A little scratch behind the ear

For the last few years, we’ve had a Blessing of the Animals service around the end of September, beginning of October. (October 4 is St. Francis of Assisi Day and he’s the patron saint of animals.) We welcome any animals, pets or working animals, livestock - all the beasts of the field, birds of the air and fish in the sea. And people, too.

All of the animals that have come to this service are clearly very much loved. That is probably the best example of how our relationship with creation can be what God intended. When animals are treated with dignity, respect and love, whether they are raised as pets or companions or for a specific purpose, the relationship is right. Not just for them, but for us, as well.

But you know, if you have a pet or care for animals on a farm, that there are moments when those creatures can behave in a way that's more than a little trying. Annoying sometimes. Infuriating even. 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 - or 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. It’s the grace Jesus showed everyone, every creature.

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. As Seattle suggested in 1854: "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."

From right here, right now

I’m from here. I haven’t been here long, but I just want to be clear that, if you ask me where I’m from, I’m going to say that I’m from here.

When I came to Bashaw 11 years ago, one of the first services I did was at the seniors lodge. I was talking to an elderly man afterwards, he was in his 90s, and our conversation went something like this.

He asked me where I was from. I said that I was the new minister at the United church here in town. He said yeah, but where are you from? Well, I said, I came here from Edmonton. He must have had a sense of something, I guess, because he said yeah, but where’re you from, really? Well, I said, I was born in Toronto.

He kind of gave me a look and said yeah, you’re not from here. I came here in 1930-something (he said an exact year, but I don’t remember it). I’m from here. You’re not from here.

There was no point in arguing, I knew what he meant: your home town/province/country. Fair enough, but shouldn’t you get to decide that for yourself? After all, it’s where you feel most at home, not where someone else tells you. Or it shouldn’t be.

I’m from here. This is my home. Yes, I mean Bashaw, Alberta, Canada. But I also think we need to go bigger. And, at the same time, more intimate.

In the beginning … there are two creation stories in Genesis. They’re complimentary, I think. The first is the six days of creation, seventh day rest story. It’s about the creation of everything, the beginning of the world we know, with human beings created in the image of God. The second is simpler and focuses more on the place of humans in the story. Their creation is more detailed: Adam is created from the earth (Adam means “of the earth”) and placed in the garden of Eden and, well, you know the story from there.

So, just to be clear. There’s a story of how God imagines everything into existence, including us being in God’s image, and then a second story in which, everything being imagined into existence, God creates a human being from the dirt of the earth, with water from the earth, and breathes into it the air of the earth to give it life.

Here’s my take away from that. These stories aren’t a history, and they’re not just about a long dead past. They’re a way of communicating an essential truth about where we come from and where we are. And, wherever we might think that is, we’re of God and the earth. That’s how intimately we’re all connected.

So when I hear Jesus say “love God and love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31) that just makes sense. We are of the earth and God and love is the thing that connects us. So we love God when we love our neighbour, we love our neighbour when we love ourselves, we love ourselves when we love God. There is a unity there, from love, when we recognize our connectedness. 

So why do we need to be reminded by Jesus? Why is it so hard to do? Why aren’t we always doing it?

Well, that same creation story - or stories - continues with the first human beings making a choice. I think that choice is the beginning of free will and, rather than being cast out of the Garden because of their disobedience and sinfulness, I think that’s the moment at which they became aware. Instead of simply existing in the perfectness of creation, we began to be aware of the diversity around us, we could choose to engage and create, build and destroy, love and hate.

We haven’t always chosen well. Instead of stepping confidently into the unknown, we’ve feared it and allowed fear and ignorance to lead us to hate the diversity rather than embrace it. Our experience can lead us to build walls to protect ourselves and separate us from others. And God.

And that’s just it. In all that diversity, we are still of this one earth and this one God, however you know or experience those things.

Rain (or Snow) or Shine

“One light, one sun, one sun lighting everyone.”

That sounds like something Jesus would say, doesn’t it?  But it’s not.  Pretty close, though, if you were a little kid in the 1980s.  It’s a song by Raffi.

What Jesus did say was that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).  The sun and the rain treat all equally, just as God does. There is no discrimination of any kind in God’s love. And Jesus calls us to do the same, to respect everyone equally, to care for all and to love all.

Jesus is actually a little more specific as well. He says we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). It’s not enough to love only those who love us and to care for those who can return the favour, we should love those who it is hardest to love. And then there’s the outcast and marginalized, the poor, the sick, the broken - the list is endless. Literally. Jesus wants us to love everyone, to love our neighbour as ourselves and our neighbours are the world.

I know, this sounds like another one of those impossible demands that Jesus seems to make, an idealistic platitude beyond all practicality that we could never live up to. In fact, it’s just another one of those things that, historically, churches seems to preach while behaving just the opposite way.

But, like Jesus, Raffi’s right. If, like the sun, God’s grace is for everyone and we, following Jesus, are called to love everyone, then we should try. Imagine - if we can imagine it - what kind of a world this would be if we succeeded. We would “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  Hmmm.  So maybe that kind of perfection really only comes with heaven.

But we can make a start here. Yes. We. Can. It’s the whole point of Jesus being “the Word made flesh,” “Love incarnate,” to show us that it is possible in this world.

I believe that there is one God and we all come to that one God our own way.  That’s my belief.  It might be yours, it might not.  I believe in the uniqueness of every individual and the unity of every individual as a child of God. I have a few other ideas you might be interested in, or might not. We should discuss it. But love me because of it or love me in spite of it, but Jesus says don’t hate me for it.

It’s true, of course, that more often than not it’s the action that accompanies the belief that is the real issue - our “practice” of our beliefs, in other words - or the fear of what we don’t know about others.  Fair enough.  So let’s try and learn.

Make a start. After all, as Raffi says, there’s not just “one light, one sun, one sun lighting everyone,”  there’s also only “one world, one home, one world home for everyone.”

In the beginnings

“And suddenly you know: it's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”

That sounds hip and cool and contemporary, but it’s a hip and cool and contemporary translation of something written by Meister Eckhart (c.1260 - c.1328), a medieval theologian and mystic. He was a monk who got into trouble with the church authorities for being unorthodox. I like him.

It seems like that’s a good quote for September. Things are beginning. School, new seasons of activities (sports and cultural), the fall is here (or straight to winter, depending on who you believe), people are back at work after holidays.

Oh, yes, that’s worth remembering, isn’t it? These new beginnings come about because something ended: the summer, holidays, a “break.” Whatever you want to call it, that time’s ending so that new things can begin.

So what was before the first beginning?

No, really. Whether you think scientifically and go with The Big Bang or whatever theory or you believe Genesis - either as myth/metaphor or the real deal - what was before that? Let’s consider the Genesis story.

“In the beginning” God created, Genesis says, over a period of six days in a very orderly fashion everything we can see and touch, including us, and more. One could readily answer - and the church has - that God created from nothing because God is God. Okay, but that still doesn’t answer the question because there wasn’t nothing: there was God.

Genesis isn’t the only “in the beginning” in the bible. The Gospel of John begins “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God … Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all.” (John 1:1-4) John doesn’t just say there was God, John says that in God was life.  I like that.

I like that because I think before the first ever beginning, there wasn’t an ending, there was an “always.” The Always is God -  the love, the grace, the energy, the life, all the things that we round up into that name, God. The Always. Like that story in Exodus when Moses asks God what God should be called (people will ask, you know) and God says to tell them “I AM” has sent him. God simply is, always and ever.

The really cool thing about the Genesis story is that The Always creates, and by doing so, puts a little of the heart of The Always into everything that is created. God is in all things, including us. Jesus, John says, is the truest incarnation of that, “the Word made flesh.” To me, that means that Jesus truly can be our example of how we can live fully because, as Genesis says, we are created in God’s image. Not only is there a little of the heart of The Always in us, we, too, are creators when we put a little bit of our heart into creating. That is how intimate our relationship is with all creation. And with God.

Thing is, though, we experience life as linear in time. We think that, as time passes, memories fade and experiences diminish. But what if we consider The Always within us that’s always creating. That means those things aren’t diminished, rather our life expands around them. We are more with every moment.

So what’s the point? Every moment holds the potential of a creative burst of life. I’ll call it God, or maybe, like Meister Ekhart, it’s the magic of beginnings. Either way, trust it.

Are you afraid?

We’ve been out at the lake near here the last couple of weeks. It’s beautiful there and there’s a nice little community, some summer residents and a few all season. Right where you drive in there’s signs in both directions, those yellow diamond shape caution signs. They say “BEWARE OF CHILDREN.”

I’m pretty sure a few people smile at that. Unless they just read Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn,” then maybe not.

We’re used to seeing “Caution” or “Slow: Children Playing,” “Watch for Children” or even just the sign with the image of children playing. Maybe whoever put the sign up just had a sense of humour or was just trying to be different and meant the same thing. But I was thinking that they wanted more from drivers. I thought they must have wanted drivers to be aware.

So I looked up the definition of “beware” in a few different dictionaries and I have to say I’m disappointed. All of them indicated that it comes from the contraction of “be” and “ware” and means to be cautious, alert or on guard (I’m mostly okay with that) because of impending danger, trouble or risk (not fine with that at all).

I so wanted it to be a contraction of “be aware.”

I know it might seem that I’m being fussy, but I think there’s a huge difference in our world between “be aware” and “be wary.” That huge difference is fear.

Take that signage, for example. Would you understand it to mean be on guard because of the impending danger of children? Or be aware that there are children around here and act accordingly.

Well, it means the second one, of course (for most of us, anyway). But that’s probably because, like me, you read it as “be aware of children.” 

Just like the dictionaries, when we say beware we’ve already presumed danger, we’ve already assumed there’s something to fear for which we should be on guard and ready to defend, ready to protect ourselves and our stuff. And we can find lots to fear. Look around you, read the news. We could probably live our entire lives on the defensive.

Or we could be aware.

Look at Jesus for a minute. “Don’t be afraid” is his favourite thing to say. I don’t think Jesus ever meant that in a dismissive way, as if our fear wasn’t real or reasonable. Nor do I think Jesus ever meant to say it as a command, as if it were simply a question of obeying his word. Whether it’s “don’t be afraid,” “fear not,” “do not let your heart be troubled” or any of the many ways Jesus addressed our fear, Jesus never left it there. “Don’t be afraid” was always followed by “be aware.”

Sure, be aware that your fear may very well be real. But that doesn’t mean it controls you. You choose how to respond to it and how to use it. Perhaps it is time to beware - to be prepared for danger or risk - but the important part of that isn’t the danger and risk, it’s the be prepared.

It may also be that what we fear is simply the unknown, a lack of understanding or experience. And to that I think Jesus would tell us to be aware and engage the world. Find out more, wonder more, experience more, understand more. Don’t be afraid, be prepared and go experience life. You’ll be okay.

You’ll be okay because God is with you. “I know, I know,” Jesus might say, “you think that all sounds good, but what does it really mean. Well, let me show you.” Jesus’ life teaches us how to be aware, not afraid. Jesus teaches us to engage the world with love and grace and build relationships that reach out, not walls to hide behind. Jesus brings us closer to God and shows us how to live with God in our lives.

Don’t be afraid. Be aware. Be like Jesus.

Eat it, it's good for you

The very idea of literalism bothers me.  It seems to me that there really is no such thing.  After all, the moment you read something, hear something or see something, the moment you experience it, you - yourself - are interpreting it, aren't you?

I'm distinguishing from "factual," by the way.  It seems to me that something being factually correct isn't the same as literal.  Literal must surely mean something is exactly as it appears and not open to interpretation beyond what it literally is, right?

Apparently not.

I looked it up online at dictionary.com and it has this note under "usage:” "since the early 20th century, literally  has been widely used as an intensifier meaning 'in effect, virtually,' a sense that contradicts the earlier meaning 'actually, without exaggeration.'"

I guess now we’re interpreting literally.

It may seem like I'm being a bit silly about this, but many churches this month are hearing the chapter of John’s gospel in which Jesus describes himself as “the Bread of Life.” It’s the first of a series of “I am” statements that Jesus makes in order to describe himself and what he’s about.

Just to be clear: Jesus says “I am” these things. He doesn’t say “I’m like these things” or “here’s a really cool metaphorical way of describing me.”

This week, he’s a little more specific even. "So Jesus said to them, ‘very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them"  (John 6:53-56).

It would worry me a little if people thought we should take that "literally" - the old meaning of literally - that Jesus really wanted you to gnaw on some flesh and drink some blood.  Literally.  Of course it's an image to help us better understand the role of Jesus in our lives.  Isn't  it?

Let's step back for a minute.  When we hear this today, we employ our interpretative lenses of two thousand years understanding that Jesus was referring to the sacrifice of his life, two thousand years of teaching about the institution of the eucharist, the re-enactment of the Last Supper in which the bread and wine either symbolize or becomes (depending on your tradition) the body and blood of Jesus.  It's not hard for us to understand that Jesus means this "as an intensifier meaning 'in effect, virtually.'"

But the story's not from this century and the people listening to Jesus have no such lens with which to interpret it.  Furthermore, according to Hebrew law, it's forbidden to consume "flesh" (defined as meat without its blood spilled) and blood because of the belief that "life" is in the blood.  This language alienated some of Jesus followers.  It also left the earliest followers of Jesus with a reputation.  Seems some people got the idea they were cannibals …

So why was Jesus being this outrageous?  Well, it's not the first time.  Think of how many of Jesus' parables make his point with an extreme image.  And what about the miracles?  Not long before this story, Jesus fed more than five thousand people with five loaves and two fish.

This "bread of life" story has been going on for a little while in John's gospel and still the people don't seem to get it.  But I think for once, being literal is on the right track.  In that outrageousness is Jesus' point: it is not enough to change the way you act, it's not enough to just behave differently, it's not enough to think or speak differently, it's not even enough to believe.  To become one with Jesus and with God is to take Jesus - and God - within you, to - literally - consume Jesus so that your whole being is fed.  Your whole being.  The bread which keeps this physical body alive is not enough.  Not even the manna in the wilderness can do more than that.  Only the "Bread of Life" can feed your whole being in this life and the life to come. 

That's right.  It comes down to something we can easily understand: you are what you eat.  Literally. 

Try checking your image

Lori and I have a breakfast ritual. She lets the dogs out and feeds them, I make the breakfast, we sit down and, while we eat, we like to read the news online from a few reputable media sources. 

Well, I say “like” but sometimes we don’t “like” it at all. But it’s good to be informed even if you wish it were more positive. And truthful. When did it get so easy to lie? And steal and hate and hurt and break and? Sorry. I’m starting to sound like one of those ministers who thinks “the world is going to hell in a hand basket.”

Don’t be afraid. I don’t mean to sound like that - I’m still one of those ministers who thinks that, created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), we are inherently good. With freewill, we are often easily led astray, but God - the power of love, grace and good that connects us all - is our default setting.

I’ll come back to that, but I was thinking about what’s true when I noticed the headline “In business, finding out what’s true is more valuable than ever.” It was an analysis column by CBC business writer Don Pittis. He started out talking about Elon Musk’s recent tweet announcing his intent to buy back shares of his company, Tesla. Was the information in the tweet true, everyone wants to know. Because if it isn’t, Pittis writes, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could charge him with stock manipulation or fraud. Pittis writes “the children's game of true or false doesn't seem as easy as it used to. For those of us grasping for truth in a world that seems full of convenient lies, knowing there is a body like the SEC to step in and try to keep powerful business leaders honest is at least a small comfort. But in so many other areas, truth seems to have lost its currency. And unlike with the securities business, there is no regulator to intervene and tell us what's so.”

He’s written about this before, he says, and goes on to talk about the lack of truth and credibility in politics, the world and the media before tying them all together with this: “In business, truth matters. Outside of business, the value of truth is harder to measure. But guiding our lives by pure falsehood surely has a cost. And there's no SEC to set us straight.”

He should read Ephesians with us this week.

Traditionally, it was long thought that the letter to the Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul to people at Ephesus (a Mediterranean coastal city in what’s now modern day Turkey) and lumped in with Paul’s other letters. But more recent scholarship says that Paul didn’t write it, it was likely a student or follower later, using Paul’s name to give it credibility. And it may not have been specifically to Ephesus. The oldest existing copy seems to be blank in the salutation, so it could have been to anyone or everyone. Which is also interesting. Paul’s letters seem to be in response to a particular situation or context that we don’t have the original correspondence for, but this one is more direct and broader in scope.

Let me go back to “using Paul’s name to give it credibility.” The whole preceding paragraph shouldn’t be interpreted as questioning how credible the letter is. Truth is (no pun intended) we shouldn’t consider only it’s source, something we so often do, but investigate and discern the content for ourselves. Really. Don’t just believe it because I said so, read it for yourself. Especially Ephesians 4:25-5:2. 

The whole letter is really about the community created around the gospel story, the “good news” of Jesus, but is more than the words or theology of that, it’s the practical doing of it. The community we create and empower by being honest and truthful with each other, but not in a way that’s hurtful and destructive. Even anger is okay, but, again, the point ought to always be to build up, not tear down. And thieves shouldn’t steal, but rather work to have something to share with others. The point always being to build up the community - literally, the common unity - of people. Put away malice and bitterness, says the letter, and be kind and supportive with each other. 

Well that sounds idyllic. And difficult. And if you read the news today, it doesn’t look like we’re being very successful at it. There’s very little warm fuzzies and lots of harsh reality. Yes. But we shouldn’t give up and we shouldn’t address that with simply more of the same.

The author of Ephesians has another idea. Remember “created in the image of God?” Well, then “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us” (Eph. 5:1-2). I think they could see how easy it was for us to look out at the world and respond in kind and they wanted to tell us all to look inwards instead, and to see God there and to live in love. Because however you know God, God is love. Jesus is that love incarnate. We are, too.