Wednesday Wondering - October 4, 2023

Scripture: 1Corinthians 12: 4 – 11

4God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. 5God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. 6God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. 7Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! 8The variety is wonderful:

wise counsel

clear understanding

9simple trust

healing the sick

10miraculous acts

proclamation

distinguishing between spirits

tongues

interpretation of tongues.

11All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.

Reflection:

I would like to start off with a short story today. I was beginning my ministry and I was asked to go and visit with a member of the congregation where I was working at the time. I went to see this individual and we were sitting and having a chat. Suddenly this individual got up and said that they had tea and cookies and would I like some. I politely declined this offer and didn’t think too much of it. When I was speaking with another minister about this interaction they asked me why I would decline. I responded that I did not want to impose on the person that I was visiting. Their response surprised me. They asked how my declining the offer of tea and cookies could be seen as my blocking this person’s ability to offer the gift of hospitality to me and what that might have said to this individual. Up until that moment and this conversation I had never really thought about this situation in that way.

Okay, one more story, just because it is Wednesday. When I was in theological college we had chapel services every morning. These services were student organized and led and they were really the spiritual life of the community. My first day at chapel of my first year I was asked if I would read a particular part of the service. I reluctantly agreed because I really didn’t know anyone there and I thought that being involved might help me meet people. Not only were students present but so were all of the faculty, and some of the staff of the college. So the service began and I got up to do my part, only to realize after that I was at the completely wrong place in the service and it had, in essence, messed up the order of the entire service. I was horrified. I sat back down and when the correct time came I stood up and went to the lectern and read my part of the service, after making a comment about, “now it is my turn.” Everything seemed to turn out okay, or at least that is what everyone told me after the chapel service.

So both of these stories are about the offering of gifts. They are stories about gifts that we each have and are challenged to offer to another. In the first story I was asked to look at my actions and how they might impact the ability of another to offer gifts to myself and others. The second story was about the gift that I offered, even though I was, and still am, not perfect, yet that gift was graciously accepted. In the reading from 1Corinthians Paul is speaking to those at Corinth about the gifts that come from God through the Spirit.

I believe that each one of us has been given gifts to share with this world. Are those gifts going to be shared perfectly? I doubt that, but we are still asked to share those gifts regardless. Are those gifts going to be graciously accepted every time? Probably not, but we are still called to offer them. These gifts that we have to offer, to the world, are as unique as each one of us and I truly believe that they come from God. We are challenged, as people of faith, to look at the gifts that we bring, to offer those gifts to those around us, to then accept the gifts that others are offering, and in this way we continue to allow these gifts of the Spirit to move throughout the world. It is important for us to recognize the gifts that we each have and them to offer them to those around us, including this community. But it is also important that we open up a safe space for others to offer their gifts to us as well. To offer the gift of ourselves and accept the gift of others is what we are called to do as Christians. It is accepting, embracing, and celebrating the uniqueness of each one of us. It is accepting the uniqueness of who we were created to be and accepting the same in others.

Prayer:

God of wondrous diversity, help me to recognize the gifts that you have given me to share with the world. Give me the courage to bring those gifts to those around me. Help me to have an open heart and an open mind so that I will be open to receive graciously the gifts that so many others have to bring to me and the world. We ask this in the name of the greatest gift, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - September 30, 2023

Scripture

Philippians 2: 1 - 8

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

Reflection

Have you ever had one of those days? Or maybe for you it has been weeks, or months, or even years, those times when it seems as if nothing is going the way that you hoped it would go. I have been thinking about those times in my life, and in some ways I feel as if I have been existing in one right now. We quite often look to the world as our gauge for whether our lives are successful or not. We look to what the world says we need in our lives in order to be complete, to be worthy, to be successful, and in all honesty it is sometimes very difficult to live up to the expectations of society and the world. So what then is the whole purpose of all of this? If we struggle to live up to the expectations of who the world says we should be, or who the world says we need to be, what to we do?

The scripture from Paul’s letter to the community at Philippi speaks deeply to how we are called to live in the world. It doesn’t speak of attaining wealth, or property, or status for oneself, no, it speaks to a very simple thing and that is that we are to love. That is our mission in life, to love. It seems so simple and yet it is so difficult in our world today. Yes, it might be a challenge for each of us to love, but it is loving that we follow Christ. The wonderful artist Vincent Van Gogh stated, “It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” Emile Zola, the French novelist, journalist, and play write was reported to have said, “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” We too are called to live our lives ‘out loud’ and to do this we must love largely.

Our challenge as Christians is to love humbly, to love others so that they feel that they are worthy. We are challenged to love because loving is never wasted. As we come to love also come to know that we are loved, that God loves each of us, as we are right now, not as the world tells us we need to be. So the world might tell us that we don’t measure up, that we don’t have enough, that we aren’t good enough, but our faith tell us that our love is always enough. When we love we emulate Christ who came to love everyone, not just the few, but everyone. To love, it is not easy to do in the world today, but it is what we are called to do and we are called to do it loudly. We are called to proclaim our love to the world, for our love needs to be for the world. So when it seems as if nothing is going right in your world, I invite you to remember that what we really need to do is to love and as Van Gogh said, when we love, everything that we do is done well.

Prayer

God of deep infinite love, we ask that you be with us as struggle through this thing called life. Help us to hear your call to love over the calls of the world. The calls of the world that tell us that we are not enough, that we are not worthy, that are lives are not worthy. Help us to recognize your love for us, just as we are, and then give us the courage to love others as we have been loved. We ask this in the name of Love Incarnate, your son, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - September 13, 2023

Scripture

Luke 4: 18 - 19

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.”

James 2: 14 - 17

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Reflection

I have been thinking this week about this thing that we do, this idea of church. I suppose in some ways that makes sense because of my ‘call’ to serve in the church. What is this thing that we do called church? So we come together to worship, to sing, to pray, and to be a part of a community of believers, but it really goes beyond that, doesn’t it? Or maybe is should go beyond that! Both of the scriptures speak to something deeply profound as they speak to actions that one is challenged to take, when they say that they are a believer. It is interesting as I have a colleague friend who believes that our faith must consist of everything that we do, once we say ‘I believe.’ In other words our faith should be reflected in everything we do, in every action that we take, rather than just the words that we use on a Sunday morning within the four walls of our church buildings. The scriptures are challenging us to move beyond mere words, in some ways they are challenging us to move beyond mere belief. I wonder, did Jesus ever want us to just believe, or was the point of Jesus’s coming to challenge us to action? Richard Rohr, the Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and spiritual guide, thinks of this idea in the following way, “Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an

established religion" (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s "personal Lord and Savior.” The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.” According to Rohr to be a Christian means that we embody Christ in our own lives and do, as Christ did, in the world. It is more than belief it is action and it is action that is sorely needed in today’s world. When we default to understanding our faith as only something that we are called to believe we don’t recognize the true power of faith. Yes, I believe that there is power in our faith, and even though that word has some negative connotations, I believe that it is in this power that we can make a difference. Going back to Richard Rohr, he speaks to this idea in the following way, “We worshiped Jesus instead of following him on his same path. We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God and everything else. This shift made us into a religion of 'belonging and believing’ instead of a religion of transformation.” When we begin to see that our faith is not only about what we believe, but rather it is a call for us to ‘do,’ we begin to see that our faith is actually one of transformation. Yes, we come together to worship, to pray, to sing, and be in community, but all of these should energize us to move out into the world and ‘do.’ Our faith is more than something that we believe, it is something that we are called to do each and every day of our lives and in living our faith we become people of transformation in a world that needs to be transformed in love, grace, mercy, compassion, peace, and forgiveness. It is our challenge and our call, to embody our faith in every thing that we do in our lives. Maybe it is work, but I can only imagine the type of world that might just emerge as we continue to “LIVE” our faith.

Prayer

God, who calls us to action, help us to hear your challenge to be more than people who believe, but rather people who act. Give us to courage to go out into the world to truly live our faith in all that we do. Give us the wisdom to know that you call us to more than just ‘believing and belonging,’ but rather you call us to do in the world today and every day. Open our hearts to your calls to action and help us to live out those calls, even in the midst of the challenges of the world. We ask this in the name of the one who came to show us the way, your son, Jesus. Amen.