A Thought For The Week Of May 30, 2016

"And no one dared to ask him any more questions." (Luke 20:40) I spent this past weekend at the Annual Meeting of the United Church's Bay of Quinte Conference. It was sometimes interesting and probably more often not that interesting - a typical church meeting in other words. But one thing I enjoyed were the theological reflections that were offered. In one, it was pointed out that over the course of his recorded ministry in the Gospels, Jesus asked far more questions than he answered. I've never done a study of the subject, but once it was mentioned I thought about it - and it sounded right. Which made me start to wonder: is the church really supposed to be in the answer business? Many Christians seem to think so. We seem to feel that the church has to have hard and fast answers to everything, as if not having an answer would be a sign of weakness or lack of faith. And, often, if someone comes to a conclusion that's different than the answer we've prescribed to a question - well, woe to that person! We seem to think of the church as the final arbiter of all faith questions and the final authority on all spiritual matters, and our settled doctrine becomes the ultimate answer. But if Jesus asked more questions than he answered? What does that tell us? In the verse above, the Pharisees stopped asking Jesus questions because they couldn't trap him; his wisdom was too much for them to counter. But in the overall course of his ministry, Jesus displayed that wisdom not with answers but primarily with questions. Often the questions were leading questions. They gave direction to the person being questioned, but even leading questions leave the person being asked with the freedom to choose their response. Sometimes it's the questions we're asked rather than the answers we get that lead to the greatest learnings about life and faith. I wonder if, as a church, we should learn from Jesus' example? (Well, actually, I don't wonder!) Rather than dictating to people what they must and must not believe, I wonder if we need to offer more gentle guidance? Should we trust that the Holy Spirit can touch the hearts and minds of those we engage with, leading them ultimately to an encounter with a gentle and guiding Christ who can change their lives, rather than an angry and inflexible Christ who simply instils fear? Those aren't answers - they're questions for you to ponder. Very much in keeping with the example of Jesus!

A Thought For The Week Of May 23, 2016

"Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger." (Psalm 8:2) I was reading through Psalm 8 a few days ago and I found myself wondering, how, exactly, does God establish a stronghold against his enemies "through the praise of children and infants"? That seems like a strange statement, and I struggled with it for a while. First I wondered how it was possible for an infant or young child to be able to offer praise to God? Does praise not imply an understanding of something? In what way is it that God is "praised" by infants and children? And how, exactly, does that praise establish a stronghold against God's enemies? Is this perhaps another celebration of the innocent and wondrous praise of little children? They praise God just by being who they are - by not rejecting God but by being fascinated by the world God has created. Even infants are inherently curious. It is, after all, how we learn - by observing and being fascinated. Perhaps it's that innocent wonder that is itself a spiritual force that counters the influence and power of that which opposes God. And I also found myself wondering if this was meant literally. Or is this an Old Testament version of Jesus saying to his disciples "you shall become like little children." Perhaps this is nothing more than a celebration of an innocent and trusting faith - and perhaps it's that very kind of faith that allows God to work through us to establish strongholds against those forces that oppose God. Perhaps even we - ideally at least - are the "strongholds" - in that we stand against the world and for Christ. Through our praise as children of God - mere infants with so much more to learn about and experience of God - we stand against those spiritual forces opposed to God.

A Thought For The Week Of May 16, 2016

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15) Peace. It s the great gift God offers to his people. And it's something that all of us need, because we seem to spend so much of our time not at peace. We worry, we fret, we fear. We see that in the world around us; we see it in our own lives. Worry, fret and fear. But - we're called to be at peace.Repeatedly Jesus tells his disciples not to fear. But all too often we don't listen. I wonder if in some ways we actually like to be afraid and disturbed and not at peace? That would certainly explain the popularity of horror movies, wouldn't it? And if you think of those in the world around us who are actively trying to destroy our peace and unsettle us - I'm thinking here of terrorists - well, they know exactly what they're doing. They know that most people (and even most Christians) will have a knee jerk of reaction to their actions and to their words. They seek to destroy our peace - not in the sense of causing war, but in the sense of unsettling us and making us live as frightened and disturbed people - as Christians who forget that we are to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. It amazes and saddens me how many Christians don't live in peace, and when we don't live in peace we also miss out on the promise in the last part of this verse - that we should be thankful. You can't really be thankful if you're disturbed and living in constant fear. As Christians we need to set the example of how to navigate this often insane world, but too often the example we set is the exact opposite of what we read here. We need to remember that whatever our circumstances might be and whatever real or imagined threats there are that disturb and frighten us - God is in control, and because of that we can be at peace and we can be thankful!

May 15, 2016 sermon : Hearing In Tongues

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

(Acts 2:1-21)

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     We have a tendency to get fixated on signs and wonders. Christians, I mean – although I suppose it's not restricted to Christians. But Christians do like signs and wonders and miracles, and we like stories about signs and wonders and miracles (so that we can either become fixated on them as if that’s the only thing our faith is about or so that we can dismiss them as silly, superstitious stories that have no place in a modern faith.) However you look at it, the story of the first Christian Day of Pentecost that we just read about in Acts 2 gives us all sorts of signs and wonders to think about and reflect on. There's a sound like the rushing of a wind; there are tongues that seemed to be made of fire touching people. People speak in other languages that the context suggests they had never learned, and then Peter quotes the Prophet Joel with his description of the dramatic signs that will accompany what he refers to as “the last days”: the sun turned to darkness and the moon turned to blood. And then, the denouement if you will; the final act; the culmination of everything we hope for: salvation! “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” It's exciting and it's mysterious and it's dramatic. It's exactly the sort of description that we would want to be given for something as important as the coming of the Holy Spirit to God's people. That, after all, must surely be an exciting and dramatic and mysterious event – mustn't it? So when Pentecost comes around the focus tends to be on these signs and wonders, and for some Christians at least the focus stays on those signs and wonders, to the point at which if the signs and wonders are absent then there must be something wrong! I've noticed that especially with how some Christians of all denominations (and I've seen it in the United Church as well) think of the whole concept of “speaking in tongues.” If you don’t speak in tongues then there’s something wrong with you, the Holy Spirit isn’t with you, God must not love you, etc., etc.

     The interesting thing is that for me at least this passage about the first Day of Pentecost throws the whole concept of speaking in tongues out the window. It's pretty clear from this passage that the first outburst of “tongues” is being described as a group of believers who were speaking in actual languages that they hadn’t learned. It would be like me standing here in front of you and suddenly starting to speak in fluent Swedish, even though I don’t know a single word of Swedish! But, really, it’s not even that simple. The more I’ve read this account of Pentecost through the years the less convinced I’ve become that the highlight or most important part of the experience was people speaking in tongues. What now seems to me to be far more important is that people were hearing the words in their own tongues. There were, after all, only 12 disciples at this point (Matthias having been chosen to replace Judas Iscariot at the end of Chapter 1) but more nations than that are mentioned in the text. So it seems that all of those languages couldn’t have been being spoken since there weren’t enough disciples to do that – but that all the languages were being heard. “…in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” I’ve been spending a few days now thinking about the concept of “hearing in tongues.” In its own way hearing in tongues is just as dramatic and just as miraculous as speaking in tongues, I suppose – but it puts a very different spin on what was actually happening.

          The list of countries in Acts 2 whose languages the word of God was heard in is very interesting. Why are those countries listed and not others? The Roman Empire was even more diverse than that limited list of 15 nationalities suggests. The Roman Empire of Jesus’ day extended north to what’s now Germany and west to Spain and France and south almost as far as Ethiopia. So why mention only the 15 nations listed? Well, there’s a deeper message being shared here about God than we usually realize. The point of the list seems to be that God is active even where people would have expected God to be absent, and that God is with even those with whom people might have expected God to be against. God is active in the fierce enemies of Rome to the East (the Parthians and the Medes). God is active in the former empires who once invaded Israel (Mesopotamia and Elam). God is at work in the wild kingdoms on the edges of the world (Cappadocia, Pontus). God can even be found in the Arabian wilderness to the south with its unending and mind-numbing expanse of sand, sand and more sand. And so, if God is present to our enemies, in the wilderness, at the borders, and to what seem to be the ends of the earth, then who are we to limit what God can do and who God can speak to?

     Maybe that’s the message of Pentecost. God breaks down the barriers that we’ve erected, and the word of God goes forth into the farthest reaches of the earth – even to those we might not even want to speak to, but also to those who are closest to us. Somehow, by the power of the Holy Spirit, barriers are broken down, and enemies are reconciled by a common experience of God in Christ.

     As fixated as we can sometimes be on the signs and wonders and miracles, I’ve always thought that in fact God may work most powerfully through the more mundane things of life – that the divine is present perhaps more in the ordinary than ever in the extraordinary. After all, God is with us always – even through the extremely ordinary hours that fill most of our days. Now it's true that people love the signs and wonders and miracles, and they flock to those who seem to give them signs and wonders and miracles. The problem with the signs and wonders and miracles, though, is that they too often have a tendency to put the attention squarely on the person who's front and centre rather than on Christ. But are we not called to humility? Last night Lynn and Hannah and I were at Trinity United Church in Bowmanville for a Pentecost themed worship service at which the Moderator of the United Church – Jordan Cantwell – was in attendance. In her comments she said something that stood out to me. I don't claim that this is verbatim, but I think I'm catching the spirit of what she said: “If we truly become humble then our ears get bigger and our mouths get smaller.” In other words, humility leads us to listen more than we speak. And perhaps there’s no more mundane and ordinary and humble activity than actually listening to someone. Not just hearing them, but listening to them.

     Margaret J. Wheatley wrote that “listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.” Listening breaks down barriers; listening leads to understanding between peoples; listening can turn enemies into friends.  Maybe it wasn't speaking in tongues that was the most important part of Pentecost – maybe the most important part of Pentecost was “hearing in tongues.” And perhaps the “hearing in tongues” that took place on the first Christian Day of Pentecost wasn’t so much about a miracle, as it was simply about various and disparate groups of people actually finding themselves listening to each other for the first time. And, actually -when you think about it - maybe the willingness of people to actually and fully listen to and hear and understand each other would be the greatest miracle of all.

A Thought For The Week Of May 9, 2016

"...  keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." (Jude 21) Maybe it's natural human selfishness and arrogance but when I first read the words "keep yourselves in the love of God," I immediately thought of myself and the benefits that I would get by doing so. There are no doubt many benefits to keeping ourselves in God's love and to remembering that God does, in fact love us. There's peace and hope and security and, as the verse points out, mercy and eternal life. These are all great gifts of God that we are constantly reminded of by Keeping ourselves in God's love. But somehow - and thankfully - I just as quickly remembered that faith should never be only or even primarily about ourselves. Besides, those who have faith in Jesus Christ don't have to worry about being in God's love. Our faith tells us that God loves us and that nothing will ever separate us from that divine love. So, if that's the case, then what's the point of keeping myself in God's love? Maybe this verse is serving as a reminder that as one who is in God's love and as one who knows that I am in God's love I must also live by the power of God's love and reflect God's love to those around me. Knowing that I'm loved  by God can actually have the opposite effect than God intends. I could choose to hoard God's love; to keep it to myself; to not share it; to be jealous of others who are loved by God because I think that God's love for others actually takes some of God's love away from me. Or I could choose to start thinking of myself as being better than others, or more special to God than others. Knowing that I am in God's love could cause me to become judgemental. All those things are possible. And all those things are to be avoided. If we are in God's love, we are to choose to share that love - by showing mercy and by proclaiming the hope of eternal life that God makes available. It's important for all of us to remember that - as with all things involving faith - being in God's love isn't intended primarily for my benefit; it's intended to make me active in seeking the best for others.

A Thought For The Week Of May 2, 2016

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!" (Isaiah 6:3b) It's the opening verse of a beautiful and well-known hymn: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." Those words "holy, holy, holy" say so much to us about God and God's nature. As humans we have always had a tendency to want to remake God according to our own image - to make God seem like us. And so, there's the ridiculous image of the old man with a beard in the sky who controls everything. I don't deny that this is an image that's deeply imprinted in many people and even many Christians. But in reaction to that image I think a lot of people - and even many Christians - have gone so far in the other direction that they've re-created the basic problem of creating God in their own image. So, in reaction to the "old man with a beard in the sky who controls everything," God still becomes like us - except now not in physical appearance but in the creation of a God who's essentially powerless - not involved, never intervening, etc. The so-called non-theist movement is as much an example of creating God in our own image as what it reacts against. In fact, it perhaps creates a God who is less than we are, in that we intervene in the created order and we screw up nature all the time, while God at best (according to this view) simply watches and lets it happen. But here - in these few rods from Isaiah - is a marvellous statement; a corrective to these problematic views. "Holy, holy, holy is God." God is other than the creation and above the creation, but still "the earth is filled with his glory." God is revealed by and active in creation; God is an integral part of all that exists, even while existing beyond all that exists. We don't need to re-create or re-image God. Actually, to do so is idolatry, as much as the idolatry it tries to counter. God has no image that can fully capture the divine being. God is beyond our ability to imagine. But God is here, God is revealed and God is active. That is both our hope and our faith!

May 1, 2016 sermon: Understanding The Power Of Love

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.

(John 14:15-31)

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     I thought that the words from LaToya Jackson that I've had printed in the bulletin this morning were particularly relevant to our subject today and also very poignant. “I'll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family, together, all of us laughing and talking, loving and understanding, not looking at the past but only to the future.” LaToya Jackson, of course, is a part of the famous Jackson family – she's the sister of the late Michael Jackson, whose own death at a very early age just a few years ago sort of highlighted what you could call the tragedy that has surrounded this family. The Jacksons experienced jealousy and competition with one another. Siblings were often pitted against each other; sometimes the children (or at least some of them) were pitted against the parents. It was a very successful family, but I think it's fair to say that at least at times it was also a dysfunctional family, and sometimes it wasn't a very happy family. And those words from LaToya struck me as very sad. She seems to be saying that they weren't a real family; that there wasn't much laughing or talking or loving or understanding; that they were fixated on past hurts and slights and disagreements. There was an element of lament in those words: “I'll never stop dreaming.” They made me start to wonder about the power of love; about love's ability to heal past wounds and to create new beginnings. They made me grateful for the hope and dreams that love can provide to us.

     The Bible speaks a lot about love. Jesus spoke a lot about love. All the different ways Jesus tells us to love represent to me the ethical heart of Christianity; the engine that moves the gospel forward. When Christians stop acting lovingly - as we tragically do all too often – we dishonour the gospel and Jesus and our faith; we prove ourselves to be hypocrites – because it’s often those Christians who stop acting lovingly who nevertheless are able to quote Bible verses about love word for word. I think Jesus helps us in this passage to understand what love is. Love for Jesus is to love others, simply because that's what God wants us to do. So, “if you love me, keep my commands.” Essentially the commands of Jesus are to love widely and extravagantly – to love God, one another, our neighbours and even our enemies. That’s an extravagant love, indeed!

     Jesus helps us to understand love by using his relationship with his Father as an illustration of love. Jesus loves the Father and does exactly what the Father asks him to do. That, of course, is at least in part a reference to the cross. The cross is God's love. The cross is what teaches us about love most powerfully and most graphically. The cross tells me that if I truly live in love – in the kind of love that Jesus calls me to live by – then I may pay a steep price for that love, and I have to be prepared for that. And if I back down, and choose not to live in love even though I know that God wants me to live in love then I'm becoming an adversary of God; I’m not living a godly or faithful life, and I’m opposing the way of God revealed through Jesus. Love is of God, and love is costly. We throw the word “love” around far too easily in today’s world, and perhaps the concept of love becomes cheapened as a result, but the love that Jesus calls us to is not cheap and the love that Jesus calls us to is not easy. The love shown by the cross is vastly different than the love spoken of by someone who says “I love chocolate,” or “I love going to Florida.” The love shown by Jesus is love poured out for others; the love we often speak of is the love of something enjoyable that we get for ourselves. And – as costly as the love that Jesus calls us to can be - if I choose not to love as Jesus loved because I'm not willing to pay the price of that love, then I'm opposing God. That's the message I take from this passage.

     In some background reading I was doing while I was preparing this sermon I came across some words written by a man named Alan Brehm. He’s the minister of Hickman Presbyterian Church in Hickman, Nebraska. There’s nothing particularly earth-shaking about what he wrote, but I thought it summed up the power of God’s love quite well: “Jesus said that if we love him, we'll follow his teachings, his way of life, his example, simply because the love we have for him compels us to do so.”

     Our love for Jesus “compels us” to do what Jesus wants us to do, and what Jesus wants us to do is to  take that love that he’s given to us and let it overflow in love for the entire world. “Compels” is an interesting word to use, and I thought it made a powerful point. To be compelled isn’t the same as to be forced. To be forced to do something means that you do it against your will; that you do it in spite of whoever it is who’s forcing you to do this. But to be compelled is really to be transformed. To be compelled to do something means that we do it because it’s become a part of who and what we are; because it’s become a part of our identity. Paul used that same word in 2 Corinthians: “Christ’s love compels us,” he wrote. It compels us to be willing to be changed into what God would want us to be. It compels we who are loved to offer love to others. Huey Lewis and the News recorded a song called “The Power Of Love” for the movie Back To The Future:

The power of love is a curious thing

Make a one man weep, make another man sing

Change a hawk to a little white dove

More than a feeling that's the power of love.

     The power of love affects us and changes us. Once we’re filled with the love of Christ we will never be the same again. Our hope is to be filled with the love of Christ. The love of Christ is what gives us hope for the future – hope that all that doesn’t work in our lives can work in our lives. That’s the power of love.

     I find myself going back to where I started – to the words of  LaToya Jackson: “I'll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family, together, all of us laughing and talking, loving and understanding, not looking at the past but only to the future.” Focus on the last four words: “only to the future.” Ultimately the power of God's love helps to look toward a future of hope, where the things that aren’t working very well in our lives right now will work; where the hurts of the past will be forgotten. LaToya Jackson hopes that her family might one day be a real family – laughing and talking and loving and understanding.” God's love will eventually break down all barriers and make us all to be a family. That’s the power of love!