Planting seed and giving God glory

There has been a music festival going on here at the Church for the past week now. And the room beside my office has a piano and this is where the young people have been coming to warm up before the go on stage. It has been an interesting week in that there are lots of young people in the building and more than one or two amazing voices. There has also been upset, anger, and people rushing for a bathroom to be sick.  The building has been alive with the energy of so many people.

So, as we approach Sunday and the Gospel (John 12.20-33) it has put a different slant how I see and understand this moment in Jesus’ life and in the lives of the people around him. Jerusalem was abuzz with everything that was going on. The whole world was coming to see this Jesus and the things that he was doing, especially after he raised Lazarus from the dead. They wanted at least some small part of what was going on for themselves. Jesus’ opponents, who had hoped to make a quick and easy end of him and his ways, had seemingly been thwarted. They would not acknowledge who Jesus was and what God the Father was doing through him because he was changing what people were doing and believing. The whole world was seeking him.

Case and point, a group of God-fearing Greeks who were living a Jewish life style without fully committing to the Law, came and found Phillip (a Greek named disciple of Jesus) and asked if he would take them to Jesus so that they could interview him and figure out if they would follow him or not. Phillip takes them to Andrew and together they take this unnumbered group to Jesus. The discussion leads to conversation about following him – and letting go of their agendas. They were going need to live the whole life in the light. This means that they were going to have to follow and not just on their terms but on God’s.

Life on a farm is no different from being a disciple. There are simple rules and they need to be obeyed. I know because I grew up on a small farm where we had and raised horses, dogs, cats, chickens, goats, and the occasional goose. Most, if not all my family when they came from Europe (England, Ireland. Scotland and Sweden) they came to the Canadian prairies to farm and homestead. You may not know this because much of my life has been spent on or near the ocean in BC and in Newfoundland and Labrador. Being in farm country has its rules as does living on the ocean.

Number one rule on the farm. Don’t get attached to anything you are going to eat. Don’t name it and don’t make a deep commitment because for there to be life, there is going to be death. There was not to be at the supper table, a discussion of ‘who’ we were eating. With seed it is different. Seed is not cute or fuzzy. Seed is not fuzzy or cuddly. We cannot get attached to seed like we can to a horse, a dog or even a chicken named “Fonzie”.  But we can pin out hope on the outcomes of the seed. If it does not do well, there will be consequences. No bread, no feed, no life.

Jesus wants us to consider our lives like seed for the next generation of the Church. Our lives need to be offered and given so that there can be another generation in this place. Our lives are the seed of the next generation. Those who are to follow us are the fruit of our ministry. This means we need to live in such away that people can see Jesus and come and see him. We are called upon to reject this life and the way that the world wants us to live it as if it is the only way that life can be lived. Living life the way that the world demands us to, leaves us trapped and desperate for something else, something better. Such life causes anxiety and causes us to live in the dark without hope.  

People in this community, this province and this country need to see more of Jesus. We must lift Jesus up. We must glorify the Father. We need to see Jesus again and again so that we can capture afresh both a reminder of who he is and what we are called to in him. We can reject this life as being without God and therefore without hope in favour of a life that has death and resurrection. Fruit bearing may be painful and destructive but we are not in this alone – God will glorify himself in us as we honour him – even if it means that we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death.

Those who choose to live in the dark will lose their way. We can walk in the light, with Jesus and hear the music of the saints and live. 

Jason+

He loves us, like it or not.

This week in the Gospel of John (Jn. 3.14-21) we get a small potion of a larger discussion between Nicodemus and Jesus that happened one evening after the business of that day was finished and the evening could be given to contemplation.

In this conversation, a simple concept confronts Nicodemus. God, because of his love for his people and his creation is relentless. Love is the foundation of his kingdom. Therefore, Jesus in his preaching and teaching keeps calling on us to respond in repentance and faith to the coming of the kingdom amongst us. God in Christ pursues us seeks us out because he loves us and he desires us to be with him, both now and into eternity. We tend to forget that words like ‘holiness’ and ‘righteousness’ the very things that we need to be and to become are not verbs, things we do. Rather these things are things we become because of the relationship that we have and hold on to. These are characteristics that we gain as we spend time with the Lord and with other people who follow Jesus.

But this goes deeper than that. The love that God offers to this God hating empire is make stronger with mercy. And at the same time, his love needs to be accepted and responded to by surrendering to its demands. In fact, God goes so far as to say to each and to all of us, “I love you… like it or not.” We cannot twist or control God’s love for us to shape it to our benefit, to suit our needs or qualify our demands. We are not in control of God’s love or of God’s person. He loves all of us; like it or not.

It reminds of going to a First Nations village last Easter to do Baptisms. One boy of about three years of age was brought up to the font for Baptism. When I went to put water on him to baptize him, he smacked my hands away because he did not want to get wet or for me to touch him. His father scolded him for his actions. I then said to them, “It’s okay. Bring him down to the water so that he can touch it.” The boy played in the water for a moment, swishing his hand back and forth. Then I baptized him and anointed him with oil. I share that to say to you, God pursues you and is waiting patiently for you to turn and respond to him.

Negotiating with people to give them what they demand gives them control not only over the situation, it makes them ‘players’ and gives them a measure of control over us. This will never be where God is concerned. God’s love is free and unconditional. He loves us. Period. Whether we like him or not; whether we believe or not in him. He loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31.3)

And it does not end there. In loving us God in Christ becomes vulnerable. Christ becomes sacrificial and gives his life for us, all the way to death and the grave. Christ makes this gift, this sacrifice knowing the costs and does it anyway knowing that the price is dear. Humans do not want to be weak, vulnerable and make sacrifices. We prefer to live and our ongoing Game of Thrones where we win or die trying to win. We live believe that the real security is in power and strength, being bold and using power and might to affect change in the world.

Whose strength do you operate in? Yours or God’s? Are you able to be vulnerable and open to sacrifice for the benefit of another? I ask this because I know that in the presence of unconditional love, we discover ourselves powerless. In such living we need to yield to God, giving up or plans, letting go of our goals, and manipulating agendas. Know that God’s love is going to tenaciously pursue us, to transform us into the people that God created for himself, like it or not. God created this world and he is in control. He causes it to be maintained and he will bring it to an end when time is fulfilled in favour of the new creation and the new life it will contain. He has done this through being vulnerable, tenaciously loving and giving sacrificially.

Is this not a love, a God you could surrender to? In Christ God has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and offers life to those who will accept and love him. All we need do is come into his light, liking it or not.

Jason+

Becoming living altars

I have been thinking this week about how we serve God and what it means to be missional. The Gospel this week (John 2.13-22) is an interesting lesson in that will consider it again at least in a cursory way, during Holy Week. This will be in the lead up to Good Friday and what happens on that low hill outside the city and on the cross. It also goes to the question, “Will you surrender to God?” It is what Jesus did, starting in the Garden when he asked for the cup of suffering to be taken from him and then says, “Not my will, but yours.” He surrendered himself to the will of the Father that he would become the way home for those who would participate in him and his life after the cross.

In this lesson, I noticed something that is important. Altars. How we approach them and how we deal with them is not something that we Anglicans spend a lot of tine talking about. It is more something which we honour and something we keep as sacred and tend to leave it there, unspoken. But maybe it is something that we need to become as people. Confused? Then let me explain.

The Temple was the place of the altar and where people could approach the presence of the God of Israel here on earth. It was the place where sacrifices and offerings where made. Synagogues, where most Jews worshipped was a place for prayer and for teaching, not for sacrifice. Jesus had made the journey more than once. He went into the Temple – a place he had been before, at least twice that we know of in the Gospels. Both times were with his parents. First with his parents to obey the Law and offer sacrifice to reclaim him from the Lord because he was a first-born son. This is when the little family encountered the quiet in the Land (Simeon the priest and Anna the prophet) and many important things were said and done. The second time in the Temple was just before the year in which Jesus would have celebrated his bar mitzvah and became a man within the spiritual community. He was left behind when they family headed home, and his frantic parents went back and found him “in his Father’s house” talking with learned men.

So, for Jesus to suggest its destruction was a bit of a wild thing. Why would you destroy a big, beautiful building that is meant to house the presence of the living God? Where would people go to meet with God? How would they get forgiveness for their sins? What would become of the priests and their religion if there was no temple? Reality? God is moving his location from a place into the lives of his people to be with them – with you and with me. All day, every day.

This means that as followers of the Lord Jesus, our lives play host to the presence and the life of the living God. Our lives must out of necessity become places and spaces where giving, sacrifice and blessing need to meet – for the sake of others, not just for ourselves. Our lives and our bodies are where the divine and humanity meet. Therefore, the lives we live, including our bodies must be come altars. How do we know this is so? Consider Jesus! He had eyes to see what it was like in the Temple, ears to hear the noises and a nose to smell the different odors. Jesus knelt on a knee to wash his disciples’ feet at the table. He had hands that reached out to pick up and bless children and at the same time to make a whip of cords to drive out flocks and herds while tipping tables and scattering coins.

In learning to surrender, we also discover that our faith and participation in Christ makes us uncomfortable – faith and obedience causes struggles. It makes us sweat. Upon occasion believing and participating will involve pain and tears. And in all of it, where you go, Christ lives. So maybe we need to consider carefully where is God in our lives and in our ministries. Where does Christ need to be let in? What rooms in our lives need light? Where do we need to some spring cleaning?  We need to be people who can be identified as Christian people (and please note I say Christians not Anglicans) because of how we live, what we say and what we do. We must live incarnationally so that people can encounter ‘God with the flesh on’. In this way through what we do and what we say we are also becoming missional. In so doing, we become living altars.

Jason+

Will you suffer Christ?

You won’t never think it, but in this week’s Gospel (Mark 8.31-38) Jesus told someone to “shut up”. Remember when we were kids? Remember the treat that our mothers would be told that if we spoke like that we would get into so much trouble and then our dads would find out!?! The remark is made during Jesus teaching the Twelve about where they were going and what was going to happen to him when they got to Jerusalem. Specifically, that there was going to be a confrontation and that he would lose that confrontation, be killed and three days after, rise from the dead. And what’s more he didn’t hide it, Jesus spoke plainly about it.

So, upon hearing this, Simon Peter takes Jesus aside and then takes him to task and says to him, “No! God take this away from you! This should never happen to you! No! You shut up!” This draws the reaction described above, “Shut up! Get behind me and get back in line! You are thinking about yourself and what you want for yourselves not about what God wants to accomplish.”

So this begs a question, “Will you suffer Christ and his will for your sake and that of others?”

There are so many people and organizations that want to have it their way, plan control and do things that make them look better but are never ready to honour God with who they are or what they want to do, including the Church. People have their agendas and they want their agendas honoured and if God is involved, that’s good too. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it is a trap. When we think and believe that we know it all, there is something that happens that proves that we do not.

In Peter we can see and hear what human belongs are like. One needs to keep in mind hat he took the risk and declared on behalf of the Twelve that Jesus is the Anointed One from God (Messiah). In acknowledging the insight, Jesus applauded the Twelve but then told them to ‘shut up’ about it. The reason for the imposition of silence? They had the right guy, but the wrong idea about the kingdom. Case and point, Peter did not want to hear anymore about this suffering and dying stuff – that’s not what God faith and religion are about – is it?

If you stop and consider what our culture says about heroes and saviours, they are a lot that can suffer so long as it has no effect in the lives of the people around them. This is not what Jesus calls the people together with his disciples to talk about. He calls on them do the most difficult thing a human can do: forfeit their lives in favour of the life of the kingdom. In the eyes of the world, heroes are the ones to undergo suffering, pain and death. The rest of the world is to be left intact, undisturbed.  The hero bears the brunt of the evil while the rest of the world is left intact, free to continue its way without being changed or shaped by the sacrifice and life that was offered for them. Nothing in the world change - it just keeps going forward and stays the same.

Therefore, Jesus and his life and his death on the cross along with his resurrection make all the difference in this world. Through Christ, The Father is working to make the fallen rise and to make the old new. The Spirit is working to bring everything to its perfection in Christ.  

And in the meantime, the discipline of the kingdom is that everyone follows. Everyone takes up their cross and leaves what has been, behind. It is more than a time of self denial. It is an act of total surrender. It is a relinquish all that we are and all that we have in favour of what is coming in the new kingdom. It is not our life anymore. As Saint Paul would have it, “It is not I who l lives, but Christ who lives in me.”

So the question comes to you and to me, “Will you suffer Christ, concede your agenda, plans and intentions, pick up and walk with your death and follow Christ?” Those who will come with us, will find life like they have never known it before.

Isn’t that worth a walk towards?

Jason+

Dealing with Fabricated Kingdoms

There is something in me right now that is burning or chaffing in me because I am watching the Church and getting ready for another Lent. We seem to have miss understood what this time of year is about. Yes, we are six weeks out from the celebration of Easter and this is the time when we are to repent and to return to the Lord because we have fallen away, walked away or even run away for him. This is a moment for repentance and for surrender – not just self denial. In reading the lessons for Ash Wednesday and for the First Sunday of Lent, there is something that come out loud and clear: we cannot tag God on. God wants us to have a faith tht is practical, not just informed. So, the challenge is simple. We need to walk what we preach, and we need to preach what we walk. There is a reality that we need to face in this part of the world, people know you by how you walk, before you have ever uttered a single word.

That is why we need to be a people who have surrendered. Did not Jesus himself say, that “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me?” That is not the same thing as giving up  something for Lent, it is a total surrender of one’s life to the will of the Master. In fact, the third and fourth centuries, the words of baptism took this seriously because the deacon would say to you, “I kill you.” Then you were pushed down under the surface of the water so that you disappeared. The understanding was that when you left that font, you left as a new person. The old person was dead and there was a new creation.

It is part and parcel of being a disciple. We must surrender to Christ and learn to continue to surrender to him in the things that are in out lives. And believe it or not, there is more. Jesus takes his disciples with him on the journey – so that they can get his dust on them. And in doing so he is teaching them at least two important things: (1) they need to listen and to learn from him and (2) they are learning to proclaim the Gospel with dignity and with power so that there is a unified witness of the Church. A unified witness does not mean that we have it all together, that there are no disagreements and misunderstandings. It means that in all things we must proclaim Christ and his kingdom. We must make people aware that the collisions that are being created with our fabricated kingdoms and the coming of the kingdom of God.

We need to declare Christ so that people can hear the heavens being torn open and know that God is speaking to them. God is calling on people to hear his Son and to follow him – into life without end. God is forgiving, retrieving us and healing our wounds to make us whole. God is merciful because he stands between us and our impending disasters and death and calls us to himself to prevent our destruction. God is powerful and can pull down the kingdoms of creation, personal and corporate, physical and spiritual so that his will for his beloved comes to fruition.  The kingdom of God is becoming a reality in the here and now, not just the there and then. It is unique and while all are called to it there are impediments to entrance. We cannot enter his kingdom on our terms. We must enter on his terms. The kingdom is not so much a place as it is a dominion or a reign. It is a power that has the strength and the ability to turn right side up, this upside-down world. It has the strength to turn an inward focused Church, outwards; to care for the poor the hungry, the sick, the lonely, the naked and those in jail.

Most of all, we need to recognize that this life is lived in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. He is how we live and move and have our being. It is through him that we can deal with temptation and deal with hunger and thirst, with emptiness and worthlessness.

So, are you ready to surrender? Are you ready to step up and step out in faith? Are you ready to live and die, then rise again, daily if you must? And remember, the worst things we deal with, are never the last things we will deal with – God will see to that.

Jason+

The dust of the Rabbi

The news of health, healing and freedom was spreading all over the Galilee. Jesus was healing people and driving out the unclean spirits and this was drawing people to him, so that they could be healed and made clean.

During all this, there is a woman on her death bed in her house when Jesus and his disciples arrived. To be specific, it was Simon Peter’s house and it was his mother-in-law that was in bed with fever. The people who were in the house with her, greeted the new comers and told Jesus about the woman’s situation. He went to her, took her by the hand and lifted her up. The fever left her, and she began to serve those in the house. (Mark 1.29-31)

Now it might be important to point out that this action was the first for four acts that Jesus did for women (of a miraculous nature) in Mark’s Gospel. And this story is a precursor to Jairus and his little daughter later. People seek out Jesus when they’re in trouble; when they are sick and when they’re dying because they want to know that God cares about them as they are going through what it is that they are going through.  Whatever else such pursuit of Jesus may or may not be, it becomes prayer. Did you notice? Jesus comes in the door and the people in the house welcome Jesus in and tell him they are relieved he is there because there is a need for him to meet. Someone’s life is at stake. They want and need for Jesus to be more than impressive, they want him to have an impact on this woman’s life for the better so that they do not loose her.

So, what do you do with such high expectations? He went to see and to survey the situation. He went to the woman and he raised her up. The way that it is worded in the New Testament Greek, Mark tells us that Jesus raised her from the dead. It was not just that he got rid of the sickness but that He took her by the hand ad raised her up, not just from the bed but from imminent death. And then what happens? The unthinkable and the unlikely! She begins to serve the people that are in the house. Peter’s mother-in-law served (diakonie) and minister to the needs of others. In effect, Jesus saved this woman to serve, for the sake of the Gospel.

Why is that important? Because of what happened that evening when the Sabbath ended and the people could bring their people – friends, relatives and neighbours - that needed to be healed and cured and exorcised. By caring for the people around her, she was enabling ministry of different kinds to take place, right on her doorstep. No mission statements, no visioning weekends, just real ministry of a sudden and joyful kind. And it is a work that is undergirded by prayer.

Prayer can be as simple as reaching up to touch the heart of God, only to discover that he has reached down and touched yours already. Jesus shows us this in what happens next. He goes out to a solitary place in the wilderness to pray; to spend time with the Father. He went to a place where he knew he could meet the Father best. I like to think that Jesus did it because he wanted to laugh and enjoy what was happening – that the kingdom of God was being established in the lives of men and women; that health, wholeness and salvation were fully coming into this world.  

He also sought out the solitude because he knew what was coming in terms of the demands to keep the whole process going – for others. He sought the quiet so that he could remain humble before his Father and hear his Father’s voice as to what was next and what need to be done. Others, including the disciples were hostile to the fact that he left them behind, that they had to go in search of him because they wanted more. So Jesus needed some time to replenish and to rebuild himself for what was ahead.

Where does this leave us?

Well, were to do we meet God best? Answers to that question are going to vary. One place we need to meet him – public worship. We need to meet him, we need to see him amid the community of Christ when we come together to worship. We need to spend time reaching up for the heart of God and discovering that he has already touched our hearts, enabling us to do what needs to be done for the sake of the Gospel. We need to be a part of the acts of power that see another person healed, or freed from sin and evil.

We need to live in the courage of a boy named David who confronted a well trained solider by the name of Goliath, not because he was anything but because he was willing to do what he could, what it took to stand up for the name and glory of God. And anyone who thinks that God cannot use that, has rocks in their heads.

We cannot allow our fear of the future and what we cannot control to paralyze us. The future is not our to possess and the past is gone. All we can do is use the lessons of the past to be prepared for what we have in the present and do what we can, even is al we have is five smooth stones from a brook and a sling shot.

We need to have the dust of our Rabbi on us. We need to follow him where he leads and serve whomever he asks us to serve. We need to be close enough that we get the dust of his footfalls on us. He is the one who heals and he who drives out evil. Jesus is the one who brings the kingdom. We need to come together to celebrate with the rest of creation, not only what he is doing but what he is doing in us.

Jason+ 

We have an important message live and share

Maybe you know the saying, “the only thing evil needs to succeed, is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke. Then it is also true that “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Perhaps this is what is going on in this week’s Gospel Lesson (Mark 1.21-28). Jesus and his disciples (Simon, Andrew, James, John Philip and Nathaniel) went to Capernaum together. A few Good men who were proclaiming God’s good news and learning to correctly handle the word of truth.

They went to Jesus’ base of operations and his home there. Capernaum was located on near the headwaters of the Jordan River. It was rich farming land and was know for its good fishing in the Sea of Galilee.

He began to preach and to take advantage of the invitations to preach in the local synagogue. He would leave them astonished, in awe, in wonder and at least from time to time, in fear. The recognized him as a man who had a different kind of power and authority – not like the other religious leaders, and in particular the Scribes. Jesus spoke on his own authority, of the kingdom and of his Father. He backed up what he was saying with deeds of power – making the blind to see, the lame to walk up right and the deaf to hear; exorcisms, turning water into wine, raising people from the dead.

The mission seems clear: The Father wants to bring his own back to himself and we, in Christ, are going to work at making that happen. But we need to stop a recognize that if there is a path forward, there is going to be a collision of kingdoms first – and that means there is going to be heat and friction, some tearing up, breaking away and some falling apart. To us it might look like disaster and the end, but it has not been… not yet at least.

As Saint Paul would remind us, For 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. Therefore 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. (Ephesians 6.12-13)

This brings us back to the Gospel and to the encounter with personal evil. While teaching and preaching on sabbath in the Synagogue in Capernaum, is confronted with a man who had a demon. The encounter is often portrayed as a battle to silence the other. Only one problem with that – no devil or devil is the Strong one. God is above and beyond his creation. God has no equal. Think of it this way. It is a bit of a numbers game. You have probably heard that the sign of the enemy is “666” but have you considered why? “777” is the number that defines the perfect revelation of God and who God is. “666” is the revelation of a created being trying to reveal himself as God – the created being always falls short.

And did you notice that the demon, in addressing Jesus, taunted and insulted him, telling him that there was no business between them while at the same time admitted to Jesus’ identity – that he is the Christ. “Be quiet! Come out of him!” was the stern response. The people were amazed that the unclean, evil spirit had to obey Jesus.

What does all this mean for us? Well, first we want to clean up this world. If you don’t believe me, the next time you go to a store, say Wal Mart, or a grocery store, check out the cleaning products aisle and all the different cleaners for the different places and spaces we inhabit. Then ask yourself this question: “What will make me clean up my act where God is concerned?” Is it nothing but the blood of Jesus?

The kingdom of God comes in contact, and clashes with our kingdoms for a purpose – so that the holy can reclaim the unholy and reanimate it with new life, with eternal life. That means that God wants to come into your life and offer his for yours so that you can live like him and with him in the life, in the world that is to come. And if that is true then there is something important about the preaching we participate in. If what we have is real; if what we have is true, and if hat we have is lifegiving, then it is a big deal. This means we cannot afford to preach a no biggy Gospel. God’s message needs to be declared with power and in love.

If Jesus and a few disciples can lay claim to a single life in the middle of a sermon, what can this Church do this week? It will make a total difference, not just in the life of one person but in every life that is in this community. Isn’t that worth something, to God and to us?

Jason+