A Thought For The Week Of March 27, 2017

"The one who steals must steal no longer; rather he must labour, doing good with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with the one who has need." (Ephesians 4:28) This may not be the most important verse in the Bible, but it caught my attention. A concern of mine - because I believe it's a problem in many churches - is how welcoming we are as Christians to people who we find easy to judge. I often wonder about that. If a person who was a known criminal suddenly appeared in the midst of a typical congregation, how would people respond to their presence? No doubt some would be welcoming, but I suspect that there would also be a fair amount of anger, some judgement and that many would just choose to ignore the person and keep a safe distance from them. Those latter three options would hardly be reflections of the teaching of Jesus that "whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me." I found it interesting that Ephesians 4:28 gives instructions to "the one who steals." It's good advice - basically just "don't steal anymore! Change your ways!" You can't really argue with that. But somehow I was pushed to a deeper appreciation of the verse. Ephesians was written for a Christian audience. And it includes guidance to "the one who steals." !!! You don't give advice to people who aren't there. Those few words - so easily skipped over - revealed something huge. It's a biblical injunction for the church to have an open door policy to a whole variety of miscreants, for lack of a better word. This verse just seems to take for granted that some of those who have been stealing are going to be included in Christian communities. And it offers not judgement or condemnation or finger-wagging or threats, but just good, sound instruction. Isn't that really what we should be about: to change people's lives by welcoming them rather than by judging them? I'm wondering how many churches could live up to that example today?

The Dirty Work Of The Gospel - March 26 2017 sermon

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

(John 9:1-41)

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     This is a story that I'm able to look at with what you might call "fresh eyes." When I did my doctoral degree a few years ago, the Dean of the program I was in was Dr. Craig Satterlee - who happens to be legally blind. His approach to his blindness opened my eyes. He saw blindness not as an affliction that needed to be healed but rather as an integral part of who he was, and it did not stop him from accomplishing anything he set out to accomplish. He was a husband and father, and an ordained Lutheran priest, and over the years he had been a pastor, an author and a professor. In the years since I graduated from the program, he also graduated in a sense - he was elected to serve (and is currently serving) as the Lutheran Bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Yes - I'm Facebook friends with a real live bishop! His attitude to his blindness - that it was simply a part of who he was and not a limitation or curse or anything else - had a big impact on how I see people with all of their unique characteristics. Our passage today is about a blind man. It's a long passage, and I considered just using a part of it or only selected verses, but all of it seems so very relevant - and to cut anything out seemed to do violence to the divinely inspired word. This is actually the first time I've preached from this passage since I graduated from Dr. Satterlee's program, and as I said, I see the story a little differently now. I find myself focussing not so much on the miraculous "healing" that took place - but on the more mundane way in which Jesus approached his encounter with this man, who had been blind from birth.

     Really - what could be more mundane than spit? If I was going to paraphrase this image, I'd say that Jesus chose to get down and dirty with the work of God. A lot of Jesus' followers don't want to get down and dirty. Those disciples didn't want to get down and dirty. They just wanted to judge - "who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" There was no sense of helping this man or of even showing him kindness. There was just a jump to an assumption: somebody must have sinned. This blindness has to be a punishment from God for something. Either this man had sinned and was being punished - or, more likely since he had been blind from birth, he himself (his very existence) was a punishment to his parents. I wonder how that thought must have made the blind man feel? The disciples wanted to use the man as an excuse to have a theological or philosophical conversation with Jesus, but they didn't see the man as someone worthy of reaching out to and helping. There are those times when the followers of Jesus - and I do not exempt myself from this problem - look past the obvious needs we see around us. We can talk about the social causes of those needs; we can advocate for programs or policies that might help to alleviate the problems; or we can simply condemn those who have the problems as being responsible for them and so wash our hands of any responsibility - but whatever our rationale may be, when we come face to face with needs we're often not willing to get down and dirty (into the mud) to actually meet a need that confronts us. As I say, I'm as guilty of that as anyone. Maybe the needs are too overwhelming. Maybe we don't think we can make a difference. Maybe we don't think the need is important enough for us to respond to. Maybe (just every now and then) we fall into judgment of the person with the need. "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" And we do that in our society all the time. We blame the poor for being poor. We think that those who are different are dangerous or sinful. In a previous church that I served I had to go to a meeting shortly after I started my ministry. The room the meeting was being held in was just down the hall from my office. As I left the office, someone else attending the meeting walked past and said "make sure you lock the door because those people are in the building." I hadn't been there long enough to know who he was referring to. It turned out to be the local AA group that met in the basement every week. I wonder how many different groups there are in our society who get marked with the title "those people"? The blind man was one of "those people" - one of those who weren't worthy of being helped and who weren't trusted. One of those simply seen as responsible for his own problems.

     But Jesus refused to buy into that way of thinking. There are no "those people" to Jesus - there are just children of God. And so Jesus got down and dirty - into the mud where no one else was willing to go. In fact he not only got into the mud - he made the mud with his own spit and hands. And he changed this blind man's life. The focus is almost always on the blind man receiving his sight - and I don't deny that might have happened. I don't deny miracles. If God can't do things that I can't do - if God can't do things that amaze me - then God isn't much of a God. I choose not to construct a God in my own image. I choose to believe in a God who is vastly different than I am and who can do the most amazing things that I can't even imagine doing. So I have no reason to dismiss the story. The blind man could see. But I look at the story a little differently now. I'm no longer sure that it was the blind man receiving his sight that's the key to what happened. That's only a tiny part of the story that we focus on because it's exciting and dramatic - and I get that. But is it the most important part of the story? I'm no longer convinced.

     This man had been looked down on for his entire life. He had been shoved aside and pushed down and rejected. His only way to survive was to lower himself by begging and hoping day by day that enough people might toss him a scrap of bread or a coin that he could survive until the next day when he could start begging all over again. The Pharisees were among those who had no time for this man and no interest in this man and who just assumed that in some way he was responsible for his own plight. They had neither respect nor compassion for him. Their treatment of him was a way of keeping people under their thumb by showing them what happened to people they declared to be sinners. But what happened to this man after Jesus touched him? Did you notice that this man - who was not only sightless but also probably voiceless in this society and who had been constantly demeaned by the Pharisees - was suddenly debating the Pharisees; even arguing with the Pharisees. His own parents were passing the buck and cowering in fear of the Pharisees. This man was taking them on!

     The Pharisees said to the man about Jesus, "we do not know where he comes from." And that was all the man needed to hear. He leapt to Jesus' defence: "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. ... If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." And the Pharisees were furious. And they drove this man away. But the man had not only gained his vision; he had found his voice. He would not be victimized anymore. He would not just lay down and take it anymore. He went to Jesus, and he said "Lord, I believe!" He knew the difference Jesus had made in his life. More than that, he knew the risk that Jesus had taken to do it. He understood that when Jesus made the decision to get down and dirty on his behalf there would be unpleasant consequences awaiting him and all who followed him. And the man wouldn't cower in fear anymore. "Lord, I believe!" Perhaps, then, the story here isn't just about the man being healed - perhaps it's even more about the man being empowered.

     I loved the words of Father Rick Morley that I shared in today's bulletin: “Let's not look on people like they're poor slobs, and wonder at how blessed we are. Let's reach out - into the dirt - if we have to. Let's dirty our hands. And let's bring the Life that Jesus brings.” Yes! Absolutely! Down and dirty. Down in the mud. Making the mud. Standing up. Being counted. Making a difference! Giving a voice to those who have no voice! Lifting up those who are cast down and cast aside! That is the work of Jesus - and that should be our work as well! To see those who are invisible to others. To hear those who are ignored by others. To accept those who are judged by others. To welcome those who are cast aside by others. To love those who are hated by others. That is the dirty work of the gospel - dirty because it means that by doing it we align ourselves with causes and people that to many will be unpopular; causes that will stain us in the eyes of some who are self-righteous and self-absorbed and think that they're better than everyone else.

     But just as it is for Jesus, so it should be for those of us who are followers of Jesus - to us, there should be no "those people." There should be only children of God whom we are called to serve and to love!

A Thought For The Week Of March 20, 2017

"Come, my children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord." (Psalm 34:11.) That is actually such an important thing to learn. There are so many Christians (and far too many preachers) who should know better and yet who insist on taking this concept (in English) absolutely literally, so that God becomes one to be feared rather than one to be worshipped; God becomes one who is looking for an excuse to punish us rather than one who loves us unconditionally. All because the Bible talks about "the fear of the Lord," and either (a) people latch onto the word "fear" without trying to understand what the word actually means, or (b) people do understand what the word means but choose to ignore that and use it to instil fear into people. And so many people - trusting those who focus on judgement and divine wrath - become afraid of God or reject the very idea of God as monstrous. It seems to me that logic (aside from the Hebrew language) tells us that God can't be both a God of love and at the same time a God who wants those he loves to be afraid of him. Those things are inconsistent with each other. So even without complicated language studies one can see that both can't be true. The Hebrew language also doesn't tell us to fear God. Indeed, in this passage -where we are instructed to teach people what "the fear of the Lord" is -  there's very little to be afraid of in what we learn of God. Instead, what we find here is primarily the promise of God to stand with us always, and the assurance that even if things aren't good, God is still with us. That reminds me of the words of Jesus: "I am with you always ..." That's an awe-inspiring thought, which is, of course, what Psalm 34:11 is actually saying. To fear God is to be awestruck by God, and it's tragic that so many people don't understand that and believe only that God is to be literally feared. But surely we shouldn't be afraid of the one who loves us unconditionally. I came across a translation of this verse that said "I will teach you to REVERE and WORSHIPFULLY fear the Lord." That captures what the response of a Christian to God should be, and it's not the same as being afraid of God. We should never be afraid of the one who loves us unconditionally and who showers us with grace.

A Thought For The Week Of March 6, 2017

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" (Isaiah 58:6-7) Fasting is an important spiritual practice to some people - and Lent is a time when many choose to engage in ritual fasts as a way of coming closer to God. I tried fasting once. Mostly it was out of curiosity. Many people told me that they had fasted. The Bible talks about fasting. It sounded as if it might be a powerful spiritual experience. So I tried a 24 hour fast - midnight to midnight. Only water. I prayed. I read the Bible. And all I got out of it was extreme hunger! I felt no closer to God at all. Which is perhaps because I hadn't felt called to fast in the first place. I'm sure that fasting is a wonderful experience for those who feel called to it. It just wasn't right for me, and I've never felt the desire (or the call) to fast in that way again. From a Christian perspective, any spiritual practice is really only valuable to the extent that it gives us that feeling of connectedness or closeness to God. Fasting simply for the sake of fasting - making fasting just a ritual and nothing more - seems to miss the point of why people might fast. Fasting for the sake of fasting might give us the sense of having accomplished something, but in the end it's of little practical value. How exactly do we fast to come closer to God? Perhaps that's where Isaiah is going with these verses about fasting. Simply refraining from eating is literally nothing. It's something we choose not to do, but surely we have to replace what we're not doing with something positive. Real fasting has to in some way move us to serve others - because as Jesus would say, service to others is service to God. Isaiah understood that. That's why he spoke of "real fasting" in terms of the beneficial impact that our actions have on those around us. There is still injustice and oppression. There are still many who have difficult finding food and clothing. There are still those who don't even make time for those dearest to them. A real fast should in some way lead us to create a more caring society, to meet the needs of those around us and to be a blessing to our families: all things we sometimes find it hard to make the time to do.

March 5 2017 sermon - Telling The Devil To Go To Hell!

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the  devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, "If You are the Son of God, tell these  stones to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does  not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' Then the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If You are the Son of God," he said, "throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Again, the devil  took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. "All this I will give You," he said, "if You  will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from Me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'" Then the devil left Him, and angels came and attended Him.

(Matthew 4:1-11)

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     I just want to say in opening that I realize that it's not generally considered very polite to tell someone to go to hell, but I thought that since we were talking about the devil after all it might be considered acceptable, since when we tell the devil to go to hell, we're not really telling him to do anything more than to go home! Right? Yes, today we're talking about Satan. Today is the first Sunday of Lent, and the Scripture reading we just heard is the traditional Gospel passage for this day. Satan plays a significant role in this passage in which Jesus faces the temptation (right from the start of His ministry) to abandon the plan God has laid before Him and to accept an easier and more comfortable life. Satan may be a significant character in this passage, but it's fair to say - at least according to public opinion surveys I've seen that have been done on the subject - that the majority of Canadians don't believe in Satan, and it’s probably not unreasonable for me to suspect that many people here today don't believe in Satan. Well, I have a confession: I'm not part of the majority. I do believe in Satan! It always strikes me as strange that so many people – Christian and non-Christian alike – have no trouble believing in good spiritual forces (God or angels or grandpa watching over me, or whatever,) but they reject out of hand even the possibility that evil spiritual forces could exist. I see no logic to that, except that the thought of evil spiritual forces makes us nervous and we’d rather not think about it. But I do believe in evil spiritual powers, defined by the Bible as Satan. Having said that, though – and before you get the wrong impression - let me explain first what I do not mean by Satan.

     I do not believe that Satan is a red-skinned, quasi-human creature  with pointy ears and a long tail who carries a pitchfork. That picture is nothing more than silly medieval mythology. But if Satan is not that, then what is Satan? The tendency is generally to try to explain Satan away and deny Satan's existence. Almost 20 years ago, the United Church Observer had a cover story about just this subject, and my guess is that our thoughts about Satan haven’t really changed much in that time. Mike Milne, who wrote the article, said that "while United Church people readily recognize the spreading evil around them, many of them are squeamish about naming Satan as the source." Marilyn Legge, who is still a professor of Christian Ethics at Emmanuel College in Toronto described Satan in this article as simply "a religious construct that's designed to express human experience of evil." In other words, Satan is a concept we've invented to explain why bad things happen. With just a few exceptions, this article seemed to lead up to a dismissal of even the possibility of any type of evil spiritual force in the world around us, although one notable exception was Victor Shepherd - who taught church history at the Tyndale Seminary in Toronto and who for many years was the minister of Streetsville United Church in Mississauga - who said that if we reject the idea of Satan's existence, "we render almost un-understandable a great deal of the New Testament." Shepherd's words seem relevant to today's passage. Matthew tells us that Jesus faced temptations beyond the normal temptations that comes to any of us at various times. This passage tells us that Satan - however you define him or it - was very much a part of Jesus' experience in the wilderness.

     For Christians, Satan is usually seen as the very epitome (indeed, as the very embodiment) of evil, and I think that's important, because it acknowledges the reality of a spiritual force behind evil. Evil is surely more than just the bad things we do. Evil is what motivates us to act in ways that defy normal conceptions of what is good and right and moral. Evil is that which takes possession of us and pushes us to act in ways that are destructive to both communities and individuals. This particular passage teaches us that evil - most of the time - is not what we think it is. We restrict evil to the obviously horrible and cruel things that happen in the world. The Holocaust was evil; apartheid was evil; slavery was evil; murder and violence of all kinds is evil. And, of course, they are. But what we learn here is that evil is just as often (and perhaps even more often) quite benign - at least seemingly so. Scripture suggests that evil starts with the small and seemingly unimportant things that serve to pull us away from God, and it's these small things that can often serve to make God's presence seem very distant and perhaps even absent.

     We learn a lot from Jesus in this passage about how to do battle with Satan. The evil we battle usually consists of little more than just the every day tests and temptations that we face in trying to be faithful to God: believing that God will provide; believing that God will keep us safe; believing that God is with us; sometimes just believing that there is a God. We're constantly being tempted to give up on our faith in God. We so easily fall into the trap of wanting to put God to the test: "do this or that for me; give me this or give me that" - and when things don't work out the way we had hoped, we question, we wonder, sometimes we get angry with God and give up on God completely. That's not evil by human standards. I know many people who don't believe in God, and the vast majority of them are very nice people - they're not at all evil! But the obvious evil that we see around us flows from that because it's when people give up on God (and giving up on God could mean either not believing in God or professing belief in God but using God to further one’s own agenda) that they can find themselves surrendering the moral compass that a deep and sincere faith in God lays down, and the result is simply moral chaos, with no obvious reason to believe one thing over another except that "it feels right to me." That type of individualism is the greatest darkness and the greatest triumph of evil. It’s the work of Satan in my opinion - to isolate us, to make us individuals who have to get along on our own rather than members of a community that nurtures us and cares for us. In today's reading we see Jesus at His most vulnerable - weak and hungry - and yet we still see Him triumph because he trusted in God to sustain him, resisting temptation by repeatedly quoting God's Word in response to them.

     By holding on to that relationship and refusing to be isolated from God, Jesus did battle with Satan in the wilderness and sent him packing, so to speak. He overcame evil, and the strength to do that - the strength to look evil in the face and sneer at it - belongs to us all. As people who belong to Christ we have God with us, and as people empowered by the Holy Spirit we have God within us. That’s all we need to do battle with Satan.

     Martin Luther was quite convinced of the reality of Satan's existence. In his journal, he wrote that on one particular night he was awakened by sounds as he slept in his chamber in the monastery. But, he said with a seeming degree of both irritation and contempt, once he realized that it was only Satan, he rolled over and went back to sleep. It must be marvelous to have such confidence in the power of God; to be able, as Luther apparently was, to look evil in the face and to simply sneer at it. And yet Jesus teaches us that we can have such confidence; that we can have authority over Satan and over all the evil that Satan represents. All we need to do is trust in God. So, as we mark today the beginning of Lent, I encourage you to follow the example of Martin Luther and let the Word of God strengthen you and sustain you. And when you find yourself faced with temptation to turn elsewhere, remember where that temptation comes from, and tell the devil to leave you alone and go to - well, you know where!

A Thought For The Week Of February 27, 2017

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." (1 John 4:18) Here we are. It's Ash Wednesday - the first day of Lent. Traditionally, many Christians give up something for Lent - some pleasure; some treat; some behaviour. It's usually nothing earth-shattering or life-changing, but it is a symbolic way of sacrificing to honour Jesus, who made the greatest of sacrifices upon the cross. But as I look at the state of the world around us as Lent 2017 begins, I think there's something more meaningful that Christians need to give up - and that's fear. So many people today live in fear. We see that displayed when we start to target others who are different from us. Statistics tell us that so-called "hate crimes" are on the increase - against Muslims, against Jews, against the LGBTQ community. But I tend to think that they're not so much "hate crimes" as they're "fear crimes." We target those we're afraid of - and usually we target those who we refuse to take the opportunity to get to know and understand. And as Christians we should be the last people to fall before fear. After all, we believe in a God of love, and this verse of the Bible tells us that the opposite of love is not hate, but is really fear. If love comes from God, then we need to remember that hate comes from fear. Hate is a mask we put on to hide our fear. Fear, you see, would make us look weak. No one wants to look weak, so we cover our fear with hate - and hate seems to make us look strong and tough. But that's not true. Hate is simply hidden fear and nothing more. Hate is a sign of weakness rather than a mark of strength. It's nothing to be proud of. And thankfully, there's a remedy for it. "Perfect love casts out fear" because love breaks down barriers and acts to reconcile us to those around us, so that our differences become unimportant and all that really matters is the love Jesus asks us to show to all. So, if you're thinking of giving something up for Lent - well, you can do better than chocolate, or lottery tickets. Give up fear, and truly live in love. That would be a great way to mark Lent!