The Forever Link

Among the mysteries of the universe is the age of said universe. The tool used by science to calculate the universe’s age is called the gravitational constant. This refers to the rate at which everything is expanding. A seemingly small difference in estimates of that can translate to several billion years’ difference in estimated age. Then there’s the question of what it’s all heading to. There is even less certainty concerning what lies at the other, future end of things, a topic in physical cosmology.

Meanwhile, there are those who present challenges to what we take for granted in our everyday experience, such as the perception of colours and the passing of time, which are said to be constructs of our minds.

A reliable source points out that the path toward reality — ultimate and everyday — starts with what we do rather than with that which we (presume to) know.

Action, then content: That was the order of things for Jesus when he sent out 70 followers. Heal, then announce the Kingdom, a new reality, a taste of the transformation in store for the whole cosmos. The followers’ own link to this universal transformation was signalled, in the language and symbolism of the time, through  assurance of their names being “written in heaven” (References here are from Luke 10: 1-24).

The fundamental activity of humans is to be a coming together. That necessitates healing in this fractured world. The demonically characteristic affliction of our time is disconnectedness and, along with it, polarization, or tribalism, often intentionally engineered.

The claim of Scripture is that the goal of humanity with the divine is a unity, both celebrating and simultaneously unifying our wonderful diversity. See, for example, Revelation 7:9.

But something spectacular is to happen. The observations about our brains and perception of the present world are not that different from the insistence of the Apostle Paul that we must exchange present, limited perceptions for a new being in order to be part of ultimate reality (1 Corinthians 15:53).

The richness and wonder if it all is ours now. How? Whenever we seek healing for humanity, or simply care for one another, we are tapping into what it’s all and forever about.

Hungry?

German shepherd and kitten nuzzling. Deer fawn and golden lab cavorting in a forest-bordering backyard. Cat and parakeet poking playfully at each other. Cute, but I can’t help but wonder how many such encounters end tragically, with most (?) having been set up to see what will happen, with YouTube glory in mind from the get-go.

My interest here, however, is the great maw of an appetite we humans have for this genre. One possibility: boredom reaches deep and wide in our culture. Another, kinder thought: Our appetite for this material points to a hunger, a hope, for happy homey relations among fearful, suspicious, wounded and angry humans.

If such is our hunger, we nay be well prepped for the plea from a wise man who is actually more than a wise man, who said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “You will wind up being fulfilled and satisfied if you have a deep, relentless hunger and thirst for the putting right of human relations” (Matthew 5:6).

If you look it up (my paraphrase being bait for you to check the real thing), you will find, in most versions, the word righteousness, which you might find preachy-sounding and off-putting. My understanding of the term puts it very close to justice, which basically has to do with the putting right of human relations. I would like to see more written tiday about a correlation between social polarization and economic disparity.

Would we at least have the same appetite, even hunger, for human reconciliation as we do for animal togetherness (at least when they are well fed)?

The Right Questions

I was asked to write something for the annual report of the congregation for which I currently am preaching. Here is what they got

You have power — more than you know. Well, okay, it’s not your own power, but it is yours to use. You need to know this because too many churches are anxious and afraid. And we are urged, commanded, actually, not to be. Afraid, that is.
“What are we going to do to attract and keep people?”
“How do we get people to give?”
“What happened to the young people” (assuming we don’t just redefine “young people” as anyone under seventy)?
These are understandable questions, but they are symptomatic of a church on the defensive. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, how can we be on the defensive?

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b). If we believe this, empowered by the Spirit, we find ourselves asking questions concerning our purpose and articulating our vision for fulfilling that purpose. Or if we have stated this, how much is it our focus?

Here are three essential parts of joining with our Lord in overcoming the world:

Accept God’s ethical mandate.
Jesus acted on suffering and injustice in front of him. He clearly expected his disciples to do the same.

Believe in the power with the mandate.
Jesus expressed frustration with the disciples when their fear and hesitancy prevented them exercising his power to free others from the powers that bound them (e.g. Luke 9:4041).

Challenge the status quo.
Christ is removing the veil from our faces (2 Corinthians 4:3-6) to free us and others from “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), experienced in obscene wealth, power and control, with attendant personal ills for those up against powers both external and internal, of anxiety, addiction, and destructive anger.

There is power over all these things, so let us be sure to ask the right questions.

Beyond Our Imagining

Approaching Christmas, and the turn of the year, many of our thoughts go back, like, to a year ago. What were you thinking, hoping, dreaming then? You may find that they are the same things as now. The things you wanted to do, the things you wished were different, all that you wanted to change–maybe it’s the same. This time can be depressing for some. Maybe you’ve even gone through this cycle so often that you can’t imagine how things can ever be any better for you.

This is actually an opportune time to tap into a power that will help you imagine things differently, so differently that, instead of how things can ever get any better, what you can’t imagine is how great things will be.

Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-55) celebrates a God who has acted in the past, and will continue to act, to raise up the disenfranchised and downhearted. Mary–this is critical–can celebrate this God who has acted in and through her as both Lord of history and nature. That is, Mary is a key character in God’s acting in history at this specific time, and as Lord of nature in bringing about her remarkable pregnancy with this oh-so remarkable life in her. Most arguments about the existence of God focus on God as Creator, but Biblical faith celebrates God as Creator as an expression of experiencing him as sustainer and redeemer, a God who acts in a way that brings everything together: history, nature; it’s all one to him. In this way her song is, as is often pointed out, an echo of the Song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15, when God had acted in history and nature to deliver his people through the Red Sea.

The point is this: If God is experienced as sustainer and redeemer–as “re-creator” of life, bringing hope and new opportunity, it’s a no-brainer that he is also the creator in and behind it all.

This is the God who comes in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit into the very centre of our lives, at the intersection of our history and nature. The God of all power has acted in a personal way to make all possibilities open to you and me.

Your story matters. He wants to enter your life to give it new meaning and power and possibility, wherever you are in that story right now. You can’t imagine where that can lead.

Image and Worth

Let’s face it. We are all image-conscious. That’s not a bad thing. You wouldn’t want go to a job interview looking like you just got up in the morning. It wouldn’t be good to have no concern about how you are perceived by others, or, more importantly, by yourself. Self-image is important. But there is something even more important, and it keeps self-image from being an unhealthy obsession. We can benefit in this from a Biblical-historical perspective.

John the Baptist appeared on the scene when his nation’s self-image would have been very low. Luke makes a point of providing the historical-political setting in which John appears (Luke 3:1-3). Israel was surrounded in its setting and experience by powerful, unfriendly forces, and this had been the case for a long time, centuries in fact. They were ripe for a hero to lift them to new heights, reliving the glories of old, restoring their image, you could say. But who announces this? One who appears in the desert, a wild figure, pointing to one, Jesus, who is the opposite in appearance of the conquering hero.

Nevertheless, there is something about this Baptizer who recalls Elijah and the hope of the ages. Such hope would not be disappointing, because it all points to the one who alone is worthy to rescue the people–all people–from what really ails us, more than any self-image issues: a sense of worth, which cannot come just from a good self-image. It runs much deeper, and withstands what can easily cause a good image of ourselves to evaporate, say, when we fail badly. Sure we say then that we just pick ourselves and get back at it, but the truth is that not everybody does. There are countless human tragedies stemming from failure of self-image.

What is the answer when, like John’s people in their collective experience, you feel oppressed and beaten down by others, but circumstances, by life itself?

Two handy and apparently popular options are: 1. Wall owin victimization and blame of others. 2. Find victims of your own to oppress, i.e., become a bully.

Or, 3, you can change your mind, how you think and deal with such circumstances. A word for this kind of change is repentance. You can say, I’m not even going to think in such categories as options 1 and 2. No matter what happens, no matter what I have to deal with, I refuse to waste my life on what can only bring (further) pain and pointless, soul-sapping misery. I am worth more than that, not from how I view myself, but from how God sees me, loves me, and accepts me, no matter how I might, at times, see myself.

 

Connected for Peace

What does it mean to be “well-connected?” Most of us probably associate the term with status, getting ahead, knowing the “right” people. Okay, so that all may have its place. The trouble is some of us adopt that as our way of dealing with people generally. There are some very successful-looking people around who have no authentic relationships because the only way they relate to others is to see other people as means to some end. They are, then, constantly posturing, putting on the right practised face, using the set lines and platitudes they have in their repertoire for any situation. How sad.

Such connecting means objectifying people. It’s no different than what countries’ tyrants do to their people, some employers do with their employees–or some employees do with other employees. And when we objectifying people, well, it’s the first step toward any sort of abuse we may find useful. Or it just make us feel powerful. It is at the heart of why there is no real peace in the world. We don’t know how to connect, or, more likely, don’t want to.

The Apostle Paul said, “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9 NRSV). Well, that’s not really saying anything, you might observe. He might as well say, “Let love be love.” But the sense is, “Don’t just play a role” (the Greek behind this coming from the world of drama). In other words, Connect for real. He goes on in Romans 12 to list important qualities to that love, that real connecting, in which we actually relate to one another as human beings, created and loved by God.

If we practise this real connecting, it will not only be great for us and our releationships, but may work back into our larger connecting, and the way the world around us connects with itself. It is connecting for peace.

Not for Noble Reasons

I just read a piece in today’s Globe and Mail that puts forth the idea that business has an interest in humanitarian leadership. It is co-authored by the head of a company that helps companies profit from being socially responsible, and a professor at a Toronto business school.

They point out that companies generally do not have policies and procedures for responding to humanitarian causes, such as the current refugee crisis. They cite the head of a German company, who was asked about his response to the flood of Syrian refugees, He said his response is to provide jobs. I don’t think that is as callous a response as some might think. After all, that’s what businesses do. And if they are actually thinking about providing jobs as their purpose instead of just making money (nothing wrong with that in itself either), then more power to them.

Still, it seems there are strategies, in direct public good, companies are advised to embark on, with the goal of improving the bottom line. I was pastor of a church that hosted a weekly soup kitchen. Businesses in the town were eager to support this effort, and even more eager to have it widely known they were doing so. It would be easy to be cynical about this, but the reality was that everybody benefited. Besides, for companies or even individuals who are involved in humanitarian efforts, we can hope that something inwardly happens in the outward action. Somewhat in that vein, I think, Paul did not get distressed even over people preaching the Gospel out of “selfish ambition,” since he saw, nevertheless, the Gospel being advanced (Philippians 1:15-18).

In examining our own motives, however, Christians are allowed no such tolerance: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” (Philippians 2:3). So even if we begin with good works with some ulterior motive (and some us have to begin somewhere!), we can and should look to be transformed within.

Dress Shoes and Shorts

It was the (almost) last leg of a trip home from out of the city for the day. It was early evening, Sunday evening of Labour Day weekend, and I was in the midst of that “I just want to get home” sort of befuddled-fatigue state of body and mind. I was on the subway, where of course you look anywhere but where you risk making eye contact with anyone. Most people are looking at their phone screens. Or you intently read, perhaps memorize, the backlit ads that run along over the windows. I was staring at the floor, and people’s feet, specifically noticing footware. It occurred to me, this being an evening holiday weekend crowd, the style of footwear was a little different from what might be on the rush hour commute.

There were flourescent runners, glitter-covered sneakers, a multitude of sandals (with and without socks) and flip floppy things, along with regular old Nikes and Addidas and the like. And one pair of black dress shoes, with ankle socks, with the wearer sporting cargo shorts. My thought: That’s just wrong. But then, the Lord does seem to love variety, in humanity and in all of creation (Genesis 1).

So fella, go ahead and rock those black dress shoes with your cargo shorts. Not that you need my permission. Someone else made you.

More Reason for One Another

More of us, internationally, are getting some form of dementia earlier. As reported in various media, a study published in the Surgical Neurology International Journal indicates early onset dementia, which used to occur in people in their late 60s, now is found in people in their late 40s.  And it’s not simply a matter of better diagnosis; it is suggested the rate of increase must involve environmental factors.

While it would be great if we could just fix those environmental factors, it is a sign we need, all the more, to practise care for one another, and not just leave it to professional caregivers to look after our loved ones. It is remarkable how often the Bible uses the words “one another.” There are dozens of “one another” sayings in the New Testament alone, among them, in the Epistles, “Offer hospitality to one another” (1 Peter 4:9), “Be devoted to one another in love” (Romans 12:10), “Keep on loving one another” (Hebrews 13:1), and from Jesus, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).

Our interdepency is not, however, just a “fallback” position for when things do not go as we plan. It is how we are meant to live all the time. Some things just remind of this more poignantly than others.

A Need for Respect

I note a report about violence against Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) drivers.  This was in the Toronto Star, but it’s not the first I’ve read or heard about this problem. There is a sign at the front of TTC buses that says at least one TTC worker is assaulted daily somewhere in the city. The notice further points out, quite rightly, that this is one too many, and those who commit such violence will be held accountable for the crime that this is, with fine, imprisonment or both, and, in all cases, a criminal record.

There seem to be people on whom it is all too convenent to take out frustations. There is a level of anger that is seen also in road rage, rudeness, and general impatience with others. This is all very wearing for everyone. On the other hand, it is really very easy and simple to practise what another “r” word (other than rudeness) represents: Respect. “Show proper respect to everyone” (1 Peter 2:17).