HE OUTSIDER IS IN? HOW SO?

 t is hard to get people born in the church to understand that Jesus will often upset our way of thinking.  They want a comfortable religion where they have control over everything. No surprises. When we hear the parable (teaching story) of the Pharisee (a religious observant Jew) and the tax collector (a despised turn-coat to the oppressed Jewish people)  we have our system of good and bad turned upside down (Lk. 18, 9-14).

 

The Pharisee (he was a good guy) came forward and informed God of all the good things he was doing. He fasted twice a week and gave a tenth of his income to others. Thank goodness he was not like the despised tax collector at the back of this prayer hall!

 

What a contrast! The despised one (he was complicit with the Roman enemies who oppressed and taxed the people very heavily) could only stand at the back and pray, “Be merciful to me, a sinner.”

 

Jesus uses the despised one to show the honesty and humility that we all must have as we stand before God.

 

No one can earn their salvation and say to God “you owe me because of my good and dutiful life!” Our goodness with God always comes as a gift from God. We are made holy first and foremost because the Holy Spirit is working in us. Salvation does not depend on how good we are but on the work and gift of God. 

 

This tax collector stands as a model for all believers. We come before God with all our failings, with all our sinfulness and our hard-heartedness. We do not use our goodness to downgrade the weakness and failings of others.

 

If we all knew ourselves (the personality that others have to live with and get along wtith) we would all be humble!

 

Today, gather together your sinfulness, your self-centeredness and your indifference toward the sufferings and woundedness of others. Hold your sins and our weaknesses in your hand and begin your prayer. You will feel very humble.

 

But as Jesus will teach us: your littleness and your humility will bring you to understand what Jesus is all about and deepen your life of faith. Hold on to your weaknesses and it will bring you freedom!

THE WIDOW IN A NEW IMAGE

There are several creative ways that we can use the Scriptures to enrich and deepen our faith lives. What I will suggest today may be new to your prayer life but there may be insights that you have never had before.

 

The Gospel reading for this Sunday ( Luke 18, 1-8) focuses on our need to pray with perseverance and conviction. Jesus shares the parable of the unjust judge ( are real scoundrel who wanted to be paid off with a bribe most likely) and the defenceless widow who could not get a just settlement from this judge.

 

Feel the tension and the passion in this story.

 

In the culture of Jesus a widow was without power. Unless she had sons or other concerned person who could speak up for her and defend her, she would often be neglected, abused and cheated of her rightful property.

 

Now this widow uses the only weapon she has. She is persistent and demands that her case be heard. The corrupt judge finally relents. If he does not meet her rightful demands, she will drive him nuts! He gives in to her persistence.

 

Now, here is where we can flip the characters around. Make God the persistent widow and ourselves the unjust judge. 

 

As the persistent widow God comes to us, challenges us on the evils and the great suffering that all wars bring. What does God have to say to the unjust aggressor when one country invades and takes over the territory of another country? What does God say about all the innocent people who suffer as war is being waged? 

 

What is God saying about the scammers who cheat and steal from the poor and unsuspecting people?  What does God say to all thieves who break in and steal from the working poor, the elderly and defenceless refugees? 

 

And then in our brokenness. How does God move in the lives and hearts of wounded people? What is God igiving to broken and hurtful people? Does God walk by and just leave them to deteriorate by the roadside?

 

You can add so many other situations where the concerns of God could be voiced in this persistent widow. She may be poor and seemingly helpless but she does not give up. Is this not a fitting image of our God who does not give up on us: no matter how evil we may have become? No matter how broken and lost we appear to be? No matter how aimless our levies might be adrift?

 

Fllip the image of the widow to be the persistent God. What is God teaching you?

 

 

 

 

GRATITUDE, GRATITUDE, GRATITUDE

Many people pooh, pooh the story of Adam and Eve as a polite fairy tale that is rather entertaining. In reality,  this is a story about ourselves. The great fault of the first woman and man was that they wanted to be their own god. They wanted to be all-powerful and do their own thing – and answer to no one but themselves.

 

This is the most serious form of idolatry; that is, making false gods. Giv\ing our service to the false deity. 

 

The truth of the matter is that all creation comes from the very hand of God. Every part of the cosmos, every bacteria and every human being is an extension of the love and compassion of the Creator God. And this makes everything a gift.

 

If all of life is a gift, there is only one correct response to the Creator God. It is gratitude. Nothing is owed to us. All is gift. Every breath that we are taking at this very moment is a gift. All moments of our life call for gratitude, thanksgiving and joy. Take one deep breath at this very moment. What a gift! What power to enjoy and appreciate the gift of our life – no matter how short or long it may be.?

 

This is why everyone needs a correction to the life of prayer. Everyone needs to once again study the spirituality they claim to be living.

 

All our prayer must begin with gratitude for all the blessings that we have received. The very fact that we were conceived in the womb of our mother, that we were raised, educated into adulthood is truly a gift. This was never owed to us. Every friend that we have is blessing. 

 

And then our God, poured out the love and mercy of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The outstretched hands on the cross are a sign of the love of God embracing everyone: the good, the miserable and all the sinful. There is no limit to the goodness of God towards humanity.

 

This is why this Sunday’s gospel reading ( Luke 17, 11-19) is such a gift to us. The ten lepers (outcasts to that society) experience a healing at the hands of Jesus. Only the stranger , i.e., the Samarian, comes back to thank Jesus. He realized how his life has been gifted. There is only one response: joy and thankful praise.

 

This is how we must pray. Take all and every blessing of your life; this is first and foremost the gift of God. Burst into song and joy. How wonderful the first morning light is.  How joyful the hug of your grandchildren. How strong the presence of God when you turn toward prayer.

 

Begin every prayer in gratitude – and continue in gratitude singing for joy

 

 

 

 

WHAT GIVES YOU LIFE?

 

As we moved into our mature years we all reflect back on the things we thought were so important and demanded our best energy, now seem almost insipid and unimportant. How could we have given so much energy to purchasing our first vehicle when we now own two vehicles?

 

We all smile when someone asks if an accountant with life-time of service wants to read the latest balance sheet when he/she is struggling with stage four cancer.  At this stage in life this is not important. 

 

Our life with God or rather God’s life with us receives the same treatment. Many people have walked away from sharing and living a committed Christiaan life. “This is not something that speaks to me anymore.” 

 

The life of every human being is a journey through the highs of success and personal fulfillment to the lows of suffering and rejection. We have many people who have struggled to recover from the blow the corporation threw at them. They had given almost twenty years of good and creative service to the company, only to discover that one day the employer walked in, unannounced, with the severance package in hand. After Twohy years of service they were out the door with not so much as a thank you.

 

There are a lot of scars and wounds that mark our histories. There are also heroic stories of resistance, survival and recreation of life.

 

At this point it is creative to sit down and reflect how much of my Christian upbringing and practice actually gives meaning to my life. This is not a rejection of our Christian faith or the practice serious doubt about it. It can become a life-giving moment to see how my Christiaan faith nourishes and sustains my life.

 

I may recognize that I no longer pray and worship. I call out to God when I am in trouble but that is about what my relationship with God amounts to. Or I may discover how much I enjoy the hand of God in the Autum winds, the rustling leaves and the warm autum afternoon sun.  This reflection may identify huge gaps of spiritual things I have walked away from or it may indicate how the spirit of God has become more active within my life. 

 

I invite you to spend some reflection time on what of your Christiaan faith gives you life and energy and what no longer speaks to you in any meaningful way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOVE IT AND YOU WILL PRESEVE IT

As we come close to the end of the Season of Creation (October 04), it brings us to reflect on humanity’s responsibility to preserve and nurture the earth. The past two hundred and fifty years have brought on the onslaught of the industrial revolution but it has brought some very dire consequences to the earth. 

 

Consider the reality of global warming and the threat that large parts of the earth may become uninhabitable to both humans and animals. How many of our waterways and lands have been polluted by chemicals. And what will we do with all the plastics floating in our oceans? 

 

Human beings will not change their present practices unless they are moved by a love for the earth. You will not preserve and nourish what you do not love! This is why care for creation is an intense struggle within our hearts. All the scientific information about pollution and the warming of the atmosphere is just so much ‘data.’ Only when the heart is moved will we move to care and nourish the earth.

 

This is why Pope Francis opened his encyclical “Laudato si” with the image of the earth as our common home. When we all live together we will take care of the home we live in and not leave a mess for the other members of our family. The earth is not there for humanity to exploit and get rich but to live in harmony with one another and with all the plants and animals. In our common home we are also concerned about how well the deer in the gullies and forests are doing. How are the insects thriving? 

 

Spend a good amount of time and energy absorbing the reality of our common home and how much your life benefits from living in harmony and care for all parts of creation.  Allow the awareness of all that we share with and are supported by creation sink into your heart. Feel what it means to live in the home of all living things.   

 

We need to be captured by the insight of our common home. “Our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and the beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.” (Laudato si, #1)

 

Humanity is at a crossroads. We all have the choice to move completely away from industrial pollution (and our own personal pollution) into a time when we live and thrive with all of creation. No one country can do this on our own. 

 

But every individual counts. Every one of the eight billion humans alive at this moment can make a difference. We all have power by the choices we make in our lifestyle to work toward preserving the earth. But we want to do this because we first of all love the earth and all its forms of life.

 

 

 

JUSTICE MUST ALWAYS THINK INTO THE FUTRUE

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a mother teaching her thirteen year old how to compare the prices and the quality of tee-shirts. I cannot imagine a better laboratory for learning. She was picking up a shirt and directly demand that the boy feel the quality of the cloth. Then her finger moved quickly to compare the prices. 

 

She was teaching her son how to see and evaluate things. She was giving him the tools how  how to look at things in life. His  world was being enlarged!

 

For the past sixty-five years scientists and people in the know have been pointing out to humanity that the atmosphere of the earth is warming up. There is a real danger that parts of the world will be totally uninhabitable.  We are being challenged to consider the future life possibilities for our great-grandchildren. We are learning to think of and practice justice towards future generations. This is not a new spin on justice-practice. It is just extending what we already know about justice toward our fellow human-being into the future. 

 

What  kind of world will you hand on to the fifth, sixth and seventh generation that comes after you?

 

Let us begin with the top twenty-percent of humanity. This comprises about a billion and a half billion people. These are the people we call the ‘first world.’ These are the people who have the strongest share of the world’s wealth.  By the world’s level of consumption, this is the heaviest level of consumption.

 

But they also create a lot of garbage and pollute the  waters and the soils of the earth. Consider the legacy left behind from the ancient Egyptian civilization. They left behind these huge monuments of stone that we call the pyramids of Egypt. These huge pile of stones will be on locataion for thousands of years.

 

Will our civilization leave behind huge piles that we call ‘landfills?’ And a good portion of our landfills are composed of plastics which will be there for thousands of years.

 

This is where our thinking about practicing justice is so helpful. What kind of future are we  handing on  to future generations? Will the land and soil be as productive for them as it has been for us? The soil will produce crops for a thousand years if we take care of it. Will there be enough minerals, such as cooper, zinc and iron to sustain future generations?

 

This is where the Season of Creation (Sept 1-Octob er 4) is a gift. It is an ecumenical prayer and reflection time for Christians to reflect on our care of creation, to take responsibility how humanity has harmed creation and to begin to adjust our lives and civilisations so that we not only do no harm to  creation but we help creation thrive.

 

You may have some difficulty getting your mind to understand the practice of justice as extending to future generations, but the Season of Creation is an excellent tool to begin the conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SINS AGAINST THE EAERTH

During this Season of Creation (Sept 1 – October 4) we want to reflect on some of the consequences of humanity’s activity upon the earth. Unfortunately, the past four hundred years have limited our salvation only to personal acts on the part of each individual. There was almost no consideration given to the social consequences (i.e., in justices) to others or the complete absence of any consideration of how our understanding of salvation might apply to the earth.

 

Scientists, during the past sixty-five years, have pointed out some of the disastrous consequences of human activity on the health of the earth. The most obvious consequence is the burning of fossil fuels. The earth is warming up and human life, to keep the focus on ourselves at the moment, may be very difficult a century from now. How will humans be able to live in a very warm and dry earth?

 

In our Christian understanding of life and salvation we recognize clearly the reality of evil. We have a simple label for evil: it is sin! No matter what label you give, the evil is very painful and disastrous for so many people. We have the great evil of war, but we also have the daily evil of selfishness and using others for our personal gain, no matter what the consequences for the other. 

You can change the name for evil, but the painful reality by any other name is still very hurtful.

 

Now, as we live into the narrative of the survival of the earth and humanity we have to take responsibility for our sins (i.e., evil exploitation) against the earth.

 

We are trying to reshaped by an expanded understanding that all creation is interconnected. The earth and all it provides for human thriving is gift. The earth is our mother and the source of our life. If it is mother, then we have a responsibility to treat the earth with respect and care, just as we would care for our aging mother. The world looks completely different when we live in her vast expanse as mother.

 

One of the alarming signs of harming the earth happened in the Yukon, February 17, 2025. The process of using cyanide (a very strong and destructive chemical) in the separation of the mineral gold from the mined ore, broke loose from the holding ponds and flowed into the fresh water steams. This chemical is unbelievably destructive to the salmon in the rivers but also leaches into the underground rivers that flow within the soils. Even if this mining disaster happened in a very remote part of Canada, it is a blatant indication of how human activity can wreck havoc on the ecosystem and the fresh waters of our earth. This must never be moved to the side of unconcern. This accident has very harmful consequences for the earth.

 

Is this not one example of sin against the earth?

 

Now, as we take responsibility for the harmful effects of human activity on the earth, what are we going to do about it?