Reading: Luke 13:1-9
People are talking about tragedies. A number of Jewish Galileans were murdered by the Roman army while they were worshipping. Eighteen peope were killed in the collapse of a tower in the town of Siloam.
Popular say those who suffered and died must have deserved it. It must have been God's judgement on their sin. They want to know what Jesus thinks.
Jesus doesn't buy their view of God or of their fellow man (and woman). "Were they really any worse than anyone else?" he asks. "Any worse than you or me?"
Then he tells a story about a fig tree that stops bearing fruit. Before cutting it down, a wise orchard-manager gives it another year and some TLC -- a little loosening of the hard-packed earth that's solidified around it, and a little manure spread around to give it something new to work with.
How easy it is to let the ground around us solidify, and to think we've taken in all the manure we need to!
Jesus encourages the people around him to take a lesson from the fig tree, because the line to be drawn ithrough the world is not between bad people who deserve to be punished and good people who are okay as they are -- but between people who think they're as good as they ever need to be, and those who keep growing by letting themselves be challenged and fed.
It reminds me of something I've heard Muriel Coker say a few times -- that there's no person so bad there isn't some good in them, and no person so good there isn't something bad in them. No person so good they don't need to keep changing and growing, and no person so bad that they're beyond changing and growing.
How do we do that, though??
On Sunday, a few people from the congregation are going to talk about what has made, and still makes a difference for them -- what has helped, and still helps them growing and fruitful.
Come and hear what they have to say from their heart to yours.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
For Sunday, February 24, 2013
Readings: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 and Philippians 3:17 - 4:1
Theme: Performance anxiety
Abram does not doubt God, and God's ability to do what God has promised. What Abram doubts is his own ability to do his part -- to perform as God expects and desires.
God has promised to lead him to a land that God will give to him and his descendants, so Abram's tribe can become a people who will change the way all the world looks at life. What worries Abram is that so far he and his wife have had no children, and maybe they never will. Will he be able to provide the descendants God promises to use and bless? The public story is that Sarai is barren. But what if Abram also just cannot perform as God needs him to, with her? What all the worry leads to is performance anxiety in his relationship with God.
To understand God's answer, we need to know a bit about the ritual God enacts for Abram's sake. In those days when a king (or any other kind of lord) promised land or some other favour to a subject in exchange for the subject's loyalty and specific acts to be done in support of the king, the contract could be sealed by cutting a sacrificial animal in half, laying the two halves on the ground, and the king and subject walking together between the two halves. From that point on, each party was obliged to perform what they promised.
In this case, God makes the covenant alone -- just with God's self. God alone walks between the two halves of the sacrificial animal, thus declaring that God alone will ensure the promises are kept. In other words, Abram need not worry that he might not be able to perform as God needs and expects him to; whatever Abram is able to do will be enough, and the promised result will come to be.
Questions: What is God's promise to me (or us)? What does God ask of me (or us) towards this promise? Do I (or we) worry about maybe not performing well enough -- not having what it takes? What is God's answer?
And a second note ... about the Philippians reading. The church in Philippi was a marvelous congregation -- loving, supportive, faithful. But they were tempted by the culture around them to settle for a version of "the good life" that focused a lot of energy on food and consumption, found entertainment in the gross and shameful, and obsessed about material and transient stuff (gee, does Phil. 3:19 sound at all like 21st-century Canada?). It's "the easy (but mis-leading) version" of a good life, and Paul has to tell them, "No! Don't settle for that. Anyone can do that! But God in Christ calls you -- and enables and empowers you, to something more meaningful and purposeful in your life than that."
Question: What dream or greater vision have I ever had at any time for my life? What keeps me from living towards it?
Theme: Performance anxiety
Abram does not doubt God, and God's ability to do what God has promised. What Abram doubts is his own ability to do his part -- to perform as God expects and desires.
God has promised to lead him to a land that God will give to him and his descendants, so Abram's tribe can become a people who will change the way all the world looks at life. What worries Abram is that so far he and his wife have had no children, and maybe they never will. Will he be able to provide the descendants God promises to use and bless? The public story is that Sarai is barren. But what if Abram also just cannot perform as God needs him to, with her? What all the worry leads to is performance anxiety in his relationship with God.
To understand God's answer, we need to know a bit about the ritual God enacts for Abram's sake. In those days when a king (or any other kind of lord) promised land or some other favour to a subject in exchange for the subject's loyalty and specific acts to be done in support of the king, the contract could be sealed by cutting a sacrificial animal in half, laying the two halves on the ground, and the king and subject walking together between the two halves. From that point on, each party was obliged to perform what they promised.
In this case, God makes the covenant alone -- just with God's self. God alone walks between the two halves of the sacrificial animal, thus declaring that God alone will ensure the promises are kept. In other words, Abram need not worry that he might not be able to perform as God needs and expects him to; whatever Abram is able to do will be enough, and the promised result will come to be.
Questions: What is God's promise to me (or us)? What does God ask of me (or us) towards this promise? Do I (or we) worry about maybe not performing well enough -- not having what it takes? What is God's answer?
And a second note ... about the Philippians reading. The church in Philippi was a marvelous congregation -- loving, supportive, faithful. But they were tempted by the culture around them to settle for a version of "the good life" that focused a lot of energy on food and consumption, found entertainment in the gross and shameful, and obsessed about material and transient stuff (gee, does Phil. 3:19 sound at all like 21st-century Canada?). It's "the easy (but mis-leading) version" of a good life, and Paul has to tell them, "No! Don't settle for that. Anyone can do that! But God in Christ calls you -- and enables and empowers you, to something more meaningful and purposeful in your life than that."
Question: What dream or greater vision have I ever had at any time for my life? What keeps me from living towards it?
Friday, February 15, 2013
For Sunday, February 17, 2013
Reading: Psalm 1
This Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent -- also Scouting Sunday when we welcome the children and families of Winona's Beaver, Cub, Scout, Brownie and Guide groups. Our theme is one of the promises made by the Scouts -- to be "wise in the use of our resources."
What resources are we talking about? Natural resources come to mind -- water, air, land, animals, fruit, etc. Also personal resources like skills, imagination, money, love. What about things like time, relationships, tradition, the future?
And what is it to be wise? It's something different and more than smart. How do you define wisdom? And who has it?
We talk of the wisdom of the elders. We also marvel at the wisdom of children. Can it be that the only folks that need to really work at growing wise, are the bunch of us in between -- the ones in charge of most of the world?
And how do we cultivate wisdom? What practices help make us wise in how we live and what we do?
Some aboriginal teachings say every major decision is made well only when we bear in mind the needs and well-being of the seventh generation after us. Something about seeing ourselves as responsible participants in a larger story.
I also heard an interview with a woman who has developed a discipline of double-shopping. Especially when she shops for clothes, cosmetics, shoes and leisure goods, she shops once to see what she likes and wants, then leaves to do something else for a while, and returns to buy only those things that she still really wants and knows she needs. Shopping takes more time, but she spends and accumulates less, and feels she shops more wisely. Something about finding ways to break addictions and check impulses.
All of this seems to fit well with Lent -- the season where we adopt practices to help us become more focused, more spiritually intentional, less under the control of addictions and obsessions, and maybe wiser.
Do you have any practices that help you live wisely, and make wise decisions?
The translation of Psalm 1 that will be read in worship is a new one by Stephen Mitchell, so I'm reprinting it here:
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
See you in worship.
This Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent -- also Scouting Sunday when we welcome the children and families of Winona's Beaver, Cub, Scout, Brownie and Guide groups. Our theme is one of the promises made by the Scouts -- to be "wise in the use of our resources."
What resources are we talking about? Natural resources come to mind -- water, air, land, animals, fruit, etc. Also personal resources like skills, imagination, money, love. What about things like time, relationships, tradition, the future?
And what is it to be wise? It's something different and more than smart. How do you define wisdom? And who has it?
We talk of the wisdom of the elders. We also marvel at the wisdom of children. Can it be that the only folks that need to really work at growing wise, are the bunch of us in between -- the ones in charge of most of the world?
And how do we cultivate wisdom? What practices help make us wise in how we live and what we do?
Some aboriginal teachings say every major decision is made well only when we bear in mind the needs and well-being of the seventh generation after us. Something about seeing ourselves as responsible participants in a larger story.
I also heard an interview with a woman who has developed a discipline of double-shopping. Especially when she shops for clothes, cosmetics, shoes and leisure goods, she shops once to see what she likes and wants, then leaves to do something else for a while, and returns to buy only those things that she still really wants and knows she needs. Shopping takes more time, but she spends and accumulates less, and feels she shops more wisely. Something about finding ways to break addictions and check impulses.
All of this seems to fit well with Lent -- the season where we adopt practices to help us become more focused, more spiritually intentional, less under the control of addictions and obsessions, and maybe wiser.
Do you have any practices that help you live wisely, and make wise decisions?
The translation of Psalm 1 that will be read in worship is a new one by Stephen Mitchell, so I'm reprinting it here:
Blessed are the man
and the woman
who have grown beyond their greedand have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in
the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees
planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not
fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.Thursday, February 07, 2013
For Sunday, February 10, 2013
Readings: Exodus 34:29-35 and 2 Corinthians 3:12 - 4:6
Moses is not a born or natural leader, but he is what the people need to find their way through the wilderness.
Born into a tribe of slave labourers being gradually exterminated by their masters, Moses miraculously is adopted into the royal household and groomed for management in the kingdom. He is a failure, though. One day, trying to intervene with a fellow-manager to stop the abuse of a labourer, the other manager so blatantly ignores Moses' authority that Moses in anger kills him -- not a good management style.
Fleeing to the desert Moses finds a job herding sheep, and does well enough that he marries a daughter of the man who owns the flocks
But when God calls him back to Egypt to be his people's liberator, he is in over his head again. He needs Aaron to go with him as spokesman, because Moses stutters. He relies on God's plagues to get the pharoah's attention. And then it's only God's power to lead the people through the water at the last minute and not allow the Egyptians to do the same that gets the people through at a critical time.
So far Moses has not really proven himself as the leader the people need. But then there begins the shining.
Moses (for God's own reason) is invited to go up the holy mountain and converse with God -- to get God's word for the people, and when Moses comes down his face is shining. Up on the mountain the glory of God warms and irradiates his spirit, and when he comes down the glow of the glory is still on him for all to see -- exactly what the people need to see, to know that in spite of Moses' limitations and liabilties, they can trust what he has to say as being God's word of life for them.
Question 1: Are there any leaders like that today -- in the church, or in the world, who bear the glow of something greater than their own (limited) agenda and personal vision? Who inspire people to follow just because of what greater and glorious thing we see reflected in them?
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians suggests something interesting -- that now, after Christ, it's not so much individual leaders but the whole community of faith that bears the glory of God into the world, to inspire others to believe and to follow.
Question 2: No doubt we feel as limited and full of liabilites as Moses, because we are. But we are also (for God's own reason) invited into conversation with God. And when we do that -- when we enter into conversation with God, do we then glow with God's glory? Is there something that others see in us that they need to see, to be inspired to follow?
Moses is not a born or natural leader, but he is what the people need to find their way through the wilderness.
Born into a tribe of slave labourers being gradually exterminated by their masters, Moses miraculously is adopted into the royal household and groomed for management in the kingdom. He is a failure, though. One day, trying to intervene with a fellow-manager to stop the abuse of a labourer, the other manager so blatantly ignores Moses' authority that Moses in anger kills him -- not a good management style.
Fleeing to the desert Moses finds a job herding sheep, and does well enough that he marries a daughter of the man who owns the flocks
But when God calls him back to Egypt to be his people's liberator, he is in over his head again. He needs Aaron to go with him as spokesman, because Moses stutters. He relies on God's plagues to get the pharoah's attention. And then it's only God's power to lead the people through the water at the last minute and not allow the Egyptians to do the same that gets the people through at a critical time.
So far Moses has not really proven himself as the leader the people need. But then there begins the shining.
Moses (for God's own reason) is invited to go up the holy mountain and converse with God -- to get God's word for the people, and when Moses comes down his face is shining. Up on the mountain the glory of God warms and irradiates his spirit, and when he comes down the glow of the glory is still on him for all to see -- exactly what the people need to see, to know that in spite of Moses' limitations and liabilties, they can trust what he has to say as being God's word of life for them.
Question 1: Are there any leaders like that today -- in the church, or in the world, who bear the glow of something greater than their own (limited) agenda and personal vision? Who inspire people to follow just because of what greater and glorious thing we see reflected in them?
Paul in his letter to the Corinthians suggests something interesting -- that now, after Christ, it's not so much individual leaders but the whole community of faith that bears the glory of God into the world, to inspire others to believe and to follow.
Question 2: No doubt we feel as limited and full of liabilites as Moses, because we are. But we are also (for God's own reason) invited into conversation with God. And when we do that -- when we enter into conversation with God, do we then glow with God's glory? Is there something that others see in us that they need to see, to be inspired to follow?
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