What do you smell?

What do you smell when you walk into your Church building?? I ask the question because of something that is in the Gospel this weekend (John 12.1-8) – that the act of blessing and preparing Jesus for what is about to happen in his life, is fragrant and it fills the entire house. That is very different from what it was not that long ago when Lazarus died and Jesus wasn’t there to prevent. The house smelt and felt of sadness and fear. It smelt of anger and disappointment. After all, Jesus good have made things better and stopped all that nonsense.

But then what is going on in the house is both weird and a reversal of the first time that Jesus was in that house. Martha is in the Kitchen cooking and given directions to others. Lazarus is at the table with Jesus and the apostles, learning for the Teacher. Stop. Think that one through. A man that was dead and laid in the grave is learning and sitting at the table with Jesus and the others. How wild is that!

And then Mary does something to turn the situation on its head yet again. She takes something that is of great worth in her life, a pottery container of pure nard. Her family would have saved up for it to present it as part of her dowry when she got married. She breaks off the top and pours generous amounts of it on the only part of Jesus’s body that she can easily reach: his feet and shins. Mary lets down her hair and begins to rub the oil into his legs and feet using her hair as a towel. The fragrance fills the entire house with the scent of the nard. Mary understood what was happening and she responded to it by using what she had in the situation. She recognized the moment as a moment of blessing and of grace and she seized the opportunity to show kindness and caring for her Teacher. It was a sacred moment. For the two of them and for those who watched the encounter happen.

Then enters in Judas Iscariot who is noted as a thief and he attempts to steal the moment and the joy by being spiritual. He points out that the nard is now useless to sell and has been wasted on an act of devotion. The Gospel points out that Judas would help himself to what was in the purse. Why would Jesus allow the treasurer to steal from the group… doesn’t he know that Judas is a thief? Is it not possible then Jesus is trying to give Judas every opportunity to turn things around and really believe in him rather than leave him in his own agenda? Let’s face it: sin, left unchecked and undealt with through confession and absolution, festers and grows into death.

That is why we celebrate Jesus and what he has done for us on the cross. He has paid the price and offers life to those who will live in him. He did in his life what was necessary for us to have life. He made an oblation of himself, once offered. A full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. God visits and redeems his people.

And I ask about what you smell because in my last parish when it was raining after a short period of sun, you could smell the incense in the woodwork. It would come wafting out as a reminder of the presence of God among his people as they pray. A reminder of why we worship and why we pray. Thanks be to God.                                      

 Jason+

Crossing the Threshold

It might surprise you to know that God is more interested in the brilliance of your repentance that in the darkness of your sin. It is not about how bad you’ve been but about how ready you are to live the life that you were created to live. And he is interested in inviting you to his home and to his Father’s table that you would come in, sit down and dine with him. (Luke 15.1-3; 11-32) Please understand that there are going to be other people there, they might not like it – that Jesus invited you to come and sit down. They might not like you, but then, I remember once hearing that you can pick your friends, but God chooses your family. They are going to have to learn to live with it. The parables of “the lost and found” are to help communicate to people who don’t know what it is like to be lost or dead, though many of them are lost and/or dead themselves.

The parables tell us about God: who God is and the nature of God. Parables tell us about how God acts and what God does. So, if we think about the home of this family and the two boys, one ought to ask which boy is lost? Surely it must be the younger one and so he was. He needs to discover what it was that he had with his father and he did not have on his own – love and compassion. What about the older brother, what does he need? What about joy? He has everything else in his life that people say they want: a nice home with parents who love him. He has a job and wealth. He has peace and security. But there is no joy in his life. He is so busy trying to be good and to be faithful and to not be the family black sheep that the joy of living life is pretty much removed from his existence. Both of those boys from a good home are lost and dead on the inside.

What is the saving grace? The fact that the Father is not willing to sit on the sidelines, wringing his hands and do nothing. He wants to have better and deeper relationships with both of his sons. He wants to be able to show his sons just how much he loves them and takes pride in them and their accomplishments. This is why when the Father sees the younger son coming home, he rushes to greet (and kiss) him as a sign of peace between them. He welcomes the boy home and returns him to his place of honour, puts a robe on him and places a ring on his hand to display his sonship and authority within the household.

He then crosses the threshold to go again to the older boy who is hiding out in the barn having heard the celebration in the house and being told that his little brother is back. He laments that his Father never gave him anything like this – not even a goat to prepare and have as a meal with his friends. He has failed to enter into his Father’s life and to participate in it and in doing so to learn how to rejoice over the lost being found and the dead being found alive. His Father tries to draw him into the house, to leave his selfishness behind but then leaves him to stand in the middle of the yard and allow his conscience to argue with him. After all, brothers are brothers.

When it comes to me and you, I often hear people say things like, “Oh, I am not religious, I am spiritual.” And they’re more likely to believe in “The Force” than in an everlasting Father. Yet God is moving over the threshold to come and draw us into the house so that we too can join the celebration. God desires to welcome us home so that we can have what we were made for: a relationship with him and with each other. It is what we hope and long for.

Jason+

It is Good News, if you want to hear it

The past few weeks in this world have been hard, dangerous and deadly. An airplane crashes in the Ethiopian wilderness taking 157 lives including 18 Canadians, People got to prayer in a New Zealand city and a man walks into that place of prayer with weapons and 50 people die and other 50 are injured. In Holland, a family argument erupts in gunfire, three more dies while another eight maybe nine people are injured and taken to hospital in Utrecht. And we must not forget the people in southern African who have recently had to deal

I get asked why, if God is good, does he allow such things as these to happen in the world? Why does he allow pain and suffering and death? Why doesn’t God do something about it? Well, in fact, his answer to all of it is his Son. His answer to it all is Jesus.

It is important for people to recognize that without Jesus, there is not one of us right with God; not one. There is nothing we can do to earn life with God and there nothing that we can give that will make us acceptable to God. All of us have sinned (hamartia) and fallen short of the mark, of the glory of God. And we need to understand that sin can and will not survive in the presence of a holy God. If that is what we bring before God, then we will not survive.

Now, let’s keep in mind that Jesus suffered as we have but did not sin. The Gospel that Jesus and the Church proclaims is a call to come to life and not face death and the grave. Such a message is a mercy to those who are in sin and are dying (not broken!) because God in Christ calls the world to himself and he stands between you and the disaster (death and the grave) that is coming, working at drawing you to himself. This is mercy. The Gospel is about moving from glory

Repentance is necessary if we are to deal with the sin that is in our lives, in our congregations and in our communities. Repentance is more than being sorry for the wrongs that have been done, whether it is what has been done or not been done. Sorrow is a first step and the ground on which the change may start. Repentance is more the stepping out and stepping up to live the life faithfully that God has called us to live according to the new covenant we have with him in Baptism. We are called to live out that covenant living in love with one another and in the upholding of the Spirit that we might live a life that has the fruit of repentance.

We need to be ready to live the new life in the new creation and we need to live it in the here and now by (1) acknowledging and confessing Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, (2) being responsible stewards of all that God has given us, (3) to live confidently in the provision of what God has given us for life and ministry, (4) be ready for him and faithful in all that we do and say, and (5) be ready because there is trouble ahead or we might miss out on what God has for us in the days ahead.

Repentance is not about the darkness of your sin but the brilliance of your repentance. It is not about how bad you have been but about the change that has come into your life because you are living it towards God now. Repentance is about turn away from the world, with its demands, assumptions, attitudes and actions. We do this to be able to live the values and the practices of the Kingdom of God.

This world is dying and coming apart. Christ and his cross are present to draw people to himself and to call them from destruction into life. Therefore, this is the day, this is the hour when we turn to God and begin to walk toward him again. That is Good News for everyone if they want to hear it.

Jason+

God wants to be faithful to you

I have been considering a phrase this week: “Don’t be afraid, you’re getting good news” and how Abram must have felt about hearing this from God (Genesis 15: 1-18). What was the good news? “I am your shield and your great reward.” Let’s, of course, remember that when God says this to Abram, the man has already rooted up his family and his work, moved them to another country. They have been through famine and then moved to another country where they ended up in trouble because Abram started to live a compromising life by passing his wife off as his sister. He was only half right, for she was his half-sister and she was very beautiful. He did not want to be killed so another man could have her and so there was a compromise. They came back to the Promised Land and there was still no baby. Lot separated from his uncle and went on his own, was captured and then rescued by God. Lot’s wife in the escape, became a pillar of salt outside the community. Still, Abram had no son, no heir. Abram has all that he could need and more but there was no son to pass on things to when it was time. The heir was a slave.

Abram laments the fact that there is no son. No heir. There is no continuation of the family line; no participation on creation. For all that he has, there is one thing that Abram wants that he is not able to get for himself. He needs God to make it happen. He laments his situation and points out to God that he has no seed – no sperm to make it happen. He reminds God that God promised him a son and calls on God to be faithful to his promise. Lamenting or complaining about life puts us in touch with our deepest hurts and our most powerful hopes. In complaining, we are also learning what is important to God and what his will is, that we might align with God’s will. As Scripture might remind us, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37.3)

And if you know the story of Abram, you will know that things happen, people made decisions and choices and out of that, Ishmael is born to him: the son of the body. Yet God asks for Abram to be patient. Abram waited decades for God to fulfil his promise of a son. His wife was 90 when she conceived and birthed a son, named Isaac. He became the father of Jacob who had 12 sons who became the heads of 12 tribes of Israel. Ishmael too was blessed and became a nation because of his father.

Where does this leave us? We can also complain or lament our situation to the Father, but I think there are some things that we need to remember when doing so. This is to help us align with what God wants to do in us and through us. First, we need to remember to pray not just gripe. We have desires, wants and even needs that we want God to respond to. God can respond to us and our requests and do so with power. In complaining, there is still a hope within us that God will respond to us and our requests – even if it does not look like it is possible. Abram knew this. Hope expresses the fact that God is present both effectually and faithfully so. Prayer is a way of realigning ourselves with God because we know that God wants to be faithful to us and answer our prayers.  More than that, God not only renew his promise of a child but expanded it to become a nation that Abram could not number. And Abram believed what God said to him and called him righteous and friend.

Moreover, we need to see that the Good News that we receive is that the child sent to us, the son is given to us the answer to our need for God dealt with death. IN order to be faithful to Abram and Sarai, and to David and to all those to whom God has made promises over the millennia, God became flesh and dwelt among us. God with the flesh on walked up the hill dragging his cross and gave his life so that we could in turn walk with him into eternity. That eternity for all of us begins in the here and now when we put our trust and begin to participate in Christ. God will get to the goal. God will fulfil his promise, even though there is pain and suffering, through blood and water and even through death itself. God wants to be faithful to you too. 

Jason+

the end of this season and the beginning of the next

Dear Fellow Skypilots.

after considerable thought and prayer during my winter break, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to find something else to write about. where blogs are concerned. There are some readers who have been with me since I started writing this blog more than 10 years ago. I also know that there is a few who are using this blog as a devotional for personal use and even at public worship. I am deeply moved and gratified to know that there have been folks out there who have been reading and inwardly digesting the Scriptures with me. 

I have decided that I will write my last Skypilot blog during Holy Week 2019.

That said, I am planning a new blog about growing Anglican congregations, especially in the Canadian North and how we might reach more for the sake of Christ and his Gospel. I think I am going to call it "Hand to the Plough", to acknowledge the area in which I live now and the growth I think we can achieve in the Church if we see to working to plant and grow for the Lord.

Jason+

Touching the sacred

I have noticed that there has been a drop in the readership of late and it often happens when I start talking about following Jesus as one of his disciples. Readership goes up when I talk about love and hope (hope in particular) and I think that is what the wider world is looking for. The difference is that they want it so that they can feel better about how they are living and what they are doing. The crunch comes when the Gospel and Jesus himself insists on change within a person so that they might become more like him and at the same time, help to draw the kingdom and people together. So maybe we need to understand that words have to be backed up with action as it is this week in the Gospel (Luke 9:23-43). In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has been proclaimed by Peter as the Messiah and Jesus has begun to teach them what that means. Jesus tells them that they are going into the City of Jerusalem, that he will be betrayed, be rejected and beaten; that he will suffer and be killed but then rise again three days later. What people need (and still need to get) is that Jesus has come, the Chosen sent by the Father, to visit and redeem his people.

Words need to be backed up by actions. Sacred words necessitate sacred action. From the witness of the disciples who were on that mountain, we see this in some simple ways. First, when they get to a spot, Jesus begins to pray. If we want to see the Church grow, then we need to be more about prayer, and we will be called to this during Lent. But prayer is more than the laundry list of issues that we push at God and expect him to do something to make our lives better. It is important to make our thoughts and needs known to God. At the same time, we need to live lives that allow us to live as though we are ready to answer to at least one or two of the things we have asked God for. Prayer is about a relationship with God and how God, through what we ask of him, changes our hearts so that we can ask things within his will and ask rightly so that prayers can be answered. As James would remind us: you have not because you don’t ask and when you do ask, you ask out the wrong motive (James 4.2-3).

This tells us that we need to spend more time in prayer not less, so that we can see God at work in the world and recognize him and what he is doing in the midst of the turmoil and tragedy of this world. It also should move us to action so that we are seeking, search and discovering what it is that God is doing, starting within our own people. Too often, too many people tend to treat the Church and its ongoing life as a hockey game. That is, they think that if they have the right people, saying the right things and doing at least a few things, then the build should be full. There is a place for what I will call “attractional ministry” to do things that will draw people to the Body of Christ. If we don’t do something to draw people in how then can we earn the possibility of speaking the Good News to them? The core of any Church’s ministry is to learn to genuinely love one another.

How often do we have people disappear for a while and then return because life is back to some sort of “normal” – I’m okay now and everything is fine. How often do we have members that leave because of some sort of illness or other kinds of circumstance that makes a person think that they are not welcome in a sacred place like this – even to go as far as thinking that God hates them? How often do we seek them out to draw them back in? It reminds me of the different times that I have had parishioners get mad with me over the years, because “the Church” did not visit. I pointed out to one lady (unsuccessfully I might add) that the Church had been looking after her: doctor, nurses, lab techs, custodial staff… she had tried to verbally box my ears for not showing up sooner because until I had been there, the Church, and therefore Christ was not present.

Christ has raised up his people, his Body to visit and redeem his people. God does visit and redeem his people. But we need to see him. We need to hear him, including when he is at prayer. Plus, we need to walk with and enable people to come to a spot where they can let go of their agendas and begin to carry their crosses and to live the dream that God has for them. Seeing and knowing Jesus – reaching out and touching him meant to make us better than happy. Touching Jesus is meant to make us whole and help us to walk with him into eternity.

Jason+

You might be blessed and headed for the kingdom

I thought I would take some time to consider this week, the idea of living in a level place. Jesus this week preaches in a “level” place (Luke 6.17-26) or maybe on a plateau which would play with the Gospel of Matthew nicely (Matthew 5-7). The reason that I am interested in a level place is because of what it would have meant to the people who were listening to and considering Luke’s Gospel as original hearers. You see, a level place is a place of corpses, disgrace, idolatry, suffering, misery, hunger, annihilation and mourning. Jesus comes to bring the kingdom to such places in this world and to have it exist in the midst of such places.

Jesus proclaims the kingdom in level places to show that the present realities are going to change. Jesus comes to draw people to himself. You see this and hear this in the Gospel: people are coming from all over to hear, to be healed and to be rescued from evil. People are coming to Jesus so that they can be made healthy and whole. Jesus was healing and restoring them all. God is visiting and redeeming his people. The Gospel is preached so that people will now that change is coming and that life will be transformed by the coming and presence of the kingdom of God. It is a reversal of the life we know in this level place. This does not mean that life is going to be turned upside down but right side up from its inverted stance. And this is going to happen through turning the Church inside out.

Life will go from being what you can do and be in your own strength to living life from within the missional community empowered by the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. Which I think brings us to the idea and reality of being blessed. I think it is true to say that being blessed is not about getting what you want – though in North American culture we seem to act that way. It also is not about the absence or dismissal of trials and troubles. Being blessed enables and draws us through trials and tribulations, helping us to overcome obstacles and opposition. What we need to keep in mind is that these things are temporary – that we will come through them by the grace and strength of God. And heaven is not the place we wait for to get away from all that.

Did not Jesus himself tell his followers (which includes us) “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16.33)

There is pity for those who have all that they want and desire in this life because they have not recognized that they have been blessed and not brought the resources, their time, talents and treasures to bear on the missional community so that we can proclaim together the Good News of God in Christ. Their accounts have been paid in full and they will at some point experience the emptiness that the prosecution of their personal comfort and happiness has brought them. The good news is that a person under their woeful verdict is invited to repent and return. It might not be painful and there might not be suffering in this moment but it will become evident at some point and you will have received what you wanted.

Therefore, if you discover that you are poor in spirit and you need God, you just might be headed to the kingdom. If you find that you are hungering for right relationships with God and with the people around you, you might be headed to the kingdom. And if you find yourself in an increasing state of mourning for the way life is being lived in this world, you just might be headed for the kingdom.

Jason+