March 11, 2012 Reflection by Rev. David Boyd

There is a phenomenon sweeping the West at the very least and perhaps the whole world that pits religion against spirituality. The many studies that have been done in our country these past 15 years, including a couple by the United Church of Canada, including the Identity Survey most recently, has identified the issue as being, "I am spiritual but not religious." It has been suggested that institutional religions are at the heart of all that's wrong with the world, religion being defined as doctrines, dogmas, laws and narrow belief systems. Spirituality, on the other hand, is free flowing, life-giving, transformative and experiential... or so the stereotypes go.

The truth, I believe, lies somewhere in the middle. At its worst, religion can be constricting and overly rule-bound. It can be overly institutional and life-sapping. At its worst, spirituality can be over individualistic, too much into "me" and reductionist in its history and story-telling. An over-emphasis on spirituality can lead to a lack of emphasis on social justice and peace-making in the world.

I offer these thoughts as one who is a product of the Christian religion. I wear an alb with a stole, a sign of my office in the Church. We in ministry lead congregations that have bylaws and constitutions. Our national Church bylaws are called The Manual. You might suggest that I'm a product of the institution of Christianity and therefore my bias might be for religion.

You might suggest that, but I stand for a balance between religion and spirituality. I believe that religions at their heart, when truly expressed and lived holistically, are deeply spiritual. And on the other side, I believe that spirituality, truly expressed and lived authentically, brings with it a need to gather with others who are like-minded, and therefore becomes religious.

Religion literally means "to bind." Religion is really a gathering of spiritually minded people who choose to be bound together in some form of covenant. We can easily be spiritual people on our own; I can then believe what I want and do what I want regardless of anyone else. Religion, however, believes that we are inherently communal creatures. We are naturally drawn to each other and the hard work of spirituality comes into play when there's conflict between us; it comes into play in the hard reality of trying to be a community, when we bump up against each other and try to plot a common course in the world. The other aspect of religion is the covenant call to be a transformative agent in the world, to cast light into the shadows, to speak of justice in the midst of oppression, to advocate peace when all is war, to be new life when all is about death. I choose to bind myself to spiritually minded folk who want to make a difference in the world, who want to live the life of Christ so that all might know the abundance of God's grace and love. So, I argue for a religion that is deeply spiritual.

Peter Rollins is a young Irish theologian who is making the rounds on speaking tours. He is talking about what it means to be a young Christian in the 21st century, in this day and age when people want to be spiritual but not religious. He regularly tells a parable that was written by Phil Harrison. I dreamt that I died and went to heaven; at the ubiquitous pearly gates, I am greeted by St. Peter, who opens the gates and welcomes me. I was just about to step into heaven when I noticed that some of my friends were there, just outside the gates. Some of them were atheists, some were Buddhists, some were Muslims and goodness knows what else. I said to Peter, "What about my friends." And Peter said back, "Well, you know the rules." In my dream I then thought of Jesus as the outsider, the rebel, the challenger, the disturber, the friend of sinners, the one who would stay with the oppressed, and then said to Peter, "Well then, I'll just stay out here with my friends." The parable ends with St. Peter saying, after breaking into a great smile, "Finally! Someone gets it right!."

Does the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple help us get it right? We tell this story in the season of Lent and then it is repeated in the week before Easter when the story of Jesus' last days in Jerusalem is told. According to John, Jesus made three visits to Jerusalem and on his first, he was so disgusted with what went on in the Temple precincts that he drove out the money changers and the sacrificial animals. Maybe a metaphor for wanting to sweep clean the religion of his day, which like any institution had corruption within it? Maybe a metaphor for sweeping clean the empty rituals of his tradition in the way of prophets before him? Perhaps it is a metaphor for the need for sweeping changes such that widows and orphans and strangers and the poor can have the same access to their religious traditions as everyone else? Or maybe it is a metaphor for sweeping changes that ensures that the infirm, the sick, the suffering, women, children, and men can practice together the way of Torah, the way of justice, and the way of love? Or yet again, maybe this is a metaphor for abundance and the fact that abundance is found in an expansive openness, grace and love?

Greg lent me a book he signed out of the library called Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. I've just started it, but the one of the opening paragraphs said this in a section entitled "why should you care?" In answer to the question, "Should you care," Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler say this:

The short answer is yes. Our days of isolation are behind us. In today's world, what happens "over there" impacts "over here." Pandemics do not respect borders, terrorist organisations operate on a global scale, and over-population is everyone's problem. What's the best way to solve these issues?... Stable governments are better prepared to stop an infectious disease outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic. And, as a bonus, there is a direct correlation between quality of life and population growth ratesÑas quality increases, birth rates decrease. The point is this: In today's hyperlinked world, solving problems anywhere, solves problems everywhere.

(So the idea is we can find a solution to a problem that someone in Nigeria, for example, can use. That's abundance. I'll let you know how the rest of it reads.)

In my heart, I believe that this debate between spirituality and religion is not a useful debate. It is a distraction from sharing God's love with those who are suffering. It is a debate that distracts us from the issue of caring for the planet and all of the planet's creatures. We care because God cares. We love because God loves. We live compassion, because we can do no other. Love, grace and hope are the gifts of life that we can give when we give water, food and freedom. These are spiritual things and religious values.

So be it! Amen.

March 4, 2012 Reflection by Rev. David Boyd

Second Sunday in Lent

I was out for coffee on Shrove Tuesday and the server asked if I'd like something sweet with my coffee. I made some joke about it being Fat Tuesday and that I'd better get in eating sweets for I'll have to swear off them for the 6 weeks of Lent. I haven't really given up sweets for Lent, but I was trying to be clever. The lesson is always that when you're trying to be clever, it usually backfires—at least it does for me. The server, without missing a beat, asked me what Shrove Tuesday and Lent were. I mumbled something about a religious observance in the Christian tradition.

It was an illustrative moment that showed my own illusions and perhaps pointed to the illusions under which we operate as a society. I thought of that brief encounter with the server as I read again about Peter rebuking Jesus, trying desperately to hold onto his illusions about Jesus, about life, about the Romans, about death, about many things. Jesus' rebuke of Peter was a rebuke of the illusions that Peter held onto so tightly.

One of the things that Lent invites, and indeed our religious tradition invites, is that we are called to move beyond our illusions. Jesus didn't reject Peter, but he rejected the illusions under which Peter was operating. Peter didn't think it appropriate that Jesus undergo the great suffering that he predicted, or that he be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes and be killed by the Romans. Peter saw in Jesus the Messiah, the One who would bring liberation from Rome, freedom from oppression, a new community of peace and equality. Perhaps most of all, Jesus quashed the illusion that we can create peace and equality, love and justice, without suffering, without hard work, without encountering opposition and maybe even rejection.

I know that part of my journey of change and growth these past few years has been a dismantling of illusions I have long held about my own family and my ancestors. I remember learning some years ago about a couple of truths both with respect to my mother's fatherÑmy grandfatherÑand my own father. The truths opened a whole new avenue of thinking for me and some understanding of my own family dynamics and my part in that. I had to die to my illusions in order to discover something of the truth of grace, forgiveness, and new opportunities.

I've spent some time over the years reading something of the wisdom traditions of other religions, and it was gratifying to see that there are a many parallels. One of those parallels that exists in most religious traditions is the idea that sometimes we have to die to what we believe to be true in order to discover and live out a greater truth. Many traditions use the analogy of a seed dying when it goes into the ground and yet springs to life when it busts from the soil as a beautiful plant. There'll be more to say about this when we read a passage in John's gospel about wheat dying in the ground.

One of the great illusions of our time is that we can control every aspect of our lives. Perhaps Peter was pointing to that in his encounter with Jesus. We simply cannot control every aspect of our lives. Things happen; and it isn't about what we deserve or don't deserve. And things don't happen to us because we are supposed to learn something. Things happen and we do learn, but we learn because our worlds might be momentarily shattered or at least cracked, and we have to figure out how we live this new reality. We learn from our challenges in life as well as our joys; we learn because we are open. But, as leadership experts are telling us these days, giving leadership to our own lives means that we seek to live with vision, seeing into the mysteries of life or accepting the mysteries of life; we seek to live with purpose, defining who we are and how our gifts might meet the deep needs of the world; we seek to live with a certain amount of paradox, that life is both and. And the experts tell us this is different than trying to manage our lives, which is about control, where we try to put things back to the way they were before. We can never go back to the way things were before; too much has changed. We are changed and life is different.

The irony of seeking to deny ourselves, challenge our illusions and grow and change, which seems such an individualistic thing, is that we tap into something larger than ourselves. Challenging our illusions and working to challenge the illusions of our society help us to tap into the basic values that are universal in scope—values of love, community, equality, grace, forgiveness.

In my conversations with people from different cultures and traditions, in some cases countries of origin where persecution has been severe, I discover again and again the deep desire to live with respect and love in a community of people who are equal and equally cherished. True solidarity is setting aside our presumptions about the other and truly meeting the other heart to heart, setting aside what we think is right or wrong, setting aside our illusion that we can control a given outcome. This is love at its most basic level and it invites us to live as fully human beings together in freedom and hope.

There is much more to say, so stay tuned to these Lenten conversations.

Amen.

February 26, 2012 Reflection by Rev. David Boyd

First Sunday in Lent

Scripture: Mark 1:9-15

There are a number of peculiarities in Mark's Gospel and in the story we heard this morning. A little background: Mark's gospel is thought to be the oldest of the 4 gospels; it was likely written down after the Romans destroyed the Temple in the year 70 of the Common Era. It is the shortest gospel by far, a mere 16 chapters. The stories are brief and to the point. There is no birth story in Mark's gospel; the story of Jesus begins with John the Baptiser. And the original ending of the gospel ended with Jesus' death; the last 8 verses of Mark's gospel were added by the early church to be consistent with the other gospels where resurrection appearances were recorded in some detail. Both Matthew and Luke used Mark's gospel as the template for their own.

There are also some peculiarities in our specific reading today. Firstly, we are told that Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan; in fact, Mark says that Jesus was baptised into the river. Secondly, we are simply told that Jesus was baptised without embellishment as to why. Thirdly, during the baptism, Jesus sees the heavens torn apart and the dove descend upon him; the reference to the heavens being torn apart is only used when Jesus' died and the Temple curtain was torn in two. The other aspect about this part of the story that is interesting is that Jesus sees the dove and the tearing of the heavens; did others see this and hear the voice? Probably not, according to Mark. Fourthly, the details of Jesus being in the desert are very brief; in Matthew and Luke there are three temptations. Fifthly, contrary again to Matthew, Luke and John, Jesus' baptism by John marks the beginning of his ministry not his birth as in Luke and Matthew or in his cosmic origins as in John.

Well, the question leaping to the forefront of everyone's head, probably, is "so what?" Now that we know a little about Mark's gospel, what difference does it make? Let me try to answer that with some wisdom about our lives today.

I think that this story is about Jesus' beginnings as the itinerant minister from Nazareth. Mark seems to go into some detail to remind people of the formation of the people of Israel; 40 years Israel wandered in the desert corresponds to the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert. The Jordan River represents the crossing point; the people of Israel under Joshua's leadership after Moses, crossed the Jordan and became a landed people. Jesus went into the Jordan and came out the other side as a new being and thus began the Kingdom of Heaven, the Commonwealth of God, a new people of GodÑthat's us, who stand alongside the people of Israel as co-inheritors of God's blessing.

The idea of Jesus' baptism into the Jordan rather than in implies to me that Jesus' life, just like ours, is about a journey. In is much more static and stationary. Into implies movement, change, from here to there through something. Think of how the word was used beginning in the 60's. We used words like dig, hip, andinto. "Can you dig it, man?" someone may have asked. "Yeah, I'm into it!" — I'm in the movement and I'm ready to go where it takes me — that's the kind of sense of this word. Jesus was into the new "God movement" and this was signified by the new beginning of being baptised.

Baptism is about being clean for a new beginning; it is about marking the beginning of a new journey. In Mark's gospel, Jesus' baptism wasn't about forgiveness of sins particularly; it was about descending deeply into the mystery of life, kind of like diving into a deep pool of water, going deep, and rushing toward the surface — almost like a whale breaching in the ocean. Jesus rose out of the water as a new being.

That's where we come in, for I think that Jesus, according to Mark, was the template of our existence. Just as Jesus recalled Israel's beginnings, Mark recalls for us, at some deep, cosmic level, our beginnings. We are immersed fully into life and we rise as new beings. Perhaps what is different from Jesus' beginnings is that we engage in this over and over. We enter fully into life and emerge from life's challenges and struggles—life's temptations—as new beings time and again. We don't always mark these new beginnings with a baptism or some significant experience, but they are there. It might be as simple as seeing a rainbow at a particular moment in our lives. It might be an off-hand comment from a friend that draws attention to a new intention on our parts to live differently. It might be the experience of freedom that a people discover that highlights a new promise to live more justly in our world; I remember where I was when Nelson Mandela was freed and what I felt when the Berlin Wall came down. It was a world-wide, liberating moment. The Arab Spring that began a year ago has had a changing effect in some Middle East countries, with some work still to do. The birth of a child can have a changing effect on our lives... a loss... a change... a new job... a new beginning...

What Mark reminds us, especially in the words about the heavens being torn open, is that heaven is right here, right now. Perhaps this was Mark's way of suggesting that there is no separation between God and creation. The veil of heaven is irrevocably torn asunder; God is in our midst if God was ever distant. And yes, we will face trials and temptations, but with God, all things are possible.

Let me give you an example from the life of Thérèse of Lisieux, made a saint in the Roman Catholic Church in 1925. Our Thursday morning book reminded me of Thérèse's contribution to spirituality. The reason why Thérèse was made a saint, an otherwise unknown ordinary nun while she was alive, was that her writings came to light after her short 24 years of life. She described herself as an ordinary person from an ordinary family; she died of tuberculosis in 1897. Her simple contribution to life was that she embodied love; she lived love in the midst of her sufferings and struggles. She quietly shared that love with others even when she was dying. She wrote of her ordinary life and the power of love to create life. Her book, The Story of a Soul, was widely read at the beginning of the 1900's and had a huge impact on people. She lived the kind of simple life that St. Francis of Assisi lived; these are the two saints who embody the love by which we can all live our lives. These are the two saints who advocated for ordinary people and who prove that it isn't the great things we do with our lives; it is, rather, the small ways that we live love, embody justice, proclaim the truth and stand with or walk alongside others who are suffering... in love. Love truly bears all things, believes all things and endures all things as the Apostle Paul wrote.

Love is the means by which we experience God's presence in our lives, in which the veil between heaven and earth is torn asunder. Love is the power that makes ordinary people extraordinary. Love is the power that makes us do amazing things. Love is the power than animates all of life and that enables us to withstand our temptations and struggles. Love is the rainbow that gives light and energy to our lives to begin again and again and again.

Thérèse is a part of all of us. Jesus is part of all of us for love is what gives us life.

Amen.

February 12, 2012 Reflection by Rev. David Boyd

Scripture: Mark 1:40-45

World Leprosy Day was held on January 29^th. When I first became aware of World Leprosy Day several years ago, I was astounded that leprosy was still so rampant in our world. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease today after the Norwegian doctor who first saw the bacillus under a microscope, was a catch-all for skin diseases in the time of Jesus. What is now known as leprosy is caused by a bacteria. The bacterium attacks nerve endings and destroys the body's ability to feel pain and injury. Without pain, people easily become injured and the injuries become infected, tissue is lost and the bone destroyed. Leprosy is air-borne and is transmitted through sneezing and coughing although apparently only 5% of the population have no natural immunity to the bacteria.

In Canada there are about 500 people who have been diagnosed with leprosy. Every 22 minutes a child, woman or man will be diagnosed with leprosy. The cure is very much available, but the problem is that this disease, like many in our world, is wrapped up in the problem of poverty. And it is still wrapped up in stigma and alienation; leprosy patients, many of them undiagnosed, continue to be alienated by their families and their community and ostracized. It would seem that we haven't progressed very far since the time of Jesus. Amazingly, the cost to care for and cure a leprosy patient is a mere $350!

Just a few weeks ago, health leaders of the USA, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, pharmaceutical executives, and leaders of Non-Governmental Organizations held a conference in London, England, and endorsed what is called The London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases. A commitment has been given to end the travesty of ignoring 10 tropical diseases, which can be cured. The goal is to eradicate these diseases by 2020. Leprosy is one of these diseases. I hope that our Canadian government is involved in this world wide mission.

On one of the websites where I was doing some research into leprosy, someone said that we fear what we perceive to be ugly. One of the effects of many of the diseases listed by the London Declaration is that they leave disfigurement. The Rev. Dr. Sharon Betcher, a Vancouver School of Theology professor, in a recent Observer article and in her lectures at Ascension Lutheran Church a couple of years ago, talked about her own disfigurement, or at least how she has been perceived by others. Sharon lost a leg in a farming accident when she was young. I've heard stories of how people who have lost limbs are treated as simple-minded by others; people with physical challenges are often ostracized by others. They are ignored by children on the playground at best and at worst, driven away. Do some of you remember the book, A Prayer for Owen Meany, written some years ago by John Irving, the American writer? Owen was a boy who had physical challenges and while he was befriended by one of the main characters of the book, he was ostracized by most of the other children and even by his own family. It is a generalization, I know, but we often fear what we perceive to be less than perfect and whole and we marginalize people who do not fit into our narrowly defined concept of what is perfect!

Some years ago we read a book in our Thursday morning book group called Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity and Hope. It was by John O'Donohue, a Celtic writer from Ireland who died 4 years ago at the end of 52. O'Donohue challenged those who would define beauty based on skin-deep definitions; he challenged the Hollywood concept of beauty. It was a book that helped us all delve underneath our skin-deep definitions to truly discover what beauty is. Beauty is compassion, beauty is love, beauty knows that we are all created by God; beauty is gentleness and somehow opens us to an experience of the sacred. Singers like Cyndi Lauper and Edie Brickell, among others have asked questions about who we define as beautiful? I think that O'Donohue followed in Jesus' footsteps in terms of helping us re-define what is beautiful, and both challenge us to see that beauty comes from the inside.

Notice in the story from Mark's Gospel that Jesus didn't fear what others feared. Jesus reached out and touched the leper, a huge taboo. Jesus himself would have been made unclean. But that was Jesus' genius; he transcended these human taboos, exposing the fear and manipulation that are part of these so-called cleanliness taboos. As has been true for thousands of years, it was usually the poor and the powerless who time and again were found to be unclean. The rich and powerful had the means to place themselves in positions where they would not be declared unclean, the story of Naaman in 1Kings, being the exception rather than the rule. Jesus restored the balance, advocating for the poor and the ostracized, giving power to those deemed on the outside and without power. In short, Jesus practiced salvation.

As Marcus Borg and Richard Rohrbaugh recently pointed out at Epiphany Explorations, and has been known for some time, the understanding of salvation isn't about being saved from this world into a heavenly world; salvation is much more broadly defined than our more fundamentalist leaning brothers and sisters would insist. Salvation is about being healed, about being restored to one's community, about being restored to the people of God and about being counted as one who is loved by God, a child of God and with honour.

Salvation literally means saving someone from peril, as in saving someone from drowning or saving a city from destruction by a foreign army. It also means keeping, as in keeping alive or like keeping a fire going for warmth and life. It means benefitting another, as in preserving the well-being of another or a group. It also means preserving the inner being, as in preserving one's humanity and basic dignity. All of these things are at play when we use the word salvation; notice, though, that these are present things. Salvation isn't about going to heaven and being preserved for some future benefit; the benefit is now. With a particular ending in Greek, salvation takes on the meaning of widening or making roomy. I like that idea.

Jesus broadened the world in which he lived. He made the room big—God's room or God's house—and then invited people inside. Or he reminded the world that God's place is a big place for it is this place and all are welcome in this place, this large, roomy place. There is room for lepers and those who are sick. There is room for the broken and poor. There is a large room where there are no categories, where we can just simply be... be together in love... be together in hope... be together in peace... be together for we are all beautiful.

Jesus broadens our world today and invites us into this roomy place where we already are. There is no narrowness in this place. We are like the doorkeepers who throw open the door and welcome everyone inside. Sometimes we have to step out onto the streets and demand that healing drugs be made available to all people as a human right. Sometimes we need to stand in the street and shout peace or stand together as human beings advocating peace. Salvation is a participatory concept; it is given by God to all, but it is not static. It invites response and action.

"Today," said Jesus a number of times in the Gospels, "Salvation has come to this house." Salvation has come so let us fling wide the doors and go out to the highways and the byways and share our lives in making wide this world so that all will know the benefit of love and hope.

May it be so, not just for those who live with leprosy today, but for us all!

Amen.

February 5, 2012 Reflection by Rev. David Boyd

There is a tradition within Judaism, reflected in the prophets and wisdom teachers, that is called tikkun olam. It has become the name of the magazine and web community, Centre for Spiritual Progressives, begun by Rabbi Michael Lerner. It means healing, or mending, the world. The prophets and wisdom teachers, many of the psalms and many of the ancient stories of Judaism, speak of God as the Creator, the One who is Being of the universe. In particularities, this understanding is reflected in hospitality shown to the stranger, care of others, and welcome of the other as if that other were God in the flesh, all of which point to the universality of the God of Moses and Miriam.

Tikkun olam was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, and lives on in the Body of Christ today. I believe that this impetus to mend the world is what is reflected in the reading from Mark's gospel. There is another Jewish belief that by healing one life, or by saving one life, you save and heal the whole world. Jesus embodied this idea that I and thou are together one; there is no separation between I and thou, between you and me, between me and the someone on the other side of the globe. As one part of the creation suffers, so we all suffer. Jesus embodied this in his life and teachings.

One of the struggles we have in western thinking is that we want to compartmentalize things. I believe that this impetus to see our communal natures is growing again; having said that, I also believe that there is still a great deal of individualization that takes place. Health care may be an interesting case in point. In a place like Nelson, I think that the manner in which we view health care is changing. We are emphasizing the communal aspects of health care. We also know that when one of us is hurting, we all hurt in some way. We also know that our own health and recovery depends upon the love and support that we experience from others.

There was an interesting piece on the news last Wednesday night. It was about the effects of massage therapy. There have been some studies done to show that massage therapy blocks or inhibits the inflammation process. And of course, as we know, massage requires another's participation in our well-being. Knowing that we are held and supported by others is important to our well-being. It was certainly important to me when I took time off to seek wholeness in the midst of depression.

We make a common mistake when we come to the healing stories of Jesus. We think of them in individualistic terms. More often than not, the healing involved an important social dimension. In Jesus' day, disease was often seen as a spiritual problem and so people were ostracized when they were illÑmore on this next week when hear stories of leprosy in the Bible. It was thought that they had brought calamity on themselves because they had done something wrong. Because of this, the thought was that this wrong was infectious and others would be caught up in it. This is the communal nature of illness in Jesus' day, and perhaps still in ours today. In providing healing, sometimes the most important part was the restoration of the ill individual to the community, removing the stigma and the ostracization.

Whether our best friend or a family member is ill, or whether suffering happens as a result of the soccer riots in Egypt, or mining practices in Central America or Africa or here in Canada, or when suffering happens in 1st Nations communities or with indigenous peoples, we all suffer. And so we come together... to pray, to hold one another, to speak words of compassion, to heal, to advocate, to stand up, to love. Our prayer list, which includes not just those near and dear to us but also includes situations and people not so well known to us around the world, is long. And that's a celebration. As a community we embrace one another's pain and struggle and seek healing in its fullness. We seek tikkun olam.

In truly living compassion, we live the intention of the literal meaning of the Hebrew word. We take the struggle for healing and wholeness into our beings, into our wombs as women, into our guts as men, and new life is delivered. It is about new life; it is about holding and creation. It is about deep concern and seeking the common good, the common welfare, the healing of the planet.

Let me end with a prayer/poem by Janet Morley that I think gets at this idea of compassion and tikkun olam; I've shared this before, but it is deeply moving:

and you held me and there were no words
and there was no time and you held me
and there was only wanting and
being held and being filled with wanting
and I was nothing but letting go
and being held
and there were no words and there
needed to be no words
and there was no terror only stillness
and I was wanting nothing and
it was fullness and it was like aching for God
and it was touch and warmth and
darkness and no time and no words and we flowed
and I flowed and I was not empty
and I was given up to the dark and
in the darkness I was not lost
and the wanting was like fullness and I could
hardly hold it and I was held and
you were dark and warm and without time and
without words and you held me 
"And you held me", from All Desires Known by Janet Morley, Movement for the Ordination of Women, 1988, page 56.

Amen.

January 29, 2012 Reflection by Rev.Carol Prochaska (ret.)

Scriptures: Deuteronomy18:15-20, Psalm 111, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28

The famous baseball player, Mickey Mantle, has been quoted as saying: "It's unbelievable what you don't know about the game you've been playing all your life." Could this not also be said about life in general and in particular life as disciples of Jesus Christ?

It was some years ago: The place was Texas. The day was Sunday February 14th — Valentine's Day. John and I were working as Co-Ministers. If you've been to Texas, we were serving a church not far from the city of Houston. After worship and fellowship we locked up the church to make our way to our separate cars. We usually took two cars to the church because I was in the habit of arriving earlier than John on Sunday mornings, and more importantly, we so often needed separate cars in order to fulfill our church responsibilities according to our own job descriptions. On this day we were both going home at the same time for lunch. As we reached our cars I said, "See you at home!" John nodded. And off we went.

I had been home for about 10 minute — no John. Another 10 minutes, still no John. Then it became 40 plus minutes... still no John. I know! I know something is wrong. I know because because there was that time when my Mum and I were waiting for my Dad and he was late, he was very late because that evening he had died of a heart attack. I know because of the numerous times in my past life, in my previous marriage, when my daughters' father was late because he had been drinking — again. So I know! I know "LATE" can't be good. When the door bell rings I go expecting the very worst! However! There stands John! Grinning! He's standing there grinning—of all things he's grinning! He is apparently without a care in the world! And I'm shouting: "Where have you been? You're late! What's wrong?" I am so upset -because you see I know Ð I KNOW WHAT LATE MEANS!

I am so certain of what I know that it is only as the smile has totally faded from John's face, it is only when he is standing there looking stunned, looking as if he has just been punched, it is only then hat I see he is carrying in each hand a large red gift bag: two bags bulging with Valentine Day gifts!

The unclean spirit in Mark says: "What have you do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?" (It can't be good!) And indeed the unclean spirit accusingly asks: "Have you come to destroy us?" (For whatever reason Jesus has come it can't be good. It can't be about healing and salvaging and teaching and transforming and loving!)

Remember how the unclean spirit knows? It says: "I know who you are—you are the Holy One of God." True! This unclean spirit knows something about Jesus. Even so, Jesus does let it be

Jesus' rebukes the spirit, saying, "Be silent, and come out." We could say there is a catharsis: a coming out of that which is not helpful to the person. In the Greek, "unclean spirit" is literally un-catharted spirit. We are familiar with catharsis. Sometimes counseling or therapy, or simply talking with someone we trust. It's a process to get out something that is troubling something that is not healthy to keep bottled-up inside. It's probably not our fault. We're probably not to blame. But it is going to get in the way of us being whole and in the way of being in the present and relating in the present. Could I have possibly known why John was taking longer to arrive at home? No. Even at the very best of times I was not... am not... and never will be all-knowing! And I have a hunch that none of you are either! So if we're not all knowing can we still embody the love of God? We know we can! I could have chosen to go to the door embodying God's love. I could have gone to the door aware of my limited knowledge and that I was basing that bit of knowledge on the past. Then I would have been ready — on that day — in that moment to receive from John and to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Perhaps some of you could tell a similar story. I think this kind of experience is not all that uncommon between partners, between children and parents, between relatives, neighbors, work colleagues, church members. We respond as if we are all knowing. We ground ourselves, not in love, but in knowing—and sadly, at best—partial knowing.

John and I worked our way through that incident. We did celebrate Valentine's although it was a little subdued that year. Even when we have what could be called complete knowledge that in 1^st Corinthians: "[W]e know that no idol in the world really exists, 'and that there is no God but one.'" We know this. But Paul goes on to say how not everyone in that congregation knows, so therefore those who know must take care that their liberty (their knowing) does not become a pit-fall for others. so we can take from this that to the best of our ability we don't use what we know to diminish or discourage or ostracize or harm in anyway. And above all else we soak—we saturate—our knowledge in the kind of love revealed in Jesus, the kind of love he taught and lived.

You may have been thinking about how much we all depend on knowledge. Someone's knowledge can be a matter of life and death. Lately we've been hearing in the news about the captain of a cruise ship who may or may not have known what he was suppose to be doing either before or during the ship-wreck. When I go to see my doctor I want my doctor to know—to know a lot—about a lot of things I don't while at the same time I trust that this particular knowledge will be used for my well-being. So yes we value and appreciate and need knowledge. And thus may God help us find a home for our knowledge. And may this home always be Christ-like love.

The apostle Paul reminds us that even if we can speak all the tongues of the earth, even if we can comprehend all mysteries, even if we have all knowledge, but we do not love, we are nothing, we gain nothing.

January 22, 2012 Reflection by Jayne Slawson

Let us begin with prayer:

Holy One,
Light of all healing:
Be present with us.
May we become rooted in your love,
And filled with your peace,
May we be illuminated by your grace, and
May our hearts be kindled into quiet strength.
Calm our spirit into restoration, and
Touch our lives into wholeness again
So we can respond to your call to come and follow
In our own very ordinary ways... Amen

A couple of weeks ago I thought I would apply for a new work position. In order to do this I needed to do up a resume. In 34 years as a nurse I only ever had to do one resume and when I went back to review it, I could see that it was very outdated, sounded rather ordinary, and I needed to do something about that.

A resume is a summary of one's past professional or work experience and qualifications. When was the last time you did a resume? Even if you aren't looking for a new job, never worked or are retired, have you done a recent self assessment of your life's accomplishments?

By doing so, or by updating your resume on a regular basis you can see the ongoing changes and new experiences that you have made over time. When I redid my resume I was rather astounded—was that really me on those pages? It sure looked like it, but how surprising!

Writing a resume is sort of like writing your own biography, or like writing a Christmas letter about what has happened to you and your family over the past year. It is rather cathartic and when you are done you feel good, you feel lifted, you feel more than ordinary! You may say that you feel extraordinary.

You have taken the "ordinary you" and in a way have given life to your ordinariness. You begin to feel like you can meet new life challenges and opportunities, new job, new life prospects, or perhaps, for us today, new spiritual disciplines that support our openness to journey the way of God.

Thats kind of what Jesus did when he walked along the sea of Galilee and saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, and James and and his brother, John, casting nets out to sea, and called to them to follow him. He called them to not only be fisherman but to take the extra ordinariness of fishing and become fishers of people. Jesus invited Simon and Andrew, James and John to follow him and join him in God's work in a way that fit for them.

They may have been ordinary fisherman, but they could just as well have been ordinary carpenters, mechanics, physicians, teachers, nurses, ministers, book keepers, electricians, writers, musicians, artists, scientists, or a stay-at-home parent.

Jesus calls us to follow him and join in Gods work in ways that fit who we are too. We don't have to become something or someone that we aren't in order to follow him. Rather he frees us to bring the best of who we are and offer that up to the world, our communities, our friends and families. No matter who you are, where you have been, how old you are, Jesus calls us to use our talents, strengths, knowledge and passions, those things that only you alone possess. Imagine the freedom and purpose Jesus offers each of us by inviting us to be who we are as we reach out to others; calls us to be disciples, to walk with and learn from him. We are also called to be apostles to go forth into our world in the particular way that God gifts us. To minister love, peace, joy, truth, and wisdom, sharing Gods word of forgiveness and hope.

It is not always easy work as it demands alot.

It demands discipline, single-mindedness, determination and resolve. Sometimes it requires us to stretch ourselves and to leave behind things precious and dear to us. It can involve doing things we may not want to do, like in the reading from Jonah were Jonah reluctantly goes to Nineveh or like many of the other great prophets who were sent out to warn and prophesy. Each one initially saying, "God, don't send me, I'm heading the other way, I'm not worthy, they will crush me, Why me?"

Dr. George Darby served as a mission doctor on the Pacific Northwest Coast for 45 years. When Dr. Darby graduated from Medical School in Toronto his professors recognized in him a great deal of surgical skill and tried to persuade him to take up a lucrative practice in the city, but he was determined to minister to people in deep need of his care. And he did—in tiny fishing and logging camps and Native American villages from Alert Bay to Prince Rupert, and under conditions that were frequently harsh and almost always uncomfortable. "I hope that no one will ever say to me that I stuck it out here," he stated, "for I saw it as a privilege and I am forever thankful for the opportunity."

In her first year of "helping the poorest among the poor", Mother Theresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life. She wrote:

Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home myself, I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much the poor must ache in body and soul looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto my former order came to tempt me. "You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again," the tempter kept on saying. "But of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I, Theresa, desire to remain and do whatever your Holy will is in my regard. I did not let a single tear come."

When we invest in serving others it means we quit focusing on what we don't have or who we aren't as an excuse for not ministering to others. We don't have to be as rich as someone else, or as smart, as winsome, as successful, as educated, as able to speak or teach in public.

We only need to offer all that we are. Would if we concentrated on these three principles:
    *   Being who we are
    *   Seeing what we have, and
    *   Doing what matters.

How would that free up the call of your heart and response to Gods call to serve others? What impact would that have on peoples lives, on our communities, on our world?

A week ago and for the next five weeks, I and another nursing colleague will and have been a preceptor to a 4^th year nursing student. Both I and my colleague are nearing the end of our nursing careers and here we are expected to mold and nurture this young, keen nursing student, to show her the extra ordinariness of nursing. These days both I and my colleague have been only feeling the ordinariness of our career. One of the great things about being a preceptor is that the energy, the passion, the freshness of these eager spirited students soon to be new graduate nurses surprisingly rub off on us and we again feel excitement, the extra ordinariness of Nursing... we again find the passion that we too once had and actually always had—we just needed someone—this vivacious student to come and show us, to uncover, this passion again.

Thank goodness for nursing students! Thank goodness for all those who inspire us.

It's the feeling we get when after a rain storm a rainbow appears, when the snow disappears and the first flowers of spring appear, when a new baby is born... we are reawakened and the ordinariness of life becomes extraordinary and we are changed forever.

The lesson here is that we don't have to go far to change the world, what we need is an alluring vision that will focus people on changing their own neighborhood. We have no elaborate strategies or rituals to love those who wonder into our lives. We just need to be faithful to those brought before us each day and committed to those who are placed in our care. Jesus didn't stumble upon extraordinary people who became leaders, he took ordinary people and made them into extraordinary leaders. Each one of us is an extraordinary leader in our own right, sometimes it takes an event, sometimes a special person or a simple message or word... for us to see it.

Bruno Serat, a retired chef in California, uses his life long talent for cooking to serve free pasta dinners to poor children who's families live in motels; Robin Lim, whose sister died of birth complications, became a midwife and went to Indonesia to help low income women get free prenatal care and provide safer birth conditions; Derreck Kajongos collects partially used soap from hotels and reprocesses them into bars of soap for 3^rd world communities; Rachel Bechwith, age 9, raised $1.25 millon for clean water in developing countries. We know of Jamie MacBeth working with her Kukua Pamoja program for change with disadvantaged youth in a Nairobi slum. Ordinary people who demonstrate extraordinary service to others.

All of us are called—each in our own way—to follow and serve. All of us are called, each in our own way, to be made new in Christ—to allow Christ to speak through us, to allow God to work within us and to reach out and touch others using our hands, our hearts, and our words. And in this only great things can happen.

Rick Warren, in his book, The Purpose Driven Church, writes:

Small ministries often make the greatest difference. The most important light in my house is not the large chandelier in our dining room, but the little nightlight that keeps me from stubbing my toe when I get up to use the bathroom at night. It's small, but its more useful to me that the showoff light.

Nelson United Church has a new Mission Statement... Can you recite it?
"We dare to live the Way of Jesus, embodying the Love of God."
In there is a call—a call from Jesus—a call from God to come and follow a post-missional, a post- modern approach to life, work and ministry. How will you respond? How will this faith community respond? Our new Church Board needs your hands, your voice and your heart. Our community, our world calls out with the same needs. It all starts with us and how we hear Jesus call to follow and serve. Come, come and follow...

Together let us conclude this message with these words:

Ordinary extraordinary people are you and I.
We meet them at work, in our grocery stores, on a busy street and everywhere.
They come in all shapes and sizes, we only have to look all around us and sometimes simply in a mirror.
They are strangers
They are neighbors
They are us.
They care a lot about other people in our community, in our world.
They have an indomitable spirit and great strength.
They have a lot of faith and courage.
They take pleasure in performing small acts of kindness rather than in grand intentions
They look for the best and give the best, they have.
They inspire
They teach
They share their talents and gifts.
They see a beginning in every end.
They touch lives and leave caring foot prints on hearts.
They change lives forever and are themselves changed forever.
They are ordinary
extraordinary
you and I.

Amen