Sunday, March 25, 2012

Lent 5 - Renewal

Already, we are nearly at the end of Lent. Seriously? To me, it seems like the past few weeks have just flown by – there has been time for reflection and penitence, but the time almost seems too short. Much like my hair. For having given up shaving my head for Lent, I sincerely hoped that my cue-ball crown would be covered by a thick rug by now. Granted, parts of it are, but not as much as I would have liked.

Tempus fugit. Time flies. Oh, we how we’ve learned that lesson well. My youngest son celebrated his fourth birthday last week; it seems almost impossible that four years has gone by since an uncomfortable night at the hospital in Saskatoon. My mother says the same thing when she sees me, proud father of (almost) four, holder of two university degrees. Time flies.

It’s a real privilege to serve in a community in which a church has been so long established. The roots of St. Matthew’s stretch back over 120 years in Spruce Grove and the surrounding area; it has been a testimony and a witness to faith. Yet that long tradition also brings with it a downside: religion as tradition, a series of landmarks to plow through: baptism, church, mandatory two years of confirmation (“after that’s done” parents say, “you can choose to come to church or not”), and then not being seen again until Christmas or Easter, a wedding or funeral.

I’m not surprised by a response that I hear often. “Pastor, we keep meaning to come to church more often;” “Pastor, we’ve been thinking about coming more often,” “Pastor, we miss coming but are just so busy.”

And I trust that God is less busy than they are, and finds time for them.

I’m not annoyed, but I find myself sorrowful; what I see is a complication of the life and culture we live in. So many devices and products promise to ‘free up’ more leisure time; then we pay money for over-priced items that are supposed to make leisure time more enjoyable; then we have to work harder to pay for those items. It’s a vicious, vicious cycle. As our lives become focussed on our selves, our time, and our possessions – even our families – they come to control us, and we lose sight of the God who first gave those things to us.

We confess we are captive to sin, and cannot free ourselves.

Remembrance, repentance, re-commitment, restoration; and finally, renewal. The five ‘Rs’ of Lent, five things that we can do, to re-establish and re-affirm our own commitment to the promises we make at baptism and again at confirmation, to live lives dedicated to God. Promising to let our light shine before others, high hopes and expectations and excitement are common feelings.

But time flies. Oh, how time flies.

The Israelites living in Babylon knew how quickly time could pass. A few years of exile, and they could see their young people beginning to forget the old ways, forget what it meant to be called ‘people of God’. Life was a hardscrabble existence and, barely remembering that most of their ancestor’s time in the wilderness was spent wishing they were back in Egypt, the yoke of oppression weighs heavily on their hearts. Jeremiah isn’t called ‘the weeping prophet’ because of his positive outlook on life.

The Israelites in Babylon, you see, blamed their ancestors for their exile. We heard a few weeks ago God speak the words “I the Lord am a jealous God; punishing children for the sins of their parents” (Exodus 20:3). The Israelites looked around, and hearing the stories of how their ancestors sinned before the Lord they came to blame them for their problems.

Of course, if you’ve read the book of Jeremiah, you know that the Israelites in Babylon were in fact no better than their ancestors at keeping the law. But it helps to have someone to blame.

And through Jeremiah, God spoke words of hope to this children: “I will make a new covenant…not lie the old…I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

God’s new covenant is God’s choice to forgive his children, and forget their sins. To see a light that shines in their darkness.

Or, maybe as it says elsewhere in scripture – “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our trangressions from us.” God’s promise that that he will, in fact, create clean hearts in his people, hear their prayers, and grant them life, and salvation. Their hope for renewal becomes their faith in the promises of God; in God’s promise is to give light to the world.

How do we find renewal? In our world, with all its drives and distractions – depression and anxiety, affluence and cult of self-actualization, our centre becomes lost. We sit in Babylon, and lament that we have been cut off from God. Time goes by, and we find to our dismay that, in fact, we’ve come to like Babylon – it’s become what we know.

But we’re not the first people to realize that. A group of Greeks came up to Jerusalem for the Passover festival at the same time Jesus was there. Greece was well-known for its prevalence of philosophers and teachers, but these people were known as “God-fearers”: gentiles who followed the Hebrew teaching and believed in God, but who declined to take the final step of becoming part of the Abrahamic covenant.

They’re in Jerusalem, and they’ve heard about Jesus; so, they come see Philip and ask one simple question: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

And Philip goes and asks Andrew, and then they go together – maybe along with that group of Greeks – to see Jesus. They have been followers of Jesus for quite some time; they’ve heard his teaching and seen his wonders.

As people who are fairly visible parts of Jesus’ ministry, they’ve probably encountered hundreds of people who ask them that same question. In some other places in scripture, the disciples and followers of Jesus don’t do very well at letting people near. As John says a little later in his gospel – although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.

But, when Philip and Andrew go to Jesus with the request of another, they experience him very differently. Instead of the rabbi they’ve come to know and trust, they find a confusing parable – those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life will keep it for eternal life – and words of hope: and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Time is a luxury to Philip and Andrew, and they think they have lots of it left. The truth is, though, they don’t. Jesus’ words cut through their complacency – they have a good life – and, I think, are meant to stir them into action.

In other words, by bringing someone else to Jesus, Philip and Andrew find renewal for themselves. By moving out of their own reality, moving to accept others into their midst and bring them to their teacher, Philip and Andrew find words of challenge and renewal.

Curiously, in church circles renewal is often described as a deep, touchy-feely sense of well-being. But if you’re bring renewal to your home, chances are your preparing for a big change, a lot of sweat, and some uncomfortable times ahead…like using an outhouse because your bathroom renovation takes six weeks.

Seeking renewal is about finding the unexpected, about finding Christ in unexpected ways. It doesn’t seem like Jesus would have granted such words of understanding to Philip and Andrew had they not come with others who were seeking answers – renewal comes through sharing your faith, through risking a comfortable life and comfortable relationship.

No longer will we say to each other ‘know the Lord,’ says Jeremiah, because we will all know the Lord. We’ve remembered, repented, recommitted, sought restoration, and find renewal. You don’t need to share your faith with the imperative and coercive – “know the Lord!” – but with the risk and hope that the greeks bring: “we wish to see Jesus.”

Come, and see. Come, and see the light that shines in the darkness. Come, and see the Son of Man lifted up on the cross and know that he draws all people to himself: even you.

When people are baptised here at St. Matthew’s, we give them a candle (lit from the Christ candle) with the words, “let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

You are given that light. Renew yourselves: share it; hold it up – and see Christ draw all people to himself.

Let the people of God say amen.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Lent 4 - Restoration

For five Sundays in Lent, we walk through the covenants of the Hebrew Bible, remembering the ways in which God has made and kept covenants with God’s own chosen people throughout history. At the same time, we are called to remember the covenant that God makes with us through our baptism. Where the rubber meets the road – as the saying goes – is how we live out that covenant through the choices we make, the way we live, and the way we embody our baptised life.

We remember God’s promises to us – we should always remember. We repent: turn back or turn around to God because we aware that no matter how hard we try, we always miss the mark. We re-commit ourselves daily to our baptismal covenant, seeking restoration and renewal.

So, we seek restoration and renewal. That sounds kind of odd, really – so much of our language is aimed at always placing God as the centre and source of restoration and renewal – and that is right. But if God is the centre, then it means that if we are on the outskirts there is a little bit of moving to do.

Or, as my mother tells a story about my grandmother and grandfather: my mother’s older brother was going for a date with the young lady who eventually became his wife; as my future aunt got into the car, she scooted over until she was in the centre seat, right beside my uncle, who was driving.

And my grandmother turned to my grandfather with a sigh, and said, “we used to do that all the time. Why don’t we do that anymore, Jack?”

The story goes, my grandfather turned and looked at her, kind of affronted. All he said in reply was “I ain’t moved.

Does that sound kind of familiar? I think that most of us, from time to time, when we slowly become aware that maybe…something…isn’t quite right in our relationship with God. The answer to that is probably that God is the same place, but you moved.

That’s what it was like for the Israelites. They wandered in the desert, received the tablets of the Law, saw – and in some cases, literally saw – God actively being in relationship to them. But there comes a time when they’re just tired of the same old, same old. So they speak against God and Moses: what are you doing? Where are you?

So, this reading from Numbers reminds us of this often-forgotten story about the poisonous snakes. Why snakes? I don’t know. Indiana Jones asked the same question. What I do know, is that by rejecting God’s presence with them, the Israelites are, in effect, choosing death over life. And, curiously enough, God (who could say ‘I know what’s best for you, so just listen’) gives that to them. They get death.

One of the ways that God tends to get our attention is through acts of great dramatic effect. Why? Here’s one reason: because they work. The people go back to Moses, and say ‘oops’. Then God gives Moses some instructions: make a serpent, set it on a pole, and everyone who looks at it will live.

The Israelites demand to know why God isn’t looking after them. They think that God has abandoned them, and they want to know why.

God’s response is: I ain’t moved.

And here’s a good example of (biblically) not being able to see the forest for the trees. I don’t know why it’s a snake. I don’t know why it’s on a pole. I am absolutely certain that there are several hundred pages of commentary on both those questions that will offer deeply meaningful answers to both those questions.

But here’s what I think that serpent on a stick means: it simply means that God is with the people. The means of their restoration has been in their midst all the time; the physical reminder is exactly that – something they can see, and turn to, and know that God is with them: that is restoration. Restoration of hope, of relationship, of wholeness.

Sometimes, when we find that restoration, it’s like the greatest thing in the world. It’s not that everything suddenly becomes better, or clearer, but simply that perhaps it becomes more liveable. Instead of choosing death, we choose life, and the fruits of that choice bring peace.

Nicodemus was a man of great anxiety who sought peace. A leader of the synagogue, he came to Jesus by night to ask if he was the Messiah; our gospel lesson today is the tail end of John’s record of that visit. After their exchange about being ‘born anew,’ Jesus bluntly states what must happen to him in order that the people may live: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so much the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Eternal? I like ‘everlasting’ as a translation. And what follows is easily the best-known bible verse, on the website biblegateway.com it is the most searched-for passage: for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life.

Do you know that verse? Do you love it? I know that I do. “For God so loved the world” – that’s good scripture. What follows is a bit of a fishhook, though – “so that everyone who believes in him may not perish.” It kind of implies that if you don’t believe, you may perish. That’s a little tense. That might cause a little anxiety, especially if you’re Nicodemus, and don’t have a clue what Jesus is talking about.

But listen to verses 17 and 18, for as popular as verse 16 is, they get lost in the shuffle: indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already.

One good, one a little less good. The world will be saved through God, but those who do not believe are condemned already.

Ouch. How can there be restoration for those of us who, maybe even for a minute, maybe, didn’t believe? What about those who have never heard of Christ? Or what they heard of Jesus was crouched in terms of shame and hate, and they knew that life didn’t grow there?

The thing is, we always read these verse on condemnation like there’s some kind veiled punishment being threatened. But let’s look at them again. Who’s condemned? Who’s doing the condemning? It’s not God, beloved. The language is reflexive – it’s passive. People are condemned because they condemn themselves, choosing death over life in Christ. We condemn ourselves to a life surrounded by death.

Believing in Christ is choosing life, looking upon the one lifted up on the mountain in the wilderness and finding wholeness and restoration. Refusing to look, is choosing the poison of a world that is going to tell you there’s something out there that can fix your problems.

We come – I think everyone comes – seeking restoration. Something isn’t right; something’s broken, tarnished, scuffed, sagged…and we want it to be whole again. Often, we convince ourselves that we can do something to get God’s attention, so that God will come back to us and make everything right again. If we’re good enough, if we do enough, if we do the right thing…the language is endless.

Except the problem is that it’s not God that’s broken. It’s us. In the words of my grandfather: he ain’t moved. It’s not God that needs restoration; it’s us. We – everyone single of us – has been dead through our trespasses and sins. God still loves us, passionately longs for us to see that we are made right with God through Jesus Christ; not through something that we do.

When we seek restoration in our lives, the first thing is to recognize is that it’s not God who needs to be restorated; we do. The second is to realize that we are redeemed through our baptism; we are made worthy and perfect to God through our baptism into Christ. We are united with God – as Paul writes, we are even seated in the heavenly places with him. What is left that needs restoration?

What left? Us. Our identity.

Atonement is a word that we often use to describe Christ’s action on the cross. That’s a good use of that word. But there comes a time for our own atonement, at time when, seeking restoration, seeking to turn and look upon the image on the pole in the wilderness, that we need to first admit that we’ve been poisoned; that we’re dying.

At-one-ment. Not ‘at one’ with God. We don’t do that for ourselves. But we will find that we can be whole – at one – with ourselves, rooted and growing in Christ. That’s restoration. That is the gift of God with us.

Let the people of God say amen.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Midweek Reflection - March 14

Text: Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, 'Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." But Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still."

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers."

The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh's horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. At the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, "Let us flee from the Israelites, for the LORD is fighting for them against Egypt."

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers." So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the LORD tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the LORD and believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. And Miriam sang to them: "Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea."

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The waters parted. That’s the part that sticks in our minds. The waters parted; the sea was split like a log and the Israelites crossed safely..

We’ve seen it in pictures; we’ve seen it on TV; we’ve seen it on the big screen in countless movie adaptations. Moses raises up his staff; the waters part; the children of Israel cross on dry land and the waters crash back upon the Egyptian chariots, claiming their price for the indignity visited upon them.

In the beginning, we read in Genesis, the earth was without form, and void, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. God forced the waters back, created a firmament upon which humankind could stand and sin and be redeemed.

And so the Spirit of God again forces the waters apart, again creating a firmament upon which the people of God can stand.

We remember this as a grant triumph of God’s deliverance. But it is also a sign of covenant, between God and God’s people.

In Abram’s time, God appeared to Abram and bid him to sacrifice: a heifer, a goat, a ram, and turtledove, and a pigeon. These things Abram sacrificed, and walking between them made a sign of God’s covenant to bring him safely into Canaan and the father of a multitude.

In Moses’ time, God split the great waters of the sea in two and the Israelites walked between them; a sign of God’s covenant to them that they would be remembered, and prosper.

God did not show glory over Pharaoh by destroying him; God showed glory over Pharaoh by showing the god of the Egyptians that the God of the Israelites would save his people.

But the Israelites turned, and instead of rejoicing in God’s preservation of life, sang instead of the death of hundreds, if not thousands. Before celebrating a covenant; they praised destruction.

Today, our voices again, still, praise destruction before celebrating covenant; we speak darkly of retribution and divine punishment; hint at terrible consequences to torture our consciences into believing that we can save ourselves.

We praise destruction before we celebrate covenant; praise death before believing in life.

The Son of Man is lifted up; his body is broken and those who gather, gather to celebrate death; for to them as to us, it is the ultimate power. They taunt and bicker, knowing that even if they are crucifying God they are killing the source of their rage and frustration; what is the use in believe that God kills those opposed to you if God does not and you are oppressed?

At least, they dispose of a meddlesome troublemaker who speaks of covenant and forgiveness; at best they are putting God to death and ceasing discussion about where ultimate power is: death, or God.

They, like we, choose death.

But God speaks still to the Israelites after the sea is parted and their new firmament is created. God speaks still to us, who linger over the tomb, expecting still that death is more powerful than God, only to find that when the waters are crashing back it is, in fact, God who made the waters, God who caused them to part; God who brought them back together. The wages of sin is death; but to God who knows no sin death is not ultimate; death is not final; death is not the end.

God’s covenant is louder, stronger, more stubborn than death. But for us who see death as power, death is praised, feared, believed, more than covenant of life. God does not look, nor act, like us. Thus, God defeated death, neither looking, nor acting, like; us but embodying the promise of God’s own covenant to us: that chaos and death will not have the last word, but that covenant, and life will. God, triumphant looks like God, defeated. We long to see not God, triumphant, but us, triumphant, as we see the death of those who oppose us. God does not look like god we want. And that God we seldom recognize.

Small wonder, on that clear, cold morning, that the women at the tomb took him to be the gardener.

Lent 3 - Re-Commitment

We continue to navigate our way through Lent, revisiting the five major covenants of the Hebrew Bible, and seeing how the covenants play out in the life of Jesus and in the early church. We also strive to see how those covenants relate to and affect our own lives, as we continue our series “the 5 Rs of Lent”. Over the past few weeks we’ve talked about remembrance and repentance; today we’ll talk about re-commitment.

Now, commitment is one thing. We commit to lots of things: would it surprise you to know, though, (and I have no idea how people are actually paid to study stuff like this) that someone recently figured out what the number-one thing is that people are most likely to commit to?

Care to take a guess? A spouse? Children? A church? A religious leader? A political party, or stance?

Nope. A TV show. Many individuals show the highest degree of commitment to a favourite TV over anything else in their lives. They won’t reschedule a meeting to make a kids’ soccer game, but they’ll miss a soccer game for the next episode of ‘Survivor’. A parenting magazine – a parenting magazine – that my wife subscribes to featured a few month ago how to host a mom’s “de-stressing” night with a few friends and (their suggestion) watching ‘The Bachelor’.

If I found my wife watching ‘The Bachelor’ I’d make darn certain the next channel group we subscribed to in the Macintyre house featured at least 20 hours of fishing shows, every day. At least you can learn something from a fishing show.

But does it surprise you, what people are willing to commit to? I know my generation. We’re the people who brought you the “highest commitment to TV” statistic. Yet we’re not alone in that – we learned somewhere, obviously.

In fact, I’m pretty certain we learning it from the Bible. Despite the fact that we like to turn the bible for examples of people whose lives were completely committed to God, we miss that they were a tiny fraction of the populace.

The Israelites, in fact, were probably more faithful to Ba’al – a central Mesopotamian deity – than they were to the God who brought them through the wilderness. We read today of Moses receiving the Law on top of Mount Horeb today; realize that, at the same time, the Israelites are at the base of the mountain building a gigantic golden calf for Ba’al. Moses has been on the mountain sixty days! If the Israelites had dedicated half as much time to either a) doing what God asked and cooperating with each other; or b) worshipping the God who brought them out of Egypt and whom they just watched part the sea, 10 commandments wouldn’t have been necessary.

There could’ve just been one: “The Lord thy God says: ‘keep doing what you’re doing. It’s all right’.”

But they don’t. And the very first commandment speaks to that: you shall have no other gods before me. And, just in case that’s hard to understand, God added a couple of sub-points:

1(a): no idols of things in heaven, no idols of things on earth, no idols of things under earth

1(b): I’m serious about that. Don’t worship idols.

1(c): seriously, don’t.

It takes five verses (out of seventeen in the reading today) to get the first commandment spelled out. God is obviously committed to the Israelites. He’s done the ‘Noah’ thing; he’s promised to Abraham; he’s delivered the Israelites. All God is laying out for the Israelites is a way that they can commit themselves back to God.

Shouldn’t the Israelites, of all people, found that a little easier than most? But they don’t. A few years into the future Jesus finds that they have turned the Temple of Godthe very place where their own religious people say that God literally dwells – into a marketplace. Worldly wealth is more serious business than worship.

So, where is our commitment? If we’re talk about re-commitment today, is there any hope for us? The problem is the way that we’re ‘wired’ to think about commitment: we don’t like failure. If we keep failing, we give up. It’s not even “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” That’s a business maxim. That’s how you build the Temple. Our problem looks more like “we can’t measure success of failure, so there’s no point in trying.”

The issue with commitment to God is that, for Christianity, there’s nothing to succeed at. Paul says that: he’s the best of the best, has done everything, but that means nothing. God’s foolish decision to choose us as God’s people means that we don’t work at our salvation. It’s given to us.

But we still feel the sting of the law, don’t we? We still have a cultural memory of a time when you needed to be in church in order to be a good person. I still encounter people, who, when they see me, immediately change into Mother Theresa: “Pastor, we’ve been planning to come to church more often, but we’re feeding the poor and volunteering, and so busy. But we promise that we’ll come to church more often.”

And seriously, do you think I care? I don’t. But I am far, far, more concerned that people are not even understanding what a commitment to God looks like, let alone feels like. Do you need to come to church to be a Christian? No. But, if you’re Christian, you need the church. Because you need to be part of a community, a body, to find the encouragement and strength to re-commit yourself daily to the Christian walk. It is commitment given out of thankfulness and relationship rather than necessity and duty.

In Martin Luther’s Small Catechism (page 1160 in the worship book), Luther begins his explanations with the 10 Commandments, and he asks the question: “What does this mean?” What does it mean, when God asks “you shall have no other gods.” And the explanation of the first commandment goes like this: “we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.”

‘Fear’ in Hebrew is another word for ‘respect.’ Not the fear that we have of so many other things. At the same time, there is a necessity to realize that God is, in fact, far more dangerous than a “Tickle Me Elmo” doll. God loves fiercely, and cannot stand human sin, so God took action to stamp that out. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, through our baptismal promises, God acts to commit God’s own self to us.

Every other commandment that is explained begins with the first one: “we are to fear and love God.” There’s a good reason for that: Luther also wrote that if we could ever keep the first one, then all the others would fall into place.

We are to fear and love God.

Fear, and love God so that we may believe that when God makes the promise to us in our baptism that we are his children we are truly God’s children.

Fear, and love God so that when the bread and wine are broken and shared with the promise “take, and eat; this is my body” and “take, and drink; this is my blood” that those we take and eat and take and drink knowing that God is truly present to us, broken and poured out for us so that we may be renewed and restored.

Fear, and love God so that we can commit and re-commit our lives, knowing that our failures and shortfalls are forgiven, and that we are truly the people of God, fed and nourished by God’s own grace, redeemed and restored in God’s own place.

Fear, and love God so that we come to understand commitment as more than a fondness for a TV show, or a value-oriented claim in which we get something in return – but as a thankful response to God who loves us, a desire for a relationship that is deeper and bigger than us.

Let the people of God say amen.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Lent 2 - Repentance

*nb: We're doing a sermon series through Lent: "the 5 Rs of Lent". Week 1 is missing, because Bishop Ron Mayan came and preached for us.

This Lenten season, we’ll be walking through a series of messages that focus on our actions through Lent: I call them “the five Rs of Lent”. They are remembrance, repentance, recommitment, restoration, and renewal. Today the focus is on repentance.

Something to remember about Lent: it’s common to take upon yourself a spiritual or physical discipline during Lent. But, bear in mind that Lent is not an act of works-righteousness on our part that is aimed at making us more acceptable to God. Lenten discipline or spiritual growth is not something you undertake for God’s benefit – you do it for your own benefit.

The five Sundays in Lent this year take us through the stories of the five great covenants that God made with the Israelites: last week, Noah and his family; this week, Abraham and Sarah. You’ll hear the others in the weeks to come. But, those covenants are remembered (the first R) by us through a very particular lens: the lens of our own baptism into Jesus Christ. Baptism is the great covenant that God makes with believers through Jesus Christ – God’s action, God’s great gift. We can make all sorts of promises and covenants back to God; but we’re never going to keep them, no matter how hard we try.

After all, we confess we are captive to sin, and cannot free ourselves.

But we can keep re-focusing and returning to that baptismal gift. That re-focusing and returning is the heart of repentance.

The word repentance in Greek means particularly, “turning around.” Or, maybe more simply: re-orienting oneself in the right direction.

And it can be a challenge to read the story of Abraham and Sarah from Genesis 17 today and see repentance at work in their lives. After all, in our culture repentance has come to simply mean saying “I’m sorry.” The only problem is, in that same culture of ours, apologies are most often followed by dis-engagement in the broken relationship. Repentance, re-orientation in the biblical sense, is re-engagement in the lives and relationships around us. Unlike our culture sense of an apology, which is rooted in a feeling of shame, repentance should be rooted in an honest and forthright desire to be engaged in the world and relationships around us.

Abraham and Sarah begin their lives as Abram and Sarai. In the Genesis reading today, God calls Abram into relationship – he’s already called Abram out of Ur, already called him into a wilderness. Abram knows what it means to be ‘turned around.’ And yet, God still calls him into deeper relationship: “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.”

The covenant is between Abram and God, but it is God who is making the contract! He lists two requirements of Abram: the first, is to be in relationship: walk before me. And the second: be blameless.

And the people of God with one voice said: “WHAT!!!???”

Beloved, notice this: God says, blameless. Not, sinless.

God doesn’t call you into relationship on the condition that you are perfect. God is going to accomplish that in your life without your consent. What God does call you to be is blameless. Turn towards God. You’re not going to stop yourself from sinning, from wanting to be God in God’s place – but you can repent – turn around, turn back, and remember the covenant that God makes with you: that you are righteous - blameless - through faith in Jesus Christ.

When God makes that covenant with Abram and Sarai, part of the visible promise is that God re-names them: Abraham and Sarah. Abraham, the father of a multitude (what his name means); and Sarah, the queen, or princess. Sarah is precious, because she has to do the work. Abraham gets the glory. Sarah has to do the hard work.

They are called to follow, to be part of a great covenant of which they themselves are a small part. It is their faith, that becomes the source of their righteousness, their blamelessness before God. And very often, that covenant with God makes their lives harder, not easier.

Actually, that’s probably the real story of the gospel: if your life is getting easier, you’re probably not, in fact, living the gospel. But we don’t deal with that well. We want God to the be the great assenter to our own kingdoms, giving us permission to carry on in our self-centred lives.

The congregation that I interned at was just outside the limits of central Calgary. It was pretty close to becoming ‘urban renewed’, as the core of the city expanded. It was also a pretty central location for people who needed some extra help.

When life gets hard, then you may want Jesus. As long as it doesn’t cost too much.

That’s the apostles, as well, beloved. That's us. They gather around Jesus; they’re liking the attention, the ‘kingdom of heaven’ language. It’s all good. But then Jesus begins talking about being betrayed, being beaten, suffering, killed, and then rising – then, Peter gets uncomfortable.

“I believe in you, Jesus,” Peter says, “but talking like that isn’t going to get me to join your church. We need to be about social justice. We need to be about reforming sinners. But enough with this ‘cross’ business.”

And Jesus’ reply is famous: “get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on eternal things.” But then, then Jesus does something extraordinary: he gives a prescription.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Walk before me, and be blameless.

Jesus calls us to live lives of repentance – not lives of apology. But lives that are marked by returning to God, remembering the covenant of baptism that makes a claim on our lives; lives that find what life actually is.

As it turns out, a life of repentance isn’t about being sorry. It’s about being human – or humans being in relationship to God. Repentance is turning from sin-centred lives (and remember, beloved, the problem with sin is the ‘I’ in the middle), and turning to a Christ-centred life.

Beloved, God calls you to repent. Walk before God, and be blameless. Let your righteousness be your faith.

Let the people of God say ‘amen’.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

midweek Lenten devotion 1

*nb: Pastor Erik Parker (St. John, Golden Spike AB) and I share midweek Lenten services this year. Our challenge to each other, as we trade off doing the devotion each week: they must be fairly abstract, yet simple enough to follow; and less than a page long. The texts for the devotions come from the readings of the Great Vigil of Easter. This weeks' reading was Genesis 1:1-2:4a.

Creation. Words floating down from generation to generation, from lips old and parched and crackling, into ears small and open and wondering.

Creation. Words that brought forth light, and life.

In the beginning, we say, when God began to create the heavens and the earth. That’s our great story; not a scientific theory or fact or explanation – but truth. We are created. All that we live on is created; all that we eat and drink and breathe and wonder is created first by God, and not by us.

Maybe that makes our greatest creative minds copycats, nothing really more than poor shadows of the great word of God.

We all have our own creation stories – stories about our origins; stories about who and what we are, and how we became that way. Stories that define us, that are part of our history.

Christians are odd; they remember their history by looking both to their past and to their future. We begin on Ash Wednesday with a little smudge of dirt and the words “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Our us-ness, our existence, created out of endless motes of dust. Maybe that’s why our ‘goodness’ crumbles so quickly: being dust, it comes apart and leaves a shell of what remains.

We are dust, and water. Water that was chaos, was not-life; was not-God. Take away our dust, and what remains is water. The Spirit of God moves – sweeps – over the waters; moves – sweeps – over us, and leaves nothing in its wake; we become again created ‘in the image’ of God; not so much a blueprint but a child’s poor drawing; stick people with straight arms and bulbous heads, compared to the image of our Creator.

Yet, we are told, we are created ‘good’.

That is not a judgement; not a moral condition; not even a spiritual state. It is, nevertheless, just as true as saying that the earth, the living creatures, and the plants are ‘good’.

Endless ages of endless sages spin creation to their owns ends: we choose ‘bad’. We can be ‘good’.

But we remain created in the ‘image’ of God; awkward, fragmented, pixelated beings seeking something greater than ourselves. We are dust, and water; created and chaotic – but we are, above all things, ‘good’.

Good is created. Good is life. It is our past; it is our future: good, because God speaks us that way; good because God creates us that way; good because God redeems us that way. God ignores the not-life in us; names and claims humankind as ‘good’.

Redeems us through light, and life. Our history is known by our past, and our future: light, and life.

God’s first words to us: “you are good. Take, and eat.”

God’s last word to us: “you are good. Take, and eat.”