THE STRENGTH OF YOUR FAMILY LIFE

 

No family is perfect. 

 

Some years ago, Murrray, the father of three teenage boys, made the statement:  “We always wanted kids.” He stopped and pointed his finger to the center of the table. “But not these ones!”

 

The three sets of parents surrounding the table burst into laughter! He had touched a live - nerve!

 

Every family is a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. Your mother was always concerned about the activities of her children. She knew where they were, with whom they were playing with and always checked if they had enough to eat. That was a pillar of strength. The weakness: the father had little opportunity to give direction and assistance to his children. 

 

Today, many families in Canada are struggling with addictions. One (or more) members of their family are active drug users that complicates all their relationships. There are too many lapses of responsibility that burden the other members of the family. There are arguments and hard feelings. There is confusion. The members of the family they are fearful: what will this weekend bring?

 

We are trying to understand what it means for the many Canadian families that live in poverty. Our people observe that groceries are rising. They sincerely ask: What do people on fixed incomes do? We are struck by the question that some of our elderly ask: will I take my medication or will I pay the rent? Poverty is a major concern in our Canadian society. 

 

This is where we must take responsibility for our strengths. We are working to keep together, to live and function as a community where the parents, children and grandparents thrive. Claim your hard work to communicate and your patience when one member does not respond to helpful direction and support. Your spouse has an aging parent that is slowly moving into dementia. You could be very resentful that they are absent from your family each day,  but recognize the support that you give her/him. You just pick up and prepare the meals, give the house and good cleaning and attack the laundry. 

 

Your strength is found in your commitment. You do not walk out! The one adult child has taken a most unhealthful direction. There is no communication. You do not give up. There are many tears at night for the wandering, lost one. You feel like the Prodigal Father in the Gospel of Luke who waits for the return of his wayward son. 

 

Today, come before God in gratitude for the strength and commitment of each family member. You do not have to be perfect and be buddy-buddy with your son -in-law, but you work to live and function as family.

 

Claim your strengths. This is your service to good living and to making your faith come alive. 

Recognize the strong power in your family life.

 

CHRISTMAS WITH MORE DEPTH

 

May  you have a very good Christmas. 

 

Each year I am seeking to have more depth and understanding what it means to celebrate the birth day of our Savior. What is the purpose of signaling out one day on the calendar to focus on the work of God, breaking in among an often indifferent human race?

 

Many people, when they actually take Christmas by the shoulders and come face to face with the event of the birth of God in such humble conditions, have serious difficulties with this one.

 

Christmas must always be on God’s terms. It is not meant to make us feel good but to stretch us into the redeeming work of God. God has become one of us (the divine becomes human in order to  make the human divine. This is the breaking in of God to change the lives, the societies and cultures of our peoples. The birth of God among us is a dynamic event (i.e., the life and teaching of Jesus) to bring human beings to become truly human: that is, to grow to become the heart and the justice of God among humanity. We are destined to be transformed into the likeness, the love and mercy of God.

 

God does not want us to ‘ohh and ah’ over the birth of this baby. This is the breaking in (i.e., it is revelation in actin) of the very life and heart of God. The birth of Jesus in conditions of dire poverty announces something great is going to happen on the part of God. Life is going to change!

 

Unfortunately, over the centuries the story of Christmas has become too sentimental and folksy. Seeking depth in the Christmas story is to get in touch with the  way God acts. Jesus is not born in power and privilege. Rather, he is born poor and dispossessed. Mary gives birth in a public place, a holding place for poor travellers who cannot afford to purchase a hotel room. The first recipients of the good news of God’s work are the shepherds. These are the day labourers, the poor working class of people. There is no hint of privilege here. The poor meet the poor!

 

Then in the Gospel of Matthew , it is the pagans (what we call the wise men from the East) who are directed to seek the Christ child. All Jewish people knew that pagans were the unwanted in the divine plan.

 

In each of the two above cases, it is the outsiders who are called to celebrate the birth of God among us. 

 

Christmas is the revelation of the great heart of God including everyone, especially the people that us humans exclude or count as of less importance. And whatever God does is what human beings must actualize in their lives The message of Christmas is to seek to have our lives and hearts expanded to the poor, with their many faces, who live  right around us. 

 

The message of Christmas is: when humans exclude, God breaks all the human rules, and includes the forgotten, the poor and the grubby day labourers.

 

I pray that my heart is expanded and overflows with the love of God. 

 

Have a wonderful Christmas with overflowing divine love and mercy.

AN ADULT JESUS FOR CHRISTMAS

During this Advent I am trying to relocate myself in the reality of Christmas. I am trying to peal off all the sweet, folk-images that have crept around the story of the birth of Jesus. 

 

Christmas is first and foremost the celebration of the birth day of the very Son of God among us. Like all birthdays, you do not tell sweet stories of childhood but you rejoice and celebrate the live of the person right now. If this is their eightieth birthday, you share the goodness of reaching this milestone with joy and thanksgiving.  A birthday is always celebrating the person now, at whatever stage of life they are at today. 

 

Birthdays are what this person is all about. We celebrate as the gift they are; today.

 

The very center of the life of Jesus is the great act of salvation: his sacrificial death and his resurrection.  In these three days of salvation, Jesus, through the sacrificial gift of his death brings all humanity to God. In his resurrection we humans are given the very life and person of the Son of God. We are given the risen Christ so that we in turn might become the living extension of Christ’s salvation.

 

The celebration of Christmas comes late in the Christian experience. It is all about the birthday of the Son of God among us. This is God becoming flesh, a working man like you and I, to make the flesh of human beings divine. Simply put, the coming of the Son of God among us is the lived-out expression of God’s plan of redemption. 

 

When we celebrate the birthday of Jesus, we are sharing in God’s great work of leading all human beings back to the life and heart of God. Christmas means sharing in the movement of Jesus to bring your relatives who are very biased and racist to see the people who are different from them (i.e., those with power in the society)  with the eyes and heart of God. The adult Jesus alerts us that the very heart of God is quite different from the constricted heart of so many human beings. Christmas is all about God enlarging the arteries within our heart. The  Son of God is working to expand your life

 

An adult Jesus at Christmas sees the first invitation to the birth of  Jesus as the invitation to the forgotten ones of this world. There is nothing sweet about the shepherds hearing the announcement. They were the day labourers. Poor. Survivors and suffering from a reputation of being thieves (they were survivors).  God calls the little ones, the excluded from society to come and recognize the birth of Jesus. 

 

And now he calls us: ordinary people trying to make a go of their lives. We are being called to share and work in the great life and person of Jesus Christ. We are given the very life of the risen Christ. Now, Christ must come alive in our lives, in our own space and time.

 

The adult Jesus at Christmas time is both gift and challenge. We are called to a much greater life than  just living for ourselves. The birthday of Jesus means the birth in us of the life, the love, the compassion of Jesus Christ. Christmas is all about having our lives expanded beyond our boundaries to become the living extension of Jesus Christ.

 

We can only say one thing about the Christmas story: what a challenge!

 

 

THEY HAVE NOT SUFFERED ENOUGH!

 

Several years ago, a close friend throughout these many years, gifted me with a powerful insight for a healthy life. We had been discussing the resistance some people have toward some of the public health decisions that were exercised during the pandemic. She grew up with a single mother, who supported and managed her children well. She knew hardships in her life and brought loads of encouragement to her years of teaching high school.

 

She reflected on the resistance of the people under discussion and she concluded: “They haven’t suffered enough!”

 

For all of us, growing up and maturing into the wisdom of good living, has come through a lot of difficult moments. We all have suffered in one way or another. A farmer cannot grow an abundant apple crop unless he first prune the trees in the Spring. Good living, a good harvest, comes through mistakes, and downright seasons of struggle.

 

In life, your strengths are always your greatest weaknesses. The mother who is super-clean, has the bathroom mirror cleaned immediately after the children have brushed their teeth (her strength), was so busy that she did not have time to hug each of the kids as they ran out of the house to catch the school bus (her weakness).

 

Growing up in the Church brings a definite identity (strength), but it often times is a hindrance to growing up and living our faith in God. Anyone who is satisfied and comfortable with their religious faith and practice, will often block any growth and maturity in our Christian faith. Those who think they are performing well as believers are often living in illusion (their weakness).

 

You will only grow and mature into a wonderful human being through mistakes, failures and taking the wrong turn from time to time. But these negative moments become the moments of birth and growth. 

 

Fortunately, most adults take ownership of their mistakes and grow through them. They know they are not perfect and that there is a lot more room for growth and blossoming.

 

Authentic growth in our faith happens as we walk with, struggle with our God. We search  and go looking for God. We will only find God if we are hungry for God. We will only find God is we have suffered hunger for God, suffered through our sins and our mistakes and were open to how the Holy Spirit wants to reveal God to us. 

 

Faith is always a two-way affair. First, God always bursts into our lives but we also must go looking for God. 

 

This is why the insight of our friend (they have not suffered enough) brings us to be in touch with our deep hunger for God. Be attentive to the ways that the Holy Spirit is moving you through frustrations and failures toward the mercy   and goodness of God.

 

This Advent, when we say “Come, Lord Jesus,” we are speaking out of actual need. There is a spiritual hunger within us crying out to meet the living Son of God.

 

May your Advent be a meeting with the real Jesus.

THE HOMELESS: A MOMENNT OF TRUTH

 

Homelessness is a stark reality in our North American cities. 

 

My fellow citizens have expressed deep concerns about the pain and suffering of anyone who does not have secure shelter. They are expressly concerned about the abuse and suffering that homeless women suffer.

 

You must always evaluate a society by the care and concern it demonstrates towards the poorest, the most vulnerable in its midst. How Canadians treat the homeless is a test of who we are as human beings and as a society.

 

First, the problem of homelessness grows directly as the price of real estate goes up. Your parent’s house increases in value every year. Their wealth in real estate is going up. But at the same time, the cost of rents at the lower end also goes up. People who were able to afford minimum hosing are low pushed out completely. Homelessness is the downside, the black side, of prosperity.

 

People’s lives are precarious, and for many, they live on the edge. They have weak or non-existent family and social connections. There is no family that will take them in. In the old days one of your family members could take the old dad to live with them. Today, that social reality does not exist for so many homeless people.

 

Among the homeless there is a great deal of mental illness and serious addiction issues with drugs and alcohol. We want to be very careful not to criticize any family member who cannot deal with serious drug addiction. Very few of us can deal positively with a close relative who struggles with heavy drug abuse.

 

We also must recognize that human lives can fall apart. I remember one of our young (age 27) street people came to the door, hungry. It was a cold winter day. I asked him, “Where are your gloves?” (I had given him a pain of winter gloves two weeks previously.) He shrugged his shoulders. Probably he had lost the in a drinking spree. I made him two sandwiches but his life was very unmanageable. 

 

The human reality is that many people can pick themselves up from disasters, get organized, take care of themselves and thrive. But the downside is that some human lives will fall apart. The very poor appear to be living a life in steady collapse.

 

We all know that we need social housing. This is easier said and done. All our governments are strapped for money. Social housing is expensive and must be maintained. If any level of government builds social housing, this is always a long-term commitment. 

 

The concern of our Christian people is genuine. They not only make a sound judgment about the problem of homeless in Canada, but there is genuine feelings of concern and compassion in their lament. 

 

How we respond to homelessness is a complicated matter. Our response as a Canadian society must be multi-pronged. There are many issues that must be dealt with; there is no one solution that is a fix-it for homelessness.

 

Just because it is a very difficult situation does not mean that we will run away from it. Thank you for being concerned and having your heart move for anyone who is on the streets this cold winter evening.

 

 

 

FAITH IS ALWAYS A TUG-of-WAR

 

When people really get into the story of our salvation they conclude that there is a push-pull: God seeks the people and makes covenant with them. They promise fidelity but later drop away from following the covenant with God. They turn towards false gods.

 

God does not give up on them.  Once again God goes seeking for his lost people. The prophets of the Old Testament spell out this struggle in painful detail.

 

Religious faith is not a once-for-all-got-it event. There are ups and downs there is struggle between God and the people.

 

No one should be surprised that they experience this struggle within their own life. We may have grown very slack in our religious service. We may block the grace of God by our practice of greed, racism and just down-right violence towards the other. 

 

God does not leave us in our sin and darkness. The Spirit of God is ever active, seeking us, challenging us and looking for us as the parent searches for the wayward adult children.

 

The story that Jesus gave of the farmer who leaves the ninety-nine sheep at home in the pen and goes searching for the lost (the wandering one) is not some nice story from the past. This is our lived experience today. The lost sheep could be ourselves, or our brother who has completely dropped out of anything religious or the co-worker who is struggling with drug addiction. The lost sheep is one of us, here and now.

 

You have a co-worker who has been very hurt by his siblings over the settlement of the will and property of their father. He carries deep resentments and angers. His life is so limited by his relentless efforts to get even with this siblings. But the spirit of God is ever acttive in his life to seek healing and restoration.  The healing power of the risen Jesus is directed towards your co-worker’s woundedness.

 

Wherever there is war, the first victim will always be the truth.  The bully and  the aggressor are waging a propaganda battle to justify their invitation of the territory of a weaker country (which possesses oil resources). How must the heart of God cry out in pain when human beings go to war?

 

The people of your local church call you to become involved with the life and mission of Jesus. They are asking you to live what you profess. They are challenging when they call you to conversion of life. Obviously, they want you to feel dissatisfied with the way you are living your life today. When they call you to conversion, you experience  feelings of resentment.  But, is not the call of God coming through their invitation and their concern for your well-being?

 

Life never comes pre-packaged. God invades our lives. God calls us once again to a new life. We might be slow and resist. But here we are living this tug-of-war between the faithful heart of God and our waywardness.

 

May God always win!

 

 

 

EMBRACING OUR DEPARTED LOVED ONES

When you lose a loved one, you lose a part of your own life. All relationships become a part of the fibre of our life, just as we become a part of the fibre of the lives of those who love us. And when they die, no matter how elderly they were,  a part of our life is torn away. Always think of death like having an arm torn off. Such a precious part of our life is no longer touching, speaking and smiling at us. 

 

But the departed loved one does not disappear into thin air. They live on in eternal life. Now, we are not so presumptuous to think that heaven is automatic; you die and then you just move on into the eternal realm. That would be the sin of presumption. 

 

We pray that God calls the departed loved on into eternal life and eternal glory. We pray that our departed loved one is embraced with the open arms of the risen Jesus. Heaven becomes the final gift, the final action of a loving God towards us human beings. But it always is the action and movement of the Holy Trinity towards us.

 

Now in our theological language we have a wonderful way to describe the final journey of the faithful soul. We call this the “communion of saints.” We are all connected with and through the Holy Spirit to one another: the believing people on this earth and the ones who are called into glory. We are connected; we belong to one another.

 

This is why we are not afraid to ask our departed mother, who was a prayerful person, to intercede for us who are going through this tough time on earth. Perhaps you are having difficulty relating to your twenty some daughter, who you can see it moving into a very harmful lifestyle. You do not hesitate to call out to your departed mother, addressing her by name, and asking her to pray for this very difficult family situation.

 

Or maybe you just lost the thirty-some nephew through an overdose. You pray for him. You ask God, our triune God, to reach out to this very broken and suffering soul. Death, even such a tragic death, does not mean abandonment. Fortify his final journey with your prayers and your persistent love, even if he practiced such a destructive lifestyle.

 

During this month of November, we are encouraged to bring forward our departed loved ones. We are connected in the communion of saints. We hold them up in prayer and \ask that God grant them the fullness of eternal life.

 

While we are doing this prayer and enjoying our memories of the loved one, remind yourself that you are not meant to be on this earth for very long.  You are destined for eternal glory. You are destined for life, and life everlasting. There is so much more that awaits us as we bring to a close our time on this earth. 

As you pray for your departed loved one, be surrounded by the great plan of God. You are meant for a life much greater than the life you are living now. You are meant to shae the very life of God, in glory, and forever and ever!