Address Your Demons: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

Photo Credit: Alessio Zaccaria on unsplash.com

Grace, mercy, and peace to you in the name of Christ our Saviour. Amen.

 

A few years ago, I was working a shift at St Boniface Hospital during the first couple of months of my clinical pastoral education practicum. For the practicum, we are assigned a ward, or two, given a list of patients, and taught how triage patient visits. During this particular shift, I was standing at the end of the hallway, with my list in hand, when suddenly I couldn’t catch my breath. I was shaky, and sweaty, and just couldn’t bring myself to set foot onto that ward. Instead, I sat in the stairwell, trying to regain my composure, and then spent the rest of that shift doing a bunch of online training. I had no idea what was going on or why I reacted in this way. Turns out, I live with a not-formally diagnosed general anxiety disorder. It’s my demon that I discovered in that hallway all those years ago, and it’s a demon I continue to battle today.

 

Demons, or unclean spirits, come up in today’s gospel reading. Last week, Jesus rounded up his ministry team and now he can start his preaching and teaching. He decides to start in Capernum. It’s the day of Sabbath so Jesus takes his team to the temple. I suppose he would have been considered a guest preacher at the synagogue that day. Few, if any, had ever heard of him before and once they looked at the bulletin and saw he was from Nazareth originally, not a few perhaps groaned inwardly. (Does anything good come out of Nazareth?) But then he started to teach and although he was no John the Baptist full of theatrics and arm-waving fire-and-brimstone rhetoric, there was something striking in the very way this Jesus spoke.

 

The people were astounded at his teaching. He really knew his stuff! He brings scripture to life, not like those other boring scribes. It wasn’t just that his ideas and vocabulary were fresh and innovative. There was something in the very presence of the man that made you want to sit up straighter. This man had authority. He had a moral gravity, a weightiness and substance to him that people found difficult to explain. Somehow, they sensed that this man and the message about God’s kingdom he was talking about were one and the same thing.

 

Everyone was leaned in, listening intently, when suddenly a man in the back row starts yelling and causing a ruckus. The man began heckling Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” The text says that the man had an unclean spirit, that he had a demon inside of him.

 

When we hear about demons or unclean spirits in the gospels and throughout the bible, often people will link that concept to mental illnesses like schizophrenia and autism or medical conditions such as epilepsy. These are medical diagnoses that are relatively recent so it’s not surprising that the folks in Mark’s world would have attributed someone having a seizure or schizophrenic episode to demonic possession.

 

But we are so much more educated now, and when we talk about demons or unclean spirits, things like mental illness and physical disabilities aren’t even part of the conversation anymore. We all have demons inside of us if we are honest with ourselves. We have become good at hiding them, organizing them, justifying them, making them presentable. These demons are things like disbelief, loss of faith, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, religious intolerance, abuse, violence, terrorism, war, greed, ignorance…

 

It's important that we name these demons because it’s a way of recognizing that they exist. Unless we name the demons, they will name us; they will control us and destroy us. People suffering from demons lose the ability to control their voice and their actions. A demon is anything that has power that is not of God, and that keeps a person from living a fully abundant and loving relationship with God and with others. It can be something personal like anxiety and depression that, at times, can be crippling. Or something systemic like oppression and discrimination, the voices that advocate against women, people of colour, and 2SLGBTQ+ people.

 

We don’t know what kind of demon was in the man at the synagogue that morning. But something about what Jesus was teaching made that man react by lashing out. And how does Jesus react? By calling the man out, with authority. Jesus teaches in a such a way that makes his audience think of things in new ways. He teaches in such a way that gets us to name the demon and cast it out. He teaches about a God that breaks the boundaries in our lives.

 

So, what does this text promise us today? What does this story mean for those who don’t share the worldviews of the gospels, where it comes to understanding what makes human existence perilous, where illnesses come from, and what it means to acknowledge that some powerful forces appear to remain stubbornly beyond our ability to control?

 

This text today promises that Jesus reveals to us a boundary breaking God. Each and every boundary we try to put in place, we think is in place, even that which we perceive as impenetrable, God bursts through. Political, social, religious, ethic, racial, sexual, gendered, cosmic, even death. Jesus is telling us that God is here, breaking through the barrier that holds at bay the unclean, the evil of the universe, the places and spaces where it seems God could never be.

 

This text today promises us that God is in all that possesses us. Depression and anxiety? God is there. Grief, loss, and sorrow? God is there.

 

Looking at the world around us, it is hard to believe that God is anywhere in all of this anxiety, and hatred, and oppression, and discrimination. The truth of the unconditional acceptance of God can evoke dark opposition from the destructive forces in the human spirit that seem to prefer bondage and oppression over liberation and freedom.

 

So, what do we do? We name these demons, we recognize that they exist, we listen to Jesus’ teachings, and we pray. Praying is not a simple giving in to God’s will, or an exercise that puts our minds at ease. It is a way for us to look inside ourselves, at our own demons, and to resist the despair that causes us to practice unbelief, and to abandon or avoid the way of Jesus. In other words, it is the struggle to believe that change can really happen, that a better world is possible.

 

Progress, whether in self or in society, is not just destroying the demons that are there. It’s a dismantling of the causes of those demons. That is what Jesus was teaching at the synagogue that morning – that progress can happen if we address our demons, the causes and the symptoms, with the goal of liberating the individual and reconciling with ourselves, our community, and with God.

 

May we all have the courage to address our demons, to name and acknowledge them, and to respect the doubt and disappointment that may come along side of them. May we also have the strength to still utter these words of truth, “God is here.” Amen.

Resources:

workingpreacher.com

theologicalstew.com

cepreaching.org

pulpitfiction.com

A Review of the Book "God Engines" by John Scalzi

Title: God Engines

Author: John Scalzi

Publisher: Subterranean Press

Year: 2009

136 pages

Summary from the Back: Captain Ean Tephe is a man of faith, whose allegiance to his lord and to his ship is uncontested. The Bishopry Militant knows this - and so, when it needs a ship and crew to undertake a secret, sacred mission to a hidden land, Tephe is the captain to whom the task is given. Tephe knows from the start that his mission will be a test of his skill as a leader of men and as a devout follower of his god. It's what he doesn't know that matters: to what ends his faith and his ship will ultimately be put - and that the tests he will face will come not only from his god and the Bishopry Militant, but from another, more malevolent source entirely.

Personal Thoughts: This was a fun book to read. Scalzi has mastered the art of literary sarcasm and in this book, he takes on the intersection of religion and politics. We all know that the underlying cause of most wars is religion. Well this story takes it to the extreme. The government has figured out how to control the gods in order to achieve full control. And once the people of faith have realized things have gone too far, it's too late to doing anything about it.

Scalzi's writing is fun and witty and flows so easy that I read this book in just a couple of days. I'm not going to sugar coat it, this book pokes fun at fundamental religious types and so, if you can't take a joke at your own expense, you may not like it. But if you've got a good sense of humour, then God Engines is quite enjoyable. In my books, Scalzi is 3 for 3! (See previous Scalzi reviews.)

You Can Run but You Can't Hide: A Sermon for the 3rd Week After Epiphany

Photo Credit: Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on unsplash.com

Grace, mercy, and peace to you in the name of Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Although I’m sure everyone knows how it goes, Jonah’s story isn’t one we hear very often in our lectionary. The Book of Jonah is only four chapters long, but we only get a few phrases of it this morning. So, I’m going to back up the story a little bit.

 

One day, God said to Jonah, "Go to the city of Nineveh and tell the people who live there that they are a very wicked people and that they need to change their ways." But Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh. He didn’t like the people in that city, and maybe he was afraid of them and of the size of the city. So, Jonah decided to run away and hide from God. He caught the first ship out of town and headed in the opposite direction from where God told him to go.

 

Jonah learned a very important lesson that day. He learned that you might run from God, but you cannot hide. Jonah got on that ship and hid way down deep inside. "Surely God won't find me here," Jonah thought. But God sent a big storm and tossed that boat around so much that the other sailors thought they were going to drown.

 

They found Jonah in the bottom of the ship and asked him, "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Jonah answered, "I am a worshiper of the God of heaven, who made the land and the sea." Jonah told the sailors that he was running from God because he didn't want to go to Nineveh as God had told him to do.

 

When the sailors learned that Jonah was running from God, they were even more afraid. "What should we do to stop this terrible storm?" the sailors asked. "Throw me overboard into the sea," Jonah answered, "and the sea will become calm." The sailors picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea and the storm stopped at once.

 

Did Jonah drown in the sea? No! God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was inside the fish for three days and three nights. Spending all that time inside the great fish gave Jonah plenty of time to think. He prayed to the Lord from inside the fish. He confessed that he had been wrong to run from the Lord and promised to fulfill his promises to God.

 

God caused the fish to spit Jonah out onto the shore. Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again and said, "Get up and go to Nineveh and deliver the message that I have given you." This time Jonah obeyed the Lord's command and went to Nineveh.

 

Unlike some of the other books in the bible, it’s pretty hard to believe that Jonah’s story is historical. More than like it is meant to be taken as satire. But Jonah is more than just a big fish tale. It is a humourous story about a lousy prophet, a story filled with surprise and humor and pokes fun at would-be prophets who are called to proclaim a God of love and acceptance but instead stand on the street corner announcing that God hates everyone who is not like they are.

 

Jonah was called by God to spread the word of God, to be a prophet. But, unlike Simon, Andrew, James, and John, he doesn’t leave what he’s doing and immediately follow God’s call. He jumps on the first boat going in the opposite direction and he hides in the hold of the ship, hoping that somehow God won’t take notice.

 

Imagine if Simon, Andrew, James, and John, upon encountering Jesus, jumped into their fishing boats and rowed like madmen for the opposite shore, as far away from this dangerous itinerant preacher as they could get.

 

That’s what Jonah did.

 

Jonah got as far away from God, and God’s bizarre instructions, as he could get. Go to Nineveh? The capital of the Assyrian Empire, that destroyer of Israel, that brutal occupying force? It was unthinkable.

 

Jonah runs away, but God sends a storm. The sailors are more pious than Jonah but they eventually, reluctantly throw Jonah overboard. The sea calms down immediately and so the sailors accept the existence of God.

 

God then calls on a big fish to swallow Jonah whole, who is then stuck in there for three days and three nights. Jonah, totally immersed in sea water and fish blubber, does end up praying to God. It was a self-serving prayer, with the sole purpose of saving Jonah’s life. God hears Jonah’s prayer. God speaks to the great fish, and the fish spits him out onto dry land.

 

That’s where we enter the story with today’s reading. God, once again, tells Jonah to go to Ninevah to deliver the message to change and repent. And, this time, still covered in sea water and fish saliva, Jonah obeys. He walks into the city and preaches the shortest and most hopeless sermon ever recorded, “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” Where was the promise, the hope, the love of God in this sermon?

 

The people of Nineveh believed Jonah without question, just like Simon, Andrew, James, and John believed Jesus without question. The Ninevites believed that God is about to destroy them, spewed acts and words of repentance, and changed their lives so completely that God forgave them and decided to not bring about any punishment regarding their actions.

 

That would make Jonah the most successful prophet in the bible! Every person in Nineveh believed Jonah and turned to God. But instead of celebrating, Jonah storms off and pouts under a tree. Jonah wants God to punish those nasty Ninevites for all of the terrible things they have done. That God did not punish the Ninevites was shocking to Jonah. And the prospect of worshipping in the same pew with a repulsive Ninevite, those newly repentant folk in the city dancing and singing for joy at their newfound faith, fills him with disgust.

 

Jonah’s story ends with God asking Jonah why the Ninevites don’t deserve God’s care, grace, and love but we don’t get to hear Jonah’s answer. We are left hanging.

 

Jonah is a prophet gone bad and, unfortunately, he is alive and well and living among us, and too often, in us.

 

Here’s the thing about following the call of God in and through the waters: God is God and does not act as we think God should act. In good faith, we follow where we hear God’s call, we go to the city, or the suburb, or to the small town, or the rural community, and we are prepared to bring God’s word to that place, and what we find is that God is already there before us. We find that no people, and no place, not even Nineveh, can be called God-forsaken. God is everywhere, even before we get there.

 

Whenever we read the Bible and use it to exclude, deny, and reject living creatures of God, there is Jonah.

 

Whenever we say we will follow God but in fact follow our own desires, our own narrow-minded ways, there is Jonah.

 

Whenever we hope that persons who are not like us, who do not sound like us or think like us or act like us, should be removed from the earth by some edict of God, there is Jonah.

 

Think of a person you find difficult to love. Now consider the fact that the God that loves you, loves them just as much.

 

The same God who gave Jonah a second chance gives the people of Nineveh a second chance, and we can’t begrudge that kind of mercy.

 

God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. May this loving and merciful God quell the Jonahs in our hearts and in our lives.

 

Amen.

Resources:

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David L Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor

A Review of the Book "Discovering Hope" by David Poling-Goldenne & L Shannon Jung

Title: Discovering Hope

Author: David Poling-Goldenne & L Shannon Jung

Publisher: Augsburg Fortress

Year: 2001

113 pages

Summary from the Back: God's Spirit is breathing new vitality into rural congregations! Hear what 26 effective rural congregations have to say about God's activity in and through them. In these stories, you can explore the best practices for vital ministry and identify action steps for your own setting. Use Discovering Hope on your own, in a group, or at learning events involving many congregations.

Personal Thoughts: I work in rural ministry but I don't live rurally. So sometimes I try to put my city views into my ministry. Through the books that I've been reading, I'm coming to realize that doing so just doesn't work. Living in a city neighbourhood is quite different than living in a rural community.

Doing church in a rural community is different, as well. One of the things I've been learning is that there is a difference between a congregation with high attendance and a congregation with high vitality. I have noticed that, in my parishes at least, while Sunday churchgoers might be on the low side, their love and commitment to their community is quite high. Everyone knows each and can report on their neighbour's well-being. If they don't see someone around, say at the grocery store, they will check up on their neighbour. The love for neighbour in a rural community seems to far exceed love for neighbour in an urban setting. And this is what gives churches hope in rural communities.

Discovering Hope is an excellent short read that is full of stories from vital rural congregations, telling stories about how and where they find hope in their communities. It's written in a format that would be easy to use for a small group study. As well, each chapter ends with actions that a group, or a congregation, could take to put what they are learning to work.

If you're looking around at some empty pews on a Sunday morning, reminiscing about how things used to be, then I think it's time for your congregation to pick up this book and find ways to discover hope in the vitality of your community.

The Touch of God

I wrote a blog that was cross-posted on Faith + Lead and Enter the Bible about how I felt the touch of God and it changed my life. You can find it on their websites by clicking here or here, respectively. I’ve also included the text below:

Jeremiah 18:1-11

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

As I came into my third decade of life I had a life-changing moment, a spiritual conversion of sorts. It came at a Maundy Thursday service in 2010 when I was asked to passage from the 1st Letter from Paul to the Corinthians, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

I spent almost my entire life swinging from all-out believer to apparent atheist and back again. As a kid, I only went to church to be with my grandma but always loved the stories and the music. In my teens years I was too busy for church and no one I knew believed in God, so I decided I didn’t either. However, there were still times when I went to church – usually during occasions of sorrow, or confusion. I never could explain my need to go to church, and it certainly didn’t make me go on a regular basis. But for brief, inexplicable moments, I found peace in those buildings.

Everything changed when I had my eldest child. Suddenly, it was very important to me that they be baptized and raised in a church. During the Baptismal interview, my newly-found minister asked me one very important question – why do I want my child to be baptized? I couldn’t answer that question right away – I just knew it was something I had to do, something my heart was telling me to do.

Subsequently, we started coming to church. Only on Mondays at first, as it was a more laid-back, contemplative service where you could choose how much you participated. I was very hesitant in the beginning, unsure of my beliefs and my reasons for being there. I didn’t even take part in communion the first few times we came.

I did, however, decide to attend services during Holy Week, beginning with Maundy Thursday. I was asked at the last minute to read the Epistle and, having not read a bible in many years, had no idea what I was about to read. I think I hesitated somewhere around “this is my body”. The realization of the words I was about to speak struck me speechless. The Eucharistic Prayer is such an important part of Jesus’ story; I was humbled and honoured to be speaking these words aloud. Silly as it seems, in my head, these words should have only been spoken by priests.

Suddenly, I felt the weight something on my right shoulder, like a hand lending comfort and strength. I looked over but of course there was no one there. Just the priest, sitting in her chair, head down in prayer and listening to the reading. It was a very powerful moment. I knew in my heart that God touched my shoulder that night, telling me it was okay to go on, to finish reading the prayer. I felt a presence in those words, a presence that I felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As my lips sounded out the words of the Eucharistic prayer, I knew my life had changed forever. That night, I became a disciple of Jesus.

That’s when I really started listening to the readings, to the songs, to the prayers. I learned the Lord’s Prayer as a child, but I never really listened to the words. Same with all the music. Most of it was the same as when I was younger, but only after that Maundy Thursday service I really started to understand the meaning of the words behind the music.

As I began hearing the words, not just listening to them, I finally understood what God had been trying to say to me all these years – that God is here, that God wants to be a part of my life, and that God loves me. God’s words are beautiful and have changed my life.

I have received so many lessons throughout my life that I finally stopped to listen and let God’s hands guide me in the right direction. As easy as clay in a potter’s hands, a person can be reshaped by turning their mind and heart to God. By reading the word of God, praying to God, and listening to God, we can all be the clay in the hands of the Divine Potter.

Questions for reflection:

1.      Sometimes we need a little nudge to head in the right direction. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you could physically feel the touch of God?

2.      Doubt and faith have always walked together. Have you always believed in God, or did you have a spiritual conversation of some kind?

God calls us to be evangelists. Are you willing to talk about the moments where God touches your life, or do you keep it tucked away inside your heart?

A New Perspective: A Sermon for the 2nd Week After Epiphany

Photo Credit: Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

Grace, mercy, and peace to you in the name of Christ our Saviour. Amen.

The good thing about how our liturgy is set up is that you get to hear 4 pieces of scripture each Sunday. It gives us preachers lots of choice about which reading we’ll concentrate on that week. The bad thing about it is that it’s really easy to avoid the harder readings.

 

Because let’s face it – the bible isn’t the easiest book to read. And a piece like the one we heard from Corinthians this morning sounds just awful. It makes you wonder why, when so much of the rest of the book is left out, the lectionary puts this reading in there. I’m sure it wasn’t the easiest one to read out loud, either. In some translations, “fornication” is “sexual immorality”, and “fornicator” is “sexual immoral person” which, in my opinion, makes it sound even worse.

 

It would be easy to simply put it aside and talk about callings. Both Samuel and John talk about callings – how Samuel hears God calling his name but doesn’t understand what’s happening until the priest Eli clears it up for him. Good thing too because after accepting his calling, Samuel goes on to be pretty important in biblical history.

 

Or about how Philip calls Nathanial to “come and see” the man from Nazareth “whom Moses in the law and also the prophets” spoke about and, upon meeting him, Nathanial heard and followed his call to be with Jesus.

 

Sometimes, though, we need to talk about the hard stuff. The stuff that makes us cringe, or gives us goosebumps, or makes us question. Maybe that’s why the lectionary throws these rough bits as us – to see if we’re strong enough to tackle them on a Sunday morning. Today is going to be one of those days.

 

The reason I decided to take on the reading from Corinthians is not only because of what it contains, but because of what it follows. In the Common English Bible, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 reads like this:

 

“Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse, thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. That is what some of you used to be! But you were washed clean, you were made holy to God, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

 

This is what’s called a clobber passage. It’s one of the many verses in the bible used to propagate hate against the 2SLGBTQ+ community, supposedly giving biblical proof that God is against two people of the same gender being together and that if you only give yourself to God, you will be cured.

 

Now Paul definitely had his hang ups with sex and marriage but if you go back to translations before the mid-20^th century, there is no indication Paul had anything against homosexual relationships. In fact, Paul didn’t like sex at all! He didn’t believe in it; he didn’t believe in marriage to another person. For Paul, it was all about a marriage to God and that anything else was completely unnecessary.

 

Now I’m not here to give a lecture on sex and marriage. What I want to do today is give a different perspective about what Paul is getting to here, in this portion of his letter to the Corinthians, when he talks about “sexual immorality.” I want to talk about it as a way to take back some of the power from the people who are using the passage for hateful propaganda, and because I think it’s important that we don’t ignore the hard parts of the bible. (If we did that, we’d never read it!)

 

There are a couple of Greek words in these verses with multiple meanings that trip people up. These words are malakoi and arsenokoitai. Pulling from Holly Heron’s writing in the Queer Bible Commentary, in moral discourse, Malakoi is translated to describe those who are morally weak: for example, men who enjoy luxury and live decadently. But it could also refer to ‘a man who allowed himself to be penetrated’. However, to limit the term to this meaning is simply wrong and is where all the trouble stems from.

 

Arsenokoitai can be understood to be a male prostitute or a man who has sex with other men, but the term also occurs elsewhere not in conjunction with adultery or prostitution, but economic exploitation, thus suggesting it refers to prostitution or pimping.

 

If malakoi is understood as decadence and arsenokoitai as pimping, then the entire list of vices in verses 9-11 can be seen to revolve around behaviors that involve excess and exploitation, behaviors that ultimately place one’s own interested at odds with God’s covenant relationship with humankind. In other words, Paul is not talking about same-sex relationships at all.

 

In pretty much every one of his letters, his main concern is that everyone needs to love one another in community. So, when Paul rattles on about all of these vices, he is talking about all of the things people are doing that are hurtful and harmful to the community. In the case of these specific verses, Paul’s underlying plea to the people of Corinth is that just because something is legal doesn’t mean you should do it.

 

What I mean is that in Corinth during the time of Roman dominance, sexual behaviour was very regulated, and it was assumed that if something was legal then it was also moral. There was no distinction between legality and morality. For example, Emperor Augustus created the adultery law which stated that if a woman was unfaithful to her husband, then she must divorce him. Which was pretty major because then she lost everything – no place to live, she would be shunned by the community, she would have nothing left. However, a married man could have sex with anyone without penalty.

 

In his letter, Paul is challenging doing what you want because it’s legal. He is trying to tell the Corinthians that just because something is legal, or moral in the eyes of the law, doesn’t mean it’s right, or beneficial to the community. Paul says that if you are hurting another person, you are hurting the community, and thus hurting God.

 

The key factor here is understanding that you should never use any sort of method to manipulate another person, whether it be sex or money or anything else. In these verses, Paul doesn’t care who’s with who and in what way. What he does care about is if what you’re doing is raising up or tearing down the community.

 

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul isn’t really talking about sex, drugs, alcohol, or rock and roll. He is talking about freedom. The people of Corinth believed their freedom as Christians meant that they were free of all rules concerning their behaviour – that they could do what they want because God gave them ultimate freedom.

 

Paul’s challenge to that, though, is that although we have freedom, we also belong to God, that our body is a temple full of the Holy Spirit. He argues that our bodies are not our own but are a gift from God. And not only our body, but the body of friend and foe, neighbour and enemy, and every member of the community.

 

Imagine if we treated each others’ bodies as temples. What would that mean? If we understood every person to be a gift from God, it would certainly be harder to manipulate anyone by any sort of method, wouldn’t it?

 

And what if we treated ourselves as temples? I have heard many a statement that if we treated our bodies as temples we wouldn’t drink or do drugs, we would eat better and exercise more. Sometimes it’s more than that though. To treat your body as a temple is to respect yourself, to love yourself, and to know that you are and always will be a child of God.

 

May you always remember that the Holy Spirit dwells within you. Honor this indwelling by giving glory to God through loving yourself and one another. This is the freedom that God has given us.

 

Amen.

Resources:

pulpitfiction.com

queertheology.com

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor

A Review of the Book "Jonny Appleseed" by Joshua Whitehead

Title: Jonny Appleseed

Author: Joshua Whitehead

Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press

Year: 2021

219 pages

Summary from the Back: Off the rez and trying to find ways to live, love, and survive in the big city, Jonny has one week before he must return to his home - and his former life - to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and heartbreaking recollections of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages - and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life.

Personal Thoughts: Since it's publication, I have heard many good things about Jonny Appleseed and it has been on my to-read list for a very long time. I'm not sure what took me so long to get around to reading it, but I finally did and my reaction is that it was nothing like what I was expecting. It was, however, completely worth the wait.

First, I didn't clue in to the fact that Joshua Whitehead is from Manitoba. Reading familiar names and places as I read the story made for an interesting familiarity, especially when the main character was in Winnipeg. I always find it interesting when stories contain places I know because it seems to engage my imagination even that much more, knowing what places actually look like in real life and then reading about them in the pages of the book.

Second, I absolutely loved the dipping in and out of the past as Whitehead talked about the present. I know that some people find that type of writing to get confusing, but this book wasn't like that at all. Perhaps it was just how it was written, but going back to the past in order to understand what's happening in the present worked great in this book. Jonny Appleseed is a fiction novel but is written as if it could be a biography, so it makes you wonder how much was truth and how much was fiction. If this story is based on Whitehead's actual life events, it makes the book even more powerful.

The last bit of unexpectedness around Jonny Appleseed is the extremely descriptive nature of the writing. While there is nothing of the sort indicated on the book itself, I give you a content warning here. I didn't take any issue with what was written, but it is surprising if you're not expecting it. If you struggle to read books of a sexual nature, that contain suicidal thoughts and actions, or that touches deeply on the harsh reality of the treatment of Indigenous people in Manitoba, make sure you prepare yourself before reading this book.

I highly recommend Jonny Appleseed as it is extremely well-written and captivating. I loved Joshua Whitehead's ability to grab my attention and keep it through the entire book. I hope he continues writing as I would love to read more of his work.

Progress, Seen and Unseen

For my birthday, my mom bought me a wooden puzzle of a train. Now, this isn’t your typical puzzle. It’s 3-D and the pieces are extremely tiny. It is delicate and intricate work. I was excited to receive this gift because I absolutely love trains, but as I was daunted by the task it got put on the shelf to spend its days gathering dust. I was too nervous about whether or not my hands and my eyes were up to the challenge of something so new. Building blocks made of plastic I’ve got down! But small pieces of wood that could easily break in my hands?

Taking on new things can be scary. It puts us in a vulnerable position of possible judgement and ridicule. When you don’t know how to do something, your rate of failure is higher than if you were doing something that you’ve done dozens of times before. Making the decision to take that first step into the unfamiliar is frightening. Will you fail? Will you succeed? The key is taking that first step because if you don’t, you’ll never know! It is a courageous thing, taking that first step, taking the chance that you will make mistakes or that someone might tease you. The discernment is deciding which one you’d regret more – trying something new and failing, or never trying anything new at all? And, just maybe, you might succeed on the first try!

 

These decisions about trying something new tend to be most prominent around New Year’s. As the year comes to a close, people begin posting wrap-ups about what happened to them during the year, mostly their high points because we all know that posting low points doesn’t get the likes on social media, and what their plans and goals are for the next year. Their New Year’s resolutions.

 

The issue I have, and have had for myself pretty much every year, is it’s easy to make a list of things that you want to accomplish throughout the year. Lose weight. Exercise more. Learn a new language. Go back to school. All kinds of things could be put on the list. It’s easy to make the list. And it’s also easy to give up on the list when we don’t see immediate and visible progress. In a society that is becoming increasingly dependent on instant gratification, when we don’t see a quick effect in our lives, we tend to just quit and move on.

 

Similar to trying something new, keeping up with that something new is just as hard. Most things in life won’t have instant success or visible progress. How many of you have children who you know are growing, but you don’t truly see it until you look at old pictures? How many of you have tried to lose weight but when nothing happens in the first couple of weeks, you get discouraged? But then someone else points out that your face looks different?

 

Progress can be both seen and unseen. So often it takes looking back on life to see the changes that have taken place. And, if we’re really honest, sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to point out those changes to us.

 

Just before Christmas, I decided that I would pull the wooden train puzzle off the shelf, dust it off, and give it a try. Doing the work close up, I don’t see the progress. But each time I pull back and look at the bigger picture, there it is. Progress. What started as sheets of tiny pieces is starting to transform into a train. I still have many steps and need much patience, but progress is there. I just need to keep going.