Summer – Page 26

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 17

Monday, August 17, 2020

Royal Purple

God’s Glory and Favour

For All to See

Zechariah 8:23

Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’

Acts 2:46-47

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Words of Grace For Today

Living with thanks, and with success that others recognize and want to be a part of, to join in. This is to have the goodness of heart and faith, of a purity and strength that others will …

No … that’s all wrong.

The way of following Jesus does not guarantee at all that others will notice the abundant life that God gives to us. That kind of prosperity is not to be equated with being blessed by God, otherwise there are so many evil ways to get there, and the ends could be seen to justify the means. This is exactly what the Devil wishes us to do. Reduce following Jesus into a code that we keep and which keeps others out.

Jesus embraces all nations, all creeds, all colours, all every kind of human. We humans are the ones who create artificial boundaries and exclusions in order to pretend we are special.

Jesus brings all nations to our doorstep to show us how varied the Kingdom of God is, and how much work there is for us in welcoming all people. So they flock to us for help. It is not because we are special, it is because God is special.

This account from Acts is remarkable, that the followers of Jesus had the goodwill of the people. That was in some ways true and in so many other ways it was not true. Jesus was a threat to so many people and so many people wanted to be done with him … and it will not take long before the followers of Jesus are hunted and slain like vermin in the floor boards.

In preparation for the persecutions to come, God gives them a respite, a time of calm, a time of relative safety … before the persecutions begin. Then all hell breaks loose against them.

Whether we are grieving a loss, reorganizing our lives after a loss, resting from the ‘funerals’ or caught in the middle of the persecutions, Jesus has a task for us. Even or especially in the middle of this Covid-19 pandemic Jesus’ task for us is to welcome the stranger into our midst, just as they are. We get to exercise God’s unconditional love.

What a life!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 16

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Looking out from down low

Psalm 136:23

It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures for ever.

Hebrews 13:3

Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.

Words of Grace For Today

It is so easy to forget our past, when we were so much less than we are now. Become wealthy and soon one easily forgets what it is like to struggle to survive without enough money. With God and God’s people it is different, though.

Become educated and it is easy to forget how it is to be ignorant and vulnerable. With God and God’s people it is different, though.

Yet as one becomes more educated one learns that one really did and still does know so little. This is closer to how it is in our relationship with God, if we care at all for the Truth of Jesus’ love and life for us.

When God forgives us our sins, it may seem easy to forget our sins, now that Grace has saved us. We can easily pretend or delude ourselves that we somehow no longer need forgiveness, though as we grow, if we learn to be honest with ourselves then we recognize that we still sin, and more profoundly and profusely then we care ever to admit. We desperately need to be forgiven, more it seems each passing day.

When we learn this anew each day, then it makes sense to give thanks to God for all that we are, for we have and are nothing on our own. Only by God’s hand do we have anything given to us as stewards of it, nor are we anything other than the chemicals our body is made of, except that the Holy Spirit breathes life into us each day.

As we remember how much we daily depend on God’s good Graces, then it is not difficult to remember each day to pray for and work to support those in prison.

Yes, there are some real criminals in prison. They are people capable of great destruction to property and person without much thought of the damage they do. There are also many minorities, especially men, who have been taken advantage of and invited into a world where crime is the only way of life. There also are a great number of people, men and women, who are falsely convicted and never did anything to deserve to be put in prison.

Someone decided they would be their target. They would be lied about, false witnesses would be found against the person, and false reports and charges are brought against them … and judges easily lie about the evidence before them and convict people, on the basis of easily identifiable lies. The measure of correct judgments is that a fully informed, reasonable person would agree with the judge’s decision. But one has to be willing to lie, and reasonable has to be not that the person is actually guilty, but someone with enough money or power wants this person convicted, and the fully informed part of that has to be understood as meaning one had to understand that someone with wealth or power or a sadistic habit has to be satisfied … and yet another innocent person goes to jail.

We are to remember all the people in jails, not from our place of comfort and privilege, but as if the prison director had us in custody and was using the guards, some violent, some friendly, to sadistically ‘play’ with us, to torment us. And that some health care people working in prisons go out of their way to provide inappropriate, even deadly health care to prisoners/us; because if we are in jail then surely we deserve no good health care.

For people tortured, well it helps to have been tortured at some point, so that we can not only empathize with those who are tortured, but that we can also remember what it was like to be tortured.

If you have made it thus far in life without being tortured, then watch perhaps 12 Years a Slave, for an insightful presentation of what being enslaved is like, and to be tortured, having one’s life taken from one, piece by piece.

Then we can wake to each morning, give God thanks for all we have, and fervently pray for others’ in real need. One does not need much to be thankful. One needs only eyesight to see the world’s beauty. Or eyes to see the people in the neighbourhood. Or ears to hear the loons’ cry echoing across the water. Then one can be thankful, that one has something, has eyes, has ears.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 10

Monday, August 10, 2020

Holy Spirit

Holy Fire

Holy Wild Ride

Through Light and Life

Judges 8:23

Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’

2 Corinthians 10:18

For it is not those who commend themselves that are approved, but those whom the Lord commends.

Words of Grace For Today

Many strive to achieve for themselves great position of authority and power. For example one needs only look at all the bishops our church has had who seriously wanted to become bishops. They were disastrous for the church, each in their own special corrupt way.

The best bishops were those who did not want the work, nor the honour, nor the heartache of presiding over a church in decline.

The church remains in decline.

What does that say to us other than God has plans that are not those of the church which wants to grow … according to our measure of growth.

There is no shortage of people trying way too hard to make their plans into God’s plans for the church. All are dangerous and destructive.

What we need is leaders like Gideon, who though offered control and rule, chose instead that the people would be ruled by God.

To be ruled by God is something, not anything like being ruled by a code of what someone has determined is ‘for sure’ God’s will (though it looks like a terrible subset of faith, reduced so that that it is worthless.)

To be ruled by God is something, not anything like being ruled by a person who supposedly can speak God’s will. We’ve had no end of despots, also in the church.

To be ruled by God is something that will lead us in places we cannot anticipate, into adventures we cannot imagine, and to share life with people we had never known before as God’s people. It’s a wild ride.

Hang on tight

to the Holy Spirit’s fire and breath.

That’s all God gives us most of the time, everything else we see as solid is an illusion we create for our own sense of (false) security.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 9

Sunday, August 9, 2020

Abundant Life

Not at all the world’s measure.

Psalm 105:40-42

They asked, and he brought quails, and gave them food from heaven in abundance. He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river. For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham, his servant.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Words of Grace For Today

Blessings and gifts that give life.

The basic necessities of life: air, water, food, clothing, shelter, meaningful labour, and love. God provides all of these, like manna on the wilderness ground in the morning, quail in the camp at night, water gushing from the rock, forgiveness promised even before we know we need it, and breath … breath to take when we need

remember,

to remember as well Abraham, Sarah, Naiomi, Leah, Rachael, Isaac, Esau, and Joseph, Paul, Peter, Augustine, Bonhoeffer, Niemöller, Romero, among so many

who have modelled life abundant in faith.

It was hot this day as I write this. Nearly the hottest of the summer so far. 35⁰C when 25⁰C is already hotter than normal.

Still in the midst of all kinds of heat, God’s promise is true: God blesses us with all the we need in Christ Jesus.

As the cool of evening settles, the fresh air promises a good night, and a refreshing rain tomorrow.

Water abundant for living.

Thanks be to God.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 8

Saturday, August 8, 2020

A Rose

also has thorns,

Only Grace can save us from the Evil One

Psalm 25:15

My eyes are ever towards the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-3

Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere, just as it is among you, and that we may be rescued from wicked and evil people; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

Words of Grace For Today

Yes, how true it always is that not all people have faith. There are evil people.

Some are grand, like despots who use the cover of Covid 19 to take life and freedom and power from their enemies. Others appear in every way to be ordinary people, but they work only to get ahead for themselves and have no sense that this is a shared experience.

Some are just stupidly ignorant and therein destructive. It reminds me of the store clerk who does nothing sufficient to protect people who come in to the store, a drug store and post office. Lots of sick people come in and out. Lots of healthy people come to check their mail. Yet there is no attention to cleansing, protecting customers, or actual providing for physical distancing, other than dots of the floor, which people ignore. Instead she mocks me, calls attention to me that I bring a bottle of diluted bleach to cleanse my way in and out of many places where protection is insufficient.

This last time, having not seen me come in she yelled at me while 25 feet away that I better not ‘bleach’ her door, loudly so many other customers heard it as well, and then she saw I had no bleach bottle (I’d biked to town and not packed it along with everything else), exclaimed how good it was I had no bleach bottle. Actually it was much more dangerous for me that I did not have it. Makes one want to carry a water bottle that squirts 6 feet, to spray her as she always steps much closer than six feet. Of course not with bleach, but with plain water, to shock her to her senses. Probably would not work, for lack of sense.

But we do not need to save ourselves from any evil. God has already done all that.

We can stay focused on sharing the good news that God has already provided us protection from dangerous, evil people. The protection is not that others will not exercise evil against us or that they cannot do much to destroy us. God’s promised protection is that nothing will separate us from the love of God.

Therefore we are free. Free always to be gracious, and to work to help others engage in justice based on truth, righteousness based on God’s grace, and commitment based on sharing everything God has given us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 2

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Light

Love

Hope

Even in the dark woods of life.

Deuteronomy 32:7

Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you.

2 Timothy 1:13

Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Words of Grace For Today

We do not face these days on our own.

We have not come all on our own to believe the old, old story of Jesus and his love for all creation and trust the work of the Holy Spirit. We have received for many generations the Word that gives life, the living water that quenches all thirst, and the bread of life that sustains us no matter what comes our way.

Remember.

It is a powerful ability that humans have, to remember the things of yesterday, of yesteryear, or yester-eon. We have words of language, spoken and written, heard and read, conceived and understood. The words we share carry meaning and portent beyond just themselves, for as poetry, the words of everyday communicate far more than just their meanings strung together. Our words communicate spirit, yearnings, hopes, visions … and love.

When all other necessities are provided for life, or even before, we need two things uncommonly considered the basic needs of life (Sölle): meaningful labour and love (the ability to love others unconditionally and to be loved unconditionally.)

It is part of our human drive to grasp beyond what is obvious, to create standards and rules and guides and codifications of things of meaning from our past. These cannot carry the meaning of spirit and love, but they can hint at what people of yesteryear encountered as the Holy Spirit guided them.

The worship of the standard, the piety, the rule, the guide, the codification is a natural decay of living faith. It moves us into a realm of false comfort wherein we chase control of faith.

Faith with integrity, before it decays and is still living faith, is beyond our control. Living faith, carried by living Word, is a wild ride through the pitfalls of life.

We are left …

We are left to remember what we have been taught and …

… and to encounter the Spirit anew for ourselves and …

… and we trust, hope, yearn, envision and love for ourselves all that God has given us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 1

Saturday, August 1, 2020

Glory Everywhere

Generosity with all of us.

Isaiah 66:18

For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory.

Romans 10:12

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

Words of Grace For Today

God knows everyone’s works and thoughts. No one slips under the radar of all knowing God. Everyone, no matter their nation or tongue, will come to know God’s glory, power, and God’s knowledge of their everything.

God’s full knowledge of Jesus’ followers also applies to everyone, no matter Jew or Greek (or in today’s word – white or coloured, rich or poor, powerful and connected or isolated and expendable). God knows everything about everyone, and Jesus’ followers come in all types, no bias.

All that can be terrible news for those who are guilty. … Well that is everyone.

That can be terrible news; that is the 2nd side to the sharp sword of the Gospel, the sword that cuts us free from our sins; and it cuts to the heart of the matter to show up our desperate need to God’s Grace.

Thankfully God is gracious with everyone, and generous with grace for everyone who calls on the Lord. Jesus answers everyone who calls.

Sometimes the answer is that Jesus will be with us as we continue to suffer what we want to be free of, the lies about us, the weight on our shoulders.

Other times the answer that Jesus gives us saves us from the evil that threatens our very lives.

No matter the answer Jesus gives us, whether we continue through the suffering or are freed, life abundant is nevertheless ours. We can Breathe.

We can give thanks.

Jesus is generous.

We can share the blessedness Christ’ gives us with all people (no matter the person or nation) and we can share generously.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 29

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Wood

for

Winter

Survival

Job 1:21

He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’

1 Timothy 6:7-8

For we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

Words of Grace For Today

One cannot be sure to leave anything of material worth to one’s children, but give them an education and no one can take that away from them.

Or so one thinks.

And similarly people strive to achieve – for themselves and their children … and their friends and their own – something that will be a legacy.

Legacies are remarkable … usually in how inconsequential they are.

Two things seem significant: The first one is that we recognize that we are born with nothing, we die with nothing, and nothing we can do will ever change that, for us or for anyone else.

The second one is that everything we have is a gift from God for which we can give God thanks and praise. Even the drive to work hard to accomplish and accumulate something that may be a security for us … that drive is God’s gift, and the result may or may not provide security.

We should not therefore cease to work to provide security for ourselves and our own, and our neighbours. ‘Winter’ is coming, and ‘wood‘ needs be collected to ‘keep the fires going’.

We can therefore remember to enjoy each person along the journey, and to provide as we can for those less fortunate than us … as God has provided for us, freely and graciously.

No matter the challenges, disappointments, and ever-present stinking ‘rot’ in situations and people, we are not driven to despair.

We give God thanks in all things. We wake rested, we work like dervishes noticing all of life around us, and we end the day with gratitude and contentment, for we have done as we could to respond to God’s gift of breath in this day.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 24

Friday, July 24, 2020

Imperfect

is what God

uses for abundant life for all.

Isaiah 63:19

We have long been like those whom you do not rule, like those not called by your name.

Matthew 6:13

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

Words of Grace For Today

Like the meadow outside filled with more weeds than grass, and years of dead weeds and grasses rotting underfoot, we were once and still are filled with the dregs of sin, the work of evil in and through us, rotting at our core, infecting like a super-virus, all that we think, say and do.

Though the weeds and grass can be mowed short to inhibit the proliferation of mosquitoes, to which I am allergic after so many bites in the past months, it is not anything like a well groomed lawn. There are many visions of beautiful blue-grass image of smooth green mostly for viewing and showing off to one’s neighbours, which can be used for picnics and croquet or soccer and bocce ball. The work it takes to create and maintain such an unnatural thing is huge: mowing, fertilizing, watering, more mowing and thatching.

This is not unlike the visions the devil fills our hearts and minds with, that our hearts, minds, and strengths could be so perfectly groomed into artificial perfection by our great efforts of attending to our souls. The creating of such perfection is beyond us, though we do have the fertilizing part down pat. Falling so short of an unattainable perfection, the devil then plants in us innumerable rationalizations that we can still attain the unattainable, using all sorts of excuses as we try to attain perfection in vain, running roughshod over other people and creation without pause.

These temptations, to try to attain our own perfection and use that as an excuse to ruin creatures and creation, are not our first request of God. We start this petition with AND do not bring us to the time of trial … Yet we pray this fervently each day.

We know we are hopelessly outmatched by the Devil. Only God can save us.

Jesus’ story assures us, God does save us. We cannot and do not need to strive to be perfect. We can strive to allow the Holy Spirit to work through us.

We can recognize that all that crap in our lives can serve as fertilizer for the Word of God to grow in us. We can attend to mowing, trust God to bring the water, sunshine and warmth needed for life, and be at peace with what God makes us.

We are not perfect meadows or lawns. We are a mix of good grass and noxious weeds and thistles. There is plenty of old weeds rotting within us. We need not be concerned, for God accepts us as we are, replaces our records with Jesus’ record making us pure in each moment, and then the Holy Spirit sends us out to share this same story of salvation for all with all people.

Croquet on an imperfect lawn is more fun than on a perfect lawn, for the play of the mallet on the ball is not what brings success. Success is measured in the pure joy one shares with the time one spends with the other players and those who watch.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 23

Thursday, July 23, 2020

All Creation

Hungry to Hear

Isaiah 43:10

You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

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

…

Good God, is this it?

Awake again, dripping rain, cool, no mosquitoes.

I see the grass, the trees, and the lake.

God is here. I have seen him again and again in the most mundane and and the most spectacular.

Yet I know I am missing something. I missed so many clues along the way.

Each morning I remember that Jesus faced his betrayal, willingly suffering everything…

God knows exactly what this is like.

Jesus tried to show us it is not necessary that anyone else be scapegoated or sacrificed or Gaslit in order that we make our way through life.

We imitate Christ to make our way through life, striving to forgive the unforgivable.

Hoping that truth will be known.

Trusting God stands with us.

Leaning on the Holy Spirit.

Even as bit by bit our lives slip away into the hungry past as it gobbles up the present and our tomorrows.

Can we trust breath, ferocious wind, gentle silent breeze, spirit intangible

to guide our beating hearts, frantic minds, spasming muscles, and weary arthritic bones?

Truth, confessed, welcomes life and radiates it to others.

Let us strive for truth.

And sleep enough? Maybe?

Even as the dark of night retreats as light wriggles across the land and water

calling us to rise to a new day

But our minds slowly slip from us into the empty spaces between thoughts and visions

until in the bright baked light we scramble to catch up

with the obligations of life stacked up decades high

and search for

something out of the dim past … what is it … so fleeting. It is gone.

Oh, yes hope. It was hope.

Gone is hope?

Not at all!

…

The story that God gives us in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, so that we may know and believe God and understand that God is God, gives us all the purpose, love and hope we need.

….

Given that purpose, love and hope, we can go into all the world and proclaim the good news of Jesus’ story with our thoughts, words, and actions.