A Thought For The Week Of November 26

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13) In this context, God - through the prophet Jeremiah - is speaking to his people who had been held captive in Babylon for seventy long years. One of the benefits of exile and captivity was that the faith of God's people had been rejuvenated and refreshed. When Israel and Judah had been great and powerful nations, it had been so easy for them to turn from God, blinded by self-made idols and distracted by the things of the world to the point where God had become an afterthought or an add-on, but hardly central. The exile had changed that. Suddenly, with everything else stripped away, the people turned to God because they had nowhere else to turn. And as the hearts of the people were turned increasingly to God they discovered a source of hope and strength who saw them through even the hardest times until they were able to return to their homeland. Today, it seems that even in the church our hearts are often distracted, pulled in different directions by the various idols and lures around us. We talk about God, we pray to God, we search for God, but sometimes it seems so half-hearted, as if we want God, but we want God along with lots of other "stuff;" a divine toy to go along with the other toys we desperately try to accumulate because we don't want to put anything else (even God) in the place of our desire for self-gratification. That won't work. God has to be more than that. God has to be the centre - not because God needs to be the centre, but because, having experienced and been overwhelmed by divine power and divine love, we have no other place to put God but in the centre. And I've found that works. If you seek God with all your heart, realizing that God is more important than anything else and desperate to build a relationship with God, then you will find God. And that will be a discovery that changes all our lives! Have a great week!

Be Christ For Christmas

About a year ago I published this for the In Port News. Since I'm starting to see the "Keep Christ In Christmas" silliness starting again, I thought it was worth repeating:



Another year has gone by and once again we’re just a few weeks away from Christmas. The signs are all around us. Christmas music and decorations in the malls, and we actually put our Christmas tree up much earlier than usual because our daughter wanted to. That was a good enough reason. There’s one other sign of the season that I’ve come to expect – once again we’re hearing the plea to “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Maybe it’s time to let that go.

Of course I understand the sentiment. Christ is central to my life and to my faith. Without Christ, my faith would be nothing and Christmas would be nothing, but I still think we need to move on. The reality of our world is that there are two separate and distinct Christmas celebrations. There’s the Christian Christmas which celebrates as it should the birth of Jesus, who came to us as God in the Flesh, who throughout his life revealed God’s ways and God’s will to us, and who ultimately lived and died and was resurrected for the world – part of the ministry of reconciliation he undertook, as throughout his life (from the manger to the cross to the empty tomb) “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” As Christians, we celebrate this amazing display of divine love for us all, and we proclaim the love of God revealed by Christ, and we invite others to share in our celebration of it. That’s what Christmas is all about from a Christian perspective. That’s what we Christians celebrate; that’s what we should never forget.

But whether we like it or not, there’s another Christmas. There’s the secular Christmas. The secular Christmas doesn’t revolve around Christ. It revolves around the image of Santa Claus and is marked by an orgy of consumer-spending and gift-giving. And – in all honesty – it’s fun. If sometimes the world gets a bit silly with “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas,” I don’t really care. I’ll happily say “Merry Christmas” and leave it to others to decide what sort of greeting they want to offer. I’m not sure I get the angst felt by so many Christians about whether Wal-Mart greeters say “Merry Christmas” or whether a school has a “Winter celebration” rather than a Christmas pageant. It really isn’t the job of the world to keep Christ in Christmas, you know. That’s the church’s job. That’s our job as Christians. The whole “Keep Christ in Christmas” movement seems to me to be based largely on nostalgia for bygone days when Christian faith was the centre of everything. Those days are over. The church and the faith are increasingly on the periphery of society. Rather than lamenting the loss of past glory, as Christians we need to seize the present – even with all its challenges – and figure out how to move forward. The wistful lament “Keep Christ in Christmas” really doesn’t do that.

So – I have a challenge for Christians. To give credit where credit is due I actually saw this on one of those wall photos that are become so popular on Facebook! It was good advice. It suggested that rather than worry about keeping Christ in Christmas, we actually seek to be Christ this Christmas. That is our faith, after all – as Christians, we are “little Christs,” given both the privilege and responsibility of representing Christ to the world. Lamenting whether there’s enough emphasis on Jesus at Christmas doesn’t strike me as a particularly effective way of doing that. To be honest, I doubt that Jesus is particularly concerned with how or even whether we mark his birth. I think he’s much more interested in how we live and in how we love.

So – don’t worry about keeping Christ in Christmas. Strive to be Christ for Christmas. Find a place in the community to volunteer, find a neighbor who has a need you can meet, find a charity you can offer some support to. Spend time with someone who’s lonely. Care for and support the poor and the outcast and the oppressed. This was the life of Jesus, after all, who told us that the greatest commandments were to love God and to love our neighbours. At the very least, go to church – not just on Christmas Eve, but regularly, to be inspired to live this life of love God calls us to.

Be Christ this Christmas – and have a merry one! God bless!

A Thought For The Week Of November 19

"... as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct ... (1 Peter 1:15) Holiness is a tough thing to grasp, isn't it. And the idea of being holy? In all our conduct? That's a very tall order, it seems. And yet, let's remember that no one ever said that being a disciple of Jesus would be easy! Well, the truth is that being holy in our conduct might not be as difficult as it sounds. In what way is God holy? To say that God is holy basically means that God is separate from sin; that sin has neither power nor authority over God. Let's remember that God is spirit and not flesh (except for that brief moment in time called the "incarnation," but that's not what we're talking about right now.) For us, the call to be holy as God is holy presumably doesn't mean that we'll be without sin - because the Bible is clear in telling us that no one is without sin - but it does mean that our spirits will be freed from sin's power and authority, just as sin has neither power nor authority over God. Another way of saying that we are to be holy in all our conduct might be to say that we are to live righteous lives - not self-righteous, puffed up, prideful lives, but lives characterized by our "right" relationship with God and with others. The best example of how to do that was Jesus. When we look to him and pattern our lives after him, we've taken a huge step to being holy in all our conduct, and a huge step toward setting a great example for the world. Have a great week!

November 18, 2012 sermon - Faith Is Not Futile!

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:12-22)

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     No one wants to waste their time. I think that’s a given. We all want to feel useful, and to feel as if what we’ve devoted our life to is useful and helpful and meaningful - not just to ourselves, but also to others. I mean, if we don’t make a difference by what we believe and by how we live, then what’s the point of it all? I think back into the Old Testament and into the Book of Ecclesiastes - a book that we really don’t generally pay much attention to. It’s a very fatalistic book (with a sort of “que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be” kind of attitude) and in some ways it can come across as a rather cynical book with a not very positive view of the world around us and a not very meaningful view of life. “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless,” laments “the Teacher” - who some believe to have been King Solomon himself. Truthfully, maybe we should pay more attention to Ecclesiastes - if only because the author (whoever he or she actually was) seems to me to be connecting on some level with our own society. People today are making a lot of similar statements and asking a lot of similar questions: Is there a point? What’s the purpose? Where’s the hope? Can things get better or will they only get worse? These are questions not unlike what we read in Ecclesiastes, but they’re questions that get asked regularly in contemporary society. So, Ecclesiastes may speak to us.

     My message today isn’t based on Ecclesiastes, of course, except in the sense that I hope it’s a bit of a response to the attitudes we see depicted in Ecclesiastes, just as in the same way I suspect that at least a part of what we heard from Paul today was a response to an Ecclesiastes. He would have been familiar with Ecclesiastes, and what he saw happening in Corinth perhaps made him reflect a little bit on those words. It was as if that kind of attitude had already infected the Corinthian church even in those very early years of the Christian faith, long before cynicism should have had the opportunity to take root! Why would it have happened? Why did the church in Corinth start to drift? From our perspective - I wonder why the church today often seems to drift? I wonder if it isn’t because we’ve lost the anchor that keeps us from drifting; the foundation that holds us in place?

     We’ve largely come to the end of our journey through 1 Corinthians. There’s another chapter, but except for one thing - that I’ll mention in closing - that’s mostly personal material from Paul. The letter was written to address the disturbing reports Paul had received of infighting within the church. The issues were diverse, and the reason they had caused such trouble was because the Corinthian Christians had lost sight of what was really important and of what gave their faith meaning. Something had drawn the eyes of the Corinthians off of God. The principalities and powers that Paul sometimes writes about had done their work in Corinth. They had distracted the Corinthians, convincing them to fight over various side issues even while they ignored the most important thing their faith should have given them - the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what it all led up to: Christ died, but Christ lives! It’s not just a message for Easter, because that would suggest that the resurrection of Jesus only matters for a few weeks every spring and after that we can get on with other “stuff.” But that’s not true. Whatever other “stuff” there may be, if we don’t engage that “stuff” in the light of the resurrection of Jesus then we inevitably either pull ourselves down or we tear ourselves apart. Corinth is an example of that. By allowing itself to be distracted from the truth of the resurrection the Corinthian church was destroying itself. The resurrection is a simple, complex, mysterious and faith-filled proposition that the church cannot be the church without. Christ is alive! This is what matters. This is why we live. This is what has enabled the church to survive - sometimes against the odds - for 2000 years. We don’t exist just to do good works. We do good works because we exist and because we are called and because we are the body of Christ in the world today and because we are empowered to do them as a way of bearing witness to the love of Christ that has touched us and that God calls us to share - and Christ cannot touch us with love and ask us to touch others with love unless Christ is alive. 

     How can any of that be futile? Far from futile, this is the most important message of all. We can’t solve all the problems we see around us; we can’t meet all the needs we see around us. That’s not possible. We can solve some problems - and we should solve what problems we can. We can meet some needs - and we should meet what needs we can. But what we do have to offer to those in any circumstance are the things of the Spirit. We can offer joy - the joy of knowing that whatever else may be our lot in life we belong to God. We can offer love - the love that God has given to us and called us to share. We can offer hope - the hope that even if we can’t fix all the problems of the present the future still holds glorious things. We do those things when we proclaim the resurrection first and foremost and with passionate belief and trust. David Ford writes that 

“the truth of the resurrection is not a truth about which we can appropriately say ‘how interesting!’ and then go on to some other investigation. It has the urgency of the most relevant news - like someone shouting ‘Fire!’ or whispering ‘Will you marry me?’”

     This is truly the most important message of all, because it puts an end to navel-gazing and infighting over things that by comparison don’t really matter. Paul spends the whole 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians talking about the importance of the resurrection and then goes on immediately to tell them to take a collection for the poor in Jerusalem. The resurrection pushes us outward to action and compassion and service for others. When we lose sight of the resurrection we turn inward; when the resurrection is the centrepiece of our faith we’re pushed outward. That’s why the resurrection needs to be the focus of everything we are and everything we do. It’s the beating heart of our faith; it’s the beating heart of our unity; it’s the beating heart of the body of Christ that we’re called to be.

A Thought For The Week Of November 12

Thought for the week: "The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:31) The lead-in to these words of Jesus, of course, was that we are to love the Lord God. Absolute biblical literalists should take note - Jesus interpreted the Scriptures; he didn't take them absolutely literally. He took the entire law and prophets and boiled them down to a couple of sentences, pointing out that the spirit of the law and prophets was far more important than the letter! But I digress. How do we love God and neighbour? In another verse of Scripture, Jesus says that whatever we do for the least important among us we do for him. It's a radical re-organizing of society he calls for, and when we offer our love to the least lovable (or to those whom the world declares unworthy of love) among us, only then are we truly loving God by loving Jesus, who is reflected in the faces of the neediest and most desperate among us. Some people try to say that to "love the Lord your God" means absolute obedience under threat of punishment to every jot and tittle of the law (or at least to the jots and tittles we like and have no problem with.) But that doesn't seem consistent with the gospel and the message of Jesus. We love God by loving one another; we love God the most when we love those who are most difficult to love. Think of what the world would be like if we could actually live by those two commandments! If only. Well, we can't control the world, but we can control ourselves. Let's love God by loving our neighbours - all of them. Have a great week!

November 11, 2012 sermon - About Sacrifice

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)

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     The Battle of Groningen took place during the final month of the Second World War, from April 13 to 16, 1945, in the city of Groningen, fought between a mixture of about 7000 German soldiers, Dutch and Belgian SS troops against the entire 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. It was one of the largest urban battles fought by Canadian soldiers during the War. When the battle was over 43 Canadian soldiers had been killed and almost 200 had been either wounded or captured. In terms of the numbers, it wasn’t the costliest battle Canadian troops fought, but it was memorable because it was one of the last battles fought in the campaign to liberate the Netherlands. We all know the poem “In Flanders Fields” written by Col. John McCrae during World War I. The Battle of Groningen led to the writing of another, lesser known poem. It was composed by a man named John Piest, who was a boy in Groningen during the battle. In 2005 Piest wrote a poem commemorating the Canadian sacrifices made in the Battle of Groningen. He entitled it “The Men Of Maple Leaf.”

Bold they were, the combatants we knew

How deep our sympathy for them grew

South they came and fought their way

Memory engraved is that glorious day

Lives squandered, precious blood shed

Our want for freedom was finally met

There was scarcely time to fraternize

The battle went on, at high a price

In the actions brave ones would fall

Facing their losses the men stood tall

It took three days to clear the town

Dislodging the enemy beyond our bounds

Stricken by panic some fled to the shore

Deserted or were scattered to the four

Many fighting wearied, surrendered fast

Our war torn hometown was freed at last

Smouldering ruins were marking the place

Where battering damaged her ancient face

Peace returned, the yoke of war was gone

Thanks to the Canadians, a tough task done

To commemorate them we dedicate a forest yet

Maple leaves fell for us, lest we forget.

    One of the reasons that Canadian casualties were as high as they were is because the Canadian commanders decided to make a deliberate sacrifice. Knowing that it would extend the battle and lead to even more dead and wounded troops, they ordered the Second Infantry not to use artillery support - because using artillery in an urban setting would have perhaps saved Canadian lives, but it would have led to significant civilian casualties. When I read that story, I immediately thought of the sacrifice of Jesus that Paul spoke of in this morning’s reading from 1 Corinthians: “... Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”

     Different people understand the sacrifice of the cross in different ways, of course. Some see it as a blood sacrifice - the end of the system of animal sacrifices of the Old Testament; others (myself included) see it more as a sacrifice of Jesus’ divine privilege and an act of divine solidarity with human beings, as God (in Jesus) chooses to experience a gruesome death. I hesitated to draw too much of a linkage between the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the sacrifices of soldiers on a battlefield, because Jesus was, after all, the one who told His followers not to take up their swords to defend Him. And yet, this is Remembrance Day, and it seems to me that what the two have in common is important. Basically, they both have in mind the welfare of others over and above the welfare of one’s self. Whether it’s Jesus dying on a cross to demonstrate God’s love for the world, or whether you’re Canadian troops dying on a battlefield in part because of a decision to protect civilians, this is what counts. This is what faith is about. This is what a nation is about. This is what church is about. It’s about our willingness to give of ourselves for the sake of one another and even for the sake of those beyond our walls. It’s about our willingness to give of ourselves for the world.

     A few days ago, in the lead up to the US presidential election, I came across this advice from an American New Testament scholar who was dealing with the question of how Christians should make a decision on who to vote for: “... we vote like a Christian when we vote for the sake of our neighbors and those the world and politicians are most likely to neglect. In doing so, we love God most deeply.” But it goes beyond voting. I would rephrase that to say this: “we [live] like a Christian when we [live] for the sake of our neighbors and those the world ... are most likely to neglect. In doing so, we love God most deeply."

     Whether voters in a voting booth, or soldiers on a battlefield, or Jesus on the cross - that’s surely what it’s about. Let’s give thanks for all who have sacrificed for our sakes, and let’s be willing to sacrifice for the sake of our neighbours.

Lessons On Faith From The U.S. Election

I've been giving some thought today to the faith ramifications of the U.S. presidential election yesterday. One of the suggestions that I've seen is that Mitt Romney's loss means that the influence of the "Christian Right" in U.S. politics is on the wane. One would hope so. I don't say that for ideological reasons. I'm equally appalled by the existence of something called the "Christian Left." These phrases represent, in fact, ideological positions and not faithful expressions of the gospel. If the gospel is to be reduced to mere ideology, then what need do we have of Christ? Whatever country we live in, let's just try to shove our view of how things should be done down each other's throats. You see, that's the problem with ideological expressions of the gospel. Ideology is about power. Yes, it's about a vision of how to order society; it's about basic beliefs about what's right and what's wrong. Ultimately, though, ideology is about power. It's about the quest for, the acquisition of and the exercise of power - because without power, ideology is largely pointless.

The gospel, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Isn't the gospel about the voluntary sacrifice of power and influence and authority? Isn't the basic message of the gospel summed up in these words: 

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8)

Why, then, insist on cheapening the gospel by mixing it with ideology? Ideology divides; and by mixing the gospel with ideology all we do is divide the body of Christ, and turn Christian against Christian. We do that in other ways, too, of course. We pit evangelical Christians against liberal Christians. We pit orthodox Christians against heretical Christians. We pit charismatic Christians against mainline Christians. We pit Catholics against Protestants. Jesus must weep. In choosing those divisions, all we're doing is weakening the body of Christ. When Christian faith becomes reduced to adherence to a certain set of either social policies or doctrines, then Christian faith is weakened, because the body of Christ is divided along those lines.

This should even be the case on the "hot button" issues that seem to get people so exorcised these days - same sex marriage and abortion. It is not for Christians to enforce an ethical code on others. We are not the arbiter of other people's morals. We are love. We are love, because God is love, and because Christ is God, and because we are the body of Christ. It's really that simple. We may agree or disagree with the choices other people make - but our calling is to love them and to assure them that God loves them. Whatever change that may bring about is up to the Holy Spirit and not to us. But to divide ourselves up (as we so often do) into the "good" Christians and the "bad" Christians based on your opinion on fundamentally deeply personal, moral issues is wrong, because - again - its sets us against one another; it works against love.

I'm not arguing that there's an easy solution to this problem. We're humans. We have strong opinions. We like to divide ourselves up on the basis of those opinions. We like to fight against each other, preferably peacefully and through the ballot box, but sometimes violently and through the barrel of a gun. But a part of the solution might be to remember the two verses that preceded what I shared above:

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:3-4)

As Christians, our fundamental concern should be for "the interests of others." If we could focus on that, we might be able to let go of ourselves and our own interests and beliefs and prejudices and simply live in love for those whom God already loves.

If the "Christian Right" is on the wane - and I desperately hope that it is (just as I hope that we'll give up the idea of a "Christian Left") then perhaps we can actually get back to the call Christ has given us: the sharing of the gospel - not a message of judgment, but rather a message of reconciliation and love, in which all are committed to doing the best they can for others - both God and their neighbours.

We'll always have politics. As Christians, we have to decide how to engage in politics. Do we enter the fray as ideologues, fiercely and passionately committed to our own understanding, believing that those who believe otherwise need to be defeated, and even crushed; going to virtually any means to win (honest or dishonest, ethical or unethical, Christ-like or un-Christ-like) bitter when we lose? Is that the way of Christ? Is that the way of the gospel? I hope not. And it doesn't have to be our way, if we can live into the words of Paul in Philippians.

Recently, in leading up to the election, I came across these words from Eric D. Barretto, a professor of New Testament studies at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minesota:

"How then do we vote like Christians? We vote with forgiveness, love, and grace in our hearts towards our neighbors but especially those with which we disagree on political questions. We vote without commitment to political ideologies or personalities. We vote without expecting mere mortals to do the work of God. Yet we vote with hope that God will meet us in the messiness of our political lives. We vote with expectation that the reign of God is indeed at hand. In short, we vote like a Christian when we vote for the sake of our neighbors and those the world and politicians are most likely to neglect. In doing so, we love God most deeply."

I think those are good words. They remind us that the greatest power we may possess as a people of faith isn't by latching on to an ideology or a doctrine and fighting tooth and nail to impose it on others. Our greatest power is in giving up any illusion that we have power; voluntarily sacrificing whatever authority we may have in order to further the best interests of our neighbours. That would be Christ-like. That's what we're called to.

A Thought For The Week Of November 5

Yesterday was a busy day, and I just didn't get around to it, but here's my thought for the week: "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 17:6) It struck me as appropriate to think about this verse on a day when the United States is electing its president. Without a king, Israel descended into chaos and lawlessness. There was no sense of community; no sense of shared responsibility or mutual accountability. It was anarchy. Belief in God and trusting God to lead simply wasn't enough. That's why I reject the idea of both Christian anarchism (which essentially argues that the state is bad and we should simply have allegiance to God) and theocracy (which basically says that we have to follow whatever rules are imposed by the "believers" who are in charge of the state and who declare their beliefs to be God's will. Both are possible; both are dangerous. There's a role for the state, and the New Testament is pretty clear about that. Jesus paid his taxes after all, and Paul notes that the state serves as God's agent. Government isn't perfect, and we always need to be on our guard against those who would abuse the levers of power in order to abuse those who are subject to those levers. As Christians we celebrate the freedom God has given us, and - if we're fortunate enough to live in one of the world's democracies - we should be celebrating that freedom as well. Let's never take either God or freedom for granted. Have a great week!

November 4 2012 sermon - Our Very Own Perfect Storm

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two - or at the most three - should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:26-33a)

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     I guess we all feel pretty familiar now with the idea of a “perfect storm.” The phrase, I suspect, first entered the popular lingo several years ago with the release of the George Clooney movie of that name about a fishing vessel lost at sea during a severe North Atlantic storm. In the last couple of weeks the phrase has re-emerged in discussions about Sandy. Sandy is now a little bit like Cher - one name is enough, and folks know what you’re talking about. We came through fine here in Niagara, thankfully, aside from some wind and rain, but it was nowhere near as bad here as some had been predicting. But we’ve seen the news. We’ve seen the devastation Sandy wrought on the Carribean - especially Haiti and Cuba - and, of course, in the last few days we’ve seen the scenes out of New York City and New Jersey, and we pray for the well-being of all those affected. A perfect storm is caused when there’s a collision; a collision of two or more otherwise normal storm systems that join together and become greater than the sum of their parts. In the case of Sandy, a strong but not unusual Atlantic hurricane joined with a strong but not unusual Arctic cold front to produce an unusually powerful “superstorm” as some of the media were calling it. It was unusual enough that Lynn and I chose to make some preparations. So, we did something we’ve talked about for years but never acted upon - we bought a generator, so that we could keep our sump pump going and have a little bit of heat in the event of a power outage; we made sure we had 20 litres of clean water set aside in the house; we bought brand new flashlights and made sure we had brand new batteries so that we could have some light. I was never a Boy Scout, but I chose to live by the motto “be prepared.” Our preparations were unnecessary as it turned out, for which we’re grateful, but - better safe than sorry. And, as it all came to an end earlier this week, I turned my attention to what God wanted me to share with you today.

     We continue our journey through 1 Corinthians this morning; continuing to look at the qualities Paul identifies that help to create a stronger and more unified church; a church that overcomes the divisions and differences that can sometimes threaten to tear us apart. When we gather on Sunday morning, in a way we’re a “perfect storm.” We come with all of our spiritual gifts and with all of our spiritual baggage and we blend them together and we create something that is hopefully greater than the sum of its parts, and hopefully something that’s positive and bears witness to Christ. When Paul writes that “When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church,” he’s acknowledging the presence of all of these things that are present in the lives of the believers. He doesn’t mention here the negative spiritual baggage that we can bring (probably because at this point in 1 Corinthians his goal is to encourage the Corinthians by pointing out their strengths and not to discourage them by pointing out their weaknesses) but while he doesn’t mention negative spiritual baggage, he’s well aware of that as well, even in his own life. In the course of his letters, Paul speaks about his struggles with sin, and the distance he sometimes feels from God. There are times when he acknowledges that he’s not sure whether his words are only his or whether he’s being guided by the Holy Spirit. So Paul understands that any Christian community is a gathering together of many different things; a Christian community is, indeed, a perfect spiritual storm of sorts - and storms can be both good and bad. They’re a part of nature; they play a part in the renewal of the earth. They can also be tremendously destructive. What side our own perfect storm falls on depends on what we do with our differences and how well we blend them together to make something positive or whether we use them to set up barriers and to highlight differences, and what often happens is that those who seem to have it altogether become the bright shining examples of Christian faith, and those who don’t feel as if they’re missing something; as if they just don’t quite measure up.

     All of Christian life is a spiritual struggle of sorts. One biblical story that I’ve always cherished as a metaphor for a life of faith is the Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with God as he desperately seeks God’s blessing and apparently tries to force the issue! Even more interesting is that in a way God cheats in the wrestling match by wrenching Jacob’s hip out of its socket. But eventually, Jacob gets his blessing. The point seems to be that even those who are struggling spiritually and who bring their spiritual struggles with them are working their way through a spiritual process that will eventually lead to a divine blessing. And we all struggle spiritually. I’ve been in a massive spiritual struggle recently revolving around preaching. For several weeks now I’ve spent a lot of time staring at a computer screen, typing a few words and then deleting them. For several weeks sermon writing has been seeming like a chore rather than a joy; a job rather than a vocation; sometimes a curse rather than a blessing. That’s tough on a preacher. It’s felt at times like I’ve been involved in a wrestling match with God, and sometimes I’m not sure that God hasn’t cheated a little bit just as He did with Jacob. I can well remember last Sunday still being up and at the computer at about 1:00 in the morning, still not sure exactly what I was going to be saying a few hours later! This week seems to have gone a little better for me in that respect - perhaps because I’ve decided that I should openly acknowledge my spiritual struggle of the last few weeks. A lot of people like to put the minister on a pedestal as a spiritual giant and example of the faith. I’m not convinced that the best way for the minister to be an example of the faith isn’t to let go of the idea that a minister has to be a spiritual giant who has it altogether spiritually and just admit that sometimes faith is tough and God seems distant and the call Christ gives us can start to seem like a burden. Because - truth be told - that’s the case for all of us. It’s part of being a Christian - and I’m not convinced that it isn’t the spiritual struggles that are brought together on a Sunday morning when we gather that aren’t more important in creating Christian community than all the “hymns, words of instruction, revelations, tongues or interpretations” that might also be present.

     One of the problems with contemporary society (and even with contemporary Christianity) is that we’ve internalized our spirituality far too much. Spirituality becomes at most about us and our relationship with God and sometimes it gets reduced to being just about us and whatever makes us feel good about ourselves. But Christian spirituality can surely never be reduced to merely a personal matter to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. A healthy Christian spirituality has to be about the bonds we have with God and with one another and even with all of creation. A healthy Christian spirituality has to be about relationship; about connectedness; about oneness. Whether we bring our spiritual highs or our spiritual lows together on a Sunday morning; whether we bring our spiritual triumphs or our spiritual struggles together on a Sunday morning, we blend them together as a community into what you might call a “perfect storm” of Christian spirituality. Storms can be destructive - and Christian spirituality (when it’s used to divide us into the “haves” and “have-nots” as it so often tragically is) can be destructive. But storms don’t have to be destructive. They’re a part of what God has created; they’re a part of the normal course of things; they’re natural; ultimately they play a part in cleansing and renewing and giving life. This “perfect storm” of spirituality we’ve created here this morning - as we come from all of our varied experiences with our joys and our sorrows, our triumphs and our defeats; our assurance and our questions; our faith and our doubts - can also cleanse and renew us, because, as Paul writes, it all comes together “for the strengthening of the church.”

     Ultimately, isn’t that what it’s all about? “The strengthening of the church”? The secular world might call it strength in numbers; we might call it the communion of saints. But whatever you call it, it reminds us that we all, with all of our experiences, are a vital and necessary part of the body of Christ. It’s about all of us, merging together our gifts and our talents, bringing together our own beliefs and our own questions, our own sorrows and joys, our own victories and defeats, our own tragic heartbreaks and our own amazing blessings, our own experiences of the Holy Spirit and our own experiences of feeling distant from the Holy Spirit. And, somehow, that all comes together as something akin to a spiritual perfect storm “for the strengthening of the church.”

If you're interested in watching the video of the actual sermon preached:

https://vimeo.com/52807807