Wednesday Wondering - January 17 2024

Scripture

Jeremiah 29: 11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Ephesians 2: 10

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Reflection

Lately, I have found myself interested in my history, where did my family come from, who are we. I often like to say that I have fallen down the genealogy proverbial ‘rabbit hole.’ It has been fascinating to find out where parts of my family originated, but I have been wondering whether it really makes a difference. Yes, their experiences shaped our family, in some ways, but the reality is that I am here today as someone who recognized that I am a product of my past, but also uniquely created in this time and place. I have been wondering about who we have been created to be in the world?

In many ways we live in a world of conformity. We live in a world that seems to prefer consistency. Our education system is set up to teach in one way and if one learns in a different style, they may find that they struggle. We are constantly inundated with messages about what we need in our lives to be happy. We are encouraged to fit in and not stand out. We are challenged to be a part of the group, because that is where life is easiest. Yet for many of us that is not who we are, we don’t always fit in, and sometimes, we don’t want to fit in.

The scriptures from Jeremiah and Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, speak to the uniqueness of who we each were created to be. The verse from Jeremiah speaks to the understanding that each of us was created as individuals to hope, to prosper, to live full lives each day. It speaks to the knowledge that we were created as we are to be who we are. Paul’s letter to the church of Ephesus reinforces this understanding as it not only recognizes the uniqueness of each person, but it also challenges each of us to see the incredible potential that we have as those unique individuals.

This idea has not always been an easy one for me. I have often found myself feeling as if I don’t belong. There have been many times when I have felt that I don’t fit in and so I do my best to try to fit in. The challenge them becomes that I end up hiding who I truly am, so that I fit in with what the crowd, with what society says I should be, what I should do. We end up hiding that unique individual that were created to be in order to please others and in doing so we might just risk becoming all that we were truly created to be. It is a challenge in our world today. I came across a quote, there was no author listed, that speaks to the importance of being who we truly are, “Stop apologizing. You don’t have to be sorry for how you laugh, how you dress, how you make your hair, how you speak. You don’t have to be sorry for being yourself. Do it fearlessly. It’s time to accept, this is you, and you gotta spend the rest of your life with you. So start loving your sarcasm, your awkwardness, your weirdness, your unique sense of humour, your everything. It will make your life so much easier to simply be yourself.” To be oneself, to be who God created each of us to be, that is what I believe God wants from each and every one of us. God didn’t create us to all be the same. God created us to be unique individuals, with unique personalities, with unique and special gifts, that we can bring to our families, to our communities, and to the world. I have often wondered what it would be like if we were all the same, and I have come to realize that that would be one boring world to live in. So embrace the unique person that God created, celebrate the unique person that God created and I believe that we will then be able to accept the differences, the uniqueness, that is found in others.

Prayer

God of infinite diversity, help us to accept ourselves, as we were created, and to learn to live into the full potential of who we are in that uniqueness. Give us the courage to be who we were created to be. Give us the wisdom to know that as we accept ourselves it helps us to accept the uniqueness that is found in others. We know that you know who we truly are and that you have created us in such beautiful, wondrous, diversity. Give us the strength to live into that diversity with all that we have, with all that we are, and with all that we hope to be. We ask this in the name of God Incarnate, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - January 10, 2024

John 13: 34 - 35

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

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 wondering a lot lately about what makes one a Christian. It is what we believe that makes us a Christian? Is it a belief in God, however we might understand that, that makes us a Christian? It is believing in Jesus as the Son of God, that makes us Christian? Is it the fact that we go to church that makes us a Christian? As I thought about all of these questions, and trust me, my mind was wondering about all of these at the same time,  I read an article by a retired Methodist minister who was asked by someone, “Do you think that I am still a Christian?” This individual, who asked the question, had been raised in an evangelical faith and had drifted away when they were in university. They got married, had children, and decided that they wanted to give faith another try. When they returned to the denomination of their youth they realized that this evangelical faith no longer aligned with their belief system, so they looked at other denominations. In the process they examined what they really believed and what they no longer believed. The realized that they struggled with the understanding of God that they were raised with, it was an understanding of God as this all-powerful, all-knowing, puppet-master of a deity that existed somewhere in the sky. They also realized that they struggled to accept the divinity of Jesus. They saw Jesus as a man who came to change the world, a man who lived a life that challenged authority, but a man nonetheless. Yet, they also saw in Jesus a way of life that was worthy of examination, a life that we each might want to follow. So, they believed in following the man, but struggled to see that man as the Christ, the Divine Jesus. In examining their beliefs, this individual began to question where or not they could consider themselves to be a Christian, and so they reached out with this question. So I am now pondering a similar question, what makes us a Christian?

I believe that for many people, who call themselves Christians, they understand their Christianity, their faith, to be lived out in strict adherence to the the doctrines, theology, and creeds of their particular faith tradition. If you don’t adhere to the strict rules, doctrine, and creeds of your particular faith then you have no right to be called a Christian. This  is the historical understanding of what it means to be a Christian, it means to believe the ‘right’ things, to say the ‘right’ things, and in doing so we become part of a larger community. The question that I wonder about is, was this what Jesus envisioned?

The scripture that I picked speaks, not to belief, but to action. It does not speak to doctrine or to creeds, but rather it speaks to what we are called to do in the world. Jesus when he called his disciples did not call them to come and learn the doctrine that he would teach, Jesus called them simply to ‘follow me.’ Jesus didn’t come to start a religion, Jesus was and continued to be Jewish, rather Jesus came to show a new way to live. A way to live so that the Kingdom of God might be born in the here and now. I believe that the early Christians understood this idea as they followed Jesus and lived by his example. Jesus spoke that he didn’t come to abolish the law, no, he came to fulfill the law. What this meant was the Jesus came to show that it was not strict adherence to the law that was important for worshipping God, it was understanding the intent of the law, to live in community, that was what was most important. Jesus taught that to live in the Kingdom of God, one must seek justice, care for the poor, the marginalized, the lost, the lonely, the downtrodden, and the sick. To live in the Kingdom of God, one must live a life of compassion, care, mercy, forgiveness, and love. Jesus did not ask his followers to believe in anything other than the coming of God’s kingdom, but to bring that kingdom one must follow Jesus, one must live as Jesus lived. So what then make us Christian?

What we do matters. What we believe matters too, because that impacts what we do. Yet, it is in what we do that truly makes us followers of Jesus, Christians. It is truly following Jesus, living in love in a world where love is difficult to find. It is living in forgiveness, in a world where forgiveness is not often given. It is living with compassion, in a world where we are taught that it is all about ‘me!’ It is not in forcing ourselves and others into strict adherence to doctrine, creed, rules, and regulations, that proves that one is Christian. I truly believe that it is in loving as Jesus loved, caring as Jesus cared, and accepting as Jesus accepted. What we do, that truly matters. We have been blessed to find a community where we can live this out with each other every day and that matters. To live in a community of followers, a community who encourage, support, and challenge one anther as we continually learn what it means to follow Jesus, whether we believe him divine or not, that, for me, is a real Christian community.

Prayer

God of Infinite Understanding, we ask the you continue to guide us in the way of Jesus. Help is to see that it is what we do, not the creeds or doctrines that we adhere to, that makes us truly followers. Give us the courage and the wisdom to continue to follow even though we know that this can be difficult on our world today. Open our hearts to continue to see the life of Jesus as an example of a life well-lived, a life that we can also live each day. We ask this in the name of the one who came to show us the way, Jesus. Amen.

Wednesday Wondering - January 3, 2024

Scripture

Psalm 30: 5

“Weeping may linger for the night,    but joy comes with the morning.”

John 16: 20

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”

2 Corinthians 6: 10

“As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

Reflection

I have been wondering lately about this world in which we live and our experiences of it. We are living in the midst of deep fundamental struggles in the world. We live with war, violence, anger, separation, marginalization, and a whole host of other issues. There is homelessness, poverty, environmental destruction, climate change, it seems as if no matter where we turn there are challenges.

Living in the midst of all of this it might be challenging for us to find hope, joy. happiness, laughter, but as Christians we have to believe that there is something more. But I think that in looking for that something more, we might just miss something important. The readings I chose speak to the idea of sorrow and rejoicing existing together, that there is weeping and lament, but there is also rejoicing, that sadness may come but joy will also be present. We are not simple beings, we are complex, emotional individuals, and we are sometimes contradictory in how we feel. The challenge is to recognize that that is okay. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, the American poet, offers this poem for us to consider:

I want a word the means

okay and not okay,

more than that: a word the means

devastated and stunned with joy.

I want the word that says

I feel it all all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird

singing only one note at a time,

more like a Tuvan throat singer

able to sing both a drone

and simultaneously

two or three harmonics high above it -

a sound, the Tuvans say,

that gives the impression

 of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands swirl,

how the churning of opposite feelings

weaves through us like an insistent breeze

leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,

blesses us with paradox

so we might walk more openly

into this world so rife with devastation,

this world so ripe with joy.

Our world is full of paradox. We have the devastation of so much that is happening and we have the beauty of creation and those whom we know that exude peace and love. Our lives are full of paradox as we love, laugh, grieve, cry, sometimes at the same time. To be human is to exist in the midst of this paradox, remembering that even in the midst of pain and suffering, sadness and grief, there can be joy, laughter, and happiness. Sometimes, as the poem states, we feel it all at once and I believe that that is okay. Yet, our scriptures remind us of something important. The scripture passages remind us that God is with us through it all, that the presence of God will be there when we cry, when we lament, when we rage, when we laugh, when we sing, when we smile, always.

In the midst of all of the paradox, in the midst of all of the contradiction, that life throws at us, God is with us. We have a hymn in our More Voices hymn book which has the line, “Spirit open my heart to the pain and joy of living/As you love may I love, in receiving and in giving/ Spirit open my heart” In the midst of all of the challenges that the world bring to us, may we open our heart to the presence of God with us. May we love as God loves us. May we find those moments of joy, peace, and love, in the midst of everything challenging in our lives. I pray that each of us can live into the paradox of being fully human with all that that entails.

Prayer

God of all experiences, may we have the courage to live within the paradox, the contradictions, of our lives and the world. We ask for your guidance and presence when the world seems overwhelming, that we might find you and your joy in the midst of the challenges, and sadness, of life. Help us to open our hearts to you at each moment, when we are happy and joyful, and when we are sad and lamenting. May we find you in every moment, offering your gentle assurance, your gentle presence, your gentle love, as we navigate what it truly means to be human. We ask this in the name of Love Incarnate, God With Us, your son, Jesus. Amen.