PASTOR'S MESSAGE FOR JUNE 2017
In the previous newsletter, I mentioned the propensity argument for suffering. We need it in order to have the choice and to enable us to do great as well as evil things. This month I am exploring how God works through the evil in spite of us.
We are special among beings. Of all the beings, we fall somewhere between angels and animals. In this we have options to what we chose. This lifts us higher in creation because Instead of giving God glory simply by following built-in instincts, like other animals, he actually gave us the ability to know and love him, to live in friendship with him, or to reject him. The rejection part is critical. And in rejection we encounter what we call evil. It is bound also into suffering and pain.
As long as we choose to maintain our holy friendship, the human race lives in harmony with God, each other, and all creation. The theological term is original justice. However, in order for our interaction with God to be genuine, there must be a real option to reject God, turning to a life that is without God. As God is love, evil is therefore what separates us from love. Love is the key theological element. This is why a machine can't be a real friend. Machines have no ability to love, they mechanically obey their programming. We were not machines. Remember Mark 2:27, "And he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.'" Love is indeed a choice. We can choose love or not. This organic difference is critical. It reminds us that we can keep friendship with God, or reject it.
The books of scripture are all about what happens as we make that choice. Do we follow or reject God? Obviously, we are creative beings because there are so many ways to describe the choices made which bring us to, or separate us from God. Knowing better, somehow we still regularly choose sin. The compounding of sins has built a creation that gets more and more confusing, making the right choice increasingly hard. We complicate systems the point where often we are choosing between horrid and miserable. We find ourselves in bondage to sin. This bondage is of our own making because God loves us enough to let us mess up our room.
Often the next question asked why didn't God just fix our situation in the beginning. If you remember Noah you know that that option was explored - Wipe it all out the sin and start over. God made a difference choice.
When we read the story of Noah, we are reminded that circumstance is different from essence. While building a world without pain world mean that we wouldn't have to suffer, we would just robots. In Genesis, we read that God created and it was good. To preserve what is good, a more complicated, although also painful, option was chosen. A reality where God respects self-determination. A choice where we can harm ourselves.
Thus began the holy act of rescuing us from ourselves. It takes place even while we are allowed to make bad decisions to produce their bad fruits. I am reminded of my lifeguard training. A drowning person will grab anything they can to save themselves, including seaweed, that will pull them under. Our loving God chooses not to abandon us in our quagmire of bad choices. God rescues us by sending a spiritual saviour, Jesus Christ. Jesus is able to repair the damage done to the friendship between God and mankind, through an option that seems difficult and unlikely and yet so simple. By Christ we are forgiven. Our bad choices which separate us from God, are erased, blotted out, covered over. In Christ, we start over. And get to start over and over, as many times as we need to, as we struggle with making the right choices. So while life is regularly a struggle and has pain, we are assured that we will never be separated from the saviour that comes to us because we are unable to go to him.
The conclusion of this is that pain is a vital part of creation. It is necessary in a creation where real relationship is valued over mechanical accuracy or perfection. Honest and real relationship is messy. True love requires risk of rejection and pain. While pain is not preferred, it is part of what must be for there to be honest and true relationship. What matters most then is how we respond to what is broken. Do we cling to our saviour, or seaweed? Do we open our life to God's creative new options or drown in bitter self-interest? And while we prefer to continue to follow our own way, making our own decisions, we must remember that Christ is always beside us for when we discover the futility of our own abilities and change our mind. So, while pain and suffering and evil are necessary for relationship, they are not what life is about. We are here as God's beloved creation. The death of our broken bits is hard. It is also what makes us real. And as Paul writes in Romans 8:38-39, "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." And that is our calling; to come to and know God, in spite of our selves.
As we move into the long green season, the season after Pentecost, the season of the church, we explore the many ways we can mess up and the constant reminder that Christ is with us always. Symbolically it is a green season because through all the distress, trials and tribulations, there is new birth, new hope, and new beginning. It is the season of encountering the saviour at our side while we struggle in a world of sin. For all this comes the cry, thanks be to God.
See you on Sunday
Pr. Mike
We are special among beings. Of all the beings, we fall somewhere between angels and animals. In this we have options to what we chose. This lifts us higher in creation because Instead of giving God glory simply by following built-in instincts, like other animals, he actually gave us the ability to know and love him, to live in friendship with him, or to reject him. The rejection part is critical. And in rejection we encounter what we call evil. It is bound also into suffering and pain.
As long as we choose to maintain our holy friendship, the human race lives in harmony with God, each other, and all creation. The theological term is original justice. However, in order for our interaction with God to be genuine, there must be a real option to reject God, turning to a life that is without God. As God is love, evil is therefore what separates us from love. Love is the key theological element. This is why a machine can't be a real friend. Machines have no ability to love, they mechanically obey their programming. We were not machines. Remember Mark 2:27, "And he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.'" Love is indeed a choice. We can choose love or not. This organic difference is critical. It reminds us that we can keep friendship with God, or reject it.
The books of scripture are all about what happens as we make that choice. Do we follow or reject God? Obviously, we are creative beings because there are so many ways to describe the choices made which bring us to, or separate us from God. Knowing better, somehow we still regularly choose sin. The compounding of sins has built a creation that gets more and more confusing, making the right choice increasingly hard. We complicate systems the point where often we are choosing between horrid and miserable. We find ourselves in bondage to sin. This bondage is of our own making because God loves us enough to let us mess up our room.
Often the next question asked why didn't God just fix our situation in the beginning. If you remember Noah you know that that option was explored - Wipe it all out the sin and start over. God made a difference choice.
When we read the story of Noah, we are reminded that circumstance is different from essence. While building a world without pain world mean that we wouldn't have to suffer, we would just robots. In Genesis, we read that God created and it was good. To preserve what is good, a more complicated, although also painful, option was chosen. A reality where God respects self-determination. A choice where we can harm ourselves.
Thus began the holy act of rescuing us from ourselves. It takes place even while we are allowed to make bad decisions to produce their bad fruits. I am reminded of my lifeguard training. A drowning person will grab anything they can to save themselves, including seaweed, that will pull them under. Our loving God chooses not to abandon us in our quagmire of bad choices. God rescues us by sending a spiritual saviour, Jesus Christ. Jesus is able to repair the damage done to the friendship between God and mankind, through an option that seems difficult and unlikely and yet so simple. By Christ we are forgiven. Our bad choices which separate us from God, are erased, blotted out, covered over. In Christ, we start over. And get to start over and over, as many times as we need to, as we struggle with making the right choices. So while life is regularly a struggle and has pain, we are assured that we will never be separated from the saviour that comes to us because we are unable to go to him.
The conclusion of this is that pain is a vital part of creation. It is necessary in a creation where real relationship is valued over mechanical accuracy or perfection. Honest and real relationship is messy. True love requires risk of rejection and pain. While pain is not preferred, it is part of what must be for there to be honest and true relationship. What matters most then is how we respond to what is broken. Do we cling to our saviour, or seaweed? Do we open our life to God's creative new options or drown in bitter self-interest? And while we prefer to continue to follow our own way, making our own decisions, we must remember that Christ is always beside us for when we discover the futility of our own abilities and change our mind. So, while pain and suffering and evil are necessary for relationship, they are not what life is about. We are here as God's beloved creation. The death of our broken bits is hard. It is also what makes us real. And as Paul writes in Romans 8:38-39, "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." And that is our calling; to come to and know God, in spite of our selves.
As we move into the long green season, the season after Pentecost, the season of the church, we explore the many ways we can mess up and the constant reminder that Christ is with us always. Symbolically it is a green season because through all the distress, trials and tribulations, there is new birth, new hope, and new beginning. It is the season of encountering the saviour at our side while we struggle in a world of sin. For all this comes the cry, thanks be to God.
See you on Sunday
Pr. Mike