Full and Fruitful

It’s been my experience that God gets blamed for a lot of things.

I’m sure that God gets credit for lots, too. Surely no one says “Thank God!” as just a random expression of appreciation, do they? God’s included in many many things we say, but, before I get off on a “don’t take God’s name in vain” tangent, that isn’t my point here. Nor am I interested in the expression “act of God” which is, frankly, just wrong. It’s an act of nature, but I’ll kind of come back to that.

I also don’t mean to address how often, when something bad happens, we might ask “why did God do that?” or “why did God allow that to happen? or “why didn’t God do something?” In moments of intense grief, looking for answers, we might ask those questions and wonder just where is God in that moment.

Wiser people than I have written at length about this, but let me say that God doesn’t need defending or excusing in that moment. I’m pretty sure God’s okay with accepting people’s grief as they express it, because I think God is sharing that grief, just as God shares our joy, and it’s God’s presence that inspires compassion and love around us.

I don’t for a moment think that the God of love, grace and life would do anything to hurt any part of creation and, more importantly, that’s not how it works. I look at it like this: just as we have free will, so does the world in which we live. It’s complex and random and things happen and we constantly search for a reason in that mystery.

Which brings me to how often we still hear people say that something happened because God is punishing us/them for being sinful. Not just the big “that hurricane was God punishing people for their immorality” or that flood was punishment for “those people,” but the more individual, personal things that we might sometimes even do to ourselves.

So, no. Just no.

I believe that God is love and life and creativity, inspiring us to live into the good that is in each of us. When we don’t because of the choices we’ve made, I think we’re distancing ourselves from that love. But God doesn’t abandon us or punish us. God forgives and encourages, always seeking a life-giving relationship. That’s why John the Baptist, Jesus and all his followers since keep talking about repentance: it means, literally, to turn away from sin and back to God, patiently waiting for us to return to that relationship and grow in it. That’s what a God of love is about.

I think Jesus says that, too. Luke’s gospel records some people talking with Jesus and they ask about some others who were killed by the Romans and their blood used in sacrifices (Luke 13:1-5), wondering if they were punished in that way because they were more sinful. No, says Jesus, and he reminds them of another incident of people killed when a building fell on them, an accident. Again no. People aren’t punished for being more or less sinful than others, Jesus seems to say, we’re all sinful and all die. That’s why we need to repent, to turn to good and live well so that this life may be full and fruitful before we return home to God.

Jesus then tells a story about a landowner who has a fig tree that hasn’t produced fruit for three years. He tells his gardner to cut it down and get rid of it, but the gardner ask for one more year, during which he’ll fertilize it and nurture it. If it bears fruit, great, if not, then cut it down. The End. Yes, that’s where the story ends, with no resolution, only the possibilities.

We traditionally interpret this story with God as the landowner, we’re the tree and Jesus is the gardner. And that makes sense, by itself. God put us here to be fruitful, we’ve not done that and Jesus comes to help us so that God won’t cut us down and throw us into the fire for not producing. Except go back to the scene right before this, the discussion that inspired the story. Does that fit?

What if we looked at it differently. What if we looked at it as a story of relationship. What if we were the impatient landowner and saw God as the tree that wasn’t meeting our expectations and giving us what we want? Jesus is the gardner still, trying to nurture the relationship between us, feeding it with what we have (yes, that’s the fertilizer) in order that we might both flourish and be fed.

What if we were the gardner, the tree were God - that is, love - and we’re nurturing that so that it might feed the world, which is the landowner? What if we’re the gardner, the tree is our community, the landowner is the world and God is the, well, God is the fertilizer that nourishes and nurtures our relationship?

The thing is, the story, as Jesus tells it, has no resolution. Just like life, the possibilities are many. But we have a part in it, individually and in the community of our world.

Deal or No Deal

It feels to me sometimes like we live in a world of “the deal.” So much of what we do and how we live seems to rely on what kind of a deal we can get. Or make. I give x, I get y in return. I invest (money, time, resources), I expect a return on my investment. And “a great deal” is one in which I get more in return than the value of what I put in. Or at least the illusion that I got more. We’re not always sure - or we don’t care to find out - what the true cost of something is.

Sure, there’s such a thing as a deal where it seems like it’s good for all parties: the value of the product and what’s offered is equitable or there’s a good return on an investment that’s equitably shared. That system of exchange is how we operate. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s fair trade.

But, more and more often, getting the best deal seems to involve being able to gain an advantage or even over take the other party in a way that brings reward to one and less, nothing, or next to nothing, to the other. There needs to be a winner and a loser and we start to idolize the winners. And when winning becomes that important, all sorts of tactics we might otherwise think are unfair and wrong become reasonable, even desirable. Egos become bigger, personalities more aggressive and exercising power over others, even bullying them, becomes okay. We must get what we want. It’s just good business.

But good for whom? Like I said, I’m not arguing against our way of trading and exchanging for goods and services, it’s a pretty fundamental piece of how we are. But. Some things are bigger than just you and me and that’s when we need more than an agreement or contract. I think we need a covenant.

Here’s how I see the difference. In a contract, we put in something, we get something back. It’s an agreement designed to benefit the parties involved in the exchange. Something as simple as buying a chocolate bar, for example. You give the seller a dollar they give you a chocolate bar. They get money, you get the chocolate bar. There’s the manufacturer, of course, the shipper, and the people who provided the raw ingredients, perhaps even more, but they, too, have been compensated. That’s a little simplistic, perhaps, but I think it’s essentially the intent. It’s a deal.

In a covenant, I think there’s more. I should be more specific, here, and say that I’m referring to a practical aspect of how I understand biblical covenant. I don’t mean to minimize the historical and theological issues and interpretations, but here’s the thing: in a covenant, what the parties contribute creates a new thing which is not only mutually beneficial, but has a much bigger influence and impact.

There are a number of covenants in the Bible, from Noah, Abraham and Moses to the New Covenant in Jesus, but I think they all have this in common: God offers love and life, we offer faith and we create this new thing, a community of grace, care and compassion to which all the children of God belong.

Or, at least, we could. We have a long history of not always living up to our part of the covenant. Which is why it’s also so important to remember that neither God or Jesus ever asked for perfection in this life.

But just think about how different things can be in the context of a covenant. Covenant values the individual, but builds community. Covenant shares equitably and creates opportunity. Covenant inspires and lifts up. Covenant empowers and encourages teamwork.

That’s not to say that there’s no cost to covenant. We’re human beings. There are a multitude of challenges and struggles. The story of Jesus reminds us that there can also be sacrifice. But covenant reminds me, most importantly, that there is something bigger than me. It’s something that I’m a part of because of what I bring to it and what I gain from it, but it also means that I’m part of the fabric of what has been, what we’re creating and what will be. I can’t be that alone. I can’t do that competitively and I can’t get that from the best deal for me. I think I want a covenant.

Welcome to Lent!

I hate to mention the weather again, but, good news! Environment Canada says that this is the last week of winter and spring is coming. And if you can’t believe Environment Canada, who can you believe? Well … maybe now’s a good time to wonder about that and a lot more.

The seasons have certainly changed for most churches. It’s the season of Lent. Beginning on Ash Wednesday (which has its own story, too - ask a pastor) and ending the day before Easter, the forty days of Lent represent the time Jesus spent in the wilderness being, as the gospels say, “tempted by the devil.” It’s the season traditionally observed by Christian churches as a time of giving up something, of fasting and sacrifice in preparation for Easter.

Lent was intended to be a time of reflection and preparation based on three principles: prayer, fasting and giving to others.  For many, the focus of Lent became the “giving up” part, giving up of time, food and goods.  Originally this meant general abstinence and giving up festivities as well as food, but in later years there was often a more specific focus on giving up more obvious vices such as smoking, drinking, coffee and chocolate (okay, those last two are pretty much essentials …)

The goal was to identify with Jesus’ time in the wilderness, a time when, according to the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus went into the barren desert, fasted for 40 days and was “tempted by the devil.” So Lent became a shadowy time, it’s church colour is purple, the hymns are all dark and sad, we focused on the struggle, the temptations and, most importantly, the fear of the devil and all the devil represents.

Okay. Can I offer a couple of thoughts about that?

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, when many christians mark their foreheads with the sign of the cross in ash with a call to repentance and the words “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Alright. Repentance and a sound reminder of our humble, fragile mortality. But you should also remember that earth contains the building blocks of life and a recent scientific survey offers proof that you - and the earth - are made of stardust. Literally. That connects us to the universe, too. And speaking of connections, the dust reference is meant to remind you of Adam and Eve. You could focus there on their “Original Sin” - I have thoughts about that for another time - but you could also remember that, like them, we are created in the image of God and therefore inherently good.

By the way, the word Lent comes from the Dutch word for “spring” and the German for “long.”  The name was adopted in the Middle Ages because the season occurred in the spring when days were getting longer.  And brighter. And warmer. And things were starting to come alive and grow.

You might also want to consider why and how Jesus goes into the desert. I think we’ve tended to focus on the hardship and temptations in the story, fearing the devil and perhaps even fearing our own ability to resist temptation and stand by our beliefs. We have this mental image of Jesus being lost in the desert, weak and alone. And there may well be times we can identify with that.

But I don’t think Jesus was either of those things and I think he went to the wilderness with a purpose. Look at how Luke, for example, frames the story: Jesus, fresh from his baptism by John, “was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). And when the experience is over, Jesus goes into his ministry “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4: 14). Jesus was never truly alone: God was with him. The “devil” didn’t stand a chance.

In that same sense, we’re never alone either and that’s particularly important when it comes to the purpose of Jesus’ wilderness time and our own. I think Jesus went into the wilderness to find himself. Yes, sure, that’s become a cliche, but it’s also true. I was just reading Georgia Geary’s blogpost “Finding Yourself Through Travelling: The Cliché that Actually Happens,” and I think she’s right. I think Jesus certainly found that.

Fresh from his anointing with the Spirit and the voice of God claiming him as the “beloved,” here’s Jesus trying to figure out what that means and just how he’s going to go forward into ministry. So he wanders and he wonders, he faces some temptations, but some moments of revelation, enlightenment and empowerment, too. Sure, he confronts “the devil,” but maybe he talks to God, too. He’s hungry and thirsty at the end of it all, but maybe he’s been fed and refreshed, too.

So we could try that. Set aside some time - whether you take this on or give something up to do it - reflect and wonder, talk to God, tackle some issues and dust off some questions. Spring is coming and new life is on the horizon.

Blinded by the Light

We’re all hoping for a dramatic change of season any day now, I’m sure. Really. Any day now, please.

Perhaps it might help to know that the seasons change on the church calendar this week. Hmm, no, didn’t warm me up much, either. But they do, with certainty and with a blaze of glory. Literally.

Since Christmas, we’ve been in the season of Epiphany, a time of light and enlightenment, and now we’re moving to Lent, a time of shadows and wondering. The story that wraps up Epiphany is the Transfiguration. It’s told in three of the four gospels and, this year, we’re hearing Luke’s version. The story goes like this.

Jesus takes three of the disciples with him to the top of a mountain.  While there, Jesus appears to be transfigured.  That is, his appearance is changed and he shines with a dazzling light - with “glory,” Luke says - and Moses and Elijah appear next to him.  The disciples want to build three “dwellings” for them, but suddenly there's a great cloud and a voice is heard saying “this is my son … listen to him.”  The disciples are fearful, Jesus is alone with them again, the moment passes and, when they go down the mountain, they don’t tell anyone what happened.

There’s a few bible studies’ worth to unpack there, but you can see right away why this is a good story with which to wrap up Epiphany. It’s the ultimate reveal for “The Son of God:” dazzling light, the voice of God (speaking from a cloud, as God is wont to do on mountain tops) and the appearance of two heavenly figures (Moses and Elijah, no less).

So, in this story is also a moment in which heaven and earth meet. Celtic spirituality refers to this as when the veil is thin between the two, a liminal moment, when an experience of God or heaven is possible. Here, the threshold is Jesus. The disciples witness the earthbound Jesus with the prophets they know to be in heaven. It’s no wonder they wanted to celebrate the moment, keep them there and, perhaps, keep the door open in that place.

But they can’t. They can’t stay on the mountain top. Neither can Jesus or the experience of heaven and God. The dazzling light, the “glory,” has to walk.

So they leave the mountain and, in Luke’s account, there’s a crowd and a boy that Jesus heals. And then Jesus moves on. In fact, the transfiguration story is the turning point in Jesus’ ministry, between the teaching and healing and the events that lead to the cross. Luke will say “he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). The point is: forward. Forward with Jesus, forward with even more experiences of heaven on earth, more experiences of the power of God.

And that’s why we might want to go back to that moment of transfiguration and wonder if it isn’t something we experience, too. What if we understood this moment of light as not being about a change in appearance and what if it wasn’t just about Jesus? How about a revealing of Jesus as, simply, more Jesus, more of who Jesus really is in heart? And a revealing, a true epiphany for Jesus, but also the disciples and us.

Listen, as God says, to Jesus. If the love of God is in all of us, if Jesus is the Way we follow, we too will find moments of transfiguration, moments of meeting God, moments when the kingdom of heaven is right here. That same light, that “glory,” shines in you. Do you see it?

Caught up in love

I wonder what it feels like to be a fish. One day you’re swimming around, minding your own business, maybe hanging out with some other fish, just getting comfortable in a nice little eddy, snacking on stuff floating by, when - BAM! - you’re hooked. Next thing you know you’re eye up in a frying pan.

Oh sure, you can fight it. You might even break the line or dislodge the hook and get away, but you’ll always feel it. And the other fish will always be looking at you sideways and wondering if it might happen to them. Soon you’re off on a shoal by yourself wondering what happened to those lazy days in school.

I think that’s sometimes how people experience church. After all, didn’t Jesus call his first disciples - who were fishermen - to come and fish for people? For those who find themselves to be spiritual, but not religious, I wonder if this isn’t a key part of that - that they’re not interested in being “caught” with everyone else. And for those that used to attend church, have they found it to be as boring as being, well, dead in the frying pan, or have they been left scarred by the experience? For some, evangelism seems to mean that aggressive catching people, hook, line and sinker, who then become one of “us,” saved from the sea of the real world. Maybe they don’t see that kind of fishing as being saved.

But look at the story again and we might be able to describe the image a little differently. The fishermen Jesus called as his first disciples didn’t use hooks, they used a net. So what if we did that. Our net is the love of Jesus that we are all called to live out. If we live that kind of life, we bring love to the world. Not just the warm, fuzzy romantic stuff on Valentine’s Day, but the deep, difficult love that calls us to care for each other when it’s hardest, to be kind and compassionate even to our enemies and to love the seemingly unlovable, to raise up the poor, bring justice to the oppressed and care for the sick and broken.  And that’s the short list.

To be this love to each other is to cast the kind of a net that holds people but doesn’t hold them back, that embraces them but doesn’t imprison them, that includes all and excludes none.  Isn’t that what evangelism is all about: to share the good news of Jesus, to tell the story and to live it, too.  In sharing that experience with the world, we build on a net of love that connects people with each other and with God.

And we do it on porpoise ...

Under the Sea

How deep is your love?

When we think of the story of Jesus calling the first disciples, we might remember that they were fishermen and the classic line about him calling them to come and “fish for people.” That story is in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Luke’s account, Jesus goes to the lakeshore and meets Peter and the others returning from a day of fishing in which they didn’t catch much. He sends them out again and they return with boats overloaded with fish. When he calls them to follow him on land, they give up their sea life to do so (Luke 5:1-11).

On the surface, it’s a simple story of call. On the surface. That’s really the key to the story: in my “surface” retelling of the story, I left out the crucial part. When Jesus sends the disciples back out, he tells them to “put out into the deep water” (Luke 5:4). And when he calls them to follow him on land, he calls them to the same depths.

We are also called to the deep. In our relationships with each other, with the world around us and with God, we go to the deep. Or we should.

The ocean is a great metaphor for this. Stay on the surface and we can’t see the richness which is underneath. We might float along on the surface, or paddle around in the water, but to go any deeper is much more of a challenge. It becomes harder to see, so we might need a light, and we definitely need help breathing, but there are amazing things down there: fish, plant life, corral - a whole world, even, a whole world of experiences that make our lives so much richer.

Of course, there’s some pretty scary things, too. And dangerous things. And we can’t stay down there for too long. You have to come up for air sometime. And it’s easy to lose our sense of direction and get lost, too.

So it’s important to remember that God goes with us. In Jesus, there is a light for our way, the Spirit is our breath, the stories of faith in the bible help us navigate what is true. God is always with us, whether we sense it in ourselves or in the people around us. And even in the creation around us. When our relationships are true, we love as Jesus taught. That takes us beyond the surface, to the deepest depths we are able.

The Sum of its Parts

Body image has really become an issue lately.

Nope. I misspoke. Body image has always been an issue. Thankfully, more and more people - especially young people - are speaking out and drawing attention to the profound impact your perception of your appearance can have on your wellbeing. That perception is skewed by society, social media, advertising and a host of other factors, all of which seem to have more influence than the truth: you are a perfect child of God, just as you are. You being you should be more important than being someone else’s idea of you. And that’s a struggle for us.

I wonder why we don’t talk more about body image in church?

Thanks to the apostle Paul, “the body” is an image we use frequently to describe the followers of Jesus. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ ... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 27).  And it’s a good metaphor, mostly.  It acknowledges our diversity and embraces it. Everyone, in their own unique way, is a part of making the body whole. It celebrates our relationships, our interconnectedness, our need to be in community, our need to be active in being Christ-like - to be the hands and feet of Christ in doing, the eyes in seeing, the ears in listening, the mouth in proclaiming and so on.  Most important of all, to be a part of the heart of Christ in our living.

It raises a couple of questions worth thinking about, though.

Like, which body part are you? It’s easy to think that we’d like to be the brains or the hands or the heart, but somebody’s got to be the parts we’d rather not mention. You know, those parts we’d rather hide, that we often use to label someone else’s behaviour in a derogatory way. We don’t really need those parts, do we?

Every part matters, says Paul. Even the parts we think need to be hidden, even the parts we think less worthy, even the parts we don’t like or think we can do without, those should be lifted up and honoured. Wholeness isn’t about having only the best parts, it’s about all things sharing in their connectedness to support the whole. The same is true of parts that are broken, old or lost. Jesus calls us to reach out to them and Paul’s image reminds us that our interconnectedness is why: “if one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it” (1 Cor. 12:26).

Just like our own body, a community will have a sense of self-esteem and its own perception of what it’s capable - and not - of doing.  So a community of faith - a church - will have a sense of body image.  And a good, healthy body image in the church body isn’t about appearance.  It’s about our acceptance of each other for who we are and understanding that we each have unique gifts that we bring to share with our community.  The sharing of those gifts is what makes the body what it is, a synergy: that “we who are many, and come from many places, are one.”