Wednesday Wondering - January 24, 2024

Jeremiah 31: 1 – 6

1At that time, says the LORD, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

2Thus says the LORD:

The people who survived the sword

found grace in the wilderness;

when Israel sought for rest,

3the LORD appeared to him from far away. 

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

4Again I will build you, and you shall be built,

O virgin Israel!

Again you shall take your tambourines,

and go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.

5Again you shall plant vineyards

on the mountains of Samaria;

the planters shall plant,

and shall enjoy the fruit.

6For there shall be a day when sentinels will call

in the hill country of Ephraim:

“Come, let us go up to Zion,

to the LORD our God.”

Reflection

There are many times in my life when I find that I am struggling and often I don’t know why I am struggling. I wonder if it has to do with how I see myself in the world. The challenge for me is to recognize that sometimes I don’t feel great about myself and that impacts who I understand myself in relation to my world. I was speaking about this with a friend of mine the other day and he said, “it is amazing the damage that we each do to ourselves when we begin to think negatively about ourselves!” They were profound words that struck a chord deep inside and I wondered where this might come from from? 

One of the most challenging things in life, for many of us, is to see that we are loved, loved by God for no other reason than the fact that we were created by the God who is Divine Love. I would like to share with you something that I received that was written by the late Roman Catholic priest Henri Nouwen - "Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody."…(My dark side says,) I am no good…..I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence." 

In our reading from Jeremiah, God's people who were living in exile believed that God had forgotten them, had abandoned them, but these few short verses reminded the people that they were, and are, God's Beloved. As much as the people believed that they had been abandoned, as much as the people believed that they were unworthy, that was not the case. Even in the midst of all of those feelings, Jeremiah reassures the people that God is still with them. In the midst of our struggles, in the midst of those times in our lives when we don’t feel worthy, when we don’t feel as if we have done enough, when we don’t feel good enough, we all might do well to remember that as well, that we too are God's Beloved. We are not just God’s Beloved when we feel good about ourselves, when things are all going great. We are God’s Beloved always, each and every day we might need to remind ourselves that we are God’s Beloved and in being God’s Beloved we are worthy. 

Prayer - God of Divine Love, help us to remember that our worthiness does not come from what we own, what we acquire, but rather it comes solely from the fact that we were created in love. Help us to truly understand what this means in our lives so that we can embody that love in all that we do and say each and every day. We pray this in the name of the God who so loved the world that God sent God's only son to live with and among us. Amen.

Peace and blessings,

Rev. Patrick Woodbeck

Minister

Gordon-King Memorial United/ The Big Red Church

Live stream can be found at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/@thebigredchurch7408/streams

Wednesday Wondering - January 17 2024

Scripture

Jeremiah 29: 11

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

Ephesians 2: 10

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

Reflection

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

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

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

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

Prayer

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

Wednesday Wondering - January 10, 2024

John 13: 34 - 35

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

James 2: 14 - 17

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

Reflection

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

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

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

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

Prayer

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