Dominion & Deception vs Humble Temples

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Sometimes

We Need Someone To Hold Us

Lest We Break Off

From All That Gives Us Life

Genesis 1:28

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’

1 Corinthians 3:22-23

Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you [as God’s Temple, God’s Spirit dwelling in you], and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Words of Grace For Today

1 Corinthians 2:18 reads: Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

Blessed to have dominion over every living thing we humans have thoroughly deceived ourselves as if we owned and could do with the creatures and creation what we pleased, even if that meant ruining earth as a habitable planet for other species and even ourselves.

Everything is from God.

We are all God’s.

God’s Spirit lives in us.

We are blessed to be blessings to others, not to wreak havoc on others and the rest of creation.

Our dominion over anything is always as stewards, and stewards for a God that created everything, declared it GOOD!, and loves creation and all creatures in it.

It’s all about reality.

First and ultimate always is we are God’s.

We are not some other human’s possession or work.

We are not independent beings.

We are ALL in this together, as Covid 19 has taught us.

While we are not in the same boat, some are in a few people in each luxury yacht and some are bailing to save everyone in their overloaded leaky dinghies, and some are hanging on to flotsam for dear life.

God gives us dominion in order that everyone can live even through a pandemic (when the circumstances of life for each and all become more obvious) in a save boat.

We have lots to do, and always it is futile to proceed as if we were anything less or more or other than God’s stewards.

Angels vs Upheaval

Monday, March 22, 2021

No Matter the Obstacles in Our Path

God’s Angels Encamp around Us,

Guiding Us

Psalm 34:7

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Luke 11:10

For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Words of Grace For Today

There are enough challenges to everyday,

even ordinary everyday days.

Through in upheaval like a pandemic, or injustice focused at oneself, or … [fill in the extraordinary upheaval that meets every life] the challenges can seem to be a bit overwhelming.

Then it is good to know that God’s Angels ‘encamp’ around we who fear and love God.

Then it is good to know that when we ask, God provides (what we need, not necessarily what we ask for). When we search, God guides us to find (what we need, not necessarily what we thought we sought). When we knock, God opens (the door that God knows we need to have opened, not necessarily the door we were banging away on).

To fear and love God.

To fear and love God is the beginning of everything good.

To fear and love God is the beginning of every good day, every good hour, every good minute.

To fear and love God is the beginning of every good relationship, project, or yearning.

Help us, we pray, to fear and love God before all else, (more than all the things that threaten to and do upend our lives.)

Help us, we pray, to trust God’s Angels are with us, (no matter what threatens to and does upend our lives.)

WORD and CREATOR for US

Sunday, March 21, 2021

The Journey Forward

is on

Word-calmed Waters.

Paddle Onward Without Fear.

Isaiah 48:13

My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they stand at attention.

John 1:1-3

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

Words of Grace For Today

God, who comes to our rescue, who delivers us again and again, who sanctifies us making us holy and thus wholly capable of bearing the Good News of Grace to all people … God, who loves us, is the One who spoke a Word in the beginning before anything including time, spread out a right hand to create the heavens, laid the foundation of the earth.

The universe was not created by some godlet. Nor is our God some inconsequential being, to be ignored or dismissed.

It’s more than ‘turtles all the way down’ that the earth is founded on; it is founded on unconditional love.

In the beginning was the Word. We later came to know this Word as Jesus, the communication from God in a human life; the language we can understand.

The heavens and earth may come to attention when God summons them. God did not create us so bound to God’s Word. We get to really mess up terribly, ignoring the Creator and the Word if we so choose … which we humans do all too often.

The Word came to communicate that God accounted for our rebellion and sin and evil. God forgives us our rebellion and sin and evil, and sets us right with God our Creator and Sustainer. Thus we may forge ahead each day, each minute, not hounded and horrified by the depth and breadth of our past rebellion and sin and evil. We may live free of that, and bind ourselves anew to receiving God’s blessings in such an abundance that they spill off us to those around us; they flow through us to others even emptying us … purifying us and taking the life right out of us as we become the bearers of God’s Good News of Grace to all people: God loves us!

Now with God standing with us, why would not the hoards of armies surrender to us making noise? Why would the walls of Jericho not crumble at our trumpets’ calls? Why would the chaos of un-creation void (the ocean waters) and the storms of chaos breaking in through the heavens not obey the Word spoken: ‘Be still!’

May our hearts be also stilled this and each day, from the chaos of fear, false pride, jealousy, and greed, so that we can calmly face the challenges of each day, even if it is one day among many of a pandemic.

Breathe deeply

Relax

Meet the challenges with patience and assurance that God is with us, saving us, guiding us, inspiring us to do holy things for all peoples.

Trouble is Nothing . . . For We Are God’s

Friday, March 12, 2021

Dark Clouds Sit On The Horizon

And Over Us.

Doch, God Is With Us

And We Need Fear Nothing nor Anyone!

Psalm 22:11

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Romans 14:8

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

Words of Grace For Today

When trouble threatens us, though we have done nothing to bring that trouble to ourselves.

When hoards of people believe the lies that created that trouble, repeating and augmenting the lies against us.

When the courts join in believing obvious lies and creating more of their own, and covering up their lies.

AND

There is no one to help.

OR

When the violence of greed for resources spills into our communities, forcing us to choose to acquiesce to the greed to secure a small respite for ourselves at others’ cost, or face the violence that will surely destroy us, or we run for our lives to join the other millions of refugees.

AND

There is no one to help.

OR

When the greed of unjust people rob us of our food, of our land, of our ability to provide for ourselves.

AND

There is no one to help.

OR

When the world is against us in any way at all, taking from us the abundant life that God has given us

AND

There is no one to help.

THEN

We remember

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

God’s truth renews our courage to face whatever comes our way. We do not succumb to the temptations to give up God’s truth. We do not succumb to the temptations to fail to proclaim with our words and deeds God’s Word. We do not succumb to the temptations to fail to invite even our enemies to seek God’s peace, to be converted by the Holy Spirit, to provide justice based on truth, and to contribute to God’s double victory, standing with us and all people who face the trouble of other’s sins and evil that would rob life from us and them.

We pray with confidence:

Do not be far from us, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

For we know God is with us always.

Though no one stands with us, God walks with us and we are God’s children. Nothing nor anyone can separate us from God.

Certainly not Covid 19, nor Covid19 restrictions, nor Covidiots!

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

We are Children of the Light

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

In the Dark

or

In the Light

We Remain Children of the Light

Micah 7:8

Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

1 Thessalonians 5:5

For you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.

Words of Grace For Today

Are we to be good?

Are we to be evil?

Sometimes the difference between what we are to be is what we know about ourselves.

In knowing truth, there is hope that cannot be lost.

Darkness is powerful. It tempts many to lie in wait, to prey upon the weak, to put all their weight into the lie that will bring them forward.

The Light gives Life as God created us to live it.

Who are we?

Who have we been in the past?

Who are we going to be in the future?

God knows.

God knows who we are.

God knows who we are is what most of us have lost track of.

So God expends so much to show us who we are, to give us freedom from our past to be what we are, to guide us into the future so that we will be who we are, and who God created us to be.

YET

YET we always are so eager, able, and willing to choose to work the dark work of the Devil, to try to take shortcuts to a better life. There are no shortcuts. Shortcuts or cuts at all are not what is needed.

God’s work in us is all that is needed, and it is the only thing that can move us to live in the Light.

The Light is frightening for most of us, we’ve hidden from our sins for so long. The light is the only way that God created us to live. So we remember even in the face of our enemies:

when we fall, we shall rise; when we sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to us, for we are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.

Thanks be to God!

Hellfire or Thanks, God Chooses for Us.

Friday, March 5, 2021

We Get to Reflect the Light of Christ

Wonders of Wonders.

Proverbs 18:10

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.

Philippians 4:6

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Words of Grace For Today

How can we live right, right enough to earn God’s blessings?

The world is full of ideas, of attempts, of desperations and all of them are futile.

We cannot. We are all and forever remain sinners. That is the way it is. Trying to make it to different is not ever going to work.

We need God’s Grace, that’s all there is to it.

We are only ever righteous if God makes us so, despite our sins.

After God makes us righteous we know to run and where to run – straight to God. That is the only place where we are safe. And how! In God’s arms we are safe no matter what happens around us, to us, or in us.

Of course there is no place that we actually run. Were it so simple!

It is a matter of recognizing how things are: God created everything and everyone. God created us. We always try to make it on our own without God. It’s impossible. Our on-our-own efforts land us in trouble with God every time.

Our basic attitude is that we need to make things good with God. Futile.

Instead God needs to save us! And God does that, leaves us nothing to do except accept God’s Grace as it is, unconditional. We are hard to win over, since we still think we need to go-it-on-our-own. So God came to live as one of us, paid the price we think needs to be paid for our sins; dies a terrible death tortured on a cross. We should be convinced, though our resistance is quite high!

That’s where the ‘running’ may appear to come in: we actually need to stop running on our own, running away from God. If we but rest, relax, breathe and calmly accept the world as it is God does the Grace-work for us, God makes us saints.

For all that we get to be thankful at our core.

That’s enough to keep us running everywhere, running on gratitude and wonder.

Dread can be Dead

Thursday, March 4, 2021

God, through the Seasons, Removes the Ice

from the Lake.

God is Always Ready to Remove

the ‘Ice’ and Dread

from our Hearts and Minds

Jeremiah 29:11

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Colossians 1:19-20

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Words of Grace For Today

Calm

Breathe and Relax

Be Calm

A year ago as Covid 19 spreading across the globe started to invade our lives we were afraid, unsure, perturbed and disturbed though without any focus of at what except an invisible thing that was coming for us! In Lent suddenly we could no longer gather for worship. We stopped and thought we’d start again in a month, right? It was just a temporary restriction, a temporary closure!

A year later, again in Lent, we think we have seen it all, and with vaccines being distributed slowly we hope that it will soon come to an end, though we are dreading what may come first, or almost never voiced, we dread most of all that it might never end. We dread now what we know is not just a very painful death, but even with mild symptoms the effects of the virus’ invasion into our body can leave long term ‘scars’ or scares, as strokes, organ failure and even heart and brain failure, strike without warning. Long-haulers refers to those who get sick, quite sick, but recover only sort of as they remain incapable of working, functioning, or thinking straight for fatigue and pain and …. The cost to all humans is more devastating than we could have imagined. Now the variants spread more quickly, perhaps more deadly, perhaps more devastating in the long-term disruption to our bodies’ functioning.

This is our life, suddenly foisted upon us, whether we were settled and bored or at least boring in our privileged lives, or whether we struggled to survive each day as our very lives were under threat of war’s violence, starvation or dying of thirst for lack of water … or whether our lives were already lost to an existential thirst for living water. No matter where or how or what we were before, now Covid 19 is upon us and has been for quite some time now, still an unknown quantity despite all we have collectively learned about it.

God remains.

God remains as always with us.

God remains as always with us and for us.

God has plans for our welfare and not for harm, to give us a future with hope.

To demonstrate God’s intentions and plans for us, Jesus lived as one of us, and as we (not God as some would claim) demand payment for sins God sacrificed Jesus’ life to our jealous, sinful, greedy, corrupt injustice.

Through him God was pleased to reconcile to God’s self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of Jesus’ cross.

What lengths God goes to. What lengths we need God to go to, in order that we may be convinced that God’s attitude toward us is reconciliation, forgiveness, redemption, sanctification, and renewed life!

There are countless reasons to panic, to be in dread, to be overwhelmed with angst.

There is one ultimate reason to be calm.

God is with us and for us, and spares nothing to convince us that our future is good; we have every reason to hope.

For all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.

Relax.

Breathe.

Be Calm.

Be God-made saints (though we remain simultaneously sinners.)

Breathe.

God’s got this (Covid and all), too.

Second Wednesday in Lent

The Light, The Light!

In Response to

a reflection on God’s Promise given to Sarai and Abraham: descendants, and their new God-given names:

3 questions

1. What does this encounter-renaming-promise-of-blessing have to do with us today, in a pandemic wherein so many people are Querdenkers (reality deniers – eg ‘I’m done with this Covid!’) in order to get by, or are sinking, sinking into despair, addiction, abuse, cruelty, or being overwhelmed as the demands to be creative cannot be even begun with.

2. It is said in various and many ways ‘old age is a dry or fruitless time of life.’ Can those in this time of life at all agree: yes physically and mentally ‘little deaths’ rear their ugly heads and steal bits of us from us*DOCH Is this not the most fruitful time of life when the wisdom that one has discovered as a teen and onward start to be proven as wisdom indeed? Is this not the time of life when the penultimate things (and the even less important things) of life recede into the background and the ultimate takes not only front and centre stage, but inspires one to see how God is present (as sacramental as ever) in the mundane and simple … the ordinarily super-beautiful small things**

* – Let’s not talk about the GERDS or sciatica that disturb my rest! or the looming cancer – So I can no longer sit to read and write, doch now I can stand at a new (creatively crafted from coffee cans and plywood) makeshift desk to type and read.

** Quickly given examples: pine cones shredded by a squirrel scattered beneath a tree – evidence that in the -35⁰ temperatures God provides also for these little creatures, or the sunsets and sunrises that shower specular light everywhere transforming the dull into the means of Grace (on par with God sanctifying sinners with God’s most marvellous glory), or the northern lights of greens and purples dancing across the cold sky of infinite stars sending light from millions of years ago?

OR

3. Is the so ordinary, familiar Lenten reflection provided on Abram and Sarai’s encounter with God, the advanced years of both, the promise of children numerous, the laughter … is this a reflection that while this time may seem so unique and demanding for us, for God it is ordinary, already many times having occurred, and it can be taken by us simply ‘in the flow’ of God’s promises and presence.

Which reminds me of the story of the rabbi who refused to join the council of the synagogue. Pressed he relented (seasonally appropriate) and agreed he would join, but he would attend only when there was something new to deal with. Something ‘new’ arises, they seek his attendance, he points out that this ‘new’ thing is addressed in the writings of this or that revered rabbi. Another ‘new’ thing arises … and it repeats many times. Each time the rabbi shows that the ‘new’ thing is rather ‘old’. The rabbi is not required ever to attend council.

Doch, God does do new things with us, as Abram and Sarai are given new names (new essence, new identity by God) as Abraham and Sarah.

God does wonderfully new things in order that we will recognize who we are, who God is, and God’s enduring attitude of Grace toward us and all creation. It is the same old, old story of Jesus and his love.

Which is always new when it is shared as Grace and hope in love.

Equality Is Not Possible Through Revenge

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

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God Created All Equally Favoured.

We can be courageous to live so, today!

Genesis 2:18

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’

John 19:26-27

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Words of Grace For Today

There is something very wrong with this creation account in Genesis. How it has been used makes this very clear to anyone who wishes to pay attention.

While humans are both female and male, the story places one as the first consideration for God, and the other as an after-thought, a help mate for the first.

This story came out of a male biased culture and has been used to devalue females as second class humans. Abuses have abounded through history based solely on this false preference of God’s for males. These biases and their subsequent abuses used to seem so acceptable to some people, especially those that benefited from them. In truth they always have been an abomination for the whole species.

Today, as if this helps at all, many have turned these biases and abuses on their heads. Females are given free license to devalue, abuse, lie about, gaslight, and even kill males freely, as if it were their birthright as females. This ‘new’ bias-abuse of males can never set right the bias-abuse of females. In fact it is worse. For many the bias-abuse of females was unintentional, even by females who saw it as something for their benefit.

The ‘new’ (to our culture) bias-abuse of males to benefit females cannot be claimed by any to be participated in unawares. It is the flip of a terrible bias in history. For that matter continuing male-favouring biases is no longer excusable (because one was unawares) either, if it ever was.

A bias participated in aware of the bias and one’s participation in it is worse than an accidental bias in that it , on top of everything else, consciously chosen.

Female favouring biases are also most often pursued with revenge in mind. For example it is as if the abuse is pursued against this good male to take revenge for the abuse of other abusive males, even though the males are related only in that they are males.

That kind of blind revenge bias is many measures worse. It claims to set things right, yet it adds layer upon layer of lies and deception and damage to every situation.

Only Grace brings us to live past bias of any kind.

Jesus, on the cross, does not change that woman have next to no possibility to ‘take care of their own business.’ They require a man to own the property and from that provide for the woman. Instead Jesus acknowledges the disadvantage this places upon Mary, his mother, and he ensures that one of the disciples is now recognized by Mary as her son, and she is recognized by him as her mother.

Jesus does not remove the bias. Instead he ensures, despite the bias, that his followers and his mother are cared for as all people should be.

We can make changes, if all too slowly, to cultural biases. We need to do this with great courage and persistence. We need to work to remove the bias and all vestiges from our own lives. We need to actually remove and end the bias, not to merely replace it with an equally if not worse bias!

As we recognize our own sin (including biases), and the sin of our culture’s biases, we need swiftly and effectively mitigate the suffering all our biases cause people, including ourselves. We need to provide the care every human deserves for everyone we can.

This is the meaning of life, and the purpose of each day; to provide God’s Grace to all people.

For this we can live grateful lives.

Can We Sinners Live Wisely and Gently?

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

In the Darkness of Sin,

We May Not Know How to Live Well!

Sanctified, We Can Learn to Live

Wisely and Gently

As the Holy Spirit Guides Us.

Psalm 119:66

Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.

James 3:13

Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

Words of Grace For Today

After we recognize our own hopeless sinfulness, which God redeems at great cost, forgiving us and renewing life in us, and that we need God’s forgiveness constantly, for we simply cannot stop sinning, then the question is how are we going to live?

The measure we humans have held up returns us right back into works righteousness, as if God suddenly has made us able not to sin, so that we must preform or lose God’s favour and blessings. These two passages certainly could be interpreted that way … making it easy for us to dismiss them.

There is more to it than that.

Once sanctified (made saints by God), though we continue to sin, God pulls out of us great works that further God’s will and work on earth among humans and for creation. Most simply put, God’s willa and work is that God’s Grace is demonstrated to more and more people, and more and more people embrace the cross as God’s demonstration of God’s love for all people; forgiveness, redemption and new life is for everyone. We can live to cooperate with God’s will, or we can constantly choose to defy God’s will and live as if God does not exist, has not created us, does not forgive, redeem and renew us, and as if we can go it alone.

We can go it alone … right to our own damnation, choosing to separate ourselves from God. God still comes to us, forgives us, redeems us, renews us … except at some point God allows us to have our way … and the hell we have created for ourselves is the hell we live forever. At what point this happens is not anything we can know. But that it happens we can know: we can choose to deny God’s good work in us.

How else can we live? There are options that God makes possible for us. Wisdom is one of them.

We can pray: Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.

We can live each day so that our God-given wisdom and understanding is evident in our works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

These passages then speak to how we can pursue wisdom in our daily lives, not to our own benefit, but to the benefit of everyone around us. They speak of our penultimate striving that God make possible for us.