unworthy servants

Luke recounts a surprisingly edgy story that Jesus told. Actually it was more of a "get real" life example. As we know the disciples were rather obsessed with self importance and were even caught out on a squabble about which of them was most important! The mother of two of them lobbied Jesus for preferred positions for her boys in Jesus' new cabinet. Jesus pushes this to the limit and imagines a scene where a servant has finished his daily tasks and Jesus asks if his master is then likely to invite him to sit at the table, relax and enjoy the evening? He points out that this would be a ridiculous scenario and that at the end of the day the servant is prone to say "I've done all my work and I remain your faithful servant, unworthy that I am."
          We spend much of our lives pursuing our sense of purpose and meaning - in fact our sense of importance. What is "my place in this world" as the song puts it. Do I matter? Does what I do matter? Does anyone notice? What's the point?
          What was Jesus getting at in this scenario? And hadn't he recently told a story about a satisfied master who in gratitude for his servant's watchfulness, in fact, did invite the servant to join him at the table? Jesus was surfacing the brilliance of his own demeanour and powerful presence. In John 13 we have a commentary that is profound. It is bound up in the simple word "so." John tells us "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist." The genius of Christian piety is humble servanthood that arises from a Godly grasping of our identity and destiny - who I am and where I'm bound. In fact Whose I am is the key. I do not seek meaning or importance from lesser truths than my identity and a child of God, a friend and follower of Jesus whose treasure map is of a distant land.

The Stories He told - second chances

Did you ever need a second chance? Did you ever have to ask someone for a a second chance? While such a request may take a great deal of courage and may be accompanied by some soul-searching and regret over past actions or failures, when it is met by a listening ear and a ready heart with a positive reaction, it is like a tremendous breath of fresh air to your soul!

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the stories Jesus told is the surprise twist that he often wove into the plot. The story about the unfruitful fig tree is like that. Here we hear of a gardener who looks for figs on his tree for three growing seasons without any success. So he decides to do the obvious which is to have the tree cut down. He orders his gardener to make it so. The surprising plot twist is that the gardener protests and asks for second (well, actually fourth) chance for the tree. He promises to cut it down if it doesn't yield figs by the next year. He says he will give it special attention, fertilizing and looking after it. We're not told anything about the outcome - figs or none? So we wonder what the point of the story is. It is beginning to appear that Luke's purpose in his selection of stories is to present a caricature of God that Jesus presented through his life and teaching that is distinct from the common image of the religious leaders of the day. We might say that there was no "second chance" in their vocabulary or practice. 

Parables don't seem to need worrying down to the meaning of each detail - they tend to be simple stories with one point. The point of this story is that if you need a second chance then the best person to ask for it is God!

Meeting Jesus again for the first time.

In these days of tremendous flux and change we long for some constant, unchanging realities to fix our lives on. We seem to have abandoned the middle and polarized to extremes right and left in so many areas - politics, religion included. What if in our religious thinking and believing we could meet Jesus again and for the first time. What if we could peel back the layers of our religious history, accumulated over thousands of years, and meet Jesus as though it were for the first time? Would our thinking, unaffected by the structures of church, politics, economics, sociologies be the same about him or quite different? Jesus’ friend John helps us to remember one of the interesting ways Jesus presented himself. He often used the words “I am..” Who is it that we’re meeting when this is his chosen introduction? Here are some of his words: I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door of the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the true vine. I am the way, the truth and the life. In the next few blogs we’ll drill down on these ideas.

talkback

The 1.19 rule comes from James 1.19 and is the rule we are claiming must be followed when we are in conversation and debate with one another about controversial subjects. The first part of this series at Southside has been about our gender identity, we will soon move to our sexual identity and then to our spiritual identity, folders in which we place many conversations. We have outlined the complementarian and egalitarian views of gender participation in local churches. Our stream of thinking has come from Genesis 1.27 through Genesis 3.16 and to Galatians 3.28. Our Biblical conclusion is that "there is no status/access/privilege advantage to a distinction of gender. Spiritually and ontologically the two are fully equal." We saw that the beautiful complementary aspects of God's image constituted in our maleness and femaleness have been restored to equality in Christ. However, we have some aberrant passages in which the Apostle himself seems to break rank with his own assertions and does seem to restrict access for women. The conversation that we could have here is: In what circumstances could it have been necessary to limit women's access to ministry in Corinth and Ephesus. In what circumstances could it be possible today to make any such restrictions? Thoughts?

Who bent the world?

Q has a back story that he allows to appear gradually throughout the book of Ecclesiastes. It is more blatant towards the end, but a careful read discovers hints. For example he says that it is a grievous task that God (interestingly Elohim) has given to the sons of men (1.13), thus turning the flow of his thought from a human perspective as though we initiate the question What does life mean? to some sense of an assignment from God to us that we find grievous. We tend, if we have some sense of deity, to pose questions like "why?" to this being. Whereas here Q may be proposing that it is God who is posing the questions. Later he says that God has been testing humans (3.18) And when he turns his thoughts to pleasure as a candidate for the answer to the question What does life mean? and we expect him to "test" pleasure (expecting that this is his method for all candidates) he surprises us with "I said to myself 'come now, I will test you with pleasure." (2.1) It's as though he speaks for God rather than question God, and this is further exasperated by his assertion that "what is crooked cannot be straightened" (1.15) and "Consider the work of God, for who can straighten what He has bent?" 97.13) What sense can we make of this?

the Wisdom of Q

What does life mean? This is the searching question posed by Qoheleth in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. The Message version calls the author "the Quester."It seems to me that the most important question to be asked in this world is this timeless one. How would you answer?  Q says that with a brilliant mind and great wisdom he (presumably) presses various "pretenders" to show that they are the answer to the question. But none of them escapes his scrutinizing reaction "ha! like chasing the wind." Worse, in the Message the paraphrase is "like spitting into the wind." This is even more insulting than trying to chase or grasp the wind - it involves the mockery that returns at the end of the pursuit. It seems to me that the effect of the "Fall" - the brokenness of our world, which seems much like a roof caved in by our own doing and the wreckage falling randomly on and around us, is experienced differently by different people in different times. But perhaps the most common experience of that wreckage is a profound sense of meaninglessness in our lives. And how do we manage this? We tend to live deliberately unexamined lives. We choose an agnostic option that we perhaps have not been offered that mentions the possibility of god but feels no obligation for the integration of that possibility towards a meaningful existence. Q wants to talk!

Maundy Thursday

Last Supper, Maundy Thursday

The term "maundy" comes from a Latin word meaning "commandment" and refers to Jesus' new commandment given to His disciples after washing their feet - "love one another." This is certainly the core commandment and ethic of our Christian faith. It is a simple idea and yet a difficult practice. Love, in the New testament is clearly not simply an emotion, it is a code of behaviour. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul describes love's behaviour: Love is patient, kind, doesn't envy, does not boast, is not proud, doesn't dishonour others, is not self-seeking, in not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, doesn't delight in evil, rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails. A pretty good check list, isn't it? Love one another. As we gather for worship this weekend, as we gather as families this weekend, as we cross paths with the world of people I'm sure we can fulfill this commandment. Let's keep it in mind. 

Bethany

Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary
Tintoratto, 16th Century

On Wednesday of Holy Week it is thought that Jesus rested at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. Perhaps no Bible town name has been chosen more than Bethany to name churches in our day. Bethany is also a common town name and even a girl's name. Bethany means "place of resurrection." No wonder it is a popular name. We all long to be in a place of resurrection. It's important that Jesus rested in such a place. These were his dear friends and here there hospitality was always ready for him. Here he could relax, eat, sleep and talk. As he contemplated the hard work of the coming days Jesus rested in this safe place and in the fact of resurrection. At Southside we travel with Lifeshapes as our discipleship language. The semi-circle is the rhythm of rest to work. we note that in the creation week our first day was one of rest (Sabbath) and from that we work. We don't rest from work, rather we work from rest. The powerful rest we have is that of resurrection and whatever work of dying is before us (to ourselves, to the world) is best prepared in a safe place of rest in resurrection. As Paul said, he wanted to know the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, in that order. Where is my Bethany? How do I lean hard into the rest of the resurrected life so that I may enter the fellowship of the sufferings of my Lord? 

30 pieces of silver

Tuesday of Holy Week was the day that Judas is recorded as negotiating the price of betrayal of Jesus. For 30 pieces of silver he was willing to give his friend into the hands of his enemies. How could this be? It was only later at the last supper that we're told that Satan entered into him, and that certainly empowered the treachery of his deed. But he was Jesus' friend. Of course we remember that on a perhaps lesser level even Peter denied knowing Jesus and betrayed him in this sense. The truth is we are fickle followers at best and turncoats at worst. For what would I trade my relationship with Christ as Saviour and Lord? Would I deny him? Would I actually betray him? Foolishness declares that I would never deny or betray my Lord. Wisdom understands the resident darkness of my heart and sets a guard.  "Oh to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above."

foot washing

As we enter Holy Week, some of the events of that week may engage our hearts in fresh ways this Lenten Season. John 13 is a powerful passage concerning service. Jesus does the job of a servant by washing is disciples' feet. This is a demeaning and probably disgusting task! But we must remember that this is the nature that He assumed, not only human form, but the very nature of a servant according to the Apostle Paul. He ends the embarrassment (to the disciples) of this ministry to them by telling them to do the same! And so in this Holy Week whose feet (literally or figuratively) will we wash? Early in the narrative is something that makes all the difference to this behaviour:
"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.. he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet." (John 13.3-5) It is the word "so" that is so significant. We might translate the passage as "Because Jesus knew.."  It is when we know who we are, and that our origin and destiny is in and with Christ that we are released from our sinful struggle for significance in the lonely dance of survival of the fittest. We are joint heirs with Christ, being formed into His image (a servant), and destined for glory. Why need to be big fish in a small pond? So whose feet will it be? 

Lazarus Saturday

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
The Resurrection of Lazarus

Lazarus Saturday is celebrated as one of the two feast days between the Fast of Lent and the Fast of Holy Week by the Orthodox Church. We often miss the importance of the chronological place of the miracle of Lazarus' raising. Jesus asks the most important question of His ministry when He arrives at Bethany and is greeted by the distraught sisters. "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?" In performing this miracle just before the events of Holy Week and His final arrest and crucifixion Jesus provided a theological context for all that would occur. It was rather like a movie trailer, says Luci Shaw. It was a preview of what would transpire because of what would transpire in the days to come. It was a promise to all of us that the dark days were the preface to resurrection and life forever!

hyacinths

Bought these hyacinths the other day without knowing what colour they will be. They haven't begun to emit the distinctive Spring aroma yet either. But one of these mornings we will arise to both colour and aroma. It's certain! Has Lent been a time when we have begun to emerge from the bulb in the ground state to a new life of promise and beauty? Will AnnaBeth's hyacinths be white? or pink? or ? What has been formed in you in your Lent emergence as you have dwelt on your finiteness, failures and futilities, on your humanness? Has the repenting of the season given you hope about the newness of your resurrection in Christ? The apostle Paul inspires us to forget what is past and to press on..
Let's look forward eagerly to what has been formed in the dark soil and now is ready to blossom and delight!

snow?

Snow? I'm not sure we were ready to face this first thing this morning! "Enough!" Right? How does this relate to Lent? Lent's season is rather long, isn't it? When will Easter ever arrive? When will we be able to declare "He is Risen!" And the Christian journey is sometimes like that as well. We struggle with our finiteness, our frailty, our failures and disappoint ourselves, those around us and, we're sure, God our Father. And yet we see progress as we consider where we've once been, how we've once been, and the new snowfall doesn't threaten weeks more of winter but rather it will melt by this afternoon. This is a lapse, not a condition. This was a trip, not a fall. This is a moment, not a while.
John, the Apostle, is blunt about sin. He declares that only self-deceived people say that they don't sin.  But he tells us that we have an Advocate with the Father when we do sin. He tells us that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 Jn 1.9)

morning prayer

O Lord and Maker of all things, from whose creative power the first light came forth, who did look upon the world’s first morning and see that it was good, I praise You for this light that now streams through my windows to rouse me to the life of another day.

I praise You for the life that stirs within me:

I praise You for the bright and beautiful world into which I go:

I praise You for earth and sea and sky, for scudding cloud and singing bird:

I praise You for the work You have given me to do:

I praise You for all that You have given me to fill my leisure hours:

I praise You for my friends:

I praise You for music and books and good company and all pure pleasures.

O You who Yourself are everlasting Mercy, give me a tender heart today towards all those whom the morning light brings less joy than it brings to me:

Those in whom the pulse of life grows weak:

Those who must lie abed through all the sunny hours:

The blind, who are shut off from the light of day:

The overworked, who have no joy of leisure:

The unemployed, who have no joy of labor:

The bereaved, whose hearts and homes are desolate:

And grant Your mercy on them all.

O Light that never fades, as the light of day now streams through these windows and floods this room, so let me open to You the windows of my heart, that all my life may be filled by the radiance of Your presence. Let no corner of my being be unillumined by the light of Your countenance. Let there be nothing within me to darken the brightness of the day. Let the Spirit of Him whose life is the light of men rule within my heart till eventide. Amen.

John Baillie

church and kingdom

We know that "church" has lost its contact with our neighbours, right? I meet regularly with couples wanting to be married, and they have simply no connection to church as the catalyst of religion and spirituality. What are your ideas about how the kingdom of God is arriving, God's future in our present, in a society where the church is not the obvious answer? This is not just an interesting question, but a desperate one. If we were to dismantle "church" and re-assemble some other gathering sort of community what would that look like? Should we? I love the church and all it has meant to me over the decades, but I need to ask about how to re-imagine church for a new day, so that it truly is the vehicle for God's arriving Kingdom. Can we start over somehow? 

Psalm 23 for lectio

The practice of "lectio divina" is a lovely way to meditate on Scripture. The passage is read (most helpfully aloud even if I am alone) slowly several times. As I read, I listen for something that impresses me in a new or renewed way. Then that thought, or image, or insight or whatever it attaches itself to becomes my focus. What is God saying to me? What will I do about it? Psalm 23 is a wonderful passage for lectio with its pastoral language and vivid language. I suspect that on this Friday as we near the end of Lent and reach the summit of Easter some of us would be refreshed by a meditation of this sort!

idols

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City is a wonderful contemporary thinker and communicator. In Lent we give up "idols." I found his instruction on this topic insightful: 

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give….

The Bible sometimes speaks of idols using a marital metaphor. God should be our true Spouse, but when we desire and delight in other things more than God we commit spiritual adultery. Romance or success can become “false lovers” that promise to make us feel loved and valued. Idols capture our imagination, and we can locate them by looking at our daydreams. What do we enjoy imagining? What are our fondest dreams? We look at our idols to love us, to provide us with value and a sense of beauty, significance, or worth.

The Bible often speaks of idols using the religious metaphor. God should be our true Savior, but we look to personal achievement or financial prosperity to give us the peace and security we need. Idols give us a sense of being in control, and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares. What do we fear the most? What, if we lost it, would make life not worth living? We make “sacrifices” to appease and please or gods, who we believe will protect us. We look to our idols to provide us with a sense of confidence and safety.

The Bible also speaks of idols using a political metaphor. God should be our only Lord and Master, but whatever we love and trust we also serve. Anything that becomes more important and nonnegotiable to us than God becomes and enslaving idol. In this paradigm, we can locate idols by looking at our most unyielding emotions. What makes us uncontrollably angry, anxious, or despondent? What racks us with a guilt we can’t shake? Idols control us, since we feel we must have them or life is meaningless.

Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our lives.

What many people call “psychological problems” are simple issues of idolatry. Perfectionism, workaholism, chronic indecisiveness, the need to control the lives of others—all of these stem from making good things into idols that then drive us into the ground as we try to appease them. Idols dominate our lives.

• Consider the three metaphors of idolatry in Scripture. Which of these challenges you most?
• Using these categories, can you determine idols in your life? If not, are you willing to ask God to reveal them to you? Be careful, if you ask, He just might do it.

The Lent Lily The Lent Lily - A.E. Housman Tis spring; come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there's the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there's the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day. And since till girls go maying You find the primrose still, And find the windflower playing With every wind at will, But not the daffodil, Bring baskets now, and sally Upon the spring's array, And bear from hill and valley The daffodil away That dies on Easter day A.E. Housman

trees

The Moravian Daily Text New Testament reading assigned for today is Matthew 27. It is the distressing account of Judas' suicide. As Lent is long into the season now we might find this a dark time. We dwell on our sinfulness, the desperate condition of a fallen world and all of its brokenness and perhaps we lose heart. Judas made a heartbreaking decision. He chose the wrong tree. There was forgiveness ready for him at the tree on which his Saviour was crucified and yet he chose to hang on the tree of his own guilt and condemnation. Either tree would do.

On which tree do I hang my failures, my sins, my desperation? Am I still visiting trees to hang what has already been judged, condemned and sentenced on the tree upon which my Saviour died and I with Him? "When I survey the wondrous cross."

"do you believe this?"

Lazarus' tomb in Bethany

"I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

So Jesus asked Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died. They answered yes, but their eyes probably  betrayed a distressed question like "what good is that now?" As our Lenten meditation this day let's allow Jesus to ask us the same question "Do you believe this?" But let's do the hard work ourselves of asking and answering the question "what good is that now?" Because it is really good now! As Lent has brought us to sadness and hopelessness, so it leads us to the cross and empty grave where Jesus declares "I am the resurrection and the life!" That changes everything - now and forever. Does it?