November 23, 2014: Reign of Christ

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

 

Extra-ordinary, Ordinary Lives

(Ephesians 1: 19, 20 – I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.   NLT)

 

 

A Joke: A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a tavern.  As they approach the bar, the bartender says: “What is this, some kind of a joke?”

On Monday, as I was working on getting the web-site updated and starting to put the bulletin together for this week, part of which is to collect various pieces of information, I came across a book that was just published by someone called Michael Horton.  The title of it is OR-DIN-AR-Y: Sustaining faith in a radical, restless world.  The lead-in for it goes this way, “Your life was made to be ORDINAY not radical”.  The promo continues, “Restless. Epic. Crazy.  Every word we read these days seems to call us to the “next—best—thing,” if only we would change our comfortable, compromising lives.  Instead, many of us end up feeling disillusioned and disappointed, simply burnt out.”

It set me to thinking that perhaps in my efforts to encourage a bolder faith within our Pastoral Charge, it is quite possible that, at least some, may have gotten the idea that I am trying to encourage you into some radical way of being.  Well, truth be told, I am, BUT not in the way those words may sound.

 

Prayer: Help us, O God, to learn the value of an ordinary life and to be able to distinguish ordinary from a life to which we have merely settled.  Amen.

In 1 Corinthians 7 there are several discussions around marriage, sexual relations, circumcision and being a slave.  What all these seemingly unrelated topics have in common is a question that is being asked in regards to changing one’s status after becoming a follower of Christ.

The blanket statement that is made, which does need some qualification, is that whatsoever state you find yourself in when you first came to faith, remain there.  If an avenue seems open to better your conditions, check it out, just make sure you remember to honour God.  If someone is engaged and they are having problems remaining celibate, get married, otherwise serve God as one that is unmarried.  If someone is married and your partner is not a Christian, stay married, if they will have you.  If they want to leave the marriage, let them but don’t divorce thinking you can serve got better single.  If you were born a non-Jew, you do not need to follow Jewish rites to serve God better.  Serve God as a Gentile.  If you are a slave, don’t think you have to be a free person to serve God better.  Serve God where you are.  However, if an opportunity arises to secure your freedom then do so.

When we put too much weight on external things in our serving God we are missing a few very important facts.  The first is that God does not wait until we come to faith to begin orchestrating our lives.  Where we are when we come to faith is part of the “ordinary lives” God is creating for us and has been creating for us since before we were born.  The second is that when we come to faith, we have a responsibility to share God’s grace with those around us.  If we leave our circumstances, we lose a considerable opportunity to do just that.  The third is that there is no better place for us to learn the reality of God’s power working within us and through us than living new lives in old familiar circumstances.  And the fourth thing is that God has called us to “ordinary” lives, not the life of a wing nut jumping from one thing to the next.  But our ordinary lives cannot be the same ordinary lives lived by those who have not yet come to faith.  Our lives should be so much more.  The extra-ordinary, ordinary lives that God calls us to is energised by the same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him and empowers him to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

If I were to ask you to give me the names of people who, in your mind, have lived extraordinary lives, I dare say that names of very well-known people would come back to me in response.  From our faith tradition, people like Jesus, Peter, Paul and John, some of the Hebrew Prophets, some of the early church fathers, kings, president and prime ministers, that is, strong voices in political settings, from the non-political world, leaders like Ghandi, Mandela and some other spheres of influence like Einstein and Jobs.  But you know, for every name we could list, there are literally thousands of others who have contributed as much or more to the world and did so in the course of their ordinary lives.  These unsung heroes used their gifts and talents as teachers, friends, as helpers and devil’s advocates to shape the lives of the names we know or even the lives of those who shaped the lives of the names we know.

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church calendar and the day we are called to remember that in deed, Christ, the nobody rabbi from a nowhere village in a nowhere province of the Roman Empire radically changed the history of the entire world with his extra-ordinary, ordinary life.  Was he a radical? Perhaps, perhaps not.  You see all he ever did was to do as we are all asked to do – to love God with all our being and love our neighbours as ourselves.  To love God means to do as God asks.  To love our neighbours means to put their needs at the top of priority list.  Yes, Jesus said some things that seemed pretty radical but in reality, he was just reminding people of what God had said many times before.  Did he do some radical things?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  All he did was to remind us of what it looks like when our words become our actions, to walk the walk not just talk the talk.

There is a song on the contemporary charts by Casting Crowns called Thrive.  I like both the tune and the thought it conveys.  The words go like this,

Here in this worn and weary land

Where many a dream has died

Like a tree planted by the water

We never will run dry

 

So living water flowing through

God we thirst for more of You

Fill our hearts and flood our souls

With one desire

 

Just to know You and

To make You known

We lift Your name on High

Shine like the sun made darkness run and hide

We know we were made for so much more

Than or-din ar-y lives

It’s time for us to more than just survive

We were made to thrive

 

Into Your Word we’re digging deep

To know our Father’s heart

Into the world we’re reaching out

To show them who You are

How is it possible for us to live an extra-ordinary, ordinary life?  We turn to the prayer in Ephesians –

Ephesians 1: 19 “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. 21 Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. 22 God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.” (NLT)

Prayer: Teach us, God how to thrive, to live extra-ordinary, ordinary lives, so that in your eyes we come to live the full and rich ordinary lives you have prepared for us and to which you are calling us.  Amen.

 

November 2, 2014: Twenty-first after Pentecost

Joshua 3:7-17; Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12

Standing between Promise and Reality

Psalm 107: 4-7 Some wandered in the wilderness, lost and homeless.   Hungry and thirsty, they nearly died.   “LORD, help!” they cried in their trouble, and he rescued them from their distress.   He led them straight to safety, to a city where they could live.    NLT

A Story about Change: 

Adam was walking outside of the Garden of Eden with Cane and Abel when the boys were young.  Cane and Abel looked into the garden and viewed waterfalls, lovely birds, lush forests and fruit trees bending over because of the large amounts of fruit on them.

Then they took a long look at where they lived at. It was dry, dusty with weeds and sickly-looking trees.

“Daddy? Why don’t we live in there instead of out here?” they asked innocently.

Adam said, “Well sons. Eve and I use to live in there at one time. But your mother ate us out of house and home.”

Change is not something we handle well albeit when we are facing it or living after it.

Prayer: God who goes before us, show us the way.

 

The first time the children of Israel had come in near the borders of the Promised Land, Moses sent twelve spies into a land to bring back a report. Two brought favourable reports but ten reported very scary things. The result was forty more years in the desert waiting for those whose security was found in the pain of slavery to die and for a generation who had only known God as their provider to be raised up. This time all twleve spies returned with a positive report and Joshua orders the Israelites to set out from Shittim to the edge of the Jordan River and wait for further instructions. After the people arrive at the Jordan, his instructions are given over a three-day period.

At the end of this three-day period, after the people sanctify themselves in preparation to cross the Jordan the twelve Levitical priests carry the ark of the covenant down into the Jordan River. They stand still in the middle of the river where the waters have stopped, leaving the river bed dry.  The people follow the priests into the river at a distance, not getting too near the ark. God restates His promise to be with His people and to give them the land.

While the twelve priests hold the ark high in the middle of the Jordan, the waters piled up on the north side, the Israelites pass over into Canaan. Twelve ceremonial rocks are then piled in the middle of the Jordan before the waters return, while twelve more rocks are carried to the west bank for a memorial ceremony at Gilgal. Now that the Israelites are safe on the west bank, the priests carry the ark forward to join the rest of the nation. The waters sweep back into the river bed flooding their way several miles southward into the Dead Sea.

This sovereign God, who can part the waters, is a God who called Israel then, and us today, to be a “crossover people.”

Every life has its crossover times – times of transition — nervous times, times often filled with potential disaster. This was a traumatic time for Israel. The Israelites had spent forty years wandering in the wilderness. Every day for forty years the children of Israel had survived only because of God’s daily provision of quail in the evening and Manna in the morning and God’s leading them to places where fresh water abounded. Every day for forty years the Children of Israel had a constant reminder of God’s presence and direction in the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke. They were accustomed to that way of life but all this was about to change.

From the time that they had left Egypt, their travels had been described as going forward or journeying. The Hebrew word “nasa” is used repeatedly until their journey takes a new direction in crossing the Jordan. Now a new word “abar” – meaning to “cross over” or to “pass over” is the word used to describe the crossing of the Jordan. This particular word emphasizes the decisive nature of this moment in the history of the Hebrew people and distinguishes it from everything that had gone on before. This word is not used of the passing through the waters of the Red Sea. “abar” speaks to something of epic proportions, something from which one can never return. This word implies crossing over a boundary whether it be physical like a riverbed or political like a nation’s border or in a moral sense as to enter a covenant.

This Promised Land was not a paradise, it was not without problems but rather it wa to be the place where the whole nature of what it meant to be God’s would have to be worked out.

Our lives are filled with abar times. Being born is in abar time. Beginning school, graduating school, first day on the job, getting married, the birth of our children, the death of loved ones, retirement, suffering through the increasing complications of simply getting older, are all personal abar times. These “crossover times” are times and events from which there is no going back.  Some, are thrust upon us and we have no time to prepare. Manyabar times come with advance notice or are ones we choose to embrace and we do have time to prepare ourselves, but how?

How did the Children of Israel prepare themselves to cross the Jordan, to make that momentous first step that would distance themselves from their past, from everything that they knew to be normal? How did they have the courage to leave the comfort of the quail in the evening and Manna in the morning, of the physical representation of the presence of God in the pillar of smoke in the pillar of fire?

On a personal level, I am sure they would have checked their gear, their animals, their tents, their families. They probably would have done some ritual cleansing with water. And I’m sure that they would’ve prayed. At night when the tribal histories were told, I’ll bet that those who were in their youth some forty years before would have been at the forefront as the story of Moses leading them through the Sea of Reads on dry ground sounded throughout the camp. These tribal memories spoke of similar circumstances and in their telling, in reminding the people of what God had done in the past, confidence in God’s ability to do what seemed impossible increased.

On a corporate level, under the leadership of Joshua several things were set in motion.

The facts were gathered.  Twelve spies had been sent into the Promised Land and a report was brought back. These people, who had lived in constant scarcity for all or most of their lives were told that there was the possibility of something far greater for them than the circumstances they currently found themselves in and had found themselves in for the last forty years. There was positive potential.

Instructions were given. A strategic plan was created (actually given by God) and communicated to all the people so they would know what to do and when. It took three days for all to be informed as to how this crossing the Jordan would unfold. People knew what was expected of them.

A New Symbol was given: The Ark Of The Covenant replaced the pillar of smoke and fire as the symbol of God’s presence. They would no longer be a nation always on the move but settled in one place. The Ark, carried by the priests would move before them and they were to follow.

An Act of Commitment Was Required:  The Jordon River was normally a small stream but at this time of year it was a mighty river.  The latter rains had filed it to overflowing.  All that stood between these people and the new life God had promised them so many years before was taking a step of faith. The raging waters would not abate until someone stepped into them. True to God’s promise once the feet of the priests carrying the Ark touched the water, the waters were stopped up and the people could crossover on dry ground.

While there were yet many things to learn, challenges to overcome and battles to be won, none of them would have ever come to be had not this group of people who had wandered for forty years put their toe in the raging water, had not taken that step of faith to challenge the obstacle before them.

A memorial was established:  Actually there were two memorials set up each made of twelve stones – one in the middle of the river bed marking the end of God’s people leaving Egypt and another on the western shore marking the beginning of their new life.  Is this not a picture of baptism?

These memorials were set up to remind this people that there was no going back.  A new life had begun.

Summary: This pattern is a good pattern for us when facing change: 1.) gathering all the available facts so we can determine the potential benefits of change, 2.) receiving and following God’s instructions so we know what to do and when, 3.) choosing a symbol of that change around which we can collectively gather as we move forward, reminding us of the both God’s presence and God’s leading, 4.) establishing an act of commitment to change and 5.) preparing memorials to leaving what is known and therefore comfortable and to entering what is new and unknown to us but not to God. This is also a reminder of who God has called us to be.

Change is never easy.  All we can usually see are what we will have to give up and what stands in the way of us taking hold of what God has in store for us.

Two Questions: Do you have an ongoing sense that “there has to be something more”?  If so, is living in scarcity and uncertainty really so comfortable for us that we continue to turn our backs on abundance and a growing trust in God?

Prayer: God of the journey, as individuals and as a community, help us determine to stop standing between your promises and experiencing the reality of them. Help us be the “crossover” people you call us to be.  Amen.

September 21, 2014: Second Sunday of Creation Time

Psalm 104:24–34, Job 12:7–12, John 1:1-5

Listen to My Wisdom!

Psalm 104: 33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live.   I will praise my God to my last breath!  34 May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.  NLT

 

Last week, I offered three climate change jokes and I will so again today.  But climate change jokes that can be shared are not that easy to find.  Most are either mean spirited and politically motivated or they draw attention to things that are far from wholesome.   The three I found are not very good but here we go anyway.

1. Global warming: Mankind’s revenge on the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
2. Global Warming: Sending water to Africa one iceberg at a time.
3. I’ve just gone around my neighbour’s garden and smashed his greenhouse.  Hasn’t he heard about the effect they have on the environment?

 

Prayer: Loving Creator, as we consider the world in which we live and our relation to it, help us to understand and grow.

 

If you watched the news this week, you probably saw the report of people returning from what was supposed to be a Mexican holiday but turned in to an ordeal because of hurricane Odile.  One person reported, “We had no electricity from Sunday pretty much onwards.  We had generator power for one night and then another night for a couple of hours, but no service, no cellphone and no Wi-Fi,” Another person added there were food shortages which resulted in rationing and when the food was finally gone, the resort they were staying in kicked them out.

What struck me about the first person’s report was it seemed that in the face of the disaster that that hurricane cause, that person’s greatest concern was the absence of technology – no electricity, no cellphone, no internet.

It’s a telling thing.  Last week we spoke about how as consumerism and technology has grown and taken over the lives of westerners, the definition of connectedness has changed.  Rather than being defined in terms our relationship with God, with other people and with God’s creation, now it is far more in relation to technology.  And therein lays the problem – a problem that is not just resident at the individual level but at the societal one as well.

I now that some of you can remember a time when even people living in towns raised chickens, ducks or geese or perhaps even a cow and a pig for personal consumption.  The so called garbage that was produced on their little acre of heaven never went to the dump.  It was all recycled.  Not only that but having that close connection to the various cycles of life made living far more in tune with reality that it is for most people today in our corner of the world.

Let me ask you a question?  Where does a roast beef come from?  The local grocery store, right?  During my life time there has been a shift away from the awareness that in reality a roast beef originates with a cattle.  Many now assume that it comes from a store or perhaps a factory.  Many have never questioned the origins of a roast of beef.  And that disconnect will only grow in the future as population continues to increase and it becomes increasingly viable to order groceries on line and have them delivered.  The disconnected world in which we live causes many to never question, to never make the direct link between the death of an animal and the food on our plates.

There is a cardinal rule that is observed by every animal on the planet save those who eat their food twice.  You don’t eat you meals in the outhouse.  Every animal that is, save human beings.

Now as individuals we would never do that but as a society we take our best land, pave it over, build factories, dumps and cities.  We fill our air with all kinds of pollutants.  Dump our pills and chemicals down the drain and then drink the very same water and breathe the very same air.

When populations were small, a small acreage could deal with most of what was discarded.  Now populations are so large, there isn’t enough land, enough air, enough water or enough plants to correct our life style.  Moving from out houses to indoor plumbing was one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time.  That move conditioned us to believe having our dinner plate and toilet in close proximity was just fine.  It taught us that we can take anything we want and dump it anywhere and somehow it will disappear.

The point is that without any intention on anyone’s part, we have become very comfortable with the notion that is perfectly acceptable to ruin our dinner plate which is the earth with all the things we want to discard.  That is not a good thing.

To make matters worse, as our children and grandchildren become even more disconnected from the realities of life that life has cycles, everything has a beginning a middle and an ending.  We are born, we live and we die.  Advances in medicine and technology are good things but slowly the miracle interventions that are being developed disconnecting people from the thought that if we keep pumping our land and air full of our garbage, sooner or later, we will pay the price.  And it won’t make much difference if it is piled a kilometer or a thousand kilometers down the road.  It will come back to haunt us.

Many of us are at the stage of life when our children have made their own homes somewhere else and we don’t see them or our grandchildren all that often but we do have the opportunity from time to time to remind them of our connection to and dependence upon the rest of creation.  Remind them of the “good ole days”, of how we lived connected to the earth and the various cycles of life that are now so often veiled by consumerism and technology.

We may not be able to affect wholesale change but we can change and we can influence our families, our friends and our neighbours.   We are not responsible for what we cannot do.  But we are responsible to do what we can.

When our sons were young, we had this driving game: Spotting Moo-Chickens.  Of course no such animal exists but we knew that if we were to spot what looked like a cow perched o a fence or on a low hanging branch, it had to be moo-chicken.  We never saw any of those but sometimes as a herd of cattle was grazing some of the cattle would be resting which looked something like a cow sitting on a nest.  Those are the ones we counted.  The affect of this was to raise the boys’ awareness of the world around them.  As we drove they saw lots of animals in the fields and forests that they would have otherwise missed.  To this day, they see what many people miss.

So, I want to encourage you to take advantage of the little things to raise the level of awareness and connectedness in those people you rub shoulders with.   If enough of us do this we can effect change.