Monday 28 July 2014

A Thought For The Week Of July 28

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8) Last week I came across a video that was shot in Kenya. A baby giraffe was being targeted by an entire pride of lions. But the baby wasn't helpless - because the baby had its mother with it. The big mother giraffe managed to get her baby right underneath her, so that the mother was directly above the baby and on all sides of it. Every now and then a lion would start to creep toward her and the mother giraffe would rear up on her hind legs and then come crashing down on the ground, stomping the ground with her front feet - which immediately made the lions back off. The person who took the video said that this went on for about a half hour before the lions finally gave up and decided that they'd look for an easier meal. But it reminded me of the comparison Peter made between the devil and a lion. Make of the devil what you will. Some people believe that the devil (or Satan) is an actual evil being; others lean toward the idea that it's a personification of the power of evil. Either way, the point is that evil is a very real and powerful force in the world and sometimes in our lives. Sometimes it does seem to target you, and you wonder if you can pull through. And then, the gift of faith is the sudden realization that God is with you - above you and on all sides of you, ready to see you through whatever "evil" may be attacking you; whatever hard time may have come upon you. I suspect that the baby giraffe in the video was very frightened by the presence of the lions. But I also suspect that the baby giraffe had total trust in its mother, knowing that with its mother there, those lions wouldn't get it. After all, as often as the lions crept forward, the baby never seemed to panic or try to run away. It just stayed locked in its spot underneath its mother. There's a lesson in that video for us. If things are getting out of hand and trouble seems all around you - remember that God is all around you too. Trust in God, and you will make it through. Have a great week!

Sunday 27 July 2014

July 27 sermon: A Christian Emancipation Proclamation

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
(Romans 6:11-14)

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     There were times when I could be an irritating teenager. And before anybody says anything – yes, there are some (perhaps even some who are here today) who would argue that I've never really outgrown that! But I find myself reflecting back to Grade 13; way back in the days when there was a Grade 13. My English teacher that year was Mr. Arthur. Mr. Arthur also taught history, but he happened to be my English teacher. I used to get really good marks in history, though, and Mr. Arthur knew that so sometimes he talked about history with me, and one day – I don't remember why the subject came up – Mr. Arthur said to me, “Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.” “No, he didn't,” I said in reply. “Slavery wasn't ended until after the end of the Civil War.” “You're wrong,” he said, “it was Lincoln, and it was before the Civil War ended.” “I think I'm right, Mr. Arthur.” And we left it at that. Or so I thought. The next day, Mr. Arthur handed me a paper. It was a copy of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and he had highlighted the date on it. January 1, 1863. More than two years before the end of the Civil War. “Read that,” he said with a little smile. I took it home and read it. I then took out a pen and underlined the part that said that the people who had been supposedly freed from slavery by this document were people who were being held in slavery “in those states or parts of states currently declared to be in rebellion against the authority of the United States.” I then added a note that pointed out that this meant that no slaves were actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation because (1) those who would have been freed by it were in states that had rebelled and so the slaveowners wouldn't likely obey Lincoln, and (2) Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky were all slave states but the slaves there weren't freed by this because those states weren't a part of the rebellion. So – in that moment anyway – the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anybody. I also helpfully included a copy of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution (the amendment that actually did abolish slavery everywhere in the United States) and highlighted the date on it – December 6, 1865 - several months after the Civil War ended. Mr. Arthur said “thanks,” and said he'd look it over. But he never talked to me about the subject again. And, irritating though I may have been, I wasn't irritating enough to go back to him the next day and say “I told you so.” After all, Mr. Arthur controlled my Grade 13 English mark! So I've saved the “I told you so” for today – but unfortunately Mr. Arthur isn't here to hear it!

     I thought about that incident (and about the Emancipation Proclamation) when I read the last verse of today's passage: “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” And it struck me that here is a classic difference between the ways of the world and the way of Christ. Abraham Lincoln was a great president. Many people think he was the greatest president the United States has ever had. But he was a politician – and, you know, sometimes the promises and rhetoric offered by politicians don't always match the results we see. We don't have that problem in Canada, of course, but Lincoln? He was a politician. His Emancipation Proclamation was important, and it was the first step perhaps toward ending slavery – but it didn't end it. In fact, it didn't free a single slave when it took effect. In the immediate moment, the promise didn't match the result. And there's the difference between the ways of the world and the way of Christ. With Jesus, the result always matches the promise! And, one of the things that Jesus promises us is freedom. Perhaps not quite the same kind of freedom Lincoln was promising slaves in the American south – but freedom nevertheless.

     I've been speaking for a couple of weeks about the new life in Christ. How it happens, the outward characteristics of it, how we gain new life and how we display that new life to those around us. Today, just briefly, I'd like to think about the practical benefit of the new life in Christ to us. We should never make ourselves the first thought. It's always more important to think of how our faith impacts others than on what it does for us (otherwise, faith can become a selfish thing – a theme I'm going to explore a bit next week) but still faith does have an impact on us as well. And I believe Paul summed up that impact very well when he wrote that “sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” What Christian faith promises us is freedom – and not in a future-oriented “some day” type of way that we have to wait for. The promise is freedom in the here and now. The promise is that with Christ we can live a life of real freedom. According to Paul, freedom from a Christian perspective means that we rejoice in two things: that sin is no longer our master, and that we live under grace. I just want to finish up this mini-series by reflecting on those two ideas.

     As I said a couple of weeks ago, “sin” is simply anything we do that isn't consistent with what God wants us to do. Often, those things become habits or addictions, and it's hard to break away from them. They begin to control us, and we lose the ability to conquer them. You know the old saying that “quitting smoking is easy: I've done it lots of times.” Back to Paul in Romans 7 that I mentioned two weeks ago: he said that he kept doing the things he knew he shouldn't be doing, but he wasn't able to do the things he knew he should do. That's what happens. We know we're doing something we shouldn't be doing, but we can't stop. We allow the addiction, the behaviour, the sin to have control over us. The reality is that quitting a habit or a sin can be one of the hardest things to do in life. Not impossible, but hard. But Romans 6:14 says, “sin shall no longer be your master.” A lot of people read this and think it's a command. They think we're being instructed to make this happen, or else. But in reality it's not a command - it’s a powerful promise from God! Rather than reading it with a sense of fear and foreboding - “Oh no, I better make sure that sin isn't my master or I'm in big trouble with God!” - we need to read it as a promise that God is going to back up. “Sin isn't going to be my master, because God has promised that and will help me.” Right there you gain a new perspective on life. It doesn't mean that sin will never reappear, or that we'll conquer the behaviours perfectly. It does mean that Jesus will free us from sin's tyranny and allow us to live a life of freedom, because we “not under the law, but under grace.”

     Sin comes from law – and law both proscribes behaviour and prescribes consequences. To be no longer under the law means to be freed to live in love and without the fear that we haven't done it well enough for God to actually love us. It means that while we may not be able to be all that God would like us to be, God will accept us with all our faults and all our limitations and all our weaknesses and even all our sins; that God will accept us as all that we're able to be in spite of those things. This is living under grace. “Grace” is how we speak of the generous love and mercy of God shown in Jesus. Grace is a gift given freely by God. Those “under grace” don't have to try to earn God's approval by living a righteous life and performing all sorts of acts of service. To live under grace is to live a life of gratitude and love. But that doesn't mean that we get lazy and simply take it easy for the rest of our lives. There are still consequences that flow from our sins and weaknesses – but they affect those around us and the relationships we have with them and we have to deal with that. But grace assures us that nothing affects our relationship with God; that God loves us with a love that will never end. That means we don't have to be worried about whether we've done the minimum required of us by God. Instead, living under grace, we should want to give our maximum to reflect God to the world, because without fearing that we have to do enough, now we're free to do what we can. And that's a huge difference.

     A part of why it's a huge difference is because the way of Christ is so different from the ways of the world. As great a president as he may have been, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free anyone. Those desiring freedom had to wait. But when Paul, under divine inspiration, writes that we “are not under the law, but under grace” that's a promise that gets put into effect right away, without delay. It's one of the great things about being a Christian. We're free – free to be all that we can be without having to fear that it isn't good enough. That's a Christian Emancipation Proclamation!

Monday 21 July 2014

A Thought For The Week Of July 21

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52, NIV) It's Vacation Bible School season in many churches. This week, it's my own congregation's turn, so our church will be humming with the presence of little children having fun and learning more about God. It made me think of this verse from Luke's Gospel. Even Jesus had to grow in wisdom. At this point in Luke, Jesus is about 12 years old, and this comes right after his encounter at the temple in Jerusalem with the teachers, whom he had amazed with his questions as he sat listening to them. As a child, Jesus obviously was curious. Perhaps not fully aware of who he was and what his mission was, he had a thirst to know more about both God and the Scriptures, and to discern what he had been called to, and in spite of the amazing knowledge he already had for a child of that age, he found opportunities to learn more. I hope the children in our church and in churches all over at this time of year are growing in both wisdom and stature as well: coming to know God better and becoming more of what God wants them to be. But I also hope that we don't think that learning about God is only for children or for adults who are new to the faith. Let's face it - there's always more to learn about God. I suspect that's one thing Jesus meant when he told his disciples that they should become "like little children." Those who follow Jesus should have a never ending thirst to learn more and more about God and to know God better every day. I'm constantly amazed when I read Scripture, for example, that no matter how familiar the passage I'm reading may be, there always seems to be something new that I can take from it, something I've never noticed before that causes me to want to go deeper. If we are like little children, then this is one of the ways we should show it: with a never ending and never satisfied thirst for knowledge about both God and Jesus, and the faith we are called to. Have a great week!

Sunday 20 July 2014

July 20 sermon: The Look Of The New Life In Christ

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin - because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
(Romans 6:5-10)

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     Last week, if you recall, I worked with Paul's comment in the verses preceding what we just read that we had “died to sin,” and, by extension, that if we had died to one life then we must have begun to live a new life. Last week the focus was on the process; it was on how we set aside the natural instinct to be concerned with ourselves, and to concentrate on our own needs and wants and desires, and instead begin to live for Christ, and to live by what I suggested was a summary of the Christian ethic as I see it taught by Jesus in the Gospels: love God, love your neighbours, love one another and even love your enemies. Love is the ethical heart of the Christian faith. The song we sang a few minutes ago is an old one. “They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” That doesn't mean that people who aren't Christians can't be very loving people, but it is, I believe, trying to say that as followers of Christ, we follow someone who showed a unique and passionate love directed to those around him, and especially directed to those whom society had deemed unlovable, or at least unworthy of being loved. Jesus reached out to such folk. He welcomed them, he included them, he gave them dignity by how he treated them. Followers of Christ are called to do that. How, after all, could we follow Christ if we don't seek to do the things that Christ did, and Christ's life and ministry was always directed away from himself and toward those who, generally through no fault of their own, found themselves in desperate need of someone to truly love them unconditionally. Christ did that. Our calling is to do that. Such is our new life. But I've noticed over the years (and it seems to be an increasing sense in recent years) that the very concept of new life is becoming difficult for Christians to grasp in an era where the church seems to struggle for life more than it claims new life for itself or offers new life to others.

     That seems basic to me. If we want to be able to claim the new life in Christ for ourselves then we have to believe in the new life in Christ – meaning that among other things we have to believe in transformation; that we are moving always forward from what we are into what God wants us to become. That's the way it was with Christ himself: always forward. No matter the risk; no matter the circumstances; no matter the distractions. Always forward to the next call God had placed up on him. Always forward: forward to Jerusalem, forward to Gethsemane, forward to Pilate, forward to the cross. All journeys that could have caused him to turn away; to say “I've done enough.” But journeys Jesus made because he trusted. He trusted God. He believed himself in new life. He knew himself that death would not be the end. He understood that resurrection (new and transformed life) was ahead. Here's what the church needs to claim before we can live our own new life in Christ – hope in resurrection. If we can put our hope in resurrection, and live in resurrection hope, then we will not fear, and we will be transformed, and we will be freed to live the life Christ calls us to. Paul wrote “we will ... be united with him in a resurrection like his.” And so we will – and that hope should lead us to the new life in Christ right now, today. So, what does it look like? How do we live it? What is the look of the new life in Christ? I want to suggest a few characteristics that people should see shining from us, and that should identify us as a community living the new life in Christ.

     The first characteristic should come as no surprise. It's love. God islove, and Christ livedlove. That's what we see most powerfully in the life of Jesus himself: love on display; love lived out; love poured out. Christ's very life was a sign of love. The incarnation of God shows love – that God, who had no need to come close to us, would choose to come close to us; that God, who created, would choose to become a part of the creation; that God, who is eternal, would choose to experience, through Jesus, both the highs and the lows of human life – including betrayal, pain and death. This is love. That one who has no need to stand in solidarity with us chooses to stand in solidarity with us. Or, as the New Testament puts it, “this is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us ...” We are called to a life of love for all those around us. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in love, and if we cannot live a life of love, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.

     Another characteristic is service. What did Jesus himself say? “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” We as followers of Christ are called to a life of service. That implies a lot of things. Maybe most importantly, it tells us that we can never allow ourselves to become insular, looking out only for ourselves, wondering what's going to happen to us. The love lived out by Jesus that I just spoke of wasn't an emotion, as we usually think of the word. It was a love characterized by deliberate action. It was a love demonstrated by Jesus emptying himself for the sake of others. It was a love characterized by the great paradox: that God is both ruler and servant; that God is both shepherd and lamb. As followers of Jesus and children of this God, we are called to service. The church sometimes forgets that and seeks to “lord it over” the society around us. The church sometimes tries to control and dominate. The church sometimes seems to assume that it has a right to get its way. In other words, the church sometimes doesn't act like Jesus, who gave himself up, while the church too often tries to save itself and its position and its influence. But Jesus said, “whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.” This is a call to service – a call to be outward looking. By doing that, we show the look of the new life in Christ. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in service, and if we cannot live a life of service, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.

     Yet another characteristic is compassion. Love is fine, and service is wonderful, but both have to be filtered through a lens of compassion, so that our love and our service are extended to those who find themselves needing these things the most. Too often, we love only those we deem worthy of our love, but “God so loved the world.” God's love wasn't only for the good, pious and faithful ones. It was for the world. It's easy to love the people who love you back; the people you think are deserving. The rubber hits the road when we find ourselves confronted by those who, for one reason or another, strike us as unlovable. Too often, we serve only those who we expect will be able to pay us back in some way. But, as Jesus said, “if you lend ... only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?” The challenge comes when we're asked to give for the sake of those who have nothing to offer in return. Somewhere along the way Christians even came up with an excuse for not showing real compassion: “the Lord helps those who help themselves.” It sounds so biblical – but it's not. It doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. The principle actually comes from Aesop's fables, which means that it predates Christ by about 600 years – and Christ not only never said it, he lived a life that contradicted it; a life that said not “the Lord helps those who help themselves,” but rather, “the Lord helps those who cannot help themselves.” Real compassion means to willingly love and serve those from whom we expect nothing in return. Jesus did that – by washing feet, by healing the sick, by feeding the hungry, by sitting and eating with and befriending those considered by society to be sinners, by bringing the outcast in. This is a call to compassion – to be there for those who have lost hope that anyone would ever be there for them. By doing that, we show the look of the new life in Christ. If, as Paul wrote, “we believe that we will ... live with him,” then we must live in compassion, and if we cannot live a life of compassion, then we cannot show the world the look of the new life in Christ.

     The good news is that we can live this kind of life. Oh, maybe we won't do it perfectly. Jesus was Jesus, after all – and we're not. But we are his body; we are called to do his ministry; we are equipped and gifted by the Holy Spirit – and that means living by love, by service and by compassion. And it means also accepting grace when we find ourselves not living in those ways (because God's grace is always upon us to give us a new beginning) and it means extending grace when we see others not living in those ways (because God's grace is always upon them to give them a new beginning.)

     “... if we have been united with [Jesus] in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” That resurrection life we're called to live is a new life, characterized by love, characterized by compassion, characterized by service – and always lived by the grace of God, and with grace toward others.

Monday 14 July 2014

A Thought For The Week Of July 14

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." (Revelation 21:13) I've always  tended to think of this verse in terms of a reference to time. I think most people do. I hear it, and what I hear is a promise from Jesus - a promise from God - that from the very beginning of time to the very end of time God has always existed. That makes sense, because after all, if God is eternal - which I believe - then God not only exists within all time but beyond time as well. But as I thought about the words, I came to realize that it's about more than time. The phrase looks back to the prophet Isaiah, who used it in Isaiah 44:6: "I am the first and I am the last." In that context, the phrase isn't referring just to all of time but to all circumstances; to everything that had happened to God's people over the centuries. The message wasn't only that God had been present throughout time, but that there was nothing that had ever happened to God's people that God wasn't present for. In other words, God is with us in all circumstances. Reading that changed my thinking about Jesus' words in Revelation. Jesus is "with us always." In fact, through the incarnation we basically find that God(through Jesus) has experienced all that human life can possibly hold - good and bad, joy and sorrow, delight and pain, laughter and tears. It's not only that God has been with me every moment of my life; it's that God has shared in (and understands) everything I've experienced. To me that's divine love. Have a great week!

Sunday 13 July 2014

July 13 sermon - The Walking Dead - But In Reverse

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 
(Romans 6:1-4)

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     I don't know how many of you pay much attention to the entertainment scene, but if you do, you might have noticed that in recent years zombies have been all the craze! I, personally, have never really been much into zombie stories. I actually like horror movies, but my taste in them runs much more toward werewolves than zombies. Werewolves are very spiritual creatures – or at least there's a very spiritual message connected with them. They represent in a very graphic and frightening way the inner temptations we all have; the inner beast so to speak that wants to be let loose. And – for the most part – they're just plain fun! But my tastes notwithstanding – zombies are in right now! They are the current “creature” of choice for Hollywood. Cities have zombie walks, and lots of people show up for them. I haven't heard if it's happening this year – but last October 21, Welland held its third annual zombie walk! It's where people dress up as zombies – and, well, walk through town! Zombies are big. But I was never much into zombies – until about a year ago, when Lynn and I started watching the first three seasons of a television show called “The Walking Dead” on Netflix. It's set in Georgia, and it's about a zombie plague. Almost everyone has become a zombie, and the show follows a handful of survivors trying to escape. What I like about the show isn't so much the zombies – I actually find the zombies in “The Walking Dead” kind of boring, and rather easily done away with as long as you don't panic. What I like in the show is the characters. There are some interesting and well developed characters in it. And I like the fact that the plague is explained. Most of these zombie movies or shows feature a plague, but they never really explain how a person becomes a zombie, except that you get infected by something. One episode of “The Walking Dead” did offer an explanation. The virus attacks your brain and shuts it off, apparently killing you, except that anywhere from 20 minutes to 8 hours after you “die” - the virus re-animates your brain stem and nothing else, meaning that you can't think and you have no memories or emotions, you just have basic motor skills (so you can walk) and you act on instinct, which means you have to be able to catch your food – and guess what zombies apparently have a taste for! Anyway, Lynn and I watched the first three seasons, and now we're anxiously awaiting season four on Netflix – and it's supposed to appear in the next two or three months! And as I was reading through Paul's letter to the Romans, I started to think that, in a way, Christianity has the same effect as that zombie plague – except that it does things in reverse!

     “... We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” There's a couple of assumptions being made in those few words. If “we ... have died to sin” then that must presume that at one time or another we lived in sin. And, if we don't “live in it any longer,” then we must have some new sort of life that we're living – because I submit that all of us are demonstrably still alive. So, to go back to the analogy with the zombie plague for a moment, how did we die to sin and then come back? How did our previous life get reanimated into a different kind of life with different goals and different possibilities?  Those are really my questions for today.

     Let's start with the whole question of what it means to “live in sin.” We're not talking here about people living together before they're married, although that's how the phrase has entered the lingo. The idea that Paul wants to get across is that somehow in our natural state we are under the control of sin; that sin has some sort of authority or power over us. It doesn't mean that we're constantly doing evil things. In fact, I'd suspect that the vast majority of us here today (and maybe all of us) have never done anything in our lives that we'd consider to be truly evil. To live in sin means basically that we're unable to perfectly do what God wants us to do. It's really that simple. Our human nature within us is battling the image of God that should be shining from us – and the human nature more often than not wins. Or you could say that the flesh is always battling the spirit, so that we respond to our own wants and desires more than we respond to the will of God. That's all it means to say that we “live in sin.” It's not that we're horrible and hopeless and evil people. We're simply not all that God wants us to be. I make that confession about myself freely. I have a long way to go before I'm going to be all that God wants me to be, and all I can say is that I don't think I'm at all unique in that regard. 

     To boil it down, to “live in sin,” I would say, is to live with broken relationships. The broken relationship might be with God or it might be with others – and I would argue that if we have broken relationships with others then we have, de facto, a broken relationship with God. Can any of us claim to have perfectly loving relationships with everyone? Can any of us claim that we always put the needs of others over and above our own needs? Can any of us claim that anger has never raised a barrier against God or others? Can any of us claim that we have never in any way hurt another person? Or ignored an obvious need? I submit that none of us can make such claims – not perfectly. And simply because these things happen, we find ourselves “living in sin.” Not doing horrible things all the time; not being the epitome of evil. Just not perfectly doing what God asks of us, and what God asks of us is primarily love. The Gospel and Christian faith I would argue are primarily relational – love God, love your neighbour, love one another and even love your enemy. If we can't love perfectly, that's sin at work in us. We need to let go of the knee jerk, “oh no, I'm not a sinner” reaction we often have, and understand that this is what the word means. Basically, it's a term that originated in archery, and it means “to miss the mark” – and the mark set by God is love. And, of course, once we realize that to sin means to act unlovingly and in ways that God doesn't want us to act in, then we dig ourselves deeper by creating rules to follow. And then we break the rules we've created, and then we start to lay upon ourselves (and sometimes on others) the burden of guilt and shame because the rules have been broken. This is the life of sin that Paul wants us to die to – a life sapped of joy because we're fixated on what we think the rules are. What God asks us for is not slavish obedience to a set of rules – God asks us for love. Love God, love your neighbour, love one another and even love your enemy. But if we can't do that, then where's the hope, we ask. The hope is in dying to that life and entering a new way of seeing life. To die to a life of sin doesn't mean to escape from it and become suddenly perfect. Even Paul didn't escape it. Had we gone on to Chapter 7, we'd see Paul lamenting, saying that he just keeps doing these things. He does the things he knows he shouldn't do, and fails to do the things he knows he should do, and he doesn't understand himself. So dying to sin doesn't mean living suddenly perfect lives. It means that we will no longer be held in bondage to sin. We will live as free people: freed to love God, freed to love our neighbours, freed to love one another freed to love our enemies – even freed to love ourselves in the best possible way once we realize that we ourselves are loved by God, and therefore worthy of love. What are we freed by? That's easy. We're freed by grace.

     People misunderstand divine grace. They think of it as cheap or easy grace. They think there's no cost to it. They think of it as being like a “get out of jail free” card in a Monopoly game. That's not what it is. Grace is neither easy nor cheap. Grace means the ability of one party (in this case God) to set aside a debt owed to them by another party. It frees the recipient of grace from punishment, but grace isn't cheap and grace isn't easy. It's costly for God to give, and it's humbling for us to receive. The letter to Titus tells us that Jesus was God's grace come to earth, and Jesus paid a heavy price for being God's grace come to earth. The cross stands as a reminder of the costliness of grace to God, and it should be humbling for us to receive it. And this costly grace represents a new way of life for us.

     I started my comments today by thinking about the zombies of “The Walking Dead.” When they die, they come back, but their higher functions, so to speak, get taken away and they're left only to act on instinct and to respond to their most basic and primal needs. We're kind of the reverse. When we die to sin, the desire to meet and satisfy those basic and primal needs that come from being human is diminished, and we enter a new way of life that's focused not on ourselves and meeting our needs, but on others and meeting their needs. To die to sin is to live by grace. Living by grace is living with Christ. Next week, I want to focus on the next few verses of Romans 6 and we'll think about the new life in Christ. For now, I just want to celebrate that we live by grace; that we are free to live for God and for others.

Monday 7 July 2014

A Thought For The Week Of July 7

"Then Samuel called on the Lord, and that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe of the Lord and of Samuel." (1 Samuel 12:18) I woke up this morning to a thunderstorm. It was a big thunderstorm. Crashing thunder, bright lightning, torrential rain and driving winds. It woke me up at just before 4:30 in the morning - which is a little bit earlier than I usually wake up. But I wasn't irritated. I laid in bed for a while listening to it all, and then decided to get up. On my way downstairs, I stopped at a window we have at the top of our stairs and I just watched as the storm was happening outside. I confess that I was grateful that I wasn't outside in it, but standing comfortable inside, looking out the window, I found myself transfixed by it - and in awe of the wonders of God's creation. We take a lot for granted. We often take nature itself for granted. I know I do. But then I try to remind myself that all things are from God, and so all things reveal God in some ways. When I was a little boy, afraid of the thunder, I used to be told not to worry - that thunder was just God bowling! (This from a family that didn't believe in God - but it made a cute story and made me relax a little bit.) Now I'm not afraid of thunder anymore. And whenever a big thunderstorm hits, I stand in awe of the God who created this world and its environment and all the universe and its wonders, and all the power contained within. A praise chorus starts with the words, "Our God is an awesome God ..." It's true. Things like thunderstorms are a reminder of that for me. Have a great week!

Sunday 6 July 2014

July 6 sermon - Baptism Times Three

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely - be content with your pay.” The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
(Luke 3:10-18)

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     Almost every minister you speak to will tell you that funerals come in spurts. That was certainly the case for me in the months of May and June, when I conducted nine of them. I suppose, at least in the last couple of weeks, the same could be said for baptisms. We've had a mini-spurt of those: baptisms the last two Sundays. Of course, we focus on such occasions on the baptism of a baby – and appropriately so. We don't so much focus our attention on the baby (although there's a tendency to reflect on how cute or well behaved or poorly behaved the babies are when they're baptized) but rather we focus on what we believe God is doing through the sacrament. And, of course, we focus on baptism with water – because that's how we do it in church. It's the visible baptism. It's the ritual. It's the one we think about most often because it's the one we see on at least a semi-regular basis. But with the baptisms of the last two weeks behind us – and with the cuteness of the babies behind us as well (because I know well enough not to try to compete with babies in the area of cuteness!) I found myself doing some reflecting on the subject of baptism in general, and on why our emphasis is so heavily on water baptism. It is, after all, only one of three baptisms mentioned in the New Testament, and the interesting thing is that aside from the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan River, there's only one other explicit reference to baptism with water in the New Testament (which I'll mention in a few minutes.) That makes me wonder if we don't miss a lot about our faith by focusing so much on water baptism. The words of John the Baptist seem pretty clear to me: “baptize you with water. But ... [Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” There's three different descriptions of baptism referred to there. What are they about, and how do they impact our lives of faith? Let's start with a few reflections on water baptism.

     The passage today makes it very clear: water baptism is John's baptism – not Jesus', but John's. So, I wonder, should it be taken as normative for Christians? Is it necessary for Christians? Do we, in fact, place too much emphasis on water baptism, primarily because it's an outward baptism or a ritual – one we can see and one we can participate in, but whose actual importance is somewhat limited? William Booth, who was the founder of the Salvation Army, rejected water baptism as unnecessary and even divisive in the body of Christ. And the truth is that, as I said, after the encounter between Jesus and John the only time water baptism is specifically spoken of in the New Testament is one occasion in the Book of Acts when the Apostle Philip comes across an Ethiopian official, shares the gospel with him, brings him to faith and is then asked by the Ethiopian for a water baptism. Philip seemed to see little need for water baptism. It was the Ethiopian who wanted it. Why? Perhaps because it's concrete and visual, and ritual – while perhaps not important to God – is important to us. Philip didn't seem to think it was necessary, but he agreed because the Ethiopian wanted it to happen. And that's it for explicit references to water baptism in the New Testament – Jesus in the Jordan, and an unnamed Ethiopian by Philip. There's one other reference in 1 Corinthians that suggests that Paul may have water baptized people, although he doesn't specifically mention water. All the other references to baptism are very general. The other thing we can say for sure from the New Testament witness about water baptism is that it's not explicitly Christian. Clearly it pre-dated Christ, since John baptized before Jesus' ministry began. I see water baptism as a symbol of God's grace being extended to all – even to the youngest and smallest child. It's universal; it's available to all, just as God is available to all. I believe that church “rules” that restrict who's allowed to be water-baptized miss the point of water baptism. I also believe that Christians who think water baptism is necessary for salvation miss the point of water baptism. Water baptism “does” nothing in and of itself. It simply serves as a reminder to all who are involved that God's grace is always upon us and will never be taken from us. Some criticize that baptism has become more a rite of passage than a spiritual act, and they think we should become more strict in who we baptize but I'm quite sure that's wrong. Becoming too strict about who we'll baptize misses the point of water baptism, which is – again – that God's grace is available to all.

     Let's remember that John downplayed the importance of water baptism. It was his baptism; it wasn't the baptism to be offered by the Messiah. So now we enter the baptism of Jesus. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit ...” John said. The idea of baptism in the Holy Spirit has been one of the most controversial and abused concepts in Christianity in my opinion. Many make the argument that only some Christians are baptized with the Holy Spirit. They then make the argument that certain signs (especially speaking in tongues) have to be present as the sign that one has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. This quite simply has no support in the New Testament. Paul, in his list of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, downplays the gift of speaking in tongues. He would surely hold it up as important if it were the one and only sign of baptism with the Holy Spirit. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit does not have to be accompaniment by so-called signs and wonders. It does not divide the Body of Christ into those who have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and those who haven't. After all, the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of unity, and Ephesians 4:3 tells us that we are to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.” The idea that only some Christians get this added privilege of being baptized in the Holy Spirit doesn't “keep the unity of the Spirit.” It actually divides. I don't believe the baptism in the Holy Spirit was meant to divide Christians into two camps – those who have it and those who don't. I believe that baptism in the Holy Spirit creates and sets apart the Body of Christ. Baptism with the Holy Spirit is another way of saying that a person has been moved to faith by the Holy Spirit; that they've made a faith commitment to being a disciple of Jesus. The Holy Spirit allows us to become aware of God's presence, and at that moment of faith, the Holy Spirit empowers us to live as a disciple of Jesus. Baptism with the Holy Spirit doesn't divide the Body of Christ; it creates and unites the Body of Christ.

     And then comes the toughest one. Jesus also, according to John, “will baptize you with ... fire.” Some people believe this is the same as baptism with the Holy Spirit; that it's one thing: “baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” I don't believe that it's one thing. I think it's referring to a separate concept. You get baptized with the Holy Spirit, and then you get baptized with fire. Some see it as faith being tested by difficult times – and being baptized with fire has entered the secular lingo too, and it means “I faced a really hard test and I made it through.” Others see it as a reference to eternal judgement – so baptism with fire becomes the flames of hell. So those baptized with the Holy Spirit are the “good” ones, and those baptized with fire are the “bad” ones. I don't agree with either. I see something completely different going on here. I see this as what happens to us after the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Baptism with fire is the act of purifying (or sanctifying) us. It's the ongoing process of growth in faith. When Jesus “[s] the wheat into his barn, but ... burn[s] up the chaff with unquenchable fire” it means that all that mars or distorts God's image is taken from us – burned like chaff – so that only God's image remains with us, and only God's image shines from us. That's a lifelong process – and likely beyond this life as well! The baptism with fire isn't literal fire. Fire is a symbol, and the imagery is fire, not because fire destroys, but because fire gives life. Fire is necessary. Forest fires lead to new forests. Fire is used to purify. The baptism with fire is the process of making us what we're supposed to be. It is a lifelong process. It's not symbolic, like baptism with water; it's not a one time thing like baptism with the Holy Spirit. It's ongoing. It never ends. And it's positive.

     I don't believe that John was suggesting that there are three different baptisms, and I'm not saying there are three baptisms either. I'm saying that there's just one baptism (“one Lord, one faith, one baptism”) and I believe the different imagery (water, Holy Spirit and fire) is a way of showing that, in effect, our baptism is a lifelong process, extending from beginning to end. The Greek word the New Testament uses that we translate as “baptize” actually means to “cover” or to “immerse.” And it's not water we're being covered or immersed in – it's God: who gives us grace, who gives us faith, and who makes us what we're supposed to be. Water, Holy Spirit and fire are three parts of the one baptism that unites us to Christ and to each other in faith and in love.