Arrogance and presumptuousness of the Abrahamic traditions

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That’s a fancy title, but it gets at the heart of what I think is happening in the Middle East. Like almost everyone else in the world my news channels have been bringing stories of the happenings from kidnapping to humanitarian crisis, and all the terrorism in between. All of us are watching a crisis that has been thousands or hundreds or decades or weeks in the making, depending on who we listen to and who wants to dominate the mic.

The truth is something less simplistic and more compelling: One of the main problems in the Abrahamic traditions is the assumption that each of us have, that Christianity, Judaism or Islam in turn have decided we are the most important and the only ones who should have a voice. Even in historical times when there have been attempts to treat each other better, the status of ‘second class citizen’ has accompanied any senes of tolerance.

It doesn’t matter which tradition we look at, there are plenty of Christian, Muslim and Jewish fascists, totalitarian governments and terrorists. No one is prepared to budge from their position of absolute domination.

And in that arrogance, people are being killed.

It takes nothing to whip people up into hate and justification for their actions. Being angry is easy.

The hard job is saying what part did we play to contribute to this situation and where do we go from here. That’s the mature conversation that no one in the Middle East or any of their hardline supporters want to have.

All of the Abrahamic traditions have scriptures, songs and prayers of peace and positive relationships with neighbours, but none of the leadership is listening.

When God made the promise to Abraham that his generations would be more numerous than the stars in the sky, there was never a conditioning statement that said only some of them would have the right to live in the promised land.

Sunday Reflection – October 22, 2023

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Give back to God the things that come from God

Matthew 22 15 The Pharisees got together and planned how they could trick Jesus into saying something wrong. 16 They sent some of their followers and some of Herod’s followers to say to him, “Teacher, we know that you are honest. You teach the truth about what God wants people to do. And you treat everyone with the same respect, no matter who they are. 17 Tell us what you think! Should we pay taxes to the Emperor or not?”

18 Jesus knew their evil thoughts and said, “Why are you trying to test me? You show-offs! 19 Let me see one of the coins used for paying taxes.” They brought him a silver coin, 20 and he asked, “Whose picture and name are on it?”

21 “The Emperor’s,” they answered.

Then Jesus told them, “Give the Emperor what belongs to him and give God what belongs to God.” 22 His answer surprised them so much that they walked away.

Kids Korner: Give to God (Oct. 22nd)

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Read Matthew 22:15-22 with your family.

Many people know this story, even if they don’t attend Sunday school or church regularly. But why was this a trick and why did Jesus know it was a trick?

When Jesus was a small child, another person from Galilee named Judas (not any of Jesus’ friends and followers) encouraged a tax revolt around the year 6 CE. The Romans were fierce in putting it down and many Hebrew people suffered. After that, Rome and her officials, including the Temple leadership in Jerusalem, watched to see if anyone else would suggest not paying taxes to Rome as a way of encouraging rebellion.

Jesus knew this history of his people and he knew that the Temple leadership was trying to trick him.

Jesus rarely answered questions directly and never for the Temple leadership. But in his answers and new questions he showed us different ways to look at the world.

Jesus never asked us to be outside the world and not interact with others.

Jesus asked us to change the world, and share the gifts that God gave us.

Sunday Reflection – October 15, 2023

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Parable about the rich landowner and tenants

Matthew 22 Once again Jesus used stories to teach the people:

2 The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a king gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 The king sent some servants to tell the invited guests to come to the banquet, but the guests refused. 4 He sent other servants to say to the guests, “The banquet is ready! My cattle and prize calves have all been prepared. Everything is ready. Come to the banquet!”

5 But the guests did not pay any attention. Some of them left for their farms, and some went to their places of business. 6 Others grabbed the servants, then beat them up and killed them.

7 This made the king so furious that he sent an army to kill those murderers and burn down their city. 8 Then he said to the servants, “It is time for the wedding banquet, and the invited guests don’t deserve to come. 9 Go out to the street corners and tell everyone you meet to come to the banquet.” 10 They went out on the streets and brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike. And the banquet room was filled with guests.

11 When the king went in to meet the guests, he found that one of them wasn’t wearing the right kind of clothes for the wedding. 12 The king asked, “Friend, why didn’t you wear proper clothes for the wedding?” But the guest had no excuse. 13  So the king gave orders for this person to be tied hand and foot and to be thrown outside into the dark. That’s where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. 14  Many are invited, but only a few are chosen.

Kids Korner: Get ready for the banquet (Oct. 15th)

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Read Matthew 22:1-14 with your family.

In our story today Jesus continues to use parables to tell the leaders in the temple that they are not doing a good job of representing God to the people. This time Jesus compares God to a King who wants to hold a special wedding feast for his son (meaning Jesus), and invites all the power people who like to think they are important. But all of those people say ‘no’ to the invitation and even kill the messengers.

Jesus tells the Temple leaders that after that rejection, the King, or God, calls ordinary people who are not rich or powerful, and they are the ones who will get to enjoy what the King/God has given to our world.

Sometimes in the church when people think they are important, and other people treat them as important, they start to think they are better than others. This story reminds those people that God calls everyone. But in order to be part of God’s world, you also have to do the work and live the way God calls us to live.

It’s not good enough to say we are Christian, we have to mean it with the way we behave and treat others..

Thanksgiving

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This week we celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada. It’s not a day covered in myths of the past, it’s just a simple time of families and friends gathering together to appreciate the good things in life and the food from the harvest. It’s a celebration I look forward to every year.

This year I had the opportunity to preach at a church I haven’t visited in over a year and a half, and the welcome was overwhelmingly kind. I spoke to them about thanksgiving as an act of praise rather than a social contract that observed the niceties of appreciation.

Far too often we trip over that social contract. The expectation that we will receive some kind of acknowledgement for anything we do, from giving money and time to holding doors open. We have been trained up to expect a passing word of gratitude for simple things and and more complex offering of thanks for bigger things. If those thanks are not automatically given, we are put out, perhaps even insulted.

But why?

If we were only doing it to receive thanks, then why do it in the first place?

In the telling of Jesus healing the ten men with leprosy, Jesus recognized the man who returned to praise God, not for giving thanks to Jesus himself. It was that act of praise that mattered. Who knows why the other nine didn’t do it. Perhaps they were overwhelmed with being reunited with their families and that thanks came later, or in our expectations of the day, perhaps they ‘paid it forward’.

Jesus didn’t demand his healing back, he just acknowledged to the crowd who gathered that praising God was part of being made whole.

Perhaps it’s time to worry less about the social contract around the words “Thank you”, and think more of giving and receiving in terms of gratitude and praise to God.

We give because God first gave to us without exception or expectation. It is now our turn to have that attitude. Offering gratitude to God simply completes the circle.

Sunday Reflection – October 8, 2023

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Parable about the rich landowner and tenants

Matthew 21 33  Jesus told the chief priests and leaders to listen to this story:

A land owner once planted a vineyard. He built a wall around it and dug a pit to crush the grapes in. He also built a lookout tower. Then he rented out his vineyard and left the country.

34 When it was harvest time, the owner sent some servants to get his share of the grapes. 35 But the renters grabbed those servants. They beat up one, killed one, and stoned one of them to death. 36 He then sent more servants than he did the first time. But the renters treated them in the same way.

37 Finally, the owner sent his own son to the renters, because he thought they would respect him. 38 But when they saw the man’s son, they said, “Someday he will own the vineyard. Let’s kill him! Then we can have it all for ourselves.” 39 So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40 Jesus asked, “When the owner of that vineyard comes, what do you suppose he will do to those renters?”

41 The chief priests and leaders answered, “He will kill them in some horrible way. Then he will rent out his vineyard to people who will give him his share of grapes at harvest time.”

42  Jesus replied, “You surely know that the Scriptures say,

‘The stone the builders
    tossed aside
is now the most important
    stone of all.
This is something
the Lord has done,
    and it is amazing to us.’

43 I tell you God’s kingdom will be taken from you and given to people who will do what he demands. 44 Anyone who stumbles over this stone will be crushed, and anyone it falls on will be smashed to pieces.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these stories, they knew Jesus was talking about them. 46 So they looked for a way to arrest Jesus. But they were afraid to, because the people thought he was a prophet.

Kids Korner: The rich landowner and the tenants (Oct. 8th)

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Read Matthew 21:33-46 with your family.

Sometimes we have to listen very carefully to what Jesus meant in his parables, and sometimes we don’t have to wonder at all.

In this parable the priests who were listening knew Jesus was talking about them and about how they had not respected or accepted the messengers from God who had come to teach them about how God wanted them to live. They felt guilty but they did not want to change how they behaved or how rich they were because they worked at the Temple.

The last part of the story was the land owner, meaning God, sent his son, meaning Jesus, and they beat and killed him too.

Jesus barely finishes telling the story when those same priests were planning ways to get rid of Jesus – like they hadn’t even heard the warning in Jesus’ story that they better leave Jesus alone.

There are a lot of people who call themselves Christian leaders, but who are more interested in the power to tell others how to behave rather than living like Jesus wanted them to.

Jesus knew about them and how they chose power and money over God’s teachings.

That is also why Jesus taught us we don’t need anyone else getting in the way of our relationship with God. We can pray to God, sing to God and do the things Jesus taught us to do to make the world into a fair place where everyone is treated properly.

Prayer

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I’ve worked with a number of church communities and Christian groups over the years, and the one part of our faith practice that really seems to upset even the most seasoned person is prayer. When I ask people to pray within a group of their fellow believers, it can sometimes completely breaks them down. Why?

My mother told a story of how decades ago she was in a small Quebec town and they had just finished choir practice when word came that someone important to all of them had died. The priest told them to bow their heads for prayer and then nothing… the priest was busily flipping through pages of a prayer book instead of leading them in a prayer of loss and thanksgiving. My mother’s comments were why was it so hard? They had all known the person, so why couldn’t they pray about them without the words written in a book?

That story has stuck with me through the years as I have encouraged others to pray privately and in a group of people.

Prayer is not hard. It’s just a conversation, and we are not being graded on what we find important or whether our sentence structure uses proper grammar.

Prayer can be as simple as a list of things that come to mind, or as extensive as a small essay with examples and common references.

Prayer can be silent or loud, walking or sitting, bowing or holding our faces up to the sky.

Prayer can be giving thanks or making a request.

Prayer can be sad or angry or happy or filled with joy.

Prayer is simply taking our inner monologue and including God in our thoughts.

The more we pray, and the more we encourage others to pray, the easier it gets.