Wednesday, April 28

“God was like an eagle hovering over her nest, overshadowing her young, then spreading her wings, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly.” (Deuteronomy 32:11, The Message Bible, with my own slight pronoun modification)

                 Mother Robin: One. Householder:  Zero.

                For the last who-knows-how-many years, a mother robin has built her nest on top of an out-door speaker, right near our back door, off the sun room. I don’t know if it is always the same robin or the next generation, but she is there every year. It is rather awkward for us and her as this is the door we use regularly and often in order to let the dog out. At first, she is always quite flighty when the door opens and she takes off immediately. But once she has her eggs under her or her chicks, she will resolutely hunker down and do her best to ignore us.

                Early in March, I decided that it was time to break this nesting cycle. So, I took down the old, much-used nest. I even slanted the speaker at an odd angle. I thought I had succeeded when I thought I saw her building a nest in the massive cedar hedge behind us. But in mid-April, suddenly and quickly, there was a new nest on the same speaker, angle and all, and she was now brooding her eggs.  She glares at us when we go in and out, but she protects that nest and her yet-to-be born chicks with utmost dedication, fearlessness and determination. I have got to give her credit for her persistence and perseverance.

                It has made me turn to passages like the one from Deuteronomy where God’s Love and Care for us  is compared to the protective oversight of a mother bird, hovering, protecting, encouraging us to soar and teaching us to trust in such a God as this so that we may take flight into the world.

                “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young at a place near your altar…” (Psalm 84:3, New Living Translation)

                The mother robin “knows” that there are many risks and dangers in the world for her nest and her chicks. She has reduced some of those risks in the choice where she had built her nest, safe from predators like other birds, racoons and the like. She does everything in her power to protect, nurture and raise her young.

                Whether you are an eagle or a sparrow, it is comforting to sense the compassionate care of God in our lives. God knows there are risks, dangers, evils, predation and storms which make life a challenge, to say the least. This pandemic has reminded us that humankind is not invulnerable, all-knowing, omnipotent, or god-like. Yet, in spite of the dangers we face from the pandemic or anything else, God alerts us to the Presence of his Love, Compassion, Care and Benevolence through many signs and wonders. God hovers over us in the presence of the heroics of front-line health-care workers, or teachers on the job, or vaccines, or the compassion of neighbours and family who seek out others and lend a helping hand.

                “Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?” (Matthew 6:26, NLT)

                Well, aren’t you?

                May God lift us all and teach us to fly and soar, carried upon the breath of God’s Spirit and Love.

Dale

 Wednesday, April 21, 2021

“When a defiling evil spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn’t find anyone, it says, ‘I’ll go back to my old haunt.’ On return it finds the person spotlessly clean, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits more evil than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse off than if he’d never gotten cleaned up in the first place.” (Matthew 12: 43 -45, The Message Bible)

                I should have nipped it in the bud, but I didn’t.

                A season ago, two weeds began to grow in a bare spot, beyond the grass near some pine trees in the back yard. I was curious what might become of these plants with their very large leaves. By the end of the summer, a magnificent, sturdy stalk had grown to over five feet long, topped by small yellow flowers. It was kind of cool, so I left the plants alone. The two twin, tall weeds towered over the snow through the winter. Perhaps their seeds would be eaten by the birds or squirrels. So, I let them be.

                Bad decision!

                The weed is Common Mullein. You may have seen them by roadside, looming high and mighty out of the ground. The seeds weren’t eaten, but have scattered throughout my back yard and dozens upon dozens of baby mulleins are striving to establish a beachhead in my yard.

                My laziness in the Fall, not hacking the weeds down, has resulted in much more work as I have been pulling each new weed out by hand, using a weed-puller.  But just when I think I have gotten rid of them all, new ones shoot up overnight. The scotch thistles are almost as bad. Don’t get me started on the dandelions, but at least those are good for honey bees, apparently. Give a weed an opportunity, and it will seize it, multifold.

                You probably see where I am going with all this in light of the scripture above.

                I once got taken to task by a member of my congregation for suggesting in a sermon that Christians need to be weed-like. The person told me that he didn’t like being compared to a weed; his life had enough weedy moments and didn’t appreciate the analogy. Fair enough. I was being too clever by far in suggesting that Christians could emulate a weed’s persistence, perseverance in tough living conditions, and proficient ability to multiply, e.g., make disciples.  

                But he has a point.

                What have we allowed to grow in our lives that is producing bad and unhappy, compounding results? What thing has taken root in our lives and won’t go away because we didn’t deal with it right from the start?  What sorts of things is Sin multiplying in our personal relationships, communities, churches, etc. because we ignored the root of the problem?

                Sometimes, we may even admire the ability of some of the things which are cropping up  in our lives. They look good. They look like they belong.  They don’t seem to be doing any harm at the time. So, we let the little sins, mistakes, failures and poor decisions go to seed and begin to multiply. Then, when it is almost too late, we realize how hard it will be to deal with the results of our neglect and rationalizations. Pull one weed and three more come back.

                Kick out one “defiling evil spirit” and if not replaced with the right mind, spirit and heart, you will have worse spirits taking up residence, “whooping it up”. That person is indeed far worse off.

                The Apostle Paul knew his weeds: “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.” (Galatians 5: 19 -21, The Message Bible)

                Now, I am going to continue to pull the mullein and the thistles. Similarly, we should continue to use God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness to deal with the weeds in our lives. It is never too late. It may be hard but we need to persevere and persist.

                Sort of like a weed, but let’s not go there!

 Dale

 Wednesday, April 14, 2021

“One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’”  (John 5: 5- 6, New Living Translation)

                 Never have I anticipated getting a needle with such unbridled joy as I am right now. But this Friday, I am getting my first Covid vaccine shot. Hallelujah! Susan will get her first shot next week. Double Hallelujah!

                Like most kids, I was always a little afraid of medical needles when I was a child. But at my age now, I have had enough surgeries, IVs, blood tests, flu shots, etc. that it no longer really bothers me although I will admit that I wish the TV news would stop showing people getting jabbed in the arm every time they have news about the vaccines.

                Some people are still wary of getting the vaccines for various reasons.  The stupidest reason is the conspiracy theory that the government is implanting some sort of tracking device or mind-controlling device. Sorry, but we already have those - they’re called cell phones and the internet. Why would the government even bother?

                Others are just being stubbornly defiant for no good reason or still in denial that the Covid pandemic is as bad as being made out to be. Some are concerned about the possible side effects but all vaccines carry a little risk, even vaccines for chicken pox, mumps and polio. But we need to get them just the same.

                Slightly adapting Jesus’ words to the man with an undisclosed illness for 38 years, I ask you: Wouldn’t you like to be well?

                It is hard to imagine what those 38 years were like for that poor soul. He was totally dependent on others for everything he needed, food, drink, shelter, being carried to the pool and hoping that someone would help him enter the healing waters at the right moment. Some might want to pat him on the back for his relentless faith in the waters for all that time, for all the good it did him. I don’t doubt for a moment that his infirmity was real, imposing a life-time burden. It would have impacted his life in a negative way continuously.

                So, it is an odd question, in some ways, which Jesus put to the man, “Do you want to be made well?” The man may have reacted accordingly. Of course, Jesus, what a foolish thing to ask. Do you think I like living like this? Do you think I have any choice? Do you think I have any alternative? But nobody is willing to help me and I remain what I am. I expect that he has become such a fixture at that pool side, he was easily ignored and forgotten.

                It makes me think that any of us can become inured to the realities of life, even if painful and unpleasant. We can get stuck in the same old paralysis of our human existence.  Not everybody, of course, maybe not all the time, but enough of us find ourselves in routines, ruts and circumstances, maybe beyond our control, through which we find ourselves persevering, enduring, even suffering, and at a loss for how to find relief.

                Jesus’ question in challenge for the man to consider a new solution because the old ones weren’t working and never had. Jesus’ question is an invitation to trust in a new alternative, which is to say trusting in Jesus. Jesus’ question reaches into the man’s heart, soul and mind and eventually his physical nature to test his true resolve to change his life. The man is out of excuses; he is out of options; he is out of new opportunities. He needs to take this one which Jesus is offering or forever be condemned to futile, pool-side living.

                This Covid pandemic has only felt like 38 years sometimes. It has affected the way we see and experience “normal”. We wonder whether life will ever be normal again. Many of us feel stuck at the pool-side of this Covid cesspool. But getting our vaccines is a ray of hope and possibility; so please, everyone, go get your vaccine when available!

                Why wouldn’t you want to be well?

 

Dale

 Wednesday, April 7, 2021

“Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.” (Philippians 2: 9 -11, The Message Bible)

                The classic, religious definition (i.e., in the ancient true sense of a religion being a life-binding principle) for the purpose of humankind is “to glorify God and to know Him and make Him known by glorifying Him with our lives.”

                Doesn’t sound very modern or secular, does it? It doesn’t seem very politically or culturally astute. It doesn’t seem like something the average Joe and Jane would be very much interested in.  It might seem to some who claim to be spiritual but not very religious that this sounds too pious, too sanctimonious, too in-your-face.  Most of us neglect our purpose as being too spiritually rigorous, too demanding, too impossible. It demands a lot!

                But at the heart and soul of our humanity is our basic and essential need to reach for the sacred and divine, to strive to rediscover the One in whose image we have been made (Genesis 1:27) and to reconnect to the Homepage of God’s Love, Mercy and Grace. We can neglect that desire, ignore it, try to revoke it, forget about it, break it into pieces, trample on it and do all manner of sin and wrong, but we are always going to be intrinsically connected to the Divine nature of God.

                With Resurrection Sunday (my preferred name over Easter) barely behind us, we have a lifetime to live the Resurrected Life ahead of us. It is the Risen Lord who reimagines our human nature and re-establishes our Created Purpose to know God and be known by him. “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.” (Romans 8: 29 -30, The Message Bible)

                Christ’s Resurrection is the invitation for us, once again, freely and openly, to engage God in a brand-new relationship. At an incredible cost to God, God closed the gaping divide between us and Godself. God is made know to us in Christ, the Word made flesh, and it is through Christ that we may come to know God more richly, more personally, more intimately, more deeply and more hopefully.

                All peoples will be included in this worship of this human but sacred link to the Divine. It doesn’t mean that everyone is going to become church-going Christians necessarily, but that all of humanity will understand, respect, acknowledge that Jesus Christ is worthy of shaping the world in the right Way, full of reconciliation, mutual respect, and gracious Love.

                Thus, the followers of Jesus are given a rich mandate to be inclusive, to be compassionate for all, to be gracious and tolerant of differences, to be broad-minded in the best sense of that word.  We are all fearfully and wonderfully made. We practice our worship of God in the world, not only in a Sunday morning event but in a day-to-day regular lifestyle expression of living out of God’s image in us and expressing His Love because of this magnificent relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ.

                So we are back at where I started in the first week of Lent, but it also describes what it is to be an Easter People, from Romans 12. “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” (Romans 12: 1 – 3, The Message Bible).

                Alleluia, Christ is Risen. He is risen indeed.

                Live like it matters!

 

Dale