A little or a lot

Just the other day, I was privileged to lead a celebration of life for a much loved and respected member of our community.  I arrived a little early and ran into local singing legend and noted ginger, Ty Wilson, in the parking lot.  Ty was singing at the service.  As we walked to the door, he said to me, guitar in hand: “do you ever get nervous?”

I think I said something like “sure, all the time” - I do - and then, after an awkward pause, I think I added something redundant and flip like “you just have to do what you do.”  Yeah, sometimes my wisdom is astonishing, isn’t it?

I don’t know for sure if he was really nervous at all, but in we went.  The service started and when it came time, he said a few kind and loving words about the person we were celebrating and then sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”  It was beautiful, genuine and touching, very much like the wonderful words of the two people who did the eulogy together.  It was what these moments should be: an opportunity to celebrate and remember a life with stories and words that reconnect us - literally “re-member” - with that life and how it has touched ours.

Nervous?  Couldn’t tell by looking or listening, in the end.  It’s also fair to say that what brought everyone there was love and respect and when you can see that the room’s full of people who came with that, doing your best will be just that.  Maybe it is a “do what you do” moment, after all.  I don’t think it’s just about being skilled or practiced, prepared or confident.  I think it’s a moment that you have to believe in yourself and express yourself genuinely.  And that’s all those other things and more.  It’s really having faith in yourself.

There’s a story about Jesus walking across the water to the disciples as their boat struggles in rough weather.  In Matthew’s telling of it, Peter steps out onto the water at Jesus’ invitation and starts to walk towards him.  Peter - and let’s be clear about this - Peter, the story says, did just that.  And he was doing fine until he gave into his fear of the storm and the water and then he began to sink.  He calls out to Jesus to save him and Jesus does just that.  As he pulls Peter to safety, he says “you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

I think this story is all about faith, but it’s not about faith in Jesus (or the disciples lack of it).  I don’t think Peter doubted Jesus for a moment.  He called out to Jesus to save him because he fully believed that Jesus would do that.  Peter had all sorts of faith in Jesus.  He just didn’t have any in himself.  I think that’s what Jesus questions.

Peter was being just like Jesus, walking on the water, until he began to fear.  It’s only when he gave into the fear, that he started to sink.  And if it seems like there’s an air of disappointment in Jesus response - “you of little faith, why did you doubt?” - maybe it’s because Jesus believed in Peter more than Peter believed in himself.  This isn’t the only time that Peter will struggle.

For all the struggles we may have with faith - in God, in Jesus, in each other - I believe that Jesus has faith in us.  Truly, how many times does Jesus say “don’t be afraid” and yet we give into fear so easily.  I know it’s not in the story, but I like to think that when Jesus pulled the soaking wet Peter into the boat - Peter, a professional fisherman, remember - Jesus had more to say. Maybe he said having faith in yourself is about being genuine and living from the heart of who you really are.  Maybe he said that it’s more than confidence, more than skill or practice, it’s sharing the love in you with the love in the world.  Maybe he even said something like “you just have to do what you do.” 

Is it all just talk?

Churches talk a lot.  Of course they do, but back in July, I wrote about two things which I figured churches talk about more than others: love and money.  I suggested that, quite often, it’s not so much that we talk about them a lot as how often we talk about them, well, badly.  I’m not always sure that I’m helping improve that – I hope that I am, of course – but I think I need to add another topic to the list: community.

No, wait, that’s not really fair.  This one’s a little different.  Sometimes I think it’s not so much that we talk about it badly, it’s that we could do it a whole lot better and a whole lot more.  We do talk about community well, and I think we often have a really good vision of what it should look like.  As long as it’s our vision and others follow it, he said sarcastically.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but hear me out.  We want the church to be a community of faith within the larger community, a family with hands reaching out to the larger family of our society.  But often, membership in that faith community can appear to be exclusive.  You need to believe this, follow that and fit in.  What if you don’t?  What if you have questions about God and faith and what they might mean in the world – in your world – and you just want to explore that with others?

I grew up in a denomination of the Christian church different to the one to which I now belong, and I worked in others as a musician along the way.  It’s always struck me that identity was a really challenging issue for some people, regardless of what church they wished to belong to, because identity so often involves protecting who we think we are.  And why not – if you want to belong, shouldn’t you share the same beliefs?

Yes, but it’s not that simple anymore, is it?  While more and more people have a sense of God and a real desire to explore spirituality, less and less are willing to conform to the traditional models that the churches have offered.  Some will even point to the inconsistent legacy of good and bad that is the church’s history and wonder where God is in that.

So am I advocating an anything goes approach to God?  No, not really.  That’s something that the “new” church can often be criticized for – in its quest to be everything to everybody it is no longer anything to anyone, it is no longer relevant.  No, of course there does need to be an awareness of common, shared beliefs, that’s what we gather around.  But our identity, I think, needs to be permeable, that one does need an awareness of one’s own distinctiveness while being open to that of others so as to be able to engage them.

Ah, engagement.  I guess that I don’t think the real issue is around defining beliefs, so much as how we engage each other on the journey we are living.  I wonder, sometimes, at how quickly some churches will tell people what they should think, rather than ask them to think.  Just as important, how are we doing that?  Are we telling people where God should be in their lives?  Or are we asking them to consider where God is in their lives?  And if we’re asking that question, shouldn’t we ask it in a way that engages them?  And shouldn’t we be open to hearing the answer, in whatever form it comes?

So. Where’s God in your life?

How does your life speak?

There’s an old Quaker proverb that goes “let your life speak.”

It’s been running through my head a bit the last little while.  To be honest, I see it frequently because it’s the title of a book by Parker Palmer that sits on the bookshelf right behind my desk.  (Find that book and read it.  Please.)  But I also read the news.  I also look at the world.  You do to, I bet.

Fear, anger and hate seem to be everywhere and there’s been lots written and lots said about it, much written by people more knowledgable and eloquent than me.  Much of it also quotes great figures like Mandela, Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Jesus.

But let me come at this from a little bit different way, the way of people maybe a little less eloquent and a little less famous.  Might even be people you know.

I’ve either attended or been honoured to lead a number of celebrations of life in our community the last little while.

Many of the services have included the passage from scripture that begins “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven …”  It’s from Ecclesiastes - thought you might also know it from Pete Seeger’s folk hit “Turn, turn, turn.”  It includes a lengthy list of things that there is time for, from “a time to be born, and a time to die” to “a time for war, and a time for peace.”  Even “a time to love, and a time to hate.”  I’m pretty sure that just because it’s on the list doesn’t mean you should find a time for it, only that you’ll likely encounter it.  And I’m sure that we could all add to that list.

Unfortunately, “the list” is sometimes all we remember.  It’s all Seeger put in his song and sometimes we think the stuff is the most important part.  It’s not.  A life full of stuff isn’t nearly as important as what you do with it. 

More importantly, the writer of Ecclesiastes doesn’t say how long we have, nor do they bemoan the fact that we don’t know.  Instead, the writer reminds us that living into life is what is intended, not living towards death.  “I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil” (Ecclesiastes 3:13).  God intends for us to live well.  And, as Jesus reminds us, to love well, just as he loved us (John 15:12).

To live life as a gift from God, to live well, and to love well as God intended and Jesus taught, gives voice to our life.  We hear it and see it in the lives of those we have seen, met and engaged in our life.  And even when our physical life is ended, our presence continues on in those who have experienced life with us.  Those who have heard our life speak to them.

Comfort in the loss of someone we love is very individual, I think, and can take many forms.  And we often have lots of life questions for which we seek answers, what are often referred to as “life’s unanswerable questions.”  Sometimes I wish we had more answers.  But than I remind myself that having all the answers would make us less created in the image of God, and more, well, God.

The thing is, we are most inclined to wonder these things - and to hear these words from Ecclesiastes - when someone is gone.  And we wonder at these words as we reflect on them, not ourselves.  Again, maybe we should also remember to live into life, not towards death. 

I know that God wants us to live well, to love and care for, and with, others, living as Jesus exampled for us.  As I have been able to share in celebrating lives that have been well lived and shared with so many others, I know that our lives speak.  And they must not speak of fear or anger or hate.

What is your life saying?

Let's talk about sin, shall we?

I’d like to talk about sin for a minute.

And I’d like to do it in a completely non-judgemental manner.

Now, I know what you may be thinking: minister writes about sin and isn’t judging?  Is that even possible?  I hope so.

Still, in the church’s defence, we kind of invented it.  Not all the sinning – we’ve all had a creative hand in that through the years – but in the concept.

We use the word “sin” in a pretty generic way these days.  It tends to mean anything anyone considers wrong, especially morally or ethically wrong.  And we usually use it when describing something WE have judged to be so.

But that’s not what sin really means.  The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that sin is “the purposeful disobedience of a creature to the known will of God.”  So sin is a theological concept – it is fundamentally about our relationship with God.  Sin distances us from God and the life God intends for us.

That pretty much covers anything, doesn’t it?  Yes it does, but here’s where it’s different to a moral or ethical right or wrong: sin is God-centred, not human-centred.  Hmm, that sounds funny doesn’t it?  “Sin is God-centred.”  Let me come back to that in a minute.

The problem, of course, is discerning what is God’s will.  The bible is a good place to start, because it gives is two helpful perspectives.  First, the word we translate as “sin” in the bible literally means “to miss the mark.”  In other words, if our goal is to be close to God, to have a relationship with God, sin is the stuff that knocks us off course or sends us in another direction.  Second, the other word we use with sin is “transgression.”  That’s when we “cross the line” – violate a law or a commandment.  The are many laws in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus (some of them are, um … interesting, too) and there are the Ten Commandments, fundamental guidelines for living.  And there is the “Great Commandment” in Christian scripture: to love God with all my heart and soul and my neighbour as myself.

Our interpretation of those laws and commandments changes over time.  I know that stoning your neighbour for working on the Sabbath certainly has, for example.  (Although, you may feel like you want to if they’re running a chain saw at 6 am when you’re sleeping in.)  But that doesn’t mean that the concept of respect for justice and for what is right should change.  Nor does the concept that right relationship with God and each other and the world – to “love” as Jesus taught – should be our goal in living.  In her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, Kathleen Norris writes that “I can find all too many ways in which I transgress regularly against the great commandment, to love God with all my heart and soul, and my neighbour as myself.  On a daily basis, I fail to keep the balance that this commandment requires of me: that I love and care for myself, but not so well that I become incapable of loving and serving others; and that I remember to praise God as the author of life itself, but not so blindly that I lose sight of the down-to-earth dimensions of my everyday relationships and commitments.”  But we always need to continue to try.

Which brings me back to that phrase above that sounded funny, “sin is God-centred.”  I think it seems odd to me because sin is the antithesis of a God-centred life, the thing that drives us away from God.  So what draws us to God.  Salvation?  Redemption?  Fancy terms, but I think they’re only the process of returning to God after sin.  The opposite of sin?  I think it’s love, love as God loves us and as Jesus showed us.

Appropriate and Balanced

I was going to write about how we tell our stories today.  We recently had our annual summer kids program and the theme this year was Superheroes of the Bible.  We had a story each day of a character in the Bible who exemplified a “super power,” things like caring, bravery, friendliness and wisdom (and there were lots more, we discovered).  On the last day we talked about Jesus and how Jesus shows us that we all have those “super powers” in us and we can all be like Jesus and share those powers loving each other.  We’re all superheroes.

It was great and we had fun.  Connecting the kids with these “super powers” and how we treat each other  - love each other, as Jesus would say - was meaningful, I hope, and I hope that we sent some more confident superheroes out into the world.

The thing I wanted to say was that, when it came to telling the stories of Miriam, David, Abigail, Solomon and Jesus, I told them with a bit of, well, let’s say “creative license.”  When David fought Goliath, for example, there was no sling and stones and he didn’t chop Goliath’s head off (1 Samuel 17).  He made Goliath slip on a banana peel and, when he fell, David hit him over the head with a turnip.  David was vegetarian, by the way.  The whole story tells much better, really, but the point is that I kept the essential truth about David being brave and adjusted the narrative to make that point in a way more appealing (no pun intended) to kids.  Really, it did work.  It was fun, engaging and meaningful.  And then we had crafts and games and awesome snacks that were pretty much like having a meal.

So, yes, I was going to write about how we tell our stories - I guess I have a bit - but then I realized the more significant thing: we made being in church fun, engaging and meaningful.

I think that’s a sentence we don’t hear often enough.  Unfortunately.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not thinking that “church” should be all about having fun and being entertained.  Appropriate respect and reverence for things sacred is important and there can be serious issues addressed when we gather as a faith community - anytime we gather as a community.  But that needs to be balanced with lighter moments, moments when the learning and the worshipping comes from engaging God with some humour and a little friendliness.  And maybe a snack.

Right there are two key aspects of “church” we need to be constantly considering, appropriateness and balance, and they are reflected in two key aspects of Jesus’ teaching ministry, and we worked them both: stories and food.

Jesus was rarely about doing what society thought was “appropriate.”  In fact, an important lesson in all the stories Jesus told - parables and otherwise - was that they challenged the most common thinking in society, they challenged the status quo.  Jesus’ behaviour was often inappropriate according to the society of his day: he associated with all the wrong people, he taught and healed on the day of rest, he challenged authority.  He challenged what was conventional and appropriate.

Jesus also balanced his teaching with humour and wit.  Maybe we have a little different perspective now than first century Jews, but many of Jesus’ stories are humorous and – here’s the food part – much of Jesus’ teaching happened informally with the sharing of food. Some of the stories are about food, too, as is the occasional miracle story (changing the water to wine and feeding the 5000 with a few loaves and fish).  Again, maybe it’s less so today, but in Jesus’ day a meal was an important time of gathering and sharing.

All of this is brought out in the Bible stories we hear in church this summer in the gospel of Matthew: the parables, Jesus sharing a meal, feeding the multitude.  And it reminds me that we need to be constantly thinking about what we teach and how we are teaching it, how we are engaging each other and how we are engaging God in our liturgies.

I think we had fun with the children and I hope they did too.  I hope that they also had a good feeling about being in a church, about hearing stories from the Bible and engaging each other with what’s in those stories.  I hope they remember that Jesus wants them to be the superhero they really are and God is always with them to help.  And I hope they remember that sharing food is a good way to engage people.  We all need nourishment for body and soul.

Planting a seed of wonder

Jesus once taught about what the kingdom of God was like by saying that it was like a mustard seed: the tiniest of seeds 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.

But it’s also one that would have left any first century farmer – or any century farmer, for that matter – wondering about a few things.  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 it was used for flavouring and colouring things, and it was a medicinal herb, but really it was more of an annoyance to farmers than anything else.

I wonder if Jesus means something more radical, something more complex than simply plant the seed of faith and it will grow into a great flourishing kingdom.

What if the mustard seed isn’t just about size, but “ordinariness?”  Nothing unique or exotic, but something you might see anywhere, at anytime.  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.

Our daily lives can also be limited by our expectations.  We think we know how it’s going to go and we limit our thinking to that end.  But what if we let go of expectations and used imagination sometimes.  And I don’t mean pressure to achieve or complete or meet a certain standard, I mean letting go of that and imagining the possibilities if we weren’t limited by our own - or anyone else’s - expectations.  A couple of weeks ago in our church in Ponoka and again this week in Bashaw, I’ve watched children imagine bracelets from cardboard and tinfoil, shields from foam waterboards, capes from towels and make up their own superhero logo, not to imagine that they’re Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman or Spiderman, but to be the superhero that they already are.  These are the super powers we all have: caring, bravery, kindness, wisdom and love.  Comic book superheroes are great entertainment, but these are real and if you don’t think they’re super, read my thoughts on Jesus and the miracle stories in the preceding paragraph again.

I guess maybe that’s also the perception part.  Weed or valued plant?  Part of how we understand “the kingdom of God” is to recognize the diversity of views that contribute to - and challenge - how we perceive it.  God is one, but we are many and come from many places.  Respect, understanding and love (and probably a whole lot of patience) is how we come to share in the life we all have together.

And that’s another thing about this parable of the mustard seed: it doesn’t just spontaneously burst into a giant bush right from the seed.  It takes time, it takes care and nurture, and there are often lots of twists and turns on the way.  Sometimes it takes more than one person to care for it.  And God.  That’s pretty obvious with a seed, but what about your life?  If we don’t take the time to plant, feed and water our own lives, we won’t have much to bring to the bigger field, the life we share with others.  One little seed is the start of things.

What are you planting?

Making time for prayer

Do you pray?

Just to be clear, I'm not asking about those times in church when the pastor says "Let us pray" and we all bow our heads or kneel and share in a prayer made on our behalf.  Nor am I talking about those times we share in the Lord's Prayer, the prayer Jesus taught us, whether we understand it as an example of how to pray or "the" prayer to be shared.

I mean, do you pray?  You.  By yourself.  With God.  Or by whatever name you call God.

In the gospel of Luke, the author gives us one of the two stories of Jesus answering the disciples request to teach them to pray (Luke 11).  His response includes a short version of what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer.  But Jesus goes on, first with a parable that reminds us to be persistent in prayer and second, a reminder that God answers with what God knows is appropriate.  It seems a little like saying - and I'm paraphrasing Luke with some additions, here - "ask, and it shall be given to you, though maybe not exactly what you were expecting; search, and you will find, though maybe not exactly what you thought you were looking for; knock, and the door will be opened to you, though it may be a little like playing The Price Is Right, 'cause you might find something you weren't expecting."  God knows what is best for you and will answer with what is best for you.  Trust God.

That's a good way of explaining that, I suppose.  At least, we want it to be.  Sometimes it's hard to make that enough.  Like when we pray that God will help someone with cancer get well and they don't.  Or we pray that God will protect us from abuse, but the abuse doesn't stop.  Or we pray that a loved one travels safely and they're hurt in an accident.  Or we pray that God will help us find a job so we can care for our family, and there's no work to be found.  Or we pray for good healthy crops and there's a drought.  Is it enough then?

I want to say it is.  But if you've been in one of those situations when you appeal to God for help and it appears that the help isn't coming, it's seems harder to believe, doesn't it?  And not just in God, but in ourselves.  After all, what if our prayers weren't answered because we prayed wrong?

Maybe the key to understanding that better is in the examples Jesus gives, comparing prayer to persistently asking a friend for help, or comparing how God might answer to a parent's response to a child.  It seems, in Luke's gospel, like Jesus is saying "you must understand the relationship as if God were a friend or parent who knows us, who really knows us, not like some distant, all powerful entity."  God is not the Great Oz, but our dearest friend, a parent, a lover that knows us intimately, genuinely, uniquely.  After all, if we come from God and return to God, how can God not know us so deeply?

I don't have an answer for how God responds to each individual and unique prayer.  I can't imagine that anyone does.  But I know this: prayer is the voice of our relationship with God.  God hears all that is said from our hearts and you can't - you can't! - pray wrong.  God loves us for who we are and God loves us regardless of how we live.  God answers all prayers with love, whatever that love may look like to us.

Talk regularly with God.  Pray for needs, but pray with thanks also.  Pray because God is listening like a best friend or a parent or a loved one.  Pray however your heart needs to speak.  But do pray.