Wednesday, January 25, 2023

“God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows,  you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.” (Psalm 23: 1 – 3, The Message Bible)

                 Godwink “essentially refers to a coincidental event or experience that is perceived to be fate or destiny. It can also be inferred as the work of divine intervention hence the use of ‘god’ with ‘wink’, acting as confirmation you are either on the right track or perhaps hinting at a different path that you may not have considered.” (An internet definition)

                The term is especially used when two persons inevitably find each other and fall in love through a whole set of circumstances that throws them together time after time again – as if God was bringing them together.

                Recently, I encountered a lovely Godwink story while I was acting as the on-call chaplain at our hospital. Sadly, the man had just lost his wife in their 69^th year of their marriage. They met all those years ago when he was attending university. He was dating someone else when he graduated and due to some job restrictions, he couldn’t marry her for a couple of years. She didn’t want to wait and broke off the relationship. His wife-to-be, a nurse, was dating a doctor. He wanted to go to a third-world country and practice medicine there. A noble ambition but her parents didn’t want her to go because of the risks and dangers. She, too, broke it off.  Eventually, not long after, the fated  two met at a church function and the rest, as they say, is history.

                God works in mysterious ways.

                It goes to show that if we put ourselves in God’s Way, good things can happen. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10, New Living Translation)

                Now I am not a predestination kind of guy, believing that everything is predetermined nor do I believe that God pulls our puppet strings. But I do believe that God desires our benevolence, our blessing, our happiness, our joy and provides us every opportunity to respond to his hopes and promises for us. We have the free will to walk away from those gifts, ignore his leading, choose our own paths.  God is even there when we stumble, lose our way, fumble our future or stubbornly go our own way and it is the wrong way. Often God gently nudges us back or offers to guide us back into the way we should go.

               Of course, life doesn’t always go the way we wish it would. We may face times which are difficult and painful. We may wonder where God has gone when the going gets tough. But I would suggest to you that God is in the gaps and cracks of life, looking for us. Like the Good Shepherd of the parable, Jesus seeks for us when we are lost and feeling abandoned and don’t know which way to turn.  The Good Shepherd brings us back into his Love and carries us on his shoulders to get us back on the right path.

             He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me/ His faithful follower I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me.

                It can always be surprising how God works in our lives. It is not always spectacular or magnificent. It may seem coincidental and unexpected. Yet after all is said and done, we begin to understand that the Love of God has always been at work for us and with us.

                Here is my definition of a Godwink: “Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings…” (Psalm 17:8, New Revised Standard Version)

 Dale

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Jesus said, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate it? It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of all garden plants; it grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade.” (Mark 4: 30 -32, New Living Translation)

                The pipe organ at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church swelled into the opening chords of that great celebratory hymn by St. Francis of Assisi , All Creatures of Our God and King, praising God for all of his good and magnificent Creation. I settled in my big, blue recliner to watch the service.

                Just outside our front window sits our bird feeder. Sunday was a beautiful, bright sunny day and the activity at the feeder was especially busy. It all seemed to echo the hymn’s praise about the goodness of God’s Creation.

                There were chickadees, juncos and sparrows. Even a cardinal showed up to feed. (No squirrels that morning – God is good!) As the service continued, I also watched the birds. Grateful for the variety. Grateful for the way they mostly get along and let everyone have a turn at the feeder. Oh, the sparrows can get a little feisty with each other (probably Baptist sparrows) but not with any of the other birds. There is plenty enough in the feeder for each and every bird. I have also had nuthatches. The scenario fitted the hymn and the hymn fitted the scenario – “Let all things their Creator bless and worship Him in humbleness. O praise Him.”

                But it also brought to mind the Parable of the Mustard Seed that Jesus told. A small, inconsequential, ordinary seed is planted into the ground. Hardly a momentous event. Yet this tiny seed sprouts and is nurtured to grow unhindered, and become this enormous bush, so big that it can harbour and protect all the birds which seek its shelter. The Message Bible says eagles can nest there, but I rather think that what is meant is that any and every kind of bird can find a safe home in the bush’s great branches. The Welcome Nest is out!

                Such is the Kingdom of God, Jesus said.

                Small acts of love, compassion, generosity grow into the many branches of God’s good and gracious Creation. Within God’s Kingdom there is enough room for everyone, for each and every kind of son of Adam and daughter of Eve. Here within God’s nesting protection is abundant Love for each and every human being, regardless of our genetic codes and DNA makeup. Here within God’s copious Grace, all of us are fed and protected from the worst that the world can throw at us, even the storms which shake and rattle the “bush,” at times.

                It is up to us to get along with other, to accept the differences, to make room for the other, to realize that there is room enough for all, that everyone is welcome at the Kingdom’s “feeder.”

                O.K., I’ll admit -   even squirrels are included or whatever their human equivalent.

                Even you and me.

                And all ye folk of tender heart, Forgiving others take your part, O Sing ye! Alleluia! Ye who long pain and sorrow bear, Praise God and on Him cast your care. O praise Him. O Praise Him. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

                Amen indeed!

 Dale

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

“People curse those who hoard their grain, but they bless the one who sells in time of need.” (Proverbs 11:26, New Living Translation)

                "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender….”

                With apologies to Winston Churchill, I am applying his epic words to my ongoing battle with the squirrels at my bird feeder. They are relentless adversaries. Wily, inventive, acrobatic little rats with fluffy tails! They belong to the Ecclesiastes school of life: “to eat and drink well and have a good time—compensation for the struggle for survival these few years God gives us on earth.” (Ecclesiastes 8: 15, The Message Bible)

                Recently, I read a story of a man in Minnesota who is my age and was charged for shooting his gun at the squirrels at his bird feeder. Justifiable squirrel-cide, if you ask me.

                I know what you are thinking, that they are God’s creatures, great and small and deserve a square meal like any other. Fair enough. So, I offered a pact with them that if I fed them peanuts in the shell they would leave my bird feeder alone. What do they do? They eat and hoard the peanuts in a few minutes and then come back and still raid the birdfeeder. Even worse; I think they have been inviting friends and family over to indulge in the free meals.

                This was going to be a rant against greed, hoarding and selfish behaviour., pointing fingers at the  squirrels.  But on sober second thought, I realize that I must also come to terms with my own definitions of sharing, generosity, caring and giving. As the squirrels might say – oh, nuts!

                The squirrels are only doing what comes naturally.  And perhaps it can be said that when we humans act in the same way, we are only being naturally human. Remember during the worst of the pandemic and how people hoarded many household goods.  Or now, when people are hoarding over-the-counter medicines. Our human nature tends to look out first for ourselves and our immediate loved ones. We do what comes naturally for safety, survival, food and shelter.

                But there are exceptions. I heard a story of a man in one of the humongous snowstorms in Buffalo before Christmas who was stranded in his car. He went to over a dozen homes to seek shelter and no one would take him in. He went back to his car to wait out the storm.  Someone knocked on his window and asked if he could get into his car as he was also stranded. The man immediately agreed. They helped each other get through the storm. The first man ended up helping others the next day. In fact, the man said that perhaps it was meant that he was refused shelter, so that he was available to help those who wouldn’t have otherwise found help.

                “If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.” (Matthew 5: 40 -42, The Message)

                Live generously.

                There is a challenge in that. How do we live generously? Like the priest and the Levi in the parable of the Good Samaritan, we would prefer to cross the street and ignore the needy person. But if we are following Jesus, we should know that we can do better. If I am blessed and fortunate to be able to afford both “peanuts and bird seed” (metaphorically speaking) then why should I really care who gets what? There is enough for all of God’s creatures, both great and small.

                “To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29, New Living Translation)

                Oh, nuts!

Dale

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2023 – Epiphany (January 6)

“Then the star appeared again, the same star they had seen in the eastern skies. It led them on until it hovered over the place of the child. They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time!” (Matthew 2: 9 – 10, The Message)

                Just how far are you willing to go to find Christmas? Or to put it another way, what lengths are you willing to go to get to Christmas? And how will you know if you get there, for that matter?

                And before you remind me that Christmas is now over and done with, old news, let me remind you that Christmas is not over until the Magi show up. And by the biblical account in Matthew’s Gospel, that may take some time. Maybe as much as two years, reading into King Herod’s heinous act of killing all children under the age of two, also to “get to” Jesus, but not in the manner I am going to suggest.

                The Magi were astrologers, maybe princes, maybe priests, or nobles, from the Far East – possibly Parthia/Iran or Persia. But in fact, we know very little about them. We may deduce that they have travelled a great distance over considerable time (months perhaps) to find the one whom they were looking for, putting their trust and faith in a bright and uncommon star. They arrive in Bethlehem, after a futile side-trip to Jerusalem, not at the first staging of Christmas (Luke 2:10), not to find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, but discovering a very ordinary family, doing very ordinary things in a very ordinary little village of Bethlehem. Perhaps not the “Christmas” they were picturing.

                We might wonder, if it were you or I in their sandals, whether it was a bit of a let down to come all that way for all that time to find an almost toddler getting under his mother’s feet. This child was born king of the Jews?  This child was the Messiah?  God works in mysterious ways, but c’mon, we came all this way for this?

                But to their credit, the Magi found their Christmas, even if we might argue a little late.  They were filled with joy as they found Jesus and his family. Their Christmas, deferred, delayed, overdue, was in the right place and the right time. But one just has to be open minded, open-hearted, open -spirited to understand that our epiphanies about Jesus happen in diverse and surprising ways. Not controlled by the date on the calendar, not defined only by shepherds and angels, not limited solely to December 25^th.

                It just takes some of us longer to get to Christmas.

                We will know it when we finally arrive at the threshold where Jesus is to be found.  We will have that “aha!” moment when we recognize that maybe this new Christmas isn’t what we expected but it is what we needed. It is the oncoming spirit of a small child, smiling, laughing, playing, full of life, vim and vigour, and still the Son of God, the Word made flesh, but kept simple so that we might understand and enjoy the experience. We are left in awe and wonder. This is indeed the right place, the right time.

                Some say it is the journey and not the destination. But I say in this case it is not so much the journey but the destination that matters.  To arrive and find Jesus and stop in our tracks and appreciate, revel and enjoy the surprising content of God’s Love for us.

We’re not too late.

Jesus is always waiting to be discovered.

May you find yourself in the right place and may this be the right time for you!

 Dale