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Posts from the ‘Jesus’ Category

Apr 13

7 Comments

“I am Deeply Loved By Jesus Christ”

I opened my reader this morning to discover no fewer than six tributes to author, speaker, and contemplative Brennan Manning, who passed away early this morning at the age of 79. Brennan Manning is, regrettably, one of those writers that I have seen quoted endlessly but have never actually read. Consequently, I spent a bit of time this morning doing a bit of reading about his life and work, digging up quotes, and generally trying to learn a bit more about this widely admired figure who seemed so keenly tuned to grace. Of course, I also ordered a few of his books :). I am looking forward to my relatively late introduction to Mr. Manning.

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Apr 9

3 Comments

Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness…

I am a theological schizophrenic.

Some days, I am an incorrigible rationalist. I like reading philosophy and theology. I like rational arguments and logic and consistency. I like highly charged debate about abstract and arcane concepts. I am drawn toward topics that have very little “practical” value. Thinking rightly about God’s nature and God’s purposes is very important to me. I like to be right. Read more

Apr 8

15 Comments

Why Do I Have Faith?

Last week, I found a message from a reader of this blog buried off in some dark corner of Facebook-land that I hadn’t noticed for at least a month. It was a message that was both encouraging on a personal level, as well as provocative in the best sense of the word. As it happens, the powers that be in Facebook have thus far prevented me from responding to this message. Every time I try to reply, I get a message telling me that I cannot do so due to some setting in one of our accounts (I don’t have an email address for the person who wrote to me, so I’m at the mercy of Facebook). Rather than wading through the labyrinth of Facebook’s privacy settings, I decided to do the only rational thing and simply write a blog post in response :). Read more

Apr 5

The Light of Life

Jesus said, I have come that they may have life,
and have it abundantly. 
 
Whoever follows me
will never walk in darkness
but will have the light of life.
 

Every morning this week, these words from John’s gospel have framed the morning prayers in the prayer-book I use. They are good and hopeful words with which to greet a new day. They are appropriate post-Easter words. As is the case throughout John’s gospel, there is this wonderful contrast between the light and the life of Christ and the darkness and death we see all around us. Jesus’ words are true and good and full of strength and hope

And then I walk out the front door… Read more

Apr 1

If Christ Has Not Been Raised — Pity Us All

I spent the morning after the triumph of life over death reading about the triumph of death over life.

Well, that sounds a little more dramatic than it actually was. What I was in fact reading was a fairly ordinary little book by David Webster called Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish and Unhappy. It’s hard to imagine a book with a subtitle that catchy being almost a complete waste of time, but it was. I was really looking forward to reading Dispirited after hearing an interview with Webster on the radio (he made some intriguing comments about contemporary spirituality and how it perpetuates selfishness, individualism, consumerism, etc.), but the book turned out to be a rather poorly written, sloppily edited collection of loosely connected rants against the increasing prominence of the (admittedly irritating) “I’m spiritual but not religious” claim.  Read more

Mar 29

3 Comments

Witnesses to a Surprise

A good reminder for Good Friday, from Thomas Yoder Neufeld’s Killing Enmity.   And, perhaps, a bit of a rebuke for all of us who are tempted to explain how the cross “works” on this day when the lights go dim and God gives himself away: Read more

Mar 27

Thy Kingdom Come

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Mat. 6:10).
   
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed;  nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21).

 

Some reflections on the Wednesday before the Friday and the Sunday that changed the world… Read more

Mar 12

1 Comment

An Odd Prescription

I have, over the last few months, had the privilege of regular interaction with a couple of young men who (independently) came to our church inquiring about baptism. In their own words, both know “next to nothing” about Christianity. They don’t know much about history or theology, the have read little more than a scant few verses in the Bible, they aren’t much interested in the latest controversial issues in the church, and (gasp!) don’t find my sermons terribly memorable. But they want to get baptized. They don’t know much about Jesus, but they want to come to him, to sign up to follow, even though they don’t have much of an idea what they are getting into.

(Come to think of it, how many of us really do?) Read more

Mar 8

3 Comments

The Path to Life

A few stray strands from the week that was that I am trying to connect on a glorious hoar-frosted Friday morning….

One of the cool traditions that our church is a part of is what is called “Lenten lunches.”  Every Thursday throughout Lent, a different church in our city opens its doors to sisters and brothers from other denominations for a short devotional, followed by a simple lunch of soup and bread. Yesterday, I was at a table with a few other pastors and the conversation inevitably turned to the demands of ministry, the sometimes seemingly endless meetings, the overwhelming needs of people that we are so often powerless to meet, the importance of boundaries, etc. There was plenty of knowing nodding and mm-hmming. But then there was a pause… and a comment from an Anglican minister: “But isn’t the invitation to Christ on some level an invitation to die?”  Read more

Mar 7

6 Comments

Bleached Upon the Shore

One does not typically expect to encounter theological inspiration at a church finance meeting. Well, I suppose some might, but I do not number myself among such strange creatures. For most of this week’s church business meeting, things proceeded according to the script. There were facts and figures and updates and PowerPoint slides and motions and seconders to motions and questions and clarifications and dialogue and decisions and then we were done.

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Mar 1

12 Comments

On Disappointment

There aren’t many good radio stations in the city I live in. Like, roughly zero. But for a few glorious moments this morning the heavens opened, the clouds parted, and a shaft of wondrous auditory light suffused my little Volkswagen Jetta as I flitted about, running errands on a windswept prairie day. U2’s “One” was playing on the radio. It’s probably my favourite song. Ever. I hadn’t heard it for months, maybe even a year. And here it was! On a crappy Lethbridge radio station that ordinarily dispenses a nauseating combination of top-40 pop trash and mid-eighties light rock (think Katy Perry and Chicago back to back)! Such rapture, such undeserved grace! It was almost more than I could bear. Read more

Feb 27

13 Comments

For Our Own Good

Should human beings have the right to eat, drink, and spend ourselves into oblivion without the state getting involved? Should the government be allowed to save us from our own toxic habits and risky, stupid, shortsighted behaviour in the interest of the public good? Will nothing short of legislative intervention save us from a future of morbidly obese, substance dependent video game addicts, mired in a mountain of unnavigable debt? Have we, the citizens of the brave, new twenty-first century world, come to the point where we require protection from ourselves? Read more

Feb 20

20 Comments

A Boy on the Street

I saw a boy today.  Ten or eleven years old probably—about the age of my own son.  He was walking alone along the side of a busy road.  He was skinny.  His jaw protruded out, an under bite full of crooked yellowish teeth, and his greasy hair was sticking out in all kinds of different directions.  His eyes looked vacant.  He had a thin, tattered summer jacket on, zipper wide open revealing a lime green stretched out t-shirt that hung almost down to his knees.  His pants were too big for him, his shoes hardly up to the task of navigating the slushy dirty city streets.  He looked cold. Read more

Feb 15

2 Comments

“You Thirsted for a Faith That Was Free”

I have been spending some time with Dostoevsky this afternoon, rereading the famous “Grand Inquisitor” chapter from The Brothers Karamazov as I prepare for this week’s sermon on the temptation of Christ from Luke 4:1-13. In it, Ivan Karamazov asks his brother, Alyosha, to imagine that Jesus has reappeared in medieval Spain at the height of the Spanish Inquisition. The people recognize him, they rush toward him to embrace him, he even raises a little girl from the dead. But, despite seeing all this, the Grand Inquisitor arrests Jesus, and begins a lengthy interrogation. “Why have you come to get in our way?” he asks, “For you have come to get in our way and you yourself know it.” Read more

Feb 13

Dust

Remember that you are dust and that to dust you shall return.

These words have been spoken in churches around the world this Ash Wednesday and will be spoken later today in our own church. These words are a call to ponder our mortality, to examine our souls and repent for our sins, to begin the slow march to the cross of Christ and to the new life of resurrection on the other side.  Read more

Feb 8

4 Comments

Is God Fair?

A couple of conversations this week have me thinking about fairness. The first was a kind of prolonged lament about the unfairness of life. This person had the (mostly justified) impression that life had treated them profoundly unkindly and this unhappy fact coloured how they interpreted virtually everything else they encountered in daily life. The second conversation occurred with a friend over supper last night. His daughter had been learning about the importance of fairness in school, about how everyone needed to be treated exactly equally. “Why tell them this?” he asked as we were getting supper on the table. “Life isn’t fair—the sooner they learn this the better!” Indeed. Read more

Feb 1

8 Comments

“Sometimes I’m Afraid of God”

Sometimes I’m afraid of God when I read the Bible.

The statement came from my son after he had spent a bit of time wandering around in the delights of Genesis 19 for an assignment. It’s quite the passage. You have a guy voluntarily sending out his daughters to get raped in order to avoid the apparently more odious prospect of having the men of his town sodomize a couple of angels who had paid him a visit, you have people being struck blind and being turned into salt, you have God raining down sulfur and fire in judgment of the Sodom and Gomorrah, you have two young women getting their dad plastered in order to have sex with him and produce children, and generally an overall scene of depravity and sex and violence that would make Quentin Tarantino blush. Well, maybe not. But still, it’s not exactly PG material. Read more

Jan 29

6 Comments

Picking and Choosing

The denomination in which I serve—Mennonite Church Canada—is currently asking its congregations to engage in a lengthy and challenging process of facing challenging difficult ethical issues of our day (issues around human sexuality, religious pluralism, pacifism, environmental concerns, etc.) head on and discerning together what the Spirit seems to be saying to us regarding how we are to respond as followers of Jesus. The “Being a Faithful Church” process is an attempt to put hands and feet to our theology.  Mennonites affirm, among other things, the importance of community, the priesthood of all believers, the inappropriateness of hierarchical power structures and modes of relating to one another, and freedom of the Spirit to lead us into deeper and truer understandings of Scripture. The “Being a Faithful Church” process is an (ambitious!) opportunity for churches to demonstrate that we actually we believe what we say we do. Read more

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