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Scripture

Mark 9: 23 - 24

23 Jesus said to him, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”


Isaiah 41: 10

do not fear, for I am with you;    do not be afraid, for I am your God;I will strengthen you; I will help you;    I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.


Reflection

What does it mean to believe? I have been wondering about this for a while now. Does belief mean that doubt shouldn’t exist. The scripture from Mark is the end of an interaction between Jesus and the father of a sick boy. The father begs for healing for his son, and we see Jesus’ response. We spoke about this in bible study, but I believe it bears revisiting. In reading this it appears as if there might be a word missing between the “I believe” and “help my unbelief.” We could put the world “but” in between the two and I think that this is how many of us see our faith. There are times in our faith when we believe and then there are times when we don’t believe. So our belief and unbelief are diametrically opposed, opposite ends of the spectrum. Although I agree with this perspective, I wonder if it might be more accurate for us to actually put the word ‘yet’ between these two, so that it says, “I believe, yet help my unbelief!”


If we understand that both our belief and unbelief can, and do, exist together. I wonder if sometimes we are afraid of our unbelief. If we admit that we sometimes struggle with our belief than our faith is not strong. I think that if we feel as if our faith is not as strong as we think it should be, we become afraid. It is that fear that might cause us to hang tightly to how we understand our faith at any given moment. Yet, the reading from Isaiah assures us that there will be times of fear in our lives and it is at those times that God will strengthen us. Does that mean that God will strengthen us to remain where, and as, we are or will God strengthen us as our beliefs evolve, change, and grow?


But what if there is something about unbelief that is important to our faith. When we struggle with our faith, when we question, when we are unsettled, we might just be in the process of exploring our faith in a deeper, more fulfilling way. If this is the case then the opposite might just be true. When we are always comfortable in our faith, when we are certain in all of our beliefs, all the time, are moving deeper into our faith? The late Roman Catholic Archbishop, who was instrumental in the formation of liberation theology, Oscar Romero was quoted as saying, “A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone's skin, what kind of gospel is that? Preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed do not light up the world.”

To live in a state of both belief and unbelief allows our faith to challenge our own lives. My mother is fond of saying that the role of our faith is, “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” To afflict the comfortable is to know that unbelief is the process by which we expand the depth of our belief. To view scripture in a way that challenges our preconceived notions, that can challenge our belief and helps our faith grow. To see God in a new way, a way that expands what God means, that can challenge our belief and that helps our faith grow. To include those who have typically been excluded, that can challenge our belief and helps our faith grow. To exist within the bounds of both belief and unbelief can allow us to not be rigid in our beliefs so that our belief becomes that which evolves and grows. So I now offer to you this new version of a creed that might just challenge our faith in such a way that we continue to stretch, expand, and grow our faith.

Rev. Rachel Small Stokes offers us the following “Sparkle Creed”

I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural


I believe in Jesus Christ , their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads, and who saw everyone as a sibling child of God.


I believe in the rainbow Spirit, who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity.


I believe in the church of everyday saints, as numerous, creative, and resilient as patches on the AIDS quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in Wonder.


I believe in the calling to each of us, that love is love is love, so beloved, let us love.


I believe, glorious God. Help my unbelief. Amen.


Prayer

God, of Infinite Diversity, help us to see that belief and unbelief are not opposite, but rather coexist in our lives. Give us the courage to wade into place of unbelief, so that we might not become rigid in our faith, believing that we have all the answers. Give us the wisdom to find ways to explore our faith in a deeper, more authentic, way. Help us to know that faith sometimes brings us into uncomfortable places, and we question our faith, but also let us know that you are always there with us, throughout it all. We ask this all in name of Love Incarnate, your son, Jesus. Amen.

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bigredchurch

Scripture

Isaiah 54: 10

“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.


John 16: 26 - 27

In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.


Reflection

So I am going to date myself by offering to you the theme song to my favourite television shows to watch on a Saturday night as I was growing up…..”The Love Boat, soon will making another run/ The Love Boat promises something for everyone.” Okay so how many of you sung along in your head with those lyrics? Yes it was a sappy show where each week the Pacific Princess would be boarded by an eclectic group of individuals and by the end of the cruise there would be romance and love. I have been wondering if my exposure to these sorts of shows has led to my love of sappy romantic comedies. I suppose it is a possibility. I will be honest I grew up with a very idealized vision of love. I grew up thinking that love was this amazing wonderful thing that just happened to someone in their life. It was something that one fell into when that one special person came along. Well I am sure that like many of you, I have come to realize that that is not really what love is about.


The scriptures that I chose speak to God’s love for us, each one of us. It speaks of the depth of God’s love and it speaks to the permanent nature of God’s love, the steadfastness of God’s love. Yet, if we look through the Bible we will see so many examples of the people of God not really living into being the people of God. To be honest, if I were God I would struggle to love these people who seem so fascinated  with not doing what they know God wants of them. Yet, God continues to love them and continues to love us, even when we don’t truly follow what God wants from us and wants for our lives. This idea, which has been floating around in my brain, has caused me to really wonder about one of my mother’s favourite statements. That is “love is a decision that you make every day.” I have wondered about this, is love an emotion, or is love a decision? The answer, I think, is both. We each make a decision to be loving our lives and in doing so we begin to feel as sense of care, compassion, empathy, for another, feelings of love.


The challenge is that we live in a world where it seems as if that decision to love is only reserved for those who are close to us, the rest of the world, well they are not in family, circle of friend, close community, so do they really matter? The world, I think, is in a place of deep angst, where love is a rare commodity. I read something the other day that gives me hope, “As the world struggles to figure everything out, I’ll be holding doors for strangers, letting people cut in front of me in traffic, saying good morning, keeping babies entertained in grocery lines, stopping to talk to someone who’s lonely, tipping generously, sharing food, giving kids a thumbs-up, being patient with sales clerks, smiling at passerby, and buying a stranger a cup of coffee. Why? Because I refuse to live in a world where love is invisible. Be kind to a stranger, give grace to friends having a tough day, and be forgiving with yourself. Let’s make love visible, one small act at a time.” Each of these acts is decision and we make thousands of small decisions each and every day. If we remember to make the decision to love each day, then each of the following decisions is then see through the lens of love. What  world that might be. I wonder if that is the world that God had envisioned. When love becomes a decision, it the becomes more that what it might have been, it becomes more that just a warm feeling of care for another.


When we make the decision to love, then love moves from something that we feel, to something that we do. Love, when we make the decision to love, becomes and action. and it is a powerful action that can change not only our own live, but the world. Author A.R. Lucas has said, “We’ve been infected with the idea that love is an emotion only felt between two people. But love is universal. An energy. A contagious force. A gift. To offer money to a homeless person is to love. To smile at a stranger is love. To be grateful, to be hopeful, to be brave, to be forgiving, to be proud, is to love.” When we make the decision to love, our actions speak for us. These actions can then move out through the world as we show our care and compassion to all around us. It is our challenge as Christians, to love not just those who are close to us, but to show, to act in, love with all we meet. In doing so I believe that we begin kingdom work. That is the work to being the kingdom of God to our world now. We live in a world that truly needs love now, not the love of grandiose gestures, but the love of small acts of kindness, care, compassion, and love, that can truly change the world. So let us choose to love today.


Prayer

God of Love and Mercy, we ask that you give us the courage to choose love in a world were love seems scarce. We ask for the wisdom to know that love isn’t like the movies or books that we read, rather it is a decision that we make each and every day, sometimes many times a day. Help us to choose love and in doing so we become your people once again, people of love, compassion, mercy, grace, and forgiveness, we become the people that the world needs now. We ask all of this in the name of Love Incarnate, your son, Jesus. Amen.

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bigredchurch

Scripture

Mark 7 31 - 35

Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went by way of Sidon toward the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.


Reflection

I have often wondered about these healing stories, and in particular one’s such as this. I have a good friend/ministry colleague, whose first language was ASL as both his parents were deaf. If you were to tell him that deafness is something that needs to be healed, he would have a big problem with that, but in reality I do not believe that that is what this story is about. This story is more about the community than it is the deaf person. It is about the community focusing on another so that they don’t have to focus on themselves and what might need to be dealt with in their own lives. Where do I see this in this story? Firstly Jesus takes the deaf individual away from those who brought them to him and privately engages with this individual. Secondly, Jesus does not speak of demons, or healing, what Jesus does is to simply say, “Be opened.” Jesus doesn’t speak to deafness being healed, he just sighs and speaks, “Be opened.” To be open is to accept where we are in our lives and to be opened to what life might bring us and where we might end up. It is about being open to change in our lives, because sometimes healing is actually about change.


I remember when I was skating, all those years ago, my hometown did not have a heated and insulated arena. If it was 40 below outside, it was 40 below inside the arena. We would spend hours on the ice, and by the end of that time it was usual for me to not be able to feel my feet. Now the thing is, I knew that when I went in and took my skates off, in short order, my feet would begin to burn as they warmed up. It was going to hurt, and sometimes I wondered if maybe it would be better to not go in, but rather stay on the ice for a bit longer. Well, I usually went in and my feet would hurt and I would be okay. It was the fear of that pain that made me think that maybe it would be better to stay out on the ice, but I knew that that would not be good for me and for my feet. So I would bear the pain so that my feet warmed up, and I knew that that pain was best for myself and my feet. In some ways staying on the ice would be to refuse to see what I needed to do for myself, and focus on something else. I wonder if that is why the community brought forth that deaf person, because for them it was easier to focus on another, and what they saw as an issue, rather than face their own lives and what might need to be healed in their own lives.


Nadia Bolz-Weber, the American pastor, has said, “It can actually be more comfortable to allow parts of ourselves to die than to feel them have new life. Because sometimes healing feels more like death and resurrection than it feels like getting a warm cookie and a glass of milk.” I am wondering if to be healed has less to do with repairing something that others might see as wrong, and more about opening ourselves up. Jesus did not say to the deaf person; “hear,” rather he said to be open.  Once again Bolz-Weber says, “But Jesus says to us, be opened.  Open to knowing your own brokenness doesn’t need to be hidden behind someone else’s. Be open to the idea that you are stronger than you think. Be opened to the idea that you aren’t as strong as you think. Be opened to the fact that you may never get what you want and that you will actually be okay anyway. Be opened to the fact you are not what other people have said you are.” To allow ourselves to be open to what comes, to be open to becoming more, to be open to healing, even when that healing might be difficult, is what I believe Jesus means when he says to the man, “be opened!”


It is not always easy to be opened to all of who we are. It is not easy because that forces us to look at those places in ourselves where we might just need healing. It can be far easier for us to look at where others need healing, what others might need to work on in their own lives. But for us to be opened, means that we don’t shy away from those difficult places in our lives. It means that we are honest with ourselves and with each other about our struggles. It means that we hear Jesus’ voice asking us to be open so that we might just change and be healed, even when that healing feels more like a death than what we think healing should feel like. But when we do, we become more than we were and in being open, we can truly heal and continue to move forward. It is a a challenge, I wonder if that is what this life is all about.


Prayer

God of infinite challenges, give us the wisdom to see when we are focusing on another’s healing rather than looking at where we might need to be healed. Give us the courage to face our lives honestly and look at the difficulties and challenges, so that we might open our hearts to you and the call to be more than we are today. Give us the strength to go through those times of healing that feel less like healing and more like a death, knowing that you will always go with us. We ask this in the name of the one who says to each or us, “be opened,” your son, Jesus. Amen.

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