Please, after you.

Back in the mid 1990’s there was a Canadian television show called Due South. I’m pretty sure that, back then, you couldn’t really call yourself Canadian unless you were acquainted with Constable Benton Fraser of The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Of course, now that I say that, you might not ever have seen it. Don’t worry, you can get it on DVD. (You should.)

It’s the adventures of an old-school stereotype RCMP from the Yukon who ends up, as Fraser often says, in “Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father and, for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian consulate.” Part comedy, part police drama, it played off the contrast between a good-hearted, honourable, by the book Mountie with unimpeachable integrity and his polar opposite, a Chicago cop.

There’s a running gag from the pilot when Fraser first arrives in the city and politely stops to hold a door open for someone. Then there’s another person. And another and another. This goes on for quite awhile, Fraser nodding politely with a friendly “after you” each time. In fact, it goes on a ridiculously long time because people keep coming and he keeps waiting, letting them go first.

Others think he’s just being silly, and so do we (the audience) until we get to know his character and realize that he’s just being true to who he is. He simply doesn’t know how to not be considerate of others. He’ll always put others first. It’s his nature.

It’s the image I always think of when I read the story of Jesus and the rich man in one of the gospels. (Mark 10:17-31 this week, but there’s a version in Matthew and Luke, too.) I don’t picture a disappointed young rich man when Jesus tells him that he must give up his wealth. I see Fraser holding the door open.

The man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to enter “the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus reminds him of the commandments and he says yes, he’s kept all these since his youth. Then Jesus “looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’” He sadly leaves.

Jesus then tells the disciples how hard it well be for wealthy people to come to the kingdom. It’s hard enough as it is, but for rich people even more so. The disciples don’t know what to make of this, especially since they’ve given up everything to follow Jesus. Yes, says Jesus, yes! You’re on the right track, but “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Everyone’s going through the door before Fraser because he invites them to.

You might think this would be a handy text for a stewardship campaign. And it is. In the best sense. There was a time when it might have been used to encourage rich people to give their money to the church, but back then it just resulted in a rich church, which didn’t turn out so well for anyone. No, this is what stewardship is really supposed to be about: fully loving with all you are and all you have.

The one thing the young man lacks isn’t that he not be rich. It’s not the act of giving away all his money. It’s that he truly, from his heart, needs to live all those commandments, that he truly live into a relationship with God. That means that he would give to those in need, care for the sick and the poor, put his wealth to use in engaging the world around him in a relationship of love and grace. The same relationship we have with God. To live with integrity the love of God that’s in our hearts. With abundance.

Instead, wealth can so easily get between our hearts and our actions. Acquiring “stuff” can build a wall that keeps our hearts and our actions apart. It’s not enough to go through the motions, it must have the integrity of love to live fully, then we are living into the kingdom of God right here and right now. It’s like holding a door open.

Do all dogs go to heaven?

This was going to be a Thanksgiving kind of thing, but we just held our annual Blessing of the Animals and I really wanted to address this important question: do all dogs go to heaven. So, thankful for my wonderful little dogs, I’d like to say that the answer, I think, is yes, of course, don’t be ridiculous.

The phrase “all dogs go to heaven” comes from the 1989 animated film of that name, as far as I can find. But the question of any animals, especially pets, and not just dogs, “going to heaven” has been around a long time and not everyone has always agreed.

The Bible, say some people, tells that animals were created for human beings, seeming to suggest that their purpose is fulfilled in this life. Some people have also wondered whether animals have a “soul” in the religious sense. The bible also says that only human beings are created in the image of God, so only human beings would be eligible to go to heaven. Besides, Jesus came to save us, not animals, right?

Like I always say, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I couldn’t disagree more with all of those, but I’ve heard them and anyone is welcome to them.

Thing is, though, the last few weeks we’ve been exploring the creation story from Genesis and I can’t help but think that I’ve said some things that might have sounded very much like that last paragraph. So let me explain.

I believe that we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and also of the earth (Genesis 2:7) and we are intimately linked to both. I also believe that God (or call God love, the energy or spirit of creation, the life-giving force - I think God’s all those things) is in all creation. Call that the web of life, if you like. I’ve also said that I believe that our default setting is good and that sin is the action we take the leads us away from God. I also believe that we come from God and return home to God. Some of that might sound like it leads in the direction of the human centred ideas of the earlier paragraph, so let me say: so does all creation.

I believe that when we say God is in all things, God is truly in all things. All things are connected through love is another way to say that. It’s bigger than just us.

So is God. In that sense, I can’t imagine that anything doesn’t return to God. That’s not to say that heaven is simply all this somewhere else. It’s what’s true that returns to God, that piece of God’s heart, if you like, that God puts into you and I, dogs, cats (yes, even cats), other animals, living creatures and all living things. The spiritual essence from which this creation comes.

Does that mean that our pets cross the rainbow bridge and we’ll see them again, running and playing in beautiful fields, sharing again all those perfect moments we remember sharing with them in this life? Yes. I’ll say it differently in a minute, but if it’s comforting to image it that way, why not? Sentimental isn’t a bad thing. No, it’s not.

I think we imagine heaven in a many ways according to our own experience and vision. But the thing is that I don’t know exactly what home with God looks like. I’m pretty sure it’s different from anything we could possibly imagine here. But I believe we’ll know it or, at least, its essence. We’ll know peace and contentment and the comfort of all that we’ve known that’s good and gave us life in this world. And we’ll know love.

So, yes, all dogs go to heaven.

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.