Wednesday, June 30, 2021

“Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection.” (Romans 6: 6 -7, The Message Bible)

 [Susan has come through her knee surgery with flying colours. She has her first physio today. Thanks for all your support.]

                 I recently read a headline that there is a huge increase in the rodent population this year. Some of that increase, unfortunately, has found its way into our kitchen. Small wonder with the bush behind us.

                We bought a live-trap. After all, I am not a senseless murderer of cute (?) little mice. We have discovered that our mice have a sweet tooth or two. They are absolute suckers for a little bit of a butter tart. In fact, despite their now-captive state, the mouse usually eats the whole scrap. It might figure that if it is about to go to that Great Cheese Larder in the sky, it doesn’t want the tart just go to waste.

                Then I take my little captive to Jackson Creek conservation park, only about a minute from our house. I take the cage over to the grass and open it up. But a couple of the mice have not wanted to go free and instead cling tenaciously to the inside of the cage. It would rather be a captive mouse than a free mouse. It’s a cruel world out there; there are owls, foxes, snakes and hawks just looking for a mousey tidbit. But I shake the cage hard enough that it finally falls out and  heads off into the bush. I expect that by now there is a little mouse support group which meets every night lamenting the loss of their free meal.

                No longer captive to sin’s demands!

                Sin is that tasty bit of metaphoric butter tart. It looks so tempting. What harm could it do to take a nibble or two? But before we know it, we are caught in Sin’s trap(s) and can’t get out. Some might begin to think that since they can’t escape, they might as well indulge their appetite for whatever tempted them to begin with. But eventually, the tidbit of pleasure is all gone and guess what: you are still a captive! You have no place to hide. You are at the mercy of whomever is going to open that trap and deal with you. Even then, some might prefer to stay in the trap and hope for the best rather than deal with the real world.

                Graciously, God is the One who opens our traps and frees us from the captivity to sin’s demands. Even though we get ourselves in these sinful predicaments time and time again, God is equally patient and compassionate in his forgiveness and mercy. We are given a brand new opportunity to start the sort of life God wants us to live. Just as mice are meant to live free  in the forest and not in our kitchen, so we, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, are meant to live in freedom.

                “That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.” (Romans 6: 12 -14, The Message Bible)

                And if that means saving every little mouse or every  human – no matter what – then so be it!

 

Dale

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

“The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5, New Living Translation)

 {Susan is getting her second knee replacement tomorrow, Thursday. Please keep her in your prayers.}

                 My new Subaru Forrester is a nagging, back-seat driver.

                In mid March, I changed my 2018 car for this 2021 version. It is much the same vehicle except it came with a whole bevy of updated, mostly technical features. They are mainly in the area of “driver assistance”. “Driver assistance” is a polite way to say nagging, back-seat driver.

                The car beeps at me if I veer over the lane. It warns me when a car has pulled in front of me on the highway, even if it is way ahead of me. It beeps at me if I go through a yellow light. It helps me keep a safe distance between myself and the car ahead of me by slowing me down, without me applying the brakes. If I am at a stop sign and there is a car ahead of me, when that car moves forward and I am slow to react, it politely messages me that the car ahead had moved. In other words, “Move it, you dummy!” It tells me to look in the back seat before I get out of the car, lest I leave a child or a puppy or a bag of groceries, I presume. I am not sure that I have yet discovered all the “very helpful” advisory components. The car will let me know.

                It’s like having a 2000-pound, mobile conscience.

                It used to be said, “let your conscience be your guide.” But I am not sure that this is adequate advice. It could turn out to be very self-serving, depending on the sort of conscience one has. Good morality is not necessarily innate. It also has to be taught, nurtured, coaxed, used, honed, developed to be effective. It would be great to have a moral “driver assistance” installed in my brain, but that’s not how it works in real life.

                But there are many helpful directives which arise out scripture, too many to go into here. Of course, one has to read the Bible to begin with to sort out the counsel and guidance that is there. I keep meaning to read my car’s manual to figure out exactly what my car can do. So it is, to lead a significant way for living a Christian life – read the manual, the Bible.

Paul’s letters are full of insight, practical advice and useful instruction for effective, moral persuasion. Yes, we have to think them through, interpret, ponder their meaning and relevance. But Paul’s aim was always for his readers to allow Christly Love to lead our consciences. “By rejecting conscience,” he wrote, “certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith.” (1 Timothy 1:19 New Revised Standard Version)

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.” (Philippians 4: 8-9, The Message Bible)

Beep, beep; get back in your lane!

Dale

               

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

“Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:18, New Living Translation)

                 I received my second Covid vaccine shot this past Monday. They told me that in two weeks time I will be fully immunized against Covid. Strangely, I find that the most exciting thing which has happened to me recently.

But it got me to thinking about “immunity”. A dictionary definition goes like this: “resistance to, resilience to, nonsusceptibility to, lack of susceptibility to, protection from, ability to fight off, ability to withstand, ability to counteract, defenses against, immunization against, inoculation against.”

I’m sure that I feel all of that action coursing through my body right now!

Now, if they could just develop some sort of immunization against doing something stupid, saying something thoughtlessly or hurtfully, acting like a lunkhead, making mistakes, making poor decisions, acting selfishly, etc., then we may be on to a cure for the common sins of humankind.

                Even better, give me immunization against the inconsideration and rudeness of others, their insults and jibes, their pettiness and ignorance, their prejudices and judgments, their selfishness and arrogance. Now we’re talking!

                But, of course, life doesn’t work like that. We are always vulnerable to outbreaks of the ills of our society and the rashes of our own and other’s questionable behaviour. It is impossible to quarantine ourselves or protect ourselves fully from the unclean spirit of those unhealthy characteristics about how we go about living our daily lives.

                Everybody catches the effects of Sin at some point. Achoo!

                But it can be argued that the Love and Forgiveness of God goes a long way to immunize us from the long terms affects of corruptible living. The stories of Jesus’ efforts to heal the sick, the diseased and the handicapped were evidence of the sacred intent to rid people of all that which debilitates and de-humanizes lives. “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (Mark 2:17, NLT)

                God understands how hard it is to be the kind of person you and I are supposed to be. We need a booster shot every now and then to maintain God’s standard of living. God has given us Jesus Christ as the beneficial cure for Sin, the effective remedy to counteract that which attacks the immune system of living spiritually healthy lives.

                A good dose of Christ’s example, character, strength, love, grace, forgiveness, compassion, can cure a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

                “Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.” (3 John, v.2, NLT)

 

Dale

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

“I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish…” (Romans 1: 14, New Revised Version)

              When I was a little boy, I liked to play “cowboys and Indians”. I would strap on my authentic, imitation Roy Rogers’ gun holster, make sure my cap-gun, western six-shooter was loaded with caps and stood ready to stave off the attacks of the wild, blood thirsty Red Indians which was what the indigenous natives were often called, back then. I was greatly influenced by the Saturday afternoon Western movies from the forties which were on TV. Stereotypically, the Red Indians were attacking a settlement, a farm or a wagon train. The poor white settlers were under siege from these “savages”. But inevitably, there came the sound of a bugle and over the horizon rode the cavalry to save the day as they routed the enemy.

                In by boyish mind, it never dawned on me that the reason the Native Peoples were attacking to begin with was because they were being pushed out of their native lands, were being lied to by white governments, and being forced to live in reservations under sometimes quite squalid conditions. I’d be teed off, too.

                Despite this background, I don’t think it affected me too much about how I felt about my own generation of native peoples. To be honest, I don’t think I knew anyone from the nearby reservation until I was in high school. The prettiest girl in the class was from Tyendinaga, and other students were scattered in other classes. Beyond that, I don’t recall having a negative viewpoint about them. But neither did I think much at all about their circumstances or what they had to endure to be a Native person in our country.  In hindsight, I wish we had a more honest education.

                We certainly didn’t learn anything about residential schools.  But 213 children’s unmarked graves at a residential school have given us the painful exposure to the atrocities which our indigenous people have experienced over the centuries. It is grievous beyond the pale that the Church played such a leading role in these atrocities. Cultural genocide seems a very strong term, but I can think of no other, equally adequate. It’s way past the time that we own the term, live up to our Canadian culpability, accountability and responsibility. Our First Nations’ people still live in some horrendous conditions without adequate water and other necessities. They are treated badly and prejudicially by some police. Their suicide rate is alarming. And so on…

                It is time to put away our cap guns and make amends.

                In particular the Church needs to step up and do the right thing. Regardless whether it was Catholic or Anglican or some other denomination this is an ugly scar on all Christians. We owe them the sincerest of apologies and way much more.

                It is critical more than ever that the Church re-embody the earthly ministry of Jesus. We need to set aside the high and sanctified characteristics of our Christology (the theology of Jesus Christ) and rediscover the compassion, the healing, the grace, the inclusion, the respect, the love that came from the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

                I chose Paul’s words from Romans because he expresses through them that he is very aware and appreciative of the diversity of peoples around him, even the “barbarians”, as he called them. Technically, barbarians were non-Greeks mostly, but we can understand the phrase as meaning “not one of us”. Interestingly, many of the newer translations of the Bible take the pejorative sting out of the word. E.g. “to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to the educated and uneducated alike.” (New Living Translation) Nonetheless, Paul comes across as an understanding and grateful man of the world, seeing beyond nasty labels and blind prejudice. He eagerly embraced the diversity of the peoples he encountered, treated them with respect, grace and trust.

                Jesus and then Paul paints a picture of what Jesus’ church is supposed to be. When it comes to our treatment of Indigenous People, we have failed and failed badly.

                The church needs to reawaken its Jesus’ Spirit and try to make a fresh start with all peoples who are “not one of us”.

                “In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.” (Colossians 3:11, NLT)              

Dale

 Wednesday, June 2, 2021

“Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other people’s business.” (2 Thessalonians 3:11, New Living Translation)

                So, I finally put the snow shovel away this week.

                I could argue that I was being cautiously prudent in waiting so long. After all, we did have a couple of hours of wet snow just last week. You never know…

                But the truth of the matter is that I was being a lazy procrastinator. I couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t disturbing me while it rested on the front stoop. It was not in my way. In fact, I stopped noticing it long ago. It is not that hard to put the thing in the garage – it wasn’t going to get there by its own power. Nevertheless, even as I sat in my outside chair right next to it, I couldn’t find the where-with-all to put the shovel away. Laziness is next to godliness – no, that doesn’t sound right.

                I grew up with the saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Although not exactly found in the Bible, the adage still has a lot of biblical roots. “Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.” (Ecclesiastes 6:11, NLT) We were raised imbued with the Protestant Work Ethic. Hard work was the best route to success, prosperity and a meaningful life. If you weren’t succeeding, work harder and smarter! Hard work never killed anyone. Apply yourself. Work hard. Make an all-out effort.

                Even Jesus seems to approve of hard work. His several parables about servants being ready for action and prepared to do their duty are mindful of the work that Christians will be called to do. The one parable that stands out is the Parable of the Labourers for the Vineyard. The main question was, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” (Matthew 20:6, NLT) It seems implied that there are no excuses for idleness.

                I’m tired just researching and reading this material!!

                The Apostle Paul is no shirker, either. He made a living for himself even as he was evangelizing and preaching – a tentmaker by trade and saw himself as a model for others to emulate. “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you.” (2 Thess. 3:7, NLT)   He was quite harsh about the lazybones in his churches, calling them out for being a burden on the church. Even worse, this idleness left to a bevy of bad behaviours. For example, a few widows who “learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house; and they are not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say.” (1 Timothy 5:13, NLT) Ouch!

                Paul has some advice for us who carry the bulk of the work in our churches, but it could apply to businesses, homes, organizations, governments, etc.: “Get along among yourselves, each of you doing your part. Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other’s nerves you don’t snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out.” (1 Thessalonians 5: 13 -15, The Message Bible)

                “But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.”  (1 Corinthians 3:13, NLT)

                I don’t think he means putting away snow shovels, either!

 Dale