Will you follow?

The last two verses of chapter 20 of the Gospel of John sure sound like an ending to me.  "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name."

Chapter 20 includes the story of the empty tomb, the appearance of Jesus to the disciples and the story of Thomas, the one who doubted.  In the middle of this chapter is a commissioning scene: "'As the Father has sent me, so I send you.'  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"

Like I said, it sure seems like an ending.  But it's not.  There's a chapter 21.

Sure, there's debate about how it was added and who might have added it, but it's there and it seems to be there in the oldest sources.  I don't have an answer for that debate - any more than anyone else has anything really conclusive, I don't suppose - but I like this chapter 21 and I'll tell you why.

Jesus gathered ordinary people to be his closest followers.  And for awhile they followed and learned and experienced life with Jesus.  Then it all came to an end.  When Jesus was arrested, one of them even denied knowing him.  The others all hid in fear.  When he died, they didn't really know what to do.  And then he was there again with them.  Even reappearing for the one who was missing the first time, in order to prove it was really him.  He was there!

Amazing!  Incredible!  A fulfillment of what he had foretold, proof that he was who he had said he was!  And then he breathes the Spirit into them and tells them he is sending them into the world, just as God sent him to us!  Fantastic!  And then what do the disciples do next?  They go fishing.

Say what?

In chapter 21, the six of them that had been fishermen went fishing.  They went back to their everyday, ordinary former lives.  Like, the show's over, we're done with that.  It was great while it lasted - well, mostly, except that last bit with the death and everything - but Jesus is gone now, so let's all get back to where we were.  It's over now.

So Jesus appears again and says "follow me."  There's no going back to ordinariness now, there's no going back to the way things were as if nothing has changed.  Everything has changed.  And it's not over.  "Follow me."

Makes me wonder if that isn't how we should end every Sunday morning church service.  Well, every church service, every church meeting, every church gathering, every "church."  Period.  Isn't the whole point of church to be remembering that it's not over?  If we go to church for an hour, enjoy the show (or at least tolerate it) and leave God behind as we leave the building, how are we accomplishing what Jesus teaches us?  Church is just the beginning, too.

It can't just be inspiring or refreshing, entertaining or momentarily meaningful, it must also be demanding.  In the same way that Jesus demands it of the disciples, Jesus demands it of us: it's not over, it's just beginning.  "Follow me."

Making Connections

I've had an Easter hymn stuck in my head the last few days.  I know, it's still Lent, what am I thinking?  

But it's one I remember from childhood, an old anglican chestnut called "Jesus lives!"  The tune I remember is St. Albinus, one of those huge Victorian things that just demands a big pipe organ cranked to the max.  The language is a little dated now, but I remember every word: the first verse goes "Jesus lives! thy terrors now / can no longer, death, appall us; / Jesus lives! by this we know / thou, O grave, canst not enthrall us. / Alleluia!"

As a choirboy, I was never really sure what it was all about, but it sure stuck with me.  Even when I "hear" it now, I hear the great organ, a cathedral full of people just belting it out.  I can feel the excitement that it's Easter morning, just as if I was back there in the '70s.  I think I can even catch a faint whiff of incense and lilies.  That's Easter.

It's like I'm there.

Experience is a powerful connector.  So lack of it can surely be a powerful disconnector, don't you think?  Or at least an opportunity to create distance.

I wonder if that isn't why so many people challenge the relevancy of the Bible and the stories in it.  Sure we can talk about the context of the story and explain what's happening and why.  We can talk about meaning and we can relate it to our present circumstance and marvel at the currency of what's "true."  But it's also really tempting to say "that's just something that happened in a far away place a long time ago.  It's not my culture, it's not my time, it's not my place."

Take the Holy Week story, for example.  Each year on Palm Sunday, we try to do something intergenerational in our worship, something experiential that helps tell the story of Holy Week in a way that's meaningful to all ages.  Something that maybe connects us more closely to the meaning and purpose of those last few days.  We've done dramas and interactive plays; we've given video cameras to small groups and had them act out a piece of the story, presenting the videos together; we've setup "stations" of the different pieces of the story, with a passport to be stamped on the way; we've made a video with the children talking about experiences they'd had similar to the Palm Sunday parade and the Last Supper.

This year, we're looking at "place" in the Holy Week story.  Not a lot of us have been to first century Jerusalem.  Some haven't even been out of this country.  So, how do we make the story a little more real and a little more "in our own backyard?"  How about we consider how the story would appear if it were here, today.  How would things look, how would they unfold if Jesus walked the streets of our town of Bashaw?  Which "temple" would he go to?  Where would he and his followers eat? Where would they pray?  Where would he be held when arrested?  Where would he meet his end?

Can we even imagine it here?  Here in unoccupied Canada where we are all free?  Where there is freedom of speech and no death penalty?  How would this story even play out now?  We'll be thinking about that.

So I have a question for you:  how do you bring the Easter story home to your heart?

Gift of Love, Gift of Grace

The Anointing with Oil and Tears
by Sadao Watanabe, 1979

The story of a woman anointing Jesus with expensive perfumed oil is one of those rare stories that appears in all four of the gospels, in one form or another.  Each gospel includes its own unique features, but the version in John 12:1-11 is perhaps the most detailed.  There is lots here to examine in a Bible Study and some fascinating questions to follow off the main story.

And that's so tempting.  Some of them are fascinating and worthy of more attention.  But, resisting the urge, can we look at the big picture for a minute?

A woman anoints Jesus with expensive oil.  The response made by the those watching - represented in John's story by Judas - is that this is a wasteful extravagance that could have done so much more if it had been sold and the money used for the poor.  Jesus replies that she is anointing him for burial and the poor, unlike Jesus himself, will always be with us.

Okay, so there's the two main features of the story right there: the woman's extravagant gift and the question of its practicality.

Bearing in mind that Mary didn't say anything about why she was doing it - it's Jesus who suggests the reason, foreshadowing what was to come in the next week - everyone watching is left with their own judgement of it's value.  And some would undoubtedly agree with Judas, despite the personal motivation John ascribes to him.  And why not?  Isn't caring for the poor a cornerstone of the ministry to which Jesus leads us?

Some, however, might have first have been moved by the the great love and devotion shown by Mary's actions: an unexpected gift, an act of kindness and humility, freely given.

Are we, then, asked to choose between the value of the act of giving and the gift itself?  Or are we asked to consider the value of Jesus, the recipient of the gift, and the value of feeding the poor?  Surely, practicality and common sense make those answers easy.

If only practicality and common sense were also cornerstones of Jesus' ministry.  But they're not.  Love is.  Living a life of love, as Jesus showed us, isn't always about common sense.  Nor can it be judged for its practicality.  Living a life of love constantly challenges us to put love before cost.  Living a life of love constantly challenges to care for all, not to make choices based on values we may want to ascribe to those we consider more or less deserving.

I don't believe this story tells us that extravagant love and care of the poor are exclusive of each other.  Rather, they are intrinsically linked.  In living the life of Jesus, we are often faced with the difficult choices invited by a practical world.  This story reminds us: love more, judge less.

And I don't even like figs.

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.  So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’  He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”  Luke 13:6-9, NRSV

I spent a great deal of time trying to come up with a little intro to what I wanted to address in the gospel this week.  You know, “a way in,” an anecdote or story that let’s me open up the idea in an interesting and relevant way.

I had a bunch, all of which took me to my main idea, but I finally gave up and decided to just cut to the chase.  Why?  Because I have no patience.

Which is exactly my point.

I know it’s “just an expression,” but it’s also fundamentally flawed.  I can’t have no patience.  Really.  Because I do have patience.  It’s always there.  And I do use it sometimes.  For some things.  A little selectively.  But it’s there, it really is, I just don’t use it as often as I should.

It’s possible that you don’t either.  I don’t know for sure and it’s not my job to tell you or anyone but myself.  But this is Lent, and as I said recently, this is an “I” time when it comes to examination, a time for self-discovery and reflection.  So I want to reflect on that and work on it a bit.

And what I’m reflecting on right now is how frequently I say “I don’t have the patience for that” like it’s a good reason to move on.  I think it isn’t.  I think it’s an excuse.

See, I think that one of the things the parable of the fig tree tells us is that it isn’t just about being patient waiting for growth, it isn’t just about caring, feeding and nurturing, it’s also about recognizing the presence of the seed in the first place.

The fig tree’s not dead, it needs time and care to produce fruit.  Apparently not a lot of care, though, as long as it’s in shade and you contain the roots and give it fertilizer.  Most online gardeners think figs trees are easy to care for, given the right climate.  

Maybe a better analogy for us, as human beings, might be apples.  Look it up - it seems like it’s a lot of complicated work to get a good eating apple.  (And we’re pretty complicated.)

But the point is that the potential is there to begin with, just as it is with us.  Great gifts are within us, gifts that may be brought to fruit and shared, gifts that may even be the source of nurture to others.  Gifts in abundance.

It can seem so easy for us to deny the strength of our nurturing gifts, gifts of love, patience, kindness, forgiveness, gifts of grace.  It is so easy for them to be stunted by lack of nurture.  It is even easy for them to be drowned out, buried under too much manure.  It’s a lot of work.

I think this little story reminds us that patience isn’t just necessary, it’s life-giving.  It’s about the potential and possibility of fulfillment.  Patience shouldn’t just be about waiting, it should be doing so supportively, with encouragement and graciousness.  With nurture.

Jesus leaves the story open ended.  He doesn’t say the tree flourished.  He doesn’t say that it was cut down.  I like to think the tree produced some fruit that year, but even if it did, it was only the beginning.  Perhaps the tree didn’t produce fruit, but the owner was encouraged by the efforts of the gardner to continue to be patient.  For as long as it takes.  Wouldn’t that be living truly in the image of God?

You said what?

I have questions.  I've always had questions, I will always have questions.

To me, belief is the beginning of questions, not the excuse to stop people asking questions.  I think the satirist and comedian Bill Maher is mistaken when he says "faith means making a virtue out of not thinking."  Faith demands we think more.

So, because it's Lent, let me tell you some things I believe.

I say that, "because it's Lent," because I believe that Lent is a time for self reflection and examining ourselves, our lives and how we're living.  Let me clarify that: Lent is an "I" time.  It's not time for me to tell you how you should live, what you should fix, how you should behave or what you should think.  I'm not sure there is ever a time for that, to be honest.  Still, I think Lent is about looking inward first, and examining "me" and how that "me" relates to God and you.  "And you, and you and you," to quote the Sound of Music.

So to say "I believe …" is just the starting point, the beginning of questions.

I believe, for example, that God is awesome.   I could say so much more about that, but let's just leave that one there for now.

I believe that Jesus is about life, not death.  While I respect the various theories of atonement (and there are many), I believe that Jesus dying should draw our attention to the important part - how he lived - and we should "live" like that, too.  And that should bring us closer to God.  At least in this life.

I believe that we come from God and we return to God.  I believe, therefore, that God knows us before we come here, and will know us again, and God knows us for who we truly are, no matter how we live this life.  I believe that we should want to live this life well because that, in itself, is reason to do so.  Created "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27; 5:1; 9:6), should mean a desire to live in grace and right relationship with the world around us, not a need for power or control over the world around us.  To me, the threat of eternal punishment and a terrifying afterlife shouldn't be necessary.  That's like saying you should do the right thing or else you'll be punished.  No.  You should do the right thing because you should do the right thing.  That's why it's called the right thing.

Yes, I know "the right thing" is a little subjective.  Perhaps that's why we need more questions, more thought, more conversation, more relationship to understand what it might be, which is to be what is true.

I also know that I can say we should "live in grace and right relationship" and I leave myself open to the acknowledgement that I haven't always done that.  Yes, that's true.  Good thing there's a time like Lent to look hard at that and reflect on it.  Good thing there's also grace.

You see, that's a huge one: I believe that God's grace is for all.  God's grace is God's love and forgiveness freely given.  It's not up to us to decide if we're worthy of it, or who gets it or, more importantly for some, who doesn't.  God simply gives it.  To everyone.

To live out God's grace in our lives is to share that grace and love as best we, in our humanity, are able.  For followers of Jesus, that is to live not just as Jesus teaches, but as Jesus showed us: to, literally, "love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34).  We might not always be successful, or make the right choices, but it's grace and love that empower us to continue to try, not the threat of consequences or the desire for superficial gain.

That's a lot of legs ...

Well, that's just a start, probably just enough to start thinking about and question.  Oddly enough, what started me thinking about it was the image Jesus uses to describe himself in Luke 13:34, part of the reading for the second Sunday of Lent: "Jerusalem … how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"  Jesus knows that he can't make people follow, and he laments that.  But with wings spread and chest exposed and vulnerable, he offers himself, nonetheless, open to attack or embrace.

Cupcakes, Cards, Lent and Love

Well, I'm just having some difficulty focusing on Lent, right now.  See, it's Valentine's Day today and, for a gift, my love made me my favourite kind of cupcakes.  That might not sound all that impressive unless you knew how much the kitchen is not her friend - I do the cooking (mostly).  So she made me cupcakes.  And, bonus, they're delicious.

If only someone had made Charlie Brown some cupcakes.  I'm a big fan of the Peanuts cartoon, but the Valentine's Day story always bothered me.  Charlie Brown doesn't get any  valentines.  He waits at the mailbox.  Nothing.  He brings a briefcase to school to carry them all home.  Nothing.  The next day he gets a used one because some of the girls felt guilty.  Sad.  All those expectations.  Crushed.  And that's only one thread of the story.  Linus is disappointed to find out the teacher he loves has a boyfriend and Sally's love for Linus once again goes unrequited.  It's almost like Charlie Brown's lost in a wilderness with no love.

Or, at least, a wilderness where love is represented by a piece of coloured paper with a few hearts and some poetry.  Charlie Brown seems to be missing the love, friendship and care of his sister, his family and his best friend Linus, among others.  If only someone had made him cupcakes, maybe.  But, as Linus has said to him before, "of all the Charlie Browns, you're the Charlie Browniest."

Jesus, the gospels tell us, went into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil.  Each of the temptations isn't just refused, but refuted.  Nor does Jesus lash out at his tempter.  It's as if Jesus has some inner strength.  He does: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness" (Luke 4:1).  Jesus is aware of God's love and grace present in this moment as much as any other, present in the wilderness as much as in companionship, present in moments of trial as much as comfort, present in moments of conflict as much as peace.

I think we, like Charlie Brown, can sometimes find ourselves wondering if we live in a loveless and graceless wilderness because we, human beings that we are, have valued, expected and judged and been disappointed.  This wilderness of our making isn't a place we've sought for solitude, thought and prayer to bring us closer to God, it's a place distant from God where we've given into those temptations that lead to our disappointment, even fear and anger.

This Lent, I'd like to take on the wilderness experience of Jesus, a wilderness where I may reflect and discover more about my relationship with God and with others by resisting the temptation to assume, to expect and to judge.  I'd like to take on the kind of wilderness where we can be free to discover, knowing that God's love and grace is in every moment, waiting to be embraced.

Care to join me and see who can be the least Charlie Browniest?

Who's listening?

On our church calendar, the season of Epiphany concludes with Transfiguration Sunday.  It's a powerful way to end the "season of revealing:" with a story revealing the glory of Jesus as the Son of God.

Lewis Bowman's "Transfiguration"

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 they go down the mountain and on with their day.

Okay, I didn't mean to sound like I'm trivializing the ending there.  After all, I think that's pretty much the most important part of the story, but I'll come back to that.

The story appears in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, and there are some details that are a little different, but that's the gist of it: Jesus' transfiguration reveals the very human man to be also the Son of God, the meeting of human and divine.  We should listen to him because he is more than a messenger of God, he is the Word made flesh.

It's Luke's version of the story we hear this year and, I have to say, I like Luke's story.  Each of the gospels give us ways to break open the story, discover what it might mean and imagine how that might become part of our lives.  Luke, I think, gives us a little something more to take away here, he gives us a way forward.  Like I said, a way on with our day.

Luke writes that Jesus and the disciples went up the mountain to pray.  In fact, "while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white" (Luke 9:29).  Prayer is a theme throughout the gospel of Luke.  Thank goodness.  How else might we listen?

Right: listen.

I can imagine the wonder of the moment.  I mean, I can imagine my own sense of wonder at the moment.  How do you imagine the glory of God or the voice in the cloud?  Or the awe and fear of the disciples?  And, with some study, I can explain various aspects of the story and what they might mean.

But what happens when I leave the mountain top?  After the wonder and the understanding, where do I take this story, how do I "listen to him?"

First, I wonder if Luke isn't trying to remind us that we can hear the stories of Jesus and we can hear Jesus' words as the story reports them, but to "listen to him" demands more of us.  It demands that we understand the words and put them into practice in our lives, not just as behaviour, but as living.  And to understand, we must listen for what is true and experience that in our own lives.  The story must come alive for us.

And second, we must pray.  We so often think that prayer is about asking or thanking, but it's more than that.  Prayer is a critical part of our relationship with God.  It's our communication with God, our conversation with God, our sharing with God.  And God shares with us.  So when you pray, do you leave God some space to answer?