The Lord takes
pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast
love.
Mark 3:35
Whoever does the
will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
Words of Grace
For Today
Everywhere
one hears that we are facing a new and unprecedented crisis. It is
new for most of us, though, as humans, we have in history faced many
similar crises and challenges. Our faith prepares us for everything
that happens on earth. What happens to us determines only 10% of who
we are. 90% of who we are is determined by what we do. We are well
equipped to do the will of God; we are God-made saints, though still
sinners. Because our hope is based on God’s love for all creation,
we can reach out to others isolated, alone, and afraid, by every
means still available to us. We can be the people of God, claimed by
Christ, and equipped by the Holy Spirit. Bringing Light to others
with a simple telephone call can make all the difference for them,
and for us.
In the movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”, Fred Rogers helps Lloyd Vogel process his relationship with his father and re-connect with him after decades of cutoff on both sides…. It leaves us thinking we can’t change the past, but maybe we can give the story a different ending….** If only we could be just a bit better than we are, a lot less anxious, helping others trust God just a mite more, so that our stories could have a good ending. **adapted from Healthy Congregation Words by Rachel Tune, Pastor Wittenburg University***
Joy Sunday Contrasts with Advent Blues
Today,
the third Sunday of Advent, is the Sunday of Joy. Advent was
historically a time to prepare for Epiphany baptisms, a time to take
in Jesus’ costly journey of bringing faith to us. During the rest of
Advent we get ourselves alert, reflect on the cost of our faith,
prepare for, but wait patiently for, Christ’s coming and our
celebration that he has come, and is present.
Joy is
out of step with the Lenten-like mood of waiting. Our wreath has one
pink candle among the blue candles of hope. In this season of waiting
to celebrate, how did the Joy Sunday and the pink candle get into the
mix? Except this contrast makes our Christmas joy that much more
intense.
Today we highlight the opposite of the rest of Advent, making our preparations and joy all that more vivid. Only blue on the dark black of the long nights won’t do, neither would all pink be great. If Advent were all joy, then it’d be hard to celebrate Christmas; it’d be as if we’d nibbled at the turkey, dressing and all, and gobbled up all the Christmas cookies for weeks. The celebration would be just more of the same, if anything were left for the feast. But on the dark background of real life, pink decorates blue spectacularly, and since it denotes God’s joy then the best pink would be hot-pink on deep sea blue rising to sky blue.
God’s Hot-Pink
Winter Blues
Winter
Blues
Today, though, we also remember that Christmas, more so because it’s supposed to be such a joyous time, can actually be the most painful, sorrowful, lonely and despairing time of the year. It can be all so blue. For this reason we offer Blue Christmas Services.
Insert here Niel Diamond singing Song Sung Blue YouTube – Song Sung Blueor your favourite song about the blues, our old friend the blues, or your favourite song about the blues, our old friend the blues.
The New Ending Needed
In the
name of Jesus we can’t change the past, but we know
the story needs a different ending….
Biblical Images of Life Dried Up
Images
of dried up creation abound in today’s lessons: wilderness, dry land,
desert … weak hands, feeble knees, fearful hearts … blind, deaf,
lame, speechless people … burning sand, thirsty ground, haunts of
jackals, dry grass … lions, ravenous beasts … sighing and
sorrows.
The New Ending, Possible?
That is
the past. We can’t change the past, but can
we really give this story a
different ending?
Dark, Cold Tunnel of Real Life
It’s dark. The sun rises but stays below the southern roof- or tree-tops. It’s cold. In the city it’s dipped into the minus teens. Not far away, on a little lake that’s as much home as anywhere, it’s been below -30⁰C and not over -15⁰ for days. Most everyone is affected, some a bit more as they struggle with mild to severe depression because of the lack of sunshine. Too often this season can seem like a cold, dark tunnel that we get thrust into, whether we choose it or not.
Unemployment
In Alberta now, after the oil bust of 2014 and lately Premier Kenny’s cuts, 20% of young men are unemployed. That does not count those who have given up trying to find work, or those who are back at school trying to increase their odds of finding a job (going in debt to do so), or those who have part-time jobs where they work pitifully few hours, so that it’s less a job, and more a hindrance to finding real work. Employers more cheaply employ 10 part-time workers 8 hours each week than 2 full-time employees 40 hours each.
This is
real. These young men face hunger, homelessness, losing their
vehicles. Forget about having anything for health and dental care.
Chaplains in hospitals write up verbatims: formerly well-paid men are hounded by their spouse (or not-spouse) to bring home the same money for the pricey lifestyle they’ve spent themselves into. Turning to crime or not, the stress eats away at the men’s health. For some, physical or psychological violence at home puts them in the hospital. Women know the courts will likely believe any lie they tell and the men will be convicted and jailed, even when they are the victims.
The Booby-trapped Tunnel
The dark tunnel we find ourselves in can, in this or other ways, turn out to be full of traps set by people we would trust. People point us to the light at the end of the tunnel, but it seems a long ways off through the dark and dangerous cold.
The New Ending Beyond Us.
We
know full well we can’t change the past, but even
trying to give the story a different ending seems
beyond us.
Epidemic of Senior Loneliness
The
severity of the seniors’ epidemic of loneliness increases at
Christmas. 25% percent of seniors live alone often not by choice.
Living alone or not, an unknown number of seniors are severely
lonely, cut off from meaningful engagement in life. Loneliness
affects health and precipitates death as quickly as any disease. Two
of life’s necessities are missing: a meaningful contribution to life
and an ability to love and be loved.
There
are walls to stare at, perhaps paths to walk. But one is alone even
in crowds. Few reach out with kindness and understanding, and time.
Everyone has their own busy agenda to help them ignore the emptiness
that threatens.
Worse still are the seniors that experience elder abuse. Seniors can be more vulnerable than young children and become targets because they may appear to have wealth, and the taking appears to be easy. This month we collect for “No Room In the Inn” to create a safe place to which they can escape.
The Light in the Tunnel is a Train
The light they told us was at the end of the tunnel looks more and more like a train coming right at us in this dark tunnel and we cannot see any way out. We can’t move fast enough to find any emergency exit that may be somewhere out there.
The New Ending Only Hoped For
We
can’t change the past, and we only hope
we can give the story a different ending before it’s too late.
God’s Transformations
Exactly
into this dark reality, our Advent Sunday of Joy is set as a stark
contrast to our Lenten-like Advent preparations.
This
Sunday is exactly like the Crocus named in the OT lesson. The first
flower of Spring, it pushes up and blossoms even while the snow and
morning frosts keep other plants at bay.
Similarly all the desolate images serve as the setting into which God comes and transforms creation. Cool streams flow in the wilderness, over the dry land, and on the burning sand bringing them to rejoice and blossom, with joy and singing. Weak hands are strengthened, feeble knees made firm, fear is met with encouragement, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and the speechless sing.
A highway is made upon which no lion or beast or thief prowls, and even a fool cannot go astray. Those redeemed by Christ will obtain joy and gladness. All sorrow and sighing will flee away. In a simple word, we and all creation are baptized in the water of God’s blessings. It is a marvellously new creation. We are made saints and set to live well in it!
God’s coming is already, and not yet. Like the farmer we wait patiently for the early and the late rains of God’s blessings to tumble down on us and through us. We do not grumble against each other, for grumbling against each other is caustic to life and for it we would be justly judged by the Judge at the door. There are no evidentiary rules, precedents, or arguments required. This Judge is omnipotent and all-knowing, and the judgments are fair, clearly so to all. Jesus’ every judgment is made to make life possible for all.
Jesus
comes to set things right, to make people healthy, what is wrong is
set right. Jesus comes in poverty, born homeless in a cow barn. Jesus
comes to those least acceptable to the world of his day. Jesus comes
to the blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers, the dead, and the poor.
The Light in the Tunnel is Christ’s Light on God’s
Train Coming at Us!
It
turns out that the light at the end of the cold, dark
tunnel is a train coming right for us. Or
rather it is the Light of Christ barrelling down on us like a train.
This train is not loaded with oil, grain, lumber, or other goods.
The
first cars of this train have the Blue Hope of Advent spilling out in
endless streams over the landscape of God’s wonderful and broken
creation.
Hope is followed by cars as numerous as the stars spewing Justice, Mercy, Forgiveness, Inspiration, Gratitude, Generosity, Faith, Love in Action, and Love Universal and Unconditional. Look at all the colours streaming across the desolate landscape of our broken lives!
See the
Light. Run to it. Dance to it. Sing for it with the deepest and
broadest joy.
Insert here the Proclaimers singing I’m On My Way [From Misery to Happiness]. You Tube- I’m On My Way
For God
intends for us, even in our sadness and loneliness, to be overwhelmed
with the Goodness of life given to us by the Holy Spirit, the engine
of that train. It may be cold and dark outside but the pink of joy
covers the dark and decorates our blues.
God’s New Ending
We can’t change the past. And we cannot give the story a different ending. This Advent we remember, we do not have to. God has already given the story the best ending possible! What Joy!
We
wait, full of anticipation for the celebration of Christmas, marking
Jesus’ birth, proclaiming
Jesus’ presence now, and hoping for Jesus the Christ’s return!
We pray, Let us be the blessed “who do not let the Messiah [we] are expecting blind [us] to the Messiah who is standing right in front of [us]” (Barbara Brown Taylor, God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998]).
Our Response: We are the Pink in the Blues
Today we
reflect on joy, and its roots in the dark of misery, and its place
within the blues of Hope. The Holy Spirit makes us the streams of
cool water flowing in the deserts of life, the crocuses springing up
for those to whom Christ came. We are the patient, non-anxious,
gracious, kind, and generous ones. In us others see Christ
active for them even if the world frosts them out.
This is the ending to the story that God has for creation and all of us in it: that Christ came, that Christ comes, that Christ will come, and all of creation was, is and will be baptized with living water, transforming it and all of us. Therefore we follow Christ’s example: bringing real joy to those with SADS, the unemployed, the lonely, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers, the dead, and the poor. This is the pink of our Advent Blues. It may not be more than a touch on the horizon in our preparations, nor need it be more. It is like the light at the end of the tunnel, giving us reason to Hope, even in the blues.
We are the pink of Advent
We are the pink of Adventfor those in need around us.
Amen
As we
get ready to sing: Let me highlight with pink and blue a few words of
our hymn of the day:
All earth is hopeful, the Savior comes at last! Furrows lie open for God’s creative task: this, the labour of people who struggle to see how God’s truth and justice sets [Blue:] everybody free.
We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib. This same Lord Jesus today has come to live in our world; he is present, in neighbours we see our Jesus is with us, and ever sets [Pink:] us free.
Theme and Notes
Joy, the
pink contrast to the Blues of Advent, draws us to be God’s people to
bring transformation to those most in need.
*In the Pink: to be in the best of health; by Grace alone the best spiritual health.
***Wittenberg University is a private liberal arts college in Springfield, Ohio. It has approximately 2,000 full-time students representing 37 states and 30 foreign countries.
As the loons haunt the dim dawn light with their forlorn wails as if begging for something close to truth to be recognized in the coming light, the not quite still lake undulates softly the moon caught in it’s liquid mostly-water.
There are many powerful and privileged people of luxury far beyond necessity or souls’ enjoyment who fear the light, not of a simple day’s dawn, but the Light that dawns as the Truth is revealed.
There are more people who look to this dawn of brilliant Truth with expectation of exoneration and finally, finally real justice through which real mercy is possible.
The waters reflect the small light that persists despite the Darkness
As so many have confessed through generation upon generation, if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
It certainly cannot be that God plays games with us like those in power, teasing us and tempting us just to catch us off guard. No, if who we trust to be God is God, creator all powerful and merciful, loving, forgiving and gracious, yearning to delight in our existence, our joys and even our sorrows that make up an abundant life, then certainly God plays no games with us concerning the Truth of who we are and what we have actually done; whether we acknowledge the Truth or we hide from it.
The Truth.
Often
it is so much simpler than we want to acknowledge, when we want to
deceive ourselves. Like the water we too often want for wind to blow
the clear reflection of what we have done, so that no evidence of the
truth is discernible.
But the light will shine, and I for one, I, Tim Lofstrom, like I, Daniel Blake, eagerly wait the Light that will shine on the Truth. For I will be exonerated and those who have fabricated lies about me, bullied me, threatened my life, and sat in false judgment of me will be put to shame.
That which in them thrives on the darkness and falsehoods of their doings will be put to an end, as consumed by the fire of God’s judgment. Then our victory will be double, for not only will we be free, all of us falsely judged and destroyed by lies, but those who unjustly ruin and destroy us will be set free from the darkness that grips their whole unnatural being. Though little of them, who have given themselves to the Evil One, may survive as the kernels are separated from the chaff, still together we will bask in the Light, the Truth and the Grace which God delights in giving to us. Our collective shame will be ended.
For
this day we wait, as we wait for the rising of the sun to replace the
crescent moon which leaves darkness’ canopy pressing down on our
hearts, our hopes, and our joys.
The Light catches all that would hide in chaos and makes it clear
In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 13:10-17, Jesus reaches out and sets a woman free from 18 years of being held hostage to an ailment, an illness. She is set free and can walk upright, humbly unimpeded by a body oppressed by dis-ease in God’s creation.
The woman and the people are over-joyed. She is free!
But
the temple priests have no joy because they are threatened. They have
not provided this freedom and therefore they are not celebrated. They
and the people now clearly know that the priests live in darkness and
the light has just burst the seams of reality in ‘their’ temple.
They use the law as a hammer against the Light, to no avail. The law, given to guide the people in freedom, is corrupted in their hands to become the hammer that strikes down faith, joy, and hope in all the people. They would treat animals better than the people needing God’s Grace. They try to maintain an order that provides them false power and oppresses people into the mud of life. But the Light shines brightly.
The
people rejoice in the healing of the woman.
The
priests, they who would claim dark power over others, are put to
shame. Their grip is loosened, if just for a few hours, days or
weeks. Not only is this woman free, but all the people bask in the
Light, sharing in this woman’s joy.
Who
are you today?
Are you the woman, who after 18 years of suffering illness that consumes the essence of life right out of you, and yet leaves you a shell of a human still looking down at the daisies, wishing for freedom even if that freedom arrives on the other side of the grave?
Are you the people, who after generations of suffering the oppression of those who rule in darkness over them, are overjoyed that the Light has arrived for this woman, for they are caught also in its Light? Their oppressors are put to shame.
Are you the priest, the oppressors, who live in darkness, who are skilled at turning truths in to dark falsehoods? Are you one who plays with truth as an axeman cutting trees, with falsehoods chipping life out of your victims, over whom you claim power? Are you put to shame by the coming of the Light and Truth? Have you put yourself outside the delight of God, to whom the coming of the Light not only means shame but loss of most of who you have made yourself to be, against the yearnings of your creator?
Are you the hands of Christ, who understand that the perversions of the Law, perversions of God’s Grace even, can be healed with a word, a redeeming touch, with sacred oil, water and bread? Are you the one who God uses as a conduit, and instrument to set people free? Are you one, like so many in the great cloud of witnesses we inherit, who sacrifices the abundance of your life that others may simply live, knowing that God’s Light shines brightly even in our darknesses?
One
thing is certain: God’s Light will shine brightly! Not according to
our plans, but as God chooses.
As Isaiah. prophet of Exile awaited, survived and returned from, wrote of our simple ways and God’s mysteries of Grace:
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
Isaiah 58:9b-14
The Light brings Truth in Full Depth of Colour
As the loons haunt the dim dawn light with their forlorn wails as if begging for something close to truth to be recognized in the coming light, the not quite still lake undulated softly the moon caught by it’s liquid mostly-water.
There
are many powerful and privileged people of luxury far beyond
necessity or souls’ enjoyment who fear the light, not of a simple
day’s dawn, but the light that dawns as the truth is revealed.
There are more people who look to this dawn of brilliant Truth with expectation of exoneration and finally, finally real justice through which real mercy is possible.
When the Light comes we will have a double victory: for ourselves and for you, our oppressors.
The sermon is interspersed with snippets of music.
Jeremiah 23:23-29 Hebrews 11:29–12:2 Luke 12:49-56
Jesus says
We Cannot Interpret the Present
How
is it that Jesus says we do not know how to interpret the present
time?
We
can forecast the weather so we know it will rain before the
clouds appear on the horizon, and we know days before the wind
starts it’ll be scorching hot or freezing cold. Can we really not
interpret the present time?
Look, Jesus
the Bringer of Peace?
We’ve
looked to the stars, to see the number of descendants God promised
Abraham and Sarah. We’ve looked to Jesus on the cross and heard
that as we confess our sins and forgive others their sins Jesus
forgives us. We’ve listened and heard that Jesus blesses
peacemakers.
We
have sung of Jesus bringing Peace Like a River, with it’s catchy
melody.
Peace Like a River
God Does Not Come In Monochrome
Creation in Colour
Jesus
Brings Conflict, Fire, The Hammer of God
Yet
the lessons for today say, “Think again!” Jesus came not to bring
peace, but instead division. Jesus came to bring God’s Word of
fire. God’s word is a hammer that strikes the solid rock
foundations of our lives and shatters them.
God’s
Creation is no Monophony
God’s
Word is so much more like Beethoven’s 5th. It comes down
like a hammer in our hearts, pounding out any notion that what is to
come might be whimsical or easy. God sends Jesus, the Word made
flesh; and God means business.
Beethoven’s
5th opening ‘hammers’ and a phrases following
God Does
Not Come In Monotone
God Comes to Us and Means Business
Music Broad
Enough to Communicate God’s Reality
Music
moves our hearts stimulating in the same moment Joy, Grief and Hope
in us. How better to make sense of the harsh reality of these
lessons. Music, with the touch that harmonizes the spheres of the
universe, heals us and sets us right with God’s people and
creation: we thrive with music in our hearts. Like everything there
is of course Music that serves to break down creation, as at Jericho,
but we will leave that behind. But should we?
God’s
Creation is no Monodrama
Conflict In
and Between Us
Jesus
says he comes not to bring peace, but division and conflict. God
means business, sending Jesus, who is as powerful as the Word that
created the universe, which separated the Light from the Darkness.
We
must respond. If we respond with faith, our lives are forever
changed. If we respond with disbelief, then our lives take another
path. Even with faith created in us we still remain sinners who do
not believe. Jesus brings conflict within each of us. Since Luke’s
time the Gospel has divided also families. Often in history if one
believed, one would be persecuted and killed. Those of us who believe
end up in conflict with those who do not.
God Does
have a Monopoly on Loving Us ALL
Belief was
expensive. Faith still is as Jesus’ Love Catches Us.
Belief
was expensive among Luke’s readers. When Jesus creates faith in us
it still is.
Most
music we know is not about our lives. We just get caught up in the
rhythm and dance our hearts out. ABBA’s Ma Ma Mia is such a piece.
Then Jesus comes, catches us, and suddenly we are not merely dancing
to the music. The music is our lives. We are caught by Love, Jesus’
love, and getting away is impossible … even though we know there
are consequences for letting this love reach us … yet again.
Ma Ma Mia
God Did Not
Create Us as Mono-mimetic
We are in the Picture, We are God’s Picture.
God Yearns
that We Remember God’s Name
God
yearns for us, just as God yearned for the false prophets to give up
on spreading their own dreams and deceptions as if they were God’s
Word. God yearns because these false dreams and deceptions capture
our hearts and minds and cause us to forget God’s name. What a
terrible thing to suffer. To forget God’s name. To not even know
one’s own creator, redeemer, and guide to an abundant life.
It
is like going to a classical concert without knowing what is on the
program and after a warm up to Mozart, being agitated, gurgitated and
served up on a platter of confusion by Hindemith’s [/Bartók’s]
atonal music.
Hindemith or
Bartók
God is more
than Polyphiloprogenitive, God is Poly-All
Sometimes the Universe seems a few degrees or more off kilter
God fills
the universe
Can
we find God in that music? According to Jeremiah God is not
far off, nor only near. God fills the entire universe; and yet we
forget God’s name because we listen to tempting, false words.
Then
God sends someone to remind us that without God Our Blue Eyes are
Crying in the Rain, and we know that we’ve deserted love and left
our hearts as empty as a Monday Morning Church.
Blue Eyes
Crying in the Rain OR Monday Morning Church
God’s
People are Polychromatic, Polyphonic, Polyrhythmic, Poly- of ALL
Kinds
Someone comes and reminds us: God is for us!
The
Faithful Cloud
Yet
God has not deserted us. We have a great cloud of witnesses
that tell us otherwise: From the Red Sea, to Jericho, to Rahab,
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and to the prophets
God has made great things happen. But not all God’s people were
brought success or honour.
Many
of God’s faithful die after they suffer shame, having lived
destitute, persecuted and tormented, wandering homeless the deserts
and mountains, living in caves and holes in the ground.
Doch,
God provides for them all a better end, to live with us, in faith.
This
great cloud of witnesses to God’s Word, accompanies us each day, as
we persevere in the race put before us. Ours is not a race of our
choosing. God puts this race before us, and race we must.
God’s
People are Poly-therapeutic
The Faithful Cloud Reflected Down to Earth
Story:
Movie The Last Face: Living the life God gives us: for others
In
the movie The
Last Face, two doctors work
in Liberia and Sierra
Leone’s conflicts. Wren
is an idealist, fundraiser
and
organizer. Migel is an
orphan, a
realist, working on the front lines.
Caught
on the front lines with him, Wren falls in love with Migel and it
changes them forever, as love is wont to do. Then she has to choose
which one of six people will be given the last of their blood supply.
The other five will die. When they have to leave all six of them to
die as the conflict arrives the next day at their makeshift hospital,
Wren loses her nerve. It is impossible to make any difference. She
questions why they are there anyway. Why do these people have to live
like this!
Migel
lives beyond hopelessness to fully trusting not that he can make the
whole situation change, but that he can in one area if only
temporarily, one day at a time, one patient at a time, do what he is
able as a doctor.
Wren
protests the senselessness of helping people who will die just days
later in the conflict anyway. He responds: these people are given
this life to live. Yes, I can leave, fly out to a city with safety
and hot showers and a good bed. They cannot. I cannot change the life
they are given, but I can give them what I have to give.
God’s
People are Poly-Resilient
Sometimes
the race that God puts us into is so profoundly hopeless that we get
caught up in the blues, depression, or even life-threatening
hopelessness. For we see the circle of life that does not change for
the better for so many of God’s own people.
Even
then we know that if we put our blues to song, and we sing them out,
they become our prayers, and by grace they lose their grip on us.
Song Sung Blue
God’s
Race for Us is not Monotonous
The View to the Boat, the Church
Challenges:
the race
As
we struggle to meet the challenges of each day God’s powerful Word
accompanies us, not to make it easy for us, but to buck us up to do
the hard work in the race put before us.
Movie The
Forgiven
Remembered
in so many ways, including in the movie Forgiven, Bishop Desmond Tutu
struggled against so many detractors who threatened to sink the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission because it would expose the atrocities
they had contributed to. Tutu meets these challenges, not easily but
with Grace, determination, joy, love, condemnation and hope.
People
had killed people. People revenged the killings. People revenged the
killings revenging killings. And on it would continue, if kept in
secret, forever. But brought out into the open it gave people the
opportunity to forgive!
Forgiveness
is God’s Music
With
forgiveness, which made S.A.’s future as a united country possible,
we experience the long lead up to Beethoven’s 9th
Symphony’s resolution in the Ode to Joy Chorus, ringing across the
stars and back into the depths of our hearts. Here we experience the
power of Grace, of Love, of Joy, mixed with struggle, loss, and grief
until it comes out in us as Hope.
Beethoven’s 9th lead up to Ode to
Joy
God Created
the Universe from Chaos, Making Harmonies: from Galaxies to Atoms,
from the Circle of Life to Emotions and Beauty.
God Offers
us Polyphonic Lives in Harmony with God’s Universe
The Trees and the Light
How to
interpret the present time?
How
can we possibly interpret the present time? Only when we realize that
God is here for us, can we see clearly that just as the south wind
brings scorching heat and the north wind brings bleeping freezing
Cold, so God brings rainbows of challenges each and every day in the
race set before us just so that we can practice meeting everyone with
Forgiveness and Grace.
Then
we can move from Misery to Happiness, giving God thanks for
everything with the music that brings us into harmony with God’s
Good Creation. So we sing: “Now Thank we all our God, with hearts
and hands and voices”
Now Thank we all our God, with hearts and hands
and voices!
There
was an outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah, the veracity of which God
could not establish without going there, yet men go to investigate,
while God remains to allow Abraham to speak with him,
bartering/negotiating/futilely bantering with God about the count of
righteous people needed to have God spare the cities.
The
conversation is presumptuous on Ab’s part. He acknowledges it. It’s
like talking to an angry King when bad news has just been delivered,
the King wants vengeance, and anyone interfering may likely get
caught in the unstoppable destruction that the King is in the middle
of enacting.
Except
it’s not a King, its the all-knowing God, putting on a play of not
knowing? And an all-powerful God who can not only destroy in this
world and the next but condemn one to a torturous eternity.
Abraham’s
got chutzpah, maybe foolishness, to spare.
The
argument is that the good should not perish with the evil.
And God
responds to that, sort of, allowing that 10 good people in all of
Sodom and Gomorrah will cause God to relent.
NO
GRACE, it takes goodness to get God to relent!
And God
knows there is only one man, Lot, his wife (maybe) and his 2
daughters, so 3 maybe 4 good people in the cities, though the son in
laws are invited to leave as well and think that Lot is jesting. So
maybe 6, but really only 3.
So why
did Abraham not negotiate down to 2?
Because
God would have had to relent and allow the cities’ destruction of
so many people in their consuming depravity to continue.
Yes: The
evil is powerfully destructive, like a cancer, and God will stop it,
giving the few healthy an option to walk away alive.
Destroying
the cities God saves generations who would have been sucked into the
cities’ evil vortex.
But it is not ‘Sin City’ where this kind of living continues through the generations until it is acceptable everywhere, as bush parties out of control, and in control continue to give witness to locally here. And parties, raves, and you name it in the cities continue worse than Sodom. Bonnyville and CL (put in your own cities) not excepted either! Depravity required people to participate for it to exist, and then evil flourishes. Evil is only tempered by the distinct efforts of a few good people to have life otherwise.
2nd Lesson Thoughts
Note: as today in Paul’s day and for generations afterwards, ‘philosophy’ did not indicate the thoughtful, logical, deep and profound thinking about life’s most pressing issues. Like today’s ‘spin’, ‘news’, self-help gurus gone amok, ‘walking back’ what actually was said into something else, and justice based on blatant lies, ‘philosophy’ meant rhetoric and sophistry completely disconnected from any ethic or moral restraint to uphold the truth, i.e. anything from a destructive cult to a full-out scam to way of approaching life which helped only the privileged few and ruined everyone else.
Well,
the urge to resist tempting heresies: philosophies, self-abasement,
worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a
human thought, ANYTHING that does not hold fast to Christ Jesus as
the head! From whom we all (the church) grow and are held together.
Temptations
to depravity can come in all guises, some that look remarkably
respectable, acceptable, thoughtful.
Imagine
that!
Gospel Thoughts
Pray,
teach us to pray like John’s disciples.
God
gives b/c of persistence if not for friendship.
So God
is to be bartered and negotiated, and badgered until one receives
what one’s friends need.
So I
need countless hoards, or at least one person, to pray relentlessly
to God for what I need: True Justice. Lies exposed. Shelter, food,
work, security.
The
smiting of the corrupt people (or at least the corruption of the
people) that causes this for me and so many others.
Can I
pray ceaselessly, relentlessly that the Holy Spirit will invoke the
grime reaper (if not of people than of the corruption at the root of
this disaster for so many men, children and even women?!)
Or do I
only get the Holy Spirit to inspire me to forgive the unforgivable!?
This could be a Sunday of law and revenge. (Let’s make sure it is not.)
Of
useless mercy, of relentless prayers, of making justice happen.
Of
helping one, two or three people survive the destruction the
corruption causes.
Christ Alone is our Rock and Salvation
Draft Sermon
Real
Life turns out to be nothing like the image that I developed from my
experience. In my experience we were all somebodies, to each other,
and especially to God.
But the
people in this world so often treat each other and themselves as if
they were nobodies.
My
experience: Mom and Dad who loved us all, children who lived and grew
reasonably, a home, at least rented, jobs and a good or at least
reasonable salary, or at least a paycheck every once in a while.
Inside the homes, sometimes, a bit of craziness, but nothing that
threatens life, health or happiness. And always one knew God’s
blessings.
Today’s
first lesson is all about that the world is full of things that are
quite different than my experience. It is not that people are held
captive to poverty and can barely survive. It is that they have
enough, and do not know the gift life is, nor what to do with it.
Sodom
and Gomorrah are not healthy, and the hedonism the people pursue does
not provide happiness, just short term satisfaction bought at the
price of real happiness and health. And all their messing about
threatens any guest who enters their gates.
God
knows no way to heal the sickness of these two so depraved cities.
Abraham tries to barter with God. God allows Abraham’s foolish
petulance, even as God endures every foolish petition from us, even
our angry fist shaking if that’s what we need to do. God knows
everything. God knows that Sodom and Gomorrah need to be erased from
the face of the earth in order to stop their destruction, not of only
the people caught in them now, but into the future the generations
that would be caught in them, and all the sojourners and those who
think they might want to give the cities a try. God wants to save all
those people.
Abraham
can bring everything and anything to God. So he barters, also because
Lot and his family live in those cities. For that they are offered a
chance to leave and be saved. Lot and his daughters make it out
alive, but the cost of the cities’ depravity has cost them dearly,
it sticks to them, and their future generations are only the result
of incest brought on by the daughters.
The
world is full of things that are quite different: these are very ugly
cities leaving very ugly scars on the three people who survive them.
Just
surviving such terrible things is rarely to live well. One does not
live by bread, or mere survival.
A father
in the Jewish Ghetto, with food severely rationed, lights a candle
every evening for prayers. When he has used up all their supply of
candles he takes a string, molds a bit of their meager ration of
butter around it, and lights it for prayers. His son challenges him,
why should their food be so consumed for a mere light. The father
responds, “Without food we can live a week. Without our faith we
could not live for even an hour.”
If you live a faithful life, you know you are a somebody, to others and to God. It’s when you live faithless that you treat yourself and others as nobodies, or as in Sodom and Gomorrah, as only bodies.
I have
lived in many different places, in a variety of manners. I lived in a
missionary family in Africa. My father was a doctor, my mother a
nurse raising 5 children when we arrived and 7 when we left, my
father so sick they thought he had months to live if that.
We had
plenty to survive on, but our toys were sticks. There were no extras,
and the flour always came with flies in it. Our faith brought us
there, and the faith of the people who were born there carried us
through many a challenging dark night.
I lived
in a city as a child, one of 9, with enough to live on, but no
extras, and we scraped for enough food and enough hand me down
clothes. I lived on a farm, where we had enough, including music
though the garden was an essential contribution to all 13 of us.
I lived as a student, with enough to survive on, though I ‘wasted’ precious money on a good stereo for music, because I’d seen how music could cure what could not otherwise be cured. I’ve lived out of a tent on route to a university where I could not understand the language. I’ve lived with a multimillionaire without knowing how great was his wealth.
I lived
happily in each place. But it was most difficult with the
millionaire, because he cheated and lied about everything, derided
and slandered others at each step, and hated the people poorer than
he was, especially the aboriginal peoples. They reminded him that he
came from a place where he was considered a nobody. So now he doesn’t
know how to treat other people other than as if they were nobodies.
Jesus’
disciples come to him and ask him to teach them to pray as John has
his disciples. They want to pray as if they are somebodies. Jesus
gives them what we’ve come to call the Lord’s Prayer. Then he
goes on to assure us that if we seek, we will find. If we ask, we
will receive.
God is the one to yell at, be angry at, blame, and thrash. People are the ones who we need to treat with respect and care. There is a well grounded reason that the ten commandments include the prohibition to bear false witness against our neighbour. Our words can hurt people. Our lies are as effective as murder. God, on the other hand, can take anything we may want to throw his or her way.
Jesus
does not say that if we ask for something, we will receive that
thing. Or if we seek some thing, God will give us that thing.
But God
will always provide. God will always answer. God will always listen,
and respond. To most of our foolish prayers God answers with a simple
no. Sometimes we get a more spectacular NO. Every once in a while God
gives us a real kick in the pants, or a knock so hard we wonder where
it came from as we pick ourselves up off the ground. And a few times
God actually says yes to our good petitions.
I live
without a home and I could tell you my sad story, pitifully played
out by so many people bearing false witness against me. But
astounding is the story of another person living without a home, who
I met weeks ago.
She lives with plenty of equipment to protect her from the environment, and to provide for her well-being beyond her safety. Neither drugs, alcohol, addictions, nor prayer brought her to live in the woods without a home.
Her ex
took advantage, did not care if she was close to death. She got out,
barely and still has not healed. He still pursues her and bears false
witness against her and gets support from the justice system. She
functions, but has little faith left, though she knows that the
wilderness heals her most. He behaves as a nobody, treats her as a
nobody, and invites others to treat both of them as nobodies. One day
the light of Christ will shine the truth so clearly everyone will be
compelled to know it, to their shame for not admitting it sooner.
They will be somebodies, but some bodies, souls, and minds who God
deals with justly.
There’s
a lot of bull in the world; comes from the sinners, in us each and
all
The
world is full of things that are quite different than I have ever
imagined could be called living, some of it so ugly one wonders that
it can exist at all, that anyone can survive it. Yet out of the worst
ghettos God brings leaders and people who inspire others to waste
nothing that life offers, and to bring everything possible to as many
people as possible, so that all people can live well.
It may
seem easy, or obvious, that we live out our faith. At least we go
through the motions. But there are challenges in every life, even the
ones that look so safe and healthy, so provided for in a solid home.
Even people who appear in the world’s terms to be SOMEBODIES, can
behave behind closed doors as if they and those close to them are
NOBODIES.
We come to realize that the words to the Colossians are not to be taken for granted:
“… continue
to live your lives in [Christ], rooted and built up in him and
established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in
thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through
philosophy and empty deceit”
Philosophy mentioned then is quite different than most philosophy named today. Back then philosophy was more rhetoric and sophistry. Today’s equivalents abound as self-help gurus, or spinning events for the news, news that is no longer required to present a fair view of all sides of an issue, and the spin applied to events like seen in the US. No truth survives. That’s the warning given in Colossians.
It is
too easy to give up on life in disgust for what stands as truth for
some people, for some causes (usually their own wealth or hedonistic
pleasures), or for some churches. Works Righteousness is always a
favourite, though it can be coloured with heavy condemnation of other
people making it drip with destruction. A friend joked in parody of
this attitude: “I have learned to accept my imperfections. It’s
other people’s imperfections that I find intolerable.”
The
View of God With Us
What Paul proclaimed, Jesus taught by example, and generations have managed to remind us of is that Grace alone saves us. We are somebodies only because God chooses to make us so.
We can work like mad to make the world better, but we cannot work to make ourselves better in God’s eyes. We are already made righteous by Christ. Thereafter we do the work of the righteous, often with no reward or even notice. Sometimes, as if we were nobodies, we get punished and are left to die as thanks for doing the right and good thing.
So we
pray that God will turn this world around. We work like it depends on
us, and we relax knowing God intends for us to enjoy this creation
with God at our side. For with God at our side we are all somebodies.
lots of
repetitions and sections needing tightening, deleting, or rewording,
the essence is there though.
Still
looking though the woods and trees to see the light.
Our Names are Written in Heaven
Skywriting:
Jane
came out to the airport as she often did to watch Matt take off for
his day’s work, crop dusting. This time Matt seemed to avoid
getting off the ground, working around Steve’s plane instead. Then
as Steve rolled out on to the grass runway Matt came over to Jane and
asked her if she’d like a cup of coffee. He then stood with her,
each with a cup of coffee in hand as Steve took off and began to
spell out in the sky: S … U … lots of loops and crossing back and
for forth for each letter E … M … A … … R … R … As Steve
began the Y … Jane turned to Matt, knocking both their cups and
spilling coffee freely, and hugged him, with a loud YES, and as Steve
finished the … M … and the final E with the added touch of a ?,
Matt came up for air from the long kiss he had planted on Jane to see
the all 18 employees of the three businesses at the airport come
outside to see, first Jane and Matt, then the trailing away letters
Steve had written, and then to gather around Matt and Jane clapping.
As Steve landed and ran over to join the crowd Matt and Jane were
still shaking the hands of the people in line, taking their
congratulations and well wishes, and answering they didn’t have
solid plans yet but Jane was quick to say the wedding was going to be
in their church, and long before it started to snow. Matt agreed, but
the honeymoon would have to wait until winter.
With one
marvelous flight, after years of joy, tears, and struggles Matt and
Jane each knew that this day was wondrous, a dream come true.
Everything about their lives was changed that day and again as they
said their vows before the altar Jane’s great grandfather had
built, covered with paraments made by her great grandmother. Over the
previous 4 years, since they had started dating as teenagers, their
lives had changed. No longer alone, everything took on a new
perspective, the perspective of love.
Through
their struggles they had learned that loving each other was wondrous,
but also a lot of work, took a lot of patience, required a lot of
forgiveness. The coming years would test the limits of their
forbearance, their commitment to love and be gracious, and their
ability to empathize for each other and other people for things they
did not understand.
The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela
18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013
Nelson
Mandela stands tall at 80 years old, the first black president of
South Africa, not a Black South Africa and not a white country
gripped and choked by apartheid, but a country started on the
difficult journey to reconciliation. He had spent 27 years in jail,
been finally set free, and reunited with his wife Winnie. Time apart
and Winnie’s other love drove them to separate and then divorce.
Madiba was leader of a nation while still in prison, and then he’d
been a leader not elected but negotiated with, and then the elected
president tasked with bringing together a country of people separated
by hatred and terrible atrocities against each other.
A man
filled with love of many kinds he was NOW the most lonely person on
planet.
Loss of
love is as devastating as love is equipping and empowering to take on
all demons
Then
Nelson Mandela falls in love again with, Graça Machel, the widow of
Mozambican President Samora Machel. He marries her on his 80th
birthday! She is a leader in her own right already at 57.
Work of Love
Love is
not free: it must be worked at each and every day.
If you
work at being the person who behaves ‘in love’ with your spouse,
you will love your spouse, as delightfully, marvelously, as
colorfully as the first day you fell in love. Not being in love with
the person you are married to, or being in married to someone who is
unkind, or refuses to work at love is often a living hell. Being
alone, for most people, is a great challenge.
When you
both work at being in love with each other, Look Out! Being in love
with the person to whom you are married makes life simply awesome!
The hurts roll off your back. The challenges are met as best they can
be. The responsibilities are met as if they were freedoms. And the
joys multiply all by themselves through the years. This is how God
intended us to experience life!
Extending
that love to each other, and then to all the people who your lives
touch: that is what the Kingdom of God is about!
What does that mean for us?
Now that
the Kingdom of God has come near, what does this mean for us?
Quote from Mother Theresa
Mother
Teresa said, “Our work is constant. The problems of the poor
continue, so our work continues. Yet everyone can do something
beautiful for God by reaching out to the poor. I see only people
filled with God’s love, wanting to do works of love. This is the
future—this is God’s wish for us—to serve through love in
action, and to be inspired by the Holy Spirit to act when called.”
Mother
Teresa, The
Book of Peace: Finding the Spirit in a Busy World
(London: Rider, 2002), 74.
The poor
bring us past all pretensions and lay bare the necessities of life
and the awesome source of life’s great goodness, Grace, Love and
Hope. These are the reality of the Kingdom of God.
What does that mean for us? What are we going to
do in response?
Now that
the Kingdom of God has come near, what does this mean for us?
And what
are we going to do in response?
The Gospel for today is clear: share the Good
News, Prepare the Way
Our
responses are our lives, every minute, every choice, every action or
inaction. Today’s Gospel clearly turns us, as Jesus did the 70, to
go out into all of creation, to all people, to prepare the way for
our Lord, healing and sharing the Good News of God’s Grace for all
people.
Responses of bringing the Good News
Some
will accept and grow from the nurture of God, like the nurture of a
prosperous city, the city of Jerusalem.
Some
will reject us and the peace and love of God that we bring. Still the
message is the same: the Kingdom of God has come near!
Other lessons, what Good News will we share?:
OT: Always God is there for us:
From our
other lessons we hear what Good News we have to bring.
As the
people to whom Isaiah writes, as they return from Exile, we can share
God’s promise of nurture, comfort, delight, and peace. We can share
the comforting image of God as a Mother nursing us, carrying us,
dandling us on her knees!
The Jerusalem of the/to day
Isaiah
writes to people who had lost the Jerusalem they had known. They have
returned, but what they find is not the Jerusalem they knew. It is
gone. They mourn it’s loss. What they find is not yet the New
Jerusalem that God promises them; it is still to come, a promise of
God for the end of time.
Result for us:
Yet even
in the Jerusalem of the present, and for us we may say, even in the
the city, country, or Land we live in now: Here and now God will make
prosperity flow like a river, full and flooding it’s banks
distributing silt and soil for all in it’s vicinity.
Our
hearts can rejoice. Our bodies shall flourish.
God there for ALL of us, as the past is gone, the
promise of tomorrow not yet
How do
we respond to God’s gifts now and the promises for the future? We
rejoice, even as we mourn the loss of the old Jerusalem, the way it
was in the past. Even as we mourn that our churches are not like they
were in the past, brimming Sunday Schoools, bustling with children,
abuzz with activities for all ages, providing learning, and sometimes
real Gospel and real Grace of God, and real love of God.
Even as
we mourn the losses of time passing we look with hope to the new
creation!
There
are lots of ways to try to create false hope, a false return to the
past that is gone, to deny the reality of God’s grace in the
present. Sarah and Abraham repeatedly tried to force their claim on
God’s promise, and what suffering has arisen from the split of the
family between their son Isaac and and Abraham and Hagaar’s son,
Ishmael; between Jews or Christians and Muslims.
There is
little more foolish, obviously ridiculous than a 70 year old male
(think Trump and others), a man of power and corruption, divorcing
his wife of his youth, and claiming again and again a yet younger
woman, in an effort to remain youthful. This stereotypical man vainly
tries to deny his age, tries to mourn what is lost by denying it is
GONE, DONE, PASSED. Instead he tries to buy, with wealth gained by
corruption, an image of being younger than the actual OLD of his age.
Of
course there is the woman, just as foolish who does the same. Or the
woman who reaches for wealth and prestige by marrying a man old
enough to be her father or grandfather. These self deceptions are
equally foolish and destructive to all sorts of people.
More
destructive perhaps are all the faithful but untrusting people who
look to the past of the church (denying the change of culture around
us away from church participation) and expend great energy trying to
recapture what is lost, past, or dying; instead of working to be what
God makes us able to be today.
We miss
out on the opportunities to work in the real world, from the real
stories of each other’s lives. Like ostriches, we bury our heads in
sand, unable to see the GOODness of creation. And we suffocate there,
hiding from reality. God cannot nurture us there: no comforting, no
nursing, no dandling on God’s knees.
In spite
of us, God, through the prosperity of the City of God, the City of
Peace, nurtures, comforts, and provides for us.
For us
who have returned home from exile,
For us
who have deserted home for better efforts elsewhere
For us
who, like the older son of the prodigal father, have remained, worked
diligently at home, and are envious of the returnees given free
grace, we receive grace even though we have come to rely on
ourselves, our works, our merits … though they may be something,
they are nothing before God,
We all
NEED God’s Grace.
God,
through the prosperity of the City of God, the city of peace,
nurtures, comforts, provides for ALL of us, just like a Mother
provides for all her children.
This is
love: God’s Love for us and our delight in God. Responding to God’s
love we sing for joy, with praise and adoration, even as we mourn the
losses of the past.
The truth of love
The
truth of God’s love for us is that it is unconditional. In love
with us, each of us, even you, God writes our/your name/s in heaven.
With
that God fulfills our dream of all dreams and our hope of all hopes.
God makes everything right for us and for God!
God
claims, names, and commissions us, sends us into the plentiful
harvest.
What
does that mean for us? What are we going to do in response?
Confused Paul in Galatians:
In
Galatians Paul, as is too often the case provides, in poor koininia
Greek, confused words. He writes: bear each other’s burdens, and
then all must carry their own loads. If we read carefully we can
decipher that he likely meant, as we each sin, the rest of us carry
that person with gentleness. Afterall we each will sin, we each will
have our turn of needing to be carried by the others.
But as
we work in our vocation and as we work to share the Good News with
everyone we each should carry our own load, to provide necessities of
life, for ourselves and for others.
God
comforts, nourishes, and promises us that all will be well. But we
still get to work like the dickens to make life good for ourselves
and our community, and those in need.
God’s
care does not supplant our own labours, but rather God enables us so
that our labours can be productive.
There is
joy in diligent, hard, directed, purposeful labour. A necessity of
life: air, water, food, clothing, shelter, purposeful labour, and
love (giving and receiving). As others bring us the Good News we
should provide for them so that they can share the Good News without
concern for their survival.
As we work: remember God’s promise: most
important
As we
work we remember God’s promise that our names are written in
heaven. This promise is more important than our ability in Christ’s
name to heal, to feed, to care for, to love others, to forgive, to be
gentle with each other.
Like
Jane reading her own name in the sky God has acted, named us, written
our names in heaven!
Wondrous
miracles to see in this creation. But the greatest miracle is God’s
Grace which names us as God’s, claims, names, blesses, and equips
us. God nourishes us, comforts us and carries us; and most of all God
Loves us as we are and for who we really are!
That our
names are written in heaven is not because of a fluke, not because of
our work, not because of our correct faith, not because of our
hanging on to or our letting go of our histories.
Our
names are written in heaven simply because God wants it so, out of
love for us.
Seeing
the Colours set for our Names to be revealed.
I have a wise old friend who told me her story, so similar to another I know as well, too similar for both not to be listened to, believed, and heeded. It is a story how the darkness overcame her and landed her in the darkness from which there was no escape, no matter what she tried. It nearly ended her.
little light in the darkness
The small light in the darkness saves many. The darkness is made by lies that engulf, sink, and consume the will for joy. Who indeed cares for the truth? Is it little, too little perhaps, to ask that the truth be spoken, heard and listened to? A young girl saw her mother cry silently without words not knowing what was happening. … the guest did as he wished with no fear for if anyone objected then or later complained death would come quickly. And so many times, a different guest, a repeat guest, a different guest. The young girl was ordered to ready the house for the guests so that they would be pleased, moving so quickly to run from the terror. She left behind any thought that she was a person, other than one that made everything ready for the guests. Until this daughter was taken in turn, too young, and taught the small pleasures that are possible, of sorts. In that moment the lies began, and they overtook reality, the horrible reality, that nothing could make right. The darkness is made by lies that engulf, sink, and consume the will for joy. But the darkness, somehow for this little girl, is still lighter than the void that took her soul. Who cares for the truth? It is no joy to know, but the truth does make a few things understandable, even the lies.
Why
So why ask or hope for truth? Through all of time girls and boys have hoped that there would be a place for them in the world, not just a pit of worthlessness, but a path through the sun, through the rain, through the cold, through the heat, through the storms, and in the calm evening breeze on the lake. Why ask if truth is a factor? Cannot one just live with the lies? Cannot one live with the fiction that demeans some in order to eliminate them, and leave more space on the path for others? We have been doing it forever as humans, why not just let it continue? God. God loves. God loves all. So all will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well. And we will be the ones to make it well, for all. That is why the truth is important! The truth, bright, blazing truth of Christ, takes all that is not well, makes it brilliantly clear what it is, horrendous and terrorizing, and makes it also well.
The Beaver
Beauty Waiting
The other night, as the evening darkness began to colour the world in blues and oranges, a small beaver swam by going south out from its home in the creek,
Going to safety.
and alerted to my presence on shore slapped an alarm and dove to safety leaving the rings of golden shimmer against the night between the trees.
Still going.
And came back to the surface further on its journey, out in the deep.
Calm
The beauty of the night deepened and shone as a few stumps left by the earlier beaver stood watch as the horizon climbed over the shore into the little light that remained.
Home for the night..
While just a tinge of light still touched the shore, the beaver came back, heading home for the night, leaving a wake behind that danced in the blues and in the orange-silver-golds of the set sun. Ahh, the night was set right and I headed back home as well …
Onward
but no, the beaver was still out for more yet this evening, going back away from, not towards home.
I did then head home, to sleep well, no guests.
Under the care of the Spirit that makes all things well.
Light Truth Joy
It is at sunset as the light begins to close the day, that we see how the light, the goodness of the light persists always to bring us to face, see, hear, and heed the truth, for then the watchful Spirit inspires us to be able to know profound joy.
The sun that daily sets … and rises new again each morning.
The sun that daily sets … and rises new again each morning. This friend came to see her darkness, to embrace it, and to set it aside with truth telling and truth listening and truth sharing. Which inspired a number of people to embrace their past, of darkness and ill, and to allow God to redeem it with love for themselves.
A Path
There is a path for everyone, or rather a path for each of us, not that it exists until we walk forward, but it unfolds under our movements forward in life toward the end, which is not death, but the ability to love, truly love, with all the sacrifice that entails.
Spring Struggles to Break in as Large Flakes Cover the Once Bare Ground Again
My
wood stove, set up to provide heat in the severe -40°C winter worked
wonders. It
even
provided hot water for coffee in
the morning
and tea throughout
the day.
It
was not
without it’s challenges as the stove pipe got so hot that it melted
the plastic tarps of
the shelter around the stove.
Holy
Week is our opportunity to remember and learn ever more from Jesus
story. Jesus’ story is a life full of communication from God to us,
in a way we can understand.
God tried to communicate to us with Word, creating a good creation. We messed it up, with trying to be smarter than we are and blaming others for the results. Kicked out of paradise we even became murderers, for a ‘good’ start.
God tried to communicate to us with the Law, we turned it into control of others.
God
tried to communicate to us with the prophets, and we thought they
were crazy, because they really were, trying to embody God’s Word
does that to humans.
I
rebuilt the damaged tarp sections, put in a heat shield and a remote
thermometer. Now gets as hot as 70°C without problems.
God
sent his Son, a full life story lived that we can learn. Jesus came
to live, teach, heal, and do remarkable things like calming the chaos
of the waters.
God
exists beyond time, matter, limits. Now Jesus has all the limits of a
human. Paul says it well: Jesus emptied himself of being other than
human, and became limited as a human.
Why?
The
real purpose of Jesus’ life was his death. That’s this week’s
story.
No
one really listened at first, and those that did usually got it all
wrong. Listen to the parade as Jesus enters Jerusalem. They think
that Jesus is God’s way of giving them control again of Jerusalem,
maybe. That’s their hope.
Then
things change.
The
harsh winter slowly gives way to cool spring temperatures, and the
2000° C inside the furnace became way too hot in the shelter. Always
the thermometer showed a max of 70°. It dawned finally on me that
the thermometer could read no hotter than 70°C but the actual
temperature could be much more!
Things
change.
After
the triumphant entry parade into Jerusalem, things go downhill fast
and hard. Jesus is betrayed, deserted, tried, denied, whipped,
condemned, mocked, tortured, abandoned, and murdered on a cross.
There
is no greater measure of suffering.
God
came to live and die exactly like this. Why?
God
came to make clear: God understands our suffering, even if our
measure seems to have an upper limit, God has no limits, God
understands us, our pain, our sin, our suffering, our death.
God
lived it to show us God’s intent for us.
As
Jesus dies, he forgives those that mock, torture and kill him.
This
is what God wants us to be to each other. Not sinners, destroyers,
scape-goaters, or mockers, torturers, murderers, or chaos makers, not
even people who cannot listen to others pain and suffering and not
know what to do.
We
know God knows our suffering.
In
our suffering we experience what others suffer. We know what we most
need when we suffer is forgiveness, love and not to be abandoned.
We
learn this so that we can give God’s gifts of forgiveness, love and
being present to others as they suffer.
God
came as Jesus to show us God’s goodness and love for us has no
limits. God’s forgiveness has no limits. We may not easily hear,
listen or understand, but we have Jesus story handed from generation
to generation. We can always learn more if we pay attention.
Jesus’
story is God’s new limitless thermometer by which we can measure
what really goes on in this world. There’s lots of heat. There’s
even more love, forgiveness, and compassion than we are ever capable
of measuring.
This
week, we remember, we listen as we can, we learn anew as we are able.
From
Jesus story we know and trust, no matter what we do, what we succeed
at or fail at, God understands our yearning, our chaos, our
sufferings …
and God
always loves, forgives and is present with us …
The following is the result of my and my wife’s efforts, which in some form she is likely preaching tomorrow at Hope Lutheran Edmonton.
Opening blessing/prayer[from the Psalm, lessons and Jesus’ command to love]: May God, our only hope and salvation, guard our hearts, minds and souls this Advent, as always, that we may not be put to shame, but that we may know God’s ways, God’s truth, God’s steadfast love. May we trust God’s promises so that even in the most difficult of times, we may reflect God’s right-ness, order, and grace, to our neighbours, ourselves, and even our enemies. Amen.
Happy New Year, on this the first Sunday of the New Church Year, the first Sunday in Advent. Unlike many celebrations that call for exuberance, like Lent, Advent is a sombre celebration of our need for God’s Love and promises, a time to reflect and search out the roots of our faith. The colour is Blue, a rich colour of sky, and water, the basics for life. Blue is also a colour of an honest response to the chaos that grips the world: blue is sadness, even depression.
Blue for us is the colour of Hope, and Advent sits not on the evidence of the state of the world or us in it, but the hope created by God’s powerfully life-giving Promises. God promises us a new creation and steadfast love in the face of the worst the universe can throw at us.
If you came looking to hear the Gospel read today and to receive a soothing, comforting word … Well, hang on, it’s a rough ride first.
Drab Winter may be most appropriate for Advent
Jesus describes the end of time. To translate his images into 21st century awareness of our universe Jesus says:
You will see gravity decay, planets and stars disengage, galaxies splattering across the void. Dis-Order invades the sub-atomic particles of your very being, your skin will crawl with chaos, your minds unwind from within themselves, one moment you are able to be empathetic, to love and remember, the next not and the next moment you are again sentient, aware of what is happening to you and to the world all around.
Intuitively we know our sins and our cumulative sins as human beings are immense. We know we are responsible for some if not most of what’s coming. Global warming is only a small piece of the conundrum. Real guilt is indeed difficult to bear.
How can we respond to this prediction of the end of all time?
There are many similar challenges in life that overwhelm us. It may not signal the end of everything around us, but chaos invades the foundation of our lives at the loss of a beloved, a child, the end of a career, or being ruined by completely false accusations … or news that one has a death-sentence disease.
Will watched his wife Louise beat cancer twice, and it returned a third time. Her battle ended with him standing beside her grave. Two years later Will received news that cancer had invaded his body as well.
George flew as a pilot all his life, until the last medical exam revealed the side-effects of a medication taken years ago, which disqualified him from ever flying again.
Sam stopped his wife again, this time by twisting out of her hand the knife she was going to slash him with. When he made sure she went outside to cool down, she called the police, he was charged, convicted and served 2 years for assault and unlawful confinement.
Amy, not her real name, watched the Courts, time and time again disrupt her efforts to adopt her foster child, born to an addict woman. Then the Courts awarded this not-mother custody, even though the Courts knew her then housemate had sexually abused the not-yet two year old.
It may not be the end of all time, but it certainly is the end of time for us, as we gasp for breath … … … while the world continues on its course around us as if nothing has happened.
Jesus, at these times, points us to the first signs of trees budding new leaves. Jesus tells us: at these points when the end of time threatens our very breathing and being, we can remember God’s promises to make all things new with the coming of the Kingdom of God. The in-breaking of chaos, the end of time, is actually God bringing in a new creation.
God promises that in this new order we will live in safety, justice will be based on truth, instead of lies, and God’s steadfast love, the glue that holds the macro, micro and personal universe in order, will prevail. All right-ness, righteousness, will be God’s alone. Chaos of all kinds will give way to the order of God’s new creation. All people, not just us, will live in safety. All people will live in right relationship with God, with one another, with all of creation. The heavens and all space will sing in harmony. The Holy Spirit will move in our hearts, minds and souls, and we will dance with grace, every step of the day.
God does not just wait to the end of time to bring in the new creation. The Kingdom of God is already here. God fulfills promises in each generation. Christ has come.
CNN know this: and they play every news story as if it heralded something new (and news worthy), as if the world hinged on each small event. In a way it does, and for the news companies, it sells advertising, which is the foundation of their threatened existence.
CBC has ‘Good News’ segments, because it is commonly spoken about that ‘all the news is bad’ which is not true or right. But they appear to angle not so much that the good news is more obviously good, but that compared to the little good news segments, the real news is that much more important, that much more BAD.
The real bad news is that all hell is breaking loose, just like it did for all the previous generations.
It is as any photographer can tell you the light is most beautiful in contrast to the dark. God’s wonders become more obvious to us, in contrast to the powers of chaos and evil.
Flowing Water in Frozen Winter, Light in the Dark
If we could ever say that Leonard Cohen sang well, it would be his Anthem line: There is a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in. Indeed, it is through our cracks, our sins, that God’s grace becomes known to us, not just in our minds, but in our hearts and souls. Grace becomes a visceral experience and memory when God gracefully forgives us our sins, and when the Holy Spirit continually takes us ungrateful, undeserving wretched sinners and makes us into saints.
Evil has got the world, our world, by the tail, so to speak, and the Devil is swinging it around, which messes tremendously with gravity and all that is up.
This Advent we face great challenges. The world seems to be falling apart, and the order of creation is threatened by earthquakes, storms, human induced disasters, and even asteroids and nuclear bombs.
Advent is not a time to bury our heads in the sands, or our hearts in the pre-Christmas hectic, nor our souls in all that consumes instead of giving life to all those around us. Advent is a time for serious and sombre soul searching, to discover again God’s steadfast love that holds the universe and our own hearts together, even as the universe and we too lose all bindings and forces that hold creation in place, even gravity and the electric impulses that power our brains.
As the end of all time tears at the foundations of the universe, as the end of our time tears at the core of our being, we need not fear and hate. Instead moved by the Holy Spirit, we can trust God and we can choose to love …
We bask in the beauty of the stars, the wonders of nature, the marvels of the cities, and the light of Christ that shines through each of us, through our brokenness. Love has a place … in every heart, in every galaxy, in every atom of the entire universe, because God created it so.
We pray that we may remain alert to God’s ways. We pray that we will count on God’s promises and the work of the Holy Spirit in us, that we will see in each tragedy and decaying of order, God’s work of making a new creation, also in us!
We will not be put to shame, for God is our rock and our salvation.
Amen
