Dealing with worries

Have you ever wondered why we worry about things? Ever wondered about how to deal with worries? The Gospel this week (Matthew 6.25-33) calls us to consider some things, not the least of which is to consider where our focus is. I say this because I know that where our focus is, there is our faith and strength. And if, as believers, we are not focused on Jesus, does that not lead to fear and frustration because we lack power and courage?

We need to do more than “just believe”. We need to stop and consider that Jesus knows what our needs before we even ask and our simple ignorance in asking. We need to ask, to seek him and to knock on the door until we get not because Jesus acts like a certain jolly old elf but because we need to know what it is that we need. So that when we receive it we are willing to do more that just hold on and treat what we have been given as a personal possession. We are called in this way to seek first the kingdom of God and all that comes with it, starting with righteousness. Keep in mind that the Father calls us into a deeper and deeper relationship with him – that he wants, desires for us to come closer to him so that he can give us all that we need to do what he needs us to do so that others can come into that same kind of righteous relationship with both God and with us.

God’s mercy through us as the Church retrieves us and others from trouble. God grace strives to make us not just holy but whole. Faith makes us ready for Jesus to come again and for what is next – life that is abundant and irrepressible. We come to congregate on this morning to give thanks for all that God has given us. Giving thanks to God keeps us from making idols out of what we have in our lives and us from becoming self idolatrous because we believe that everything depends on us… it does not. Thanksgiving grows because we are in relationship with a God whose giving knows no ending. Trusting God for what we need, is in and of itself an act of faith which is a gift God has already given and we have received. We honour God by taking this moment to praise, to glorify, to pray and to give thanks. Worship causes us to find our focus again and to return to what it is that God is calling each and all of us to.

Fears, misgivings, mistrust and unfaithfulness arise from an unwillingness to accept God at his word and to lean on what he has promised. We often refuse to learn that God is faithful to us all the time. As human beings we are willing to defer to ‘expert opinions’ because of involvements in other matters. We comply with something we know not to be right or the truth because we fear ridicule and being excluded from community because of personal opinions, motives and agendas concerning Church and the Faith we hold in common.

We are dragged into the spot where we are persisting in certain things: to ask, to seek and to knock, and await God’s answer to our needs and necessities. We do so in order that we might become answers to at least a few of our own prayers.

And as a last thought, let’s consider the encouragement of Scripture, specifically Psalm 37.3-7a which says, 

“Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!"

We need to give thanks, overcome things in the name of the Lord Jesus and focus on what we are called to. He will deal with our worries in ways that will cause us to give thanks and to rejoice.

Jason+

Salt in the wound

If it seems like Jesus us jumping on his disciples with both feet, that is probably because he is. Mark 9.38-50 is one of the testier parts of the Gospel of ark where Jesus is working on the Twelve to get them thinking more about the kingdom and the needs of other people while at the same time thinking and worrying less about themselves and their lives.

The Gospel this week is about reminding the Twelve of what ministry is really all about. The Apostle John speaks up and points out that they found a man doing what they can do, but he would not fall under their authority, so they tried to stop him from doing ministry at all. It occurs to me that the greatest sign of the kingdom, which is what ministry does. Is your own relationship with Jesus and how you live it out with him and with others? In fact, it is about “being weird” as we live in this world and as we walk into the next one.

Leading ministry does not mean that the leader owns it. Ownership belongs to God and that makes us stewards of what Good has and what God wants done. Jesus points out to the Twelve that it is better and wiser for them to allow people who can do these things t do them because they will not turn on Jesus or the community easily, having done them. It also occurs to me that while ministry needs to be under authority and to be accountable for what is done (because it enables testimony and celebration) it is not just for the chosen few who lead nor is it just about “the Minister”. Moreover, is it not a sin to leave a person in their pain and sorrow, sin and sickness because the right people do not control that particular person? “Whoever is not against us, is for us.”

And let’s look a little deeper into the life of ministry and what we do with how we live and how we act. Jesus’ solution to dealing with what makes us sin and fall, is pretty radical, but it is not our bodies he wants dealt with. It is our capacity to be able to sin. We need to be radical in dealing with your sin. How do we do that? 

Here is some things to consider before you move to radical surgery:

• ·         Be very careful what you pick up and what you put down; not just with your hands but with your tongue as well. – Let your conversation be seasoned with salt.
• ·         Be wise in walk you walk into and what you walk away from.
• ·         Be compassionate with those you choose to see and those you choose to not see.

You show were you are going to live by how you are living. Choose to be salt and light, even if it means sometimes being salt in the wound or light in the eyes. It will sting, it can hurt but then it will heal, life will be restored and all that will be left is a scar as a reminder of how gracious God is. And one last thing? Patience in serving and under suffering brings joy and freedom to those who need it most, including the servant.

Jason+

Who are we when we come home?

Who are you when you come home? I can remember times when my boys were small, and they would love to come running to the door to greet me. Invariably they would want to be picked up and have my full and undivided attention because I had been out doing what Dad does when he was not downstairs in the Parish Office. They loved to wrap their arms around my neck and hold on for dear life - as if they had not seen me in a thousand years though it had only been a few hours at most. The Gospel for Sunday (Mark 9.30-37) got me to thinking about home. Jesus came home to Capernaum for the last time on his way to Jerusalem and the cross. Jesus came home and to the house where he lived through his ministry and life away from Nazareth. Who was he when he was home?

I ask this question because I often wonder as a priest, who people become when the walk out the doors of the Church and go home from worship – who do they become? I ask because I find it interesting that I can write blogs about life, peace, hope and people respond to that like gangbusters. On the other hand, when I write about things like following Jesus and the realities that we face in doing that, people don’t want to deal with that. People seem to only want the sweetness and light and not reality. Maybe it is reality they are trying to avoid. That’s why it is critical to understand that Mark’s Jesus is at a critical spot because they are going to Jerusalem and the time is short. 

So, it makes it important when Jesus asks them the question, “What were you arguing about on the road?” they were ashamed, not because they had argued, but because of what they had argued about: who was the greatest amongst them. Wanting to be great is a good thing but if you are going to be great in Jesus’ eyes, you’re going to have to be a good servant for everyone. The Twelve were worried about who was going to get position and power, not about the people around them who were suffering. It occurs to me that things aren’t all that different in the Church from then until now. What do you do with a bunch of disciples who are self serving, self interested and self seeking? Jesus knew what to do! He called them into deeper service with him. “if you want to be great, then you must be least and servant of all. We must learn to not only seek to bring people into relationship with Jesus we need to be humble enough to stay with them and teach them what they need to know to be effective Christians too.

Every person you receive and befriend, regardless of who they are, is worthy of the service you can offer them. It is not about you, it is about God and them. Remember the baptismal promise to seek and to serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself? Every person, every life matters because you seek Jesus in them. Every life has significance where the Father is concerned because each of us is worth the life of the Son of God. Even if and even when they cannot give us the power, position and prestige we think that we deserve. Every person is entitled to the care and protection that we can offer through the grace and strength that God gives us.

Moreover, the service that we offer others then becomes thank offering for all that God the Father has given and all that we have received from him. We are sustained in our life and ministry because we are continuing to seek Christ both in the Church and in the world. The Father makes this happen because he is seeking to reconcile all of his creation with himself. As Stanley Hauerwas recently said, “The pastoral task of the Church, is the building up of the Church in holiness.”

This means that when we come home to God, and we are at his table, we are received as a desirable guest but that is not where we remain if we are in relationship with him. We do not, we cannot remain the same and remain with God forever. Our relationships with the Father and with one another transform because we know each other increasing measure. Being holy and righteous are about the relationships we hold not who we become. Such states therefore, are communal and relational much more than they are personal.

So when you come home who are you?

Jason+

Hope is kindled

There is a great little moment in the last of the Lord of the Rings movies, the Return of the King, when Gandalf the White utters a simple phrase, “Hope is kindled.” He says this to acknowledge that the message has been sent from Gondor to Rohan, that aid in the fight against the enemy Sauron and evil is needed. Rohan under the lead of King Théoden will respond, but will they come in time and with enough strength to drive back the enemy?

I connect this with what we read this Sunday in the Gospel and through out the Scriptures about how God is coming to the aid of his people, whom he loves and how he deals with the separation that has been created between him and them. Which leads me to ask, do you know what the first question is in the Bible? It is God who asks Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”

In the moment when Peter announces that the disciples believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah we have a biblical moment when the flame is kindled and hope springs into the world. But then Jesus orders them to stay silent about it and with God reason. To announce the presence of the one who is going to upset the status quo and who is going to overthrow the government, is not helpful to what Jesus is trying to do and is dangerous for those who would bring such a message. It is ultimately why there is a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leadership which led to a conflict with Pilate. This in turn led to Jesus’ death on the cross. This too is a moment when hope is kindled. Jesus told them that he was going to be rejected, suffer and die and three days later, rise again. All Peter could he is that his dream wasn’t going to come true – that Jesus wasn’t going to be the kind of Messiah that he wanted him to be. After all, of what use is a dead Messiah?

Jesus, in rebuffing Peter, looks at his disciples before he says anything. He knows that what he says is going to be crucial. It is why, I think Jesus was so pointed and demanding. He insisted that Peter stop playing God and get with the program. He wanted Peter to follow and learn to lead, even if it meant learn to do it the hard way. Jesus does not have interest in claiming his royal seat through his bloodline. He is not interested in furthering a political agenda.

We are far off and away from God. It is why God asks the question of you, “Where are you?” Jesus came to find us and to bring us home. We are worried about failure. We worry about loss. What we need to start doing and to be aware of is what Jesus is asking of each and of all of us, so that we can together help to build the kingdom of God.

So maybe it is time that we follow Peter and with him get back in line. But let’s be clear, no disciple follows the Master on their own terms. You have a choice. You can live with and for Jesus and all that this means, including what St. Paul would call “light and momentary troubles”. Or you can live your life the way you want, at least for a time and then face an eternity without God on your own. It is totally your choice.

Jesus and his demands on his disciples are clear. He is not looking for men and women to become a band of martyrs. Martyrdom is a gift you can use but once and at the end of your life. Jesus calls you to live for him and that is why he calls for your surrender and submission. As the Scriptures remind us, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37.4)

Because we seek to follow Jesus in this moment. Hope is kindled. Let’s get to it.

Jason+

Hope and Light for life

In recent weeks, I have been reminded of the necessity of Christian people learning to be merciful in their actions, especially when dealing with one another. The Gospel this week (Mark 7.24-37) speaks of the necessity of mercy in the stories of a woman who calls on Jesus to heal her little daughter and a man who is brought to Jesus by the community for Jesus to heal because of his hearing loss and being tongue tied. Now maybe at first, these don’t look like mercies offered but we need to consider carefully who these people were that Jesus healed and the impact they had on the people around them, including Jesus.

Firstly, there is the Syrian Phoenician woman. She had some many things against her and Jesus, when he encountered her in Tyre. She had gone in search of Jesus and found him out when he wanted to be in quiet and spend time with the Twelve, to make sure that they understood everything because time was short, and the cross was coming nearer and nearer. Jesus wanted to ensure that his work and his Church would thrive after the Resurrection and Ascension. So, when the woman came to him and interrupted his plan, Jesus did not make it easy for her to make the request. The woman remained undeterred in her persistence for her daughter’s health and well being. I think that this is important to the Markan community because it shows that someone who is thought of as an outsider, an enemy of the kingdom, or worse an insignificant speck, could have faith and receive what God is offer to the rest of his children. This understanding would be huge to those to whom Mark is writing because that is how the Empire and the world are treating them. They are hunted, persecuted and executed for claiming to believe that Jesus is their Lord. They needed encouragement and they wanted more hope for the life they needed to live, if they were going to live it for the name of Jesus.

Secondly then, to get further away from his popularity, Jesus went north from Tyre to Sidon, and then from Sidon to the region of the Decapolis (Ten Towns) where they brought a man to Jesus who had no hearing and only had a little bit of speech. It might be that the man had suffered an illness and lost his hearing. What is certain is that Jesus took him indoors to keep the healing from being a public spectacle. Wet Willies and your spit on another person’s tongue is a dramatic (if not completely icky) action to a modern ear and mind. In declaring that man to be open, Jesus opened the man’s life to all the good and grace that God had for him which in turn allowed the man to opening and plainly praise God for what he has and was doing, in his life and in the life of the nation. 

That is why I found this past weekend so powerful for the lives that were spoken into by the Spirit. The speaker at the youth weekend has the gift of prophecy. He spoke a word to each and every one of the 20 teens that were there because he had been praying for them for weeks. He told them about the things that God could see in them. He told them about how much God loved them and about how much joy there was in God’s heart over them. He worked to help these young people open up to God and to the people around them so that the world around them could hear about the transforming power and love of God for them. People who have experienced this kind of transformation cannot help but talk about God and how God has opened them up – and they keep talking and talking about God and how wonderful God is and what he is doing in Jesus in this world.

This has helped me to realize that true darkness is not the complete absence of light, but rather the total loss of hope. Being around younger people, newer Christians, has reminded me of a long-held belief that when the light and hope of Christ are seen in the life of a young person, then not only is a life saved, but so is the lifetime that goes with it.

Seeing Light and hope in another, is a mercy and a God given grace. I know that this is true in my life and pray is so with you as well.

Jason+

Come, live your liturgy!

This week, I am off to join youth leaders and younger members of our diocese at Youth Daze. The theme for the weekend is “Be Transformed” based on Romans 12.1-2 which says this:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12.1-2 ESV)

As I have been reflecting on this, one of the things that pops out is that God wants more from you and me that just a head knowledge that allows us to believe in him – he wants that but for us to recognize that he wants more than that. He wants us to get into action. This becomes clear in the doxology that precedes this piece of scripture in that Paul relays all that God has done from the Fall in the Garden to the time of Jesus and how the Father has worked out salvation for his people. In light of all this we are called to live lives that are consecrated so that we can live as Christ does… not as the world demands you to.

Faith expresses itself in living obedience to the will of God in the living of everyday life. God is not asking for the impossible – because that is his job. What the Father is asking is for us to do what is possible for us to do. Why is this important? Because God has you right where he needs you to make his plan work. I can remember being at a youth conference and the speaker was challenging people to be ready to go to China and to go to Africa – which got loud roars each time. What no one was willing to do what was in front of them: to go home, clean up their rooms, make their beds, do their homework and obey their parents. No one wants to do what is right in front of them to make the Gospel heard. The impossible is out of reach and therefore easy to commit to because there is no real thinking that they will have to do it. And yet what is right here in front of us is the scariest thing we will ever do. It has impact in the here and now and on the people whom we are closest to.

For this to happen, we need to become people who put Jesus at the centre of our lives so that everything that we are and everything that we do is driven by Jesus himself. This needs to happen day by day, day after day – not just on Sundays in worship, at Bible Studies, or at Church meetings. Knowing Christ in this moment must and needs to impact on every relationship we have – even if it is only in action. And I am all too aware of the possibility of a living sacrifice crawling off the altar. It happens all too often. Becoming the person that God calls you to be takes time and sacrifice. It is not just about “getting religion” but about learning how to be holy in everyday life. It is about learning to give back a small portion to God of what he has already given to you.

Are you willing to put yourself and your life into the hands of a God who desires to give you mercy and grace, love and peace? Are you willing to come and live the life he offers and learn to live righteously? Come and learn to live your liturgy and see what God will do next in your life.

Jason+

Are you strong enough - are you dead enough yet?

I am going to deviate a little from what I normally write on (the Gospel Lesson) to write more on the New Testament or Epistle Lesson this week, specifically on Ephesians 6.10-20. It says this,

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6.10-20 ESV)

So, let me start here with a recollection from a few years back when my wife and I were recently married and going to a Church called Little Trinity in Downtown Toronto. I recall this little episode because of what happened one Sunday when the list of hymns for the 1997 Common Praise Hymnal was released and the beloved hymn “Onward Christian soldiers” was not on the list. In response that morning, the Rector said to us, “Here’s what I think about that,” and he had the organist blast a few notes and we broke into that hymn and sang it with gusto.

And before some thing that I am all about war and other things, let me point out to you that there is a way that Paul indicated in this letter that we must live in a particular way. We need to live as people who are surrounded with the Truth. We are people who are to move into places and spaces of our communities ready to communicate through both word and deed, the Gospel of God in Christ. We need to put on the breastplate of righteousness and take up the shield of faith. We need to hold closely the word of God which is the sword of the Spirit that can separate flesh from bone and spirit from spirit. In other words we need everything that God has supplied us with to be effective in the living out of the Gospel in day to day living.

The sword (the Word) and the shield (faith) are necessities for consecration, benediction and confrontation with Powers, Dominions, Princedoms, Authorities in heaven and on earth. Salvation matters to every nation, down to the last person.  

And I think this is where we can connect with the Gospel and consider that the only way to stand for Jesus, is to stand with Jesus. We have to abide or remain in Jesus in order to draw on the strength we need to be the effective believers that we are meant to be. We cannot hope to stand the tides of this world without Christ’s strength. We still struggle with evil, within and without. We have been enlisted and equipped to stand as a community in the ongoing conflicts over humanity in the spiritual realm. After all, what God is looking for is strong character and willing hearts are what wins spiritual battles not brute force.

The question you need to consider is simple: are you dead enough yet? Are you able to let go of control and put yourself into God’s hands and rely on the Father to protect and care for all of us? This is why it is important for us to keep coming to the Word and to the Table, so that we learn to listen and to live lives that are dependant upon God.  In remaining and learning to abide in Christ affords us the strength and power we need to live in and for Jesus in day to day life.

Jason+