5 Marks of Love; Tell

5 Marks of Love; Tell

Yesterday we had the second session of our Lenten Series the 5 Marks of Love. We dealt with the first of the Marks of Love after the introduction to the program last week.  Just as a reminder the 5 Marks of love are:

1.     TELL: Proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

2.     TEACH: Teach, baptize and nurture new believers

3.     TEND: Respond to human need by loving service

4.     TRANSFORM: Transform unjust structures, challenge violence of every kind

5.     Treasure: Strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

Proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom is about that thing which Anglicans are, to put it mildly, not comfortable with i.e. Evangelism.  How do we proclaim the Good News i.e. the Gospel of Jesus Christ when we have (speaking generally) not been taught how to do it and have not, until the last part of the 20^th Century, needed to do it? We do not have the history or experience or training to do this; it is not part of our DNA.  That is one of the reasons why our congregations are aging and the pews are no longer full (although we do sit at the back to make sure there will be room in the front of the church for latecomers to find a spot in a pew—we are still using pews pretty much exclusively).

In addition there are some of us—the introverts—who would die a thousand deaths if we had to knock on doors and invite people to our churches much less engage them in why we are Anglicans and what we actually believe in.  We have a long way to go to begin to Evangelize.

Actually that would be true if we only consider Evangelism to be what is portrayed by TV Evangelists and in the media.  We need to explore what Evangelism truly means.  That is what we started to explore in the first of the Marks.  What does it mean to share the Good News?  How can we share the Good News in our lives with others?  First we have to know what the Good News is for each of us. 

I have attached the two pages from the workbook that explores this. 

Blessings on your journey.

5 Marks of Love Introduction

5 marks of Love Introduction

On Feb, 26th we held the introduction to the Lenten series The 5 Marks of Love which I am leading at our church.  We had a very lively discussion in which I outlined how the sessions would be conducted and giving an introduction to each of the 5 Marks which will be covered in the five sessions during Lent.  We began by praying a prayer for the Lenten series which is a prayer I use at the beginning of the Spiritual Direction sessions I have with directees.  We followed with the Shema; the Hear of Israel which sums up the idea of the series i.e. it is recognizing the love of God in our lives and sharing that love with others.  I have attached the Introduction to the series from the series workbook. 

Prayer for the Lenten Series

Bless this time, in the name of the Three who are over us.

Bless this time, in the name of the One who guides us.

Open our eyes to see how our lives

Can reflect something of You.

Aid us in understanding Your will

With our hearts as well as our minds

Give us the wisdom to discern Your intention for us;

The strength to follow the path You prepare for us;

And Your comfort on the journey You offer to us.

Amen  

The Great Commandment

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul,

with all your mind,

and with all your strength.

This is the first and the great commandment.

The second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.

There is no commandment greater than these.  Amen.

In this series we will be exploring what it means to understand that God loves us and that we share that love with others as not only a calling but a as a response to that love.  Today is an introduction to the series.  We will be exploring each of the five Marks of Love in each of the five sessions after today.  There will be a time provided in the sessions to reflect on the content as well as to respond. 

No one is required or even expected to respond—it is never a case of respond or die.  I know some people are less at ease giving a response a larger group.  Also some people need time to reflect on an idea or proposal before they say anything about it.  I am often that way being a strong introvert.  So don’t feel under any pressure to participate verbally.  Your presence is enough. 

How does the divine life express itself in and through us? If we are marked as “Christ’s own forever,” what are the “marks of love” that reflect and manifest the life of God abiding and at work within us?  In this Lenten series we will observe and reflect on the ways in which God’s life expresses itself in us and through us.  Specifically we see God’s life at work within us as we:

1.     TELL: Proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

2.     TEACH: Teach, baptize and nurture new believers

3.     TEND: Respond to human need by loving service

4.     TRANSFORM: Transform unjust structures, challenge violence of every kind

5.     Treasure: Strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

Is there one of these Marks of Love that particularly resonates with you; one that you are drawn to in a positive way?

Is there one that particularly does not resonate with you; one that you cannot imagine yourself doing? 

Hopefully you will find our exploration of these Marks of Love to give you new perspectives on all the different aspects of God’s love.  

Sermon February 12, 2017 6th after Epiphany

You have heard that it was said”.  

I’m sure that you have heard many things said in the news recently.  The president of the United States has said that he has been told lots of things such as there being 5 million illegal voters in the presidential election.  We’ve heard lots about alternative facts or alt-facts which aren’t facts at all.  Facts don’t seem to matter to many people any more.  Say the right thing to get your audience’s attention.  Say the right thing to stir up controversy and play on the prejudices that people hold. 

We are not immune to this kind of thing in Canada.  There is the proposal of Canadian Values Tests for immigrants.  There are proposed bans on certain kinds of religious symbols. We had the terrible event in the Quebec City Mosque where the Powers of Darkness struck against innocent people. 

We hear lots of things these days with the 24-hour news cycle and social media and Twitter reigning over everything else.  So what are we to make of what Jesus is telling us? 

“You have heard that it was said...But I say to you”.  Jesus repeats this formula three times in the Gospel reading today.  So what is he saying to us about what we have heard? There different ways of hearing.  Jesus tells us that anyone who has ears should listen.  When Jesus said this he was not saying that we should just accept everything we hear as, well, as Gospel truth. 

We should not listen without judgement to people who spread alternative facts which are in fact lies.  We are called to discern what we hear.  We need to have ears that hear truth and can discern the truth from lies. When Jesus tells us, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times… But I say to you”, he is telling us to have ears to hear the truth of what he is telling us.  He tells us the truth about many things in the Gospel passage.  He is tells us in the passage just before today’s Gospel passage, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill”.

For the law to be fulfilled means that the essence—the spirit of the law is what matters—not the letter of the law.  He showed what this means when he said the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 

It is the spirit of the law that matters to God and therefore to us.  That is why God became incarnate in his only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  God’s chosen people were given the law—the Torah.  The tablets were received by Moses on the mountain top.  They tried for two thousand years to fulfill the law by living according to the letter of the law.  Jesus Christ came to show them and us what the truth of the law was and is:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

That is what Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times… But I say to you.” So how do we know truth?  How do we know when something we hear is the truth or a lie?  To do that we need to have the gift of discernment.  We need to draw on the revealed word of God in scripture.  We need to draw on tradition. This we Anglicans can do because we have the revealed word in the Bible every time we worship and when we read and reflect on scripture at home.  We Anglicans are also are steeped in tradition.  However, we need more than tradition.  We need to draw of experience.  We need to be able to draw on the experience of God working in our lives and in the world.  This has been something that the church does not always recognize and embrace.  Richard Rohr a Franciscan priest and mystic notes:

In the early 1960s, Jesuit Karl Rahner (1904-1984) stated that if Western Christianity did not rediscover its mystical foundations, we might as well close the doors of the churches because we had lost the primary reason for our existence. Now don’t let the word “mystic” scare you. It simply means one who has moved from mere belief systems or belonging systems to actual inner experience. All spiritual traditions at their mature levels agree that such a movement is possible, desirable, and even available to everyone. Richard Rohr January 24, 2017

We need to be able to recognize when and how God is speaking to us.  We need to pray and read the bible.  But it is just as important to listen to what God is saying to us.  God is speaking to us in many ways which we no longer recognize.  We need to be still and know that God is there even when we do hear him because of all the noise in the world.  

Most of all we can listen and respond by loving God with our hearts, and with our souls, and with all our minds.  We can respond by loving our neighbours as ourselves. Believe me, I know as well as anyone else that that is not easy.  Fortunately, God knows that we will not be successful all or even most of the time.  More fortunately, Jesus shows us that we are forgiven.  God does not expect perfection.  God expects us to try and try again.  I invite you to turn to page 53 in the Book of Alternative Services and recite that ancient prayer the Hear, O Israel.  

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first and the great commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.

There is no commandment greater than these.  Amen.  

Chained to the Past

A few weeks ago I introduced the idea of sin as those things which chain us to the past.  I want to explore that concept further this week.  I came across this concept or definition of sin quite a few years ago.  However, the source has been lost in the recesses of my memory.  My supplication to the god Google was not answered.  So I have to accept the uncertainty of the genesis of this concept of sin. 

The concept of sin as being chained to the past resonated with me when I first heard it and I still believe that it gets at a, if not the, fundamental aspect of what sin is.  Sin is not morals or ethics; although sin can certainly involve moral and ethical behaviour.  However, if we see sin more as an approach to life and to how we respond to life in all its aspects, I believe we are getting to the heart of sin as being chained to the past.

Humans are created in the image of God.  However, that image does not mean that we are God or gods.  We are imperfect and we will not follow the course of life that God intends for us.  So what is it that chains us to the past?  We all have developed survival mechanisms which we believed, on an unconscious or conscious level, were necessary for us to be successful in life.  Indeed they may have been absolutely necessary given the cards we were dealt in life.  If someone was raised in an abusing environment they developed mechanisms that helped them survive e.g. run and hide from the abuser when certain signs were there that abuse could be about to happen.  If someone was raised in a scarcity of food or shelter, a person would develop ways of doing what was necessary to gain those necessities.  If someone was ignored as a child they may decide that they need to act out to get the attention they crave to have their existence acknowledged.  In my case I found the world I was in to be a puzzling and somewhat scary place outside my home.  So found my small corner which was safe and which I could withdraw to when the world became too much for me to deal with.

These survival mechanisms were necessary and appropriate given the circumstances people find themselves in.  However, when our circumstances change, perhaps knowing that you will have the necessities of life, or that the people in your life now are not abusive, the person may not accept that as the reality and react as if the world is still the old familiar way which is no longer necessary.  This prevents us from living the life as fully as possible.  It chains us to the past and does not enable us to become the people that God intended us to be when God created us; that for me certainly one aspect of sin.

I recently finished reading The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  I believe purchased the copy some years ago but had never read it.  It describes wonderfully the concept of sin as being chained to the past.  The book is an allegory along the lines of Pilgrims Progress (although not quite up to that caliber) which describes a scenario where a bus has arrived in heaven with a load of passengers who have come from the village where they have been.  This village is, in reality, hell—although they do not recognize that it is hell not having experienced hellfire and brimstone.  These souls are met by residents of heaven who they have known in their lives and who are their guides to the heaven where they now find themselves.   The souls find heaven to be too real and too substantial.  They are insubstantial so even the grass is too solid and too uncomfortable for them to walk on without some discomfort.  Different souls are presented as stereotypes that reject heaven because of their beliefs and ways of being. 

For example, one resident (angel) of heaven greets a “Fat, Clean-Shaven Man” who he knew in life.  The angel tells him that he is now indeed in heaven and the place he left was indeed hell.  The soul refuses to believe him and engages the angel using semantics to defend his view of reality.  The angel tries to make him understand that his view of reality is wrong.  The soul rejects the angel’s “crude salvationism” and unwilling to abandon his intellectual construct of life smugly goes off to catch the bus for the return trip to what for him is an acceptable existence in the village. 

I do not agree with Lewis’s theology on some points, however, I enjoy his writing immensely and there is much about his faith and belief that I admire.  In The Great Divorce I believe he has caught the essence of the concept of sin as those things that chain us to the past.  One of the callings and challenges we have as Christians is to try and discover and break those chains that keep us from living the life God intends us to live. 

Blessings on you journey.

Breaking the Interior Chains

I had planned to write about sin as the things that chain us to the past.  However, with the evens at the mosque in Quebec City yesterday I am moved to reflect on that event.  As I write this it occurs to me that both topics are connected.  I do not know at this point who the perpetrators of this terrible dead are or anything about their background.  However, I know that they are in chains to their beliefs and attitudes.  They are in chains as certainly as someone who is in outer slavery.

When someone is enslaved on the inside they are much more difficult to set free.  They chains are invisible.  Only their actions and words give the evidence of the interior condition.  How do we engage these people and each of us in ways that will free them and us from our inner chains?   I certainly do not have any answers that will provide a silver bullet to break those chains.  I almost wrote to kill those beliefs but I do know that the language of killing is not the answer. 

If we respond in hate and look to strike out in vengeance we will be allowing the perpetrators to win.   If we build walls and battlements to hide behind to exclude those who we see as “the Other” we will also allow them to win.  As long as we see” the Other” as those who are out there they will win.  Rather than the aspects of ourselves which we do not want to recognize and acknowledge we will see them in “the Other” out there and react in ways that will only build a higher barrier to hide behind. 

I do not for one minute to say we should welcome those who see us in the same way i.e. as “the Other” to be eliminated.  I am not so naive or blind to the real threats that exist in our times as they have always existed.   I do believe that love is stronger than hate even though it often seems that it is not.  Hate seems to win more often—or perhaps it just has a better press secretary. 

There does seem to be many cracks in our world right now.  To draw again on Leonard Cohen, that is how the light gets in.  I will close with a prayer I discovered on the internet when I looked for resources for a prayer service tomorrow.  It is from jesuitresouces.org :

We pray,
O God,
for all Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Jews
whose hearts are consumed
by a zeal that has hardened them;

all
whose vision is partial,
whose mind is narrowed,
whose perceptions are simplified,
whose soul is poisoned.

And yet,
O God,
we read of Jesus that
"zeal for your house consumed him".

His life teaches us that
without the zeal of a burning love for you
that will endure through
the night-time of our enmities
we shall not see your kingdom come.

So we ask,
O God,
that you give us
a zeal that insists on acceptance
a commitment that endures in non-violence
and a patience that works for your coming;

and teach us to hate
only our tribalism and prejudice
which separate us
from those different to us.

We ask it in the name of the Prince of Peace,
Jesus Christ
Our Lord,
Amen.