Giving Thanks In All Things

For the non-Canadians who may read this, today is Canadian Thanksgiving.  I won’t discuss if this is the better Thanksgiving than the other one celebrated south of us.  Giving thanks, whenever you do it, is always a good thing.  The question I pose today is, what do we give thanks for?  There is the usual giving thanks for all the good things in our lives – for health and happiness; for abundant, if expensive, food; for a safe place to live; perhaps, for Canadians, giving thanks that the Liberal’s led by Mark Carney was elected rather than the other one who wanted to eliminate funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – but I won’t go there. 

What I actually want to discuss is, can we give thanks for things that we normally don’t give thanks for?   Drawing on St. Julian of Norwich who said, “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” It is hard to believe that we can give thanks, even in our darkest hour that things shall be well.  It certainly doesn’t look like this these days, and yet this morning there is, if not peace in Gaza, at least a cease fire and a release of hostages and prisoners on both sides.  That is definitely something to give thanks for. 

It may be helpful to draw on another saying, this one by St. Paul, ‘give thanks in all things.’  This is different from giving thanks for all things.  There are things which I cannot give thanks for - so giving thanks in all things does ring true.  As much as I find many things in this modern world frustrating and   annoying and stupid, I can give thanks that I am able to get frustrated by them.  I am part of the modern world with all its challenges and complicated devices, and glad I can benefit from the many modern conveniences in this world that I benefit from.

I do sometimes think that with all the “smart” things I must deal with e.g. smart phones, smart thermostats, smart internet, the only thing in my life that is not smart is me, as they can make me feel really unsmart.  But I shouldn’t rant in a missive about giving thanks.  So, I will remind myself to give thanks in all things – and remember that it is God to whom I am giving thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends - and even to the non-Canadians.  

All Embracing Thanksgiving

I have two subjects in mind today; thanksgiving – because it is the Canadian Thanksgiving, and perfection which I have intended to write about before I realized it would be Thanksgiving Monday today (not great planning ahead but there you go).  I hope I will be able to connect the two topics in a reasonable, if not meaningful way.

I have been interested in the issue/topic of perfection for a while now and wrote an article about my encounters with perfection – which I have dabbled in over my life.  The issue of perfectionism, or the drive for perfection, came into my awareness and consciousness some years ago when I was attending one of the intensives as part of my training as a dream group facilitator with the Haden Institute.  Here is the passage from that article which I want to share with you:

While I was at the Intensive, I found a small book at the Kanuga bookstore, or I should say, it found me. It is entitled A Prayer for the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  This little gem is a translation from Aramaic sources of The Lord’s Prayer and other sayings of Jesus. One of the passages that the book addresses is from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 48, that is traditionally translated, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” However, the translation by this author reads, “Be all-embracing, as your heavenly Father is all-embracing.” I felt my discovery of this book and this passage to be a physical gift from the Divine.

The gift of this book came after a dream which challenged my desire for perfection which I had not recognized consciously.  I had, for many years been uncomfortable about the commandment by Jesus that we should ‘be perfect’ so I was very grateful for this different interpretation of Jesus’ words. 

One of the impetuses for writing about perfection this week was that it was the theme for Richard Rohr daily missives last week.  Here are two excepts from his Daily Meditations:

Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness—mine, yours, ours—need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.

On one level, soul, consciousness, love, and the Holy Spirit can all be thought of as one and the same. Each of these point to something larger than the self, shared with God, and even eternal. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks of “giving” us the Spirit or sharing his consciousness with us. One whose soul is thus awakened has the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–16). That doesn’t mean the person is psychologically or morally perfect (my emphasis), although such a transformed person does see things in a much more expanded and compassionate way. Ephesians calls it a “spiritual revolution of the mind” (4:23)—and it is!  Our outer world and its inner significance must come together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. The result is both deep joy and a resounding sense of coherent beauty.  Richard Rohr 

To emphasize the selection of this topic for today, when returning from a family gathering in London today, there was an interview with Thomas Curran, the author of a book about perfectionism in our society, The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough.

So, what has all this perfection have to do with thanksgiving and Thanksgiving?  We can be thankful that we are who God created us to be in all our strengths and weaknesses – I know that those weaknesses are the ghosts that visit me in the wee hours of the night.  However, they are what make me who I am as do the strengths. They are what makes me who God created me.  Now if only I would truly believe that in the depths of my soul all manner of things would be well – that would be good enough but not perfect thank be to God.

May we be thankful for all that God has given us on our journey.    

 

Give Thanks In All Things

 Yesterday was the Canadian Thanksgiving.  When I think of thanksgiving I think of the phrase ‘give thanks in all things.’  With all that is going on in this world it is not possible or right to give thanks for all things which is sometimes promoted as the Christian approach.    Can the Ukrainians give thanks for what Russia is doing to their country and citizens?  Of course not.  Can the people of Pakistan give thanks for the flood waters that have engulfed their land?  No indeed.  Can the residents of Prince Edward Island give thanks for the devastation that Hurricane Fiona has left behind or the residents of Florida for the devastation and destruction of Ian?  Certainly not.  But there are things to give thanks for in all that.  I am thankful that Lorna and I were relatively untouched by the ravages of Fiona and have made it back to our other home in Parkhill which we found in good shape.  I am thankful that there are first responders and people of good will to help those in need and that we had good neighbours to provide assistance when we needed it. 

To give thanks for blessings in the midst of heartbreak and disaster does not mean that I thank God that I was blessed to be protected in these difficult times.  I do not deserve to receive a blessing any more than the many people who had their lives turned upside down by the forces of nature or circumstance.  To believe that God gives a blessing to some and not others is, to my understanding, a mistaken belief in how God works.  God is not there pulling the strings in our lives like we are puppets.  Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.  We cannot know why this happens.  We can and do understand that there are consequences for our actions as human beings who have been blessed to have free will.  Sometimes the consequences are determined by the actions of ourselves and others.  We have ‘hundred-year storms’ every five years because we have abused and neglected the world that God created and gave to us to be stewards of.  We may experience challenges and problems in our lives because of how we have lived and what we have done.  If we abuse our bodies and neglect our spiritual life we may suffer some consequences as a result – smoking does lead to cancer for some depending on many factors such as the genes we have inherited.  Other people may smoke a pack-a-day all their lives and live to a ripe old age.  It seems to be the luck of the draw. 

However, regardless of the deck that we have been dealt, we can be assured that God is with us whatever happens and that is something devoutly to give thanks for.   

So, remember on your journey to give thanks to God in all things.  

Be Careful For Nothing and Give Thanks In All Things

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving so it is a day to give thanks (sorry if that is stating the obvious).  However, giving thanks is important as it is possible to let your troubles and things that you are naturally not thankful for dominate your thoughts and feelings.

I have noted in the past that Philippians 4: 4-9 is a good scripture passage at these times of thanksgiving.  It begins, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice.”  Whenever I hear that passage, I cannot help but hear the beautiful aria from Handle’s Messiah play in my head.  I do restrain myself from breaking into an attempt to sing it out loud, at least in public.

One of the beautiful aspects of the Messiah is that the text is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.  In the NRSV the next verse is ‘Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God’.  The words that come to me however, are from the KJV, ‘Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God’.  It does, after all, seem easier to remember song lyrics than prose passages.

For me, ‘Be careful for nothing: resonate much differently than “Do not worry about anything.”  Putting aside the beauty and poetry of the phrase '' Be careful for nothing”, the phrase has a deeper and more profound resonance and meaning.  It is interesting that Word prompted ‘be careful for’ and suggested I might use ‘careful   about’, or ‘carful with’, or ‘careful of’.  None of those are appropriate which is not surprizing but then either is ‘do not worry about anything’. 

‘Be careful for nothing’ does not mean that I should not take care or be careless―even though I’m sure Lorna would agree, if asked, that I can be careless about some things at times.  I understand it to mean that I should not let anything interfere with my giving thanks to God in all things.  I do not say that I give thanks to God for all things.  I am not able to go that far but, rather, I try and give thanks to God in all things.  The trial and tribulation and slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that life presents to me are not necessarily sent by God in my theology.  They can be a challenge and sometimes overwhelming, but I give thanks that God is with me on my journey in the good times and the not so good times and even when times are downright bad. 

Therefore, on this (Canadian) Thanksgiving Monday, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” 

May you be blessed this day and every day on your journey.

Give Thanks in All Things

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian Friends which we celebrated on Monday.  We jump the gun on the United States in this one and perhaps on other things as well – but I won’t go there today.

It is a time where it is especially appropriate to give thanks and as I have said previously, we can give thanks in all things even when it is hard to give thanks for some things. Lorna and I have had a safe journey home – or I should say to our Ontario home from our Prince Edward Island home.  It was our seventh summer at the cottage – which is shocking.  Both the years and this summer have gone by in no time it seems.  Time must be speeding up – it can’t be that I am getting older – I just won’t look to closely in the mirror.  But it is good to be back here in Parkhill and find that everything was in good order – something to give thanks for indeed.  Our trip home was uneventful except for our effort to find hwy 407 – I do wish that the Ministry of Transportation would install some road signs to get to the 407 (which is a toll road that bypasses Toronto).   The Ontario government sold hwy 407 some years ago to private corporation which I didn’t agree with at the time – talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.  Oh well, this is supposed to be about giving thanks and not about griping or complaining. 

Remembering to give thanks – to show gratitude in all things is something that we can all strive for.  I believe that if we are able to do this through practice it will become second nature and will be a way of having joy in our lives.  I have not been able to do that yet and have to remind myself to give thanks for all that God has given me and to give thanks regardless on what is happening in my life - giving thanks in all things.  I find it hard to do when things don’t go the way I expect them to and people don’t live up to my expectations.  I do find that frustrating to find the universe is not set up to meet my needs all the time. 

As someone – I believe it was Julian of Norwich – said, all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.  I could add that it often seems just not yet.  However, be thankful in all things.

Blessing on your journey.

Be Careful for Nothing

Saturday, we arrived home from our trip back from the cottage in P.E.I.  We arrived fairly late Saturday night but were able to make it to church at St. John’s by the Lake in Grand Bend (thanks be that it was not a 9:00 a.m. service).  The epistle appointed for the day was Philippians 4: 4-9 which begins “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice.”  Whenever I hear that passage I cannot help but hear the beautiful aria from Handle’s Messiah play in my head.  I do restrain myself from breaking into an attempt to sing it out loud, at least in public.

One of the beautiful aspects of the Messiah is that the text is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.  In the NRSV the next verse is ‘Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God’.  The words that come to me however, are from the KJV, ‘Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God’.

For me, "Be careful for nothing" resonate much differently than “Do not worry about anything.”  Putting aside the beauty and poetry of the phase” Be careful for nothing”, the phrase has a deeper and more profound resonance and meaning.  It is interesting that Word prompted ‘be careful’ and suggested I might use ‘careful about’, or carful with, or careful of’.  None of those are appropriate which is not surprizing but then either is ‘do not worry about anything’. 

‘Be careful for nothing’ does not mean that I should not take care or be careless―even though I’m sure Lorna would agree, if asked, that I can be carless about some things at times.  I understand it to mean that I should not let anything interfere with my giving thanks to God in all things.  I do not say that I give thanks to God for all things.  I am not able to go that far but, rather, I try and give thanks to God in all things.  The trial and tribulation and slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that life presents to me are not necessarily sent by God in my theology.  They can be a challenge and sometimes overwhelming, but I give thanks that God is with me on my journey in the good times and the not so good times and even when times are downright bad. 

Therefore, on this (Canadian) Thanksgiving Monday, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

Sermon October 11, 2015

Mark 10:17-31 The Rich Young Ruler

Are any of you feeling uncomfortable hearing the Gospel this morning?  Well I must admit I am.  How many of us feel that we are rich?  We can say, “I’m not rich—the rich people are the Donald Trumps and the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets.  They are the rich people—the billionaires.  Jesus is talking about them—I’m just comfortable.  Well I certainly am comfortable with all that I have.  I own a house and a cottage.  I own a late model car.  Indeed, a few weeks ago Lorna and I were taking about what we had and were amazed at how much we had.  Neither of us really expected to be as rich — sorry, comfortable— as we are in retirement.  I guess I should qualify that as semi-retirement while I am doing the interim.

Of course, no one here is in the same category as Bill Gates and company—at least I don’t think anyone here is.  If there is I could ask why we had trouble balancing the budget last year.  I guess we really can breathe easier and thank God that Jesus was not talking about us in today’s Gospel.  Now, some of you might be anticipating what I will say next.  All of us are comparable to the rich man in this parable—at least when we compare ourselves to what other people have in the world today.  Any of us who have a comfortable, secure life are rich—at least materially—compared to the vast majority of people in the world.  There is no way we can elude the fact that if Jesus was among us today he would be addressing us when he gives us the well-known aphorism about camels and eyes of needles. 

All that may well be true.  But to be honest we have to look a bit closer at the Gospel.  Jesus is speaking specifically to the rich man—he is sometimes called the rich young ruler.  The Gospel tells us, “²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” Jesus knew this man.  That is one of the amazing things about Jesus.  He knew people he encountered better than they knew themselves.  He knew that this man’s great sin was that he valued his wealth above all else.  He had made mammon his god. 

The question for us today is, “what or who your god is?”   Here we are getting into Ten Commandments territory.  Thou shalt have no other god before me.  Of course money can be our god as it was for the rich young man.  But of course there can be many gods (that’s with a small ‘g’) today just as there were in Jesus time.  Let’s think about what kinds of god people can have today.

There are many obvious gods in today’s culture.  We have the god of materialism.  There used to be a saying, which I haven’t heard recently (thank God) the person who dies with the most toys wins; the question is wins what?  There is the god of power and success.   We can think of the lust for power displayed by the gods of the corporate world who put profits about people and earn obscene salaries while their workers struggle to survive on minimum wages.  We have people who are more concerned about keeping up with the Jones than contributing to welfare of this country. 

It is important to consider how we do spend our resources.  I don’t believe that Jesus is telling us all to sell all that we have—but do we need to consider the poor when we consider how we spend what we do have.  Are we going to spend what we do on luxuries or even non-necessities? 

Are we going to put some of our non-essential resources into helping others?  Right now the world is facing a refugee crisis of monumental proportions.  Can we decide to give some of the excess resources we have to meet the need of refugees?  We may not be called to sell all our possessions.  However, we are called to see the face of Christ in those refugees many of whom are dying in attempts to escape death in their own country. 

Unfortunately there are many people who don’t believe there is a responsibility to share what they have with others.  For many years I have been a follower of a column in the Saturday Globe and Mail; the Financial Facelift.  This column takes a look people’s financial situation—there assets and liabilities and how they spend their money and recommend what changes they should make to reach their goals—often it is having a secure retirement or owning a house or enough money to live comfortably.  I have been saddened by the small amount that people often give to charity in their spending.  These are usually people who are relatively well off—comfortably middle class.  Sometimes they are in poor financial shape—usually because their spending is in excess of their income—sometimes radically.  However, their spending often doesn’t include much in charitable donations.   There was one column recently that illustrates this.  A letter to the editor commented on it which I will quote from:

Last Saturday’s couple in their 50’s with total assets of $2.5 million took the prize for self-indulgence.  Buried among the expenditures of a net monthly income $13,975 were vacation spending ($500), discretionary ($1,131), dining, drinks and entertainment ($775) and charity ($10).  What? Did they buy some Girl Guide cookies?

I could say that this couple was the modern equivalent of the rich man in the parable.  However, I do not think they are concerned about the kingdom of Heaven or salvation.  If they do they have a strange idea of it.  This of course is, thank God, not the only response by Canadians today.  There are many Canadians who respond generously.  However, this has become, I believe, less common than it used to be.

Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving.  We in Canada have so much to be thankful for.  We live in a Country that has the resources to easily accept many refugees.  We have a country that was not founded in revolution and continues to operate under the rule of law.  Canada and Canadians have been blessed by plenteous natural resources—even though they are not as valuable as they were a short while ago they still have given us great wealth and continue to do so.  We are a country that has a wonderful education system and universal health care.   We have a country where people—regardless of their faith can worship without fear.  We live in a country where we can give back part of what we have received without it causing us real sacrifice.  We can give back to God part of what God has blessed us with. 

What can we do then?  Collectively we could consider sponsoring a refugee— St. John’s and St. Ann’s could sponsor a refugee family.  We can also encourage our government to live up to its responsibility to sponsor more refugees.  Canada is the equivalent of the rich young man in the Gospel.  Again I don’t believe Canada is called to sell all it has to give to the poor.  Canada is called to do its part as a nation of Christians and Jews and Muslims and atheists.  We all have responsibility collectively and individually.  I am the rich young ruler; you are the rich young ruler; Canada is the rich young ruler.  How are we going to respond to Jesus’ command?  When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”  Are we going to walk away or are we going to respond as Jesus commands us?  Amen. 

Gratitude and Thanks and More

Lorna and I attended the Thanksgiving service at church on Sunday at our home parish of St. John’s-by-the-Lake in Grand Bend.  Being by the Lake (Huron) is not the same as being at our cottage-by-the-sea in Prince Edward Island.  However, it is nice to be worshipping there again.  The priest preached a very good sermon on gratitude.  He covered a lot of territory including Aesop’s fable of Androcles and the Lion as well as the parable of the wicked tenants from last week’s Gospel where the master who planted a vineyard and the dastardly servants who not only wouldn’t give the master of the vineyard his due but instead killed the master’s some when he came to them.   Now that another Thanksgiving has come and almost gone my thoughts turn to what I am grateful for.  There is the usual of family, health, health care, hearth and home, security, and the opportunities I have had to worship God in different ways and in different places in the past year.

 I am also grateful that a friend brought to my attention a column by Rev. Bob Ripley who is as retired United Church minister.  Ripley was the senior minister at the most prominent United Church in London Ontario before retiring a few years ago.  Ripley has written a weekly column in the London Free Press for many years.  In the recent column, Ripley proclaimed that, in effect, he no longer believes in organized religion.  Ripley states unequivocally:

Where once I proclaimed the doctrines of Christianity with passion and sincerity, I am now convinced that religion, all religion, is man-made. As with the long line of deities dotting the history of our species, the idea of one God, Yahweh, made manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, is our means to an end — to explain how we got here, for instance, or to avoid looking fate in the face or to gain an edge over our enemies.

The juxtaposition of this column, Thanksgiving, and the Gospel parable of a week ago is propitious.  I am, as I mentioned, grateful that I was made aware of the column.  I am no longer a regular reader of the Free Press for a number of reasons— which I don’t want to get into now— so I might well have missed it.  I am grateful for the column itself as it has caused me to reflect on my relationship to organized religion.  I am also grateful for the parable of the wicked tenants that was the subject of three sermons in the last two weeks. 

In my relatively short career as a parish priest I have said to myself and occasionally to others in a fit of satire or perhaps irony (I’m not sure which) that the only thing wrong with church is the people—they tend to mess things up, make it inconvenient, disappointing at times, and generally not what God intends—at least in my idea of what church should be.  In the parable (Matthew 21:33-46), Jesus is using the parable to criticize the religious authorities for the way they practice their religion:

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. 

I can understand why someone who has served as an ordained minister or priest for many years or even a few years becomes disillusioned about the institution and all its human shortcomings.   Ripley notes that his disenchantment with religion was one of the reasons he retired early from his church position.  Jesus certainly was critical of the religious leaders and many of the people in his day.  There is much to criticise in the church and its ‘cheap grace’ as Dorothee Solle calls it in her book Thinking About God which I am currently reading.  She cites this term of Dietrich Bonhoeffer where the church is coopted by the ruling powers of the society in which it resides whether it is the Germany of Hitler or the economic powers and systems of today.  She notes that Bonhoeffer pleads, “that the church should take the risk of setting out to proclaim God’s commands as being valid today, as concretely, exclusively and radically as can be conceived”.  The church should, as Ripley notes, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. 

Solle states that because we are fallible does not mean that the gospel of Jesus Christ was not ethics-free and the church should not be either, “That we are fallible people and can make mistakes (in discerning God’s will) did not lead Bonhoeffer to withdraw from a world of action”.  The church is indeed imperfect but Jesus did not come to abolish religion but rather to fulfill God’s command for God’s people.  We are called to discern God’s will and to follow God’s commandments even if our efforts will inevitably flawed.  Let us give thanks and praise the Lord.