Lord Teach Me to Pray

It seems that the need for prayer is becoming more urgent in recent days with the trucker protest in Ottawa and other strategic locations and the threat of war in the Ukraine.  I am very relieved that the occupation of Ottawa appears to have been resolved relatively peacefully.  I have been praying for that outcome but I would not be so presumptuous to believe it was because of this that the issue was resolved and I will just give thanks to God for this outcome.  However, I am not deluding myself that the divisions that were manifest in these events have been healed.  The threat to peace in the Ukraine seems even more dire and our prayers are needed all the more.

This morning I want to reflect on prayer and hope that this will help me and perhaps others as we continue to be in great need for our prayers to be given and received.  Here are two reflections of prayer which I received this week as a starting place:   

Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It’s a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even of enjoying the Presence. —Richard Rohr

Prayer is the longing of the human heart for God. It is a yearning and desire for relationship with God, and it is God’s attention to our desire: God-in-communion with us. —Ilia Delio

 

It has been noted by The Very Rev. Alan Jones, that there are five elements of prayer: Adoration, Praise, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.  Of these, Adoration and Supplication place us in the correct relationship with God and all of creation.  He notes that Confession and Supplication are also necessary because they are ways of self-examination.  In addition, they are a means to pray for others.   

Then we have Thanksgiving.  I turn to my favourite saying about Thanksgiving.  We need to give thanks to God in all things rather than for all things (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).  We give thanks that God is with us and that we are able to give thanks. 

Finally, we can rejoice in the Lord always on our journey. 

Talk of Love and Hate

A couple of weeks ago I quoted from one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs, Passing Through.  I want to start by doing that again:

Let's talk of love not hate, things to do: it’s getting late, there’s so little time and we’re only passing through.  

That line, “talk of love not hate,” has been on my mind a lot in the last two weeks.   I have struggled with my response to the Trucker Convoys that have taken over our national capital and other significant places in Canada.  I have found myself responding in an unusually strong reaction to the events that are taking place.  These thoughts and feelings are not how I am called to as a Christian; they are ones of hate.  I am called to love my neighbours and even my enemies and the people involved – at least some of them - are feeling more and more like my enemies and the enemies of this land which has always striven (though sometimes not succeeded) for peace, order and good government. 

As a Christian, I know I am called to strive to love and not hate as Leonard Cohen says so beautifully in that poignant song.  However, at times I find that hate is winning – and I do not like that or myself when that happens.  I am coming to the conclusion that I cannot love if I do not acknowledge the hate within myself.  Carl Jung identified the aspect in ourselves that is the unacknowledged or undiscovered part of our self which he called the shadow.  I know from sad experience that when I do not acknowledge the shadow and its content it comes up and bits me on the backside when I can’t see it coming.  Therefore, what I need to acknowledge today is to talk of love and hate. 

To hate is an aspect of human nature and is something which the world has had too much of, and is having too much of right now, not just in Canada but in the world in so many different places.  I am reminded that the opposite of love is not hate but is indifference.  When we hate we are in relationship with the person or thing that we hate.  It is not a good or healthy relationship but it is a relationship and one which can easily take control of us just as love can when we are in its thrall.  If we are to move beyond hate to love we must first acknowledge it and accept that it is a part of us and recognize that it is not what Jesus Christ lived and promises us.  We need to know in our hearts and minds and souls that Jesus did talk of love and not hate.  Coincidentally (if you believe in coincidences), the word today from SSJE is love:

Love is of God’s very essence. And love does not exist unless it is given away. God needs you, because God is love, and love can only be realized and expressed in relationship: the give and take of love.  -Br. Curtis Almquist, Society of Saint John the Evangelist

I will close with a prayer that I wrote a few weeks ago for our parish sessions on prayer.

Collect for Coming together, for healing, and for leaving in love.

Heavenly source of all healing, we have gathered as your faithful people who are in great need of healing.  The challenges that we face form the COVID pandemic have left us ill, in body, mind and spirit.

We ask that you open our hearts to those who approach the pandemic with differ attitudes from ours.  We know that many are fearful of the restrictions imposed by governments and institutions.  We are also fearful of those dangers which loom over us.  We ask that you calm our fears and let us know that you are always with us and you are our support and defend us.

We ask that you bind the wounds that have been inflicted on all during these dark days.  Let your light shine forth in the dark places of our souls.  Help us to see you in everyone that we encounter as we go forth from this gathering.  May the glory of your holy name ring forth in the world to bring love, peace, hope, and joy to all who hear it.  All this we ask in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Blessings on your journey this week.  

 

Engaging the Bible

What do you make of that collection of stories, poetry, parables, prophecy, historical narratives, miracles, good works, wise words, and misanthropy and mayhem that is the Christian Bible?  Is it the literal word of God for you – which was dictated by God to the scribes who put it together into what is considered the canon – the official collection of God’s word of the Christian Church.  It is actually sixty-six or more books (depending on the version) which have been brought together in what is called the Holy Bible by Christians. 

Take a moment and reflect on what how you understand it and what it means to you.  Is it holy scripture which was delivered verbatim from God to those who recorded it?  Is it the inspired word of God – if so, what does it mean to be inspired?  Is it just a book that records myths and legends as well as attempts to explain how the world began and how people have tried to understand what or who they identify as God or the gods interact with them and the world?  Those are just a few ways that the Holy Bible is understood by people today.  Northrop Frye, the great Canadian literary critic considered the bible to be the Great Code which has had a foundational influence on the literature and culture in the Western World.

The Bible has been used and misused by those who hold it to be the word of God.  Sometimes the canon is used as cannon fodder.   Pause and consider how you use it?  Do you have passages and saying and stories that you were taught in Sunday School that come to mind in particular circumstances.? Do you draw unconsciously on the bible stories such as David and Goliath when you are faced with an insurmountable challenge?  Do you think of one of the parables of Jesus such as the Good Smartian when faced with someone asking for a handout on a street corner?  Are you the older son or daughter who has the irresponsible younger sibling who is not behaving as you think they should?  Do you pull out a particular passage which justifies what you want to do or to justify a particular attitude you have – what’s your attitude to the truckers’ “freedom” protest in Ottawa.  How does that fit with the commandment for Christians to love our neighbours? 

Yes, the Holy Bible can be all things to many, if not all people - at least unconsciously if not consciously.  If we Christians want to take the Bible seriously, we need to engage with it and not just take it as it has been presented to us – however that is.  Brian McLaren, a Christian theologian, teacher, and author addresses how we might do this as noted by Richard Rohr:

Brian McLaren suggests that God’s revelation through the Bible comes from the ongoing dialogue and relationship the Bible inspires between God and ourselves. He teaches:

To say that the Word (the message, meaning, or revelation) of God is in the biblical text, then, does not mean that you can extract verses or statements from the text at will and call them “God’s words.” It means that if we enter the text together and feel the flow of its arguments, get stuck in its points of tension, and struggle with its unfolding plot in all its twists and turns, God’s revelation can happen to us. We can reach the point that Job and company did at the end of the book, where, after a lot of conflicted human talk and a conspicuously long divine silence, we finally hear God’s voice. . . .

Whatever your understanding of the Bible, it is worth exploring with an open and discerning mind which is what I believe God has given each of us.  Something that is worthwhile to read on your journey.  Blessings.

Love God or Else

 I want to open with a quote from Lorna Harris – someone with whom I share my life every day:

I completely sympathize with those who are done with Covid. I am done with winter. It’s been miserably cold here for days. And it is freezing cold like this every single year. I ‘m not able to go out. Well, I can go out, but I have to put on my winter coat, a scarf and hat, my winter boots, maybe long johns and/or snow pants and of course mittens. This is just too much. I have a right to my freedom from winter. I am going out today and wear just a T-shirt and shorts. It's my personal choice. Winter doesn’t exist for me. And no one gets to order me around on this issue, but if I get frost-bite or pneumonia, I do expect, as my right, the best in medical care.

This was a comment that Lorna made on a Globe and Mail on-line article which talked about people who had, “had enough of COVID.”  Lorna was worried that people would take what she said literally and not as a satirical comment on this laissez faire attitude to COVID restrictions.   These people just want to get back to a life without restrictions such as wearing masks, or showing proof of vaccination status or whatever.  Lorna skewered that reasoning – if you can call it that – beautifully by showing how illogical that way of thinking is.  Just because we are tired of all the restrictions and constraints on our day to day lives, it doesn’t change the situation we are in.  To put it another way, “COVID doesn’t care.”

I must admit that I find that I have very little patience for people who take that attitude.  On the one hand, I can understand that people want to get their lives back and to be able to live without these constraints and restrictions.  Many people have been affected by the COVID pandemic rules to a much greater extent than I have been.  Indeed, as a strong introvert there are aspects of staying in my small corner that I enjoy.  I do not have young children that are being home-schooled at times.  I don’t know how I would cope with that.  I am retired so I haven’t had to deal with COVID restrictions at work.  So, on reflection I can sympathize with people who are completely fed up with the restrictions.

However, this desire to escape regardless of the impact on others and society in general are what I see as dangerous indications of what is becoming a much more prevalent attitude in our culture today – me first and foremost and to hell with others.     It is one that goes completely against the great commandment of Jesus Christ, to love your neighbour – or to give it in full:

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 great commandment and the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.

The challenge for this commandment – and it is definitely a challenge – is that it seems easier to hate than to love.  It seems natural for us to hate the Other – whoever is different from us and whom we see as a threat to our way of living.  I can only say that as a Christian, I am called to follow that Great Commandment and love not hate. 

In closing, I will turn to my go-to guy in song, the saint of song, Leonard Cohen:

Let's talk of love not hate,  things to do: it’s getting late, there’s so little time and  we’re only passing through.  

Let us be blessed to talk of love on our journey.  

You Can’t Go Home Again

 The phrase, you can’t go home again, has been on my mind quite a bit this week.  This phrase, from novelist Thomas Wolfe, generally encapsulates the idea that you may return to the place which was your home but it will not be the same.  Things about it will have changed from what you remember and that’s putting aside the reality that your memories do not reflect how things actually were.

The phrase came to mind when I was thinking about the COVID restrictions, and dangers we have been under for the last two years, are finally lifted.  Things are not going to be like they were even if stores and restaurants and churches open up fully and even if we no longer have to wear the all-pervasive masks.  This idea was crystalized by the Gospel reading which we heard on Sunday.  It was Luke 4: 14-21 in which Jesus, who has begun his public ministry in Galilee, come to his hometown of Nazareth and holds forth in the synagogue reading from Isaiah which declares that the year of the Lord’s favour – prisoners set free, good news to the poor and more - and proclaims the scripture has been fulfilled. 

Things went well for Jesus initially but the crowd turned on him when he declares that there were foreigners more worthy of salvation than then they were.  They responded as you might expect – rather badly - and were going to throw him off a hill but he managed to miraculously avoid the people and puts them in their proper relation with God.  Jesus certainly found that he couldn’t go home again.  I don’t know if he expected a warm welcome and to be embraced by the people as the local boy who has made good.  Probably not, because he quotes the aphorism that no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.  Indeed, he wasn’t accepted by them.  Perhaps he would have been smart to quit while he was ahead and the crowd was cheering him?  However, this is not who he was and would not have been true to his ministry.

But turning back to our present situation where COVID sets the all-pervasive parameters of day-to-day life, what can we take from the reality that we can’t, as Thomas Wolfe implies, go back to the way things were?  Are we going to bemoan the fact that COVID or some variant will be endemic and will probably be with us permanently in one form or another? Will we be more mistrustful of our institutions?  Will we be more resentful and punitive to those who question authority or protest against government restrictions in our lives?  There certainly is a possibility of all those things and more coming about. 

Of course, I have no way of knowing – my record of prognostication is mixed to say the least.  However, I do know that our response as Christians should be to follow the commandment to love our neighbours.  If non-Christians don’t want to follow that advice, perhaps following the Golden Rule will work – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – or to put it another way, treat other people the way you want to be treated.  If we do that, we will all find our new home a much better place to inhabit. 

May we all be blessed on that journey to our new home.   

 

Dare To Imagine God’s Dance Part 3

 January 2nd, I was invited to preach at the Nairn Mennonite Church.  The theme I was asked to preach on was the last in a sermon series they were using - Dare to Imagine.  The theme I was given is Dare to Imagine God’s Dance.  The sermons in this church are in the Protestant tradition of being twenty minutes or more in length which is significantly more than the usual Anglican ten minutes I am used to preaching, but I thought it was a great opportunity to explore a theme more extensively than usual so I embraced the opportunity.  I am sharing the sermon in three parts – last week was part two.  Today’s offering is third and final installment of the trilogy – to make it more in line with the usual length of this missive. 

In the story so far, God has danced the world and all that is including God’s greatest creation, into being.  God discovered that although there were many different ways of dancing with God, people needed many different rules in all those varieties of ways of dancing with God.  However, God also discovered that despite all the rules that allowed people to dance more dances with God than all the rest of God’s creation, God realized that something was still missing.  Then God realized, in the way that only God does, that people could not be a full dance partner to God.  God realized that this was so because, even though they were created in God’s image the rules prevented the dance from being all that it could be.

God sat down and pondered – something that God was getting very good at doing.  God pondered what would enable these human being – these sons and daughters created in God’s image - to be able to dance the way God had intended them to do – to dance fully in all the ways that God intended. 

What could God do to enable them to dance to all the vast variations of the music of the spheres that was available to them?

God pondered deeply, more deeply than ever before, and suddenly it came to God.  God would become one of them – one of us.  As proclaimed in the Gospel of John, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.   We would have God as our dance partner who would show us how to dance to all the music of the spheres – to dance as God intends us to dance. 

Now, people have known this before today.  Indeed, there are many people who have known how to dance with God as God intends the whole world and all people to dance with God as our partner.  Actually, people have written songs exactly about this.  We actually sang one a few minutes ago – The Lord of the Dance:

I danced in the morning
When the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon
And the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven
And I danced on the earth,
At Bethlehem
I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he

Now it may be hard to believe, but despite all that God has done to invite us to the dance of the spheres, there are still many people who don’t want to join the dance with Jesus as God intends us to dance. 

Sometimes we seem to believe that it is not right or proper that we should dance in all the many ways that God intends us to dance – to dance to all the many different types of dances which will show that we love each other the way Jesus loves us.  We are wonderful at coming up for reasons and excuses why we can’t dance those ways.  This also was expressed in a song. 

With apologies to the Medical Mission Sisters:

I cannot dance, I cannot dance at the banquet,
don't trouble me now.
I have married a wife; I have bought me a cow.
I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.
Pray, hold me excused, I cannot dance.

So, I invite you to try a new dance – to listen for the music of the spheres that you haven’t heard before and to join in the dance with our perfect partner- Jesus Christ, and show the love of Jesus to the world.  I invite you to dance as if no one is watching.  You don’t have to know the steps or be afraid that you might get them wrong.  Jesus does not expect you to know the steps – and doesn’t expect you to be perfect.  What he does expect is for you to accept his invitation to dance at the banquet we all have been invited to.

So, to riff of another old Christmas hymn, rather than tomorrow being my dancing day, we are called to God’s dance today:

Today shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance;

chorus
Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.

Jesus is our true love inviting us to the dance – so let us all dance the dance of love in all its variety. Amen

Dare To Imagine God’s Dance Part 2

January 2nd, I was invited to preach at the Nairn Mennonite Church.  The theme I was asked to preach on was the last in a sermon series they were using - Dare to Imagine.  The theme I was given is Dare to Imagine God’s Dance.  The sermons in this church are in the Protestant tradition of being twenty minutes or more in length which is significantly more than the usual Anglican ten minutes I am used to preaching, but I thought it was a great opportunity to explore a theme more extensively than usual so I embraced the opportunity.  I am sharing the sermon in three parts – last week was part one.  Today’s offering is part two and next week will complete the trilogy – to make it more in line with the usual length of this missive.  Here is the second installment.

The story so far – God has decided to do something new – something God had never done before – to dance.  After some thought, God decided that to dance you had to have music so God called on the music of the spheres.  …

Now you might ask if there was nothing but God, where did the spheres come from.  Well, I don’t actually know – it’s a mystery - but the music of the spheres began and God began to dance.  God, being God, knew just what the dance should be to that music.  God danced – perhaps a bit hesitantly at first because God had never danced before -- but God soon got the hang of it and just danced away until it was time (because now there was time) to stop dancing.  Now, I can’t tell you what the dance was, but I can tell you that when God stopped, he saw something new.  God saw that the dancing had created light and not only that, the light separated and there was light and there was non-light or darkness.  And God declared that his dancing was good and that what the dancing had brought forth was good.

Well, perhaps you can guess what happened after that.  The next day – because of this creation of the light where there was no light before – as I noted, God had also created time.  The next day, God danced a new dance to the new music of the spheres and God found that the dancing had produced a dome in the midst of the water which separated the water from the water.  There was water under the dome and water above.  Again, God decided that this was a good thing and declared it to be good.  After that, each day God danced a new dance to new music and something new was created. 

On the third day, God’s dancing created vegetation.  On the fourth day, God danced and brought forth the sun and the moon.  The fifth day God danced and brought forth the living creatures in the air and in the waters and wild animals of every kind that filled the earth.  And each day, God declared that what God had done was good.  God was pleased and yet God knew, in God’s omnipotence, that something was missing. 

God realized that all these things were good but they were limited in the dance.  Each of these creations could dance in a particular way but only one way.  God decided that there needed to be something else.  God then realized that God needed a creature that could be God’s full partner in the dance.  On the sixth day God ordered the spheres to bring forth the best music ever.  God danced the dance that was perfect for the music and when God danced, what had been brought forth was someone who would be a perfect dance partner - one that was created in God’s image.  And God was pleased with God’s-self and declared that this was good – it was very good indeed.

Now after all this creating, God rested because God had worked very hard and danced so many different dances.  After this, God danced with his greatest creation for a long, long time.  God discovered that although there were many different ways of dancing with God, people needed many different rules in all those variety of ways of dancing with God.  However, God also discovered that despite all the rules that allowed people to dance more dances with God than all the rest of God’s creation, God realized that something was still missing.  Then God realized, in the way that only God does, that people could not be a full dance partner to God.  God realized that this was so because, even though they were created in God’s image the rules prevented the dance from being all that it could be.

That’s all for today.  Tune in next week for the rest of the story and don’t forget to listen to the music of the spheres and try a few dance steps to that music. 

Blessings on your journey.