Texada Island United Church

Visions of Hope

27/11/2022

Isaiah 2:1-5 New International Version
This is what Isaiah, son of Amoz,
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple
will be established as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into ploughshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.
5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
    let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Romans 15:4-13           Good News Translation

Paul writes to the Romans:

Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. May God, the source of patience and encouragement, enable you to have the same point of view among yourselves by following the example of Christ Jesus, 6 so that all of you together may praise with one voice the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Accept one another, then, for the glory of God, as Christ has accepted you. 8 For I tell you that Christ's life of service was on behalf of the Jews, to show that God is faithful, to make his promises to their ancestors come true, 9 and to enable even the Gentiles to praise God for his mercy. As the scripture says:
“And so I will praise you among the Gentiles;
    I will sing praises to you
People of all nations, celebrate God!
All colours and races, give praise!
And Isaiah’s says:
“A descendant of Jesse will appear;
    he will come to rule the Gentiles,
    and they will put their hope in him.”
May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him,
so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Reflection

The first Sunday of Advent and we light the candle of hope. Now I don’t know about you but I get a cynical about the Christmas season especially when it starts the day after Halloween! I get little bit antsy when it comes to all the feel good, happy stuff that surrounds this holiday, even Advent; Hope, Peace, Love, Joy.

I mean I look around and there’s all this crazy stuff going on in the world and half of it I can’t even understand. Wars, poverty, homelessness, refugees, climate disasters, natural disasters, economic disasters and then there’s COVID and the flu.

It’s complicated! How does Peace, hope, love and joy stand a chance. Where does hope come in in the face of losing your home, losing your family, losing your community and losing yourself.

You know what I am talking about: there are migrants dying trying to get to a new life, there are refugees waiting years to get to a new life, there are Indigenous teens in Canada, children, who give up because new life, a different life seems to be pie in the sky rather than something that can come to be.

The Jews around Isaiah about 8th century BCE knew what I am talking about. And Isaiah, son of Amoz, has a vision about the future – maybe.
He is gifted with a new way of seeing, that is he has his eyes opened, he is able look at the now and see that perhaps there is a different present reality that can be seen. What we would call the Kingdom of God in the here and now.

The time when the coming of the Kingdom of God announced by Jesus emerges into the Kingdom of God in our present time and space.
2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.

Isaiah sees the highest mountain where the Temple is built lifted even higher, and YHWH is the center of the universe and all that YHWH represents. And “many peoples”, “all the nations”, those the New Testament calls “Gentiles” all those non-Israelite peoples who stand over against Israel. Egyptians, Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, Ara-me-ans, Canaanites and countless smaller groups who over the centuries have warred and struggled with those who live in the land of Judah and Israel.

"Many people" from all the world's nations flow toward the great mountain of YHWH, and they say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that God may instruct us in God's ways, that we may walk in God's paths" The vast human stream flows toward God's mountain to learn what God uniquely has to teach. And what that is now becomes clear. "From Zion, Torah goes forth, the word of YHWH from Jerusalem"

What YHWH has to impart to the world is Torah: the Law of Moses and the Deuteronomists. This word is too often translated "law," severely limiting its broad and expansive meaning. It means "instruction," "teaching," the very ways and paths of YHWH.

The Israelites and their God, Yahweh are key elements in the turning of the world, in the changing of perspective on how life is to be lived and respected and blessed.

Because this God, Yahweh, has a vision as well, and that vision, what we call the Kingdom of God on earth, has no place for swords and war and terror so that swords are turned into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. “Nation does not lift up sword against nation; they no longer learn war."

That is Isaiah’s vision that we are called to embrace, the same vision that we see in Jesus’ lessons, and Paul’s exhortations, the same vision inspired St Francis and Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi and countless other who understand the destruction and terror of war and oppression.

This is the vision of a world that unites people not only in their dreaming but in their actions. This is a dream of a kingdom where people matter. When Jesus includes those who were often left on the outside: lepers, tax collectors, gentiles, Samaritan women, women, bleeding women, the blind and sick and lame, the thief on the cross next to him:

he is bringing them into the Kingdom the same way Isaiah brings the nations. Paul reinforces the vision when he writes to the people in the congregations in Rome insisting that they break down the artificial walls they have put up between them; Jews and Gentiles become brothers and sisters in Christ.
I will sing praises to you
People of all nations, celebrate God!
All colors and races, give praise!
And Isaiah’s says:
“A descendant of Jesse will appear;
    he will come to rule the Gentiles,
    and they will put their hope in him.”
May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yahweh is the God of all creation and God’s on a mission to bring about his vision for creation, and we are included in the vision. In fact, we are a necessary part of the vision, if the vision is to have any chance of all, we are that hope.

We do live in a complicated, complex world and we may not know the answers to all our questions and problems but as Christians we are care called to be hopers and visionaries and dreamers in a long line of hopers, visionaries and dreamers in a longer tradition of hopers and visionaries and dreamers, we know whose we are as God’s beloved children, we know we are blessed and called to be a blessing to others as directed by Jesus’ command to love God and love others as ourselves, and we have a vision to live into.

Advent points us toward hope and to a vision where peace reigns, joy abounds and love wins.

May it be so           Amen

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Reign of Christ Sunday

20/11/2022

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Matthew 7:1-5 Good News Translation

“Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, 2 for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others.
3 Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?
4 How dare you say to your brother, ‘Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when you have a log in your own eye?
5 You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Luke 18:9-14 New International Version

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Reflection

Reign of Christ Sunday is the end of the liturgical year for the church. Advent begins the new year. I guess it’s supposed to be a kind of feel good, Christ is King, God is in charge, everything will work out just fine Sunday.

Or maybe it’s supposed to be a review of everything that happened to Jesus or everything Jesus did: the virgin birth (which was a very bad translation from the Hebrew) and healings, miracles, casting out demons, changing water into wine, the resurrection.

Maybe it’s just a day we think about Jesus and figuring out what is the most lasting, truest message for you in your life right now. Not for all time and forever, you don’t have to commit or promise that this is the once and for all answer for everyone for all times and places. Just what do you think is Jesus’ most important message for you today?

So I’ve been thinking about Jesus, and I think one of his truest lasting messages is how each one of us can be more truly human. Jesus constantly showed us how to show up for each other, how to treat the people who cross our paths, how to regard our friends and neighbours with our respect and presence, how to understand ourselves.

There’s another parable I would like to share this morning, you might know it as the parable of the weeds and wheat in Matthew 13:24-30:

The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The Kingdom of heaven is like this.
A man sowed good seed in his field. 25 One night, when everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 When the plants grew and the heads of grain began to form, then the weeds showed up.
27 The man's servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, it was good seed you sowed in your field; where did the weeds come from?’ 28 ‘It was some enemy who did this,’ he answered. ‘Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?’ they asked him.
29 ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them. 30 Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.’”

It’s a strange story that keeps us scratching our heads and and it raises a lot of questions: Why is the Kingdom of Heaven like the story? Who is this person’s enemies that could come and over sow his whole field without anyone noticing? – Wouldn’t they have seen the lights, and if no lights then how did they see? How would you even sow a whole field of weeds…and again what exactly is the point of this story; How does it resemble the kingdom of God – and I don’t even want to think about burning the weeds.
But sometimes even if I don’t get the story and how it is supposed to be read and understood I still get something out of the story. I’m admitting I can’t make heads or tails about what Jesus was trying to tell his listeners but there is some thing in the story I do understand: we are like those fields.

Weeds and wheat, the useless stuff that gets thrown away and the good stuff that get put into the barn. That’s us – at least we are capable of growing both. Each of us is capable of petty sarcastic narcissistic immoral evil thoughts and behaviours and each of us has the capacity to be loving compassionate generous creative good thoughts and behaviours. No one is exempt, to be human, to have free choice means good and evil and all that comes along with it is part and parcel of being human. We get to choose good or evil, weeds or wheat, and it isn’t easy because we don’t always see those weeds growing – we don’t even know where they came from.

The story of the tax collector and the Pharisee praying describes the complexity of the problem. You have the tax collector, obviously not a good guy, in cahoots with the enemy; both Roman and Jewish, profiting off the labours of well, everyone he collects taxes from. He is despised and ostracized by many in the community.

On the other side you have the Pharisee, the good guy, trying to live the righteous life, following the laws, praying, he understands the importance of setting an example for others in the community.

And Jesus comes along and praises the tax collector calling him justified before God and we get it. We understand exactly what Jesus is saying. And it’s not just about prayer because how many times have you or I thought just like the Pharisee.

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

Of course we might say it a little differently: I am not like those people, those addicts, those skinheads, those antivaxxers. I am not arrogant like him, I am not aggressive like her, I am a good person, I am a good parent, I am a good neighbour, I make good decisions, I am righteous before God.

I wonder if Jesus would tell us the story of the log in our own eye preventing us from seeing the speck we would try to remove from another’s eye.

I wonder if Jesus would say slow down, what are you really saying about yourself and your relationship to other people.

I wonder if Jesus would say: “What have you learned from these COVID times and your dependency on hundreds of other people we are normally not aware of or care about?” Not just doctors and nurses but people who stock grocery store shelves, make PPE’s (I never even knew there were PPE’s before COVID) truck drivers, technicians, janitors and the people who make toilet paper- a whole array of people who make our lives safer, healthier, better.

Have we learned to be better human beings, more conscious of ourselves, and our connection to God as well as to others around the world and in our communities.

I wonder what Jesus would say to us.
I wonder what story he would tell us that would open our eyes and soften our hearts, and reveal to us the capacity we have to receive the grace and love he offers; for only then can we offer our own love and grace to others.

We are blessed to have the stories of Jesus, we are blessed to have Jesus’ life as an example in how to live into the Kin-dom of God, we are blessed so that we may be a blessing.

May it be so Amen

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The World We All Hope For

13/11/2022

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Isaiah 65:17-25 Good News Translation

The New Creation

17 The Lord says, “I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be completely forgotten.
18 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. The new Jerusalem
I make will be full of joy, and her people will be happy.
19 I myself will be filled with joy because of Jerusalem and her people. There will be no weeping there, no calling for help.
20 Babies will no longer die in infancy, and all people will live out their life span. Those who live to be a hundred will be considered young. To die before that would be a sign that I had punished them.
21-22 People will build houses and get to live in them—they will not be used by someone else. They will plant vineyards and enjoy the wine—it will not be drunk by others. Like trees, my people will live long lives. They will fully enjoy the things that they have worked for.
23 The work they do will be successful, and their children will not meet with disaster. I will bless them and their descendants for all time to come.
24 Even before they finish praying to me, I will answer their prayers. 25 Wolves and lambs will eat together; lions will eat straw, as cattle do, and snakes will no longer be dangerous. On Zion, my sacred hill, there will be nothing harmful or evil.”

2 Corinthians 5:16-20 The Message

No longer do we evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore.
Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it!
All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other, to become friends, neighbours, sisters and brothers.
God put the world right with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing.
We are Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them.
We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.

Reflection

We spend a lot of time trying to understand our world – and by “we’ I mean “me”- I mean maybe you are like me_ I pick at things – ideas, issues, things that happen, things that don’t, big things, like racism and history, and geo-politics and social issues like homelessness and addiction, climate change and climate action, and I have questions, opinions, and I ideas that I hope are open to influence and change. So I read books and articles and watch the news and ask more questions and sometimes I just let things settle and see what happens next. I want to understand not just jump on the bandwagon because it is the issue du jour or because it is politically or socially correct.

And I want to understand because I have a vision, I want to understand because my vision is the one promised in Isaiah- a new heaven and a new earth, where the lamb and the lion co-exist in the peaceable kingdom. Rome and Israel co-exist, China, North Korea, the USA, Russia, Iran – the world co-exists for the benefit of all.

OK , I’m not convinced about the lion and the lamb although like Isaiah I think it is a great image. I just don’t believe we are going to or should change the lion’s behaviour when we are talking about animals – the lamb will get eaten when the lion is hungry but then I don’t believe humans are lions. We might instinctively want to devour, dominate, and win but we are capable of moderating, and changing our behaviour and our thinking. We can choose not to eat the lamb. That’s Isaiah’s opinion as well.

Isaiah is writing at a time when the exiled Jews have return to Jerusalem from Babylon. They are rebuilding the temple under the about the 6th century BCE, while they remain under the thumb of outside forces- in this case Cyrus the King of Persia, the Jews have been allowed the freedom to return and worship. They are in the process of rebuilding the temple – a process that will continue all the way to the first century and Herod.

The temple meant everything to those early Jews, like many peoples they believed that when Yahweh took up residence in a temple, blessings radiated out from that temple creating an ideal world. Our scripture passage this morning is filled with such images children thrive, people live to old age, crops are bountiful, the people are prosperous, wolves stop eating lambs. It is a time of joy and rejoicing.

And Isaiah points to the reality behind this picture of a beautiful world that reality is that this is God at work. God creates a new reality; and is creating a new world everyday. God’s creative work turns our world into a holy space, God’s territory. Divine blessings radiate as God recreates this cosmos: a world of harmony, prosperity and joy.

For Isaiah the miracle has already happened, the Jews are back in Jerusalem, the Temple has been rebuilt, God is back, the people can worship, the relationship between God and his people has been restored.

And this is what life should look like: there are no tears, no distress, no infant death and no disease, people have no need to steal or abuse. Everything, that has prevented creation from being what God intended it to be, is gone.

Imagine, the disasters we see in the world are not what determine the future of God’s creation. Terrorist activity and military power don’t have a place in God’s order of things. Political deception, abuse within the family or workplace, selfish exploitation and neglect of nature are not the way things have to be. And the suffering that these things bring, as well as that which seems to come by chance in illness or accident, will pass away. All that is evil will be seen for what it is, and all that is hurtful will be banished. That is the vision. Imagine!

And Isaiah’s vision is not just to the making new of the physical world, it is the renewing of the relationships and interconnections within the world. In fact Isaiah’s vision depends on a remaking, a recreating of relationship.

Paul’s writings to the Corinthians emphasizes this dependency on relationship: relationship with God, relationship with Jesus the Christ and relationship with one another. Isaiah thought OK we have the Temple back and all will be well but then along comes Jesus 500 years later and he looks around and the Temple is there and that is good, but nothing else has changed and some of the problems are with and within the Temple.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry we see this growing awareness that relationship is key: Jesus and the disciples, Jesus and Mary of Magdalena, Jesus and tax collectors, Jesus and Pharisees, Jesus and Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Jesus and women and men and children. Jesus and the thief on the cross. Jesus and Abba. Relationship is the key to a changed heart, a changed community and a changed world.

That is the Christian hope, not just some vision of heaven in heaven in some after life but a Kin-dom of God here and now. A vision of the future which shapes our living in this world in the present. We are called as Christians to live as people of hope. As we prepare to enter into the season of Advent and Christmas we are called into the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, A vision where one little baby makes a world of difference. A vision of harmony defined in the broadest of terms, with blessing poured out over everyone.

Our vision invites us to hope, our vision invites to dream, our vision invites us to walk in a new way, open our hearts, and see with new eyes the world God is re-creating new every day.

May it be so Amen

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We are Invited!

6/11/2022

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Isaiah 25:6-8              New International Version

6 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare
    a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine--
    the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8     he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
    from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
    from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken.

Luke 18:9-14                New International Version

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Reflection

It’s a confusing world we live in.
I don’t know about you but being a product of the 60’s and 70’s and living in Canada; maybe I just assumed that if we worked really hard at it – things would get better in the world.

We had had the World Wars, we knew the horror, the pain, the suffering, the loss. We had the United Nations safeguarding our way of life, our freedoms, our democracy. We had the civil rights movements and freedom marches. We had the Hare Krishna, Jesus freaks and peace and love. The United Church, (okay other churches too) were advocating for justice all around the world, supporting the campaigns for equality of people in South Africa, boycotting grapes from California, preaching a solidarity with the poor and the oppressed in Latin America and the Caribbean. The world was going to be a better place for everyone because of our efforts. We lived within the hope and expectation of the Kingdom of God here and now.

Looking back and reading scripture I realize Jesus and the Jews in the first century did too. In fact, when we read the scripture passage from Isaiah this morning it describes what the Kingdom of God would look like:

Here on this mountain, in this time and place, God, Yahweh, Abba will throw a feast for all the people of the world. Imagine the finest food and vintage wines, lavish desserts; more than enough for everyone.

And here on this mountain, in this time and place, God, Yahweh, Abba will banish the sense of doom hanging over everyone as war, and climate change, and overpriced housing and food and energy cast a shadow over everyone’s lives in the whole world.

And the deadly forces of fear and intimidation, hunger and greed will be banished from the earth forever. And God, Yahweh, Abba will wipe the tears from every face and remove every sign of disgrace from his people, wherever they are.

This is what Isaiah tells us about God, Yahweh, Abba! I may have changed the words a little but the intent is the same as Isaiah; God’s vision of the world is good and this is the vision we have, one we can live into: it is our hope and our faith, that with our help it will come to pass, it will come.

The Jews have this story told by Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572), also known as The Ari, who was a rabbi and mystic in Safed.

Before God created the world, the entire universe was filled with a holy presence. God took a breath to draw back and make room for the world. From that first breath, darkness was created. And when God said, “Let there be light,” lightness was created filling vessels with holy light.

God sent those vessels to the world, and if they had each arrived whole, the world would have been perfect. But the holy light was too powerful to be contained, and the vessels split open sending sparks flying everywhere.

Some of God’s holy light became trapped inside the shards of the vessels. And it is our job gather the shards and to release the sparks of holy light. When enough sparks have been gathered, Tikkun Olam, “repair of the world” will be complete, the world will be as God intended.

Rabbi Luria’s teaching ends with how we gather the shards; through acts of compassion and loving kindness, improving the social situation of the marginalized and less fortunate, by praying.
Everyday becomes an opportunity to heal the self and the family the family, to repair the community and the world.

The purpose of our lives is to bring God’s vision, God’s intention into being. I think that was Jesus’ purpose as well, Jesus’ teachings and his life are like sign posts. This is the way into God’s Kingdom now and in the future.

This is the way to love one another. This is the way to take care of yourself. This is the way to reach out to others. Every story Jesus tells or is told about Jesus is like picking up a shard and letting God’s light free.

No one person can be or is responsible for the whole, the burden is not on anyone as an individual but it makes us all part of the whole. Our participation is necessary, if we give up our praying, if we stop our noticing then who picks up the shards that come our way, who will release that Holy Light into the universe that only you hold in your hand.

I had a little epiphany not very long ago, when I realized I did not have to have an opinion about everything that happens in our world. I don’t know where I got that idea in the first place, but I realized I don’t know enough about a whole bunch of stuff and I don’t mean just things like astrophysics or fixing a car. I don’t know enough about a lot of things happening to say anything except I don’t know enough and I’m either going to look into it further; or I am going to leave it to those who know more and have an interest in it.

What a relief! It was a like a burden being taken off my shoulders. I don’t have to listen to every pundit on TV news and evaluate what they say because I don’t know enough to form an opinion about the topic or what they say. I don’t have to be up to date on every social justice issue that comes my way from the United Church via newsletters, info sheets and webinars. I don’t have to pursue every worthwhile or worthy cause as if that is a reflection on its worthiness. Or as if that is a reflection on me and my worthiness before God.

You see that vision Isaiah describes, it’s beautiful isn’t it?
And here on this mountain, God will banish
the pall of doom hanging over all peoples,
The shadow of doom darkening all nations.
Yes, he’ll banish death forever.
And God will wipe the tears from every face.
He’ll remove every sign of disgrace
From his people, wherever they are.

It is a vision for everyone, everyone is included. So I have no idea why so many people and churches try to make Christianity into a reward and punishment program; so that only those who say the right things and believe the right things and do the right things get to be part of God’s Kingdom.

Clearly, Jesus didn’t believe it. He rejects that paradigm when he tells the story of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee. The Pharisee should have been the one Jesus was praising; a man who devoted his life to being good, following the rules, praying conscientiously but Jesus sees the tax collector, who was also praying, and despite his profession by which he effectively made his money off the hard work of his friends and neighbours, despite his affiliation with the Romans, despite his ill repute in his community, Jesus praises this man as the more righteous before the face of God.

God’s love, God’s grace, God’s mercy are bigger and more inclusive than we can imagine. They are the mystery by which we are included in the Kingdom. Our failings, our imperfect perfect humanness, our likelihood to walk by a shard containing the Holy Light of God and never pick it up or set it free, our disinclination to help when we can, our casual rejection of opportunity; they are not the end of the story. It doesn’t matter who we are or what credentials we carry, our journey to God is one that always ends with God’s loving embrace.

We are included in Isaiah’s vision of the Kingdom on the mountain, we are included in the Kingdom of God Jesus attested to and ushered into being. We are included in the Kingdom here and now.

It may indeed be a confusing world. There are many things I don’t, can’t understand, and there are far fewer things that I can even influence and yet, I have an important part to play in the coming of the Kingdom of God in the here and now. We have an important part to play in the coming of the Kingdom in the here and now.

The Kingdom of God contains a vision of a better world, a healed world, a world replete with Holy Light, where people feast abundantly and live in peace.

May it be so. Amen

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A Little Faith!

9/10/2022

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Habakkuk 3:17-19

17 Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he keeps me safe on the mountains.

Matthew 17:14-20     (New International Version)

14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him.
15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.
16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”
18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

Reflection

Thanksgiving, the time when we look around ourselves and rejoice because we have been so blessed.

We praise God for the bounty of the world within which we live. We give thanks for our families and friends and the community, for the relative peace and stability we enjoy in our country, even as, we are terrified by all the violence and aggression in the world. We have much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving is a time when we ask ourselves “ What is important in our lives and to our lives?”

Over the past years, I don’t know if this is an age thing or what but I look around and I sort of say “ When did we get so much stuff?” now you have to understand I like stuff, I especially like the stuff Ryk and I have accumulated over the years. I like being able to add to our stuff with even more stuff. – the newer better improved stuff that I never knew I needed but now apparently I need. I like stuff. It makes me comfortable, it makes me feel secure, it holds memories, I like living in our home, walking around our community, driving in the car to Powell River. I feel Ryk and I are truly blessed with all our stuff.

And so over the past few years with all the recent catastrophes in the world- floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, wars, COVID; it seems to me the worst of it all is for individuals who have lost. Lost family members, lost their homes, lost their livelihoods. Lost all the stuff that makes life make sense. It seems we live in increasingly perilous times, and we are not immune to being included among those who might on this day stand with Habakkuk, looking around and saying:

“ the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls”

It’s not easy to lose your stuff and people and community and still find meaning in the world, still feel comfortable in the world, still trust that the world, that life is what you always thought it would be. It’s not easy to believe that there is a God who cares about this world.

But that is exactly what Habakkuk strives to do. Habakkuk is a prophet, writing just about the time we call the Babylonian Captivity – when Jerusalem was besieged and overtaken by the Babylonians, the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed and many prominent Jews killed or exiled until Babylonia was overtaken by the Persians and the Jews were allowed to return in 538 BCE – so a very big deal in Jewish history.

Habakkuk is writing just before the exile but while the engagement between the Babylonians and the Jews is going on. It’s really short book- just 3 chapters, yet it is significant because his prophecy really is a conversation with God which ends with a psalm or song. Habakkuk wants to know what God is up to, what is God doing for his people, he starts out
and I’m reading from The message version:

  God, how long do I have to cry out for help
before you listen?
How many times do I have to yell, “Help! Murder! Police!”
before you come to the rescue?
Why do you force me to look at evil,
stare trouble in the face day after day?
Anarchy and violence break out,
quarrels and fights all over the place.
Law and order fall to pieces.
Justice is a joke.
The wicked have the righteous hamstrung
and stand justice on its head.

Sound familiar! Well, maybe not those exact words, but isn’t that our question today. How can all the really horrible stuff be happening in the world- our world – the world we thought was safe, the world we trusted, the world we believe God cares about?

And the Book of Habakkuk ends with our scripture reading from today, that says despite all that, despite everything that has happened and is happening, yes; the wars, the fighting, the racism, the homelessness, the havoc addiction is wreaking upon individuals and families, the fear of rising prices, the secular society that imposes it’s standards despite everything- Habakkuk, the epitome of faith, says:

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he keeps me safe on the mountains.
                                                      (Habakkuk 3:18-19)

I will be joyful, I will rejoice, I will have faith because it’s faith that allows me to go forward, to have hope, to live grounded in my belief that the God, Yahweh, my God is at work, that the covenant holds.

That sounds like a lot of faith doesn’t it? I mean if I had faith like that why, Jesus says I could move mountains – except Jesus doesn’t say that. Jesus says if I had faith as small as a mustard seed I could move mountains. – Well, one mountain; if I had such a faith!

Do I have such a faith? Do the disciples? Those who left their life behind to follow Jesus. Surely their faith is much greater than a mustard seed. They’d been with Jesus for quite a while, they already understood he was the Messiah the Jews had been waiting for, Peter James and John had just been up on the mountain with Jesus at the Transfiguration, and a visit from Elijah and Moses. They believed, they had faith, and I’m betting bigger than a mustard seed and here is Jesus, getting mad at them for not having enough faith because they couldn’t expel the demon from the boy.

17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “
  how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?
Bring the boy here to me.”
  18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy,
  and he was healed at that moment.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked,
“Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you,
if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,
‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

There’s another passage in Luke (Luke 17:5-6) where faith and mustard seeds come together again

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this
  mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

Faith is a strange thing, we know, just like the disciples and Jesus knew, faith isn’t magic: you want to move a mountain; it’s going to take a lot of hard work and heavy lifting, you want to move a mulberry tree; well, it’s no easy task either, casting out demons, healing the sick, it’s effort not a bunch of hocus pocus.

Basically, Jesus tells the disciples “ You can do this, you can do hard things because you do have faith – and even if it were the size of a mustard seed that would be enough. The disciples already have faith, in God, in Jesus their faith is not in question as if they were buckets and had come up empty – they already had faith, they already had enough faith, they don’t need more faith. They needed to become more aware of the faith they already had because even a mustard seed of faith would be enough.

Now, that is beginning to sound more like me, maybe more like you, more like where we are sometimes, when the doubts and questions creep in, when belief is challenged by the outside world or life circumstances, like when the

“the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls”

and we think: “Oh I don’t believe enough, I don’t have enough faith to even go to church, to read the bible, to ask questions, to have an opinion, to talk about God, to hope for a better world, to pray for healing and wholeness, to trust God with my life.”

All those things we don’t do, all those things we tell ourselves, because we think we don’t have enough faith, at times we might feel we have barely any faith at all– and that’s when Jesus says: “You of little faith – don’t you know you only need a mustard seed, don’t you know a mustard seed is more than enough, don’t you know a mustard seed of faith is just perfect!”

With such a faith we are blessed. For such a faith, we are grateful and give thanks to the Lord our God.

May it be so.                  Amen

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