A Different Light

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Snidely Whiplash is my Friend

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

So what is an enemy, really?

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

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

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

Exactly.  It’s your perception.

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

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

What is an enemy, really?

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

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

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

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

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

Ya Gotta Have Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Wilderness of Our Own Making

The season of Lent will soon be here.  Too soon this year, I think.

I’ve always rather liked Lent.  Some of the darker and more solemn traditions notwithstanding, I’ve always been inspired by the story of Jesus in the wilderness and I appreciate the idea of a wilderness time for anyone.  I’ve tried to encourage people to embrace it and engage in the practices that you would when seeking some kind of a wilderness experience: an opportunity to get away for quiet reflection, self-examination, repentance and preparation for the journey through Holy Week to Easter.

But this year feels different.  This year, I’m having trouble finding any kind of enthusiasm for Lent at all.  It feels like we’re already very much in a wilderness, a cold and a lonely one where fear and hate divide and isolate us.  A wilderness of our own making.

When we use our differences to divide and separate us, when we label people by their religion or culture in order to keep them at a distance, when we build walls to keep others out, we might think that we’re simply protecting ourselves.  We might even feel justified in using the power we have, in this moment, and satisfied that it’s our own security that’s most important.  But wait.  We just let fear and ignorance turn into anger and hate.  We set aside wonder, curiosity and wisdom and replaced them with indifference, rejection and foolishness.  We put aside building community and built a wall instead.

When we do that, it doesn’t feel like security and safety to me, it feels like we’re creating a wilderness around us that stifles our own growth and, isolated, leads to stagnation and eventually death.  In the long run, there’s nothing life-giving in that kind of wilderness, there’s nothing that encourages growth or renewal.

People thrive in engagement, not segregation, cultures grow when they welcome the awareness and knowledge of other cultures and religions, well, religions are just the organization and structure that we humans put around what we believe.  And surely every religion must have love, compassion and grace at its heart or it has no meaning, it’s just about power and nothing more than a way to organize and control people.

The world this week seems to be full of darker, colder wildernesses, despite the heat of rhetoric and protests.  It seems like we want to push others away harder than ever.

So perhaps this isn’t a time to be thinking of Lent, but rather the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel.  Jesus reminds the people of something I think we already know, but so easily forget: we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt. 5:13-14).  We season, sometimes spicy, sometimes sweet, and we enlighten and warm, sure.  But remember, too, that in Jesus day, these were valuable commodities, appreciated much more than today.  Salt wasn’t in pretty much every food or on every table and you couldn’t just flip a switch and turn a light on in the dark.

And I don’t think for a moment that Jesus means this to apply only to a select few or a particular people.  We are all salt and light, all of us in our, oh, so very different ways.  We are all part of this great feast for the senses that is how we live, all of us.  We need everyone, working together, to be the “city on a hill” that can’t be hid (Matt. 5:14).  This is no glass and concrete urban blightscape full of uniform automatons, it’s a colourful mosaic of structures and personalities, light and sound, the pinnacle of what we can be.  An Eden, not a wilderness.

Please.  Don’t just be salt and light to others.  Be open to flavour.  Open your eyes to the wonder that so many lights can show us.  Don’t hide under a bushel or behind a wall.

Blessed and Blessing

How are you?

I think I know what’s going through your mind.  First, you might be wondering why I’m asking.  Then you might think, hey, this is a minister’s column so it might be a trick question of some kind.

“Fine,” you’ll say, because anything more might be too much trouble.

Do you feel blessed?

Now I bet you’re really worried.  That’s definitely a trick question.  I better say yes, you might think.  That’ll stop him asking more.

Neither of them is a trick question.  And they are related.

I’ve often found myself saying “hi, how are you?” as a greeting.  I usually get “fine” as a response, though people are sometimes more creative.  But basically, the response is short, generic and ideally suited to a passing greeting.  That’s not a bad thing, because sometimes I’m on the way somewhere - or they are - and there just isn’t time for a more full response.  That’s too bad, so I’ve got to stop that.  There should always be time for a real answer.

I’ve often thought that it would be a great thing if people always answered honestly when you ask how they are, but you might not agree.  Especially if things aren’t “fine.”  Maybe you don’t want to share how things really are, and that’s fair enough.  But sometimes I wish that people might take a moment before answering to wonder about it.  Maybe you’re having a really great day.  Maybe things are going very well and you’re very happy.  Maybe they’re not.

Fine.  Maybe you really are fine, but maybe you just don’t want to say or, more significantly, maybe you just don’t know.  Take a minute.  I’ll wait.

Asking if you feel blessed is maybe a little similar.  I’m sure that we do feel blessed sometimes, when we stop to think about it.  I don’t doubt that.  But I suspect that there are lots of people who aren’t feeling blessed.  They’re feeling down, maybe, gray like the weather.  Maybe they’re grieving.  Maybe they’ve been sick.  Maybe they’re disappointed about a job or lack of one or worried about the political situation.  Maybe they feel put upon or uncared for or maybe they’re lonely.

So bless them.  Bless them with a little bit of your time to listen or help out.  Bless them with a thought or a prayer.  Show them what is, that they don’t see or know: that they are blessed.  It can be so hard to know that.

In Matthew 5:3-12, Jesus shares what we know as The Beatitudes, blessings on those we might have considered to be not blessed at all.  These are the vulnerable and the hurting, the weak and the overwhelmed.  But Jesus says they are blessed and reinterprets their vulnerability as strength in that blessing.

It seems so easy for us to hear these blessings as being outside of us.  That’s not me, but perhaps, if it were, I would feel blessed.

No, you wouldn’t and that’s just the point.  Jesus isn’t suggesting that if only you would be this way, you too would be blessed.  I don’t think that this moment is a call to vulnerability, it’s recognition of it.  Jesus looked around and saw that he was surrounded by the vulnerable and offered words of assurance and encouragement.  It’s not teaching how we should be, but recognizing how we are.  It’s also recognizing how hard it is for us to see that we are blessed when we feel vulnerable.  We need to hear it and see it.  And that’s hard.

So is offering support to those in need.  Maybe it doesn’t feel like we can be any help, that we’re not making things better and we’re not the “blessing” they need.  Yes, you are.  If you are offering love, empathy and compassion, you are.  That’s another moment of vulnerability, too, that maybe we can’t “make it all better.”  But the blessing there is you, your presence and your love, just as Jesus proclaims in these beatitudes.  Every blessing is about being in the presence of God, in our hearts and in heaven.

Rejoice and be glad.  Blessed are you.

What's in a name?

At the end of last summer, Lori brought home a new puppy.  I talk about him lots and I’ve written about him before.  He’s a super cute merle coloured chihuahua we named Yoda.  I’ve said, more than once, that we named him Yoda because we hoped he would be a wise little man with big ears, just like Yoda in Star Wars.

He’s nine months old now and still hasn’t really grown into his name.  Not at all, in fact.  Wisdom still eludes him.  But he’s sure cute and he’s got time.  We’ll see.

Sometimes I wonder if he’s aware of his name and our expectations for him.

In 1939, T.S. Eliot published a book of fanciful poems about cats called “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”  It became the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Cats,” one of the longest running shows in Broadway history.  The first poem, The Naming of Cats, explains that cats have three names: a sensible, everyday name that’s common; a more dignified and particular name for fancy occasions; and the name that only the cat knows, a singularly meaningful name that no one else will know.  The same might go for dogs, I think.  And Yoda might well be just his first name.

I wonder if the same might be said of people.

You’ve got an everyday name others might know you by.  It might be sensible or a little fancier, but it’s the name were given.  Sometimes names are chosen because they mean something or they’re a family name or parents just liked the sound of it.  But it’s the name on your driver’s license and your tax return and it’s how you’re known.

But you might also be known by what you do.  Robin the Minister, for example, so-and-so the farmer or the baker or the doctor.  It’s one of the first questions we ask when we want to get to know someone, isn’t it?  What do you do?

But knowing a person’s name and occupation won’t really tell us who they truly are.  We’d need to get to know them by that third name, that one that no one but you yourself know because it so clearly describes the real you.  Well, no one, maybe, but you and God.

When I wonder about how we come from God and return to God, I wonder also if there isn’t a “name” that God knows us by, one that’s the truest form of who we are.  Maybe that’s what’s happening when Jesus meets Simon for the first time.

In John’s gospel, Jesus meets his first disciples when John the Baptist tells a couple of his own disciples that Jesus is the one he’s been talking about (John 1:29-42).  They go and meet Jesus and follow him around to see what he’s doing.  One, Andrew, brings his brother Simon.  When Jesus meets him for the first time, he tells him he won’t be called Simon, but Peter, which means “rock.”  No explanation, just hi, you’re Peter.

I don’t know for sure, but I doubt Peter looked like Dwayne Johnson.  I doubt he was “stone-faced” when he met Jesus.  Maybe he was unattractive, but that certainly wouldn’t be worth a mention.  No, maybe Jesus already knew who he was talking to and could see the potential and possibility in him.  Peter’s journey was a rocky road, as it were, but he’s ultimately revealed to be worthy of Jesus’ faith in him.  Simon, the Fisherman, Peter.

Ever wonder what your third name might be?  That one that describes the truest you, the depth of your spirit and the heart of your soul.  It’s worth some thought.  Who are you, really?

Bigger Than You Could Possibly Imagine

Most everyone probably has their Christmas decorations down and packed away for next year.  Even if you’re someone who believes Christmas is every day of the year - it is - sooner or later the the tree has to come down and the decorations go away.

And then there’s the 12 Days of Christmas Rule: there’s twelve days of Christmas, just like in the song, but it’s bad luck to leave decorations up past that.

So we took down all the decorations we put up at the church.  Except one.  We put up some fabric with lights behind it to look like a night sky and, in one corner, three large stars, one larger than the others.  This will stay up for awhile because the 12 Days of Christmas end with Epiphany, the day we celebrate the arrival of the magi who followed the star to Jesus.  Like I’ve said before, the story’s much bigger than one night or twelve days or even the four weeks of Advent.  The season of Epiphany can be four to nine weeks, depending on when Easter is, because it extends to the beginning of Lent.

Epiphany means to “make aware” or a revealing or manifestation of something in a way that brings the awareness of it’s truth.  The stories we hear about Jesus during Epiphany reveal who Jesus is, beginning with the magi following the star and revealing that the little child of poor Jewish parents in Roman-occupied Judea is the king that was promised.  Epiphany includes stories revealing who Jesus is as an adult, his baptism, the calling of the first disciples and his early teaching and miracles.  In the darkest days of January and February, it’s a season of enlightenment.

But it’s bigger than that.  We might want to remember that every part of the Christmas story has a moment of revealing.

I like to think that when the angel revealed God’s plans to Mary, Mary might have said something like “wow, this is a big deal.”  And the angel might have said “bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

When the angel went to Joseph in a dream and revealed that what Mary says is true, I wonder of Joseph woke up thinking “this is a big deal,” and the angel just said “bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

When the shepherds heard the news in spectacular fashion, they said “hey, let’s go to Bethlehem and see the baby, this is big news.”  And, as they left, the angels probably said “bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

When the magi saw the star and followed it with gifts “fit for a king,” they don’t seem to have turned away when the the king revealed to them was not what they expected.  They probably thought, “wow, this is so different than what we expected, it must be bigger than we thought.”  Then angel who sent them home, away from Herod, probably said “bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

And when they’d gone, the angels, the shepherds and the magi, and all the fuss had died down, I bet the people around Mary and Joseph might have said to them, “wow, your kid must be a big deal.”  And they would have said, “bigger than you can possibly imagine.”

For me, that’s the thing Epiphany most reveals: it’s bigger than we can possibly imagine.  More than the characters and a charming story, love is bigger than we can possibly imagine.  Love is what it’s about, and it’s bigger than we can possibly imagine.

Look at the magi for a moment.  We might take away from the story that their appearance reveals Jesus as the promised king.  But it reveals so much more.

Like that Jesus is for everyone.  It wasn’t pharisees or rabbis, seers or wise advisors to the Judean king that saw the star, it was foreigners.  They weren’t Jews, they weren’t local, they were from the mystical “east.”  Maybe that’s because Jesus is for everyone.

Yet, Herod and his “chief priests and scribes,” didn’t see the star, though they knew the prophecy well enough to know where the magi should go.  And they didn’t go with the magi.  They didn’t go to Jesus.  Maybe they were afraid that it was something bigger than them.

And what about Mary and Joseph?  They’d had quite an experience with this miracle birth, a lowly place for having it, in a place far from home and visits from shepherds with strange stories and now this: strange people from far away knock at the door.  If you were them, would you hide like Herod or open the door and embrace the possibility of something bigger?  Perhaps something bigger than you could possibly imagine?