The Road to Jerusalem, The Road to the Cross

Holy Week starts out in a big whirlwind of festival: Jesus making his way into Jerusalem to the adoration of the crowds. His whole ministry led up to this grand entrance, the entrance of a King. But it was only the beginning.

Jesus shares a meal with his closest friends, and he is betrayed. He spends the night in a garden where those keeping watch cannot stay awake. He is taken into custody and denied three times. He is condemned, tortured, and crucified.

Could anyone in the jubilant crowds at his entrance into the city have foreseen that this would happen? Were the people in that first crowd the same people calling for his crucifixion? None of it seems to make any sense: why would Jesus, knowing this would happen, allow it to be so? Why the triumphant entrance, knowing what was to come?

Our faith is profoundly difficult to comprehend. Today, Good Friday, we come to terms with the death of our God, and there is no real way to make sense of it. We have theologies about why Jesus died and what his death accomplished. But in our hearts we will never be able to fully comprehend it. The love of God in this act of sacrifice is too great for the human heart to grasp.

Tuesday, Week of 4 Lent

“The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working’” (John 5:15-17).

In this story, Jesus heals a man who had waited by a pool for a long time: Jesus tells him to take up his pallet and walk, and the man does. The authorities first complain to the man that he has done it, because he has violated the Sabbath laws. The man then points out that he was told to do it and was healed, and the men’s anger turns to Jesus.

By even the strictest accounts, Jesus has done nothing to violate the law because he didn’t even lift a finger to touch the man, instead curing him with his words of command. It never ceases to amaze most of us that Jesus would get in trouble for healing on the Sabbath at all. Isn’t healing always a good thing?

The Sabbath is an important day, because it allows us to remember that God rested on the seventh day, and gives us a chance to fulfill the obligation of worship. But the Sabbath is first and foremost a gift – “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath (Mk 2:27). If that gift descends into ritualism devoid of compassion and life, then the gift ceases to be so, and becomes a kind of prison. God never intended any law to take precedence over love, and any worship of God without that love is empty. As God always loves, so too are we called to put love fist. Love does not take a break. Love does not take a backseat to ritual observance.

We are called on the Sabbath, and on every day, to worship God by living with love. We are called to try and make people’s lives better each and every day. By learning to put a living love ‘before’ worship, we infuse each moment with a new kind of worship that is embodied in how we treat each other. Each day is the Sabbath day if we live it as a gift from God and an opportunity to do God’s work.  

Feast of Saint Joseph of Nazareth

“And he said to them, ‘How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’” (Luke 2:49)

The story of Jesus being lost in the temple, and his response when his parents find him, is both difficult and easy to wrap our heads around. On the one hand, God is his Father, so this is a completely legitimate response that illustrates Jesus’ relationship with the Father and the events which are to come.

On the other hand, when Joseph heard it, it must have felt like he was being stabbed in the heart. Here is his son, the boy whom he has loved and parented, glibly throwing off a line about his ‘real’ father. It’s every adoptive parent’s nightmare: that the child might one day (probably, though not necessarily, in anger) dismiss their words and concerns using their ‘birth’ parent as leverage.

Joseph’s road must have been a hard one. First, his betrothed shows up pregnant, and he has to put her away. When it turns out she hasn’t been unfaithful, he agrees to take her as his wife anyway. He starts down a long – and lonely – road where his firstborn son isn’t his flesh and blood. And he knows it. And Jesus knows it. Still, he raises his son with love. And Jesus innocently stabs him in the heart.

Joseph must have had moments, and even long periods of time, when he forgot Jesus wasn’t his. He must have had many painful moments when he remembered. With another Father in Jesus’ life, one with an absolute claim to the child’s love and loyalty, Joseph could never have the opportunity to be Jesus’ only father.

It must have been hard. It must have been lonely. But through it all he raised Jesus as his own; he was called by God, raised up, to love this child. Joseph is an example of humility, courage, and sacrifice, and there is much we can learn from him.

“Oh God, from the family of your servant David you raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son. Give us grace to follow him in faithful obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever” (BAS).

Fourth Sunday in Lent

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17).


If you had to sum up the entire Gospel in two sentences, this would be it. The Gospel tells us that God loves the world - in fact, He loves it so much that "while were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). God does not judge our worthiness of Christ's sacrifice by our purity, or adherence to the law, or perfect actions. No one among us is without sin. In Christ, God judges us by the standard of his love for us. In giving his only Son, God opens the door to salvation by loving us first.

The Gospel tells us that we are saved not through deeds of righteousness but by faith (Rom 5:1); through belief, we shall have eternal life. This does not mean that our actions are without consequence: John goes on to tell us that the light has come into the world (Jn 3:19), and that "he who does what is true comes to the light" (3:21). Our actions are an aspect of faith, the part that embraces goodness as the guide of our decisions. While no one is perfect, living in faith means going toward and living within the light. If we are willing to stand before God openly, acknowledging our faults while striving always to hit the mark, we embrace the lives of faith that lead to eternal life.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus comes to save us, and not to condemn us. God desires that we have eternal life through him. Like the lost sheep, he seeks us out wherever we are and wants to bring us home safely. Like the father of the prodigal son, he looks forward to our coming with openness and forgiveness. God does not send Jesus because He desires to punish us. God sends Jesus because He want us, through the Son, to have true and eternal life.

Friday, Week of 3 Lent

“You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:32-33).

This year, Montreal has been a city of protests. We have seen Occupy Montreal pitch their tents, we’ve seen various labour disputes, student protests, protests against police brutality, and pro-democracy/anti-corruption marches. Some of them have turned ugly, but for the most part they’ve gone well.

What they all have in common is that they are motivated by a call for some kind of justice.

Social justice is an important part of the Christian gospel. Liberation theologians refer to it as God’s ‘preferential option for the poor:’ God, and Jesus, always comes down on the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the disenfranchised. God never sides with the powerful over the weak. As Christians, we are called to work toward social justice, not just for ourselves, but for others.

If we understand the two great commandments as Jesus has put them forward, we understand that all our work for justice is empowered and enlivened by our love of God and our love of neighbour – true Christian justice is empty and impossible without it. By loving God with all our heart, we receive from Him the love and courage required to take the sometimes difficult actions that justice demands of us. Justice that is more than just an equation, but a living compassion and solidarity, requires the strength of the whole human spirit bolstered by faith in God’s justice.

Loving God with all the understanding demands of us that we ask ourselves what God desires of us when we pursue justice: “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). We are called to be reflective about the reasons why we seek justice, which gives us greater strength of conviction. We do not stand alone, but with God at our sides.

Loving our neighbour as ourselves demands of us that we work on behalf of causes that do not directly benefit us. It may be that sometimes we are called to work against our own interests for the greater good. No one ever said the Gospel would be easy.

These things – these loves – are more powerful than any activism for its own sake could ever be. Let us pray for and engage in justice for love of all God’s people.

“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1-4).

Thursday, Week of 3 Lent

“But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20).

We spend a lot of time in Lent thinking about Jesus’ Passion, obviously, and also about the things he said – his instructions, the clues he gave about who he is and what was coming, the Sermon on the Mount and various other directives to his followers, parables illustrating how to live our lives. What has been less talked about so far are the acts Jesus did during his ministry.

While we tend to think of Jesus primarily as a teacher, and see him through the lens of Incarnation-Crucifixion-Resurrection-Ascension, it’s important to remember that the people who lived during his lifetime knew him very differently. While some undoubtedly thought of him as an important teacher, I have a hunch that he was primarily known as a powerful miracle worker.

The most well-known and important of his miracles are not his healings – though those are ubiquitous. They are his exorcisms.

Though exorcism and demonology have fallen out of favour in modern times, they are immensely important in Jesus’ ministry. Many times in the gospels, possessing demons are the first (and sometimes lone) voices speaking up about Jesus’ identity as Messiah. The demons recognize and proclaim him for who he is. We are presented with a picture of the world in which two ‘principalities’ are at war: heaven and hell, God and the devil, are battling it out for control. Jesus has immense power over the demonic and casts out demons using varied techniques which were familiar in the ancient world. (If anyone actually wants to read my insane paper on ritual exorcism in the gospel of Mark, give me a shout.)

Jesus pushes back the demonic and limits its power, and is thus recognized as an agent of God – his exorcisms are an important part of his ministry both because they establish his identity and because they reveal his nature. So it isn’t surprising that his sceptics would take aim at them. In this passage, Jesus is responding to claims that he casts out demons not by the power of God, but by the power of the devil (Lk 11:14-23). He answers these charges by saying that a house divided cannot stand: metaphysically, it is impossible for the forces of evil to be arrayed against themselves because only one set of battle lines can be drawn (11:17-19). Since only God’s power can be against the devil’s, Jesus obviously gets his power from God.

Here, we see the heart of Jesus’ ministry: the kingdom of God has come among us because Jesus manifests the power of God. There is no ministry of words or healings or exorcisms without this power. There is no birth or death or resurrection. Everything springs from the power and is enfolded in it. When we try to recognize Jesus, we know him by his acts of power, and we see the kingdom.

In our lives as Christians today we cannot forget that acts are important. We must have the courage and conviction to do acts of power through the power of God as Jesus has taught us. I’m not saying that we’re all called to cast out demons or heal the blind – though undoubtedly some of us are. But we are called to believe the manifest presence of the kingdom. We are called to live our lives in the power of God.  

Wednesday, Week of 3 Lent

“Think not that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

I once read a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet that explained Jesus’ words this way: if a person has a contract the build a house, he builds the house until it is finished. Then, when the house is finished, the contract is over and the man no longer has to build the house. The contract has been ended, but not abolished; it has been ended because it is fulfilled, accomplished. The pamphlet went on to say that this is a perfect metaphor for what happened with Jesus and the Law: Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law and the prophets, so now the Law no longer applies. No more law for us. Except for the 10 commandments – that part of the Law gets to stay. That’s different because, well, it’s at the beginning, plus Jesus talks about stuff like that.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

The other is that Jesus really means what he says: we must keep the Law. And not only that: we must go beyond it. In the rest of the passage, Jesus says that not only must you not murder, but you must not be angry (Mt 5:21-22), you must not insult (5:23), you must forgive your brother before giving your offering (5:23-24), you must befriend your accuser (5:25-26). Jesus does not contradict the Law: he goes beyond it. He means for us to keep the Law, and then some.

Jesus later elaborates on what we are meant to do in following and exceeding the Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Mt 22:37-40).

Since the whole of the Law and prophets grow from and hinge on these two things, keeping – and exceeding – the Law is a matter of following these commandments with our whole being. It may seem simple compared to the manifest rules of the Mosaic law, but the truth is the demands placed on us in these commands is far greater than any rigid adherence to a set of rules could ever be. Truly loving is always harder than following a law.

We’re still left with the question of how to deal with the biblical laws modern Christianity has rejected (and which even post-temple Judaism has to deal without). If Jesus tells us to keep the whole letter of the Law, how do we justify having done away with it? Do we resort to the answer that it is no longer valid because, in Jesus, the house has been built?

The laws which Christianity has rejected have to do with purity – a kind of purity essential to worship in a temple with different levels of purity requirements depending on how close you are to the inner sanctum. The laws which we have rejected, then, all have to do with a certain style of worshiping God, of loving God with our whole hearts, and minds, and souls.

But there are more ways than one to worship God, more than one way to love Him. The way established in the minutiae of Jewish law and related to the temple are one way, and a valid way. They have not been abolished. But Jesus has rebuilt the temple in his body, opening up many new ways to love and worship God that do not depend upon the purity linked with temple worship and sacrifice. Jesus is the pure sacrifice. Worship and love of God are free to evolve so long as they are centered on the total-loving that Jesus lays out in the two commandments.

We would do well to remember, in this age of fractured churches and renewed ecumenism, that God has given us many ways to worship and love Him, many ways to fulfill the Law.  

Tuesday, Week of 3 Lent

A change of pace for today: have a listen to this beautiful Taize chant!

Monday, Week of 3 Lent

“When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away” (Luke 4:28-30).

This passage is all about rejection. Jesus gives two examples of biblical prophets who worked outside the borders of their people because they had been rejected: the prophet Elijah and the prophet Elisha (Lk 4:25-27). At this point, the crowd gets angry with Jesus and, predictably, rejects him.

The Christian message is, among others things, about rejection. Jesus’ ministry was full of instances of rejection, culminating in the ultimate rejection of him in his death. Today, and throughout its history, Christianity has been rejected. People put the message aside, repudiate it, and sometimes violently reject it. Part of what marks Christian discipleship is how we deal with that rejection.

Jesus did not give up: he continued on, passing through the mob that wanted to kill him, and preached the word in other places. He did not try to force people to believe, or over-argue his side once people had turned away. Logic, argument, and philosophy were not Jesus’ way of convincing people that he was right: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart […] for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:19, 25). Jesus simply preached the truth, and lived out a ministry of love, trusting that those who were open to it would come around to belief.

Although the crowd misunderstood his examples and became angry, Jesus’ reference to Elijah and Elisha illuminate an important aspect of God’s dealings with His people. Although we reject and forsake Him, God does not give up on us. He operates in new ways, in new places, in ways that we do not expect – but He doesn’t give up on us. Just as God eventually sends His prophets back to His people, and sends them new prophets, Jesus does not abandon hope for us or repudiate us because we have rejected him. He is always working on our behalf.

Sometimes, that work occurs at the margins, where we would not expect it. Sometimes, that work makes people really, really angry. But when all is said and done, the heart of the matter is that God does not reject us. He continually calls us forward, gently, to His side.

Third Sunday of Lent

“But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken” (John 2:21-22).

Today’s gospel reading recounts Jesus’ destruction in the temple forecourt, saying "you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade" (Jn 2:16). Strictly speaking, what the temple traders were doing that day does not violate temple law: it doesn't penetrate the inner sanctified areas of the temple, but remains in the public sphere. For a variety of reasons, the temple trade is necessary to a holy observance of the Passover. Donations and taxes must be paid in temple currency, so money-changers are necessary. Animals for slaughter must be free of blemish, so they are usually purchased at the temple rather than brought from home, which would risk damaging them and rendering them unsuitable for sacrifice.

Jesus knows all this. For the man who came to uphold the law to show this much violent disrespect for the temple must mean something pretty important.

Jesus is establishing himself as the new temple, the new commandment, the new center of faith. After the resurrection, faith will hinge not upon a geographic location but upon a person (not that this stopped the earliest Christians from hanging around the temple, waiting for the Second Coming).

But more than that, Jesus is reminding people that faith and worship must not be allowed to become merely a series of ritual acts and exchanges. You cannot ‘get’ holiness for the price of a pigeon any more than you can ‘earn’ your way into heaven with perfect temple adherence. These are tools given by God to help foster relationship with him, not chains meant to define and constrict true worship to prescribed acts of piety. Zeal for God’s house consumes Jesus (Jn 2:17): it is a faith that lives, that infuses his being, that goes beyond anything man-made – even to death on the Cross.

This Lent, Jesus calls us to a living faith, a faith that bursts the bounds of organized religion rather than being contained by it. Our houses of worship nourish us, they give us strength and allow us to come together to love and praise God in unity. But they are not the totality of our faith. Our Lord promises to rebuild the temple in three days: by his death we are saved, and through his resurrection we are set free to a reality born not of the flesh but of spirit, a reality that cannot be contained.

Saturday, Week of 2 Lent

“Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:22-24).

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most beloved stories in scripture, and with good reason: it shows us a snapshot of how God responds to his precious children when they have gone astray.

The younger son in the story insults his father in the worst way by demanding that he give over the son’s inheritance while the father is still alive. The younger son takes what is still his father’s, and squanders it on pointless things. His father must have been humiliated, as well as deeply hurt, that his son chose to do this to him.

The youngest son then runs into trouble, having spent all that he had and finding himself in a country gripped by famine. He’s pretty much screwed: doing menial labour, he still can’t manage to feed himself. Full of remorse, and realizing what he has done, the son makes the journey home prepared to beg his father’s forgiveness. He is shamed, and humble, and acknowledges his sin.

But when the father sees him coming from afar off, he runs to his beloved son, even after all the hurt between them. He embraces his son, and when the boy apologizes and acknowledges he is unworthy, the father immediately showers love and good things upon him – which he was prepared to do the moment he saw his son approaching. The father does not hold on to his hurt, but puts it aside.

God, like the father in the story, is waiting to embrace us when we come to him. He rushes to meet us before we’re even all the way there. He desires to forgive us, to be overjoyed at our return, because he loves us even when we’re far away. Like the prodigal son, we have to choose to return: God will not seek us out in far-away lands. But he is more than willing to embrace us when we seek him with humility, for we have returned, and he does not hold the past against us.

The eldest son in the parable is distinctly less pleased than his father at the younger brother’s return. He is jealous because, while he has never disobeyed, his father has never done anything for him like what he is doing for the son who hurt him. The elder brother thinks none of this is fair.

The father tells him “all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; was lost, and is found” (Lk 15:31-32). The brother has no cause to be jealous because he and the brother receive equally, just as one saved person would have no cause to be jealous of another since both are held equally in the Father’s embrace.

In this parable, Jesus shows us a God Who’s love defines justice, and Who’s love for us overshadows all our wrongdoings. The only thing asked of us is to come before him in humility.

“Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me […] The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:8-11, 17).

Friday, Week of 2 Lent

“There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country” (Matthew 21:33).

This passage is part of the parable of the vineyard: the owner sends people to collect the fruit from his vineyard, and those to whom he let out the land reject all of them – even killing his son – so that they can keep the fruit for themselves. When Jesus asks his listeners what will happen to those wicked tenants, the people reply that the owner of the vineyard will kill them, and replace them with others who will give him his fruit in due season.

The Pharisees and chief priests believe the parable is about them and, in an obvious way, it is. Jesus is come to say that the old religion of the temple is falling aside, to be replaced by a new movement founded on commandments that are written on the heart and a new relationship with God. The Pharisees, like any other religious leaders, have a responsibility to God for those over whom they have been given authority. If they are not providing the fruit to God, and kill his son rather than hand it over, then they will be replaced.

But I think that, in a deeper sense, the parable is about what happens to the vineyard. Through it all, the owner is concerned about the harvest which is his. He sends many servants to collect it, and remains undaunted when they are beaten, sent away, and killed. The householder wants the fruit so badly he even sends his own son. The end of the parable predicts that the owner will replace the evil tenants with new ones, who will give him the harvest he so desires.

Through all of its criminal mismanagement, the owner of the vineyard never seeks to destroy it. He could have had the vineyard burnt to remove the harvest from those who kept it from him. He could have chosen to destroy it, forcing the bad workers out with nothing. He could even have given up on the harvest, and started anew somewhere else.

But the owner did not abandon what was his, even though the cost of regaining it was so dear. He risked – and lost – his own son in an attempt to secure his harvest.

We are like the harvest the owner of the vineyard seeks to gather in. God has planted us and we belong to him, and the harvest is good and plentiful. Something evil has befallen it: in our case, the evil is in the harvest itself, because it is we who have failed to use it to its intended purpose. The bad will be destroyed – the mismanagement, the attempt to corrupt the harvest – but the good fruit will be gathered in to God regardless of what stands in his way. The good fruit of us will be God’s, for “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39). God will have what is His, for the harvest was planted for God and not the tenants.

This Lent, we see that Jesus is the Son who dies for the harvest, out of love for the Father and for that which will be gathered in.

Wednesday, Week of 2 Lent

“And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day’” (Matthew 20:17-19).

It never ceases to amaze me how much the disciples failed to recognize what Jesus was about even as he was shoving it in their faces.

Here he is, laying out for them what we know as the mystery of our faith: that Christ has died, and Christ is risen (or, from their perspective, that he will die and be raised). And then they start bickering among themselves about who’s going to sit at his right hand.

Jesus tells them that they have to rethink the way they do things: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you” (Mt 20:25-26). It isn’t important to think about who sits at Jesus’ right hand and who sits at his left. It is so not important to Jesus that it’s not even his business – the Father is going to decide (20:23). What’s important to him is that his disciples be prepared to drink the cup he is to drink, for they, too, are called to take it.

We are all called, perhaps most forcefully in Lent, to rethink the way we do things. We are called to rethink the way we live our lives, and the way we do church. We are called not to think about earning salvation or glory in heaven, but to walk alongside Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. We are called not to Lord it over others. We are called to put aside personal ambition. We are called to stop focusing on what we think is important and to listen to what Jesus is saying.

Discipleship is not about glory. Discipleship is being willing to walk alongside the Christ who dies, being willing to drink the cup, being willing to serve. It is being open to putting aside all the concerns we always thought were so important. It’s about risking everything on the path of love.

“whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28).

Tuesday, Week of 2 Lent

“Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:10-12).

In this reading, Jesus asks us to re-examine what it means to be holy. He begins by exhorting the crowds to do what the Pharisees teach them to do, but not to do what the Pharisees actually do. Holiness is not about the pretty words that flow from your mouth or your good intentions, but your actual behaviour. Radical: walking the walk instead of talking the talk.

He tells us not to place heavy burdens upon other people that we will not help them to bear. Holiness is not about placing stricture on other people. It’s not about piling up rules that people find it hard to obey. Instead, a holy life is about helping others to shoulder their difficult burdens, empowering them through the love of God to carry those burdens lightly. Place my yolk upon your shoulders, and I will give you rest.

Jesus tells us not to be like the Pharisees, who love their position of power, who exult in it and who enjoy the public displays of their piety which bring them privilege. He tells us not to be called masters – for God is the true Master.

This isn’t to say that leadership is bad and we should all give it up. Indeed, some people are actually called to leadership. What Jesus means is that true leadership, holy leadership, needs to be re-envisioned as service.

If we do lead it is not for our own benefit, but for the people who are being led. A mother cares for and instructs her children not because she desires power over them but because she loves them and desires to nurture them. So it should be with all leadership. We are called in all our dealings to strive to exalt the other, to serve the other, to lift the other up; we are called to put aside false leadership which rules by putting the other down and elevating ourselves over them.

Like Dr. Phil says: we should live each day not thinking ‘how does this person make my life better’ but, rather, ‘how can I make this person’s life better today.’ That is holiness.

Monday, Week of 2 Lent

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).

If we have the courage to admit it to ourselves, we know that we’re pretty good at judging people. We judge people based on a million different things: the way they look, the way they act and, most of all, the impact they have on our lives. We judge them worthy or lacking. We find others praiseworthy or, in our hearts, we find fault and condemn.

We forget that the part we see of another person is really only the tip of the iceberg: there’s so much hidden beneath the water. When we consider people’s actions, we automatically conclude that the cause of their behaviour is rooted in their personality. But we don’t really know where their actions grow from. It could be outside pressure. It could be anything. It could even be that the actions we condemn them for are not bad, but spring from some good motivation which we can’t see.

Even with all this, we’re so good at judging. Here, Jesus tells us not to judge. What’s so wrong with judging, if we believe God is a judge who does it all the time?

Well, for one thing, we don’t know everything God knows, so we’re poor judges. But the biggest problem with judging others is what it does to our relationship with them, and with God.

Judging other people means believing that we are superior to them, better than them, less sinful than they are. The problem is that if we’re going to set up a ‘hierarchy’ by which to judge people, we’re all going to end up beneath Jesus. If we insist on a concept of judgment based on superiority, we will all end up condemned. We can never have a true relationship with God if we cling to an image of salvation based on hierarchy; hierarchy is relationship based not on love and freedom, but on command and force. Since it is for freedom that Christ sets us free (Gal 5:1), we must re-imagine relationship as love and not control.

Love without control means letting go of our own sense of superiority, letting go of judgement, letting go of condemnation. In so doing, we can embrace relationship with the God who loves and forgives. Sometimes, love without control means people will do things that end up hurting themselves or us. God challenges us to love them through it by embracing forgiveness.

That’s the kind of love God loved the world with when He Created it – he gave it the freedom to sin so that love would really be love, the kind of love that comes with freedom. If we live lives of judgment and condemnation, we are really saying that we don’t trust the Father, because He is the one that made all these bad things possible. How can we have relationship with a Father we don’t trust?

That’s the kind of love God loved the world with when he sent his only Son to take our place in the judgment. Jesus, who says ‘Take me instead,’ is asking us to live within that promise – the promise of a love that gives without demanding, that forgives without condemning, that judges not on the basis of what we deserve but by the standard that we are loved.

Second Sunday of Lent

“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves; and he was transfigured before them, and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them” (Mark 9:2-3).

It’s pretty easy to talk about Jesus the human being, especially during Lent. Jesus is the God who suffers, who allies himself with the poor and rejected, who dies on the Cross. It’s easy to learn from him, because he’s the one we see teaching us, sharing parables, telling us how to relate to God and to one another. While his life is difficult, it’s pretty easy to understand because – at its core – it’s no different from the lives he’s asking us to lead.

But Jesus is also fully divine. He has a unique relationship with the Father because they are Persons of the one God. He's blinding in his glory.

In this reading Jesus is transfigured before his closest friends, in what the Orthodox church upholds is a manifestation of the pure, uncreated divine light. His friends are stunned and terrified. They don’t understand what they’re seeing. It’s easy to see why: Jesus is outside and beyond everything they've known.

At times, Jesus (and God) is incomprehensible to us. At times, we don’t know what to make of any of it. It’s especially difficult to understand events like the transfiguration because they don’t relate to anything we’ve ever known or experienced before. God can be blinding, terrifying, overwhelming. That glory can never be contained or put aside.

And yet Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7). There is only this one moment in his earthly ministry where God’s glory so completely shines through. Jesus does not come for his own glory, but for the glory of the Father; Jesus does not come for his own sake, but for the world which God so loves. As a servant, he humbles himself. The glory is always there, but hidden.

Jesus tells his friends that they must tell no one what they’ve seen on the mountain until after he has risen from the dead (Mk  9:9). They don’t understand. And it is hard to understand that Jesus should not grasp the power of God but lay down his life for us, his friends. Logically, it doesn’t seem possible that the God of glory could ever die. And it isn’t logical. It’s love.

In the transfiguration we see that “the kingdom of God has come with power” (Mk 9:1). When we look around us at dreary world with all its suffering, a world that seems so far from God’s kingdom, we know – even though we can’t see it – that the kingdom is here because Jesus lives. One day, when the kingdom comes in full, “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11).

The world was blessed to see a glimpse of that day in the shining raiment of our Lord.

Getting Up for the Game

Special Post by Anonymous

Among the several great and entertaining Super Bowl commercials was one really neat spot by Budweiser (please don’t mistake this for product placement; I really don’t like beer): the sponsors organized a capacity crowd to show up at a local recreational-league hockey game, decked out in the teams’ colours, and to cheer their hearts out for the players. The beginning of the segment showed the players going about their game in the usual obscurity, while the organizers cranked up the event just outside the arena’s doors. In addition to the wildly enthusiastic “fans”, the organizers brought in play-by-play announcers, a mascot, t-shirt cannons, and an explosion of confetti when the winning goal was scored. The players’ looks of absolute confusion gradually turned to joy in the professional-sports atmosphere in which they found themselves, and they couldn’t help but dig a lot deeper and crank up the intensity to win this game. This wasn’t just their typical pick-up game anymore; it was prime time!

Our little suburban church community often feels a lot like the rec league: we gather together to worship, we enjoy each other’s company, and we then head back off to our homes and lives. The hymns lead into the prayers, the sermon is given, we commune, we share announcements, and that’s that. There are no miraculous acts of healing or powerful movements of the Holy Spirit (at least that we detect). We aren’t under threat from armed terrorists or government militia. We aren’t televised, webcast, or even recorded. In the great Body of Christ, All Saints is probably somewhere in the appendix. In the wider scale of the Church on earth, then, does it really matter what we do and say?

It really does.

We have our own “flash mob” cheering us on: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1) We can’t hear the roar of the crowd, but it’s there every time we make a stand for Christ and proclaim His Name. Conversely, there is an Other Side who is pushed back on their heels when we profess our faith and pour our hearts into our worship.

Who else is sitting in the stands, shouting encouragement? Jesus said to His apostles: “For where two or three gather in My Name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

In response, as per the passage from Hebrews, our response is to walk the walk, or more appropriately, run the run with purpose and perseverance. The race is real and so is the finish line. Be in it to win it. The apostle Paul wrote the same thing to the church in Corinth: “Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.” (1 Cor 9:24-26)

Going through the motions doesn’t cut it. Mailing it in is not an option. Our responsibility and our joy is to worship and serve with all of our being, because we are part of something so much bigger and more important than we can see from our pews. Let’s give the fans what they want to see. Go, team, go!

Saturday, Week of 1 Lent

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:44-45).

Once again, today’s reading drives home the point that relationship with God is alj about love.

This time, Jesus is asking us for the hardest thing: to love our enemies. We all have people in our lives (or past) who have hurt us, who have done something wrong to us, or who just plain have something against us. We all have people whom we have deeply hurt or wronged. It seems impossible that genuine reconciliation and relationships could ever arise between us. Forgiving them is one thing, but expecting those relationships to return to the way they were before the hurt happened is largely impossible.

But still, Jesus asks us to love them. That starts at the most basic levels: not holding on to anger, not talking about them behind their backs, not plotting revenge. If we do run into them, we are supposed to treat them with dignity and respect.

More drastically, love may call us to ask for or offer forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting what happened – no one, including God, ever forgets. But it does mean being willing to not let the past hang over us, not letting anger or hurt totally define our feelings for that person. It means, fundamentally, being open to the reality that God can and does love the people who have hurt us and whom we have hurt: “for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (5:45). Loving our enemies, so as to be a son of God, means responding to them knowing that they are beloved of the Lord.

It may be that our enemies will never come to us asking forgiveness. It may be that we never come across them again. But when we think of them, we should make an effort to let go of our anger, anger that leads us to dwell in the past with painful memories rather than living in the present for the future. If they come to us, we should be open to hearing them out. If we see they are in need, we should not pass them by any more than we would pass by a stranger we met along the way.

We are called to live lives of compassion and mercy, like our Father in heaven.  

Friday, Week of 1 Lent

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before that altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

This passage begins with Jesus redefining sin: not only is it wrong to kill, but it’s wrong to be angry, to insult, to belittle. Wow. Can you imagine what it must have been like to hear for the first time that angry thoughts are wrong, just like killing is wrong? That thoughts are something you can do?

Then, Jesus tells you that if someone has something against you, you have to go and reconcile with them. If they’re angry with you, if they’re accusing or insulting you, you have to go to them and make it better. It’s so important that you’re supposed to leave your offering and go.

Either way, you’re responsible for making things better between you, either by letting go of your anger or by beseeching them in theirs.

It’s all about the relationship: whatever anger or resentment or accusation is between you has to be resolved or it damages your worship of, and relationship with, God. You’d think that the two would be completely separate, but Jesus is always making things harder by saying that they’re intertwined.

You have a responsibility to make it better either way because you are responsible for how you behave with other people, regardless of who has the problem or who started it. Jesus is telling us to reach out, to ask for forgiveness, to offer forgiveness, to let go of whatever drives a wedge between us. It might just be the hardest thing we ever have to do.

Peace and goodwill between us, and respect, are really just aspects of being willing to love even when it’s difficult to do so. And love, the love that Jesus calls us to and demands of us, is the law and the prophets that Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill.

Thursday, Week of 1 Lent

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:11-12).

This is love, radicalized.

What if, every time you ask God for something, he gives it to you? What if whenever you seek, you find? What if every door you knock on is opened unto you? That’s exactly what Jesus says will happen.

On the face of it, that’s not true: we’ve all had plenty of experiences where we asked God for things and they just didn’t happen. But it is true where it is deepest. If a father wouldn’t give his child a serpent when he asked for fish, he certainly wouldn’t give his child a serpent even if he asked for one. Serpents just aren’t good. Obviously, if we ask for something bad for us, or seek something we shouldn’t find, God won’t hand it over or lead us to it. He won’t go against our freedom to give us something, either: that would be control, not love.

God gives us what we ask for most purely: himself, and his love. This is a radical love, a love that transforms, a love that seeks relationship rather than control. We have the freedom to give ourselves to Christ as he has given himself already to us. We seek him and find him, we ask and he gives himself to us, we knock and he opens unto us.

God is calling us in the Sermon on the Mount to lead lives of radical love, to enter into the love that he has for us by living our lives in it. We are called to live the golden rule because we are called to give up selfishness and seek to find our good in another, to find fulfillment in love of the other. With the love of God within us, we are compelled to turn outward in love – if that love does not spread outward from us to others then we do not have it within ourselves either. The love of God is not a thing to be contained, but a living force that grows as we becoming more loving by giving it away. The love of God is not something to be kept for oneself, for we are stewards meant to share it.

This is love, radicalized.

Wednesday, Week of 1 Lent

“For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of man be to this generation […] The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (Luke 11:30, 32).

Today’s reading is all about recognizing Christ – and what to do when you have. It’s also about a failure to believe, a failure to embrace or understand, a desire to demand more.

Before making his pronouncement that this is an evil generation seeking a sign, Jesus had cast a mute demon out of a man. Even though many people marvelled at what he had done, a few others claimed that he cast out demons by the power of the devil (Lk 11:15), while still others demanded more signs from heaven (11: 16). Jesus denounces those who say his power is from the devil with the argument that a divided house will fall, and so the devil cannot cast out his own. But it’s obvious that the bigger problem isn’t the people who foolishly think his power is demonic. The bigger problem is those who just can’t bring themselves to believe.

Two things about Jesus’ reference to Jonah are interesting. The first is that he says no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah (11:29). But that already isn’t true. All Jonah does is walk into the city of Nineveh and tell the people that it will be destroyed (Jon 3:4). The people believe him, knowing it is a threat from God, and they repent; in the end, God does not destroy Nineveh because they turn from their evil ways. God repents of what He meant to do, and turns away from His anger.

Yet in Jesus’ case, the people have received more than words. Jesus has been doing deeds of power, and had in fact just cast out another demon. They have already seen a greater signs than the people of Nineveh, and yet refuse to believe. You can just see Jesus banging his head against the nearest wall in frustration. In this sense, Jesus’ pronouncement about Jonah’s sign is a condemnation of people’s unbelief; Jesus knows that these people, like those of Nineveh, will be judged and must repent while there’s time.

The other interesting thing about Jesus’ reference to Jonah is that Jesus is, in fact, nothing like Jonah at all. Jonah is an unwilling prophet who runs away to the other side of the world to get away from God, and ends up swallowed by a fish. When God hears his pleas and saves him, Jonah finally goes to Nineveh like God asked in the first place. He preaches about how they’ll be destroyed. Then, the people of Nineveh repent, and God saves them.

And Jonah is really, really mad about it.

Can’t you just hear him? “God, you jerk, this is exactly what I said would happen back when I was comfortable in my own house. That’s why I ditched you; you’re so freaking gracious and merciful, full of love and slow to anger, I just knew it would come to this. But noooooo! You made me come all the way here, you got me eaten by a damn fish, to do your dirty work and deliver your stupid meaningless threats. I’d rather just be dead. Stupid God.” Then Jonah stamps off to sit in a proverbial corner.

Jesus isn’t the reluctant prophet: Jesus wants to deliver God’s message. Unlike Jonah, Jesus doesn’t fail to get that the point is leading people to repentance, rather than to consume them in a fiery rage. Jesus is not mad about God’s desire to save us (though he seems a little put out by our unwillingness to listen). Jesus is like God in the story of Jonah, while the people who refuse to believe are more like the Jonah who listened to God without being willing to understand.

After Jonah goes off in his little corner, God grows him a lovely plant to give him shade, and Jonah’s happy for it. The next day, God kills the plant, and Jonah grows faint from the heat. God asks Jonah if he’s right to be angry for the plant, and Jonah replies that he is, mad enough to die. “Stupid God, you killed my plant. I liked it, and now I’m miserable. Why’d you have to kill it?”

God replies, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labour, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh” (Jon 4:10-11)? Silly Jonah: it was never your plant to begin with, it was mine.

Jesus, like the Lord, is hoping that we will see the signs he sends so that he can save us; after all, we are the fruit of his labour and he does not want us to be destroyed. We must strive to see Jesus so we can turn to him; we must strive to be like the Ninevites, and not like Jonah who refuses to see the good God is working because it doesn’t match what he wants. 

Tuesday, Week of 1 Lent

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).

In today’s reading, Jesus tells his disciples not to “heap up empty phrases” (6:7); God doesn’t hear you because of endless words but, instead, God knows what you need before you even ask him. Because of that, Jesus teaches us to pray using the words to the Lord’s Prayer. He then goes on to emphasize our own responsibility in living the kind of life we’ve asked for – we need to forgive others if we desire God to forgive us.

The Lord’s Prayer begins by hallowing God’s name and establishing a relationship between us: “Our Father who art in heaven” (6:9). The whole prayer flows from that relationship. Since God is our Father, we can ask him to fulfill our needs. And since we hallow God’s name, we have a responsibility to lead lives befitting God’s holiness.

Giving glory to God is about more than just asking him to forgive us. We, too, have a part to play in our relationship with the Father. He asks us for so little, only that we let go of the hatred and anger that burdens us, so that we can accept God’s love and forgiveness instead of having hearts poisoned by an unwillingness to forgive.

Forgiving someone else doesn’t actually do a whole lot for that person: they still have the responsibility to seek out relationship with God, to heal that relationship by asking God to forgive them, to grow in that relationship by asking God for the strength to turn from further wrongdoing. Forgiving someone else does a whole lot more for us than it does for them, because it makes us open to the process of forgiveness. A person who has never forgiven cannot truly accept forgiveness or know its value. It’s like Jesus said: who will be more grateful and full of love for God, the one who has been forgiven of little, or the one forgiven of much? By acknowledging the gift of offering forgiveness, we begin to understand how much more we receive when forgiven by the One with whom our relationship has been most damaged by sin.

At the end of the prayer, Jesus emphasises that, by praying to God and seeking relationship with him, there are things we must do. Our prayer cannot be empty words heaped up before God, or promises of wanting a relationship with Him in which we do nothing. Our prayer must include the way we live, because the things we do are part of our relationship with God and are thus prayers. The simplest way to put this is to say that life itself is the prayer. So we must live giving glory to God, relying on Him, and seeking to draw closer to him by living with love, as He loves us.

Monday, Week of 1 Lent

“for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Matthew 25:35-36).

In this reading, Jesus tells us that the righteous (the sheep) will be at his right hand, while the wicked (the goats) will be cast out into eternal punishment. The reason he gives to both groups is that they took care of him when he needed it.

Both sets of people do not understand when this happened: surely, Lord, we have never done, or not done, those things for you? Surely we would remember meeting you, would remember that you were in need? When did we ever help or ignore you?

Jesus answers them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (25:40).

That’s the rub, isn’t it? Jesus chooses for his brethren the lowly and the needy; we would never ‘see’ Jesus in them if we were looking for him. It’s a strange concept that you can ‘do unto’ one person by your actions toward someone else entirely. Ordinarily, we would never say that was true: if you help your neighbor with his problems, you’re not helping your mother at the same time, right?

But Jesus thinks differently. Jesus thinks that because he loves these people, in fact loves all people, the way that we treat them affects him. He is angry if we mistreat them, and happy when we treat them well. It is to him that we do these things because he has chosen to be involved in their lives, to care about what happens to them. Ultimately, they belong to him, and so how any of his children is treated becomes a reflection of how we are treating him.

Jesus commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and we are told that we cannot possibly love the God we have not seen if we do not love the neighbour whom we have seen. Jesus is there with each and every human being, making our interactions with each other a reflection of how we receive God’s love in the other. Do we treat the other with dignity and respect, recognizing that they are worthy because God loves them? Or do we scorn those who don’t appeal to us, privileging ourselves over the other and scorning God’s love for them as somehow unimportant?

The truth is that no one can earn a place at God’s right hand – it is a free gift given by the One who made and loves us. But there is also no room in God’s kingdom for those who are unwilling to love, because a heart that is not open to the needs of another is not open to God, either.

During Lent, let us strive to see Jesus in others, that we may come to see each interaction as an opportunity to love God, to be open to God’s healing, and to give glory to the Name of Jesus to whom all our lives belong.

First Sunday of Lent

“And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased’” (Mark 1:10-11).

I once read a book titled The Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. In it, this scene goes very differently – Jesus is baptized by John and is being held underwater when the Holy Spirit makes this astonishing pronouncement. As a result, everyone gets to hear what the Spirit says except Jesus. Everyone is stunned, but Jesus has no idea what’s going on. Jesus is a bit perturbed that his Father couldn’t have waited until he was out of the water. I imagine, if it had happened that way, it wouldn’t have made much difference: Jesus already knows who he is, and the voice is really for us anyway.

But I digress.

This reading tells us that Jesus isn’t just some guy hanging out by the Jordan waiting for one of John’s special dunkings. He isn’t just a really enlightened man, or someone we can be exactly like if we try hard enough. He is the Son of God, a Person of the trinity who has a special relationship with the Father and the Spirit. If we want to recognize Jesus, we have to remember that he’s both fully human and fully divine.

For all his divinity, The Spirit chases Jesus right out into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days. This Christ, our Messiah, isn’t promising us an easy road. His certainly wasn’t. Just because the Messiah has come doesn’t mean that temptations will disappear, that hardships will melt away, that the world will suddenly be a place where everyone has enough to eat. While we believe that the world will be redeemed and perfected on the last day, we can’t believe that we only see Jesus in the happy, good parts of life.

Jesus hallows our suffering not because it is good – or to make it good – but by sharing in it. God doesn’t intend for bad things to happen, but he does redeem them by using them for His purposes. Like Jesus in the desert, we have a chance to work with God through hardship because Jesus entered fully into the human experience, including its weaknesses. He calls us to repent, to turn back to relationship with God, even – and perhaps most especially – in the midst of our deepest pain.

Jesus shows us that relationship with God is the key to allowing the Father to transform our suffering for purposes we can’t even begin to understand. Relationship with God is the gateway to a true happiness that includes but does not eliminate our suffering. Because of Jesus, the Beloved Son who went into the desert so we would not have to travel the wilderness alone, the kingdom of God is established in the midst of us.

In the middle of all our strife and suffering, the inheritance of a fallen creation, Jesus is here, ushering in the kingdom, and calling us anew to love.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

“And Jesus answered them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’” (Luke 5:31-32).

In this story, Jesus tells Levi the tax collector to follow him, and he does so without question, leaving everything behind. What he seemingly didn’t leave behind – and what irked the Pharisees so much – were his apparently disreputable friends. Levi threw a big dinner party for them, with Jesus as the guest of honour. Predictably, the Pharisees harped on about it, and Jesus had to explain that the people he came to party with include all the guys who would probably be jeered out of the Synagogue. Since even the Pharisees were at Levi’s party, Jesus really isn’t too particular about who’s invited.

Jesus is at work in the tax collector, the sinner, and even the Pharisee, calling them to repentance as he heals them. We probably shouldn’t get in the way by shunning them, or by failing to invite them in, or by belittling them, or by questioning Jesus’ motives in wanting them around in the first place.

We can recognize Jesus most clearly, perhaps, as he works changes in people’s lives, especially when those people seem unlikely to us. After all, we don’t know anyone’s heart, as much as we may be proficient at passing judgement. Only the Physician knows what needs healing. As followers of Christ, we aren’t called to leave behind the people in our lives who no longer fit into our image of discipleship. We’re meant to invite them in, ask them to dinner, and allow the quiet work of Jesus to heal their wounds. It might be that they don’t want to show up, but we can still invite them. It might seem to us that the God we introduce them to isn’t changing them at all, but we really have no way of knowing.

Jesus is in the change, and Jesus is in our relationship with the people we kind of want to shun but whom he’s telling us to embrace. Jesus is also in us, working silently, maybe in ways we can’t see. We too are being healed, as we are invited to be with him and share in his life. We recognize Jesus by understanding that he is calling everyone; and because he calls them, they are worthy of our love.

Giving Up, Giving In, Giving Out

Special Post by Anonymous

So here we are in another season of Lent. The time of the church calendar to dust the dirty rags and sackcloth out of the back of the closet, and make a nice ash fedora on our heads. Of all the liturgical seasons we “celebrate”, Lent seems the most detached from the society in which we live. Like a fall-back to the time when all good believers were supposed to feel like wiggly worms, hunched over in our wretchedness and foul, sin-soaked unworthiness. I had a nice thought, where are my thumbscrews?!?

After all, we’re sons of Adam and daughters of Eve (to borrow the terms from C.S. Lewis in his Narnia chronicles), and under the curse of sin. From the dust we were created, and to the dust we will return. Cue the funeral dirge.

And so it is in this mournful sense that many of us shuffle into Lent, giving up parts of our everyday life – chocolate, television, winning (well, if you’re a member of the Canadiens) – as a reminder of … what? What is it that our self-denials bring to our mind? The better question is: What should our Lenten promises be a reminder of?

God isn’t a spoilsport or a sadist. Jesus said that He came so we could have life, and have it in abundance (John 10:10). However, Jesus wasn’t talking about more, He was talking about better. Life to the fullest is a life spent deepening our love relationship with God, and along the way, being better able to love our neighbour as ourselves. The rest is just noise. It is from this that we are called to give up, thereby opening ourselves up to the better offering that God has for us.

This form of giving up is also a matter of giving in; giving in to the One who knows what abundant life is all about. Lent is a time to take the binoculars off ourselves and look upwards, saying to God, “Your will be done.” Sounding a lot tougher than 40 days without ice cream? In the immortal words of Sarah Palin: You betcha!

Finally, I suggest a third “give” to our Lenten journey: giving out. Make a special effort to reach others on God’s behalf. Give selflessly and readily. Give time. Give money. Give both of your ears to someone who just wants to be heard. Remember, we are the recipients of God’s abundance: let’s share the wealth.

None of this is a recipe for a carefree 40 days. It’s not meant to be. But if we really, honestly take this time in Lent to seek out God in all our daily nooks and crannies, I’m betting the thanksgiving for Christ’s sacrifice on Good Friday and the joy in celebrating His resurrection on Easter Sunday will blow our socks off.

Friday after Ash Wednesday

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’” (Matthew 9:15).

The triad of Lenten observance is prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – the most recognizable of which is probably fasting. Who among us hasn’t given up chocolate or coffee for Lent? It’s pretty much a certainty that we’ll be giving something up as a symbol of our observance. We’ll probably end up discussing our Lent fasting with growing weariness as the weeks slowly tick by, until we can ravenously chomp down on Easter chocolate.

Fasting is ubiquitous in pretty much every religious tradition, and certainly in JudeoChristianity. But in the reading from Matthew, Jesus explains to the disciples of John that his followers do not fast because they are not in mourning: the bridegroom is with them. Jesus, the bridegroom, is always with us because he is Risen and Ascended, and through the Holy Spirit we are in a relationship with him.

If he’s with us, why are we fasting? We should be full of joy, not mired in mourning. Why such an emphasis on finding God by giving things up?

Our fasting should not be about giving something up for the sake of doing so, or as a sign of mourning. If we fast, it has to be about our relationship with Jesus. We should not fast without praying. Lent has to be at least as much about putting on spiritual discipline as it is about giving something up. We should not fast without almsgiving. If we have so much that we can afford to get rid of something extra for forty days, then we can find joy in giving that something extra to someone who is in need.

Our prayer doesn’t have to be about saying an extra Our Father every day for Lent: it can be about finding new and dynamic ways of thanking God in and with our lives. Almsgiving doesn’t have to be about calculating how much money we would have spent at Starbucks and giving it to the poor: it can be giving our time or skill to someone, or smiling at a stranger, or helping a friend paint their kitchen. It can be anything done for the benefit of another, any giving of yourself motivated by love.

In the same way that prayer and fasting aren’t meant to be about making us sad or keeping tabs on our charity, fasting is meant to fill us with joy by helping our relationship with Jesus grow deeper. Jesus isn’t our taskmaster overlord, demanding constant sacrifice in order to earn his praise. Jesus is our Saviour, who loves us and wants to draw us closer to him.

Sometimes that means giving up chocolate. But most of the time it means giving up anger, revenge, pettiness, and other emotions or behaviours that damage our relationships with God and neighbour. By giving up something that stands between us and God, our fasting can fill us with joy rather than mourning, and help make us into new wineskins that can hold the new wine.   

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

“And Peter answered, ‘The Christ of God’. But he charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised’” (Luke 9:20-22).

When we think about who Jesus would have been to the people who knew him, we tend to think about all the big Technicolor stuff. Jesus HEALED THE SICK! Jesus MADE THE BLIND SEE! Jesus CAST OUT THE DEMONS! Jesus WALKED ON WATER! Jesus BEAT THE PHARISEES IN EVERY DEBATE THEY EVER HAD! And, best of all, JESUS TURNED WATER INTO WINE! All those miracles and he still knew how to party. To the people who hung out with him and followed him around like groupies, Jesus must have been a hip-and-happening dude, a super-powerful religious rockstar, the one who could do anything. That’s one heck of a Messiah-hood: like the Justin Bieber of the Galilee, Jesus was wandering around winning hearts and putting on an endless show.

That’s the picture we’d get if we saw Jesus through the eyes of his most loyal and star-struck disciples. It’s probably what Peter was thinking when he declared Jesus was the Christ.

But that isn’t what Jesus was thinking. He was thinking, don’t go around telling people that I’m the Christ, because they’ll misunderstand. He was saying, I am the Son of Man. The Son of Man is not seen in glory, or in the miraculous. He is not understood in his rockstar entertaining or in his witty remarks. He is the one who suffers, who is outcast, who dies. He is the Messiah, the one who is risen from the dead.

When we look for Jesus in our Lenten journey, we aren’t looking for him in the freakishly-charismatic preacher or in the man who cures the lepers. We’re looking for him among the rejected and the forsaken. On the road to Emmaus, the journey with Christ where we seek for and recognize him, we see that Jesus does not want us to find him in the midst of glory but in feeding the sick, visiting the imprisoned, clothing the poor, and walking among the rejected.   

Ash Wednesday

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 5:5-6).

I once went to an Ash Wednesday service with a Christian friend who wasn’t familiar with this tradition. He stayed through the whole thing, but didn’t go up for the imposition of ashes. When we walked out into the bright noonday, me with my conspicuous ashes and he without, he told me that he hadn’t wanted to get any because of this reading from Matthew.

He felt that the ashes – an obvious sign of the worship we’d just been doing – were against the spirit of a Gospel which tells us not to wave our religious observance around as a flag of our own moral superiority.

Having wandered around downtown Montreal before with the ashes smeared on my forehead, I’d felt many things about it: ‘embarrassed’ and ‘uncomfortable’ were probably my biggest emotions, because of all the semi-hostile stares you get from people. I personally had never felt like I was using the ashes to brag. But a part of me could see his point.

I thought about it a long time, and I came to realize that the problem with the hypocrites in the gospel reading isn’t that they’re standing on the street to pray; it’s that they’re doing it to be seen by men. If what you want from prayer is the reward of being noticed, the reward of having people look at you in a certain way, then that’s all the reward you’ll get. The true reasons behind our devotions and prayer can only be known in the secret places of the heart, whether we make those prayers in a church, on a street corner, or locked in a room somewhere. What our Father sees in secret defines the true reality of our worship.

After all, the Bible is full of stories where people put on sackcloth and ashes, people who tear their clothes and fast openly. People pray out loud all the time. What many of these stories have in common is that this open worship is all about acknowledging sinfulness, wretchedness, and the need for God’s help and forgiveness. With today’s ashes we’re in good company, as we remember our mortality and penitence through them.

As we seek to discover Jesus, to understand him through this Lenten journey, we need to remember that we are called to be outward signs of Christ, in whom our lives are hidden and whose light shines through us. This doesn’t mean we should be proud or vainglorious or superior like the hypocrite, but it does mean we have to be open to standing out uncomfortably. With the sign of Ashes, we are called to be humble like the Christ who came not to be served but to serve; we are called to turn our hearts toward seeking forgiveness, that we may discover the Jesus who forgives.

“Accomplish in us, O God, the work of your salvation, That we may show forth your glory in the world” (BAS).