Wednesday, November 27, 2019 – Advent One
“Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” (Luke 1: 28, New Living Translation) 

                My, how time flies! Where has the year gone? 

I can’t ignore the Christmas ads on TV any more. Christmas is looking at me straight in the face. This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. Thank goodness I have left our outdoor Christmas lights all year on the big fir tree growing on our front lawn. It’s grown quite some more; maybe I should add a few more lights too.

‘Tis the season – here it comes ready or not.

I get a lot less stressed out about this festive season than I used to, before retirement. But I still have some of my mother in me, it seems. Mom would start to worry about which of her three children were going to “have her for Christmas”, usually way too early for any of us really to be thinking about it – like in August. She always told us that she wanted to book her train ticket early. We loved having her at our home over Christmas but she was pretty persistent that each of us take turns and was pretty sure whose turn it was. But she liked to have that “invitation” firmly established in the hearts and minds of her children very early, long before the Christmas season was even a glint in Santa’s eye.

But I am discovering that I, too, like to know the details of our family Christmas plans, whatever they may be, just not quite so early as my mother. I am fairly comfortable as to what the family decides. Just tell me where I am driving to and when. I have no particular Christmas agenda about what, where and with whom but, in part, I want to make sure everybody is covered when it comes to our Christmas celebrations. With our growing families it is becoming harder to guarantee that we all will be able to get together on Christmas Day like before. But I don’t want anyone left behind or left out. I also know this worry is kind of stupid because that is not how our family rolls. Thanks, Mom!

But perhaps, Advent needs a little more of the unpredictable as much as we would like to tie it down to fit our calendars and schedules.  As we unpack the same Christmas tree decorations we have used for years, or bake the same favourite Christmas cookies or light the inevitable Advent candles at church and recall the familiar themes of hope, peace, joy and love, perhaps we could use a healthy dose of mystery, serendipity and surprising grace.

After all, Mary wasn’t just sitting around the house expecting an angel to come visit her and tell her she was to become the mother of the saviour of all humanity.  I am fairly sure that she was gob-smacked by the unlikely and sudden change in her life. Or better yet, God-smacked. There were more questions than answers at this point in the Advent Story. She couldn’t practice her part in this first Christmas pageant. She needed to take it as it unfolded. There were no trains to Bethlehem to buy tickets for.

A life of faith is not always predictable and therefore not always safe and sound as we might hope.  Having God’s favour was going to be a challenge for Mary. It would be demanding of her. It would take her on a totally different life-path than the one she was expecting – settling down with her husband Joseph, raising a family and living a quiet, anonymous life in Nazareth.

Advent is meant to shake us up, sometimes. Advent is meant to alert us to the incredible, the utterly new, the dynamic awesome sovereignty and love of God.  God’s love and grace take us by surprise. You can’t really make arrangements or make plans or book your rooms well ahead in Bethlehem.

Sometimes, God’s favour just leaves one God-smacked.  

Dale

Wednesday, November 20, 2019
“He who is the faithful witness to all these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20, New Living Translation) 

                When I was about 10 or 11 years old, more or less, I scared my poor, slightly younger cousin nearly out of his wits by terrorizing him with the “details” of the end time, all fire and brimstone, chilling catastrophic end-of-the-world stuff. I had learned my Sunday School lessons all too well as our S.S. superintendent was big on this kind of Jesus-is-coming-soon timeline. I loved my S.S. superintendent, so I was just passing on the message. It was scary stuff for someone of my age; I guess that I wanted someone to be scared with me. It worked!

                I am no longer an apocalyptic enthusiast. Or to put it more succinctly I have a much different understanding and interpretation of the Biblical message about the coming Kingdom of God. Much of the Biblical imagery is indeed drastic in nature, quite vivid and dire. It is very illustrative in this way to get our attention so that we fully understand that God intends a radical, decisive and thorough cosmic re-creation which leads us into his rule of total shalom, justice, harmony, love and grace.  This the Ultimate Vision of God’s New Reality which is full of hope, peace, joy and love (the four traditional themes for Advent).

                I don’t know about you but I am becoming very sick and tried of politics these days, be it global politics or Canadian and American politics or  church politics or the politics of human relationships in general. Not much of it is very pretty, as we have become so divided, hostile, angry, judgmental, confrontational in all spheres of politics. There seems so little respect. Nobody listens politely.  There is little grace in speeches and rhetoric. In this age of social media everybody has an opinion and sends it out in big, bold letters – shaming, bullying, castigating. There is little toleration for different opinions. There is decline in open-mindedness and fairness. Politics in its many forms seems like a battle ground. In all wars people get hurt and wounded.

                So, there is a piece of me who agrees broadly with my choice for today’s text: Come, Lord Jesus! The sooner, the better. We are in dire need of your power to lead us back into righteousness, grace, hope, love, well-being, harmony, positive relationships, justice, forgiveness and all the qualities to turn this world right-side up once again. We are in dreadful need to be find healing for all peoples and all nations. We are in terrible need to eradicate evil, sorrow, pain, shame, brokenness and hatred. We are in abysmal need for renewal, transformation, resurrection, and second birth.

I believe that only you can affect such re-creation. So come, Lord, Jesus, come.

In the meanwhile, I‘ll just wait here while you’re thinking about it. And I will work at getting my little corner of the world ready, doing the right and loving things which you’d expect me to do for you and for others.

I wouldn’t want to be left behind!

Dale

Wednesday, November 13, 2019
“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14, New Living Translation) 

                You gotta love our country, Canada.

 No, not the recent early November snowstorm, but that the worst thing we can get our winter knickers all in a knot over is another ignorant thing that Don Cherry  has said which has gotten him fired from Sportsnet. You would have to be living in a bubble if you don’t know the controversial hubbub that his televised, divisive, prejudicial words about immigrants allegedly not wearing poppies has generated.

                I have never ever been a fan of Cherry. Neither his anachronistic social comments nor his outdated views on hockey appeal to me. But he loves the limelight and adulation that he gets from his die-hard fans. In recent interviews he seems to be almost claiming now that he is the victim in all this even though he threw immigrants, his colleagues, his employer, even his precious armed forces all under the bus, one way or the other.  I don’t think Don is that stupid and he knew exactly what he was going to say and when he was going to say it, at the very end of the TV segment when no one would have a chance at any rebuttal. But the world is passing poor Don by and believing in his own power and status he finally crossed the line and went too far.

                One of the arguments being made in his defence is, of course, his right to free speech. If he had not being working for Sportsnet at the time this might work as a defence. But he is accountable to his employer as any of us would be in our work places. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that at its lowest common denominator, yours or my right to have an opinion is a part of free speech. We might disagree on an issue but each of us has a right to express our personal point of view. This blog is an example off free speech. I will cede the point.

                But I would like to elevate the concept of free speech beyond just being able to say any darn old thing we feel like.

                Grumpy, ornery, old, white males aside I (and I can be one of them), free speech at its very best comes with responsibility and accountability. Simply put, we should think before we speak and like our mothers taught us, if we haven’t got anything good to say keep it to yourself. We are responsible for our words and the effects our words have on others. I have said and written enough stupid things in my life that I know of what I write. Once those words get out there in public domain, we can’t take them back and our words may have the consequences of hurting, insulting, demeaning or simply being outright wrong. There is an old saying, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

                Free speech does not entitle us to blind ignorance, abusive language, speaking blatant untruths or making sweeping generalizations and treating them as some sort of “honest”, personalized or patriotic gospel. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29, New International Version) In other words free speech, at its best, is honorable, trustworthy, has integrity and is, therefore, worth listening to.

                Exercising free speech is hard. It should be.  Our words matter.  Great freedoms come with great responsibilities. “The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” (Matthew 12:37, NLT)

                Mark my word! 

Dale

               

Wednesday, November 6, 2019
“But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.” (Romans 8:25, New Living Translation) 

                I am not a patient person. I don’t generally like waiting for anything.

                If I had been a test subject in the Stanford University Marshmallow Test I can tell you what I would have done. This is test in which children were offered a small reward, one marshmallow, to eat immediately or wait a mere 15 minutes and get two such rewards. The study revealed that children who waited, i.e. delayed gratification, were more likely to have better long-term life outcomes.

                Not me, boy! I’m stuffing that marshmallow down ASAP. Who knows when the next one might show up, if it all? Don’t trust those sneaky researchers one bit!

                Patiently waiting is not my style.

                “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14, NLT) I just as soon that the Lord would hurry up. The suspense is killing me. One day may be ten thousand to the Lord, but I just don’t have that kind of time.

                So when I was told yesterday that I might have to wait up to two years for my shoulder surgery, I was not a happy camper. (Peterborough has one of the highest rates for waiting times for replacement surgeries in the province.)  But a lot of stuff can happen in two years. I am not getting any younger. That’s a lot of tubes of Voltaren cream and taking Tylenol-3 pills. I’ve got places to be, things to do; grandchildren to wrestle with and play catch with. Two years – yikes!

                We live in a time of instant gratification. Some  us get impatient if our coffee takes more than 30 seconds to brew or our micro-waved food is longer than a few minutes in the making. We expect our parcels to arrive the next day after we have ordered them. Our messages to each other come in a flash of a second or two. When I hit start on my computer it had better be ready to go as quickly as possible. Most of us want life’s better things to happen sooner than later; we want it now, without delay and with as little inconvenience as it possibly can. We want results and we want them today, maybe right  this minute, if possible.

                I am not sure that Life always really needs to be lived in the fast lane, but sometimes it is really hard to move over to the far right, slower lane and enjoy some of the scenery or, at least, not be so stressed.

                Mind you, Paul is not writing about anything so mundane as a marshmallow or an Amazon parcel. He is reflecting on a time - and this is God’s version of time, not ours - in which, once and for all, Creation is freed from all futility, brokenness and decay. It will be a time of healing, restoration, recreation.  It is a time for the success of salivation and a new order of peace and justice. The mere hope for this time has remedial affects upon us in the present, even as we wait.

                Good things, often, need time to work out is own processes at its own pace so as to develop properly and in a healthy way.

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Romans 8: 26-28 The Message)

                This attitude of waiting until it hurts is a part of faith, having the ultimate trust in the Love of God so that nothing can overwhelm us or pervert the good that will, one day, come our way.

                Life is good and we should live it to the fullness that God intends. But it also can be a waiting room, leading us on to another adventure of being and a new reality.

Wait for it!

Dale