Wednesday Wondering - May 1, 2024

Scripture

Psalm 13: 1

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?How long will you hide your face from me?

Matthew 6: 5 - 8

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

Romans 8: 26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.

Reflection

I have been thinking, and wondering, a lot lately about this idea of prayer. What does it mean for us to pray? What should we be praying for? Does prayer make a difference? Well I think that there are many people I know who would say that prayer can make all the difference in the world, and I agree with that in so many ways. To lift up someone, or something to God in prayer is powerful and I believe that it not only affects those who are being lifted up in prayer, but it also affects those who are doing the praying.

Now if I am completely honest with all of you, my usual way to offer prayer is to raise my eyes and arms to the sky and simply exclaim “Really!” I can joke about this but the reality is that sometimes that is all that I can do. It gives me great comfort, when I do this, to remember the passage from Romans, that assures me that when I don’t know how to pray the Sprit will intercede with sighs too deep for words. If I am honest again, there are so many times in my life when I don’t have the words to pray, and so I enter into that divine silence and know that God knows what is weighing heavy on my heart. Yet, I also know that there is so much happening in the world right now that needs our prayers.

In seeing the mess that this world seems to be in, with the violence, the anger, the war, the poverty, the homelessness, it makes me wonder where do we even start? It can be overwhelming, given the state of the world, to even know where to begin with our prayers. I would like to offer today a quote from the late Mother Teresa, who said, “I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but  now I pray that God will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.” It frustrates me at times when violence happens in the world and people default to offering their thoughts and prayers. I am not frustrated by the prayers because, as I said, lifting someone else up in prayer is powerful and can be healing. The frustration comes from the fact that so many will offer prayers, in the face of violence and tragedy, but they will not allow themselves to be changed by those prayers and spurred to action so that they might be agents of change in our world.

I wonder what would happen if all of those people, who offer only their thoughts and prayers, allowed themselves to be changed by their prayer. What might our world look like if our prayers not only lifted up those we pray for, those situations that we pray for, but also changed us so that we might be the ones who changed the world. I believe that prayer not only has the power to heal our lives, and the lives of those we hold in our prayers, but it also have to power to change the world, through us. It might seem like a daunting task, but I believe that when we call out to God, in prayer, we are strengthened in God’s love to continue forward. The challenge I think for us, is that we often wait for God to make a change. The Psalmist, in the scripture I offered today, asks why God has hidden God’s face, why they have been forgotten. I often wonder about this when people say that their prayers were not answered. I quite often wonder if maybe their prayer was answered but in a way that they were not expecting and they didn’t see it. Or I wonder if maybe their prayer was answered in God strengthening them so that they would be the answer to the prayer themselves. To pray, I believe, is to open ourselves up to the mysterious movement of God in our lives. I don’t believe that prayer is a ‘to do’ list for God but rather it is our opening ourselves, lifting up those whom we pray for, those situations we pray for, and then to experience the movement of the Spirit in our lives moving us to where God wants us to be. Prayer is as much about us as it is about God. So we continue to pray and I hope that we continue to grow and change as we do. Amen.

Prayer

God of infinite mercy, we ask that you hear our prayers, those when we have the words, and those when the words aren’t there. We ask for the wisdom to discern where you are calling us in the midst of our prayers, where we can be agents of change in a world that can be so broken. We ask for you guidance, your mercy, and your patience when we don’t recognize your call. As we pray may your Spirit enliven us, and comfort us, as well as all those whom we lift up to you. We ask this in the name of the one who taught us to pray, your son, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - April 24, 2024

Scripture

1 Corinthians 13: 4 - 7

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13: 14

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

John 3: 16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Reflection

Can you guess what I have been wondering about lately? Yes, love! I have been wondering about this thing that we call love. So many of you might not know but I love love. I love, love songs. I love watching romantic movies. To be honest I know that many of these movies are not great movies, but I just really enjoy watching them. I guess some might call me a softy, but I think for me it goes deeper than that. It is all about our attitude in the world today, and trust me I know that the world is challenging, but I believe that we have a role to play in the world, an important role.

I was asked once if I could distill my entire theology (for those of you who might not know this word it simple means how we talk about God) in one sentence. This was a huge challenge, but I eventually, after much pondering and consideration, came to John 3: 16. In this one passage I see my belief about God summed up. God is love. God is present with us, through Jesus, because of this love. God, in Jesus, because we are loved desires relationship with each of us. This is my theology of God in a nutshell. God loves us, God came in Jesus because God loves us, and God desires relationship with us, through Jesus. It is easy for me to understand this and yet what does it mean to me, what might it mean to you. 

The readings from 1 Corinthians speak to love as well. They speak to all of these wonderful attributes of love and how love allows us to carry on through times of strife and struggle. This can be so comforting, but again I wonder what does this truly mean to us. What does it mean for us to love? I know that the love that we are called to is not the love that is portrayed in those movies that I watch. I know that the love that we are called to is more that that, but what might it be?

Author A.R. Lucas speaks to love in the following way, “We’ve been infected with this idea that love is an emotion only felt between two people. But love is universal. An energy. A contagious force. To offer money to a homeless man is to love. To save a worm from the sun is to love. To smile at a stranger is to love. To be grateful, to be hopeful, to be brave, to be forgiving, to be proud is to love.” To love is an attitude. It is an understanding that our actions matter, not just to ourselves, but to others as well. To love is to see that even when things are difficult we need to know that the words we use, the actions we take are important.

As Christians we talk a lot about love. We speak about of love of God and our love of Jesus, but in so many ways that love is easy for us, what about the challenging love in our lives? I would like to pass along this uncredited reflection today, “Hours before the death of Jesus, Judas ate too. Jesus fed Judas too. Jesus prayed for Judas too. Jesus washed Judas’ feet too. I struggle to fathom what kind of love this is….. A love that would feed the mouth that deceived you. A love that would wash the feet of the traitor. A love that could forgive the vilest of betrayals. Honestly I struggle to comprehend it. And then, suddenly, I realize..that I’m Judas too! And in that moment, I’m so thankful and altogether overwhelmed that, Judas ate too. The true test of Christianity is not about loving Jesus, but loving Judas. Showing love to someone like Jesus is so easy. But loving someone hard to love, a sinner like Judas is difficult. That’s what following Jesus is all about.” To love is to see ourselves in Judas, and still love ourselves. To truly love is to love, not only when it is easy, but when it is difficult. To love is to know that each of our actions and every one of our words have consequence. To love is to know that in following Jesus we are called to love Judas, as Judas ate too. To love is not just a fuzzy warm feeling, but a decision that we make each and every day, many times a day, to live in love with all others and with the world. Love is not easy, it takes work, but to love is truly the greatest gift of all. 

Prayer

God of infinite love, we ask that you teach us to love as you love. Give us courage to love, not only when it is easy, but also when it is challenging. Help us to never forget that we are Judas too and yet you continue to love us. Give us the strength to love each day as you call us to love, making the decision to choose love each and every day. We ask this in the name of Love Incarnate, your son, Jesus. Amen.

Peace and blessings,

Rev. Patrick Woodbeck

Gordon-King Memorial United Church/ The Bid Red Church

to view our live streamed services, please click on the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/@thebigredchurch7408/streams

Wednesday Wondering - April 17, 2024

Scripture

Isaiah 49: 9a, 15 - 16

9 saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”

    to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”

15 Can a woman forget her nursing child

    or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

Even these might forget,

    yet I will not forget you.

16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;

    your walls are continually before me.

Matthew 5: 14 - 16

14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Reflection

I have been wondering this past little while about how we identify ourselves and how these understandings of our identity affect how we see ourselves in the world. In many ways we are identified and take on roles around those identities. We often identify ourselves with our primary relationships, whether that be husband, wife, partner, father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, or any other familial title. In some ways each of these comes with their own set of expectations and responsibilities. In many cases these are imposed upon us by how society believes we must act as we find ourselves within each of these identities. But if I really think about it, this is not the only way that society imposes specific roles and identities upon each of us. There are many different ways, from our work, to our gender, to our community involvement, even our friends will place identity expectations upon each of us. As I have been pondering this I have wondered how do we find ourselves in the midst of all of the expectations, expected identities, that we each navigate in our lives. What does it mean to truly find ourselves? Do we actually have to find ourselves, or is there something else that might be even more productive?

The readings that I chose for today speak to this idea that we have been created, as we are, not necessarily as the world sees us. In being created to be who were actually are, not who the world says we need to be, we have been created in light, to be light, to bring light to the world. Writer, illustrator, speaker, and teacher, Emily McDowell, speaks to this idea of finding oneself in the following way, “‘Finding Yourself.’ is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. ‘Finding Yourself’ is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.” To be who you were created to be, and not who the world tells you you have to be, that is what I believe God wants for all of us.

Now that is not to say that when we take on specific roles they are always negative, it is to say that those roles we take must always allow us the space to be who we truly were created to be, rather than demanding that we change to fit those roles. This has been a very challenging lesson for me to learn. I was raised with many expectations about who I needed to be in the world and in living into those expectations I found that I was not being true to who I understood myself to be, so I hid that part of me. It became easier, in the world, to put on the mask of expectations and live as the world demanded than to make waves and be authentically me. Yet, in doing so I know that the light of who I was, was dimmed. How often have we dimmed our lives, who we truly were, so that the world might accept us, or so that the world might not deal with our uniqueness? We each have been created as individuals, as unique and wonderful creations of light and love. Our scriptures today remind us that we were created in all our uniqueness and as such when we live into who we understand ourselves to be, we become light in the world and the world needs all the light it can get at the moment. So let us all reclaim who we are and if we have reclaimed who we are, let us celebrate who we are, and shine for the world to see. Let it be so, amen.

Prayer

God of infinite diversity and love, help us to live as you created us to live. Let us shine as you created us to shine. We ask for the courage to reclaim ourselves from so many imposed expectations that society imposes on us. We ask for the wisdom to discern what is truly us and what we have built in ourselves to hid and protect ourselves. We ask that you guide into being more fully us and show us how to shine for the world to see. We ask this all in the name of the one to who came bringing light, your son, Jesus. Amen. 

Peace and blessings,

Rev. Patrick Woodbeck

Gordon-King Memorial United/ The Big Red Church

to view our live streamed services please use the following link;

https://www.youtube.com/@thebigredchurch7408/streams