A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 37

Chapter 37 – Temptation

 

And lead us not into temptation…. (Matthew 6:13)

 

Do we really think that God is leading us into temptation? “How easy is it to blame someone else when we’re tempted to sin. It’s “his” fault, “her” fault, or when all else fails, it’s God’s fault.” (Bad Girls of the Bible, p. 57)

 

God does not lead us into temptation. That’s ridiculous. This is not something God would ever do. Leading us to temptation is Satan’s work. That’s why Pope Francis called for this particular line of The Lord’s Prayer be changed. In 2019, Pope Francis called for the traditional translation “Lead us not into temptation” be changed to “Do not let us fall into temptation”. Francis explained, “I am the one who falls; it’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen.” (www.desiringgod.org/articles/reading-the-bible-upside-down)

On page 234, N T Wright says that there are three levels of meaning in the verse “lead us not into temptation”:

1.      “Let us escape the tribulation”

2.      “Do not let us be led into temptation that we will be unable to bear”

3.      “Enable us to pass safely through the testing of our faith”

In the more modern Lord’s Prayer, it states, “Save us from the time of trial.”

There are so many ways we can look at this verse without thinking that God is leading us towards temptation. It is more likely that God wants to walk with us through temptation, helping us to get through whatever trouble we find ourselves in.

A Bit of Bread Goes a Long Way: A Sermon for the 18th Week After Pentecost

May only truth be spoken and truth received. Amen.

 

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” What a powerful final verse to our reading today, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, a time where many of us will gather with family, eating to our hearts content. Turkey, stuffing, gravy, pie, and, of course, bread.

 

For thousands of years, bread has been the symbol of necessary food and the sustenance of life. It is easy to understand why. It is nutritious, providing carbohydrates, starch, and protein to the body. Bread is essential and it’s more than just nutrition. It’s comfort. The texture, the weight, the taste, all combine to make bread both the staff of life and the number one comfort food. And yet, so many people lack access even to a small amount of bread. A little bit of bread could be everything to someone who is hungry. It’s a staple in most households, and yet we take it for granted that that loaf of bread will always be available to us.

 

Based on data from the 2023 Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey, 10 million Canadians, including about 2 million children, live in food-insecure homes. That’s about 25% of our population wondering where their next loaf of bread will come from. Those numbers have doubled in two years, and I fear that they aren’t getting any better.

 

The Bible is unambiguous about our duty as Christians to feed the hungry. In the Hebrew Bible, God provides manna from heaven to feed the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 16). The prophet Isaiah exhorts his listeners to respond to God’s abundance with acts of justice and compassion, including sharing our food with all who hunger and dismantling systems that produce hunger in the first place (58:7). Perhaps most significant of all is Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 25 that how we treat people suffering from hunger, thirst, and other vulnerable situations is how we treat Christ himself (31-46). As we sit down to our dinners over the weekend, let us remember those who won’t have that same opportunity and ponder what we, as Christians, can do to live up to our duty to protect our neighbour.

 

Let us ponder once again that final gospel verse, “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

 

Every culture has bread in one or many forms. There’s white bread, wheat bread, pumpernickel, French, Italian, pita, tortilla, sour dough, and the list goes on and on. Say the word “bread” and chances are some good image, or taste, or smell, or texture is bound to pop up in our heads. All of those breads will grow stale and inedible in a relatively short period of time. Even the manna from heaven that fed the Hebrews in the wilderness was temporary.

 

But Jesus came offering a new kind of bread, one that doesn’t go bad, one that isn’t temporary, one that nourishes perpetually and lasts forever, one that sustains relationships and bolsters hope. Jesus is pure love and compassion for all people on the earth. Jesus is the source of life, the source of eternal life, the source of the values of our daily lives, the pattern of love for our daily lives. Jesus is never just regular old bread. Jesus is the bread of life.

 

As we consume physical bread, it gives us nourishment and energy for our physical lives. As we consume Jesus into our lives, his indwelling presence becomes the source for compassionate energy without our lives. He becomes the nourishment and energy for our spiritual, emotional, and moral lives. When we absorb Christ into our daily lives, we take in the mind and heart of God who loves all people as God's children. That is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, what it means to have the Spirit of Jesus living inside of you. It means to have the heart and mind of God living inside of you. Jesus is the Bread of life and whoever eats of Christ will never hunger again. When we eat and absorb Jesus’ words, spirit, and love into our lives, Jesus lives in us, and we will never die.

 

The basic food staple of the world is bread, and Jesus is the basic spiritual staple of the world. There is a shortage of physical bread in this world of ours, but there will never be a shortage of spiritual bread. God's nourishment is not the old bread of life which fed some, but the new bread of life who feeds all. The true bread is the bread of God that has now come down from Heaven in the person of Jesus.

 

Jesus points to bread beyond bread, to that gift from God which not only comes to the world through Jesus but is in fact Jesus himself. The bread which endures to eternal life is this relationship which has been made possible by the incarnation of the Son. In fact, the bread which endures is the Son himself, whom God gives for the world. As we absorb the spirit of Jesus Christ and his love, justice, and compassion, these qualities live more fully in us.

 

While we celebrate this weekend, let us not muddle our understand of thanks as praising God for material possessions. Jesus’ greatest gift to us is not the clothing, cars, computers, all the other physical gifts we earn or receive that are temporary. As wonderful as all of that is, it is Him, His teachings, His example, and His undying love that leads to eternal life…that is the greatest gift.

 

If we want eternal life, we must eat the food only God can give. We must believe that Jesus was the One sent down from heaven, by God, to show us the way to eternal life. This good news of Jesus’ life and teachings is enacted in the Lord’s Supper – where bread and wine become our way of connecting again and again with Christ, the Son of God. We are to then go live out that example and that connection, and to be grateful for the gifts of nature and neighbour. So, we are invited to come to Him, to study His word, follow His teaching, and put our trust in Him.

 

We are hungry for so many things in life. We are impatient in our hunger and want to satisfy our perceived needs as quickly as we can. Yet so much of what we hunger for doesn't last. When we eat food, we are hungry again. As we turn toward Jesus in our hunger for life, we find forgiveness, we find hope, and we find love. We are fed something that doesn't perish but rather something that flourishes – if we nurture it. In our everyday lives, we have seen it: the gift of bread, of mercy, of beauty, of healing. What can we possibly say, except thank you? For all that is, for all that has been, for all that still will be, O God our God, be above all and in all and through all, we give thanks for providing us with the bread of life, your Son, Jesus Christ.

 

Amen.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 36

Chapter 36 – As We Forgive

 

…as we also have forgiven our debtors… For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:12, 14-15)

 

Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we will ever have to do. When someone has wronged us, when someone has hurt us, the last thing in the world we likely want to do is forgive them. Because to forgive means we must forget, right? To forgive means we accept what that person has done to us as insignificant, right? Not exactly.

 

Forgiveness “does not wipe out the consequence of sin.” (p. 228) Even if forgiveness is given, it doesn’t cancel out what was done, and there should still be consequences. A child breaks a dish. They might still have a punishment – cleaning it up, maybe some time in their room – but it is unlikely that the parent will not forgive the child for breaking the dish.

 

“Forgiveness is the re-establishment of right relationship.” (p. 228) To give forgiveness means that you want to repair the relationship that has been damaged by the sin. It’s not forgetting what happened but acknowledging the harm the event has caused and deciding to move past it in order to work on the relationship. Now, if forgiveness is given but no change in behaviour occurs, then perhaps right relationship will not be restorable. Only the parties affected can make that decision.

 

What happens if there is no opportunity to forgive the person directly? If the harm occurred many years in the past and the two people are no longer in contact, can forgiveness be given? Doesn’t it even matter at that point? That would depend on the person looking to give forgiveness, but it certainly can still have an effect on that person. By forgiving the sinner, even from afar and with no current relationship, it can still relieve the burden that is being carried. Forgiving someone longer parted from your life can be a way of letting go of the shadow that might be hanging over your head because of the event in question. Even if you can’t right the relationship, or don’t want to for whatever reason, relieving yourself of the burden can be very liberating. In that case, you’d be re-establishing right relationship with yourself, your own heart, and your own soul.

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 35

Chapter 35 – Forgive Us

 

And forgive us our debts… (Matthew 6:12)

 

“It is a basic Christian doctrine that we are all sinners.” (p. 218) This is something we learn right from the start of Sunday school. We are all sinners. As humans, we will never be perfect. It’s impossible to be perfect. We are all sinners. What we get as Christians, though, is the knowledge that God knows we aren’t perfect. God’s level of expectation of creation is pretty low. As equally as we know that we are all sinners, we know that God will always forgive us.

 

An important piece of this doctrine of sin is remembering that “all” means “all”. It doesn’t mean “everyone else but me.” As M Scott Peck states, “Housecleaning, like charity, should begin at home, and we usually have quite enough to do being our own watchdog without having to be anyone else’s.” (p. 218) It is important that we self-reflect on our own sinfulness and ask for God’s forgiveness and not worry about anyone else’s sins. We can only control what happens within ourselves.

 

And what does forgiveness mean? It means to “let go without a sense of guilt, obligation, or punishment.” (p.220) In the petition found in Matthew 6:12, we are asking for God to wipe the slate clean and allow us to start again. We acknowledge what we did today was wrong and we are asking for a new beginning tomorrow.

 

And you know what? That’s exactly what God gives us – a new beginning with a clean slate.

Two Months Later: A Reflection

I think one of the hardest things about change are the endings. Spending weeks of experiencing a slew of "lasts" was both exciting and heartbreaking. Six weeks from my last service in Manitoba, I sat in a conference room in Gimli, looking around at all the faces that I've grown to love and care for, faces that I will likely never see again. Sure, everyone says they will stay in touch, and we probably mean it, at the time. But the truth is that soon there will be almost four provinces between us, two ecclesiastical provinces, and a multitude of dioceses. We all know that despite the best of intentions, staying in touch doesn't always happen.

I suppose part of my wonderings on that day was whether or not I'd be leaving behind any sort of legacy. Would I be remembered? It's human nature to want to be remembered, to not be forgotten, so I shouldn't have been surprised at these feelings. People kept telling me how much they will miss me, how much the diocese will miss me, and how much of a loss my leaving has created. But was it truth or platitudes? If it was indeed truth, why? What have I done that will be missed so greatly? What kind of person am I that will cause my presence to be missed? What is, or was, my story and why does, or did, it matter?

As I prepared to leave the only life I've ever known, I felt awfully insignificant. And yet, somehow, my story remains newsworthy. The Winnipeg Free Press ran my story one last time - the story of my time as a transgender priest in the Diocese of Rupert's Land. To me, my story isn't that interesting, but everyone seems to be interested in hearing it. Yet when I speak my story, it comes out sounding very boring. Maybe I'm telling it wrong? Do I need to learn how to be a better story-teller?

Despite the fascinating part of being a transgender priest, the rest of my life is relatively dull and normal, and overwhelmingly insignificant. I don't have any abuse in my life. I wasn't kicked out for being gay. I was accepted, to my face anyway, for being transgender. It doesn't feel like I've risked my life or suffered in any way for being my authentic self. This doesn't mean I haven't had awful things happen to me, sad and heart-breaking things, but are they newsworthy? Are they important enough to be part of the story people want to hear?

So, did I leave a legacy behind in Rupert's Land? Perhaps. It's been two months since I left Manitoba and I still haven't been to answer that question. All I can do now is look towards the future and build on the legacy that I want to leave in the Diocese of Islands and Inlets. Onward and upward, as they say.

A Review of the Book "The Wastelands" by Stephen King

Title The Wastelands: The Dark Tower Book III

Author: Stephen King

Publisher: The Penguin Group

Year: 1991

420 pages

From the Back: With The Wastelands, the third masterful novel in Stephen King's epic saga The Dark Tower, we again enter the realm of the mightiest imagination of our time. King's hero, Roland, the Last Gunslinger, moves ever closer to the Dark Tower of his dreams and nightmares - as he crosses a desert of damnation in a macabre world that is a twisted mirror image of our own. With him are those he has drawn to this world, street-smart Eddie Dean and courageous wheelchair-bound Susannah. Ahead of him are mind-rending revelations about who he is and what is driving him. Against him is arrayed a swelling legion of fiendish foes both more and less than human. And as the pace of action and adventure, discovery, and danger pulse-poundingly quickens, the reader is inescapably drawn into a breathtaking drama that is both hauntingly dream-like and eerily familiar. The Wastelands is a triumph in storytelling sorcery and further testament to Stephen King's novelistic master.

Personal Thoughts: I thought I would struggle with taking so long between installments of this story, but King has a was of drawing you into the story each time. He did end reviewing the previous novels at different points in the book so it wasn't hard to get caught up.

    The Dark Tower continues to be an exciting story and, as always, King's writing makes it hard to put the book down because you want to find out what happens next! This book ends on a cliffhanger, at which King even leaves the reader an apology letter for leaving us with a cliffhanger. That said, it's certainly one way to make sure the next book gets sold!

A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 34

Chapter 34 – Daily Bread

 

Give us today our daily bread… (Matthew 6:11)

 

A little bit of bread could be everything to someone who is hungry. It’s a staple in most households, and yet we take it for granted that that loaf of bread will always be available to us. When we pray to God for our daily bit of bread, that prayer can go a long way. Not only are we praying that our loaf of bread will continue to exist, but that all mouths will be fed. By saying “our daily bread”, we are recognizing that all mouths deserve to be fed. The prayer also extends to all the work that goes into making that loaf of bread, because it doesn’t suddenly appear in our homes.

 

Behind a single loaf of bread, there is an entire string of events that takes place, events that go mostly unseen. Seeds need to be planted, tended to, and harvested. Many people are involved in storing the grain and then, subsequently, turning that grain into bread. Then there are all the stores who are involved in the selling the bread. There is an entire line of relationships that go into making, and then consuming, bread.

 

God is all about relationship, and a relationship with God means maintaining relationship with others. As per Leonardo Boff, “When we present God with our own needs, [God] wants us to include those of our brothers and sisters. Otherwise the bonds of fellowship are severed and we live only for ourselves.” (p. 215)

 

We pray to God for our daily bread, but God doesn’t want us to keep that bread to ourselves. We are meant to share it with others so that no one is in need. If we only give crumbs, are we really taking care of our neighbour? Or would it be better to give a sandwich?