This morning the scripture texts were about listening for the Spirit song. David misheard it completely. The message of God sounded a little too unlikely to Zecheriah and he lost his voice. Mary struggled with the message but she is remembered as the one who said yes to God’s gift.

How do you respond to unexpected gifts? Do you act delighted and begin to think of how you can return it for something you really want? Do you drop it on the regift pile? Do you put it on a shelf with plans to wear it when everything else wears out.

The Vatican received a gift this year they could not have expected. 2,000 solar panels. A Germon firm offered these to the Vatican as an Epiphany gift. They began to installl them a few months ago and they’ll be in place by the end of this month.

The CEO of SolarWorld said, “If the three wise men from the East came to Bethlehem today, they would in all probability bring a solar cell in addition to gold, francincense and myrrh.”

This will help the Vatican to meet the EU’s target for 2020 to get 20% of its energy from renewable resources.

Now that’s a gift that keeps on giving!


Peter


You can also send your comments to assistant.webmaster@emmanuelunited.ca
and I will make sure they are posted.

It’s one thing to hear the Christmas story. It’s another thing to be the Christmas story. This morning our Sunday School put on a delightful Christmas pageant.

This drama is being acted out this season in great Cathedrals and little country churches around the world this season. Little ones who cannot yet read are watching the big kids, following the older and wiser shepherds and angels when it’s time to stand up or move across the floor. Lines will be slightly mangled at times, cues will be missed, but nobody is upset. It’s all part of the wondrous drama. And the story is communicated.

Some of the best moments are entirely unscripted. This morning the magi made a grand entrance with the stately camel. I have not seen a better camel anywhere. As the drama continued, the camel sat down at the front. One child and then another approached the beast. Almost on tip toe. Cautiously. With wonderment. the congregation were as entranced with the child as the child was with this animal. The camel titled it’s head and gazed on the child. We all got caught up in the wonder of the moment. Those are the moments that happen without a writer or director.

Wonder. What a gift. Watch for it.


Peter



You can also send your comments to assistant.webmaster@emmanuelunited.ca
and I will make sure they are posted.

“A voice cries out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40:3

The prophet we know as Second Isaiah lived in the midst of chaos. Plunging stock markets and political unrest had nothing on his time. Israel was about to go home. Decades of exile in the wilderness of a foreign land were about to end.

It was like having someone like Martin Luther King Jr. stand up and say, “I have a dream. But it’s not about the distant future. We are going to live to see this dream come true. We’re finally going home!”

Do you have the sense that we are living in exile? In what ways? What forces press in upon us and dislodge us from our values? Do you feel that at this time of year? Do you feel far from where you would like to be, as a person, family member, church member?

Is there any good news in the chaos of our times? How do we live gospel values in the midst of uncertainty? Is it easier or harder to live the faith in a turbulent time? What roads need to be cleaned up to prepare us to be a more peace-filled community? How do people in our lives need to be comforted?

So many questions....


Peter



You can also send your comments to assistant.webmaster@emmanuelunited.ca
and I will make sure they are posted.

Mark 13

In my earliest memory of a moment of awe, I am standing on my tip toes, looking over a stone wall at a great expanse of green water. I have never seen anything so immense. As far as I can see there is water. Having lived in a dry place without lakes, I have no frame of reference for a scene like this. The feeling of wonder practically lifts me off the ground.

The water I am looking out upon is the Indian Ocean. Back then in the late 1950s the place is called Bombay. It is our last day in India, and we are watching the sun go down. As we walk along the sea wall of Marine Drive, the water is on our left. On our right are large hotels including the Taj Mahal Hotel.

As I watched the reports of the terror attack this past week, I thought about that wondrous walk seen through the eyes of an almost five year old. What a terribly sad place it has become for so many. This morning’s apocalyptic reading from Mark 13 does not feel out of place.

Neither does a psalm of lament.

Peter

You can also send your comments to assistant.webmaster@emmanuelunited.ca

and I will make sure they are posted.

Stewardship

One definition of stewardship that gets quoted from time to time is that stewardship is everything you do after you say, I believe. That takes in pretty much everything.

Here’s another definition that breaks the “everything” down into more manageable portions. Stewardship is the time, talents and treasures that we offer to God and to others. We’ve heard that more often. The time and talents elements have a softer side to them. It’s the treasures or the money that have an edge.

In Robert Wuthnow’s book, God and Mammon in America, he says that while modern North Americans are quite willing to speak openly about their se lives, bodily ailments, even their own deaths, when it comes to the topic of money, a protective “cloud of secrecy” falls over the conversation. And yet money is a regular topic of conversation for Jesus.

Here’s an enlightening exercise. Read the prophets of Hebrew scripture or the gospels or the letters of the New Testament and underline every passage on the topic of money.

Money is only one part of stewardship but it should be one we can discuss openly and regularly.

Christian Century journalist, Lillian Daniel, says, “Engaging money theologically, should inevitably lead to practicing one’s faith differently.”

Could this be so?


Peter

Typically elections just move the chairs around the room. Those who make the decisions shift a little in one direction or the other, but we don’t get new chairs.

This week’s election in the United States election appears to be a different matter. It’s clear that what was once considered impossible, happened.

Commentator Jim Wallis says this was not only a racial shift, it was also a religious shift. Barak Obama picked up 4.4 million more Protestants and Catholics than John Kerry, the last Democratic candidate. In Florida Christian voters shifted to Obama 485,000 votes. That was the difference. Obama won Florida by 200,000 votes.

There was a time when the religious right could count on these votes. Not this time. Does this mark the end of the religious right leaders’ ability to deliver religious votes to the republicans? It appears that the former religious issues of abortion and denying gay rights are no longer the only issues of concern. A significant number of Christians now are showing support for racial and economic justice, care of creation and peacemaking. If the early analysis is accurate and is sustained, then we have entered a new era.

Peter

“Do whatever they (the scribes and the Pharisees) teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” Matthew 23:3

Once you sift out the name calling and condemnation of this chapter, which sounds more like it was written by Matthew, than spoken by Jesus, you end up with this challenge to practice what you profess.

That is the challenge, regardless of what it is we profess.

If we claim to care for the environment, how do we show it? If we say the arts are important, what do we do to support them? If we feel we should embrace those who are new to our country, have we ever invited a new Canadian to dinner or done something to make a family feel welcome? Our faith tradition calls us to actively and practically practice the faith.

Peter

"It is necessary for me to see the first point of light that begins to be dawn. It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of the Day in solemn silence at which the sun appears, for at this moment all the affairs of cities, of governments, of our war departments, are seen to be the bickering of mice. I receive from the Eastern woods, the tall oaks, the one word DAY. It is never the same. it is always in a totally new language."

That might work for Thomas Merton, but he was single and living in a monastery. Our life circumstances are quite different.

Maybe the dawn is a bit early for most of the year or maybe in the winter you are out the door before the sun rises but do Merton’s words stir anything in you?

Is there a daily ritual or practice that helps you to greet the newness of the day: a walk, a few moments of quiet looking out on the garden, a reading of scripture or poetry, a yoga or Tai chi morning exercise, a few minutes of meditation... What is it for you? What might it be?

Peter

Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperors and to God the things that are God’s.
Matthew 22:21

I was once part of a ministerial social justice committee in Labrador. We worked with the community to raise questions about a potential NATO weapons training centre. It was being considered for an area that the Innu community was claiming should be part of their land settlement. The local Member of Parliament wrote a letter to the newspaper saying that the church had no business in the debate. Our place was to get people to come to church, not to be involved in social issues like aboriginal land rights.

Do you think the church should be involved in issues like this? Where in your experience has the church’s involvement been helpful? When has it not been helpful? Where would you like to see the church become more involved?

Peter

"Then one of them when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice."Luke 17:15"

...if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."Phil. 4:8

In the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers, only one returned to give thanks. Nine of the group members had a physical recovery, but only one took the time to express his gratitude. Is gratitude really that rare? Is it really that important? Apparently it was important enough for Luke to include it in his gospel. Stories of thanksgiving encourage that practice among the rest of us.

Here’s your opportunity to express that gift and encourage the rest of us to practice it.

Please consider sharing a thanksgiving story on this blog. Who was it in your life that taught you to be thankful? Was there someone in your childhood who helped you recognize the value of giving thanks? Was there a situation that nudged you to grow in your practice of thanksgiving?

Is there anybody out there?

Peter

“...forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead...” Philippians 3:13

The apostle Paul offers his solid credentials as a Jew, "of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews." Paul valued his early life and yet he had to let go of some of his religious mindset to take the next step in his life of faith.

Are there valuable things you learned as a young person that still have meaning for you?

What are the things that you needed to forget in order to progress in your faith?

Should children be exposed to a Sunday School as children? Why? Is it better to give them a wide variety of religious options to see what fits best for them? Or is it fairer to not indoctrinate them at all and just allow them to make up their own mind when they are older?

What do you think?