BE A TRUTH-TELLING PEOPLE

I am writing this reflection on he morning of November 05,2024, the day of the American election. One perceptive person shared about our condition in the world today: “Nobody tells the truth any more!”

 

The thinkers who study what is happening on a global level label this as a “post-truth society.” This means that telling the truth is no longer valued. It has been abandoned by so many of our citizens. Now, we live in a time when gaining power is all that is important.  People do not get upset when their leaders, or the media tell out-right lies. 

 

Truth-telling is to our life as a society is what our blood filled with oxygen is to our body. If the red blood cells are not carrying a fresh supply of oxygen  to our muscles and organs we will suffer a major collapse of the systems in our body. We need oxygen to survive moment to moment.

 

We need truth-telling to survive as a society and as the human race from hour to hour. When people do not tell the truth all social order will collapse.

 

When our political leaders and the social media tell lies, spread conspiratory  theories, we are challenged to speak  the truth. Speak the truth even when it upsets many people on social media.   

 

Maybe you had a Grandmother who spoke clearly. Sometimes she was a little too blunt, but she spoke it as she knew it to be true. There were times when she ruffled your feathers but you always knew that she cared for you. In all her bluntness, she embraced you;  faults and all!

 

There was a very good chance that as you matured into  adulthood you did not allow her bluntness to cause you pain. You became as ‘truth telling’ as your grandmother. She was a truth-teller, and you became a truth teller.  And you function very well as a family!

 

Now, when we recognize that we are living in a post-truth society it is imperative that we take responsibility for telling the truth. The truth as best we know it. This will take a lot of courage. Some of your fellow workers will disagree; some will become angry but that does not lessen the responsibility to tell the truth about what is happening in our government, our social media and in the local community.

 

We must train our high-school students to have a sharp sense, a critical sense, to separate the truth from what is false. No longer can anyone take a true what runs by your social media account. Young people need to go forward with a sharp sense of shaking out the truth from the falsehoods.

 

And this brings us to the ultimate reality: God!  Always, our God is truth-teller. We can rely on God to be trust worthy even when we do not want to follow his directives.

 

We live with a truth-telling God. What strength and courage that gives us to live well today.

 

 

 

 

YOUR LIFE MUST BE A GIFT

When you come to the end of your life what will they say of you?

A successful life? A good friend? A person who placed their family first?  Or what?

 

Your passing must become  a gift. Your brief time on this earth was a gift: you did not ask to be born but you were given life by the creative hand of God. Our Christian faith gives us a very clear understanding that every person who walks on this earth has a purpose. There are no useless human beings.  Everyone one has a purpose in the great creative plan of God.

 

As we come to the end of our days we must frame our life as a gift: to God, to our fellow human beings and to ourselves. 

 

To God we give our sharing in the out-pouring love of God. The very center of all the cosmos, amidst all the billion galaxies, is the outpouring love of our creator God. Everything is an expression to the outpouring goodness of God, We have lived in that same outpouring of love and goodness for humans and all of creation. Our life is a song sung in harmony with the creative heart of God.

 

This was a human being who loved, respected and cared for all parts of the earth: plants, animals, birds, humans and to us a geographical image, the Rocky Mountains. This was a lover of the earth and all its blessings. May your footprints have touched the earth with love , joy and respect.

 

We have always lived among our fellow human beings. We are truly inter-dependent beings but your life is actually a gift when you walked with compassion and justice toward others. Life was not abut getting rich for yourself, but working towards the well -being of others. You always understood that your life would thrive if you enabled your fellow human being to thrive. 

 

We appreciated how your shopping trips to the grocery store always elicited concerns about the people on fixed incomes. How do they manage to feed themselves when the price of groceries has increased by nine or ten percent during this last year?  You always had a strong position that we must care for one another. You always asked ‘and how is my sister/brother doing when the national economy took a down-turn? You wore your concern for others on your sleeve?

 

And then the earth. You took joy in the gift of clean water, fresh rain, the growing crops of Saskatchewan canola, and the refreshing winds of autumn. All parts of nature were a blessing to you and you shared these blessings with all of us. 

 

And then in your daily prayer you were very joyful in gratitude for the great love that God has for all of us. We always felt that we were all included in your prayer. 

 

What a blessing your life has been. We want to say that the earth and all others humans have truly been blest that you have walked this earth. God always rejoices in your goodness.

 

How wonderful to come to the end and to make your death a gift to God, to all human beings and to the earth earth itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LORD’S PRAYER IS A PRAYER OF THE POOR

 

Everyone thinks that they can pray the Lord’s Prayer anywhere. It is just part of the air we breathe in our culture. This is an assumption that we need to challenge.

 

Jesus experienced the unfolding of the Kingdom of God among the poor and the excluded of his society. He was most uncomfortable among the rich and the powerful. Already, we have a strong clue about how we are to relate to God.

 

The prayer begins with ‘our.’ From its very first utterance, Jesus embraces everyone. We belong to God together. No one is excluded. To understand what this word ‘our’ includes think of an opposite to the Kingdom of God. When you go to a Roughriders game in Regina there are different levels of seating: there are the very expensive ones and then there are different layers of importance until you get to the ‘cheap’ seats. There is a hierarchy here. Those who have more money can afford the more expensive seats. The Kingdom of God is just the opposite of social ranking based on your yearly income.

 

You can only pray the Lord’s Prayer if you are as inclusive as Jesus. Everyone was embraced by the arms of the cross; everyone is wanted and included. When we sincerely pray the ‘our’ we are including the people who are underemployed, those who live with limitations, anyone who is different from ourselves. There can never be the rich and the poor in the heart of Jesus. 

 

The Lord’s prayer upsets all kinds of social distinctions. There is no room for the rich and the poor distinctions, gender inequality, distinctions between those who work and those who do not and those who are well educated and trained from those who had a limited opportunity to ever go to school.

 

And then we ask for our daily bread. Rich people never need to ask for the food, clothing and shelter they need. They do not have to depend on God for what they need for daily survival. But the poor do. Life can be somewhat precarious when you do not have secure  employment. The rapid rise in inflation squeezes the grocery budget of the poor. They know how much they need the help of God to get through another month. 

 

And then there are the women and men who struggle with their addictions to street drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol and casino. They come to God every day and sometimes every hour just to get through the day drug free and sober. “And lead us not into temptation” means so much to  them. Their daily survival depends on their connection to God’s care.

 

When we stand in solidarity with the poor, the suffering and the excluded of this world and our own family, the Lord’s Prayer takes on new meaning. It links us directly with our sisters and brothers who are poor and marginalized. The prayer pries open our heart in whatever places it has grown shut and indifferent towards the poor.

 

When you stand with the poor you will see the world in a new light. You will see God in a newness that you never expected. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOD ALWAYS HAS A BIGGER TABLE

When was the last time you came to a restaurant that was full and the only table that they could offer was to share the other end of a large table where there was already another seated couple? You did not have the option of going somewhere else for lunch so you accepted.

 

One time the gentleman at the other end of the table cringed when we sat down. He was more than a little uncomfortable that there were strangers at the other end of the table. In another instance, the couple started making introductions and welcoming us into their city. 

 

What a wonderful image to think about how our God actually works. We are invited to sit at the table with God, but God always keeps enlarging the table. More and more different people are invited to sit down with God and with us!

 

Always think of God’s table like the table of your grandmother. It did not matter how many people dropped by, she could always have them seated and could whip up a meal in a half hour. You probably remember when the kids were moved to a smaller table from the playroom. Another uncle and aunt had dropped by and Grandma could always find room. Squeeze a little bit more!

 

Here you are sitting at God’s table and he invites the two young men who live down the block from you, but they are heavy into the drugs. You never felt comfortable with then on earth. What are you supposed to do in heaven?

 

Then God shuffles the table and invites so many refugees and their children. All these displaced people are told to sit down. They may have had no territory to call home but here God makes space for all of them. 

 

The table is getting a little crowded!

 

As they table is being filled up, how are you feeling?

 

This image shows us that God is a welcoming God. We humans may be very narrow in whom we consider to be acceptable but the heart and the embrace of God always grows larger. 

 

Too many ‘born’ Christians have so much difficulty with the largeness of God. They only want to work with the people they feel are acceptable. Too often they have a strong desire for moral purity in whom they consider worthwhile.

 

Whether or not anyone pays attention to what God is doing, you can be assured that God will upset our way of judging and evaluating human beings. God’s ways are not to make human beings feel warm and secure. God’s ways are meant to stretch the human heart to love all people; especially those different from ourselves,  with the same love that God has for them. God will always upset our apple cart!

 

Today would be a good time for you to imagine what it will be like when God brings you to sit at the table. Who will be seated around you?

 

 

 

 

TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR HANDS

                   

 

Take a good look at your hands. They have so much to tell you about your relationship with life and with God.

 

Now, we all take our hands for granted but they are an amazing piece of machinery and a means of communication. One of our men was involved with a perogy supper to raise money to help Ukrainian refugees. He pointed out as he worked beside a Ukrainian baba ( Grandmother) who had lost the use of her right arm through a stroke. “She could make cabbage rolls with her left hand like nobody’s business. And I was struggling to roll the cabbage with two hands!”

 

Our hands are most significant when they are used for caring for another human being. They are truly blessed and give blessing through compassion for others.

 

Blessed are the open hands that help little ones pick themselves off the pavement when they have fallen off their bike. Blessed are the hands that dry tears from frightened eyes.

 

Blessed are the hands that reach beyond the barriers of culture, religion, nationality and economic classes. How wonderful the hands that move smoothly through these barriers that human beings have set up to divide themselves from one another. Where people have put up barriers (you shall not step over the barrier!), these hands move through these barriers in compassion and understanding. 

 

Blessed are the hands that help others and seek nothing in exchange. These are hands that love and share freely, with no expectations that the favour be returned.

 

Blessed are the hands that lift up a brother when he is down with drug addiction. These understanding hands know how black and discouraging it is to be caught in the trap of drug addiction. And these hands lift a very desperate brother up!

 

Blessed are the hands of a teenager assisting an elderly grandmother as she tries to walk to the breakfast table. What patience and gentleness in those hands!

 

Blessed are the hands that are preparing sandwiches for the homeless today. These hands may not see the hungry men and women coming to pick up a lunch but these hands butter the bread with understanding.

 

Blessed are the hands that hug the widow who has lost her husband of sixty-five years. No words. Just the assurance of care and understanding; just the hands of patience for the dark times of grief and loss.

 

Now sit in silence with open hands. How many times have your hands been a source of blessing? How many times have your hands been a touch of the goodness of God?

 

 

 

 

 

MISTAKES AND GROWTH IN FAITH

 

One of the most useful things I have learnt in the past decade is that a person will never learn, never make an effort to improve, if they are comfortable. How many times have you worked with someone who makes the same stupid mistake, time after time, but you cannot tell them anything: They know they are doing this job the correct way! Your observation sees the same mistake but you cannot do anything about it.

 

Making mistakes is an integral part of growing up. Parents cringe at the times their toddler has pulled out a bag of flour from the lower kitchen cupboard and spread it around the floor. Well, now this a moment to teach what you can and cannot touch! How much patience a parent must put forth!

 

At the other end of life, how often do we have a senior grandpa, who is convinced of his driving skills, come back from shopping trip with a dent or two on the back side of his vehicle? Maybe your driving skills are not working so well any longer??

 

It is the same with our spiritual lives. The strongest block to growing in our faith is to think that we are believers and that we are doing a pretty good job of living a good life. Nothing blocks God so much as people who are convinced of the strength of their religious convictions. 

 

You cannot come to God unless you are hungry. You cannot come to God unless you experience an absence in your life. This is why the woman or man who are struggling to live a sober life (i.e., free of drugs and alcohol) know in their bones that they need God just to get through today. They know their weakness, and the power of the addiction over their lives and they feel how much they need God just to get through this day, this week or this month. T\heir poverty makes them honest before God.

 

Our Christian religion is based on mistakes. Remember that Peter walked away from Jesus. He denied that he ever knew the man! The disciples argued over who was the best and most proficient of the disciples. They were playing the power game when Jesus upset their apple cart and instructed them to welcome the powerless (i.e., little children).

 

Here is where we must apply this to ourselves. We make mistakes. We fly off at the mouth sometimes and wish that we had never said what we said. 

 

But our mistakes must never become moments of denial but rather a time for us to examine ourselves and see where we need to grow and improve. We need to be the grandpa who gets out of the driver seat, examines the two dents in the back of his vehicle and considers  whether this is time to hand in his keys.

Jesus welcomes us back from our mistakes, our selfish sins and our negative attitudes. There is real opportunity to grow. 

 

Spend some time reflecting on the mistakes you have made in your life and the opportunities that God’s grace gave you to learn, to grow and to begin anew.

HOW IS JESUS A GIFT TO YOU?

is very healthy to make clear what our Christian religion actually means to us. It is a deliberate effort to evaluate if what we believe in the Creed actually has an impact on our daily lives.

 

Now, I must flip the question upside down: What would I lose if I did not believe in Jesus Christ? What if I barely had a touch of the Christian religion?

 

I am sure I would miss the core, the central energy of my life. I would not know who I was on the surface of this earth. This little exercise is pushing me to think clearly.

 

Jesus is God actually coming among us in all the weakness of human flesh. I believe in the great act of human redemption: the death and resurrection of Jesus. But I know that the divine mystery does not stop with Jesus: now, I must be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.

 

I feel a strong sense that the war-making between human beings is totally contrary to the very heart of God. We were never placed on this earth to run out and destroy each other as is happening right now in the troubled spots on the globe. God has put a restless and uncomfortable spirit within us to move away from aggression and work toward peace and justice between the tribes of humanity. The spirit of Jesus is an attitude and determination to work toward peace and justice within the human family. There are some days when I perceive this peace-building to be very weak, but God does not give up on human beings. 

 

Humanity has had three centuries of the industrial revelation. Human beings had conquered the land, the sea and outer space but now we are threatened by our own success. The earth is warming up. All forms of life are threatened. But there is a strong movement among Christians and so many others to work of preserve the earth. There is something so much deeper in this concern to save the earth. This is also the spirit of God, who has created all parts of the earth in love, moving us human beings to change our way of living and work to preserve the earth, the  water and the atmosphere. The spirit of God is moving in ways that we have not paid attention before: we are being tasked with survival of the human race and every living creature on this earth. 

 

When people get pushed aside, that is pushed to the margins, I sense the spirit of Jesus moving us to reach out to the poor and the neglected. The spirit of Jesus is not different but is moving us to see the very face of Jesus in the forgotten, the struggling and the poor with their many faces. 

 

If I did not have Jesus, the struglesnof my life would collapse. This exercise forces me to become more aware of what Jesus is and does in my life.