What's in a name?

Your name may be your most important possession. As a Christian, I believe my baptism is even more critical to my identity than my name. But we never baptize anonymously. We baptize individual human beings with real names.

When my siblings and I were children, our mother used to mark our coats by sewing little name tapes into the collar, each hand-stitched with our full names. I doubt she went to this effort just to ensure the return of the coats if they were lost. My guess is that she wanted us to know, every time we put the coat on, that we were precious in her sight. Sewing our name into the collar by hand meant her love went with us wherever we went.

Rabbi Shai Held offers a fascinating interpretation of the Tower of Babel narrative. According to him, God dispersed the people because they were content to speak the same language and use the same words. They were not scattered because of their crazy ambition to undertake a tower project. It was because they had ignored their God-given uniqueness and lost their names in the process.

Plenty of 19th-century American slave stories remind us of people who sought to escape not only physical bondage but also the bondage of anonymity. “My name was Isabella,” Sojouner Truth said. “But when I left the house of bondage . . . I wasn’t goin’ to keep nothin’ of Egypt on me, an’ so I went to the Lord an’ asked Him to give me a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an’ down the land, showing the people their sins, an’ bein’ a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, ’cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth.”

Each of us is blessed with our own name and corresponding significance. Faith calls us not only to celebrate the uniqueness of our own lives but also to delight in the diversity and value of all whom we meet.

See you in church!
Pastor Tuula

"Gratitude is one of the finest feelings in life"

I love greeting people before and after worship. Those brief exchanges are often my only engagement with certain individuals for weeks on end. Sometimes I say words of gratitude. “Thanks for coming today,” Or, “It is good to see you!”

My family asks me why I, as pastor, thank people for coming to worship. Worship is a voluntary experience, after all, and participants come because they want to, not because they are doing some favour for the pastor. If I believed they were coming for me, it would be a weird understanding of ministry and personal identity.

So why the gratitude? These people are part of the joy of the day. Their presence affects me personally. Even if they are passing through as visitors who may never return, we still get to feel the bonds of affection. Their eyes are honest. They have sung and prayed. They have hit the pause button on life to honour God. Had they not shown up, our whole worship experience would have been different and less whole. On this day, they gave a particular shape to the community, which will never again replicate itself. For that, I am grateful.

In the New Testament, the word charis may be translated as thanks or grace. It can define an act of either giving or receiving. When I say thanks to a worshipper, I don’t do it because I think I am returning something that is owed. The transaction is more about blessing than indebtedness. I feel lucky to be in the presence of that guest.

A host who throws a dinner party may thank everybody for coming. But their thank you is not connected with a sense of obligation to guests who happened to bring an appetizer or dessert. Gratitude simply wells up in the host’s heart because they are moved that friends brought happiness and love together.

My internship supervisor LeRoy Ness said that “gratitude is one of the finest feelings in life . . . nothing beats gratitude for sheer joy; it is, perhaps, the genesis of all other really good feelings in the human repertoire.” Anybody who ever got to witness LeRoy preaching or teaching saw what joy and gratitude did to him. They sent his adrenaline rushing.

See you in church!

Pastor Tuula

Less Grumbling, More Humbling

Grumbling! The crowd around Jesus—the “in” crowd, that is—was grumbling. Grumbling because Jesus welcomed those who traditionally had been set apart: tax collectors and sinners. Who are those who cause us to grumble? Whose seemingly undeserved handout or unearned status change filled our hearts with resentment this week? Jesus speaks to us today because we too often see life as a game with winners and losers, points and playbooks, offense and defense. Can we open our hearts and minds to hear [Jesus'] humbling good news? God’s love is freely shared with all: we cannot earn it, we cannot deserve it. When we attend worship, we do so out of thanksgiving and praise for God’s glory, hunger and thirst for God’s word and sacrament. We do not attend worship to achieve some status within God’s kingdom. When we help a neighbour, share with a stranger, assist the afflicted, or acknowledge the overlooked we do so because Christ first did the same for us. We respond to God’s grace and mercy with our own feeble attempts to emulate God’s perfect love. It is challenging, exhausting, never-ending, perspective-altering, radically humbling work. It’s work that is impossible to do without the inspiration of Christ, the nourishment of wine and bread, and the strength of the saints who have gone before us and with whom we walk Christ’s path today. Let us find those in our world who teach us about Christ’s unending reconciliation, so that we can all celebrate and rejoice as the family of God.

from Sundays and Seasons

40 days of Lent are like no other

These forty days called Lent are like no other. It is our opportune time to return to the God who rescues, to receive the gifts of God’s grace, to believe with the heart and confess with the mouth the wonder of God’s love in Jesus, and to resist temptation at every turn. This is no small pilgrimage on which we have just embarked. It is a struggle Jesus knew. It is a struggle Jesus shares. The nearness of the Lord, in bread and wine, water and word, will uphold and sustain us.

This Little Light of Mine

On Epiphany and in the Sundays following, we celebrate the in-breaking of God’s light. The readings help us understand that the manifestation of God is for all people everywhere. This is a message of radical inclusively. The magi are drawn from the east to come to pay homage to the Christ child. They who were once far off are now embraced by the one true God, who has sent a Savior into the world. Likewise, Paul reports in Ephesians that he has been given grace to “bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8). Just as Isaiah had foretold, nations shall come to God’s light (Isa. 60:3).

In this inclusive reality, everyone is welcome, and so are their gifts. Just as the magi showed their respect for Christ with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we can offer our gifts and talents to further the brightness of God’s dawn. Whatever we bring—no matter how simple—is accepted and used for a mighty purpose.

There is also a sense of joy at this Epiphany. When the magi saw that the star they were following had stopped over the place where the Christ child lay, they were overwhelmed with joy (Matt. 2:10). The angel had declared to the shepherds that the newborn child would bring good news of great joy for all the people (Luke 2:10). Now again, Christ brings joy to all. Christianity is a truly joyful religion.

Through word and sacrament we too are invited to rise and shine, for our light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us. Fed and nourished in worship, we are sent forth to bear witness, to let our little lights shine.

From Sundays & Seasons