Sunday, January 22, 2017

BEYOND THE PERSON

January 22, 2017
Epiphany 3
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:17-23
(prayer)
Reg, the leader of the People's Front of Judea, trying to justify active (even violent) resistence to the Roman Empire, asked: Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans ever done for us?
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Monty Pythons "Life of Brian" came to mind as I looked at out first reading for today.
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When the Apostle Paul wrote (what we call) his "First" letter to the Corinthians, he did not use an eraser... and backspace buttons didn't exist yet.
This reality of the limitations of first century letter-writting resulted in us being able to watch him edit on the fly as we read in chapter one this morning:
Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name.
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Okay, I did baptize Crispus and Gaius.
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And also the household of Stephanas; but beyond that...
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What have the Romans ever done for us?
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This humourous exposed-thought-process occurred when Paul was in the middle of addressing a serious issue that was confronting the church in Corinth.  We don't want to miss his bigger point.  A disciple named Chloe had tipped Paul off to the fact that there was a power struggle - of sorts - going on in Corinth.  People were lining up behind their favorite leader:
·         I belong to Paul.
·         I belong to Apollos.
·         I belong to Kephas  (Peter).
Some did argue against following a specific disciple, claiming:
·         I belong to Christ.
It bothered Paul that leadership personalities were playing such a key role in people's identification with the faith.
We can hear the frustration through the words that Paul wrote: Has Christ been divided?
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It was - of course - a "rhetorical question". No one would have dared argue that a division of Christ was justified.  There was only one faithful answer to Paul: "Is Christ divided?" Of course not!  There is only one gospel.  We are one in Christ!
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Be that as it may, the means through which people heard that one gospel was dividing the people.
Reading between the lines, it was more than I like Paul, or Apollos,  or Kephas... it was my guy is way better than your guy; your guy is inferior to my guy.
Paul openly admits that his proclamation of the gospel could not be described as eloquent wisdom. It is fair to hear that as attesting to the fact that other leaders were better preachers than Paul.  He may have written a good letter, but it sounds like he was kind of a boring speaker.
Peter was in Jerusalem, so he was not preaching in Corinth.  People in the Kephas camp, we're holding to the oldest traditions of the early Christian movement.
And then there was Apollos. According to the book of Acts, Apollos of Alexandria was as an "eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures" (Acts 18.24).
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Paul's worry was that the messanger was out shadowing the message.
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Before coming to St. David's, I served in a church that had three ministers on staff: two fulltime ordained ministers and a halftime designated lay minister.  We were a team of ministers who worked very well together.  We were not competative with each other, and presented an honest, unified front to the congregation.
The DLM'S main focus was children's programming, but she did preach and led worship about once every two months; the other OM and I split the rest of the Sundays about evenly.
Naturally, we all had our different styles, based on our training, experience and our individual personalities.  Even though, we all used the same worship format, each of us planned and led worship in our own way.  Unity with variety.
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Paul, Leanne and I were mindful of the same danger that the Apostlr Paul saw in Corinth.  We were not so naïve to ignore the reality that some people might develop a strong preference to one of us over and against the others.  We weren't comfortable with it, but we knew that it was probably happening for some people.  Our biggest worry was that, a few people might become so pro-Leanne or pro-Blaine or pro-Paul, that they evolved to become anti-TheOthers. 
Sadly, we experienced hints of that, one year when a budget crunch initiated a conversation about whether the congregation could really afford two-and-a-half ministers.  As the board chair at the time proclaimed: after all only one of them can preach at a time.
I remember one particularly tense congregational meeting, where some hoped a power struggle among the ministers would shake things out.  Who wanted it more? 
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I was pulled aside by the same Board Chair who said to me (and pardon the language) "As the low man on the totem pole, I suggest you get your [resume] together."
Someone else suggested, I would be fine, because (as the minister with the least experience), I was lowest on the salary grid.
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But, as ministers, we got along well and had no desire to fight amongst ourselves.  We all sat together and intentionally absented ourselves from the discussion, telling the congregation that we would live with whatever they decided.
We listen and we learned what was important to people.
This was consistent with the approach from we ministers had used from the beginning of our time working together.
Before things ever came to a economic head, the three of us ministers had used a common approach to working with the Board and committees.  And we spent time every few months working out a seemingly  random, unadvertised, preaching schedule. 
There was no discernable pattern of who the primary worship leader would be on a given Sunday.   Often the same person would preached a few weeks in a row, other times, it switched up every week. 
The preaching schedule appeared to have no pattern at all.
If people were picking favorites, we wanted them to have to wait until Sunday morning before they found out who the preacher was.
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The end of that tense congregational meeting story is that it was decided to promote greater giving rather than cutting staff.  It wasn't until more than a year later when one of the ministers decided to accept a call to a new church, that the congregation moved from 2.5 minister down to 2.0 - a staff compliment they maintained through the next several ministers over a dozen years.
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Attempts to divide (within the Church of Jesus Christ) based on messangers over the message was a concern in Corinth of the 0050s and it is an issue we ignore at our peril in the 2010s.
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Given that most United Churches employ only one minister, the divides tend to show themselves when people compare their current minister to former ministers... or if there is more than one UCC in an area, this division might be known in people closing which church to attend based (primarily) on the minister.
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Don't get me wrong, I want you to like me.  I want... what I say and do on Sunday morning (and throughout the week) ...to enrich your faith, challenge and encourage you, and inspire you to appreciate the sacredness of your life.
I strive to be a useful, effective servant of Christ in your midst.
But, I do not want to be set over and against the ministries led by former Leduc-Beaumont ministers, Rev Daryl Sexsmith or Rev Britt Jessen-Aerhart, or Evi Gilmore or Rev Charlie Hickman, or anyone.
And, I would not want to be compartively ranked with Ruth in Wetaskiwin, Dirk in Devon, Ian at Mill Woods or Nancy at Southminster-Steinhauer... even if I come out near the top.  Especially, if I come out near the top.
It is to be about the message, not the messenger: the ministry, not the minister.
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At the end of April, I will be heading to Chicago to take part one of the intentional interim ministry training through the Interim Ministry Network.  Part two will happen at the end of September while I am on sabbatical.  Completing that, it is my intention to apply to be designated as a specially trained Intentional Interim Minister within the United Church of Canada.
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As the name implies "interim" ministry is something that happens between other ministries.  When congregations have a time between regularly called/appointed ministers, they sometimes go through an interim period, when leadership might be less settled and decisions are made about the possibilities and priorities for ministry. 
Sometimes it can be a few weeks or months; other times, it can be much longer. 
In 2000, there was a three month break after your pastoral relationship with Daryl Sexsmith ended and the one with me begun.  That's pretty short.  But...
When I left my first church in 1996, the new minister started the very next day.  That is increasingly rare.
A year ago, Jasper United Church welcomed a new minister, eleven months after their previous minister had left.
Drayton Valley United Church's minister's office has been vacant for a few years now as they are still discerning how to be the church moving forward.
All of these church have experienced (or are experiencing) periods of interim ministry.
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But Intentional Interim Ministry is different: more formal.  IMM is a covenanted relationship where a congregation agrees to take time to honestly identify and faithfully sort out what they need to do to move forward in the healthiest possible way.
For example, an IMM can be chosen when there has been a long, healthy pastoral relationship.  A buffer period of refocusing can be a wise and patient use of time.  Many-a good and skilled minister has gotten bogged down in the reputation of their beloved predecessor, because congregations were not quite ready to move on.
But most often, an IMM is needed when unsettled conflict or unclear vision exists in a congregation at the end of a pastoral relationship, regardless of whether people are prone to blame the minister, or the congregation or uncontrolable changing circumstances.
These interim periods - whether expected or not - offer opportunities to refocus on "why we are the church" and "how we can we live out our ministry in real and faithful ways".
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Interim Ministry is a situation where a community of faith recognizes a need to refocus on the message and get beyond how they are feeling about the most recent messenger.
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Yes, this is the hornet's nest that I am willingly going to learn more about over the next ten months.
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I don't know when or if, I will ever be called to use these skills in a formal way.  But I know that it be a valuable part what I can bring to the final third of my ministry career.
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Our history is our history.
Our feelings are our feelings.
It is not wise to ignore either one: or to pretend that we are beyond being affected by what we have experienced at different times in our life as "church".
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Matthew (like the other gospels) relays the calling of Jesus' first disciples in a bit of a misleading way.  Mt4:17 notes that Jesus had a message (the same one John the Baptist had): Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven/God had come near.  But then the very next verses tell about how four fishermen immediately responded to Jesus invitation: "Follow me".  That sounds like the disciples were being messenger-focused, not message-focused.
John's gospel does the same thing, without any reference to Jesus' message at all: in John, The Baptist pointed Jesus out to his disciples as "the Lamb of God", later others tell friends and family that they have "found the Messiah".
Messenger over message.
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I simply find that abbreviated narrative unbelievable.
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It is certainly possible that Jesus' mere physical presence might have engendered a life-changing spontaneous response that superceded any need to know more about what "following" was going to be about.
But, I have to imagine that Jesus' first followers encountered him before the day he say "follow me and fish for people".
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The biblical narrative is... when John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus left the Judean wilderness by the Jordan River and returned to Galilee.  But instead of moving back to Nazareth (where he had lived his whole life), he made the seaside fishing village of Capernaum his home base, where (verse 17 this morning said) Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God had come near.
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I am quite sure that Jesus was not a one sentence preacher, even in those early days.  The gospel writers did not preserve any details, but - before Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee and was joined by four fishermen turned disciples - I suspect that Simon, James, Andrew and John had listened to Jesus fleshing out what he meant by the nearness of the Kingdom of God.
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There are a number of times, when the bible quotes Jesus as he instructed his disciples to not talk about him being the messiah.  He seems to have wanted the focus go be on what he was saying and doing not on him, personally.
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I have shared this ministry with you for more than sixteen years.  That is the longest pastoral relationship the United Churches in Beaumont or Leduc have ever known.
I will not be your minister here forever.  I don't know when the time will be right, but I have never imagined that I'd retire here.
The sabbatical agreement is that St. David's and I both agree that neither will seek to end the pastoral relationship for at least a year after the sabbatical ends.  So, baring a really good reason to break that rule, we are stuck with each other through (at least) November 2018.
None of that matters.  It's never been about the messenger.   It is the message that counts.
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The United Church has roots in this region that reach back to 1898.  It has remained relevant through the changes of almost 130 years.
It remains vibrant and relevant today.
Focused on our message of hope, peace, joy and love, this community of faith can continue in new ways long after every single one of us is gone. 
Messengers change. 
The message endures.
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Oh, don't talk about change, Blaine.
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Only a very hearty and adventurous few are excited about change.  Most of us like certainty and predictability and legacy.
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But, change is always present.
Big changes do happen... sometimes forced on us by events beyond our control or (if we are fortunate) after careful discernment.
Change (even ultimately welcomed change) involves some loss.  And loss illicits grief.
A self-agrandizing messenger will tell you to be afraid of a changing world.  They will invite you to lament a white-washed nostalgic past - and hope for its return all tbe while resisting the challenges of embracing new directions. 
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As the first years of life for the disciples after Jesus' crucifixion turned into decades, the church was held together by a hopeful promise that not everything about Jesus and his ministry died on the cross.  They grieved... hard.  It devastated them - some even cocooned themselves away in fear and disappointment.  But others saw new life in the shadow of death.  New light after the dark.
They were the followers of a dead teacher, but, also, disciples of a living Christ.  It is said that, for a privileged few, the Risen Jesus was a tangible experience. 
Most would have to draw inspiration from the stories of those who insisted that they had seen the lord.
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There was something that endured the changing times... endured the changing make up of the Christian movement over the decades.
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The anonymous letter addressed to the Hebrews (which is a relatively late-written epistle of the New Testament) expresses it this way: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. (Heb13:8)
Now, of course, Jesus of Nazareth - the flesh version of the word - was not the same as he always was.  But the good news of God's compassion and hope, proclaimed in Jesus' name (emboldened by a belief in everpresent spiritual guidance and encouragement) was beyond the physical limitations of any one messenger, locked in one era of time.
The message is what endures.
Today, tomorrow, and forever.
The Christ endured, even if Jesus body was broken.
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New disciples (even today) continue to hear a call to follow the way Jesus led. 
From time to time, in given places, we will ask the willing and inspired to offer leadership.  But, if we hold true to the essence of our faith, it will not be about the messenger, but the message.
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Repent.
The Kingdom of God has come near.
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in other words...
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"Take note.  The Realm of God is in our midst.  Align your life with that holy dream for our world:
·         where we make decisions with kind hearts;
·         where we treat strangers as friends because justice and peace must reign;
·         where we are never so sure of our own ability to control everything that we are humbly open to mystery;
·         where love of neighbour trump's love of power and wealth; 
·      where we can wear pink toques and stand out in the cold at a hall power and refuse to accept that inequality has a place;
·         where love is patient and kind and shows no partiality;
·         where forgiveness revives life in ways that grudges can never do;
·         where we believe that each and every soul is made in the image of God."
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This message stands the test of time... yesterday, tomorrow and forever.
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May this message live through us.
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Let us pray:
Inviting God, you call us to follow in many ways.  We are grateful for the many ways that we serve the mission of our Christ.  Amen.


#331VU “The Church’s One Foundation”

Sunday, January 15, 2017

CALLED TO SHINE

January 15, 2017
Epiphany 2
A Parable
I have a pair of gloves that have little flaps over the thumb and index finger.
They come in handy in the cold and snow of winter, allowing me to expose those two digits.  Why would anyone want to do this on a -20° day?  Because the touch screens on my phone and tablet will not work through fabric.
The technology used in modern touch screens does not respond to pressure.  Pressing harder won't make any difference.  The screens react to the capacitance of an electrical charge... even one as subtle as the one created by the charged atoms of human skin.  You can get gloves that have conductive threads or use a conductive stylus pens to transfer the charge from your skin (through that medium) to the screen. 
I've never tried it, but apparently, you can use the tip of a AA or AAA battery as a stylus, even if you are wearing gloves.
Either way, with-respect-to modern technology, we need to offer some of our body's energy to allow the interaction to take place.
We may be barely aware of this relationship, but our smart phones won't work unless we are willing to risk exposing our vulnerable selves.
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(prayer)
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Jesus - like the other pilgrims - went into the river with John the Baptist and humbly immersed himself with a fresh commitment to the sovereignty of God.
In that moment, Jesus had a mystical experience of being enveloped by the Spirit of God.  Jesus knew in that moment that he was a beloved child of God whose life was pleasing to God.
When Jesus came out of the water, he simply did not feel that it was his destiny to go back to his carpentry shop.  His life would go in a different direction.  But where?
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Jesus chose to struggle with this choice by escaping from the distractions of the world.  For more than a month, he retreated into the wilderness, where it is said, he was tempted to find easy paths to living out this new calling.  In the end, he realized that the easy road would not really serve his God... nor the ministry into which Jesus was being called.
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From the Judean wilds, Jesus went back to Galilee, but not to his hometown of Nazareth.  Instead - Jesus relocated to the lakeside village of Capernaum.
It was a significant change for him.  Nazareth was in the heart of agricultural area.  Now, Jesus was surrounded by a fishing based economy.  People's daily routines were different.  Jesus, in a way, needed to be an inquisitive student of a new local culture.
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It was a fresh start for Jesus.
People would encounter him without assumptions based on his childhood, or his family, or anything that had defined his life for thirty years.  They would come to know Jesus based on their real time experiences with him.
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Jesus would no longer be building tables and chairs.  He was now going to be in the business of building up the Kingdom of God.
We don't have any record of Jesus using that metaphor: I used to build houses, now I construct the household of God.
But, he did use a similar turn of phrase when he invited people to journey and learn with him: You catch fish.  Come help me catch people in the net of God.  Become people-fishers for me, for God.
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Jesus had a knack of helping people see that, in one way or another, whatever their life had involved before they met him, it prepared them for what they could do together as they proclaimed in word and deed, the nearness of the Realm of God.
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Jesus didn't invent this rhetoric.
We heard a similar style in what was read from Isaiah 49.
I am a sharp sword, a straight arrow... but God will not use me as a warrior who can end life.  Instead, I am called to slice through divisions and bring the world together around the Glory of God.
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Chapter forty-nine comes from a section of Isaiah written during the time when the Judean people lived as exiles in Babylon.  The Hebrew people were forced to live as refugees - they did not govern themselves; they wielded no political influence or power. 
They had no army to protect their way of life; their national and cultural identity was only maintained through the will of spirit.  Swords and arrows were not relevant to who they were at that point in history.  They had no capacity or expectation to fight their Babylonian captors.
And yet faith remained under the control of the exiles.  They could serve God - even by the Rivers of Babylon.
The prophet reminds them that serving God is well within their control.  It's easy (in fact) to restore the people, because faith and confidence in God is not limited by location.
Exile was - in a manner of speaking - an opportunity to shine the light of God's salvation to new corners of the world.
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Isaiah of the Exile was encouraging the people to have hope in the longer view: even though they lived as slaves to a foreign ruler, a time was coming, when kings and princes from far away would not be able to ignore the Glory of God that shines through the faith of God's people.
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"Light" is a powerful biblical metaphor for an active faith.  It is easily transferable to every era of history.
It is, as you likely know, is the first metaphoric act of God in the bible.
Into the dark chaos, a word is whispered over the wind and waves: light.
Let there be light.
The creative Will of God exposes the chaos and instantly some order and perspective and purpose enters into existence.  Mystery begins to give way to understanding.
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Isaiah tells the exiles that they were made to lights (for God) in the world.
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Jesus (too) preached that his followers were to be lights in the world.  They had the power to expose God's compassion and justice to the world.
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As we also read this morning, the Apostle Paul commended the followers of Jesus in Corinth for their influence in their community:  You are enriched in Christ, in speech and knowledge of every kind - the good news of Christ is stronger because of you use the skills that the Spirit has given you.  Through you, Christ Jesus is revealed.
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Throughout our scriptural heritage God is saying: let there be light!
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As I noted last week, Jesus basic message was the same as John the Baptist: Repent.  The Kingdom of God has come near.  But Jesus chose a very different means for spreading that message. 
John was a passive, reactive, settled preacher... for people to hear his message, they had to seek him out.  He was easy to find, but to experience the light, people had to seek it out.
Jesus (on the other hand) was a active, pro-active, travelling preacher... he took the light on the road... shining it in to new places.
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The reach and immediate impact is different - to shine out in the desert and to shine in the crowed streets - but both require us to allow that light within us to shine.
Jesus talked about how a city on  hill would have to put out every fire pit and lamp to not be noticed at night from far away.
He also noted what a waste it would be to hide a house lamp under a basket.
Light is meant to shine.
If we are called to shine, the impact of the Light of God begins with our willingness to open up the shutters of our hearts, minds and souls.
Back to my parable of the touch screens, interaction can only begin when I am willing to expose my fingertips to the winter air. 
There is energy within me.  Will I risk vulnerability to let that energy flow and change things around me.
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We are called to shine.
It is not a question of whether a spark of God is within us, but whether we will let this little light shine.
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What might it mean - practically - to shine God into the world?
After all, Jesus was a practical theologian.  He did speak in metaphors and he broached topics that transcend this life and world, but he never forgot the day to day impact we have on others and the world in which we live.
We are lights in the world... reflectors of the very presence of God.
How can we do this?
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This is not a new topic.
When Jesus was asked to prioritize the Torah, he summed every law up with two phrases:
Deuteronomy 6:5 - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength.
And Leviticus 19:18 - Love your neighbour as yourself.
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I take these to heart... compassion/love is to be our default position.  But a commandment to love can still seem pretty broad.
For me personally, for practical holy compassion, I read Micah 6:8 - [In this life], what is good?  What does the Lord require of you?  But to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? 
In Jesus' day, as in all eras, even now, just because someone (or even a law) says you are supposed to do something, doesn't mean it will always be done. 
There are times, when we lose focus or we forget and rules get ignored.  But there are other times, that we might chose to oppose what is expected of us.
This is occasionally good. 
Not all "rules" deserve to be rules.  We evolve as a society when we examine (with critical minds) those expectations that do not serve to advance our better nature.  John Lewis, a member of the US House of Representatives was in the news on Friday for stating in an interview why he was not going to attend the inaugeration this Friday.  The president-elect took to twitter to disparage Mr Lewis as an "all talk, no action" sort of guy. 
All talk; no action?
John Lewis, was - literally - beat within an inch of his life during civil rights marches of the 1960s.
Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr and others broke the letter of certain laws, but they acted out of what was they believed was just and fair.
We make choices about what will guide our words and actions.
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All choices (wise or ill-informed) have consequences.  What we chose to do in this life will have an impact.
The noble goal is to impact things for the better, for the good.
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God has told you, O mortal, what is good... do justice, love kindness, walk humbly.
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Light is the exposer of what is true and real. 
We shine well, when our words and actions expose systemstic injustice.
We shine well, when our words and actions expose willful hatefulness.
We shine well, when our words and actions expose artificial superiority.
There are times in history when the light is so bright that big, society shaping, changes happen.
But... before that ever happens, small lights have lead the way.  Ghandi said that we are to "be the change [we] want to see in the world".
Too often we hear that our small actions won't make a difference.  The problem is too big.
Everyday, I see some meme or comment among my diverse group of facebook friends, that carbon taxes in Alberta and Canada are a waste of time, energy and money because we are only responsible for a relatively small fraction of total worldwide immissions.
It's as if there is no logic in trying to be a change leader unless a following can be guaranteed ahead of time.
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Jesus didn't say "love with your whole being" if everyone is doing it too.
Micah didn't say, it's only good to be just, kind and humble if everyone agrees to behave that way too.

Isaiah said that (in spite of their exile status), the people were lights to the nations.  They knew that this was a lofty goal that needed to start with the faith they had while helpless in Babylon.  In time, the light would spread.  To get it going, they needed to be shining now... even if the light's reach was limited to start.
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It goes like this. 
Do justice.
Love kindness.
Walk humble.
It starts small (always), but light spreads.  Make a difference.   Be the change, you want to see in the world.
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A match will burn for long enough to light a single candle
A candle only burns until the conversations done
One bright conversation shines a light across a lifetime
Every life has time enough to shine - like the sun.
"Single Candle" - D Wilcox

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Let us pray:
God, draw us toward your purpose as you call us into the work of Jesus.  Amen.


#679VU “Let There be Light”