The unrecognized King

I want you to stop and consider something as you read this blog, this week: If you were to be arrested and suspected of being a follower of Jesus, would there be enough evidence in your life to convict you? And I am not talking about the sales and the meetings and the other things you do around and in the building we call Church. What is there in your life that people could point to you and accuse you of being a Christian?

The Gospel this week (Mark 13.1-10) is for the Feast of the Reign of Christ the King. It is the focus of all that has been said and done since the Day of Pentecost and this is the end of another year in the Church’s Calendar. Next week will begin again preparing from the Feast of the Incarnation (Christmas) and the coming of the Living Word of God into our space and place.

In taking all of this in, there is a question that gets asked by Pilate in the Lesson that each and all of us get confronted with, “What is truth?”. Now please understand that I am a huge fan of the Star Wars movies. I saw my first one with my dad in May 1977. Ever since, I have always loved going to see the new one when it came out. And like every movie franchise, it has its catch phrases… like when Han Solo says, “I have a bad feeling about this.” There is another phrase from Jedi Knight Ben (Obi-wan) Kenobi and you might recognize it: “Everything things is true, from a certain point of view.” If you need a refresher or if you have never seen the movies, try this out:                             

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8uDQuWlnww

I point this out because it is the issue that is being addressed. Pilate is struggling with what the truth about Jesus really is and what the leaders of the Jews are accusing him of. What is the truth of all of it? Is Jesus rebel scum trying to upset the political balance in his favour or is he a spiritual leader who has irritated the leadership of the Jews? What is the truth of the situation and how is Pilate to know or figure it out? As a spiritual figure, Jesus is not a threat but if he is a king, then he is a threat to Rome and its maintenance of Empire.

Thing is, Jesus is not a king like any other nor is his kingdom recognizable because of it borders. Jesus speaks to the lowly and the down trodden. He eats with outcast and sinners. He serves rather than demanding service from others. His kingdom is not built on military might or through violence. Those people who belong as citizens of his kingdom, are born from above and are powerful because they have been given power to live that life by God the Father. I spent some time watch footage of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation as the 39th Monarch of the United Kingdom.  The moment that caught my imagination was the “Recognition” when the people pay homage to the about to be coronated queen. Four times the people are asked if they will obey her and each time they resoundingly say yes.  Watch it here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxpzBvJ5HI

We know well of course what happens next. Jesus is denied by Rome and rejected and revived by his own. He was then taken beaten and scourged. Then he was marched outside the city walls where with two other men, was crucified and died. His throne was a cross and his crown a circle of thorns. The Good news in all that is that his death and burial are not the end of the story but the beginning. God the Father raised the Son from death and things went on from there.

So what happens when you have the truth standing in front of you? What happens when you are asked to give an account for the hope that lays within you? Would people be able to convict you as being a Christian person?

Jason+

This is not the end

I have never really been good at preaching on eschatological passages of Scripture, of which this week’s Gospel (Mark 13.1-10) is a part. What is eschatology you ask? It is the study of the end times. I know that most Anglicans tend to live and believe that the world is becoming a better place, slowly but surely. More than likely many believe that the world will slowly become a better place without help. This is something called process theology. Yet the evidence points to the contrary; that things are getting worse in this world, not better. So, it would be natural and normal for us as human beings when considering this world, ask how we will when things are going to be made better, or even perfect? And how will we know when such a thing is going to occur so that we can be ready for it?

This leads me to ask a simple question: what is expected of us as believers and follows of Jesus, in a world that is falling apart? In the last couple of weeks in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has been noted and seen Turing his back on the Temple treasury and then on the temple and its system in its entirety. The Gospel places Jesus in a position of opposition against what is perceived to be the status quo.  This is a dangerous place to be because the mighty and the powerful want and need to keep the system as it is, to keep them in power and in control. So, it would be fitting to respond to the discussion between Jesus and the unnamed disciple as the disciple saying to Jesus, “This place is so great and so massive. Are we really,... we are going to fight all this?”

It has also occurred to me that when Jesus points out that no stone will be left in its spot on top of another, he also seems to be speaking of the stone on his tomb – that it too will be moved. In doing so, will render the changes that the world, that we as people have been looking for. And maybe this is a good time to point out that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus happen in the middle of a city that is in an occupied mess in a world that is in the midst of total upheaval. Jesus did not come to turn the world upside down, to bring it right side up and to turn the community of the Church, inside out. Remember too, there is no faith or trust in self reliance. That is what the faith of the nation had become – a desire to be self reliant and for the maintenance of the status.

Status seekers and those who want to maintain things are in a for a rude awaken because change and the transformation of this world and this life into what God wants it to be, is coming and we cannot stop it. We cannot make deals to prevent it. So, either we are going to have to learn to transform and to live within the will of God, or we are going to have face the chaos. Our faith cannot shield us from the chaos, the pain and the panic that comes from change, but it can guide us through it. Changes are coming to all of us which are going to upset and disrupt our status quo. There is no doubt about that. What is left to us is how we are going to navigate what happens and who we are focused on. Such times are going to force us to either live the courage of our convictions or we are going to have to capitulate to the flow of our society into whatever they believe will make us better.

Maybe that is why I am encouraged to hear Jesus say that these things that we are going through are the beginning of the birth pangs. Or more importantly, this is the beginning not the end. Wars and massive destruction are not what we are looking for, but we recognize that we are going somewhere. Yes, there is pain and suffering in the journeying. Mistakes and misjudgments will be made. We will get distracted and off track and need to be drawn back to the narrow path. What is expected of us is to be who we are in Christ – no more and no less either. And at the end of it all, there will be a new creation that will have new life. With that life there will be a celebration, a feast, the likes of which the earth and heaven have never seen but will rejoice in all the more.

Jason+

For all the souls, through thick and thin

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the guns fell silent, signalling the end of what has become known as “The Great War” or “The War to end all wars”. I have been privileged to have known and served with a number of people in a variety of uniforms over the years. People like my maternal grandfather who fought in World War II with Canada’s Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and with Lord Hugh Connaught’s Battalion. As I understand it, he was with the Canadians in Scilly and Italy as well as in England where he taught others to drive various machines. My grandfather told me that his main duties were to go and get vehicles of different kinds off the battlefields and bring them in so that the machines could be repaired and used again. I remember vividly our last Remembrance Day together in 1987; just a short time before he died.

He told me that as bad as the sights were, what was worse for him was the smells of things that would invoke memories. Crossing battlefields and doing your job to keep people moving, to keep winning battles no matter what, there are things: sights, sounds, smells that always stay with you. He served in the Canadian Forces from 1940-45. And though he never said it, life when he came home was forever changed and forever different because of what he went through and what he remembered of those years.

In ministry, I have also had to bury members of the Canadian Forces and help to bury members of the RCMP. Boys (and yes, I mean boys) like Private Steven Maynard and Private Justin Jones. Steven died in a car accident on a Manitoba highway, trying to keep a friend from running into a problem. Justin died with two other members of his unit on a road way in Afghanistan when their armoured vehicle set off an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). And there is Corporal Jason Derry of the RCMP who died suddenly at the Detachment in the community where we lived. He was a neighbour and used to delight our younger son with a flash of the lights and a blip of the siren when he would pass the house in his work vehicle.

It was hard at first, to understand what all this has to do with this week’s Gospel (John 6.35-40) and to connect it with Remembrance Day and the memories that such a day invokes. If there are somethings that these and others have taught me, here is some what I have learned from what they taught me:

·        One cannot fully and truly live, until one learns to go and in the going, unselfishly give.

·      In order for one to know peace, one first needs to receive the grace that only God Almighty can give; without it there can never be peace.

·       Until we are peace filled people, this will not be a peaceful world.

·       That God is not an unknown factor in the equation of life but rather a well loved Father.

·   That hope comes from knowing Jesus and experiencing his resurrection – the mistakes we make don’t have to be fatal and the deaths that we die do not have to be final.

·      That the hope and therefore the life that Christ offers cannot be changed, muted, faded or worn away. Faith needs to be tested (heated) to prove itself and so that it can be found to be genuine.

·         Courage is not the lack or absence of fear, but rather the ability to act in the face of it.

·         Jesus brings divine purpose to our common life and service.

·      Whether we come home to the arms of those who love us or fall into the hands of the One who created us, we are safe and secure.

It is Jesus who gives us bread to eat and life to live, not just for the here and now, but for eternity. Jesus changed the standard and made himself our source for life. Hope for the Christian person therefore comes from being in the presence of and fed by the hand of Christ himself. Christ offers each and all of us hope and life that is spiritual, untainted by fear and mistrust, and that cannot fade away (1^st Peter 1.3-9). It is kept for us by the power of God because we trust and believe in him.

Maybe that is why there are no atheists in foxholes or on turbulent airplanes. Like those who have lived and died in battle, each and all of us understand that the only place to find true peace and rest is to know Christ. It is his grace that leads us to mercy and then into peace. Once at peace, then there can be real growth.

Rest eternal grant unto these O Lord and let light perpetual shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Jason+

Someone through whom the Son shines

What is a saint? Someone through whom the Son shines. Or as my father used to remind me, “In the same way, so let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good work and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5.16.

I am often drawn at this time of year, to John 11 and to the raising of Lazarus and the fall out that happens in the wake of his rising from the dead. I am drawn to it, at least in part because, as I recently shared, I was left for dead. For a time after, I had many friends call me Lazarus because I cam back when I wasn’t supposed to.

I am drawn into John 11 because of the people around Jesus who just didn’t get it – including Mary and Martha, including the Twelve – because all they needed to do was be patient and watch for what God was going to do next. I have known many people over the last 30 years who have told me that they could have been a better Christian if they could have seen Jesus. To that I point out that Jesus himself said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe.” (John 20) We need to intentionally go looking and listening for Jesus in the places and spaces that we live and work and go to school in and play in. Saints are not just people who were faithful a long time ago and we cannot possibly live up to that, so we are not going to try to do so.

Saints are more than the people we memorialize in stain glass whose past actions define faithfulness and greatness in the kingdom, they are people through who the Light. The Son still shines – to light our path and they ways in which we need to continue to walk. And I think that it is important to know that God is still at work in those who have gone before us. Death not the end of things but only the beginning.

This calls us to open our eyes and our ears and to actively search for Christ and when we find him – to love, worship and serve him. We all know that death stinks – we’ve all been there at one time or another. In our modern culture, we like to minimize it, clean it up, fix it up dress it up but never actually deal with the realities of death and therefore of life and how we live it. Can we love the people (our families, our friends and neighbours) enough to actually love them into the kingdom by the ways in which we live for and serve Christ in them? Genuine compassion proceeds from the Father and the strength to live a compassionate life comes from the Son through the genuine power and grace that is the Spirit. Think about John 11.35 which says this, ”Jesus wept.”

Ministering to people means that we come along side of others and we share with them whatever it is that God has given to us. Doing this kind of ministry means that we are going to come alongside the people that are sick and scared, wounded and suffering, even dying, to suffer and maybe even die along side them if necessary. This is an immense privilege and duty, especially for those of us who are called to live daily in such a ministry.

If you want to see Jesus – learn to serve. Because in seeking to find and serve Christ, others will see him shine out in you – another saint through whom the Son shines.

Oh, and Happy All Hallow’s Even too!

Jason+

A blind man sat by the road and cried...

I find the miracle (sign) in the ministry of Jesus this week (Mark 10.46-52), both encouraging and befuddling all at the same time. It is encouraging because even though he is this close to the cross and all that is going to happen, Jesus is still true to who he is and that gives me hope for what is still to come to me in my own life and ministry. It is befuddling because nothing happens that causes more to happen and for problems to ensue, like people running off and proclaiming what Jesus has done for them when Jesus has asked them not to.

First let me say a word about faith and believing. We seem to think in our modern, Western culture that these are different things. Where Jesus and the Scriptures – Mark in particular – are concerned they are not. In order to believe, one must both trust and participate in order to know that you do believe and are expressing it. Thereby one demonstrates his or her faith. Believing in Jesus is something that everyone can do, including the devil – and he shudders at the thought of Christ. Faith is an action of the body not just a memory of the mind.

See it in the actions and life of Bartimaeus. When he heard of Jesus passing him by and knowing that he was on his way to Jerusalem, to confrontation and probably to his death, the son of Timaeus started calling out to Jesus, by name. People were trying to listen to Jesus as they walked and talked. This fool, this ungrateful blind beggar was disrupting that, making it impossible for them to participate. They tried without success to ‘shhh’ and in fact the harder they tried, the louder Bartimaeus shouted and carried on. So much so, that Jesus heard and said to them – you call him to me. There was both relief and shame that hey had tried to silence this man and now had to do what they should have done in the first place. And why should Bartimaeus have been quiet – he needed mercy, and this might be his last chance in this life to get it. It means he is going to hang on to this moment with all that he worth that he might receive what he needs: mercy.

This is more than just for one man to receive his eyesight back – this for a person of God to be made whole that he might know God better and be drawn into eternal life. Bartimaeus did all he could to get Jesus’ attention and then “sprang up” to get to Jesus, leaving what little he had behind to get to him so that he could receive mercy. He needed to be drawn out his situation – his blindness. This is completely different from the rich young ruler wanted to be done with rule keeping and with the necessity of giving to those in need. This is also completely different from the power and glory seeking of James and John, who wanted to be given seats of honour, power and authority in the kingdom, even above those who they have learned and served with. Members of the community had to help this man get to Jesus so tht they could have their conversation. They had to participate in the miracle and put aside what they think is right and righteous. They needed to stop worrying about having their needs and demands met and consider another – that the other could be restored and made whole.

What did this man do with the mercy, grace and healing he received? He left his old life behind and followed Jesus up the hill and out of Jericho, towards Jerusalem and the cross. He went without anything but himself/ So if lack of a road map and a mission statement did not stop Abraham, if the sea could not stop Moses, if a wall would not stop Joshua, if a giant couldn’t stop David, Bartimaeus had no clothes or bank account, and if death cannot stop Jesus, then what’s stopping you from becoming the child of God you are called to become?

Jason+

Trusting in the Presence of God

Nearly 25 years ago, I can remember feeling that I had the world as my oyster. There was a moment when I was newly married, preaching and teaching all over Southern Ontario leading a growing and fruitful ministry. There was even a little money left in the bank at end of the month instead of month left at the end of the money. I could have been this rich, young ruler. But then it all came to a screeching halt.

On the morning of May 29^th, 1994 my wife had to rush me to the Emergency Room at the Toronto Western Hospital. I had awakened to discover that I was struggling to walk or talk. And so, off we went into the dark. After time in the Emergency room I was told it was the flu and to go home, drink lots and rest. We had two more trips like this to the same hospital and was told the same thing each time, go home, drink lots and rest. So finally, on the Thursday night, a friend took us to the hospital they would go to – Mount Sinai. It was here, in a bed and in front of a doctor and two nurses that I suffered a grand maul seizure.

After questioning my wife, the doctor thought that this was not the flu and I was swiftly admitted to the hospital. As the doctors investigated, it was narrowed done to some harrowing choices: leukemia, a brain tumour, or meningitis. After a couple more days of testing, it was concluded that I had an atypical viral meningitis. And as the days when by, the doctors grew grim and thought that there was little time left for me. In spite of the fact that they could give me medications to knock out the infection, they could not control the swelling.

I do remember times during those three weeks when Nova would come in first thing in the morning and help me to do morning devotions by reading scripture and visits from friends and colleagues who would pray unceasingly for me to be healed. Of these I can remember praying with our upstairs neighbours Captain Henk and Sue Willems who go out to what is now known as the Toronto Blessing and then come directly to my hospital room to lay hands on me and pray. 

It wasn’t until my 21^st day in hospital, when all of the medical measures had been withdrawn and life was allowed to take it course, that the Lord acted. The priest who had married Nova and I (His name is Richard) in May came to visit. The visit was good and it was helpful to see Richard, even if I could not physically see him. I remember vividly the prayer that was offered as he was ready to depart. I remember a hand on my back where the needles had been used to determine that it was meningitis. The hand as hot – but not uncomfortable.

I went from not being able to see or even tolerate light; from hardly being able to hear; from not being to walk that afternoon to the following morning be able to be in my room with the blinds wide open, sitting up, eating my breakfast when Nova walked in. Nova that day encountered one of the doctors who had been responsible for my care noted for her, “Your husband’s case has us baffled. We don’t know why he got sick and we don’t know why he got better.”

I share this not to make myself look great or to look for pity because of what happened. I share it because of what God did in the life of one person and what he continues to in the lives of other people because of that one person. I have been enabled to see what God can do when there is trust, even in the tiniest amounts, in him is in operation.

And for what is it worth, I had been wowed for some time by the Christians who were around me. They had wonderful testimonies of how God broke down all kinds of walls and barriers for them to come to faith because of where their lives had taken them. For a time, I thought myself a puny Christian next to them. The suffering and pain of those days serves a reminder that we are not alone and when things are at their worst. What we need to do is to keep looking to God for his grace and leading in the way that we should go, trusting him to get us there.

Jason+

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+