Category: Injustice

Remember and Be Confounded, and Never …

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Remember Simple Tornadoes

and God’s Promise;

Listen Up!

Be Alert!

Ezekiel 6:62-63

I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God.

2 Corinthians 7:10

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

Words of Grace For Today

God establishes a covenant with us, since ages ago.

God does this so that we may remember all our sins, and then be confounded and shamed into silence, awestruck at what God does for us, forgiving us all our sins.

Does God forgive us our attack on the planet which is responding with extreme weather, in a phrase climate change?

There are numerous people caught in worldly grief for all that we now suffer across the angry planet as a result of our huge contributions to climate change. It does no good. It brings us close to, and into death.

What God provides is a reminder of our true sins, true repentance, and all sorts of ways to change what lays ahead of us in the next decade, in the next half century and all time after (if we survive as a species that long!) God’s promises are trustworthy; those baptized will see their salvation, and be welcomed home to new life after leaving this life on this planet. Salvation is not the question. Our species survival as well as the survival of life on earth are very much in question.

So what shall we do this day?

We shall pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to guide us that what we do will be according to God’s will and love for all people and all creation.

We shall get busy listening to the Holy Spirit, doing what we can to reduce if not remove our carbon footprint from our lives on this good earth, and bringing God’s mercy, love and hope to other people … so that more and more people will listen

to

God’s

Good Word

and live, guided by the Holy Spirit!

Lordy, Lordy, what have we done!!?

Wildfires

Lightning and Thunderstorms

Droughts (and Floods)

Ice and Snow Storms

Psalm 119:114
You are my hiding-place and my shield; I hope in your word.

Matthew 8:8
The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.’

Words of Grace For Today
Can we hope at all?

This from the CBC MorningBrief Newsletter yesterday:

Europe is living in a disaster movie.
Unprecedented temperatures — 47 C in Portugal over the weekend; nearly 40 C in parts of Britain on Monday — have killed 1,000 people. Roads in France are under threat of literally melting. Rail lines are in danger of buckling. Runways at airports are forced to shut down. Wildfires are spreading across several countries as thousands evacuate their homes.
‘In some southwestern areas, it will be a heat apocalypse,’ meteorologist Francois Gourand told the news agency AFP about the heat wave in France.
At one time, this may have sounded like hyperbole, but the fact is every year countries around the world break long-standing temperature records — as was seen in B.C. last year — and then thousands die.
All of this should come as a shock to no one. Climatologists have been sounding the alarm for decades, warning of the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves and droughts.
When asked if this type of heat wave comes as a surprise to him, climatologist Michael Mann said in an email: ‘Sadly, not. We have seen a recurring pattern of a very wavy jet stream this summer. That pattern is associated with the extreme events we’re seeing right now in the U.S. and Europe.’
When the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released in 1990, it addressed the potential increase in heat waves, stating: ‘Some scientists believe that in a warmer climate the earth can be expected to experience more variable weather than now, with a likelihood of more floods and drought, more intense hurricanes or typhoons, and more heat waves.’
There have been four more assessment reports since then, with the language growing stronger and stronger about how the world needs to limit warming to 1.5 C above the pre-industrial average or it will face dire consequences.
But those reports aren’t just talking about the future — at roughly 1.2 C of warming right now, we’re already seeing the effects of climate change, particularly in the summer months.
The worst part, Mann said, is that climatologists may have underestimated the long-term predictions of heat waves.

Lordy, Lordy, what have we done!!?

It is one thing to hope in God’s Word, and hide under the shield of God, and to call on Jesus to but speak a word and we will be healed, but …

but we’re not listening! We have not worked to change. We have barely begun to speak correctly, sort of acknowledging what we’ve done. It’s harder and harder to find reasonable people who deny that climate change is a result of our own actions as humans on earth … and still it is not impossible to find those crooked-thinker (Querdenkers) in one’s own backyard.

Actually it’s real easy to find those people in my ‘backyard’ since they congregate here for relief from the heat and burn their gratuitous campfires all evening and night, and run their generators for hours and hours each day to supply electricity to their air conditioners, TV’s, microwaves, and who knows what else?

We complain mightily when it climbs above 25⁰ or 30⁰ or heaven helps us 35⁰ during the day and stays above 15⁰ at night. We are hard pressed to find our comfort. Oh, man save us we cry if it gets above 40⁰ and stays there for a few days! Here we are next to a cool lake. What are people able to do in the concrete-paved-over-barely-green-anywhere-tall-buildings cities?

Lordy, Lordy, what have we done!!?

So we cry: Oh, God, can you even save us? Save us now if you can!!
Listen though! God has for decades sent us word, word about how we are bringing climate change with it’s new extremes and more ferocious storms each year and how we can stop it. God has sent us clear warning in the past five years of obvious, undeniable new extremes and extreme weather to warn us to stop our CO emissions (along with lots of other fossil-fueled-industrial activities.)

How many of us have really listened and then acted to change our lives?
Well now it’s changing our lives, and not for the better. Will we start to change in good ways?

History repeats the answer to that question asked of every generation, ‘What? We don’t understand, so no.’

God help us!

God help us this day to do everything we can to learn what we must do to do our part!

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Monday, July 18, 2022

The New Kind of Storm,

The Backside is

More Tumultuous

Than the Front

Jeremiah 8:21.22

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!

Just saying, it’s another day for the saints.

Plus Minus on God’s Scale

Friday, July 15, 2022

Yesterday, 10 am

2022 February 2

Psalm 5:10-11

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.

What else did God create us for?

Hanging On For Dear Life

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Falling in Love is One Thing,

Falling into a Volcano …

Well!

Psalm 145:9

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.

Getting Out There

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

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

to be one of those who are Getting Out There.

Crying Out “Let the thirsty, come!”

Saturday, July 9, 2022

Take the Steps to the Water,

the Reflection of God’s Glory Awaits.

Isaiah 48:21

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?

However we thirst, God provides what we need.

Just Desserts!

Friday, July 8, 2022

The Platinum Halo Awaits … But For Whom?

Jeremiah 21:14

I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the Lord; I will kindle a fire in its forest, and it shall devour all that is around it.

Galatians 6:9

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.

Words of Grace For Today

When it comes to our enemies we jump on the band wagon and toot our horn: go God, get ‘em! Give ‘em what they deserve! We are more than ready to see our enemies (who would do us in) get their just desserts.

We re-write Jeremiah to read: “I will punish them according to the fruit of their doings”, says the Lord; “I will kindle a fire in their forest and it shall devour them and all that is theirs!”

But that is not quite Jeremiah, now is it.

We don’t get to see our enemies burn to the ground.

We don’t get to see God devouring them for the evil they have done.

God’s hope, and ours as well (if we’ve matured enough for it to be so) is that God will finally reach our enemies’ hearts, they will confess, amend their lives and live justly and graciously the rest of their days. We’d like some restitution, but if they amended their lives, we could even forgive them almost everything they’ve done so far, almost everything.

Meanwhile, we hear Paul loud and clear: do “not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” Actually we hope we do not reap all that we have sown, for all of us have enough sins in our past to earn eternal damnation (we’ve just not earned it so clearly so many times over as our enemies who seek our death.) We trust that God’s promises to be gracious with us, already since our baptisms, are sure, uncompromisable, and … well life-giving, not only for us, but as a witness to all people how gracious and generous God is with us, so just maybe for many people, even our enemies perhaps?

This day we work again, in spite of being very weary, at doing all that is good and right, so that God’s harvest will be gathered in with great abundance, and all people will have life, living in Christ’ light.

Blind Bullies

Monday, June 27, 2022

Here, in the Hermitage Meadow, the Sun Goes Down

And No One Is Falsely Accused, Not People, Not God,

but it is not so beyond this small refuge.

Ezekiel 33:17

Your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just’, when it is their own way that is not just.

Ephesians 5:10

Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.

Words of Grace For Today

A common illness among humans is to know full well something is wrong, but somehow be unable to identify oneself as the source. Instead we blame others, believing the fault cannot possibly be ourselves. Innocent people are blamed. It may be simple scapegoating. The blamed person never even knows they are blamed. Seems innocent way to deflect responsibility for one’s sins.

Until it is not so simple, for one has been doing this for so long one does not know when one is blaming others for one’s own sins, and when others actually are the wrongdoers, and one carries on, driving people out of town with their reputations ruined, taking people to court, fully perjurying oneself, and sending innocent people to jail. These things just get out of hand.

Lawyers, Prosecutors, Clerks and Judges see this so often and care not one wit, simply carrying, knowing full well innocent people are accused and then convicted, and very not innocent people blatantly lie under oath in court. The courts care not one bit because they, too, add their lies on top of the perjury provided, in order to convict innocent, unfavoured people, and giving guilty, favoured people the privilege of destroying other people, as the courts themselves participate. There must be some kind of reward for the courts, prosecutors, lawyers, rcmp, and the actually guilty people who perjure themselves. It’s the reward all bullies enjoy as they beat up others who certainly do not deserve to be beaten.

It is an easy step to blaming God for one’s own sins, claiming God is unjust, when the guilty and unjust player is oneself.

Against this there is little defence.

There is only the comfort in knowing that saints of all generations have suffered the same kind of injustice, and even Jesus himself was falsely accused and convicted, and killed in a most torturous way, by crucifixion. The comfort comes in knowing that one is not the only person so unjustly dealt with, and that through the generations, God has always accompanied those falsely accused and convicted, and killed.

While we live, we pray, God save us from such injustice, from such blind and sick people.

While we live, we pray, God helps us each day to find what pleases you, and to think, speak, and do as you would have us.

The Kids …

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Today,

the Light Shines Bright and Long

on All That Was Once

Hidden

in Darkness

Psalm 8:1-4

O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

Matthew 21:15-16

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’

Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read, “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself”?’

Words of Grace For Today

Thieves struck.

Simple deception taking things that can be fenced for money for drugs, and

I am left without essential tools and money that I am so short of: my life is not threatened, but bankruptcy moves closer and closer, which may lead to my death, if it is not brought on sooner by other dark powers.

More, I am betrayed yet again.

When Jesus does the amazing things of healing people of all kinds of illnesses, or bringing people together to share, trusting each other, the leaders know that Jesus is undermining the very reality that their power over the people thrives on and requires: fear. Fear of each other. Fear of those in power. Fear of those who speak the truth. Fear of anything and everything. Fear fuels greed. Greed makes people predictable and easily manipulated.

When Jesus does these amazing things, the children (and with this term is meant also the simple people in the temple) sing out his praise, honouring him as the descendant of David that he is. Jesus has calmed their fears so that they can see clearly the world they live in.

They see Jesus and know him to be the Son of David, the one promised and hoped for for generations.

They see the leaders in the temple, and know the corruption that guides their leading the people, not in the people’s best interest, but to the leaders’ advantages.

They see the poverty they are caught in, the forces that keep them down, and the promise that they will have life abundant even today. They have begun to realize the blessings of life are not given nor taken by possessing power, riches, and reputation.

Looking at the world around them, they see the wonders that God has created and rightly ask how it is that God cares a wit at all about humans, so small we are in the universe. They see clearly that though humans are so small in the universe, though they are so small in their own world, God cares most about them, and showers blessings on them each day, blessings that others toss aside as if they were mere trifles.

Today, the summer solstice, a 50th birthday, a day of light, and the shortest night of the year … even today the children (the simple, honest people blessed by God even if poverty holds them the rest of their lives,myself among them) are able to sing God’s praise with clarity. It is that clarity and truth that threatens corrupt powers, falsely gained riches, and those who parade themselves as leaders. The Light of Christ always shines. Today it shines intensely on the darkness of those who steal by deception, who take from others to feed their addictions and amass their wealth, who claim to lead the people from positions of honour.

Today all glory is God’s as Christ’s Light shines revealing all the dark of human hearts and deeds and the brightness of God’s blessings.