Give us this day our daily bread.
Matthew 6:11 (NRSV)

During the Season of Lent, UCiM will be engaging line by line with the Lord’s Prayer. This week’s exploration has delved into the third line of the prayer. I hope, therefore, that these Lenten blogs, honour those faithful conversations, which are occurring within our community of faith.

Various Grains

Bread: I’ve been musing this week about this staple: One that every culture has, one which often marks the line between subsistence and thriving. Bread is central to the Christian prayer that invokes, discusses and dialogues with the Creator. This central image must have some depth to it, which goes beyond simply thinking of God as an ATM machine … from which getting something has a wee bit more breadth than a superficial concept of acquiring …

Bread: In the Palestinian context, one that is often dry, often threatened by drought, crops were dependent on rain – rain that sometimes taunted, infuriated and no matter how much raging was present (i.e. Psalms 65.9-1, 104.13-14, 147.8) sometimes would just not fall. But when the rain fell, the land bloomed, flowers awoke and crops cried ‘Glory!’

Bread: The people with whom Jesus journeyed and ministered were predominately those who lived on the margins, were often judged based on the places from which they were raised and the work that they did. Often these manual labourers, men and women, were those who walked the line between subsistence and thievery – you don’t think those fishermen were floating on shiny international trawlers do you? – were those who answered a Call to share the Good News! And bread, well bread wasn’t provided as part of a negotiated contractual agreement … and yet these fishermen (Matt 4.18-22) – Simon, Andrew, James & John – dropped their nets and followed him with no guarantees into places of privilege and power they walked and spoke truth. And, truth speaking my friends tis rather dangerous work!

Bread: In the New Testament the word is (ἄρτον or ‘arton’)  … vague? It’s not used often and carries a depth of meaning that simply loses a lot of nuance in translation. Rowan Williams says this about the phrase: “Rivers of ink have been spilt over the exact meaning of ‘give us this day our daily bread,’ because the word that’s used in the Greek is a very, very strange one that you hardly find anywhere else.” Though we may want to equate its use with simply the act of feeding the body, there’s a richness to it that implies something more than simply subsistence. There’s a nuance of ‘divine sustenance’ that is imagined: an abundance that defies our tendency to equate reality with cause and effect. This depth, Williams concludes connects tomorrow – the Kingdom (that we discussed last week) – with today: “And so perhaps that ghost of an idea, that shadow of an idea that this is also bread for tomorrow and tomorrow’s bread, can come in somewhere.”

Bread: Prayer is neither simply passive or active. It’s an engagement with Being, not simply being. Those who have and continue to respond to walking the Way (Acts 9.1) navigate a human world that separates resources and people, creates hierarchies of privilege and class with a faith in something more, something richer, something profoundly life-giving that is akin to seeing with new glasses. This response tends to see shift from oppression to freedom, from subsistence to abundance. Prayer does not deny the reality of inequality or suffering. Rather, it recognises that the language we use, the actions that progress from how we communicate, and thus the experiences others have of those choices can soul-enriching and – ultimately – divine sustaining.

And – just sometimes – what may seem like a dance, poetry embodied, leads to song; in the richness of melody, awakening may continue …

A Deacon’s Musing blog

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:10 (NRSV)

During the Season of Lent, UCiM will be engaging line by line with the Lord’s Prayer. This week’s exploration has delved into the second line of the prayer. I hope, therefore, that these Lenten blogs, honour those faithful conversations, which are occurring within our community of faith.

As I listened to U2’s song, Yahweh, and began to wrestle with the second line of the Lord’s Prayer this week, I kept hearing Philip Yancey speaking …

“God has made the work of the kingdom dependent on the notoriously unreliable human species”
Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference
Philip Yancey, 2010

The Kingdom is one of those terms that is often divisive, most definitely used in traditional media to inflame, incite arguments and generally paint Christianity as a wee bit nutty and possessing whole lot of judgement. In fact, it’s likely so effectively disseminated in this manner that it seems likely – to me and only anecdotally so – that this is one of the significant reasons sharing the Good News in the 21^st century is so very challenging. The sound bite is often louder than the Word … or so it might seem …

Ascent of the Blessed
Hieronymus Bosch

A helpful guide or reminder comes from William Willimon who observes, “that faith in Jesus is not an idea or emotion. It is a concrete reality.” Whatever metaphysical or mystical aspects might also define the Kingdom, when this word is used in the Jesus Prayer, we must confront the immediacy of the Now, that “concrete reality.” This Kingdom, for which Christians have sought, imagined and for which we have and do long, is a place in which you and I must confront some truths that might cause discomfort, challenge and even lead to places of danger.

At the core of the Kingdom is the question of who is in and who is out. And – if we have some comfort in seeing Jesus’ ministry as it was – it was not offered to those who enjoyed comfort and privilege. It occurred – most often –in the context of the outsider, the stranger, the marginalised and the oppressed. If we are again comfortable wrestling with truth, that’s likely not our – either my or you the Reader – context. Yes that’s an assumption, but the reason we are notoriously unreliable – to borrow from Yancey – is that we want to believe we are at the centre of the story … and the story of this Prayer, I would suggest, forces us to ask if that’s actually true.

I’m not sure there’s an answer that fits all of us, but I do think there is a reminder about our intention when we say the prayer. The prayer, as this second line boldly reminds us, is not about being passive. It is as much an invocation to the Holy as it is a call to action. These questions and our Christian journey should not lead us to passive acquiescence. We are expected to question, discern, wrestle in discomfort because this task of the Kingdom is too important to let someone else summarise its meaning through a sound bite. How we live into our understanding of the Kingdom is just one way we model discipleship in our actual living. And how we model that is – perhaps – a faithful way to recognise and let go of privilege in a human world ripe with an imbalance of have and have not. And in so doing be the transformation we are invited to become.

“Our power to transform the world is God’s power”
Praying the Kingdom: Towards A Political Spirituality
Charles Elliot, 1986

A Deacon’s Musing blog

Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name
Matthew 6:9b (NRSV)

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, A Deacon’s Musing: Intention, UCiM during the Season of Lent will be engaging line by line with the Lord’s Prayer. So, for instance, two groups of Brothers & Sisters came together this week to wrestle with just 8 words! Yep – 8 words! I hope some of these Lenten blogs, therefore, honour those faithful conversations, which are occurring within our community of faith.

I have to admit some of my stuff, before continuing. It was not until 2005 that I was actually able to embrace the image of God as male, need alone as a Father – or Abba – as is transmitted through our Sacred Scriptures.  There are lots of reasons, but central is the reality that from my family of origin, the figure of ‘father’ was one that was both non-existent and the stories that surrounded this absent member of my family were dressed in tears, loss, hurt and abuse. Growing up with that filter, I was sensitive to the debasing nature that groups of boys and men can model: whether in a locker room or in a barracks, the language that was used, and the implicit violence of domination always left me feeling like an outsider. As a result, though my faith has been always been core to me, I just could not wrap my mind around God as ‘male.’

Little Daddy Bottle Feeding Baby Doll

I have also journeyed to a place in which I cannot BUT see God as relational. There are indeed many metaphors for God, from stars to an eagle, from dust to Cosmos, but the reoccurring one for Christians is a God of relationships. The image – the metaphor – is often intimate and caring, like a father …

For some within the Christian fold there has been a developing non-theism. Though this non-theistic Christianity poses many appropriate challenges and recognises the damage done by idolatrising God as relational, in particular male, the resulting theology feels – to me – passionless, intellectual and most difficult to feel intimately incarnational.

So, as this first line of the Lord’s Prayer has been core to this week’s discipline, I have had to reflect on my own (previous) block to God as Abba. In 2004, in the intensity of a 3 week Learning Circle during my diaconal training as a Deacon, I met other men, strong men who were motivated by social justice, had been in the trenches, faced the misogyny of a patriarchal system and also possessed compassion, gentleness and offered care. When my own tears were shed during times of intimate faith sharing, they held me, nurtured me and emboldened me to embrace an image of the Holy that could reflect the maleness of God.

Our Islamic kin pose a powerful reminder to those who journey the Christian way. Any image, word, sound or let’s face it sensory or intellectual thing can be idolatrised. When the image BECOMES God, we’ve simply projected our own stuff and boxed the Creator in … with some sarcasm I’d offer it makes creating black:white trite solutions and binaries much easier than recognising the inadequacy of our attempts to comprehend the immeasurable and incomprehensible reality that is the Holy.

As I have come to realise that men can nurture and women can defend, as I realise that the gender roles we construct are quite different than the scriptural understanding that we are all God’s Beloved, I choose to model for the men and boys in my life – as Guardian, as Uncle, as Cousin, as Nephew, as Friend – that my maleness does not mean I have to be the man too often projected onto us. That we – through prayer and intention – can experience Grace to be Love …

Prayer – that’s what UCiM is focusing upon for the next 6 weeks. A prayer central to the Christian experience and one that reminds us that Love is at the very core of our discipleship. As you walk into the Lenten Season, I hope you find ways to be the prayer you are meant to be and not the illusion in which our human world too often traps us …

A Deacon’s Musing blog

2013
Mar 29/12

Mar 24/12

Mar 17/12

Mar 8/12

Feb 28/12

Feb 21/12

Feb 16/12

2012
Apr 5/12

Mar 29/12

Mar 23/12

Mar 16/12

Mar 9/12

Mar 2/12

Feb 24/12

All that counts in life is intention
̶  Andrea Bocelli

Last week’s blog – Distractions – has generated a lot of conversation, for which I am most grateful! Some have occurred on account of the written version and others have arisen out of the fact that I used it as part of the Reflection during the February 3, 2013 worship time. The engagement that has arisen has been a gift. To actually hear the inner monologue of a poetry-slam cadence translated into an actual spoken Reflection was also very cool – truth be told! It’s likely not surprising, therefore, that I’ve been doing some thinking as a result …

One thought – in particular – that has been swirling around has been about the connexion, tension, perhaps even binary nature between distraction:intention.

I’m not certain I have an answer or ready reply as to their relationship, but some of my musings include differentiating between intention and attention.

Attention – that upon which we focus. Whether that’s knitting a prayer shawl, tracking a puck across the screen, listening to the laughter in moments of celebration and the tears in the midst of dis-ease requires concentration.

Intention – that upon which we focus. The difference – or perhaps more the nuance – is that it is not necessarily connected with the senses. Concentration might be part of that which we hope to influence, but I also do not think it – intention – requires attention.

Though I think intention can be nebulous to quantify accurately in respect to a spiritual practice, I muse that part of it threads the manner in which we weave – or hope to weave – reality. That which we imagine unfolds into reality. Unconscious reality describes the unexamined life. A journey which is informed by habit, addiction even distraction. In fact, the unconscious reality might be a medley of all of those three!

Intention begins with choice, with awakening to not only the way things might be, but how they are. I know that might seem backwards, but I wonder whether intention is future oriented and then becomes embodied in the present. In Christian language, it occurs to me as I type this blog, perhaps we are talking about the Kingdom to Come? An idea, theology, longing of wholeness in which all Creation shines and glorifies the Holy in which we are intimately bound …

As UCiM journeys toward Lent and through to Easter, one of the ways in which we will begin to mark that wandering will be an exploration of the Lord’s Prayer. An ancient Christian Prayer that calls us both to account for our choices – distractions? – and describes (in the now) the potential of that toward which we journey. I remain unclear about the direct connection of distraction:intention, but there seems to be something worthwhile to be gleaned, a jewel to be polished, a gift to discover, an insight to discern.

One final thoughts that occurs to me about the resulting conversations about the Distractions blog is that it has been in the discussions, in the communal aspect that develops through dialogue, that intention begins, whether that be personally or corporately … and that seems rather … hopeful?

A Deacon’s Musing blog

De-mask:
What’d they put on u?
What’re u wearing that blurs your beauty & obscures mine from u?
What’s gotta come off for u to get on?
UCiM-isms (Jan 30/13)

I’m sitting here, musing about this week’s blog, Mumford & Sons is blaring, snow’s falling outside and I’m wondering where this recent accumulation is going to go … in case you’re not from the ‘peg, we’ve got a lot of snow this year …  it’s quite lovely and white, powdery and cold, dogs love running around it, but I’m getting a little worried it may actually pile above the clothes line, and what’s the point of this long, run-on sentence … oh yeah distractions …

I know – not a new topic. It’s likely been covered more articulately, intelligently and perhaps even poetically, but it’s an ever-present temptation for people of faith. No matter what hat one wears in the interfaith plurality of a globalised and interconnected planet, it’s there! Distraction: ever-present pulsating in the beat, whispering in the sound-byte, lulling in the palm of a vibrating smartphone, the chore undone, the task attacked, we’ve all got them personally and … corporately.

Culturally I’ve noted a few recently. Regardless of your politics, left, right, centrist leaning, what happens in the United States of America affects the world. What happens there affects lives literally, not merely figuratively. Regardless of what you think of President Obama, gun violence, world violence, starvation or racism, it matters. Of course, what’s the media been focused on? As a social justice orientated person-of-faith, lip syncing would seem … inconsequential, trite, superficial, possibly even distracting?

As I sit here watching the cursor blink its invitation to create, to beckon words from mind to pixelated digitised reality, CBC’s been busy. Wars and refugees cry out. In Syria, mad people make mad decisions as leaders are seized by inertia. Our Canadian government fights itself about releasing its own documents about our corporate choices that have maimed, hurt and alienated our Indigenous Brothers & Sisters. In Mali, human history is destroyed in Timbuktu, one religion is pitted against another and stereotypes invoke demons, colonialism is dressed up in new clothes for the Emperor and what’s our national broadcaster discussing? What investigative report is offered to me – the listener? A new tech toy, a new gadget that really is a must have … and of course it’s Canadian so … well you can finish the rant …

Distractions … this human constructed world can seem dark and over-whelming. The illusion of our distractions is a woven spell tricking eye from light refracted from the mirror. But … and this is a strong use of the conjunction … it’s all a distraction. The violence, the war, the politics … I’m not implying there is not suffering, dis-ease and sorrow … But …

At the core of this serenity that is faith there is something larger, more diverse, ever connected that slows down the manic nature of Pandora with whom we constantly walk. In God, in the embrace of ultimate potential, there is solace, there is Joy. There will always be work, injustice to address, questions to ask and rage to be exhaled righteously, but … you can only do what you can do, but what you do is what you must and what you must is to journey with humility embraced by a Universe that knows you to be Love incarnate.

Distractions, yeah I have ‘em, but what a relief – with deep breath drawn, held and released – to realise they’re a burden, a self-imposed mask from which I can – with intention – disentangle. With scaled eyes now once more sighted, I awake to reality that all is beautifully made and you, Dear Reader, are indeed wonderfully and awesomely made. No matter from where you read this, no matter what occurs after you finish reading this final sentence, you possess the gift to shine and to look into grey clouds, riddled with tempest and lightning and see neither danger, nor distraction, but that you are the consciousness of a reality in which all are One …

A Deacon’s Musing blog

“He’ll be transferred soon through the Mirkle,” he noted.

His sight had not returned … yet. His senses – the ones that ebbed back – were in shock, blaringly so! He still wasn’t sure what had lifted him from the water’s edge, but it was … what was the word?

Feathery?
Metallically soft?
Was it a lift that held him aloft?
A helicopter’s skid pad?
Arms?

He just couldn‘t tell or process the memory. He had to admit – begrudgingly – that all was not really well in this shell he called his body. The word hypothermia kept bouncing around in his head – he couldn’t quite recall what that meant, but it fit …

“They’re gonna expend that much energy … for him?” He was aware of a note of incredulity.

“Apparently so – something about the Walk causing too much friction if the Project is going to be implemented on this side,” was the reply.

He tried to move – to respond … was there a pause in the conversation? Were they looking at him? Had he been able to indicate he was aware of them? Further pause and then the air changed. Went … tight? Like a seal being closed, he thought?

The voices were gone.
He was … alone?
He felt his body … healing?

Recovery was going to take time and too many questions began to flood … threatening to overwhelm. Of course, he initially kept getting stuck in the loop of where the phone was, but on the third or fourth round of “where’s the bloody phone” he caught himself. Allowed himself to let go of the fact that it was likely under the water in the granular stuff … which he realised on the final repetition was snow! Snow: what had he been doing in the snow? That memory still eluded him, but letting go of the phone paradox allowed him to start asking some questions that were really not all that comfortable. And – more disturbing – was a dawning revelation that did nothing to ease the mounting … fear?

Of course the first one was, where was he?
The next – logically by extension he thought – was who had him?
Why?

Whoever had him certainly did not seem connected with those opposed to the Walk. Or, if they were, he couldn’t place the connexion. And though he knew he wasn’t firing with all cylinders in the old brainpan area, the mounting fear was certainly trying to address the growing awareness … which he so did not want to confront …

The voices … he knew he had not ‘heard’ them. He could tell, with growing concern, that hearing was not one of the quick rebounding senses that was recovering well after his ordeal in the snow on the water’s edge … what he was resisting, as he drew a deep breath and sat up with shooting agony, was that he not ‘heard’ the words with his ears, he had understood them in his head and that … well that wasn’t possible …

A Deacon’s Musing blog

Stories – that’s what we do. Whenever we describe ourselves, our environment, our families, we’re telling a story. When we share our ups, downs and all-rounds, we’re weaving words together in order to create a connexion – a narrative – that makes sense not only to ourselves, but to those with whom we are in conversation!

Christianity – as theological expression, as a journey of a people, reflecting the confidence, doubts & hopes of men and women – is a story. One of the most powerful images of that story – or metaphors – for me has been Paul’s description of Christianity as reflected as the Body of Christ. Though Paul uses the image more than once, for me the following from Corinthians has been powerful both as image and that to which to aspire:

As I have journeyed in my own deepening of faith and relationship with the ministry to which I think Jesus calls, I have experienced that the metaphor has been further enriched by Quantum Physics. Not to misrepresent the science which underpins the mechanics of the quantum, I have come to deeply appreciate that it demonstrates that at the fundamental level that unifies reality everything is – in fact – one. As I have wrestled with this revelation – if you will – then the Body of Christ takes on both the aspect of metaphor and the metaphysical. The mystical idea of the union with God, for me, seems poetically articulated through the actuality of the Quantum.

Recently, I have found that my appreciation of the metaphor has moved, been amplified, augmented as well by a recent article from National Geographic on microbes, which falls into a Newtonian model of physics. The Body of Christ is a metaphor of the Christian story. As a Brother in the faith has recently reminded me, as he seeks to complement his Divinity training by returning to university to further explore science, our faith and reason must not be compartmentalised. In fact, as he has shared his own challenges for post-modern Christianity, we lose the breadth of how our species’ rational deductions– we might use the word epiphany or revelation – help to refine, sharpen and/or clarify our theology in an age when we can weigh and measure that which is found at the Plank scale of reality. To be clear, both intellect and faith must be appreciated as complementary to one another, in order for new insights into our relationship with the Holy to be further understood.

Okay – back to microbes – I admit this further appreciation of the image of the Body of Christ is not fully formulated, so this blog is simply a place to begin to try to share what feels profound. In this article, in one of the shiny diagrams that only NG can do, it states that only 1 in 10 cells of the human body is human! The rest? Yep – you got it: microbes!

What’s a microbe? I did a little informal facebook query and I had a range of comments from the mirthful small mic(rophone) that might be on my robe during worship to fungus, a living organism and disease. All of which, ultimately, likely are/have microbes on them! And here’s the mind-blowing part with which I will leave you and about which I would love to hear your thoughts: they’re everywhere! Without them – no original oxygen production to allow for larger celled life, no snowflakes in fact – would exist! In fact, apparently you, me, my great-grandmother, the boy in the streets of Calcutta, the girl in the fields in Uzbekistan, to the Prime Minister of Canada are primarily microbes – say 90% at a cellular level!

Paul’s image of the Body of Christ just got a whole lot more interesting – for me – and only reinforces that how I treat myself, how I treat you, how I treat a snowflake has consequences much beyond the simply inner monologue that sometimes distracts me to think I’m an isolated leaf on the wind with no one else about … so, as I wrestle with another universal moment of unexpected humbling, what do you think?

A Deacon’s Musing blog

The catalyst for this blog has been a recent article from HuffPost entitled, Metropolitan Community Churches: Do Gays Need A Church Of Their Own Anymore?  First of all, it feels important to acknowledge that I am a heterosexual male and I am blessed to be in a monogamous relationship. I know I cannot answer that question for any of my GLBTTQ Brothers & Sisters. I do know, however, that homophobia is just one of the particularities that remains entrenched in our psyche. And that reality or generality, I believe, allows me to speak with some authority.

As a Christian community, which has been journeying for millennia, discerning God’s call to us through the lens of an itinerant Rabbi known as Jesus has not always been easy. In fact, it’s been a tension for almost as long as we’ve endeavoured to be faithful! This tension has always – to varying degrees – fallen into whether we are pure enough or whether we are inclusive enough. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Leviticus, in particular, illustrates a belief that our purity depended on particular practices. Some of which, though certainly not limited to, were a prohibition against eating shellfish, that a Priest had to have two good eyes, there was to be no association with women during the menstrual cycle and certain sexual relations, such as same gender, was not permitted.

It is certainly not my intention to judge those who have come before us and it is also important to understand that those particular aspects that defined purity of the faith occurred in a context that was pre-scientific method, pre-Enlightenment and – most certainly – pre-Postmodernity. That’s a lot of syllables, but here’s the point: Applying particular historical external practices to our contemporary context no longer encourages purity of faith, but a theology of chauvinism and judgement.

It has been my experience and – I offer this as a general historical gloss – that since the Enlightenment, Christianity (through fits and starts) has been moving toward an expression of faith grounded in inclusivity, which must confront previous particularities that lead to a generality that dehumanises. Whether it’s been slavery, women’s suffrage, the idea of divorce and women’s rights to property, racism and Right Relations with our Indigenous friends, and Brothers & Sisters, we have had to confront historical ideas of purity. When historical Purity Laws are considered normative outside of their context, they devolve into intellectual excuses to demean, judge, dehumanise and – by extension – maim, harm and even kill another human being.

When people experience a particularity, which might range from stereotyping to physical violence, the question of creating safe space should be central. To respond to a question about safety requires that relationships be grounded in mutuality and hoped-for-solidarity. Regardless of the answer, however, it is incumbent on Christian communities, which endeavour to live into being inclusive of diversity, to confront particularities.

In the 21^st century, I believe that the practice of purity is no longer one that can be grounded, primarily, in external practices. Rather, I believe that purity of faith – from a Christian perspective – needs to pay close attention to the egalitarian nature that Jesus modelled. That ethos or discipline – for us, I believe – demands that we pay attention to those who suffer and who are excluded. The reality is that those who confront external expectations of purity are most often the marginalised and represent the bodies upon whom the privileged stand.

There is no denying that the reality of homophobia continues to be challenged in a manner that would have seemed impossible even fifteen years ago and that is most certainly hopeful! But as the video below, from It Gets Better Project, illustrates from members of Surrey RCMP Detachment, as long as any child needs to be supported, nurtured and protected to realise that the bullying they experience is not only inappropriate, but dehumanising, then I think, as Christians, we need to continue to always ask:

We need to ask:

And – just as important – we must realise that one kind of oppression is – in reality – a constant reminder of our tendency to create systems based on a generality of exclusion. And this awareness, I truly believe, speaks to the core of what it means to a Christian community that endeavours to live into the Kingdom to Come now …

A Deacon’s Musing blog

I’m a questioner – I admit it. When I have the honour of sitting with someone in a space in which trust is extended, I find that it is the questions that are the mile markers, not the answers. I find that it is the right query that cuts through the fugue that too many answers create. It is the question, ultimately, that determines trajectory. Not surprisingly, then, the list above simply reflects a few that begin to determine my own direction as 2013 unfolds …

At the core of the questions is a realisation with which I am only beginning to explore. Those of us who fall into a rubric of ‘progressive,’ ‘liberal,’ and/or ‘post-modern’ Christians have had a tough go of it lately. What that means, what it has looked like and how it continues to be experienced is much too dense for a blog, but one example will suffice …

As a Christian with lots of questions I realise that we (whether my denomination or the larger ‘post-modern’ milieu) do a lot of deconstructing. We like to explore where we’ve been, how things may have gone awry and quite often we look to the Early Church: a moment in time that spanned approximately 300 years when Christianity was not compromised/seduced/lulled/apathetic owing to our proximity to power following the conversion of Constantine. We are good at dreaming, longing, perhaps even apologising for the place in which our understanding of the Christian call clearly stands in tension with what the world portrays a Christian should and does look like – and we do not want to be confused with that judgemental and intolerant lens.

Now do not get me wrong, I am not dismissing the appropriate challenges that arise from deconstruction and analysis. But … but, I’m not really sure that (on its own) it is faithful work. In fact, I’m not sure whether that’s an authentic manner to engage in sharing the Good News.

The Gospel we have inherited is grounded in the birth a wee babe. We get to choose to follow him. As he grows into adulthood, his life modelled a ministry that led to execution and resurrection, which ultimately shatters broken lives into wholeness. And those who claim to be his disciples, the inheritors of this truth, simply must construct the story for others. Intellectual apology and historical critique are – ultimately – first world problems: problems that do not meet the broken in our midst, problems that do not understand the nuance of translations from Aramaic, Greek or Hebrew, problems that are simply symptoms of a theological chauvinism that allows us to remove ourselves from a ministry we – nonetheless – long to offer to the world.

I’ve got a lot of question as 2013 unfolds. And – for me – what seems pressing right now is whether or not the ministry which I offer and in which I walk is really what Jesus the Christ modelled? Do the choices I make and those that unfold with the faith communities in my midst offer the Good News to a longing world or are we simply watering down the Gospel in order to lull ourselves back into complacent illusions that have – for some time now – offered easy answers? Whatever the answer may be to the question(s), I sincerely pray for you, for me and for those for whom the Good News is absent that intention and action become the plotline for the year that will be known as 2013.

A Deacon’s Musing blog