In the Sky

Pixabay

Little boy up in a tree

Upwards –  struggling to climb high

His desire to be completely free

His wish to touch the sky

 

Little boy – grown to be a man

Carried aloft as rotor-blades spin

He shall soon by descend again

New found fears hidden deep within

 

Little boy – yet older now

Too old for climbing trees

Happy with both feet on the ground

That little boy – is me

 

Padre

 

It is curious how life’s journey moulds us.  From childhood innocence – wanting to fly, to the adult realities of danger and mortality, to finding the settled balance of contentment with the situations you find yourself in.  Having been child, warrior, husband, widower, teacher, and friend – my journey has had, as the poem suggests, literally and figuratively – ups and downs.  But My journey is not yet over, and I wait for its new adventures to begin.

 

 

Mission Impeccable

 

CC BY-SA 4.0

Yesterday, I attended a Zoom meeting where we discussed and voted on issues involving the decolonialising of the educational curriculum.  While such discussions, I hope, will lead us forward in a truly open and equal society, there is a far more important matter that often eludes the Christian church: our approach to missions.

“Go into all the word and make disciples.”  Sounds straight forward enough.  But are we sure what that mission entails?

My first degree focused heavily on Christian missions.  One key principle of that study was for us as aspiring ministers of the Word, was to never confuse evangelism and colonialism.  In one of these missiology courses the professor (a time term missionary) warned us about this.  He presented some interesting cautionary tales. One of these is now anecdotal for the purposes of this post (as I no longer have the reference notes from the class).  It seems that some of the early missionaries to one of the South Seas islands, found that the indigenous women went topless. Because of European morality, the converts were taught to cover up and started to do so. This set the church back decades. In that culture, prostitutes wore little vests as a mark of their trade. The result was that the Christian women were shunned by the tribe. Short analysis – white male missionaries lusted after the bare breasts, so to avoid their own discomfort and sin, they limited the functioning of the Holy Spirit by imposing their own morality.  Again, I cannot reference the case, but I find it very believable.

Similarly, in our cultural appropriation, many White Pentecostals don’t see the African expression of spirituality in their mode of worship. “Why it’s just the outpouring of the Spirit,” they might say.  However, much of the European ecclesiastical past relied far more on “smells and bells,” than on ecstatic releases of emotion (I am not saying it never happened, however, before you object).  We are in the modern church an amalgamation of merging traditions.  Whether it is Greek intellectualism, Hebrew ritualism, or Native American and African passionate spiritualism, we are the inheritors of rich heritages.  We all bring so much to the worship of God.  It is in a way a corporate and cultural expression of the all one body scripture (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

So as we go into all the world, let us share the good News of the Gospel, and not our dress codes, seating arrangements, non-biblically sanctioned rituals, or even our expectations of the outward appearance of being Spirit filled (after all God gives different gifts to different individuals as He sees fit).  Reaching the world, even in 2020 is not a “mission impossible,” as long as we stick to scripture and conduct ourselves in a “mission impeccable.”

 

Padre

 

Thank you to my dear sister, Joe Elayne for inspiring this post and beginning the conversation.

Lesson Learned

Pixabay

I have followed the blog of an amazing young woman named Caralyn ever since I began blogging myself.   In her latest post she asked a simple but important question – “What has this quarantine taught you?”

I have learned that in the end it is tolerance and compassion that makes us the true survivors. We are touched by people who we haven’t heard from in years who send messages to just check that we are okay. It is the 99 year old veteran that walks around his garden to raise money for the doctors and nurses. It is the pastors who delivers groceries or prescriptions to the weakest of their flocks. It is our own ability to love and understand our friends and colleagues when they try to make a health issue a political one (on either side). It is when we stay in to protect the vulnerable, and yet will pray for those who flout restrictions, or hoard supplies, or even deny there is an issue at all. It is about “loving our neighbours.”

Padre

What You See Is What You Get

Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash

Fandango’s latest Provocative Question is, “Are you the same person on your blog as you are in real life? Do you like yourself more in the virtual world than you do in the real world?”  Okay, it’s two questions actually, but the answer is the same, as the “real” me is a person I like, even if I do see and (usually) publicly admit his failings.

In my blog – I preach, teach, and at times pontificate.  Yes, that is me.  My wife used to call me out on it in “real life,” pointing out to me (all too often) that “you are in teacher mode again.”

But my “Sheldon-like pedantic streak is also tempered with some diplomacy, which betrays my actually rather tolerant heart.  While there might be “right answers” to objective questions, I recognise the subjective nature of many issues.

I am unapologetic for my Theism, and I wholeheartedly subscribe to Jesus’ testimony that the two greatest commandments are to love God, and to love my fellow humans.  That love is not judgmental.  I hope that is plain to see in my blog.

One of the readers of my blog recently commented that the viewpoint in some of my recent Covid-19 related posts is pessimistic, but that she could detect an underlying optimism.  Here too, I am what it says on the tin.  I may as a writer express what many might be feeling at the moment, but I am really an optimist.  I really do believe “all things will work together for good . . . . ”

In short, I am the same person in my blog as I am in my “real world” existence, and I get on with that person pretty well.

Padre

 

 

Homeward: A Shadorma

Image by Alessandro Danchini from Pixabay 

Homeward bound
Thoughts like me adrift
Gone so long
Kith and kin
Now to me unfamiliar
I’m now a stranger

 

Colleen’s Weekly Poetry Challenge  is to write a syllabic poem on a theme of the poets choice.  This week I thought I would give the shadorma form a try.  Colleen’s site notes that,  “The Shadorma is a poetic form consisting of a six-line stanza (or sestet). Each stanza has a syllable count of three syllables in the first line, five syllables in the second line, three syllables in the third and fourth lines, seven syllables in the fifth line, and five syllables in the sixth line (3/5/3/3/7/5) for a total of 26 syllables.”

With the winter holidays approaching many people will be making a homeward journey.  Some to familiar friends and family, and others to more distant childhood homes.  For some these reunions are a mix of confusion as well as joy, and I hope I have captured that in the poem.

Unfortunately, I will as like most years will not be able to return to the land of my upbringing and the loved ones there.

Padre

Who Knows The Hour?

Jesus told a parable of a rich man who had an abundant crop, and seeing that it provided so much promise, tore down his old barns and had bigger ones built (Luke 12:16-21).  The rich man was looking forward to putting Solomon’s maxim from Ecclesiastes 8:15 into practice.  He was going to “to eat and drink and be glad.”  What the man failed to remember was his own mortality, and as Robert Burns so aptly put it, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men Gang aft agley (or more simply plans go awry).  Jesus states this clearly when He relates – “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’(vs 20).”

Almost exactly a year before her passing, my wife Dianne, posted the following reflection on her blog:

26 September 2018

The last few days i have written about some of the problems of my situation, but i have discovered there are some unexpected blessings too.

Having a time limit makes my relationship with God more real. I cant afford to be lax with my conscience, put things off, bury my anger etc. I have an approaching appointment with my Lord when accounts will be closed and i have to stand before him and answer for my achievements, my mistakes, my decisions and the level of sin in my life. I cannot afford to harbour resentments, or allow myself to ignore any sin or hurt.

This is a good thing, it keeps me close to God, constantly on guard of my tongue and my actions. Really where we all should be daily.

Perhaps we could all benefit from remembering that none of us know when we could be keeping that appointment, and live as if it is fast approaching, keeping ourselves close.

Ecc 9:12 moreover no one knows when their hour will come.

 

What a great reminder to each of us to be diligent in our walk with God and our relationships with our fellows!  Jesus said that the two great commandments were to love God, and love our neighbours.  To do so, isn’t about “us” but “them.”  We need to avoid the eat, drink and be merry attitude and work on those important relationships.  We need to seek integrity in all things, and give thanks and praise daily for what we have been blessed with.

Remember the only “hour” we have to for sure to do this in is NOW.

Padre

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Robert McCullough from Pixabay 

Many people are aware of, at least in passing, what is commonly known as “The Lord’s Prayer.”  It acknowledges the holiness of God, it gives comment on our willingness to accept His will, and then it makes petitions to Him.  Among these is the request that we be not led into temptation.

There are many types of temptation.  Most, if not all, are based in self-indulgence.  it may be material gain, personal glory, or for any easy path in life (Jesus’ own temptations in the desert were of these types).  Some variations of these may be based on gluttony, alcohol, drugs, sex, or a host of other indulgences.  Yet others are then temptations to feel sorry for ourselves, and to bewail the “unfairnesses”of life.  Whatever the variety, most of us fall into them from time to time.

I was flipping through Dianne’s notes and found her reflection on her illness, and how to have a positive attitude in the face of it.  The passage she focused on was 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”  

This is a powerful reminder of God’s willingness to support us.   As noted above, Jesus was tempted.  But He overcame each, and in fact did so by referencing scripture.  He did not give in, but trusted in God’s word (and promises).  He is our help in time of trouble, and our example in the face of temptation.  Better still, He will not allow more than we can deal with to be arrayed against us, if we only trust in Him.

Padre

 

In The Face of Grief: Haibun

image by Dianne 

My wife prepared me for her passing in every way she could.  She told me to keep on writing, and not to wallow in grief.  Her advice was wise and strengthens me.  In taking a moment to collect and recollect these words flow.

Wait, Pause, Take Breath, Breathe
A moment to stop, Collect
Letting Anguish ebb

Padre – in the second of my Dianne postmortem poems

My thanks to Chèvrefeuille for also for us to pause, it was a perfect word for my day.

 

 

Removing the Filters

Free Bible Images

In Genesis 1 we are told that we are made in the image of God.  This is not a physical manifestation, but one of nature.  We like Him are creative, we have a moral aspect, we are to oversee the Earth.  “Male and female,” were this made God-like.

We can see as well in Genesis 3:8, that Adam and Eve walked in companionship and relationship with God.

Yet Eve was tempted.  The serpent challenged her to eat from the tree, and she at first objected.   She noted that it was forbidden.

But, Genesis 3: 6 tells us, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Satan tempted her with the idea that if she ate from the tree she would be more God-like – gaining wisdom.  Eve failed to see she was already in God’s image.  She was already in relationship.  She looked at the situation with several filters.  The practical filter the need for  food, the aesthetic filter of its beauty, but most of all it would “improve” her.

What she actually got was a relationship that was broken.  Sin and corruption entered the world.

But God is a compassionate God,  He opened up a path of return.

Hebrews 1 tells us that Jesus is above the angels, and His people are to be served by them as well:  ^“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation (vs 14).

Hebrews 2 goes on to say, “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him?  You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet (vs 2: 6-8).”

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them (us).  And why?

^“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters (Romans 8: 29).   We are once again in relationship, but even more so, we are again in the image of God.

But even with all this on offer, so many of us (like Eve) start putting filters or blinders before us.  Lets look at what happened in Mark 11.  On Sunday:

They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it,  some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.  When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it.  Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.  Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”  Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve (vs. 4-11).

From a earthly point of view “Nothing happened.” Many people, the Zeolots in particular were disappointed.  They wanted an earthly king, someone to save them from the Romans.  But Jesus just departs.  They didn’t get what they wanted.  How many fell away, because they had a filter of political power on their agenda?

On Monday, Jesus returns,

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city (vs 15 -19).

Jesus is acting in a righteous manner.  He is seeking to assure the purity of the outer court.  But rather than see their own error, they become angry.  Their own filter of self interest and profit leads Priests, Levites, and merchants fall away.

On Tuesday,

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him.  “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?” Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.  John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.) So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”  Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things (vs 27 – 33).” 

The Temple authorities and High Priest challenge Him.  They seem to be more interested on “whose turf” it is, than on the Words of God being spoken.  This is an interesting follow up to what happened on one of Jesus’ previous visits in John 7.  Here again the leaders want to silence Him.  They send the guards to arrest Him.  But,

Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied (vs. 45 – 46).

The authorities use the filter of privilege, and power.  They thus miss the truth.

Later that day or on Wednesday (the scripture is unclear), there are further confrontations.  The first is about paying the Imperial tax to Caesar.  The Pharisees and Herodians attempt to apply the filter of legalism to silence Jesus.  They fail miserably, and are made to look foolish.

So far Zealots, Merchants, Levites, Priests, Pharisees, and Herodians have cut themselves off from Christ.  Their filtered views of God and righteousness have failed them.

This is next mirrored by the Sadducees.  The use their theological dogmatism as a filter.  They challenge Jesus on the nature of heaven and of an afterlife.  The result of their narrow theological view alienates them from the truth as well.

Sadly even on Thursday Judas, driven by the filter of greed betrays Jesus.  Thirty pieces of silver are more meaningful than his relationship with God, or his own conforming to the image of Christ.

Even sadder is Friday morning.  Peter, his relationship filtered by fear denies he even knows Jesus.

If we look closely we can see that when Jesus spoke uncomfortable truths, people fell away.  The crowds that had praised Him Sunday by Friday were only a handful.  Even most of the Twelve were absent from the cross.

It is a bit like the Parable of Sower.  The Word of God fell on hard, stony. or weedy ground.  Those filters prevented the seed to grow, for true conformity to the image of Christ to manifest itself.  And in so doing relationship was lost.

So what are our personal uncomfortable truths? Is our prayer life what it should be? Is our service dedicated? Do we fall into the wealth and fame trap? Are we conformed to keeping up with  Kardashians rather than being conformed to the image of Christ?

Where are our filters?  Shouldn’t seek the fresh air of the Gospel over any type of filtered air?

Padre

Based on my sermon of 1 Sept 19.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Whose Image?

Michelangelo – Public Domain

Genesis begins with a simple phrase in English: “In the beginning God  . . . .”  How often do we ponder this starting point?  In the biblical narrative it continues on to explain the sequence of creation.  Before all of it, however, God existed.  “At the creation, God created . . .” is one rendering of the Hebrew.  He was pre-existent.

As the Creator, He is the cosmological cause of each of us.  He has made us, not we ourselves.  Most theists (and people of faith more generally) will except this as a obvious truth.  Our physical forms are “inherited” from the long sequence of reproduction which begun with “In the beginning.”

We are not so forthcoming in our “making of ourselves” in spiritual, and social terms.  Think about the term: “self-made man/woman.”  The achievements and accomplishments are attributed to the hard work and talents of the individual, not to some divine plan.  We set our minds on a course, and off we go.  Or do we?

 

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:26-27).”    Even is the rule and mastery humanity has shown over the creation, it was tasked to them by god.  It was a destiny set by God, not one of our creation.  So why should it be any less so in our individual lives?

Our purposes have a starting point: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29). We are to be conformed to Jesus’ image.  Put simply to be Christ-like.   Yet Jesus was not one to do His own thing – to fly after any or every fancy.  Nor was he dictated by ego.  John 5:30 says in part, records Jesus’ words, “for I seek not my will, but the will of him that sent me.”  Again at Gethsemane, Jesus said, “Father, all things are possible to thee, take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done (Mark 14:36).”  

If we are truly conformed to God’s will – if we are Christ-like, we should be seeking what is good for His purposes, not what strokes our egos.  Let us test our motives.  Are we striving to be in God’s image, or are we trying to force His purposes into our wills.  Are we like some Medieval artist making God in the image of man, not man in the image of God?

 

Padre