And how really is the world redeemed at any time?

Reading:  Romans 12:9-21

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.  Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
 
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.   If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”  No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So easy to skim over this reading as just another laundry-list of motherhood-and-apple-pie statements about being nice people.  Love others, be good to your neighbour, be kind to strangers ... yada yada yada.  So easy to imagine it's all just variations on the basic homey advice to "be nice."

Until we remember the community to which these directions are written.  

And how radical and challenging were the kinds of relationships being formed in that community.

And the tension between the life of this new community, and the life of the city around it and of the empire of which that city was the capital.

The Christian community in Rome was an anomoly not always well-received by the city around it.  In Rome, everything in life -- everything you could be, everyone you could associate with, whether you could even own anything, where you stood (or knelt, or grovelled) in society, what rights you had (or, more likely, did not have), whether you could ever advance anywhere at all -- depended on citizenship and status, race and religion, gender and family connections.  

It was a rigidly divided society, with firm lines drawn between different classes of people, clear rules about who was equal (and not equal) to whom.   And the Christians were a little community that dared to be different.  Out of shared commitment to a radical outlier named Jesus of Nazareth (whom Rome put to death), in the church people of all kinds came together with no regard for the rules of separation and distinction that most people around them never even thought to question.


With that in mind, we begin to see how challenging some of these directions were to follow.  

We can begin to imagine concrete situations where it must have taken deep faith in Jesus and the support of other Christians to live out the gospel way, and how the way of the Christian community would have put its members at odds with their neighbours outside the faith.

And we begin to see also why it was so exciting to be Christian.  And maybe one of the reasons why as many people of all kinds were attracted to the faith and to the new community, as were.

More than just Sunday morning (sermon from Sunday, August 27, 2017)

Reading:  Romans 12:1-8

(Like all of us, Paul – one of the leaders of the early church, really struggles with religion.  On one hand, he is good at it -- trained as a Pharisee, skilled in theological debate, zealous in maintaining the religious practices and institutions of his day.  But on the other hand, when he is drawn in to the way of Jesus in the world, comes to see how Jesus understands God, and experiences in himself the same Spirit that filled and moved Jesus, Paul comes to see that faith and faithfulness to God are more about life than about religion, and more focused on living well in and for the world than on maintaining and protecting any particular religious organizations and practices.  In his letters to the church, Paul tries to pass on this understanding to others, and it’s what the reading today is about.)

Today is a good day to give thanks for those not here.

And I don’t mean because with fewer people here this week it’s easier to find a parking spot close to the church…and to sit in someone else’s pew for once.  Or because there’s more elbow room…and fewer people to have to share the peace of Christ with.

I mean today is a good day to give thanks for those who are not here because they have spent themselves all week, or some of them are spending themselves today in all the volunteer work that has to be done for us to be part of the Peach Festival, and to benefit from it.  Our pie booth, panzeroli booth, and face painting – not to mention all the other parts of the Festival some of our members are involved in, would not be there without the thousands and tens of thousands of volunteer hours that are given.  And it’s hard to imagine either Fifty United Church or Winona being what they are without the success year-in and year-out of the Peach Festival.

I wonder, is this part of what Paul would call “worshipful work” and a bodily sacrifice of time and talent, of experience and resources equal in holiness and spiritual worth to any ritual offering that someone might make in the holiest of Temples? 

We all have a part to play in the drama of God’s love being lived out on Earth.  Each one’s part is meaningful in light of the whole.  And all of us benefit from what others are able to contribute to the overall effort.

Which means the lines we often draw between things don’t always make sense, or are hard to maintain.  Like the lines between holy and unholy, churchly and worldly, sacred and secular.  In fact, I read somewhere recently that because we believe God is in all things, and is the creator and redeemer of all things, there really is nothing on Earth or in all the cosmos that we can call “secular” or devoid of spiritual significance – that all things are part of God’s good purpose and have a place in his will – and that something becomes “secular” only when we fail to see God’s glory in it and to seek God’s purpose for it.

I made it to peach-peeling only one morning this week.  Monday I was home with Japhia; Wednesday I was leading a funeral at Don Brown’s.  But Tuesday I was here and I was struck by how good it felt to be part of the community that was gathered there.  The space was tighter than in previous years, but the numbers I think were greater and the spirit as rich and open as ever. 

It was a wonderful gathering of all kinds of people and little sub-groups – some of whom get together often, others only for peeling peaches.  One woman from the Parkdale area has come the last few years after buying some of our pies at the Festival, finding out how they are made, and wanting to help out.  Peach-peeling is her only connection with us, but she was welcomed as much as anyone else, and her contribution was of absolutely equal worth to anyone else’s.

And isn’t that what church, and what the kingdom of God are kind of about?  About all kinds of people coming together around the common cause of making a difference for good in the world – each one offering what they are able, each one doing what they are capable of, each one honouring and respecting what the others offer towards the whole, and everyone being blessed and enriched by the part they play – even if they’re not here on a Sunday morning, even if their name is not in our church roll or our email list, even if they don’t ask for offering envelopes or sign up for PAR.

As Paul says, in the words of Eugene Patterson’s translation of Romans 12,

As aware as we are of God’s mercy towards us and all life, here’s what to do: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, walking-around-in-the-world, [peach-peeling, Peach-Festival-volunteering] life – and place it before God as an offering, as holy and worthy as anything anyone would ever offer in the holiest Temple.  Embracing the holiness and worthiness of what God gives you – and gives you to do in the world, is the best thing you can do for God.

I think about this sometimes when we think of our church mission and outreach.  On our website and in our annual reports, we list all the things we do and that we support officially as a congregation – things like Wesley Urban Ministries, City Kidz, the Stoney Creek Food Bank, the Support for Syrians and sponsorship of the Assad family, and Fingers-n-Toes.

But what about other things that are done by some of our members – not necessarily in the name of the church, but in the name of the God and the Christ that they worship and come to know here, in the strength and by the leading of the Spirit that’s nurtured in them at least in part by what we do here – like the Medical Ministries trips that have become such a part of the lives of Robyn Hunt and Elizabeth Woods, like the VanDuzer’s trips to build homes in the Dominican, like Bicycles for Cuba that Peter and Rosalia Bohonis supported and were part of for years, like the palliative care that Jane Franks offered throughout the community through Rose Cottage in addition to all the work she did more “officially” here when she was Co-Ordinator of Pastoral Care, like Deb Furry’s and Leslie Jack’s work of rescuing animals that are injured, disabled or abandoned along roadsides and in ditches and in shelters all around Niagara. 

And that’s only a scratch on the surface of all that the members and friends of this church bring to the life of the world and to the sharing of God’s love for it, and God’s good purpose in it.  Don’t these things – and so many others, deserve a place on the website describing who we are as a church, in our annual report of what God has called and helped us to do and be in the world, and even in  our worship and what we offer of our lives in praise to God?

And then even things more “secular” and everyday and ordinary – like the ways people carry out their jobs – whether it be teaching and nursing, or insuring people against loss, or keeping the books of small or large businesses, or the million other things that are done in this world either with an awareness of God’s love for all life, or without it – either in a humanely mature way that actually blesses and enriches everyone around, or in an immature, self-centred way that does no one any good.

Again as Paul says, in the words of Eugene Peterson,

In whatever you do in the world … let yourself and the way you do what you do, be changed from the inside out, by fixing your attention on what God wants and what God is up to in any situation you are in.  Instead of letting your culture drag you down to its level of immaturity, let your attention to God help you be mature and a witness to others.  [And again, this makes all your life, all you do an offering to God – something you can gratefully lift up to God as something as holy and worthy as anything anyone would offer in the holiest Temple.  And embracing the holiness and worthiness of what God gives you – and gives you to do in the world, is the best thing you can do for God. ]

Worship of God is so much bigger than just Sunday morning service. 

Christian service is so much more than just church work and official church programs.  

There really is no significant line to be drawn between holy and unholy, churchly and worldly, and sacred and secular.

And today is as good a day as any – maybe a better day than most, to be thankful for those who are not here this morning.

Peach Festival Sunday -- no need for the No Vacancy sign

Reading:  Romans 12:1-8 
(Let everything you do be an offering to God, as holy and blameless as any offering anyone ever lifts up to God in the holiest of Temples.)

This Sunday we expect to have maybe our smallest attendance of the year in worship.  

It's Peach Festival Sunday, and many of our folks have been at church all week peeling peaches for over 1800 pies, or at Fortino's late into the night baking the pies, or at the park much of the week helping set up for the festival, or at the festival all weekend selling pies and who knows what else to help raise money for the church and all kinds of other worthwhile organizations in the community.

Is this the kind of thing Paul had in mind when he writes, "with eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you...as an act of intelligent worship, to give God your bodies as a living sacrifice, consecrated to God and acceptable to God"?  (Rom 12:1 -- J.B. Phillips translation).  Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in his idiosyncratic translation The Message, "take your everyday, ordinary life -- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, walking around in the world [and volunteering at the church and at the Peach Festival?] life -- and place it before God as an offering" -- an offering as holy and worthy as any that someone might take and offer up in worship in the Temple?

We truly are grateful for all the people who help out, and all the variety of things they help out with -- some of them members of the church who are active in other ways as well, some of them members and friends for whom the work for the Peach Festival is their contribution and gift to the church.  

This Sunday we will remember and celebrate their contributions, and in this be aware of the presence and purpose of God in all life, and in all the ways that life is made good.

A few questions that might help bring some focus and depth to what we do and say:

• what really is it that makes anything we do, "holy" and an offering as holy as anything lifted up to God in a temple?
• maybe if we pray before we start whatever it is, and "dedicate" it to God? (can you imagine an opening prayer to peach peeling and to selling pies at the pie booth?  maybe a word of blessing over each pie sold?)
• is it because it's done for the church?
• or for the good of the community?
• is it because of the way the activity draws people together, and the kind of openness and companionship we find in doing the job together?
• or is it because of what it brings out from us, or nurtures within us -- an openness of heart, a willingness to step out and help, a belief that we can do our part to help make a difference?

• what are the marks of truly "worshipful work"?  how do we know that what we are doing at any time "really counts" as God-focussed, mature and healthy -- a good offering?

• and finally, (maybe a trick question) did God come in Jesus to build and maintain churches, or to help the world work in whole and healthy ways? (Or, to put it maybe another way, what's more important about any peach pie we sell: the money it makes to keep the church going, or the delight and spirit of gratitude felt by the person who buys it when they are able to eat it and enjoy it?)

What's the doxology we're singing in worship this summer?

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

praise God, all creatures high and low;

give thanks to God in love made known:

Creator, Word and Spirit, One.

May it be so.  Even one holy slice of perfect peach pie at a time.

Beyond Heat to Light (sermon from Sunday, Aug 20, 2017)

Reading: Psalms 137 and 126

(Israel’s image of God and of themselves is shaped by two great journeys.  One is the exodus around 1200 BCE, when God frees them from slavery in Egypt and leads them against all odds through the Red Sea and the wilderness, to the Promised Land to be able to live their as God’s people in the world.  The second is the exile around 700 BCE, when after they fall into systemic unfaithfulness to the ways of God, God allows their land, the city of Jerusalem and their kingdom to be destroyed by enemies, and them to be taken captive into Babylon.  The anguish of their captivity is reflected in the first of our readings – Psalm 137; the second – Psalm 126, reflects their later joy and hope of returning from exile, to be in their land again)

“If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”

It’s hard to lose Jerusalem.  Really hard.  No matter where or what Jerusalem is for you.  Or for anyone else.

Jerusalem is the holy centre of meaning and purpose in life.  It’s a place of sacred groundedness in a world of chaos and uncertainty.  It’s where you feel blessed and affirmed, held in God’s arms, watched over by God’s love, and opened in loving ways to others around you.  Jerusalem is a sign of, and the actual experience of the goodness of life and the trustworthiness of God.

And it’s hard to lose Jerusalem.

I wonder if that’s what my wife – or anyone else you know, feels when health fails and you no longer can be, and do, and enjoy what you used to.  Is it what a parent feels when a child of theirs suffers and dies?  What a church member feels when the church just no longer is what it used to be, and what they needed it to be?  Is it what we sometimes feel, and what white supremacists in the States deeply feel, when we suffer the passing of the particular national dream that we grew up with and were taught to count on and to love?  Is it what First Nations’ children felt as they were carted off to residential schools and held there, and what their families felt as they saw them go, and wondered if they would ever see them come back?

It’s not just Israel that knows the loss of Jerusalem in life.  Or, maybe more honest to say we are all Israel especially when we know in our lives the pain of losing and then longing for Jerusalem, wherever and whatever it is for any of us.

And how does the story go from there?

In the reading this morning – in Psalm 137, there is a common and natural next step in the journey – the step of reacting against the change that’s come and of trying to make things right again – to restore what used to be, by punishing or getting rid of whatever and whoever made things change the way they did.  For Israel carted away from Jerusalem to Babylon, the last verses of Psalm 137 – the prayer to God to let somebody do to Babylon what Babylon did to them, and even worse – is a natural and human response, and one that even people of faith fall into.  

O daughter, Babylon, you devastator!

Happy shall they be who pay back

what you have done to us!

Happy shall they be who take your little ones

and dash them against the rock! 

I can’t tell you the number of times I read or hear some story in the news about something changing or being done in a way that just seems sad and a real diminishment of life as I have loved it, and the first question I feel is “who’s to blame?  Who’s doing this?  Who’s the villain here, and who should I learn to dislike and criticize and maybe even hate?”

When someone is really sick or suffering, how often do family and friends, instead of just being able to sympathize and offer support, start offering advice and suggestions and trying to fix the problem as though the one who is sick or in sorrow must surely not be doing the right things, and maybe even has been doing the wrong things.  It has to be somebody’s fault.   

And culturally, politically, socially how easily and how often do we try to deal with our pain at losing Jerusalem by trying to find out who’s to blame, and what we need to do about them?

But whether it’s someone else, God or often even ourselves that we end up blaming and trying to punish, is the world ever that simply divided into good guys and bad guys, right and wrong, good and evil? 

And does the way of Psalm 137:7-9, the way of blame and punishment, ever get us back to Jerusalem?  The psalm just ends there in the anger, and seems to get us and others only further away from where we really want to be.

But there is a second, or an alternative ending – a different second step that Israel eventually finds its way towards.  We read it in Psalm 126 – that dream, and then the memory, and the renewed dream again of actually returning to Jerusalem – of finding once again, and again and again, that longed-for place of blessing and affirmation, of meaning and purpose, of sacred groundedness in a world of chaos and uncertainty.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream…

our mouth…filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy…

May those who sow in tears, reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with joy, carrying their sheaves.

One thing, though, about this regaining of Jerusalem: in practice, in the actual history and lived experience of Israel – any Israel – it was and never has been a journey simply back to what was ... as though what was is still waiting ... the good old days just waiting to be revived.

The people returned to their land and to where Jerusalem had been, but when they got there the city and land were in ruins and they had to rebuild with new materials, with new partners and neighbours, with new needs and opportunities in mind, and hopefully also with new lessons learned from what had been before.

One thing they missed the most was the Temple where they had known the goodness of life, and the love and trustworthiness of God.  But it’s striking that no matter how much they tried over the years and generations and centuries that followed, they never really did manage to rebuild the Temple for a long time.  And as sad and sometimes guilt-inducing as that was for them, we can't help but conclude that maybe that was okay, because once the Temple was gone and they were taken from it -- and it from them, while they were exiled in what at first seemed to be only-unholy Babylon, they began a whole new way of gathering as people of faith, and of maintaining and renewing their life together as people of God in the world.  With no central temple to go to, they began to meet more locally and in smaller groups, even under the radar of their Babylonian masters if need be -- and that’s how the synagogue movement began.  It was not part of their life prior to the exile; it's in the exile that they really developed it.

And even when they went back to their old land, they took the synagogue movement with them and it became the new foundation of their life together – a whole new way of opening themselves to God’s word and God’s blessing, and of knowing the faithfulness of God to them in the midst of life’s limits and losses, in the midst of the opportunities and graces of the present day. 

They wept for what they had lost.  But it was those very tears and those losses that were the seeds of a brand new harvest.

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

Is the psalm suggesting that the losses suffered and the tears shed in accepting the losses, are themselves the real seed of new life, and of a new kind of harvest?

And I wonder what that means for us?  For any of us in our own private losses?  For all of us in shared sorrow at Jerusalems that are no more?

There is a natural and human way of reacting against loss and grief. 

But how do we find that other, maybe more faithful next step, that actually leads to a different and new kind of Jerusalem more in keeping with the present day and the love of God in it?

Neighbours in a Dangerous Time (for Sun, Aug 20/17)

Reading:  Psalm 137:1-6 and Psalm 126 (maybe ... things could change by Sunday)

Two psalms about the pain of being exiled from Jerusalem ... about losing what you counted on as your home, your identity, the place and the way of being you counted on as yours in the world.

Elgin, our Property Chair, dropped by the church yesterday afternoon to fill me in on what's been happening while I was on vacation around the use of our parking lot by a neighbouring business -- a simmering local issue that involves considerable confusion and sometimes a little heat around boundaries (both legal and practical), agreements, new and unfamiliar partners in an old and established neighbourhood, etc etc.

I was glad for Elgin's arrival.  It gave me a break from the bog I was in, trying to sort out this week's sermon.  I am committed to following through on a summer series I set up back in June, in which the theme this week is what it's like to be (and what good news there may be for those who are) in exile from home, longing for return, recovery and new life.  But I have also been deeply moved by the events in and from Charlottesville, by how the issues that have surfaced there relate to us here, and by an interview I heard yesterday morning with a man who is a recovered violent extremist, who has helped form an organization that helps heal others like him of the childhood trauma and undermined sense of identity, trust and self-worth that apparently is a common denominator world-wide among people attracted to violent extremism.  If you want, you can hear the brilliant 12-minute interview at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-august-15-2017-1.4246788/this-ideology-on-violent-far-right-is-just-as-toxic-as-isis-says-former-white-supremacist-1.4246815

Anyway, when Elgin arrived I happily welcomed him, and told him he had a choice: he could either fill me in on the parking lot saga, or tell me what Sunday's sermon will be (without filling him in on the specifics of the bog I was in on the way towards it).  He sat and thought for just a minute (less, actually), and said simply, "Be a good neighbour."

How brilliant!  And how amazing of him to sum up both the saga and the sermon in just those four words.  Thank you, Elgin. 

In both the ill-defined parking lot around the church and the cultural-economic-social-political chaos of our times, isn't it really about being good neighbours -- what that means, what makes it hard to do and what stands in the way, what we need to learn and where we need to grow in order to be able to live out this so-simple-sounding command?

The man who works with violent extremists says it has to begin with regaining connection with our own humanity -- our basic self-worth, identity, meaning and purpose -- something so many people in the world are disconnected from, usually from childhood.  Because until we really know, accept and love our own humanity, how can we know, accept and love the humanity of others different from us?

And I think maybe the Bible (at least Psalm 137 and 126) might be reminding us of the ways we all feel exiled or dis-connected from Jerusalem -- whatever "Jerusalem" may mean and may be for any of us.  And that until we feel connected with it again, or feel connected to a new Jerusalem -- different and even better and fuller than the old, we just cannot get out of the pit of grief, victimization, and the politics (both personal and public) of grievance and retribution that we so easily fall into and inhabit.

So ... what does this mean for Sunday? For the sermon?  

Not sure yet. 

The first step is probably to spend some time with the question of what it means for me.

Sermon from Sunday, August 13, 2017

Reading: 1 Samuel 22:1-5 and 23:1-5

The reading tells a story from the early years of the Kingdom of Israel.  Saul is the people's first king, and after seeming like a good choice, he has turned out not so well.  So David is chosen by God and anointed to be new king.  But Saul is still on the throne, isn't about to give it up, and every now and then tries to have David killed.  At one point David goes underground, hiding out in a cave in the neighbouring land of the Philistines (Israel's enemy at that point) and then in a forest just inside Israel’s border with the land of the Philistines.  In hiding, he is joined by hundreds of others from "the underside" of Saul's kingdom.

David, for his part, has a number of opportunities to kill Saul and take the throne, but refuses to raise a hand against the sitting king.  Rather, David and his followers just go about the work of helping the people of the kingdom as best they can from where they are.

When I read this story of David, the rightful and future king hiding in a cave in enemy territory and then living in a forest on the kingdom’s edge, attracting around him hundreds of others who are oppressed, in debt or dissatisfied, I think of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest hiding from the Sherriff of Nottingham and the cruel King John usurping the throne of his brother Richard the Lionhearted, and gathering around him a band of Merry Men similarly dispossessed and creating what justice they can in a hard and unjust time.

I think of alternative communities and underground resistance of any time. 

I think too of Jesus on the fringe of society and power in his time, also gathering a motley crew of disciples, united in their sense of dispossession and loss, united also in their commitment to seeking and helping to create a new world more holy and humane than the one that keeps perpetuating itself.

And that makes me think too, of what might have happened – what might have been asked and answered, each time someone new came to the cave, came to the edge of the forest, came wanting to join the community that was forming on the edge of their time.

“What are you looking for” comes a voice from somewhere up ahead, or maybe off to the side – the voice of someone still skillfully hidden from plain sight.

“I am looking for comfort,” is maybe the first response.  “I have lost so much.  I see no hope.  I don’t know where to turn.  And I have heard that there is comfort to be found here.  That here with your leader there is understanding and healing, encouragement and hope that the world – that the kingdom of our time and that the life and the system and the powers of our kingdom cannot provide.  I am in need of comfort.”

After a pause, during which we wonder if maybe we are now alone – that the one who asked the question has maybe left us, the voice sounds again.  “And is that all you are looking for?” the voice asks, and this time we think we see the outline of a human shape in the cluster of trees where the voice seems to be coming from.

After a moment’s thought, and turning towards the human shape that we think we see, “No.  Not just comfort.  I am looking for community and companionship as well.  I cannot be the only one feeling this way – so powerless and poor, so lost and afraid.  I would like to be with others who feel the same way.  Have suffered the same experience.  Who know it and understand it from inside.  I think that would help heal me and give me strength, more than anything.”

Again, a long pause.  But this time we are sure that the shape we think we have seen really is a person, somewhere there just behind those three trees.  We keep our eyes fixed there and then from that very place the voice comes again.  “And is there anything else you are looking for?  Will comfort and companionship – comfort and community, satisfy you?”

“No,” we say, after another moment’s hesitation.  “I would also like, with the rest of the people here to help make the world anew.  To help it be different than it is and has become.  To help it be the place of comfort and companionship it should be for all.  To make it good, the way it is meant to be in its creation.”

“And how will you do that?”  The voice this time is surprisingly quick in its question.  As though to catch out our real answer before we have time to think too much about it.

And we actually do reply as quickly, saying, “By starting from here.  By letting this be a place where we work together at comfort, community and the world that’s meant to be.  And then seeing, and being thankful for wherever the ripples may lead.”

“Welcome.”  A human figure comes out from the tree.  “Come in,” we are told, and the figure before us turns and begins to lead deeper into the forest, on a little pathway that we hadn’t really noticed before.  And as we follow, we hear the words floating back to hover over us, “Peace be with you.  God’s peace be upon you.  God’s peace flow through you to all the Earth.”

And what if that’s it?  What if that is how the kingdom comes?  Always comes?

Not in any grand battle.  Not in any great revolution.  Not in any triumphal entry or even a grand second coming.

But in an alternative community of comfort and companionship, committed together to living in the ways of peace, and being thankful for wherever the ripples may lead.

Is this enough for us?  Isn’t this what we are looking for?

Photo by John VanDuzer

Towards Sunday, August 13, 2017

Reading:  1 Samuel 22:15 and 23:1-5

It's the early years of the Kingdom of Israel.  Saul is the people's first king, and after seeming like a good choice, he has turned out not so well.  So David has been chosen by God and anointed to be new king.  But Saul is still on the throne, isn't about to give it up, and every now and then tries to have David killed.  At one point David goes underground, hiding out in a cave in the land of the Philistines (Israel's enemy at that point) and then in a forest just inside the border between the Kingdom of Israel and the land of the Philistines.  In hiding, he is joined by hundreds of others from "the underside" of Saul's kingdom.

For years -- maybe all my life, I have been attracted to solitary heroes.  The Lone Ranger, Palladin, the Man With No Name that Clint Eastwood played in those spaghetti westerns, the Preacher that he reprised in "Pale Rider," his own version of those Leone classics.

I trace that attraction all the way back to my childhood image of Jesus as a troubled, solitary man praying at night in a garden, a barren rock his only support, a light-beam from heaven leading him on towards his fate of facing evil and suffering death alone for all the world. 

A larger-than-life print of the picture above hung at the front of my childhood church.  I saw it every Sunday, and to this day I am not free of that image.  And I'm sure that over the years I have only scratched the surface in understanding and learning to live beyond all the ways this has shaped -- and limited, my faith, my self-understanding, and the ways I use my gifts.

I wonder ... what is your childhood image of Jesus?  What image did you have of Jesus as a child, which even now you are not entirely free of?

And how has it ... how does it still, shape your faith, your self-understanding, and the ways you use your gifts?

The reading this week about David gives me a different image, though.  When I hear of him threatened by the king's jealous power, hiding in the cave and then in a forest, and hundreds of others who are "oppressed, in debt or dissatisfied" (Good News translation) joining him there, what comes to mind is Robin Hood and the other refugees from the powers of the day who join him in Sherwood Forest during the illegitimate reign of cruel King John.  Robin is not a solitary or tragic hero but a gatherer of alternative community, and a saviour of the people because of his communitarian vision and practice.

Which brings to mind a very different Clint Eastwood character -- the outlaw Josey Wales, in the film of the same name.  Josey begins as a poor, solitary victim of unjust power on a dangerous, lonely quest to avenge the murder of his wife and only son by government agents in post-Civil-War America.  Along the way, though, without planning to or even wanting to, he attracts a following of other poor souls oppressed and dissatisfied by society at the time -- a motley crew of people with nowhere to go and no good prospects, who attach themselves to him.  And by the end of the film instead of climaxing his quest for justice with a gunfight against evil and a lonely ride off into the sunset, Josey finds himself part of a strange and unlikely community of powerless and dispossessed refugee souls, who settle down and together create a little bit of heaven for themselves and for whoever might come their way, in the midst of a mostly otherwise-barren wilderness.

And I wonder, is this maybe a more faithful image of Jesus around which to shape our faith, our self-understanding, and the use of our gifts?