back again.

Flew back into Calgary and got home at around 5. Taught confirmation at 6:30 but you know, it was more enjoyable, for some reason.

I think there's a real value to getting together with other interns and their supervisors and chatting. Of course, there's a risk of the entire think becoming a complaint-fest, but I learned some very valuable things over the last few days.

And I made a commitment to myself, which is possibly more important. I will be more positive when it comes to the ELCiC and how things are done in it. It's not that I outright condemn it for heresy, apostasy, or idiocy, but I did notice something about myself as I was chatting with my friends.

I am, by nature, a positive person. But when we start talking about the church, I become a real jerk. I love talking about the congregation and the people, but I'm not nice when it comes to talking about the institution. And I don't think that's fair. When I was working at a grocery store or for a courier company, I used to refuse to take part in the boss-bashing or company-bashing sessions that my coworkers would engage in. So why, in effect, am I doing it now? Am I really that arrogant?

So I'm going to do my best to change that. From now on, no snarking. I couldn't run the church any better (despite my best efforts and ideas), so I made a promise to myself to support the institution in good and meaningful ways.

Kevin, stop laughing.

off again.

off again to Saskatoon this afternoon. Internship mid-year retreat. Be still my beating heart.

I'm looking forward to seeing my classmates and the other people at the Seminary. Not looking forward to two days of enforced closeness and amateur analysis.

But I swear before God Almighty, the next introvert that criticizes me for being gregarious and outgoing is going to get the wedgy of their life.

Sermon for Sunday January 25

At the back of the church sits a young couple. A toddler plays at their feet, a new baby cries periodically from the arms of the young mother. They sit uncomfortably, shushing the little ones whenever a head swivels to look their way. They sit and listen to the lessons, and wonder “can we find hope here too?”

Two days later there’s a knock at the church’s door. It’s that same young couple, looking pale and haggard and burnt out; the children, oblivious to their parents, squirm and chatter. An older couple is standing with them. The Pastor invites them into her office. “How are you today?” And the young couple bursts into tears.

“We just can’t take it anymore!” they cry. After a while, their story comes out. Haven’t go to church since they were small. Living together for a couple of years, got married, two kids one after the other. Then it all started to fall apart. He lost his job as an oilfield worker when he failed a random drug and alcohol test one too many times.

She, out on the town with friends, spent $500 on drinks and entertainment. They think they’ve got nothing left. No love, no patience. No hope. They’ve come seeking advice on how not to hurt their children when they divorce. As the young couple steps out to change diapers, the older couple – the man’s parents -- speak knowledgably to the Pastor:

“This is all her fault. We need you to tell her what she did was wrong, especially as a mother and wife. We’d like you to tell her that the kids should stay with our son.” She stays silent.

When the young couple returns the Pastor stands up and turns around to look out her office window. Backs to the couple, she watches the body language reflected in the window. Haughty and righteous for the older couple, defeated and scared in the younger.

She takes a deep breath and turns back to them. Meets their eyes. Expectant. Afraid. She breathes again, and speaks: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be no more!”

_______________________________________

Forty days and Nineveh will be no more. Nineveh: to quote Obiwan Kenobi in the first Star Wars movie (you know, the good one?); there has never been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Nineveh, the ‘Sin city’ of the Ancient Near East. Quite cosmopolitan, actually; flourishing arts and entertainment district, all the best shows and spectacles, shops and boutiques for everything under the sun. Las Vegas, with a few more antiques. Probably fewer churches.

Into this quagmire was sent Jonah, reluctantly. Realistically, it’d be about comparable to standing in the middle of the Mirage in Las Vegas and telling people God was about the destroy the city. It’s been done before. So often, in fact, that you’d become just another lunatic out on the street. People might even throw quarters in your cup. But for some reason, people listened to Jonah. At least, the king and the nobles listened; and what they said, went.

In fact, that’s probably much more significant – that the king and nobles listened. Isaiah never ceased trying to get the monarchs of Israel to listen, as did Nathan, and Elijah, and Jeremiah, and a list of a thousand other prophets sent to the people who considered themselves righteous and chosen by God. But the kings and nobles of Nineveh listened; a city so vulgar that Jonah was probably happily expecting to see it wiped off the map.

But the people of Nineveh cried, “all shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” We know we deserve the worst we may get. But we know we can do better. Even if there’s only a little time left, we will be the people we know God wants us to be.

_______________________________________________

“What do you mean, ‘Nineveh will be no more?’!” screeched the mother-in-law. “We didn’t come here for a sermon, these people need help and advice!”

But the Pastor didn’t flinch. She looked at them all, gathered in her office, and repeated herself: “Forty days, and Nineveh will be no more.” And into the silence that followed, she explained.

“Nineveh was a city of violence and corruption. It spread hate, violence, and hunger through all who lived in it. Jonah, sent by God, told the people that Nineveh would be destroyed if they did not repent, and change. And the people repented. They worked to be the people God wanted them to be.

And she continued. “You’ve condemned yourselves, with selfishness, power-seeking, and greed. You rejected love, and self-sacrifice, and care in your own quest for self-fulfillment. And you found that all those other things lead you to this – being here, left with nothing, sitting in the ashes of your despair.

“But you have two choices. You can continue on the road you’re on. And it will destroy all of you, in less than two months. Or, you can repent. Not just apologize, not just say ‘sorry’ and leave. But repent. Turn away from where you are and what you’re doing and become the fullness of the people God made you to be.”

The young couple, for the first time, looked at each other and shared a smile of hope. But the in-laws weren’t so kind. “What do you mean, repent? It’s too late for that. We didn’t come here to listen to this kind of stuff.”

_____________________________________________

Jonah sat on a hill outside of Nineveh and shook his fist at God. “What do you mean, you’re not going to punish them?!! Why then did I drag my butt all the way here, so you could be nice to them??!!! Where the brimstone? Where’s the pumice? Where’s the wrath of God? These people have done wrong!” And he made a comfortable spot for himself.

As Jonah sat and watched the people of Nineveh as they went about their business, God made a bush, to provide shade for him. Jonah liked the bush, as we all like kind things from God given to ourselves. But then God sent a worm, and it at the bush. And Jonah was angry again as the sun beat hot on his head. God asked simply, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?”

And Jonah said, “yes.”

And God said again, “you are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour, and which you did not grow, and it came into being and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left?”

____________________________________

The Pastor looked at them all.

She continued speaking. “There’s a little bit – sometimes a lot – of ‘Nineveh’ inside us all. Some deep, rotting, corrupting influence that drives us to seek out only our selfish interests. That eventually destroys us.”

“Repentance – the word metanoia , in Greek – means, ‘to turn away’. The people who lived in Nineveh turned away from violence and destruction in their lives and turned TO the God who showed such abundant grace to them. If God would spare a hundred thousand people the supposedly ‘inevitable’ result of their actions, do you not think that same God will show that grace to you? Don’t you realize that you are never beyond hope?

“In love, with repentance and humility all things are possible. No punishment is inevitable.”

********************************************

The same story, over and over. One story, just with point of view and setting changed. But they both carry the same three points:

1) we do horrible things to each other and ourselves, often without even thinking.

2) It is NEVER to late to turn from those things and become the people we deserve to be.

3) God’s grace is often extended to people who we don’t think deserve it.

Our relationship with God, much like the people of Nineveh, depends less on what we say that how we are. The people of Nineveh could have said “we’re sorry,’ and kept right on doing what was wrong - the kings of Israel did this repeatedly – but they stopped and became the people that they deserved to be. They knew they deserved the punishment because they had done evil, but at some point they realized that if one receives grace, then one should act like one is thankful for it.

…..I am not the man my wife married. I wish I was that good, believe me – because I occasionally hear her talk to other people about me and I think, “who’d she marry?” People occasionally ask her, why’d you marry that jerk? But she tells them, “you don’t know him like I do.” Well, I’ve got news for you, too – I don’t know me like she does.

I know my faults and my own failings far too well, believe me. But I hope also that you understand that because I receive that love and grace, I do my best to be that man. I would walk through hell – I would walk through hell – to be that man. I know I fail. But it doesn’t mean I stop trying to be the husband that Diäna deserves.

In the same manner I know that I am not worthy of the grace that I have received from God, but that I will live my life and stumble through to be that person God knows I am.

We confess that we are in bondage to sin – in bondage to Nineveh – and cannot free ourselves. But in grace God blesses us with the gifts of love and life and joy, and we find healing, and wholeness. May God help us all.

Amen.

Dear Pixar

Dear Wonderful People at Pixar;

Hello. First off, I would like to thank you for the wonderful shows you produce. I must admit; I was not so impressed with Toy Story. But Monsters, Inc., especially the short film "Mike's New Car" -- sheer comic genius.

And you recently had a hit again with WallE. Very, very, nicely done. Again, the short "Presto" had me spilling milk out my nose. My toddler loved it.

Speaking of my toddler, this brings me to my point. He's 2.

And he loves cars. And Cars, your blockbuster of a few years ago. I must admit, I enjoy watching it as well. Maybe not as often, but I do enjoy parts of it a strong 50% of the time, having seen it on average three times a week for the last four months. In particular, he enjoys that way that you chose to personify tractors in the movie; giving them the characteristics of cow.

However, I must bring this to your attention. I grew up on an acreage. I rode horses. I helped with cattle. I drove tractors and loaders.

I feel deep-rooted, heartfelt shame when my todder, when asked what sound a tractor makes, says 'moo'.

I want some money, now. For emotional and mental anguish that you have turned my eldest son into a city boy.

Sincerely,
me.

sweet :)

I just opened a new present -- an 18.5" LCD monitor. Sweeeeeet :)

sound off!

Okay, we've done this once before.

Yesterday, the temperature in Calgary reached +15 celsius; that's 59 degrees farenheit. And, more importantly, it's not chinooking -- so I can actually stand outside and NOT be blown away down the block.

The forecast high for today is 8 celsius, and then back to winter in the next couple of days.

Even if you're just stopping by looking for the comedian that shares my name, leave a comment anyways. What's the weather like where you live?

quote of the day:

in response to an article in the Globe and Mail that suggested women who share Marilyn Monroe's hourglass figure have more sex, my wife stood in front of the mirror and offered the following observation:

"I have an hourglass figure, but after two babies most of the sand has run to the bottom."

I think she's beautiful, no matter what.

check it out

from south of the border, down ole-viriginnie way, comes a bit about Canada from my good friend Gunfighter. Check it out.

And while you're there, you just might want to suggest to him that the ranks of the clergy would benefit greatly from his presence. I worked by way through my undergrad as a bouncer, but this guy was a US Marine. Think of what that would do for your local ministerial breakfast!

Semper Fidelis. See? He's already got the basic 'pastor' shtick down.

what the...?

I am not terribly old, but old enough.

I can remember playing outside in January in a T-shirt when I was younger. When I worked as a doorman at a nightclub during my undergrad, I remember not wearing a coat the first week in January because it was 15 degrees celsius.

So why in the heck is -30 here again today?? Hello!!!??? I just put up with two years of this in Saskatoon! They can freeze and keep it!

If you're reading this and it's above freezing where you live, let me know.

Then leave me your mailing address. I'll send you a punch in the mouth.

Second Sunday After Christmas

Text: John 1: (1-8), 9-18

NB: reference to David Lose, Luther Seminary St Paul: Preaching the Scandal and the Glory of the Incarnation; Johannine imagination brought forth from a previous homily.

I don’t know if you’ve ever consciously noticed this, but we spend a lot – and I mean A LOT – of time here talking about Jesus. In particular, one aspect of Jesus, the Incarnation. The notion that Jesus, as the Logos (the Divine Word, one part of the holy Trinity), took on mortal flesh and became one of us. We celebrate that incarnation at Christmas.

But how real is that Incarnate Word for us? Is it some sort of intellectual assent – I know Jesus was just like me, but not, because he was better than me? Is it maybe more of a compartmentalized thingy – This is how Jesus is.

Here in church we toss about so many theologically loaded words that have to do with that Incarnation – justification, sanctification, salvation, sin – that as we focus on those we lose the person of Jesus. This is nothing really new, as even the Gospels ignore twenty or so years of Jesus’ life. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all pay a lot of attention to different aspects and attributes of Jesus – but it’s John’s gospel that brings our attention back to the reality of the Incarnation of God.

Those of you who’ve held babies, newly born – did you hold them and realize, even for an instant, that that is how the Messiah came into this world? If you’ve walked into a stable – and you know, they stink – have you wondered exactly how a young woman coped with those circumstances?

Have you ever walked the scene of an accident or terribly tragedy – horrible suffering, blood, the smell and shame of lingering death – and come to the realization that Jesus died like those people?

Because in the fourth and fifth centuries – the formative years of our faith as it sought to correct itself from the rampant spread of popular and personal theologies – people died for saying that God himself was born of flesh, in squalor, and in blood.

People stated – and indeed still do – three problems. The first was to reject the idea of a ‘carnal God’. Early objectors to the Incarnation claimed that Jesus, as the perfect ‘Word of God,’ could not actually have anything to do with waxy human flesh and in fact only appeared to be human – but was really not at all subject to physical birth, suffering, or death.

Now it may be very easy for us to simply say, “but we know Jesus was born a baby.” But think of your image of that baby. And then think of some of the Christmas carols we sing:

From “Away in a Manger” – the cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.

Or from “Silent Night” – Son of God, love’s pure light, radiant beams from thy holy face.

Those are images that come to us through the lens that Jesus couldn’t have cried as a baby; couldn’t even have looked red and splotchy and ugly like new babies do. Those hymns aren’t wrong – but they don’t really encourage us to imagine Christ in flesh, and we find ourselves right in the middle of that problem.

The second problem pointed out comes to us right out of John 1:18: “no one has ever seen God.” “Yes!” said those early objectors, “Because no one has ever seen God, then obviously God did not take on human form!” In our lives, in times of trouble, stress, suffering, or setback God can seem frustratingly and infuriatingly far away – not incarnate, nor beside us.

And the third problem is quite possibly one of the most pervasive in our culture—the idea of a vulnerable God, which is quite possibly the hardest for us in twenty-first century North America to understand.

By and large, in our age of sterile and sanitary hospitals, lower-than-ever rates of infant mortality, a safe, hands-off approach to handling our dead, and general ability to numb any pain or suffering we experience it can be very hard to see that God is not only passionately involved in our lives but also tremendously vulnerable.

In that same baby lying in the manger is the man who will hang to death on the Cross at Calvary. But often, we don’t like to think about Jesus sweating, stinking, bleeding, suffering through the ups and downs of life even as we do. Somewhere along the line we’ve been conditioned to think that demeans him, makes him seem more ‘human’ than Jesus really is.

Now I wonder if those three problems are less academic disputes than ways that we express our own boundaries. A boundary that keeps the reality of God in a box lest we lose our prized ‘uniqueness’. To keep Christ at arms’ length.

That being said, I would strongly urge us to recognize three features of the Incarnation that make it a fact and a reality for us:

1.) God understands us, because he has walked the same lives as we do in taking on human form and flesh.

2.) God is understandable to us, as even now as the ‘eloquent God,’ we listen as he continually speaks to us through the Son who is with us,

3.) God himself is with us, walks with us through our suffering, understands our agonies – from a hangnail to the hangman – and is vulnerable with us.

Through the mystery of the Incarnation we meet our God in Christ Jesus. In seeking a huge and powerful God who accomplished the work of salvation we often aggrandize the image of Jesus. We simply often grasp that the most awesome work of God Almighty was done through the frailty of his Son.

__________________________________________________

Picture this. Jerusalem. About 70 A.D.

It’s Sunday, and we’re at church. The building is full, cool against the heat of day. We smell the animals that are in the stable underneath us. Earthy smells. We feel the press of people, hear the noise of proclamation and prophesy.

In the front, sitting on a small stools, is a little, old man. He’s stooped from years of labour, weathered from years of exile. He’s deeply respected in the congregation, and it’s rumoured that he may even have met Jesus, once or twice.

But nobody today cares about that. They want to hear about the new firebrand preacher. Fellow named Saul, from Tarsus, who people say actually saw the risen Christ and was appointed by him to go to the nations.

Now Saul (or Paul, as he now wants to be called) is bringing a radical approach. In fact, he’s saying that Jesus fulfilled the Law – what we read out in church – and justified us with God. And he’s preaching everywhere, and writing letters, and telling everyone that Jesus paved the way to everlasting life.

But now it’s time for worship to begin, and the elders quiet the congregation. A hymn is sung, and the old man at the front sings along quietly. Other times, he sits and sways to the music, lost in his own world, or he talks under his breath.

As the service progresses, the Reader brings out the scrolls, and the Torah reading for today is from Genesis – “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” – and the old man perks up as the passage is read. A discourse follows, reminding the assembly that God is above all things and reigns over all things.

Then some people speak in tongues, and others interpret, and two or three people tell of the dreams that they had. “The word of the Lord came to me,” they declare, in the best prophetic style, “and told me what to say.” They tell of miracles, healings, and boast of their own accomplishments as they follow Jesus.

Now the old man is agitated, but the congregation largely ignores him. It’s time for the meal, and since the old man can barely handle a small piece of boiled fish, they leave him in the company of a young orphan, a gifted lad who can write and read, and of whom the old man seems particularly fond.

On this day, though, the old man tells the lad to take up a quill and a small piece of parchment. As the congregation dines mere feet away, the Apostle John, the one ‘whom Jesus loved,’ tells a different story.

VEn avrch/| h=n o` lo,goj(

In the beginning was the Word,

kai. o` lo,goj h=n pro.j to.n qeo,n(

and the Word was with God,

kai. qeo.j h=n o` lo,gojÅ

and the Word was God.

Kai. o` lo,goj sa.rx evge,neto kai. evskh,nwsen evn h`mi/n.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.

________________________________________________

And in coming into this world, in taking on our burdens, he became one of us. He walks with us, beside us, carries us when our own steps falter. When our hearts are breaking he is holding us; when we are grieving it is that grief that he shares.

And because Jesus Christ became flesh and was born of humanity, through him we receive our promise that we are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Who dwells among us.

Amen.

worth mentioning #2

I've been writing a sermon for Sunday in which I'm focussing on the Incarnation of Christ as the topic. It reminded me of an angry old lady I once knew, who shook her bony finger at my pastor (I was a teenager at the time) because he'd spoken in a sermon about how birth was messy and bloody, and Jesus was a baby like all babies.

"Jesus wasn't like that!" she growled, "he was perfect, not crying, or anything bad like that. He just wouldn't!"

That's vestigial docetism, folks (you might like to google 'docetism' to get the idea). But that story in turn reminded me of when The Boy was born.

You see, his birthday very nearly turned out to be the date of my own sudden and painful death.

The co-Director had been in labour for about 10 hours. Hard time. (Trying to squeeze a 9lb, 10oz monkey out of your pinks parts would do that, I'd imagine). So the baby was finally crowning, and I was standing at the head of the bed being as supportive as I possibly could.

But I was also watching the business end, so to speak. And things weren't looking 'right' to me. I grew up on an acreage, I've seen a lot of little animals born. I've seen some mother animals with severe complications, and this is what I was seeing right then.

At the other end with her catcher's mitt was a wonderful nurse. She was on overtime so my wife wouldn't have to deal with anybody new. She noticed me watching, concerned, and caught my eye. She looked cheerfully at me and (I think to distract me or something), asked: "isn't it amazing , watching a child being born?"

I said the first thing that came to mind. I didn't even think about it -- didn't think it was rude, or unfair, or anything -- I just said the first thing, which happened to be:

"hmm, cows do it quicker."

By Jesus, I thought I was going to die. By the look that nurse gave me, I'm pretty certain that she was even considering where to stash my dead body.

Luckily, my firstborn popped out about then and saved my bacon.

I think I'll go home and give him a cookie.

worth mentioning #1

this past Sunday, the Co-Director and I went to worship at our 'home' church in Lethbridge. It was a wonderful experience, despite the fact that the benevolent-guru-in-residence was off on vacation.

We caught up with some of our old friends, saw some people who hadn't seen us since we left for Saskatoon, and had coffee afterwards. It made me a little homesick, truth be told, for the time when this was 'normal' for us.

The best part, though, was being able to sit with my family at worship. Wow. Talk about contentment.

Mind you, this 'daddy-is-sitting-with-us' thing totally weirded out The Boy, who kept tugging on my hand and pointing to the pulpit, thus indicating to me that he thought I was forgetting that I was supposed to be standing at the front and talking. When I didn't move he had a small attack of nerves and had to sit in the nursery for a while and be held by the co-Director.

Boy2, on the other hand, thought it was simply the greatest thing, ever. Lots of smiles and coos for daddy.