My Car?

Mark 10:35-45 (Pentecost 20b, October 18, 2009

 

POWER. It's not a four letter word you know. But what do you do with power? What can you do with power? These are living questions. These are questions raised by Jesus in today's Gospel text.

 

To aid us in thinking about the reality of power in our lives think about a car.

 

Does a car have power? The men and the boys here, perhaps even some of the women may tell us, "yah, sure, cars have varying degrees of power. From the Smart car to the largest V8 with over 400 horsepower, cars have power. That's literal power which allows a vehicle to accelerate through wind, snow and rain. Such power allows the vehicle to carry a load while moving from Point A to point B. But is there any other power in a vehicle?

 

While being driven out of control a car can wreak incredible damage to people's lives and property. My childhood Pastor had a daughter who was killed in her early 20's by a car driven by a drunk driver. That reality changed their lives forever. That's a kind of power that was incredibly destructive.

 

But cars and vehicles can have other kinds of power too. They can be driven to transport people to hospitals – to move elderly people in a nursing home on an outing that will enrich their lives and maybe even the lives of others. Cars/vehicles can transport us to and from work, to and from people we love. Vehicles can bridge distances to bring us back or towards the people we love.

 

So the car/ vehicle has a power. Vehicles can pollute the air much or a little – depending on their maintenance and construction. But ultimately the power of the vehicle and it's being positive or negative depends on the driver's actions and intentions.

 

What about us, do we have any power? Some of us may say, "No!" I have to admit that there have been days when I have felt that I had little or no power. As I watch my parents grow older and suffer from a variety of maladies that seem to defy contemporary medical treatment, I sometimes feel that I don't have any power. As I watch some televangelists proclaim a prosperity gospel that appeals only to people's individualism and selfishness, almost encouraging them to neglect others except to try to force them to become like me in this regard – I sometimes feel powerless. As I watch the sludge and guck floating on the surface of  Steveston Harbor I sometimes feel powerless. When I see young, young children with bloated bellies and learn that their parents have died or are dying from AIDS I feel powerless. Even when I have people come off the street, approaching me because they are hungry I often feel powerless.

 

But am I? Are you powerless?

 

There are times when we may characterize Jesus as powerless or at least as meek and lowly. Then we might think that he was a nice guy who just loved everybody. But Jesus was not powerless. The church has attempted to use language to characterize such a reality. We sometimes say the Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But there are serious limitations to such understandings.

 

In today's Gospel Jesus speaks a bit about His power. He talks about the limits of it. It is not in His power to grant James or John or anyone for that matter seats at his right and left after His new rule is fully realized.

 

But it is within His power to do some amazing things. It is in His power to live. How he lived his life on earth. In the Gospel of Mark we see him caring for the vulnerable, the lonely, the oppressed in ways that they are not only fed for that particular day, but they are also empowered to go on with a new way of living, veritably a new life. They are restored to community, whether the "they" are lepers or a woman with a haemmorhage or even a dead friend. Nor does he ask for some subservience or even praise for his action. What he does hope for is a thankfulness, a willingness for those people to go back and live and love others. He will help them. They can trust Him..

 

And now Jesus tells those early disciples and any who would follow him, that He didn't come to be served. He didn't come to be given pomp and glory so that he could be puffed up and have everyone say how great he is. No! Instead  He comes to serve – to care for others – to allow them to see in Him, God's love and then to experience a liberation from all that entraps us.

 

Think about that. What entraps us? Are we ever caught up in or by hatred, greed, apathy, fear, insecurity, selfishness, ignorance, misunderstanding? Any or all of these realities can grab us in such a way that we feel compelled to hoard, to remain isolated, even to try to put others down so that we might feel better about ourselves. We must compete, be dressed well, have a bigger house, a nicer car. Then to our jaded way of thinking, others must be wrong or less than us. So it goes. There are wars and rumours of war. The gap between the rich and the poor grows larger even as more and more poor people are literally dying. While we are so entrapped we too are dying in a variety of ways.

 

But Jesus comes employing His power in a way that is so different from our inclination. Through His death comes liberation for life for those who are embraced by Him. Did we hear what he says regarding power over others as opposed to power that is employed for others? Jesus called them (his disciples) and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is NOT SO AMONG YOU; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

 

Yes, the Son of Man, that is Jesus, came not to be served but to serve. Wow! This is radically different from so much of what we know as power: whether it be in athletics or in business or even in so much of politics or the church. It is our human reality, our human predicament that so often takes the potential of power to do good and turns it into self service, self aggrandizement or at the very least aggrandizement of those who are like or are "liked" by the one(s) in power.

 

But this is not the way of Christ. He gives His life as a ransom for many. Here this is not a payment to God for sin. Here this is Jesus giving His life as God's own Son so that the powers of death and evil that continually work to divide and conquer the human family and this earth can be and are overcome. We do not have to serve such powers. We do not have to be bound by the clutches of hatred or apathy, of fear or greed, of insecurity or anxiety. Jesus has died and is raised to free us to use the many powers that God gives us in new and different ways right now.

 

Do you have power? Do I have power? You betcha! By the grace of God we are God's children with unique abilities. Even when we feel powerless we most certainly are not. I can love my parents in word and deed. I can call them, encourage them and visit them. I can advocate for them with their medical practitioners. Before and after all of that I can pray for them, commune with them and through the Holy Spirit remind them that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

 

As a Christian and as part of this Christian community I can attempt to model a Christian life that exemplifies that God's care is for all people in the totality of their persons, individually and collectively, mind, body and spirit. God's care and Christ's death is also for the whole creation, earth and all stars. As part of God's care,  I can strive to learn and change my own behaviour in terms of consumption. I can ride my bike, walk more, turn off computers and become more educated about what my own government and the governments of the world are doing to care or not care for our environment. I can reduce, reuse and recycle. I can contribute of my time, my skills and my money in raising AIDS awareness and awareness of how we as a most blessed nation can assist people in poorer nations by examining our own assumptions our own patterns of doing business and consuming.

 

In a very real way we have all been given our own "cars" – our own gifts of life that are definitely on a journey. The question is – who is guiding your vehicle? By God's grace may we be open to Jesus being our guide, our Saviour, our Lord. We are blessed to be a blessing for others, for this world. We can be freed in ongoing ways to new life, not to be served but to serve. We can discover that such living is an incredible privilege, challenge and responsibility.

 

May it be so with us, among us and through us, for Christ's sake, and the sake of the world. Amen.

Beyond worry, even awe, to THANKS

 

Thanksgiving Sunday, October11, 2009 (Matthew 6:25-33)

 

The young man was standing in the delivery room of a large city hospital. His wife had just given birth to their first child- a girl baby. And now he was holding that baby in his arms. He looked into that wee one's eyes. He was amazed. He could almost swim in those eyes. He was also humbled. The young man realized that on many levels he didn't fully realize love until that moment. But immediately his mind began to race. What if he were to get sick or, God forbid, die? What would happen to this little girl? He looked over to his wife. What if she were to get sick, or God forbid, die? What would happen to their little girl then? In the midst of his mental racing he promised himself that he would purchase more life insurance, lots more – and take better care of himself and his wife. He would have to….Oh, now his mind was really going, FASTER AND FASTER AND FASTER.

 

Does your mind ever race? When we get so anxious we become like a dog chasing its tale. We go round and round and round, all the while becoming more frantic and more tired. As my mind races I become preoccupied with, absorbed by "my" thoughts. Such mental absorption has been happening within me this last week. I observe people whom I care about who have lost their jobs. These people are competent, hard working. And I wonder, why? I know some of the variables.  Still, how can this happen? My mind races on further – to many children whose parents have died from AIDS. I realize that treatment could have been afforded to so many. What a difference that would have made for those children and this world. Again I wonder, "Why?"

 

My mind moves not remaining still, to another Canadian soldier's pictures being flashed over our air waves. I wonder about his or her family, their friends. And I wonder too about the thousands of Afghani people and Iranian people who have died in the last 8-10 years. It is difficult not to become jaded, filled with anger or even apathy as one faces the power of such death and evil.

 

There aren't easy answers in this living of our lives. Hatred, brokenness, suffering greed and death are so real, so powerful, so devastating. The loss of people who have died and the living pain of their loved ones must never be dismissed by religious platitudes. The truth of all creation and humanity is that not every lily reaches full bloom. Nor does every person who trusts God and seeks to do God's will live a full and long life. Not at all! If we are thinking, feeling persons we must know this.

 

Yet in the midst of all our experiences of life and death comes Jesus and even his words on this Thanksgiving Sunday, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear."

 

What shall we do with His words? What will His words do with us?

 

We who live and love, who laugh and cry, who are born, live and die, what do these words of Christ have to do with us? Can they be meaningful, real in our lives, as we think, feel and seek to live? Or are these words merely religious platitudes, even attempts to escape so much of the hardness of life? Can such words only be uttered in a "nice" place, some might say a place of irrelevance like a church? (P)

 

Can you still see that young man holding that newly born baby? His mind was racing. But then that wee child lets out a cry, a veritable shriek. In that second, although he loves her more than his own life, he is moved beyond himself to a much deeper reality. He is being granted new vision.  He must realize that he cannot meet this wee one's needs alone or even fully protect her. Nor can he guarantee anything for her- great teachers, understanding and loyal friends, safety from misguided coaches or men who are anything but well. He thinks to himself, if both this wee baby and he continue to be richly blessed on this earth she could well live longer than he. From his perspective, that would be good.

 

But what then? Who will take care of her? Who will help to provide for her? From those questions he is forced to think about his own life. Whom does he belong to? Who will love this tiny, little girl now and forever?  Whom does she "belong" to?

 

In these questions the young man is being swept up but not away, to a larger vision of reality. In this profoundly real but more cosmic vision his racing mind begins to slow. He is conscious of his own breathing, of her breathing. He can begin to actually see others. This little one he so carefully holds does not belong to him or even to her mother. She has been entrusted to them in the midst of an even larger community What a gift! What a privilege! What a responsibility!

 

But in addition to the gift, privilege, responsibility she is for the two of them, and for this world, this little one is first and foremost God's own child! 

 

Do we see that God in Christ will never abandon this little one or let her simply go, come what may? The young man stands there, caught up in the crying that emanates from her being, transfixed by this larger reality. Now, from somewhere deep, not only within himself but perhaps also from the living core of all humanity he sighs. It is not a sigh of resignation but rather a sigh of THANKS. Thanks be to God for his "own" life. Thanks be to God for the life of his wife and her love. And, yes thanks be to God for that tiny baby girl's life!

 

In many ways his sighed thank you doesn't seem to be enough. Yet, as he grows older he realizes that his genuine thank you is in many ways for him a beginning. The rest of his life, as he employs the many gifts God has given him to help and serve others can continue to be part of his response to God for God's great goodness. After all doesn't God, love this world at least as much as that young man loves that little baby? 

 

Over 25 years have past for this young man, now middle aged. Although on many fronts he is very thankful and attempts to live thankfully, he still worries. His worry raises its head as he thinks about all of his daughters now in their 20's. He worries when he thinks about the glaciers melting, about many children coming to school hungry, about other children who will never be able to go to school. He worries when he sees pictures of homeless people here in this country and around the world.

 

In the midst of this Jesus' words in Matthew's Gospel come to us: "therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

 

Perhaps, just perhaps the words that Christ is speaking to the early disciples in today's Gospel are both prose and poetry. Do not worry about your life. Maybe that's prose. Look at the birds of the air – the lilies of the field. Perhaps that's both poetry and prose. It is good to see the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. But beyond their literal visual sightings they are also symbols. Such symbols point us beyond our immediate reality to a much larger overarching reality, even as rainbows do.

 

God gives life because God is the life giver. Life is rarely neat and tidy. We must know that in the midst of life's wonder and awe, it's richness, there is also the reality of evil, the pain of suffering and death, such mystery beyond any and all comprehension.

 

But into all that is life and death for us individually and for the world collectively, comes God the Creator. God enters daring to become human. In Jesus God becomes a creature of the earth, in many ways like us. And this One who takes on our mortality fleshes out God's incredible love for all of us and for all creation. It is this Jesus, who dies on the cross for us, who on the third day is raised, that is speaking to us. To put it colloquially he says, BE CAREFUL! Don't be preoccupied with or possessed by anxiety regarding your own life or even the lives of others. For, I am with you. I will not abandon you.

 

Now it's important to be abundantly clear. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't work, that we shouldn't plan, that we shouldn't invest ourselves in working towards or for a future. Nor does this mean that we are not called to care for others and the rest of creation. We absolutely should and must care! This is essential to our call as followers of Jesus! But all of this, this work, this caring action can only be done as a RESPONSE to GOD'S GOODNESS that we experience in Jesus. In Him, and His life-bringing love for us our identity begins. As we live in response to Him our identity takes on life. In Jesus Christ we are and ever being made children of God. He is calling us to trust Him here and now, in our daily living.

 

It is only then, by God's grace, that we are enabled to let go of our preoccupation, our anxieties, about so many and so much. In Jesus we can be freed and empowered to actively love even as we are hurt and hurting; to laugh as well as cry, to dance and sing, to wail and mourn, to live with great energy, compassion and sacrifice, trusting that somehow God will take what we are uniquely offering and use it for good.

 

Jesus Christ is the One who fully knows us and loves us. He gives His all for us, so that we may be able to honestly and fully live with God, with others, with creation. There may be times when we lose our faith in Him. But this risen Jesus does not give up on us! There may be times when our minds race and we become preoccupied with worry. But the still small voice of God can crack through that worry and lead us beyond it.

 

May God help us to care deeply for others and this world as a response to the love of God that we are embraced by in Jesus. May God also free us from ourselves so to live, realizing that although God counts on us to live out our many gifts in love for this world, the rule and gracious reign of God is ultimately brought about not through us, but through God who sometimes amazingly uses even us. For all this, let us live thankfully! Alleluia. Amen.

 

 

Divorce - Any Good News?

Mark 10:2-16 (Pentecost 18a), October 4, 2009

 

Choices! Sometimes the choices we are called to make are anything but easy. We older males: shall we go for our annual prostate examination or not? If we have a close friend and they are engaging in an activity or activities that are destructive for their health – do we do or say anything? If we do nothing they may well continue. If we say something that may still continue and end their friendship with us. And yet if we do say something they may reconsider their course of action and stop it. What shall we do or say? To speak and risk or not to speak and risk?

 

For those of you who are students: to study or not to study? to work or not to work on a gorgeous day? There may be no other day just like today in your life. However if one does not work sometime, when will that work get done. And what will happen then?

 

For those of us who are getting older: when do we downsize? when do we get ourselves assessed in terms of being on a waiting list for enriched housing or a care facility? If we choose to do nothing now, what will happen when?

 

Choices are part and parcel of the reality of our lives. Many of the choices we make now impact us and others for varying amounts of time.

 

Pastors must make choices too. Today's lessons forced me to select which one I would focus on. Today's lessons are so big and so important that to try to blend them together somehow would be foolhardy.

 

So I needed to make a selection. Do I preach on Job which raises the entire question of human suffering and the goodness of God, in this particular case the suffering of an absolutely innocent person? Wow – the suffering of innocent people, there's a huge topic! Or, do I preach on Mark's text where Jesus utters the most difficult statement on divorce that  I have ever heard?

 

After a couple of days of allowing the texts to resonate in my being I have decided to preach on Mark's Gospel text. I do this because I am convinced that on every level, both immediate and long term, this text can speak to all of us.

 

The first question that I asked myself and I now ask you is this: is there any good news here at all? Even if we attempt to do an end run around whatever it is Jesus is saying about divorce and get to the children, we need to realize that about 60% of the children in Jesus' time died before they reached the age of 16. It is distinctly possible that the children brought to Jesus whom we meet in our text were ill. I can say this because the word 'touch' used in the text is only used by Mark in healing accounts. Even the children are sick! Where is the good news?

 

I am convinced that there is good news here but we need to hear the whole story before we are in a place to receive it. The Pharisees, were people who were generally concerned about the application of religious law in their daily life. By this time in Mark's gospel the Pharisees were out to get Jesus. They didn't like what he was doing to their common understanding of their religion, to their own understanding of family. So, they couldn't stand him. Now they ask him a question perhaps hoping that his response will put him in trouble with others, people more powerful people than themselves. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" They didn't just mean, "is it permitted by the law of the land?" Rather they mean, "is it more than OK with God, could divorce be blessed by God?"  They probably hoped that in answering Jesus would offend many, perhaps including their superiors who would then deal with him appropriately..

 

But Jesus delves far beyond what the Pharisees intend in their question. Jesus means to point beyond the legalities of divorce to have them, and any who might hear understand and strive to reach for God's intention for relationships. Remember God has hopes for human life! 

 

From this context, I want to tell you a story. I met a young woman – about 30 years of age. She had been blessed with 3 children – under the ages of 7. She lived with her husband – a short but very strong man. I first met them because she wanted her baby baptized. I showed up at 2 in the afternoon. The husband was gone – not at work, but somewhere. I met with her, listened to her share her hopes for her child and a bit about her faith. Yet "something" didn't' feel right. About an hour into our visit, the husband came home. He had been drinking. Now he wasn't falling down drunk - he was polite. but as he entered the room, the entire atmosphere changed. Later I learned that this man, physically beat his wife, verbally berated her and even had threatened her with a gun. So, I ask you, what would you do if you were this woman's friend, if you were her Pastor? Is it lawful, could it even be good for this woman to divorce this man?

 

Into such realities, our reality, comes this text from Mark. Here Jesus is responding to the question the Pharisees put to him. Again, I think that Jesus is holding up God's hope, God's intention both for marriage – and on a grander scale even for human relationships in his response..

 

It is also important to take into account some of the cultural differences between Jesus' time and our time. In Jesus' time marriage didn't occur after 2 people had been dating, fallen in love and then came to the decision to make incredible promises to each other. No! Then marriage was a promise entered into by 2 families – sometimes for financial reasons, even with an eye to keeping the Jewish race alive. Such promises were initiated by the fathers of those families. Fathers then were seen as owning their wives and their unmarried daughters. When such promises were broken – and in the Jewish community of Jesus' time they could only be broken by the males – family feuding, shame and dishonor were the result. One of the grounds of divorce was when a marriage did not result in any children. Quite often the woman was blamed and a divorce resulted.

 

Jesus' concern about all this is not just for the sake of whose property is whose, nor even for the family's sake, since Jesus allows the possibility that a woman may seek a divorce – which transcended Jewish custom, although it was known in the broader culture. Here Jesus holds up the intent that no person be discarded because they can't somehow "produce" children. Nor should anyone be 'discarded' because the man finds some other woman more attractive in some way or even because some woman finds some other man more attractive in some way. Instead it is God's intention that all people be respected, that the marriage promises to love, cherish and respect the marriage partner be honored. And when that intention is disregarded and broken much pain results. Such broken promises result in fractures in interpersonal relationships, families and between people and God.

 

Don't we know and experience this? One of the most painful realities that I see and experience is the reality of divorce. Jesus underlines the truth, the reality of the law. This is not God's intent. We should not do it.

 

And yet, there is our reality. Don't' we all fall short in this regard – whether we are married, still married or never been married or are currently divorced? Who among us has not looked at another person besides our spouse with desire? Who among us has not at times been mean or thoughtless towards the one we have promised to love 'til death do us part? We are all guilty – by the law. We are all in need of forgiveness and new life!

 

So, where is the good news? Where is our hope in the midst of this reality?

 

At the tale end of our lesson, we watch as people bring children to Jesus that he might touch them. Do you remember some weeks ago that I spoke about the reality of life for children in Jesus' day? They weren't viewed a s many of us view children today – as being sweet, innocent or cute. Rather children then were totally vulnerable on so many levels.  Children had to depend on someone – often their fathers and then after that perhaps their mothers to protect them. The children that are being brought to Jesus here in Mark's Gospel are ill – perhaps smelling, coughing, suffering from diarrhea. They may have been understood to be contagiously ill. People may have wanted to stay away from them. But Jesus takes these children in his arms and blesses them. And then Jesus says the most amazing thing – unless one enters the kingdom of God, that is the rule and realm of influence of God like a little child, that person will never enter it."

 

To be crystal clear: here Jesus takes up the vulnerable, the needy, the hurting, the ones that society would distance and blesses them with His presence, His love, His support.

 

It is precisely here dear people that we are encountering hope. Whatever is going on in our lives – when our relationships with others are fractured and fracturing, we need Christ's ongoing touch to help us. Through his embracing, welcoming touch we may be enabled to realize that we are God's children, that we are loved despite our failings. Yes, we often fall short of God's intention many ways. But especially then God wills to give us new beginnings this day – to love and forgive even as Christ loves and forgives us.

 

And this, dear people is GOOD NEWS! This is the heart of the Gospel that comes to us in the midst of any and all the experiences of our lives. May we live from this both with hope and then through the grace of God also with much joy! Amen.