Real Strength in Community of Faith

What makes something strong? Is steel strong because of its ability to withstand stress from many directions? Is wood strong because of its ability to absorb impact while remaining intact? Is the material of a spider’s web strong because of its tensile strength-to-weight ratio? Things are strong for many reasons. The temple in Jerusalem was thought to be stronger and more permanent than anything, yet Jesus says in Mark, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). Jesus shows hearers that true strength is not built upon the oppression of widows (Mark 12:41-44).

 

Many of the world’s most prized structures are built on the shoulders of the poor and oppressed. How many homes in poorer areas of cities have been destroyed by the need for a new or wider highway? How many workers living in poverty died building the Golden Gate or Brooklyn Bridges, the Hoover Dam or the Empire State Building? In order for human beings to build structures of great strength, they must rely on sacrifice and compromise. Can any human standard of strength be achieved without making something else weak?

Real strength, however, is not shown in things built by human hands. Real strength is found in the hands themselves. True strength is shown in workers reporting to work day after day in impossible conditions because it’s the only way to feed their family. It is shown by an entire community of God’s people linking their trembling hands as they share the “confession of our hope without wavering” (Heb. 10:23). The new, true temple, Jesus’ faithful strength, succumbs in weakness to human-made nails. While the nails lie rusting away, the wounded hands and body rise again to break bread with all on the journey down the path of life.

Excerpt from Sundays and Seasons

Remembering... All Saints

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection.” After I had said these words, buried another member of our community, and bid the family goodbye, Greg, the funeral director asked me if he could take me on a tour of the cemetery. It was a beautiful morning. Why not?

He showed me the graves of his parents and grandparents. Then he showed me the graves of a couple who had run the general store in town until a few weeks before the wife died. The husband followed only a few days later. Here was the grave of the town atheist, back in the days when there was only one. There was the grave of a man who had been gunned down in an armed robbery. We visited several other graves and Greg told me more stories. Then he told me what all these people had in common. They had all died, as the lawyers would say, “without issue.” “Who will remember them when I am gone?” asked Greg. Then he asked, “Who will remember me?”

Remembering the dead is something Protestant churches do on All Saints Day. The day after All Saints on the church calendar is All Souls Day and it has been problematic for Protestants because in the Catholic tradition it involves praying for souls in purgatory. Protestants have brought the two days together and on All Saints Day we affirm that every life bears the image of God. Though that image may be easier to see in the lives of those who we call “real” saints, it is true of all lives. When we cannot find that image in those who have died, we can’t fully proclaim the most important truth of all. It’s the truth Greg was teaching me as we walked through that cemetery.

In remembering those who were forgotten, Greg had become like Christ, who came to seek and to save the lost, and who took his place with all souls, including the atheist, the murdered, and those who die “without issue.” In recalling them for me, Greg was embodying one of the vocations of the church: to remember all saints and all souls, always.

Pastor Tuula

LIFE Newsletter, November 2021

Pieces rethought

"...and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free." John 8:32

I love my bookcase.  It belonged to my late mother and was one of the few things I brought with me from Finland to Canada.  But this beautiful bookcase has one characteristic I don't like: if you wish to move it, it has to be taken to pieces, and putting it back together can be tricky.  In order for the bookcase to be as sturdy as it's supposed to be, the pieces have to be in exactly the right place.  You might be tempted to hide minor scratches by turning some pieces around.  Don't.  So many times I've been almost finished with putting the bookcase back together just to realize the final pieces won't fit.  Starting over is frustrating, but also the only way to make sure this piece of furniture can be what it's supposed to be.

In live, ignoring our shortcomings or holding on to feelings like resentment can feel tempting, because the opposite would mean rethinking our choices, maybe even admitting we're wrong.  But, just like with the bookcase, the truth is the only way to make sure we can be what we are supposed to be.

God, help me to be truthful in everything I do and reorganize the pieces in my life when needed.  Amen

Mira Salmelainen, Montreal
from Eternity for Today

To see with new eyes

Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?"  The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again."  Mark 10:51

Sometimes, I cannot see what is right in front of me: too busy, too preoccupied, too overwhelmed, too unwilling to see important things staring me straight in the face.  Sometimes, I wonder if in the church, we don't experience a similar problem.  We get so focused on our inward ministry, caring for building, for finances, for making sure we have the right programs to attract new members.  These things are a part of our ministry, and yet, what I sometimes fail to see right in front of me is that (with) all those things (I) should also keep my attention focused on outreach ministry as well.  What are the needs in our communities that we need to see again; where are the injustices that we need to see with new eyes; where is God already at work in the world where I can partner to bring peace, hope and acceptance of love to a neighbour?

Creative God, open our eyes to see you in our midst, open our ears to hear your invitation to partner in ministry, open our hearts to new ways of serving, move our hands and feet to bring hope and healing to the world.  Let us see again through your eyes where you call us to serve.  Amen

- Tanya Varner in Eternity for Today, October 24, 2021

Now thank we all our God

“At Calw, the pastor saw a woman gnawing the raw flesh off a dead horse on which a hungry dog and some ravens were also feeding... Acorns, goats' skins, grass, were all cooked in Alsace; cats, dogs, and rats were sold in the market at Worms....”

Cicely Veronica Wedgwood's The Thirty Years War is loaded with passages like this one. Between 1618 and 1648, political and religious hatred teamed up to create a war in which the Austrians and Swedes and just about anyone else looking for power on the continent took turns thrashing the life out of the German people and countryside. Thousands deserted farms and homes for protection in the old walled-in cities and soon enough, there was no room.

“The living shut their windows to death groans outside”, Wedgewood writes. In winter, people stepped over the dead bodies all over the streets. Finally, when the city knew it could do no more, the magistrates threw out 35,000 refugees to terror and death outside the walls. Plagues swarmed through the streets.

Sometime during the final years of that war, Martin Rinkart, a preacher in Saxony, found himself in the heart of all that horror. He held funerals for up to fifty people per day. One day, that number came to include his own wife. Shortly after that, Rinkart sat down and wrote a hymn that thousands of churches in hundreds of different countries sing. It’s a magnificent tribute to the God Rinkart loved and worshiped, even though the world around him had seemingly descended into madness.

Thanksgiving—imagine that. Thanksgiving in the middle of all that death. “Now thank we all our God,” Rinkart wrote. Despite the horror, he was still counting his blessings and offering thanks. Some stories must be told and retold again. Then again, some simply have to be sung.

Pastor Tuula, from the October issue of LIFE @ St. Philip's

Here's what he wrote:

Now Thank We All Our God

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,

who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;

who, from our mothers' arms, has blest us on our way

with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

 

Oh, may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,

and keep us all in grace, and guide us when perplexed,

and free us from all harm in this world and the next.

 

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,

the Son, and Spirit blest, who reign in highest heaven,

the one eternal God, whom earth and heav'n adore;

for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

  

Text: Martin Rinkhart, 1586-1649