Leaping in the Womb

Luke 1:39-55

A baby leaping in the womb…being a man I am speaking a bit out of line here I’m afraid.  I have no idea what it would be like to feel the sensation of a baby kicking around in my belly.  I got to feel and see my two children kicking around inside of Dana, and see them born and all that.  But, I was just a very scared and inept observer.  I asked Dana about this but all she said was you mostly just go about the day to day stuff and you marvel a lot.  That wasn’t much help I was looking for some deeper thought because I had this sermon to write.  Anyway, if memory serves what I saw her thinking and doing was more like: “What will this child be like?  Is it healthy?  Can I do this?  Can I eat that?  I really want to eat that?  My hormones are out of wack, look out?  I feel like barfing could you get me some crackers.  Heartburrrrnnnnn!  Pull over, I need to pee again, now!  Can I do this?  Why God?  Wow God!  Umph, this baby must be Chuck Norris.  Wow God!”  A new human life growing inside of you, a part of you but not, that bond…it’s a marvel…a wonderful mystery.  But, it’s not for me to know.  That’s a special gift God gave to women.

With that in mind, think of Elizabeth.  Imagine your child not just kicking inside you, but leaping, and leaping for a reason.  Here’s Elizabeth pregnant way past her safe childbearing years.  She had suffered the label of “barren” nearly all her life.  In her day they believed a woman’s main purpose was bearing and rearing children.  She would have had to deal with a lot of scorn.  And here she was pregnant, just like the angel told her husband Zechariah she would become that day he went into the Holy of Holies to offer incense and then the angel struck him mute when he didn’t believe the good news.

In comes her cousin’s daughter, Mary, probably fifteen coming for that extended visit that young daughter’s of cousins sometimes used to have to make when they got pregnant (said with a whisper).  The baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps and she is filled with the Holy Spirit and instead of saying, “You poor child.  Everything’s going to be just fine.  You look beautiful.”  All the while thinking, “Mercy me, child.  What were you thinking?”  Instead of all that sappy, Southern politeness she loudly exclaims, “Woman, you are blessed.  Your baby is blessed.  And who am I that the mother of my Lord has come to see me.  Even my baby’s leaping.  Believe that angel, Honey.  You are blessed.”

Now there’s something deeper going on here that we would be remiss not to note.  Both Elizabeth and Mary stand as representatives of two phases of God’s people.  Elizabeth represents the faithful people of Israel.  She has the new life of the greatest of the prophets growing in her womb.  She’s married to a priest and herself of a priestly family, indeed the chief priests, a descendent of Aaron.  Yet, she was barren and shamed.  Elizabeth stands for the people of Israel who sang the lament of Psalm 80. 

Psalm 80 was written somewhere between 701 BC when the Assyrians destroyed northern Israel to sometime just after 586 BC when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and carried the Israelites away into exile.  It was Yahweh’s doings to kick his people off the Land because of their idolatry and wanton abuse of the poor.  Yet, in the midst of all this wickedness there always was a faithful remnant of Israelites who had had to suffer the fate of their wicked kin without cause.  These faithful innocents are the people who are crying out in Psalm 80: “Restore us, O LORD God of hosts, let your face shine, that we may be saved.”

Elizabeth and Zechariah were such people.  Luke says at 1:6, “Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and ethical requirements of the Lord.  Yet, they had no children, since Elizabeth was barren, and they both were getting on in years.”  They were faithful among the priesthood; a priesthood who in that day were largely either politically corrupt, hypocritical, or devoutly legalistic.  Yet, though they were faithful it appeared as though God had cursed them and cut them off from having a future generation.

Mary was a young woman still really just a child, maybe just fifteen.  She was innocent in her own right yet about to be scorned for a scandal that was God’s doing.  Mary, this child, was to be the mother of the God/man, the mother of the new humanity.  Her baby will be Yeshua, Joshua, salvation if you remember last week’s sermon.  Israel’s faithful remnant prayed for restoration, for salvation, and Mary’s child Jesus (Yeshua or Joshua) is that salvation.  He is the one at God’s right hand come not just to save God’s people, but to save God’s whole creation from sin, and evil, and death.

I look around at churches today.  The majority of them grown small, aged, nearly barren of children and I think of Elizabeth and her baby, John – John the Baptist – leaping in her womb.  We are like this faithful remnant that she represents.  The culture around us that we used to could call Christian started going secular in the 60’s and now has largely gone pagan.  People with spiritual experiences and ideas about God abound.  “Spiritual but not religious” is a predominant attitude.  We can’t call our culture Christian anymore.  Indeed, anything that looks like institutional Christianity is suspect or scorned.  There are big forms of Christianity out there, the mega-church phenomena, but you have to watch them and ask where the mega-money coming in goes.  Are they really doing anything to eradicate poverty, clean-up neighbourhoods, or get people back on their feet.  Or, are they just getting filthy rich offering spiritual opium to a multitude that suffers existential angst for having gotten lost and grown obese from worshipping the false gods of money, sex, and power.  We, the remnant, may look old and barren but we still got Jesus and the voice of the prophet leaping in our bellies that points to him.  We’ve got Truth.

I want to tell you something about Mary, the fifteen-year-old young woman standing outside our doors pregnant with what’s coming.  Let’s not write her off, amen?  Who is she?  How about a little family history?  The Baby Boomers left the church in the 60’s.   Those that stayed gave the church its last 1950’s–style heyday in the 80’s.  A good many of the Boomers wanted their children to be able to decide for themselves about matters of faith so they dropped them off at church programs for children.  When those children reached their teens they did not stay with the church because it wasn’t a family thing for them and, let’s face it, we only segregated them inside these walls with our children and youth programs. and didn't get to know them.  Then these children of the Boomers started to have children in the late 80’s and early 90’s and saw no need to take them to church.  A generation more or less lost?  Now these very un-churched, secularized, well-gadgetted, social media addicted grandchildren of the Boomers are having children.  The oldest of which would be the 15-year-old young woman outside our door pregnant with what’s coming. 

So what is coming?  Well, whatever it is won’t be coming here.  It just won’t and we have got to accept that and change.  We have to go out there and really be like Jesus whom we know and worship in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  We have to get out there and really be the family of God.  I emphasize family here because a lot to most of these young folks are wanting for family, family like Elizabeth and Mary.  Elizabeth didn’t judge Mary for her predicament.  She called Mary blessed and herself blessed to be in Mary’s presence because Jesus was there growing in her.  So also with the children and youth who are out there.  We need to be calling them blessed and counting ourselves blessed to be in their lives. 
            One of the most astonishing social realities happening right now is young people awakening to and responding to Jesus and even taking spiritual leadership in their homes.  “and a little child shall lead them” so goes the Scripture.  Let me give you an example.  A couple of weeks ago I was up at the hospital and I went into the chaplain’s office to get my free-parking-clergy-perk-ticket.  While I was talking to Patti, the hub-meistress, a young boy maybe fifteen came in.  He asked for a rosary.  He said his friend told him he could get one their.  Patti got him one and asked if he knew what it was for and if not she’d help.  He thanked her and left.  Friends, I hope you’re feeling a leaping in your bellies.  Something really wonderful is going on out there.  Go find it and bless them and be blessed.  Amen.

Drawing Water from the Well of Salvation

Isaiah 12:1-6

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”  To me verse three here is one of the most beautiful verses of Scripture there is.  There is just so much tucked away in it.  I’m a bit at a loss as to where to start.  So I’ll start with saying who it is written to. 

In 586 BCE the Lord God of the Israelites, Yahweh, decided he had had enough with the wickedness of his people.  They were idolatrous to the point of their kings sacrificing their firstborn sons to other gods by burning them in fire in order to have power.  They were idolatrous to the point of feasting all the time.  The rich were getting richer by abusing the poor and taking all they could to themselves.  The temple in Jerusalem was nothing more than a sham symbol of status. 

The Israelites simply were not being the people that Yahweh had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt to be.  They weren’t the people who by living according to the Commandments they would be a loving community who visibly reflected the very nature of the one true God Yahweh to the nations.  There wasn’t peace in their midst.  Instead, they just looked like one more of the nations and a wicked one at that.  So, Yahweh finally put his foot down (finally because this had been going on for a couple of centuries) and he sent the Babylonians and they destroyed Jerusalem and levelled the temple and carried off into exile anybody who was anybody. 

The Babylonians took them back to Babylon where most of them grew quite comfortable, except for a small remnant who just couldn’t shake the desire to return to the Land, who couldn’t help but to believe the prophets through whom Yahweh was promising that he was going to bring them back to Judea, to Jerusalem, and they would rebuild.  It is to this small, faithful remnant that Isaiah here writes and tells them that the day is coming when they will go back and when they do they will make a public confession shouting aloud with great joy their thanks and praise because God has not just saved them but has himself become their salvation.  Yahweh the Holy One of Israel himself will be in their midst comforting them.  They will say “Surely God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid.  The LORD, the LORD himself is my strength and my defence.  He has become my salvation.”

God himself is our salvation.  That is a pretty deep thing to say.  Salvation is probably the most misunderstood and offensively used word in the Christian arsenal of snobnoxery.  Coming from the Southern Bible belt in the US I grew up with the idea that salvation was simply that God has given a “Get Out of Hell Free” card to those who had the smarts enough to take the advice to believe in Jesus, come to church, and live good.  I don’t know what you folks have been taught, but what I grew up believing was salvation isn’t what the Bible teaches and especially not what the Old Testament teaches.  Isaiah here saying “Surely God is my salvation” he surely has no concept at all of going to Hell when he dies because he is a sinner and therefore God has saved him from that.  There is no Hell in the Hebrew vocabulary.  There is a place called Sheol where the dead are held but it is not the fiery place of torment you find in Dante’s Inferno.  The concept just is not there.

Salvation to Isaiah and his hearers was God acting in history in the actual events of their lives to save his people from circumstances that are oppressive and unbecoming of the people of God.  It is deliverance right in the now not an after life thing.  Salvation is what happens when God restores his people to a right relationship with himself.  In the case here in Isaiah, salvation would be God bringing his people back from exile in Babylon to the Land he promised them free of external oppressors where they would be free to live as his people.  In the bigger picture salvation is a relationship of trust in and commitment to God lived out in a community of people that is a response to God’s faithfulness.  Salvation is when God has created a community of people on Earth who live together in such a way as to truly reflect his image.  I know I’m getting deep her so I’ll back off with saying this; we need to stop thinking of salvation as an after life event and start thinking of it in terms of what Jesus is doing here in our midst which is in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit he is making this little small church out in Hobokkenville to be a communion of people who love one another as selflessly as he has loved us each and given his life for us.

Let’s get back to Isaiah.  Isaiah compares salvation to a well from which we will joyfully draw water.  Let’s try to picture this image.  The word for “well” can mean a springhead or any source of water that bubbles up from in the ground.  We will draw from the source, the sprenghead of salvation.  And what is water out there in the desert?  Between Babylon and Jerusalem is a whole lot of barren, rocky, dry wasteland.  There’s no rivers or ponds or anything like that.  For the people who live there water is nothing short of the source of life itself.  It’s that powerful of an image.  No water, no life.  You die…unless you eat the leaves of the Acacia tree like camels do.  Trying to live in that kind of desert wilderness is extremely difficult.  You need a source of water.  Such is life.

So Isaiah is here creating an image of being in a wasteland and finding an unexpected source of water.  With joy we will draw life from the very source of life and its salvation.  And he says this is what God is for us.  He says God has become my salvation.  God himself, his presence with us each is the deep well of salvation from which we draw life.  This verse just gobsmacks me with its straightforward simplicity on where to find true, indeed, eternal life if I can through Apostle John in here.  At 17:3 of his Gospel he says that eternal life is not going to heaven when you die but rather knowing God and the one he has sent; Jesus.

Let me do a little word play with the Hebrew word for “salvation” that is neither here nor there but…  The word itself is Yeshua or Joshua as we would say in English.  If you remember Joshua was the one who led the Israelites into the Promised Land.  Isaiah may quite literally be telling this about to return to the Land remnant of faithful Israelites that God himself is their Joshua rather than their salvation.  But that’s a topic for another day.  The Greek way of saying the name Yeshua or Joshua is Jesus.  Jesus’ name quite literally means salvation. 

Now, I’m not going to be the first to go looking for Jesus in the Old Testament.  The early church did this “religiously”.  But, it is not a stretch for us to look at what Isaiah is saying here to this about to return to the Land faithful remnant of Israelites in exile in Babylon and read a little Jesus into it so that it says to us: “Surely God is my Jesus; I will trust and not be afraid.  The LORD, the LORD himself is my strength and my defence; he has become my Jesus.  With joy we can draw water from the wells of Jesus.”

Jesus is salvation.  If we are looking for a source of life apart from our relationship with him in and through the Holy Spirit, a relationship in which we share his very relationship with God the Father, then we are mining for fool’s gold and not drinking the living water.

Let me close with saying a word about drawing the water.  We have to put some effort into this.  We have to draw the water to be able to drink it.  Too many Christians go about their faith life just dancing around the well in the desert and never drinking the water.  We Presbyterians, we’re real good at not even dancing around the well.  We just say, “Yeah, there’s a well there, but it’s our duty to keep walking or we’ll never get to the Promised Land.”  We can do churchy things, things we believe its our duty to do for “the church” and all the while not be drinking the living water of Jesus in prayer and Bible study with each other.  We need to draw the water and drink it.  Developing a deep prayer life, meeting together to pray for one another and to study the Bible together and of course eating.  These are how we draw from the well of salvation…and there’s a joy in it, you know.  With joy we will draw that water.

Jesus, our salvation, is with us.  We are bound to him in the Holy Spirit whom he has sent to live in us.  Pull out your Bibles and read them at home and talk about what you’re discovering there.  There’s not a one of us too old or too you or too important to do that.  Draw from the well of salvation, from Jesus and joy will come.  Amen. 

Tea: The Forgotten Sacrament

Philippians 1:3-11

The Trinity has begun a good work in us which he will bring to completion.  This good work is the Incarnation of God the Son as Jesus the Messiah of the Jews who is Lord and Saviour of all Creation.  Paul in Ephesians 1 said that this was the plan that God had from before creation to bring all things under one head, to unite all things in Christ.  At the very conception of this baby, God united himself not only to humanity but to even physical matter, the creation.  The Incarnation has bigger effect than just on us.

The early church Fathers thought about the Incarnation differently than we are accustomed.  They emphasized that the Incarnation was for healing.  As Jesus the Trinity has infused humanity with his very self and has thusly changed humanity, a change that includes healing humanity of sin and death.  I used to say that by the incarnation God infected humanity with his very self and reversed the infection that humanity suffers due to sin which culminates in death pervading throughout the creation.  I used to use that infection metaphor but a man in my last church said that’s not a helpful word and suggested the idea of infusion was better.  With infection a virus gets into something and grows exponentially until it either kills its host or implodes and dies.  Humanity looks like a virus on earth.  The human population is growing exponentially and destroying its host.  That’s not quite the way God is working in us. 

Infusion is a better metaphor for the Incarnation.  It is the process of how we make tea.  A tea bag is placed into hot water and the tea begins to permeate the water and we have tea.  So also by Incarnation God has infused his very self into the creation particularly humanity and now by the continued working of the Holy Spirit the permeation continues and will continue until its completion when Jesus returns and as Isaiah prophecies at 11:9 that “the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters covers the sea.”

Now, we’re not done with the tea metaphor yet.  Tea bags have medicinal properties as well.  If you take a moist tea bag and place it on an infected wound it will draw out the infection.  This is called expiation.  Expiation is the other side of the incarnation.  Jesus draws the sin of humanity, our infection, our disease, our impurity into himself like the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement and bears it away unto death, his death on the cross.  He expiates us of sin.  He heals us.  He unburdens us of our.  This is what forgiveness is.

By the gift of God the Holy Spirit coming to live in us we are the body of Christ bound to Jesus our head and he is permeating us with the new life of his resurrected humanity and this has the effect of expiating, of healing us of our sin and death, a healing that will come to its fruition on the day when he returns and we are also raised from the dead.  But anyway, this is just a little something for you to think about the next time you are enjoying a cup of tea hopefully with others because that just makes the metaphor complete.  Amen.

Pray So That You May Have Strength

Luke 21:25-36

We live in an “in-between” time, the time between Jesus’ first coming to inaugurate the Kingdom of God and when he comes again to bring the Kingdom in its fullness, a day which culminates in resurrection and creation being made new.  The Christian Gospel, contrary to popular belief, is not about how we get to heaven when we die.  It is ultimately about God’s reign breaking in from heaven and coming to earth culminating with Jesus’ return.  Jesus was indeed being quite literal when he taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…where?...on earth as it is in heaven.”  This passage that we read here from Luke points us towards that event, that day.

Granted Jesus says what he says in as weird a way as he could say it with these images of eclipses (signs in the moon and sun and stars), roaring seas, the shaking of the heavens amidst times of great anxiety, confusion, and cosmic upheaval.  Now, don’t worry.  I’m not going to go freaky on you.  These images are what we could call apocalyptic code phrases.  There was a genre of literature popular in Jesus’ day (of which the Book of Revelation is) that Bible scholars have dubbed “Apocalyptic.”  It was a way of talking about political things in public that wouldn’t get you in trouble.  What you did was use coded images that your community of faith understood the meaning of but those in power did not. 

If Jesus were to say outright that the God of the Jews was going to put an end to Caesar and his false reign, he would in turn be tried for treason and leading a revolt and sentenced to crucifixion.  Since Jesus couldn’t say that outright he uses this apocalyptic imagery to make his point to his disciples. Eclipses represent divine acting and judgment upon those in power.  The roaring of the seas is the chaos among people that erupts when regimes fall.  The shaking of the heavens is the catastrophic changing and dismantling of institutions that people believe will never change, things like empires, banking institutions, democracy, marriage, the Church, etc.  

One of the deeper points that Jesus makes here that is cloaked behind the imagery is that when the Kingdom draws near, when God does indeed act in history things on earth get quite wonky.  To say this in a more personal way, great teachers of Christian spirituality past and present often remark that when God is trying to draw near to us personally as individuals or draw us closer to himself his doing so causes turmoil and trying times in our lives but then having come through those times we come to realize that we have grown in faith and been changed to be more Christ-like.  This happens for whole congregations as well.  And what Jesus is indicating here is that this happens for nations and all of humanity.  When God draws near things get wonky and so Jesus says “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near,…you know that the Kingdom of God is near.”

He also says that we should pray so that we may have the strength to escape the turmoil of the Kingdom drawing near and in turn stand in his presence.  It is my experience that we simply don’t get the importance of prayer.  We are very utilitarian about it as opposed to seeing it as the very foundation of living these lives that God has entrusted to us.  The popular Christian author Oswald Chambers who wrote My Utmost for His Highest once said, ““Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”  We pray before doing things rather than understanding that prayer is what we are always called to be doing.  We are to live as those devoted to prayer, like monks and nuns. 

I bet you didn’t know it, but our Reformation roots hold that the everyday believer should live a life as devoted to prayer as any monk or nun supposedly does.  One of John Calvin’s main tasks of ministry was to attempt to take the prayer-filled life that he had observed behind the walls of convents and monasteries and make it the way of life for the ordinary Christian.  Inside the walls of the monastery, the monks rose very early for morning prayer in which they prayed and read Psalms, and then ate and worked.  At mid-morning they prayed and read Psalms again.  The around midday they had worship with communion and then worked some more.  In mid-afternoon they prayed and read Psalms again.  In the evening they had vespers and then again before bed they prayed and read Psalms.  Then at some point in the middle of the night they rose again to pray and read Psalms.  They also studied at some point in the day as well.  Roman Catholic priests follow something called the Liturgy of Hours which follows this schedule and if followed, you will have prayed through all of the Psalms in a forty day period and also read a good chunk of the Bible in a year.  Calvin and others did not see why one had to live in a monastery to follow this routine of prayer.  Give it a shot.

There is another aspect of the life devoted to prayer that is not so routine-ish and needs mentioning.  Paul said, “Pray without ceasing,” and so many people try to train their minds to do just that.  Training the mind is crucial to living a sane and peaceful life.  If we do not choose to discipline our minds with prayer, we essentially let ourselves suffer or wallow in all forms of unhealthy thinking.  Therefore, the biggest part of living a devoted Christian life is disciplining our minds to pray and the rest of the Christian life will take care of itself and blossom.  Here’s a few suggestions on how to do that.

   In the Eastern Orthodox tradition they have the Jesus Prayer which they try to pray continually throughout the day.  “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.”  They will pray that prayer over and over.  Many carry a rosary with them to keep them mindful of the task.  I’ve attempted this and can honestly say that once established in it you will find that it becomes a rhythm or even a song in the back of your mind that you just pray automatically.  There’s a book called The Way of the Pilgrim that chronicles the life of an anonymous peasant as he learns to discipline himself to pray the prayer.  I recommend you find and read it.  You can do this with the Lord’s Prayer as well.

Similar to this is a method of prayerful Bible study called Lectio Divina.  It involves taking a verse of Scripture, memorizing it, and disciplining yourself to pray it continually.  I once did this verse by verse with the Sermon on the Mount a few years back.  It took 140 some days and I finished with a deeper knowing of Jesus’ personality especially his non-judgemental and forgiving side. 

Another way one might take down this road of continual prayer is the practice of the presence of God.  There was a Franciscan monk named Brother Lawrence who lived in the 1700’s who wrote a book chronicling his attempt to be aware of the presence of Jesus with him at all times.  Its title is The Practice of the Presence of God.  This practice was something I discovered back in my university days when one day it became inseparably clear to me that Jesus is with me always.  No prayers to be said, no bargains to be made, and even if I am in the midst of sinning, he is with me.  When Paul wrote in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ he was not speaking of a metaphysical idea or some sort of conclusion that he arrived at by reason.  He was speaking of the unconditionally loving presence of Jesus with us through the Holy Spirit always.

Well, why all this talk about prayer?  Well, read the news.  With all that’s going on in the world the Kingdom of God is obviously drawing near.  Things are wonky to say the least.   Stand up.  Watch lest you miss something really wonderful that God is doing.  But moreso…we Christians have a role to play in the drawing near of the Kingdom.  Hope comes alive in and through people who pray.  True strength, true grit, comes in and through prayer.  I know from my own spiritual journey my struggles have been easier and I have grown as a person in Christ in the times that I have been a praying man. Living as prayerful people in prayerful community is how God creates healing grounds in this anxious and confused world.  Jesus is breaking into the world with his Kingdom.  Prayer-filled Christian community is where he and his kingdom are most evident.  Friends, pray.  This world needs us to be praying.  Amen.

The Way of a Poor Widow Vs. Ideology

Mark 12:28-13:13

“When you hear of wars and rumours of wars”…I was driving back from Cleveland this past Thursday amidst a rain and windstorm that was of apocalyptic proportions and I came across one of “those” Christian radio shows.  I tolerated about fifteen minutes of it.  It was just all talk no music.  The man behind the microphone went on about how Muslims are taking over America.  As if to incite something, he named several different school boards that are now recognizing Muslim holidays, claimed the state of Massachusetts had become a Muslim state, and on and on he jackhammered this stuff out.  Scary.  That’s the beginnings of the process of what the intelligence community calls “radicalization”.  

On the same trip, once I got into Canada and found the safety and security of the CBC I found myself listening to a debate over what makes a “just war.”  The debate was over the realization that the reasons Western governments recognize as “just cause” for going to war really don’t apply anymore.  The crisis in Syria is a prime example.  Nations with well-trained militaries won’t come to aid of millions of innocent civilians who due to their religious beliefs are being brutally murdered, raped, kicked out of their homes, and made to flee to camps and other countries.  The reason the “nations” give is that it is not “just” to invade the sovereign boarders of another nation.  Yet, “everybody” recognizes that religious conversion is an “unjust” reason for waging.  Moreover, ISIS is not a state against which another nation can declare war.  One of the debaters noted that ISIS does not treat its prisoners according to the Geneva Convention and then asked why are we in the nations with the militaries hiding behind out-dated ideas of what it is to be “civilized” in the midst of war.  Why is the world letting this horrendous crime against humanity go on?  Isn’t this what the U.N. is for?  I suppose we should ask Gen. Romeo Dallaire.  Is this crisis in Syria just going to be one more case where after the death and dislocation of millions of people the whole world stands figuratively on the metaphorical tarmac of Kigali Airport saying “We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred.”

Then yesterday morning we woke up to news of a terrorist attack in France.  We don’t know who is responsible.  Different group.  Similar ideologies.  People who were once just like you and me were somehow radicalized by messianic prophets to believe hate-filled ideologies and to act accordingly.

“When you hear of wars and rumours of wars do not be alarmed,” Jesus said.  Well, it is kind of hard not to be alarmed with well-armed false messiahs and false prophets running rampant in a world where people are easily swayed with ideology masquerading as faith be it Islamic or Christian.  I am alarmed.  I have two children.  I was hoping that by the time I had children the world would be better place.  The Cold War is gone but we’re still living in its wake.  As far as the Middle East is concerned the destabilization over there is the direct result of the peace agreements and national boundaries that were drawn up after WWI and WWII.  Our efforts to create a more just world in the wake of global war only fostered another more precarious one.

Well, enough of that.  I should stop before I alarm somebody.  Let’s talk about true faithfulness.  How do we hard-working, God-revering followers of Jesus live in such a world as this?  Hate mongering against people of other faiths is certainly not the answer.  Might I suggest the “wasteful” way of an impoverished widow who gave all she had to live on to the poor box at the temple?  Jesus compares her to the rich who made huge donations that really cost them nothing and to the Scribes and their empty hypocrisy who were taking the poor box money to themselves.  This widow gave everything she had to live on to help others in the same situation she was in.  She was radical with compassion loving her neighbour in the same way that Jesus loves us, with everything.  

My great-grandmother was like that.  Anyone who came to visit left with a can of something.  If you were there at mealtime, a place was set for you.  My grandparents were like that.  Everyone, not matter race or what, was welcome at their table; even if you were one of my aunts’ ex-boyfriends.  Great Depressions and World Wars can sometimes make for great people.

It is interesting that this widow is the last person we meet before Jesus tells his disciples that the temple and the “big business” misrepresentation of faith the Scribes were conducting would be destroyed.  Even Jerusalem would be destroyed.  The central institution of the way of life of the Jewish people, of the disciples themselves, was going to be destroyed.  This widow revealed the reason why.  IN light of that Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to take up arms and try to preserve their national identity.  He told them not to let themselves be misled by ideologues pretending to be him.  Rather, he tells them to live as a testimony to him; to live as a proclamation that he and no other is Lord and that the Kingdom of God is at hand.  To live as this widow lived – devoting the whole of our insignificant selves to Jesus and his compassionate Kingdom.  When called to account for the reason we live so hopefully and compassionately and generously in the midst of a cruel world, instead of ranting off ideology, we listen for the Holy Spirit to speak and say what we hear.  The Holy Spirit speaks in prayers.  So often what we he gives us to say to another person is a prayer for that person (Rom. 8:26-27) not a condemnation. 

In this ideologically driven, terrorized, war torn world we the disciples of Jesus Christ are to live like a community of poor widows who have nothing yet give everything, share everything we have for compassion’s sake, for Jesus’ sake.  And we pray the desperate prayers our neighbours can’t find the words to pray for themselves.  Prayerful compassion is the way of the Christian in this world. This is the way we need to be in our neighbourhoods not behind the doors of these great stone buildings.  This sort of authenticity speaks a living testimony to our Lord Jesus and his Kingdom.  Amen.