felix hominum

Beatitudes: I

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I want to continue a few small thoughts I started last night, as we had a bit of a conversation about the beatitudes at sol café.  I have to confess that without really mentioning it, I was using these first six beatitudes as a bit of a lenten exercise.   The first part of the beatitude is the lenten part, the second part of the beatitude is the Easter part.

We sometimes ask the question “what does ‘poor in spirit’ mean”, instead of asking “who are the poor in spirit?”  While they are both important questions, it is the second which is more fundamental.  For when we discover who is poor in spirit, we will see what it means.  It is like the questions about the kingdom of heaven.  We can ask what it is, or we can ask who it is.

The Kingdom is not primarily a what, it is a who.  It is a Who.  If Jesus is the founding member of this kingdom, and by extension invites us into citizenship, then Jesus is primarily the poor in spirit, and by extension invites us to become poor in spirit. 

This Jesus emptied himself of his possessions – of his glory, of his status, of his rights, and of his life.  He was poor in spirit and rich in love.  He invites us to become poor in spirit – to empty our spirits of all those things we cling to as our “possessions”. 

on book lists

If you are at all familiar with the realm of the blogger, you may have noticed that people often post a list of their "current reading" items on the side.   For your reference I have listed mine as well.   These are all books that I am currently working through.  Like lectio divina communis - divine reading in community;  hearing as a congregation the readings from Scripture;  or any other "group literary experience",  I find reading to be mostly a shared experience these days.   

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy sitting down quietly and working through a book for my own personal enlightenment and edification [side note: Matt caught me working through Gadamer's Truth and Method  a few days ago].  But in this stage of life I find that my reading experience is, well, more "communal" than individual.  There is something profoundly joyous in sitting together, sharing the experience of a story.  And being the only one who can read in the group of 2 or 3 or 4 on the bed or on the sofa or on the large pile of cushions that has become the "rockly" mountains in our living room,  I find that I am the story teller, or better yet the story re-teller.  Someone else has written the story - and my job is to re-tell, to animate, to bring the story to life in the minds and hearts of the small band of faithful hearers who gather about me -  jostling for position, and finding favourite blankets, and cuddling in for the next installment.

People ask me what I do.  I now know what to say to them. 

Someone has written a Story.  I am a Story re-teller.

the third temptation

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."  Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, Worship the  Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

“All these I will give you”.  Wait a minute.  Who said they were in your power to give?  Can you really deliver on this promise?  Or like the first temptation in the garden, is there a lie?   

This tells me something about the nature of temptation:  it always offers a false promise of something it can’t really deliver.  All temptations contain a promise, and a falsehood:  you shall be like God, knowing good and evil.  You will not die.

Temptation becomes sin when I chose to believe and act on the lie.  After all, the lie is a pretty good lie – it is convincing to me.  Lust promises love; pride promises self-worth; greed promises security and plenty;  sloth promises rest and peace.  Temptation knows what we want; it just offers us cheap imitation of the real thing.   

And temptation uses that word “all” – “All these I will give you”.  How much do I really need?  How much money?  How much food, how much shelter, how much comfort?  Temptation is never satisfied, and neither are we.  We always want more, we want all.

How we live tells us who or what we truly serve and worship.

the sol cafe this week...

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

So what are we doing this week at sol café?  We are going to start by talking about the thoughts in the last post:  how does a person reveal the truth about themselves?  How do we reveal who we are to others, and how does Jesus reveal himself to us?   Following up on the last post, we will be looking at some of the beatitudes as ‘revelation” – revealing who Jesus is, and revealing who we are.  What does Jesus reveal about himself in these words?  What do they reveal about us?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Can we build a community based on these words? 

What is a human being?

That’s a start for now.  See you at the sol café.

on making up Jesus as we go along

One of the things that in my pettiness tends to annoy me is mistaken identity.  I think we have all had the experience at one time or another of someone coming up to us and saying “Oh, you are so and so.”  Occasionally someone will ask me how things are going at the hospital.  To which I kindly reply that I don’t work at a hospital – I work as a chaplain at the University of Alberta, which happens to have a teaching hospital.  Other people work in the hospital – I work with students.   

Most of us have run into people who think they “know” us.  Our opinions, who we are, what we like or dislike, what things are important to us.   And it can either be amusing or frustrating to hear other people’s thoughts about us.  To be honest, we do that to others as well.  I learn a few things (or I think I do) about a particular person, and then in my own mind I make up the rest as I go along.  But after a bit of real conversation with the actual person, I begin to realize that the made up picture of a person doesn’t bear too much resemblance to the real person.

I sometimes wonder if Jesus is the victim of the same way of thinking.  We know (or think we know) a little bit about him, and we just make up the rest as we go along.  We stop engaging him in conversation, and so we do not get very far in knowing the real Jesus.  I want to know the real Jesus – not the Jesus of my imagination, or the Jesus based on a few opinions of mine – but the real Jesus.   

How does anyone know who I am?  They can guess a few things (often accurately) from observation.  I am so tall, I wear a wedding ring (he must be married),  I sometimes have nasty bits of pablum on  my collar (he must have small kids).  But to truly know me, I must chose to reveal who I am.  And you must be willing to believe me.  Otherwise, you will cling to your notion of who Joe is, and never get to know the real Joe.  It is the choice of believing what is revealed,  leading to relationship with a real (rather than imagined) person.

Who  the “real Jesus” is, must be revealed  to me.  By the real Jesus.  And I must chose to believe  what he reveals, whether it fits with my preconceived notions or not.  Revelation is the first step in any honest and meaningful relationship.  How does he reveal who he truly is?

"It is written"

audiology exams

We recently discovered that SJ has some hearing deterioration. Most of us have a threshold of about 20db, and normal conversation is about 50 db, and after her last round of tests, SJ’s hearing threshold has moved to about 30db.  She now has mild hearing loss, mainly due to the structure of her inner ear.  That’s just the way her body has been formed.  Some degree of hearing loss is common (30-60%) in persons with Down Syndrome.

I first encountered the phrase “inner ear” in Augustine’s Confessions.  He was writing of course in the spiritual sense – our ability to hear God’s voice.  For some of us, the threshold seems low, we can hear even God's whispers.    Others of us seem to strain to catch his voice.  And a few of us seem to be going deaf - we can only hear when he shouts.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  Reminders that grace is above what nature supplies.

sigh of relief

For the locals here at the U of A, reading week is now officially upon us, and mid terms are behind us.   Time to drop by Dabar and see what is up with the sol cafe plans for tomorrow.  See you at 5pm SHARP.   Is Christianity about a set of beliefs or about a way of life?

humility

Am about to engage in a game of Scrabble with someone who teaches English for a living.   I have not beaten this person at this game in the last four years.   We'll see how it goes...loser does all the dishes...

self-examination

This lent I examine my sins.

I am profoundly jealous of people who write poetry. 

I love to read it;
to eat the fruit of those who plant words.

Once, I tried
to write such things,
but ended up like
Peter, rethinking baptism.
(do I journey as the crow flies
as the cock crows?)

listening for sounds of water, laying on my bed
and he is gone (or was it I who fled?)
thinking on the rain that falls outside.
Suddenly again I am a rock upon the river
and know in time, his washing-over-me
will shape and carve this stone.
Looking up from underneath
it seems to me transluscent now.
through it
I can see the sky
and almost touch
the heavens.

courage

In a few weeks we are getting together for a retreat that will go by the general name of "Vocare".   We hope to listen and explore God's call on our lives.  The more I reflect on this, the more I am beginning to think that it is not so much an issue of hearing and discerning God's call, but the courage to act on it.

Embracing the Sky

Am now about halfway through Craig Romkema's collection Embracing the Sky:  Poems Beyond Disability".  Get a copy.   Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.  Craig writes as a Christian whose insights into life and God are profound and honest.  Some of the things he says are made a bit more  transparent to me because of Sarah Joy, and our experience as parents of a child with disabilities.  But less writing, and more reading...

the second temptation

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Of all the places Satan could have chosen to have this second temptation, he chose the temple, the holy place, the place of worship.  I suppose that Satan knows as well as you and I that ‘church’ is not exempt from sin and temptation.  And so Satan takes Jesus to church.  And Satan does what is quite natural in church – he quotes the Bible.  After all, doesn’t the bible say these things? "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

What is the temptation here?  It is the temptation to use the things of God for our own purposes.  The temptation to use the Scriptures, the Temple, the Church, for my own private agenda or goals.  Why is the temple there?  Why is the church there?  Jesus knows that it is God’s temple, not ours.  And we would do well to remember that this is God’s Church, not ours.  It is no accident that Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple – perhaps the higher up you go in church, the greater the temptation becomes to use it for one's own purposes.   

But the temple, like the church, is not mine, and it is not yours.  It is first of all God’s.  And we cannot manipulate God, or use God as a tool, for our own purposes. The Church is not there to serve my private agenda, whether frivolous or noble.  It is there for the purposes of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the  test.'"

...smooch...

Have finished all the running around and finding the right people with keys so that when AKW shows up in her classroom to teach tomorrow morning, she will find arrangements of roses on her desk and all around the classroom.

words

Craig Romkema lives with his family in a log house in the Midwest. He types his poems on a computer, with physical support to stabilize his body. After graduating from high school with honors, Craig spent a year writing, and is now attending college part-time.

In this collection of poems, Craig Romkema describes the daily journey of an individual whose body is encumbered with the symptoms of autism and cerebral palsy.

Alisa is using Craig's poems to teach her grace 12 English class about words.

Encounter

“Answer!”
I told my mouth
but the message
froze,
while seconds dragged into minutes
and the restless woman
said fast
goodbyes
swiftly dashing
assumptions of
intelligence
behind her.

Words are
power;
speechlessness,
an endless abyss;
garbled speech,
a target for dishonor;
persistent rotten storytelling,
a huge annoyance;
boring tapes that demean my image.

You whose language flows
coherently,
whose ideas sparkle like wine
on the tongue,
remember your gift
and use it well,
for me.

From the collection "Embracing the Sky:  Poems Beyond Disability" .

the first temptation

The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."

More on this later, after I've had lunch.

Ummm...that was good...

Many people talk about the “if” in this temptation, as though Satan were trying to cast doubts on Jesus’ identity.  That may certainly be the case, but the temptation begins with something more than a question of Jesus’ self-identity.  Satan does not ask “If you are divine”  or “If you are truly God and truly human” or “If you are the Messiah”.  Satan questions Jesus’ relationship to God.  “If you are the Son of God”.  It is a question of relationship.  After all, that is what temptation is designed to do – break our relationship with God and with one another.  It is not merely about my self-identity, it is about my relationships.  Don’t we use this “if” word all the time?  If you loved me you would do this;  if you cared you would have noticed.

So Satan asks Jesus to turn stones into bread.  A reasonable thing – after all, Jesus is famished.  We all need to sustain our bodies.  This is the second part of the temptation.  It is a temptation to think only of our physical selves.  That we are nothing more than our bodies, a complex of neurons and sinews and chemicals – we are only physical creatures - and so we should only satisfy our physical selves.  We forget what a human being is.

There is a another, subtle element to this temptation – Satan says “command” these stones to become bread.  Do it just because you have the power to do it.  Use force, use coercion, make it happen by sheer might or power.  It is the temptation to use one’s ability or position or power arbitrarily.  Make it happen.  But a Jesus who forces things to happen is not a Jesus worth following.  Jesus will not force or command the stones to become bread.  Just as he will not force anyone to follow him.  He will not force anyone to love him.  He will not force us to become like him and follow him – he invites us.

"It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

a trench to die in

Just in time for Ash Wednesday, I've been thinking of giving up my clerical collar for Lent.  I got the idea from Randall Friesen  on this hot topic.  Read the comments section.

Annual Shrove Tuesday Pancakes...

• So you start with a bit of this:

• Then it should look like this:

• And after you've eaten about 19 of them, they feel like this in your stomach:

the future of the sol cafe

Part one.

A friend of mine from Vancouver is an artist.  He told me many years ago that “the problem with the church is that it’s full of engineers”.  I have no idea what that means.  Maybe I’m an engineer.

So last night there was a meeting of the sol café to try to discern, to listen, to tell stories, to learn to love God and neighbour.  I suppose I could try to drive up my hit meter by typing words like “emerging church”, “emergent”, “post modern paradigms”, “alternative worship” and the like.  There, I’ve gotten that out of the way, so I’ll see how many visitors Google sends my way.

As an open letter to the sol café, let me offer the following.  There were many good points raised at the family meeting.  The thing that strikes me the most is the sense that there are some unused gifts in the sol café.  I came away from last night’s meeting thinking that there are a number of people with gifts to share, and the community needs to see those gifts in action.  I believe the combination of diverse gifts is the great strength of this group.

A while ago I was the priest of a church community north of Edmonton.  In the process of moving from that community, I had a chance to hear some feedback from people who had experienced God in that setting.  One comment struck me more than others.  People were at one point relating what they appreciated about my ministry there.  I wasn’t present for this conversation, but heard bits of it afterward. 

What did I think was my greatest contribution to that community?  My preaching?  My music? My humility,  all round great personality, being a snappy dresser?     I heard afterward what members of the congregation thought was most important.  “Everyone's gifts were being used”.  That’s it.  That’s the key.  It was not about my gifts or my skills, it was about helping other people discover and use their gifts.  It was not about what I had to offer, it was about what the people of God had to offer. (I still think I’m one of the better preachers and music leaders around…ha!).  So as a starting point, let me focus today on the gifts of others.  To help them, encourage them, see them used for the glory of God and the building up of the Church. 

Leadership needs to focus on helping people discover and use and enjoy their gifts.

falling down

Happens to the best of us.  Spent the day with several dozen kids & families from the local GRIT program (Get Ready for Inclusion Today).  Programs to help kids with disabilities integrate into their community, and support their families.  Fabulous time had by all.

Can you help me up?

sloth

So in 2 weeks I'm gonna be preaching about "sloth", for which you can even now get a great wall calendar .  Sloth is kinda like laziness, only different.  If I had the willpower to look it up, I could tell you more.  But that would mean getting up from my chair and going across the room.  Or I could just google it, but that would mean opening a new window in my browser.  I might not even have to write a new sermon...maybe there is an online sermon I could download...can somebody get the door?

...lent...

So Rachel  asked a few basic questions about Lent. What is it, when does it start, how do I get on board?  More later, when Lent starts (on Ash Wednesday – Feb 9), but a few preliminary thoughts.  This is just a very brief intro to the whole thing. 

I believe the goal of a follower of Jesus is to become like Him.  One of the ways that I as a fallen, mortal, very-much-imperfect person do this is through looking at my life and seeing how my life is different from his.  Lent is an ancient practice that is aimed at helping us become like Him.

Lent is a time of “Christian reality check”.  It is a season of “40 days” (sound familiar?) before Easter when we engage in prayer and fasting and self examination.  We should probably do these things all the time, but in Lent we call attention to these things.  Particularly the stuff about fasting and self examination.  We are the grand consumers in history.  We rarely do without.  I am self centred, self serving and consuming in so many ways.  Just look at my bank statements.  What can I do without?  If I really looked at my lifestyle, what hinders me in living more fully as a follower of Jesus?  What am I attached to that weighs me down?  And self examination – what are my temptations, my favourite sins?  what does my heart really look like?  And how do I play my part with God’s Spirit in becoming holy?  What in particular are Joe’s temptations in the wilderness?  And how do I cooperate with or grieve the Spirit in his work in my heart?

Part of this for me has been ‘spiritual direction’.  Finding someone “older and wiser” to help me look at my life with objective eyes.  I need an outside guide to point out the lay of the spiritual land. 

crumbs of grace

Just ran into Tom  on my way from SUB. He told me about a woman from a Calgary church who is here with her kids – a two year old and one week old twins.  One of the twins is scheduled for heart surgery this week.  One of the twins has Down Syndrome, the other does not.  So Alisa and I will try to offer some support and prayer and companionship while they are here.   And we’ve put them in touch with some local support groups like EDSS/ Bridge.

We are also organizing a few students from our groups to do some baby sitting with the 2 year old, who has a cold and is not allowed to accompany the mother into NICU/PICU.  I’ll drop by after touching base with some students, and we are hoping that Alisa can meet up with the mom later today for some one on one.  (I’m a priest, but Alisa is a mother.) 

I think one of the things which new parents of children with disabilities need is rejoicing and celebration.  That may sound odd, but I believe it is true.  We need to rejoice at the birth of this person made in the image of God.  Parents grieve at such times – there is a sense of loss, especially if there was no indication that there would be a “problem”.  There are some souls who have the gift of bringing joy and celebration in the midst of that grief.  Not replacing the grief, or moving it out of the way, but reminding us in a gentle but firm voice that this new and different person needs a reception of joy and welcome. 

Our daughter Sarah Joy has given us many gifts.  The gift of this particular ministry is one of them.  Several times we have been called by people in various churches to be present with new parents who are struggling with these situations. 

We don’t have answers.

We’re just looking for the crumbs of grace that fall from our Master’s table in times like this.

ordinary time

[There are big and exciting things going on in the church.]

Sitting in the rocking chair, singing Adam to sleep. 
Making a tent with Emily out of a blanket and her bunk bed. 
Helping Sarah Joy figure out how to work the zipper on the front of her PJ's.

[There are big and exciting things going on in the church.]

Whoever gives a cup of water to one of these little ones...

Augustine's Confessions

One of those "you had to be there" kind of things.  If you weren't there, just pretend you are overhearing some out of context conversation, and dismiss it immediately.

Augustine's Confessions  are not a spiritual autobiography.  It is anachronistic to call it that, and an imposition of a modern category on an ancient work.  Even the so-called autobiographical section is not so - Augustine starts with infancy in general, moves to his own life, and completes bk IX with an account of Monica's life and then her death.  What moderns fail to understand is the Trinitarian structure of the work.  [I-IX];  [X];  [XI-XIII].  Viewing it as autobiography will leave the reader puzzled as to the content of the last four books, and why they are included.  Instead, we need to think of how the structure of the work reflects the whole argument presented.  The first part deals with the doctrine of the Father, the second part deals with the doctrine of the Son, and the third part deals with the doctrine of the Spirit.  And within each section there are triads built into the structure.  Augustine is not talking about himself primarily - he is attempting to present an argument for the Trinity; by understanding the relationship of each section of the Confessions to the whole of the work, the reader grasps the nature of the development of Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity at this stage of Christian thought.

That being said, perhaps I need to add another category to my archives.  Somehow "mildly theological" seems a bit of an understatement for this one...