Message: How Much God Has Done for You. Sunday, June 23, 2013. Lansdowne/Caintown Presbyterian Churches, Ontario.

 

 

 

Sunday, June 23, 2013 LC

Text: Isaiah 65: 1-9; Ps. 22: 19-28; Gal. 3: 23-29; Luke 8: 26-39

Pentecost 5, 2013, Year C Marie away w/kids

Message: “ How Much God has Done for You “

Isaiah 65:1-9 I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks; who sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels; who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day long. See, it is written before me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their laps their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together, says the LORD; because they offered incense on the mountains and reviled me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their actions. Thus says the LORD: As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, “Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,” so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there.

Psalm 22:19-28 But you, O LORD, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD. May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.

Galatians 3:23-29 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Luke 8:26-39 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”– for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

I’ve been reading an updated version of a book read 20 years ago: the name has been slightly amended to now read Kingston: Building on the Past for the Future. When first read, I picked it up at the local library in Toronto while living in the historic Guildwood Village on the shores of Lake Ontario, just up the coast a bit from here. It had turned on some aha lights in my mind.

 In the updated version, there is a series of small maps of the hinterlands of Kingston, in a section about old Kingston’s desire to develop a “populous back country” . They each have a meandering line detailing where the Canadian Shield ends its’ long crawl from ‘way up north. For the first time, intuitive thoughts were corroborated about where the boundary of the Canadian Shield is in relationship to my hometown of Verona. Indeed, It is just south of Verona. I can tell you the limestone rock-cut between Verona and Hartington where one drives out of the Shield and into the beginning of the ancient limestone striations of the glacial ocean which has pretty much receded into Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. It’s an area called the Long Swamp and I remember my father recounting of how countless roads built across Long Swamp( part of Hwy 38) disappeared into the mire until, finally, bedrock was reached. I love the fact that I grew up in the bogs, swamps, lakes, streams and arboreal forest area north of the southern boundary of the Canadian Shield. I intend to be buried in the Verona Cemetery on the edge of the lake by which I lived there – one we all called Rock Lake.

 One of my former pastors from those days, who also grew up and had roots deep into the Canadian Shield in Verona, often quoted something we read recently in worship. It’s been on my mind a lot ever since, even while reading Brian Osborne and the late Donald Swainson’s book about Kingston. Here it is :

Psalm 16: 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.When the Rev. Snider would intone those words, it was with absolute sincerity and a romantic nostalgia which I am only now in life beginning to understand. It has to do both with the gauzy remembrances of this old son of Verona as well as with the far more important truth which applies to all who have been blessed by the presence of the living God in their lives.

 How much God has done for us! We are within the strong boundary-lines of His grace, grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love, anchored to the rock which cannot move. In the Bible study of Wednesday evening @ Lansdowne church, we have been exhorted by Paul to displace all of the old way of living with praises and the giving of thanks for what God has done for us.

 That’s the thread that runs through all of the scripture lessons today, even the epistle which at this time of the Christian year isn’t supposed to link up with the rest of the readings thematically. I want to simply walk quickly through these portions while thinking together about how much God has done uniquely for each one of us. If we are sitting or standing here today, let us praise God and thank Him for the boundary lines, the goodly heritage which has been and is ours. Let us overflow with deep gratitude for our respective joys. Have there been sorrows, even tragedies, for us? Of course, for we are human beings caught both in a fallen world and in the consequences of our own foolishnesses; however, we have put off our old selves by the grace of God, we have been renewed in our minds, and we have put on our new selves – all by virtue of being loved by God. The old has past, the new has come! Thanks be to God!

 Isaiah 65: God is talking here to His people, telling them how much He has been trying to get their attention: “Here I am, here I am”. He has been overwhelmingly generous to them, pouring out love lavishly. Yet, they go off and worship other gods on other mountaintops, as Sir John Gielgud intones in the movie Chariots of Fire. They talk back to God: “Stay away from us, we are too holy for you! “ God is tempted to get revenge on their insensitivity to His profligate love; yet, for his servant’s (singular) sake, God holds His fire and promises to bring forth descendants: my mountains, my chosen, my servants shall settle in this new land.

Folks, that servant is Jesus. Those servants are us, the church , the Body of Christ which is walking around in year 2013. We have a goodly heritage, the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places. God is still jumping up and down, waving his hands, holding them out to a rebellious people. He is the self-revealing God that is foolishly in love with people who tell Him to go away, they want to be left alone. How much God has done for us and for those who will get over ridiculous rebellions. The goodly heritage is available to all upon whom is finally dawns that they are within the circle of God’s love.

Psalm 22: this is the Psalm from which Jesus quoted on the cross : “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani – my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In good Hebrew rabbinic fashion, Jesus knew that those around who heard him would know that Psalm’s full message – the good, the bad, the ugly truths — of the love of God – the agony of being seemingly abandoned by Him – the reality of suffering and pain. He knew that the Psalm came to the great truth that God’s love drew a circle that takes us in – into the goodly heritage, the pleasant places. It may be through trials and temptations, through suffering and pain, through a dark night of the soul, but in Christ Jesus, His person and His work – we are drawn within the boundary lines of God’s grace. “The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! “

Sisters and brothers, we are to let our praise of God, our giving of thanks to Him be genuine, over-the-top – our praises of God’s provision to be overflowing. We are the poor who eat and are satisfied, those who seek and are satisfied, those whose hearts live forever!

 Galatians 3: Now, remember: the people of the area called Galatia were being corrected by Paul. Somehow, they had come under the spell – again – of those who were suggesting that they needed to come back under the laws-regime of the old way of thinking about God. Paul writes to remind them that those laws were only guardrails to keep them from flying off the road. For years, whenever this mental image of God’s laws being guardrails came to my mind, it was the very guardrails right next to the limestone rock cut mentioned earlier. If you were traveling south on Hwy. 38, just after you passed the huge rock formation on your right, there was a significant dip in the road at the bottom of a hill. And, yes, there were guardrails on both sides going up that hill! Why? Because there had been many accidents caused by cars hitting that dip at the bottom of the hill; then, they flew off either side of the hill when their vehicles became airborne! That’s what Paul is saying to the people: God’s laws are guardrails to keep you from flying off the road. BUT NOW, faith has come. The guardrails are no longer necessary. Through faith in Him, we are God’s children. We have come up from the waters of baptism with new clothes on – hand-me-ups with a new label: Made New by Jesus! We are wearing Jesus-clothes, the brand by which we are identified. It matters not your chosen or non-chosen status, slavery or free citizenry is not the issue; even your very maleness or femaleness are not the issue. The issue is, are you wearing the brand of clothing made by Jesus that reflect His work and His person? Then, you are one in Christ Jesus. Pay attention to what matters, not to the old peripheral divisions that used to define you. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. YOU, o church , are a brand new nation that God is creating!

 Friends, neighbours, family: the boundary lines have changed. Our goodly heritage is Jesus. We get to be heirs along with Him of all that God has offered, freely , to all people that want to have a do-over in their lives. We inherit what was thought to belong only to those who kept the 613 laws of the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s a gift given with all of God in it and it’s wrapped in clothing that has Jesus written all over it! Now that’s a goodly heritage and a boundary with which you and I and all can gladly live!

 Luke 8: It’s essential to know that the country where the unfortunate man lived was where the Gentiles lived. That means it was not within the pale of acceptable society. Hence, the swine lived there, in more ways than one! For our purposes, that’s all that is necessary to note from the bulk of the gospel lesson today. Let us focus upon the last few verses. This former unfortunate understandably wanted to go back to the right side of the boundary-line ( the sea of Galilee) with Jesus and His followers – who can blame him? The country on the east side of Galilee was the scene of some pretty wretched memories altogether and the prospect of potential future persecutions. Yet, Jesus didn’t need any more groupies; further, He knew enough about humanity to know that this man was going to be far more effective in the Decapolis, his home area, than he ever would have been back in the land of the ‘chosen’ people. “ Return to your home; declare how much God has done for you. “ And look what it says, it’s fascinating in that it shows how much this guy got it: “ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much JESUS had done for him. “ ! For this man, God and Jesus were one and the same. An argument could be made that he was one of the first apostles – the sent ones – that Jesus personally commissioned to be such. Paul, who called himself an apostle , one who was abnormally born, had no greater call upon his life that his formerly demon-possessed man had. He simply believed that the God who had done so much for him was the Jesus that had done so much for him. He viscerally understood what Jesus’ closest followers had ongoing trouble grasping: Jesus was and is God. The boundary lines around his life had been redrawn.

 The old poem ‘Outwitted’ comes to mind. It’s a bit difficult to understand grammatically, but somehow, as poetry is prone to do, the whole of it rather mystically speaks to the healed Gerasene man’s situation:

 “He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!“
–Edwin Markham

 Fellow apostles, you and I are that man. We are those who have been redrawn within the boundaries of God’s loving plan for humankind. We are those that are to return to our homes and declare how much God has done for us.

 Thus it is written, thus it shall be done………… 

Meandering: Moving Back to the AncientFuture

There’s a crazy layering of stuff going on in our lives this coming week, all on top of the fact that we’re living, moving and having our being back in a city which we know and love and in which we have  served over half of our married life together.

I’d have to say that ‘moving’ is the operative verb there. We’ll be moving into our twenty-first street address  about a week from now — bizarre enough for two country kids whose first eighteen or so years of life were spent on a farm for one and in a small village for the other. Our friends and family gave up recording our address changes long ago, plus I have a sneaking suspicion that there is stale-mail following us all over North America. It’s saying, “Hey, settle down! Stay there! Let us catch up! You may have just won a million dollars….. too late!”

There’s more important stuff than that, however: this Sunday is Reformation Sunday in which especially Reformed congregations, like the one we are presently serving, pay attention to the fact that a gaunt, emaciated, enthusiastic monk named Martin Luther took some nails and a hammer ( on October 31, 1517 ) and nailed a bunch of earth-shaking, world-changing text messages onto the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He was  challenging the religious leaders of the church about some of the misinterpretations and misapplications  of God’s written word that had been perpetrated on the church and on Christ Jesus for centuries. He was a disturber, big-time, making the Occupy Wall Street  people look like wimps by comparison. He was just as radical as many had been before him, including Jesus the Christ and Saul-turned-Paul plus a whole bunch of ‘renew-the-church’ nutcases that actually ended up renewing the church over the preceding centuries.

So, Sunday/ Monday are all about Reformation — is that all? Nope. Luther chose October 31 to do his dastardly ( and wonderfully subversive) deed because it was one day before …… wait for it….. All Saints Day, November 1. All Saints , then as now, was/is a time to remember that not only is the church God’s good idea Biblically; it is also an historic entity that has been built on Scripture and History, Reason and Experience  built into real peoples’ lives that has built up over the centuries. Christianity was not discovered in the 16th century, let alone not having been a big surprise in the 20th/21st century. It actually has two thousand years from  which to draw it’s credentials. There have been countless saints-in-process that have come before us  present-day believers who happen to inhabit the planet in this moment….no, wait…..THIS moment…..aw, shucks, I mean THIS slippery moment….ah, nuts……..    Imperfect saints, as people are called at the beginning of Paul’s letters — people just like us in so many ways —  have always been in process in the last 2000+ years  and some of them are  now graduated and triumphant heroes of the faith that we can hardly wait to see in the long-range future. We call them saints, especially the ‘biggies’ in our personal lists: my list containing names like Augustine and Perpetua and Wilberforce and Padraig and Jacobus  and Wesley and Hus and Erasmus and Thomas and Andrew and Sara and Dorothy and Myrtle and Lydia and Frank and Eric and Joyce and Earl and Verdun ( who died on Reformation Day 11 years ago ) and Uncle Charlie and Harold Maxwell Wilkins and  Vito Papa and….and….and……

Well, actually, some of those more common names, (but  not  common to me)  aren’t celebrated on November 1 (All Saints) because they’re not ‘famous’ as the world counts fame. No, those names are remembered on All Souls Day  each year ( November 2 ) — those are the saints who are more like me and you because maybe we have known them in our lifetimes. These are the everyday people who put following Jesus ‘ on the lower shelf’, so to speak, so that you and I can get at them more easily. Where I’m presently serving as a pastor, I’m adding to that list of everyday saints who are still in process, but who have been exhibiting so many of the characteristics of Jesus’ nature and character that it seems self-evident that they have been God-smacked, as some may call it. Reformation Sunday, Reformation Day (known by  many as All Hallows’ Eve), All Saints Day, All Souls Day — four days all in a row to remember that we are not alone, in more ways than one.

God has shown up in the lives of people since time began and will continue to do so — today , tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, ad infinitum. That’s one of the many things I love about God and His people:  they are not caught in time, enslaved to it. No,  there is instead an eternal scale upon which time has no meaning or signficance. We live in  God’s  ancient-future whether we acknowledge it to be so  or not. Certainly, the Scriptural canon is closed , meaning that at a blip on that eternal scale, people were inspired by the breath of God to write words that would last for the rest of eternity — we call that God’s library of 66 ‘books’, the Bible. However, God continues writing Himself onto the pages of our unending, scrolling text-screen called life.

God’s reformation of our inner lives will be blogged by Him onto the world-wide web of relationships that we call the church. In the Church and In Christ Jesus…….He will reform us and will always keep reforming us, now and forever.  Are you posted by Him onto His book of life? We’ll meet up together there, sometime in blogger-God’s ancient-future .

Meandering: Hats Off to the Past, Coats Off for the Future

Mahatma Kote : I remember that guy.....

 

 

It’s a bit of an archaic subject-line; how many wear hats or suitcoats  any more, let alone tipping the former or taking off the latter? So, try this: respect that which has happened already for it has made a difference in peoples’ lives and get ready for the hard work to begin — you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! There’s another line remembered from a postcard sold in our old family general-store (what’s that?) back in the last millennium: The Hurrider I Go, The Behinder I Get! It was a humourous caution against doing anything too quickly. It seems ‘way out of step with present days for anyone who wants to keep ahead of the breathless pace required by the 24/7/365 relentlessness of social media info. If one doesn’t  choose to go hurrider, one is behinder already!

There is a pace to living in year 2011 that is frenetic and also exhilarating. Instant decisions, on the fly, are required by people in most strata of life. Even if you don’t live directly in a town or city of 5,000 or more, life is often still referenced by urban life. Where we live right now, in Kingston, Ontario, there is a surrounding and beautiful hinterland that offers the options of living close to the amenities of city life. I’d say that folks from forty miles around in some sense are still urban in their thinking whether they like it or not; I know, for I grew up about 17 miles from the edge of Kingston in a place I still consider one of the jewels of the area. I can remember thinking during those growing-up years that the best of both worlds was to live in the country but still close enough to Kingston to be there  within thirty minutes. For a few years in this millennium even, we owned a trailer which allowed us to commute into work from near the shore of one of the most beautiful lakes in a Land O’ Lakes area of Ontario. It was a privilege to recapture that same sense as in boyhood years. Some days, I admit to envy of those that have the privilege of living on the edge of the Canadian Shield even though they work and shop and have appointments in the city.

But, not right now. It’s because Marie and I are soon going to  be moving to downtown Kingston, living in a space that we can hardly wait to inhabit. It’s within 7 walking minutes of the church-building which is our base of operation while serving a congregation of folks in the heart of the city. It’s not our first time, for we have chosen to live in this city before and prefer living downtown. The big ol’ Victorian duplex sits right on the edge of City Park, one of the loveliest spots in an historic city. We will be within sight of the hospital where both I and our daughter were born.  A big surprise that happened when Marie discovered this place online was that it is owned by former congregants from another church which is even closer than our present congregation’s church! The first congregation we formally served after seminary years is  just another 3 blocks from where we are now; yup, it’s a triangle of church-buildings, all within a few blocks of one another.

In each place, it was ‘hats-off/coats off’ , for the congregations have all been over a century in their respective locations  — the present one since 1817. One began and continues as Methodist though reflecting the relatively recent ’emergent church’ movement; the second began as Congregational ( a denomination in Canada into the 20th century )  and is now Associated Gospel (AGC, a small Canadian denomination, described to me at the time as ‘something like Fellowship Baptist)  and the present people have been Presbyterian since the beginning. The latter chose not to go into The United Church of Canada in 1925; accordingly, there’s still this Presbyterian Church, the only church -building on the main street of old downtown Kingston — I call it the Via Media on the ‘middle way’ of the heart of Kingston  — the middle of the city.  I love the fact that these congregations have each stood their ground over the many decades since they began. Each generation of believers has tipped their respective hats  to the past and has taken off their coats to their futures — and we’re going to do it again @ St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. The 11 Senior Ministers whose pictures adorn the old Vestry there, and the people represented by them, will be proud to know: St. Andrew’s pays full respect to their faithfulness, their courage and to the goodly heritage that is evident.

There have been spiritual advancements that have happened in and through  each of these places. Kingston and Ontario and Canada and the whole wide world have been profoundly changed by each of  the generations of people that have called these places ‘home’. Spiritual revivals, strong stands upon the authorship and the authority of scripture, thousands of students and military  cadets going out and changing their worlds, a University called Queens and a first Prime Minister called Sir John A. MacDonald — all of these have happened because previous generations of Jesus-followers, theologians, servant-hearts and simply stubborn, principled people took their old sweaty hats off to their pasts and removed their work-coats and suit-coats off to free them up to work on their futures. Each of these congregations is still making a significant — significant I say, and the facts bear out — significant differences in their present and future.

Tell you what: if you want to make a difference in the world , join the band of sisters and brothers who, by the grace of God and the desire to work out their own salvation as commanded by the scriptures, have chosen to do whatever it takes to reform and to be always re-forming their world. I can flat-out tell you: that’s happened and is happening at The Next Church, Bethel Church and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church — brothers and sisters in the Church and in Christ Jesus in downtown Kingston. Here’s to the past and the future, Lord…..Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…….

Talk : “Following Jesus: A Pilgrimage in Progress”, Saturday AM Breakfast Event, Gananoque Ontario, June 25, 2011

Never a follower, but a leader be?!

NB — These are notes  used to present to a Men’s Fellowship ( women were present, too! )  nearby where  we are sojourning. I had decided to just talk about my life a bit; this is what came out. The term ‘ follow Jesus ‘ seems to have recurred as a theme in my life. So….. I centered my thoughts accordingly, including embedding a song or two ( Follow Jesus AND Route 66 AND I Have Decided ) at the beginning , then the end,  plus including a recent blog-posting ( the only redundancy ) . That’s how it was crafted; so , it’s not a manuscript , but more of a purposeful meandering down life’s pathway. Read , if you wish……

____________________________________________________

“Following Jesus”: A Pilgrimage in Progress

Song:

• Follow Jesus, I will follow Jesus, anywhere He leads me I will follow.

Follow Jesus, I will follow Jesus, anywhere He leads, I’ll go.

Across the river, down through the valley, or if it be on the mountain high,

I’ll go, Lord, anywhere you lead me – take me, here am I.

• Name: Christopher/Blake/Walker

• Because ‘walker’, also ‘follower’, trying to be a ‘ leader’ simultaneously.

• John 21

15After breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

   “Yes, Master, you know I love you.”

   Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

 16He then asked a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

   “Yes, Master, you know I love you.”

   Jesus said, “Shepherd my sheep.”

 17-19Then he said it a third time: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

   Peter was upset that he asked for the third time, “Do you love me?” so he answered, “Master, you know everything there is to know. You’ve got to know that I love you.”

   Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. I’m telling you the very truth now: When you were young you dressed yourself and went wherever you wished, but when you get old you’ll have to stretch out your hands while someone else dresses you and takes you where you don’t want to go.” He said this to hint at the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And then he commanded, “Follow me.”

 20-21Turning his head, Peter noticed the disciple Jesus loved following right behind. When Peter noticed him, he asked Jesus, “Master, what’s going to happen to him?”

 22-23Jesus said, “If I want him to live until I come again, what’s that to you? You—follow me.” That is how the rumor got out among the brothers that this disciple wouldn’t die. But that is not what Jesus said. He simply said, “If I want him to live until I come again, what’s that to you?”

Song: Route 66

“If you ever plan to motor west,
Travel my way, take the highway that is best.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

It winds from chicago to la,
More than two thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

Now you go through saint looey
Joplin, missouri,
And oklahoma city is mighty pretty.
You see amarillo,
Gallup, new mexico,
Flagstaff, arizona.
Don’t forget winona,
Kingman, barstow, san bernardino…..”

It was 40 years ago this month ( first week of June, 1971 ) that I, along with eight other crazy people actually took this trip in 8 days — beginning and ending at the same place where these song lyrics take you. I’m hearing Nat King Cole, in my mind right now, singing this mindsticker — and I’m not the least sorry that you will have this in your brain for at least the rest of the day, if not longer. It was a dream definitely coming true for this blond-haired boy who watched Buz and Tod ( spelling correct ) jump in their Corvette every week on a TV series in the early ’60′s, a series named “Route 66″. They were off to new adventures every week and, man, I wanted to be them as did a few million other kids of that era.

In 1971, there we were : a group called ‘Free Spirit’ no less,  but not in a Corvette; rather, it was 9-passenger Kingswood Chevy station-wagon, with a 9-foot U-Haul trailer behind us. We blew out 9 tires that summer. During those first  8 days of a 7-month-long singing and PR tour, we were skedded for several stopovers at churches, camps and conferences. The purpose of the group was to connect with young people in a Methodist denomination that was finally catching up to the generational shifts that were tsunami-ing over the world at that time.

It was also the height of the Jesus Movement. We, along with thousands of other cars that year, sported a ‘HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS’ bumper sticker. And we did and they did — honk, I mean, and also, love Jesus. Richard and Karen Carpenter wanted to be “Close to [Us]“, or to somebody,  and we sang along every time it hit the airwaves. Some of us travelled with scarf-substitutes around our necks  because the A/C was on full-blast  as we travelled through those hot cities and states noted in the lyrics. (Yup, we hit every one of ‘em, especially Amarillo, TX, where if you could down a 64-oz. steak — think ‘roast’ — you got if for free . No one  in our group tried, thankfully. ) By the time we reached San Berdoo ( you were cool if you called it ‘Berdoo’ , we learned ), we had already seen,  in that one week, the following : 

• the tall buildings of Chicago,  and  the inside of RCA Studios — cutting two records one recording studio over from The Guess Who, whose big hit ‘American Woman’ was rippin’ up the charts right then

• the Arch that crossed the river @ St. Louis, bridging between the Eastern and Western parts of the continent

• the Continental Divide itself

• amber waves of grain AND purple mountains’ majesties AND fruited plains — a song I still know by heart , along with “The Star-Spangled Banner”

• veterans from the VietNam War and button-down business people, both whizzing past us on the interstates, on their way to somewhere important?!

• old-fashioned camp meetings and new-fashioned church -buildings

• refashioned VW Campers and Bugs by the score, many of them with ubiquitous flowers  and peace signs painted all over them

• Tucumcari, NM, where we stopped to fix just the first of the other 8 flat tires

• hot desert nights and blistering desert days where some of us got sunburns from falling asleep with our legs out on the tailgate as we careened across burning sands

• Arrowhead Springs, CA, where Bill Bright’s organization called Campus Crusade for Christ was founded in those politically-incorrect days. Four Spiritual Laws began with the vision that our Lord gave this great  man of God [God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life…..] and it was a privilege to be there. 

• And, as we came down through the San Berdoo mountains, we couldn’t even see the city, the brown smog was so thick . No wonder…..gas in California, in one place , was 25.9 cents….a GALLON!! The good ol’, bad ol’ days …….

I believe the others felt as strongly as me: this is one of the best things that ever happened! Imagine what it was like for a bunch of 18 to approximately 24 year olds to do such a thing. We travelled 45,000 miles  – that’s what the milometer told us about this new car @ the end of the trip in December, 1971. There were 2 groups that year, though the Free Spirit ministry continued anew each other year after that with 1 group.  I was so glad to travel up, down and across the western half of the continent, because I’d travelled quite a bit with other groups in earlier years in the Northeastern quadrant of the continent representing my college in a similar kind of summer-group and also  with a Chorale group representing the College where I met Marie, my beautiful wife of almost 39 years.

It was also the best thing for more long-standing and consequential reasons: it was on the road that it became clear that, for me, ministry in the church was somehow going to be a major part of life. No doubt about it: Free Spirit, 1971, imprinted me to follow Jesus, anywhere He leads.

But wait, there’s more. That experience,  along with so many others since, taught me that it is on the road is where we are meant to be as followers of Jesus. I’ve just got to quote you something from a devotional book that Marie and I have used intermittently through the years ( let me commend this book to you: This Day with the Master, by Dennis F. Kinlaw, a great man of God  ) . This quote is from the one dated yesterday, June 9th. Here’s the  ’coincidence’ : at the end of that  8-day trip, we ended up for a few days at a church camp in Yucaipa, California. The speaker? Dennis F. Kinlaw, one of the great Old Testament scholars and preachers of the 20th/21st centuries!  Here’s the quote :  

“We often tell people that they should receive Christ. Yet we must remember the words of Jesus: “Follow me.” The two appeals have very different connotations. The first appeal implies a certain need in us, an emptiness, a guilt, a lostness. The center of concern is the human self and the fact that Christ can meet each person’s need.

The connotation of “Follow me” is quite different. The central focus is on Christ, not on ourselves. It means refocusing our lives, not around ourselves and our lacks but around Him and His call. It speaks of our losing control  and yielding to Him. Suddenly, our whole horizon changes and it includes the Cross. That is where Jesus was going when he asked Philip to follow Him……..

Beware of any presentation of the gospel that stops with receiving and does not talk about following. Salvation is not in an experience. It is in Christ , and we must walk with him if we would experience that saving power. Salvation comes through His presence…..

Are you following Him? “

I’ll tell you what: ever since 1971, I’ve been a sojourner, someone who is on the road,  a person who is here for a while only.  It has been a strange yet wonderful trip since then, this being enthralled  by  the Big Idea  that Jesus wants to lead us every step of the way, with much of the itinerary unknown except by Him. 

He’s essentially saying: travel my way…. it’s the highway that’s the best. I’ve gotten my kicks on His route ever since.  (End of blog-posting). 

• But how did I get from December, 1950 to June, 1971? Then, what happened from December, 1971 on? Not giving you the whole blow-by-blow, just some of the highest points that had made me a progressing pilgrim and will until that day when I will see Him face to face, by the grace of God. All of this is by grace , undeserved favour, didn’t have a thing to do with it! Did you ever stop to think – everything we are and everything we have is derived ?! It’s all from someone else, from somewhere else – and the most important decisions ever made in our lives for the first few years doesn’t really include our wants or wishes?!

• Grace of God through my family: born into fine family, good strong Irish/Dutch heritage, christened by great-uncle bishop of FM church on my first Sunday, roots down deep into the scriptures and into the Lord. Family began in Canada in 1927, Protestant Jimmy Walker from N. Ireland, then John, Ray, Verdun and me. 5^th generation Canadian because others, on both sides of the family, made a decision 184 years ago to move from Ireland to Canada, both sides of the family. Even Protestant Jimmy cared enough about his faith to get belligerent about it. Farm family that decided to move up the food-scale to the grocery business, Walkers Red and White, for 54 years. Respectable business people, honoured place in the village for all that time.
• Grace of God through the church: born into a Xn family, back several generations but most especially the last 2 before me. Great congregation in the FM church , Jerusalem, people that loved the Lord and one another. Small extended blood-family, but large church family that prayed and cared for one another. Lived on Preacher Street in Verona, next to United Church manse and Free Methodist parsonage ( first pastor’s family I remember was the Lyons family. Dale Lyons of Lyons-Goodfellow Furniture and Funeral Home.) FM church part of holiness tradition that believed in and preached a life of not only salvation from past sins and sin but an unending future of being filled with the HS. I didnt’ choose any of that – it was just given as a gift, freely. Not until later on would there be any decision on my own to follow Jesus. Oh sure, church services/altar calls/ commitments made and broken/childrens’ camps/ youth camps/ evangelists – all of these were given and were wonderful means of grace. But , hey, you can hear that stuff so much that all you want to do is to go your own way, in your own way, and a ways away from where your family AND your church want you to go. I had my share of faults/failures/rebellions/sin/sins in my first decade and a half of walking as a Walker

NONETHELESS, I acknowledge that the stage was set for me to walk on and play my part in deciding to follow Jesus. Family/church – like credits at the end of movies these days. Person after person, role after role, task after task, the credits roll on and on and on. If it weren’t for the grace of God through family and the church, I would not be given the wonderful privileges that have been mine. I’m just a grocery boy, after all, serving others by carrying out bags of food to put in people’s cars so they can go home and carry on with their duties. Well, let’s continue on the journey to see what happened before 1971……

• All of us know the truth though; just because you’re given the gift of family and church doesn’t mean anything if you don’t make a decision on your own, as a more independent person, as someone who begins to think for him or herself.
• 16.5 years old, July 11, 1967, 140 years after Protestant Jimmy landed on Kingston shores to help build Fort Henry, this kid walked an aisle down a sawdust trail at the old camp meeting and made a decision. I decided to begin a pilgrimage on my own, based upon these verses from Romans 12 that were preached that day: “:1-2 – With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity. “
• Oh, I loved that: eyes wide open/intelligent worship/living sacrifice/consecrated and acceptable/don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould(1967 , remember!) / let God remould your minds from within/prove in practice/plan of God. I’ll tell you what, I was smitten with the idea in that moment that the Lord of the whole universe was a person just like me ( except without sin ) through Jesus Christ, radical Jesus, Jesus the revolutionary, Jesus the counter cultural hero. This was the God that wanted all of me that I knew about: full of sins and sin, rebellious in my heart even though I thought I was a pretty good guy, wanting to change the world but knowing that a Verona boy couldn’t do that.
• Following Jesus began long before I was even a glint in my parents’ eyes back in 1950 ; however, unless I followed through on those gifts that had been given to me the moment I was born, that DNA , that history would end right there. Only 4 generations of my branch of Canadian Walker males would have been Jesus-followers.

• So, the first high point in my pilgrimage was being born into a Christian family and a wonderful church. The second was that 1967 decision in this progressing pilgrim. I was still just a Walker, putting one foot in front of the other on this pilgrimage with Jesus. Baptized at Echo Lake Camp that same summer. Made it through high school and followed my sister to a Christian and Free Methodist liberal arts college in Rochester, NY. That’ the beginning of the 3^rd major step on the road with Jesus.

• Roberts Wesleyan College 1968 -1973: so much happened to advance the pilgrimage. Chronological order –
  • joined Chorale ( Choir ), sang and travelled extensively in NE USA
  • met the woman I later married (Marie Angeline Papa) and her wonderful family
  • was part of summer singing groups 69-70
  • had many opportunities given to see a broader vision of what Jesus was doing
  • Vietnam era – vets, guys with numbers on their lives, revolutionary era
  • worked as the only white guy in an all-black downtown Rochester social service context. Met Richard there, owned a vegetarian restaurant and essentially ran the social service agency. Catholic Charities ( Protestant Jimmy would have rolled over in his grave! )
  • represented the college in churches, camps and conferences
  • became friends and acquaintances with people like me and very unlike me
  • all in all, this was the beginning of my sense of call to the ordained ministry, even though I did not then want to be a pastor/in the city/in a typical church/in the Free Methodist denomination especially (too close up to preachers on Preacher Street, knew the hardships) So, I foolishly said “never” to God. And God laughed and is still laughing – with me, not at me, I trust!!!
  • Finally, 1971, tapped on the shoulder literally while @ RWC. Tell you where it was: my friend and college administrator Clark said, ‘how would like to audition for a singing / PR group that the FM denomination is sending out, to help churches and young people start youth groups ( 1971, denomination playing catch-up )
  • Well, that was a dream come true BUT it was the 4^th major step for this progressive though conservative pilgrim. I didn’t want to be so much a living sacrifice that I might have to change my plans.
  • I was the only Canadian and the only Roberts Wesleyan student chosen to be on one of the 2 teams. But as I look back that was a key step in my pilgrimage with Jesus as a follower. He was about to change me into a leader for him.
  • 4 steps now: family/church, 1967 decision, Christian college, Free Spirit 1971. The last one changed me forever because it gave me a larger, clearer, more exciting vision of what the church could be. As part of that Western group, my mind and heart were being changed from within as I saw the wild and wonderful vision of what awaited the one who follows Jesus.

• The next major means of grace in my life ( really began in 1969 and continues 42 years + later ) : Marie Angeline Papa and I were married in August 1972. Other than saying yes to Jesus, this is the next most important part of the pilgrimage. Anyone who has known Marie, ever, and has also known me – any one – will tell you that I am a blessed man to have had such a wife, such a life-partner, such a gift of God…. Well, let me put it this way: when I say, only partially as a quip, that Marie is my better three-quarters, I have never had anyone who knew us say I was wrong! I know Jesus better in large part because Marie and I have been friends and more for over 42 years. I would not be in ministry if it were not for Marie – full stop. True, we complement one another by the providence of God – we each build into the life of the other; but I’m pretty sure the balance is uneven! I know Jesus’ nature and character better because I know Marie, her love for me and have the joy unspeakable and full of glory of loving her. Thank you , Lord Jesus… Amen!

From 1971-2 until now, here’s what has happened in our pilgrimage:

1. Youth and Music leadership in Toronto and Tampa
2. Return to Verona where our daughter was born in Kingston and I worked in the family business to help parents get ready for retirement.
3. Off to Seminary in Kentucky ( God surprised me and everyone that knew me!)
4. Churches in order:

• Kingston Colborne Street, now Next, the district-church of all FM churches in Kingston area at one time
• Ottawa Fifth Avenue in the Glebe, an old Holiness Movement church where David Mainse went to SS when his father was the pastor there
• Wesley Chapel in Toronto, over 31 nationalities
• Eastern Christian Fellowship, an Egyptian church in downtown Jersey City , across from the World Trade Towers (then)
• Bethel Church in Kingston, a student-driven congregation where 450 550 people showed up each week
• working with Marie, who had begun a Chaplaincy @ St. Lawrence College while she also served as Campus Ministry Coordinator for the Lutheran Church in Kingston
• Ottawa Mandarin Wesleyan Church in Kanata/Ottawa, while credentials were being transferred into The Wesleyan Church
• presently, I’ve been serving as the preaching pastor , also doing some pastoral care at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Kingston since January 2011, as they seek their next leadership for a difficult future in a downtown urban church.

You see, God has a funny way of working sometimes in a person’s life. Here we are – a village grocer’s son and a farmer’s daughter, who have served as a pastoral couple in nothing BUT old city churches , in very downtown and urban settings, in the Free Methodist/AGC/Wesleyan/Presbyterian traditions, (the present one 194 years old as a congregation) . It doesn’t make any sense , does it? But, I tell you what: it has been the greatest privilege to serve the Lord and His people that there ever could have been . I can’t imagine having done any of the stuff that I thought I would do.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the good-guy German pastors who was executed by Hitler’s regime, just a few days before the end of WW2. He’s written many good, some controversial books and journals. One of his famous sayings is that we are meant to be ‘little Christs’ . Here’s the quote: “ Christ takes form in the individual so that one becomes a ‘little Christ’ to the neighbour…”. He was actually quoting Martin Luther, leader of the Reformation, whose stand for Christ changed the world.

Bonhoeffer wrote something quite a bit darker and starker when he penned these words: “ When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like the first disciples who had to leave home and work to

follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave

the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death

every time – death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at this

call.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

For you see, to be a follower of Jesus is also to be a leader for Jesus. You know the old saying, “never a follower , but a leader be? “ I don’t quite buy that; so many Christian leaders have too readily forgotten how to follow Jesus who is the Teacher, the Rabbi, the Saviour , the Lord God – and have taken over the throne again in their lives, with their pride going before their fall. To be a Christian is to be a minister.

We are meant to be followers of Jesus AND leaders for him.

The question we’re always asked first though is, will we follow him?

Song: I have Decided to Follow Jesus

I have decided to follow Jesus.

The world behind me, the cross before me

Though none go with me, still I will follow

I have decided to follow Jesus.

(End of song.)

Best decision I ever made….. C. 

Padraig of Ireland and Protestant Jimmy, too!

 

Celtic Cross of St. Patrick

In the year 1827,  seventeen-year-old Protestant Jimmy Walker came over to Canada  from Ireland on his own. He was married briefly , went to work one morning and when he came back that evening, his young wife was dead and buried — cholera. He went back to Ireland, returned a wee bit later, worked on Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario, married again and had three children, whereupon he was widowed the second time. He married a third woman named Helen and of the 2 children born to that union, one was named John Walker (not Johnnie, just John).

Protestant Jimmy was always called that by everyone, for reasons you might guess: he was from Northern Ireland. The cemetery near Kingston and Verona where Jimmy, John and my father Verdun are buried  is called Piccadilly. The story is that P. Jimmy told people that when he died, he wanted people to ” march around Piccadilly Square (the cemetery area ), to bate the drum and bate it hard. ”  A reasoned guess : not  many miles away, there was a large Irish-Catholic settlement and he wanted them to know that a good Protestant was probably on his way to heaven!

In between Great-Grandfather John and my Father Verdun’s life, there was Ray, my grandfather, who is buried in the Verona Cemetery, my hometown, right next to an old ‘swimming pond’ at Rock Lake — and I mean right next to the old swimming pond where countless kids (including me) learned how not to drown each year. My guess is that Ray had probably had enough of country life and farming by the time they moved to Verona in 1926 to buy an old general store there; he wasn’t going to spend another moment of eternity way out in the country, including Piccadilly Cemetery, near where his grandfather, father and he had toiled on what I call that ‘rock-raisin’ farm near the end of the rock-ribbed Canadian Shield. I guess he decided to move on up the food-chain, from farming to groceries, and there was no use of plowing yourself back into that soil again! I love going to the cemetery and see the stones bearing the names of James and John and Verdun diagonally located a few feet from one another.

I’m proud of my (mostly) Irish heritage, being 5th generation here in Canada. I love the family history of which you now know a smidgen. County Armagh in northern Ireland is the area from which we hailed, originally, on both sides of my Walker/Wilkins family. Bush Mills and Hamilton’s Baun up in them thar parts is where we find our roots.

There is another heritage  into which I was adopted, the Christian family. I would gladly be called Christian Christopher[‘bearer of Christ’], if it didn’t sound so weird, just to honour Jimmy especially, John, Ray and Verdun. Frankly, though it is rather fun to tell the Protestant story, there is a sadder tale behind all of that: it’s known as ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland of which most of us know and about which we can be thankful that things have changed for the better.

That other heritage happened because of a kidnapping of young Padraig who was taken from England to Ireland by Irish “raiders”  when he was only 16. He turned to Christ and religion for solace and escaped after a few years, going back to England.Jimmy, I never knew ya, but  I would rather you had wanted to be known by the same name of  ‘Christian’.

I know, it’s not that simple; however, on the day of celebrating the life of Padraig — thank you very much, Patrick,  from a brother carrier of /bearer of Christ.  Both my blood-family and church-family thank you for your faithfulness to the One who was faithful to you first.

The Sacrament of Sticky Buns

 

They put so much love into it!

As this is being written, events are winding down at a high holy place called Echo Lake Camp. It’s Family Day 2011 in Ontario, Canada and a couple of other provinces — a midwinter holiday that one writer noted as having been called for over several years. Said writer also suggested that maybe it would have been better called Maple Syrup Day or Beaver Tail Day, rather sarcastically opining that such a holiday has been proposed for years as the Canadian answer to President’s Day in the US. It’s rather a ‘holiday-envy’, in his opinion. But it has been a catalyst for many events to happen across the activity spectrum and I’m glad for it

I’m selfishly pleased that the holiday is in place, frankly, because the Camp had long ago established a weekend- winter hiatus for  young people, then it waned for some time. The establishment of Family Day is at least partially responsible for giving time for  revival of this significant tradition @ ELC. The extra day on the February weekend gives greater impetus to those that have to travel a bit of distance to get there — a Friday night through Monday noon adventure into winter wonderland.

Echo Lake is, for generations of us coming to age since 1956, the place where God has profoundly intervened in adolescent  (and older) lives. Wish I knew how many there have been, and presently are, around the world whose longings for making a difference were met when God intersected with us there. There is a good-sized bunch, just off the top of my bald head; the world is a far better place because of that lakeside  location at the end of a long and winding road. Thousands of people learned there that God loves us and has plans for adventurous living that we could never have imagined in a million years. With stars in our eyes and God embedded in our hearts, we have gone out that road better than when we went in, better because we are God-smacked and can never be the same.

I have a theory, firmly plunked upon the cliche that ‘God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform’. Echo Lake Camp has many traditions, good ones, known to be good by years of testing by those who founded the camp and others who continue the visions and dreams of those favoured few pioneers.  ( Thanks be to our loving Lord, some of those adventurers are  there yet, still crazy-for-God after all these years.)  Here’s the theory: kids come to Echo for lots of reasons — friends, food, the evident  and overwhelming love of those who serve them @ camp….but, especially, for the sticky buns that are served warm from the ovens near the end of each camp. I’ll tell you about the process, but the not the secret ingredient; tell ya what… you can’t get that secret ingredient anywhere else but Echo. It’s like Coca Cola in that only a select few know it though everyone applies it liberally all over the sticky buns before they go into the ovens. Besides, Echo is smack in the middle of the Canadian Shield and there are minerals in the water there that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. The secret ingredient, though, I just can’t do or if I did I’d have to zap your memory bank , like in  the movie Men in Black, so you couldn’t remember! I just can’t tell you.

Dough, lots of gooey dough…slathers of butter( ohyeahbaby)…..oodles of bubblin’ brown shugah(pronounced with a southern drawl and love)…..rolled up into logs  tenderly cut into discs and placed on massive cooking sheets….let ‘er rise on top of the gas range for a couple of hours, while the kids are at evening service and playing wild, crazy games in the nearby room where the spirits of past Echo Lake Campers roam freely, remembering their youthful years there……toss those bad boys in the ovens….talk freely with the rest of the servant-staff  while you wait, warmly with lots of humour thrown in and gentle jibes at one another and anyone else that wanders in the room…..the odd small child wanders in all pink-cheeked  (above and below) and warm from having their Saturday night bath…..wait for the heavenly smell of baking to waft into your nostrils and deeply into memory banks awakened after years. Then….the crescendo….ovens thrown open….trays of hot, brown-golden edible jewellry thrown upside down onto a waiting, foil-covered kitchen-island to be cut and plucked apart and piled onto plastic trays that have served so much good food for decades….cart them out to the waiting kids gathered in the dining hall. I tell you what: if you could bottle that and sell it ( and tithe , of course ) , you’d be rich!

What’s the secret ingredient? OK, alright, I give. It’s this: every single leader, all of those who have come and gone and c ome back over the years, every brand new person that takes on a servant-role to join those few, those favoured few who have been besotted with the Lord Jesus —- they pray for those kids and the prayers are rolled right into those sticky buns. I saw it happen again this past Saturday evening, prayers in the hands and hearts of those making the magic. Those campers have no hope of getting out of Echo Lake without having coming face-to-face with Jesus. It’s Jesus walking around the kitchen, the dining hall, the dorms, the grounds, the worship-centre. It’s Jesus who comes back to the camp in a large rental truck full of goodies from the suppliers nearby, Jesus in the heart of  the woman-driver  who is a friend of ours who just loves the cheeks right off her grandchildren in her family and cooks the love of Jesus into those campers every time along with a team that comes back again and again because they want those young campers to experience what they know is true. It’s Jesus that I saw in the eyes, hearts and minds of a woman who reminds me of my mother and that was there when it all began at the end of the road at Echo Lake in 1956. It’s Jesus,  whose work-hardened carpenter’s hands of a father and son I saw there just a couple of nights ago — hands that have built, grown and repaired Echo all those years. I know the Jesus I’ve seen  at Echo Lake and He loves us so.

It is Jesus that I saw in  a sacrament of sticky buns. “Take….eat…. this is my Body. Take and drink…. this is my Blood.” Do not think me irreverent for there are little bits of Jesus all over the world and many in heaven because they…..we….. have had the privilege of God seeking them/us  out at Echo Lake. Their…. our…. loving Father has played Hide and Seek with many young and old children who have eaten sticky buns there on Saturday nights @ Echo. Then, those brothers and sisters have broken themselves apart all over the world just to let others know what they learn at Echo: Jesus is alive and well and wants you to follow Him forever.

Wish we all knew how many there were. I guess we’ll have to wait to find out. All I know for sure is that I saw Jesus living, moving and having His being at a camp-kitchen just this past Saturday evening. He was  looking for more brothers and sisters to join His family. And everyone there bore a striking family resemblance….to Him.

 

One day’s worth of relationships

It was one of those days which started in one direction  and quickly morphed into connectivity.

It started with a quick Skye video call to Marie and the grandchildren in NY state, just to get in touch while we are far apart ( It was our Anniversary Boxing Day, too.)

As planned, a trip  was taken to a nearby location out-of-town to visit with a longstanding colleague in the faith,  probably a new friend, over lunch.

Then, 2.5 hours later, I decided to piggyback on that  journey to connect with a youth camp event, only a few miles further and talked with a young guy who would soon be returning to Down East to start his Bible college year. Happened to run into another colleague there who was the director-of-the-week for the camp….good guy and an Ottawa compatriot in the faith.

That triggered my heart’s will to reconnect with another longstanding youth camp that was old enough that even I had attended it; I knew there would be lots of folks there, among the staff basically, who have committed to this wonderful work for years , even decades. Took me down old, well-known country roads that I hadn’t touched for …..well, a long time.. There it was, the very camp where the story of ‘Footprints in the Sand’ began, during my era as a young guy. What a pleasure to  know and be known among so many…more than nostalgia…. a reminder of the ties that bind us in divine love.

Frankly, since I was there already, why not take a trip through my hometown? There’s something about late August that draws my mind to home, tinged with the smell yet in my nostrils of pencil shavings, orange peels and chalk. Didn’t choose to see anyone there; instead, I just wanted to drive down familiar streets and see familiar places. I was drawn irresistibly  to walk the aisles of the local grocery store, since that’s the business my family was in — can’t tell you why, it just crept into my bones to do it. So, I did and saw only one person whose face was familiar from high-school days. Hi, Donna …good to see you!

Well, it was time to  go back home, the place where our worldly belongings are parked anyway; but, there was no reason to avoid going the long way around through a lake area where, until last year, we had summered at our trailer. Shoot….since I’m driving by anyway, I think I’ll just stop and see some folks at the trailer-camp. Warmly welcomed by so many and delighted to note that the lovely people to whom our Airstream had been sold decided to stay during the season, even moved closer to be nearer their kids and, I would guess, to their newly refurbished Airstream. Didn’t see them, but I did see some other lovely summer-neighbours who warmly welcomed me. Touched lives again and caught up on the changes, in people and place, that had happened in the interim. Goodbye, good to see you……….

Marie and I began a little ministry under the banner ‘Religare Reconnects’ a few years ago and it seems to be there to put a frame around the picture of our lives. We believe that true ‘religion’ connects us in relationships that matter…. connects us,  as the etymology of the word suggests, to God and one another. I’d like to reclaim that word from the pejorative sense that it is so often used , even by those whose spiritual life involves the Body of Christ, for example.

All of these ‘connectors’ that happened last Friday would not have been part of our life if it hadn’t been for the Lord Jesus, the Body of Christ, the church at its’ best and for the opportunities that have thereby arisen .

Just one day’s worth of relationships reminded me…..God wants us to be whole, holy and healed persons, integrated internally and externally — people of integrity who care deeply about Him and one another. I am grateful for such a day as that; it keeps me on the right side of knowing Whose I am and to Whom I belong……..

Facebook, Twitter and WordPress…Oh My!

"Follow the yellow brick road!?

Actually, Skype could have been added to the list,  for it is another way of connecting people and ideas. Talking and seeing one another through computers was only fictional way last century. As a boy, I looked at grandfather’s  old Popular Mechanics magazines way back in the last century (” I can do it all with my Wen-All Saw! “) and, along with building better birdhouses, there were articles about fantabulous  gizmos  that we might see in the 21st century and beyond. Here we are in 21-C, 3rd Millennium, Star Trek  world and these media are now literally at our fingertips. For those that love the beauty of language, pictures and thousands of words together handily and powerfully communicate to our network of relationships. Further, people we have never known and may never meet face-to-face could well ‘friend’ us across cyberspace.

It is a yellow brick road which is followed as we embark on this new adventure. One can either embrace and celebrate it  or can set it aside as just so much narcissistic blather from ‘people that don’t have enough to do with their time.’

I can’t help but ask the speculative question: how would Yeshua ben Yahweh have viewed and used these means of communication? Now, there’s Someone who painted world-changing ideas into the minds and hearts of not only his contemporaries but of artists, scientists, philosophers, historians, theologians and all of humanity . One could make the case that Jesus’ parables were the clearest communications he could have made because of pictures being worth  a thousand words. Images filling words full to overflowing were his stock-in-trade as he went about doing good and teaching well and healing spectacularly.

Jesus’ and His Disciples’  Excellent Adventure makes a lot more sense to me, frankly, now than it did  then when, along with Popular Mechanics , I was struggling with the  archaic Shakespearean language of  the King James Bible. I am grateful for the many ensuing paraphrases and translations that have,  in language  both pedantic and poetic, made the truths of God’s Word ever so much more accessible. Back then, I was content with Hurlbut’s Stories of the Bible which gave artistic vent to the stories of faith’s heroes; now, however, Powerpoint sermons and presentations and Veggie Tales and great movie-making literally illuminate the truths of God’s story in ways that far supersede. I thank God for Helen Reynolds’ flannelgraph stories of childhood Sundays and for the warmth of her personal gifts that made God a living reality  ; however, now, now….well, our grandchildren have access to His great truths in ways  far more powerful and compelling. All of that is amazing to us who have watched technology bloom into its present maturity and rejoice in One who has given his creative beings such capabilities as to produce technologies to make ‘the truth that sets us free’ so imaginative and wonderfully presented.

Given the principles behind Jesus’ use of picture-stories, a reasonable conclusion is that He would  ( and does ) gladly make use of present technologies without fear; as well, though, he would blend in the love, the joy, the fervour  of Helen and Bertha and Jay and Dorothy and Muriel and Myrtle and Mary and other like teachers of children to make the truths (enhanced by the  technology )  sing in the hearts of children who may well live into the next century — just as I have lived into this. They, too, will be just as in love with Jesus as this old child is right now.That’s my prayer and hope — that along with beeps and boops of tech world there are teachers of children whose fruits of the Spirit mirror exactly the character and nature of Christ, as did my loving teachers ‘way last century.

We’re off to see our Jesus…. our wonderful Jesus, the Christ….because of the wonderful things He’s done and continues doing by His Spirit.

Anniversary Sunday @ Trinity United Church, June 13th, 2010

Anniversary Sunday, June 13^th, 2010,(124^th of Congregation, 100^th of Building), Trinity United Church, Verona, Ontario

It is hard to recall when I first began to call Verona ‘the center of the known universe’ to anyone who asked about my origins ; suffice it to say that it will never stop. Indeed, I have called it that only recently. This place rises regularly in my memory like the mythical town of Brigadoon, partially because of its’ location in a fairyland of lakes, mostly because of its’ people who inhabit my mind, spirit, language, humour, and values.

Please forgive me ahead of time for time invested in remembering, in the nostalgia invoked in these remarks. Though promising your good pastor to focus upon the written/spoken word today, this native son cannot resist spending a few moments in grateful recognition of the importance of The Friendly Village in shaping life’s unfolding. It was in 1917, 93 years ago today, that George Ray Walker and Edna Genge were married in the Genge home on Oak Flatts Road and it was around 100 years ago that this Methodist church and the old brick house in which we lived were built. I have been awash in lovely memory, even nostalgia, all during the course of the week, thinking of the connections among the elements of life. So, thank you for at least forbearing and, hopefully, forgiving for these few moments before we hear the story that matters most from John’s gospel.

In the eyes of my heart, it is happily unnecessary to differentiate among family, church, village, school, neighbours and friends. It was almost sixty years ago that life began for one small boy. In one’s sixtieth year, time begins to be compressed into a shining single moment. For me, life has always been seen as of one piece as the late Methodist statesman E. Stanley Jones has put it. Looking back, integration of all things is a value shaped by the living organism of a post-world-war village which still shimmers in recollection. People were coming back home to Canadian villages to rebuild a positive new life. This one boasted a new school, plus new businesses beginning and old ones being expanded, even Walker and Genge General Merchants, later named Red and White, the official colours of Canada. Churches, including this one , were having to add on or to rebuild to take in all those kids that magically appeared. Lions Club membership was expanding. Jamborees were happening annually. Every day , and especially Saturdays, meant that streets were filled with people hereing and thereing to get things done. It was always the so-called Buzztown, whether because of its’ sawmills and grist mills or because of it’s liveliness of growing families and pride of ownership. There was a sense of organic wholeness shared among the citizens of Verona in those days, one experienced yet when Verona Festivals and Concerts in the Park happen and people come together to care for one another.

For our family, it was a delightful microcosm, literally a ‘miniworld’ of family, homes, store, church friends, lake, cottage, street life, railroads, hundreds of vehicles moving through every week and thousands in the summertime. The first home I recall was a little white frame house at the bottom of Preacher Street, as it was then called. It was by the water and sported a stone outcropping jutting into the water that you could walk out on , called Preachers’ Rock. It was so-called because that house was right next to the old United Church Manse and the Free Methodist Parsonage one up. It is winsomely ironic that the property did yield up this preacher, plus inspired many others. We also lived near the cemetery, the only one locally with a swimming pond right next to it by the lake! I want to be buried right there, by the way, at the old Walker/Genge gravestone, so that on resurrection morning, I can take a quick dip in the lake at the old swimming-pond where Mrs. Rescorla taught a generation of kids how not to drown in the water! Verona is a place that has taught lots of kids how to swim, and continues to do so, whether they stay right around here or head off into pilgrimages like ours. Life is meant to be entered with a sense of adventure and this town affords lots of opportunity for that lesson to be learned. Willow trees and lilacs seen today still waft me back to that place and those times. The store and grandparents lived within spittin’ distance and, later, we moved into the old brick house across from the store, May 11, 1959. I do remember the day of moving into that house that Dr. McCarter built, and even later, that Dr. Genge lived in and practised the medical arts. The solidity of the house and generations of my extended family ( Genges, Clarks, Goodberrys, ourselves ) that lived there up to our time taught the values of permanence, foundations, bedrocks upon which to build a life worth the living.

Oh, and the people of those days…. the people of Verona.…wonderful human beings who truly seemed to be an extended family. Those were days filled with what felt like a running supply of family reunions, whether we all were blood-related or not. There were people that Ray and Edna, and Verdun and Dorothy and Anne and I knew like brothers and sisters. Magical names like Babcock, Snider, Reynolds, Goodberry, Cronk, Leslie, Stewart, Moore, Peters, Freeman, — pastoral family names like March, Rennie and Grassie or Lyons, Patterson, Ball – seemed then like familiar parts of one’s own story. Dramatic, wonderful characters that you couldn’t possibly dream up peopled the stores , post offices, railway station, garages, offices and, yes, Dom L’abbe’s shoe repair. The schools – even the old 2-room school house where Cubs, Scouts, the Lion’s Club and village events took place — drift like dreams in countless hearts, reminding us happy band of brothers and sisters that we are those who have lived and grown on the shoulders of everyday heroes. It was an idyllic place in which to be shaped in ways that cannot be fully appreciated until later years. It is said that ‘you can’t go home again’ — in some ways, true; however, one needs only to travel to heart and mind and memory to recall and to be grateful for the goodly heritage that is yours.

I am grateful, as many are, for this place called Verona and its’ people and history. It is well-anchored in the foundation of the Canadian Shield, with people who have, for generations, drawn strength up from the very minerals, nutrients and relationships that such a place has yielded. I am grateful that my grandparents Ray and Edna Walker were members of this congregation. The virtues and values they held were as firm as the bricks of this church, built around the same time as the old brick house I grew up in. I remember coming to Christmas pageants here , as many of us went the rounds of such events in the old days, church to church, people to people, seeing friends and family in their church-homes. Those events reminded my generation that though we may have held some slightly differing beliefs, we believed in the same basic creeds of the faith and in the same God who created, redeemed and sustained us. Yes, Verona was and is the place where we have grown in more ways than up.

As you might expect, I believe that the anchors of this town were and are, in biases reasonable to any clergyperson — the churches. Here is Verona United (now Trinity), the former St. Martin’s in the Field Anglican which I can remember as being held in differing locations and is a loss to the fabric of spiritual life here, my home Free Methodist Church, Lakeview Pentecostal Church and of course the former amalgamated congregations of these traditions which now only exist in the memories of older folks. These gatherings of hundreds of sincere people over the years, for the purpose of spiritual striving, revival, change and inner growth were then and are now the matrix of life lived well. A former bishop in my Free Methodist tradition defined classic Methodism as a balance between “order and ardour”, an apt play on words describing a balanced life. To have an ordered life means that there are frameworks upon which the structures of living are built and maintained. To incorporate ardour into order suggests that everyday living and spiritual pilgrimage were to be shot through with passion , enlivened with enthusiasm. John Wesley, one of the founders of what became known as the Methodist revival, was accused of ‘enthusiasm’ , an epithet which meant that his walk matched his talk, his active Christian living matched his spoken words based upon spiritual and biblical truths. Simply, he believed and lived this stuff about which he preached! The word “enthusiast” was a religious slur that, along with the other epithet ‘Methodist’ , he was to embrace as a title of honour. We would do well to be enthusiasts in 2010. It’s enthusiasm, both spiritual and everyday, that any of us would do well to wrap as a blanket around us; for if we do not live out the beliefs we have with joy and abandonment, we are of all people most miserable. If we let God draw us closer to Himself so that we can be more ourselves than ever we could be without Him, He will gladly carry us through any darker days we may experience in life.

Life as one piece – a sense of adventure – firm foundations – the importance of relationships – balance between order and ardour: these are values learned in Verona, in yesterdays and todays and tomorrows. To follow Jesus is to be an enthusiast. Both the Word of God and our living remembrances of Verona’s people make clear that life is to be shouted out loud wherever you and I live, move and have our being. Let us ask Him to open our minds and hearts, our wills and emotions to God’s Spirit this morning.