Around the Throne

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Revelation 7:9-17

With last night being Halloween, that makes today All Saints’ Day, a too often not recognized day on the church calendar.  The Roman Catholic Church set November 1 as All Saints Day back in the 800’s AD, moving it from a date in May.  The suspected reason was that of trying to Christianize a Celtic festival that celebrated the end of the harvest and the beginning of Winter, or the dark season.  The Celts called it Samhain, but I don’t know how to pronounce it.  The Celts believed it to be a day when the veil between the living and the dead was thinner so that the dead would try to come back to their homes.  People would light a candle to help them and set a place at the table for them.  They also believed that some of those spirits would come seeking vengeance so trying to find a way to scare them off developed into the tradition of wearing scary costumes and scary Jack-O-Lanterns.  The history of Halloween is a very interesting read (Wikipedia) and I am admittedly being way too simplistic here for history of Halloween fanatics.

  As far as All Saints Day itself, back in Roman days throughout the empire people used to celebrate a day of remembrance of the dead by going and having a meal on the grave of a loved one.  That was in the Spring close to when Easter occurs.  The Church built on to that day making it a time to celebrate a mass to remember saints and martyrs.  At some point they started to celebrate All Souls Day the immediately following date to remember all the faithful deceased.  In later Roman Catholicism, All Saints Day mass was/is held to remember saints martyrs, and the faithful dead in heaven and All Souls was to be a mass to pray for loved ones in Purgatory.  In the Reformation, Protestant and Reformed Churches did away with Purgatory and mushed the two days together.  We celebrate All Saints Day for all the faithful are saints in our interpretation of what a saint is.

All Souls Day had a neat tradition called “Souling”.  Children and poor people would go door to door offering to pray for your deceased loved ones in exchange for a “Soul Cake”, which was basically a spice and fruit laden piece of shortbread. As you may have surmised, therein lay the roots of Trick-or-Treating.  After the church moved All Saints and All Souls Days from the Spring to the beginning of November the custom of wearing costumes and carrying a hollowed-out turnip with a candle in it to scare away the dead found its way into Halloween customs.  

I really am touched with the idea of “Souling”.  Imagine a child coming to your door and offering to pray for you in your grief.  Since the demise of the Doctrine of Purgatory, we don’t pray for the dead anymore; that God would release them from Purgatory and welcome them into Heaven for Eternity.  We Presbyterians, being of the Reformed Tradition, since we have gotten over people being Predestined either to Heaven or to Hell, we believe the faithful deceased go to be with Christ where he is in Heaven until the Resurrection when Creation is made new and we get a new body like he has…and we have to remember that Jesus’ arms open wider in welcome than do our own.  But anyway, keeping these ancient practises in mind, just imagine if we took a day out of the year to go as families to have a picnic at the grave of our dearly departed and that the night before that picnic children came to our door and asked, “Who are you sad for and can I pray for you?” and you give them a cookie.  I think the world would be a better place.

Anyway, about Halloween today and how it is celebrated; I am troubled that an event that has for the longest of time been a part of how people grieve their dead and how the Christianized version of it was so much thought of Heaven in it, I am troubled that Halloween has been morphed into a commercialized celebration of Hell and the demonic.  Long ago scary costumes were meant to scare evil spirits away.  Now they seem to invite an embodiment of evil spirits.  And yes, I realize that’s the extreme.  Most kids are going door to door dressed in an innocent costume and it is good for them to be complimented.  It’s also good for neighbours and strangers to cordially interact outside the doors of our homes.  The little bit of spooky is fun.  The celebration of Halloween can genuinely foster a good sense of neighbourhood…until the teenagers start pranking.  Versions of toilet papering a house have been around centuries longer than you would think.

Looking a few hours past Halloween to today, All Saints Day, this is a day to remember all those who have gone on before us.  Gathered for worship is a good place to be.  It has long been a teaching of the Church that when we are gathered for worship this is a time when the veil between the heavenlies and earth is thinner.  Here now in the bond of the Holy Spirit, the fellowship or communion of the Holy we are participants in the heavenly worship that John saw around God’s powerful throne of grace.  Angels are here.  The Creation, the Four Living Creatures, is here.  Saints and martyrs are here.  Loved ones are here.  All Creation shouts, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!”  Everything is singing the song of praise, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen!”  Now is the time to have our tears of grief wiped away.  I wish to share with you a prayer I found.  Please pray with me.

That one that I loved, O God, is now with you. I can say that, not knowing “how” or “where,” but say it because it makes no sense that so rich and full a life would come to an abrupt end…except for memories.  Still, I am bereft for she is not with me. I listen to all the clichés of my friends, spoken to console me: “He is better off.” “She is past her pain and suffering.” “He is in heaven,” whatever that means. I listen and am not consoled. My grief is selfish. I want to feel her touch and hear his voice and see her smile. I am confident he is with you, and I am just as confident, O Lord, you understand how it is with me. I cannot help recalling times I might have been gentler, softer, more thoughtful. I wish I could live some hours over. I wish I could say “I love you” just one more time. These failures I must accept. “Time heals all things,” they say. I do not believe Time does anything. You, O God, are Healer and Helper. You can heal me in time, help me through the lonely days and long nights. You can give me renewed zest for going on and entering into life once more. “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I believe that. But right now, I grieve; I hurt; I am bereft.  Thanks be to God who understands through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 (Kenneth G. Phifer, A Book of Uncommon Prayer, Upper Room Books, 1981, pp. 106-107)

 

The Secret for Being Content

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Philippians 4:10-20

There’s a shortage of clergy and I won’t sugar coat it.  It’s bad.  In our denomination and most others, the number of ministers retiring in a year nearly doubles the number of seminary graduates headed for ministry.  In our Presbytery we have 29 churches and seven ministers and four of those are going to retire in the next four years.  What are we going to do?  Well…and here’s where my sarcasm is going to come oozing forth like a lanced boil…AI.  AI can solve all our problems.  I don’t subscribe to any of the big AI services like Chat GBT or Open AI.  But having seen what they can do, I am without a doubt that an AI service can write a better sermon than me hands down.  It might lack creativity, intuition, and spiritual insight but it will be a damned good sermon.  Yes, I meant to use that word for spiritual emphasis.

Anyway, I decided this week to hold hands with the devil and use Google Chrome’s AI thing to help me write a sermon on Contentment.  You just type in a question and it gives a quick summary of an answer that saves a whole lot of time and for that I am thankful.  So here we go and this would be so cool if I could do this workshop style with slides and everything.

I asked Google Chrome “What is Contentment?” it answered: “Contentment is a quiet, steady state of happiness, satisfaction, and inner peace where you feel at ease with your current life situation and what you have.”  It then listed characteristics of contentment. First, it involves a Peaceful Mindset – meaning a calm grounded emotion as opposed to an ecstatic, momentary “Woohoo! Yeah!”.  Second, there’s acceptance of the present which means accepting your current circumstances, relationships, and resources rather than constantly chasing more.  And third, it’s also not complacency.  You can still set and achieve goals and strive for self-improvement while still feeling grateful for where you’re at presently.

Well, that sounds good enough for a sermon.  All I need to do is throw in some illustrations, personal stories or something and “Voila!”, a decent sermon á la Toastmasters.  But I noticed as I typed my question, Google suggested I try “What is Contentment in the Bible?”  That would be a better question because bringing God into the equation would be something that the typical mental health professional schooled in the secular sense of psychology would not and likely could not do.  

Back to Google, so I asked “What is contentment in the Bible?”.  Wiley ole me, I could tell I was dealing with a particular theological persuasion from the answer it gave because it mentioned God’s sovereignty.  You’d think that Google would know better because words like sovereignty are offensive to people who got colonized.  It appears Google AI ain’t all that woke.  Just saying.  Google answered: “Contentment is a quiet, steady state of happiness, satisfaction, and inner peace where you feel at ease with your current life situation and what you have.”  That wasn’t all that different from the non-biblical definition above.  The difference lay in the three characteristics which were now called Core Biblical Meanings.   The first one said, contentment is rooted in God, not in things. Contentment is not simply being satisfied with externals.  Rather, it comes from knowing, trusting, and being satisfied in God Himself.  Second, it’s a learned posture not something we naturally have or achieve through self-sufficiency.  Contentment is learned through faith, trials, and dependence on God.  Thirdly, the biblical definition also says contentment is not complacency.  It comes from doing your best and being faithful in your calling and leaving the outcomes to God.

Well, that’s not bad for a biblical definition of Contentment.  Google also points you to helpful websites that are also of a particular persuasion.  You see, AI tends only to work with the most popularly viewed content.  We have to be careful with that because we may just be getting our ears tickled by stuff that sounds biblical.  Regardless, I think we’re safe to say that contentment is found within the context of a life lived in faithful service to Jesus and wanting no more than God has to give in the midst of whatever the trial.  So, not bad Google AI.

Now, let me show you what you pay me for.  Looking at the passage we read, I am struck with the question:  What does Paul the isolated prisoner living in a cold, dark, damp cell eating God only knows what while daily facing the possibility of execution for the fallout of faithfully preaching about Jesus and having just received a care package from the Philippian church via his friend Epaphroditus…what does Paul the prisoner have to say about contentment under such circumstances upon receiving a gift?

He says, “I rejoiced greatly because your concern for me has blossomed again.”  Just a few verses early he said, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.”  Rejoicing was how he dealt with prison.  Paul has a heart that worships.  No matter the circumstances he is able to look around and sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”  And then in the face of this gift from Philippi he says, “Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever.  Amen.”  

Worship.  Wonder and feeling blessed in the presence of God no matter what the circumstance.  There is no true contentment if there’s no worship involved.  I have a friend who has lived two years longer than expected with a rare form of aggressive cancer.  The only thing she has said to me about the cancer is “It is a blessing.”  Our culture is so violent, so “Fight, Fight, Fight” when it comes to cancer.  She calls it a blessing and lives with it.  All I can say is there is something beautiful going on in her, not the cancer but rather the God thing, still being able to praise God.

Paul says he has learned the secret of being content.  He says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  Jesus makes him able to endure all things even when the thing to be endured is having plenty.  Some of the most discontented people I’ve ever met are the wealthy.  I say to Paul, “Okay, Paul, but what is it to be strengthened by the Lord?  You're sounding a bit cliché.”   I have been through some difficult stuff in my life and from my own experience I can say that part of the strengthening is just knowing the Lord is with me, sensing his presence, and knowing that I am not forgotten but rather God hears me.  Knowing that Jesus, the Holy Spirit, is with us and that our prayers are heard and that things are going to work to the good somehow that bit of “faith” feeds contentment.

But there is something else here that Paul brings up with respect to contentment that gets looked over.  It’s that contentment is something we find and participate in together with others.  Feeding each other’s contentment is a responsibility that we bear towards one another.  Contentment isn’t simply a “me and my” contentment sort of thing.  Let me try to explain this.  Paul says, “It was kind of you to share in my distress.”  The Greek word is synkoinoneo.  It means to participate in together.  It is to come alongside someone in life’s circumstances and share in their lives.  It’s not simply walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.  It’s walking beside them holding them up while they endure those uncomfortable shoes and even sharing your own if they fit.

The Philippian disciples were very mindful of Paul in that way.  They shared with him by sending care packages, and letting him know he was not alone.  The Philippians did this when other churches did not.  Paul calls it “the matter of giving and receiving.”  Sharing together.  It amazes me that in all the definitions of contentment that are out there you never see anything involving sharing togetherness.  Sharing from our plenty feeds our own sense of contentment as well as the contentment of those we share with.  There is no better way to let a person know they are cared for and not alone, things integral to contentment, than to share in their experience with them.  Share time together, quality time.  This feeds contentment all around.  Sharing in life together is the way the Lord strengthens us in all circumstances.  Contentment is something we find together.  That’s the secret to contentment if I am to add my two cents worth.

To close, that care package to Paul fed his contentment more than just “I got some stuff from you that made me happy. Thanks.”  What fed Paul’s contentment was the fruit (profit to their account) that arises.  It fed their contentment too.  It fed Paul’s contentment, a prisoner for Christ, to see that one of the churches that he planted got it.  His labour was not in vain.  The seed he planted blossomed in their care for him and bore the fruit of mutual contentment. Love shown in sharing, whether it be sharing material stuff or going and visiting to share time together, befriending those in their need, what Paul calls “the matter of giving and receiving”, is the tangible reality of the Lord’s strengthening.  That is the secret to contentment.  Amen.

P.S. I did go back to Google after writing this sermon and asked it to write a sermon on contentment.  In less than two seconds it sealed the deal.  It was a good sermon, even used this passage.  But it was an "all about me and my contentment" sermon and said nothing about sharing or that contentment is something we find together. 

 

Citizenship in the Heavenlies

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Philippians 3:17-4:1

Let’s all act like we are in High School again and talk about Citizenship.  I have no idea whether “Government” or “Civics” is covered in the High School curriculum anymore.  If not, it would explain a lot.  But I’ll spare the rant and cut to the chase.   The IRCC (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada formerly known as the CIC or Citizenship and Immigration Canada) basically defines citizenship as being entitled to certain rights and freedoms and having certain responsibilities while living within the borders of Canada.  The rights are to justice, equality, and mobility and the freedoms are of speech, thought, religion, and assembly.  Some of our responsibilities are to obey the law, express our opinions and respect the right of others to do so, to help others in the community, to care for and protect Canadian heritage and the environment, and to eliminate discrimination and injustice.  

Those rights, freedoms, and responsibilities actually pertain to anyone living in Canada legally even if you’re not a citizen.  Citizenship then adds the additional rights of applying for a passport so that you can leave and re-enter the nation at will as well as voting and holding office, and one should emphasize actually voting.  Thus, in Canada citizenship boils down to being a legal resident entitlement to certain rights, freedoms, and responsibilities within the boundaries of the nation especially the rights and freedoms to leave and enter that country (i.e., the passport), to vote in elections, and to hold office; and the particular responsibility of voting.  

Moreover, the rights, freedoms, and responsibilities that citizenship entails vary from nation to nation.  Thus, when talking about citizenship one must not only say what it entails but also in what land.  In our passage, when Paul speaks of “Citizenship in the Heavenlies”, “citizenship” does not mean what it means in Canada or any other nation.  So, we need to define citizenship and Heaven as they would have been understood by Paul and let’s start with heaven.  

Let me say something briefly about heaven.  The Greek word for heaven is actually plural and would be better translated as “the Heavenlies”.  Paul did not think of the heavenlies as the place where immortal souls go after death to a pearly, golden city where they are given angel’s wings and a harp to spend eternity lounging on a cloud strumming away.  That’s Medieval fiction.  Paul was a Jew and they believed the dead went to a place called Sheol and it was under the earth and what went there wasn’t an immortal soul.  That’s what Greeks believed.  It was everything a person is except for the dead body.  What we ought to mean by going to Heaven when we die is what Paul described early in Philippians as going to be with Jesus wherever he is in the heavenlies without this physical body that died because of Sin and there we await the resurrection of the body.  If the Book of Revelation is peek into that world, worship will be primarily what we will be doing along with the angels, the whole creation, and the saints of all times and places.

The heavenlies were actually a part of the creation.  Paul likely believed that the part of Creation we know was like a big bubble within the heavenlies.  If you go stand somewhere where you can see all around, it looks like we’re in a bubble.  The heavenlies were behind the dome formed by the sky.  They believed the heavenlies to be the home of God where the will of God is done unhindered by Sin and from the heavenlies God rules the earth.  It is from there that salvation was begun and the Lordship of Jesus Christ is being extended to earth.  

In the Heavenlies was a Temple from which God ruled.  To the Old Testament Jews, the Jerusalem Temple was a/the place where the Heavenlies and earth were open to each other.  The Jerusalem Temple was like a shadow of the Temple in the Heavenlies and thus God could come and dwell in the Jerusalem Temple provided Sin was dealt with in the way God prescribed – the sacrifices.  And, it was at the Temple that Israel’s/humanity’s relationship with God was maintained by worship and sacrifice.  God’s will being done on Earth flowed forth from the Temple like a River of Living Water.

To say that our citizenship is in the Heavenlies is to say that we have rights in the land where God lives, where his will is done, and from where his rule and salvation are extended to earth, a room in the mansion so to speak.  When a Christian congregation gathers for worship, we are the new temple, a replica of the temple in the heavenlies like the Jerusalem Temple was.  This one will blow your mind…we, right now, are presently occupying time and space in the heavenlies here on earth.  Don’t think of the Heavenlies as simply being somewhere up there.  Think of the Heavenlies as the kingdom of God, the loving reign of God, breaking forth or opening up right here, right now as the Holy Spirit is in our midst.  Indeed, God is in our midst.  

We are in the Heavenlies right now gathered around God’s throne with angels, the Creation, and the saints from all times and places worshipping.  It might be like looking through a mirror dimly but here as we are gathered together by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ to worship God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, here is heaven on earth.  God is here so therefore let his will be done on earth as it is in the Heavenlies.  So, let’s talk about citizenship in the Heavenlies.

            The Greek word for citizenship is politeuma which gets its root from the word polis meaning city.  A polis was a fortified settlement.  The city walls and military presence provided a sense of security and freedom which allowed for the development of arts, education, trades, and a middle class.  In Paul’s day, cities were also sacred places.  There was a god whom everyone believed had decreed the law upon which the city was established and who was the ultimate protector of the city and therefore everyone worshipped that god not only out of devotion but out of civic duty.  So, citizenship in a city was a very religious matter.  Citizenship in a particular city usually involved being protected in a privileged way by the god, laws, and government of that city even beyond the bounds of the city.  

Now, for our citizenship to be in the Heavenlies means very much that we have the Father’s favour upon us because of Christ Jesus’ faithfulness on our behalf, God’s presence with us as the Holy Spirit indwelling us and our fellowship, and God’s acting for our benefit as Paul says to transform us, to transform our bodies of humiliation to conform to the glorious body of Christ Jesus.  Every Christian congregation is in essence a city, the New Jerusalem, a fortified settlement of God among his people, and, moreover, we have God’s grace and protection wherever we are.  

Our responsibility as citizens in the Heavenlies is to be fellow imitators of Christ Jesus.  Our understanding of what it is to be an imitator is a bit different from what the word means in biblical Greek.  We tend to think of the act of imitating as something inauthentic, a copy, not the real thing.  Imitation sweetener though sweet is not the same thing as sugar.  Quite often, imitation takes the form of mockery.  We call that aping.  

The biblical idea of imitating is more like the phrase “like father, like son”.  Many children try to be just like one of their parents because they share a special relationship and they are blood related.  To be an imitator of Jesus means we share a special relationship with him by means of the bond of his blood in the Holy Spirit who is dwelling in us and therefore we are becoming like Jesus.  We are not just following Jesus’ example by simply imitating him, we are bound to him by his Spirit so that as he is so are we becoming because he lives in us.

So, as citizens of the Heavenlies we are ambassadors called to live in this world the way Jesus lived in it – the Way of the Cross, the way of unconditional and sacrificial love.  As we worship God alongside the Creation, we must be careful not to exploit it but rather to give voice to it.  We are the one’s through whom God is making obvious what it says in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done.  On earth as it is in heaven.”  For a century and more (169 years) the River of Life has flown forth from the Temple in the Heavenlies through this congregation (Latona) as we have gathered for worship and shared a meal and loved our neighbours.  Our citizenship here precedes any claim to citizenship we have elsewhere.  Here around this Table national boundaries do not exist, only the loving reign of God.  Let it flow.  Amen.

The Remedy for When Life Becomes a Prison

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Philippians 4:1-9

I’m sure we all remember a few times when we were children being sent to our rooms or made to stand in a corner as punishment for being bad.  The idea was to restrict our freedom of playing wherever and however we wanted and to give us some time to ponder what we had done and whether we would do it again.  Thus, we have the rudimentary reasons for the incarceration of criminals: retribution or punishment, incapacitation or removal of freedom, to deter criminal behaviour, and rehabilitation.  

The temporary removal or restriction of a child’s freedoms usually works for the typical kid from a stable family to get them back on track.  When my kids were young, “timeouts” were popular.  All they needed to get back on track was a short break of sitting alone for one minute per year of age and they checked back in.  Too bad it’s not that easy in the adult world.  When we look at mass incarceration being used as a society’s means of dealing with criminals, we find it doesn’t work so well.  If rehabilitation is the ultimate goal, which is our society’s claim, mass incarceration is a miserable failure.  

Please don’t read into what I’m saying that I think criminals don’t need to suffer the consequences of their actions.  There will be crimes committed because we humans have a disease of the mind called Sin.  But high crime rates are an indicator that something is wrong with society in general that if dealt with would likely reduce the crime rate.  Things like wealth disparity, poverty, racism, childhood trauma, etc., feed crime.  Reduce or eliminate them and crime will drastically disappear.    

Sending people to prison doesn’t solve much.  More than often, it makes things worse because life in prison is a game that is soul destructive - dehumanizing.  The majority of people who leave incarceration have a high likelihood of suffering anxiety, panic, depression, hypervigilance, PTSD, and a loss of identity and sense of autonomy.  While in prison, they have likely been assaulted, manipulated by fear, humiliated by other inmates and even by the guards and have found that the only way to survive the game is to play it – Do or threaten to do onto others what that evil SOB did to me or enlist yourself in helping an evil SOB bully the populace.  When released, inmates usually do not have a support network and have a difficult time trusting others.  They face stigma and barriers to employment.  Because life outside is so stacked against them, they are likely to return to crime.  If this is rehabilitation, we fail miserably.  

I had some exposure to prison ministry when I was in seminary.  I was a chaplain intern in the prison unit at a hospital.  I visited the prisoners twice a week inside their little caged ward.  I saw the game firsthand.  The only prisoners that I met that truly seemed to be surviving the game without playing it were men who had come to faith in Jesus.  Unlike most convicts, they admitted and accepted what they had done and when possible sought forgiveness, attended church and prayer meetings, read their Bibles, and sought to be faithful disciples.  They stuck together with other Christians.

Paul was such a man.  He regularly suffered brief jailing and being stoned or whipped for proclaiming that Jesus was Lord and Saviour and would be returning to establish the Kingdom of God and that the Holy Spirit is present now as a foretaste and the evidence.  His message was proved through healings and exorcisms, and a couple of times he raised the dead.  But there were at least two times that he suffered an extended long-term incarceration.  There is a strong likelihood that Paul wrote Philippians while he was briefly imprisoned in the early ‘50’s in Ephesus and he may have fought a lion there.  But that is anecdotal, undocumented.  Regardless, he did spend most of the last ten years of his life unjustly imprisoned because of Jesus and never got a fair trial.  

If I were to venture a guess, our passage today sounds a whole lot like how Paul dealt with the dehumanizing effects of prison, especially wrongful incarceration.  At the center of it was his awareness that the Lord is near.  He was not alone there in the cold, damp, hungry, solitary, darkness.  He felt the peaceful presence of the Lord.  Even there in prison, the threat of execution looming, he found the joy of the Lord in his heart and instead of bitterness and grumbling, he rejoiced.  He found reason to praise.  He tapped into that song that the whole creation sings in praise of God.  He found within himself that instead of being grumpy and snippy with others, he was able to be gentle and gracious with others, even the jailors.  He says “with everyone”.  He also had learned that worry was not necessary because God hears and answers our prayers.  Instead of worrying about things, pray about them.  He wraps up by guiding us that we need to focus our minds on good things.  Choose to dwell on the good.  When you find yourself “Stinking Thinking”, choose to rejoice, pray, be gentle, dwell on the good.  Do these things and the peaceful presence of God will be evidently with you.  This was his remedy for life in prison.  

None of us is likely to go prison, but there are times when life can become like a prison – living paycheck to paycheck, a meaningless job with a bad boss but you have no choice but to work it, unemployment, debt, a chronic illness, chronic pain, mental illness, a detached if not abusive partner, an addiction, having to live with someone with an addiction.  Some would say that old age is the one prison we all have to endure.  Grief tops the list of the worst prison of all.  There are so many situations that just come up in life that make us feel like we’ve been imprisoned, that rob us of our vitality, that make us feel punished for no reason, that make us feel alone and isolated, that can make us become and be a person we don’t want to be.  

Life can become a prison.  In that prison it is very easy to lose faith and get bitter, anxious, and depressed; hopeless.   Paul’s remedy is the cure.  It’s during these times that it’s most important that we just sit in the presence of the Lord for he is indeed present with us with peace to give.  Pray and pray and pray some more.  What we need the most, God will provide.  Choose to dwell on good things rather than ruminating on the bad.  Make it a point to be gentle and gracious with others.  Above all, stop ruminating on our situation.  Many people would see a life of prison as pointless and dehumanizing, but for a beloved child of God it is a time to grow closer to him and grow more human.  It won’t last forever.  Amen.

 

I Want to Know Christ and the Power of His Resurrection

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Philippians 3:4-14

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.”  Every time I come across that sentence it just rips into everything about me.  As a disciple of Jesus Christ – and I should say that in a way that’s inclusive of all of us – as disciples of Jesus Christ, this sentence is the one sentence in the entire Bible that sums up what our lives should be about – knowing Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection.  It forces us to ask ourselves that one question in which we find salvation: do I want to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection?  Do I want to know the person, the man, my Lord Jesus and the new life he has to give me through the presence and working of the Holy Spirit.  Do I really want to know Jesus and be changed by him?

If I am honest with myself, my answer to that question is “Yes”.  But then, I have an immediate inner voice response that arises.  I’m pretty sure it’s my conscience.  It’s not God speaking.  God is like an AA meeting.  AA knows that guilt and shame won’t bring a person to sobriety.  Instead, AA says “Keep coming back”.  We are invited to keep coming back, sober or not.  Keep coming back and the unconditional acceptance works a miracle.  That’s God.  That voice inside me says, “Really Randy? Is knowing Jesus and being healed by him really your primary pursuit in life?”  I hear that.  I hear that and I’m cut to heart.  I do want knowing Jesus to be my primary pursuit in life but I am so distracted by so many things.  There’s so much I just need to let go off and find my rest in him.   Though I’m cut to the heart, I also feel that familiar, gentle, peaceful pull that’s found in those familiar lyrics: “Be still and know that I am God.  Be still and know that I am God.  Be still and know that I am God.”   Seeking to know Jesus changes us in a healing way.

Thinking about Paul here, he is writing to attest to the change he was going through since encountering the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road.  He was once an up-and-coming Pharisee in the Jerusalem establishment.  His birth lineage was a cut above.  He was very zealous in his keeping the Law of Moses.  You see, the Pharisees believed that the more observant people of Israel could be in keeping the Law of Moses, the sooner the Messiah would return and put the world to right.  He was so zealous that he chose to climb that ladder of what we would call professional recognition feigning as faithful devotion by trying to squash a big change that was happening among his people as the result of what Paul believed to be a lie, that God had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.  

Paul believed that Jesus was a treasonous false Messiah and a blasphemer who claimed to be the Son of God.  Paul believed Jesus deserved to die by crucifixion and those who followed him needed to clam up or face the consequences.  But when he found himself in the presence of Jesus resurrected on the Damascus Road, he had come to realize that all that arrogant zeal for status and recognition, that fake faithfulness was just a bunch of dung (the S-word would be the most accurate translation).  His heart was now set on knowing Jesus and the change Jesus was working in him and so many others.

This personal encounter changed Paul.  Jesus confronted Paul with the fact that even though Paul thought himself to be a superbly faithful Jew, he was really working against what God was doing and what God had for him to do.  We’re all like that quite a bit, we good church people who do what churches have always do resisting change as if it’s the Plague.  Paul’s goal was suddenly no longer to rise to power in the midst of the Jerusalem Pharisees by Law observance and persecuting the followers of Jesus, but rather to know Jesus, to personally know Jesus, and the power of his resurrection – a power that changes people – a change that is nothing short of being born into a new life in which you know yourself to be a beloved child of God.

If you take Paul’s letters and suss out his metaphors for salvation, his images for what salvation is, (there are about twelve) at the top of the list of what he might call personal salvation as he experienced it is adoption – I was once an estranged God-hater, but through what God has done in, thru, and as Jesus the Christ in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, I now know myself to be a beloved child of God, adopted and loved by the Father as He loves Jesus.  

In Christ, we each are a beloved member of God’s family here on earth.  The power of Jesus’ resurrection – powerful enough to create this Creation, raise the dead, heal the sick, and cast out demons – now works powerfully in us by bringing us to want to know Jesus more and more in order to grow to be more like him in his selfless love which is the family resemblance. 

Well, winding this down in a way that might make some sense; “I want to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection” also makes me think of people in my life whom I’ve known, who had a great impact on me, and whom I wish I took the time to know better.  My grandfather tops the list.  He was the son of a farm worker.  I don’t know if he finished high school.  Born in 1917 he came of age during the Great Depression.  He was a machine gunner in WWII and somehow, he came home while so many of brothers in arms did not.  He had to take human life to free the world from an evil man and his deluded regime.  He came home and became a police officer, first as a patrol cop and then he became Chief of police in a city the size of Owen Sound.  In his day, in police work you either had to talk people down or knock ‘em down and drag ‘em out.  I don’t want to brag and I’m not at all biased, but everyone who had anything to say to me about my grandfather as a law enforcement officer…well, he was probably the most respected Chief of Police Waynesboro, VA ever had for his peaceableness, wisdom, bravery, honesty, approachability, fairness.  To me, Granddaddy was a quiet man who put his family first, generous, over the top when it came to hospitality (especially considering some of the men one of my aunts in particular brought to Thanksgiving Dinner) everyone was welcome at his table.  He listened more than he talked.  He was always there for us.

With Granddaddy being so quiet he was difficult to get to know.  What you got to know of Granddaddy was a sense of his presence.  Because of that I have spent quite a bit of time wondering what it was like to be him.  I think about his character, what the war did to him, the courage and prudence it took to make a career of policing, the way he was with us, his family.  The last thing we did together, just the two of us, was we to sit in his car not saying anything as we watched heavy equipment at work replacing a historic old railroad bridge that he probably saw built.  What was he thinking?  What was he remembering?  Though nothing was said, it was priceless time together.  What an honour to sit with that man.  I’ll never be the man he was, but there is a bit of him that lives in me and I try to honour that by being a servant of others, with generosity, hospitality, and trying to understand people rather than judge them.

So it goes with getting to know Jesus.  We have to take the time to sit and be aware that even though we can’t see him, he’s present.  We know his presence in his absence.  The Holy Spirit is present.  If it helps, put an empty chair in front of you for him to sit.  Today is World Communion Sunday.  We come to his table where he is the host.  We come as followers from several different traditions to be with him at this meal.  He is here as the one who gives himself for us that we might be nourished and live.  He selflessly gives his very life to us.  How he is present with us in this meal is probably the greatest theological debate of Church history.  My tradition just says that it is a mystery.  Regardless, through this meal Jesus in selfless love gives himself to us.  This is who we are.  This is his life and way of living.  When we go and do likewise, we come to know him more and the seed of the power of his resurrection that he has planted in us changes us to be more like him.  We will never be the person that he is but there is a bit of him that lives in each of us.  Honour him.  Love one another as has loved us each.  Amen.

 

The Beautiful Mind of Christ

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Philippians 2:1-13

The movie, “A Beautiful Mind”, told the story of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. of Bluefield, WV and his struggle with paranoid schizophrenia.  It begins with his college struggle of being a genius but unable to come up with anything unique until the day when in a flash of insight, he produced ideas that revolutionized economic theory.  He went on to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century.  Unfortunately, genius has its cost.  At age 31 he became delusional with paranoid schizophrenia and spent the next 20 or so years in and out of hospitals, but still functioning as a brilliant mathematician. 

Nash's story is remarkable because he was able to use his rationality to work his way around his schizophrenia without medication.  He came to see that his politically oriented delusions were hopeless wastes of intellectual effort and so he chose to come back to the rational world of scientific thinking where his efforts were genius level.  He was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 and an Abel Prize in 2015 (a Nobel-like prize specifically for mathematicians).  

For Nash, the return to rationality was not a joyous thing or a feeling of being healed.  His world of delusion was what felt like reality and that was where he found his strongest sense of purpose, where he was most alive.  Unfortunately, he experienced rationality as a limitation he had to place upon himself that kept him from experiencing the fullness of reality as he knew it.  Nash's case is an exception and his story is by no means meant to encourage people with mental illness to not take or to stop taking medications. 

"A Beautiful Mind" did a lot to raise public awareness as to what paranoid schizophrenia is like from the viewpoint of the person suffering with it.  It disorders the mind with a delusion which disorients a person.  The delusion defines what a person sees as their purpose and what they devote their lives to. It’s more than just a cockamamie idea.  Due to chemical imbalances in the brain schizophrenics become delusional, meaning they follow a wrong mind - a false belief based on incorrect assumptions about external reality and they stick to it despite what almost everybody else believes and the incontrovertible and obvious evidence to the contrary.  A "normally" functioning mind would say, "I saw a red car, therefore there are red cars in the world.  I like red cars.  Maybe I’ll buy one."  A paranoid schizophrenic’s mind functions more like: “I saw a red car, therefore my food is being poisoned.”  They cannot help but believe the delusion is true reality because the chemical makeup of their brain is saying it's real.  In response to this delusion the schizophrenic will enter into an unquestionable world of controlling what they eat and trying to determine who is doing the poisoning. 

We tend to want to think of the mind as being that part of us that simply thinks.  We go to school to train our minds to function in a world where everybody thinks alike and knows the same things – reading, writing, math, science, history, literature.  Yet, the mind is much more than just our thinking mechanism, our ability to reason.  But the mind is more.  It's that part of us by which we understand and order our existence and it particularly involves what we believe about reality.  Dr. Nash in his autobiography states that the way he keeps his existence orderly is to keep his delusions, his false beliefs about what is really going on, at bay by consciously choosing to live in a world that operates according to the beliefs of scientific rationality, logical thinking.  He complained that rationality was a limitation placed upon the human mind, which in his case limited his relationship to reality as he knew it.  His delusional world was apparently quite brilliant.  

When we say we have a sound mind we mean that we function according to acceptable beliefs about reality.  People who live functionally with schizophrenia must choose which mind they are going to live in if they can.  That's what the medication helps with and again Dr. Nash's case is an exception if not an anomaly.  He was able to keep his mind in check due to his genius level ability to choose to think like a scientist.  He had to constantly tell himself that what he believed was real was not real and keep himself distracted with the world scientific endeavors limited him to.

Our text here speaks of the mind of Christ.  In the biblical worldview, the mind is that part of the person by which we understand and order our existence.  In particular, the mind determines what is the truth and how one lives accordingly.  What our mind believes to be “the truth” is what we will order our lives around.  Biblically speaking, sin is primarily a problem of the mind not of behaviour and morals.  Sin is that our over-focus on “me, myself, and I" is a delusion around which we orient our lives. A healing of the mind is what we need, the healing of sin’s self-oriented delusion. 

Actually, the New Testament Greek word for repentance is metanoia.  Meta means with and noia means mind.  Therefore, the root meaning of repentance in the Bible is “with mindedness”.  The call to repentance is for us to become with-minded, of the same mind or mindedness, as Christ Jesus.  Growing up in the Bible Belt in the Southern US I was cultured into thinking that repentance was behavioural which meant don’t smoke, cuss, or drink; don’t look at women; avoid being a jerk; and go to church.  But to be with-minded with Jesus is to share in his sincere love for and fidelity to God the Father and that in turn affects our lives to the point of wanting nothing more than his will for our lives and to live accordingly with selfless compassion, kindness, patience, forgiveness, generosity, and hospitality.  

Repentance comes to us as a gift from Jesus by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who plants in us a new mindedness.  By mindedness I mean what we believe is true and how we orient ourselves to pursue it and live accordingly.  Unfortunately, our sin-deluded mind struggles against it.  Jesus puts his mindedness in us, his understanding of reality and his love and drive to serve his Father, so that we can choose to understand and live in his reality known as the Kingdom of God.  We have to daily, moment to moment, choose which reality we want to live - sin-deluded reality or the Kingdom of God.

Paul tells us, “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind (Phil 2:1-2).”  Most importantly, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8).” 

There are learned folks these days who would say that Paul is inviting us to enter into a world of delusional thinking, a world that does not jive with the reality to which most people seem to subscribe.  It would be okay if Paul was just that the virtue of humility is good for humanity.  But Paul here seems to be inviting us into a world these learned folk would call poor mental health.  In this world where self-realization and being all you can be is considered the definitive healthy mindset, it would seem wrong to invite people to a world where you find yourself by dying to self, a world marked by the wisdom of the cross.  There are those who would say that we are deluded to believe that Jesus' power to save us is found in putting one’s self aside in love for others.

Jesus’ beautiful mind apparently operated according to the unquestionable love of God, a love that led to a life lived in perfect conformity to the will of God the Father.  He did not question his love for the Father nor his Father’s love for him despite the undeniable evidence against it…the way he was publicly scorned and his death on the cross.  As he is the Beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased, displeasing the Father was something he would not do because of love.  In adoration of his Father, he continually offered his life as a living sacrifice to do his Father’s will, an act of offering that led to the cross.  In the Holy Spirit Christ Jesus gives us to know and understand his beautiful mind that we might also love God the Father by offering ourselves as living sacrifices by loving each other unconditionally and selflessly.  The only healing for us from sin’s delusional thinking is Jesus' gift of his beautiful mind to us and our humbly choosing to live according to it.

 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus – his self-emptying humility, compassion, and mutual love - unity.  Amen.

 

Live Together Worthy of the Gospel

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Philippians 1:21-30

Revisiting again that study trip I took to the Bible Lands in my seminary days, I wish to reflect for a moment on that elusive, Loch Nessian, Sasquatchian rare sighting of a thing known as Christian unity.  You may notice my sarcasm bleeding through at points here over the next ten minutes of your life.  

Probably the most eye-opening reality for me on that trip was that even though it’s the Bible Lands, Christians were few and far between; roughly 5% of the population.  In the early 20^th Century, it was around 20%, but for some reason in the last 100, really 80, years Christians have emigrated to other parts of the world.  You do see churches in the Bible Lands but they are mostly very old basilicas and cathedrals being maintained by priests, monks, and nuns that are visited by Christian tourists.  There are still worship services in a good many of them, but you’re not going to find a congregation.  New church buildings with vibrant worshipping Christian communities are rare.  

In Jerusalem, Christians make up hardly 2% of the population.  This 2% consists largely of monks and nuns attending to the religious sites of Christian significance under the care of their particular denomination. There are also mission/relief agency personnel who are mostly immigrants.  As far as indigenous Christianity in Jerusalem and Israel in general, they are mostly Palestinians.  A goodly number of Christians have suffered in Israel in this past century not for being Christian, but for simply being Palestinian.  

In Jerusalem, there are a good number of significant Christian “Holy” sites that people pilgrimate to for a meaningful selfie.  And wouldn’t you know it, there is big business all around it.  There are lots of tour agencies, lodgings, restaurants, religious trinkets, and lots of little “come step in my little holy, prayer niche, light some incense, say your prayer, and leave a donation if you please” places. 

Of these “Holy” sites the most holy for Christians is The Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  (It wasn’t really that holy for me.  I was more moved by the synagogue ruins in the Galilean town of Capernaum which was probably Jesus’ home base once he started his ministry.  Everything is so religious in Jerusalem.)  The Church of the Holy Sepulcher claims to house Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified, as well as the tomb where Jesus was laid which became the spot of the resurrection.  Long ago the church was called The Church of the Resurrection instead of The Church of the Holy Tomb.  I’m sure there’s some interesting history and some profound theology in that name change.  You know, how it kind of changes the focus of Christianity's most holy site from resurrection and new life in Jesus to a dead guy and a grave.  There’s a big difference between saying “I want to go see where Jesus was raised from the dead” and “I want to go see where Jesus was buried”.

Now about Christian unity, you may or may not know that three Christian denominations have primary responsibility for overseeing The Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  One would think that this to be a great sign of Christian unity.  Well, let me lean in a little closer and give you “the details” on that.  The three main denominations are the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Apostolic, and the Roman Catholic churches.  The Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox, and the Syrian Orthodox also share minor responsibilities.  You will notice there are no Protestant or Reformed denominations represented.  The Protestants have their own “Holy Tomb” spot a couple of blocks away that actually looks like a tomb in a garden.

The operating arrangement that the Catholic and Orthodox churches have is known as the Status Quo.  It was drawn up in 1757 by the Ottoman Turks (Muslims) who ruled Jerusalem back then.  An arrangement had to be made because disagreements, often violent in nature, broke out between the different denominations over worship times and places and cleaning schedules.  The Caliphate, a Muslim, very graciously brokered the deal but he decreed that a Muslim family would always hold the keys to the church itself because if one of those denominations happened to be granted the keys…, well, we know how that would go.  That Muslim family still holds the keys.

The denominations are still known to have their disputes.  Notably in 1902 ,18 Franciscan friars were hospitalized and a number of monks jailed when the Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox got in a dispute over who could sweep the lowest steps of one of the many chapels throughout the complex.  In 2002 on a hot summer day, a Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade from its agreed upon place. The Orthodox Ethiopians saw it as a hostile act resulting in 11 monks being hospitalized.  In 2004, on September 13 when the Greek Orthodox had a special celebration commemorating the relic of the Cross they have there, the Franciscans, (Roman Catholics) accidently left the door of their chapel open.  The Orthodox took that as an insult.  A fist fight broke out but no one was hospitalized.  In 2008, a big brawl broke out there on Palm Sunday because one of the other denominations removed a Greek monk from the building for some odd reason.  The brawl was big enough for it to make global news.  When I was there in 1995 standing in line waiting to have a moment inside the tomb, one monk started yelling at another and cuffed him on the back of the head.  A German tour group also cut in front of us.  Needless to say, though it seems that there is much unity involved in operating the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it is just as well-known and maybe overshadowed by the fighting among its Christian caretakers.  

Jesus’ last teaching to his disciples was, “Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34,35).  This is what Paul was getting at when he told the Philippians to live your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.  If they/we were/are going to make the proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God become human, the true Lord and Saviour, who was crucified and raised from the dead and that by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit his kingdom, the Kingdom of God is at hand, and that he will return to fully establish his very good reign in his very good Creation, then we ought to have something to show for it.  That something is our unity which Paul speaks of by saying that their life lived in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ shows up when they are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the loyalty to Jesus Christ that arises from the Gospel.  That’s a wordy way of saying “Everyone will know we are Jesus’ disciples by our love for one another.  

Now, I need to go Greek on you for a moment because there are few things in what Paul is saying here that very unfortunately get lost in the translation.  What we translate as live your life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ in the Greek doesn’t say what we individually minded post-Modern Western culture types here it as.  When I hear those words, I immediately start thinking that “Me, Myself, and I” need to live my life in a gospel-worthy manner.  Ok yeah, but that’s not what it’s saying.  First, the verb incorporates the plural you.  He is not saying each of you live your own life.  Rather, it is y’all live your shared life, your common life together in a Gospel-worthy manner.  There are ways in Greek to focus on how we live as individuals, but Paul doesn’t use those ways here.  He pulls out a rather obscure word whose root word is the Greek word for city, which is polis.  What we translate as "live your life" is quite literally, “Let the way you do city (common life in a commonwealth) be Gospel-worthy.”   

To help you understand a little better.  Philippi was a Roman colony in which Roman citizenship was very important.  Rome turned a small mining community into a colony that would be a place where Roman citizens could settle down, like retire.  Being a Roman citizen was important.  In a couple of weeks, we will talk in a few weeks of how Paul tells the Philippian Christians that they are citizens of heaven.  In Philippi the civic life shared by Roman citizens was very important.  It’s also interesting to know that when Paul first visited Philippi around 49-50AD, he and his companion Silas eventually got arrested and beaten for “disturbing our city”.  He cast a demon out of a young slave girl that made her able to tell the future.  Her owners lost a means of lucrative income.  They were arrested and beaten and imprisoned all without trial.  They were released the next day, but Paul made it known that he and Silas were Roman citizens and refused to leave without some sort of apology.  The city magistrates all came and escorted him out of prison acknowledging their mistake.

Paul wrote this letter about ten years later from prison and was expecting that at any moment the order could come to put him to death.  This letter has a “last words” kind of feel to it.  Paul’s “last words” focus on unity.  The Philippian Christians also seem to be suffering some persecution as well.  Paul’s word to them is that their openly displayed love for one another, the Christ-like quality of the common life, their unity is the evidence of the Truth of the Gospel of Christ to those who are wronging them.  Love for each other, love for neighbour, love for enemy – these are the heart of civic life in the kingdom of God, the proof of one’s loyalty to Jesus Christ, the true Lord and Saviour.

We don’t really know specifically why the Philippian Christians were being wronged.  We can suppose that their proclaimed and lived loyalty to Jesus rather than to Caesar and the gods in a city full of people proud to be Roman citizens proved problematic.  Moreover, the egalitarian nature of their fellowship would have proved a disturbance to the order of Roman life that was very caste/status oriented.  Loving and treating everyone as if they were family – slaves, the poor, the diseased, refugees, even enemies – would have threatened to overturn the Roman way of life.

For us today, we are the body of Christ in a world that has grown to have apathy if not antipathy towards the Christian faith largely because of our unholy marriage to imperialism.  Jesus being Lord does not mean the Church is.  Sadly, the reputation of the Church centres on our disunity and judgmentalism more than for our unity in love, for living our common life together in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.  There is a lesson we need to learn from monks fighting at The Church of the Holy Sepulcher over the silliest things.  

The world we live in and the Church’s place in it is not all that different today from what it was in the first century.  The early church grew in an oppositional environment because their love for one another backed up their message.  The love that people found in small Christian fellowships was the evidence that Jesus is alive and in their midst through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  We must do the same today – focus on our unity in Christ.  We don’t need petty fights about whose responsibility it is to do what.  We just need to get together as often as we can in loving fellowship centered on knowing Jesus and invite, invite, invite, and invite some more.  Most importantly, be that friend to all people, the friend who loves as Jesus has loved you.  Amen.

 

 

Live for the New Day

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Romans 13:8-14

There’s something about sunrises that can be perspective changing with the coming of a “new day”.  My most memorable sunrise was again back in Seminary.  I was on a study tour of the Middle East.  I was on the Sinai Peninsula on Jebul Musa, the Mountain of Moses.  For centuries people have journeyed to the top of Jebul Musa to await the arrival of a new day. I was soon to join their ranks. This mountain as Christian, Islamic, and Jewish tradition has it is the mountain upon which Moses heard God speak from the burning bush; the mountain where God passed by Moses as he hid in a crack among the rocks; and most of all the mountain where Moses received the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. 

The morning started at 3 AM and the procuring of a camel to ride up most of the mountain.  It was not a very comfortable ride.  The camel’s saddle was nothing more than shaped wood covered by a blanket. To top that, the camel stunk and had fleas.  All that discomfort aside, the ride was quite soothing.  You see where the saddle is placed upon the camel’s back is actually a big mass of fat.  As the camel walks that mass of fat sends you forwards and backwards and side to side and around in a circle all at the same time.  All this swaying at three o’clock in the morning can make you sleepy. The only thing which kept me awake was this slight fear that the camel might decide to walk over the edge.  We really had to rely on that camel’s ability to see in the dark and that the man leading it knew the path.

Apart from the discomfort and smell, the mesmerizing sway, the fear, and this building relationship I had with that camel, I soon began to realize that I was on a journey, a pilgrimage along with hundreds of other people on our way to the top of Jebul Musa, to the spot where Moses heard the voice of God and I began to wander if God would in some way speak to me. There I sat on the back of this camel looking up at the stars.  It was very dark.  The only human light was the orange glow of the cigarette of the man leading the camel.  It was “dark as Egypt”, if you’ve heard that phrase actually referring to the Ninth Plague which was Darkness.  Never had I seen so many stars. 

As we bobbled and swayed for some reason I couldn’t get “How Great Thou Art” out of my head.  It was like I knew all the words when I didn’t.  Soon my thoughts turned to how it happened that I, me, was there in Egypt on the back of a camel riding to the top of the Mountain of Moses early in the morning. How did I get there? Why me? I did not deserve to be there. The feeling of awe which encompassed me moments earlier had changed to humble gratitude for I knew that nothing short of God’s special love for me had brought me to that particular point in my life - sitting on the back of a camel in Egypt riding to the top of Jebul Musa to watch the sunrise and to welcome the arrival of a new day.  What a gift!

As he did with Moses and I am sure with everyone else who dares to listen on this mountain, God spoke to me. By showing me the stars God told me that he was the God of all creation and when I took note of where I was, I realized that I was there only because this great God of creation loved me and thought me special. On the same mountain where Moses was overcome with the awesomeness of God and heard the voice of God proclaim God’s love for his people, I too was overcome with God’s awesomeness and his love for me. Where Moses heard the words “Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.’’ I learned the lesson that the ability to love your neighbor as yourself comes from knowing God loves us each and regards us each as special enough to give us good gifts. 

Soon we arrived at the point where the camels could go no further and oddly enough, I found it difficult to leave this newfound friend behind. We then climbed some 1,000 steps to get to the top of the mountain and await the sunrise. There was a snack stand there and I got a candy bar and a cup of hot chocolate which unfortunately tasted like a camel. I huddled up with some friends and we kept warm while we waited for the new day.

As darkness faded and light filled the Sinai more and more people began to arrive. Italians, Germans, French, British, American, Japanese, and Korean - people from all over the world began to gather at the top. Soon the Koreans began to sing “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and the whole mountain became alive with this song sung in many different languages, a sort of Pentecost. As daylight approached and peoples from all over the world gathered around, I sensed that salvation was nearer to us than when we first believed. God was close to us on that mountain. In all those people from all over the world night was fading and daylight was already near.

There is something about the arrival of daylight, something about the rising of the sun each day that fills all who watch the sun rise with hope. There is no other time such as this when the beauty of creation becomes so evident. As the sun rose on Sinai the colors of the granite rocks blossomed from deep purple and blue to emerald green, to ruby red and blazing orange. All of God’s crown jewels were put there on display so that it might sparkle in the coming sunrise. 

When daylight came, a new day arrived. The experience of the camel ride though just hours passed seemed to be fading. Now that daylight had arrived all who had climbed the mountain in darkness now began to rush towards the pathway down. I was soon caught up in this rush to leave the mountain. Somehow I failed to ask myself this question: would the religious experience of God’s awesomeness and love experienced in the night which had just faded before me have any effect on the new day that was now here? How would I live in this new day having heard the voice of God just hours before? 

Our text this morning asks this same question of us. How are we going to live in this new day? All of us have been in darkness of one form or another. I don’t think that I would be exaggerating to say that all of us at times have been strangely awakened to the awesomeness of God. Nor would it be a lie to say we all have been struck with gratitude at knowing that we are where we are by the grace of God who loves each of us deeply. God has never left us. He has always taken care of us. God has been with us when it was night. How will this affect how we live each new day?

I said a few minutes ago that the arrival of a new day, the rising of the sun, can fill us with hope.  This Cooperative Ministry formed a little over eleven years ago and was a ray of hope.  I can’t imagine what would have happened to each of these four churches had you not listened to the Holy Spirit’s prompting you to join in ministry.  A new day was upon us.  I wondered why more churches in the Presbytery didn’t join with us.  Three years in we went from two ministers to just me and some dedicated pulpit suppliers particularly Joel Jongkind.  We adjusted and then Covid hit.  The churches that made the news during Covid weren’t making it for the myriad of creative ways they came up with to continue to show love for one another and their surrounding communities.  Nevertheless, the Pandemic put a pall of darkness over, a form of mass depression that lasted a couple of years.  Now, just as that pall had begun to lift and life was getting back to normal, we find ourselves facing an inexplicable trade war with our former best neighbour.  We had just begun to recover from the Pandemic induced economic crisis and now we’re wondering how much worse it’s going to get.  And I won’t depress you with the state of the church today especially here in Grey and Bruce Counties.  Where’s the hope?  Where’s the sunrise?

Well, what Paul said to the Roman Christians back then speaks to us still today, especially today.  Paul here focuses hard up front on loving each other, loving neighbour as yourself.  But then he says, “Besides this, y’all know what time it is.  How it is already the hour to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.  The night is far gone.  The day is near.”  We know what time it is.  I apologize for going Greek on you, but the Greek word for time there is not the one for tic-toc on the clock time.  It’s the word for an age, an eon, an epic.  We are in the age when following the Creation changing event of Jesus Christ, his resurrection, and God’s pouring out the Holy Spirit making alive those who follow him.  We are the sunrise.  We are the new day.  

Even though it still looks dark outside with the way things are, our God is the God who deals in resurrection - new life.  The way we always did things as congregations, well there’s only a glimmer that those ways will find their way out of this present darkness.  If God in his great love for each of us has touched us and awakened us to his awesomeness, his faithfulness, his love for us, then we gotta get up and live this new day shining with the good news that God has not abandoned humanity.  When it’s dark out, it’s the worst that humanity has to offer that seems to be running the show.  But the darkness fades, flees from the light of the truth of God’s presence and love. 

We know what the time is.  We know the sun is rising because Jesus the Son has risen.  The night will come to an end as we each take the time daily to sit with God and pray and read some scripture.  Day comes as we each show our loyalty to him by loving our neighbours, our literal neighbours.  We may not be able to get people through the doors of the church for worship, but we can be kind and befriend the person in front of us in the checkout line at the grocery store.  Be kind and someone may eventually ask you why and there’s your chance to give account for the hope you have.  So here and now while darkness lingers, get up and be light.  Live for the new day.  The sun is rising.  Amen.

What's Wrong with Christian Nationalism?

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Romans 13:1-10

I ask your pardon up front for talking about things American at a time when our economic well-being here in Canada has been attacked and the sovereignty of this nation has been trifled with by executive order of the President of United States and, if the polls are right, his actions are applauded by about 1/3 of the general American populace.  These actions were taken for no valid reason.  The resulting betrayal of trust has terminally injured what once was the fairest and most productive trade relationship between two sovereign nations that there has ever been.  As an American living in Canada I’m struck with disbelief, anger, and disgust as I powerlessly watch the reputation of my homeland become that of being the poster child for betrayal, unreliability, and corruption.

Since there is no valid or reasonable why behind these actions we may move on to the next question of how this has come about.  Well, it is no secret that the current president would not have been elected if he had not had the support of a large block of voters professing to be Christian and who voted for him because they believed he was God’s man for the task at hand, which was to make America Christian again.  Regardless of the man being morally unqualified according to standards the same block of voters have put to every president since the 80’s, these Christians put him in office.  How?  He played into one of America’s foundational Christian heresies – Christian Nationalism.

Not everybody calling themselves Christian in the U.S. espouses Christian nationalism.  Most of the mainline denominations have in recent months written statements condemning it.  And, Christian nationalism isn’t just an American problem.  We have a milder version of it up here in the Great White North.  It made a resurgence back in Covid.  At our General Assembly this past June the Presbyterian Church in Canada released a statement rejecting Christian Nationalism asking that the document be discussed throughout the denomination in the hopes of weeding Christian nationalism out.  The document contained a couple of pages of background leading to this statement:

“Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to establish Christian cultural and political domination within a nation, claiming that a particular nation was founded as Christian and must remain ‘Christian.’  Such claims conflate religious and national identity and marginalize all those who are not Christian or who do not align with the particular values Christian nationalism promotes. This pursuit of cultural and political domination distorts the gospel and embodies teachings that do not reflect the love God showed to the world nor the ministry to which disciples of Christ are called.

We acknowledge that Jesus’ ministry began with his own rejection of political power and social influence (Luke 4:5–7) and that throughout his time of ministry and teaching he continued to eschew political power and influence.

We affirm that, as followers of Jesus, so too our focus should not be control over the social, political, and economic spheres of this world but rather, like Jesus himself, loving service to God through preaching and living the Word of love, caring for the marginalized, and ministering to those in need.

Since the church is called to faithful public witness to the gospel message of God’s love for the world, we therefore reject Christian nationalism as a sinful ideology at odds with the gospel and with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Personally, as my biblical and theological education began among Mennonites at Eastern Mennonite University and Seminary, I am partial to a definition produced by a sister seminary, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary located in Elkhart, Indiana.  It reads: “Christian nationalism, in short, is a worldview where one’s theological imagination is coopted by state power. It exchanges the church’s loyalty to the Lord of Peace for a false god fashioned by the myth of American exceptionalism. In fact, Christian nationalism is a form of political idolatry that distorts our knowledge of God and neighbor through a xenophobic, racialized and militarized gospel that is at odds with the life and teachings of Jesus.”^[1]

Our passage from Romans is one that can and often does get used in support of Christian nationalism.  Historically, it has served as the biblical basis of what was long ago known as the Divine Right of Kings.  Back in the days of empires, kingdoms, and colonial empires Paul’s teaching here was co-opted to mean that emperors and kings ruled by God’s authority and therefore their actions were acts of God.  Paul taught that the authority to govern is part of God’s ordering of creation and that those who govern are God’s servants for good and that they wield the sword for the good of society.  We must therefore be subject to the governing authorities for to oppose them is to oppose God.  So also, we must do good because the governing authorities only come after those who do bad.  So, pay your taxes and tariffs and give respect and honour where due.  Unfortunately, Paul didn’t say anything about what to do if a government is corrupt and abusive.  It wasn’t until the 1500’s and John Calvin in the last chapter his Institutes of the Christian Religion boldly claimed that citizens had a right to overthrow a tyrant.  Hence, a wave of revolutions over the following few centuries leading to democracy and voting became the way to limit or peacefully oust a corrupt government.

I am confident here that Paul was not granting a divine, carte blanche, free ride ticket to the Roman emperor or any other governing authority.  They already claimed that power for themselves by the name of Zeus (Jupiter).  Paul instead was writing to Christians who were often socially outcast and bullied because of their confession that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour and Son of God (titles the emperors reserved for themselves) and because of their refusal to worship the Greek and Roman gods and because of their egalitarian (all folks are equal) fellowship.  At heart, this passage is Paul telling Christians throughout the Roman Empire to keep their heads down and not draw attention to themselves and their fellowships by resisting what they all knew was an evil empire bent on conquering for reasons of power-lust and greed.  The Roman Christians would have remembered very well the very perverted and cruel Emperor Caligula followed by Claudius and the then emperor Nero.  No Christian would have called any of those emperors a godly man nor thought of the Roman Empire as sanctioned by God.  So, Paul was not trying to claim the imperial rulers or the empire were God’s special appointees on earth to rule in his name the way American Christian nationalists do with their current president and America.

So, this passage was not ever meant to endorse a particular nation or leader as being specially sanctioned by God.  It therefore should not ever be used for that purpose today.  In fact, the early church would have not been looking to a particular nation or empire to be serving God’s purposes on earth.  They would have understood God’s kingdom coming on earth through the spread of the church which had no national borders.  The only Christian nation on earth is the church universal.  If we take the conversation Jesus had with Satan seriously when Satan was tempting him as well as Chapters 12-13 of the Book of Revelation, then we have to be warned that the political power embedded in nations at present is the domain of Satan.  If it is true that power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately, then when Christians try to take control of their nation, they will get corrupted ultimately.  Such is Christian nationalism.  I would invite those espousing Christian nationalism to revisit the role political power plays in your loyalty to Jesus Christ and as an American living in Canada I would especially ask you to give a good ponder to what the commandment means, “Love your neighbour as yourself.  Love does no wrong to a neighbour.  Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.”  Amen.