Kyle's Church Blog

The following is based on Matthew 25:31-46, called the parable of the last judgement, but commonly known as the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Weeks ago I saw that I was supposed to preach on the “Parable of the Last Judgement.”

And I thought, “Great. I love preaching about judgment.” (I hope you picked up the sarcasm).

And then, when I actually read the text, I realized that the parable of the last judgement was the parable of the sheep and the goats.  And I thought, “Alright!  I love this parable!  I can talk about serving people, and how actions speak louder than words.”  You know, preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.

This, after all, is one of the things that we who identify as Mennonites love.  It’s about faith in action.  Doing is what we do.

We even have that famous poem by Menno Simons hanging downstairs by our church kitchen.

True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant.

It clothes the naked.

It feeds the hungry.

It comforts the sorrowful.

It shelters the destitute.

It aids and consoles the sad.

It binds up what is wounded.

It becomes all things to all people.

Doing is what we do!  We makes blankets and collect rice and go to Pauingassi and sponsor refugees and rebuild houses with MDS and respond to natural disasters around the world.  We volunteer and donate money to all sorts of causes and drink fair trade coffee, purchased at Ten Thousand Villages.

Doing is what we do.

And then, when I realized that I had to preach a sermon about doing to a bunch of people who are already doing a bunch of things, I had a moment of terror.

What am I going to say that people don’t already know?  Should I be telling people that they should serve more?  That they’re not doing enough?

And then I thought about how I would react to Mel telling me that I need to do more in my life.  I would either spit venom back in his face, or I would crawl into the fetal position and cry, and say, “I’m trying my best.  My life is full.  Please don’t heap shame and guilt on to me.”

Margot Starbuck wrote a book about loving your neighbour called Small Things with Great Love, and in it she tells a story of going for a walk with a young mother.  When the young mother found out that book was meant to be a practical guide to help people love their neighbour, she seethed with anger and animosity.

“I’ll tell you what I don’t want to hear.  I don’t want to hear that my children should help me bake cookies to pass out to homeless people.    The cookies wouldn’t even get baked.  I don’t want someone telling me to take my kids to serve at a homeless shelter, because they don’t even know the difference between a homeless shelter and a shopping mall.”

And then, with tears in her eyes, she said, “I can barely get to the grocery store.”

How many of us feel that our lives are busy?  That our lives are already full?   Between work and church and volunteering and our kids and our grandkids and our parents and our grandparents, that we’re already doing all we can to stay afloat?

I was thinking, “How in the world am I going to talk about this parable without inducing hatred and animosity, or crushing guilt?”

And then, last week, I went to Laguna Beach.  

I had saved up my Professional Development money and spent a week sitting at the feet of Richard Rohr and Rob Bell, soaking up their wisdom.  Plus, I also went surfing.

And they told me a story that put this parable into perspective.

I want you to imagine ancient farmers from thousands of years ago.  Very quickly, these farmers would have realized that in order to live, they need this crop to grow.  And in order for the crop to grow, they need just the right about of sunshine and water.  Too much sun, and it’s scorched.  Too little sun, and they’re stunted.  Too much water, and they’re flooded.  Too little water, and they dry up and wither.

So, the farmer’s very existence depends entirely on forces that he or she cannot control.

Except, there is one way you can try to control the sun and the rain.  You can make offerings to the gods in hope that they will bestow the right amount of sun and rain on your crop.  So you take a little bit of your crop, and offer it as a sacrifice so the gods so you will make them happy and they will bestow their goodness of you.

But here’s the thing about offering sacrifices to the gods.

What do you do if you have a bad crop?  You probably didn’t offer enough sacrifice, so you offer more next time.

What do you do if you have a good crop?  Whoa.  My offering worked!  I should offer more next time to get more return!

No matter what the result of your crop is, in order to get the Gods on your side, you end up offering more, and more, and more.

(Thanks to Rob Bell for the farming analogy).

Based on the sacrificial system, you never know if you’ve offered enough.  It leads to deep anxiety within us. We never know our status with the gods.  Have we done enough?  Should we be doing more?  How do I get the gods on my side?

And eventually, you can’t offer more of your crop, because you need to eat, so you start offering other things.  Like animals.  And when you need your animals to survive, you start offering other things that are more and more valuable.  And eventually, what’s the most valuable thing you can offer?

Your children.  Your first born.

This is why the Old Testament is full of commands, telling the Israelites “Don’t be like them, because they sacrifice their children to their gods.”  The Old Testament is actually a radical, progressive step forward in human history.  And really, how often do we get to call the Old Testament progressive?

In today’s world, where most of us aren’t farmers, what’s our most valuable commodity?  Well, besides our children, our two most valuable commodities are our money and our time.   That’s why we say things like, “That was a waste of my time. That was a waste of my money.”  Time and money are the things we place a remarkably high value on.

And when we come to church, what are the two things that we’re hammered on the most to give?

Our time and our money.

You have to give more time.  You have to give more money.  You have to watch less Netflix and buy less latte’s, because that’s time and money you can give to God and the church.

Why?  So that God will be happy with us.  So that God will bestow God’s goodwill upon us.  So that God will send the sun and rain so that we will live.

Have you ever heard these before?

You are poor because you don’t give enough money to church.  You have cancer because you don’t have enough faith.  You are suffering because of un-confessed sin in your life.  If you only had more faith, you’d be healed.  Your parent didn’t have enough faith, and that is why they died early.  If only you hadn’t sinned so much, God wouldn’t be punishing you now. This suffering you have is God’s way of reminding you to be a better person.  If you give money to  church, God will bless you with more.

Ohhh… We’ve heard these before, haven’t we?  But there’s the thing:

God doesn’t love us because we are good.  God loves us because God is good. – Richard Rohr

Telling people that poverty and suffering and death are the result of not offering enough time and money – These are some of the ugliest manifestations of Christianity.  It’s toxic.  And yet we hear it over and over again.

But we continue to hear – Give more and give more and give more, until finally, we either lash out, get into the fetal position and cry, or simply walk away from it all.

Now, some of us here care deeply about our church’s budget, and others of us here care deeply about people using their gifts to serve a broken world, and I want to ensure you, I do as well.

But moving forward, I want to offer some definitions of spirituality that I found helpful.

Spirituality is not what you do.  Spirituality is about being aware to what’s already in front of you.  Spirituality is about waking up, about paying attention.  Spirituality is about being fully present and alive to what’s been in front of us the whole time.  Spirituality is trying to teach us about the depth of every moment, every conversation, and every relationship. – Rob Bell

There’s a story in Exodus about Moses stumbling across a bush that was burning, and he was told to remove his sandals because the land he was standing on was holy ground.

The ancient rabbis had a tradition of saying that the bush didn’t start burning and then stop burning, but rather that the bush was burning the whole time, and Moses finally noticed it.  The ground didn’t suddenly become holy.  Rather, the ground has always been holy, and Moses finally noticed it.

Spirituality is one’s awareness that everything is a gift, and that how we respond to that gift matters.  – Rob Bell

Everything is a gift, and when we realize that, everything changes.

When we realize that every drop of water we have is a gift, we can’t help but to share that.

When we realize that every morsel of food is a gift, we can’t help but to share that.

When we realize that every roof over our head is a gift, we can’t help but to share that.

When we realize that our families, our churches, and our communities are all gifts, we can’t help but share that.

And, when we look to the parable of the last judgement, the story of the sheep and goats, do you see the question that both the sheep AND the goats ask?

Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger needing clothes or sick or in prison?

When did we see you?

This is where seeing is different than believing.  Sure, we can believe whatever doctrines we want.  We can arrange the intellectual and theological furniture in our minds however we choose.  But do we see?  Do we see the divine mystery in all of creation, but especially in the sick, the downtrodden, the outcast, the ones for whom life is hard?  Are our eyes open?

When our eyes are open, when we’re truly present to the moment, we begin to see the divine in everybody, and especially in the least of these.

When we truly see the divine in everyone, we will treat them as such.

My hope for us this week isn’t that we’ll try harder, or give more, or do more.  My hope for us this week is that we will pray one prayer throughout our days.  “Lord, open my eyes.”  When we wake up, when we go to sleep, when we’re driving, when we’re at work and when we’re getting the mail with our children. “Lord, open my eyes.”

Grace and Peace to you.

Amen.

Based on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard – Matthew 20:1-16

About a decade ago, there was an article in the newspaper about First Nations students from reserves attending university.  The gist of the article was that some reserves were having a hard time paying the cost of their students to attend university.

While I forget the specifics of the article, I don’t forget the specifics of the conversation I had about the article.  One person’s response was, “Good.  I’m glad they’re not getting free tuition anymore.”

I looked at them and asked “Why?”

“Because my kids don’t get free tuition, so why should theirs?”

Now, quick aside – Not every First Nation student gets their post-secondary tuition covered.  Some do, and some don’t.   There is federal money available, but not every student is funded because demand outstrips supply.  And if you don’t have a treaty number, you’re out of luck too.

But back to the conversation – “If my kids don’t get free tuition, nobody should get free tuition.  It’s not fair.”

What’s not fair about this?  It’s part of the treaties signed years ago.  It’s part of the deal.  Indigenous people gave settlers access to this land in exchange for some things, and one of them was education.   So if you look around at all the farms and houses and businesses and churches that we’ve built here, we have to remember that the land wasn’t empty before we got here.  Paying tuition is part of the deal, and, I don’t think that we got the raw end of the deal either.

I asked one more question – “If your kids got free tuition, would that make it better?”

The response was an unequivocal “Yes.”

Ahhh… Now I see.  You’ve been working in the vineyard since sunrise.

Many of us just really hate the idea of someone else getting something that we’re not.  We especially hate the idea when we believe that we’ve worked harder than the other person, and they get the same reward.

I remember working for a landscaping company one summer while I was in university.  As the summer went on I discovered how evil the company was, specifically because they charged more money to clients who weren’t white (Welcome to the world of white privilege).  I quit the day my foreman came to work drunk and still spent the morning driving the bobcat, dropping twenty yards of river stone in my wheelbarrow.  But, that aside, I remember how one day I was ticked at my boss.  I said to myself, “This is dumb.  I’m spending all day hauling rocks around for ten bucks an hour, and my boss drives around in his air conditioned truck all day talking on his cell and getting paid triple what I am.  I’m doing all the work here, and he’s getting rich of my labour.  I deserve more.”

I was certain that I had been working in the vineyard since sunrise… I thought I knew so much when I was 20 years old.

If we work hard, we just want it to be fair, don’t we?   We just want what we think we’ve earned.  We don’t want to wish ill-will on others, do we?

Sometimes, I’m not so sure.

Last January, I preach a delightful sermon series on hell.  If you want to read, just Google “3 weeks in hell with Kyle”, and you’ll find them on my blog.

And in preparation for my sermons, I read a lot of books on hell.  And I had a lot of conversations about hell too.

One of them sticks out.  I was talking to someone who had been a Christian their entire life and was deeply involved in their church for as long as they could remember.

I told them that I was preparing a sermon series on hell, and one of the questions I was exploring was if it exists or not, and if it did, what it was like.

And the response was, “Well, of course there’s a hell.  There has to be.”

Now, I had committed to preaching three sermons, and if the first sermon started with, “There has to be a hell”, I don’t know what I would have preached about for two more Sundays, so I probed a little bit further.

“I’m curious.  Tell me why you think there has to be a hell.”

“Well, because the Bible says so. And people who don’t believe in Jesus go there.”

Once again, this would have been a pretty short sermon series, so I asked another question.

“Why is this so important to you?  If you’re going to heaven, and you’ll be completely content there, why does it matter who God lets in and God doesn’t?”

“Well, you’re right.  It doesn’t matter who God lets in and who God doesn’t.  But the Bible still talks about hell being real.”

Ohhhhh… Now I see.  You’ve been working in the vineyard since sunrise.  You have sacrificed for the kingdom.  You’ve sacrificed for the church.  You woke up early every Sunday.  You wore a tie every Sunday.  You gave a lot of money.  You sat on a lot of committees, spending hours taking minutes.  You gave your life to the cause.  And if your reward is the same as someone who made far less sacrifices, your reward seems a little less like a reward, doesn’t it.

And if you get the same as someone whom you think is less deserving, is that fair?

This parable about workers in the vineyard is probably one of the harder parables of Jesus, isn’t it?  It messes with our sense of justice and fairness.  That the first shall be last and the last shall be first doesn’t quite sit right with most of us.

I asked one of you this week about how this parable made you feel, and you offered perhaps one of the greatest pieces of insight into understanding this.   You said, “Well, I guess how I feel all depends on who I think I am.  If I’m the first guy, then of course I’d grumble.  But if I’m the last guy, the guy who got paid a day’s wage for one hours work, then I think this story is awesome.”

If we view ourselves as the person having their tuition paid for, if we see ourselves as the racist boss getting to drive around in the nice air conditioned truck all summer, if we see ourselves as the person getting to heaven with, as some people call it, a deathbed conversion, then that changes our perspective, doesn’t it?

If we see ourselves as the last workers, we then become the glad recipients of God’s grace, knowing full well that we don’t deserve it.  Because really, if I kept score, I know there’s be some of you far less deserving than me, and some of you far more deserving than me.  It’s a good thing we’re not keeping score so you don’t have to try to figure out that one.

So maybe, then, this parable is less about who’s who in the story, and who gets what, and what those rewards are.  Maybe it’s not about how faithful one has been, or when someone made a decision in their lives, or what that decision was.  Maybe this parable it’s not about who comes to church the most or who gives the most money or who’s the most holy.

Maybe, this parable is about our reaction to the process of God’s grace.

The vineyard owner himself says, “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

The process is God giving the gift of grace to many people who are undeserving.  The process is God not treating us how we deserve.  The process is God constantly welcoming everyone back with open arms.  How are we going to respond to that gift?

Well, it seems to me that we can either be bitter and envious, that we can complain loudly, that we can think we deserve more, or that we can even end up sending some people to hell.

Or, we can open ourselves to the places where grace reigns, where we receive God’s love as a gift, where we consider it pure joy to love God and love our neighbours with all of our hearts and souls and mind and strength.

That is the challenge, isn’t it?  To stop calculating who’s more holy, who sins less, who’s the better person, who actually read the book of Matthew this month, who’s the most loving, who prays the most.  To stop calculating is the answer, because calculating leads us look at others with envy and jealousy, and then we get ticked that they get God’s gifts too, and then God moves from being a kind and generous God to a God that we think is unfair and possibly malicious.

When we stop keeping score, we can start to live our lives in gratitude.  When we see everything as a gift, every day becomes like Christmas morning.  We get excited about what God is doing in our lives, in our church, and in our world.

Here at Grace, Ashley and I get excited that our kids get to have a dozen or more grandparents at church.  Some of you get excited to have dozens of grand children.  We get excited to meet new people on Sundays, to be part of a church that works towards kids being hunger free in school, about a church that’s in a partnership with a First Nations community, to serve and eat waffles that ends up supporting prison visitation programs, to come to a place on Sunday where we can sit in silence or sing songs or share food with both friends and strangers, or come to a place where we get to give coins to children and it sounds like we won big at a VLT.  Isn’t it amazing that we get to belong to an organization that exists for the benefit of others?  These are all great things, but only if we look at them all as gifts.

As soon as we start to think that we earn any of this, that we deserve these things and others don’t, then we start to look at everyone with envy, and then we’re in trouble.

Last week I wrote in the bulletin a question for you to ponder: “Is God fair?”  Well, maybe a better question is:  “How do we relate to God’s grace?”

How do we relate to God’s grace?

This lent, may we continue to be reminded that everything before us is a gift.  May we remember that God is turning things upside down and inside out, that God is messing with our sense of justice and fairness, that the first will be last and the last will be first, and the fact that God is doing this is okay.  May we respond with open arms to the gift of God’s love and grace, both for us and for others.

Amen.

Based on Matthew 16:21-17:8

This week, as I was pondering this text, I asked one of you a question.  “When you think of the Transfiguration, what do you think of?”

The quick response was, “Harry Potter.”

Right. Because, Professor Minvera McGonnagall is one of the teachers at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and she teaches her students the transfiguration spell, where you can turn one thing into another thing, such as a bird into a cup.

That’s awesome.  So I asked, “But what do you think of about the transfiguration of Jesus?  Where he’s on the mountain and his face is shining and he’s hanging out with Moses and Elijah?”

“Oh.  Right.  That story.  Not much.”

I love it.

Let’s start talking about the Transfiguration by talking about our cultures preoccupation with success.

We love to win.  And we hate to lose.

CFL Free Agency was this week, and the Bombers were declared the winners on Day 1 because they signed a bunch of good players.  And some of us celebrated that.

And, also this week, the Winnipeg Jets traded Evander Kane to the Buffalo Sabres.

Productivity across the province came to a grinding halt as we all talked and analyzed whether or not the Jets were better than before, who were the winners and losers of the trade, and wondered whether the tracksuit was thrown into the shower, cold tub, or hot tub.

But at the very least, Dustin Byfuglien is back on defence!  That’s a good recipe for success!

Magazine covers gives us tips and steps to success.  Ash and I are planning on a summer holiday, and so we spend time on Trip Advisor to find the best places to stay.  It’s RRSP season, so we’re all looking over our financial statements to make sure that we’re making the best decisions for our retirements.

We love reading stories about winners, about people who beat the odds and came out on top.  Like children’s books about pigs that don’t get turned into delicious bacon, like a hobbit travelling to a volcano to destroy a magical ring, like a teenage wizard who is able to defeat Lord Voldemort, and whether or not he uses the transfiguration spell.

We love our success stories.  Partly because they are inspiring.  Partly because we want to make good, and not bad, choices.  But also, partly because deep within us, we don’t want to be failures.

In this way, we’re kind of like the disciple Peter.

Before we read this morning’s text, the previous 8 chapters are basically Jesus being a rock star.  A  humble rock star, but one none the less.  He’s walking on water.  He’s calming storms.  He’s feeding thousands of people.  He’s healing people left, right and center.  It’s miracle after miracle after miracle.

He’s kind of like Oprah giving things way.  You get a miracle, you get a miracle, everyone gets a miracle!   And then all of us are sitting in our living rooms, crying because all of Oprah’s guests are going home with George Foreman Grills and her favourite shampoo.

At this point in the story, Jesus is definitely winning.

But then, Jesus drops a bomb on Peter.  Jesus tells Peter that he, Jesus is going to suffer, and die, and rise again.

Now, we have the advantage of looking at this conversation post-resurrection, so we kind of know how the story ends, but Peter… He didn’t.  All he heard was that his hero, his Rabbi, the guy he gave up every to follow, his model of success and winning, was going to fail and lose.

Yes, Jesus talked about rising again.  But only after suffering and dying.  Jesus first had to lose.

But Peter doesn’t know much about this whole rising again business.  He just sees Jesus’ suffering and death as defeat and failure.

This is why he tell Jesus “Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!”  Matthew 16:22.

He’s kind of like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.  Here’s Jesus, there’s suffering and death, and then Peter says, “You shall not pass!”

And then what Jesus says next is the TSN turning point, the crux, of it all.

Jesus tells Peter than he’s only thinking about human concerns, and not God’s concerns, and that being a disciple means taking up your cross, and that in order to save your life, you must lose it.

The way of Jesus is suffering love.   Even love for enemies who are going to kill you.  Yes, there is resurrection.  But the resurrection only has power because of the suffering love of Jesus that leads to death.

And we really have a hard time with suffering love.

I am continually reminded of a story about Mother Theresa I heard about her and her work in Calcutta.  After years of working there, her feet were quite deformed.  One of other nuns there explained why.  She said, “Our charity receives hundreds of used pairs of shoes for the people staying with us who have leprosy.  Whenever a box of shoes comes in, Mother Theresa digs through the box and takes out the worst pair of shoes for herself.  That way she knows that all of her friends at the mission have better footwear than her.”

The way of Jesus, is suffering love… Deformed feet doesn’t feel like winning, does it?

I went to a preaching seminar years ago, and the guy said:  “For the love of all that is good in the world, you need to give your congregation more tangible, realistic examples of faith than Mother Theresa.”

So I’ll try.  Every year, at the end of November, we go to Ashley’s parents place near the Whiteshell to get a Christmas tree.  We bundle up the kids, bring a sleigh, and have a grand old time.  Except this year,  it was -30 degrees with a bitter north wind, and we decided that this was not going to be a family affair, but rather one where a few of us jumped out the truck with a chainsaw and cut down a tree out the ditch as fast as possible.

Also, this year my brother had asked us to get him one too, so we cut down two trees as fast as possible and went back to the hot tub to warm up.  (Evander Kane’s tracksuit wasn’t there).

My brother came to Steinbach one day and picked a tree, while we decorated the other one.

A few weeks later, one of my friends saw our Christmas tree, and started laughing.  It was spindly, with big empty spaces and droopy branches.  They even compared our tree to a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

My response?  “Well, if Mother Theresa can have deformed feet, I can have a spindly Christmas tree.  Because the way of Jesus is suffering love.”

Tough life, isn’t it?

Obviously, that’s a ridiculous example, but I get that same feeling at all sorts of things.  When I get my income tax refund, is my first instinct to see who I can share it with?  When I catch a bunch of fish, is my first instinct to see who I can share it with?  When I bundle up to go snow blow my driveway, is my first instinct to start at my neighbours?  When I see someone sitting by themselves, is my first instinct to leave my comfort zone and talk to them?  When I look to retirement, is the first thing I see myself doing is volunteering or making blankets or cooking with MDS?

As pathetic as it was, it took a lot for me to let go of that Christmas tree.  We love to have success, we love winning, we love having the best…

The way of Jesus is suffering love.  The resurrection only has power because of the cross.

Which brings us to the transfiguration of Jesus, not Professor McGonnagall.

Jesus is on a mountain, his face shone like the sun, his clothes became as white as light, and he’s hanging out with Moses and Elijah.

And a voice comes down from heaven:  “This is my son, whom I love;  with him, I am well pleased.  Listen to him!” 

There are many ways of looking at the Transfiguration.  One of those ways is simply confirming that there’s something special and unique about Jesus, that he actually is God’s son, and isn’t just a raging lunatic.  I mean, Jesus just told his disciples that the way of God is the cross, the way of God is suffering, the way of God giving up your life AND your Christmas tree.

The transfiguration confirms this is God’s son, rooted in his identity as God’s beloved.  And that we should listen to him.  That there’s something going on here that we need to be paying attention to.  Something that doesn’t come all that natural to most of us, since we don’t really like losing and suffering and having ugly Christmas trees.

After this voice booms from the sky, the disciples were on the ground terrified.  And then Jesus came and touched them, and said

“Get up.  Don’t be afraid.”  And then they went back down the mountain, back to the nitty gritty of life.

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid.

The way of Jesus is the cross.  Don’t be afraid.  It’s going to be okay… It ends with resurrection.  I know that the way of the cross, of suffering, doesn’t make sense, especially in a culture of success and power and winning, but that’s okay.   Even when you’re carrying your cross, you’re loved.  Even when the world is heaping scorn and hate on you, you’re loved.  Even when you feel as God has forsaken you, you’re loved.   Don’t be afraid… I’m going to be with you.

And it’s here, when we’re powerless yet still seeking to love others, that we end up being truly powerful, because love wins.

A story about Pope Francis, and then something a little more tangible for the rest of us who aren’t pope material.

I think that one of the reasons why pretty much everyone loves Pope Francis is because he gets this.  He understands that the way of Jesus is suffering love.  This is why he sleeps in the guest house, doesn’t wear fancy clothes, and sneaks out at night to serve homeless people.

But one of my favourite Pope Francis stories is that recently, he appointed some new cardinals, which are the leaders who will elect the next pope.  Many of the cardinals didn’t come from the places that had the most money or prestige, but rather from the far corners of the Earth who were immersed in the suffering love that Jesus called them.  None of them had any clear doctrinal reputations on hot button issues.  Rather, he tended to call people who were working with refugees, working in slums, and those who were elected by their peers for their work, not their status or education.   One of the Cardinals thought it was a joke that he was being picked as a Cardinal, because he was so immersed in his work with “the least of these” that that kind of power and success wasn’t even on his radar.

But it’s in giving away power, in taking up a cross to follow Jesus, that we find true power and discipleship and love.

“The cross wasn’t so we can walk in the power of the resurrection.  The resurrection was so we could walk in the power of the cross.”  – Greg Boyd

And now, for those of us who aren’t working with refugees or in Calcutta, here are some wise words from Henri Nouwen.

“Every time we forgive our neighbor, every time we make a child smile, every time we show compassion to a suffering person, every time we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to tame or wild animals, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for peace and justice among peoples and nations we are making [God’s] vision come true.

We must remind one another constantly of the vision. Whenever it comes alive in us we will find new energy to live it out, right where we are. Instead of making us escape real life, this beautiful vision gets us involved.”

The transfiguration:  It could be about Professor McGonnagall’s spell from Harry Potter.  Or, it could be about us listening to Jesus, the son of God, and that if we want to be a disciple of Jesus, we must take up our cross and follow him.

We had child dedication this Sunday at Grace Mennonite.  I preached a 5 minute sermon, asking the question “Will Our Children Have Faith?”  

Don’t store up treasures on earth, but rather, store up treasures in heaven.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The point of life is not only about how much we own, or how nice our stuff is, or our retirement plans.  I think most of us here know this.  Yes, we seek to work hard and make good financial decisions, but we all know that we’re not going to be buried with wads of cash in our caskets.  We’re not Egyptian Pharaohs.

Jesus reminds us that instead of focusing only our own stuff on earth, we should be storing up treasures in heaven instead, for that is where our hearts will be.

Jesus isn’t very specific on what exactly those treasures in heaven are.  Is it how we pray?  How we forgive? How we work towards peace?  How we practice hospitality and generosity?  How we love God and love our neighbour and love our enemy?  Yes.  These are most likely part of what Jesus means by “treasures in heaven.”

But I’m going to take a bit of a leap here and say that part of us storing up treasures in heaven is asking ourselves questions, like, “Will our kids have faith?”  “What kind of faith will they have?” “How can we nurture their faith?”  “How do we make sure that our kids will know that life is about more than getting money or stuff?”

This morning, my sermon is going to be one of my most practical sermons ever.  I usually like to explore the stories in the Bible and try to find ourselves in those stories, I like to ask questions, be a bit more conversationalist… But today, I’m going to take a risk and be remarkably direct.

To the parents of these children, to all the parents here today.

Some remarkably smart people out of Fuller Youth Institute have set out to figure out what the most important factors are in parents passing on their faith to their children.  While it’s not a direct formula, and there are obviously no guarantees, researchers have found some key indicators that help determine what kind of faith our kids will have.

The number one indicator for whether or not our kids will have faith is:  The faith of their parents.   One of the best indicators of a strong and vibrant faith in children is a strong and vibrant faith in their parents.  Every time we invest in our own faith, we are investing in the faith of our children.

This is both good news and terrible news.

Good news, because it’s there for the taking, it’s attainable, we can do something about it, we’re already doing it, we’re important, God gave us these children for a reason!

Bad news, because it’s a huge responsibility, we often feel inadequate, we fail, we have a hard time praying, sometimes we don’t want to come to church, and how are we supposed to pass on our faith if we’re constantly working it out ourselves?  And who the heck really reads Ezekiel anyways?

No matter how adequate or inadequate we feel, our own approach to faith is important.  That means that every Sunday where we work our tails off to get everyone to church, every time we pray, every time we volunteer (or at least thing about it), every time we sit in the pews and hope that our kids aren’t too loud, every time we seek or offer forgiveness, every time we practice generosity, every time we try to love our neighbours, every time we seek peace… It’s all an important piece of the puzzle.

The other good news about passing faith on to our children is that it’s not only how strong and vibrant our own faith is.  It’s also about the quality of our relationships with our kids.  The better our relationship with our children, the better chance that our faith rubs off on them.  So that means that every time we read our kids stories, every time we sit down and have supper as a family (even if there’s a bowl of spaghetti on someone’s head), every time we go tobogganing on an icy Abe’s Hill, every time we go on vacation, every time we go skating and bike riding and canoeing, every hockey and soccer game that we watch… All of these matter.  They’re really important.  Every time we invest in our relationships with our children, we’re investing in their faith. 

So that’s not too overwhelming, is it?  Invest in our own faith, invest in our relationships, and we’re well on our way to figuring out what kind of faith our kids will have.

But, child dedication isn’t only about the children and their parents.  It’s also about the church.

How can the rest of us ensure that our children have faith?  It’s not a great children’s program, it’s not a hot shot pastor, it’s not how new our songs are.  One of the best indicators of how churches can support kids having faith is quite simply how much they embrace and support them.  The same researchers have come up with the magic ratio of 5:1.  If 5 adults invest significant time and energy into 1 kid, that will mean the world to them and their faith development.

This too, is equal parts encouraging and equal parts terrifying.

It’s encouraging because we can do it!  We can learn names, we can share candy and cookies, we can give high fives, we can pray for kids, we can write them cards, we can go for ice cream, we can support them financially, we can look at parents who show up not having slept a wink the night before and give them a hug… All really tangible things.  There are 8 kids being dedicated, so that means 40 adults!  There are easily 40 adults here this morning.  I feel like I’m preaching to the choir because we’re already here, dedicating our kids!

But it’s also terrifying, because it’s a great responsibility.  It means that we have to show up at places where the kids are, it means sharing our worship time and space with kids who are chucking cheerios around, it means leaving our comfort zone and learning names and stories, it means having to bake cookies, it means taking time out of our busy lives and investing it in young people, it means that sometimes we show up on Sundays not for ourselves, but because our presence matters in the life of a young person.  And if you add up all the kids here at Grace, we need 200 adults, and that’s all of us.  Everyone here has a role to play.

5 adults to 1 kid is the magic number.  Equal parts encouraging and terrifying.

So there we go.  Invest in our own faith, invest in our relationships with kids, and we’re on the right track.

Show up.  Sit together in a pew.  Learn names.  Give high fives.  Pray.  Go tobogganing.  Eat together.  Share money and candy.  Smile together.

It sounds awfully mundane, doesn’t it?  It’s pretty down to earth, not very snazzy or flashy, pretty long-term… But in doing so, I truly believe that we are storing up treasures in heaven.

Amen.

A sermon based on the temptations of Jesus – Matthew 4:1-11

Forty days and forty nights of being out in the wilderness.  That’s like leaving now and coming back at the end of February.   Good thing Jesus wasn’t in Canada doing this in winter, because he might have gotten kind of cold.

Before we dive into the text, I’m going to go on two separate tangents.

Number 1 – I could have taken many angles when preaching this text, but I simply don’t have time.  I could have talked about the nature of the devil here, the tempter, and how exactly the devil took Jesus to the highest point of the temple if he was in the wilderness.  But I don’t think that’s the primary purpose of the text, so I’m just going to read it at face value.

Number 2 – Both the devil and Jesus are quoting Scripture at each other.  This points out to me that simply quoting scripture doesn’t make one right.  So if anybody thinks that they can end an argument with the words “Well, the Bible clearly says…” you can tell them that they are being just like the devil.  That’ll win you some friends at family gatherings.

Back on topic.  Jesus.  Jesus has just been baptized, and we have learned his identity has God’s beloved son, in whom God is well pleased.  And then Jesus is immediately led to the wilderness where he is tempted.

He is tempted three times, but they’re all rooted in one bigger question:

“What kind of Messiah are you going to be?”

(Much of the following is from The Upside Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill.)

Bread

Let’s talk about bread first.

“You’re hungry Jesus.  Turn these stones into bread.”

Jesus answers, “People don’t live on bread alone, but on the word of God.”

This temptation isn’t about Jesus’ own hunger, because Jesus responds to the devil in the plural with the word “people”.  This temptation is about the people.  And often, the quickest way to the heart of the masses is through their bellies.  In a world with a ruthless superpower, huge economic class differences and crushing poverty, free food would surely bring the crowds to the cause of Jesus.

But the crowds coming to Jesus to be fed isn’t the cause of Jesus.  The cause of Jesus is announcing the kingdom of God, the rule of God in our hearts and in our world.  Feeding the hungry is part of it, an important part of it, but not the only part of it.

Feeding the masses and calling it a day means Jesus isn’t challenging the greedy.  Giving people bread isn’t asking questions as to why people need bread in the first place.  Jesus didn’t want to turn rocks into bread and then relax in his Jacuzzi.

Jesus is saying no to simply feeding people and letting the rest of the world go by.

By saying no, Jesus is pointing to his own life as a new foundation to live.  And his words about wealth , about economic justice, about poverty, aren’t very comforting to some of us.

“Blessed are you who are poor.  Woe to you who are rich.  Blessed are you who hunger now.  Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. ” Luke 6:20-21, 24-25.

Also worth noting here is that Jesus faced this temptation while he was hungry and sleeping outside.  Jesus was a poor carpenter.  Jesus was homeless.  Jesus didn’t go on winter vacations.  His life was not only one of solidarity with the poor, but of being poor.

This temptation is a question of bread.  But it’s also a question of poverty, economic justice, and how we live our lives.

The Temple

Let’s talk about the temple at the temple.

“Throw yourself off from the very top!  The angels will save you, and everyone will see you.”

Jesus responds that he’s not going to put God to the test.

I think the real temptation here is for Jesus to be the religious super hero.  He’d be an instant rock star, flying from the temple, with everyone trying to take a selfie of them with Jesus.  Beatle mania, Trudeau mania, Justin Bieber mania… that kind of thing.

The fact that it was the highest point of the temple is important here.  The temple was THE center of Jewish life in ways that we don’t really understand.  When we think of temple, we envision a big church.   A better comparison would be a big shopping mall covered in gold and silver.  There were 18,000 priests and lay leaders who worked at the temple, there were hundreds of animal sacrifices and other rituals occurring daily, and during festivals it would be the destination of almost 200,00 people.  This place was big and important.  Being hailed a hero at the temple meant that he would immediately be at the top of religious pecking order.  Jesus would be able to write a book and get millions for the movie rights.

And he says no.  That’s not how I’m going to role.  Why?

2 reasons.

• The temple was where they interpreted and made Jewish law.  While their intent was good, by the time Jesus came around, it was kind of legalistic.    Some of the rules were missing the original intent.  By Jesus not becoming the rock star of the temple, he wasn’t giving validation to the existing structure.  Rather, he was proclaiming that “something greater than the temple is here,” (Matthew 12:6) – Him.
• The 18,000 priests and lay leaders had a hierarchy to them, with only certain people being able to do certain roles, and certain parts of the temple only being accessible to certain kinds of people. By Jesus not being the top of this, he didn’t give validation to the existing classes of people.  Rather, he ended up rejecting most of them, and declared new heroes of the faith – The throwaways of institutionalized religion.  The sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the outsiders, the least of these… These are the new center pieces of the faith (Kraybill 72).

Jesus’ approach to religions wasn’t about maintaining order and rituals and hierarchy, but rather the lost, compassion for the poor, and love for all.

Mountain

Let’s talk about the mountain.

“Look at all the kingdoms of the world.  I can give it all to you.”

“Away from me Satan!  Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”

On one hand, this temptation is clearly about us choosing to worship God and not idols, so we should stay away from those pesky golden calves and statues of God.

But on the other hand, this is about much, much, more than golden calves.  This is about power, and politics, and our approach to it.

Quite frankly, the devil was offering Jesus the chance to be Prime Minister, President, the king, the big cheese of the world.  He could be the benevolent ruler who brings peace and security to all through good government.  He could make lots of action plans to create jobs, grow the economy, protect our wealth, protect our freedoms, and stop enemies from harming us.

And he said… “No.”

Why would he do that?  Think of all the good he could have done!  Think of all the signs he could have put up by all the infrastructure projects.  Good jobs.  Good economy.  Good action plan.  Brought to you by Jesus, King of Kings.  Vote for Jesus!

Why would he say no?

Who’s offering him the Kingdoms?  The devil.  They’re his to give?  Luke’s version of this temptation uses even stronger language.

⁶ And the devil said to Jesus, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷ If you worship me, it will all be yours.”  Luke 4:6-7

Just these verses deserve a sermon on its own, as does the mountain temptation, as we try to figure out how the devil got control of the kingdoms.  Who’s really in charge of our governments?  Who gives governments their power – God or Satan?  Was the devil lying?  When we vote in modern day democracies, are we participating in a system that the devil is running anyways?  And what about when politicians give thanks to God? Should they really be thanking the devil instead?   So many questions…

I’ll try to keep it simple.  I think the temptation on the mountain is the very real temptation that we can advance the Kingdom of God through political power, be it monarchies, democracies, or any other form of government.   Jesus says “no” to that, because there are insurmountable differences between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world.

(The following comes from Greg Boyd’s 5 differences between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the World)

One Kingdom trusts in the sword.  The other trusts in the power of the cross.

One Kingdom is self-serving and seeks to control behaviour.    The other is self-sacrificing, and seeks to transform lives from the inside out.

One Kingdom is tribal, always is always defending one one’s own people group.  The other is universal, for it is centered on simply loving as God loves.

One Kingdom is tit-for-tat, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and thus fights earthly battles.  Just listen to what our elected leaders say in the face of violence or terrorist attacks.  The other seeks to love their enemies and bless those who persecute it.

But the temptation is real, isn’t it?  “Think of all the good you can do.”   Even when we meet with our MP about murdered and missing indigenous women, and want them to do something, I remember that Jesus rejected the political power because there’s most likely a demonic element to it.

And I’m intentional about using the word “demonic”, because according to Matthew and Luke, the devil is somehow involved.  And also, when you consider history and reflect on the Indian Act, or Japanese Internment Camps, or Nutritional Experiment on First Nation children in Residential Schools, or Chinese immigration head taxes, or women not being allowed to vote, or billions of dollars to buy new military weapons while underfunding the mental health of military veterans, or refusing to sign arms  deals that keep weapons out of countries that violate human rights, or that our former Mennonite MP in Provencher gave the authority to use information acquired via torture, or that First Nation women have a murder rate 4 times higher than the rest of the population, to the simply dreadful and boorish behaviour of elected officials during Question Period, the word “demonic” seems to work quite well.  And that’s just Canada.  And we’ve been a democracy (albeit, sometimes incomplete) since the beginning.  We consider ourselves the good guys.

And Jesus said, “No.” My kingdom is not of this world.

Conclusion

I know I’m not being very fair this morning.  Jesus had 40 days to wrestle with these questions.  I had 2 weeks to prepare this.  I’ve given you 20 minutes this morning.

What kind of Messiah was Jesus going to be?  This was the big question of the temptations.  How was Jesus going to interact with the temptations of wealth, with religion, and with power.

I think it’s also a question that we can ask ourselves.

What kind of Jesus followers are we going to be?  How are we going to interact with temptations of wealth and religion and power? 

I’m going to end here this morning with 3 temptation questions for you to ponder.

Bread – How do Jesus’ harsh words about wealth make you feel?

Temple – Does our church building and budget reflect that we are for the lost, the poor, and love for all?

Mountain – Can governments love their enemies?  Does it matter?

These are hard questions, aren’t they?  I think that’s why they’re called temptations, and I think that’s why the devil asking them.

My hope and my prayer is that as followers of Jesus, we continually wrestle with our relationship to wealth, religion, and power.

The following is a short sermon based on Joshua 24:1-15

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

This is a bit of a rally call, isn’t it?  It gets people excited.  It reinforces loyalty.  We declare allegiances.

And then we end up putting this Bible verse on doilies and cross stitches and bumper stickers and status updates.

This phenomenon of the rally call isn’t unique to faith only, though.  We have rally calls for all sorts of things.

As for me and my household, we will cheer for the Blue Bombers.

As for me and my household, we will drive Hondas.

As for me and my household, we will drink fair trade coffee from Ten Thousand Villages.

Basically, I just described my life there in a series of rally calls.  I drive a Honda, drink fair trade coffee from Ten Thousand Villages, and cheer for the Blue Bombers.

Rally calls are meant to be short, catchy, and build up support.  They’re really not supposed to lead us to asking questions.

Like the question “Why?”

Why do I cheer for the Bombers? Especially when they haven’t won the Grey Cup for 25 years?  They’re our local team, it’s fun to go to games and boo the refs, plus both my Dad and Grandpa are faithful Bomber fans, so I am contributing to the Penner legacy of True Blue.

Why do I only drive Hondas?  Well, in my experience, they drive well, and don’t break down.  Although sometimes I do miss my 1994 Ford Tempo.

Why do I drink fair trade coffee?  Well, I don’t mind paying a bit more at the till to ensure that farmers are paid a fair wage and can better provide opportunities for their families.

Those reasons don’t make very good slogans or catch phrases or rally cries, do they?

But I’m okay with that, because talking about my first car, and farmers providing for their families, and my dad and my grandpa going to Bomber games with me… it all  brings a bit of a tear to my eye.

It’s those stories, the important ones that have shaped my life and explain why I do what I do… Those are the important stories.  Sure, we have rally calls. But what’s underneath them is what’s important.

It’s the same with the rally call we read in Joshua 24.  “As for me and my household will serve the Lord.”  Sure, we put that verse on doilies and on the backs of T-Shirts, but it’s the “Why?” behind the statement that’s the important one.

Why do you and your household serve the Lord?

Well, that’s a really good question, isn’t it?  Why? Why do you serve the Lord?  Why are you here, sitting on uncomfortable pews?  Why are you here singing songs that were written hundreds of years ago?  Why do you give money to church?  Why do you serve the Lord?

Let’s go back to the text and ask the same question.  Why does Joshua declare that he is going to serve the Lord?

Because he remembered.  He remembered God.  He remembered all that God has done for his people.

Joshua remembered that it was God who took Abraham from his land and promised him that he’d make him a people, and that he’d bless them so they could bless the world.

Joshua remembered how God had led his people out of slavery in Egypt, and how they had crossed the Red Sea.

Joshua remembered how God led them through the wilderness, and brought them to a new land to live.

Joshua remembered all these life changing encounters with God over the centuries.

He remembered them so well, that when he was giving this speech, he gathered all the leaders at Shechem, which is a place that probably means nothing to most of us.   But every time the Bible names a place that’s hard to say, it’s probably named for a reason, and if we go back a few Sundays, we find that we mentioned the place of Shechem here before.

It was the place where God showed Abraham the land his descendants were going to get, the land where God was going to bless them so they could be a blessing to the world.  Shechem, to Joshua is like that ice cream place where had your first date with your partner.  Shechem is like that movie you watched where you first held hands.  Shechem is like the first house you bought.  Shechem, is like seeing your picture on the wall at the curling club for being Men’s League Champs.  It’s this place that oozes memories.  It’s screaming out “Remember what happened here!”

And isn’t that what we do every Thanksgiving?  We take a moment and reflect on all the things to be thankful for?  When all my siblings and cousins are gathered around the table, I always make sure that we go around the table and make everyone say what they’re thankful for. 

My sister in law did this a craft with my 2 year old nephew this week, and they wrote down the things they’re thankful for.  He said family, friends, snakes, Opa, and the Big Bad Wolf, and he only needed some prompting from his mother for the family and friends part.

We pause, we reflect, and we remember.  And when we do this, it changes how we see the world moving forward.  It roots us in something deeper and something more important than just the necessary day to day activities we do to live.  When we pause, reflect, and remember, it changes how we see the world.

This is what Joshua was doing.  He was remembering the stories of God’s faithfulness.  And when he remembered, when he looked back, he came up with this nugget:

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Why do you serve the Lord?

My hope, and my prayer, is that somewhere, somehow, in your life, you have encountered God.   That somewhere in your journey, you have experienced the depth of God’s love.  A moment of awe.  An experience of unbelievable grace.  A flicker of peace.  That you have felt God’s love deep in the marrow of your bones.

We’re here, because somewhere, somehow, sometime, God encountered us.  And in that encounter, we found life. Life to the fullest.  Life at its best.   Life as it could be.

One of my favourite authors, Mark Yaconelli, says that “We, in the church, are connoisseurs of life.  You know what it means it be alive.  That’s why there’s humour here. That’s why playfulness here.  That’s why there’s praise and stories and music and prayer here.  All the capacities of the human being are invited into this place, because that’s who we are…. We’re living human beings who carry the image of God. And that’s the gift that we bring to the world.”

We have this encounter with God, this experience with God’s love… it’s this that propels us into the future, full of life.  We live our lives out of gratitude to God.

This is our remembering.  This is our story.  This is our rally call.  Me and my household, we’re going to the serve the Lord, because we’ve experienced God’s love.  We should put this on a doily or cross stitch or bumper sticker.

I’m going to end my part this morning, before we sing, by getting us to simply sit in silence for about 60 seconds.  And as we sit, I’d encourage you to ask yourself the question:

Why do you serve the Lord?

And if you come across a story, just smile and enjoy it.