What else do you got?

If we stick to the understanding that we need to consider what the parables say about God, what does the parable of the shrewd manager tell us about God? William Barclay tells us that there are at least four lessons in this parable that we as Christian people need to learn to function in this world and prepared for the next. What are these lessons?

First we need to recognize that the children of this world are better at living in this world and this society than are the children of the light. They know how to live in it and to maximize the benefits of being here in the moment. It is what they live for. The children of the light are not as adept at looking after themselves as are the children of this age. But then the goals of the children of light are different from those of this age. Which begs a question – how are you planning? Are you planning for the next 20 years or for the next 20 light years? There is a difference in what you will be ready for depending on your plan.

Second, are you prepared to use what you have as possessions to build relationships with others, including God? There some who don’t like the clergy to talk about money and possessions from the pulpit but not to do so is to ignore a large portion of the Gospels and the teaching of Jesus. It is possible to use materials to build relationships. Just the other night my son and some friends were playing a youth group game. The group was split into two teams and each team was given a tooth pick to trade for something else that could be given and did not needed back. As a result one team traded up from a tooth pick to a large comforter from the tooth pick while the other team managed to trade up to an old love seat. It is amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.  And that is the whole point. We need to be wise in the ways in which we act so that we can actively and intelligently extend the ministry of the Church and the reach of the kingdom.

Third, anyone that that does small things and tasks well, can be trusted to do big things well. And let’s understand that the goal here is not to find people with skills alone. The goal is to find people who can act and walk humbly and with integrity. Skills and be learned and they can be gifted from God. Yet there is a reality that the most gifted people in the world, without integrity and a bit of humility and other things that engender trust, are some of the haughtiest people the world has known. People can see and know the nature of other people. We must be careful to consider the nature of the person when dealing with them – wise to know where they are coming from and where they could be headed. And we can bring material wealth and goods to bear on situations that would help promote relationships, not only with each other but also and more importantly with God.

Fourth, we need to know where our focus is and get our heads “in the game”. We need to decide who it is that we are serving and then focus on our master to the exclusion of others. This kind of focus changes what we do from duty and transforms it into worship. What we do and what we say becomes worship because it is offered to and on behalf of who or what our focus is and what we have assigned worth to. How you give and share your time, your talents and gifts, your treasure and material possessions, your little piece of creation and your tears and compassion matter. They are all gifts from God and we need to be wise in how we use them.      

How does this relate to God and what we might learn about living a godly life? Greg Rickel tells a story about a man who collects pearls. One day he was walking on a town street and spotted in a store window the most beautiful, the grandest and largest pearl his eyes had ever seen. He knew that he had to have it. So he enters in though the store and an old man comes out from behind a curtain and the back room. The collector addresses the store keeper, “That pearl. I want it. How much is it?” the storekeeper answers, “What do you have? How much do you got? ” the collector said excitedly, “well I have three hundred dollars in my wallet!”  

“Great,” said the storekeeper, “I’ll take that. What else have you got?”

“I have my sports car outside – 1966 Corvette. A real classic.”

“Good, I’ll take that too.” said the ancient.  “What else have you got?”

“I have 30,000 dollars in investments and GICs” said the collector.

“Good, I’ll have that too. What else do you have?” by the time the deal was struck the collector had given everything away to the store owner. They man took the pearl and was about to walk out the door when the shop owner called out and said to the man, “ look I don’t need a family and a big house in St. John’s. I don’t need a fast car or investments. In fact come here I and I will give you back your three hundred dollars. I give them back to you but remember they are mine. Take them and care for my family and use my wealth and possessions wisely. Care for them for me won’t you?”

The man left the store with everything he had before he entered the store and now he had a pearl of great price. But there was a difference. None of it was his now to own. He went in with everything and come out with nothing. Everything he had was now a gift. That is how we ought to live. That is Christian stewardship.      

It's God's nature to save

Fr. Henri Nouwen told a parable about an old man who used to meditate each day beside the Ganges River in India. One morning this old man saw a snake floating on the water. The snake became caught in an eddy nearby. The ancient rose and went to the river’s edge to rescue the creature. When the snake drifted near the old man he reached out his hand to retrieve it but was bitten by the snake. A bit later he tried again and was bitten again; the wound swelled his hand giving him much pain. Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the mediator, "Hey, old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful snake?" The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just because it is in the snake's nature to bite, does not change my nature to save."

Ultimately this is what Luke 15 and indeed the message of the Gospels is all about. It is God’s nature to save. We see it in three different parables in the chapter. First there is the shepherd looking for and finding the lost lamb. Then there is the woman who discovers her money gone and sweep the house clean by the light of lamp because the coin is part of her present and her future. And last but not least is the tale of two brothers – one prodigal and the other just hard headed.  And while the parable of the Prodigal Son is probably one of the best know parables from the Bible, the two others with which it is connected have a lot to say as well.

First, there is the misdirected shepherd. The shepherd acts foolishly in the eyes of those around him because he risks the life of the flock and of himself for the life of one wayward lamb. The conventional wisdom is that it is the lamb’s fault that it wandered away, following his stomach from blade of grass to blade of grass. He has dined his way to his destruction and we should just let him go to it. It is an acceptable economic loss to stay and protect the 99 who have done as they were supposed to. Only that is not the nature of the Good Shepherd. He is willing to risk leaving the flock and go and find the lost lamb. Not because the lamb is lost but because it is his nature to go and find the lost and bring them home. And notice that the shepherd does not return the lamb to the fold. He brings him home to his family so that there can be joy and feasting noting that there is a relationship between this found lamb and the Good Shepherd.

Second we are taken even deeper by the parable of the intensely devoted housewife. Having been married for such long time, having cared for those coins for the length of her marriage knowing that is represents her relationship to her aged husband, she is more than just determined to find that one coin lost on the dirt floor of their home. She lights the lamp and she goes to work sweeping out every nook and cranny of the house until she finds her coin. And then in celebration with family, friends and neighbours spends twice what the found coin is worth celebrating the fact that the coin has been found. Moreover, it should not be lost on us that this is a woman who makes this search and not a man. A man would stand in the middle of the house and exclaim, “Honey, do you know where my tenth coin is?” Come on now guys, we have to admit there is truth to that. It is also true that the woman represents the church and there is a reminder to us as Church that we need to be diligent in our work concerning the mission to bring others home to God. We need to fell the desire to bring people home not to get people to feel the need to belong.       

The power of any parable is not to tell us about us but rather to highlight the nature of just who God is and who God is in relationship to us. So what do these two parables teach us? God desires to save whether we are interested in being saved or not. God is lovingly relentless in his pursuit of that which has been lost relationship with his creation and us in particular. God exerts all the power he can, extends all the mercy he can offers all the peace he can so that we might have the life he calls us to live with him and to live it forever. And the bringing to bear of all of this mercy, grace and peace is a costly venture. God surrendered his only Son to death that we might live. God created a community where his grace love and mercy can be celebrated and where the found ones are welcomed home with exuberance and extravagance because of what God has done in the life of these people. Let us take the time to be like Mary and exclaim, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, because he has visited and redeemed his people.”   

Leaving it all behind

The Rev. Will Willimon, chaplain at Duke University, once told how he and never received a phone call saying "Help! My son is on drugs" or "I'm concerned about my daughter's grades" However, Willimon said that hardly a year goes by that he didn't hear complaints like this: “Chaplain, can you help? My daughter has become a religious fanatic and wants to go off to Haiti to work for some literacy program. This isn't something we taught her!" Is such a student "hating father and mother"? No, it's a matter of choosing a loyalty higher than family and self. And we need to be aware that we might be selling both our young people and ourselves short by teaching them a weak form of Christianity.


I can remember going to a youth conference in my teenage years where we were challenged by the speaker to be more faithful to living out our faith. “Who wants to go to China and tell people about Jesus?” There was great roar of yes from the gathered. “Who wants to go to South East Asia to preach the Gospel?” was met with great enthusiasm. Then the speaker asked another question, “Who wants to go home and clean up there room and do as their parents tell them too?” The question was met with virtual silence. It was rather telling. Everyone at that conference would go somewhere else and do what was asked of them, making great sacrifices and look the hero but they would not go home and do the same. We need to recognize in the life of the Church that Christ is asking the same of us – to go home and be the person he has called us to be at home. It is easy to make the grand gesture because only so many will actually go and do it.

At home we become the community of the little bits. We commit with a little bit of prayer. We pledge a little bit of trust and dedication. We might offer little bits of love. But that is not the way of the cross, the way of the Master. We often try to sell our “churchianity” as a low risk, low cost venture. And for some reason we think that we have to compete with everything else that is out there and then fail to even do that because we cannot offer what the rest of the world can. Are we not advertising and involving ourselves in a weaker type of the Christian faith? We are challenged by Jesus to make sure that we have counted the costs of becoming one of his followers. If we will not let go; if we put our hands to the plow but keep looking back; if we won’t pick up our crosses and follow in the same way where does that leave us? Do you have a plan will you see it through to the end? Here is where the rubber meets the road. Either you will trust Christ to lead you or not.

As Bonheoffer might point out cheap grace makes puny Christians and puny Christians produce scrawny churches which frame a fragile, feeble kingdom. And there is nothing cheap, puny nor fragile about the grace and kingdom of God! Does this mean that we should be willing to die for our faith? Maybe we should be ready to live for it first before we consider being ready to die for it. Martyrdom is a gift you can use only once and it is usually right at the end of one’s life. We need to live and be the people and the community for which Christ surrender himself before we worry about what we have to give up. And in the process we will learn to be living sacrifices instead of dead ones.

Giving up what we perceive as our security in favour of following Jesus is a large and scary choice. We need to be aware of what it is going to cost us so that we can be prepared to follow and live We sing of the cross and decisions we've made but when do we allow our faith to actually move us? Have you got a plan that is going to make you secure and see you through to the end that does not involve putting your trust in God? Do you love God enough that you are going to leave it all behind?

Will that be the beef or the chicken?

There once was a couple who were making wedding plans. They went and hired a coordinator who took them to an expensive hotel to plan their reception: a dinner of finest food, using the best china, plants, big band, and the works! The couple was asked to pay out $30,000. Then, shortly before day of the wedding, the groom got cold feet, and called the wedding off. The would-be bride was furious! She went to cancel the party only to be consoled but told, "You signed a contract. You can either give up the money or go ahead or have a party." The woman thought about it, and decided, having once been homeless and down on her luck, to have that party. She sent her invitations to all the homeless shelters and mission places in city where she lived. The Bride and her invited guests – the least the last and the lost - they partied with the tuxedoed waiters and everything. There was only one change made for the festivities: the bride changed the meat for the meal from roast beef to boneless chicken in honor of the groom.


We worry about our status, personal and corporate all the time. We worry about what we will wear and how that will make people respond to us and what they will think of us. We concern ourselves with where we live and what our homes look like, especially making certain that we keep up with those who around us and what they are doing and when we cannot we become envious of them and want what they have. We live, because of our culture, in a constant state of comparison and flux. How many of you would, if Pepsi™ were the most expensive pop on sale at the local store still buy it because it is Pepsi™ instead of buying something cheaper? How many of you would not be satisfied or your thirst quenched after drink something less expensive? We not only buy into the idea that one product is best and the rest are not, we are conditioned to pursue that which the world says can satisfy: to go ahead and break the rules and live the way we want to and have brighter clothes and whiter teeth. Yet we find ourselves feeling empty at the end of the day. Have you ever wondered why?

Is it possible that we are looking in all the wrong places for things that cannot satisfy us; that cannot fill the hole we need to fill? The Gospel calls us to see things differently. We are challenged to not give into the automatic assumptions of our age, “that this is the way things are and that they have always been this way” and “We have always done things this way and there is no hope for change.” We need to recognize that we are seated with and found with Christ in the heavenly realms. We need to know that we can see things as he sees them. We can see our priorities and how they lead to the cross and the death of life. We can also see that there is a path away from the grave and into new life and new creation if we are only willing to walk it.

The thing is, we don’t like to hear that what we want, what we think is ours, what we believe is right is not enough to satisfy God. We like to celebrate our limitations and complain that we always seem to be at them. We moreover, seem to think that by confessing our limits that God will forgive us for having our priorities in mind and not thinking or doing anything about His work. We lull ourselves into thinking that mediocrity is not merely acceptable but that it is normal. The cross rises above this weakness to break us out of the ruts that we have put ourselves in and it is why some wanted Jesus dead in the first place.

Jesus came to establish the new creation and the new life through his own. He did not come to create committees or to agree with us in our thoughts and opinions. He came to confer a dignity upon us that we cannot gain for ourselves so that we in turn might offer it to others. He lived life in such a way that others were thought of first and as better than self. He taught so that others would learn to follow him to seats of honour and learn to come to table. And he died that we might become the kingdom people, regardless of who we are and he rose again that we might the strength to live that kingdom filled life.

So what kind of church do you want to be? We rush for our favourite spots in the pews. We like to be at the back of the Church, the head of the line and the center of attention. And so long as things remain the same, everything is okay and we are safe. The threat comes when we cannot do that and that one poor Sunday in terms of congregation and in terms of what is given is going to be the ruination of the church. Ought we not to ask ourselves who it is we believe in and who we really trust? We are called by Scripture to love each as family and to be hospitable even to those we do not know. We are expected to care for those who are in prison and for those who are suffering, imagining that we are in their places. We are asked to respect all relationships, marriage in particular, and in doing so to keep one’s self holy. We are to free ourselves from the love of money while learning to be content with what we have. And we need to imitate the faith of those who taught the faith to us so that we might deepen our own. We do these things not because of any list or order; we do it because we see and know that Jesus is faithful and just. We do it because we see Jesus and we see him do it. We compare ourselves to him, instead of each other.

There is a feast and it is about ready to begin. You have been invited and there is beef on the menu. The Groom calls you to come and join his happiness and his family. Will you come?

Living out the promises in freedom

I had an encounter with an old friend the last time I was home from Christmas several years back now. I recall the encounter because he was one of the players that seem to always run afoul of me when I was refereeing hockey. He was nice guy but he seemed to spend a lot of time in the penalty box despite early and repeated warnings not to do what he was going to do. Not just because he had been detected doing something that was against the rules in the course of playing the game, but also for the colourful ways in which he expressed himself and his thoughts about the call, my refereeing in general and occasionally about my lineage as we made our way to the “sin bin” or the penalty box. I recall this off-ice encounter because this friend came to me and in the course of conversation apologized for his words and actions back the in the good old days. He told me that in times after that, when he was refereeing games, he was treated in the same manner and then though of his own actions. I assured him that what had been done was both forgiven and forgotten or in hockey terms – “it was all left out on the ice.” I was there to help everyone play by the rules and to have some fun if possible.       

Seemingly it appears that we like our church and our faith the same way. We like to know what the rules are so that we can keep them and have everything on an even keel thus having “fun” or religion. Thus the maintaining of the rules becomes a way of life. We want to call that way of life tradition but in the process we inadvertently make church and faith about wrestling with sin and about sin management. We worry about how to avoid “the bin”. We want to learn how to deal with sin and how to be good. We want to avoid wrong doing and wrong being but never quite seem to get there. We need to realize that the only thing that stands between us and the coming kingdom is our own transformation.

We like our systems but those same systems also serve to isolate us make us lonely and grim people. We like our institutions and systems because we can tell who is in and who is not. And because we like our systems and institutions that way it becomes a free for all and everybody works for themselves. People will only gather when they agree with one another or when they can come to a consensus that they disagree with someone else.

 

Why do we come to Church? Is it not to be encouraged to live the life God calls us to and at the same time see other people set free to live that same life? Do you go to do your duty or do you go that someone else might be set free. Isn’t that what shall happen on the Sabbath? The Sabbath is at least as much about being free and seeing that others are freed as it is about having a rest. Should we not celebrate our freedom in Christ so that God can be praised for his mighty acts, his healing of people and the salvation he has provided through Jesus Christ? How can we choose to honour ourselves and rest while there is someone sitting beside us who is bound up or bent over and do nothing about it while claiming some level of spirituality? The Sabbath and the Day of the Resurrection are meaning for setting people free so that they might worship and serve God. Allowing our friends and neighbours, our brothers and sisters to remain bound for the sake of tradition and social norms shows that we still want the Law and need to hear the message of the Gospel again.     

And at the same time, we ought to be careful about labeling other people as the problem. The man who led the synagogue where Jesus was teaching was working to be faithful and pass on what he had been taught. The president of the synagogue believed he was being faithful to the Scriptures and that what was being taught was correct. He was not used to seeing this kind of faith in action. He was not used to this kind of teaching. Jesus doesn't undermine all that has been said and done before but rather shows how what he is teaching fits into all that they believe. Jesus shows the people that it is right to set people free on the Sabbath just as it is okay to tend your animals because they needed to be untied and led to water to drink and to be fed. It is right to help a child of Abraham to straighten up and praise God in the midst of the community and see, praise and worship God as we all should. Isn’t that worth going to church for?  Not only is the women set free of a long standing evil in her life but the leader of the synagogue has seen what God can do and is invited to come and participate in that. Ultimately he will decide whether he will or he won’t. We as children of Abraham are called not to tell God about our frailties and shortcomings – he already knows them and it is all too easy for us to do that. God still calls us not to live a life bound by limitations but strengthened by the promises he has made to us. We are called to live out those lives for the sake of those who live around us that they too would discover what God has done and how they might live out the promises too. 

Stir the Church up... again

I have always found it interesting that around Labour Day we have this particular Collect, and usually on the Sunday of the Long weekend itself that calls us to be ready for revival. The Collect reads,

“Stir up O Lord, the wills of your faithful people, that richly bearing the fruit of good works, we may by you, be richly rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.”

So why is it necessary for God to stir up his people again? Is it because we are back from summer break and the year starts again for the Church. Perhaps this is true in part. But we are not going to be shaken out of a blissful summer slumber. We have been busy throughout the summer and there are ways that we have made the kingdom known. And yet we ask God to blow through us like a freshening breeze blows through the sails of a two-masted schooner that is ready for the fishing grounds and needs to leave her port.

We need to remember that the Church was born of wind and of flame not to sweep us up into heaven but to send and guide us down the hot and dusty roads of this word so that we might lift up the downcast, heal the broken, reconcile what has been lost, and bring peace amongst the unrest (Garth House). God moves and breathes to lift us up again that he might make us instruments of his new creation.

We have been noted as faithful people but we are not permitted by our faith to rest on our laurels and what we did yesterday. It is necessary for God to renew in us the strength and the zeal that makes us ready to serve him this fall and in this moment. We need to be stirred up because can get tired and restless. We can lose focus and confidence in God, in each other and in ourselves. So we need to be stirred up again in this long green season so that we might continue to offer ourselves in service of God. In this way we can make known to the rest of God’s world that the God with the skin on is here.

Here comes the wind of God, ready to lift us up that we might glorify him.

Following in Faithfulness

We only hear of the Virgin Mary at points throughout the Gospels. But they are at critical points in the life of Jesus. She is there in the birth narratives of Jesus of course and in the story of Elizabeth and her son, John. Mary is there when Jesus finally begins to reveal himself to the world around him who he truly is through turning water into wine at a wedding. She comes to claim her son when people start calling him a crazy man for some of the things he claims, including that he is the Son of God, only to watch him heal a man and raise him from his mat. And she is there at the Cross and the grave to witness the yawn door that has been opened to bring out life from the grave.


So why do we take the time to consider her today? What is there about her that we should take notice of? The Gospels show her to be one of the first to really believe in God and in the coming salvation that he would work through his Son. She holds on to the memories of who her Son is and holds out the hope that God is going to do something marvellous through him that we cannot see. She is the one who allowed the Word to become flesh in her life so that the Word could become flesh for all life. She was and remains the prototypical Christian for others to imitate. Mary is portrayed as being ready to hear, prepared to receive and willing to serve as the Lord has led.

And more than that, we should be prepared our own selves to do as she has counseled others, “Listen to him. Do whatever he tells you to do.” We are expected to listen. That means we need to not only talk when we pray but also take time to listen. In this way God can speak into the quiet of our hearts the things that he wants to say. Listen in turn helps us to receive the word that God wants to speak into us, to help us growing in the formation of our Christian character and to mature as believers in his Son. We need to be filled to the brim like those jars of old that we might have the water of life but also be filled with the new wine of the Spirit. We would also do well to consider that nowhere in Scripture is Mary called perfect. Mary has her fears and struggles. She doesn’t always get it right. We know that because she thought that she had to bring Jesus home at one point because, from her point of view, things were getting more than slightly out of hand. Nonetheless, she is open to what God desires for. She treasures up in her heart things that are going to be important not only for her but for those who will follow in the years to come. Mary reminds us that we are not called to be perfect or to be even good. She reminds us that we are to be faithful in whatever we say and do. Faithfulness is not so much about the rules we keep or the journey we walk, as it is about the people we are becoming. Who do we love and keep as a neighbour? Who do we put our trust in? Whose glory do we seek, God’s or our own?

We can be like Mary and put our trust in God and say, “Let it be to me as you have said.” We can choose to hear the voice of the Master and trust him in the ways that we should go. After all, as someone once pointed out, the Church was born out of wind and fire, not to sweep us up heavenward like a tall tower but to send us down the dusty roads of this world so that we may lift up the downcast, heal the broken, reconcile that which is lost and bring peace amongst the unrest.

Let us take up the challenge to hear Christ this week and to be prepared and ready to go where we are sent and to do what we are asked to do and in the process make Christ known to those around us.