Category: Discipleship

Moving Mountains

It would seem the massively tragic 7.8 earthquake that rocked Nepal in April actually moved Mount Everest 3 cm. Now, the mountain is moving a bit all the time anyway, but the earthquake moved it in the opposite direction!

We are told we are to have faith such as to move mountains. I think it is probably just as well if we do not take that up literally; we would never agree on what mountain should be moved where! And it’s probably just fine, and majestic and beautiful, and maybe even useful, right where it is. Nevertheless, we do have such power in our midst.

All the power of God resides in Christ, says John (read John 1:1-14), and, through acceptance, Christ resides in us. Some people are deluded to think they have great power of their own strength, and lord it over others, maybe even thinking they are doing a favour to those persons and the world at large. Nothing truly good can come of such ego-driven power, no matter how it is rationalized. But there is such power as to move mountains in the love Christ shares in and through  us.  We are not to think we should or can not make a difference.

Re-Birth Certificate

The Province of Ontario has a new form of birth certificate. It is made of polymer, has some other security enhancements, and is larger than the wallet-sized certificate most Ontarians have, to discourage us from carrying it around.

Some of us have such a thing as a baptismal certificate, but there is a much more authentic and meaningful sign and affirmation of our rebirth, as a new creation in Christ. When we come into union with Christ, Paul says, “God “set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 1:22).

Through the Holy Spirit, we have both assurenace that we already part of a new reality in Christ, with a guarantee of wonders yet to be fulfilled in us. Who needs polymer?

Person of the Year

CBC Radio had its weekly Cross Country Checkup phone-in show today, asking people their candidate for Person of the Year. There were lots of worthy (and predictable) suggestions.

I have a slightly different nomination, for person of the coming year: You. Whatever has gone down or failed to happen for you in the past, what’s coming can be a time of promise and hope. In spite of how we may feel, you and I have the capacity to make a difference, with one catch: we have to be willing to be changed and filled by and with the love and power beyond ourselves.

The Apostle Paul put it radically: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

You Are Not Your Own

You are not your own. This can be bad. This can be good. Let’s start with the bad.

We are not our own when we are complacent about government surveillance that gathers all the information about us that it can, just because it might be useful someday. I came across the phrase, “You are not your own” in a piece about “Optic Nerve,” which gathered millions of stills from web cam chats between 2008 and 2010.

And now for the good: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The Apostle Paul is talking here about the use of our bodies, but from a broader perspective it is good to know that there is one who already knows all about us, and wants only the best for us.

The Privileged Many

Summary of message at Fallingbrook Presbyterian Church, Sunday, December 15 2013 (Advent 3). Scripture: Matthew 11:2-11.

It is often observed that this is a time of year when people who are down may feel even more down. There can be disillusionment – both with personal circumstances and from observation of the world. Where is the peace and joy of which Christmas speaks? It may seem any sort of success in life is for an elite, a privileged few. Christmas actually brings the message that we can be part of the privileged many – privileged to be part of God’s kingdom brought in Christ.

From Matthew’s telling at the beginning of chapter 11, it  seems John the Baptist may have been suffering some disillusionment. He who had been first to recognize and point to Jesus as Messiah was in prison, and did not see from  his vantage point how anything was different. He sent friends to ask of Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?” Jesus replies by pointing to what is happening: massive healing, a sign of the kingdom’s breaking into the world in and through him. And he adds, as great a figure as John the Baptist is, having been foretold as the one to point to what is happening, the least in the kingdom is greater than he. This kingdom is both now and forever.

So what about us and our disillusionment? We need, like John, to see beyond our own circumstances to perceive the bigger picture of what God is doing in the world, and what he can do for us personally, especially as we accept the special fellowship that rest from our striving (end of chapter 11) can bring. We can handle pretty much anything with the right support.

Most importantly, our part in Christ’s kingdom gives us our true identity, which is not to be equated with our particular roles in life that can bring us disappointment and disillusionment. Our identity is wrapped up in Christ, who will not fail us. And we find we are already on what Isaiah celebrated as the highway of the redeemed (Isaiah 35:1-10). We are among the privileged many.

 

Don’t Miss This Turn

Don’t Miss This Turn: The Importance of Thinking Differently
Summary of message at Fallingbrook Presbyterian Church, Sunday, December 8, 2013 (Advent 2). Scripture: Matthew 3:1-12.

John the Baptist had one essential message: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven (other than in Matthew “Kingdom of God”) is near, or at hand.” To repent meant basically to change your mind, to turn and seek more the mind and point of view of God. A change in behaviour, particularly toward others, would necessarily follow. John’s baptism was a sign of acceptance of such ‘turning.’

Among those who came to John at the River Jordan were the religious leaders. John called them hypocrites because he perceived that, in their treatment of things of faith as matters of possession and position, they were not seeking change, but were investigating a movement that threatened to have power outside of their purview and control. The common people flocked to John because he ignited in them an old prophetic hope: of independence from foreign influence and an era of justice and peace. Their repentance would help prepare them to be part of that.

Today, those of us (already) in the church may be susceptible, like the religious leaders then, of only wanting to be affirmed in our position and traditions. Or we may, like the people back then but in our own way, see a call to faith as a means toward better social conditions, and that is well and good. But John pointed to another, greater than he, who would baptize with his own life-altering power, and usher in a kingdom and reality, of a totslly different and eternal order. Rooted in the Lord, and therefore clearing away obstacles in our life that would let us welcome his new life, new creation really, and risking new ways of living and serving in the self-giving way of Christ, we show we are more and more being “turned” to adopt within us the mind of the Lord. Anything else is subject to judgment.

A question to reflect and work on, that I believe brings these things together: What are you committed to that will succeed only if God will do it? This question
(a) takes into account that the matter must be something that would be in keeping with God’s Kingdom goals,
(b) requires, at the same time, our own diligent work, and,
(c) will draw us closer to the Lord, and will lead us to having more his point of view as we move in to the next opportunity, and ongoing opportunities, to invite him to work in and through us.

Such a challenge is important both for our own discipleship and the life and work of the church.

Suddenly

Summary of message for Sunday, December 1, the first Sunday of Advent, at Fallingbrook Presbyterian Church, Toronto. Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44.

The patrons at a Glasgow pub Friday night could have had no idea what was going to transpire there that night. Some lives ended. Others will have been changed forever, and not for the better. I could mention other places and events – Lac Megantic, Tacloban in the Phillipines – places and events that experienced sudden and traumatic change. I suspect that, more often than not, when we think of sudden events, unexpected news, we tend to think of disruptive, unwelcome things. …

Jesus spoke of his coming at the end of time as we know it in t erms of suddenness. But this is meant to be good news, the best news. It is the fulfillment of the wonderful picture painted by Isaiah, a time of wonderful “shalom” – peace and fulfillment for the faithful. On this first Sunday in Advent, it is customary to have Scripture with such an apocalyptic theme, embracing the news of Christ’s coming again, with the effect that in celebrating his birth at Bethlehem, we will come to knowledge of hiim who is yet to come. And this ought to transform all our expectations. As in the times of Isaiah, there are still stark realities all around us, but also the experience of the unexpected in wonderful ways – a message for a season that we do think of, after all, as one of expectancy.

Jesus spoke of the sudden nature of his coming, as opposed to answering the “when” question. Not the angels, not even he, knew this, he said. This is in keeping with his self-emptying character, divesting himself of divine glory so as to experience what we experience on earth. And in this humility may be a clue as to how we are to be prepared for his coming – and for the unexpected in everyday life – by being like him in h is humility. Not all, he made clear, would experience his return as good news. Given any two people, he said, one will be taken up into the new reality, the other, well, not. It is those who share in his own character will be in sync with his coming kingdom, a kingdom described earlier in Matthew in terms of peacemaking, mercy, humility.

Perhaps we can demonstrate such humility and Christ-likeness by just not being so sure about so many things, or thinking we should be – even to the point of thinking we can predict what Christ himself said he did not know – the time of his return.. We can and should be sure of God’s love. Our loved ones should be certain of our love for them. But we insist on being certain and right about many things that just put us at odds with others. It is a large part of the increasing nastiness and polarized factions in our common life. Certainty is at the heart of all fundamental isms, and they are all destructive. We then effectively judge ourselves and make ourselves unfit for the kingdom of grace.

We are invited by our Lord to his table today. He freely gives himself to us. We join in taking his nurturing, transforming character within us. So now maybe we will experience new kinds of suddenness. Yes, we will still have tragedies, unexpected disruptive news and such. But the experience of his presence in our hearts and in each day brings a new kind of disruption: the inbreaking of grace, and beauty, and love. Such new kinds of suddeness will come readily and freely to those in whose hearts his love flows.

 

The Fear-Power Matrix

The first of three messages I’m calling Essentials of Community on Sunday May 5 considered peace to be the first essential. That’s peace as the opposite of fear. While, thankfully, we do not have the big obvious reasons to have a culture of fear, not, say as we would if we were living in Syria, fear seems to be the seething undercurrent of much of our life. It’s beneath the anger that seems to spew forth at the slightest provocation. Fear creates distrust; it is behind self destructive behaviours. it ruins relationships, diminishes community.

Fear has a cousin, or maybe more like a sibling: power. Fear and power feed off one another. I call it the fear-power matrix. You do not have to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist to recognize that there are those whose power depends on, feeds on, and promotes a culture of fear. The human’s first sin, we read in Genesis 3, was for a power grab, and fear immediately was born. Hiding from God ensued. God asked, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).

The last part of John 14 pictures a God who wants to reside with and in us, displacing these trespassers in our lives, fear and power. They do not belong. We accept them as given parts of reality, but it is not what God intends for us, at least that’s what I get from this. Jesus said if we follow his word, he and the Father will dwell with us. If we pattern our lives after Jesus’ self-giving service and obedience to his will, we will experience a new resident in our lives. In answer to the question of John 14:22, Jesus says that instead of some earth-shaking public spectacle, he will continue to work through a community of people to share this new possibility in and to the larger community. And at the heart of it all will be a peace, such as the world cannot give, a peace that accompanies the gift of the Spirit, the “counselor” or “helper” or “advocate” (as paraclete is variously translated) whom we will find alongside us. We find God, then, within and beside us. The world cannot give this peace. The world can only express peace as a wish on a Christmas card, or by imposing order aimed at controlling external factors associated with fear, without touching – and perhaps increasing – the fear we find within anyway, because of our basic insecurity, which Christ offers to shatter.

He Disallows Indifference

This Sunday, March 17, at St. Andrew’s in Ajax, we’ll be looking at John 12:1-8. It tells of the outrageous pouring of perfume on Jesus. Outrageous? It was Judas, yes that Judas, who objected to this, and he may have had a point, on the surface of things. He just made his point out of the wrong motive, and did not, perhaps could not, perceive what was really happening. The whole episode shows that the very presence of Jesus brings strong reaction. His very presence disallows indifference, especially concerning who he is, as well as the things he cares about. So part of what we will explore is how is Jesus present today, and where is that kind of reaction to him?

He Has Nothing to Prove

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent. The Gospel lesson is the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4:1-13. Jesus could have used, accepted, or displayed power to satisfy his real physical hunger, to have world power right then and there, or to demonstrate suoeriority. Any of thse would have sabotaged his real purpose, to go to Jerusalem and the cross that he knew awaited him. We might endure temptation in order to gain something good; Jesus passed this test in order to move toward even greater pain and suffering, for our sake. He passed the test, at his temptation and at the cross. He has nothing to prove.

What about us? Is there ever a time when we are not tested? Is there ever a time you do not feel you have something to prove?