And we’re lost again.

Jesus brings us back.  Or, at least, tries to.  We have this free will thing: we can choose.  So Jesus hopes that we’ll choose life, the life that’s at the heart of living right with ourselves and each other.  And that should be the point, whether it’s framed in the words of the 1st century or the 21st century.