On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Ephesians 2:19
You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.
Words of Grace For Today
What do we need today,
a warrior who gives us victory over our enemies?
Or
to be renewed in God’s love?
There is, among all the things that occupy us in this life, only one thing that counts: our relationship with God.
Those that lie to the courts which have acted unjustly on their lies will have their lies turn back on them. There will be no escape for those that live by the lie, and try to kill by the lie.
Those that fear and love God, know God and God’s presence every day.
We are no longer strangers and aliens in God’s Kingdom. We are citizens with all the other God-made saints of all times, together children of God, members of God’s house.
Here we live.
Here our enemies’ lies have no meaning …
Here our enemies’ use of the unjust courts have no meaning, except
…
except their lies and perverse use of the unjust courts define them as God’s enemies.
That is no place to be on this planet, for there is no escape from God and God’s justice.
For us, there is home, always home in God’s blessed care.
Therefore we do not fear, no matter what lies our enemies threaten us with.
For we are God’s own people, God’s own blessed people, God’s own holy people.
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.
2 Thessalonians 3:13
Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
Words of Grace For Today
What is a person to do?
A megalomaniac hired me to fly and do ministry to native people (as we honourably referred to them back then), and because some in the ministry looked to change the direction from the paternalistic method the megalomaniac had developed (supported by ensuring chaos reigned among all those working for him so that he could dictate whatever he wanted to) to a ministry which was responsive to the people’s direction. I followed their direction and worked to develop relationships that would support that ministry. Progress was slow. It did not take the megalomaniac long to figure out he’d lost control of my ministry and that he was incapable of raising enough money to support the ministry even if I had followed his patronizing methods of ministry. I was fired. That was not enough. He and those that supported him had to grab a rumour going around the congregation where I worked 1/4 time (along with a full time senior pastor) that the pastor was gay. Mid 1980’s and that would spell the end of anyone’s career as a pastor. They applied the rumour to me, along with many people in the congregation. That was not enough. As I had tried to make sense of the chaos that the megalomaniac created I spent hours tracking his communications and directions and all else that he produced. None of it made sense, unless one allowed that he was trying to create chaos. That was more evil than I was able to imagine back then, fresh out of seminary as I was, so the time I spent was attributed to me having gone crazy. This is a common method for those who try to use chaos in order to gain and maintain control: they blame good, honest, honourable people with insanity. From his position of power in that organization there was little anyone could do to defend me, and no one stepped up to try in the face of the charge that I was both gay and crazy.
What is a good person to do?
A good person could try to fight back. A good person, other than me, could have stood up to defend me, knowing it would have cost them their job with the organization. A good bishop could have sent someone to defend me, but that didn’t happen. I did not even realize what I was being accused of until long after it was all done.
Then came truth came out: the senior pastor was discovered, murdered, naked along with a male prostitute in the city. The congregational president, whose gay brother had recently died in Vancouver of AIDS, quickly sold his car dealership and moved far away. I was on a trip for the church in Europe and found out about this over the following months.
None of the truth made any difference. I was supposedly gay. I was supposedly crazy of some kind. Every congregation I served as a pastor would have some kind of power issue among themselves and they’d scapegoat me to resolve their conflict with each other, using the rumours against me. I thought there was something wrong with the way I did ministry. There wasn’t unless one counts that as a pastor one has to be more than good, honest, gracious, and capable of sharing God’s Word in all one does. One has to be complicit, scheming, devious, and manipulative of the people with power in the congregation to keep them from using you as a scapegoat for their own sinful issues with each other. And one needs to be fortunate to have people of power willing to step up to protect one, so that one can continue in ministry.
What is a good, honest, gracious, and very capable person to do?
Some say: get one’s vengeance. Destroy those who would destroy you.
Others say: make sure you have more power than anyone else.
Others say: just give up and let the false accusations happen. Find other work. Move to some other town. Eventually the rumours will die out.
Jesus calls us to something different. As the passages today remind us, in the face of evil what a person is called to do is not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it, and do not be weary in doing what is right.
People still make those false accusations about me, that I am gay or that I am crazy.
The people who do so reveal themselves as working for the Devil. They are the people and pastors and bishops, congregational leaders, cops, ex, step children, lawyers, and plenty of judges and justices who are not good, kind, gracious, nor honest.
What is a person to do?
What a person is to do is to continue to do good, speak the truth, receive all people with kindness, and pray that God will soon bring the scapegoating to an end.
What is a person to do? God will do enough, soon enough.
Then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt-offerings and whole burnt-offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Luke 15:21
Then the son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
Words of Grace For Today
Getting it right before God.
Oh, how we have tried through the generations.
We’ve tried sacrificing our own children, but more often someone else’s.
We’ve tried sacrificing our own goats and lambs, but more often someone else’s.
We’ve tried sacrificing our own cattle, but more often someone else’s.
We’ve tried sacrificing our own birds, but more often someone else’s.
We’ve tried sacrificing ourselves, like the so called prodigal son, who really is only prodigal in his waste of life’s limited resources. This son comes and confesses his sins to his father, hoping to get work as a servant or slave, for then at least he will eat well enough to survive. His ‘prodigal’ waste has left him so broke and dishonoured that he cannot even get work that pays enough to provide himself food, even when he feeds other people’s pigs food that is more than he has to eat.
And it’s all wrong, oh we get it wrong.
God uses Abraham to declare that NO God does not want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, not at all.
God uses someone anonymous in history to teach us that God does not want blood sacrifices (or maybe we just got lazy, for this sacrifice is messy and quite wasteful.)
God uses Jesus to teach us that we should not sacrifice other’s well being to make up for out own sins, in other words we should not scapegoat others in order to relieve the stress and conflict in our own lives.
Jesus uses the prodigal son and so many other parables and characters to teach us that we first can hear God’s promises to forgive us and restore us as living saints doing God’s grace for all people, and then we can confess our sins, expecting not to be made slaves or servants. Doch God rather restores us to live as God’s own children.
This God promises us, and tries to teaches us, and forgives us, and tries to restore us to full life … and still we try to make it through life like the prodigiously wasteful son, burning through the limited resources of life available to us and when things go wrong we still scapegoat others, destroy others, and try to make others pay for our own failings.
Well, some or maybe most of us that is. Some of us are blessed to have figured out how not to scapegoat others, or maybe we never learned.
The rest … ah what misery they create for others and themselves!
God have mercy on us, and keep these people far, far, far from us again this day.
God have mercy.
God have mercy on us, and teach these people soon of your promises, forgiveness, and Grace.
A chimney pipe plugged with creosote: (who can explain evil?)
This is What Life Looks Like
When We Have No Hope.
…
…
The same chimney pipe after it’s unplugged: (that’s the work of the saints.)
This is What Life Looks Like
When God Gives Us Hope.
It’s Dark in Here,
But Christ’s Light Guides Us Home.
Isaiah 59:21
As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the Lord, from now on and for ever.
Romans 15:4
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
Words of Grace For Today
Hope.
Hope is that wonderful thing.
Hope is that wonderful thing that builds on the past that has become the present, and finds the future.
Hope is that wonderful thing that takes what is in front of us, projects it into the future, and comes up celebrating all the possibilities that God places in front of us.
God does as much as God knows we need: God makes a covenant with us, a one sided covenant where God does everything including making the covenant and making it something that gives us life!
God places God’s Spirit in and on us, and all around us, and places God’s Word in our mouths in such a way as it will never leave us, not us, nor our children, nor our children’s children, and on to the end of all time.
God’s Word is that all in our yesterdays, all our in todays, and all in our tomorrows will be well.
Since God says it has been, since God says it is, and since God says it will be, no matter what comes our way, no matter what challenges we face, no matter who tries to do us in, all is well with us and with all things we encounter.
This is what God has written.
This is what God has spoken.
This is what God has given us so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
And hope is that wonderful thing that undoes all that the Devil could possibly do to us, today and in all our tomorrows.
When I thought, ‘My foot is slipping’, your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
Luke 22:32
But I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
Words of Grace For Today
At Jesus’ last supper he speaks to all about who is the greatest and then to Peter, Peter (as usual the arrogant man he was) denied he would deny Jesus, and Jesus tells him of his denial before the cock crows three times.
Jesus does not start with Peter’s failings, for they are legend and well recorded in the Gospels. Jesus starts telling Peter that he will turn back to God (after turning away).
So it is God tells us first of how God will save us, before God fills us in on how terribly we will fail God, deny God, turn against God and God’s people!
Only God’s love, in the face of our sinfulness, deceit, and destruction of God’s children, can possibly move us to confess our sins and to return to follow Jesus, pure and sinless only by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So we begin each day, each worship service, each sermon, each prayer by first recognizing God’s love that saves and our desperate need to be saved from our sins.
Then we proceed to celebrate the grand creation that God places us in and the calling we receive: to celebrate God’s love by being God’s love for all people.
May Look Like All the Brokenness Left from All Our Yesterdays
Doch
God, Robes All the Saints,
In New and Righteous Garments,
So That We Rejoice in God’s Grace That We Get to Share
With Everyone
Isaiah 61:10
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Acts 8:39
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.
Words of Grace For Today
As she’d gotten older, year by year, month by month, even week by week, Jill had spent more and more time getting ready for the day. What started as a simple wash and run in her 20’s, by the time she was 50 was a thorough wash, application of 5 different ‘cleansing’ and ‘preserving’ soaps and lotions, followed by a ten minute exercise routine, then three different pills (a medication for GERDS, a vitamin for women 50+, and a glucosamine for arthritis), a breakfast with Omega3 and antioxidants, and a careful dressing for the day to ensure she did not leave something showing that should not be showing, and then when she was in her 60’s each year there was another thing added to the routine, and the medications at night were added and taken away, exercises, added or increased and removed, then added again, then replaced with others, and the arthritis demanded more and more medications (or additives to food, and the simple glucosamine was now a cocktail of additives that relieved the pain for a few hours, and dressing was always painful. Her wardrobe had to change depending on whether she could get her arms into a sweater, or she needed a button or zipper up front, or whether she could bend her legs and hips enough to get into something proper looking or she had to lay down to edge her way into something quite loose and comfortable, but a bit ghastly looking.
When she read the passage from Isaiah she thought about how her clothing had changed, and how getting dressed had become a major production in the last few months, worse than ever before. What a spectacular image: God has clothed me with the garments of salvation, God has covered me with the robe of righteousness.
Were getting dressed so easy and simple. Just let God do it. If that were her morning routine then she’d wear her ‘birthday suit’ everyday all day long, and that was not a pretty site anymore if it ever had been.
Still this assurance that God robed her in righteousness struck her to the core, and she involuntarily gave God thanks. Then noticing Isaiah’s words again, she realized that these ancient words from so many generations ago reported the same reaction in the writer. Because of the grace of God the writer greatly rejoiced in the Lord, my whole being exulted in my God.
Sometimes it was the simple ancient words that connect us to all the saints, those who have gone before us, those living now on earth, and all those yet to come in the generations of the future. What we experience, knowing we share so much with all the saints of all time, is what the eunuch experienced after Philip baptized him: as he joined the saints through baptism, and after Philip was there with him no more, he went on his way rejoicing.
So also this day, Jill thought, we saints, all of us, have so many reasons to rejoice, but none is more earth shaking and life altering than that God chooses us and clothes us in garments of salvation, in robes of righteousness.
After the coming winter, I will see another Spring
with all it’s sunsets
God’s Promises Are Sure!
After the coming winter, I will see another Spring
as surely as the sun rises!
Psalm 34:4
I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.
2 Corinthians 1:20
For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’ For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen’, to the glory of God.
Words of Grace For Today
At 3:32 I wake and go out to stoke the fire. As the smoke clears from the shelter, I walk outside in the moonlight and the stars bright. A wondrous nightscape, an early morning, blows across this vision to the universe though there is nary a breeze or rustle as silent smoke paints a dark swath across the grass and tarp covering the stacked wood, all piled in order by diameter, scraggly pieces piled high by the door to be burned before hard cold gripes the meadow, tosses it out of the land of living things, and buries it from sight under frozen white water. For now in these mild autumn days and nights the deer feast on the lush grass growing from the old barnyard waste broken down by natures’ recycler into nutrients galore, and I smile and labour away gathering, cutting, stacking, and splitting wood, or rest my back strained and spasming in the chill.
All that in one moment’s view into the night’s semidarkness, before I return to the fiery monster devouring wood and belching smoke into the night air high and away, closing the ash door that once opened livens the monster, the shelter door that has let in fresh air, and the smoke vent that has expelled smoke to rise with the chimney pointed at the stars.
This will be my twice nightly routine for the next 4 to 6 months, rising to stoke the monster in order that the warmth it creates will save me from freezing. I give God thanks whether or not there is a spectacular view to the universe outside as I wait for the smoke to clear, the inevitable smoke that spews out of the monster into the shelter when the door is opened to feed it more wood, for this monster and the routine of feeding it is easier to deal with than bugs and mosquitoes and wasps, and the cold keeps the dangerous animals away, especially the most dangerous, unpredictable two-legged kind.
For I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.
And I know that I am delivered into the freedom of living as a God-made saint not on my own merit but by Grace, most generously and freely poured out on us all. In this I know, as all the saints know, that in Christ Jesus every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’ For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen’, to the glory of God.
This ‘Amen’ is as Martin Luther taught us, our saying to God and each other, ‘this is most certainly true!’
What visions of majesty and goodness God gives to us, so that we may know the promises given to us through Jesus the Christ are already true: God blesses me, God blesses all the saints, with beauty and the presence of God.
Even in the dark of night that could bring fears to be monsters that eat at one’s soul.
Even in the solitude that could be loneliness which opens the door to the Devil’s temptations.
Even in the poverty that is the result of others’ lies, that could lead to starvation.
Even in the homelessness, a result of other’s lies leading to poverty, that could lead to my freezing to death.
For God has provided all I need so that my enemies cannot kill me; God has provided even a fiery monster that consumes wood, so that I am not cold, even in the coldest night of winter.
Justly so, I say with all the saints: thanks and glory be to God!
What about you? What are you doing this winter in the middle of the spectacular nights?
Even now your enemies are in tumult; those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against those you protect.
Matthew 6:13
Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
Words of Grace For Today
A murder mystery, fiction, true fiction, begins:
Everybody lies.
Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie.
A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. ….
[Everyone] take their seats … and agree to be lied to.
Michael Connelly’s The Brass Verdict
I’m not sure if I had known this truth that it would have mattered one iota. I certainly did not know that everyone expected everyone else to lie.
I certainly did not lie, not at all, not at all.
That put me at a huge disadvantage, and that is the way this sad world works, the way people work with each other. It is part of what I have never understood about people, who speak lies, and expect others to lie, and are just fine with all that comes of it. I certainly cannot understand cops, lawyers, witnesses, and judges who choose to lie. I cannot understand how they can so lie as to put innocent people like myself in jail for crimes they certainly did not commit, while other crimes are committed against them by their lying accusers.
As for me, I certainly did not lie, not at all, not at all.
That puts me at a huge advantage, for I know what is and is not. I live in the reality of this world. This in the end is not sad at all, not at all, not at all.
If the price of being honest and kind is that I must be homeless, then I would always choose to be kind, though the choice is not mine to be honest, and I will live well as a homeless person.
So my enemies do not care if they lie. I certainly would care if I lied.
I know that by not lying I do not make myself better than others, the others who lie. I do know that I really have no choice … and those that lie do have a choice. I do not understand how they can make that choice, and that is their burden and what a burden it is.
That is not the greatest burden we can bear, the burden that we cannot survive, not on our own.
The trial that we pray God will save us from, is the trail where the Devil plays freely with us, and only God can save us from the Devil’s clutches.
Seems to me though, if one lives in lies always, then one is got one foot on the greased slide into the Devil’s clutches and the other foot is somewhere, but you cannot ever be sure where it is since it’s been so long since you lived in the truth.
All the other enemies we face are nothing compared to the Devil, and none of them, the Devil included, is anything compared to God.
God walks with me. As for them, I cannot be sure. As for you, you should know that yourself, or pray hard and long so that God will show you. Living homeless is common among all humans of all times, but life is no place to find oneself alone.
No matter what comes, enemy, lies, trials of all kinds, I know God walks with me.
You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.
1 Corinthians 10:31
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
Words of Grace For Today
I had guests for breakfast today, well actually before breakfast and … well they would have made a good lunch or 20 as venison, not so sure about breakfast.
They came, four of them did, a yearling playfully jumping about it’s doe, another doe, and a two prong buck. They came the did, to graze, to eat, and to enjoy the grass on the meadow. The grass used to be a barnyard so the ground is soft and spongy with old hay and manure deep below. The grass grows different, which means it must be a favourite for the deer come visiting quite often, and to visit now at this time of year, during hunting season when the wood smoke fills the air and there is every sign that a human is about, must mean the prefer this grass over other.
This is the land that the Lord has guided me to, as a refuge. I eat well enough here, and many animals do as well. A rabbit is often seen hopping about. Coyotes visit in the night. Bear come snooping around too often. Mice run in the grass and a bald eagle, a brown eagle, and an owl hunt here. The other day a moose and calf came tumbling through the underbrush as they are wont to do, making a great racket. I won’t mention the ants and wasps and flies and mosquitoes in such great numbers but there are dragon flies that hunt them, the robins that eat the worms, and the bats that come feasting on the plenty.
Then there are the Hornets and F-18s, and helicopters and troop transports, that fill the sky with their presents, which is more a deafening sound barrier broken (on departure) or afterburner (burning off and wasting fuel on approach) and thought stopping punch to the brain through the ears.
Canada really does need to upgrade to stealth fighter, stealth in sound, and maybe in the meantime (25 years or so it seems) conserve fuel by not burning it off on approach … for practice and climate change friendly habits, eh?
While the world busily turns about around me, with oil workers roaring their Ram diesels out of the stop sign, or the trucks pound the pavement steadily for hours each morning and evening as the workers in the oil installations around the corner northward progress like army ants to their allotted jobs, and the quiet neighbourhood cross-overs and SUVs head out to work in town, the drunks show up to drink, the addicts to buy and take a hit, and the randy show up for a shag in the bush, and the partiers show up in droves to break Covid restrictions and have a good old fashion bush drinking, drugs, loud noise they call music, and sex party (and then fill the ICUs in two weeks time) …
my work is all blessed by God’s walking with me. The relative quiet of the chainsaw, the gathering, cutting, splitting, and stacking of wood, the maintenance of the stove and chimney, the building in preparation for the cold of winter, the cooking of meals, the canoeing on the quiet lake, the walks in the woods fill my days after they start with celebrating the Eucharist, remembering how Jesus was betrayed, falsely accused, killed, and buried … and how God resurrected Jesus to give us Jesus’ story of how God forgives and loves and gives life abundant to us all … so that we can share it with others!
With this beginning every day is a blessing, a gift to enjoy.
Hard work or pleasant walks or quiet canoeing or writing or taking photos … all my time is blessed and a witness to all of God’s great glory, known to us all in God’s Grace … that gives us all we need starting with each breath.
Atem tief. Gottes Barmherzigkeit durchdringt tief in und aus allem.
In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire.
2 Corinthians 5:10
For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
Words of Grace For Today
The morning wakening after long hours of sleep, enough to repair and rejuvenate the body, blossom into pure joy, simple joy. The fire is still warm, stoked to last again for hours. The door opens to frosty grass (suppressing the last of any bugs or wasps which would have been ready to buzz about), and fog has settled over the lake, making for great photos (or so, anyway). The smoke from the beast well-fed, meanders over the meadow into the trees. The fresh pressed coffee wafts clean inside with plenty of blueberries to top the morning cereal. Prayers include thanks for precious people, a large number of my families, now and of origin.
Then as breakfast satisfies the hunger and thirst of the night (cutting back to lose weight for better health outcomes) the fog descends over the meadow encasing it in a white glow that ends visibility just at the tree lines.
All this on a day that promises progress to prepare for winter. Old logs are ready to cut up and stack for firewood. A few new pieces of lumber wait a bit of construction before the tarp goes up to provide shelter from the rains and snow, and a few simple sewing jobs will improve the comfort on cold nights.
What more could a person want?
Well, I have a long list. Anyone who dreams of making life better has a list of things that would help the small and large improvements to one’s life, to the lives of others close and even for strangers.
So what are we to make of this life? Is it just the daily grind, the daily joys, the obtuse strangers and the warmth of friendships, the lies of enemies and the powerful trying to protect their privileges, and the small kindnesses one shares and receives with so many people?
God walks with us.
That is a double edge sword, cutting for us against all evil and fabrications by enemies … and it is the edge that cuts the sin and evil of us as well. It is promise to save and promise to put to an end: good is saved and evil is sent back to primordial void, right?!
Yes! Justice will prevail, and our enemies will be exposed, our sin will be cut from us, and we will be left pure and unmolested by our enemies baseless attacks …
except …
except read Jesus’ story! There one discovers anew that God’s judgment is not bent on destroying us but on saving us, forgiving us, setting Jesus’ record in place of our own at our judgment day, renewing life in us (a spirited, passionate life of commitment to being God’s unconditional love for others), and sending us out to live a life abundantly full of and spreading God’s Grace everywhere.
Like the fog that settles in, God’s mercy and wholehearted love for us and all people, covers us. Then God’s forgiveness provides our ‘daily bread’ like heat, breakfast, and opportunity to give God thanks for our family (some who love us good and always, and some who find hate and lies and fabricating blame for others as their way through life). Before the day is too far spent, God then blesses us with the golden sunlight dancing on the fog, dispersing it into the trees and beyond, as God’s promises give us hope … hope that today all will be well, and tomorrow all will be even better!
