And all shall be well

This morning at Ascension was lovely. We sang some favourites, we welcomed back folks who have been away, and we welcomed visitors. I preached on traveling light (beginning with reflections on my own struggles to get rid of clutter) and how this is grounded in trust. Then I explored the relationship between trust and hope and the choices we make to be trusting and hopeful.

There is a quotation from Viktor Frankl that comes to mind now that really sums up what I was trying to say:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

It seems to me that hope isn't so much about hoping for some particular thing (whether it be descendants or winning the lottery) but a more basic attitude of trust that God wants good for us.

I realize I could have used the well-known words of Julian of Norwich:

All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing
shall be well.

The problem is that we do experience things that cause us to question God's goodness. (I've been sitting in on my friend Paul's theodicy course and thinking about this a lot lately) I spoke about the children's memorial at Yad Vashem - you enter a dark room in which the names of the 1.5 million children who died in the Shoah are read. A candle is reflected off of a thousand mirrors creating the image of the stars in the sky. My friend Paul talks about the power of the rebuke of God as the promise made to Abraham that his descendants would number like the stars in the sky is contrasted to the death of so many children under the Nazis. I talked about this in light of the readings from Genesis and Hebrews about the promise made to Abraham and his faithful response and the Jewish struggle to make sense of God's covenant post-Shoah.

Then I talked about the challenges to faith we often face in our own lives. And I talked about an attitude of hopefulness that choses to look at the reasons we have in our own experience to trust in God. (See the Buechner article below)

As I look out at these people I love so much knowing some of the things they've suffered I am so moved by their faithfulness. They are so hopeful and so gracious in the face of suffering. This is why we can't be solitary Christians. When my faith is shaken or uncertain I count on the prayer, the support, the example of these people to carry me when I'm unable to walk for myself. Father Bob Cowan, may his memory be a blessing, said to me once when he was dying that when I was praying for him I wasn't just interceding for him but I was literally praying in his place because he was unable to pray the office any more.

Being a part of this community is one of the reasons I trust in the goodness of God.

Preaching on Hope

I'm preaching on hope this morning so I went back and reread one of my favourite pieces on preaching on hope. Frederick Buechner wrote this:

If preachers decide to preach about hope, let them preach out of what they themselves hope for....

And let them talk with equal honesty about their own reasons for hoping -- not just the official, doctrinal, Biblical reasons but the reasons rooted deep in their own day by day experience. They have hope that God exists because from time to time over the years they believe they have been touched by God. Let them speak of those times with the candor and concreteness and passion without which all the homiletical eloquence and technique in the world are worth little.

Amen

Read the whole piece here.

Altar Calls

I've driven the GD out to Winnipeg to return her to the bosom of her family and have much to write of the trip through Saskatchewan and our holy pilgrimage to Rouleau but I want to download my pictures first....so later.

On the trip I spent some time thinking about the service we had Sunday in Coaldale. It was Settlers'Days last weekend and is our custom all the churches organize a joint service for the Sunday. It was in the field behind the Sportsplex and about six different churches had representatives involved. It was a nice service with some good music lead by a praise band from one of the Mennonite churches. I really enjoy our ministerial when I get to it and they had done all the work organizing the service. All I had to do was show up and do the final blessing.

I don't really remember our conversations about what the theme would be other than that it was good for us as Christians to gather together. I had to chuckle though when much of what was said was a kind of altar call. The guest preacher told the story of his own conversion, of how he was raised in a good home and thought he was a Christian until a young woman he was interested in told him he wasn't. He was drinking and brawling and she told him he wasn't living like a Christian and six months later he fell down on his knees and gave his life to Christ. Now we might think we are Christians but maybe aren't and need to give our lives to him.

Looking around the congregation of folks meeting on a beautiful July morning in a field in the middle of town I thought it rather unlikely that there going to be many people there who would respond to such an altar call. It seemed likely most of them probably think that they are Christians. They might struggle with faith, they might anguish over their sinfulness, but I think they probably understand themselves to be Christians involved in this struggle. Sanctification was probably more of an issue than justification.

But maybe I'm wrong and someone was responding in their heart to his words. My problem is that I've never found altar calls all that moving. Years ago I attended a friend's Pentecostal church with her and they had a visiting preacher who was determined to convert that congregation. He preached an altar call that was still going on after two hours when we slipped out that door. He was determined that people were going to come up and give their lives to Jesus but he really was preaching to the converted.

The sermons that have grabbed me heart and mind are not the ones that raise doubts about whether I've actually 'given my life to Jesus' because isn't the point that we are always 'justified and yet still sinners'? I know that my following of Jesus is fraught with moments of doubt, looking back, distraction, losing my way. I give and then I try to take it back all the time. The times that call my attention back to what I have set my heart on are the times when I see others following Jesus and I realize I'm going off in the wrong direction. The preacher told us that when he was drinking and brawling he wasn't really a Christian and after he prayed in a particular way he was. Maybe. But his story sounded a lot more to me like the story of the prodigal son who had lost his way and then came to his senses and started home again. I wished he had told us more about what it was like when the father welcomed him home. I wanted to hear more about what it is like for him to be a follower of Jesus. It is always the lives of saints that convict me of my shortcoming and spur me on to a new commitment.

Evening Reading

I've been spending evenings watching some wild movies and reading some great books. The other evening I read Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. I love her books - they have such an interesting rhythm. She writes:

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

Barbara Brown Taylor said something similar at our clergy conference a few years ago. She said you should always preach with the idea that someone in the congregation has less than six months to live and you don't want to waste their time.

One of the films I've watched this week is Y tu mamá también . I don't know if I knew that I had only a short while to live that I would want to go on a road trip with two sex crazed teenagers and try to teach them how to be better lovers but it was an interesting movie. Okay, so I'm stretching for a connection here. But the film is worth seeing if you can handle the sex and language (I give this warning because I got blasted once for recommending a movie in a sermon and not clarifying that it had rough language).

Don't know what I'll watch tonight. It is summer time and I haven't watched the Godfather trilogy yet. It is usually my ritual to welcome summer. That and Mr. Baseball, Field of Dreams, and Bull Durham. I'll let you know.