A Troubled Birth

 Luke 2:1-20

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My first church here in Canada was a small church but we had enough youth to have the challenge of a youth group.  One year they decided they wanted to come up with a drama of what if Jesus were born today somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area.  It was an interesting presentation that culminated with them gathered around the piano singing The Beatles tune, Let It Be.  What they came up with was Jesus being born to a young, unwed teenage couple at the Finch subway station.  They were disappointed that there was not a station at Jane and Finch.  They thought they would have been able to highlight better the circumstances of prejudice that surrounded Jesus’ birth.  You see, Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth and Nazareth was considered to be an undesirable little town in Northern Israel. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” they used to say.  The youth also had this child’s parents resting Jesus in a homeless man’s shopping cart.  Not the cleanest of places for a newborn, I’m sure.  Jesus himself was wrapped in rags and laid in a feeding trough…not quite the image we have of “swaddling clothes” and a “manger”.  

In the Bible, the baby Jesus had several visitors the night of his birth, shepherds and Magi.  Shepherds in his day were near the bottom of the food chain along with drunks and lepers.  The Magi were indeed kings and scientists.  Their science was astrology.  They were following a heavenly sign they had discerned to mean the birth of a great king in the land of Judea.  God’s announcing his coming to shepherds and astrologers was a bold slap in the face of the Judean king and the religious leaders who should have known this but didn’t for they were blinded by power and privilege.  The birth of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ caught them by surprise and threatened their privileged positions.  When Herod found out, he wanted Jesus dead and actually killed all the male children in the area of Bethlehem under the age of two.  In the youth’s drama they have Jesus’ birth announced to some homeless people y who go to welcome him which should remind us that we church-going, upper-middle class white folk just might not have a monopoly on the things of God. 

Lastly, the paternity of Jesus truly did create a stir.  Mary was pregnant.  Joseph knew the baby wasn’t his.  His choices were to believe an angel or break the engagement as quietly as he could.  He wanted to not go through with the marriage for Nazareth was a small town and everyone was thinking that he had dishonoured himself by having relations with his fiancé before being married.  Truly, according to Old Testament law Mary’s life would have been ruined had Joseph not decided to continue with the engagement and adopt the child as his own.  This adoption is important.  It is what links Jesus to King David and Messianic bloodline.  Moreover, in the same way that Jesus was adopted as child of Joseph so are we, through him, adopted to be children of God.

            The story of the Jesus birth really is an eye-opener.  Our Lord was born out of wedlock, to say it politely, to a couple who were a young teen-age girl and a man likely in his thirties.  They came from Nazareth of all places to a stable in Bethlehem outside of an inn because, for whatever reason, no one in the inn had compassion enough to forfeit their room to a birthing mother.  In a stable was where Jesus was born.  How scandalous can that be?  God choose to unite himself to humanity in not only a humble birth but indeed under humiliating circumstances.  The scandal surrounding Jesus’ birth was not unlike the scandal surrounding his death.  It leads us to believe that if we want to know where to find God maybe we should start looking in the most troubling of circumstances.

While we’re on the that topic, maybe we should stop and ask where is it that we should look if we want to find God?  If the profoundest meaning of Christmas is that God is with us and deeply bonded to us, then where is he?  The answer would be not in the nostalgia of religion but in reality, in the brokenness, in the shamefulness of human existence.  Jesus was not born in the glamour of the temple in Jerusalem and praised by the good, upright, wholesome, and devout “hypocrites” of his day.  He was born to an unmarried couple; a teenage girl and a slightly older gent who both said “yes” to a call to endure shame and scorn for God’s sake and human healing.  

Henri Nouwen was a catholic priest who taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard but left the glorious life to live among the differently abled folks at L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto.  He says for us to really understand Jesus Christ we have to let go of power and follow Jesus.  He writes: “The world says, ‘When you were young you were dependent and could not go where you wanted, but when you grow old you will be able to make your own decisions, go your own way, and control your own destiny.’  But Jesus has a different vision of maturity: it is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go…being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places. The way of the Christian…is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.”[1]

It never ceases to amaze me that we celebrate the humble, indeed humiliating birth of Jesus the Christ with the most vulgar display of consumerism and materialism ever known to human history.  When December rolls around it becomes painfully evident how conformed we Christians are to the world.  It is an amazing fact that if the Christians of the world would simplify their Christmas celebrations we could collapse the global economy.  That is how fickle we and this world are and to think that in the midst of this fickleness there are people, indeed children, going hungry because of it.  I have to wonder if we, the disciples of Christ, have more in common with King Herod than with King Jesus.

I’ll back off of that and once again raise the question of where should we look for this Jesus.  Well, getting together with family and friends is a good place to look, even better if you welcome into your celebrations those who have not the luxury of family and friends, and even better if you all gather to worship and to pray and even better if you try to heal the rifts that exist your families with confession and forgiveness.  But, I think there is an even better place to look for Jesus.  That is to look inside ourselves and go to that person called “me” that hides, hoping that nobody ever finds out who “me” really is…we all have a “me” that we try to compensate for… a “me” who’s been victim as well as victimizer, a “me” who is powerless as well as powerful in this world, a “me” who grieves because life is unfair…go there this Christmas…that’s your dirty, dark, dank stable in the basement of the inn.  It is there that Christ will be born in you and you shall be born from above.  In an inexplicable moment of grace your heavenly Father will pick you up and say “My Beloved.”  That, my Beloved, is the miracle of Christmas.  Amen.

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[1] Nouwen, Henri J.M., In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, (New York, Crossroad, 1989), 62.

Ponder This Picture

 Luke 1:39-55

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There’s something about us humans that we like to make pictures of important events.  They help us to remember the details, or the story behind the event.  I have a picture here.  To someone who doesn’t know the story behind it, it looks like a couple of men, one older and one younger, pausing for a picture before entering a house.  Woohoo.  Who would want a picture of that?  A closer look and you will recognize the younger guy as me from about 20 years ago and by the resemblance between us, you will deduce the other man to be my father.  Most people who see this picture will remark on the resemblance and assume that’s what this picture is all about.  But there are plenty other pictures I could pull out to demonstrate the resemblance.  That’s not why I framed it and keep it around.  For me, there’s a story behind this picture that makes it very special.  This picture was taken by a hospice volunteer who was very good at capturing moments.  In this picture he captured the moment of the end of the last walk my father and I ever took together.  That’s special. I’m kind of looking up and away.  Dad is looking right at you with his hand on the door ready to open it and enter his home.  We are both smiling.  Though we both knew what was coming, there was joy that day.  A few weeks later, Dad opened a door and went home.  The smile on his face in this picture assures me everything’s ok.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  

In our reading from Luke, he gives us a word picture and throughout the history of the church many people have tried to paint pictures that tell this story.  In the first few centuries of the church they painted pictures called icons that were not all that detailed like Medieval and Renaissance paintings are, but were actually quite simplistic and the point of them was devotional.  You were supposed to just stare at them for hours prayerfully pondering who the people are or the moment depicted and come to the place where you see beyond the picture and catch a glimpse of the divine meaning of the moment.  Like when I see the smile on Dad’s face in this picture. It says something to me about life now and the life to come. 

There are many icons of this moment in Luke’s Gospel known as The Visitation of Mary.  They usually depict two women in an embrace with rather placid looks on their faces.  One woman will usually be depicted with graying hair, but you won’t be able to really guess the age of either of them.  In most of the icons you won’t be able to tell the women are pregnant.  Though there are a couple that draw little circles in their bellies that have baby boys in them and you can tell which woman is Mary because the John the Baptist baby is bowing to the Jesus baby.  Anyway, for the most part when we look at the icons of this moment and the embrace of love between the two women, one old and one young, is what we’re led to prayerfully ponder.  This bond of love is the story behind the story that has something to tell us about the nature or personality of God.  God is like the love, the intergenerational love of mothers and daughters particularly around this thing of being able to have a human life growing inside of you.  The personality of God as love and hope and joy pervades the icons the early church created to describe this moment of Mary visiting Elizabeth.

So looking at Luke’s word picture here, we should begin our understanding of God’s saving act of his creation having caught a glimpse of this intergenerational love, hope, and joy and the intuitive understanding that woman share around child-bearing.  Luke’s backstory to his picture is of God acting in miraculous but very human ways.  Elizabeth, who due to the stigmas of her day suffered scorn among women for being unable to bear children, is now pregnant in her elder years.  Impossible and dangerous.  People could have quite easily accused her saying that Zechariah must have been the problem all along and now your pregnant so it must be by someone else.  Mary, a young girl twelve to fifteen years old, still a virgin yet pregnant.  Umm.  That’s not going to go over well in her small town hometown.  She will be scorned for being pregnant out of wedlock.  

But, Elizabeth and Mary, both knowing that God is at work in them, look beyond what other people will see and think and say.  Elizabeth does not pass judgement upon Mary for what seems like it could be a very scandalous situation in the life of small town, traditional, faithful Jews.  Instead of judging Mary she looks beyond and perceives the hand of God at work and then, honoured to be in Mary’s presence, she blesses Mary.  And Mary, she forgoes the inclination to make a judgement of Elizabeth and how she might have gotten pregnant after all those years and looks beyond all that and believes what the angel Gabriel said and accepts Elizabeth’s pregnancy as the sign that what the angel said about the baby growing in her was true.  

And so, blessed by Elizabeth Mary sings a song of praise from deep within her being.  Her whole being is deeply, moved with love, hope, faith, and joy.  God is at work through them.  The words of the song are in what I would call the prophetic past.  The prophets often said what God was going to do by saying God has already done it in order to add certainty to the fact that God will do it.  Her song is about how God will remember his people and his promises to his people to show them healing love and basically turn the world order upside-down to fix and heal everything.  He will scatter the proud and bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly.  God will equalize things.  The hungry will receive good things, but the rich will receive no more.  Everyone will have enough.  

We can ask how will this happen.  Well, the great books of history depict pictures of men doing heroic things. Typically, the male way is to say, “Bring me my coonskin hat and rifle.  Let’s forge and empire.”  But in Luke’s picture, we find God acting through the impossible, seemingly scandalous pregnancies of two women and the bond of intergenerational, maternal love and understanding they share.  Somehow that’s the way God will bring about his future.  We will find God turning this world order upside down and healing his creation by causing humanity to understand the weakness, the vulnerability, of this intuitive understanding and bond of love that women share with respect to child-bearing.  Jesus said that the suffering and troubles of this world are the birth pangs of creation giving birth to the new world coming.  We must learn to love and support one another and the Creation in the midst of these birth pangs instead of continuing on in this exploitative “Serve me” attitude that we have.  We must learn to maternally love the future that’s coming for the sake of the children who will live in it.

As Elizabeth was honoured to be in Mary’s presence and blessed her so must we regard everyone.  We must honour and love and bless everyone. Even if the biggest jerk on the face of the planet is standing before us, we must humbly accept the honour of being in their presence and find a way to bless them.  Quite often this looks like finding the courage to speak the truth in love.

We must continue on in faith, hope, and joy.  God will bring this future healed reality about.  In hope, we must act accordingly in love.  Our only reward in this life will be the tasting the Joy of the Lord as he moves us to praise.  The joy of the Lord is our strength.  Ponder this picture of the love that Mary and Elizabeth share and understand it as the healing way of God and strive to live according to the hope there in.  Amen.

The Joy of Enough

 Luke 3:7-18

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At our house we have two cats; an orange tabby named Tiggs and a grey and white something or other blob we call Peewee.  They were just months old when we rescued them from the local shelter.  At first Peewee was quite outgoing and affectionate and Tiggs was a bit shy.  But after a month or so that all changed and we don’t know why.  Tiggs became the outgoing, curious cat who likes your company.  Peewee, well quite honestly, he’s become a disappointment.  He’s skittish and rarely lets you touch him.  He likes to demand his food with a very annoying bit of relentless meowing that starts 30-45 minutes before they get their food.  We have to feed them at specific times because if we left food out for them, Peewee would just eat and eat and eat.  He has his dish and Tiggs has his.  Peewee is the faster eater so he finishes his food and moves on to Tiggs’ dish.  So, Tiggs is always hungry and Peewee is fat.  Peewee doesn’t seem to know how to stop when he’s had enough. He is just a fat, annoying, hairball barfing, litter box filling mistake that we obviously can’t euthanize and I know quite well he wouldn’t make it as a barn cat.  So, we’re stuck with him, which means…we just have to love him, find out what makes him tick, and try to draw him out.

Well, that’s cats, what about people.  It’s almost Christmas and of course I’m waxing nostalgic about the Christmas Eve dinners we used to have at Grandma and Grandaddy’s and what a joyous occasion it was.  The food, the conversation, the gift giving, being a kid, and then growing up and watching the kids.  Everybody was welcome and loved.  Mawmaw always put out an abundant feast.  There was more than enough for everybody.  We ate and everybody was “fat, dumb, and happy.”  There was joy.  I can’t imagine what would have happened if there was one or more of us who acted like Peewee in the family.  I’ll pretend it was me. What if I started an hour or so before dinner yelling “When’s dinner going to be ready?” and kept it up while everyone else was doing their part to get it ready.  And then once dinner was on the table I claimed all the food for myself, even pushed everybody else away from their plates so as to eat their food too…and we won’t get into the dietary disturbances that come along with eating all that food to which I would so rudely subject everybody else.  Then while I’m gorging myself I start to go on about “When can we open presents?  I want to open my presents.”  The time comes and I tear into mine and it’s, “Look what I got. Look what I got.”  But apparently, it’s not enough so I start taking everybody else’s presents.

I can’t imagine if that happened at Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandaddy’s.  There would have been absolutely no joy at all.  What do you do with someone like that?  You can’t just euthanize them or banish them to the barn.  You don’t do that to human beings (but we do).  But you know, welcome to Banquet Planet Earth…and you know what else?  We are part of that small percentage of people who are ruining the banquet for most everybody else.  I wish I could say this is the way humanity has been just since the Industrial Age and the advent of Capitalism, but no.  If you look back, it’s the way humanity has been throughout recorded history.  There have always been the human versions of Peewee and Tiggs but, oddly, the Tiggs’s have idolized the lifestyle of the Peewee’s and when given the chance have acted likewise.  We want to have it all and turn a blind eye to those who have it all and how they got it and won’t admit the cost that comes from attaining it…the poverty, disease, hunger, pollution, violence.  We simply refuse to make the bold claim that having too much is immoral, but rather it’s our common goal.  There’s no wonder there’s a widespread lack of joy here at Banquet Planet Earth.

Unfortunately, we psychologize Joy, tying it to mental health and removing it from the context of economic lifestyle.  We think material comforts contribute to joy and the more material comforts you have the happier you’re supposed be.  Then, when somebody who has it all is so miserable they stay doped up all the time, we explain it away as mental illness, give them anti-depressants, and tell them to spend some time reading Joel Osteen or Deepak Chopra.  “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die” is not the way to Joy.  There are mental health consequences to living “the lifestyle of the rich and famous” and those consequences are worsened when we realize that that way of life is not the path to joy but rather leads to a profound lack of it.

Well, you might question why I would bring out an angry sermon by John the Baptist on a Sunday when we are supposed to be talking about Joy, but bear with me.  People were flocking to the prophet of God in the wilderness because their lives were so bad that they had no hope in anything other than a mighty act of God to fix it.  They were not happy people. The bulk of them were everyday people who were over-taxed and over-worked, scared not only about the future, but about what loss tomorrow may bring.  Even tax collectors and soldiers (law-enforcement), the upper-middle class were coming to John for answers, for hope and what did he do?  He called them a brood of vipers who thought they could flee from the cataclysmic change that’s going to affect everybody when God acts, the people of God too.  Apparently, he didn’t go to the same preaching class I went to, but then again, how would my sermons be different if you weren’t paying me?

John actually gave this hope deprived, joy deprived people the way to joy.  The brood of viper comment aside, John gave them a glimpse of the joy-filled life that will be at the heart of the coming Kingdom of God.  It’s quite simple actually, something we learned in kindergarten probably.  If we have more than enough, then we share what we have with those who don’t have.  Don’t use our position of influence and privilege as a means to take more for ourselves which sounds a whole lot like don’t use your wealth to gain more wealth.  Be satisfied with what we get for what we do rather than using extortion to get more.  It’s quite simple…be satisfied with enough.  Be generous with what we’ve earned so that everybody has enough.  Don’t take more than we need.  

It’s interesting that they are in the wilderness and if you remember Israel’s wilderness wandering after God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, then you recall that God fed them on manna.  Every morning God provided them with this bread-like stuff that tasted like coriander.  They were supposed to collect only enough for that day and no more.  Any extra they collected would go rancid.  So it is with life at Banquet Planet Earth.  There is abundantly enough for everybody if everybody takes only enough for themselves to live on.  If we take more, rancidness occurs and it is occurring – Climate change, pandemics, poverty, wars, etc.  All this bad stuff is the consequence of our lifestyle of wanting to have more than enough.

To close, if we want to know more than fleeting glimpses of Joy like at Grandma and Grandaddy’s on Christmas Eve, then we have to accept the fact that true joy is tied to ‘economic justice, fairness, generosity and learning to live on enough.  The downside of this is that if everybody lived this way, the economy would crash and those who have everything will lose everything…but, the feast of abundance and resulting Joy will be permanent rather than fleeting.  That’s God’s promise for what’s coming and he will bring it about, so it’s best we start living for it now.  Amen.

The Solution to Politics

 Luke 3:1-6

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If we were hearing this passage from Luke’s Gospel with the fresh ears of someone who lived at the time Luke wrote his “narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us” (as he states at the beginning) to a fictitious addressee whom he names Theophilus which means “God-lover”, we would be struck with how political it is.  He starts here by naming the political leaders who are responsible for the well-being of the people not only God’s people there in Judea, but of everybody in the world as they knew hit.  Luke names the politicians and then makes the bold statement that the Word of God didn’t come to them but to a hermit prophet out in the wilderness to whom multitudes of people were flocking in desperation because their life was so bad (mostly because of these politicians) that God was their only hope.  He names the leaders and indicates that God will work against them to bring salvation to all people.  This was not a non-political matter of private religion.

Be mindful that to a First Century hearer of Luke’s Gospel, salvation did not mean getting your sins forgiven so that you can go to heaven when you die.  Deliverance would be the better word to use here and deliverance was always a “this world” matter, an “on earth as it is in Heaven” matter.  The baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins that John was proclaiming was not the message of get baptized so you can go to heaven when you die.  John’s baptism was a symbolic gesture of wanting to be clean before God in order to be ready for when God comes to put things right.  

There was strong sentiment among the people that due to the corruption of the priests and the money-making religion that they had made of Temple worship in Jerusalem, the sacrifices made there were unacceptable to God.  So, the everyday people of the land were going to the prophet of God out in the wilderness to get washed clean in the Jordan to be ready for God’s coming.  You know significance of the Jordan River, the river God’s people crossed into the Promised Land from their wandering in the wilderness after God delivered them from slavery in Egypt and also when God brought them back from Exile in Babylon.  The faithful, everyday people of the land were looking for a new start in a new age in God’s land with God obviously reigning. 

Repentance wasn’t so much this remorseful “I’m a sinner” thing that medieval Christianity passed on to us.  Repentance was getting on board with what God was doing to deliver his people from oppression and establish them anew in the Land with leadership that would lead like King David did, leaders after God’s own heart rather than popularity and power.  These people were, with desperation, anticipating as their only hope that at any moment the Messiah of God would come and bring the Kingdom of God.  So, they went to John the Baptist for they knew that he, according to prophecy, was the one crying out in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord. 

This movement that was centered around John the Baptist was not a non-political matter of private religion.  It was all about matters of everyday life – work, taxation, the cost of living – and the effect the political leadership in the land had on those everyday matters.  The faithful in the land, those looking to God for the solution, were flocking to John because they had no confidence at all that their political and religious leadership were capable of solving the difficulties of everyday life, but were rather the root of the problem.  Those in power were ruling for the benefit of themselves rather looking after the needs of the people.

I think we can relate to their lack of confidence in their political leadership.  On November 21, 2021 the survey organization Ipsos conducted a poll here in Canada identifying what Canadians considered to be the top issues our newly elected federal government needed to deal with and also our confidence in Parliament to make significant progress on these issues.  The biggest issue was affordability and the cost of living, the affordability of basic necessities.  Only 21% of us were confident our leadership can make significant progress on keeping the cost of living in check.  The second big issue was the Pandemic and we gave the government a 61% vote of confidence on that.  Then came healthcare, housing, the economy, and climate change only one third of the people surveyed had any confidence at all that our elected officials can make any sort of significant progress on these issues.  We're better than the Americans though.  The results of a similar survey released this passed week showed that only 21% of the people surveyed had confidence that Congress can get anything done at all.  

I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but it truly sounds to me that in North America we are losing confidence in our elected leadership and it appears we are heading towards hopelessness.  That’s not good.  I’m no political analyst, but from my armchair I really don’t see where the needs of everyday people like me and my family are being put first.  I am deeply troubled that it is likely that nearly all of our members of federal Parliament made more on stock investments last year, during a Pandemic, than the combined income of my household.  That leads me to surmise that our members of Parliament do not wrestle with the same economic insecurities as you and I; yet, they make decisions that affect our economic security.  And then we have to listen to them bicker over their ideological differences and as they personally attack each other as if they were professional wrestlers dressed like televangelists.  I would much prefer they put their politics and the twisted desire to win at all cost aside and work together to do the work we elected them to do.  Sorry. I’m getting off track here.  There has to be a solution to politics.  

  Well, in John the Baptist’s day the people were returning to the Jordan, to get on board with what God was doing and get a new start.  For us today, I suggest we return to the Table of our Lord.  This meal which introduces us to the One who did not spare his one life, but gave it for us all; the One who did not seek his own gain, but gave up everything that we might have the abundant life; the One who took five loaves and two fish and fed a crowd of likely 15,000 hopeless people; the One who healed people, cleansed and restored lepers, cast out demons, and held political and religious leadership accountable for their hypocrisy; the One who understood that the unity of the bond of love needs to be tended to before all else.  

In this me-centred world where everybody’s their own expert and the capacity to trust is out the window and at our cores we’re just plain scared to death, I don’t think that it’s a ridiculous suggestion to say, “We need Jesus!”; to say, “Come to the table and meet and ponder the One whose way is unconditional love and sacrificial generosity and hospitality. There is a place where you are welcome; where you can rest and lay your burdens down, where the Spirit of God just might wash over you letting you know just how loved by God you are and that you are his beloved child and your life is in his hands."  The place to find the solution to politics is the Table of our Lord.  Come and meet the One who gave himself for you.  Jesus and his way is the solution to politics.  He is peace and at his table is the way to the peace of his kingdom.  Amen. 

 

The Kiss of Fulfilled Hope

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

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If I had to take a guess at what the most famous kiss ever might be, I would have to say the V-J Day kiss captured by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt and published all over the world on the cover of Life magazine.  I think nearly everybody in at least North America and Europe has seen this picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square after hearing that World War II had come to and end.  It was a very joyous day for those sailors and nurses for their ship was to leave that afternoon for the Pacific.  When the news of the war’s end came out, a spontaneous flood of about 10,000 sailors descended upon Times Square and the kissing commenced.  The goal was to kiss as many people as you could. 

The photograph of the V-J Day kiss is very important in Modern history.  It seemed to capture the joy of many peoples world over who were tired of war, of destruction, fear, and death.  It apparently also signified that there would be a future for it was that generation of people who gave birth to the Baby Boomers.  The war was over and there was to commence a new age of rebuilding.  I would not be exaggerating to say that the people who lived in the joy of that kiss built the world as we know it.  For them, community took precedence over individuality.  The horrors of war had taught “we” is more important than “me”.  That kiss symbolized the joy of their hope fulfilled of the war coming to an end.  The victory had been won in a far away land.  The soldiers would soon be returning from that far away land and life would begin anew.  It is this joy of a hope fulfilled that this photograph of a kiss proclaimed all over the world. 

The first generation of Christians felt a similar joy, I believe.  God had finally made a word of hope that he had spoken hundreds of years prior come to pass.  No longer would they be waiting for the time of “in those days” for those days were now upon them.  This Sprout of David had risen up and brought justice and righteousness to the land.  The Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, had come and made manifest the Kingdom of God.  He was put to death but God raised him from the dead.  As Jesus of Nazareth God had defeated sin and death but it was as if it were a victory in a land far away.  They would have to wait for Jesus to return for the full impact of the victory to be felt.  Until that day, the word of this victory was to go throughout the world accompanied by God’s abiding kiss, the Holy Spirit, who would rest in and upon God’s people, awakening faith, hope, and love among people wherever this Good News was proclaimed.  

The immediate effect of this kiss, the gift of the Holy Spirit, was that those who received it suddenly found their regrets and shame no longer mattered for God himself had kissed them with his very presence.  They suddenly felt free to live yet with gratitude and deeply desiring to live a life pleasing to God.  The war of life was over.  Jesus had won the victory and he would soon be returning from a far-off land to set his kingdom in place.  Until that day this abiding kiss from God, the Holy Spirit, inspired them to come together and share their lives and love one another as if the day of Jesus’ return was upon them.  Love for another and for all people was beginning to increase and abound among them. 

Life would not be easy for those who knew the victory had been won.  For the victory had been won, as I said, in a land far away and the enemy, sin and death, was still in their midst refusing to surrender.  Many of those first Christians died horrible deaths for believing the Good News and living according to it.  Because they knew God and knew the fellowship that arose from the presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst, they would not participate in the idolatrous, drunken orgy that characterized Roman society.  Rather, they withdrew to share their own worship-feasts.  People took note of this and were offended by it.  So, they spread the rumor Christians were a secret society of cannibals fostering treason.  This led to persecution often breaking out against the Church.  Yet, they knew Christ Jesus would be returning because he had come in the first place just as God had said he would through his prophets and he had sent his Spirit.  God keeps his word.  What God says comes about.  Jesus is coming back.

Now that’s talking about things down the road.  What about now?  How do we now live?  We like the early church live now in “those days”.  Like the sailors and nurses in Times Square on V-J Day heard the good news that the victory has been won in a far away land and the soldiers will be coming back, we have heard the Good News, that Jesus has won the victory over sin, evil, and death and will soon be coming back.  We have been kissed by God with the gift of the Holy Spirit and know that he is with us and that he keeps his word and does work all things to the good for those who love him.  Therefore, we have a hope that the war of life will have an awesome ending – resurrection and New Creation.  A real hope not just a wish for God has said this is the way it will be.  

But, as in the early church, the enemy is still in our land and will be until the LORD returns.  Therefore, we must persevere and live as those who have hope, a hope that does not disappoint because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, a hope that is built on our each having personal knowledge that God is faithful and keeps his word.  We learn faith and hope by experiencing God’s faithfulness to us.  We’ve all had experiences when we knew God in love was being faithful to us.  If not, we wouldn’t be here right now.  We would be one of those who today have no faith or are done with the faith.  Knowing God’s faithfulness has changed the way we look at life.  God has taught us hope.  We know that we can always trust God’s faithfulness and steadfast love.  God will keep his word.

As a people of hope we must live our lives according to the values of the coming Kingdom of God rather than the values of this world.  We must love one another and all peoples the way that we have been loved.  This we must do as a testimony to the truth.  In our midst is a Christian community that gives testimony to God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.  Among us is the New Jerusalem and our name is certainly, “The Lord is our righteousness.”  Go forth and be the kiss of fulfilled hope.  Amen.

Birth Pangs

Mark 13:5-8,32-33

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I am quite blessed to have been present with Dana when she gave birth to William and Alice.  As a man, I felt quite helpless to watch Dana go through all that pain and not really be able to do anything all that helpful.  For me it is unimaginable what the pain of giving birth is like.  If somebody were to cause as much pain to a person under different circumstances, post-traumatic stress would certainly ensue.  But rarely if ever do we hear of women having post-partum traumatic stress symptoms where they relive the painful event of giving birth.  Rather, it is quite often the case women are more than willing to go through it again for another child.  Apparently, they say, the pain is quickly forgotten for from it comes a new life.  The excruciating pain of childbirth is all a part of the miracle of bringing forth a new life, a new person.  The instincts of love and hope and wonder and joy overshadow the injustice of the violent pain of the actual birthing. 

When I first saw William and Alice, though they were red and wrinkly and looked like little alien babies, I immediately saw their links to people in their past.  William had features of my Grandma Benson and Alice had features of my mother.  They were part of me.  I felt completely humbled and helpless and yet I was protector dad.  These were my children and I immediately felt love and the wonder of it all and the reality of it.  Things were now all new.  The awaited day had arrived.  Here were two little lives for whom I was responsible.  Who would they become?  Only God knows and only time will tell.  Birth, life is such a wonder.

Well, it is interesting to me that Jesus compares all the disastrously bad stuff that happens in the world to birth pangs, to the pain of childbirth.  Famines, wars, earthquakes, and if you read further, religious persecution and deception and all the suffering those events leave in their wakes are birth pangs.  This certainly reframes the question of suffering, I think.  Why is there suffering in this world, evil, and natural disasters?  It’s because God’s good creation is giving birth to something new and really wonderful and these pains are what we must endure for this new life, this new world to come into existence.

This is Christ the King Sunday or as some call it Reign of Christ Sunday.  This is the Sunday we make our case that Jesus is Lord of all creation, that he really is in charge amidst all the Hell that breaks loose in God’s good creation.  This isn’t an easy case to make since reality is stacked against us.  The number one reason people say they don’t, won’t, or will no longer believe in God, especially a God who loves us and gets personally involved in our lives, is that there is so much suffering, evil, injustice, disease, poverty, and so forth in the world.  So, if God is so loving, how can he let these terrible things happen?  Why doesn’t he wave his hand and heal this broken world? 

Well, let’s take a look at the state of the world.  Major earthquakes happen frequently on planet Earth with devastating effect, but sometimes we just have to say this was a bit excessive.  I remember hearing the news of the tsunami caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean that hit southeast Asia on Sunday, December 26, 2004 killing over a quarter million people in an instant.  Mother Earth seems to have hit Western Canada this year with climate change vengeance – wildfires, drought, and now floods.  The consensus of the scientific community is that these weather events are all part of climate change.  Earthquakes happen when they happen, but these weather events will become more frequent and violent and they are our fault.  We’ve brought them about due to our love of fossil fuels and global leadership not wanting to make the unpopular decisions to curb the situation.  

On the war front, the people of Afghanistan will go hungry this winter because of power hungry religious zealots who want to rule but don’t know how to feed people.  But before we get too hard on that regime, we need to note that there is a global food shortage besetting humanity at present and all the while the human population will pass 8 billion any day now.  It’s doubled in my lifetime.  There are way too many people on this planet and over fifty percent of them, mostly children live in conditions of poverty.  Meanwhile, we are all waiting patiently for Elon Musk to fork over those 6 billion dollars of his personal wealth that he said he would give if somebody could show him how it could solve global hunger…and somebody did but he hasn’t shown the money.  Celebrity fixes aside, the problem of global hunger could be solved if global leadership would put feeding people and ending poverty at the top of their agendas instead of simply protecting the economic interests of those who have wealth hoping it will trickle down.  

We are in the thralls of a pandemic that in the last 20 months has killed 5.1 million people.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg as so many nations have not given accurate death counts because it makes their leadership look bad.  Some very effective vaccines have been developed but the drug companies who developed them won’t release the patents so that generic versions can be produced and distributed faster and more widely to poorer nations.  World governments won’t force them.  

The state of the world is a mess and I haven’t even mentioned all the personal and family tragedies that befall us all that hurt us deeply.  But from just taking a cursory look at the state of the world, I don’t think I’m wrong to surmise that global leadership, the kings and queens of the earth so to speak, for whatever reason are not making the necessary decisions that solve the problems that afflict humanity and the planet we live on.  We need King Jesus to come and put things right.  The situation is more precarious than it was 2,000 years ago.  But where is he?  It seems he rode into Jerusalem stirred some stuff up and is now sitting and watching from a neighbouring hillside and we are left asking the question he seems to avoid answering: When?

But to give credit where credit is due, I’m a person of faith.  I follow Jesus not because I have made intellectual assent to doctrines because somebody threatened me with eternal consequences if I didn’t.  My answer to the question of where is King Jesus is that he is with us.  I have had too many personal experiences of his presence and his acting on my behalf to discount him and faith in him as rationally impossible.  The work of the Holy Spirit in me has brought me to know that I am a beloved child of God.  That has changed everything for me.  I’ve encountered the presence and work of the Holy Spirit amidst Christian gatherings to the extent that I know God is working in his good creation in and through individual churches and individual believers as healing and reconciling signposts pointing humanity to the better future God has in store for us.

But, be warned, let’s not necessarily equate God’s work in the world with the religious institution of the Church.  We know the religious institution of the Church has done horrible things throughout history in Jesus’ name.  That’s not Jesus.  Rather, He works dynamically in the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus through individual believers, through gatherings of believers, works that have set in motion larger movements that change the world for the better in order to point us forward to a better day coming.  But, as soon as we make a stayed in the wool institution out God’s mighty acts and get religious about it and make religious practices the practice of our faith rather than actual faithfulness in the moment we go astray and, sadly, astray in Jesus’ name just as he said it would happen.

So, I know where Jesus is but I still have some difficulty answering the question as to why God continues to allow his good creation, his beloved humanity, his beloved children suffer and to suffer evil at that.  There is a grave futility set loose in God’s creation that truly makes us question his justice and love and for some reason God lets it persist and only gives us small tastes of good things to come by making his presence known and felt.

The answer Jesus hints at for this delay is this metaphor of birth pangs.  God’s good creation is in the process of giving birth to a new creation.  All things will be made new.  There will be resurrection.  There will be justice rendered in the form of forgiveness and healing.  God’s good creation will be cleansed of that futility.  As in childbirth the labour pains can be excruciating and they start to come closer and closer together so that relief seems impossible, but the baby comes.  No one can say exactly when a child will finally come forth and the labour pains end, but when it arrives, everything changes.  Everything’s new, different, full of hope and wonder.

So let us stay awake and not lose sight of the hope and wonder of the new life that is coming.  I don’t wish to dismiss the reality of the pain and suffering that we all go through and the terrible affliction that globally people are suffering, but as they say with childbirth, the pains and trauma of labour are soon forgotten.  Paul writes, “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Rm. 8:18).  We must set our sights and gear our lives towards that new reality that’s coming.  Love as we have been loved by God.  Show kindness and hospitality.  Be generous.  Be beacons of hope in our communities as individuals and as faith communities.  We are the ones who know that creation is pregnant and in the painful process of giving birth.  So, we need to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep this birth from being anymore painful that it already is, but rather be good coaches, good midwives of the new creation.  Amen.

 

 

 

About Those Buildings

 Mark 13:1-8

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My grandfather had some health issues that led to my grandparents having to sell the house that they had always lived in.  For over fifty years it was their home, the place they raised their family, the place we grandkids knew as a second home.  Quite frankly, it was the Benson family temple.  It was the place anyone of us could go home to, door always open, refrigerator always full, Grandaddy ever-ready to listen, Grandma ever-ready to talk, a bed ever-ready for a sleepover.  The home was as full of unconditional love, hospitality, and generosity as it was permeated with the smells of the natural gas range and Grandma’s cooking.

After the final box was carried out Grandaddy took a few minutes to stand alone in the house and say his thanks, say his goodbyes, to a very close friend of his.  The memories of so many Christmases, of children running and playing, of coming in from work and putting his policeman’s belt and holster on top of the dining room hutch where no kid could ever reach it, summer evenings on the front porch, the bannister up the stairs that had helped so much the last few years as he no longer had the air to make the climb without stopping a few times.  So many memories with such a good friend, his home.  So much of who he was lived embodied in that house and he knew he didn’t have much longer himself.  So, those last few minutes in a way was Grandaddy saying goodbye to himself.  His next little bit of time on this earth in a new house would never be as good as the years he spent in that house and would never amount to anything more than waiting for what awaits on the other side.  He had lived a good, full life.

When I picture Jesus sitting on the Mount of Olives looking across the Kidron Valley at the Temple, I cannot help but think of my grandfather and his last moments in his home.  It was a magnificent Temple.  It wasn’t the Temple Solomon built.  That one had been robbed and razed by the Babylonians when God passed judgement on his people for their idolatry and abusing their poor and sent them into exile in Babylon in 586 BC.  Then, roughly 100 years later a remnant of several thousand returned and in time they managed to piece together a less than magnificent Temple but still a place for their God who had brought them out of slavery in Egypt and returned them from Exile to come and repose among them.  This meager Temple in Jerusalem was the heart and home of the Jewish people and their faith.   It was the place of the sacrifices, where the relationship with God was maintained, kept pure.  It was where the prayers of the people entered Heaven.  Jews made frequent pilgrimages to Jerusalem because that was going “Home”.

Well, in 20BC King Herod the Great began a major renovation of the Temple.  The modest post-exile Temple became a massive display of national opulence.  The historian Josephus tells us that Herod put gold plating on the front of it so that at sunrise you couldn’t look at it for it was as bright as the sun.  He said that the outer surface of the rest of those massive stones were polished so white that when you saw the temple from a distance it looked like a mountain covered in snow.  It took a year and a half for Herod to renovate the Temple itself, but he also set in motion a project of building the Temple complex that took sixty years to finally finish.  It also took a lot of tax dollars.  This building project and the Scribal administration that oversaw it turned the Temple into the devourer of widow’s houses that I spoke about last week.  Temple taxes and Roman taxes were robbing the nation.  People were losing businesses and homes.  And so, Jesus pronounced the sentence that the Temple would be destroyed.  In 70AD that happened.  The Romans burned it to the ground and carried its wealth away to Rome like a prisoner of war.

So, there sat Jesus facing the Temple.  Quite a lonely, heartbreaking moment I would think.  This Temple was his “home” too.  I can imagine him feeling like I do when I go back home and take that nostalgic drive out in the country and pass by the house where my great-grandmother lived.  So many cherished memories of that little house, the wrap-around porch, the outhouse, the garden, the chicken house…always well-kept.  But now, the people who own it have closed in the porch.  Instead of the garden there’s this massive, gaudy satellite dish.  There’s old vehicles and junk everywhere.  It breaks my heart.  

Likewise, Jesus as a child, his family was among those who made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem almost every year.  Luke tells the story of when Jesus was twelve how he scared his parents by sneaking back to Jerusalem to go to his Father’s house to teach the Rabbis a thing or two and they were impressed.  So many cherished memories he would have had of Jerusalem and the Temple, only to come to the realization of what it had become and therefore what must happen to it for it was no longer the place where God and the people came together, where heaven and earth came together.  It was just a gaudy display of everything that God was not and his people were not supposed to be.  This Temple may have looked impressive, heavenly even, but for all its wealth it was spiritually bankrupt.  It would be like somebody tearing down my great-grandmother’s homey little home and replacing it with one of those massive stone estate homes that are so popular today.  Jesus’ home, his Father’s House, was nothing more than a vulgar display of religious hypocrisy and national debt.

I’m going to change gears for a moment and the grinding may cause some discomfort.  The Temple coming to an end immediately makes me think of church closings.  We used to rarely hear of a church closing.  Every Presbytery used to have that little country church that after 40 years of no one being able to understand how it kept going finally closing its doors.  Our Presbytery is rural and small town which means we have more than our fair share of little churches that just keep going.  The Whitehorse church near Wingham closed about seven years ago and was the first to do so in a long while.  But then in the last five years four of our churches have closed.  One amalgamated.  The next five years will prove to be even more brutal.  It is the same with our sister denominations of the United and Anglican Churches.  Rural/small town Ontario is seeing church closures on an unprecedented scale.  

Unlike the Temple in our reading, the reason for our church closures isn’t a judgement upon our iniquitous opulence.  Show me a rural church that’s not frugal to a T and generous to a fault.  The rural small church is all about relationship and community cohesion.  It has been a vital part of rural community life.  Well, about 40 years ago there started a significant migration to urban centers that stunted generational continuation in rural congregations.  On top of that there is also the general demise of institutional Christianity as our culture has become more secularized.  A recent survey of religious affiliation in Canada found that just over 50% of the population claim to be agnostic, atheist, or no affiliation and only 11% of the population attends a religious service on a somewhat weekly basis (that’s inclusive of all faiths, not just Christians).  Those claiming Christian affiliation are in the 20%.  The most recent National Census may show we’ve dropped into the teens.  The terms “None”, “spiritual but not religious”, “Done” (with the church), and “faithful remnant” adequately describe the religious landscape of Canada. 

When I first started in ministry 25 years ago, Congregational Redevelopment was the area to be in.  Today, it is church planting.  Those who plant churches today will readily tell you that they have no intention of ever building a building to meet in.  In fact, they find that most people today do not understand what goes on in a church building and have no desire to ever step inside of one.  They do not understand why if a church is supposed to be a charitable organization getting tax breaks and all that, then why so much money is wasted on buildings that could be otherwise used for actually helping people.  New church plants are content to meet in homes, vacant storefronts, or wherever they can find a space for cheap.  Afterall, the early church didn’t have buildings and met mostly in homes, in forest groves, and sometimes even in tombs.  Moreover, nearly all significant church renewal movements started in places other than church buildings.  It seems the next major form of the church will be building-less.

Well, I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that for most of us in the faithful remnant, we have a difficult time separating our faith from our buildings.  It is very difficult for us to in envision a Christian faith that does include a church building.  But, the harsh reality of today is that if we cling to our buildings, we will lose our congregations and in the case of rural Christianity, rural communities will lose Christian communities meeting and worshipping in their midst.  Rural Christianity will disappear.  In so many communities, that one congregation still holding on in its building is all that’s left of the Christian faith in that area and beyond.  Churches close and the members say they will go elsewhere, but they don’t because elsewhere is too far away.  It would have just made sense to sell the building but keep the congregation and just met together somewhere other than the building that had simply become too much for them to maintain.

In the world in which we live our old friend, our church “home” is no longer an asset to Christian witness and mission.  It is no longer a building block to ministry it is a stumbling block…and this is very, very sad.  We love our buildings.  They are “home” to us.  We have sat in these pews for years with family and friends and felt the peaceful, still presence of God and heard his voice in times of difficulty.  We have enjoyed countless meals in our church fellowship halls.  Our children have run and played up the aisles of the sanctuary and out in the church yard.  It is “home”.

In today’s world, if we take our advice from the church-planters, it would be prudent we make the proactive decision to sell our church buildings but continue on as a congregation in our communities so that there will continue to be Christian presence in our rural communities.  The assets freed up from the sale of buildings can do a great amount of good in our local communities if there is a worshipping, witnessing Christian presence in that community willing to be generous with them.  Church planters tell us that people are more willing to come to a potluck thing at their neighbour’s house that may have a Christian atmosphere, than they are willing to go to a potluck at a church.

Wrapping up, what is happening with respect to the church and its buildings in the Canadian countryside is very, very sad.  It just plain hurts.  Yet to look to the future as we must, the church just two to three decades from now will likely not be a Sunday morning meet in a church building thing.  The Christianity that’s left and that is therefore moving forward will have found a way beyond that sacred moment in a sacred place way of being the church and rather discovered a great freedom and an abundance in being adaptable as they wander in the wilderness of the 21^st Century as the people of God when they wandered in the Wilderness after God freed them from slavery in Egypt.  Amen.

 

Something's Wrong Here

Mark 12:38-44

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Around our house we occasionally take to binge watching The Murdoch Mysteries.  It’s interesting to see what happens when the clues completely stump even the brilliant mind of Murdoch.  Somethings wrong.  Something doesn’t add up.  The clues lead here but it’s a dead end.  That’s usually when the brutishly practical minded Inspector Brackenreid will chime in with something to the effect of, “Well, me ole mucker, follow the money.”  Then Murdoch looks at the clues from the perspective of who stands to gain financially from the crime and before you know it the crime is solved.  Lesson learned.  When something’s wrong around here and things don’t add up, follow the money and you’ll find the truth.

Well, the Gospel of Mark works a bit like that.  The point that we are now at in the storyline of the Gospel about Jesus, Son of God, is that there is a horrendous crime about to be committed.  Israel is about to crucify its Messiah, the one whom God had promised to send to deliver them from all their oppressors and establish the Kingdom of God on earth.  In fact, the crime is even more serious than that.  They are about to kill their God who has somehow become human as this man Jesus.  If you are following Mark’s story from the perspective of the Twelve Disciples, it is obvious that Jesus has been doing things that only God could do, particularly that calming the Sea thing.  For the people of Israel the fulfillment of the prophesied hopes of the prophets was taking place before their very eyes, but they just couldn’t see it.  Even the Scribes and the Pharisees, the most learned among them, just couldn’t see it.  As outsiders hearing these accounts of Jesus acts and teachings, we should be at the point of thinking something’s wrong here.  The clues are there but for some reason the “detectives” aren’t adding them up.  If I were Mark, this is the moment I would stage a cameo appearance from Inspector Brackenreid to say, “Well, me ole mucker, follow the money.” 

And that’s the point we are at in Mark’s Gospel.  We are about to find out what’s wrong with the system, with the way things are, with religion, with politics by following the money.  We are at the point when God the Judge decides the merits of our investigation.  Jesus, the Son of God, Lord and Saviour, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, the Son of David (all those titles we’ve heard him called by in the Gospel), the One who fed those crowds, who calmed the Seas, who cast out demons, who teaches with authority, the one who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey like a king, the one who ran all the big business thieves out of temple and called it his Father’s house; this Jesus, he sat down facing the treasury.  The language and the image here is of a judge taking his seat to scrutinize a case and render a judgement.  

The chief villain in the case is apparently the Scribes and Jesus is obviously biased against them for he announces that the greatest guilty verdict and sentence will be against them.  They are the polar opposite of Jesus.  He was a wandering preacher living off donations.  They like putting on their lavish robes and saying long prayers that make them sound so godly-ish.  They like you to kneel before them when you great them and they expect the best seats at all religious and social gatherings.  They think they are soooo special.  Why? Well, they know the Law of God Almighty and have the authority to interpret and enforce it…and they also know the loopholes.  They are literally the most powerful people in the theocracy of Israel.  A theocracy is a state founded on religious law.  (Check any Modern day theocracy and you will find that those who judge and rule over the people according to a religious law carry on the same way.)

Jesus told his disciples to beware the Scribes and names one of their specific crimes.  They devour the houses of widows.  If a husband died and there were no sons to look after the estate or only young children a Scribe would become the executor of the estate because in their patriarchal culture the widow, being a woman, was not considered capable or competent to look after such a matter.  This system was set in place to protect widows in a patriarchal system, but…the Scribes had ways to take financial advantage of the situation that in the end often left a widow without resource.  The Scribes were profiteering off the vulnerability of the widows they were supposed to protect resulting in many widows losing their homes.

That’s pretty serious business – Bad Business.  In the giving of the Law, God was very explicit in several places that widows and orphans were to be protected and provided for in Israel.  In last week’s passage when Jesus told that Scribe that the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbour as yourself he was quoting a passage from Leviticus in which that verse is the summary statement of a long list of social justice laws which included providing for widows and orphans.  But the rich and powerful in Israel seemed to have a problem with doing that.  Several of the prophets, Amos in particular, condemned the wealthy in Israel for such abuses.  In fact, taking advantage of the poor in the land by the religious and political authorities who grew wealthier by doing so is the reason God cast the Israelites off the land into exile in Babylon and let the Babylonian armies destroy the temple.  God got mad about their idolatry, but when they started to abuse their own poor for profit, that’s when God let them have it.  More about that next week when Jesus pronounces to his disciples that the temple will be destroyed again.

After announcing his judicial prejudice against the Scribes Jesus followed the money and takes his judgement seat across from the treasury.  This could be one of two places in the Temple complex.  In the Women’s Court, where women gathered as they weren’t allowed into other “more important” parts of the Temple, there were thirteen chests for people to throw coins into.  Some assume that the widow we are about to meet was here because she was a woman and had only coins.  But Mark said it was the Treasury that Jesus sat down in front of to scrutinize.  The way giving worked in the Treasury was that you came and made a public pronouncement of how much you were giving and declared what it was to be used for.  

As Jesus watched this public display of donating he noticed “something’s wrong here”.  Honorably, people were giving generously to the Temple for its upkeep and the provision of the Scribes and Priests and as we’ll find out next week it was a beautiful Temple.  Let’s not fault the wealthy here, they were giving generously as they should have been.  (Oh to have a few wealthy donors around here doing as honorably to our churches.)  But…Jesus noted that it’s not really costing them anything.  Their giving isn’t sacrificial, might I say.  

Then, almost as a matter of civil disobedience, or prophetic condemnation, up comes a widow to the treasury.  I can imagine her as being a bit feisty and going to the table of the ledger keeper  with a bit of a scowl and announcing “Here’s my last two cents.  Feed a Scribe.”  That’s the way I want to imagine it, but not likely how it happened.  The gift probably went unnoticed by everybody except Jesus who noted that she had just given everything she had; indeed, her whole life.  She could no longer buy food.  This woman who had lost her worth and dignity due to her husband’s death and being the likely victim of Scribal profiteering had just sacrificially given her whole life…at the treasury…of the Temple.  Talk about your money trails and where they lead.  This widow was doing what Jesus himself had come to do.  Jesus had come to give his life to give humanity back its worth and dignity.  What an astonishingly great act of generosity by a very poor, anonymous widow who had no worth or dignity to give… because it had been stolen from her by Death and by spiritual abuse.

But wait a minute.  Something’s wrong here.  Why are people giving all this money to a Temple building and the institution surrounding it when there are poor widows in their midst?  And worse why is this poor widow giving everything she has left to this blatant display of abuse and hypocrisy?  Is this what faith and faithfulness is…simply giving money to an institution that bears God’s name?  It reminds me of all those TV ministries particularly back in the 80’s and 90’s that would tell you to give to them and God would give back to you a hundredfold.  A couple of years ago one of the coin boxes at Joel Osteen’s Houston complex was stolen. $600,000 was its estimated worth, a coin box with one weekend’s givings.  $600,000 for whatever Osteen uses money for?  Good look following the money there.  Please don’t give to those folks especially when your local churches and food banks are running deficits and particularly large ones due to COVID.

Returning to Mark, a day or so earlier in the Gospel, some Pharisees and some Cronies of the King, the Herodians, tried to entrap Jesus over the question of whether to pay taxes to Caesar.  To pay the Caesar tax you had to have Roman coin.  Roman coins had images of Caesar on them and the words “Lord and Saviour”.  All Jews considered it idolatrous to carry Roman money.  If you remember the Children’s Church object lesson Jesus gave them, he showed them a Roman coin, asked whose image was on it, and told them to repay Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s.  We have to note that Jesus was not himself carrying any Roman coin and that he had to borrow it from them.  Thus, here’s some devout Pharisees carrying little idols of Caesar in their money pouches because they believed they needed it to live in a Roman world.  Another thing to notice, the word repay is debt language and Jesus forced them to ask themselves to whom they were more indebted: Caesar or God?  They owed the false god Caesar for safe roads, an oppressing army, and the continuation of their privileged status.  But they owed God for their life.  They owe God the greater debt and should repay God with the service of their whole lives…not this Caesar with whom they were colluding in taking advantage of the poor.

Well, this poor widow apparently understands that her life belongs to God and wants to entrust what little there was left of it to the God who gave it to her in the first place.  When somebody in such desperate situation gives their last little bit like this poor widow did obviously something is wrong here.  Was it an act of protest, or a desperate bargain with God, or had she just plain given up?  We don’t know.  What we do know is that out of her poverty she gave all she had – her whole life – while those who had a lot, though they gave large gifts, their gifts really cost them nothing.  

At the heart of that “something wrong” was that the hypocritical religious institution of the Temple had become a devouring idol due to decades to centuries of Scribal corruption.  The Temple was supposed to be the place where God dwelt and people should have been able to come and be in God’s presence.  The Temple was supposed to be the place where the poor could come and receive justice and the help they needed.  Instead, like Caesar’s coins, the temple had become an idol and the Scribes bore the bulk of the responsibility for that happening.  The people, both the wealthy and this poor widow, were simply giving money to an idol who devours the vulnerable and makes hypocrites out of those who give generously.

Usually, this passage of Scripture comes up on Stewardship themed Sunday’s when we take time to remember that we and all that we have and are belong to God.  We consider our generosity in our giving of time and talents and money and so forth.   Do we try to grow in generosity to where our giving actually costs us something, which is the pattern set forth by Jesus, or are we just giving what costs us nothing?  

But we need to think about what we are giving to as well.  As a minister, I have to entertain the thought of how much am I like a Scribe in an institution that’s exists by the generosity of people living on pensions. Does my salary come from somebody’s last two pennies?  I hope not.  I remember in university giving the last $50 I had for the month to a church parking lot fund which meant I had to go about a week and a half with no gas or food money.  That was stupid.  But, I felt I had to do my part and was being told God would bless those gifts.  That sounds like a wicked thing, but on the other side of the matter, I’m reasonably sure that if the leadership of that church had found out that I did that, they would have found a way to have given it back with a little extra.  So, we should be careful how we judge churches and money.  It truly is a rare church that is into profiteering off the spiritual needs of people and most of them are on TV.  

God asks us to give to support our local church ministries and the ministers we employ.  In these COVID times our churches are running deficits and we can’t fundraise like we used to.  This obviously means our personal financial support of our church needs to increase.  Moreover, there are needs in our communities and in the world that we need to be generous with as well.  There’s a huge need for food in Afghanistan and in our local food banks right now.  There is something wrong around here in that global food prices are increasing due to people profiteering on food in these COVID times especially and it ain’t the local farmer.  The local farmer isn’t being shown the money. But, here I am asking the local farmer to give money to programs that will feed people the food they grew.  Somethings wrong here.  

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough.  I’ll close by saying that God provides for us so that we can help provide for others.  God gives to us so that we may give to others.  That’s the supply chain in God’s Kingdom.  When we put a hold on that and start keeping to ourselves, then that’s when that proverbial something starts going wrong around here.  Amen.

 

What's Your Creed?

Mark 12:28-34

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What’s your creed?  I’d like to talk about that today.  A creed is a central core of beliefs, religious or otherwise, that provide unity to a people and which, when listened to or taken to heart, can guide a person’s and a peoples way life.  In the Western Christianity we have two common creeds that most expressions of the church (denominations) will hold to but it doesn’t necessarily mean every individual who calls themselves a Christian would believe.  These are the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.  Our traditional Creeds arose during difficult periods when there was conflict in the church and God called up leaders from among the people who were able through much persecution from within and from outside the church to say this is the Truth which we have discerned God to have revealed about who God is and what God is up to in the world.

The thing about Creeds is that they can be on the academic side and seemingly a matter of the mind rather than what we believe in our hearts.  The question I’m asking when I ask “What’s your Creed?” is what’s at the heart of what you believe about life, God, and people?  Another way of saying is what do you keep telling yourself is true about the way things are?  I can say that I believe The Apostles’ Creed – you know, I believe in God the Father (and the stuff that follows) and in Jesus Christ his only-begotten Son (and the stuff) and in the Holy Spirit (and the stuff).  I can know and understand the Apostles’ Creed in my head and confess it to be “the Truth”, but what I really believe about God, what I feel inside about God, may be something really quite different.  For some it may feel like abandonment, like God has hung me and the whole world out dry.  God created it all but God certainly seems to have forgotten us.  Or, something like God is almighty and on my side and is going to pour wrath upon “them” that ain’t whomever “them” may be because “them’s” just different than me and it threatens my way of life which God is Almighty God’s way. Or, it could simply that we believe this stuff but the topic of God rarely crosses our minds.

This divide between what I believe in my head and what I really believe in my heart may be simply the historical consequence that nowhere in our two most commonly confessed Christian Creeds does the word “Love” appear.  You know, if God is Almighty it is helpful to define Almighty in terms of love, particularly the vulnerable love demonstrated be Jesus dying for us.  For, Almighty typically gets defined in terms of power, often political power, and God is made a tool of Authoritarians.  It would be helpful to have mentioned in our Creeds that “in love” or “by love” God the Father Son and Holy Spirit created and sustains the world and is and will save and heal it, but the writers of the Creeds didn’t and so our two foundational Creeds seem to remain matters of the head that don’t affect change the heart.  Compare them to the fact that third step of Alcoholics Anonymous’s Twelve step program is more effective in affecting healing than either of Christianity’s two foundational creeds simply because of the word “care”.  “Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

A good way to find out your creed is to determine what it is you are thinking and feeling about God and life when your feet hit the ground first thing in the morning.  What’s the narrative, the blah-blah-blah, that starts in once you start to wake up.  Some people get up immediately thinking about what they got to get done that day or the same worries they went to sleep with are still festering.  If you’re grieving, it’s likely you wake up in the morning and for a few moments everything’s OK but then that ton of bricks sets in.  Hang in there.  In time, the ton of bricks gets lighter and doesn’t hurt so much because you’ve gotten stronger.

 For me, my first few steps of the day on legs that ran a few too many marathons in my thirties on flat feet are a bit of adjustment.  To be honest, there are days when my first word consists of four letters…umph.  But, if pain were the dominant narrative of my inner voice, I would get right back into bed and never get up again unless of course it hurts more to be in bed than getting up and moving.  But anyway, I don’t listen to the pain.  I keep going because there is a deeper voice at work in me than what my body says first thing in the morning.  And, like they say “Motion is medication.”  Once, I’ve walked off the rigor mortis, it’s a new day.  It’s not pain-free, but I’m above ground and on it.  

Admittedly, I’m a morning person so I look forward to getting up around 5 AM.  So, a sense of hope is a part of the voice I hear.  I want to get up.  I want to go downstairs, grab a coffee and read and learn all that theological and biblical stuff that I read that’s going to give me insight on how to lead and what to feed you people.  I also take some time to pray for you folks and read the Bible.  But, then everybody else starts to rouse and it’s time to get on with the day.  

Yet, there’s still a deeper voice at play in me other than I look forward to getting up in the morning.  There’s a song that’s been going through my head lately in the mornings.  It goes something like this, “O Lord, thou art my God and King.  Thee will I magnify and praise.  I will thee bless and gladly sing unto thy holy name always.  Thee will I bless each day I rise, and praise thy name, time without end; much to be praised and great God is.  Whose greatness none can comprehend.”  

That song is reflective of something going on in me that I realize that my life is not my own.  I belong to Jesus Christ.  He is my Lord.  He is my King.  In all things even family decisions I have to do right by him.  I have to discern his voice before doing anything else (and quite honestly doing what’s best for the family can wind up being what it is.)  I do have to live my life with the fundamental narrative that daily I must turn my will and my life over to the care of God.  This doesn’t mean that life goes perfect and that I don’t get hurt and suffer.  God does not prevent every bad thing from happening, but I know he’s with me when they do and I’ve learned to wait things thing’s out listening for him.  Another way of saying this is that I’ve come to know myself, to experience myself, as a beloved child of God.  That changes everything.

There is, then, a “therefore” that arises from this fundamental belief I have that my life is not my own but belongs to God and is entrusted to God’s care.  As my life belongs to God, I have to conduct my life God’s way which means according to the same love God has shown me in Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus said, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”  He meant that his people actually do that.

While I’m quoting Jesus, let’s look briefly at our reading today.  This scribe came to Jesus having seen that Jesus had answered well all the questions that the various power groups in Jerusalem had used to try and entrap him that they might have a legitimate reason to kill him.  Jesus brilliantly turned all the questions back on them.  So, this Scribe (Scribes were like lawyers with a lot of academic behind them) wants to know if Jesus is a true Jew at heart. A true Jew would have keeping the Commandments as their reason to live and so he asked Jesus what was the greatest of all the commandments.  Jesus answered quoting a Creed rather than naming one of the Commandments.  

This Creed was and is the basic Creed of the Jewish faith.  They call it The Schema, which is the Hebrew word for “listen”.  “Listen, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  The Israelites were to memorize this Creed and recite it at all times.  It would have been on their lips when their feet hit the floor in the morning.  In a day when people worshipped many gods, Israel had to remember who the only God is.  They had to love God with their whole being and Love is an active word.  As a people, as a nation they had to live according to the love of God and by the community that arises from this love the other nations would know who the true God is.  As a faithful Jewish man this was Jesus’s Creed.  

So, Jesus also added a second part “and to love your neighbour as you love yourself,” which comes from the Book of Leviticus at the end of a list of laws requiring Israel to practice justice and economic fairness and particularly show it to the poor.  This was something all those power groups in Jerusalem who were seeking to kill Jesus were not doing.  They were trying to save whatever hint of privilege and power they had by buttering up the Romans and collecting taxes that the poor could not pay.  They were obviously not listening to their Creed that God alone is God and loving God with their whole being was their purpose.  They were rather cowering before the supposed divine power of the Roman Emperor and abusing the poor while they themselves kept their privileges.  

         It is interesting to note that when Jesus was there in the midst of his most powerful enemies who were trying to entrap him in order to kill him, he stood on the foundational Creed that was in his heart.  And so, that brings me back to asking the question what is your Creed?  When you get up in the morning what are you saying to yourself…and is it healing and restorative?  Does it bring you to remember the “Truth” that you are a beloved child of God?  Does it inspire you to live for someone other than yourself?  What’s your Creed?  Amen.