Wednesday, July 10, 2024

“Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  (Matthew 7: 13 -14, New Revised Standard Version)

[I am taking a summer recess for the rest of July. I’ll be back on August 7. Thanks to all my readers. Have a safe and refreshing summer.]

                Perhaps, it is the rainy, gloomy day outside but my thoughts today are sobering.

                This week, the news tells the tales of two sixteen years old. Incredibly, one of them plays for the Spanish national soccer team in the 2024 Euro Cup tournament. He became the youngest player ever to score at this event. His future is bright, promising and full of possibilities. At the very least, his name will always be remembered for this one glorious moment. But the other sixteen-year-old was shot and killed in a Toronto apartment. It took the police a couple of days to identify the young man. No one seems to know what happened or why. His name will be remembered by his grieving family but probably soon forgotten by the rest of us.

                Sobering.  Two young men on totally different paths. Life can be tortuous and cruel, perplexing and confounding. Why did one teenager reach success and the other die violently? I don’t know their backgrounds or upbringings. What influence did parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, culture, peer groups have in their lives?

                It makes me wonder about our own grandchildren. What influences them? What a kind of teenagers will they be? Right now, they seem on such a good trajectory – loving parents, good schools, sports, intelligence, good ambitions, loving, kind, considerate. But what might change all that? Are they vulnerable to making poor choices, going down the wrong path? They will make their share of mistakes because everyone does, young and old, but will they learn from them and grow or will these mistakes lead to failure and defeat? There is a lot of pressure on today’s youth.

                Sobering. Two paths (probably more); each ending in radically different outcomes. On one path, it is so easy just to go with the flow, to go where the road leads us, to be where one shouldn't be, to let nature takes its course, to succumb to peer pressure and give in to life’s pleasures and lusty promises, believing that no harm can follow, no danger or life-threatening risks.  There are many who take it.

On the other path, it is more difficult. There are still rocks and rough ground but such a person begins to figure out that this path is far more fulfilling and meaningful. So, one makes good choices, does the work, sees the goal and strives for it, seeks out positive influencers, pays attention to wisdom and direction which has their best interest at heart. There are far too few who find it.

“Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!  All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”  (1 Corinthians 9: 24 -27, New Living Translation)

This applies just not to youth, of course; we are all wise to take the path to find New Life. We all needs to discern with eyes of faith and discipleship that to follow Jesus’ Way is the way to go. It means we dare to be different. It means that we dare to achieve those things that the world fails to value and respect.  It means that our ambition is to look and act like Jesus Christ. That takes work, intention, discernment, wise choices, and smart decisions.

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” (Philippians 3: 12 -14)

Sobering - yes; challenging - yes. Demanding – yes. Hard work – yes. Rewarding - emphatically yes!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

Dale

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!  When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.” (John 15: 1 -8, New Living Translation)

            After 46-plus years of marriage, my wife, Susan, can still surprise me and bemuse me.

Take this week. I commented that I really needed to prune some tree branches which are rubbing noisily on the sunroom roof. She coyly smiled and told me she had just ordered on-line a small, battery-powered chainsaw. After 46 years, apparently our minds are telepathic. The thing arrived in its own little case - an 8 inch, miniature chainsaw, complete with work gloves, goggles and all that you need for pruning branches up to 5 inches in diameter.

So, while I was preparing supper, out she went, goggled and gloved, to tackle some of the unwanted foliage in the front yard. This maven of mayhem took out a quarter of our lilac bush which was starting to take over the front sidewalk. She toppled two saplings which were growing too close to the house. By the end, she had produced two large litter bags of debris. I do believe that she enjoyed it!

Our text from John’s Gospel is about pruning. Most of it is very positive and encouraging. But there are also a couple of verses that may leave us feeling a little uncomfortable:  the words about being thrown away, withering and burned.

Most of us have an image of Jesus as someone who is tender-hearted, compassionate, tolerant, loving, benevolent, a healer, a life giver and the like. Jesus with a chainsaw doesn’t quite fit my idea of my personal Lord and Saviour. But it is hard to wiggle out of these verses about what happens to the follower who doesn’t bear fruit. John the Baptist thought the Messiah would come with a pruning hook and although Jesus didn’t live up exactly to John’s idea, there is evidence that Jesus expected growth, blossoming and fruitfulness i.e. good works.

Thus, we have a parable about seeds which are trodden under foot, eaten by birds, wither in the hot sun. In other words, the seeds of the Good News fail to produce and are lost permanently. Only the good soil produces a rich harvest. He told a parable about a fig tree which wasn’t producing and when the farmer went to cut it down, the fig tree was given another chance to bear fruit, but if not, it would be cut down then. Jesus even curded a fig tree which hadn’t produced fruit for he and the disciples to eat.

It's not the stuff of fire and brimstone, but these verses are a clear reminder that our task as Jesus’ followers is to bear fruit. “When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.”  Even the pruning is only a process which is meant to increase our fruitlessness. 

Think of it in St. Paul’s terms, “And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.” (Colossians 3: 5 -8, The Message Bible)

God can help us in pruning that which denies our being in Christ, tied to the Living Vine. These unfruitful characteristics need to be discarded and destroyed. Just as our lilac bush will grown back better than ever with new shoots and new blooms next spring, so too, when we get rid of the negative and the bad things that impede out Christian  growth and character, we can bloom better and better and be fruitful: “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.” (Galatians 5: 22 -24)

Now, let me at that chainsaw!

 

Dale