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!

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?