"Please sir, I want some more"

Every week, if not every day, it just seems like there’s more. More hurt and brokenness, more anger and hate, more violence and confusion, more hunger, more poverty, more homelessness, more sickness, more grief. There’s more love and grace, compassion and understanding, too, I’m sure, but the voices - and actions - of the former seem to drown out the latter.

I can’t imagine there’s ever been a time like this before now.

There has, of course. Not exactly the same, things change and every moment is unique, but similar enough, especially in the sense of being so overwhelming. What can we do? We don’t seem to be enough. If only we had more … something.

How about faith?

I think there’s a moment in the Gospel of Luke when the disciples find themselves feeling overwhelmed. I think they see the world around them, feeling much like we might now, they hear all that Jesus is asking of them and they feel like they’re just not enough. They feel they need something more and they say to Jesus “give us more faith!” 

I’m interpreting, of course, but, for me, it sure feels like they’re desperate for help. They don’t feel they can handle everything, certainly not like Jesus does, and they want him to somehow make them stronger, to make them be more like Jesus. Maybe they thought he could just touch them or breathe on them and somehow they’d be “more.” After all, they didn’t want to fail him.

Again, I’m interpreting, but I imagine Jesus just shaking his head. 

Let’s be clear: it’s never about meeting expectations with Jesus. Jesus isn’t about expectations or passing a test or meeting a set achievement standard or being perfect (especially being perfect). Jesus is about how we live and how we love, with sincerity, truth and wholeness. Just as we are.

That’s important to remember because Jesus’ response to the their request for more faith is to say you don’t need more. All that you need is already within you. It’s not about quantifying your faith. There is no more or less. It’s about how much you use it.

He tells them that even faith the size of a small seed - like a mustard seed, Jesus’ favourite tiny image - is enough to do amazing things. How that seed grows is in how often you put it to use, living out the love, compassion and kindness that is our true nature. Finding that in ourselves, sharing it, finding it in others, this is faith in action. That’s how it grows, not in quantity, but deeper, more fit, healthy and capable. And more whole.

He also tells them that it doesn’t need to be grand or heroic. It’s not about heavy lifting, it’s about the ordinary, everyday things that serve others as well as ourselves. Small acts of kindness and caring, moments of love and engagement, reaching out to others, these are what we build our life around. Faith, like life, is lived.

You are enough.

What's In Your Way?

Time for my annual reminder: you are created in the image of God. Yes, you. We are all children of God. Yes you, and that person you don’t like, too. All of us, no exceptions.

(Now that I think about it, this might be a bi-annual, maybe even a weekly reminder. A necessary one, though.)

God language is what I’m using, but you know I mean “whatever faith tradition, however you know God” or whatever language you want to use, right? God is love, the spirit of life, the living energy that is in all things, the power of creation and the heart of good, the thing that connects us all. We all come from God (however you understand that) and we all return to God (however you understand that). 

Just because we don’t all use the same lingo, language or systems doesn’t mean we aren’t one family, one community, one people. 

And people are extraordinary, capable of great things, even amazing things. We're capable of great creativity, love, compassion, grace - all the things that remind us that we are created "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27).

We're also capable of other things, the less desirable things, the things that are the opposite of those things we think of as "good." We can destroy and hurt and hate. We can be selfish, mean and abusive. We have a very diverse skill set.

I believe - and I know this is going to be trouble, so please just take a moment to think about it - that we are inherently good. For a very long time, we’ve learned about Original Sin and how we’re all inherently sinful, but I don’t see how that’s possible. In our stories, we’re created from the earth and by the spirit of God. Throughout the creation story, God says everything created is “good,” and God, surely, is good, so how can we not be inherently good? It’s our factory setting. Even if you don’t believe in what’s true in the story, surely the moment of creation is good. It’s the living and life experiences and choices that follow that affirm our good or denies it.

I also believe that, in the story, Eve and Adam simply made a choice. They acquired free will, thanks to a decision that followed a conversation with a crafty and clever serpent (who wasn’t evil, by the way) and made a choice. What if that was the plan all along? What if they weren’t cast out of the Garden of Eden for their sin, but instead became aware of their abilities - especially the power of learning - and found themselves aware of being co-creators, co-stewards of creation, rather than just residents in it? What if it wasn’t supposed to be a punishment, but a gift, and they didn’t leave “Eden” at all. What if it’s been this wonder of creation, this world in which we live, all along? What if they found themselves aware of their earthly-ness and the divine spirit within them and knew they were created in the image of God and could now live into that?

What if they then lost their way?

Jesus, and figures like Jesus - prophets, leaders and wise, spirit-filled people - have showed us what we’re capable of. They weren’t any more perfect than we are, or any less affected by the challenges of life we know. The point isn’t to hold them up and set them apart as something unusual and miraculous, but to learn from them that we are what they are, created in the image of God and capable of every love-filled, grace-filled, compassion-filled, empathy-filled moment we can imagine. 

What’s in your way?

A Time For Lament

Perhaps not everyone will see it this way, but, to me, the world sure seems broken and hurting right now. I don’t know what’s the best description or metaphor. These are dark times. We’ve lost our way. We’re at war with ourselves. The dystopian future of so many authors seems to be near.

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” asks the prophet Jeremiah towards the end of the 7th century BCE (Jeremiah 8:22). In the midst of political and religious strife, conflict and degradation of society, he sees the Hebrew people have turned away from God and he proclaims the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the nation. He hurts for the people, as does God, and laments their circumstances.

Jeremiah offers this metaphor: is there no balm in Gilead? Gilead is a hilly part of the country, east of the Jordan, famous for a soothing ointment made from the sap of balsam trees. So, he says, is there no soothing ointment that will fix this problem and make everything better? And the answer is no. No there isn’t, there’s only weeping day and night, lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of the people that is to come. And it does. Babylon conquers Judah, Jerusalem is broken and the Temple destroyed.

For Jeremiah, there is no balm for that. It needs more, and that’s Jeremiah’s concern. It needs more than a superficial repair or a moment of comfort, it needs time to hurt and mourn, time to lament. It needs time to journey through the hurt and then it needs something deeper, something transformative, something heartfelt. Jeremiah sees that as a turning back to God, not just in the temple or in the behaviour of priests, politicians or even ordinary people, but a deep, heartfelt and dramatic change in how the people live.

Later, much later, Jeremiah will offer words of hope that a new day is coming, but this moment calls the people to live the hurt and work together with God to transform it.

African-american slaves picked up on that. They didn’t sing a question, they made a statement: “There is a balm in Gilead/ to make the wounded whole./ There is a balm in Gilead/ to cure the sin-sick soul.” Their reference point is Jeremiah, but they find the answer in Jesus and the Holy Spirit: “The Holy Spirit revives my soul again” says one common verse and  “You can tell the love of Jesus” says another. This is no salve for irritated skin, this is something deeper, something to be found in the hearts of everyone. Something Jeremiah might understand to be more like the covenant God offers much later through the prophet:  “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33).

However you know God, or not, this goes beyond religion, it goes to the heart of who and how we are. Like Jeremiah and the spiritual, I’d say it’s about turning back to God, following the way of Jesus, inspired by the Spirit. By that, I mean love and grace, empathy and compassion. These are the strengths of spirit that carry us through this journey. And it offers no quick fix. There’s no mental or spiritual “take a pill and be fine tomorrow.” It’s a journey on which God is with us, through the hurt, the grief, the challenges, the successes, the joy and the laughter. It’s the journey to wholeness and we’re invited to walk it respectfully together.

Lost and Found and Awaiting New Possibilities

There’s a Lost and Found box in the lobby of our church. It’s not big and it sits on top of a coat rack in the corner. It’s right next to our flock of stuffed sheep, so it’s not always very noticeable. We empty it every so often and any unclaimed items might find their way to new life at the thrift store or in a yard sale or, if it’s a toy, the kids’ room downstairs or even just to someone who needs it. Not much you can do with an odd glove, but sometimes it’s a pair, or a toy, a baseball hat, a sweater or sunglasses.

Things don’t get reclaimed very often. And they’re not going anywhere by themselves. They’re just sitting there, waiting to be found, probably by the person who lost them, but more often, we help them to a new life elsewhere.

That’s a little sad, though, isn’t it? If you found your way into that box, it’s because you were forgotten or misplaced and the person you belonged to either didn’t remember they brought you here, didn’t remember you at all or didn’t think it was worth the trouble finding you. You were just explained away as “lost.”

Thing is: you were found. You were found by the person who put you in the box, with the hope that someone will come for you someday or that, maybe, there’s a possibility of a new life, a new purpose somewhere new. Maybe the box should say “Lost and Found and Awaiting New Possibilities.”

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus told short parables about a shepherd who lost one of his one hundred sheep and a woman who lost one of ten coins (Luke 15:1-10). The shepherd risked all the other sheep to find that one and the woman would not stop until she found the single coin. Both celebrated the recovery of the sheep and the coin as if they were of the greatest value to them.

Would you have done the same? Or would you have, quite sensibly, balanced the value of the thing lost with the cost of searching for it and, again quite reasonably, arrived at the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the trouble? It’s common sense, really. Some things are just so easily replaced - if, in fact, you really need it. And if you don’t, why even bother to look for it?

But Jesus tells these stories in response to the religious authorities complaining that he was spending his time with the worst kind of people, “tax collectors and sinners.” The religious authorities always seemed to be very well aware of their own righteousness and the unrighteousness of others. Why, they seem to wonder, would Jesus waste his time on “those people.” They’ve already been judged and cast aside and it just doesn’t make sense to waste time on them. They might as well get lost.

We judge and value everything because it makes sense to us to do so, from a lost glove or pair of sunglasses to people. Are they worth the trouble? What kind of effort do I have to make? Why aren’t they making more of an effort? What will it cost me? It’s their own fault, can’t they do better?

Jesus never asked those questions. Jesus loved. Jesus offered the most love to those we would judge the hardest to love. Jesus reached out to the helpless. Jesus spent his time with those that were valued the least and risked everything for them. Will we do the same?

You Are Wonderfully Made

Our churches run a children’s summer program each year, mornings for a week in July. It’s an opportunity to learn about life, show kids how God is in their lives and connect to some of the stories in the Bible in a way that’s meaningful to them. And it’s fun. It’s always fun.

There’s a different theme each year and a couple of years ago, we called it Wonderfully Made, picking up on that verse from Psalm 139, “you are wonderfully made.” Stories, activities and crafts revolved around our relationship with God and creation, our connectedness to each other and how we build on those relationships with love, grace, respect, thanks and care. It was a wonderful - and wonder-filled - week. 

Except … if you know your psalms, you know that’s not the whole phrase, is it. There’s something else in there. In fact, the whole verse is “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

You can see why, like most people, we focused on the wonderful. Because we are. In every sense of the word, we are a wonder, we are full of wonder and we constantly wonder. Whoever you are, however you are, you are wonderful.

It’s the “fearfully,” though. Pretty easy to explain here: there’s more than one meaning for fear in the Bible. Yes, it can mean being afraid, but it can also mean awe, reverence and respect. Depends on the context. Jesus says “don’t be afraid” more than he says anything else and think of how often the angel in the Christmas story, for example, says “fear not.” It’s okay to be afraid, just remember that God is with you. But here, and phrases like “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” in Proverbs 9, it’s clearly about reverence and, well, wonder. Problem solved.

But it isn’t, is it. Fear, as an emotional response, has such a hold on us. It’s how we respond to perceived threats and the unknown, and the unknown is full of threats.

Is it, though? If “I know very well” that “wonderful are your works,” God, as the psalmist writes, then why are we afraid? Okay, many things can be wonderful and still be scary, fair enough, but approached with reverence, awe and respect we can engage them and learn and grow. And that’s the key part. Fear, of all kinds, and wonder, of all kinds, are part of the making of us.

I’m not the psalmist, but I don’t think that they were thinking “made” as just a past tense, done deal, finished product. I think they meant life, and in life we are constantly in the making, a constantly moving, changing, learning, growing creation.

There will be hurts and brokenness, sadness and joy, fear and wonder, of all kinds. But when we approach the world around us with reverent fear and curious wonder, with open minds and hearts, we build on the relationship that is already there in our connectedness in spirit. We aren’t “done.”

Sorry, Should Have Said Something Sooner

If you've been looking for a new post here the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed it strangely quiet. Sorry about that. 

I should have mentioned this sooner, but I'm on vacation until September. Yes, vacation. I didn't write anything ahead of time and it's not a "working vacation" (what even is that?). 

I bet Jesus took a day or two here and there. It would have been really helpful if that had been recorded in scripture, perhaps with a little story about how vacation and sabbath aren't the same thing and how both are important for their own reasons. Instead, every time Jesus wants to take a break and get away from people - either to pray or for a rest (see, sabbath and vacation aren't the same) - the crowds follow and Jesus gives in and keeps at it. I bet it was exhausting. 

Lots of people seem to follow that example, just keeping at it. You know who you are.

Take a vacation. I bet Jesus did.

Please don't leave, I'll be back. Look for more of this at the beginning of September.

Digging For Real Treasure

Now is probably not be the best time to ask this question, if it ever is: are you rich?

Your response to that question might be yes or no. It might also be an abundance of questions, like, how do you mean that? This is a religious thing, right, so you mean “spiritually,” right? Or do you mean talents or skills?  Or resources? Or, hang on, do you mean financially? Is this another one of those “the church needs money” questions?

Your response might also be “none of your business.”

I mean all those questions and, no, it’s probably not any of my business. But it is yours, and that’s what I’m asking you to think about because I think Jesus would like you to think about it, too.

I’ve often felt that Jesus talks about the rich the same way he talks about the Pharisees. He criticizes the keepers of the law for blindly following the letter of the law for their own ends or, worse, abusing the law for their own gain, ignoring the spirit and intent of the law. Pharisees, corrupted by power, were not living the way they ought. Likewise, the rich in money, material or power, acquired unfairly, at the expense of others or creation, hoarded it greedily and kept it selfishly. The power of money corrupts as readily as the power o authority.

I also think that Jesus would say that the stories generalize, as I just did. Not all pharisees are inherently bad, neither are all the rich. It’s complicated. 

The issue at the heart of this is, well, just that: what’s at the heart of things. Our nature is a desire to live well and do good, but that can be so easily swayed by power and material things. Things, after all, are only things until we engage them. But once we do, happiness seems so much easier to find than joy, being comfortable more than being engaged, domination more than a mutual peace. Meeting more than our superficial needs is so much more work. What could possibly make it worthwhile?

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  (Luke 12:34) 

What if we treasured our hearts as readily as money or things or power? What if, instead of looking for the thing or person to give our hearts to, we began with the true treasure that is our heart, that is our self?  And then, knowing the treasure we each are, we shared that, with people, with the earth, with the actions we take that make our life. Couldn’t we then love and cherish, care and be kind, share and invest, respect and deal justly with each other? 

More than once in Luke’s gospel, Jesus reminds his listeners that the Kingdom of God is here, now, not some far off dream, but now. We don’t wait patiently for the kingdom to arrive, Jesus says, we should keep ourselves ready “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  (Luke 12:40) We usually hear these words in Advent to remind us to be prepared for the next coming of Jesus, but I wonder if here, in this moment, he didn’t mean “the kingdom is here, I’m here, are you ready for action? Are you ready to live as the treasure you are, as the treasure we all are?” That’s what the kingdom is about.

If we are, then we will begin with the treasure that is life in all, not just those we love or perceive to agree with us or be like us, the ones we like and tolerate. We’ll see that those who bring us the greatest challenge, who disagree with us culturally, religiously, politically, socially and in a host of other ways, are equally the treasure we are and equally deserving of being treasured.

Nothing has more value than life. Surely the greatest treasure requires the greatest effort. Surely the greatest treasure demands we give our hearts to it and live whole heartedly.