A Very Fond Farewell, and Amen!: my By the Way Column in Today’s Medicine Hat News

Jesus brought us to St Barnabas Anglican Church, Medicine Hat, almost twenty years ago. Our first Sunday was 18 April 1999. And now we're about to embark on another stage in our journey as we move to Regina at the end of the month. It will be the tenth move since we were married. Another shaker. We feel a bit rattled, excited and sad all at once. Our Medicine Hat sojourn is the longest stretch we've ever lived in one place. We’ve come to appreciate the stability and sense of security. What a blessing it's been! As we go I’d like to leave some words of appreciation and gratitude with you. 

First, to the wonderful St Barnabas saints who I got to serve for fifteen years as Priest and Pastor. We've continued to enjoy worshipping with you since I joined you in the pews when I retired in 2014. From that Meet the New Pastor gathering in 1999 and my amazement when Hazel Woolven, a tiny saint, put her hand on my arm and told me she’d been a member of St Barnabas for seventy years!—and on through all the joys and sorrows of the sweet-spirited journey sharing in Christian community that followed—I thank you all in The Name of the LORD! A Word for you (and for every other citizen of this fair city) from Jesus: the Father himself loves you! (John 16.27) There’s more there. Look it up. 

To my many colleagues in ministry from across the full spectrum of theology and church-person-ship—from the wild-eyed charismatics, and the more sober evangelicals to my fellow mainliners—I've enjoyed your differences and serving with you all in both the Medicine Hat and District Ministerial Association and the Medicine Hat Evangelical Association (I even got to be President of the Evangelical Association for several years, which was a great irony since I couldn’t have been a member in some of your churches because I haven’t been baptised in enough water!). A Word for you all and I believe it is from The LORD: do not neglect to meet together to encourage one another (Heb 10.25). This gives the relationships among you the precious time they need to grow. Jesus inhabits good relationships and gives life through them. 

Finally, to all Medicine Hat folk who have been so hospitable, generous and kind. Thank you. As we go I pray this classical Anglican Prayer Book blessing over you all: 

THE peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always. Amen.

And Amen. Jesus loves you!

Gene+

What if the whole world lived according to God’s Holy law?—my By the Way column in today’s Medicine Hat News

It’s wedding season and I got to preside at one the weekend before last (see previous post). I love weddings. I get a wonderful close up view of the bride and groom as they make their vows while all the hope, joy, love, nervousness and vulnerability involved plays across their faces. It’s lovely. And a full church always feels good. 

I also love the rich symbolism in the profound commitment the couple are making—the solemn vows, the joining of hands, the giving and receiving of rings—all in the presence of Jesus Christ, the great Bridegroom. The gravity is fitting since, in fact, marriage was instituted as an integral part of all creation in the second chapter of the whole Bible. It is something for which the world was made, just as novelist EM Forster so aptly put it. Marriage also continues to serve as a key component of God’s grand ongoing Salvation narrative through Jesus Christ who is the archetypal Bridegroom, united with his Bride, the Church. 

So it’s no wonder that when the bride and groom promise to love, comfort, honour and protect each other, forsaking all others and make their mutual solemn vows to have and to hold, for better, for worse, and so on, for the rest of their lives, that they do so “according to God’s holy law.” It’s easy to breeze past those words as we enjoy the occasion and warm feelings associated with our affection for the couple and their love for each other. But if marriage is something for which the world was made and is, as the Anglican rite says, a gift of God and a means of his grace which represents and points to the spiritual unity between Christ and his Church, then there will be holiness and definite parameters involved. 

What is God’s holy law? The Ten Commandments is a good place to start (look them up: see Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). Not a bad formula for a good, long, fruitful, life-giving marriage (or friendship, or business, or any other relationship): let the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be your God, no idols, do not misuse God’s name, keep the Sabbath as a family day, honour your folks the way you’d like your kids to honour you, no murder or adultery, or stealing, no lying or false tales and no coveting, especially your neighbour’s, or anyone else’s, husband or wife. 

Think about it. What would be the effect on marriage and family life if we lived according to those ten clear and simple standards? What would be the effect on our whole society and culture if we all just lived “according to God’s holy law”? There would be much less harm, betrayal, grief and mayhem in the world and in our families for one thing. I’d like to think the churches would be joyfully full, too, and not just for funerals and weddings. 😊

On the Medicine Hat News site here.

Gene+

On Not Seeing Yet Believing: today’s By the Way column in the Medicine Hat News

Bright Week is what the Orthodox Church calls the week after Easter. This week is Bright Week for us. What a lovely name! Last weekend the Risen Jesus beamed himself through a locked door to stand among his fearful disciples, showed them his wounds and they “rejoiced” (John 20.19-20). No kidding! Can you imagine? Talk about supernatural and radical rearrangement of paradigms! But Thomas missed it. When the other disciples told him about Jesus’ visit, he didn’t believe them and said he wouldn’t believe unless he got to see Jesus himself and touch his wounds (John 20.24-25). 

A week later Jesus beamed his Risen self through a locked door again so Thomas could see him and touch his wounds. Thomas then made one of the most important defining statements in the Bible about who Jesus really is when he said, “My Lord and my God! (John 20.28). Seeing must be believing. 

You might think that story and that statement by one who is probably the most famous doubter in history would have settled everything. Everyone would have been convinced and believed from then on. Highways, byways, cities, towns and villages would all empty into the Churches at least every Sunday morning to celebrate and to bear witness to God’s defining, eternal life giving and loving act: the Resurrection from the dead of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

But that’s not the way things turned out. During the original Bright Week not only was there astonishment, rejoicing, great joy, burning hearts, minds opened to the Scriptures, heart-felt worship and the receiving of the Holy Spirit, but there was also bribery, doubt, fear, disbelief, weeping, and people weren’t able to recognize Jesus (Mt 28, Mk 16, Lk 24, Jn 20-21). All of which continues to this day.

“Have you believed because you have seen me?” Jesus asked Thomas. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe (John 20.29). That’s most of us who have come to believe today; people who have not seen like Thomas did and yet who have struggled to faith through adversities, temptations and the sin that clings so closely. After all, “Those who believe they believe in God,” wrote Spanish Basque author and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, “but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainly, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.” 

Coming to believe in all the fullness and resurrection glory of God in Jesus Christ is worth the effort. May your blessings be bright, indeed!

Gene+

Good News! Help is On the Way—Today’s By the Way column for the Medicine Hat News

Kim Jong Un has just claimed “nuclear completion,” whatever that means, after North Korea tested its latest missile. Today’s equivalent of sabres continue to be noisily rattled and brandished around the globe. Women and children continue to be victimized, trafficked and abused on an industrial scale. Thousands die trying to cross the Mediterranean to find a better life. Another celebrity’s head has just rolled for “inappropriate sexual behaviour,” Matt Lauer at NBC this time. The gaunt spectre of starvation hangs over too many human beings. Despite the best intentions of good-hearted people, much of our world remains lost and weary. 

We need help. The good news is, help is on its way. 

Tomorrow is the First Sunday in Advent, the first of the four Sundays in the liturgical church calendar, reminding us that Jesus is coming again in great glory one day and to wake up and make sure we’re ready when he does. O yes, and to prepare our hearts for another merrily holy Christmas while we’re waiting. Hope, faith, joy and peace are the four bright, hopeful themes to set us up for that. 

Christianity, however, is about real people living real lives in a real world. So it is not surprising that there is another set of Advent themes to go with them—the Four Last Things; death, judgement, heaven and hell—which reflect the more sobering realities I listed above

Those themes are not just religious pessimism, darkness and gloom. They are real. We all experience them. Death comes to us all, anywhere from the moment of conception to ripe old age. Advent helps us to be ready for it. We all consider certain people (other than ourselves) are deserving of a healthy dose of God’s judgement. In the meantime, we do a pretty good job of judging one another—even, I’m ashamed to admit, in the church. Wouldn’t hurt to let Advent help to avoid that, too. Hell? Surely a loving God couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Yet, Jesus spoke of it often. While we wait, there is such a thing as hell on earth. Far too many people experience it. Even in Canadian homes. Advent helps us avoid going there. Heaven? Sounds good. Certainly better than the alternative. Worth making the Advent effort to be ready to go there when the time comes. 

Just as they all go together in a real Advent—hope, death, faith, judgement, joy, heaven, peace and hell—so they go together in a real life. That’s why the Advent journey through history and Scripture to a Saviour is so valuable. It reminds us of the Advent, presence and eventual return of someone with the power to both save us from those dark realities and fill us with peace and joy of heaven itself. Jesus. 

Push-Bike Pastoring: Today's By The Way Column for The Medicine Hat News

We recently watched the first series of the BBC's new and excellent production based on GK Chesterton's Father Brown ecclesiastical mystery novels. We borrowed the DVD set from the Medicine Hat Public Library; one of hundreds of television series and movies available for borrowing for no more than the $5 annual library membership fee. What a deal! We figure we'll subscribe to Netflix when we run out of the library DVDs which, so far, doesn't look to happen any time soon. But I digress…

Watching Father Brown pedalling around his impossibly picturesque English village, black cassock flapping in the breeze of his passing, looked pretty good to me. No church growth strategies in those days (early '50s), just looking after his flock and celebrating Mass. Nothing but plain, old fashioned cure of souls.

I felt a bit of a pang about my days as an Anglican parish priest because of Father Brown. I find myself wishing I'd done more of that plain old fashioned push-bike pastoring; more "non-productive" time spent with ordinary folk just hanging out, listening, praying, drinking coffee (or even the occasional scotch), with no real measurable growth in mind, no getting things done; just being present through the mostly unmeasurable, slow, relational, often maddeningly imperceptible, process of folks working out their relationships with Jesus. I wish I had spent more time just pedalling beside them without worrying so much about how fast, or slow, we were going.

Envy is a sin, I know, but it's pretty close to what I felt as I watched Father Brown pedal hither and yon. I envied the fictitious Father and the days when Christianity was part of the warp and woof of everyday life, when priests and pastors were respected (or is that a fiction, too?), when pastoring was not about goals and objectives, in a place where you could pedal between visits, cassock flowing.

Except for the murders, of course. I don't envy Father Brown that. I've only ever had to preside at the funeral of one murder victim. A hard thing. And I had nothing whatsoever to do with the solving of that murder. O, and full disclosure, I should also mention (admit?) that the murder in the first episode takes place in the local Anglican church!

Sigh.

Gene+

I Vote for Jesus: By the Way column for The Medicine Hat News

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13.8)

 

Just so, when the "impossible" happened and the world shifted on Election Day last Tuesday with Donald J Trump becoming the United States' President Elect, Jesus remained the same. When all manner of kingdoms, republics and empires have risen and fallen through history Jesus was the same. Despite all attempts to reinterpret his teaching, appropriate him as a political ally, or to stamp him, his church and teaching out of the public sphere, Jesus and his Church remains. More of the same.

I didn't enjoy the campaign. Not many did. Nasty. Character assassination was its defining theme. There was very little God or neighbour loving language. Our last federal election was not much better. Now the same pundits and pollsters who, from the primaries all the way to Election Day, consistently predicted Hillary Clinton's success and Donald Trump's failure are predicting dark things in the future. Their lack of accuracy before the election does not bode well for their post-election predictions. I take it all with a substantial grain of salt. Instead, rather than succumbing to fear, dark thoughts and despondency, I will generously apply the kind of salt and light which comes from never changing, totally reliable Jesus. That which makes my life and future tasty and bright will be a blessing to those with whom I live and move and have my being whatever their political stripe.

"Democracy is the worst form of Government," said Winston Churchill in Parliament in 1947, "except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" The trouble is there are winners and losers and fifty percent plus one of the people can get to tell the others what to do. There always seem to be irregularities, angry, hurtful words, belligerence and  sometimes even war—the terrible cost of which we remembered yesterday.

A recent Tweet reminded me that Christians worship and follow One who lost the only "democratic vote" in the New Testament to the criminal Barrabas. That loss was painful, too. Nasty and deadly. There were falsehoods and character assassination then, too. Jesus was unjustly condemned to death and executed by the political powers of his day. Yet they are gone and he remains—the same as ever.

Salty, light filled, active faith in Jesus who is the same last Tuesday, yesterday, today and forever is the best thing to carry us safely through nastiness, character assassination, elections, winning, losing and regime changes.

I vote for more of the same—Jesus.

Gene+

Faster, Higher, Stronger

This is my By the Way column for The Medicine Hat News today. 

Tomorrow the Games of the XXXI Olympiad will draw to their close in Rio de Janeiro. There have been some wonderful, heart warming surprises as Canadian athletes of which many of us hadn’t even heard before amazed and delighted us all with their grace, achievements, and medal winnings.  There were disappointments, too, and the usual dark media mutterings about venues not being ready on time, doping scandals, corruption and financial struggles that precede every Olympiad.

Faster, Higher, Stronger is the Olympic motto. It's exciting to watch dedicated, highly motivated, finely tuned athletes pushing the limits of human speed, height and strength.

I wonder if Faster, Higher, Stronger could also be a helpful call to the Christian Church. On one level it is. Being quicker with acts of kindness would be good. The Bible encourages us to set our minds on higher things (Colossians 3:2) and to be strong in the faith (Joshua 1:9). As one of our Anglican General Thanksgiving Prayers goes, “We thank you for setting us tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us. We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone” (The Book of Alternative Services, p129). Our spiritual muscles are strengthened when we engage in spiritual exercise to overcome life’s obstacles.

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” the Bible says (Hebrews 12:1). Does running with endurance always mean running faster, higher, stronger? Not unless that is what “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2) means. Running with his kind of endurance seems to me to be more about slower, deeper and a different kind of stronger—slow, deep worship, prayer, Bible reading and relationship building. There may be the occasional sprint, leap and feat of strength, but endurance is for the long haul—eternity.

Running with Jesus endurance will be like the Olympics in some ways. There will be wonderful, heart warming surprises along the way and we’ll meet and run with people who amaze and delight us with their grace and achievements. There will also be disappointments, darkness and cheats. The podium prize will be a robe (Rev 7:9) rather than a medal and eternal life with Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith who showed us The Way by running before us so well.

Gene+

It's Good to be Green: By the Way column for The Medicine Hat News

In The Medicine Hat News here. 

Being green is seen as a great social and environmental virtue these days. Being green, as is often claimed, lessens the effects of global warming—it is a cooling agent. Not only that, being green is now associated with being smart if some websites are any indication—gogreensmart, greenandsmart, smartandgreen—for example. Green is good and to be encouraged.

Being green is good in church land, too. Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday. From now on the year goes green for those of us who worship in liturgical colour according to the Church calendar. I know many folk are uncomfortable with the practice—spirit of religion and all that—but, as a visual person, I really appreciate it. Worship and surroundings are in technicolour. It’s like a map. I can see where I am and it keeps me on track.

Green is for the season we Anglicans call the time after Pentecost (according to the contemporary Canadian calendar), or Ordinary Time (according our mother Church of England and our grandmother Roman Catholic Church). This year it runs for twenty-six Sundays until Advent Sunday November 27th.

The focus through the different colours and seasons of Advent (purple or blue), Christmas (white), Epiphany (green), Lent (purple) and Easter (white) each year is all about Jesus—his advent, birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection and ascension.

How I can best respond to the wonder of all that as a worshipper and disciple is the focus of the long green season just begun. Ordinary people like me learn how to become spiritually green and a better follower of Jesus. Green is good, but not necessarily easy.

“It’s not easy being green.” sang Kermit the Frog. “Having to spend each day the colour of leaves. It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things. And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water—or stars in the sky.”

Being spiritually green is not flashy or sparkly. Some might say it’s monotonous—pretty ordinary and repetitive, actually. But so are my excuses and I need to be reminded of the things I’d rather avoid—repeatedly. Besides, repetition can be good. I keep kissing my wife, for example. Once wasn’t enough. It is worth repeating. Besides, I enjoy it. And I keep practising my guitar playing. The more I practice the better I get at it. Just so with being green in Scripture and worship for half the year.

The fact is our world needs some spiritual climate change. Going greener in our Jesus following and worship is a good way to bring about global warming in a good way.

Gene+

…and Yet.

Yesterday's By the Way column:

Tomorrow, Holy Week begins with the Sunday of the Passion, or Palm Sunday. After that there are only six more days in Lent—six more days of Holy Lent observing self examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and reading and meditating on the Word of God—only half a dozen more chocolate shopping days until Easter when Resurrection revelry begins.

Instead of giving something up for Lent this year, I took something on. I decided I needed to write a brief blog post reflection on my Lenten prayers and reading for each of the forty days of Lent. I called it Leaning Into Lent. Today is my thirty-fourth day of leaning.

Last Wednesday evening at the Medicine Hat and District Ministerial Association’s Wednesday evening Ecumenical Lenten worship service I heard the word that explained why the aforementioned Lenten spiritual disciplines are so important, and, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, why I felt impelled to write forty blog posts on the subject. Pastor Jeff Decelle of Unity Lutheran Church expounded on it in his excellent homily referring to this passage:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord. (Habakkuk 3:17–18 ESV)

The word is “yet.” “What a wonderful word,” said Pastor Jeff, “a word of faith, a word that gives space for God to do something new, trusting that God still has something up his sleeve for his people, that no matter how hopeless it seems, God will act!”

Though I can’t get my mind around the magnitude of the sheer, seemingly unsolvable, migrant crisis in Europe, for example, yet I can rejoice in the Lord and the faithful, generous folk in Medicine Hat he raised up to welcome and help immigrant families find a home here. Though the church is full of unreliable hypocrites and sinners (of which I am, if not the foremost, somewhere well up in the ranks), yet I will rejoice in the mess because it is the Lord’s own mess in which I belong. Though I haven’t the wisdom, the strength or the influence to set a fair and equitable oil price, a royalty rate, solve the climate change problem, bring peace where there is war, replace another hundred jobs in Medicine Hat or make women and girls safe—the list is endless—yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

Pastor Jeff is right. Yet is something to lean on. A small word, yet with considerable divine heft. I’m going to remember it for the rest of Lent and, especially, on Easter morning, when though crucified, dead and buried, yet Jesus is risen and alive!

Gene+

Promises, Promises!—"By the Way" column for The Medicine Hat News

Today's By the Way column for The Medicine Hat News…

We’re sixteen days into a brand new year and promises are on my mind; good ones and ones that don’t seem all that, well, promising!

For example, recently National Post columnist Michael Den Tandt caught my attention when he wrote that there is a “demoralizing cascade of broken promises that follows every election of every political party ever.” After each election there is a “rush headlong into the concrete pylon of reality on file after file” which always results in new governments having to “manage down expectations” (“Let’s make this promise — no more campaign promises,” 5 January 2016). I’ve run into a few concrete pylons of reality myself and had to manage some expectations down in my time. That can be demoralizing.

On the other hand, one morning recently the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer in Daily  Prayer for Epiphany Season also caught my eye. “Believing the promises of God,” it read, “as our Saviour taught us, so we pray…” Do I really believe God’s promises, I wondered? Or do concrete pylons of reality in my life demoralize and have me managing my expectations of God down?

The older I get, the more I’m convinced that God’s promises begin and end with Jesus Christ. Jesus is where my belief and expectations must begin and end, too. He is God’s long foretold and best promise, kept.

But what about the promises God has yet to keep? It seems we’ve been waiting a long time for Jesus to come again, for all those swords to be turned into ploughshares (Micah 4.3), and lions to lie down with the lambs (Isa 11.6). Does the long wait and the concrete reality pylons of ISIS atrocities, unemployment, missing and murdered women, broken families, human trafficking—the list goes on—mean I have to manage my expectations of God down?

I think not. God is not a politician. God’s time zone is different from mine. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, wrote Peter, and a thousand years as one day. So although I have been waiting for what seems to me to be a long time and may have to wait a long time yet, that does not mean God’s promises are broken. Rather, God is patiently and mercifully allowing time enough for all to reach repentance and not perish (2 Peter 3.8-9) by rushing headlong into the eternal concrete pylon of reality.

The good news is, when the time is right, all God’s promises will find their yes in Jesus (2 Cor 1.20).

Praying for the Government

In today's Medicine Hat News…

After a marathon campaign, big wins and losses in election results that surprised most of us, and the formal transition of power over the last few days, you'll be reading this on the first Saturday under the new Liberal regime. Tomorrow, of course, will the first Sunday. Although our government has changed, what we Christians are called to do as Canadian citizens has not. We continue to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, we continue to be witnesses of the Resurrection, we continue to love and serve our neighbours (whatever their politics) and we continue to pray. In particular, we continue to pray for our government and our elected representatives locally, provincially and federally, whether we voted for them or not.

The Apostle Paul urged "that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. " (1Ti2.1-2) That's a good thing to do any day, especially the Sunday after a government change. I think it's worth praying for peaceful, quiet, Godly and dignified lives for all Canadians. I can pray for that whole-heartedly no matter what the government's political stripe and whether I agree with them, or not.

I think the Canadian Anglican Book of Common Prayer put's it well in A Prayer for the Queen and the Commonwealth. "ALMIGHTY God, the fountain of all good-
 ness, we humbly beseech thee to bless our Sovereign Lady, Queen ELIZABETH, the Parliaments of the Commonwealth, and all who are set in authority under her (and I include ours and our provincial and municipal governments here); that they may order all things in wisdom, righteousness, and peace, to the honour of thy holy Name, and the good of thy Church and people; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen." (p12)

Such prayers stimulate the activity of the Holy Spirit in the decision-making and actions of our new government. With God's good Spirit involved, things are much more likely to be ordered in wisdom, righteousness and peace, to the honour of God's holy Name and the good of his Church and people. When that happens everyone wins.

You Get the Stars Thrown In: By the Way for the Medicine Hat News

This November I get to join a very talented and lively intergenerational group of Hatters in Medicine Hat Firehall Theatre’s production of Mary Poppins. I’ve never seen a stage production of it. Like most people I saw the Julie Andrews movie aeons ago. It would be easy to think of it as a rather frothy, frivolous tale if wasn’t for the more recent 2013 movie Saving Mr Banks starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson which includes something of the story of Mary Poppins author PL Travers’ complicated and sad relationship with her own father.

Also, as I’ve burrowed into the script to ready myself for rehearsals, underneath the fun and fantasy I’ve discovered a rather moving story of delivery from a repressed, joyless past, thwarted dreams and cold, calculating materialism to new life-giving relationships as Mr Banks rediscovers what really matters in life, especially Winifred, his wife, and Jane and Michael, their children.

These words from the finale capture something of Mr Banks’ transformation and resonate for me in my own life and as a follower of Jesus: “If you reach for the stars, all you get are the stars, but…If you reach for the heavens, you get the stars thrown in.”

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College and a noted Catholic apologist and philosopher, once wrote: “In an age of hope men and women looked up at the night sky and saw “the heavens." In an age of hopelessness they call it simply “space.” What was once the heavens inhabited by God and the Angels is, for many, now simply space; full of stars, even fascinating, but an endless, lifeless vacuum. That to which humanity once looked for direction; the Magi, for instance, who followed a star to the Christ Child; is now just space.

When the heavens become simply space in those areas of our lives where we most need hope and guidance, we are the poorer for it. In Mary Poppins Mr Banks is delivered from his joyless, cold, hopeless space full of nothing but numbers when he learns to reach for a hope-filled heavens where he can learn to love his family again.

Jesus entered the world’s stage to do the same for you and me. He came to re-enchant our world and deliver us from the hopelessness, sin and death of simply space. Jesus is the way to reach for the rich, hope-filled Heavenly joys of loving relationships with God and one another—and we get the stars thrown in.

(Mary Poppins runs November 20, 21, 26, 27 and 28th at the Esplanade. Tickets are on sale now.)

The Sweet Light of Summer: a By the Way column for the Medicine Hat News

Summer is almost upon us. The days are getting longer. “Light is sweet,” wrote “The Preacher” in Ecclesiastes, “and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.” (Ecc 11.7) Pleasant, indeed. There is lots to look at and enjoy; the fresh green of new growth, bright blooms, holiday views that stir and delight.

“The eye is the lamp of the body,” said Jesus. “So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” (Mt 6.22) Shakespeare must have been thinking along the same lines when he wrote, "The eyes are the windows to the soul." Those windows are what let that sweet light in. What I look at and where must be important. It will affect the light level in my soul.

It follows, therefore, that Jesus, the Light of the World, is The One to whom I must first look for the best way to keep my eyes healthy and my soul full of light. Where did he turn his eyes? He lifted them to heaven. Often. Jesus looked to heaven when he prayed the blessing over the loaves and fishes that miraculously fed the five thousand. It's where he looked just before he called Lazarus out of his tomb alive again. Heaven is also where he looked to find inspiration for his great high priestly prayer for us in John 17. 

Why did Jesus look to heaven? Because it's where his Father's house is, the one with the many rooms which he has gone ahead to prepare for us, and because it's where God, the Angels and all the heavenly host are. I must do it, too, because of that and because it lets the light in. The very best place for looking to heaven with Jesus is at weekly worship in my local church community. Private prayer, reading and meditating on the Scriptures, tithing faithfully, making offerings generously and serving those in need also let sweet heavenly light into my body and soul very nicely. They will for you, too. 

If, on the other hand, my eye is bad, says Jesus, my “whole body will be full of darkness.” (Mt 6.23) Great darkness. Bad eyes mean dirty soul windows. Dirty windows make it hard for me to see where I’m going spiritually and morally or, more to the point, where I should be going. So I need to keep my eyes healthy and my windows clean. So do you. Here’s how. I take care with what I watch, read, look at and click on because I know that there are things out there which are a “delight to the eyes” (Gen 3.6) and which are waiting for a look from me to enable dark downloads through my windows and into my soul. They’re waiting for a look from you, too. 

It’s almost summer. Light is sweet, especially when I keep lifting my eyes to heaven. Like Jesus. 

On Being April Fools in Holy Week

April Fool’s Day falls in Holy Week this year. Next Wednesday. The day before the great Triduum of the church year—The Three Days—which begin with the evening Foot Washing and Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday, Holy Saturday and to Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday. It’s the pinnacle of the church year when Advent’s hope and expectation, Christmas’ wonders, Epiphany’s lights, Lenten and Holy Week sombreness finally deliver us, amazed, relieved and joyful, to the Resurrected Jesus Christ.

That April Fool’s Day is the day before is fitting because the word of the cross can, indeed, seem to be folly in so many ways, foolish and something to stumble over (1 Corinthians 1.18-25). Rotten, tragic, undeserved things continue to happen to people. God can seem so silent. Many of my prayers don’t seem to be answered in any way I can perceive.

And yet. Easter comes.

April Fool’s Day fell on Good Friday in 1988. A week before that my mother was healed of arthritis. It happened when I, a relatively new Christian and Anglican at the time, wrote a letter to my father, a Presbyterian, suggesting that he have the Anglican Vicar in the town in which Mum’s hospital was, go and pray for her. Not long afterwards I received a letter from my mother:

…the Vicar of Rotorua came the Friday before Good Friday about tea time on what had been one of my worst days. That morning I hadn’t been able to move without assistance—something I had feared so I was at an absolute low. He came and wheeled me down to our quiet room here at Queen Elizabeth and there in that lovely peaceful place he anointed me and after having had a short and moving little service with me reading the responses. I can’t describe the wonderful feeling of certainty and peace and knowing God’s presence. That feeling stayed with me for days—I slept that night as I hadn’t done for ages and the next morning I woke feeling so much better and since then I have had a steady improvement—so much so that I go home this Friday. I still have difficulty walking and will need a wheel chair for a while but I do better every day—and “I FEEL GOOD”—praise God. The aches and pains are under control—I’m so happy.

My mother was not an Anglican. The “little service” would have been strange to her. She was not healed completely, some pain and mobility issues continued, but she was healed enough so that she was soon playing the organ again at church and was able to dance at my brother’s wedding in 1989. It’s easy to think it foolish to expect such a healing at all, let alone when strangers are involved across denominations and so many miles. We all shared her happiness. We were amazed, relieved and joyful. It also happened to be the year my family and I went off to seminary.

And yet. Easter comes.

Reflections on a Visit to Auschwitz and Islamic Extremism—my By the Way Column in the Medicine Hat News

Last Tuesday was the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi death-camp. I visited it in 2006. I really didn’t want to, but I felt I couldn’t just slide on by. I needed to honour the victims by allowing myself to be a witness. I was stunned by the sense of methodical, orderly death-dealing on such an industrial scale. Just outside the fence was the comfortable home in which the camp commandant and his wife raised their children. What kind of switch has to be thrown in human minds and hearts to make that possible? I couldn’t get my mind around it. All I could do was shake my head and wonder at the enormity of the human capacity for evil. It was a quiet bus ride back to our lodgings.

Seventy years later and the news is now filled with accounts of brutal violence done by Islamic extremist groups such as ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and by individuals in Sydney, here in Canada, and in Paris.

I didn’t want to write about this, really, but the atrocities above make me feel like I did when a difficult or disturbing passage came up in the Sunday readings. I had to resist the temptation to ignore it and slide on by to easier, less volatile matters. Instead I felt obliged to engage honestly with whatever it was and to try and figure out a faithful response for followers of Jesus.

The fact is that religion looms over all the above and I represent one of the religions involved. I feel sad and angry about what has happened and is happening. I worry about what my grandchildren may have to face. How shall I respond in faith?

I must begin with Jesus, the One I follow and serve, himself a victim of political and religious oppression. He made many challenging statements about how we Christians are to live with conflict and abuse. For example, he said he came not to bring peace, but a sword (Mt 10.34-39)—history has borne that out. Jesus also told his disciples they’d need a sword so they ought to go and buy one (Lk 22.36). Also, if I want to save my life, I must lose it (Lk 9.24)—not so comfortable with that. And then there’s “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Lk 6.27-28). That, I get, but I’m not sure how well I can do it.

What I know I can do is pray, and never lose heart, that peace will prevail, war will be averted, justice will be done and the innocent will be protected. So can you.

Time Well Spent: My "By the Way" Column in Today's Medicine Hat News

Last Wednesday, April 30th, after after twenty three years ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada, I retired. The last fifteen of those years, almost to the day, I had the honour of serving as the Parish Priest at St Barnabas Anglican Church. It has been time well spent.

Living and serving in Medicine Hat has been a joy. The people of St Barnabas warmly welcomed and generously gathered Judy, my wife, and I into their worshipping family of faith. I have been blessed by my brothers and sisters in The Medicine Hat and District Ministerial Association as we spent time studying the Scriptures, and worshipping together on Canada Day. My Medicine Hat Evangelical Association friends have been a wonderful source of encouragement through time spent in prayer meetings, annual prayer summits, Good Friday services and Christmas lunches for city leaders.

Membership in both the Ministerial and Evangelical Association has given me an appreciation for the whole Church of Medicine Hat. The stories I’ve heard about how our city ministers and pastors have come to faith are remarkably similar. Every one has centred on Jesus and his impact on people’s lives. Every one of them responded to his call and set out to follow and serve him. I’ve heard Jesus preached in worship from Roman Catholic and Lutheran to Baptist and Pentecostal.

Yes, there are differences ranging from matters of personal preference such as worship style (and volume), the way we’ve always done it, and the language we use; to Baptism and the amount of water required at what age, how we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and what one must do (or not) and say (or not) to be saved. There are also prejudices which come from past hurtful experiences or, more often than we admit I suspect, from stories of unfortunately inappropriate actions which have grown into tales which cast whole groups or denominations in a bad light. It is all too easy to let our differences and such stories keep us apart. My prayer is that we will allow our belief in and love for Jesus to bring us together again.

Jesus prayed that we be one (John 17:11—read the whole chapter for more of what Jesus prayed for us). Here are three practical ways for us to move the Church of Medicine Hat even closer to being one for Jesus’ sake. What if we ALL go to the World Day of Prayer service on the first Friday of March each year? What if we ALL go to the Good Friday Service at the Field House and save our denominational observances, if we have them, until the afternoon? What if we ALL go to the service on Canada Day at 930am at Kin Coulee Park? There is nothing to fear because there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18). All it would take each year is around six hours of our time; about how long Jesus spent on the cross.

Time very well spent.

Lenten Reminders of Jesus

My "By The Way" column in today's Medicine Hat News:

Jesus told us to do certain things so we will remember him (I Corinthians 11.24-25). I believe he said it because he knows what we’re like. He’s certainly got me figured out. He knows I forget things; important things; all the time. I forget the names of people I know really well, especially and embarrassingly, when I’m about to introduce them. I forget to say my prayers. I forget to take my pills. I forget to announce things and thank certain people during Sunday services. I get up and go to another room to do something only to find when I get there that I’ve forgotten what I was going to do. I’m writing this on Ash Wednesday because I have it on my calendar to write it today. It’s on my calendar because if it wasn’t, I’d very likely arrive at Wednesday, like one of those rooms I keep getting up and going to, and forget why I’m there.

Which reminds me, you are reading this on the first Saturday in Lent. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and runs for forty days (not counting Sundays which are always days to celebrate the Resurrection) until the day before Easter Sunday. The word “Lent” has to do with spring. Lent is a season of spiritual “spring-training” in which many Christians take extra time for self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and reading and meditating on the Word of God.

Now, where was I? O yes. Some people think that having a cross drawn on your forehead with ashes on Ash Wednesday is nothing but an empty ritual and a vain “religious” superstition, as are all the other Lenten spiritual “exercises.” I have to agree that they could be misused if I did them hoping to earn some favour from God. Maybe some people really do do them for that reason. I do them, however, not because Jesus needs reminding of anything, I do them because I know I do.

The cross-shaped smudge of ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday is a sign that reminds me of my mortality, that I am dust and to dust I shall return, of my need to be penitent and that only in Jesus will I receive and enjoy eternal life. The Lenten spiritual “spring-training” exercises help me remember that, too. And it all reminds absent-minded, forgetful, sinful me that the first word of the gospel is repent.

I never want to forget it—ever—and I know I need reminding, over and over again. So, I suspect, do you. May your Lent be holy, evocative and full of rich reminders of Jesus.

The Collect for Advent: my By the Way column in yesterday's Medicine Hat News

Jesus is coming again. That's what Advent is about. It is the season we're still in until sundown on Christmas Eve. Advent is about getting ready and waiting for his return. The season calls us to the kind of intentional holy waiting which refills our spiritual lamps so we can light up the world until Jesus returns.

In Anglican and other prayer books there is a special prayer we are encouraged to pray every day during Advent. This is how it goes:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
      to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Here are some thoughts to go with it as we wait through the last three days of Advent:

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is Almighty. You and I exist because He is. Someone described him as the fastest checkers player in the world. It's always our move. We can only respond to what God Almighty has already done. Jesus is what God has done, is doing and will do, forever. Amen.

Grace is God's empowering presence to be who he made us to be and to do what he calls us to do (James Ryle). God gives us the grace. We cast the works of darkness away and out of our lives, and we put on the armour of light. God does not do that for us. Advent is a good God-given time to discern what we need to cast away and what we need to put on.

Although Jesus came first in great humility, when he comes again it will be in glorious majesty as befits the Son of the Almighty God. There will be a last day. There will be judgement. There will be rising to the life immortal, or not.

Jesus is alive and reigns as King right now. Advent is the quieter, expectant waiting season to help us get that straight before we enjoy the tinsel, the turkey and the sugar plums.

May the remainder of your Advent be deep and quiet and your Christmas merrily noisy (when it comes).

Following Jesus to the Ballot Box

The following is my By the Way column for The Medicine Hat News today: 

By the time you read this the United States will have gone over the fiscal precipice into the abyss of default, or not; and we will have been dragged closer to some moral and fiscal precipices of our own as the Senate expenses and the Quebec municipal and provincial corruption scandals grind on. Meanwhile our own parliamentary throne speech will have been thoroughly read, marked, inwardly digested and thoroughly dissected with all the ridicule, approval, optimism and gloom that goes with it. It’s all on a rather grand and distant scale, however, and there’s not a whole lot I can do about any of it except pray. 

On Monday, however, I do have an opportunity to do something tangible in the local political realm besides prayer. I get to vote in our own municipal elections. So do most of you. 

Although our local candidates may not be as colourful or as tragically and obviously flawed (thankfully) as some on national and international platforms, they are offering themselves to do real, difficult and important work for us in our schools and local government. My prayerful and thoughtful engagement in the democratic process and casting my vote both honours the commitment of those candidates and celebrates the freedom I enjoy. Moreover, it is to follow Jesus. It is both gift and ministry. The Bible tells me so. 

Consider, for example, Jesus’ delightful and adroit response thwarting one of the many attempts to catch him out in what he taught when the religious leaders of his day asked him if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” he said, “and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:13-17). For me to take an interest, prayerfully discern and vote in our local election is to “render to Caesar.” To thank God and worship him for the freedom to do so is to render to God the things that are His. Jesus is the model of a responsible citizen.

In the Bible God also shows how to be a responsible and faithful citizen through the Apostle Paul. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities,” Paul writes, “for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Romans 13:1) Democratic elections are one of the ways God brings governing authorities into existence. To engage and vote is an important way I can be “submissive to rulers and authorities,…obedient,” and “ready for every good work,” (Titus 3:1) as I do my best follow Jesus. I am called to be a part of that process. So are you. 

Where's Your Other Arm: for the "By the Way" column in The Medicine Hat News Saturday, August 3rd

This is a distillation of the homily I preached on Sunday, July 28th, at StB—see below.

I have a little friend who helps me on Sunday mornings from time to time. His name is Hezekiah, the Righteous Rodent, a church mouse. He’s a puppet who lives in an overnight bag and on my right arm. I’m not a ventriloquist, so he communicates by whispering in my ear and I share what he has to say.  

Once there was a young woman with Down Syndrome, I’ll call her Kristy, who came up with the children to meet with Hezekiah each Sunday. One day, after about a year of this, she realized that something was missing and spoke up, right there in the service, and said to me, "Hey! Where's your other arm?" Everyone laughed and I think I explained that I was using it to hold Hezekiah’s bag.  

It occurred to me recently that what she thought was missing was actually making what she enjoyed happen. It was my “other” arm, the one she couldn't see, that was making Hezekiah real to her and the children. 

And then I wondered about God having an “other” arm. Sometimes when I compare the mighty acts of God I read about in the Bible with the reality of life around me something appears to be missing for me, too. I can find myself questioning God much as Kristy questioned me: “God, you don’t seem to be doing anything here. Where’s your other arm? The powerful one. The one that’ll fix my problems, deliver the oppressed, clothe the naked, feed the hungry and sort the things that are wrong with the world?” 

The fact is, God’s “other” arm is there and is at work even (perhaps “especially”) when it seems to be missing. God’s strong arm is at work animating me, telling The Story of Jesus through me, enabling me to serve others in Jesus’ name and getting what our heavenly Father wants done, done.  

God’s arm is strong and everlasting. I can trust in its strength even when I can’t see it. So can you.