For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
Luke 10:8-9
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
Words of Grace For Today
God has a plan.
The world is crazy with falsehoods, driven into so many corners and minds that many believe them to be truth, which is a danger to the survival of our species.
God has a plan for that, though.
The people hurt, God hurts, and other people are responsible, directly and indirectly, for the hurt and worse for the death of so many people.
God has a plan for that, too!
Our health care systems, as we are so privileged to have, are overrun and ground into near uselessness, by a virus, a pandemic, but most of all by the falsehoods that so many propagate, so much so it is difficult to imagine how this is. The effect is that across the globe the virus is levelling the ‘playing’ field, and our expectations of whether we will live another 5 years or not!
God has a plan for exactly that.
God’s plan is that the workers for God’s Kingdom spread across the globe entering every village and remote place where people live, to eat what is locally provided, to cure the sick, and to proclaim simply that ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ And to bring, share, and leave God’s peace everywhere.
So what is your day going to look like?
God has a plan for that,
and it is that you will be one of the workers for God’s Kingdom, ready or not!
Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.
Ephesians 4:29
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
Words of Grace For Today
The mouth, the tongue, the lips and one’s breath create words spoken or shouted, and
The fingers on keyboards or holding a pen or pencil create words written and published easily today for the world to read, and
There has never before been so much evidence that ‘it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles’ Matt 15:11b and ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, as social media create so many falsehoods so widely and quickly propagated to be amplified and further perversions broadcast in a rolling ocean of waves of shtako … so much so that truth is a rare entity to encounter.
While it may be easy, as it always has been, to point to others’ efforts to destroy truth with their broad side attacks, one need be wise and ask for protection, for no one is immune from the disease of arrogance and self-righteousness that leads to one attacking truth with shtako, so we pray:
Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.
This day, let us give thought and action to preserving truth, and to creating words that are useful for building up, as there is need, ensuring that our words may give grace to all those who hear and read them.
Another day, full of opportunity, and words. Let them be blessed.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies; you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.
2 Corinthians 6:4
As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities.
Words of Grace For Today
To commend is to to entrust for care or preservation.
So how can we entrust ourselves to others for care or preservation.
Paul faced the hatred of Jewish leaders and communities (because he clearly threatened their power and control of their faith – Christianity being a new alternative away from and out of Judaism), but more so the Roman authorities who responded to the complaints of the people under their jurisdiction.
So Paul, needed funding and protection from hostile elements and authorities, entrusted himself to the various congregations he helped start, the one in Corinth included.
In this verse Paul commends himself not by proper teaching, or life saving teaching, or bringing Jesus’ Word to the people. He commends himself through his endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities …. And at that point one realizes one needs the larger context of what Paul wrote, for this is not quite right for Paul. So:
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,
‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’
See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.
So Paul uses his ‘track record’ of enduring great tribulations to seek the open hearts of the Corinthians. Not only his tribulations, though. The list is long on the work of the Spirit in Paul beginning with
purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God
and ending with
We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
Few have it as rough as Paul did, but many have had congregations like the Corinthians, or worse. Do everything and anything for them, caring for them, loving them, burying the dead and celebrating life with them, and they still come back at you to drive you to your grave … as if it is their God-given task to kill pastors (and lay leaders).
It is a great surprise that the RCMP, the lawyers, and the courts have tried their best to kill me as well, all without any cause that I can find … though the court records are full of reasons none of them are actually true, and it’s not difficult to know that.
Pests abound as well: mosquitoes, wasps, and the two legged kind who keep intruding past barriers and gates, stealing valuables and essentials for my survival, and with unnecessary noise pestering the peace, solitude, and holiness of this place.
To that I respond God help them, and for me I still live well, for
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, God preserves me against the wrath of my enemies; God stretches out her-his hand, and her-his right hand delivers me.
With thanks I begin each day, as you can, too, for all God does to provide life abundant, and safety from one’s enemies, and peace from pests.
Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you.
Romans 5:1
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Words of Grace For Today
This Psalm sits in stark contrast to yesterday’s reading from Matthew. Love your enemy!
So which is it?
Life is filled with challenges.
In the winter the thermometer reads below zero. Not a problem really if one is prepared to create and retain as much heat as possible … and there is enough wood (or fuel).
In the summer the thermometer reads above zero. Not a problem really if one is prepared, one has sought to repel and shed heat in many and various ways and there is plenty of shade, wind, ways to endure the inevitable hottest times of the day.
But when the thermometer registers outside the 40⁰’s plus or minus, then preparation is essential, but no preparation is sufficient, unless one is rich and willing to expend huge amounts of fossil fuels and other resources to secure one’s own comfort at the cost of others’ lives (if not immediately then eventually as climate change makes the plus minus challenges reach outside the plus minus 50⁰.)
As if meeting one’s own challenges, and guaranteeing one’s own comfort were all that life is about, we plow a head and … Life Just Gets Harder for Everyone … and more people die, directly or indirectly from our luxurious expenditures (which we may even measure as necessary!)
There is only one way to meet the challenges of each day, of climate, of extremes, or lacking life necessities, of greed (ours and others’), of … well of every kind of challenge. And that is to begin each day remembering what God has done for us:
That we are justified by faith, and therefore we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
When we know that we have peace with God, we need not panic, nor go to destructive lengths to ‘save our own skins’
firstly because we are not afraid, and not even afraid to ‘meet our maker’ (actually that will be a marvellous day!) nor
secondly because we remain thoughtful and actively engaged helping others meet the challenges of their days, and therefore we remain aware of the cost our efforts to ‘save our own skins’ has for other people, and we gladly forego our security for their having the basics of life …
and thirdly because, at peace with God, we see security in a completely different light. Security in this life is nothing other than knowing God walks with us. More is futile, frantic, and destructive efforts to ‘outsmart’ God.
Let us simply take refuge in God’s presence, always joyful, always grateful, always singing and dancing – even as we face the challenges of extreme days.
The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
Matthew 5:43-45
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Words of Grace For Today
Oh so glorious it is … to see finally poetic justice and real justice play out. A 23 year old American and his family decided that their hike up Mount Vesuvius should include a peak over the lip of the volcano with selfies to document their adventure … even though the trail was a prohibited area.
While taking the selfie, the young man’s cell phone fell over the lip into the crater. While reaching into the crater the young man slipped and fell down the crater.
Now one would think that that could well have been the end of him, but God is good and gracious, to this young man also that day. His fall ended about 50 feet into the crater, not all the way to the bottom 300 metres down, where he would have been toast. And …
And at the time four volcano guides were on the other side of the crater, saw the man fall, and rushed to his rescue. They lowered a team member down on a rope to retrieve the bruised and scraped up man
and waited with him (and his group) to be treated by the ambulance that arrived, and then to be taken eventually to the police station to be arrested and charged.
Meanwhile in Sri Lanka 62,000 people are in immediate life threatening danger and 6 million soon will be after the country no longer has money to import the necessities of life like food and cooking oil. This, it is said, is a result of fraud and mishandling of the country’s finances by the ousted president. Of course he could not have done it alone (if he was a player in creating the problem at all.) What is clear is that people will die because of other people’s greed.
So it is everywhere, and poignantly also here, where indigenous peoples, and people of ‘other’ races, creeds, and orientations are taken advantage of, and where the courts demonstrate a brash bias for the wealthy and privileged … routinely as if no one cared or noticed … or as if there were no consequences.
An American had money to travel to Italy, to hike to the lip of the volcano, and try to take a selfie there, to show off his exploits. Thousands of people slip on the verge of death because of greed and fraud.
And God is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
We are to Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, so that we may be children of our Father in heaven; for God makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
It makes you want to protest and cry out at God for justice.
That is why Jesus had to make sure we heard clearly that we are to love our enemies, for God created and provides for them as well.
Makes us scratch our heads all too often.
Until we realize that trying to enact justice for God is impossible to get right and doing so destroys more of us and them than we can afford.
So we pray, Lord save those facing injustice and death because of greed and fraud, especially as it is done on our behalf … and save us from ignorance of your good creation and apathy to the troubles that so many people, creatures and your entire planet earth face this day. And we give God thanks that our troubles remain challenges that we can (so far, with care, skill, planning, and lots of hard work) be overcome.
It’s hotter at 9 am today than the hottest moment yesterday,
Climate change in a day (yesterday’s extreme is today’s normal),
So maybe it’ll help orient us if we get reminded
that winter is coming and it’ll be blessed cold.
Isaiah 66:19
I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud—which draw the bow—to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.
Mark 16:15
And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.
Words of Grace For Today
So many people want to stay in their own little bubble of the world, safe, comfortable and sure of what will come tomorrow – and if what comes tomorrow is something different then they have great ability to lie to themselves and others to day what happened is not different, but it is still what they know how to handle.
So the people are done with Covid before the third wave, and now we face the seventh wave. Covid is not done with us. So many people may refuse to behave responsibly, protecting others by wearing masks, keeping physical distance, and providing ventilation indoors. We all may want to be done with Covid. It’s just that might just kill us, and if it will not kill exactly the fools that indiscriminately get infected and share that everywhere they go, it’ll kill so many of us, even us who are wise about our exposure and protection.
To be other than wise about Covid requires that one live in a bubble of foolish denial of reality. And that’s where so many people live, about Covid, about their rights and others’ rights, about justice and truth, about climate change, about God’s blessings and their obligations to the strangers.
God knew this would be so, and in every generation has sent faithful, wise people out into the world to be remnants, giving witness to God’s good creation, truth, and the challenges we actually face, living on this planet.
So which are you going to be today: a comfort seeking, reality denying, self-protecting-other-endangering, bubble living parasite,
or
one of the remnant of witnesses who remember and preserve the truth of God’s good works in every generation, as well as the honest reality of life on planet earth?
Today, in small ways we each will choose, though God will do everything to guide us
God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.
1 Timothy 4:10
For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.
Words of Grace For Today
A saviour of all people!
A saviour especially of those who believe, but not only for those who believe!
How often we in the church have claimed salvation only for ourselves. Ah, so wrong we can be about the most important things!
The blessing, for us who believe, is that we know we have strength given to us far beyond anything the world can throw at us. So we say with Habakkuk that God makes our feet like that of the deer and makes us tread even on the heights.
In old age as my feet move more slowly and climbing to any height gets more dangerous, I’m sure that I cannot say this with much literal meaning, but that figurative meaning is even more valuable.
Or at least that’s what one has left to say when one gets older, eh?
Today, we toil and struggle, as people have in every generation. We get to do so with great hope that God walks with us through it all, no matter how deep the shtako gets.
So onward, one step at a time. Clean up before sleeping, and then it starts all over. What a blessed life! This God provides even for those who do not believe. Now that is a miracle, a wonder, an inexplicable reality of God’s good creation.
There’s Lots of History, Everywhere, for Everyone,
Can You Be Thankful For Yours?
Jeremiah 16:19
O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge on the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.
2 Corinthians 4:8
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
Words of Grace For Today
As I started to contemplate that nations will come and say that their ancestors had left nothing but lies to inherit,
a big, old, fat fly started to disrupt my view. Caught my attention it did. Distracted me, until it was dispatched.
Flies are not good to have around food, eating spaces, sleeping spaces or any living space for that matter.
I suppose I ‘inherited’ plenty of flies and wasps from someone. I’m sure it was not my ancestors, though Grandpa Sam and Grandma Dorothy did have an outhouse above the lake cottage on Lake Wabedo, back when it was an isolated lake. After each used we’d scatter a cupful of ashes down the hole to deal with smell and flies. Still there were always a bit more of both than I cared for. I also remember once in my University days arriving and finding the parking spot I chose was free because everyone else arriving earlier knew there was a wasp nest on that corner of the garage. Flies and wasps: I’m sure that since Lake Wabedo is more than 12 hours by car away, and that was about 3 or 4 decades ago, those flies and wasps have no direct lineage or causation effect on the fact there are flies and wasps here.
My ancestors, that I know of, where respectable people. (Thank you Goldie, Dorothy, Sam, Dort, Dennis.) I have not discovered any lies, foundational or formational or simply for the lark of it that are part of the family heritage. I count my blessings. I have a hard time imagining how devastating it must be to grow up knowing or to discover later that one’s ancestors passed down a pack of lies and not much else. I have seen the parents and grandparents who are such people, but the children were unawares or unapologetic, as they began a life of lies themselves, without regret or awareness of their great loss in doing so.
I have noticed friends of our offspring being very appreciative of us parents, since by comparison I guess we measure up as pretty decent, or the only parents of their circle of friends who are kind, gracious, welcoming and generous. I feel for the adult children who have parents whom they would rather forget, for remembering is costly.
We certainly can say with Paul: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair. It’s not like life has left us unscathed, unscarred or un-‘rewarded’ for the good we’ve done. Life has at times knocked the living daylights out of us, for sure.
We are afflicted, perplexed, not crushed, not driven to despair. And we remain grateful for all God’s blessings, even if I am homeless, living off the grid in the wilderness. People hear that and say they always wanted to do that- it must be fun. – No, it’s just hard, and then harder, and quite dangerous pretty much every day. Weather getting more severe is a greater portion of that danger, though the greatest danger still remains the two legged wild animals that are fuelled by unnatural things, like drugs and revenge (for nothing I’ve done) and jealousy (that I can survive in the wild.) The wonders I experience do not make it safer, but they do make it blessed.
In fact, by celebrating the Eucharist each morning, my time is blessed, and this space, this piece of wilderness, is consecrated and made holy. I get to live in a sacred place. Nothing beats that!
In the face of each life-threatening adversity and challenge that I face I am shown again and again that God is my refuge from trouble and my strength and stronghold in the face of every adversity and challenge.
Nothing beats that.
So another day starts, and though it will have it’s dangers in quantities most people would run from, I know that in this sacred place and wherever I go all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well … so onward with the work to meet the needs and best preparations for safety in the coming months.
Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
Philippians 2:13
For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Words of Grace For Today
Paul does get it concisely to the point and correct …
every once in a while.
It is not us doing the right and goodly things.
It is God, working like a potter with the clay on the wheel spinning, forming, moulding, a wonder, a miracle, an exquisite dish.
Of course, that is the dish before we get pounded and de-lumped, the air pushed out of us, and then we get slammed onto the potter’s wheel and it spins out of round, until God gently pushes us into round, able to become something, something at all,
Though it’s not likely we will become an exquisite dish, because God needs plain old everyday, durable, hard-working plates and bowls, too.
From us the world around us will be nourished in the regular, daily, not-fancy-or-celebratory feeding that we humans require in order to flourish and prosper as God’s labourers.
It’s the work we are created for that is the blessing we offer to God’s good creation and all God’s creatures (good or not.)
Another day, more work, common and bland blessings for others, and exhaustion for us. Even to the point that we are too broken and God may have to retire us to the slop pail, to soak before we are pliable enough to be thrown back on the wheel. There again God moulds us for more hard, tedious work in the Kingdom.
They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split open the rock and the water gushed out.
John 7:37-38
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.
Words of Grace For Today
While climate change has brought us to experience first-, second-, and internet-hand drought like never before, and likewise floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, drechos, and disasters like glaciers and mountains collapsing on pristine areas, towns, and people, Jesus still stands up in the busy festivals and market places and cries out to us:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Come all you who are thirsty, come drink your fill.
Right, that was not Jesus, that was Isaiah 55.1.
The theme of thirst and of God providing water is often repeated in scriptures, as well it may be since water is essential for life and it is a symbol of God’s providing for us in all ways (not just physical water) when we are in need.
Isaiah 48 recounts how God provided water for the people during the Exodus, their fleeing from slavery in Egypt into the wilderness. Rocks usually do not provide water, but with God all things are possible.
So, how do you thirst this day?
For Justice?
For Truth?
For water or hunger for food?
For a faith strong enough to see past this day’s challenges and pitfalls to the blessings God pours over you?
