A Thought For The Week Of October 24, 2016

"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near." (2 Timothy 4:6) I want to reflect on two separate passages (2 Timothy 4:6-8 & 16-18) which may be separated by several verses but which are quite similar in a number of ways. I find myself linking this with Paul's statement in Philippians that he had learned how to be content in all circumstances. What we have described here are basically two sets of circumstances - both of which could have been enough to cause many people to fall into despair and give up. In the first, the author seems to be reflecting on his impending death, and the inference is that it isn't a pleasant or natural death. He is being poured out like a drink offering. In other words, he sees himself as a sacrifice; perhaps a martyr. And yet, rather than despair, he looks back on his life - and especially his faith - and he expresses not despair, but satisfaction: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept that faith." Having remained faithful in the face of whatever was happening to him, he now realized that his life had been worthwhile. And he also expressed hope in what many would have considered a hopeless situation: "Now there is laid up for me ..." NOW! What a great expression of faith and hope. Death is here - so "now!" Something else is coming. What a great testimony! And in the second snippet we have another circumstance described that could have embittered many people. The author had been abandoned - "everyone deserted me." Apparently even those he thought would stand with him abandoned him. (There are shades of Jesus and the disciples there.) Many would be embittered at being abandoned by those they believed they could count on, but the author just expresses forgiveness: "May it not be held against them." People are, after all, weak - and the truth is that not everyone can stand against evil.  Some fall. But for the author - God was there, and that was enough. Many scholars believe that Paul didn't write 2 Timothy, but at the very least these words resonate with one of Paul's most important and most challenging messages: "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." Whatever the circumstances, in other words. If only we all had such faith.

October 23, 2016 sermon: A Living God For A Living Church

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

(Luke 20:27-40)

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     I found it interesting to look at the cover of this month’s edition of the United Church Observer. The cover article is about ghosts. It’s entitled “Ghost Whisperers,” and the subtitle is “Do the dead remain among us? Paranormal investigators are determined to prove what science rejects, Christianity scorns - and half of Canadians believe.” I readily admit - I like stuff like this. Ghost stories; the paranormal; a good horror movie. My favourite TV show is “The Walking Dead.” They’re all fun. So I read this article pretty closely, and some of the statistics it cites surprised me. It seems that belief in ghosts is not exactly rare. Although the church has routinely condemned belief in ghosts - and sometimes quite vociferously - apparently that hasn’t had a lot of impact on what people actually believe. I was surprised, for example, to discover that in 2009 a survey suggested that 20% of evangelical Christians believed in ghosts. The numbers were about 30-35% for both Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants. In the United Kingdom, more people believe in ghosts than in God. 48% of Canadians believe in ghosts, 18% say they’ve encountered or experienced a ghost and 10% believe they have a ghost in their home! Even in very secular countries like Japan and Sweden, belief in ghosts is very high. I found those numbers fascinating, and it’s another piece of evidence to me that while people might not be as interested in church or Christianity as they used to be, there’s still a very high degree of interest in spiritual matters and spiritual things.

     I will come clean with you this morning and confess that I don’t believe in ghosts - although given the numbers it’s likely that at least a few people here do. But even if I don’t believe in them I am interested in the belief. These words never appeared in the article in the Observer, but it seemed to me that belief in ghosts (just as much as belief in God) reflects the deep seated yearning expressed in the question “is there life after death?” That question - or at least a variation of it - is in the Bible. It comes from the lips of Job, who asked “if a man dies, will he live again?” I think that for as long as we humans have understood the concept of death, we’ve wondered if it’s really the end. The widespread belief in ghosts, combined with a still widespread belief in God suggests that most people believe that there is something of us that continues on when our lives on this earth have ended.

     That was one of the keys to what Jesus was speaking about in today’s passage. The Sadducees - one sect of Judaism present in his day - were people who didn’t believe in life after death. They didn’t believe in resurrection. They believed that once you died, you were simply dead. They tried to trap Jesus with this nonsensical question about a woman who had had many husbands, wondering - with a smirk on their faces as they asked the question, I’m sure - whose husband she would be after the “resurrection” (said with a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” undoubtedly.) They assumed Jesus would be left speechless. How can there be an answer to that question? How could Jesus possibly find a way out of this one? It was a trap. And it seemed to be a good one. But Jesus had an answer. “You silly people,” he seemed to say. “The next life isn’t at all like this one so your question is pointless. And we know that there’s life after death because Moses ‘speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’” Is there life after death? Apparently so. But I thought of another question: is there life before death?

     Yes, you heard me right. Is there life before death? It might seem obvious on the surface, but maybe it’s not. There are a lot of people who seem to exist without really living. They lose sight of the things that make life worth living. It was Bob Dylan - who, you may have heard, recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature - who said that “if you’re not busy being born, then you’re busy dying.” I thought about those words as I reflected on the Sadducees and the story they told about this woman. It was a story, of course. The woman wasn’t real. But the basic problem is that the Sadducees clearly didn’t believe people could be busy being born - and so they must have assumed everyone was busy dying. It’s a strange idea, perhaps, that Bob Dylan had - but it makes a lot of sense from a Christian perspective. We speak about rebirth in the Christian faith - being “born again” or “born from above” or experiencing “new life” (however you choose to put it.) Basically we believe that people change; that people aren’t in a static state of existence. About this woman the Sadducees thought that she would always be what she had always been. They would deny her (or those like her) the dignity of being alive by denying them the possibility of rebirth and new life. And if we’re static, and if we’re unchanging, and if we’re satisfied with simply being rather than with becoming, with what we are rather than with what we could become - then in a way we are dying, just as Bob Dylan said would happen to those who aren’t busy being born.

     This all seemed relevant to me today because next week we’re going to have a special service to commemorate the 27 years that Pickering Village United Church has worshipped in this building. I think that what Bob Dylan said about people applies to churches as well: if we’re not busy being born, then we’re busy dying. If we’re satisfied with ourselves as we are then we are never going to be more than a shell of what God wants us to be. If we lose hope that we can be more than what we are then we’ve given up not just on ourselves but also on God. Anniversaries can have a tendency to make us focus on the past at the expense of the future. I’m hoping that what we’ll be able to do next week (and perhaps more next year, because we have some special plans coming up) is to reflect on the past not as a way of giving up on the future, but rather to inspire the future - to point us to what God would have us be and to give us the hope and the assurance that we will become what God would have us be. After all, if we’re not busy being born then we’re busy dying. I think we’re still busy being born. I think we have a lot of life left to live, and that we have a lot of lives left to touch.

A Thought For The Week Of October 17, 2016

"Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." (Exodus 4:12) God finds a way to get our attention. That seems to be the basic message in this story contained in Exodus 4:1-17. And - having got our attention - God doesn't let us off the hook for responding. Moses didn't know how he would possibly convince Pharaoh to let God's people go. But God's response to Moses' concern was basically  - "you just do what I tell you to do and leave the results to me." As I reflect upon that I realize that it's also the real basis for evangelism. The issue in evangelizing isn't whether anyone gets "saved" or comes to faith through what we do. The issue in evangelism is whether we faithfully accept the call God has given us to share good news. The results are up to God. As we routinely say, we can't convert anyone - only the Holy Spirit can do that. But we have to accept our responsibility to share what God asks us to share. That's the other part of the passage. Moses didn't care to do what God wanted him to do. He had excuses - he wasn't a good enough speaker was the big one - but basically I think he was afraid not only of the responsibility of speaking for God but also of the potential consequences of speaking for God. But, again, God wouldn't let Moses off the hook. Whatever excuses Moses came up with, God had an answer for them. Again, to draw the link - we might have any number of excuses for why we don't think we can do what God asks of us. Mostly, though, I suspect it comes down to either just not wanting to do it, or being afraid to do it. Either way, God doesn't let us off the hook. Eventually, God's call to us is irresistible.

October 16, 2016 sermon When Thanks Are Not Enough

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

(Luke 18:9-14)

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     It seems to me that one of the problems with Thanksgiving is that it can give us the impression that saying “thank you” is the only thing we have to do for people. It's kind of like the idea that saying “I'm sorry” fixes everything. It's a good start, but somehow both thankfulness and apologies need to go beyond mere words. There's a story that makes the rounds – I've been told that it's true – about a missionary who had come home for a furlough. One of the things he did when he was back home was accept speaking engagements in churches, and the churches that asked him to speak would give him a donation of some sort for his missionary work when he was finished. Sort of like Dr. Paul Thistle, who you might remember visited with us back in June while he was home from Zimbabwe. Well, this particular missionary was home, and he received an invitation from a church to join them and to speak at both their morning and evening services. It was quite a trip – the church was about a three hour drive from where he lived – but the missionary happily accepted the invitation. So, on the appropriate Sunday morning he woke up early, got himself dressed and made the three hour trip. He preached at the morning service, did a lunch and a sort of question and answer session afterward, stayed in town and went back to preach at the evening service. It was a long day. After the evening service the person who had invited him approached him, thanked him for coming and handed him an envelope, which he assumed was a donation for his mission. He packed up, got in his car and made the three hour drive home. It worked out to about a 17 hour day for the missionary, not to mention the time he had spent beforehand preparing for the two services. When he got home he was getting ready for bed when he remembered the envelope that he had stuck in his jacket pocket. He took it out and opened it, and took out what was inside. He looked at it. It was a piece of paper: a hand drawn fake cheque, on which someone had written in the “Amount” line - “A Million Thanks.” That was it. A fake cheque with “A Million Thanks” scrawled across it. Nothing more. That story – which, as I said, I've been told is true (and I know some congregations who might actually do that!) - raises a question for me that seems particularly relevant a week after Thanksgiving: are there times when thank are not enough?

     Jesus would have understood that question. In the parable we just read, Jesus offered a warning about giving thanks. Two men went to the temple to pray. The first was a very good man. He was a Pharisee, which meant that he kept the rules. He was respected and honoured by all; he was a pillar of the community. This good man is praying, and he gives thanks to God: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” This, indeed, was a very good man who did a lot of very good things. He did the things good religious folk are supposed to do, and given this man's obvious goodness, Jesus said the strangest thing. He said that this prayer of thanksgiving was worthless. The whole thing was a farce. Jesus said it wasn't enough. “Thanks for your thanks – but no thanks.” That was the message from Jesus. What was wrong? The man did pray, after all. He took the time to go to the temple and express his gratitude to God. And what he said wasn't wrong. There were a lot of robbers and evildoers and adulterers out there. There were a lot of people who couldn't be trusted. There were a lot who weren't interested in God. But this Pharisee was interested in God. He was faithful in his own way. He never lied, he fasted and he tithed a tenth of everything he had to God. If he were alive today we might even name a church after him. So, why were his thanks not enough? And does this serve as a warning to us that sometimes our thanks might not be enough?

     In order to really understand this parable you have to consider who it was addressed to. Jesus told this parable to “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.” The Pharisee in the parable was priding himself on his own virtue; he was sure of how good he was, convinced of his own righteousness. Now, to be honest, this Pharisee did have a lot going for him. To be honest, in a lot of ways he was a much better and more faithful man than I am. Surely that virtue has to count for something. But perhaps sometimes we think too much of our own goodness. I’ve known people who do a good job of seeming pious – they do all the good religious stuff just like the Pharisee in the parable – but they’re also some of the meanest and nastiest people you’ll ever meet. They never forget a single mistake or forgive a single slight – but they’re in church every week and they’re often among the biggest givers! They’re like the Pharisee in the parable. They’re convinced of their own goodness. They know everything and more importantly they know that they know everything. But somehow they’ve forgotten that their righteousness is a gift from God – nothing more, nothing less. The thanks that the Pharisee offered was the kind of righteousness that says “thanks, but I’m so good that I really didn’t need the help.” He thanked God, but he made sure that he did it in a way that would let God know that he could have done it all on his own.

     To push that opening verse a little farther, Jesus told the parable “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” When our thanks erects barriers between ourselves and our neighbours, then our thanks are not enough. In Jesus’ time, the pious men in the Jewish community (or, at least, those who wanted the world to think that they were pious) would say this prayer: “O God, I thank you that I am not a dog, a Gentile or a woman.” Jesus was speaking to those who would have said a prayer like this – to pious people who not only trusted in themselves but looked down on others with contempt. There’s a story about a Sunday School teacher who was teaching this parable to her students. She told the children that the Pharisee was a bad man, and that the tax collector was a good man. When she finished her lesson she said, “now boy and girls, let’s pray and thank God that we’re nothing like that mean old Pharisee.” She had missed the point completely. If our saying “thank you” is really a ruse that allows us to say “I’m better than the rest of you!” then our thanks is not enough.

     I trust we all understand the mistake that the Pharisee made, and that we’re here today for the right reason. We’re not here to proclaim our goodness to each other; we’re not here to show the world what good “church people” we are; and, in fact, we’re not even here because we’re good. We’re here to sing, to listen, to pray and to ponder the mystery of God together until somehow we really know deep in ourselves that we don’t depend on ourselves or our own goodness but rather on God and on divine grace. Only then are we really able to give thanks – not for what we do or for what we are, but for who God is and for what God has done for us.

     Jesus ended the parable by talking about that tax collector who went to the temple to pray: “the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” The Pharisee thanked God for making him so good; the tax collector thanked God for mercy and forgiveness, and, in response, Jesus said of the tax collector that “this man went down to his home justified rather than the other …” You see, it’s not about what we’ve accomplished – it about what God has done. Somehow, the Pharisee had got it into his head that he was a winner because of all the good and pious things he had done. But I liked the words of John Madden. John Madden knew what winning was all about as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders team that won Super Bowl XI. That man, who knew how to win, said “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.” You see, patting ourselves on the back for how often we come to church or for how much money we give to the church or for how many committees we serve on or how much work we do misses the point. We’re just not that good – and so we do need God’s forgiveness. So thank God yes – by all means – but for the right reasons. Thanks God for mercy and forgiveness and compassion and grace poured out in abundance. Only when we’ve learned that these are the things for which we should be thankful is our thanks really going to be enough.

A Thought For The Week Of October 10, 2016

"Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him." (Proverbs 30:5) Those opening words - "every word of God is flawless" - represent quite a challenge.You have to wonder first what's meant by "word of God." A lot of fundamentalist Christians take what I would consider to be a simplistic approach and just draw a one to one equation with the Bible. Bible = word of God; word of God = Bible. And I understand, of course, that we refer to the Bible as the word of God. But that's challenging. For example, when we read of God ordering mass killings and plunder - is that really the word of God? Ethically and morally - even given that the root of ethics and morality come from God and more precisely from the Bible - there are parts of the Bible that seem ungodly. And, of course, the Bible isn't witnessing to itself. So we can't take this verse from Proverbs and say that because of it Romans or 1 John or Revelation are flawless. I always think first and foremost of the word of God as Jesus. Jesus is flawless. His life and his way - yes, as described in the Bible - is flawless. And, of course, that begs the question of what's meant by "flawless." Does it literally mean that everything that's written down in the Bible is perfect? I think that what it means is that's what written in the Bible is inspired. Perhaps the author of 1 Timothy had this verse in mind when he wrote that "all Scripture is inspired ..." I think it's too simplistic by far to simply believe that "every word of God is flawless" means that every single word and letter and comma and period of the Bible is perfect. I believe that "every word of God is flawless" leads us into a much deeper exploration of both the Bible and of the life of Jesus - an exploration that's going to change our lives for the better by bringing us ever closer to God.

October 9, 2016 sermon - A Lemonade Recipe

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ... Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

(Jeremiah 29:1 & 4-7)

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     I think that I'm on pretty safe ground in assuming that most of you have probably never heard of Marshall P. Wilder.

 

Today he's largely unknown. But in the 1890's and early 1900's, Marshall P. Wilder was one of the most famous men in the world. He was a very successful actor. He began his career by performing one man comedy monologues, and eventually branched out into vaudeville and the stage and finally became a significant figure in the very early days of motion pictures. Wilder made several world tours, and regularly performed in London. He was a favourite of the British royal family and became a close personal friend of the then Prince of Wales, who would become King Edward VII. He was also a successful author who wrote several books. At the height of his career, Wilder had an annual income in the five figures – and while that doesn't sound like very much today, by the standards of that day it was an astronomical amount of money. But the most astonishing thing about Marshall P. Wilder was that he shouldn't have been that successful. You see, to use the language of that day, Marshall P. Wilder was a dwarf.

 

He also had a severe spinal deformity. In that era, the most Wilder should have been able to expect out of a career in entertainment was a place in a carnival freakshow. In fact, he was offered such a position by no less a figure than P.T. Barnum. But Wilder was determined to overcome the odds against him, and in 1907 the Syracuse Herald wrote of one of his performances that “his pathos, his humor, his indescribable droll and uplifting optimism keeps bubbling forth all through the evening.” A few years later, the Washington Post wrote that “Wilder coaxed the frown of adverse fortune into a smile,” a line that was illustrated in ths 1905 pictorial from Theatre Magazine, called “The Evolution Of A Smile.”

 

Another of Wilder's friends was a Christian writer named Elbert Hubbard, and writing of his friend, Hubbard wrote in 1915 that “he picked up the lemons that fate had sent him, and started a lemonade-stand.” That's the first known version of the now familiar proverb that advises us “when life hands you a lemon, turn it into lemonade.” Many others have used variations on the phrase. Julius Rosenwald, who was part owner of Sears Roebuck and Dale Carnegie. Eminem and Beyonce have incorporated it into songs. Tammy Faye Baaker used the phrase. But I like Hubbard's version because it speaks of a lemonade stand, reminding us that whatever positive we create out of the adversity of life is meant not only for ourselves, but also to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

     It was after his death that Elbert Hubbard coined that earliest version of the now well known saying when, in an obituary, he wrote it of Wilder, “He picked up the lemons that fate had sent him and started a lemonade stand.” In other words, life handed Marshall P. Wilder lemons, and Marshall P. Wilder turned them into lemonade. I thought about that as I read the passage from the prophet Jeremiah this week.

     It's not your typical Thanksgiving reading. In fact, there's not a single message here about giving thanks to anyone, never mind giving thanks to God. To be honest, there was very little reason for thanksgiving among God's people at the time. A little context is necessary. As Jeremiah writes these words he's reflecting upon the fact that God's people – Israel and Judah – have been conquered by Babylon. The land was laid waste, the temple was destroyed, the people were in exile. Nothing was as it had been. Life had handed the people of God a huge lemon. When you get that kind of lemon handed to you there are a lot of possible responses. Just think about it.

     Some people will fall into never-ending despair over what they've lost. Some people will simply become angry about what they can't have. Some people will spend their time lamenting what they don't have. None of those options are good ways of making lemonade out of lemons. If anything they just make the lemon more bitter. Grieving what we've lost is understandable, but to fall into despair is to be trapped in the past and unable to move on. Lamenting what we don't have is to give up on possibilities and to simply settle for things the way they are. To be angry about the things we can't have (because none of us can have everything) is to fall into covetousness – and covetousness in some ways is that foundation of every bad behaviour in existence, because others have something that we want. In all those cases, there's a loss of hope, and life gets sapped of its vibrancy. God's people had to deal with those options after the war with Babylon. They had lost everything, and there was no guarantee that they were going to get any of it back.

     God's people fell into all three of the camps I just spoke about. Some fell into inconsolable despair, some into endless lamentation and some into barely controlled anger. And so Jeremiah the prophet wrote a letter to the exiles to tell them that they were going to be in Babylon for quite a while and so they would have to learn to simply get on with life:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

     You're going to be here for a while, he said. Quite a while. (Seventy years, actually, history tells us.) So you have to make the best of it. Don't despair, don't lament, don't lash out – make the best of it. Those words from Jeremiah offer a simple but powerful message for not only how to make the best of it, but actually to start to appreciate what you have. And if we're talking about making lemonade from lemons, that's really the recipe. Because if we can learn to appreciate what we have, we can also become thankful – as Paul said, in any and all circumstances. That's the recipe for making lemonade from lemons. That's how we prevent disappointment and lamentation and anger from taking over. We add a little appreciation and a little thankfulness and – before you know – it, we're leading a life in which we can marvel at little things and express wonder at simple things and be joyful over everyday things. If we can live with that kind of attitude then life can throw lemons at us. It won't matter. We can make lemonade of it – just as God's people made lemonade thousands of years ago. They were defeated and exiled, tossed out of their homes and taken away from everything familiar, but the prophet Jeremiah told them to make a home out of where they were.

     We all face times when giving thanks doesn't seem to be a reasonable thing to do – times when, perhaps, it seems that simply being thankful for what we have is impossible. I have no doubt that there are some here today who for one reason or another don't feel especially thankful. And it's especially hard at Thanksgiving, when we're not only faced with the Christian ideal of being thankful at all times and in all circumstances, but when we're told by the season that we should be thankful. So, we learn from Jeremiah that whatever our circumstances are and as unfair as they may seem we have to engage in the process of taking those circumstances and turning them around and continuing to live life to the full – being thankful for what we have rather than despairing over what we've lost, lamenting what we don't have or being angry about what we can't have.

     I started by reflecting on the life of Marshall P. Wilder, who overcame what at the time would have been insurmountable obstacles that could have confined him to a pitiful and miserable life as a side show freak and became a respected author and actor. In 1940, The Rotarian published this poem, which was written as a testimony to Wilder on the 25th anniversary of his death:

Life handed him a lemon,

As Life sometimes will do.

His friends looked on in pity,

Assuming he was through.

They came upon him later,

Reclining in the shade

In calm contentment, drinking

A glass of lemonade.

     For all the challenges he faced, Wilder was thankful. For all the challenges they faced, the people of God learned to be thankful. May we, on this Thanksgiving weekend, learn the secret of turning lemons into lemonade, and may we, as God's people, be truly thankful, in whatever circumstances we may find ourselves.

A Thought For The Week Of October 3, 2016

"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!" (Zephaniah 3:14) Rejoicing! As I read this verse (and all of 3:14-20) that's the main thing or the main feeling that comes from it. Our faith should involve a lot of rejoicing. Singing and dancing and just plain celebrating. But beyond this verse, perhaps the most exciting thing we discover in the extended passage isn't that it's we who should rejoice because of God - it's also God who rejoices over us! How in the world can we be worthy of having God rejoice over us? It makes very little sense. There's no logic to it. But it's what God does. And, in return, we're called to rejoice in God. Which leads me to wonder - seriously - what happened to us? So much of the time we spend together as people of faith seems to have little to do with actually rejoicing in God. We're pretty good at ritual. We pray the right words, and sometimes we do it with great passion. We sing the songs of the faith, but how often do we sound as if we're really rejoicing while we do? We enjoy sharing fellowship - but we're usually speaking of fellowship with each other rather than fellowship with God. And while we all know that there are churches that do seem to do a lot of celebrating - with lively services and gatherings - I sometimes wonder if that really isn't more about  having fun than rejoicing in God? I find myself wondering what it would be like to rejoice in God in response to God rejoicing over us? What would it look like? Sound like? Feel like? I'm not really sure to be honest. It would be - ? - different than what any of us usually do, I suspect. What if everything we did was joyfully directed to God rather than just being a rote performance to satisfy ourselves. I find myself wishing that I could go back to Zephaniah's day to experience it.