Every second Wednesday morning, I help lead a Bible study at a seniors’ residence. It is so wonderful to get into the Word with people who have, for the most part, walked with God all of their lives. As is so often the case with ministry, in ministering (supposedly), I find myself more ministered to. I have noticed a major theme. While, in honesty, there is acknowledgement of times of doubt and weakness, there is experience of a God who never abandons us, and whose mercy never fails. Steadfast love, the Old Testament calls it. I count on it, but know it comes at a cost.
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Space Sharing
In a report on Cmdr Chris Hadfield’s first appearance since returning to earth, the astronaut is reported to have said that his experiences were “too good” to keep to himself. As a result, we were all blessed by his sharing on social media. ‘”There is beautiful imagery, there’s poetry in what is happening, there is purpose in what is happening,” he said. “There is beauty to it, there is hope in it and it’s an international thing.”
We have heard much about this. What we do not hear so much is that he managed to do this sharing while not being diverted from his essential work, with which, he says, he was “very busy.” I find this to be an important challenge to our own sense of busy-ness, being caught up our own responsibilities and concerns, and not sharing, or maybe even noticing, what is of beauty in our own daily “space.” We need to notice and share what is of beauty and purpose, not just through social media, but in our daily conversations, and in thanksgiving back to the author of beauty and purpose. You don’t have to be a famous astronaut to make a difference in the day of others. And we are blessed ourselves in the process.
Smuggling KFC to Gaza
A number of major news outlets in the last couple of days have made much of a report, apparently first reported by the Christian Science Monitor, that KFC is being smuggled to Gaza from Egypt. So what? As the reports themselves note, lots of things are smuggled through the many tunnels. Is there a touch of condescension in this? Anyway, maybe it points to an observation we should make: that we have more in common than things that make us different. Are we in the more ‘sophisticated’ culture above such cravings?
in the early church, food was a major issue related to unity between colliding cultres. Maybe we have a clue here toward better negotiations–between nations or people in conflict of any kind: Put food on the negotiating table that all can enjoy. It may be a kind of communion.
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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.
What is the Bible?
The congregation I am serving on an interim basis decided, to their credit, to have a once-a-month worship service as a “Family Service”, in which the children would stay present instead of having their own time after the children’s time in the service.
We had, as the topic of this service this morning, “What is the Bible?”
We recognized that the Bible represents some contradictions, or at least seemingly so:
1. As a collection, or library, of books, yet telling one story, of God’s renewing creation.
2. As a variety of kinds of writing (poetry, history, letters, etc.), yet setting our God’s Word (human words, divine Word).
3. The Bible is old, yet the subject of renewal in understanding and application today.
4. The Bible is not simply a set of rules, yet does set out high expectations for us, as those who are part, already, of a new creation.
In sum, the Bible is the story of each of us, as we are being created anew through God’s Word, through our own chaos and darkness, toward new creation and life.
Boston Bomb Victims’ Hidden Injury – Hearing Loss – NYTimes.com
And to think this hidden injury is multiplied the world over, where bombs go off on a daily basis. I, for one, would not have thought of this without something happening closer to home, to people more like “us,” whatever that means.
Revealing (apocalypse of) Good
Thoughts drawn from yesterday’s message at St. Andrew’s Ajax:
The message was the second of two recognizing the reality of evil in the world,how Christ has dealt with this, and how he has offered to share with us what he has done. Yesterday the main point was that not only is evil real, but its effects are intensifying. At the same time, however, God is working good that is “gooder” than the bad is “badder.”
The message was drawn from a book that is criticized, understandably, as portraying God as one who deals with the violence of the world only with violence, in the extreme, of his own–The Revelation to John. With that very charge in mind, I pointed out the parallel, or rather contrast, between the rider on the white horse of chapter 6 with the rider on the white horse of chapter 19. The first is the rpresentation of conquest, leading to war, famine (or disparity), and death. The other, in chapter 19, clearly is meant to be Christ, “the Word of God” (19:13). On the charge of resolving things violently, it is to be noted that his sword is not wielded in the hand, but proceeds from his mouth.
So what if we see the violently powerful depiction of the defeat of what is against God as indicating the power and decisiveness with which God acts (and ultimately will act to defeat all evil), but not the form it takes? Seeing it that way, instead of the rider-on-the-red-horse of war of chapter 6, we have the rider-Word of chapter 19 producing community; instead of disparity/famine (black horse in chapter 6), the the sword-Word further brings a spirit of abundance, and life instead of death.
Community and a spirit of gracious abundance are both products of the Word lived, and are much needed parts of a lived out witness to God’s devastatingly powerful love, shared in a fearful, stingy, violent world.
Recognizing the Reality
Thoughts out of my message yesterday (April 14) at St. Andrew’s, Ajax. Audio of the message will be available at www.standrewsajax.ca.
Since there is a power that seems to try to destroy our happiness when we most have it, I decided to address the reality of evil in the wake of Easter celebration. As evidence and example of the reality of evil, I referenced the sickeningly disturbing recurrence of girls being gang-raped, subjected to further humiliation through cyber-bullying, resulting in their suicide. As I make these notes, there has been news of bombs at the finish of the Boston Marathon. We do not just have social “ills” and global “issues.” We face evil.
Arguably, the book of the Bible that most obviously (or at least most grapnically) deals with evil is the Revelation, or Apocalypse, to John. The context of the book is the brutal persecution of early Christians at the hands of the Roman Empire. As with what they faced, symbolized (chapter 13) by the beast from the sea and the beast crom the land, with the authority of the “dragon” behind them, there are forces coming together todsy, as in every age, to try to deceive us and rob us of union and peace with God. The deception today plays especially on our insecurity, and tries to convince us that we are not smart enough, pretty enough, good eough, or even worth while persons, without what the powers of influence have to offer, having instilled the “need.” It is curious today that as “brand” (think of cattle) names have come to be considered critical (who instilled this?) to our credibility, attractiveness, and success, so a “mark” was required in the vision of John for people to engage in commerce and get on in the world.
But as chapter 20 conveys, when we are joined to Christ, Satan is bound and unable to deceive us (the completeness of the 1, 000 year symbol), even while Satan is still loose in the world and wreaks havoc until all is fulfilled (the significsnce of the “little while” time period symbol). Whatever the language in chapter 20 may convey about future events, it always has this basic meaning for us, whatever the times.
Evil is real. That was underscored again today in Boston, as it is underscored every day somewhere. It has power to destroy and cause misery in this world, and we must spare no effort to limit its power and effects. But we will never destroy evil itself. We must place our trust for that in one who has already demonstrated his power over it. “Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5 nrsv).
Seeing Green
Right now the way along this “greenbelt” isn’t terribly green. They say there is beauty in everything, but it’s a little hard to see it here – I guess unless you get right down and marvel at the movement of awaking bugs andvthe like. But I can, at least, see in it what is to be. In the next few weeks things will get greener and greener. Some people look at their path right now and find it looks drab and dismal; in fact they might not see a path at all, at least not to anywhere good. We need to pray for them to experience Easter, and that we might find the way to share it.
Maundy Thursday
May any who have lost their way, or who are in danger of doing so, be touched by the one who sacrificed himself for us, to be the Way of Life.