A Thought For The Week Of January 27

"With God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26) If you want to find hope when you find yourself in a seemingly impossible situation, perhaps this is the biblical verse to turn to. In context, when Jesus spoke the words, it was in response to the question of how the rich can be saved because their attention is so often on their wealth rather than God. But in general terms it seems to me that this verse isn't just about the rich, not is it just about salvation. So many of us can find ourselves in situation from which there just seems no escape; so many of us can find ourselves facing problems that don't seem to have any solution. That causes fear, despair - perhaps ultimately it causes us to question the goodness and love of God. And yet, my experience has been that somehow and in some way the solutions do eventually appear and we get through whatever it is that we're facing. When I face those situations in my life, that's when I find myself thinking about Matthew 19:26. Because it's true. With God all things are possible. Most of us, if we survey our lives and everything we've experienced will see those times when we couldn't possibly have had either the strength to carry on - but we did carry on. It's because God is there for us when we struggle, and it's because with God all things are indeed possible. So whatever we face in the days ahead, let's never lose sight of God, and let's always believe in the possibilities that faith in God hold out for us, whatever our circumstances. Have a great week!

January 26 sermon - An Antidote To Fear

(A video link to this sermon is below)

The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord. Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of You, “Seek His face!” Your face, Lord , I will seek. Do not hide Your face from me, do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Saviour. (Psalm 27:1-9)

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     Fear is one of the great industries of our time – or maybe, more precisely, I should say that the promotion of fear has become one of the great industries of our time. Maybe even that's not exactly precise. Promoting fear has always been a big time industry. Sometimes I, along with Paul, speak of the principalities and powers – not as demonic spiritual beings, but as the everyday institutions that can take control of our lives and set themselves up in place of God for us in one way or another.  And there are a lot of principalities and powers – and most try to function on the basis of fear. One is the church. Historically the church has often been guilty of promoting fear. The church has often tried to scare people with threats of hell and damnation; frighten them into the Kingdom so to speak, rather than emphasizing the divine love and grace that Jesus emphasized during His own ministry. When I met with a family regarding a recent funeral and talked to them about what they wanted in the service, one of the first things they said was, “please, no hell and damnation preaching.” Obviously, somewhere along the way, they'd been exposed to that strategy. If Christians believe God is love and trust the scripture that says that the Spirit of God is not a spirit of fear then why Christians would consider resorting to fear as a means of spreading good news is a mystery. But it goes beyond the church. There are lots of principalities and powers that try to scare us. The whole insurance industry is built on the basis of fear -  what might happen if we don't have it? That's not to say that insurance is evil – many of the principalities and powers in their own way are good and do useful things -  but it does work on the basis of fear. Governments and politics in general works all too often on the basis of fear. The response to 9/11 hinged on the promotion of fear as people were convinced that they had to give up more and more of their rights and their privacy in order to be secure. I've always appreciated the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin - “those who give up essential liberty to obtain temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.” And then remember a few years ago the TV commercial suggesting that if Stephen Harper were ever elected there would be troops in the streets? I haven't seen the troops yet, but it was a play on fear. And the whole “law and order” agenda – which implicitly suggests that crime is out of control and we're in danger, in spite of the fact that virtually every measurable statistic says that crime – and especially violent crime – is in decline. But fear works. It convinces us to be more and more compliant to those who promise to protect us from the things they've been able to make us afraid of. When fear rather than faith becomes the dominant force in a person's life – that's a very sad thing, indeed.

     The Bible suggests that fear should not be the characteristic of a life of faith. Psalm 27:1, which we read earlier, tells us that “The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?” The obvious answer is that we shouldn't be afraid; we should never as people of faith succumb to fear. But fear can be a powerful thing. It can take us over; it can take possession of us. And when fear possesses us we stop being the church, because we start to play thing safe – always safe. When fear possesses us we start to put ourselves and our own well being and our own survival above everything else – which is, of course, a denial of the example of the one we supposedly follow. Jesus, of course, didn't embrace the hardships that He faced, and He certainly didn't embrace death. But He had faith. He lived in a close and intimate relationship with His Father which assured Him that as much as He didn't embrace what He was called to – which was nothing less than His own death – He accepted that this was what God was asking of Him, and He didn't act in fear. He acted with faith. He understood the words of the author of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?” He understood that with God there truly is nothing to fear. Which perhaps explains, as I've mentioned many times, why He could repeatedly say to His disciples, “Do not be afraid.”

     The words in some ways sound strange, considering how prevalent fear is in our society, and how many there are who try to convince us that we should, in fact, be afraid. Frankly, two thousand years ago, there was no less reason to be afraid. In fact, there might have been more. It was a society in which tyrants were rampant and there was really little way to control them. And yet, in the face of all that, Jesus was still able to say, “do not be afraid.” In the face of life and death, in the face of hatred and persecution, in the face of trial and execution – Jesus could say “do not be afraid.” It's strange. It's good news. But it's strange good news. In the midst of a world that so often seems frightening and into lives that are so often fearful, Jesus continues to say, “do not be afraid.” Jesus wants us to banish fear from our lives because fear prevents us from living the abundant life He wants us to live, and instead holds us hostage, keeping us in bondage, distancing us from God and replacing faith as the motivating factor in our lives.

     By telling people not to be afraid in a world that seems so filled with fear, Jesus is telling His disciples that they are to have a deep and radical and powerful faith in God – a faith so powerful that it makes almost no sense, because it can stand firm in any circumstances and not be shaken. A faith that sustained Jesus as He faced the cross, or Peter and Paul and Stephen and other early disciples as they faced execution, or the early church as it faced severe persecution – or the church today in parts of the world where it still faces severe persecution and yet continues on in the face of it, while so much of the church in the Western world – where it's so easy and so convenient to be a Christian – seems lost in despair and succumbs to fear, feeling little hope for the future. We as 21st century Western Christians would do well to learn lessons from our Christian forebears and from our contemporaries who fight for existence on a daily basis. We as 21st century Christians would do well to listen to Jesus as we face what we perceive to be our struggles - “do not be afraid.” Implicitly I think Jesus is saying – “Just do what God is calling you to do, and even if you die doing it, what's the big deal – so did I!”

     “The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?” The answer is – there is no one and nothing to fear when God is with you!

An Antidote To Fear

A Thought For The Week Of January 20

"... speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him Who is the Head, that is Christ." (Ephesians 4:15) Sometimes in the modern world truth seems to be in short supply. I suppose there's always going to be some dishonesty - and much of it is innocent. Sometimes we're dishonest because we want to spare another person's feelings, after all, and there would be little benefit to the truth. Why would we need to tell someone, "I hated that present you got me for my birthday." Let's just say we liked it and move on. No harm done; no feelings hurt. But some dishonesty is more insidious. It's deliberate deception, usually for the purpose of gaining something for ourselves. We make promises we have no intention of keeping because we think we'll benefit from it. But when we tell those types of lies, they take on a life of their own, and they can start to take over our lives. Sometimes it becomes hard to distinguish between the truth and the lie we're living out. Winston Churchill once said that "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Lies can take over. God asks us to speak the truth - but always in love. Especially, we're asked to share - always in love - the truth about Jesus, the Saviour of the world; the grace of God who came for us. Jesus is the ultimate truth; in a way, he's the only truth that really matters. Churchill might have been right - a lie may get halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. But the good news is that a lie can't get anywhere that Jesus isn't already present. Our responsibility is to share that truth in love with those we encounter. Have a great week!

January 19 sermon - As A People Called To Holiness

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be His holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ - their Lord and ours: grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way - with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge - God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, Who has called you into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:1-9)

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     In the era of text messaging, the art of letter-writing has been largely lost. For that matter, to keep the text messages short, the art of spelling has been largely lost. Why spell “you” as “Y-O-U” when just plain “u” will do? There are all sorts of conveniences I suppose in the modern world, and fast and easy communication is one of them, but we've also lost a lot. One thing we've lost I think is context. When you're communicating via text message you want to keep it short. So there's no background to the discussion. Nothing that really gives you anything to interpret what's just been texted to you. In some ways – although I rarely write them – that's what I like about actual letters. I like the background; the little hints that come up. There's something about the start of the letter. Sure, you want to see the content, get down to the nitty gritty. What's it all about? Why exactly are you writing? Things like that. But you should never skip over the beginning of a letter. What point does the author feel compelled to make right from the start? 

     I may not write a lot of letters, but as a student of the Bible I read a fair number of letters, because so much of the New Testament revolves around the letters, and especially the letters of Paul. You learn a lot about both Paul and the churches he was writing to from the beginning of his letters. What were the issues? For Paul, we know (or at least we strongly suspect) that his authority was being called into question, because every single letter he wrote stresses right off the top that he is an apostle. 1 Corinthians, for example, starts by saying “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” All of his letters start with a similar statement of his authority. It's Paul basically saying to the churches that he writes to “I AM an apostle! No matter what anyone else says!” It's the idea of call. But in 1 Corinthians, Paul is also concerned fundamentally about the call of the Christians who compose the church at Corinth – and presumably all Christians. 1 Corinthians eventually descends into discussions about various and sundry conflicts that have broken out and have caused the congregation to descend into chaos. But in the first couple of sentences we see Paul's diagnosis of why this has happened: the Corinthians have perhaps forgotten that they are “called to be [God's] holy people.”

     There are two things we learn right off the top of this letter. First is that each of us has a personal call. God has a role for us to play within the Christian community. We usually think of “call” as something we apply to people in ordered ministry, but it goes far beyond that. People are called to all sorts of roles or ministries within the church. There are pastors, yes, but there are also missionaries and evangelists. There are administrators and choir members. There are ushers and greeters and Scripture readers. Sometimes our call is to work outside the church. People can be called to be teachers or lawyers or plumbers or whatever. Your call is what God has asked you to commit to with your life. There are so many different calls it's impossible to count them all. Sometimes it's hard to discern what our particular call is. Sometimes others have to discern something in us and say – you should do this - whatever it is. There are a whole variety of calls to service of various kinds. We just have to be able to discern what it is that we're being called to – and if we don't think we're being called to anything, then we have to sit back and discern some more, because everyone has some sort of calling in their Christian life; some way in which God wants us to glorify Christ. That's why what you might call the corporate call is important. There's one call that Paul seems to suggest is given to every Christian simply by virtue of the fact that we're Christians. I'm talking about the call to holiness. “...  to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be His holy people ...” is how Paul referred to the Corinthians in the opening of his letter. The point may well be that unless you first understand and accept this calling, you're not going to accomplish anything else.

     So what is this call to holiness? It seems, from what Paul says, to be the basis for Christian life. And we've done such a horrible job of speaking of the word, so that people have a warped view of what holiness really means. Most people think of holiness as being of upstanding moral character, which is probably why many shy away from the idea that they are called to holiness. We're all too aware of our own faults and weaknesses to take on a call that seems to imply that we're morally better than other people. Hopefully we're also too humble to want to claim that as well. But that isn't really what a call to holiness means. It's not a call to be better than others. To be called to holiness means simply that we recognize that we have been set apart by God for a purpose. The call to holiness is what opens us to our unique and personal calls, because it teaches us what “call” is all about – and it's not about being better or more important than other people, which was one of the things that caused the problems in Corinth: those who had received certain gifts or calls began to think of their particular gift or call as more important and therefore of themselves as more important than those with other gifts or calls. Recognizing and claiming that we are called to holiness means understanding how we are to engage in the various calls that come to us from God. I want to suggest that a call to holiness has three components that all help us to understand what our personal calls from God are.

     A call to holiness focuses on our unity in Christ; it places Christ above all else. Christ is the one Who calls us to be “one.” It's true enough that if we take a good look at modern day Christianity the last thing we might think is that the church is “one.” After all, there are well over 10 churches in Port Colborne alone – so how can we be “one.” But the oneness of the Christian community doesn't necessarily mean that all Christians should worship in the same building or even believe exactly the same things. It does mean, however, that we have a one-ness in our focus on Christ; that for all of our differences, we are committed to serving Christ as best as we can discern Christ's call to us. So a call to holiness reminds us that Christ is the centre of everything for the church. If we place anything else in the centre, we've rejected the call to holiness that God has placed upon us.

     A call to holiness focuses on our love for one another and on living by that principle. The best way to live in unity, after all, is to live in love. We can't be one if we're at each other's throats. We can't be one if we won't sit down at the table and talk with each other. We can't be one if we always have to have our way and we just pick up our ball and go home, so to speak, if we don't get our way. We can only be one if we live up to the example of Jesus and put into practice His words: “love one another as I have loved you.” That's not an emotion, which is usually how we think about love. It's actively living with the concern always for the well-being of the other. It's caring about each other and the church; it's giving for each other and the church; it's sacrificing for the sake of each other and the church.

     Finally, a call to holiness focuses on humble service – on recognizing that what we do is for God's glory and not ours. We're not called to think of ourselves as more important that anyone else, or to think of our own unique “call” as better than the call given to anyone else. If we start to establish a hierarchy where some are more important than others rather than a fellowship in which each of us has our own equally important gifts to share and ministry to offer then we've missed the point. We serve however and wherever God has called us – and we recognize our call as a blessing simply because however we discerned it, it comes from God, Who sees our potential and our abilities better than we do and Who seeks to use those things in the service of the church and the Kingdom.

     There are other things that could perhaps be added to the list – but I would argue that those are the three things that need to be shown in order for us to demonstrate that we understand and respond to the call to holiness God has placed upon us. It's not a burden to be called by God – to holiness, or to whatever role we've been called to; it's a joy. We should embrace it with thanks, and we should be about the business of God.

A Thought For The Week Of January 13

Corrie Ten Boom wrote, "let God's promises shine on your problems." That's actually pretty good advice. It seems to me that often the biggest problem we have is letting our problems get the best of us. We face challenges, and we become consumed by them and desperate because of them. Then we make unwise choices in a frantic effort to get out of whatever situation we've found ourselves in, and by doing that we get ourselves into even more problems. It becomes a vicious cycle that we can't escape from. We simply spiral downhill. I've seen that spiral happen in the lives of people. It's not pretty. But I've also seen people who look like they're trapped in that spiral but manage to pull themselves out of it. Often, it's because their faith gave them the strength to do so. Through the Bible, God makes many promises to us: through Jesus, God promises to be with us always and God promises to help us bear our burdens. Perhaps most important is that there is nothing in all creation that we can experience that can ever separate us from divine love. With those promises resting upon us, shining on all of the problems we face, we can in fact overcome those problems and create the abundant life Jesus wants us to have. Have a great week!

January 12 sermon - Enlightened

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. (Isaiah 60:1-6)

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     The light of God always overcomes the darkness of the world. That seems to be the message of Scripture pretty much from the very beginning. “Let there be light,” God says in the creation story of Genesis. “And there was light.” What's the story talking about? Is God basically creating a light bulb – something that can turn dark into light or night into day? That's not a bad analogy actually. I've actually heard it argued that the single invention that changed life more than anything else was Thomas Edison's light bulb. For the most part, before the light bulb, day was day and night was night. Sure, you could keep lanterns or gas lamps going but they were smelly and dirty. So people tended to order their lives around the sun. You went to bed when the sun set and you woke up when the sun rose. The light bulb changed everything. It offered a cheap and clean way to overcome darkness. All of a sudden it didn't matter that it was night anymore. It was still bright enough that you could do pretty much whatever you wanted to do. The light bulb was truly a revolution in human society. Let there be light, indeed. Thank you, Thomas Edison – although, as in all things, I suppose it could be debated whether the result has been good or bad.

     When God spoke the words “let there be light” it was good. It was also revolutionary, but in a different way. God wasn't inventing a light bulb. In the context of creation, what was being created with those words was wisdom, or knowledge. In the Book of Proverbs, wisdom is personified and given a voice, and in Proverbs 8:22 wisdom cries out, “the Lord brought me forth as the first of His works.” That's a harkening back to the Genesis creation story, when light was God's first creation. There's the biblical link between light and wisdom. And with the creation of wisdom (or knowledge) God's work could go forth, because by the very act of creation knowledge of God was possible. The first things we learn about God are what we see around us – because it all comes from God. The painting tells us something about the artist; the novel tells us something about the author; the sculpture tells us something about the sculptor. In the same way, the creation tells us something about the Creator. In essence, the creation story of the Bible makes the point for us that it is God's very nature to desire to be revealed and known and understood by those whom God has created. And while the creation itself bears witness to that God, there's both a special privilege and a special responsibility granted to those who have seen that witness and responded to it and entered into a life-giving relationship with God.

     But not everyone responds to the signs; not everyone sees the presence of God around them. That seems strange to those of us who do see God, who do know God and who do feel God's presence; those of us who just know that God is, in fact, with us. But it's true. So many people don't see the signs of God's presence, or at least they don't live as if the signs of God's presence are of any great importance to their lives. “... darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples ...” is the way Isaiah described the situation of his day – almost 3000 years ago. It's surprising how little some things change in 3000 years isn't it. If light is the knowledge of God's presence, and darkness is ignorance about God's presence, then the words still ring true, don't they: “... darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples ...” An Ipsos Reid poll taken in 2011 suggested that 30% of Canadians say flat out that they don't believe in God. What was even more interesting was that 28% of people who call themselves Protestants say they don't believe in God. That's interesting. Don't worry. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands! I just find that number interesting. The numbers who don't believe in God vary from survey to survey, but they all indicate the same trend. If darkness is the lack of knowledge of God, then indeed “... darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples ...” As believers, that trend could make us fall into despair. It could make us give up. All too often it makes us feel as if our only choice is to hang on for as long as we can as if the future holds no hope for us. But, there is another option. We could choose to be light.

     In Isaiah's day, the prophet didn't give in to despair. Not at all. He recognized that the darkness was a challenge but he felt that it should motivate the people of God. “See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people, but the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you.” The presence of darkness is in fact an opportunity. If the sun was always shining, 24 hours a day year round, then Thomas Edison would never have had to invent the light bulb. There would have been no point to it. But darkness was a reality, and it was something that could be overcome. The spiritual darkness of the modern world can be overcome by those upon whom the Lord has risen – which I hope includes those of us who are here today, unless you're among the 28% of Protestants who don't believe in God! But assuming that you do believe in God then “... the Lord rises upon you and His glory appears over you.” In other words, you ought to be noticed! The glory of the Lord shining upon you should make a difference in you that people see. But in a world where increasing numbers of people not only don't see the light, but aren't even really interested in it – and are sometimes even antagonistic toward it – the unfortunate truth is that sometimes we actually prefer not to be seen. Jesus understood that could potentially be a problem for His people. In Matthew 5, Jesus said, “are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.” He's right of course. It makes no sense to be a light but then hide yourself so that the light can't be seen. But sometimes it's tempting. If the trend is away from God – away from the light – then there's a huge temptation to fit in; to be part of the crowd; to choose the path of least resistance. And sometimes it happens. Sometimes we make that choice. That's always happened with God's people. “Give us a king!” the people of Israel cried, “so that we can be like all the other nations!” “Don't ask us to talk about God,” so many of God's people say today. “Just let us be like everyone else.” Don't ever talk about faith, we're told. Religion is a private matter, people say. Thank God for the example of prophets like Isaiah – who must have been tempted at times by those same feelings, but who chose to let “the glory of the Lord” shine through them.

     When you live as if what you believe about God makes a difference in your lives – which means both talking about it and actively living it out – it does make a difference. As Isaiah said to God's people so long ago, “nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” I'm not sure whether we're going to have much of an impact on nations or kings. But on the other hand we know we won't have an impact on anyone if we hide the light that God gives us and try to obscure the glory of the Lord that rests upon us.

     It's a huge responsibility to be enlightened by “the glory of the Lord!” So huge that we're probably all tempted to back away from it from time to time. But also huge enough that I hope that we're all able to set aside our reluctance, seize the opportunities before us, and let “the glory of the Lord” shine from us, both in what we say and in how we live!

A Thought For The Week Of January 6

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6) For light to suddenly shine out of darkness means that something new must have appeared; otherwise the darkness would never have been dark! Paul here seems to be thinking of the first creative act of God described in the Book of Genesis, when God spoke light into being. Light can mean a lot of things, but in the Bible I think it means wisdom, or knowledge. Paul seems to be telling us that we can only know God if God first chooses to be made known to us. The good news is that God does want to be known. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of that. Jesus called himself "the light of the world" - the one who by his very being brought us knowledge of God; the one who is constantly reaching out to hearts that are dark by their very lack of knowledge of God. And it's God who does this. In spite of people who ask "have you found God?" we really don't need to find God. God has already found us and is actively reaching out to us even now, seeking to place a light in our hearts or to increase the light that's already there. As 2014 begins, my hope is that all of us will let God's light shine in us more and more powerfully, so that we will truly know God and be able to be lights ourselves, showing the love of God wherever we go. Have a great week.

January 5 sermon - Real Riches

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment - to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him Who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, Who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession - to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:3-14)

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     In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus said, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” It was Jesus' way of saying that we base our priorities on what we decide is important to us. What is our treasure? What has taken possession of our hearts? What controls our lives? At the beginning of a new year, we often take stock of things – what's in our past that we regret, and what do we want to change as we look ahead. New Year's Resolutions, some people call them. I don't make New Year's Resolutions, because long ago I made a New Year's Resolution to stop making New Year's Resolutions, and I'm determined to keep up my perfect track record! But it's still not a bad time to start thinking about what our personal treasures are and to think about whether we have all our priorities in the right place.

     I can't speak about this on an individual level, of course, because I don't know what all of your treasures are. Maybe there are days when I'm not even sure what my treasures are! But I look at society, especially having just come through the Christmas season and standing here on what the church considers to be the last day of Christmas, and I'm at least aware of one possibility that afflicts society as a whole. I think for a moment of Paul's words in Philippians 3:19, when, speaking of what he calls enemies of the cross of Christ, he says, “their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.” Paul seems to be referring here to what Scripture sometimes calls gluttony – which doesn't necessarily mean just eating too much food, but really means just wanting too much of anything; much more than we actually need.

     Gluttony for some reason is something that Christians like to ignore. And yet, gluttony is running rampant in our society. “Supersize it?” That's the question you get asked at any McDonald's  whenever you order anything. “Supersize it?” And often it comes across not so much as a question, but as a command. It's almost as if there's something wrong with you if you don't supersize it. And that just sets the stage for people to want more and more and more of everything. And we start to take for granted that having more and more and more – far more than we ever possibly need – is just the way it is and even the way it should be. I noted in the news recently that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has estimated that by 1:11 p.m. on Jan. 2, the top one hundred paid CEOs of Canadian companies would have been earned as much as the average full-time worker's yearly income. Not necessarily because they've done anything to earn it. The author of the report actually said that “there is no clear relationship between CEO compensation and any measure of corporate performance.” But deserved or not there's a culture that says that that group should get far more than they need. Or that senators should be able to play fast and loose with travel reimbursement and housing costs. Or whatever. Our society creates the mindset that says we should get as much as we can – even if others don't have much and even if we have far more than we need. And too often the church allows itself to buy into that mindset.

     I know many Christians who have no hesitation about labeling smoking and drinking as sins, but for some reason they choose to either ignore or at least tolerate gluttony. There are those who wouldn't even think about having a glass of wine or smoking a cigarette but they have no qualms about gorging themselves at the dinner table. It's interesting. But when we want more than what we need, and when we can't control ourselves and we go to any lengths to get the thing that we want – that's gluttony. That's a sign of what our priorities are. We want to get rich on the things of the world – whether it's eating a lot of food, or having a lot of money – and we forget about the things of God. Gluttony is a problem – and a rampant one in modern society, which we see lived out so dramatically in the Christmas excess of food and drink and gifts. And there are so many other things that we ignore as well. Rachel Held Evans is a Christian author who recently wrote that she had been attacked simply because she had written that parents with gay children should love those gay children unconditionally. Which sounds Christian and Christ-like to me. But she wrote that people (mostly Christians) attacked her on the basis of a handful of biblical verses that they insisted had to be taken absolutely literally, even though there are so many clear biblical teachings that we now choose to overlook, on issues such as divorce, or gossip, or head coverings, or nonviolence, or the “abomination” of eating shellfish and the sin of calling other people idiots, which the Bible says is enough to get you sent to hell.  But we don't agree with those things, so we look for an out or we ignore them, and when we come across those teachings in the Bible, Evans says we decide that “then we need a little context. Then we need a little grace. Then we need a little room to disagree.” And I agree with her that we need all those things, and especially grace – because where would we be without grace.

     Grace is a concept we find hard to understand. In the January edition of the United Church Observer, there was an article about Rob Ford and his repeated pleas for forgiveness. Yes, it's easy to be cynical – but a Christian minister writing in a Christian magazine should surely rise above cynicism. But instead the article presented a virtually meaningless discussion about forgiveness from a very worldly and secular perspective when it had the opportunity to speak meaningfully about grace. The article starts with the words, "In a world that likes rules," setting us up for a works oriented approach to forgiveness. Follow the rules and you'll be forgiven. That's a denial of grace. I see much in it that seems to deny the principle of "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Especially in the section where the author notes incredulously that Ford is a vicious political operator, and the very thing he asks of others is what he himself refuses to give. But nothing depends on what Ford gives or doesn't give - it depends on whether we can show grace and offer that which is undeserved, as God in Christ has done. "You don't get forgiveness just because you ask for it," the author writes. Well, actually, we're supposed to forgive innumerable times when asked according to Jesus - implicitly suggesting that we're to forgive even if the apology is not entirely sincere. The author writes that "forgiveness is a delicate miracle ..." A miracle? A MIRACLE? Forgiveness should be anything but miraculous to a Christian. It should be what we're about on a routine and regular basis. But he then says that it's a miracle that only happens "... when the unjustly treated receive back what has been taken from them." So forgiveness is conditional on getting something in return? Again - where's grace? The author had the opportunity to apply some basic Christian principles to the public sphere, and instead settled for a worldly understanding of forgiveness and all the conditions we attach to it. Offering forgiveness should simply be a given for a Christian. That doesn't mean that the person forgiven faces no consequences in the present for their past actions. But it does mean that we let them out of our debt and stop belabouring past sins. That's grace.

     In Ephesians we read that “in [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us.” Here is where we find real riches – the grace of God lavished upon us through Christ. The most important word here might be “redemption.” It's a word that sounds vaguely familiar to church-goers but we've really lost sight of what it means when it's applied to God and faith. But think about how we use the word in everyday language. Today we redeem coupons – we get a bargain; sometimes we even get something for nothing.  That's redemption. We get something for nothing – and what do we get? We get all “the riches of God's grace” - and we get it for nothing. We get it because God simply gives it to us. In place of redemption we might use the word “freedom” or “liberation.” That helps us understand the reference to “through His blood.” That's a reference to Christ's death – which always goes hand in hand with His resurrection. We get liberation through the death of Christ – because the death of Christ tells us that there's nothing to be feared; not even death itself – because even death is conquered by Jesus – and by “the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us” we share in that victory, we gain that freedom, we enjoy that redemption. These are real riches that we find in God's grace. These are lasting riches that we find in God's grace. These riches are more important than anything else we might use to determine our wealth.

     The top 100 paid CEOs in Canada might have earned as much money by halfway through January 2 than most of us will be earning in the entire year – but “the riches of God's grace” are always with us and can never be taken away. That's why they're the real riches. They free us to live as children of God and as followers of Christ and as servants of the gospel He preached. “The riches of God's grace that He lavished upon us” are truly all we need!